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.

Page 76 of 189 · 20 per page

• From Satyricon (1)

  In Europe of the middle ages, the priests and abbots helped to some extent in reviving the profession of the courtesans. Long before, Saint Paul had stated in his Epistles that it was permitted to the apostles of the Lord to take with them everywhere a sister for charity. The deaconesses date from the first century of the church. But the celibacy of the clergy was not universally and solidly established until about the eleventh century, under the pontificate of Gregory VII. During the preceding century, the celebrated Marozie and Theodore had put their lovers successively upon the chair of St. Peter, and their sons and grandsons, as well. But after the priests had submitted to celibacy they ostensibly took the concubines of which, alas! our housekeepers of today are but feeble vestiges. The Spanish codes of the middle ages were often concerned with the rights of the concubines of priests (mancebas de los clerigos) and these chosen ones of the chosen ones of the Lord invariably appeared worthy of envy. Finally the courtesans appeared in all their magnificence in the Holy City, and modern Rome atoned for the rebuffs and indignities these women had been compelled to endure in ancient Rome. The princes of the church showered them with gifts, they threw at their feet the price of redemption from sin, paid by the faithful, and the age of Leo X was for Rome a wonderful epoch of fine arts, belles lettres, and beautiful women. But a fanatical monk from Lower Germany fell upon this calm of the church and this happy era of the harlots; since then the revenues of the sacred college have continued to decrease, the beautiful courtesans have abandoned the capital of the Christian world, and their pleasures have fled with them. And can anyone longer believe in the perfection of the human race, since the best, the most holy of human institutions has so visibly degenerated! III. Le Soldat ordonne a embasicetas de m’accabler de ses impurs baisers. The soldier ordered the catamite to beslaver me with his stinking kisses.

• From Satyricon (1)

  Heartened up by this story, I began to draw upon his more comprehensive knowledge as to the ages of the pictures and as to certain of the stories connected with them, upon which I was not clear; and I likewise inquired into the causes of the decadence of the present age, in which the most refined arts had perished, and among them painting, which had not left even the faintest trace of itself behind. “Greed of money,” he replied, “has brought about these unaccountable changes. In the good old times, when virtue was her own reward, the fine arts flourished, and there was the keenest rivalry among men for fear that anything which could be of benefit to future generations should remain long undiscovered. Then it was that Democritus expressed the juices of all plants and spent his whole life in experiments, in order that no curative property should lurk unknown in stone or shrub. That he might understand the movements of heaven and the stars, Eudoxus grew old upon the summit of a lofty mountain: three times did Chrysippus purge his brain with hellebore, that his faculties might be equal to invention. Turn to the sculptors if you will; Lysippus perished from hunger while in profound meditation upon the lines of a single statue, and Myron, who almost embodied the souls of men and beasts in bronze, could not find an heir. And we, sodden with wine and women, cannot even appreciate the arts already practiced, we only criticise the past! We learn only vice, and teach it, too. What has become of logic? of astronomy? Where is the exquisite road to wisdom? Who even goes into a temple to make a vow, that he may achieve eloquence or bathe in the fountain of wisdom? And they do not pray for good health and a sound mind; before they even set foot upon the threshold of the temple, one promises a gift if only he may bury a rich relative; another, if he can but dig up a treasure, and still another, if he is permitted to amass thirty millions of sesterces in safety! The Senate itself, the exponent of all that should be right and just, is in the habit of promising a thousand pounds of gold to the capitol, and that no one may question the propriety of praying for money, it even decorates Jupiter himself with spoils! Do not hesitate, therefore, at expressing your surprise at the deterioration of painting, since, by all the gods and men alike, a lump of gold is held to be more beautiful than anything ever created by those crazy little Greek fellows, Apelles and Phydias!” CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-NINTH. “But I see that your whole attention is held by that picture which portrays the destruction of Troy, so I will attempt to unfold the story in verse: And now the tenth harvest beheld the beleaguered of Troia Worn out with anxiety, fearing the honor of Calchas

• From Shunned (2018)

