Anxiety

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• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  The papers are full of invasion news and are driving everyone insane with such statements as: “In the event of a British landing in Holland, the Germans will do what they can to defend the country, even flooding it, if necessary.” They’ve published maps of Holland with the potential flood areas marked. Since large portions of Amsterdam were shaded in, our first question was what we should do if the water in the streets rose to above our waists. This tricky question elicited a variety of responses: “It’ll be impossible to walk or ride a bike, so we’ll have to wade through the water.” “Don’t be silly. We’ll have to try and swim. We’ll all put on our bathing suits and caps and swim underwater as much as we can, so nobody can see we’re Jews.” “Oh, baloney! I can just imagine the ladies swimming with the rats biting their legs!” (That was a man, of course; we’ll see who screams loudest!) “We won’t even be able to leave the house. The warehouse is so unstable it’ll collapse if there’s a flood.” “Listen, everyone, all joking aside, we really ought to try and get a boat.” “Why bother? I have a better idea. We can each take a packing crate from the attic and row with a wooden spoon.” “I’m going to walk on stilts. I used to be a whiz at it when I was young.” “Jan Gies won’t need to. He’ll let his wife ride piggyback, and then Miep will be on stilts.” So now you have a rough idea of what’s going on, don’t you, Kit? This lighthearted banter is all very amusing, but reality will prove otherwise. The second question about the invasion was bound to arise: what should we do if the Germans evacuate Amsterdam? “Leave the city along with the others. Disguise ourselves as well as we can.” “Whatever happens, don’t go outside! The best thing to do is to stay put! The Germans are capable of herding the entire population of Holland into Germany, where they’ll all die.” “Of course we’ll stay here. This is the safest place. We’ll try to talk Kleiman and his family into coming here to live with us. We’ll somehow get hold of a bag of wood shavings, so we can sleep on the floor. Let’s ask Miep and Kleiman to bring some blankets, just in case. And we’ll order some extra cereal grains to supplement the sixty-five pounds we already have. Jan can try to find some more beans. At the moment we’ve got about sixty-five pounds of beans and ten pounds of split peas. And don’t forget the fifty cans of vegetables.” “What about the rest, Mother?

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  blackout screen, sniff at the crack until I feel a bit of fresh air, and I’m awake. I strip the bed as fast as I can so I won’t be tempted to get back in. Do you know what Mother calls this sort of thing? The art of living. Isn’t that a funny expression? We’ve all been a little confused this past week because our dearly beloved Westertoren bells have been carted off to be melted down for the war, so we have no idea of the exact time, either night or day. I still have hopes that they’ll come up with a substitute, made of tin or copper or some such thing, to remind the neighborhood of the clock. Everywhere I go, upstairs or down, they all cast admiring glances at my feet, which are adorned by a pair of exceptionally beautiful (for times like these!) shoes. Miep managed to snap them up for 27.50 guilders. Burgundy-colored suede and leather with medium-sized high heels. I feel as if I were on stilts, and look even taller than I already am. Yesterday was my unlucky day. I pricked my right thumb with the blunt end of a big needle. As a result, Margot had to peel potatoes for me (take the good with the bad), and writing was awkward. Then I bumped into the cupboard door so hard it nearly knocked me over, and was scolded for making such a racket. They wouldn’t let me run water to bathe my forehead, so now I’m walking around with a giant lump over my right eye. To make matters worse, the little toe on my right foot got stuck in the vacuum cleaner. It bled and hurt, but my other ailments were already causing me so much trouble that I let this one slide, which was stupid of me, because now I’m walking around with an infected toe. What with the salve, the gauze and the tape, I can’t get my heavenly new shoe on my foot. Dussel has put us in danger for the umpteenth time. He actually had Miep bring him a book, an anti-Mussolini tirade, which has been banned. On the way here she was knocked down by an SS motorcycle. She lost her head and shouted “You brutes!” and went on her way. I don’t dare think what would have happened if she’d been taken down to headquarters. Yours, Anne A Daily Chore in Our Little Community: Peeling Potatoes! One person goes to get some newspapers; another, the knives (keeping the best

