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 76 of 447 · 20 per page

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  A T 7 A.M. on August 22, 1524, Luther preached in the main church of Jena. It was a memorable sermon, lasting an hour and a half. Luther was at his most pugilistic and roundly attacked those who questioned the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He also condemned the radicals who insisted on removing all images from churches. Such people, Luther said, were driven by the spirit of Satan, and though they were few in number, their presence as sectaries was a sign that the Devil was raging. 1 Jena was not territory hospitable to Luther, who was on a Visitation of the Saxon churches. Karlstadt now had his own parish in the small nearby town of Orlamünde, where he had begun to introduce the kind of Reformation he had failed to establish in Wittenberg. His ally Martin Reinhard was the preacher at Jena, where the local printing press had also been publishing Karlstadt’s work. In fact, Karlstadt himself was among the congregation at Jena that morning, disguised as a peasant under a felt hat. He was convinced that Luther’s tirade against the “crazies” was directed against him. After the sermon, he dashed off a letter to Luther proposing a meeting. Luther replied that he had no objections. A few hours later, Karlstadt—accompanied by Reinhard and Karlstadt’s brother-in-law and fellow preacher Dr. Gerhard Westerburg—arrived at the Black Bear Inn, where Luther was staying with his retinue of Saxon court officials. 2 When the visitors entered the parlor, Luther motioned Karlstadt to a chair opposite him, insisting that their exchange take place in public. 42. In this hostile pamphlet from 1524, Luther, identified by his initials above him on the wall, is shown in league with the Devil, who is handing him a booklet. The Devil’s claw foot makes him instantly recognizable, and his felt hat is marked “S” for Satan. The Devil is dressed in peasant garb and the image insinuates that Luther is part of an unholy alliance with peasants. Karlstadt, facing the crowd of assembled dignitaries, began by objecting that Luther had attacked him in the same breath as the “riotous murdering spirits” who were followers of Thomas Müntzer. Müntzer, whom we will meet again later, had originally been inspired by Luther’s ideas, but developed a radical theology that called for social as well as religious change; he was starting to worry the Saxon authorities and had recently been forced to leave the town of Allstedt. Luther’s charge, Karlstadt insisted, was unjust, for although he held different views on the sacrament from Luther, he did not agree with Müntzer. “He who wants to…put me in the same pot with such murdering spirits ascribes that to me without truth and not as an honest man,” Karlstadt declared. This was a stinging rebuke, for in a society that depended on people giving their word, to insult someone as dishonest was to attack their manhood and respectability. Karlstadt also accused Luther of stopping him from preaching and publishing.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther, however, was implacable; when at last the Swiss wrote him a conciliatory letter in January 1537, he waited until December before replying and was decidedly offhand when he did. His sickness, he explained, had held him up, and the fact “that there is so much business in my head, not to speak of thoughts, that I can’t speak and deal with each individual as though I had nothing but one or two things to do.” 27 He went on to insist on a clear acceptance of his position, the result being that by autumn 1538, the clergy of Zurich, Basle, and Bern had all concluded that the project of gaining union with the Wittenbergers had failed. Other cities fell away as well: In Augsburg, whose adherence to the concord was crucial, Johann Forster was appointed on Luther’s recommendation, but overplayed his hand by vehemently accusing the former Zwinglian preacher Michael Keller and others of deviating from the concord, to such an extent that he alienated the council and was eventually forced to leave; the council then appointed Ambrosius Blaurer, a sacramentarian. 28 Even in his own Strasbourg, Bucer was not able to hold the line. Matthäus Zell, one of the most important of the Strasbourg reformers, continued to preach the sacramentarian doctrine, and there were deep divisions among the city clergy. For Luther, since the Wittenberg concord was not a reconciliation or a compromise, but rather to establish that the beliefs of the sacramentarians were heretical, it was imperative to assert the truth against the forces of Satan. Although both sides had undertaken not to attack one another in print, in 1539 he issued his On the Councils and the Churches, a long tract that argued that any future Church council must be bound by the Word of God and finally marked the founding of his own church. In it, he also accused Zwingli of being guilty of the Nestorian heresy. 29 This was a caricature of Zwingli’s actual beliefs, and not surprisingly, the Swiss were furious. The Zurich pastors wrote emphatically rejecting the slur. 30 The Nestorians insisted on the absolute separation of divine and human nature in the person of Jesus Christ.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  In the 1530s Luther’s tone was relatively sober, but by 1543 it had changed markedly. In response to a request from a certain Count Wolf Schlick of Falkenau, who had read a Jewish response to Against the Sabbatarians, Luther produced On the Jews and Their Lies.27 Three “Learned Jews,” he wrote, had come to him in the hope “that they would find a new Jew in me” because he had introduced Hebrew studies at the university, but from then on the tract is a diatribe against rabbinic interpretation of Scripture and against the Jews themselves.28 Much of it is devoted to accusations of arrogant pride in their race; Luther evokes revulsion for circumcision, describing how the rabbi rips the foreskin with his fingernails, and imagines a father’s distress at the baby’s scream.29 Luther insults Jews as soiled brides and the worst kind of whores, who ignored God’s prophets. As he moves to attacking rabbinic interpretation, he blames the Jews for splitting word and sign, so that they get drawn into “works righteousness,” trusting in their obedience to the law. Luther likened those who trusted in works, like the Jews, to the sow that “is washed only to wallow in the mire.”30 The Jews, he alleges, look for biblical truth “under the sow’s tail,” that is, their interpretation of the Bible comes from looking in a pig’s anus; they accuse Christians of stupidity that could not even be assigned to a sow, which “covers itself with mire from head to foot and does not eat anything much cleaner”; they defame Christian belief, “impelled by the Devil, to fall into this like filthy sows fall into the trough.” If they see a Jew, Christians should “throw sow dung at him…and chase him away.”31 Luther calls for the secular authorities to burn down all the synagogues and schools, and “what won’t burn should be covered over with earth, so that not a stone or piece of slag of it should be seen for all eternity.” The Jews’ houses should be destroyed and they should be put under one roof, like the gypsies. The Talmud and prayer books should be destroyed and Jewish teachers banned. They should be prevented from using the roads, usury banned, and the Jews forced to undertake physical labor instead. Assets from moneylending should be confiscated and used to support Jews who converted. This was a program of complete cultural eradication.32 And Luther meant it. When Melanchthon sent Philip of Hesse a copy of the text, he told him that it “truly” contained “much useful teaching.” An electoral Saxon mandate of 1543 referred to Luther’s “recent book” as it ordered that anyone who encountered Jews should seize them and all their goods and report them to the authorities; they would be entitled to receive half of the confiscated goods as their reward.33

