Disappointment

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 The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Pilate said that he had looked into the case of Yeshua Ha-Nozri and confirmed the death sentence. Thus, three robbers—Dysmas, Gestas and Bar-Rabban—and this Yeshua Ha-Nozri besides, were condemned to be executed, and it was to be done that day. The first two, who had ventured to incite the people to rebel against Caesar, had been taken in armed struggle by the Roman authorities, were accounted to the procurator, and, consequently, would not be talked about here. But the second two, Bar-Rabban and Ha-Nozri, had been seized by the local authorities and condemned by the Sanhedrin. According to the law, according to custom, one of these two criminals had to be released in honour of the great feast of Passover, which would begin that day. And so the procurator wished to know which of the two criminals the Sanhedrin intended to set free: Bar-Rabban or Ha-Nozri? 27 Kaifa inclined his head to signify that the question was clear to him, and replied: ‘The Sanhedrin asks that Bar-Rabban be released.’ The procurator knew very well that the high priest would give precisely that answer, but his task consisted in showing that this answer provoked his astonishment. This Pilate did with great artfulness. The eyebrows on the arrogant face rose, the procurator looked with amazement straight into the high priest’s eyes. ‘I confess, this answer shocks me,’ the procurator began softly, ‘I’m afraid there may be some misunderstanding here.’ Pilate explained himself. Roman authority does not encroach in the least upon the rights of the local spiritual authorities, the high priest knows that very well, but in the present case we are faced with an obvious error. And this error Roman authority is, of course, interested in correcting. In fact, the crimes of Bar-Rabban and Ha-Nozri are quite incomparable in their gravity. If the latter, obviously an insane person, is guilty of uttering preposterous things in Yershalaim and some other places, the former’s burden of guilt is more considerable. Not only did he allow himself to call directly for rebellion, but he also killed a guard during the attempt to arrest him. Bar-Rabban is incomparably more dangerous than Ha-Nozri. On the strength of all the foregoing, the procurator asks the high priest to reconsider the decision and release the less harmful of the two condemned men, and that is without doubt Ha-Nozri. And so? . . . Kaifa said in a quiet but firm voice that the Sanhedrin had thoroughly familiarized itself with the case and informed him a second time that it intended to free Bar-Rabban. ‘What? Even after my intercession? The intercession of him through whose person Roman power speaks? Repeat it a third time, High Priest.’ ‘And a third time I repeat that we are setting Bar-Rabban free,’ Kaifa said softly. It was all over, and there was nothing more to talk about.

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

  6 From Jewish Sect to Christian Churches ( c .70– c .200) The imperial authorities executed Paul of Tarsus in Rome around 65 CE , and early though not conclusive tradition suggests that Peter, his fellow missionary and Apostle, died there about the same time. [1] This was on the eve of a catastrophe for Jerusalem and its Temple: the Roman repression of four years of rebellion in Judaea, culminating in 70 CE with massacres of those besieged and in the burning of the Temple, this time never to be rebuilt. Complementing that dark event in history was an equally important missing event for the infant Christian assemblies: by the end of the first century CE , it was apparent that their Lord Jesus had not returned in triumph from the heavens, to scroll up the passage of earthly time. That was the first Great Disappointment of many in Christian history, and we know very little about it because, historically, Christians have been much less inclined than Jews to speak of disappointment. Set between event and non-event, conditions for the future of both Judaism and Christianity radically changed: a turning point in both their stories. Roman armies crushed further rebellions in Judaea in the 130s, and after more than a thousand years of dominance, Jewish presence in the Promised Land steadily declined. Out of previous entanglement, two separate new clusters of religious identity eventually emerged, each with its own sacred literature, devotional practice and structures of authority. The process of separation was hesitant, piecemeal and took much longer than the histories of either side cared to admit. [2] Perhaps it was only complete in the fourth century CE , and a single Christianity never emerged from the end of the process, more a family of identities that have continued to proliferate up to our own era, even while some have faded from history. For a long time, developments within Judaism would have seemed more significant than those within the Christian groupings: they ensured the maintenance of Jewish life in a myriad of synagogue communities around the whole Mediterranean and west Asia. With the governing elite in Jerusalem eliminated along with the Temple, leadership was increasingly dependent on the rabbis: male teachers dedicated to the preservation, standardization and an industry of detailed interpretation of the Hebrew Bible as a basis for shared Jewish identity. Moreover, the rabbis concentrated on refining Hebrew versions of their sacred writings, and on instruction and commentary in Hebrew around the scriptural text. Greek-speaking Judaism took a long time to decline, but it was never part of the future dominated by the rabbis. As a result, the rich culture of the Septuagint and of Philo, the greatest representative of Alexandrian Jewish thinking, faded from Judaism; ironically their influence remained far stronger on Christians than on Jews. One could argue indeed that Mediterranean Christianity was essentially a rebranding of Hellenistic Judaism, and eventually so successful that it is not surprising that its parent culture atrophied.

