Bernd Roeck > Quotes

“According to some, the continuous motion of the heavens was the work of angels. Since the winged creatures consisted almost entirely of air, they performed this labor through the power of their will alone. As late as the seventeenth century, people discussed whether the angels got tired and whether energy was even necessary to keep the celestial dance in motion. Around 1650, one Jesuit theologian calculated the number of angels required for the task at over one thousand.”
― Bernd Roeck, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance

“Medeis ageometretos eisito—“May no one enter who is ignorant of geometry.”
― Bernd Roeck, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance

“Religious norms and real life always differ. The traditional distaste of India’s Brahmins for merchants dampened the latter’s industriousness as little as Confucian spirituality lessened commercial activity in Ming China. The Bible itself is anything but a”
― Bernd Roeck, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance

“with what Ernst Bloch called the Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigen, the “simultaneity of the non-simultaneous.” It means simplifying the variety of millions upon millions of lives, ignoring the specific meaning that individuals and groups assigned to their everyday affairs. The”
― Bernd Roeck, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance

“The Muscovites had to learn their faith from the stories illustrated by their icons, for both the nobility and the people were largely illiterate. Even some priests could neither read nor write. This was to the tsars’ benefit, as it was easy to rule over a pious, uneducated people.”
― Bernd Roeck, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance

“In the thirteenth century, Chinese science had clearly reached limits that it could scarcely have transcended even if there had been no invasions or political upheavals. A minimum of physics was kept in check by a maximum of metaphysics.54”
― Bernd Roeck, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance

“manifesto for capitalism. It teaches that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven. It depicts Jesus driving merchants and money changers out of the temple and traces human misery back to the tasting of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.”
― Bernd Roeck, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance

“Yet he created no Byzantine theocracy on Lac Léman, but rather a republic that sought to be pious and pure. The city government’s job was to serve the Church, thereby fulfilling its divine duty. Furthermore, it was to safeguard the moral lifestyle of the congregation entrusted to it. The highest authority in ecclesiastical affairs was the Consistory. Initially, it was composed of the pastors of the city and twelve laymen, known as “elders,” chosen by the city council.96 In Calvin’s view, secular power had no business interfering in church affairs. He considered it a Christian right to resist a government that flouted God’s law.97 This was not a call to revolution. Rather, resistance was the job of elected popular representatives, “lesser authorities.” This doctrine provided theological support to future popular movements against monarchical hybris.”
― Bernd Roeck, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance