Anxiety

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.

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• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Whether solicitude belongs to prudence?Objection 1: It would seem that solicitude does not belong to prudence. For solicitude implies disquiet, wherefore Isidore says (Etym. x) that “a solicitous man is a restless man.” Now motion belongs chiefly to the appetitive power: wherefore solicitude does also. But prudence is not in the appetitive power, but in the reason, as stated above [2746](A[1]). Therefore solicitude does not belong to prudence. Objection 2: Further, the certainty of truth seems opposed to solicitude, wherefore it is related (1 Kings 9:20) that Samuel said to Saul: “As for the asses which were lost three days ago, be not solicitous, because they are found.” Now the certainty of truth belongs to prudence, since it is an intellectual virtue. Therefore solicitude is in opposition to prudence rather than belonging to it. Objection 3: Further, the Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 3) the “magnanimous man is slow and leisurely.” Now slowness is contrary to solicitude. Since then prudence is not opposed to magnanimity, for “good is not opposed to good,” as stated in the Predicaments (viii) it would seem that solicitude does not belong to prudence. On the contrary, It is written (1 Pet. 4:7): “Be prudent . . . and watch in prayers.” But watchfulness is the same as solicitude. Therefore solicitude belongs to prudence. I answer that, According to Isidore (Etym. x), a man is said to be solicitous through being shrewd [solers] and alert [citus], in so far as a man through a certain shrewdness of mind is on the alert to do whatever has to be done. Now this belongs to prudence, whose chief act is a command about what has been already counselled and judged in matters of action. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. vi, 9) that “one should be quick in carrying out the counsel taken, but slow in taking counsel.” Hence it is that solicitude belongs properly to prudence, and for this reason Augustine says (De Morib. Eccl. xxiv) that “prudence keeps most careful watch and ward, lest by degrees we be deceived unawares by evil counsel.” Reply to Objection 1: Movement belongs to the appetitive power as to the principle of movement, in accordance however, with the direction and command of reason, wherein solicitude consists. Reply to Objection 2: According to the Philosopher (Ethic. i, 3), “equal certainty should not be sought in all things, but in each matter according to its proper mode.” And since the matter of prudence is the contingent singulars about which are human actions, the certainty of prudence cannot be so great as to be devoid of all solicitude.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 2: Further, the Sacred Doctrine is a most spiritual thing. Yet one ought to desist therefrom on account of scandal, according to Mat. 7:6: “Give not that which is holy to dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine lest . . . turning upon you, they tear you.” Therefore a spiritual good should be foregone on account of scandal. Objection 3: Further, since fraternal correction is an act of charity, it is a spiritual good. Yet sometimes it is omitted out of charity, in order to avoid giving scandal to others, as Augustine observes (De Civ. Dei i, 9). Therefore a spiritual good should be foregone on account of scandal. Objection 4: Further, Jerome [*Hugh de S. Cher., In Matth. xviii; in Luc. xvii, 2] says that in order to avoid scandal we should forego whatever it is possible to omit without prejudice to the threefold truth, i.e. “the truth of life, of justice and of doctrine.” Now the observance of the counsels, and the bestowal of alms may often be omitted without prejudice to the aforesaid threefold truth, else whoever omitted them would always be guilty of sin, and yet such things are the greatest of spiritual works. Therefore spiritual works should be omitted on account of scandal. Objection 5: Further, the avoidance of any sin is a spiritual good, since any sin brings spiritual harm to the sinner. Now it seems that one ought sometimes to commit a venial sin in order to avoid scandalizing one’s neighbor, for instance, when by sinning venially, one would prevent someone else from committing a mortal sin: because one is bound to hinder the damnation of one’s neighbor as much as one can without prejudice to one’s own salvation, which is not precluded by a venial sin. Therefore one ought to forego a spiritual good in order to avoid scandal. On the contrary, Gregory says (Hom. Super Ezech. vii): “If people are scandalized at the truth, it is better to allow the birth of scandal, than to abandon the truth.” Now spiritual goods belong, above all others, to the truth. Therefore spiritual goods are not to be foregone on account of scandal.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  Mark 4.19 and Luke 8.14; Luke 21.34). When a man gets so involved in the things of time that he has no time for the things of eternity he is in a dangerous position. When he gives so much thought and care and concentration to the things of the earth that the things of heaven are crowded out he is in a perilous situation. A man may be so much with men that he has no time to be with God. He may have so many words to say to men that he has no time to pray to God. Be it noted, his engagement in the world may be with things which in themselves are not bad things, but ‘the second best can often be the worst enemy of the best/ (ii) Worry about the future is always wrong. It is wrong because it is blind; it fails to see God’s bounty in the world; if God cares for the birds and the flowers, surely he will care for men (Matt. 6.25,26, 28-30). It is wrong because it is useless. Worry never achieved anything (Matt. 6.27). It is wrong because it is essentially irreligious (Matt. 6.32). A Gentile may worry, but not a Christian. It is wrong because it merely incapacitates a man from meeting problems when they do come (Matt. 6.34). Worry does not make a man more able to face a situation; it makes him less able to face it. (iii) Worry is wrong when it means the expenditure of energy on