• From Naked Lunch (1959)

  "for the good of the service." Obviously he had once been very good looking in a crew-cut, college boy way, but his face had sagged and formed lumps under the chin like melting paraffin. He was getting heavy around the hips. Leif The Unlucky was a tall, thin Norwegian, with a patch over one eye, his face congealed in a permanent, ingratiating smirk. Behind him lay an epic saga of unsuccessful enterprises. He had failed at raising frogs, chinchilla, Siamese fighting fish, rami and culture pearls. He had attempted, variously and without success, to promote a Love Bird Two-in-a-coffin Cemetery, to corner the condom market during the rubber shortage, to run a mail order whore house, to issue penicillin as a patent medicine. He had followed disastrous betting systems in the casinos of Europe and the race tracks of the U.S. His reverses in business were matched by the incredible mischances of his personal life. His front teeth had been stomped out by bestial American sailors in Brooklyn. Vultures had eaten out an eye when he drank a pint of paregoric and passed out in a Panama City park. He had been trapped between floors in an elevator for five days with an oil-burning junk habit and sustained an attack of D.T.s while stowing away in a foot locker. Then there was the time he collapsed with strangulated intestines, perforated ulcers and peritonitis in Cairo and the hospital was so crowded they bedded him in the latrine, and the Greek surgeon goofed and sewed up a live monkey in him, and he was gangfucked by the Arab attendants, and one of the orderlies stole the penicillin substituting Saniflush; and the time he got clap in his ass and a self-righteous English doctor cured him with an enema of hot, sulphuric acid, and the German practitioner of Technological Medicine who removed his appendix with a rusty can opener and a pair of tin snips (he considered the germ theory "a nonsense.") Flushed with success he then began snipping and cutting out everything in sight: "The human body is filled up vit unnecessitated parts. You can get by vit one kidney. Vy have two? Yes dot is a kidney.... The inside parts should not be so close in together crowded. They need lebensraum like the Vaterland." The Expeditor had not yet been paid, and Marvie was faced by the prospect of stalling him for eleven months until the check cleared. The Expeditor was said to have been born on the Ferry between the Zone and the Island. His profession was to expedite the delivery of merchandise. No one knew for sure whether his services were of any use or not, and to mention his name always precipitated an argument. Cases were cited to prove his miraculous efficiency and utter worthlessness. The Island was a British Military and Naval station directly opposite the Zone.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘Of course not. Why should I hate you?’ ‘Very well then, listen.’ And now his voice was so grave that Puddle put down her embroidery. ‘You listen to me, you, Stephen Gordon. Your last book was quite inexcusably bad. It was no more like what we all expected, had a right to expect of you after The Furrow, than that plant I sent Puddle is like an oak tree—I won’t even compare it to that little plant, for the plant’s alive; your book isn’t. Oh, I don’t mean to say that it’s not well written; it’s well written because you’re just a born writer—you feel words, you’ve a perfect ear for balance, and a very good all-round knowledge of English. But that’s not enough, not nearly enough; all that’s a mere suitable dress for a body. And this time you’ve hung the dress on a dummy—a dummy can’t stir our emotions, Stephen. I was talking to Ogilvy only last night. He gave you a good review, he told me, because he’s got such a respect for your talent that he didn’t want to put on the damper. He’s like that—too merciful I always think—they’ve all been too merciful to you, my dear. They ought to have literally skinned you alive—that might have helped to show you your danger. My God! and you wrote a thing like The Furrow! What’s happened? What’s undermining your work? Because whatever it is, it’s deadly! it must be some kind of horrid dry rot. Ah, no, it’s too bad and it mustn’t go on—we’ve got to do something, quickly.’ He paused, and she stared at him in amazement. Until now she had never seen this side of Brockett, the side of the man that belonged to his art, to all art—the one thing in life he respected. She said: ‘Do you really mean what you’re saying?’ ‘I mean every word,’ he told her. Then she asked him quite humbly: ‘What must I do to save my work?’ for she realized that he had been speaking the stark, bitter truth; that indeed she had needed no one to tell her that her last book had been altogether unworthy—a poor, lifeless thing, having no health in it. He considered. ‘It’s a difficult question, Stephen. Your own temperament is so much against you. You’re so strong in some ways and yet so timid—such a mixture—and you’re terribly frightened of life. Now why? You must try to stop being frightened, to stop hiding your head. You need life, you need people. People are the food that we writers live on; get out and devour them, squeeze them dry, Stephen!’ ‘My father once told me something like that—not quite in those words—but something very like it.’