• From Little Birds (1979)

  I liked to see her dress up for the evening in barbaric jewelry, her face so vivid. She was not for gentle Paris, for the cafés. She was meant for the African jungle, orgies, dances. But she was a not a free being, rippling in natural undulations of pleasure and desire. If her mouth, body, voice, were made for sensuality, its true flow was paralyzed in her. Between her legs she was impaled on a rigid pole of puritanism. All the rest of her body was loose, provocative. She always looked as if she had just come from lying in bed with a lover, or as if she were just about to lie down with one. She had circles under her eyes and such a great restlessness, an energy smoking from her whole body, impatience, avidity. She did everything to seduce me. She liked our kissing on the mouth. She held my mouth, and excited herself, and then drew away. We had breakfast together. She lay in bed and raised her leg so that from where I was sitting at the foot of the bed I could see her sex. While she dressed she dropped her chemise, pretending that she had not heard me come in, and stood naked for a moment, then covered herself. The nights when Hans came to see me there was always a scene. She had to sleep then in the room above mine. The next morning she would awaken sick with jealousy. She made me kiss her on the mouth again and again until we got excited, and then she stopped. She liked those kisses without climax. We went out together and I admired the woman who was singing in the little café. Lina got drunk and was furious with me. She said, “If I were a man, I would murder you.” I became angry. Then she wept and said, “Don’t abandon me. If you abandon me I am lost.” At the same time she raved against Lesbianism, saying it was revolting, and would not permit anything but the kissing. Her scenes were wearing me out. When Hans saw her he said, “The trouble with Lina is that she is a man.” I told myself that I would try and find out, break her resistance in some way or another. I was never very good at wooing people who resisted. I wanted them to want it, to be yielding. When Hans and I were in my bedroom at night, we were afraid to make a noise that she might hear. I did not want to hurt her, but I hated her scenes of frustration and her negative jealousy. “What do you want, Lina, what do you want?” “I want you not to have lovers. I hate it when I see you with men.” “Why do you hate men so?” “They have something I don’t have. I want to have a penis so that I can make love to you.”

• From Satyricon (1)

  He had not ceased speaking when a cock crowed! Alarmed at this omen, Trimalchio ordered wine thrown under the table and told them to sprinkle the lamps with it; and he even went so far as to change his ring from his left hand to his right. “That trumpeter did not sound off without a reason,” he remarked; “there’s either a fire in the neighborhood, or else someone’s going to give up the ghost. I hope it’s none of us! Whoever brings that Jonah in shall have a present.” He had no sooner made this promise, than a cock was brought in from somewhere in the neighborhood and Trimalchio ordered the cook to prepare it for the pot. That same versatile genius who had but a short time before made birds and fish out of a hog, cut it up; it was then consigned to the kettle, and while Daedalus was taking a long hot drink, Fortunata ground pepper in a boxwood mill. When these delicacies had been consumed, Trimalchio looked the slaves over. “You haven’t had anything to eat yet, have you?” he asked. “Get out and let another relay come on duty.” Thereupon a second relay came in. “Farewell, Gaius,” cried those going off duty, and “Hail, Gaius,” cried those coming on. Our hilarity was somewhat dampened soon after, for a boy, who was by no means bad looking, came in among the fresh slaves. Trimalchio seized him and kissed him lingeringly, whereupon Fortunata, asserting her rights in the house, began to rail at Trimalchio, styling him an abomination who set no limits to his lechery, finally ending by calling him a dog. Trimalchio flew into a rage at her abuse and threw a wine cup at her head, whereupon she screeched, as if she had had an eye knocked out and covered her face with her trembling hands. Scintilla was frightened, too, and shielded the shuddering woman with her garment. An officious slave presently held a cold water pitcher to her cheek and Fortunata bent over it, sobbing and moaning. But as for Trimalchio, “What the hell’s next?” he gritted out, “this Syrian dancing-whore don’t remember anything! I took her off the auction block and made her a woman among her equals, didn’t I? And here she puffs herself up like a frog and pukes in her own nest; she’s a blockhead, all right, not a woman. But that’s the way it is, if you’re born in an attic you can’t sleep in a palace I’ll see that this booted Cassandra’s tamed, so help me my Genius, I will! And I could have married ten million, even if I did only have two cents: you know I’m not lying! ‘Let me give you a tip,’ said Agatho, the perfumer to the lady next door, when he pulled me aside: ‘don’t let your line die out!’ And here I’ve stuck the ax into my own leg because I was a damned fool and didn’t want to seem fickle. I’ll see to it that you’re more careful how you claw me up, sure as you’re born, I will! That you may realize how seriously I take what you’ve done to me--Habinnas, I don’t want you to put her statue on my tomb for fear I’ll be nagged even after I’m dead! And furthermore, that she may know I can repay a bad turn, I won’t have her kissing me when I’m laid out!”

• From Satyricon (1)

  ‘Omnipotent Jove, and thou, refuge of Saturn whose glory Was brightened by feats of my armies and crowned with my triumphs, Bear witness! Unwillingly summon I Mars to these armies, Unwillingly draw I the sword! But injustice compels me. While enemy blood dyes the Rhine and the Alps are held firmly Repulsing a second assault of the Gauls on our city, She dubs me an outcast! And Victory makes me an exile! To triumphs three score, and defeats of the Germans, my treason I trace! How can they fear my glory or see in my battles A menace? But hirelings, and vile, to whom my Rome is but a Stepmother! Methinks that no craven this sword arm shall hamper And take not a stroke in repost. On to victory, comrades, While anger seethes hot. With the sword we will seek a decision The doom lowering down is a peril to all, and the treason. My gratitude owe I to you, not alone have I conquered! Since punishment waits by our trophies and victory merits Disgrace, then let Chance cast the lots. Raise the standard of battle; Again take your swords. Well I know that my cause is accomplished Amidst such armed warriors I know that I cannot be beaten.’ While yet the words echoed, from heaven the bird of Apollo Vouchsafed a good omen and beat with his pinions the ether. From out of the left of a gloomy grove strange voices sounded And flame flashed thereafter! The sun gleamed with brighter refulgence Unwonted, his face in a halo of golden flame shining.” CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THIRD. “By omens emboldened, to follow, the battle-flags, Caesar Commanded; and boldly led on down the perilous pathway. The footing, firm-fettered by frost chains and ice, did not hinder At first, but lay silent, the kindly cold masking its grimness; But, after the squadrons of cavalry shattered the clouds, bound By ice, and the trembling steeds crushed in the mail of the rivers, Then, melted the snows! And soon torrents newborn, from the heights of The mountains rush down: but these also, as if by commandment Grow rigid, and, turn into ice, in their headlong rush downwards! Now, that which rushed madly a moment before, must be hacked through! But now, it was treacherous, baffling their steps and their footing Deceiving; and men, horses, arms, fall in heaps, in confusion. And see! Now the clouds, by an icy gale smitten, their burden Discharge! Lo! the gusts of the whirlwind swirl fiercely about them; The sky in convulsions, with swollen hail buffets them sorely. Already the clouds themselves rupture and smother their weapons, An avalanche icy roars down like a billow of ocean; Earth lay overwhelmed by the drifts of the snow and the planets Of heaven are blotted from sight; overwhelmed are the rivers That cling to their banks, but unconquered is Caesar! His javelin He leans on and scrunches with firm step a passage the bristling

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  31. LW 47, 212, 261, 291, 286; WS 53, 478:32; 517:23; 541:1–3; 537:15–16. 32. LW 47, 268–72; WS 53, 523–26. 33. WB 10, 3845, Jan. 27, 1543, 258; Melanchthons Briefwechsel Regesten online 3147, Jan. 17, 1543; Melanchthons Briefwechsel, Texte 12, Jan. 17, 1543. StadtA Witt, Bc 38 [49], fo. 100. In a letter to Georg Buchholzer of September 1, 1543, Luther praised Buchholzer for preaching vigorously against the Jews, and argued that Agricola could not have made the sayings attributed to him in protection of the Jews. But if he had, then he would not be the Elector’s preacher “but a true devil, letting his sayings be so shamefully misused to the damnation of all those who associate with Jews” (WB 10, 3909, 389:24–26). 34. Von den Jüden appeared in January 1543, Vom Schem Hamphoras in March that year, and shortly after, Von den letzten Worten Davids, a third work against the Jews was published; Kaufmann, Luthers Juden, 136. Written in German, they addressed a wide lay public. 35. Luther, Von den Jüden vnd jren Lügen. Vom Schem Hamphoras, Leipzig 1577 [VD 16 L 7155]; Luther, Drey Christliche/ In Gottes Wort wolgegründte Tractat Der Erste Von dem hohen vermeynten Jüdischen Geheymnuß/ dem Schem-Hamphoras…(Frankfurt, 1617 [VD 17 3:306053V]). 36. WB 1, 7 [Feb. 1514]; see, however, WB 1, 61, Feb. 22, 1518; Zika, Reuchlin; Zika, “Reuchlin’s De Verbo Mirifico and the Magic Debate of the Late Fifteenth Century,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 39 (1976): 104–38. 37. See Jonathan Sheehan, “Sacred and Profane: Idolatry, Antiquarianism, and the Polemics of Distinction in the Seventeenth Century,” Past and Present 192 (2006): 35–66. See StadtA Witt, 9 [Bb 6], “Rabini Schemhamphoras,” for a seventeenth-century crude single-leaf woodcut of the relief accompanied by a poem. 38. WS 53, 587:2–4;21–23; 636:33–637:5. 39. WS 53, 542:5–7. 40. Kaufmann, Luthers Juden, 109–11, 119, 136. He also discussed the progress of his writings in letters to Jonas; Greschat, Bucer, 156–58. 41. Scott Hendrix, “Toleration of the Jews in the German Reformation: Urbanus Rhegius and Braunschweig 1535–1540,” in Hendrix, Tradition and Authority, 193–201. Osiander, Ob es war un[d] glablich sey. Osiander, who was an outstanding Hebrew scholar, distanced himself from Luther’s Vom Schem Hamphoras in a letter in Hebrew to Elias Levita; when this became public, Melanchthon sought to prevent Luther from hearing about it, fearing his reaction; Kaufmann, Luthers Juden, 138; Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism, 265. 42. Johannes Eck, Ains Juden büechlins verlegung darin ain Christ, gantzer Christenhait zu schmach, will es geschehe den Juden vnrecht in bezichtigung der Christen kinder mordt…; hierin findst auch vil histori, was übels vnd bücherey die Juden in allem teütschen Land, vnd ändern Künigreichen gestift haben (Ingolstadt, 1541 [VD 16 E 383]). Like Luther, he also drew on Der gantz Jüdisch glaub (The Entire Jewish Faith), written by the converted Jew Anton Margaritha and published at Augsburg in 1530. It was one of the chief sources for Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies. 43. LW 47, 219; WS 53, 483:34–35.

• From Shunned (2018)

  We sat in silence for several minutes, only my staccato inhalations interrupting the hush. Ross had the hollow look of someone at loose ends. Like a cowboy in a saloon, he swigged his last drops of whiskey and stood up. “It’s not too late,” he said. “Todd has suggested that he and Jerry come by soon for a shepherding call. I think it’s a great idea.” “No, that’s not a great idea.” My equilibrium returned. I stood up and leaned in on both arms, looking Ross straight in the eye. “It’s intrusive. It’s unwelcome.” Turning around, I walked into the kitchen for a glass of water, my bare feet slapping against the cool linoleum. Though I was riven with disgust, my level of belligerence was a surprise even to me. “I won’t do it, Ross!” I shouted over my shoulder. “But I already told Todd it was a go.” He followed me into the kitchen. “Then by all means, enjoy your meeting with him.” I turned from the sink, gulping my water. “I won’t be there.” “What’s the matter with you?” His voice was gaining strength. “You’ve become so blatantly disrespectful. Todd is just trying to help, and we both need help.” “I don’t recall asking for Todd’s help.” “What is that supposed to mean?” “It means I don’t appreciate people going behind my back. If Todd is such a good friend, if he’s so worried about me, then why didn’t he come straight to me?” “I’m the spiritual head of the family. It’s appropriate for him to come to me first. You know that.” “Bullshit.” Weary of self-censorship, I thought swearing seemed an emphatic way to express my disdain. “That system doesn’t work for me anymore.” “What system?” Ross asked, his voice suddenly thin. There were tears in his eyes. We had stumbled onto a land mine. Sudden moves were risky. An implacable resolve came over me. “Headship, for one. It’s so dated and patriarchal. To think another person is responsible for me and my spiritual well-being is ridiculous. Don’t you see that, Ross?” He blanched. Behind his eyes, I could just make out an unwanted realization breaking through the surface of his mind. “Theocratic hierarchy, for another. And I don’t like putting on a happy face as we go door-to-door, condemning other people and their religions. The whole thing is veiled in kindness— just like Todd’s offer—but it’s divisive.” The more I said, the more we realized the latitude and longitude of my drift. “I feel so out of place,” I said. I blinked a tear. My eyelids were too heavy to hold up. “That settles it,” Ross said. “I’m more convinced then ever. We have to meet with Todd and Jerry.” “I don’t have to do anything.” Stumbling down the hall to our room, I slammed the door behind me and fell into bed. I heard the rattle of car keys, followed shortly by the sound of the front door creaking open.

• From Shunned (2018)

