Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 274 of 447 · 20 per page

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  The next few weeks were pretty much the same thing for Mikala. Every weekend Jamel was out in the streets while she was home all alone. Chastity had tried to get her to go out to the club with her on numerous occasions, but she refused. She chose to stay home and play with her best friend, the Bullet. She remained committed to trying to make things work in her relationship, even though the arguments between her and Jamel had become more intense. The whole situation came to a head one weekend when Jamel went out on a Friday night and didn’t come back home until Monday morning, just in time to get ready for work. Mikala was pissed. She’d called his cell all weekend and got no response, so she took Monday off from work just to lay in wait for him. Jamel had never stayed out all night before, let alone a whole weekend. He had crossed the line this time and totally disrespected their so-called relationship, and when Jamel put his key in the door Monday morning, she was laying across the living room sofa waiting for him. “Where the fuck have you been, niggah?” she yelled. As he walked past her, she caught a whiff of women’s perfume in a brand she didn’t own. “I was out with my boys. Don’t question me. I ain’t got time for this shit right now. I gotta go to work,” he replied. She couldn’t believe he could be so bold and nonchalant after being out all weekend. All of her anger came flying out. “You ain’t got time? Well you better make time. You weren’t out with ya boys this weekend. Chastity saw Bobby and Ju at the movies on a double date. You have the nerve to lie to me and come up in my house smelling like some other bitch? Oh, hell no, it ain’t even going down like that!” Mikala ran into the kitchen and grabbed a knife off the counter. Jamel sensed danger, ran into the bedroom, and locked the door behind him. “Mikala, put that knife down. Are you crazy? Stop acting like a maniac. Let’s talk about this shit. It ain’t what you think. I never meant for shit to happen like this!” “You’re fucking around on me and you want me to calm down? I’ve been sitting up in this house being faithful to your ass and this is what I get in return? You better open that fucking door. Who is the bitch?” Mikala screamed. “Hell no, I ain’t opening this door. Let’s be for real, Mikala, this relationship has been headed nowhere for a minute now. I let it go on for this long because I didn’t want to hurt ya feelings. Well since it’s no longer a secret, her name is Shelby. She works with me. She’s a secretary. I didn’t plan on getting with her. We worked late together some nights and shit just happened.”

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  She watched with her mouth hanging open as Juicy ran barefoot through the ice and snow with a sheet around her waist, then staggered over to the curb and flagged down a bootleg taxi and disappeared into the night. Monique cut her lights on, then pulled out into traffic and headed in the same direction. She knew exactly where that skank bitch was probably going. Straight to that Puerto Rican bitch Rita. The same bitch who had threatened to get one of Monique’s brothers locked up over her hot-in-the-ass little sister last summer. She followed the cab down the slippery streets and a few minutes later Monique sat boiling outside of Rita’s house. She sucked on her burnt thumb and watched as Rita opened her front door and Juicy jumped outta the cab and ran her ass inside the apartment. That bitch is gonna get hers, Monique promised. She didn’t need to know all the little details in order to know what time it was. G was gone and so was all of Pluto’s front money, his muscle, and his pull. Every ounce of their bad fortune was tied to that bitch Juicy, and that burned Monique up worse than the hot stove. If it’s the last fuckin’ thing I do in this world, Monique swore to herself again, I’m gonna get her ass back. And if Rita and her ho-ass fuckin’ little sisters wasn’t careful, they could end up getting some too. • • • Shit was hot all over Harlem for weeks. The po-po was outta control, and hustlers was getting knocked every day. As soon as word hit the streets that G had got took down, Harlem was on fire with chaos and turmoil. Moonie did the fuckin’ bird and nobody knew where he had gone. Some young hustler named Flex called himself taking over G’s project operation and got popped with a quickness. Ace and Pluto both got bum-rushed by the police. They caught Ace coming outta his grandmother’s crib and when he pulled out his tool and started firing, they shot out every window in the joint, catching Grandma with a bullet through her forehead as she sat in her rocker. They got Pluto about four o’clock one morning when they kicked the door down and maced him and Monique right in their bed. About twenty cops rushed in and beat the hell outta Pluto, cracking him down to the floor with their nightsticks and digging their boot heels all up in his soft stomach.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  The one that today’s newspapers . . .’ ‘The same, the same . . .’ ‘So it means that those are writers following the coffin!’ Margarita asked, and suddenly bared her teeth. ‘Well, naturally they are!’ ‘And do you know them by sight?’ ‘All of them to a man,’ the redhead replied. ‘Tell me,’ Margarita began to say, and her voice became hollow, ‘is the critic Latunsky among them?’ ‘How could he not be?’ the redhead replied. ‘He’s there at the end of the fourth row.’ ‘The blond one?’ Margarita asked, narrowing her eyes. ‘Ash-coloured . . . See, he’s raising his eyes to heaven.’ ‘Looking like a parson?’ ‘That’s him!’ Margarita asked nothing more, peering at Latunsky. ‘And I can see,’ the redhead said, smiling, ‘that you hate this Latunsky!’ ‘There are some others I hate,’ Margarita answered through her teeth, ‘but it’s not interesting to talk about it.’ The procession moved on just then, with mostly empty automobiles following the people on foot. ‘Oh, well, of course there’s nothing interesting in it, Margarita Nikolaevna!’ Margarita was surprised. ‘Do you know me?’ In place of an answer, the redhead took off his bowler hat and held it out. ‘A perfect bandit’s mug!’ thought Margarita, studying her street interlocutor. ‘Well, I don’t know you,’ Margarita said drily. ‘Where could you know me from? But all the same I’ve been sent to you on a little business.’ Margarita turned pale and recoiled. ‘You ought to have begun with that straight off,’ she said, ‘instead of pouring out devil knows what about some severed head! You want to arrest me?’ ‘Nothing of the kind!’ the redhead exclaimed. ‘What is it—you start a conversation, and right away it’s got to be an arrest! I simply have business with you.’ ‘I don’t understand, what business?’ The redhead looked around and said mysteriously: ‘I’ve been sent to invite you for a visit this evening.’ ‘What are you raving about, what visit?’ ‘To a very distinguished foreigner,’ the redhead said significantly, narrowing one eye. Margarita became very angry. ‘A new breed has appeared—a street pander!’ she said, getting up to leave. ‘Thanks a lot for such errands!’ the redhead exclaimed grudgingly, and he muttered ‘Fool!’ to Margarita Nikolaevna’s back. ‘Scoundrel!’ she replied, turning, and straight away heard the redhead’s voice behind her: ‘The darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city hated by the procurator. The hanging bridges connecting the temple with the dread Antonia Tower disappeared . . . Yershalaim—the great city—vanish as if it had never existed in the world . . .

• From The Girls (2016)

  I’d coated it with vitamin E oil but couldn’t stop myself from messing with it, flaking on toilet paper to soak up the blood. Sal agreed. “Round face shape,” she said with authority. “Bangs might not be a good idea at all, for her.” I imagined how it would feel to topple Sal over in her chair, how her bulk would bring her down fast. The bark tea spilling on the linoleum. They quickly lost interest in me. My mother rekindling her familiar story, like the stunned survivor of a car accident. Dropping her shoulders as if to settle even further into the misery. “And the most hilarious part,” my mother went on, “the part that really gets me going?” She smiled at her own hands. “Carl’s making money,” she said. “That currency stuff.” She laughed again. “Finally. It actually worked. But it was my money that paid her salary,” she said. “My mother’s movie money. Spent on that girl.” —My mother was talking about Tamar, the assistant my father had hired for his most recent business. It had something to do with currency exchange. Buying foreign money and trading it back and forth, shifting it enough times so you were left, my father insisted, with pure profit, sleight of hand on a grand scale. That’s what the French language tapes in his car had been for: he’d been trying to push along a deal involving francs and lire. Now he and Tamar were living together in Palo Alto. I’d only met her a few times: she’d picked me up from school once, before the divorce. Waving lazily from her Plymouth Fury. In her twenties, slim and cheerful, Tamar constantly alluded to weekend plans, an apartment she wished were bigger, her life textured in a way I couldn’t imagine. Her hair was so blond it was almost gray, and she wore it loose, unlike my mother’s smooth curls. At that age I looked at women with brutal and emotionless judgment. Assessing the slope of their breasts, imagining how they would look in various crude positions. Tamar was very pretty. She gathered her hair up in a plastic comb and cracked her neck, smiling over at me as she drove. “Want some gum?” I unwrapped two cloudy sticks from their silver jackets. Feeling something adjacent to love, next to Tamar, thighs scudding on the vinyl seat. Girls are the only ones who can really give each other close attention, the kind we equate with being loved. They noticed what we want noticed. And that’s what I did for Tamar—I responded to her symbols, to the style of her hair and clothes and the smell of her L’Air du Temps perfume, like this was data that mattered, signs that reflected something of her inner self. I took her beauty personally. When we arrived home, the gravel crackling under the car wheels, she asked to use the bathroom.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  A new heat moved through me. Fire of violence and jealousy. I couldn’t believe that Whisky planned on bouncing on me for the next bitch. Not after all I’d done for him, the years I gave him. “Do what you gotta do,” I gave my permission, knowing that the trigger finger that blasted Quita’s back out was attached to my hand. But I rationalized it. Me and 12 had both been crossed. I’d done my part without his knowing. He’d finish it off. There were just certain things I didn’t talk about. I’d already gave him a pass by discussing Whisky. I didn’t see a need to give him two by telling on myself. Hell, I was a hustla, not a fool. No way I was going to be on the receiving end of my boy’s Desert Eagle. This Weekend . . . Whisky rested his head on my lap, giving me a look I’d never seen from him before. Looking deeply into his cognac eyes, I massaged his temples, kissed him deeply to make him feel like the man he’d no longer be after 12 dirt-napped him. “What’s on ya mind, Daddy?” “Thinkin’,” he said, and sat up. “You’d never cross me, Sweets.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. An order. Blushing like the nineteen-year-old girl he’d once turned out, I agreed with him. He’d always needed loyalty confirmed for him, so I wasn’t sweatin’ it. “Got that right. And you’d never do me in, would you?” “How you holdin’ down for money,” he asked, ignoring my question. “You straight?” I stood, crossed my arms over the ice-blue silk robe covering my titties. “You know I am. I gets mine, Whisky. If nuthin’ else I stack chips. I sell cakes in the front of the bakery and make dough in the back.” I paused. “You ain’t answer what I asked you. You’d never do me in?” Whisky laughed. “Don’t come at a playa like that. I put you on—you’d know if I took you off. Ain’t nuthin’ sweet about mines. Except you.” He kissed me. “What’chu think about letting Runner or somebody hold down Sweets Treats for you, and you and me bounce. I found a house you’ll like.” It was my turn to giggle. Crack the hell up in his grill. Whisky had pegged me for a fool’s fool. He must’ve, thinking I’d relocate to the house he’d planned to tuck his side-bitch in. Had to be outta his rabbit-ass mind if he thought I’d let someone hold the reigns and run the show where I made dough, legally and illegally. “Give me a minute to think about it. It ain’t easy parting with ya cake,” I said, sure that 12 would cradle-to-the-grave him before I could say boo, yet I already missed him because he was my cake. And I hated to lose money. • • •

• From Naked Lunch (1959)

  Frankly I wish I had never involved myself in this uh matter. That bloody grease has too much carbolic in it. I was down to customs one day last week. Stuck a broom handle into a drum of it, and the grease ate the end off straight away. Besides, the stink is enough to knock a man on his bloody ass. You should take a walk down by the port." "I'll do no such thing," Marvie screeched. It is a mark of caste in the Zone never to touch or even go near what you are selling. To do so gives rise to suspicion of retailing, that is of being a common peddler. A good part of the merchandise in the Zone is sold through street peddlers. "Why do you tell me all this? It's too sordid! Let the retailers worry about it." "Oh it's all very well for you chaps, you can scud out from under. But I have a reputation to maintain.... There'll be a spot of bother about this." "Do you suggest there is something illegitimate in this operation?" "Not illegitimate exactly. But shoddy. Definitely shoddy." "Oh go back to your Island before it falls! We knew you when you were peddling your purple ass in the Plaza pissoirs for five pesetas." "And not many takers either," Leif put in. He pronounced it ither. This reference to his Island origin was more than the Expeditor could stand.... He was drawing himself up, mobilizing his most frigid impersonation of an English aristocrat, preparing to deliver an icy, clipped "crusher," but instead, a whining, whimpering, kicked dog snarl broke from his mouth. His presurgery face emerged in an arc-light of incandescent hate.... He began to spit curses in the hideous, strangled gutturals of the Island dialect. The Islanders all profess ignorance of the dialect or flatly deny its existence. "We are Breetish," they say. "We don't got no bloody dealect." Froth gathered at the corners of the Expeditor's mouth. He was spitting little balls of saliva like pieces of cotton. The stench of spiritual vileness hung in the airs about him like a green cloud. Marvie and Leif fell back twittering in alarm. 'He's gone mad ," Marvie gasped. "Let's get out of here." Hand in hand they skip away into the mist that covers the Zone in the winter months like a cold Turkish Bath. THE EXAMINATION Carl Peterson found a postcard in his box requesting him to report for a ten o'clock appointment with Doctor Benway in the Ministry of Mental Hygiene and Prophylaxis.... "What on earth could they want with me?" he thought irritably.... "A mistake most likely." But he knew they didn't make mistakes.... Certainly not mistakes of identity.... It would not have occurred to Carl to disregard the appointment even though failure to appear entailed no penalty....

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints (2023)

  20. Josephine Butler: Victorian Feminist The 1870s saw enormous advances for social reformers in general. Children aged 5 to 10 were now required to attend school, which dramatically improved the literacy rate, especially for girls. Women were able to keep their wages, to sue for divorce on the grounds of violence, and to see their children after divorce. Perhaps the most sensational episode of this period was an article that appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1885. The piece focused on the trafficking and abuse of English children. Butler was involved in the most spectacular part of the reporting. The journalist, William Thomas Stead, had enlisted one of Butler’s house guests, Rebecca Jarrett, a reformed brothel keeper, to pose in the guise of her former profession and purchase a young girl. In his published account, Eliza Armstrong was duly bought from her own mother and taken to a brothel, where Stead claimed Eliza spent the night unharmed before being brought to the Butlers. These events were later contradicted in court by testimony from Jarrett, by Eliza herself, and by her mother. Stead was jailed for several months, while Jarrett served six months’ hard labor, which Butler thought was terribly unjust. The uproar pushed Parliament to act: They finally raised the age of consent to 16 and imposed strict penalties for traffickers. But the same legislation had unintended consequences, including harsh punishments for the very women Butler hoped to help. Police now had greater power 156

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  Its understanding of “holiness” demanded an opposition against o paganism (with its idolatry) and Judaism (with its Law). Insofar as it succeeded in expressing egalitarian ideals, it o was inherently threatening to the stratified world of ancient patronage. • The earliest evidence of opposition comes not from the side of the Roman Empire but from the side of the Jews. The question of the involvement of Jewish leaders in the o death of Jesus is difficult and contentious. Certainly, he was executed under Roman order, but it is likely that some degree of cooperation if not instigation can legitimately be ascribed to some Jewish leaders. With the exception of the Gospel of Luke, however, the Gospels certainly tend to exaggerate the complicity of the Jewish population in the death of Jesus. Nevertheless, the evidence of the New Testament (especially o Acts and Paul’s letters) supports the fact that in the first decades, Jews harassed and sought to subvert the Christian movement. In fact, Paul attests that he was a persecutor of the church before his conversion and that after becoming an apostle was persecuted by his fellow Jews. For the Jews, the problematic claim was not that “Jesus o is Messiah,” for such a confession (right or wrong) was compatible with Jewish identity. The troubling claim was that “Jesus is Lord,” that is, as the son of God, he shared fully in the life and power of the divine. This claim offended Torah observers who interpreted the manner of Jesus’s death as an indication that he was cursed by God and who believed that declaring Jesus as Lord was the equivalent to polytheism. The sources speak of two forms of harassment: stoning o (attested by Paul and Acts) and excommunication from the synagogue (attested by Acts and the Fourth Gospel). 49

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  207 • The dispute over this minute element of doctrine provided a convenient flashpoint for the political-ecclesiastical rivalries, cultural distance, misunderstandings, and conflicts that had extended over centuries. The Final Break • The final break in 1054 involved naked power plays on the side of both Rome and Constantinople. • The papacy insisted on the adoption of Latin liturgical practices in the Greek churches of southern Italy that had been liberated from Byzantine control by the Normans. At the same time, the patriarch of Constantinople forced Latin churches in that city to adopt the Greek liturgical usages and say the creed without the additional words. • The head of the Bulgarian church, Leo of Ohrid—encouraged by the patriarch Michael Cerularius—attacked the Latin practices, which led Pope Leo IX to send an embassy led by Cardinal Humbert to Constantinople in 1054. • Cardinal Humbert was abusive and arrogant, and his attitude was matched in both by the patriarch. On July 16, 1054, Humbert and his legates laid a statement of excommunication of the patriarch and his supporters on the altar of the Church of St. Sophia. • By order of the emperor Constantine IX, the statement of excommunication was burned, and a synod he summoned in Constantinople excommunicated in return Humbert and his associates. The schism was final. • Two serious efforts were subsequently made to heal the schism but with no lasting success. o The Second Council of Lyon (1274) saw the filioque affirmed by the Greek delegates, and peace lasted for 15 years, ending in 1289. 208 Lecture 28: The Great Divorce between East and West o At the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1439, the Greeks sought unity with the West in light of the threat to Constantinople from the Turks. Long debate on doctrinal and ritual matters led eventually to compromise and the basic acceptance of the Latin positions. But many of the Greeks subsequently recanted, and the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 rendered the peace void. Louth, Greek East and Latin West. Nichols, ed., Rome and the Eastern Churches. 1. Discuss the ways in which linguistic and cultural differences complicated relations between East and West over a period of centuries. 2. How does the schism between East and West reveal the deep political entanglement of “the imperial church”? Suggested Reading Questions to Consider 209 monastic Reform Lecture 29 T he split between East and West in the 11 th century occasioned by the filioque controversy shows how independent the Catholic tradition, headed by the pope, had become from the imperial Orthodox tradition. In the West, the world shaped by popes, kings, and monks was called simply “Christendom,” and it was a world that was pervasively and profoundly Christian in coloration if not always in character. From the 10 th

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  alone according to the new procedure introduced by his predecessor. Before this, papal elections often involved various rulers and nobles and the messy participation of the people of Rome. Given that the pope also appoints the cardinals, the procedure ensures a totally ecclesiastical process. • When he was himself elected pope, Gregory VII was extraordinarily active and aggressive in the assertion of papal powers in both the religious and secular spheres. In addition to Italy, he asserted papal control over Corsica, Sardinia, Spain, Hungary, and even Denmark. He condemned Philip I of France for the practice of simony (the purchase of spiritual power by financial means), and he sought to establish positive relations with Byzantium. • Gregory VIII is perhaps most well known for his role in the investiture controversy. The investiture issue is by nature messy and had been an o irritant for some time. The basic question was whether the state authority or only the pope had the right to “invest” new bishops with the symbols of their authority; in effect, the issue concerned the power of appointment. The state had an interest because such positions could o be purchased, and placing political favorites as bishops strengthened the hands of secular rulers. The papacy had an interest for the same political reasons but with regard also to the central control of the church throughout the empire. Secondarily, the papacy was concerned that simony would corrupt the appointment process entirely. The issue flared in Gregory VII’s relations with Henry IV, o the Holy Roman Emperor, leading to mutual condemnations and excommunications. In 1075, Gregory charged the young king with crimes that deserved the ban of the church and even sought to depose him from his position as king. 231

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  In the small Hessian town of Hersfeld, the town council took it on itself in 1523 to order that anyone living with a ‘concubine’ should marry her, which consciously encroached on the legal authority of their overlord, the Abbot of Hersfeld, and was really aimed at clergy who had not taken the course of marriage. Properly constituted clerical marriages were the symbol of Reformation in Hersfeld; angry crowds harassed the houses of offenders whom the Abbot was not disciplining, thus simultaneously defying Church authority and declaring official clerical celibacy to be a sham. What proved to be an indecisive stand-off in Hersfeld between Abbot and townsfolk did not stop other town councils in the Holy Roman Empire successfully passing similar ordinances . [19] The image of clergy wife as concubine was not easy to shake off in the Reformation’s first generation as clerical marriage spread through Germany. It was linked to the fact that a significant number of new partners not already in a relationship with their clerical husband seem to have been women otherwise marginalized: a high proportion of nuns and widows, who might be making a principled decision to signify their allegiance to the Reformation, but who might also have been seeking stability amid new social uncertainties. A tenth of clerical marriages in the 1520s were to former nuns, Luther’s bride von Bora being the most famous . This sent mixed messages out to the public, for concubines were liable to come from a very different social stratum than the generally more socially elevated nuns (who often socially outranked their newly acquired clerical partners as well) . [20] An extreme version of how to resolve these puzzles was the phenomenal Wibrandis Rosenblatt, a one-woman Reformation on tour: daughter of an