  Just a minute ago you were calling this a ‘crisis of faith.’” “Which is exactly why you should go to the elders. That’s what they’re there for.” We continued sipping our beers, feigning interest in the gnats swarming around the cattails. My relief turned to disappointment. I’d put off this conversation because I’d never really believed Ross had the capacity to help me sort this out. All he could offer were trite solutions. On the one hand, I was grateful that he hadn’t overreacted to my confession. On the other hand, he didn’t seem to grasp the magnitude of my anguish. To be fair, I’d done a good job of hiding it. It was then I knew I would not share the final part of my confession. I had already sought help—not from the elders, but from a psychologist. I had seen her four times and planned to continue. My inner conflict had been so intense—and its potential ramifications so life-altering—I wanted the impartial reality check of a mental-health professional. My closest confidants were all Witnesses whom I couldn’t possibly count on for unbiased listening. I’d kept my therapy a secret, making weekly visits on my lunch hour, no one the wiser. If anyone in the Witness community knew I was seeing a therapist, it would raise a red flag. Therapists could not be relied upon to give me the “proper” spiritual perspective. I’d considered a meeting with the elders but dismissed it early on. As my new, fuller self emerged, I sensed I could trust it to explore answers unfettered by the elders’ influence. I’d swapped Bible study and prayer for the private sanctuary of my therapist’s office and found it an ideal place to chip away the carapace around my doubts. There I dared to utter my skepticism, safe in the knowledge I would not be judged as “ailing.” “Are you ready to eat?” I asked Ross. “Starved,” he said. “Let’s move closer to the water.” As we stood to relocate, I felt vulnerable and weak, like my knees might give out. “Rossman, please don’t worry about me. I’ll figure this out.” He gave me a big bear hug. “I know. You’ve always been strong. It will all work out.” He seemed to be reassuring himself. It gave me little comfort. We enjoyed our lakefront picnic, and later that night we went to the movies, captivated by Harrison Ford as The Fugitive . My troubles seemed minor in comparison with grappling with murder, prison shackles, and betrayal. And I took consolation from the ending: after weeks of relentless struggle, the lead character proved his innocence, made peace with his captors, and secured his freedom. Maybe I could do the same. Chapter 4 [image "Images" file=Image00000.jpg] You will not be punished for your anger. You will be punished by your anger. —Mahatma Gandhi I n the months after I confessed my crisis of faith to Ross, we continued drifting further apart.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther relished the irony of Karlstadt’s change of heart, remarking: “Who would have thought a year ago that those who called baptism a ‘dog’s bath’ would ask for baptism from their enemies?” 3 The celebration at Segrehna was an attempt at reconciliation between the two men, now tied to each other anew by the bonds of godparenthood. And it seems that Karlstadt’s family exploited the occasion to the full. A few days later, Luther interceded with the Elector on behalf of Karlstadt’s wife’s uncle, the miller at Segrehna, while another of her relatives lodged in Luther’s house for several months while she recovered from the plague. In November, Karlstadt himself wrote from Berkwitz, to say that he had lost seven horses, had little livestock left, and would have to sell up. Could Luther ask the Elector to let him move to Kemberg? Luther frequently interceded for others with the Elector, but there is something odd in his punctilious insistence on doing everything Karlstadt requested—asking the Elector repeatedly to allow him to live in Kemberg, and mediating for his relatives—as if he was proving his devotion despite a hidden antipathy. 4 Luther was able to keep an eye on Karlstadt but could not control those beyond the orbit of Wittenberg. One by one, many of his former supporters went over to the sacramentarian position of denying that Christ was physically present in the Eucharist. The loss of Oecolampadius had been bad enough; but then Nikolaus Gerbel, who had been Luther’s loyal lieutenant in Strasbourg, wrote that Martin Bucer had also adopted a version of the Swiss position. Bucer and the Strasbourg preachers tried to maintain unity with Luther and, realizing that discussions by letter were unlikely to succeed, they instead sent an envoy to hold long discussions with him. There was no agreement, however, and even Gerbel concluded that the sacramentarians, not the papists, were now the main enemy. 5 As he had no stomach for such a fight, Gerbel wished to dedicate himself to academic work. 6 In Augsburg, the leading preacher Urbanus Rhegius, once a Lutheran loyalist, also seemed to be open to some of Karlstadt’s arguments. 7 Augsburg was one of the foremost cities in the empire with a strong populist evangelical movement, so its theological orientation mattered. But by the summer of 1526, only Stefan Agricola, Caspar Huber, and Luther’s old friend Johannes Frosch, in whose monastery Luther had stayed during the discussions with Cajetan in Augsburg, were still persuaded by Luther’s position.