  “What are they?” “First, did my example or anything I said make it easier for you or encourage you to get divorced?” “Not in the least,” I said, surprised. “Please don’t worry about that. I see our situations as completely different. My divorce was inevitable.” She didn’t say anything. “Lory, are you still there?” “Second, do you think if our family were closer, you might not have gotten so weird?” Her bluntness was stunning. “You think I’m weird ?” “Well, yeah,” she said. “You’ve become a self-centered, worldly person, and that’s weird.” “There’s no need to insult me.” I knew this was to be our last conversation for a very long time. I was pushing back the tears. “I just don’t get it,” she said. “I’ve got news for you, Lory.” My breathing had deepened. “It’s not necessary for you to ‘get it.’ I’m tired of wishing and waiting for you, or anyone else in this family, to ‘get it.’ So goodbye.” And I startled myself by slamming the phone in its cradle. How’s that for weird? I sat there, panting, still trying hard to keep my tears at bay, for several minutes. Lory’s brusque choice of words had allowed me to avoid answering her: Was our family dynamic at the root of my rebellion? It was a question that would surface many times in the months to come. Certainly, self-denial and perfectionism had been cultivated throughout my upbringing and made me bristle now. My mother (and her parents before her) had always been unquestioning and hyper-vigilant in applying the Society’s teachings. And despite the acrimony it caused in my parents’ marriage, I was grateful that Dad was not a Witness when I was very young, because it exposed me to independent thinking and the humanness of “worldly” people. Even when they argued about evolution or Christmas or after-school sports, I never doubted my father’s love for my mother, which would now show up in his loyalty to her and the religion. I was calm again. I rose from the chair, grabbed the work files I had brought in as a decoy, and returned to my desk. There was only one thing left to do: carry on. Chapter 18 [image "Images" file=Image00000.jpg] Too much of a good thing can be wonderful. —Mae West M assive waves of energy were freed up now that I was no longer hiding my life from my family. Like a spring held tightly in the hand, then released, I bounced through life loose and free. It was the middle of summer—time to party. I crammed the months with activity. I missed my family, of course, and in quiet moments I felt forlorn, but more than anything I was giddy in the absence of their pestering. I believed the worst of the experience was behind me; the full scale of my loss hadn’t hit yet. Little did I know how many heart-wrenching moments lay ahead.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  32 And Luther meant it. When Melanchthon sent Philip of Hesse a copy of the text, he told him that it “truly” contained “much useful teaching.” An electoral Saxon mandate of 1543 referred to Luther’s “recent book” as it ordered that anyone who encountered Jews should seize them and all their goods and report them to the authorities; they would be entitled to receive half of the confiscated goods as their reward. 33 Indeed, Luther’s violence was sometimes too much even for his contemporaries. Just a few weeks later, in early 1543 he produced Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi ( On the Ineffable Name and the Generations of Christ ), 34 which the Swiss theologian Heinrich Bullinger condemned, while Andreas Osiander in Nuremberg wrote privately to a Jewish friend of his in Venice to express his revulsion. But it was not repudiated by Lutherans and was reprinted in 1577, with Nikolaus Selnecker, an early biographer of Luther, adding a preface that included scurrilous stories such as one about the Jews in Magdeburg who refused to come to the aid of a Jew who had fallen into a privy because it was the Sabbath. Vom Schem Hamphoras appeared again in 1617, the centenary year of the Reformation, alongside On the Jews and their Lies, as the headline work in this vicious potpourri. 35 This was Luther off the leash, and the text reads like a revelation of his inner fantasies. Luther again assaulted the rabbinic tradition of interpreting Scripture, arguing that the Jews were led by the Devil who is behind any invocation of magic. This might seem like an abstruse accusation, but it concerned issues that were very close to home. In 1514, Luther had taken the side of the Hebraist Johannes Reuchlin—a relative of Melanchthon—as he resisted an attempt by Catholic conservatives to get all Jewish books destroyed. Yet Reuchlin’s interest in Hebrew had in part concerned the mysterious powers of the Kabbalah; this was why Christians ought to learn it. Luther may have been unaware of Reuchlin’s writings on the wonder-working word, but he was determined to distinguish the evangelicals’ use of words from the magical use of words by the Jews. 36 Perhaps realizing how close they are to each other, he is driven to explain what it is that Lutherans do when they administer the sacrament of baptism or speak the words of consecration over the bread and wine. His energies were passionately engaged in this because the background was the accusation that the sacramentarians brought against the Lutherans: that they pretended to produce God’s flesh magically by means of words. Luther then suddenly breaks off to describe the “Schem Hamphoras” sculpture high up on the parish church of Wittenberg itself, which shows a sow suckling several Jews, while a rabbi lifts its tail and looks into its rear.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  “Suddenly the telephone rang and made me jump. Who could that be? I knew no one in Shanghai. I took the receiver; it was my husband’s voice. Somehow he had found out where I was. He was talking, talking. Meanwhile my friend had recovered from the surprise of the telephone call and was continuing his caresses. I felt such pleasure talking with my husband and listening to his pleadings to return home . . . and all this while my drunken friend took every liberty with me, having succeeded in pulling down my slacks, biting me between the legs, taking advantage of my position on the bed, kissing me, fondling my breasts. The pleasure was so acute that I delayed the conversation. I discussed everything with my husband. He was promising to send away the servant girls, he wanted to come to the hotel. “I remembered all he had done to me, in the room next to mine, his callousness in deceiving me. I was taken with a diabolical impulse. I said to my husband, ‘Don’t try to come and see me. I am living with somebody else. In fact he is lying here and caressing me while I talk to you.’ “I heard my husband curse me in the foulest words he could muster. I was happy. I hung up the receiver and sank under the big body of my new friend. “I began traveling with him . . .” The sirocco had again blown the door open, and the woman went to close it. The wind was dying now, and this was the last of its violence. The woman sat down. I thought that she would go on. I was curious about her young companion. But she remained silent. After a while I left. The next day when we met at the post office she did not even seem to recognize me. The MajaThe painter Novalis was newly married to María, a Spanish woman with whom he had fallen in love because she resembled the painting he most loved, the Maja Desnuda, by Goya. They went to live in Rome. María clapped her hands in childish joy when she saw the bedroom, admiring the sumptuous Venetian furniture with its wonderful inlaid pearl and ebony. That first night María, lying on the monumental bed made for the wife of a doge, trembled with delight, stretching her limbs before she hid them under the fine sheets. The pink toes of her plump little feet moved as if they were calling Novalis. But not once had she shown herself completely nude to her husband. First of all she was Spanish, then Catholic, then thoroughly bourgeois. Before lovemaking the light had to be put out.

• From Shunned (2018)