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

  But two hours passed, and there was no sign of him. I started to get discouraged. I sighed, trying to do my work and get my mind off his dick. Maybe it was only meant to be a one-time thing with him, I thought. I was going over a few spreadsheets for my boss, when I heard, “You busy?” I looked up and it was Raheem smiling down at me, looking so fine in his suit and wearing a pair of sunglasses. “Hey you,” I cheerfully greeted him, feeling my pussy throbbing just at the sight of him. “When’s your next break?” “I can take fifteen minutes right now,” I told him. “C’mon, then.” He gestured. I looked around, then told my friend Carol that I was taking my morning break. She nodded and I walked off with Raheem. I followed him toward the men’s bathroom. “I’ll wait for you,” I said. He gave me a sinful grin and said, “Inside, you and me.” “Are you crazy? I can’t walk into the men’s bathroom.” “Why not? We only got fifteen minutes. And besides, I already checked and no one’s inside.” It was tempting, and my hot pussy was telling me to go ahead and get myself a quickie at work. Raheem gently pulled me into the men’s bathroom, which was empty and—thank God—clean. I followed him down to the handicapped stall at the end of the row. “I love what you have on, Ayeesha,” he said, his hands sliding up my skirt and gripping my ass. “You look real good.” I rammed my tongue down his throat as I unbuckled his pants and pulled out his huge erection. I stroked him gracefully as I backed him against the wall. I wanted to taste him, and feel his big dick sliding in and out my mouth. I squatted down with his dick still in my grip. I peeked up at him and he looked content already. I leaned forward and slowly sucked on the tip of his dick. He let out a slight moan. I bobbed my head back and forth as Raheem moaned with pleasure. I tried to deep-throat it, but I was only able to push about eight inches into my mouth without gagging. But no lie, his shit felt so good in my mouth. A moment later I stood up and he sat down on the toilet seat with his pants and boxers around his ankles, and his hard-on looking like a flagpole. “Come ride this dick,” he said, stroking himself. “Ssshhhh,” I whispered, placing my index finger near my mouth. “We gotta keep quiet and listen out for the door.” “My badddd.”

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

  The Crusades also furnish the perpetual reminder that not in localities is the Church to seek its holiest satisfaction and not by the sword is the Church to win its way; but by the message of peace, by appeals to the heart and conscience, and by teaching the ministries of prayer and devout worship is she to accomplish her mission. The Crusader kneeling in the church of the Holy Sepulchre learned the meaning of the words, "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, He is risen." And all succeeding generations know the meaning of these words better for his pilgrimage and his mistake. Approaching the Crusades in enthusiasm, but differing from them as widely as the East is from the West in methods and also in results, has been the movement of modern Protestant missions to the heathen world which has witnessed no shedding of blood, save the blood of its own Christian emissaries, men and women, whose aims have been not the conquest of territory, but the redemption of the race.493 § 60. The Military Orders. Literature.—The sources are the Rules of the orders and the scattered notices of contemporary chroniclers. No attempt is made to give an exhaustive list of the literature.—P. H. Helyot: Histoire des ordres monastiques, religieux et militaires, 8 vols. Paris, 1719.—Perrot. Coll. Hist. des ordres de chivalrie, etc., 4 vols. Paris, 1819. Supplementary vol. by Fayolle, 1846.—Bielenfeld: Gesch. und Verfassung aller geistlichen und weltlichen Ritterorden, 2 vols. Weimar, 1841.—F. C. Woodhouse: The Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages, London, 1879.—G. Uhlhorn: Die christliche Liebesthätigkeit im Mittelalter, Stuttgart, 1884.—Hurter: Life of Innocent III., vol. IV. 313 sqq.—The general Histories of the Crusades.—Stubbs: Const. Hist. of England. For the Knights of St. John: Abbe Vertot: Hist. des chevaliers hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jérusalem, etc., 4 vols. Paris, 1726, and since.—Taafe: History of the Knights of Malta, 4 vols. London, 1852.—L. B. Larking: The Knights Hospitallers in England, London, 1857.—A. Winterfeld: Gesch. des Ordens St. Johannis vom Spital zu Jerusalem, Berlin, 1859.—H. Von Ortenburg: Der Ritterorden des hl. Johannis zu Jerusalem, 2 vols. Regensb. 1866.—Genl. Porter: Hist. of the Knights of Malta of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, London, 1883.—Von Finck: Uebersicht über die Gesch. des ritterlichen Ordens St. Johannis, Berlin, 1890.—G. Hönnicke: Studien zur Gesch. des Hospitalordens, 1099–1162, 1897.—*J. D. Le Roulx: De prima origine Hospitaliorum Hierosol., Paris, 1885; Cartulaire général de l’Ordre des Hospitaliers St. Jean de Jérusalem, 3 vols., Paris, 1894; Les Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte et à Chypre, 1100–1310, Paris, 1904, pp. 440.—J. Von Pflugk-Harttung: Die Anfänge des Johanniterordens in Deutschland, Berlin, 1899, and Der Johanniter und der Deutsche Orden im Kampfe Ludwigs des Baiern mit der Kirche, Leipzig, 1900. Knöpfler: Johanniter in Weltzer-Welte, VI. 1719–1803. For other Lit. see Le Roulx: Les Hospitaliers, pp. v-xiii.