non-essentials. That was why Martha was wrong (Luke 10.41). It was not a big meal Jesus wanted; it was peace before the Cross. (iv) Worry about how to face the oppositions and the trials which come to a Christian is wrong (Luke 12.11). With the need there will come the power. God does not let down the man who is true to him. (v) Worry about how to please the wrong people is wrong (I Cor. 7.32-34). It is not men whom we seek to please; it is God. And if a man fears God enough, he will never fear the face of any man. (vi) The cure for worry is to cast oneself and all things upon God (I Peter 5.7; Phil. 4.6). In other words, the cure for worry is the realization that we are not left to handle life alone; we face it with God. Second, let us look at the right kind of anxiety. (i) It is right that we should take thought for each other (I Cor. 12.25). It may in fact often happen that the best way to forget our own worries is to shoulder someone else’s. Life becomes an easier and a bigger thing when we feel the troubles of others more than we feel our own. (ii) It is specially right to take thought for our fellow-Christians (Phil.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  2.20). Timothy was the man who would take all thought for the needs of the Philippians. No Christian can be a happy when other Christians, of any colour or of any country, are in distress and persecution and need. (iii) It is right to take thought for the Church of Christ (II Cor. 11.28). Paul’s care for all the churches was at once his burden and his privilege. The Christian will ever think and plan how best he may serve his church. It is true that we are told to take no thought for life and the morrow. But what is forbidden is disabling worry and not enabling foresight. It is the duty of a Christian man to do all that he can and to dare all that he can and to leave the rest to God. And at the same time it is the duty of a Christian man to have the same care and the same thought and the same anxiety for his fellow men, his fellow-Christians, and his church, as God himself has. MESITĒS THE ONE BETWEEN Mesitēs is one of the great NT titles of Jesus. It is usually translated ‘mediator’. It comes from the Greek word mesos, which, in this instance, means ‘in the middle’, and mesites therefore means ‘a man who stands in the middle and who brings two parties together’. In the NT it is used in Gal. 3.19 of Moses, and in I Tim. 2.5; Heb. 8.6; 9.15; 12.24 of Jesus. It was just such a person for whom Job’s whole soul cried out in his misfortune, when he said of himself and God, ‘Neither is there any daysman, mesitēs, between us’ (Job 9.33). In classical Greek the word itself is not common, but the idea is very common. When it and its equivalents appear, they have two main meanings. (i) They mean an ‘arbiter’. Both Greek and Roman law believed strongly in arbitration. In Athens there was a body of men called The Forty, who were made up of four from each of the ten tribes. People who had disputes brought them to The Forty, and The Forty appointed an arbiter or mediator to settle them. The arbiters were composed of every Athenian citizen in his sixtieth year. An arbiter could not refuse the task if selected, and it was his duty, at all costs, to effect a settlement and a reconciliation between two parties who were at variance. In Rome there was a body of men called the arbitri.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Opposite them, the rows of seats rose in an amphitheatrical manner, at the foot of which a green-covered, with a large bell, The table decorated with documents and writing utensils was intended for the spokesman, the clerk and the Senate commissioners present. On the wall opposite the doors were several tall coat racks covered with coats and hats. A babble of voices greeted the consul and his companion as they entered the hall through the narrow door. They were obviously the last to arrive. The room was filled with citizens who, with their hands in their pockets, behind their backs, in the air, stood together in groups and argued. Of the 120 members of the body, 100 were certainly assembled. A number of county councilors had, under the prevailing circumstances, preferred to remain at home. Next to the entrance stood a group consisting of smaller people, two or three insignificant business owners, a high school teacher, the "orphan father" Herr Mindermann, and Herr Wenzel, the popular barber. Herr Wenzel, a short, strong man with a black moustache, an intelligent face and red hands, had shaved the Consul that morning; here, however, he was equal to him. He shaved only in the first circles, he shaved almost exclusively the Möllendorpfs, Langhals', Buddenbrooks and Överdiecks, and his omniscience He owed his election to the citizenship to his sociability and dexterity in urban matters, to his self- confidence, which was noticeable despite all his subordination. "Does Mr. Consul know the latest?" he called eagerly and with serious eyes to his patron... "What should I know, my dear Wenzel?" 'We couldn't have found out this morning... Excuse me, Consul, it's the latest! The people don't move in front of the town hall or on the market! It comes here and wants to threaten the citizenry! Editor Rübsam stirred it up..." "Eh, not possible!" said the Consul. He pushed his way through the groups in front to the middle of the hall, where he saw his father-in-law together with the senators Doctor Langhals and James Moellendorpf who were present. "Is it true, gentlemen?" he asked, shaking their hands... In fact, the whole assembly was filled with it; the rioters were moving here, they could already be heard... "The canaille!" Lebrecht Kroeger said coldly and contemptuously. He had come here in his carriage. The tall, distinguished figure of the former " à la mode cavalier" was beginning, under ordinary circumstances, to be bowed down by the burden of his eighty years; but today he was standing quite erect, with half-closed eyes, the corners of his mouth, over which the short tips of his white mustache stared up, dignified and contemptuously lowered. Two rows of gemstone buttons flashed on his black velvet waistcoat... Not far from this group was Hinrich Hagenstrom, a stocky, portly gentleman with reddish gray whiskers, a thick watch chain on his blue checked waistcoat and an open tunic.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘Oh—no. Is he a friend of yours?’ Phil asked. ‘Isuppose he is, yes. I often see him at the Corry. He’s a very decent sort. Very decent.’ I sounded quite unlike myself. ‘You must know him too,’ I added. ‘Oh yes.’ He said this rather weightily, and we walked on, crossing the lawn now that the danger was past. It would have been disastrous for the three of us to have met, but my success in avoiding it was soured by wondering what Bill was doing in Russell Square anyway. No reason whatever that he shouldn’t be there, of course. But he lived in Highgate; and he had been coming from the direction of the Queensberry Hotel. The Russell Square Gardens have three wonderful fountains at their centre. Water, shot upwards in high single jets, falls onto huge concrete discs, raised only a few inches above the surrounding paving, and flees away over their concave surfaces into a narrow channel beneath their rims. They are unusable in any but the stillest weather, for even a light breeze fans the falling water away, drenching the paths and benches. Although it was late for such things, they were still working now, and we stopped to look at them without a word. The westering sun shot through the upper zones of the planes, picking out the flaky pastel trunks and branches amid the motionless green and gilt of the leaves. Below was a dusky gloom through which people moved, breathing the warm, dusty summer smell. And the fountains pounded upwards, as if to cling to the light, and fell with only the slightest wavering of pulse onto the wide grey discs in front of us. Phil must have seen them far more often than I had, but he seemed content to stand and watch. Their mesmerising, impersonal play was a relief. Then first one, and then another, in three downward jumps, was switched off. A painful feeling of emptiness and ordinariness came over me. I turned ruefully to Phil, and looked him up and down for several seconds. As we walked on I wondered if I shouldn’t have used the moment to put an arm around him, even to kiss him. As we crossed the road to the hotel, though we both became more tense, there was a perceptible shift of power: we were entering his territory. ‘We’d better go round the back,’ he said. ‘We’re not supposed to be out front when we’re off duty.’ ‘No, sure,’ I said; then enquired, ‘When are you back on duty again?’ If it was any moment now, it would alter the whole imaginary campaign. ‘Oh, from midnight,’ he said. ‘That’s why I’m here. I don’t live here, you see, but when you’re on night duty they give you a room. I’m on nights all this month.’ ‘I see. Where do you live normally?’ I had a hunger to know these facts and to read things into them.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘I think you should come on Friday,’ he said. Then: ‘Who knows, I may be dead by Friday. Perhaps better make it tomorrow—I should still be quick then.’ It was a bizarre usage, which it took me a second or two to see; I had a fleeting image of him chasing me round a huge mahogany table. ‘Well, that would be very nice.’ ‘Nice for me, William,’ he insisted. It seemed to be settled in his mind, and he wandered away holding his towel in front of him as though he expected to bump into something. I had to seek him out when I had finished dressing, to enquire which Club it was and what name would find him. At home it was always very hot; the central heating throbbed away as if we feared exposure, and often, though high up and not overlooked, we kept the curtains drawn in the daytime, only a mild bloom of pinkish light penetrating into the rooms from outside. The creation of this climate was barely conscious, as people in crisis habitually transform their surroundings, the miserable sitting cold through the dusk without turning lights on, and the endangered, like Arthur and I, craving rosiness and security. The penumbra helped us to hide from each other. As soon as the new terms were forced upon us by Arthur’s coming back he must have felt as much as I did a sinking of the heart at our incompatibility. Inflicted with this new anxiety, we were afraid to annoy or burden each other. He spent much of the time asleep or sitting in a chair; and he bathed long and often. Very young and worried, he seemed to fear my resentment, and his gestures towards me took on a nervous respect; I would go to the dining-room and read alone, and he would come in with a cup of tea and touch me on the arm. If I had not been so fiercely and sexually in love with him, these days would have been utterly intolerable. And even so there were spells of repugnance, both at him and at my own susceptibility. Sex took on an almost purgative quality, as if after hours of inertia and evasion we could burn off our unspoken fears in vehement, wordless activity. Sex came to justify his presence there, to confirm that we were not just two strangers trapped together by a fateful mistake.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  He picked up his bag. It was impossible for either of us to say ‘Well, is this it, then?’; instead we found ourselves going towards the door together. A close follower of Corry form might have seen it as an interesting development—a suspicion confirmed by Michael, at the reception-desk, who said, ‘Goodnight, gentlemen’ in a tone of bitter reproach. It was about 8.30 and in the winter ‘Goodnight’ would have been the instinctive word; but Phil and I strolled out on to the street to find the sky still bright, the pavements and the buildings warm. The slow, late expanses of a high summer evening were before us. I carried on talking and, without hesitating turned not towards the station but in the direction of the Queensberry Hotel. We reacted differently to the slight panic of the occasion, he shutting up completely and looking very serious, whilst I carried on with unnatural brightness and ease. ‘Mm, it’s good to be out in the open air,’ I said. ‘What a beautiful evening!’ He seemed unable to find a reply to this. ‘It gets so crowded in there,’ I expanded. ‘Oh—yes …’ he said, catching and letting go the conversational straw. We walked on, and I came very close to him for a step or two, as one does walking with a friend: our upper arms brushed and then parted once, twice, with a gentle lurch in my stride. When we had started touching, everything would be all right, I told myself. ‘Yes,’ he added, ‘it can get very crowded.’ I turned towards him with a broad, calculated grin. ‘That’s because chaps like you hog the weights all the time.’ Perhaps because he had heard such complaints before, he seemed to take this as a genuine sarcasm. ‘No, it’s not that,’ he insisted—which, of course, it wasn’t. ‘No, it’s because they let so many new members in.’ Still I carried on grinning at him. ‘You must be on the weights a lot, though,’ I said. ‘The way you’re filling out, my dear …’ I thought it was important to drop in a casual endearment, but he showed no response to it.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  For a moment one sees how the old Doctor Grabow holds Senator Buddenbrook's right hand between his two hands, only to be pushed aside by Master Builder Voigt. Pastor Pringsheim, dressed in middle- class clothes and showing his dignity only by the length of his frock coat, comes up the stairs with outstretched arms and a completely transfigured face. Friedrich Wilhelm Marcus is also present. Those gentlemen who represent any body, the senate, the citizenry, the chamber of commerce, appeared in tails. - Half past eleven. The heat has become very strong. Suddenly there is a stomping and slurping noise down in the porch, as if many people were entering the hall at once, and at the same time a noisy and resounding voice is heard, which fills the whole house... Everyone is pressing towards the banister; one gathers in the whole corridor, in front of the doors to the salon, dining room and smoking room, and peers down. Down there a group of fifteen or twenty men with musical instruments are forming, commanded by a gentleman with a brown wig, a gray sailor's beard and false teeth with broad yellow teeth, which he shows while speaking out loud... What is happening? Consul Peter Döhlmann makes his entrance with the chapel from the Stadttheater! Already he himself is climbing the stairs in triumph, brandishing a packet of programs in his hand! And now, in this impossible and immoderate acoustic, in which the tones flow together, the chords intertwine and render meaningless, and in which the overly loud creaking grunt of the great bass trumpet, which a fat man with a desperate expression is playing, dominates everything else, the Serenade that is brought to the house of Buddenbrook on its anniversary - it begins with the chorale »Nun dankt alle Gott«, which is soon followed by a paraphrase about Offenbach's »Schöne Helena« first onepotpourriof folk songs will ring out... It's quite an extensive program. A nice idea from Döhlmann! The Consul is congratulated, and no one is now inclined to leave before the concert is over. You stand and sit in the salon and in the corridor, listen and chat... Thomas Buddenbrook, together with Stephan Kistenmaker, Senator Doctor Gieseke and master builder Voigt, stayed on the other side of the main staircase, by the outer door to the smoking room and not far from the staircase to the second floor. He stood leaning against the wall, throwing a word here and there into the conversation of his group and otherwise staring silently over the railing into space. The heat had increased, it had become even more oppressive; but rain could not be ruled out now, for judging by the shadows that passed across the Incoming Light there were clouds in the sky. Yes, these shadows were so frequent and followed one another so quickly that the ever-changing, flickering illumination of the stairwell finally made one's eyes ache.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  If God had been a man he would long ago have taken his hand and, with a gesture, would have wiped out the world, but in his ‘patience’ he bears with the sins the follies and the disobedience of men. The great obligation which rests on the Christian is just this—he must be as patient with his fellow-men as God has been with him. MERIMNA AND MERIMNAN THE RIGHT AND THE WRONG CARE The noun merimna means care, thought or anxiety, and the verb merimnan means to take thought for, or to be anxious about. It is very important that we should correctly understand the real meaning of these two words, because the whole Christian attitude to life and to living depends on a correct understanding of them. Both words are quite frequent in the NT. The noun merimna is the word that is used for the cares of this world which choke the life out of the good seed of the word (Matt. 13.22; cp. Mark 4.19 and Luke 8.14). It is used by Luke in the warning that the coming of Christ must not find us overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life (Luke 21.34). It is used by Peter when he bids his friends cast all their care upon God (I Peter 5.7). It is used by Paul when he says that the heaviest burden of all that is upon him is the care of all the churches (II Cor. 11.28). We must note right at the beginning that from these uses it can be seen at once that merimna is a word that has a double flavour, for obviously the cares of life which choke the seed are not the same thing as the care of all the churches which was laid upon the heart of Paul. When we turn to the verb merimnan we find that its most important use is in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Sermon on the Mount it is used in Matt. 6.25, 27, 28, 31, 34; cp. Luke 12.22, 25, 26. In every case the AV translates it to take thought for. ‘Take no thought for your life’ (Matt. 6.25). ‘Take no thought for the morrow’ (Matt. 6.34). Now it is to be noted that the AV was the first, and is the only, version to use this translation. Wiclif translated it: ‘Be not busy to your life.’ Tyndale, Cranmer and the Geneva Bible all translate it: ‘Be not careful of your life,’ in which translation careful has it literal meaning, full of care. The RV has: ‘Be not anxious for your life.’ Moffatt has: ‘Do not trouble about what you are to eat and drink in life.’ Weymouth has: ‘I charge you not to be overanxious about your lives.’ The NT in Plain English has: Worry no more about your life.’ Rieu has: ‘I bid you not to fret about your life.’