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  ANXIOUS APHRODISIACSAs an organism determined to survive, you are equipped to assess risks and avoid danger. Fear makes your heart and breathing rates increase. Yet each breath becomes shallower as your chest muscles and diaphragm tense up in a protective armor. Your arms and legs prepare to defend, hit, kick, or escape. Your vision, hearing, and sense of smell become ultra-sensitized. Yet your sense of touch tends to numb so that you won’t be distracted by pain. You’re pumping out adrenaline to optimize your physical strength and alertness. Whereas fear is usually a response to fairly specific and imminent dangers—including all kinds of physical and emotional attacks—anxiety is concerned with potential dangers, whether conscious or unconscious. Research at the Menninger Foundation has shown that the unconscious mind does not distinguish between real and imagined threats.6 Even when the focus of anxiety is “all in your head,” your body responds as if the danger is real. The subjective experiences of fear and anxiety have so much in common that I use the two words interchangeably throughout our discussion. The relationship between anxiety and eroticism is intricate and paradoxical. If you are highly anxious in a sexual situation, your physical capacities for arousal or orgasm or both will usually be short-circuited. Modern sex therapy can effectively teach sexually anxious people how to reduce fear and create opportunities for pleasure. However, to view anxiety solely as antithetical to arousal is to blind ourselves to a richer and more challenging reality: just as surely as anxiety can disrupt arousal, it can also create, focus, and intensify it. Depending on the situation and the individuals involved, anxiety is either an antiaphrodisiac or an aphrodisiac—occasionally both. Anxiety intensifies arousal by contributing to a generalized state of physical excitation. All forms of excitement, sexual and nonsexual alike, increase muscular tension, blood flow, and heart and breathing rates. Consequently, your body responds similarly to anxiety-provoking and sexually arousing situations. For instance, some men and women spontaneously experience sexual arousal in a wide range of frightening situations, including everything from fights to roller-coaster rides to sexual assaults.7 ANXIETY AND THE FOUR CORNERSTONESIn addition to the physiological links between fear and sexual excitement, anxiety is a natural response to many of the risks and dangers inherent in the four cornerstones. During the experience of longing and anticipation, the urge to be with the one you desire is paramount. But within your yearning may lurk uncertainty and fear. Is the attraction mutual? Will you ever see her again? Will he still feel the same way about you? Does she miss you as much as you miss her? Will the two of you be as sexually compatible as you hope, or as you have been before? Are you setting yourself up for hurt or disappointment?

