Slow

It continues to be a slow sort of week, at least as far as the Crisis goes. One of the big stories was that Kevin Smith had shaved his face.  He does look better, evidently due to cutting processed sugar from his diet.

As others have noted, when this is the big news for the week, clearly ebola isn't the existential threat it used to be. Or maybe we just need a break, sometimes.

There were a pair of high-profile rocket failures this week. Orbital Sciences lost an Antares rocket, which exploded soon after launch. (It evidently uses engines from the Soviet Union's late-60's attempt to reach the moon.) Today, Space Ship Two, Virgin Galactic's suborbital craft, had problems on launch from its mothership and crashed. 

Which is unfortunate, and these might be significant in their own way, but they aren't quite Crisis material.

Holst

My introduction to Holst's suite The Planets was through the 1961 book Stranger in a Strange Land. It's about a young man who had survived the disastrous first Mars expedition by being taken in by the natives, who raised him almost since his birth. After the second expedition finds him and returns him to Earth, these peculiar origins result in some people believing him to be the owner of the planet Mars. When brought to meet other rulers on Earth - and being personally naive about the new culture - one of his associates asks that the Mars section be played as part of his "sovereign honors."

Without looking deeply into the history, I'll make some predictions here, based on what I do know:

• In the book, everyone knows what Mars (the musical piece) would be like. Twenty years later, it was not part of my musical experience, although I was aware of other Holst music.
• Recently, I've heard that the Planets has been out of the repertoire for a while - sure, it will be played on occasion, but it's old hat, not something a forward-looking orchestra will do.
• Still,  it had started to percolate into my peers' musical memories while in college,with some performances in ensembles and marching band.
• While the planets are described in their aspects as gods, they are not religious gods. They don't represent virtues or vices, there's no change expected from them.
• All of them bring something (The Bringer of Jollity, The Bringer of Love).
• The individual songs are hopeful, forward looking. Mars is not a cheerful tune, but it's a view of conquest and destruction, not of misery and defeat. You can imagine Saturn being used behind public service announcements in the fifties: "Commerce! Building our cities, enriching our lives!" Old Age is a quiet time to look forward to, with the universe coming back to its foundation as the piece finishes.

It was a popular piece during the First Turning, is hopeful, is much less popular now, doesn't have the religious aspects we might expect from the Second: It seems likely that it was written during a First Turning itself.

And...no. Written 1914-1916, it's solidly in the Third Turning. (As an artistic effort strongly identified with a specific person, that was my second guess, but wanted an unambiguous prediction.)  It turns out it is written from an astrological point of view, with the effects of the planets on the psyche, so the non-religous view has some merit. It was presumably popular into the First because it had continued to be  popular from when first written roughly 40 years earlier.

Normal

NATO notices unusual Soviet...er, Russian flight patterns? Eh, they're just flying around a bit more.
Exploding rockets? Used to happen a lot, and the Soviet connection is surely just a coincidence.
ISIS executions? We should certainly be used to that by now.

Sometimes it's hard to decide whether to be worried or blasé.

Shucks

I've really been happy with this one inference about First Turnings, that they are a time for witch hunts, "metaphorical and literal." The Jews are expelled from Spain in 1492. The Alien and Sedition Acts target aliens "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States." The Hollywood Ten were called to Congress in 1947, and McCarthy pushes it further starting in 1950. It's one of the ubiquitous events in First Turnings: Using the available organizational structure from the Crisis to find other enemies, often within the nation.

But the great part about it was always that literal witch hunt, the Salem Witch Trials, in 1692. Which, in a wholly unplanned coincidence, was going to be a Grid posting this Halloween weekend. Until I double checked the dates and found that Strauss & Howe now have that First Turning starting in 1704 and ending in 1727.