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

  Church practice (above, Chapters 6 and 7). [27] Now a major section of the Western Church was being asked to rethink the question. Against predictable fierce clerical opposition, it was remarkable enough for an Archbishops’ Commission on the Ministry of Women rather lamely to conclude in 1932 that although they were not able to come up with any good reasons why women should not be ordained priest, ‘there are no practical reasons to justify it.’ Anglican women did not allow the question to rest, and in the emergency of the Second World War in 1944, there was indeed a practical reason: Bishop Ronald Hall of Hong Kong and South China ordained a deaconess, Li Tim-Oi, as priest, since otherwise no one was free to administer the sacraments in Hong Kong. This assertion of reality was too much for Anglican leaders in Britain; under pressure, Miss Li honourably withdrew from active ministry until much later when times had changed. She will have had the consolation meanwhile of knowing that around 1970 similar circumstances had provoked a similar provision in the Catholic Church of Communist-era Czechoslovakia, although the sacerdotal actions of those women were quite limited, and their story remains obscure. [28] In contrasting cultural settings, twentieth-century women took matters into their own hands. A minor English symptom was the ministry of Mrs Mabel Barltrop (aka ‘Octavia’, daughter of God). Widow of an Anglican clergyman, in bereavement she became fascinated by the sensational proclamations of the early nineteenth-century Joanna Southcott, a prophet with an enthusiastic following parallel to Methodism, with various Victorian successors in prophecy – the designation ‘Octavia’ placed Barltrop as the eighth prophet on from Southcott. Her home in Bedford became the new Garden of Eden, and her never very numerous followers, predominantly female, persisted throughout the twentieth century in a gentle postal ministry of healing across the world. Their Bedford properties still offer a comfortable Edwardian welcome to Christ in his prospective Second Coming. [29] A more tragic later career was that of the prophetess Alice Lenshina, in what is now Zambia. In 1953, Lenshina experienced death and resurrection; her initially low-key ministry had an electrifying effect in building up a movement from the region’s Presbyterians and Roman Catholics, gathering her flock on the basis of her new message from Jesus. Her followers were eventually bloodily dispersed by the new Zambian state and its Presbyterian first President, Kenneth Kaunda, in the ‘Lumpa War’ of 1964. Lenshina was hardly unique as a female prophet in African Independent Churches, and she was not the last to lead her followers into fatal violence; the truly horrifying fiery end to the prophetic ministry of the formerly Catholic Keledonia Mwerinde in 2000 is one of the worst tragedies of Uganda’s troubled religious history. [30] Early Pentecostalism was particularly fertile in fostering women’s ministry.

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  One other soul-stirring enjoyment was all we had time to accomplish before the approach of the hour at which Laura was usually called warned us that we must separate, and with the most poignant regret that we might not have another opportunity of again enjoying ourselves in such a delightful manner, we parted. In the forenoon I drove out for Miss Middleton. As her friends wished her to remain, I of course endeavoured to persuade her to do so and offered to come back for her on any day she might fix, but she insisted on returning home that day. I had, however, the satisfaction of finding that she had made an arrangement with the friends whom she had gone to meet to pay them a visit for some weeks as soon as they returned to their own abode, which they were to do in about a week. One circumstance, however, occurred the same day which rather counterbalanced the pleasure with which I received this intelligence. Young Master Frank on leaving school had gone to pay a visit to a school-fellow, but a letter had arrived from him that morning to say that he would be home the next day. Now his arrival and consequent occupation of the room between Laura's and mine threatened to prevent the constant agreeable intercourse which I had expected to be able to keep up with her during her aunt's absence. I felt very much annoyed at the idea, and urged her, if possible, to get some arrangement made by which he might occupy some other apartment. She said, however, that she was afraid to make any such proposal to her mother for fear of exciting suspicions as to her object, or of occasioning my removal to another room, which would be equally destructive for our projects. On the whole she took the matter so quietly and coolly that I was rather astonished, considering the enjoyment she evidently had in our intercourse. A little annoyed at this, I made up my mind that if my young friend retained any portion of the youthful beauty I remembered him to possess, I would endeavour if possible to make up in his arms for the enjoyment he would deprive me of by keeping me out of his sister's.

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

  decorous construction of a common life. Within that framework, many radicals created communities where resources were shared, but on the basis of monogamous families – the sort of Hutterite village that sheltered the dying Ochino in Moravia. Their leadership remained male: a Hutterite community was called the Court of Brothers ( Bruderhof ) . The radical Peter Riedemann, in drawing up one of the most prominent Hutterite confessional statements in 1540, set the tone of his discussion of the role of women by sounding an utterly traditional note: ‘We say, first, that since woman was taken from man, and not man from woman, man hath lordship but woman weakness, humility and submission, therefore she should be under the yoke of man and obedient to him.’ [43] Hutterite communities nevertheless boasted one distinctive feature: a reversal of the medieval Western trend to emphasize a couple’s initiative in marriage. Arrangements were taken out of the hands of a prospective couple and given to the community elders (men, naturally), so it broadened out from the ancient dynastic principle that marriages should be arranged by the fathers of bride and groom. The elders would choose a small group of eligible young people from among those of suitable age and bring together those selected; thus suitably supervised they then chose their partner, avoiding ‘the inclinations of the flesh’. Hutterite marriage custom proved one of the greatest points of internal contention in their determinedly peaceable communities. In the seventeenth century, one of their most distinguished bishops had to put a stop to widespread blatant fraud, as young lovers schemed to gerrymander the chosen group for particular wedding occasions. The dispute rumbled on until the mid-nineteenth century, when the Church authorities finally admitted defeat and gave up their prerogatives. [44] Matters were different in the Magisterial Protestant Churches, which hearkened to the Pauline epistles in emphasizing a couple’s individual choice. No doubt a consideration in this was the aspiration of clerical families to heroic marital partnerships, together with early Reformation uncertainties for Protestants in dealing with unsympathetic Catholic parents. The Reformed Protestant Church of Scotland has seldom boasted a reputation for sentimentality, but right away during the revolutionary birth of ‘the Kirk’ in 1560, when making official provision for marriage in the First Book of Discipline , it emphatically declared that the attraction between young people was ‘a work of God’ which trumped the admitted desirability of parental consent. If parents stood in the way of their children’s happiness for ‘no other cause than the common sort of men have, to wit lack of goods and because they are not so high-born as they require’, then the minister should try to win the parents round – but if that did not work, he should overrule them and go ahead with a marriage. ‘For the work of God ought not to be hindered by the corrupt affections of worldly men’: one in the eye for patriarchy, echoed elsewhere in the Reformed Protestant world.