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  She was comforted by her husband, with whom she recently declared a truce after a week of squabbling; I nearly got sentimental at the sight. Mouschi has now proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that having a cat has disadvantages as well as advantages. The whole house is crawling with fleas, and it’s getting worse each day. Mr. Kleiman sprinkled yellow powder in every nook and cranny, but the fleas haven’t taken the slightest notice. It’s making us all very jittery; we’re forever imagining a bite on our arms and legs or other parts of our bodies, so we leap up and do a few exercises, since it gives us an excuse to take a better look at our arms or necks. But now we’re paying the price for having had so little physical exercise; we’re so stiff we can hardly turn our heads. The real calisthenics fell by the wayside long ago. Yours, Anne WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4,1943 Dearest Kitty, Now that we’ve been in hiding for a little over a year, you know a great deal about our lives. Still, I can’t possibly tell you everything, since it’s all so different compared to ordinary times and ordinary people. Nevertheless, to give you a closer look into our lives, from time to time I’ll describe part of an ordinary day. I’ll start with the evening and night. Nine in the evening. Bedtime always begins in the Annex with an enormous hustle and bustle. Chairs are shifted, beds pulled out, blankets unfolded -- nothing stays where it is during the daytime. I sleep on a small divan, which is only five feet long, so we have to add a few chairs to make it longer. Comforter, sheets, pillows, blankets: everything has to be removed from Dussel’ s bed, where it’s kept during the day. In the next room there’s a terrible creaking: that’s Margot’s folding bed being set up. More blankets and pillows, anything to make the wooden slats a bit more comfortable. Upstairs it sounds like thunder, but it’s only Mrs. van D.’s bed being shoved against the window so that Her Majesty, arrayed in her pink bed jacket, can sniff the night air through her delicate little nostrils. Nine o’clock. After Peter’s finished, it’s my turn for the bathroom. I wash myself from head to toe, and more often than not I find a tiny flea floating in the sink (only during the hot months, weeks or days). I brush my teeth, curl my hair, manicure my nails and dab peroxide on my upper lip to bleach the black hairs -- all this in less than half an hour. Nine-thirty. I throw on my bathrobe. With soap in one hand, and potty, hairpins, panties, curlers and a wad of cotton in the other, I hurry out of the bathroom. The next in line invariably calls me back to remove the gracefully curved but unsightly hairs that I’ve left in the sink. Ten o’clock.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Margot and Peter are always saying to me, “If I had your spunk and your strength, if I had your drive and unflagging energy, could. . . Is it really such an admirable trait not to let myself be influenced by others? Am I right in following my own conscience? To be honest, I can’t imagine how anyone could say “I’m weak” and then stay that way. If you know that about yourself, why not fight it, why not develop your character? Their answer has always been: “Because it’s much easier not to!” This reply leaves me feeling rather discouraged. Easy? Does that mean a life of deceit and laziness is easy too? Oh no, that can’t be true. It can’t be true that people are so readily tempted by ease. . . and money. I’ve given a lot of thought to what my answer should be, to how I should get Peter to believe in himself and, most of all, to change himself for the better. I don’t know whether I’m on the right track. I’ve often imagined how nice it would be if someone were to confide everything to me. But now that it’s reached that point, I realize how difficult it is to put yourself in someope else’s shoes and find the right answer. Especially since “easy” and “money” are new and completely alien concepts to me. Peter’s beginning to lean on me and I don’t want that, not under any circumstances. It’s hard enough standing on your own two feet, but when you also have to remain true to your character and soul, it’s harder still. I’ve been drifting around at sea, have spent days searching for an effective antidote to that terrible word “easy.” How can I make it clear to him that, while it may seem easy and wonderful, it will drag him down to the depths, to a place where he’ll no longer find friends, support or beauty, so far down that he may never rise to the surface again? We’re all alive, but we don’t know why or what for; we’re all searching for happiness; we’re all leading lives that are different and yet the same. We three have been raised in good famthes, we have the opportunity to get an education and make something of ourselves. We have many reasons to hope for great happiness, but. . . we have to earn it. And that’s something you can’t achieve by taking the easy way out. Earning happiness means doing good and working, not speculating and being lazy. Laziness may look inviting, but only work gives you true satisfaction. I can’t understand people who don’t like to work, but that isn’t Peter’s problem either. He just doesn’t have a goal, plus he thinks he’s too stupid and inferior to ever achieve anything. Poor boy, he’s never known how it feels to make someone else happy, and I’m afraid I can’t teach him.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  It may be remarked in passing, that the inhibition of a movement no more involves an express effort or command than its execution does. Either of them may require it. But in all simple and ordinary cases, just as the bare presence of one idea prompts a movement, so the bare presence of another idea will prevent its taking place. Try to feel as if you were crooking your finger, whilst keeping it straight. In a minute it will fairly tingle with the imaginary change of position; yet it will not sensibly move, because its not really moving is also a part of what you have in mind. Drop this idea, think of the movement purely and simply, with all breaks off; and, presto! it takes place with no effort at all. A waking man's behavior is thus at all times the resultant of two opposing neural forces. With unimaginable fineness some currents among the cells and fibres of his brain are playing on his motor nerves, whilst other currents, as unimaginably fine, are playing on the first currents, damming or helping them, altering their direction or their speed. The upshot of it all is, that whilst the currents must always end by being drained off through some motor nerves, they are drained off sometimes through one set and sometimes through another; and sometimes they keep each other in equilibrium so long that a superficial observer may think they are not drained off at all. Such an observer must remember, however, that from the physiological point of view a gesture, an expression of the brow, or an expulsion of the breath are movements as much as an act of locomotion is. A king's breath slays as well as an assassin's blow; and the outpouring of those currents which the magic imponderable streaming of our ideas accompanies need not always be of an explosive or otherwise physically conspicuous kind. ACTION AFTER DELIBERATION. We are now in a position to describe what happens in deliberate action, or when the mind is the seat of many ideas related to each other in antagonistic or in favorable ways.[485] One of the ideas is that of an act. By itself this idea would prompt a movement; some of the additional considerations, however, which are present to consciousness block the motor discharge, whilst others, on the contrary, solicit it to take place. The result is that peculiar feeling of inward unrest known as indecision. Fortunately it is too familiar to need description, for to describe it would be impossible. As long as it lasts, with the various objects before the attention, we are said to deliberate; and when finally the original suggestion either prevails and makes the movement take place, or gets definitively quenched by its antagonists, we are said to decide, or to utter our voluntary fiat in favor of one or the other course. The reinforcing and inhibiting ideas meanwhile are termed the reasons or motives by which the decision is brought about.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  The process of deliberation contains endless degrees of complication. At every moment of it our consciousness is of an extremely complex object, namely the existence of the whole set of motives and their conflict, as explained on p. 275 of Vol. I. Of this object, the totality of which is realized more or less dimly all the while, certain parts stand out more or less sharply at one moment in the foreground, and at another moment other parts, in consequence of the oscillations of our attention, and of the 'associative' flow of our ideas. But no matter how sharp the foreground-reasons may be, or how imminently close to bursting through the dam and carrying the motor consequences their own way, the background, however dimly felt, is always there; and its presence (so long as the indecision actually lasts) serves as an effective check upon the irrevocable discharge. The deliberation may last for weeks or months, occupying at intervals the mind. The motives which yesterday seemed full of urgency and blood and life to-day feel strangely weak and pale and dead. But as little to-day as to-morrow is the question finally resolved. Something tells us that all this is provisional; that the weakened reasons will wax strong again, and the stronger weaken; that equilibrium is unreached; that testing our reasons, not obeying them, is still the order of the day, and that we must wait awhile, patient or impatiently, until our mind is made up 'for good and all.' This inclining first to one then to another future, both of which we represent as possible, resembles the oscillations to and fro of a material body within the limits of its elasticity. There is inward strain, but no outward rapture. And this condition, plainly enough, is susceptible of indefinite continuance, as well in the physical mass as in the mind. If the elasticity give way, however, if the dam ever do break, and the currents burst the crust, vacillation is over and decision is irrevocably there. The decision may come in either of many modes. I will try briefly to sketch the most characteristic types of it, merely warning the reader that this is only an introspective account of symptoms and phenomena, and that all questions of causal agency, whether neural or spiritual, are relegated to a later page. The particular reasons for or against action are of course infinitely various in concrete cases. But certain motives are more or less constantly in play. One of these is impatience of the deliberative state; or to express it otherwise, proneness to act or to decide merely because action and decision are, as such, agreeable, and relieve the tension of doubt and hesitancy. Thus it comes that we will often take any course whatever which happens to be most vividly before our minds, at the moment when this impulse to decisive action becomes extreme.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Against this impulse we have the dread of the irrevocable, which often engenders a type of character incapable of prompt and vigorous resolve, except perhaps when surprised into sudden activity. These two opposing motives twine round whatever other motives may be present at the moment when decision is imminent, and tend to precipitate or retard it. The conflict of these motives so far as they alone affect the matter of decision is a conflict as to when it shall occur. One says 'now,' the other says 'not yet.' Another constant component of the web of motivation is the impulse to persist in a decision once made. There is no more remarkable difference in human character than that between resolute and irresolute natures. Neither the physiological nor the psychical grounds of this difference have yet been analyzed. Its symptom is that whereas in the irresolute all decisions are provisional and liable to be reversed, in the resolute they are settled once for all and not disturbed again. Now into every one's deliberations the representation of one alternative will often enter with such sudden force as to carry the imagination with itself exclusively, and to produce an apparently settled decision in its own favor. These premature and spurious decisions are of course known to everyone. They often seem ridiculous in the light of the considerations that succeed them. But it cannot be denied that in the resolute type of character the accident that one of them has once been made does afterwards enter as a motive additional to the more genuine reasons why it should not be revoked, or if provisionally revoked, why it should be made again. How many of us persist in a precipitate course which, but for a moment of heedlessness, we might never have entered upon, simply because we hate to 'change our mind.' FIVE TYPES OF DECISION.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  The third-century crisis brought Christianity to the attention of the imperial authorities. Christians had never been popular; by refusing to take part in the civic cult, they seemed suspicious and easily became scapegoats at times of social tension. According to Tacitus, Nero had blamed Christians for the great fire of Rome and put many to death—these people may be the martyrs seated near God’s throne in the book of Revelation.122 The North African theologian Tertullian (c. 160–220) complained: “If the Tiber rises to the walls, if the Nile fails to rise and flood the fields, if the sky withholds its rain, if there is earthquake or famine or plague, straightway the cry arises: ‘The Christians to the lions!’ ”123 But it was not customary for an agrarian ruling class to interfere with the religious lives of its subjects, and the empire had no standard policy of persecution. In 112, when Pliny, governor of Bithynia, asked the emperor Trajan how he should treat Christians who were brought before him, Trajan replied that there was no official procedure. Christians should not be actively hunted out, he advised, but if they came before the courts for some reason and refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods, they should be executed for defying the imperial government. Christians who did die in this way were venerated in their communities, and the Acts of the Martyrs, which told the stories of their deaths in lurid detail, were read aloud in the liturgy.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Then gods, ancestors, and human beings would feast together. But behind this elaborate ritual lurked a deep anxiety. 72 Di was the guardian of towns and cities. He ruled the rains and the winds, and gave orders to the nature gods in the same way as the Shang king gave directions to his officials and soldiers. But Di was unpredictable. He often sent drought, flooding, and disaster. Even the ancestors were unreliable. The Shang believed that the spirits of the dead could be dangerous, so relatives buried the deceased in thick wooden coffins, treated their bodies with jade, and stuffed their orifices, lest the spirit escape and prey upon the living. Rituals were devised to turn a potentially troublesome ghost into a helpful, benevolent presence. The deceased was given a new name and assigned a special day for worship in the hope that he would now be kindly disposed toward the community. With the passing of time, an ancestor became more powerful, so rituals were designed to persuade the newly deceased to plead their cause with the more exalted ancestors, who might, in their turn, intercede with Di. Most of our information about the Shang comes from the animal bones and turtle shells on which the royal diviners inscribed questions for Di, the nature gods, and the ancestors. 73 Archaeologists have unearthed 150,000 of these inscribed oracle bones. They show that the kings submitted all their activities to the scrutiny of these powers, asking their advice about a hunt, a harvest, or even a toothache. The procedure was simple. The king or his diviner addressed a charge to a specially prepared turtle shell or cattle bone, while applying a hot poker. “We will receive millet harvest,” he might say, or, “To Father Jia [the seventeenth Shang king] we pray for good harvest.” 74 He would then study the cracks that developed in the shell and announce whether or not the oracle was auspicious. Afterward the royal engravers carved the charge. Sometimes they also noted the prediction that came from the god or ancestor concerned and—very occasionally—included the result. It was obviously not a rational process, but the diviners were clearly trying to keep genuine records. Some of them, for example, noted that the king had foretold that his wife’s childbearing would be “good” (that is, that she would bear a boy), even though she gave birth to a girl and the king had got the day wrong. 75 The Shang kings’ attempt to control the spiritual world often failed. The ancestors frequently sent bad harvests and ill luck. Di sometimes sent propitious rain, but, the oracle also observed, “It is Di who is harming our harvests.”