• From The Triumph of Christianity (2018)

  < 6 < Lecture 1  The Christian Conquest of Rome ` Within three centuries they had converted several millions of people. By the end of the 4th century, half of the Roman Empire was Christian, some 30 million people, and the religion was made the official religion of Rome. ` Today there are some 2.5 billion Christians in the world. One out of three people on the planet worship Jesus and believe he is the way to have eternal life. Individual Changes ` Parts of the United States and large swaths of western Europe today are witnessing radical shifts in religious understanding and sentiment. In some areas religion is still thriving, and in others it is barely holding its own against cultural assaults. In yet others it is being completely abandoned. ` One can study this movement sociologically and make predictions of where it will all be in 200 years or more. But it is important to think of it on the individual, personal level, as well. It can be incredibly disruptive and emotionally distressing to shift away from a religion one has grown up with and simply taken for granted as a solid foundation for life. < 7 < Lecture 1  The Christian Conquest of Rome ` This was relevant in the past as well. When Christianity began to take over the Roman world, the upheavals on the individual, personal level were sometimes seismic, just as they can be today. ` Most ancient polytheists were deeply devoted to their religious beliefs and practices, and those elements formed a core part of people’s lives, providing them hope in the midst of a desperately capricious and dangerous world. To move away from what one has held near and dear for all one’s life is monumental and emotionally wrenching. Guiding Questions ` It is critical to keep the personal and emotional element in view, or at least in the back of our minds, while learning about the momentous changes involved in the triumph of Christianity. However, that is not the major emphasis of this course. Instead, it is principally interested in what happened historically and why. ` Among the historical questions the course looks at are the following: y What was the religious environment into which Christianity was born? y Jesus was a Jew, as were his earliest followers. What did that mean in a Roman world that was only around 5% Jewish, with the other 95% following one of the innumerable traditional Roman religions, all of which were polytheistic? y What did it mean to be among the 95%—the followers of the enormous range of various religions in the Roman world? y What did Jesus himself do and preach? y How did his followers establish a new religion founded on faith in him after his death? y How did Jesus’s followers convince others to join this faith and leave behind the religious views, beliefs, and practices they had followed their entire lives?

• From The Triumph of Christianity (2018)

  < 36 < Lecture 5  The Life and Teachings of Jesus ` Jesus’s Proclamation can be summarized in his first recorded words, found in Mark 1:15: “The Time has been fulfilled; the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news.” More specifically, Jesus taught that a judgment day was imminent. ` The Kingdom of God for Jesus was not heaven. It was an actual kingdom here on earth run by God himself through his messiah, the future leader of Israel. y It would be brought by a heavenly judge Jesus called the Son of Man to differentiate him from the evil monsters currently running the governments of the earth. y The Son of Man would destroy these governments, their representatives, and everyone who sided with them. Only God’s true followers would enter the coming kingdom. y This kingdom was coming very soon. People therefore needed to prepare by changing their ways, devoting themselves to God and actively engaging in helping those in need, all in fulfilment of God’s law, the Torah. ` At the end of his life, Jesus decided to take his message to the capital of the Jewish homeland, Jerusalem itself, and its glorious Temple. There, many thousands of Jews would be gathered together during one of the great Jewish feasts, Passover, an annual festival that celebrated God’s deliverance of his people Israel from their slavery in Egypt many centuries before. ` Jesus made a journey with his disciples to Jerusalem. While there, he proclaimed his message of the coming destruction. ` This message included some inflammatory ideas that would not have gone over well with the ruling establishment. For instance, God would destroy his enemies, those now in power, including the Roman overlords and the priests running the Temple who cooperated with them. ` Jesus appears to have acquired enough listeners to make those in power nervous about a riot over his incendiary words. They had him arrested. < 37 < Lecture 5  The Life and Teachings of Jesus ` Jesus appeared before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who was in the city to control the crowds. After a brief trial on charge of sedition against the state, declaring himself to be the king of the coming kingdom that would replace the kingdom of Rome, Jesus was ordered to be executed as an enemy of the Roman people. ` Jesus was immediately taken off to be crucified. According to the earliest accounts, he was dead within six hours. ` This way of looking at Jesus’s life and teachings has been a standard view among scholars of the New Testament since Albert Schweitzer wrote his classic study, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, more than a century ago. < 37 <

• From The Triumph of Christianity (2018)