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

  212 mrofeR citsanom :92 erutceL encouraged a sense of belonging to a broader reform movement (“the Cluniac Reform”). • Another innovation, this one perhaps more problematic, was that Cluny effectively dropped the manual labor side of the Rule’s motto of labora—such menial work was assigned to “lay brothers”—in favor of a complete concentration on prayer, above all, in the divine office (the opus Dei) and the Mass (Eucharist). The monastery thus became involved in making petitions and o saying intercessory prayers for the monks themselves and for others, who made donations to the monks so that such prayers might be said. Significant patronage from those seeking supernatural o help enabled the construction of grand buildings at Cluny and the making of fine altar vessels and vestments for liturgical practice. The “work” component of the Rule for choir monks was o expressed not by plowing in the fields but in intellectual labor: The library and scriptorium were sites for study, teaching, and the copying of manuscripts. Out of such labor arose the distinctive monastic culture that has been called by Jean LeClercq, “the love of learning and the desire for God.” • Almost inevitably in such circumstances, however, wealth and power had their own corrupting effect on the rigor of monastic life. The magnificent clothing and vessels adorned not only the altar o but also the abbot’s table; the food was not only good but, often enough, a pretentious display. Worldliness—at least at the level of those members of the nobility who served as abbots— crept into meals that Benedict had conceived as simple and unadorned. The entry of the nobility into the monastery and their inevitable o ascent to power led, in turn, to the almost inevitable election of abbots of Cluny as bishops, thus extending even further the

• From The Girls (2016)

  Next, a real estate developer from Tiburon who took us out for Chinese food. He kept encouraging me to meet his daughter. Repeating again and again how sure he was that we’d get along like a house on fire. His daughter was eleven, I came to realize. Connie would have laughed, dissecting the way the man’s teeth gummed up with rice, but I hadn’t spoken to her since the day at her house. “I’m fourteen,” I said. The man looked to my mother, who nodded. “Of course,” he said, a tang of soy sauce on his breath. “I see now you’re practically a grown-up.” “I’m sorry,” my mother mouthed across the table, but when the man turned to feed her a slimy-looking snow pea from his fork, she opened her mouth obediently, like a bird. —The pity I felt for my mother in these situations was new and uncomfortable, but also I sensed that I deserved to carry it around—a grim and private responsibility, like a medical condition. There had been a cocktail party my parents had thrown, the year before the divorce. It was my father’s idea—until he left, my mother wasn’t social, and I could sense a deep agitation in her during parties or events, a heave of discomfort she willed into a stiff smile. It had been a party to celebrate the investor my father had found. It was the first time, I think, that he’d gotten money from someone other than my mother, and he got even bigger in the heat of that, drinking before the guests arrived. His hair saturated with the dense fatherly scent of Vitalis, his breath notched with liquor. My mother had made Chinese ribs with ketchup and they had a glandular sheen, like a lacquer. Olives from a can, buttered nuts. Cheese straws. Some sludgy dessert made from mandarin oranges, a recipe she’d seen in McCall’s. She asked me before the guests arrived if she looked all right. Smoothing her damask skirt. I remember being taken aback by the question. “Very nice,” I said, feeling strangely unsettled. I’d been allowed some sherry in a cut pink glass: I liked the rotted pucker and snuck another glass. The guests were my father’s friends, mostly, and I was surprised at the breadth of his other life, a life I saw only from the perimeter. Because here were people who seemed to know him, to hold a vision of him informed by lunches and visits to Golden Gate Fields and discussions of Sandy Koufax. My mother hovered nervously around the buffet: she’d put out chopsticks, but no one was using them, and I could tell this disappointed her. She tried to urge them on a heavyset man and his wife, and they shook their heads, the man making some joke I couldn’t hear. I saw something desperate pass over my mother’s face. She was drinking, too. It was the kind of party where everyone was drunk early, a communal haze slurring over conversation.