  Suffice it to say, you and I believe differently. Maybe someday I’ll get into the details with you, but that day is not today. I haven’t seen my mother in over three years. Three years. So enough of the interrogation. I just want to sit here and enjoy your company. Is there anything wrong with that?” Her shoulders dropped, and she let out a sigh. “No, honey.” She leaned toward me. “But don’t forget, time is running out. You know what the Scriptures say, and all the nightly news reports confirm we are only getting closer to Armageddon with each passing day. Just don’t stay out in the world too long.” Excusing myself, I went to the restroom to regroup. Splashing cold water on my face, I looked intently at myself in the mirror. What happens now? Given the gist of the conversation, we were running out of things to talk about. On some level, I suspected Mom found my company disturbing, and I was very disappointed that she could not set aside her objections for one rare afternoon and simply be with me. I returned to the table just as the waitress was serving two glasses of white wine. “Given the conversation, I thought this was in order,” she said. “What the heck? It’s Saturday, and I’m on vacation.” Just in time, I remembered that Witnesses don’t clink glasses, seeing it as a pagan superstition. Of course, I’d discarded that as a needless concern long before. We raised our glasses and took the first sip. Mom smiled with resignation and seemed to relax a bit. “I need to ask,” Mom said. “Are you taking good care of yourself, eating well, and seeing the doctor for regular checkups?” For a number of reasons, including the fact that Mom had been diagnosed, my sister and I have a statistically high risk for ovarian cancer. I’d always been mindful about preventing it and testing for it. But her question angered me, even though it was a logical, caring question for a mother to ask. But I wanted my whole mother—one who would laugh and cry with me unconditionally—not this one-sided aspect prodding me about medical testing and my self-care routine. You can’t have it both ways. Be my mom either all the way or no way. The anger that emerged from this question caught me off guard. I struggled for a long moment to gain my composure. “Of course,” I said, dismissing the topic outwardly with a flick of my wrist, signaling my lack of willingness to pursue the subject. “How is your work going?” she asked. There was so much I could have told her. I’d been promoted to vice president and become a national sales manager and was struggling to assume the role of leader among people who had previously been my peers.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  María soon realized that she had lost his love. She did not know how to win it back. She became aware that he was in love with her body only as he painted it. She went to the country to stay with friends for a week. But after a few days she fell ill and returned home to see her doctor. When she arrived at the house it looked uninhabited. She tiptoed to Novalis’s studio. There was no sound. Then she began to imagine that he was making love to a woman. She approached the door. Slowly and noiselessly, like a thief, she opened it. And this is what she saw: on the floor of the studio, a painting of herself; and lying over it, rubbing himself against it, her husband, naked, with his hair wild, as she had never seen him, his penis erect. He moved against the painting lasciviously, kissing it, fondling it between the legs. He lay against it as he never had against her. He seemed driven into a frenzy, and all around him were the other paintings of her, nude, voluptuous, beautiful. He threw a passionate glance at them and continued his imaginary embrace. It was an orgy with her he was having, with a wife he had not known in reality. At the sight of this, María’s own controlled sensuality flared up, free for the first time. When she took off her clothes, she revealed a María new to him, a María illumined with passion, abandoned as in the paintings, offering her body shamelessly, without hesitation to all his embraces, striving to efface the paintings from his emotions, to surpass them. A ModelMy mother had European ideas about young girls. I was sixteen. I had never gone out alone with young men, I had never read anything but literary novels, and by choice I never was like girls of my age. I was what you would call a sheltered person, very much like some Chinese woman, instructed in the art of making the most of the discarded dresses sent to me by a rich cousin, singing and dancing, writing elegantly, reading the finest books, conversing intelligently, arranging my hair beautifully, keeping my hands white and delicate, using only the refined English I had learned since my arrival from France, dealing with everybody in terms of great politeness. This was what was left of my European education. But I was very much like the Orientals in one other way: long periods of gentleness were followed by bursts of violence, taking the form of temper and rebellion or of quick decisions and positive action. I suddenly decided to go to work, without consulting anybody or asking anybody’s approval. I knew my mother would be against my plan.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  When Luther objected, the Italian repeatedly asked: “Do you want to stage a tournament?” 36 Cajetan, however, had carefully planned the meetings to avoid an undignified verbal slanging match; he intended to speak to Luther in a “fatherly” way, admonish him for his errors, set him on the right path, and avoid a trial in Rome. Yet Luther was fresh from trouncing his former teachers Trutfetter and Usingen at Heidelberg and the paternal approach was bound to enrage him, not least because he had arrived at his own sense of identity by falling out with his father. Indeed, time and again when writing about the meeting, Luther expressed his annoyance with the cardinal, who kept calling him his “dear son.” Moreover, Cajetan, a Dominican so enthusiastic a follower of Aquinas that he had adopted his first name, Thomas, symbolized the scholasticism that Luther now detested. Consequently, while the cardinal tried to avoid debate by setting out clearly where Luther’s theses departed from Church doctrine, Luther refused to be instructed unless he could be shown where he was wrong—a somewhat different thing. Not surprisingly, the first meeting failed. Despite his well-meaning intentions, Cajetan ended up shouting Luther down and laughing with his Italian supporters at the German monk’s arguments. What Luther did next is extraordinary. He appeared at the second meeting the next day not on his own but accompanied by four imperial counselors, the newly arrived Staupitz, and a group of witnesses. He also brought a notary. Luther opened the interview by reading out a document stating that he would submit to the “judgment and the lawful conclusion of the Holy Church and of all who are better informed than I,” but denying that he had said anything contrary to Holy Scripture, the Church Fathers, or papal decrees. He then refused to say anything more but instead “promised to answer in writing.” Then, at the third meeting the following day, he produced a long written document setting out his position on the issues discussed together with supporting citations from Scripture, concluding, “As long as these Scripture passages stand, I cannot do otherwise, for I know that one must obey God rather than men….I do not want to be compelled to affirm something contrary to my conscience.” Luther had thus turned what Cajetan had intended to be a private admonition into a public, ritualized battle, where positions were formally set out in writing rather than evolving through discussion. He had done exactly what Serralonga had warned him against: He was staging a tournament.

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  A bevy of American and European princes, politicians, and presidents attended Sadat’s funeral. No Arab leaders came, however, and there were no crowds lining the streets. On the night of Sadat’s death, the streets of Cairo were eerily quiet. The Egyptian people did not weep for Sadat, nor did they mass, grief-stricken, around his coffin as the Iranians would later mob the corpse of Khomeini. Once again, the modern West and the more traditional societies of the Middle East were poles apart and could not share each other’s vision of events. As we have seen, there were a significant number of Egyptians who thought that Sadat’s rule had more in common with the jahiliyyah than with Islam. In 1980, on the Eid al-Adha, one of the holiest days in the Muslim year, the student members of the jamaat al-islamiyyah, who had been forbidden to hold their summer camp in Cairo, occupied the Saladin Mosque, denounced Camp David, and condemned Sadat as a “Tartar,” one of the Mongol rulers of the thirteenth century who had supposedly converted to Islam but were Muslim only in name. 40 Other members of the suppressed jamaat had joined the network of secret cells, dedicated to violent jihad against the regime. Khaled Islambouli, who had studied at the University of Minya, was a member of this Jihad organization. Sadat was aware of this dissent and was determined to avoid the fate of his friend the shah. In 1978, while revolution mounted in Iran, he had issued what he called the Law of Shame. Any deviation in thought, word, or deed from the established order was to be punished with loss of civil rights and confiscation of passports and property. Citizens were forbidden to join any organization, take part in any broadcast, or publish anything critical of the regime that was deemed to threaten “national unity or social peace.” Even a casual private remark, made in the privacy of one’s own family, was not to go unpunished. 41 In the last months of Sadat’s life, the regime became even more oppressive. On September 3, 1981, Sadat rounded up 1536 of his known critics; they included cabinet ministers, politicians, intellectuals, journalists, preachers, and members of the Islamist groups. One of the Islamists thus imprisoned was Muhammad Islambouli, the brother of Sadat’s assassin. 42 We can gain some insight into the motivation of Sadat’s killers in a treatise written by Abd al-Salam Faraj, the spiritual guide of Islambouli’s Jihad organization. Al-Faridah al-Ghaybah (“The Neglected Duty”) was published after the assassination in December 1981. It was not an apologia and was not originally intended for the general public.