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Quails, for example, were tiny and easily blown off course. And because they were prolific and “teemed,” they were blessed by God and belonged to him. 63 All God’s animals were his beautiful creation. 64 P made it clear that God had blessed clean and unclean animals on the day he created them, and had saved pure and impure animals alike at the time of the flood. Harming any one of them was an affront to his holiness. There was, however, an undercurrent of anxiety in P. The legislation surrounding leprosy, discharge, and menstruation, inspired by a fear of the body’s walls being breached, revealed the displaced community’s concern to establish clear boundaries. P’s evocation of a world in which everything had its place sprang from the trauma of dislocation. The national integrity of the exiles had been violated by a ruthless display of imperial power. The great achievement of the exilic priests and prophets had been the avoidance of a religion based on resentment and revenge, and the creation of a spirituality that affirmed the holiness of all life. A t the beginning of the sixth century, the social crisis that had disrupted many of the poleis in the Greek world finally hit Athens. The farmers in the rural areas of Attica complained of exploitation and banded together against the aristocrats. Civil war seemed inevitable. The noblemen were vulnerable: they were not united, had no army or police force at their disposal, and many of the farmers were trained hoplites, and therefore armed and dangerous. The only way out of the impasse was to find an impartial mediator who could arbitrate fairly between the contending parties. Athens chose Solon, and in 594 appointed him city magistrate, with a mandate to reform the constitution. Solon belonged to the circle of independent intellectuals who gave advice to various poleis during crises. At first they had been consulted on purely practical matters: the economy, unemployment, or bad harvests. But increasingly, the “wise men” had started to consider more abstract, political issues. Solon had traveled widely in Greece, and in his discussions with other members of the circle had considered the besetting problems of the polis. He told Athenians that they were living in dysnomia (“disorder”) and heading for disaster. Their only hope was to create eunomia (“right order”) by returning to the norms that had originally governed Greek society. Farmers were essential to the polis, both as hoplites and as producers of wealth. By attempting to suppress them, the aristocrats had created an unhealthy imbalance in society that could only be self-destructive.