The Trials are therefore in the Fourth Turning, instead. I checked my copy of Generations to find that, while the dates are different, they were still part of that Crisis, the one associated with King Philip's War and the Glorious Revolution, albeit at the very end - 1675-1692. The section on what's called the Colonial Cycle - post-Spanish Armada Crisis, through the end of the Glorious Revolution - begins with an imagining of who was at the trials, ending the Crisis. I must have flipped that, somehow, to being the start i.e. the First.

It still makes sense that enemies will be sought while there is an organization to seek them. After a Crisis, even when a major war has finally resolved, there will not always be a consensus that every problem has been solved. A post-Crisis era is often evident by a search for new enemies, and conversely such a search may mean the Crisis is past. So it will continue to be a useful marker.

I will have to stop referring to "literal witch hunts" as being a part of it, though.

300

October 27 is the 300th day of the year in non-leap years like this one. 

On the first day of this year, I made a resolution to build up this blog by making one post every day. 

I had a 100-day post, and had planned for a six-month retrospective, but it got lost. So here's the status, 300 days in.

And what have I learned?

It would be difficult to do this without the daily plan, because sometimes that's the only reason to find something relevant to the blog's goals. It always starts with a blank page, and I expect that if I missed one day, I'd soon miss two, then three...

Having a daily deadline is a great way to ensure that something is going in. You learn how much you like writing on a daily basis. Decisions have to be made about what is good enough, and when to let it go. It can be easy to let mistakes slide, to give up that last re-read since it must already be correct.  That also makes it easier to see why newspapers need editors - if you are writing without any backup, it's too easy to let mistakes slide.

It takes some time to do this daily.  It's a good day when it only takes a couple of hours to identify, compose, link, and post an entry here.  Some days have been longer, some posts (like this one, even) take a few days to set up.  Which is isn't exactly a problem, but isn't sustainable long-term unless it starts paying, one way or another.

Looking at what other sites do (history focused or not), there's usually a trade off between depth of reporting and frequency. There are click bait sites which figure out groups of related pages ("Ten facts you didn't know about Pulp Fiction" - I did, they were mostly on IMDB), which might not work with "How to tell 16th Century Popes apart."  Epictimes has many updates each day, posting links of interest with short, twitter friendly descriptions.  History Unfolding promises only a post a week but the one post is extensive, well thought out and ready for publication. (Blog author David Kaiser has recently started writing for Time.com.)  Nuclear Secrecy posts irregularly but with well written and impressively researched pieces. 

This blog will need to go in one of those directions, soon. A daily post for the sake of posting is good to encourage forward movement but can be bad for quality. The original idea was to point out items indicating the crisis and those don't happen every day. They do require some explanation, and not every tragic incident marks the Crisis. There is still some need to go over the specifics of how Strauss and Howe works. It will all have to come together.  

Finally, some interesting historical realizations that I've had over these last 200 days:

• The time between Trinity and the end of World War II was amazingly short, 
• The original Annie cartoonist was not a fan of FDR (even though the musical producers clearly were.)
• England's late start in New World colonization probably was related to being a minor enough power that it couldn't reasonably protect folks that far away. (Although England's domestic situation surely had an impact as well). 
•  Television shows also seem to be doing different Crisis possibilities. 
• The Roman Empire was once divided into three parts.
• And of course, today is the 50th anniversary of Reagan's A Time for Choosing speech, an important milestone in his career and American conservatism.  In case you missed that earlier.

Vasectomies

Vasectomy rates increased after the Recession - and the Crisis - began.

Which doesn't mean there's a causal relationship there.  The increase does appears large enough to be statistically significant. As the article mentions, there are probably factors beyond economics involved, as there would be with family planning decisions made at any time. Still, it's not unprecedented for people to have fewer children when the economy is doing poorly: The Great Depression coincided with a large drop in birth rates.

It could be seen as an indicator that this is the point at which the Crisis began - not earlier, nor later, but during this single period.

1607

1607 - High - Founding of Jamestown

The three ships arrived at the island, chosen for its defensibility and the absence of natives. The 104 colonists aboard were part of the London Company, which had been granted land on the east coast of North America. Many had not paid for their passage, instead accepting indenture based on the cost of transportation and supplies. Once they had worked seven years for the company they would receive their own parcel of land. The river on which the island was found was named the James, after their king. The colony was called Jamestown.

This was not the first attempt by England to colonize the New World, but the previous expeditions had not turned out well. Both of those were to the same location: Roanoke, Virginia. The first group arrived in 1585, but didn't last a year. When the colonists left, Sir Walter Raleigh left behind a detachment of men to guard the fortifications. In 1587, a new group of 115 colonists arrived, to find the guards were all missing - presumably killed by natives.  The colonists were left there, despite their own reasonable concerns for their safety, with assurances of follow up visits. Unfortunately, the attack of the Spanish Armada the following year lead ultimately meant that no ships returned until 1590. The colonists were never found, and only a couple of carvings gave any clue to their fate. 

When ships arrived at Jamestown seventeen years later, though, the new colonists had confidence in their abilities. With the defeat of the Spanish Armada, England was a major power, better able to defend the seaways between the home country and the Americas.The Spanish and French had maintained colonies in the Americas for decades, so the English could surely do as well. King James I, the successor to Elizabeth, set up patent companies specifically for the purpose of establishing settlements in the New World. He chose the seven members of this colony's council, names placed in a sealed box that was opened on arrival. Upon arrival, they would support the goals of the company and the Crown.

Their own confidence - and royal support - was barely enough to keep the colony alive even during that first year. Their chosen location had no natives because it was unsuitable for agriculture, being marshy with brackish water and mosquitos. Two weeks after their arrival they were attacked by natives and had to use manpower to build fortifications. That December, council member John Smith was taken by the local Powhatan tribe while trying to find food. By his account, it was only the intervention of the chief's daughter, Pocahantas, that saved his life. (Although it has been suggested that the protection of a daughter before her father was actually an adoption ceremony, and that his life was not in danger.)

Despite these initial difficulties, Jamestown survived well enough to be noted as the first successful British colony, and so the starting point of the British Empire.

Ezekiel

If you really like Ezekiel Bread - also known as Ezekiel 4:9 bread - don't read this.

Reading through the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, there's no doubts about what Turning you are in. It's a literal Prophet, he's getting pronouncements from Yahweh and passing them onto the unrepentant of Israel and Judah, with intimations of doom around the corner.  He has similarities to other Prophets in the Old Testament. Hopefully, the modern Ezekiel bread doesn't use exactly the recipe that Yahweh requested.

And at one point, he is instructed to make bread using ingredients used in this Ezekiel bread that is all the rage these days. It's part of what we might call a performance piece that Ezekiel is commanded to do, to show the people what they are in for if they continue in their ways. For 390 days, Ezekiel is to lay on his side, doing little more than eating this specific diet. After listing the ingredients in the bread - which is probably intended to sound healthy but not tasty - there is a mention of how much meat to eat daily ("twenty shekels" in weight), then how much water to drink (one-sixth of a hin). In a real instance of burying the lede, he is told to cook the bread "with dung that cometh out of a man."

Ezekiel takes this as anyone else might, especially someone in a dietary tradition that takes cleanliness seriously: that it's fine to make a point to the people that being in exile will be horrible, but not so okay to have to eat bread made using human waste every day for a year and a half. God accepts Ezekiels reticence - one can imagine the idea just got away from him -and says using cow dung will be acceptable.

Either way, one hopes the modern Ezekiel bread doesn't use exactly the recipe that Yahweh requested

⁹ Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.

¹⁰ And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.

¹¹ Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.

¹² And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.

¹³ And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.

¹⁴ Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.

¹⁵ Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.

Mezhyhirya

Here's an interesting thought on a country home used by a former Ukrainian leader:

Mezhyhirya has become to Kiev what Versailles is to Paris—except Ukraine’s revolution is far from over.