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  I soon, however, found reason to regret I had not chosen a more fitting reason for my denouement, in which case I might perhaps have turned it to greater profit than I appeared likely to do. With the morning, she had recovered all her coolness and self-possession, and had evidently determined on the course she was to pursue. She did not leave her room till breakfast time, and afterwards evaded all my stratagems to obtain a private interview with her. After luncheon the horses were brought to the door, and a large party started out for a ride. When we had gone a short distance, she contrived to let the others get ahead of us, so as to leave us alone together, for I had got her to dispense with Master John's attendance when I accompanied her. She then turned up a quiet lane which led to a common where there was little chance of our meeting anyone, and where the many bushes, scattered in large clumps over it, were high enough to conceal us from observation. Then, without any hesitation, she entered at once on the subject which engrossed all my thoughts. She said she could not imagine how I could possibly have discovered her secret, but that as it was clear I had done so, it was no use for her now to attempt to deny it, and that she was quite sure I would not make any use of it that could be injurious to her. "But don't suppose," said she, "that I am offended at the manner you took of showing me you had found out my propensity. It was a very good idea, and I shall be delighted to become better acquainted with my new friend," at the same time placing her hand upon him. "He is a very handsome little fellow, but I must tell you frankly that though I shall be happy to contribute as far as I safely can to afford him amusement, you must not expect that I can allow him to do what might get me into most serious difficulties. Perhaps after a time even this may be managed, but at present it is out of the question, so he must be contented for the present with the pleasures I can safely afford him." As she spoke, she continued to unbutton my trousers and remove my shirt, until she had fairly uncovered her new acquaintance, which started out under the pressure of her soft fingers showing his head proudly erect. She loaded it with caresses, at the same time expressing in the warmest terms her admiration of its size and beauty. I saw at once from her manner that she had made her mind up on the subject and that there was no chance of complete success on that occasion at least.

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

  Back in the day, when our moms were friends, me, Dushawn, and his lil’ sister, Camille, used to walk to school together. Me and Cami were tighter than tight. We did er’ything together. Sometimes in middle school we even dressed alike. We had matchin’ diaries when we were teens. Some kinda way our diaries got mixed up. Her nosy-ass mama called herself snoopin’ through Cami’s diary and ended up readin’ mine. At the time, I had a King Kong crush on Dushawn. Every page was covered with fuck fantasies about him and me, but we hadn’t even held hands. Mrs. Lambert invited my mom by—to talk. She was cool with her conversation at first, but she started dropping nasty lugs on my mom about gettin’ pregnant in high school and never gettin’ married, and living on the “rough” side of Compton. She ended up tellin’ Mom that if I was tryin’ to trap Dushawn the same way she had tried to trap my father, it wasn’t gonna work. Momma snapped into bitch mode and called her every kinda bitch/cunt/ho she could think of. When we left, Momma slammed their door so hard it sounded like a bomb went off, and it cracked their big front window. So much for the “nice” long talk to smooth things out. From then on, we weren’t supposed to see each other anymore, but me and Camille were like sisters. We did a lot of sneakin’ and we never lost friendship. Dushawn would wave but that was it. Back then, I lived just to see him wave from across the street. When Cami told me he got shot in a drive-by at Campanella Park, I snuck by to see him every day on the way to school for two weeks. After that, whenever he saw me he would stop and talk if his mom wasn’t around. Whenever we talked, I could tell he was really feelin’ me. For the longest time, I waited for him to make a move and here we were—ready to finally get our fuck on—and he brings up that shit. I was pissed—actually more hurt than anything. I choked back a lump of disappointment the size of Texas and said, “Look, I don’t want no muthafucka who don’t want me. Either you want me—or ya don’t.” “You know I want you. I just don’t want you to get things twisted.” I threw up my hand. I spoke slow and clear. “If you want this pussy, you better jump the fuck on in this bitch! I’ll deal with tomorrow when it get here. Who knows, you might be the muthafucka that gets sprung.”

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

  163 o The other side of the coin was that the emperor was the supreme benefactor of the church, enacting its decisions (when it agreed with him) and, as the Codex indicates, providing legal support for ecclesiastical policies. Mixed Results of Justinian’s Reign • As remarkable as the reign of Justinian was, the results of his efforts were mixed. • Certainly, his goal of restoration fell short: The expanded empire shrank back in size after brief success in the west. Further, the policies of Justinian set some bad precedents. o The system of taxation was efficient but also oppressive and, ultimately, not a real economic plan; as conquests failed and crops were poor, the resources of the empire were steadily drained over time. o The increased use of mercenaries in the imperial army made the empire reliant on others and was incredibly expensive, another drain on the imperial treasury. o Finally, the policy of pacifying enemies through tribute was shortsighted: It won temporary relief but could not be a permanent solution. • Even more devastating was the blow struck at the empire and Justinian himself by the “Plague of Justinian,” a health disaster that was unparalleled until the Black Death hit Europe in the 14 th century. The plague was probably carried by rats on grain boats from Egypt. Its height in Constantinople occurred in 541–543, when it killed, according to Procopius, as many as 5,000 people a day. • Despite these negatives, Justinian’s lengthy and brilliant reign established an empire of great stability and endurance, within which the Christian religion continued to play a critical role to the end. 164 Lecture 22: The Court of Justinian and Byzantine Christianity Diehl (Walford, trans.), Byzantium. Rosen, Justinian’ s Flea. 1. In light of Justinian’s rule, discuss the advantages and disadvantages to Christianity of having imperial protection and patronage. 2. Identify the ways that the Byzantine Empire continued the traditions of Rome and the ways in which it was something new. Suggested Reading Questions to Consider