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 26 27 . M. D. Jordan, The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (Chicago, 1997), 29. G. W. Olsen, Of Sodomites, Effeminates, Hermaphrodites and Androgynes: Sodomy in the age of Peter Damian (Toronto, 2011), 35–6, points out that Damian did not actually invent the word sodomia , an apparent coinage of the 9th-century Hincmar of Rheims. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 27 28 . J. Noonan, Contraception: A history of its treatment by the Catholic theologians and canonists (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), 172–3. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 28 29 . Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality , 281–2, and see discussion of sodomitical ‘othering’ in Karras, Sexuality in Medieval Europe , 132–3. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 29 30 . M. Goodich, The Unmentionable Vice: Homosexuality in the later medieval period (Santa Barbara, Calif. and Oxford, 1979), 42–3. John Boswell is at his least reliable in his characteristic anxiety to minimize and chronologically postpone official Christian persecution in this period (cf. Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality , 288–93); he is explicitly followed in that by Moore, Formation of a Persecuting Society , 92–8, 146–7. For balancing comment and background, see also H. Puff, ‘Same-sex possibilities’, in Bennett and Karras (eds), Oxford Book of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe , 379–95, and for the spread of punitive legislation into secular legal systems, Harvey, Fires of Lust , 126–8, and N. Malcolm, Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male – male sexual relations, 1400 – 1750 (Oxford, 2024), 129–40. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 30 31 . Bonaventure, Opera Omnia (9 vols, Florence, 1882–1902), ix, 122–3, Sermon XXII, In nativitate Domini : the wiping-out of sodomites both male and female, says Bonaventure, was the seventh of twelve miracles God worked at the time of Christ’s birth. For the story’s early and continuing connections to the friars, N. Bériou, L’avènement des maîtres de la Parole: la prédication à Paris au XIIIe siècle (2 vols, Paris, 1998), i, 333–5; R. W. Granger (ed. and tr.), Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the saints (Princeton, NJ, 2012), 41 (6. The Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ ). My discussions with David d’Avray and Robin Ward on this topic have been most helpful. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 31 32 . S. Powell (ed.), John Mirk’s Festial , Early English Text Society 334, 335 (2 vols, Oxford, 2010, 2011), i, 25 (no. 6, Nativity of Christ , ll. 79–92); ii, 284; cf. also notes ibid., ii, 313 (to no. 16. Sexagesima , ll. 102–7). BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 32 33 . On Bernardino, Malcolm, Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe , 115, 192. For the legend’s casual deployment by the idiosyncratically ‘sex-positive’ mystic Agnes Blannbekin, see U. Wiethaus (ed. and tr.), Agnes Blannbekin, Viennese Beguine: Life and revelations (Cambridge, 2002), 8 and text sections 193–4, and for its intellectual ancestry before the very popular late 15th-century catechism by the German Franciscan Observant, Dietrich Kolde (running to forty editions in two centuries), B.-U.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  256 Lecture 35: Corruption and the Beginnings of Reform • John Huss (Jan Hus, c. 1372–1415) was born of a Czech peasant family in Bohemia, was ordained a priest, and became dean of the philosophical faculty at the University of Prague, as well as a popular preacher. o Huss became aware of Wyclif’s works, especially his political doctrines concerning the elimination of private property and hierarchy within society, and his teaching on the spiritual as opposed to the material church. o His violent sermons on the immorality of the clergy stimulated resistance, and under Innocent VII, Huss was forbidden to preach in 1407. When the Czech state took over the University of Prague and made Huss rector, papal resistance was even greater. Huss was excommunicated in 1411, and his followers were interdicted. o After writing his On the Church (substantially borrowed from Wyclif), Huss was granted safe passage to the Council of Constance, but on his arrival, he was imprisoned, and he died at the stake in 1415. • Lorenzo Valla (c. 1406–1457) was an Italian Humanist and a professor at Pavia, but his controversial writings led him to seek refuge with King Alfonso of Aragon. o In 1440, his use of historical-critical methods established that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery; this eliminated a cornerstone of the papal claims to temporal power in Europe. o In 1442, he undertook a critical comparison of the Greek New Testament and the Vulgate, which had the effect of diminishing the assumed authority of the version of Scripture used in churches. • Finally, Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) was a Dominican priest who studied philosophy; as a professor at San Marco and the University of Bologna, he emphasized the knowledge of Scripture in the original languages. 257 o When he became rector at San Marco in 1491, Savonarola adopted an apocalyptic style of preaching, condemning the corruption of society and the church. o On the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1492, he set up a theocratic regime in Florence, seeking to establish a Christian culture based on the Bible in opposition to the “pagan culture” of the Humanists. o Despite being excommunicated by Alexander VI in 1497, Savonarola continued to preach and published a defense of Christianity. Declaring that Alexander was not even a Christian much less pope, Savonarola turned public opinion against himself and, after being condemned for schism and heresy, was hanged and burned in 1498. • These Catholic reformers anticipated virtually every theme that would form the basis of the Protestant Reformation of the 16 th century, but they remained too isolated to accomplish the goals that in the next century would become more widely shared and more effectively pursued. Evans, John Wyclif. Weinstein, Savonarola.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  231 alone according to the new procedure introduced by his predecessor. Before this, papal elections often involved various rulers and nobles and the messy participation of the people of Rome. Given that the pope also appoints the cardinals, the procedure ensures a totally ecclesiastical process. • When he was himself elected pope, Gregory VII was extraordinarily active and aggressive in the assertion of papal powers in both the religious and secular spheres. In addition to Italy, he asserted papal control over Corsica, Sardinia, Spain, Hungary, and even Denmark. He condemned Philip I of France for the practice of simony (the purchase of spiritual power by financial means), and he sought to establish positive relations with Byzantium. • Gregory VIII is perhaps most well known for his role in the investiture controversy. o The investiture issue is by nature messy and had been an irritant for some time. The basic question was whether the state authority or only the pope had the right to “invest” new bishops with the symbols of their authority; in effect, the issue concerned the power of appointment. o The state had an interest because such positions could be purchased, and placing political favorites as bishops strengthened the hands of secular rulers. The papacy had an interest for the same political reasons but with regard also to the central control of the church throughout the empire. Secondarily, the papacy was concerned that simony would corrupt the appointment process entirely. o The issue flared in Gregory VII’s relations with Henry IV , the Holy Roman Emperor, leading to mutual condemnations and excommunications. In 1075, Gregory charged the young king with crimes that deserved the ban of the church and even sought to depose him from his position as king.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  240 ygoloehT dna seitisrevinU :33 erutceL within a short time; thus, Scripture was employed technically as “proof texts” for theological positions. The four books of Sentences written by Peter Lombard (1100– o 1160) provided doctrinal statements and scriptural proofs organized according to the topics of the Trinity, creation and sin, Incarnation and the virtues, and the sacraments and “last things” (death, judgment, heaven, hell). The Sentences became the standard textbook for Catholic theology and the basis for commentary by subsequent masters. • If the substance of Scholastic theology was doctrine contained in propositions or sentences, its life and bite came from the invigoration offered by the challenge of philosophy, specifically that of Aristotle, whose works had been translated from Greek into Arabic by Muslims and from Arabic into Latin. Aristotle’s teachings (for example, on the human soul and on o the relation of God to the world) were less apparently congenial to Christian doctrine than had been those of Plato, whose view of the world had been adjudged compatible with the Bible by Christian thinkers from Justin through Origen to Augustine. For such masters as Thomas Aquinas, however, the teachings o of Ibn Sīnā (Latin, Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Latin, Averroës), based in an understanding of Aristotle that emphasized the godless aspect of the Greek sage, had to be engaged by the Catholic faith in the same way that ancient philosophers had to be engaged by the early church fathers if Christian faith was to be considered fully rational in character and reasonable to maintain. • In its medieval manifestation, Scholastic theology had great dynamism because of its employment of dialectic, developed especially by Peter Abelard (1079–1142). His Sic et non (Thus and Not Thus) brought dialectical reasoning to theology as he worked through some 158 apparent contradictions in Christian philosophy and theology.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Taking the popes one by one, their utterances were, upon the whole, opposed to inhumane measures and uniformly against the forced baptism of the Jews. Gregory the Great protected them against frenzied persecution in Southern Italy. Innocent IV., 1247, denied the charge of child murder brought against them, and threatened with excommunication Christians oppressing them.909 Martin IV., in 1419, issued a bull in which he declared that he was following his predecessors in commanding that they be not interrupted in their synagogal worship, or compelled to accept baptism, or persecuted for commercial transactions with Christians. On the other hand, the example of Innocent III. gave countenance to the severest measures, and Eugenius IV. quickly annulled the injunctions of his predecessor, Martin IV. As for the princes, the Jews were regarded as being under their peculiar jurisdiction. At will, they levied taxes upon them, confiscated their goods, and expelled them from their realms. It was to the interest of princes to retain them as sources of revenue, and for this reason they were inclined to protect them against the violence of blind popular prejudice and rage. Frederick II. imposed upon them perpetual slavery as a vengeance upon them for the crucifixion.910 The inception of the Crusades was accompanied by violent outbursts against the Jews. Innocent III., in 1216, established the permanent legal basis of their persecution. Their expulsion from Spain, in 1492, represents the culminating act in the mediaeval drama of their sufferings. England, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, and Hungary joined in their persecution. In Italy they suffered least. Tens of thousands were burned or otherwise put to death. They were driven, at one time or another, from almost every country. The alternative of baptism or death was often presented to them. The number of those who submitted to death was probably larger than the number who accepted baptism. Most of those, however, who accepted baptism afterwards openly returned to the faith of their fathers or practised its rites in secret.911 It is an interesting fact that, during these centuries of persecution, the Jews, especially in Spain and France, developed an energetic literary activity. Gerschom, Raschi, and the Kimchis belong to France. The names of Maimonides and Benjamin of Tudela head a long list of scholarly Spanish Jews. The pages of Graetz are filled with the names and achievements of distinguished students in medicine and other departments of study.912