What follows from that? There do seem to be similarities. They will likely be limited since the overall conflicts are very different, in everything from their countries of focus through historical context (e.g. several hundred years of monarchy versus the more chopped-up associations Ukraine has been through in recent times.)

And Turning, too: The French Revolution appears to be the peak of a Fourth, Ukraine's recent one likely a First or Second revolt.  Although by 1812,  it's possible that the French Crisis was far behind.

Still,  France soon had troops on its borders, from countries unhappy with the dissolution of the previous regime. With revolutionary fervor, it conscripted hundreds of thousands of men for a "the best defense is a good offense" strategy. This was a remarkably successful way to use its strengths to its advantage. Ukraine, meanwhile, is a significant source of armaments for Russia. It's conceivable that this could be an advantageous strength, as well.

It's also worth considering that the aftermath of the French Revolution led to the rise of a brilliant commander who led France to take over most of Europe. It's not the outcome one might have expected. A similar unexpected outcome might be in the future, here.

Blindspin

Fun stuff happening with cars these days.

There's Tesla's recent improvements that gives its car some minor abilities to drive itself - self-parking, changing lanes on its own. Evidently these are common in high-end automobiles, these days, but still impressive enough.

There's Google's self-driving car - although there are still issues preventing it from being able to take over 100%.

(Then again,  they should look to Tesla's efforts to make an electric car usable for long-distance driving: Expand the range as much as feasible, then find areas you can connect with that range, then connect those areas together, and pretty soon you'll be able to drive across the country.)

About 40 years ago, there was a story about what else a self-driving car might give rise to.

The Dream Master (1966) by Roger Zelazny is a science fiction novel about a psychotherapist who uses shared dreaming with his patients. By setting up dream worlds that visualize the patients' neuroses, he can evoke responses - epiphanies - about their anxieties. In addition to the standard therapist skills and the technical training to work the dream-shaping equipment, it requires a strong self-image, to ensure the therapist stays in control of the dreaming.  Another important requirement is brought up when a blind lady arrives who wishes to learn the trade: Without the ability to comprehend the world visually, she won't be able to build the dreams in a way that will be helpful to her patients. Which is the starting point for what happens to everyone involved.

In this future, most cars are auto-piloted: Enter coordinates and off you go. But nothing says you have to know where you are going. Instead, one might blindspin: choose coordinates at random and let the car take you there however it needs to. The two main characters - teacher and student - indulge in a blindspin soon after they meet. (He chooses the coordinates: she says her fingers know too many places to be random.) The short trip mirrors the journey the two are starting together as teacher and student. There are probably another half-dozen ways the short sequence foreshadows the arc of the characters' relationships - not because they are obviously known, but because that's the sort of writing Zelazny did.

One other, since it does make a good point: The origins of blindspins is attributed to a younger generation that used them much as drive-ins were used by teenagers in the 1950s. The period of the novel appears, similarly, to be a stultifying and stagnant First Turning. 

A Blindspin has nothing to do with blindness as such, although surely the term was chosen as an allusion to the student's disability. (And before the politically correct pedants come after that term, note that within the story it is a very definite problem - the question of whether it is feasible is answered, by the end, in the negative. ) It evokes a sense of not being in control - which causes the teacher trouble by the end. As a concept,  it's also an impressive way of revealing the unexpected details about the future - which details can be seen to have echoes in the past.

Attacks

Things have been crazy enough lately that some of the bigger possibilities for the Crisis have been set aside. The data wars is one which might be back.

Just ahead of the launch of the iPhone 6 in China, there is a lot of activity that is attempting to get people to divulge their iCloud account information. The strategy is to set up pages that look like the real page, pass information along to the real page, but allow the attacker to view (and store for eventual use) what is being passed. Apple has posted a page that describes how to tell a man-in-the-middle attack like this one. (Short answer: Ensure https and its associated the security indicators are working properly.)

These sort of events continue to happen, and seem to be happening more frequently. Which does suggest that it will continue to get worse, until something happens to make it better. The question is, will that eventual improvement be something small, or something....bigger.