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

  227 • The army of Christian knights crossed the Balkans and Asia Minor, conquering Antioch in 1098 and liberating Jerusalem in 1099. The First Crusade was far and away the most successful of all the expeditions. o Fortified Latin states were established in Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antioch, and Edessa, with subsidiary fiefdoms established in Galilee, Transjordan, Jaffa, and Ascalon. The states lasted from 50 to 100 years. o In Jerusalem in 1099, some knights banded together to provide hospice for pilgrims (the Knights Hospitaller), and in 1119, others vowed to protect pilgrims on their way to the church of the Holy Sepulchre (the Knights Templar). These knights organized themselves along the lines of religious orders, with a commitment to piety. The Second Crusade • The Second Crusade was called by Pope Eugene III in 1147 because of the shocking collapse of the Latin state of Edessa to the Saracens. • The pope enlisted Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the most influential figures in Christendom, to preach the Crusade, which Bernard did through an extended tour. • This Crusade was led by King Louis VII of France and King Conrad III of Germany. Once more, mob action was carried out against Jews across Germany, leading Bernard and other leaders to condemn such action. • The military effort in the East was a failure, except for the 13,000 troops who—carrying out another, more local program—managed to free Lisbon from Muslim control. o The great Kurdish Muslim general Saladin (1138–1192) overran Jerusalem and eliminated the Latin state there in 1187. o The Christians were reduced to occupying the stronghold at Tyre, a humiliating setback.

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

  254 Lecture 35: Corruption and the Beginnings of Reform o Predictably, corruption in the system involved sex, money, and power. o The centralized power of the papacy, once so important in forging the medieval synthesis, appeared increasingly to be a problem more than a solution, especially when its claims—as with Boniface VIII—stretched credulity. In the years of the Avignon papacy and the Great Schism, the moral authority of the papacy was greatly reduced. The Beginnings of Reform • The stirrings of reform and even revolt appeared in the 14 th and 15th centuries among men and women who thought of themselves as Christians and good Catholics, but whose desire to reform, when resisted, sometimes became more radical, foreshadowing the great Reformation of the 16 th century. • Already in the early 14 th century, Marsilius of Padua, rector at the University of Paris, wrote a devastating attack on the power of the papacy in Defensor pacis (Defender of the Peace , 1324). He was excommunicated for his views by John XXII in 1327 and spent the rest of his life, predictably, under the protection of the emperor. o Marsilius argued that the state is the unifying force in society and that the church must be subordinated to state authority; the church has no inherent authority in either temporal or spiritual matters. o The papacy, furthermore, is a human not a divine institution and would have no authority at all were it not for the Donation of Constantine (still thought to be authentic). • The female mystics Birgitta of Sweden and Catherine of Siena both called for the reunification of the papacy and the reform of the morals of the clergy. Although they did not call for structural changes, their voices are significant for illustrating the awareness of moral corruption, even within the ranks of the most deeply committed Christians.

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

  While I fucked Harmony’s pussy, she fingered her ass and barked for me to go deeper. At one point I had gone so deep that I almost hurt myself against her walls. I proceeded to flip her onto her stomach and enter her from behind. One hand balanced on her back while the other gripped a fistful of her hair. I went to work on Harmony’s pussy, slapping her buttercup ass on command. The slaps sounded like thunder in the still night, but this only seemed to excite her more. She wailed like a cat as I thrust myself into her over and over. I was glad that she was on her stomach so she couldn’t see the ugly-ass face I was making when I exploded into the condom. I came so hard that the muthafucka almost came off. Even when I was empty, Harmony kept pumping. For a moment I thought I would blackout waiting for her to cum, but she had finally reached her climax and lay under me, trembling. “Damn, Chocolate, the way you throw dick, I’d think you did it for a living,” she joked. Harmony thought I was laughing at how witty her joke was, but I was really laughing because she had no idea how close to the truth she was. Once we had caught our breaths we proceeded to clean ourselves with some sanitary napkins she had in her purse, and headed back to my car. By the time we got across town to my buddy’s shop, Harmony’s car was ready. As we prepared to go our separate ways I promised to keep in contact with her, and at the time I really meant it. But once she was gone, Harmony became just another faceless pussy. • • • “Harmony, what’s good?” I hugged her close to me. I inhaled the sweet smell of her skin and felt the throbbing in my groin. Harmony had truly left an impression on me. “Yeah, act like you know.” She squeezed me back. “Nigga, I thought you were gonna call me.” “My fault, ma. I lost my phone not too long ago,” I lied. “Yeah, right,” she said, noticing the very same Nextel I had used to call my man in Camden clamped to my hip. “You ain’t gotta lie, Chocolate. I’m a big girl.” “Anyway, what you been up to?” I asked, trying to change the subject. She shrugged. “Same shit, different day. You know how it goes.” “For sure. Oh, congratulations,” I said, noticing the rock on her finger. She self-consciously covered her hand. “Thanks. Listen, Chocolate—” “No need to explain,” I assured her. “Shit happens, ma. I ain’t mad at ya.” “You never called.” “I got tied up.” “For six months? Chocolate, you know how long I sat by that phone hoping you’d ring it?” “Like I said, I got tied up,” I said, sounding very uninterested.