  < 118 < TABLE OF CONTENTS Lecture 18 Major Imperial Major Imperial Persecutions of Persecutions of ChristiansChristians I n the early days of Christianity in the Roman Empire, Christians were sometimes seen as a strange lot, but they were not declared illegal for more than 200 years. Persecutions were isolated events, normally driven from popular distrust and suspicion. However, matters changed significantly in the middle of the 3rd century. That time saw the beginning of major state-sponsored persecutions against Christians, whose church had begun to grow at a high rate. The Crisis of the 3rd Century ` It is no surprise that highly placed imperial officials began taking notice of Christians. The officials were and always had been pagan. Leaders who have gained power under one system are rarely eager to see any fundamental changes in society that might affect their standing. < 119 < Lecture 18  Major Imperial Persecutions of Christians ` It was also widely thought that refusing to worship the gods could lead to disastrous results: famine, drought, epidemic, economic collapse, and military disaster. As the Christian movement became increasingly known, the threat came to be taken very seriously indeed. Additionally, when major disasters did start to occur, Christians increasingly became the scapegoats. ` For the Roman Empire, historians call the years from 235–284 CE the crisis of the 3rd century. It was a very bad time. The empire appeared to be falling apart and its very existence was in serious peril. ` The empire itself became fragmented, with civil wars leading to two breakaway states, one in the east and the other in the west. The central part of what had been the entire Roman world was a reduced part of its earlier self. ` Natural disasters took a devastating toll. An epidemic wiped out large populations of some major cities, and a drought seriously reduced much needed agricultural productivity. Economic disaster followed. This time also saw barbarian invasions on the frontiers and political chaos internally.* ` There were large numbers of reasons for these various calamities. In their time, many ancient people appealed to religion, believing the problems were from above because the gods were not happy. ` It is not at all clear that most elite members of the aristocracy, including the Roman emperors, actually believed that personally. Regardless, this was a period when imperial authorities occasionally included a religious approach among their attempts to address the crises. ` That led to some rather serious persecutions of the Christians, thought by many of the populace to be part of or the entirety of the problem. The persecutions were sporadic, but they did become empire-wide, at least in principle. * This half century witnessed repeated assassinations of emperors and usurpations, with 21 legitimately appointed emperors and 38 usurpers.

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  There was no temptation, I thought, there was no danger of his upsetting the new balance I had found, the monogamy that still had the novelty of a break from long habit. After I turned the key in its lock I stood with my hand on the door, not with the thought of opening it again but just to listen to him make his way down the hall. He had already gone down the stairs before I remembered to press the switch for the hallway light, setting the timer running though it was already past its use. I hardly slept that night. Almost as soon as Mitko left I started to worry, and I lay in bed wondering what I would tell R. if the tests came back positive, as now I was sure they would. I had written him an e-mail, saying I was too busy to talk on Skype, as we usually did every night before going to sleep. I didn’t tell him about Mitko’s visit. It wasn’t my intention to lie, and R. already knew about Mitko, like everything else in my past he was part of the story that had led us to each other; it’s a way of being in love, I think, to see the past like that. R. would worry even more than I did, I thought, it was better to spare him until I was sure. The next day was a Friday, and I had the first two periods of the morning free. I had never been ill in my three years in Sofia, or never ill enough to seek out care; I don’t like going to doctors’ offices, I’ve hated them since I was a child, with their humiliations, their assaults on necessary privacies. But there was a clinic near my school, in a glass-fronted building situated right at the turn from Malinov Boulevard to the private road leading to the police academy and the American College. I walked past this clinic every day, and I knew it was where the other teachers went, that it was modern and efficient and that someone there would speak English. This was important, as I realized I lacked the vocabulary to request the tests I needed or explain the circumstances of my case, and I imagined how my helplessness in the language would compound the helplessness of illness. I was reassured, as I opened the door to the clinic, by a waiting room that wouldn’t have been terribly out of place in America. There were a number of women bustling behind the long counter in the aggressively heated room, which was already full, even though I had arrived shortly after they opened.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  However... we mustn't count on it too carelessly. I know your father has had some rather embarrassing losses, as is well known, at the hands of Justus. Justus is an extremely amiable person, but he is not exactly a strong businessman and has also had misfortune through no fault of his own. He has suffered highly disruptive losses from several clients, his weakened working capital has resulted in expensive money from transactions with bankers, and your father has on several occasions had to step in with significant sums of money to keep a disaster from happening. Such things can and I fear will happen again, because - forgive me, Bethsy, if I speak honestly - the certain cheerful light-heartedness that is so pleasant in your father, who has nothing to do with business anymore, doesn't do your brother, as a businessman, very well... You understand me... he's not very careful, is he? a bit quick and extravagant ... Besides, your parents, which makes me so happy, don't miss anything, they lead a stately life, as it ... suits their circumstances ..." The Consul smiled indulgently; she knew her husband's prejudice against the elegant tendencies of her family. "Enough," he went on, putting the rest of his cigar in the ashtray, "for my part, I am mainly counting on the gentleman to keep my labor power, so that with his gracious help I can spread the fortunes of the company to the former height... I hope your insight is clearer now, dear Bethsy—?” "Perfectly, Jean, perfectly!" the Consul hastened to reply, giving up the servant for tonight. 