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The attention of scholars is chiefly concentrated on the Speculum perfectionis published by Sabatier, 1898, and the original Rule of the Franciscan Tertiaries. The Speculum perfectionis is a life of Francis and, according to Sabatier (Introd. li.), is the first biography, dating back to 1227. The discovery of the document is one of the most interesting and remarkable of recent historical discoveries. The way it came to be found was this:— Materials for the Life of Francis are contained in a volume entitled Speculum vitae St. Francisci et sociorum ejus, published first at Venice, 1504, and next at Paris, 1509. In studying the Paris edition of 1509, Sabatier discovered 118 chapters ascribed to no author and differing in spirit and style from the other parts. He used the document in the construction of his biography and was inclined to ascribe it to the three companions of Francis,—Leo, Angelo, and Rufino. See Vie de S. François, pp. lxxii. sq. At a later time he found that in several MSS. these chapters were marked as a distinct document. In the MS. in the Mazarin library he found 124 distinctive chapters. In these are included the 16 of the Paris edition of 1509. These chapters Sabatier regards as a distinct volume, the Speculum perfectionis, written by Leo, the primary composition bearing on Francis’ career and teachings. The date for its composition is derived from the Mazarin MS. which gives the date as MCCXXVIII. This date Sabatier finds confirmed by indications in the document itself, p. xxii. etc. This sympathetic, lucid, and frank narrative puts Francis in a new light, as a martyr to the ambitious designs of Gregory IX. who set aside the rule of absolute poverty which was most dear to Francis’ heart and placed over him a representative of his own papal views. Leo, so Sabatier contends (Introd. p. li.), wrote his work immediately after the announcement by Elias of Cortona of the intention to erect an imposing cathedral over the "Little Poor Man." Leo was unable to suppress his indignation and so uttered his protest against the violent manipulation of Francis’ plan and memory.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  For some reason the procurator looked at the secretary and the convoy with hatred. ‘And it is not for you, insane criminal, to reason about it!’ Here Pilate shouted: ‘Convoy, off the balcony!’ And turning to the secretary, he added: ‘Leave me alone with the criminal, this is a state matter!’ The convoy raised their spears and with a measured tramp of hobnailed caligae walked off the balcony into the garden, and the secretary followed the convoy. For some time the silence on the balcony was broken only by the water singing in the fountain. Pilate saw how the watery dish blew up over the spout, how its edges broke off, how it fell down in streams. The prisoner was the first to speak. ‘I see that some misfortune has come about because I talked with that young man from Kiriath. I have a foreboding, Hegemon, that he will come to grief, and I am very sorry for him.’ ‘I think,’ the procurator replied, grinning strangely, ‘that there is now someone else in the world for whom you ought to feel sorrier than for Judas of Kiriath, and who is going to have it much worse than Judas! . . . So, then, Mark Ratslayer, a cold and convinced torturer, the people who, as I see,’ the procurator pointed to Yeshua’s disfigured face, ‘beat you for your preaching, the robbers Dysmas and Gestas, who with their confrères killed four soldiers, and, finally, the dirty traitor Judas—are all good people?’ ‘Yes,’ said the prisoner. ‘And the kingdom of truth will come?’ ‘It will, Hegemon,’ Yeshua answered with conviction. ‘It will never come!’ Pilate suddenly cried out in such a terrible voice that Yeshua drew back. Thus, many years before, in the Valley of the Virgins, Pilate had cried to his horsemen the words: ‘Cut them down! Cut them down! The giant Ratslayer is trapped!’ He raised his voice, cracked with commanding, still more, and called out so that his words could be heard in the garden: ‘Criminal! Criminal! Criminal!’ And then, lowering his voice, he asked: ‘Yeshua Ha-Nozri, do you believe in any gods?’ ‘God is one,’ replied Yeshua, ‘I believe in him.’ ‘Then pray to him! Pray hard! However . . .’ here Pilate’s voice gave out, ‘that won’t help. No wife?’