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  They knew that Americans were proud of their secular polity, which deliberately separated religion from the state; they had learned that many Westerners thought it praiseworthy and necessary to focus exclusively on the zahir. The result, as far as they could see, was the empty, hedonistic nightlife of North Tehran. Iranians were aware that many Americans were religious, but their faith seemed to make no sense. The “inside” and “outside” of Jimmy Carter were not “the same.” They could not understand how the President could continue to support a ruler who by 1978 had started to murder his own people. “We didn’t expect Carter to defend the shah, for he is a religious man who has raised the slogan of defending human rights,” Ayatollah Husain Montazeri told an interviewer after the Revolution. “How can Carter, the devout Christian, defend the shah?” 61 When Carter visited the shah on New Year’s Eve, during the sacred month of Muharram, to boost his regime, he could not, if he had tried, have cast himself more perfectly as the villain. During the next turbulent year, the United States came to seem the ultimate cause of Iran’s spiritual, economic, and political problems. Street graffiti identified Carter with Yazid, and the shah with Shimr, the general dispatched by Yazid to massacre Husain and his little army. In one series of street drawings, Khomeini was depicted as Moses, the shah as Pharaoh, while Carter was the idol adored by the Pharaoh/shah. 62 America, it was thought, had corrupted the shah and Khomeini, now increasingly bathed in a Shii light, came to stand as an Islamic alternative to the present unholy dictatorship. At the end of Muharram 1978, the shah yet again cast himself as the enemy of the Shiah. On January 8, the semiofficial newspaper Ettelaat published a slanderous article about Khomeini, calling him “an adventurer, without faith, and tied to the centers of colonialism.” He had led a dissolute life, the article averred, had been a British spy, and was even now in the pay of the British, who wanted to undermine the White Revolution. 63 This scurrilous and preposterous attack was a fatal mistake on the part of the shah. The next day four thousand students turned out onto the streets of Qum: they demanded a return to the 1906 constitution, freedom of speech, the release of political prisoners, the reopening of the Fayziyyah Madrasah, and that Khomeini be permitted to return to Iran. What they got was a massacre.

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  The potential converts to fundamentalism lived along the southern rim, starting in Virginia Beach, where Pat Robertson had established his Christian Broadcasting Network and the immensely popular “700 Club.” Next came Lynchburg, Virginia, where Jerry Falwell had begun his television ministry in 1956; in Charlotte, North Carolina, was the ministry of the exuberant Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and the “Bible-Belt” ended in southern California, an area with a long tradition of political and religious conservatism. 99 The second factor that led many traditionalists to become fundamentalists was the rapid expansion of state power in the United States after the Second World War. Americans had been mistrustful of centralized government since the Revolution, and had often used religion to voice their distaste for the secularist establishment. Fundamentalists were particularly outraged by the Supreme Court decisions banning obligatory worship in public schools on the grounds that this violated the “wall of separation” that Jefferson had decreed should divide religion and politics. Secularist judges had come to the conclusion that it was unconstitutional for the state to sponsor a program of prayer in its schools, even if this did not involve funds derived from taxes, and even if the worship was voluntary and nondenominational. Rulings to this effect were passed in 1948, 1952, and 1962. In 1963, the Supreme Court also banned Bible readings in public schools, quoting the religion clause of the First Amendment. During the 1970 S , the Court passed a series of judgments declaring that any law would be struck down (1) if it intended to promote the cause of religion, (2) if its consequence, regardless of its intention, was the advancement of religion, and finally (3) if it entangled government in religious affairs. 100 The Court was responding to the increasing pluralism of American culture; it declared that it had nothing against religion, but insisted that it be confined to the private domain. These rulings were secularizing but could not be compared to the aggressive attempts of either Nasser or the shah to marginalize religious faith. Nevertheless, fundamentalists and evangelical Christians alike were outraged by what they regarded as a Godless crusade. They did not believe that religion could be legitimately cordoned off and limited in this way, because Christianity’s demands were total and should be sovereign. They were offended that the Court was willing to extend the principle of the “free exercise” of faith (demanded by the First Amendment) to religions that were not even Christian, and incensed by the judges’ principled determination to put all faiths on the same level. This seemed tantamount to saying that their religion was false. The ruling that religion be confined to private life seemed even more outrageous to fundamentalists, when it was combined with what seemed an excessive and unprecedented intrusion of the Court into the private sphere.