• From Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble (2014)

  The crash of 2000 was an “isolated event,” Andreessen said, and the economy was heading into a “sustained boom,” almost the same phrase Doerr would use in Bloomberg a month later. Andreessen Horowitz has invested in some of the Valley’s most highly valued companies, including Pinterest, Airbnb, and Box, and enlists its publicity machine (both its own internal operation and its friends in the tech press) to further its interests. In the spring of 2014, when “software as a service” (SaaS) stocks went into a slump, and when Box was still hoping to go public but had started to look wobbly, Andreessen’s content factory sprang into action. The firm produced blog posts and podcasts explaining that SaaS companies were misunderstood. Investors failed to understand how profitable these companies were going to be. The podcast was loaded up with a dizzying barrage of jargon and acronyms and metrics that SaaS companies have invented to measure their own performance. Software as a service is still something of a new business, and it is difficult if not impossible to compare the performance of any one SaaS company to the others. The bottom line from pro-SaaS believers is that because SaaS companies use a subscription model, they will eventually become enormously profitable, despite incurring big losses in their early years. Whether that theory will be proven true remains to be seen. By June, shares in SaaS companies stopped plunging and started to claw their way back up, along with the rest of the market. This was good news for HubSpot, which by the summer of 2014 was borrowing money to pay its bills. The market wasn’t on fire. Shares in Salesforce.com, our rival and the best-known SaaS company, were still well below the levels they had reached in February. It was far from certain that HubSpot could actually pull off a successful IPO. But the company didn’t have much choice. Its funds were running low. Perhaps it could raise another round of venture funding, but the terms might be onerous. On August 25 HubSpot announced it was making a run at the public markets. When that happened, HubSpot published its prospectus, the document that contained all of its financial information. Things were not pretty. Twenty-one [image "image" file=Image00003.jpg] Excuse Me, but Would You Please Get the Fuck Out of Our Company?O n the same day that HubSpot files its IPO registration statement, just hours before the announcement, and without any knowledge that this is about to take place, I happen to post a very small joke online. This very small joke will lead to a huge, blown-out-of-proportion fracas, and it will mark the beginning of the end for me at HubSpot. It begins when I’m sitting on my deck in Topanga, drinking my morning coffee, watching hummingbirds hovering in the branches, scrolling through my news feed on Facebook, and I make a little quip that’s a veiled jab at Spinner. But it’s not a good day to be making jokes.

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

  The primacy was forced upon Anselm in spite of his remonstrance. He foresaw a hard struggle. He compared himself to an old and feeble sheep, and the king to a young, wild bull. Thus yoked, he was to draw the plough of the Church of England, with the prospect of being torn to pieces by the ferocity of the bull.106 He was received with intense enthusiasm at Canterbury by the clergy, the monks, and the people, and was consecrated on the second Sunday of Advent, 1093. He began at once to restore discipline according to the principles of Hildebrand, though with more moderation and gentleness. A short time elapsed before the relations between the king and the prelate became strained. Anselm supported Urban II.; William leaned to the anti-pope Clement III. The question of investiture with the pallium at once became a matter of dispute. The king at first insisted upon Anselm’s receiving it from Clement and then claimed the right to confer it himself. Anselm refused to yield and received it, 1095, from Urban’s legate, who brought the sacred vestment to England in a silver casket. The archbishop gave further offence to the king by the mean way, as was said, in which he performed his feudal obligations.107 William decided to try him in his court. To this indignity Anselm would, of course, not submit. It was the old question whether an English ecclesiastic owed primary allegiance to the pope or to the crown.108 The archbishop secured the king’s reluctant permission, 1097, to go to Rome. But William’s petty spirit pursued the departing prelate by ordering Anselm’s baggage searched at Dover. He seized the revenues of Canterbury, and Anselm’s absence was equivalent to exile. Eadmer reports a remarkable scene before Anselm’s departure.109 At his last interview with William he refused to leave the king’s presence until he had given him his blessing. "As a spiritual father to his son, as Archbishop of Canterbury to the king of England," he said, "I would fain before I go give you God’s blessing." To these words the king made reply that he did not decline the priestly blessing. It was the last time they met. Anselm was most honorably received by the pope, who threatened the king with excommunication, and pronounced an anathema on all laymen who exercised the right of investiture and on all clergymen who submitted to lay-investiture.110