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  I kept thinking what I’d do if I were out there. It was frustrating. I’ll watch the guys wrestle out their season and I’ll go to the district and state tournaments, but it’s sure going to feel weird just watching. Shute and his dad were sitting at the counter when we trooped in. Poor fuckers. They drove all the way over here to watch me wrestle Rilke. I wonder why they did it. I’m sure they’ve got just as much film of me as we do of Gary. Gary and his dad look like brothers. Like brother plumb bobs. I wonder if you can make hair go straight back and wavy like theirs, or if you have to be born that way. Mr. Shute isn’t real young, I don’t think, but he’s in great shape, and whenever I see him he’s always in jeans and a tanker jacket, which is a pretty youthful outfit. He’s a plumber, so he gets lost of exercise. They also hunt and fish a lot. I’d talked to Gary for a minute at the match but I wanted just to say hello again, so I stopped. “Hi, Gary,” I said. “Hi, Mr. Shute.” I shook hands with his dad. “I don’t know what you guys are gonna do without anybody at fifty-four,” Mr. Shute said and winked. Everybody in the gym was blown away by how good Doug was. I sat down next to Gary. “Have you seen this?” His dad handed the Sports Illustrated clipping across to me. “We’re famous.” I smiled and punched Gary a light one in the ribs. I’ve sure taken better pictures than that. Gary looks like Frank Gifford from Monday Night Football and I look like old Harpo Marx from A Night at the Opera . The bastard photographer caught me right after practice. My hair was all standing up and someone had just made me laugh. I look like I was being electrocuted. Mr. Shute folded it up and put it back in his wallet. He finished his coffee and Gary finished his Jell-O. Gary said he’d look for me at the New Year’s dance and they left after we shook hands. Gary stopped a second to congratulate Doug and Jean-Pierre on their good matches. His dad said hello to Coach and they were out the door and off in their pickup. * * * It’s nearly two o’clock. All the inside lights are off, so out the window you can see the snow blowing down and swirling from the trees. Good cheer lasted almost to the Idaho line. Kuch loves beating Custer and Battleground. After both matches he walked into their locker rooms and invited them all to come to Spokane and visit him on the twenty-fifth of June so together they could celebrate the great victory at the Greasy Grass. “What the fuck is that?” a couple guys asked. “Custer’s last stand.” Kuch smiled.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Indeed, it seems that many found Karlstadt’s explanation of the sacrament and his belief in the spiritual presence of Christ to be the more persuasive. Karlstadt’s maturing theology was clearly marked by his experiences at Wittenberg, where the communal reformation had fired his enthusiasm. This vision was popular elsewhere, too, particularly in southern Germany, because it entailed social reform with a renewal of morals, reorganized poor relief, and popular lay involvement. It was very different from Luther’s ideal of a top-down Reformation. Some also disliked Luther’s attempt to impose his views on others by appealing to their personal loyalty. “I am very upset by the dissension between Karlstadt and yourself,” Otto Brunfels wrote, “for I favour you both, and I do not love you in such a way that I cannot also embrace Karlstadt most sincerely.”45 The grammarian Valentin Ickelsamer complained of Luther’s writings, “what are these booklets against the spirit of Allstedt…but a cunning attempt to provoke the princes against good Karlstadt?”46 Outside Wittenberg, the spectacle of the two reformers in discord was seen as disastrous for the Reformation’s image, and while Karlstadt had been careful to hold back from attacking his former colleague, Luther had taken to publicly accusing Karlstadt of being possessed by the Devil.47 Yet Karlstadt never set himself up as a rival to Luther; had he done so, the story of the Reformation might well have been different. Luther seemed well aware of just how much was at risk, and it is an indication of his concern that he replied to the letter of the Strasbourg preachers not with a manuscript missive, but with a printed public letter, which he duly dispatched via their messenger.48 The delay in his response, caused by printing his letter, had far-reaching consequences. The Strasbourgers had written to Huldrych Zwingli in Zurich at the same time; Zwingli now also denied the Real Presence in the sacrament, and his handwritten letter arrived before Luther’s printed reply. Martin Bucer, previously inclined to Luther, was persuaded by Zwingli’s views “with hand and foot,” as a delighted Capito reported.49 In his response, Luther mused unwisely, “I confess, that if Dr. Karlstadt or someone else had been able to instruct me five years ago, that there was nothing but bread and wine in the sacrament, he would have done me a great service. I suffered such great temptations at that time and twisted and struggled, because I saw well that this would have been the biggest coup against the papacy.” The letter may well have lent credence to the rumors that Karlstadt had gotten the idea from Luther himself.50

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  In Strasbourg, Wolfgang Capito and the humanist Otto Brunfels read Karlstadt’s works and agreed with his views on the sacrament; in Basle, the reformer and humanist Johannes Oecolampadius was taking Karlstadt’s side; in Nuremberg too, Karlstadt was finding readers, and in Magdeburg, Königsberg, and even the Netherlands, people were joining in what Luther and his followers would soon denounce as the “spirit of Müntzer and Karlstadt.” 43 Luther’s man in Strasbourg, Nikolaus Gerbel, warned that Karlstadt was distributing copies of his works printed in Basle and gaining supporters; apparently he was telling everyone that he had been banished by Luther because he could not overcome him with Scripture. The Strasbourg preachers wrote collectively to Luther, sending five of Karlstadt’s writings and asking for his advice. The letter, brilliantly formulated so as to stress their loyalty, reveals that their position was in fact closer to Karlstadt’s, since they too were purifying their churches of images and beginning to raise questions about the Real Presence in the sacrament. They bluntly informed Luther that in Zurich, Basle, and even in Strasbourg, most biblically informed people shared Karlstadt’s views. 44 Indeed, it seems that many found Karlstadt’s explanation of the sacrament and his belief in the spiritual presence of Christ to be the more persuasive. Karlstadt’s maturing theology was clearly marked by his experiences at Wittenberg, where the communal reformation had fired his enthusiasm. This vision was popular elsewhere, too, particularly in southern Germany, because it entailed social reform with a renewal of morals, reorganized poor relief, and popular lay involvement. It was very different from Luther’s ideal of a top-down Reformation. Some also disliked Luther’s attempt to impose his views on others by appealing to their personal loyalty. “I am very upset by the dissension between Karlstadt and yourself,” Otto Brunfels wrote, “for I favour you both, and I do not love you in such a way that I cannot also embrace Karlstadt most sincerely.” 45 The grammarian Valentin Ickelsamer complained of Luther’s writings, “what are these booklets against the spirit of Allstedt…but a cunning attempt to provoke the princes against good Karlstadt?” 46 Outside Wittenberg, the spectacle of the two reformers in discord was seen as disastrous for the Reformation’s image, and while Karlstadt had been careful to hold back from attacking his former colleague, Luther had taken to publicly accusing Karlstadt of being possessed by the Devil.

• From Shunned (2018)

  What’s going on?” “Last night I was in a car wreck.” The words sliced through my hangover. I imagined shattered glass and spilt blood on gray concrete, red lights flashing in the distance. “What? Are you all right? Did anyone else get hurt? How did you get home?” The synapses in my brain fired up instantly. The previous night’s acrimony evaporated. Ross’s mouth twitched as he gazed down, gathering the will to say more. “Don’t worry about me—I wasn’t hurt at all, just shaken. And humiliated.” My heart softened with relief. “What happened?” I asked gently. “It was really stupid. Right after our argument, I decided to go for a drive to chill out.” “After all you had to drink?” I shook my head, barely remembering the rattling sound of the keys from the night before. I couldn’t fathom being so angry as to abandon good sense and drive drunk. He paused for a moment. “I took your car,” he said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye, “so I could blast the stereo.” “You what?” I wasn’t sure I had heard him right. “You took my car? My brand-new car?” He nodded. “And who did you crash into?” I asked, as I got out of bed and put on my bathrobe. “That’s the humiliating part. I’d had so much to drink, I ran right into the guardrail on Butner Road.” I rushed through the house and out the front door. There in the driveway sat my brand-new Honda, the front passenger side folded in, scuffed with white paint, headlight shattered. The now-familiar heaviness pressed down on my chest and shoulders. Turning back into the house, I found Ross sitting on the living room couch, next to a bed pillow and blanket. “You slept out here last night?” I asked. “Yeah. I figured we could both use the space,” he said. I walked over and sat down on the opposite end of the couch, pulling the blanket up over my legs. “Did anyone see you crash?” “Nope. Not a car or cop in sight.” “Talk about dumb luck,” I said, shaking my head. “Barely a mile away from home, and no witnesses.” “Aren’t you going to get angry?” Ross asked. “Go ahead. Don’t hold back. I deserve it.” Try as I might, I couldn’t muster any rage. It seemed pointless. In that moment, any respect I held for Ross dropped away, like overripe apples hitting the ground with a thud, then left to rot. For several months, I had wanted him to be valiant and strong so I could relax in my confusion. Instead, he had proven himself inept at keeping a secret and lacking the sense to stay home when he was drunk. There was no sense relying on him. I was on my own. “No more yelling,” I said. “I’m too tired to fight.” I put both arms around my knees and started rocking back and forth.

• From Shunned (2018)