Education

An Education, about a British girl who is preparing to apply to Oxford in 1961,  and the not-entirely-trustworthy young man she gets involved with, is a fine film, with a well-done story and fine production values. The events described seemed to fit well with the time it was set - 16 years after the war, the Beatles just around the corner - and the characters belong in that time, as well.

(Although the father's character didn't seem like someone who had been involved in the War. Which presumably he was, being of such an age as to have a teenage daughter in 1961. Maybe he was a factory worker or management or in some other role on the home front.)

One of the nicer things about it is how it points out the choices a young woman of that time had, whether or not she decided to go to university. (Headmistress: "There's always the civil service.") They are explained by the characters without sounding clairvoyant. Too often, period pieces make a point of looking forward to the era of their production, and how everyone will know better someday - whether it's about the role of women or the wrongness of slavery or the morality of a class system. The thoughts leading to these brilliant insights are rarely explained, instead being sly winks to the audience who, presumably, already understand and agree. Here, the possible points of view sound like what a teenage girl and a young teacher and a less-young headmistress would really think of at that actual time.

Theses

Is it well known how directly connected the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica is to the Reformation? In particular, because indulgences were used to finance it?  In history classes, it often seemed that indulgences were treated as important but not necessarily the only problem. Certainly one can see - as is common in First Turnings - organizational corruption in many different forms. Julius II was known to have a daughter, conceived well before he was Pope but still after taking his vows. Alexander VI (born Rodrigo Borgia) had four children and many mistresses. The Papacy went back and forth between noble families like the Medici and the Borgia as if it was a trophy. There were plenty of problems to oppose, many arguably worse than selling indulgences.

Nonetheless, almost all of the 95 Theses are directly related to the sales of indulgences in order to build the new Basilica. The first few look at the importance of repentance (which some indulgence purchases thought was no longer needed), then what penalties (such as purgatory) exist, the dependence of those penalties on the Pope for forgiveness, what indulgences/pardons can therefore actually forgive, whether it was acceptable to take money for them, and how the whole process affected how people viewed the Church. Taken together, they are like a mathematical proof, laying out axioms, drawing inferences, and leading to conclusions such as "These people selling pardons aren't telling the Truth" and "It's not a good idea to finance a church in this way."

Counting any reference to the workings of indulgences - whether in terms of repentance, forgiveness, purgatory, other penalties, or specifically about indulgences - or about building a church, 84 of the 95 Theses relate to this subject. Even limiting it only to specific references to indulgences includes a majority (51 out of 95). The few that aren't included are in a series about what constitutes the Treasures of the Church, along with some final exhortations that finish up the list.

Below is a list of the 95 Theses, along with an assessment of which refer to indulgences in these varied ways. It seems clear, though, that as a group they draw a very direct line from St. Peter's to indulgences to the rise of Protestantism.