'But let's get some rest, shall we? it's too late..." Incidentally, after a few days, when the consul came to the table from the office in a good mood, the decision was made to engage Möllendorpf's Anton. Sixth Chapter "We're retiring Tony to Fraulein Weichbrodt," said Consul Buddenbrook, and he said it so firmly that it stayed that way. With Tony and Christian one could be less satisfied, as indicated, than with Thomas, who found his way into the business with talent, with Klara, who grew up happily, and poor Klothilde, whose appetite must please everyone. As far as the latter was concerned, it was the least that he was forced to drink coffee at Herr Stengel’s almost every afternoon – although the consul, who found this too much, one day sent the Herr teacher a dainty handbill for the purpose of a consultation to him in Mengstrasse.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  He got up and went out of the room with tired eyes, rubbing his tongue on the diseased molar. Kai came to him, put his arm around him and walked down to the yard with him, surrounded by excited comrades who were arguing about the extraordinary events. He looked anxiously and lovingly into Hanno's face and said: "I'm sorry, Hanno, that I just translated and didn't prefer to remain silent and have myself registered too! It's so mean..." "Didn't I just say what' patula Jovis arbore, glandes' means?' answered Hanno. “That's the way it is now, Kai, let it be. You have to let it be.” 'Yes, one must. – Well, the good Lord wants to spoil your career. Then you must give in to it, Hanno; because if it is his inscrutable will... Career, what a kind word! Mr. Modersohn's career is now over. He'll never be a head teacher, poor thing! Yes, there are assistant teachers and there are head teachers, you know, but there are no teachers. Now this is something that is not easy to understand because it is only for fully grown ups and those who have matured from life. One could say: someone is a teacher or he is not; I don't understand how someone can be a head teacher. One could stand up to God or Herr Marotzke and explain it to them. what would happen They would take it as an insult and destroy you for insubordination, They went for a walk in the yard and Hanno listened happily to what Kai was saying to make him forget his rebuke. “See, here is a door, a courtyard door, it is open, the street is out there. How about we step outside and walk around the sidewalk for a bit? It's break time, we have six minutes left; and we could return on time. But the thing is, it's impossible. Do you understand that? Here's the door, it's open, there's no fence in front of it, nothing, no obstacle, here's the threshold. And yet it is impossible, even the thought is impossible, to step outside for even a second... Well, let's put that aside! But let's take another example. It would be entirely wrong to say that the clock is now about eleven-thirty. No, it's now the turn of the geography lesson: that's how it is! But now I ask everyone: is this a life? Everything is distorted... Ah, Lord God, did the institution just want to release us from its loving embrace!« "Yes, and then what? No, never mind, Kai, then it would still be like this: What should one start with? Here you are at least safe. Ever since my father died, Mr. Stephan Kistenmaker and Pastor Pringsheim have taken it upon themselves to ask me every day what I want to be. I dont know. I can't answer anything. I can't become anything.

• From Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland (2005)

  As fate would have it, Riniker is in the brackets at this sectional tournament as well. “I hope Ben’s ready,” someone mumbles to assistant coach Larry Henderson. “I hope so, too,” says Larry, looking across the mat. “He sure does look it.” He does. And he is. For this is one of the days that the coaches often talk about—about the way Ben can look when he believes in himself and has the right frame of mind. Generally, Ben wears his uncertainty on his sleeve. With the best wrestlers, like Dan and Jay, it becomes difficult over time to distinguish a good day from a bad day in their emotion; they appear invulnerable no matter what the circumstance. With a good-but-not-great wrestler, the difference between those two edges of quality lies in that kind of confidence—and today, Ben is ready to rock. He strides out for his first match of the day at 135 pounds, takes a 6–0 lead after one period, pins his opponent with 46 seconds remaining in the second period and walks briskly off the mat. He’s all business. The Starmont crowd has filled up the parking lot by the gym with its cars, and the parents and fans have come inside and located the computer printouts taped to the walls above the bleachers, which designate seating areas for each school. North-Linn’s folks wind up in the southwest corner, which is where they seem to gather almost everywhere they go. That fits: The overwhelming sense of events like these is familiarity. The schools have gener ally competed against one another for years, in the same conference or section. Old rivalries have stratified, and the teams that other schools want to beat don’t change much from year to year. Wrestling, because it is so personal, intensifies all of those factors. The North-Linn athletes have been scrapping with East Buchanan and Starmont and Center Point-Urbana forever, and grudges build. “I hate them guys! Them guys are assholes!” Doug LeClere had barked to his wrestlers just a couple of days before, during a break in practice. “I don’t want to lose to assholes!” Outside of the North-Linn wrestling room itself, he could’ve been talking about anybody. Doug says he wants Nick to wrestle early in the day, on the theory that it’s always better to get going soon and get breakfast off the stomach. In truth, Doug is so knotted up that he needs to see Nick wrestle in order to believe it’ll be okay; but instead Nick has drawn a first-round bye and will head straight for the sectional semifinal. The same is true for Dan, who has been placed on the opposite side of the eight-man bracket from Bret Moorman. It’s hard to say exactly what makes a team come together in any given moment. The North-Linn team wasn’t great the weekend before, and it will not be as good as it wants to be a week from now.