  “It’s nice to see you looking so well.” She hugged me back. “You too,” she said. Next I hugged Ove, briefly and with little intensity. “Thanks, Ove, for taking such good care of my sister,” I said. “You’re welcome,” he said. Mom was next. We wrapped our arms around each other and held each other gently, her head resting on my shoulder. “It was good to see you, Mom.” We rocked each other. “Yes, Lindy, we loved seeing you, too,” she answered. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Randy, Marlene, and Tyler had emerged from the dining room and were watching us. Bob was following behind me, saying his own goodbyes. “I wish we could see you all more often,” I said. “Yes, Lindy,” Mom said, still holding me. “We’d like that, too. And you know what to do to make that happen.” Disappointment rang through me, and my body felt flushed with heat as I pulled away from her. Even now, she was clinging to her conditions. This is wack! You look at the sky through a straw. This fanatical behavior is not worthy of you! You used to tell me Bible stories of pagan parents who sacrificed their children in the fires to Baal and shake your head in disgust. Now it is you who sacrifices a relationship with your daughter. And for what? For rules that cannot stand the test of logic or love. That was what I thought, but it was not what I said. I took a deep breath instead. I would launch into that tearful diatribe later, at the bar with my husband. I just needed to hold it together a few moments longer. I cupped Mom’s cheeks in both hands, aware of the needless fears she harbored for my everlasting life. I smiled and shook my head. Now I turned to my father, the parent who’d given me blue eyes, brown hair, and curiosity about the world. Even when I had my heels on, he loomed over me. He had the sweetest, most melancholy smile. He was just trying to get through this ordeal and squeeze out all the best parts. We would allow ourselves to fully experience our sadness later, in private. We embraced without saying a word. Then I stood in front of my brother and his family. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to spend much time together,” I said. “But I’m grateful for the time we did have . . . for me to see that you’re doing well.” Randy’s eyes were wide, his face animated with bright red patches on his cheeks, like sections of small countries on a globe. He was anxious for me to leave, to release him from this uncomfortable encounter. “Yes,” he said. Both hands were shoved into his suit pants pockets. Marlene stood near him, a protective sentry. Tyler was still wearing a suit coat and a shy, curious look.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  “I thought I could find peace here, but since this wind has started it is as though it has stirred everything that I want to forget. “I was born in one of the most uninteresting of western towns in America. I spent my days reading about foreign countries and was determined to live abroad at all cost. I was in love with my husband even before I met him because I had heard that he lived in China. When he fell in love with me, I expected it, as if it had all been planned beforehand. I was marrying China. I could barely see him as an ordinary man. He was tall, lean, about thirty-five, but he looked older. His life in China had been hard. He was vague about his occupations—he had worked at many things to earn money. He wore glasses and looked like a student. Somehow I was in love with the idea of China, so much that it seemed to me that my husband was no longer a white but an Oriental. I thought he smelled different from other men. “We soon went to China. When I arrived there I found a lovely, delicate house full of servants. That the women were exceptionally beautiful did not seem strange to me. That is how I had pictured them. They waited on me slavishly, adoringly, I thought. They brushed my hair, taught me to arrange flowers, to sing and write and speak their language. “We slept in separate rooms but the partitions were like cardboard. The beds were hard, low, with thin mattresses, so that at first I did not sleep well at all. “My husband would stay a little while with me and then leave me. I began to notice sounds that came from the next room, like the wrestling of bodies. I could hear the rustle of the mats, occasionally a stifled murmur. At first I did not realize what it was. I got up noiselessly and opened the door. I saw then that my husband was lying there with two or three of the servant girls, caressing them. In the semidarkness their bodies were completely entangled. When I came in he chased them away. I wept. “My husband said to me, ‘I have lived so long in China I am used to them. I married you because I fell in love with you, but I cannot enjoy you as I do the other women . . . and I can’t tell you why.’ “But I pleaded with him to tell me the truth, pleaded and begged him. After a moment he said, ‘They are so small sexually, and you are larger . . .’ “‘What will I do now?’ I said. Are you going to send me home? I can’t live here with you making love to other women in the room next to mine.’ “He tried to console me, comfort me. He even caressed me, but I turned away and fell asleep weeping.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The world of intellectual equality between men and women that she had dared to imagine did not come to pass. She was derided by the university and mocked by men who thought her actions and behavior inappropriate to a woman. Pressure was put on her husband to control her. Grumbach stopped publishing in 1524, and her last offering was a poem that defended her standing as a wife and mother against a slanderous poem by one of her antagonists, who had alleged that she “forgot all female modesty.” “Paul himself,” her critic proclaimed, had said “you should not dispute, but govern the house at home and keep quiet in church. Look here, my dear Sibyl, you are like an impudent wild animal, and you think yourself so smart that you want to interpret Holy Scripture yourself.” 45 Although she was not easily cowed, the increasingly conservative environment after the defeat of the peasants in 1525 was inimical to women like her. She remained a pious Lutheran wife and mother, but in the new religion there was no role open to her as pastor, author, or religious authority. Albrecht Dürer, Johann Eberlin von Günzburg, and Argula von Grumbach stand for the many thousands of men and women whose lives were transformed by Luther’s ideas. What each of them understood by his message was different. For Dürer, it was a vision of a global union of religions; for Günzburg, it was about a new social order; for Grumbach, it was an issue of justice and fairness. It was Luther’s genius that he could appeal to them all, and that each could take different things from his words. All of them were so deeply moved by evangelical ideas, and by Luther as a person, that they did things that they would not otherwise have dreamed of, and overturned the expectations of their upbringing. — B Y the time Luther died, he had definitively accomplished a split in the Church. He had established a new Church, closely aligned with secular authorities, where monasticism was abolished. A new married clergy were creating dynasties of Protestant clerics who would dominate the intellectual culture of Germany for centuries to come. The shy monk had stood up to the forces of the Pope, Church, and empire, and had inspired others with a message of “freedom,” including peasants who risked all to rise against their feudal overlords. Luther’s political legacy was double-edged.