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  acknowledging that authority. In 1303, he died as a prisoner in the Vatican. In 1309, the French pope Clement V took up residence in o Avignon, a town in the southern region of France, beginning what’s known as the “Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” a period of more than a century when the popes resided outside of Rome. The death of Gregory XI in 1378 resulted in a divided papacy, o with Clement VII reigning at Avignon and Urban VI in Rome. The “Great Schism” of pope and antipope continued until the Council of Constance in 1414 and was not completely resolved until 1417. Extreme Responses • Such extreme circumstances generated and seemed (at least to some) to justify extreme behavior, even beyond that generated by the sheer need to survive in famine and plague. Christians seemed to have lost their moral bearings. • Until the 12th century, bishops had followed the advice of Bernard of Clairvaux with respect to heretics: “Faith should come through persuasion rather than force,” but that reasonable position changed with the decree Ad abolendam of Pope Lucius III in 1184. The initiative is all the more severe when we remember that heresy was not nearly the threat to the church in the 14th century that it had been in the 2nd and 3rd, when only rhetoric was used as a weapon. Lucius declared that bishops were to make inquisition for o heresy in their dioceses and hand heretics over to secular authority for punishment. When this local process proved ineffective, Pope Gregory IX o took control of the inquisition around 1233, using members of the new mendicant orders as inquisitors. The mendicant inquisitors were answerable only to the papacy, not to local 245

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Fearing she would be killed, the girl broke her promise to Pietro and made a clean breast of everything that had passed between them, whereupon the knight raved and stormed like a madman, and barely managed to restrain himself from putting her to death. However, after speaking his mind in no uncertain terms, he remounted his horse and rode off to Trapani, where he lodged a complaint with the Viceroy,7 a certain Messer Currado, about the injury Pietro had done him. Since he was unprepared for this turn of events, Pietro was promptly taken into custody, and on being put to the torture, he made a full confession. A few days later the Viceroy sentenced him to be whipped through the town and then hanged by the neck. And in order to ensure that the two lovers and their child should all perish at the same time, Messer Amerigo, whose anger was by no means appeased by the destruction of Pietro, mixed some poison with wine in a goblet and handed it to one of his servants together with an unsheathed dagger, saying: ‘Go with this goblet and this dagger to Violante, and tell her in my name that she is to die forthwith by whichever of the two means she prefers, the poison or the steel. Tell her she is to do it at once, otherwise I shall see that she is burnt alive, as she deserves, in the presence of every man and woman in the town. This done, you are to take the child which was born to her the other day, dash its head against a wall, and cast it away to be devoured by the dogs.’ As soon as the cruel father had passed this savage sentence on his daughter and grandchild, the servant, who was more disposed to evil than to good, took his leave. Meanwhile Pietro, having been condemned to die, was being whipped along to the gallows by a troop of soldiers, when the leaders of the procession took it into their heads to pass in front of an inn where three Armenian noblemen were staying. These latter were ambassadors from the King of Armenia,8 on their way to Rome in order to negotiate with the Pope on very important matters connected with a crusade that was about to be launched. Having broken their journey at Trapani for a few days’ rest and relaxation, they had been lavishly entertained by the noblemen of the town, and by Messer Amerigo in particular. And on hearing Pietro’s escort passing the inn, they came to a window and peered out.