Thesis Number	Text	Repentance	Forgiveness (including indulgences or other references)	Indulgences (including references to pardons)	Purgatory	Penalties (any sort) that can be forgiven (any type)	Building a church	Total	At least one
1	Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.	1						1	1
2	This word cannot be understood to mean sacramental penance, i.e., confession and satisfaction, which is administered by the priests.	1						1	1
3	Yet it means not inward repentance only; nay, there is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work divers mortifications of the flesh.	1						1	1
4	The penalty, therefore, continues so long as hatred of self continues; for this is the true inward repentance, and continues until our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.	1						1	1
5	The pope does not intend to remit, and cannot remit any penalties other than those which he has imposed either by his own authority or by that of the Canons.		1					1	1
6	The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring that it has been remitted by God and by assenting to God's remission; though, to be sure, he may grant remission in cases reserved to his judgment. If his right to grant remission in such cases were despised, the guilt would remain entirely unforgiven.		1					1	1
7	God remits guilt to no one whom He does not, at the same time, humble in all things and bring into subjection to His vicar, the priest.		1					1	1
8	The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and, according to them, nothing should be imposed on the dying.					1		1	1
9	Therefore the Holy Spirit in the pope is kind to us, because in his decrees he always makes exception of the article of death and of necessity.		1			1		2	1
10	Ignorant and wicked are the doings of those priests who, in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penances for purgatory.				1			1	1
11	This changing of the canonical penalty to the penalty of purgatory is quite evidently one of the tares that were sown while the bishops slept.				1	1		2	1
12	In former times the canonical penalties were imposed not after, but before absolution, as tests of true contrition.	1				1		2	1
13	The dying are freed by death from all penalties; they are already dead to canonical rules, and have a right to be released from them.		1			1		2	1
14	The imperfect health [of soul], that is to say, the imperfect love, of the dying brings with it, of necessity, great fear; and the smaller the love, the greater is the fear.				1	1		2	1
15	This fear and horror is sufficient of itself alone (to say nothing of other things) to constitute the penalty of purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair.				1	1		2	1
16	Hell, purgatory, and heaven seem to differ as do despair, almost-despair, and the assurance of safety.				1			1	1
17	With souls in purgatory it seems necessary that horror should grow less and love increase.				1	1		2	1
18	It seems unproved, either by reason or Scripture, that they are outside the state of merit, that is to say, of increasing love.		1					1	1
19	Again, it seems unproved that they, or at least that all of them, are certain or assured of their own blessedness, though we may be quite certain of it.		1			1		2	1
20	Therefore by "full remission of all penalties" the pope means not actually "of all," but only of those imposed by himself.		1			1		2	1
21	Therefore those preachers of indulgences are in error, who say that by the pope's indulgences a man is freed from every penalty, and saved;		1	1	1			3	1
22	Whereas he remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which, according to the canons, they would have had to pay in this life.		1		1	1		3	1
23	If it is at all possible to grant to any one the remission of all penalties whatsoever, it is certain that this remission can be granted only to the most perfect, that is, to the very fewest.		1			1		2	1
24	It must needs be, therefore, that the greater part of the people are deceived by that indiscriminate and highsounding promise of release from penalty.		1	1		1		3	1
25	The power which the pope has, in a general way, over purgatory, is just like the power which any bishop or curate has, in a special way, within his own diocese or parish.		1		1			2	1
26	The pope does well when he grants remission to souls [in purgatory], not by the power of the keys (which he does not possess), but by way of intercession.		1		1			2	1
27	They preach man who say that so soon as the penny jingles into the money-box, the soul flies out [of purgatory].			1	1			2	1
28	It is certain that when the penny jingles into the money-box, gain and avarice can be increased, but the result of the intercession of the Church is in the power of God alone.			1				1	1
29	Who knows whether all the souls in purgatory wish to be bought out of it, as in the legend of Sts. Severinus and Paschal.				1			1	1
30	No one is sure that his own contrition is sincere; much less that he has attained full remission.	1	1					2	1
31	Rare as is the man that is truly penitent, so rare is also the man who truly buys indulgences, i.e., such men are most rare.	1	1	1				3	1
