Extracts from Literature
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Literature’
Abbot Elfric expounds a Palm Sunday text to explain how Christianity combines orderly behaviour with intelligent and genuine liberty.
In a sermon for Palm Sunday, Abbot Elfric (955-1010) of the monastery in Eynsham in Oxfordshire drew on the Biblical account of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem to show that Christianity tames the wildness of man not by the bridle of coercion and law, but by the wisdom of reason and freewill.
For Jesus Christ to step down alive from his cross would have been a mighty miracle, but not the mightiest.
In a sermon for Easter Day, Abbot Elfric (955-1010) reminded his congregation that the people of Jerusalem thought it would be a miracle worthy of God for Jesus to step down alive from his cross. A miracle, yes; but not so worthy of God as the one he then performed.
Pip Pirrip never misses a moment of visiting time with Abel Magwitch, the convict who made him into a gentleman, in the prison hospital.
Pip Pirrip has finally met the anonymous benefactor who made him a gentleman – a transported felon, Abel Magwitch, illegally back in Britain just to see him. But shock and disgust have given way to pity and respect; and now Abel lies in a prison hospital, unlikely to trouble the hangman, Pip never misses a minute of visiting hour.
The eighth-century English bishop and poet Cynewulf takes us to the threshold of God’s holy city, and gives us a choice.
Cynewulf (possibly the 8th century bishop Cynewulf of Lindisfarne) presents the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as a choice given to all mankind: what kind of life do we want in the hereafter, and what are we prepared to do in order to obtain it?
The eighth-century English bishop and poet Cynewulf explores a prophecy from the Song of Solomon.
In these lines from ‘Christ’ by Cynewulf (possibly the 8th century bishop Cynewulf of Lindisfarne), the poet reflects upon some beautiful words from the Song of Solomon, which he understands as a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
J. S. Mill argues that free trade has done more to put an end to war than any political union or military alliance.
Many religions and political ideologies promise prosperity and an end to war, but on closer inspection there is a price to pay: all must submit, or be punished. But for Victorian philosopher J. S. Mill, great progress had already been made by sovereign nations sharing trade ungrudgingly – we need only to widen our horizons.