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

  The danger was very strong, and the warning of the Epistle fearfully solemn. Similar dangers have occurred again and again in critical periods of history. Time and Place of Composition. The Epistle hails and sends greetings from some place in Italy, at a time when Timothy, Paul’s disciple, was set at liberty, and the writer was on the point of paying, with Timothy, a visit to his readers (13:23, 24). The passage, "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them" (13:3), does not necessarily imply that he himself was in prison, indeed 13:23 seems to imply his freedom. These notices naturally suggest the close of Paul’s first Roman imprisonment, in the spring of the year 63, or soon after; for Timothy and Luke were with him there, and the writer himself evidently belonged to the circle of his friends and fellow-workers. There is further internal evidence that the letter was written before the destruction of Jerusalem (70), before the outbreak of the Jewish war (66), before the Neronian persecution (in July, 64), and before Paul’s martyrdom. None of these important events are even alluded to;1224 on the contrary, as already remarked, the Temple was still standing, with its daily sacrifices regularly going on, and the doom of the theocracy was still in the future, though "nigh unto a curse," "becoming old and ready to vanish away;" it was "shaken" and about to be removed; the day of the fearful judgment was drawing nigh.1225 The place of composition was either Rome or some place in Southern Italy, if we assume that the writer had already started on his journey to the East.1226 Others assign it to Alexandria, or Antioch, or Ephesus.1227 Authorship. This is still a matter of dispute, and will probably never be decided with absolute certainty. The obscurity of its origin is the reason why the Epistle to the Hebrews was ranked among the seven Antilegomena of the ante-Nicene church. The controversy ceased after the adoption of the traditional canon in 397, but revived again at the time of the Reformation. The different theories may be arranged under three heads: (1) sole authorship of Paul; (2) sole authorship of one of his pupils; (3) joint authorship of Paul and one of his pupils. Among the pupils again the views are subdivided between Luke, Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Silvanus, and Apollos.1228