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  She moved through her vials quickly, deftly corking and uncorking until finally she drew out the long spike, at the same time pressing a ball of cotton to the wound. Press here, she said, zdravo , hard, and then gathered the vials and took them to a table, where she began labeling them and placing them in trays. I didn’t get up at first, waiting for instruction, and then, Am I finished, I asked, and she said Da da dismissively, busy with her work, telling me I could return for the results after lunch. I made it to school in time for my class, disappointing the students who were gathered at the door, surprised to find it locked and excited at the prospect of a broken routine. There were only a few minutes before the second bell, no time for me to gather my thoughts, but they were good kids, talkative, amiable, eager for debate, and though I kept thinking about those vials even now giving up their secrets, eventually I lost myself in the conversation’s back and forth, grateful that it was a day on which the machinery basically worked. I taught four periods, two before and two after lunch, and I was sorry to see the last of the students go, for once I would happily have taken any offer to prolong our talk. The same women were at the counter when I returned to the clinic, and the one I had spoken to before picked up the phone when she saw me, talking with someone quickly as I approached. You speak some Bulgarian, yes, she asked, settling the phone back in its cradle, and then she told me that my results weren’t quite ready, inviting me to sit and wait, it won’t be long, she said. The waiting area was empty now, and in general the clinic was quieter, free of the morning’s bustle. I sat in one of the plastic chairs beside a long, low table covered with pamphlets, informational brochures on eye care and diabetes, advertisements for medications, for a particular brand of lubricant, the glossy paper swirled haphazardly about. I glanced at one brochure but could make little of it, even the cover was full of words I didn’t know, though when I opened it the images were familiar from other waiting rooms I had sat in, the stock visual language of medical admonishment and reassurance. For all that I avoided such offices these images, with their warnings about precaution and prevention, had long been part of my most private sense of myself.

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  For years after that day in the shower, there was nothing to replace the closeness I had lost with my father, and more and more I took refuge in books, not serious or significant books but books that offered an escape from myself, and it was these books, or rather our shared love for them, that bound me to the few friends I had and that laid the ground for my friendship with K. He was from my city but our paths had never crossed, he lived in another part of town and went to a different school. But we had friends in common, and one of them suggested we should know each other. He called me one afternoon when K. was visiting his house; You like the same writers, he said, and then he handed K. the phone. It would be months before we met in person, and in those months our conversations grew longer and more frequent, until they became, I think for both of us, the primary fact of our lives; sometimes we talked the whole night long, as one does only in adolescence or very early in love. I was happy, but also I felt an anxiety that gnawed at me and for which I could find no cause, that gnawed at me more deeply precisely because I could find no cause. For months our friendship consisted of nothing but words, and though I wanted to see him this was a comfort; already I felt that the best of me was words, that it was in words our friendship would flourish. Soon we had told each other everything about ourselves, all our stories, multiple times, and I never tired of them, of them or of his voice as he spoke them. I wanted to see him but it frightened me, too, the thought of meeting him, of K. seeing the body that increasingly felt alien to me, outsized and malformed, that in no way conformed to my sense of myself, to the self I lived inwardly. But we did finally meet in person, in October, at the very end of the month. It was a kind of Indian summer, the mildness of it a surprise and a pleasure. I was living in the basement of my father’s house, having been tossed between houses many times, a consequence of my parents’ wrangling, which hadn’t ended, they were in and out of court for years.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  If anyone had had the sad courage to protest against this, they would have lost the prospect of ever being called first-names and on the first- name basis. And nobody gave up that hope... but gave the grades according to the amount of red ink, his favorites came out of it with great advantage. He did not think the least about this procedure, but found it completely in order and suspected nothing of partisanship. If anyone had had the sad courage to protest against this, they would have lost the prospect of ever being called first-names and on the first-name basis. And nobody gave up that hope... ever to be called first-names and on first-name terms. And nobody gave up that hope... ever to be called first-names and on first-name terms. And nobody gave up that hope... Dr. Mantelsack now crossed his legs while standing and leafed through his notebook. Hanno Buddenbrook sat bent over and wringed his hands under the table. It was the turn of the B, the letter B! Presently his name would be called, and he would get up and not know a line, and there would be a scandal, a loud, horrible catastrophe, however cheerful the Ordinary might be... The seconds dragged on agonizingly. "Buddenbrook" ... now he said "Buddenbrook" ... "Edgar!" said Dr. Mantelsack, closing his notebook, sticking his forefinger in it, and sitting down on the lectern, as if everything was all right now. What? How was it? Edgar ... That was Lüders, fat Lüders over there by the window, the letter L, not even remotely so it was my turn! No, was it possible? Dr. Mantelsack was in such a good mood that he just picked a favorite and didn't even bother who had to be properly performed today... Fat Lüders got up. He had a pug face and brown apathetic eyes. Although he had an excellent seat and could have read with ease, he was too lazy for that. Feeling too safe in paradise, he simply replied, "I couldn't study yesterday because of a headache." "Oh, you're deserting me, Edgar?" said Doctor Mantelsack sadly... "You don't want to recite the verses from the golden age to me? What a pity, my friend! did you have a headache But I think you should have told me that at the beginning of the lesson, before I called you... Didn't you have a headache the other day? You ought to do something about it, Edgar, otherwise there's a real danger that you'll go backwards... Timm, do you want to represent him?" Lüders sat down. At that moment he was universally hated. One could clearly see that the professor's mood had dropped considerably, and that Lüders would perhaps be called by his last name in the next hour...