32	They will be condemned eternally, together with their teachers, who believe themselves sure of their salvation because they have letters of pardon.		1	1				2	1
33	Men must be on their guard against those who say that the pope's pardons are that inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to Him;		1	1				2	1
34	For these "graces of pardon" concern only the penalties of sacramental satisfaction, and these are appointed by man.		1	1				2	1
35	They preach no Christian doctrine who teach that contrition is not necessary in those who intend to buy souls out of purgatory or to buy confessionalia.	1			1			2	1
36	Every truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without letters of pardon.	1	1	1				3	1
37	Every true Christian, whether living or dead, has part in all the blessings of Christ and the Church; and this is granted him by God, even without letters of pardon.		1	1				2	1
38	Nevertheless, the remission and participation [in the blessings of the Church] which are granted by the pope are in no way to be despised, for they are, as I have said, the declaration of divine remission.		1	1				2	1
39	It is most difficult, even for the very keenest theologians, at one and the same time to commend to the people the abundance of pardons and [the need of] true contrition.	1	1	1				3	1
40	True contrition seeks and loves penalties, but liberal pardons only relax penalties and cause them to be hated, or at least, furnish an occasion [for hating them].	1	1	1				3	1
41	Apostolic pardons are to be preached with caution, lest the people may falsely think them preferable to other good works of love.		1	1				2	1
42	Christians are to be taught that the pope does not intend the buying of pardons to be compared in any way to works of mercy.		1	1				2	1
43	Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better work than buying pardons;		1	1				2	1
44	Because love grows by works of love, and man becomes better; but by pardons man does not grow better, only more free from penalty.		1	1		1		3	1
45	Christians are to be taught that he who sees a man in need, and passes him by, and gives [his money] for pardons, purchases not the indulgences of the pope, but the indignation of God.		1	1				2	1
46	Christians are to be taught that unless they have more than they need, they are bound to keep back what is necessary for their own families, and by no means to squander it on pardons.		1	1				2	1
47	Christians are to be taught that the buying of pardons is a matter of free will, and not of commandment.		1	1				2	1
48	Christians are to be taught that the pope, in granting pardons, needs, and therefore desires, their devout prayer for him more than the money they bring.		1	1				2	1
49	Christians are to be taught that the pope's pardons are useful, if they do not put their trust in them; but altogether harmful, if through them they lose their fear of God.	1	1	1				3	1
50	Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the pardon-preachers, he would rather that St. Peter's church should go to ashes, than that it should be built up with the skin, flesh and bones of his sheep.		1	1			1	3	1
51	Christians are to be taught that it would be the pope's wish, as it is his duty, to give of his own money to very many of those from whom certain hawkers of pardons cajole money, even though the church of St. Peter might have to be sold.		1	1			1	3	1
52	The assurance of salvation by letters of pardon is vain, even though the commissary, nay, even though the pope himself, were to stake his soul upon it.		1	1				2	1
53	They are enemies of Christ and of the pope, who bid the Word of God be altogether silent in some Churches, in order that pardons may be preached in others.		1	1				2	1
54	Injury is done the Word of God when, in the same sermon, an equal or a longer time is spent on pardons than on this Word.		1	1				2	1
55	It must be the intention of the pope that if pardons, which are a very small thing, are celebrated with one bell, with single processions and ceremonies, then the Gospel, which is the very greatest thing, should be preached with a hundred bells, a hundred processions, a hundred ceremonies.		1	1				2	1
56	The "treasures of the Church," out of which the pope. grants indulgences, are not sufficiently named or known among the people of Christ.		1	1				2	1
57	That they are not temporal treasures is certainly evident, for many of the vendors do not pour out such treasures so easily, but only gather them.							0	0
58	Nor are they the merits of Christ and the Saints, for even without the pope, these always work grace for the inner man, and the cross, death, and hell for the outward man.							0	0
59	St. Lawrence said that the treasures of the Church were the Church's poor, but he spoke according to the usage of the word in his own time.							0	0
60	Without rashness we say that the keys of the Church, given by Christ's merit, are that treasure;							0	0
61	For it is clear that for the remission of penalties and of reserved cases, the power of the pope is of itself sufficient.		1			1		2	1
62	The true treasure of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God.							0	0
63	But this treasure is naturally most odious, for it makes the first to be last.							0	0
