Dear all (and please forgive the cross-posting),
The early English Protestants, William Tyndale in particular, frequently
distinguished between self-love and love of God, with the former alienating
one from God. Tyndale's point, repeated endlessly in his works, is that
Catholicism is essentially one long act of self-love, since it involved
worshipping the products of one's imagination, and, as Tyndale writes,
"nothing bringeth the wrath of God so soon and so sore on a man, as the
idolatry of his own imagination." Not coincidentally, Tyndale translated
Luther, but the anti-imagination animus is mainly his own.
Peter C. Herman
At 11:41 AM 3/1/2005, you wrote:
>for those of you on FICINO, a repeat. (with JS's blessing, per HB's
>request)
>
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 10:59:28 -0500
>From: Julie Sutherland <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: "FICINO: FICINO Discussion - Renaissance and Reformation Studies"
> <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Luther on self-love
>
>Dear James,
>
>It's maybe a bit later than you were hoping for, but Thomas Wright
>addresses the connection between self-love and obsessive love for another,
>in his publication, The Passions of the Minde in Generall (later edition,
>1604). He links the transcendent and the physical when he states that the
>affections of our minds cause a modification of our bodily humours, which
>in turn causes a physical alteration that affects human beings both
>physically and mentally (cap.ii.p.7). In fact, he attributes such mental
>'passions and affections' to self-love, which he calls 'the nurse, mother,
>or rather stepdame of all inordinate affections' (cap. iii. p.11). He
>likens the war raging inside oneself, between God-directed love and
>godless self-love, as a divide between the sublime place of Jerusalem and
>the moral horrors of Babylon: 'the love of God buildeth the cittie of the
>predistinate; selfe-love the cittie of the reprobate' (cap. iii. p.14).
>
>I hope that's a bit helpful.
>
>Regards,
>
>Julie Sutherland
>
>
>
>"James W. Broaddus" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Valued Members of the
>Lists,
>
>First, apologies for cross-listing,
>
>Next, were there discussions among sixteenth century English theologians
>in which self-love was separated from Christian love in a way comparable
>to the way Luther separated them? As Anders Nygren observes in his _Agape
>and Eros_, for Augustine and even more for medieval theologians, self-love
>provides a way to Christian love of neighbor and to love of God. But
>Luther "brands selfishness, self-love, as sin and as the essence of the
>sinfulness of sin. . . . He knows no justifiable self-love" (p. 710).
>
>Again, from Nygren: Luther likened the Christian "to a tube, which by
>faith is open upwards, and by love downwards. All that a Christian
>possesses he passes on in love to his neighbour. He has nothing of his own
>to give. He is merely the tube, the channel, through which God's love
>flows" (p. 735).
>
>I realize Luther was not a popular figure among the English, but
>discussion in England of Luther's ideas began shortly after they were
>published.
>
>My thanks in advance,
>
>Jim Broaddus
>
>James W. Broaddus Emeritus, Ind. State. Route 3 Box 1037 Brodhead, KY
>40409
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