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  He considers this measure to be sufficient. Mr. van D. takes his bath upstairs, figuring that the safety of his own room outweighs the difficulty of having to carry the hot water up all see which is the best place. Father bathes in the private office and Mother in the kitchen behind a fire screen, while Margot and I have declared the front office to be our bathing grounds. Since the curtains are drawn on Saturday afternoon, we scrub ourselves in the dark, while the one who isn’t in the bath looks out the window through a chink in the curtains and gazes in wonder at the endlessly amusing people. A week ago I decided I didn’t like this spot and have been on the lookout for more comfortable bathing quarters. It was Peter who gave me the idea of setting my washtub in the spacious office bathroom. I can sit down, turn on the light, lock the door, pour out the water without anyone’s help, and all without the fear of being seen. I used my lovely bathroom for the first time on Sunday and, strange as it may seem, I like it better than any other place. The plumber was at work downstairs on Wednesday, moving the water pipes and drains from the office bathroom to the hallway so the pipes won’t freeze during a cold winter. The plumber’s visit was far from pleasant. Not only were we not allowed to run water during the day, but the bathroom was also off-limits. I’ll tell you how we handled this problem; you may find it unseemly of me to bring it up, but I’m not so prudish about matters of this kind. On the day of our arrival, Father and I improvised a chamber pot, sacrificing a canning jar for this purpose. For the duration of the plumber’s visit, canning jars were put into service during the daytime to hold our calls of nature. As far as I was concerned, this wasn’t half as difficult as having to sit still all day and not say a word. You can imagine how hard that was for Miss Quack, Quack, Quack. On ordinary days we have to speak in a whisper; not being able to talk or move at all is ten times worse. After three days of constant sitting, my backside was stiff and sore. Nightly calisthenics helped. Yours, Anne THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1942 Dear Kitty, Yesterday I had a horrible fright. At eight o’clock the doorbell suddenly rang. All I could think of was that someone was coming to get us, you know who I mean. But I calmed down when everybody swore it must have been either pranksters or the mailman. The days here are very quiet. Mr. Levinsohn, a little Jewish pharmacist and chemist, is working for Mr. Kugler in the kitchen.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  went on. It was terrifying. My family stood holding its breath at the bottom of the stairs, in case it might be necessary to drag them apart. All the bickering, tears and nervous tension have become such a stress and strain that I fall into my bed at night crying and thanking my lucky stars that I have half an hour to myself. I’m doing fine, except I’ve got no appetite. I keep hearing: “Goodness, you look awful!” I must admit they’re doing their best to keep me in condition: they’re plying me with dextrose, cod-liver oil, brewer’s yeast and calcium. My nerves often get the better of me, especially on Sundays; that’s when I really feel miserable. The atmosphere is stifling, sluggish, leaden. Outside, you don’t hear a single bird, and a deathly, oppressive silence hangs over the house and clings to me as if it were going to drag me into the deepest regions of the underworld. At times like these, Father, Mother and Margot don’t matter to me in the least. I wander from room to room, climb up and down the stairs and feel like a songbird whose wings have been ripped off and who keeps hurling itself against the bars of its dark cage. “Let me out, where there’s fresh air and laughter!” a voice within me cries. I don’t even bother to reply anymore, but lie down on the divan. Sleep makes the silence and the terrible fear go by more quickly, helps pass the time, since it’s impossible to kill it. Yours, Anne WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1943 Dearest Kitty, To take our minds off matters as well as to develop them, Father ordered a catalog from a correspondence school. Margot pored through the thick brochure three times without finding anything to her liking and within her budget. Father was easier to satisfy and decided to write and ask for a trial lesson in “Elementary Latin.” No sooner said than done. The lesson arrived, Margot set to work enthusiastically and decided to take the course, despite the expense. It’s much too hard for me, though I’d really like to learn Latin. To give me a new project as well, Father asked Mr. Kleiman for a children’s Bible so I could finally learn something about the New Testament.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The national integrity of the exiles had been violated by a ruthless display of imperial power. The great achievement of the exilic priests and prophets had been the avoidance of a religion based on resentment and revenge, and the creation of a spirituality that affirmed the holiness of all life. At the beginning of the sixth century, the social crisis that had disrupted many of the poleis in the Greek world finally hit Athens. The farmers in the rural areas of Attica complained of exploitation and banded together against the aristocrats. Civil war seemed inevitable. The noblemen were vulnerable: they were not united, had no army or police force at their disposal, and many of the farmers were trained hoplites, and therefore armed and dangerous. The only way out of the impasse was to find an impartial mediator who could arbitrate fairly between the contending parties. Athens chose Solon, and in 594 appointed him city magistrate, with a mandate to reform the constitution. Solon belonged to the circle of independent intellectuals who gave advice to various poleis during crises. At first they had been consulted on purely practical matters: the economy, unemployment, or bad harvests. But increasingly, the “wise men” had started to consider more abstract, political issues. Solon had traveled widely in Greece, and in his discussions with other members of the circle had considered the besetting problems of the polis. He told Athenians that they were living in dysnomia (“disorder”) and heading for disaster. Their only hope was to create eunomia (“right order”) by returning to the norms that had originally governed Greek society. Farmers were essential to the polis, both as hoplites and as producers of wealth. By attempting to suppress them, the aristocrats had created an unhealthy imbalance in society that could only be self-destructive. Solon was not content simply to pass a few laws. He wanted to make farmers and aristocrats alike aware of the problems of government and the principles that lay at the heart of any well-ordered society. All citizens must accept a measure of responsibility for the state of dysnomia. It was not a divine punishment but the result of human selfishness, and only a concerted political effort could restore peace and security. The gods did not intervene in human affairs and would not reveal a divine law to rectify the situation. This was an Axial breakthrough. At a stroke, Solon had secularized politics. In the holistic vision of antiquity, justice was part of a cosmic order that ruled even the gods; a bad government, which flouted these sacred principles, could disrupt the course of nature.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  In the dietary laws that forbade the consumption of “unclean” animals, P came very close to the Indian ideal of ahimsa. Like other ancient peoples, Israelites did not regard the ritualized sacrifice of animals as killing. It transformed the victim into a more airy, spiritual substance, 60 and it was forbidden to kill and eat an animal that had not been consecrated in this way. P forbade the “secular slaughter” that had been permitted by the Deuteronomists, and ruled that Israelites could sacrifice and eat only the domestic animals from their flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. These were the “clean” or “pure” animals that were part of the community and, therefore, shared in God’s covenant with Israel; they were his possessions and nobody could harm them. The “clean” animals must be allowed to rest on the Sabbath, and they could be eaten only if they were given some kind of posthumous life. 61 But the “unclean” animals, such as dogs, deer, and other creatures that lived in the wild, must not be killed at all. It was forbidden to trap, slaughter, exploit, or eat them, under any circumstances. They were not dirty or disgusting. Israelites were not forbidden to touch them while they were alive. They became unclean only after their death. 62 The law that forbade any contact with the corpse of an unclean animal protected it, because it meant that the carcass could not be skinned or dismembered. It was, therefore, not worthwhile to hunt or trap them. Similarly the animals classed as “abominations” (sheqqets) were not abhorrent during their lifetime. The Israelites must simply avoid them when they were dead, for the same reason. These “swarming creatures” of sea and air were vulnerable and should inspire compassion. Quails, for example, were tiny and easily blown off course. And because they were prolific and “teemed,” they were blessed by God and belonged to him. 63 All God’s animals were his beautiful creation. 64 P made it clear that God had blessed clean and unclean animals on the day he created them, and had saved pure and impure animals alike at the time of the flood. Harming any one of them was an affront to his holiness. There was, however, an undercurrent of anxiety in P. The legislation surrounding leprosy, discharge, and menstruation, inspired by a fear of the body’s walls being breached, revealed the displaced community’s concern to establish clear boundaries. P’s evocation of a world in which everything had its place sprang from the trauma of dislocation.