64	On the other hand, the treasure of indulgences is naturally most acceptable, for it makes the last to be first.		1	1				2	1
65	Therefore the treasures of the Gospel are nets with which they formerly were wont to fish for men of riches.							0	0
66	The treasures of the indulgences are nets with which they now fish for the riches of men.		1	1				2	1
67	The indulgences which the preachers cry as the "greatest graces" are known to be truly such, in so far as they promote gain.		1	1				2	1
68	Yet they are in truth the very smallest graces compared with the grace of God and the piety of the Cross.		1	1				2	1
69	Bishops and curates are bound to admit the commissaries of apostolic pardons, with all reverence.		1	1				2	1
70	But still more are they bound to strain all their eyes and attend with all their ears, lest these men preach their own dreams instead of the commission of the pope.			1				1	1
71	He who speaks against the truth of apostolic pardons, let him be anathema and accursed!			1				1	1
72	But he who guards against the lust and license of the pardon-preachers, let him be blessed!			1				1	1
73	The pope justly thunders against those who, by any art, contrive the injury of the traffic in pardons.			1				1	1
74	But much more does he intend to thunder against those who use the pretext of pardons to contrive the injury of holy love and truth.		1	1				2	1
75	To think the papal pardons so great that they could absolve a man even if he had committed an impossible sin and violated the Mother of God -- this is madness.		1	1				2	1
76	We say, on the contrary, that the papal pardons are not able to remove the very least of venial sins, so far as its guilt is concerned.		1	1				2	1
77	It is said that even St. Peter, if he were now Pope, could not bestow greater graces; this is blasphemy against St. Peter and against the pope.		1	1				2	1
78	We say, on the contrary, that even the present pope, and any pope at all, has greater graces at his disposal; to wit, the Gospel, powers, gifts of healing, etc., as it is written in I. Corinthians xii.		1					1	1
79	To say that the cross, emblazoned with the papal arms, which is set up [by the preachers of indulgences], is of equal worth with the Cross of Christ, is blasphemy.		1	1				2	1
80	The bishops, curates and theologians who allow such talk to be spread among the people, will have an account to render.							0	0
81	This unbridled preaching of pardons makes it no easy matter, even for learned men, to rescue the reverence due to the pope from slander, or even from the shrewd questionings of the laity.			1				1	1
82	To wit: -- "Why does not the pope empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a Church? The former reasons would be most just; the latter is most trivial."			1			1	2	1
83	Again: -- "Why are mortuary and anniversary masses for the dead continued, and why does he not return or permit the withdrawal of the endowments founded on their behalf, since it is wrong to pray for the redeemed?"		1	1				2	1
84	Again: -- "What is this new piety of God and the pope, that for money they allow a man who is impious and their enemy to buy out of purgatory the pious soul of a friend of God, and do not rather, because of that pious and beloved soul's own need, free it for pure love's sake?"		1	1	1			3	1
85	Again: -- "Why are the penitential canons long since in actual fact and through disuse abrogated and dead, now satisfied by the granting of indulgences, as though they were still alive and in force?"			1				1	1
86	Again: -- "Why does not the pope, whose wealth is to-day greater than the riches of the richest, build just this one church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of poor believers?"						1	1	1
87	Again: -- "What is it that the pope remits, and what participation does he grant to those who, by perfect contrition, have a right to full remission and participation?"		1					1	1
88	Again: -- "What greater blessing could come to the Church than if the pope were to do a hundred times a day what he now does once, and bestow on every believer these remissions and participations?"		1	1				2	1
89	"Since the pope, by his pardons, seeks the salvation of souls rather than money, why does he suspend the indulgences and pardons granted heretofore, since these have equal efficacy?"		1	1				2	1
90	To repress these arguments and scruples of the laity by force alone, and not to resolve them by giving reasons, is to expose the Church and the pope to the ridicule of their enemies, and to make Christians unhappy.							0	0
91	If, therefore, pardons were preached according to the spirit and mind of the pope, all these doubts would be readily resolved; nay, they would not exist.		1	1				2	1
92	Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Peace, peace," and there is no peace!							0	0
93	Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Cross, cross," and there is no cross!							0	0
94	Christians are to be exhorted that they be diligent in following Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hell;				1	1		2	1
95	And thus be confident of entering into heaven rather through many tribulations, than through the assurance of peace.					1		1	1
	Total Count	12	58	51	15	17	4		84