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  The conspirators seem to have made no plans for a coup, nor did they try to orchestrate a general uprising. The reason for this was probably their confidence in divine intervention after Muslims had taken the first step, by killing the president. Faraj appeared to take this for granted. Even though the conspirators knew that they were up against enormous odds, 57 Faraj considered it “stupid” to fear failure. A Muslim’s duty was to obey God’s commands. “We are not responsible for the results.” Once “the Rule of the Infidel has fallen, everything will be in the hands of the Muslims.” 58 Like so many other fundamentalists, Faraj was a literalist. He read the words of scripture as though they were factually true in every detail, and could be applied, simply and directly, to everyday life. This showed yet another danger of using the mythos of scripture as a blueprint for practical action. The old ideal had been to keep mythos and logos separate: political action was the preserve of reason. In their revolt against the hegemony of scientific rationalism, these Sunni fundamentalists were abandoning reason and had to learn the bitter truth that even though the assassins of Sadat had, as they thought, obeyed God to the letter, God did not intervene and establish an Islamic state. After Sadat’s death, Hosni Mubarak became president with the minimum of fuss, and the secularist regime remains in place to this day. It appears that the ideas outlined in The Neglected Duty were not confined to a tiny group of extremists, but were more widespread in Egyptian society than observers believed at the time. 59 Few Egyptians would have wanted actually to kill Sadat and most were shocked by the assassination, but their composure after his death was marked and chilling. The Shaykhs of al-Azhar, for example, condemned the assassination, but they did not seem to be heartbroken to have lost Sadat. In the first issue of the Azhari magazine immediately after the murder, there was no photograph of Sadat, and the killing was only obliquely mentioned on the second page. The one member of the religious establishment to come out strongly and unambiguously against The Neglected Duty was the Mufti, who gave a detailed answer to Faraj’s treatise. He declared that it was forbidden to call another practicing Muslim an apostate. The practice of takfir (excommunication) had never been common in Islam, since nobody but God could read a person’s heart. He discussed the Verses of the Sword in their historical context, showing them to have arisen in response to the particular circumstances of seventh-century Medina; they could not be applied verbatim to conditions in twentieth-century Egypt.

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  This accorded ill with Sadat’s carefully cultivated religious image. In the Sunni tradition, a good Muslim ruler is commanded not to separate himself from the people, but to live simply and frugally, and to ensure that the wealth of society is distributed as fairly as possible. 26 By calling himself “the Pious President” in an attempt to align himself with the new religious mood in the country, and by encouraging the press to photograph him in the mosques, with a prominent “ash mark” on his forehead to show that he prostrated himself five times daily in prayer, Sadat inevitably invited Muslims to make unflattering comparisons between his own actual behavior and the ideal. Yet, on the surface, Sadat was good to religion. He needed to create an identity for his regime that was different from Nasser’s. Since the time of Muhammad Ali, Egyptians had repeatedly tried to enter the modern world and find their own niche there. They had imitated the West, adopted Western policies and ideologies, fought for independence, and tried to reform their culture along modern European lines. None of these attempts had been successful. Like the Iranians, many Egyptians felt that it was time to “return to themselves” and create a modern but distinctively Islamic identity. Sadat was happy to capitalize upon this. He was attempting to make Islam a civil religion on the Western model, firmly subservient to the state. Where Nasser had persecuted Islamist groups, Sadat appeared to be their liberator. Between 1971 and 1975, he gradually released the Muslim Brothers who had been languishing in the prisons and camps. He relaxed Nasser’s strict laws controlling religious groups, and allowed them to meet, preach, and publish. The Muslim Brotherhood was not allowed to reestablish itself as a fully functioning political society, but the Brothers could preach and establish their own journal, al-Dawah (“The Call”). There was much mosque-building and more air time was given over to Islam. Sadat also courted Islamic student groups, encouraging them to wrest control of the campuses from the socialists and Nasserites. Nasser had tried to suppress religion and found that this coercive policy was counterproductive. It had led to the rise of the more extreme religiosity promoted by Sayyid Qutb. Now Sadat was attempting to co-opt religion and use it for his own ends. This would also prove to be a tragic miscalculation. At first, however, Sadat’s policy seemed a success. The Muslim Brotherhood, for example, appeared to have learned its lesson. The older generation of leaders released from the jails seemed determined to disown Sayyid Qutb and the Secret Apparatus, and wished to return to the nonviolent, reforming policies of Hasan al-Banna.

