Plato: The Trial and Death of Socrates (pp. 50-51)
Classics Revisited (1968)
Context: No one was required to believe in the gods as Christians believe in their creeds. Socrates had always been scrupulous in observance of every accepted principle and practice of community life. However, from his questioning he had developed a civic and personal morality founded on reason rather than custom. He envisioned it as subject to continuous criticism and revaluation in terms of the ever-expanding freedom of morally autonomous but cooperating persons, who together made up a community whose characteristic aim was an organically growing depth, breadth, intensity of experience — experience finally of that ultimate reality characterized by Socrates as good, true and beautiful.
The accusers were right. This is a new religion which bears scant resemblance to the old. Civic piety is founded on the recognition of ignorance and the nurture of the soil until it becomes capable of true knowledge — which is a state of being, a moral condition called freedom. The Greek city-state, not to speak of the tribal community, knew nothing of freedom in this sense, but only the liberty that distinguished the free man from the slave.
Source: The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962]), Ch.VII Further Observations on Homer
“The unwounded life bears no resemblance to the Rabbi.”
Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging
“The Republican Party of 2005 bears no resemblance to the Republican Party of 1994.”
Source: Hardball with Chris Matthews, 11 February 2005
Capitalism and Socialism: A Theological Inquiry (American Enterprise Institute Press, 1979).
1970s
“But all Scripture is divided into two Testaments. That which preceded the advent and passion of Christ—that is, the law and the prophets—is called the Old; but those things which were written after His resurrection are named the New Testament. The Jews make use of the Old, we of the New.”
Verum Scriptura omnis in duo Testamenta diuisa est. Illud quod aduentum passionemque Christi antecessit, id est lex et prophetae, Vetus dicitur; ea uero quae post resurrectionem eius scripta sunt, Nouum Testamentum nominantur. Iudaei Veteri utuntur, nos nouo.
Book IV, Chap. XX
The Divine Institutes (c. 303–13)
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)
Savannah Morning News (4 May 1863); As quoted in History of the Flag of the United States of America (1882), by George Henry Preble, p. 528
“In a strong sense, the Old Right and the New Left are morally and politically coordinate.”
Containment and Change (1967)