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

  102 hcruhC dehsilbatsE eht dna enitnatsnoC :41 erutceL Above all, the opportunity was opened to expand the religion o into a genuinely Christian culture. • The negative effects of establishment were less obvious but no less real. As bishop of external affairs, the emperor involved himself o directly in religious matters: The calling of councils was as much a matter of political prudence as it was of religious concern. The overriding issue for the emperor was the unity of the empire; religious divisiveness had to be resolved at all costs in order to secure political stability. Thus, as early as 314, Constantine called the Council of Arles o so that the bishops could respond to the Donatist schismatics’ appeal from their condemnation by the bishop of Rome. The council rejected the Donatists’ petition and condemned the North African movement. In 325, Constantine not only summoned the first ecumenical o (“empire-wide”) council at Nicaea (in Asia Minor) to decide the Arian controversy, but he actually presided at the opening of the council and provided its agenda. Subsequent emperors aligned themselves with one party to a o theological dispute or another and used the power of the state to enforce their will. Bishops, in turn, were all too willing to seek the imperial power in their support. During the complex Arian controversy of the 4th century, the o bishop of Alexandria (Athanasius) was repeatedly exiled and restored according to the doctrinal allegiances of Constantine II (337) and Constantius (339), neither of whom had any real conviction in the matter but tried to put their weight behind who they saw as the most likely winner.

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

  4 Lecture 1: The Historical Study of Christianity • Lack of good historical knowledge is just as widespread among Christians as it is among Christianity’s critics. o Many Christians assume anachronistically that current forms of piety and worship and even the current shape of their Bible have been in place from the beginning, when in fact, they have gone through complex development over time. o The same ignorance explains the fascination with bizarre theories, such as those in The Da Vinci Code, which sold millions of copies to readers incapable of detecting the novel’s historical errors. o In a milder fashion, certain fictions concerning the Christian past have remarkable staying power: that certain gospels preceded those in the New Testament but were suppressed because they advocated a more radical form of religion or that the Christian creed was a late invention of bishops under the direction of the emperor Constantine. • The study of Christianity’s history has, therefore, both a corrective and a creative function. It can correct errors and misconceptions, such as those about the origins and subsequent development of Christianity, through a fuller and more responsible assessment of the evidence. o With regard to Christian origins, was Jesus, as some have argued, connected in some way to the Qumran community located at the Dead Sea? The answer is no. Was Paul, as some have argued, an agent of the Sanhedrin who sought to extirpate the Christian movement as an official hit man of the Jewish court? The answer again is no. o We could answer the same way with regard to subsequent developments within Christianity. Was medieval Catholicism totally corrupt, with no element of authentic Christianity within it? There is no reason to think so. Was Byzantium all show and no substance? In both cases, the answer is no.

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  "The next evening she complained of a headache and retired to bed earlier than usual. As soon as she came into my room, she lighted my candle, stripped down the bedclothes, made me take off my nightshirt, and at once began to amuse herself with my little plaything. It swelled out and increased in size under her playful fondling to an extent that surprised me. After she had satisfied her curiosity respecting it and its appendages by a strict examination of every part, she took it in her hand and began to rub it up and down. She then put out the candle, so that I did not see what was probably the case—while endeavouring to procure me pleasure, she was at the same time operating upon herself for the same agreeable purpose. I certainly very much enjoyed her performance upon my sensitive article, but still I felt as if something was wanting, and I was greatly disappointed when as usual she sunk almost fainting on my bosom and ceased her efforts. "After a little she recovered herself and said she was afraid I was still too young to be able to enjoy the full pleasure of what she had been doing, but that she would try again the following night. Still two or three nights passed without anything occurring to heighten my enjoyment. "By this time I had begun to express some curiosity with regard to her person and to wish to be allowed to extend my researches over it as freely as her hands roved over mine. With some little difficulty I prevailed on her to remove her dressing gown and nightshift and stretch herself naked on the bed beside me. I had been aware from what I had seen of some little girls that there was a considerable difference in our formation, but I was astonished at first on finding her centre-part so thickly shaded with hair. I quite delighted with its beauty, was soon tempted to get my fingers between the moist ruby lips of the charming little slit which I discovered within the curly forest, and to begin to explore its recesses. The sensitive little organ I found within so closely resembling, though on a smaller scale, my own organ of pleasure, did not escape my observation, as wakened up by my lascivious touches it darted its little head out from its hiding-place.