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

  The nation’s suspense, however, was taxed almost beyond the point of endurance. The king’s arbitrary taxes and his amours with the wives and daughters of the barons aroused their determined hatred. Pressed from different sides, John suddenly had a meeting at Dover with the pope’s special envoy, the subdeacon Pandulf.207 The hermit, Peter of Wakefield, had predicted that within three days of Ascension Day the king would cease to reign. Perhaps not without dread of the prediction, and not without irony to checkmate the plans of the French monarch, John gave in his submission, and on May 15, 1213, on bended knee, delivered up to Pandulf his kingdom and consented to receive it back again as a papal fief. Five months later the act was renewed in the presence of Nicolas, cardinal-archbishop of Tusculum, who had been sent to England with legatine authority. In the document which John signed and swore to keep, he blasphemously represented himself as imitating him "who humbled himself for us even unto death." This notorious paper ran as follows: — "We do freely offer and grant to God and the holy Apostles Peter and Paul and the holy Roman Church, our mother, and to our Lord the pope Innocent and his Catholic successors, the whole realm of England and the whole realm of Ireland with all their rights and appurtenances for the remission of our sins and those of all our race, as well quick as dead; and from now receiving back and holding these, as a feudal dependent, from God and the Roman Church, do and swear fealty for them to our Lord the pope Innocent and his Catholic successors and the Roman Church."208 John bound himself and England for all time to pay, in addition to the usual Peter’s pence, 1000 marks annually to the Apostolic see, 700 for England and 300 for Ireland. The king’s signature was witnessed by the archbishop of Dublin, the bishop of Norwich, and eleven noblemen. John also promised to reimburse the outlawed bishops, the amount finally settled upon being 40,000 marks. Rightly does Matthew Paris call this the "detestable and lamentable charter."209 But although national abasement could scarcely further go, it is probable that the sense of shame with which after generations have regarded John’s act was only imperfectly felt by that generation of Englishmen.210 As a political measure it succeeded, bringing as it did keen disappointment to the warlike king of France. The interdict was revoked in 1214, after having been in force more than six years.

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

  revolutionary. They boldly told his Gentile converts that the, must submit to circumcision and keep the ceremonial law; in other words, that they must be Jews as well as Christians in order to insure salvation, or at all events to occupy a position of pre-eminence over and above mere proselytes of the gate in the outer court. They appealed, without foundation, to James and Peter and to Christ himself, and abused their name and authority for their narrow sectarian purposes, just as the Bible itself is made responsible for all sorts of heresies and vagaries. They seduced many of the impulsive and changeable Galatians, who had all the characteristics of the Keltic race. They split the congregation in Corinth into several parties and caused the apostle the deepest anxiety. In Colossae, and the churches of Phrygia and Asia, legalism assumed the milder form of Essenic mysticism and asceticism. In the Roman church the legalists were weak brethren rather than false brethren, and no personal enemies of Paul, who treats them much more mildly than the Galatian errorists. This bigoted and most persistent Judaizing reaction was overruled for good. It drew out from the master mind of Paul the most complete and most profound vindication and exposition of the doctrines of sin and grace. Without the intrigues and machinations of these legalists and ritualists we should not have the invaluable Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans. Where error abounded, truth has still more abounded. At last the victory was won. The terrible persecution under Nero, and the still more terrible destruction of Jerusalem, buried the circumcision controversy in the Christian church. The ceremonial law, which before Christ was "alive but not life-giving," and which from Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem was "dying but not deadly," became after that destruction "dead and deadly."480 The Judaizing heresy was indeed continued outside of the Catholic church by the sect of the Ebionites during the second century; and in the church itself the spirit of formalism and bigotry assumed new shapes by substituting Christian rites and ceremonies for the typical shadows of the Mosaic dispensation. But whenever and wherever this tendency manifests itself we have the best antidote in the Epistles of Paul. § 36. Christianity in Rome. I. On the general, social, and moral condition of Rome under the Emperors: Ludwig Friedländer: Sittengeschichte Roms. Leipzig, 1862, 5th ed. revised and enlarged, 1881, 3 vols. Rod. Lanciani: Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries. Boston, 1889 (with 100 illustrations). II. On the Jews in Rome and the allusions of Roman Writers to Them: Renan: Les Apôtres, 287–293; Merivale: History of the Romans, VI., 203 sqq.; Friedländer: l.c. III., 505 sqq.; Hausrath: Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, III., 383–392 (2d ed.); Schürer: Lehrbuch der Neutestamentlichen Zeitgeschichte, pp. 624 sq., and Die Gemeindeverfassung der Juden in Rom in der Kaiserzeit, Leipz., 1879; Huidekoper: Judaism at Rome, 1876. Also John Gill: Notices of the Jews and their Country by the Classic Writers of Antiquity. 2d ed. London, 1872.