• From Shunned (2018)

  They asked me to call them with an update when I return.” “So you went to the elders for what reason?” asked Ove. “If not to repent, then why?” It was a fair question. “It seemed like the right thing to do.” I said. “I realize I could have written a few letters and been done with this, but I wanted to be honorable about it.” The mention of the word “honorable” seemed to provoke them. “You may not have regrets now, but you will,” Lory said. “Trust me. One day, your foolishness will hit you like a ton of bricks, and you will feel terrible.” “Perhaps.” I didn’t think that was likely, but I knew I could always return to the congregation if she was right. Everyone was quiet for a moment. I felt like a recalcitrant child, standing for the required scolding, waiting to be sent to my room. But I was a grown woman making rightful decisions about my life. “Why would you do this?” Mom asked. “Was your life really so bad here? Is your life really so much better now?” “Yes and yes,” I said. “This last year has been a roller coaster. But something inside me that wasn’t there before has come to life. I’m so glad I moved. I was suffocating here in an unhappy marriage, boring routines, an unfulfilling spiritual life.” “And how does an adulterous relationship support your unfolding spiritual fulfillment?” Ove asked. Rage fomented inside me; I was so angry to have my journey belittled, reduced to nothing more than a sexual excursion. They could not fathom how any thinking person could find spiritual truths outside the Witness organization. I had always been so zealous, such a good girl. It was easier for them to conclude that hormones, rather than the deeper stirrings of the soul, were at play. But I tamped down my anger, just wanting to get through this conversation. Let them take their shots as me. This will soon be over, and I can go home. I felt myself becoming emotionally cool and rigid. “In the world I inhabit, no adultery has been committed,” I said, not caring how belligerent this sounded. “I’m free to do as I please.” “All things are lawful,” Ove said, quoting Scripture. “But not all things are advantageous.” “With an attitude like that,” Mom said, “you’re just asking to be disfellowshipped.” I said nothing. “If that happens, we won’t be able to help you,” Mom said, urgent now. “We won’t be able to talk to you.” “Not if —when.” Lory looked at her. “When she gets disfellowshipped, we won’t be able to help her.” “It will kill us,” Mom said, looking down. There was a jagged desperation in her voice. She tucked her hands under her knees and started to rock forward and back. “It will absolutely kill us, but we’ll do it. It’s for your own good.” Dad nodded in agreement as she spoke, looking aggrieved, his eyes dark and beady.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  In front of Luther, on a bench, was a pile of the Basle editions of his books, bound specially for the occasion. The secretary of the bishop of Trier asked Luther whether the books were his, and whether he would recant. At this, Hieronymus Schurff, the professor of law at Wittenberg acting for Luther, shouted, “Let the titles of the books be read!” The extraordinary list of titles, which together constituted such a printing sensation, were then read aloud to the estates of the German nation and the emperor, reminding those assembled of the issues at stake. It demonstrated as nothing else could the depth and range of Luther’s attack on the papacy and the established Church. 38 Luther was expected to answer the questions with a simple yes or no, and the procedure was not designed to allow him to make a speech. He took his time to reply, and his voice, so onlookers said, was barely audible in the large room. Yes, the books were indeed his and he would never deny them, but he could not say immediately whether he would defend them or recant, “because this is a question of faith and the salvation of souls, and because it concerns the divine Word, which we are all bound to reverence, for there is nothing greater in heaven or on earth.” He went on that it would therefore “be rash and at the same time dangerous for me to put forth anything without proper consideration,” and so he requested an adjournment. 39 This must have been a huge anticlimax for those gathered in the crowded hall. It was also an inspired tactic, because it defused the tension and slowed matters down, giving Luther a second opportunity to speak. Luther never reacted well to being silenced. 40 His fury at being muzzled was still evident afterward, when he wrote to Cranach (slightly twisting the truth) that he had expected a proper hearing and at least one, perhaps fifty doctors of theology, all ready to refute his views. But instead all that was said was: “Are these your books? Yes. Do you want to renounce them or not? No. Then go away!” 41 Luther got his adjournment and was ordered to return the next day. According to the account of events written by his supporters, they admonished him to “act manfully, and not to fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  For him the question Luther had to answer was: How can you know that your interpretation of Scripture is right? Interpretation can never be clear, and this is why we have to trust the tradition of the Church, he argued. Cochlaeus reported that tears streamed from Luther’s eyes as the humanist exhorted him not to close the door on the Church, and not to corrupt the young Melanchthon. On this issue, as on many others, Cochlaeus was not entirely wrong. Luther himself knew that he suffered from the sins of anger and pride. But for Luther, authority of interpretation was not an issue, because Scripture was unambiguous. It was a position he had first developed in his debate with Cajetan. Scripture must be invoked against the papists and decisions of the Church councils, and Scripture clearly showed that the Pope was the Antichrist. This did not mean that it did not require people learned in Hebrew and Greek to understand it; that was why the education of the clergy was so important. But then, Luther believed, after immersion in the Scripture and careful reflection, the meaning of God’s Word would be plain. It would not be long, however, before people on his own side began to read the self-evident truths of Scripture differently from the reformer. And it would be easy for his opponents to conclude that what Luther proclaimed to be the clear Word of God was just his interpretation. By denying that he had any authority, and attributing everything to the Word, Luther seemed to put his own authoritarianism beyond debate. Luther’s supporters were furious at Cochlaeus for attempting to trick Luther into giving up his safe conduct. Cochlaeus, who by his own account had begun as a Luther sympathizer, was excoriated by the “enraged” Lutherans who, he complained (writing in the third person), “published songs, or to speak more truly, accusations and slanders, which they sent out into other cities so quickly that these songs arrived in Nuremberg and Wittenberg before Cochlaeus had returned to Frankfurt.” His name had become a byword for treachery. 63 Mocked as a “snail’s brood,” he was expelled forever from the learned circles to which he had once so proudly belonged, and forced to make his peace with the hated Eck. His passionate admiration rapidly turning to vituperation, Cochlaeus became obsessed with Luther and spent the rest of his life attacking the reformer’s writings. 64 Luther soon decided not to respond, because “this way he will get much angrier, for if I were to answer him, he would only get proud.” 65 But Cochlaeus’s relentless observations of Luther were not devoid of insight.