Source: Writings, ‘’The One and the Many‘’ (1971), Ch. VIII-7, p. 143.
Source: Writings, ‘’The One and the Many‘’ (1971), Ch. VIII-7, p. 142.
The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)
Context: At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in the hour of success.<!--p. 1
“Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?”
Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJHq2aN9tYE by Penny Daniels (1989)
Context: We use the word God. God hooks all the other words up. I'm the pope. I'm ten times the pope. I'm sixty times the pope. But I'm the pope in the hills and in the mountains.
§ 91
2010s, 2015, Laudato si' : Care for Our Common Home
Book Seven : The Church of the Social Revolution, "Christ and Caesar"
The Profits of Religion (1918)
Context: In the most deeply significant of the legends concerning Jesus, we are told how the devil took him up into a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and the devil said unto him: "All this power will I give unto thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine." Jesus, as we know, answered and said "Get thee behind me, Satan!" And he really meant it; he would have nothing to do with worldly glory, with "temporal power;" he chose the career of a revolutionary agitator, and died the death of a disturber of the peace. And for two or three centuries his church followed in his footsteps, cherishing his proletarian gospel. The early Christians had "all things in common, except women;" they lived as social outcasts, hiding in deserted catacombs, and being thrown to lions and boiled in oil.
But the devil is a subtle worm; he does not give up at one defeat, for he knows human nature, and the strength of the forces which battle for him. He failed to get Jesus, but he came again, to get Jesus' church. He came when, through the power of the new revolutionary idea, the Church had won a position of tremendous power in the decaying Roman Empire; and the subtle worm assumed the guise of no less a person than the Emperor himself, suggesting that he should become a convert to the new faith, so that the Church and he might work together for the greater glory of God. The bishops and fathers of the Church, ambitious for their organization, fell for this scheme, and Satan went off laughing to himself. He had got everything he had asked from Jesus three hundred years before; he had got the world's greatest religion.
“The sincere alone can recognize sincerity. Not a Hero only is needed, but a world fit for him;”
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero As King