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  Khomeini tried to reason with them. The clergy, he said, “should in no way interfere in matters for which they are not qualified.” This “would be an unforgivable sin, because it will lead to the nation’s mistrust of the clergy.” 23 The clergy understood religion and fiqh, but not modern economics; the Islamic republic must be a modern state, which required specialists to work within the field of their expertise. But the deadlock continued. The Council of Guardians refused to budge on the issue, so Khomeini tried a more spiritual approach. In March 1981, he told a group of clerics: “One should not expect, without having been reformed himself, to attempt to reform another.” The clergy could not bring the people back to Islam if they were themselves crippled by selfishness and locked in futile power struggles. Every single one of the ulema must overcome this egotism that was impeding the Islamic development of the country. The solution was to “reach a stage where you ... overlook yourself.” “When there is no self to contend with,” Khomeini concluded, “there is no dispute, no quarrel.” 24 This sprang directly from Khomeini’s practice of mystical irfan; as the seeker approaches God, he gradually divests himself of his selfish desires until he is able to behold the transforming vision of God. But the dynamic of modern politics is very different from spiritual contemplation. The ulema of the Council of Guardians remained deaf to Khomeini’s plea. Politics usually attracts men and women with a heightened sense of self. Modern governmental institutions work by means of a balance of competing interests, not by this kind of self-effacement. When he had evolved his theory of Velayat-e Faqih, Khomeini had believed that the ulema on the Council of Guardians would assert the mystical, hidden (batin) values of the Unseen; instead, they seemed mired, like most ordinary mortals, in the materialism of the zahir. To break the deadlock with the Council of Guardians, the energetic Speaker of the Majlis, Hojjat ol-Islam Hashemi Rafsanjani, urged Khomeini to use his authority as Supreme Faqih to get the Land Bill passed. The constitution gave the Faqih final say on all Islamic matters, and he could overrule the decision of the Council of Guardians. Khomeini could, Rafsanjani suggested, cite the Islamic principle of maslahah (“public necessity”), which allowed a jurist to legislate “secondary ordinances” about issues not directly provided for in the Koran and the Sunnah, if the welfare of the people demanded it. But Khomeini did not wish to do this.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  Jeanette was amazed to see Pierre grown suddenly limp in the very middle of his fervent caresses. She felt contempt. She was too inexperienced to think that this might happen to any man in certain circumstances, so she did nothing to revive their lovemaking. She lay back, sighed and looked at the ceiling. Then Pierre kissed her mouth, and this she enjoyed. He lifted the light dress, looked at her young legs, pulled down the round garters. The sight of the stocking beginning to roll down and the tiny white panties she wore, the smallness of the sex he felt under his fingers, aroused him again, giving him such a desire to take her and do violence to her, so yielding and moist. He pushed his powerful sex into her and felt the tightness. This enchanted him. Like a sheath, her sex closed around his penis, softly and caressingly. He felt his power coming back to him, his usual power and deftness. He knew by each move she made where she wanted to be touched. When she pressed against him, he covered her little round buttocks with his warm hands, and his finger touched the orifice. She leaped under his touch but made no sound. And Pierre was waiting for this sound, a sound of approval, encouragement. No sound came from Jeanette. Pierre listened for it while he continued to pound into her. Then he stopped, half withdrew his penis, and with the tip of it alone, he circled the opening of her little rosy sex. She smiled at him and abandoned herself, but she still did not utter a sound. Wasn’t she enjoying herself? What was it that Jean did to her that wrung such shrieks of pleasure from her? He tried all his positions. He raised her towards him by the middle of her body, brought her sex up to him, and he kneeled to better push into her, but she made no sound. He turned her over, and took her from behind. His hands were everywhere. She was panting and moist, but silent. Pierre touched her little ass, caressed her small breasts, bit into her lips, kissed her sex, thrust his sex into her violently and then softly turned and churned in her, but still she remained silent. In desperation he said, “Say when you want it, say when you want it.” “Come now,” she said immediately, as if she had been waiting for him to do it. “Do you want it?” he asked again, filled with doubts. “Yes,” she said, but her passivity made him uncertain. He lost all his desire to come, to enjoy her. His desire died inside of her. He saw an expression of disappointment in her face. It was she who said, “I suppose I’m not as attractive to you as other women.” Pierre was surprised. “Of course you are attractive to me, but you did not seem to be enjoying yourself and that stopped me.”

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  While he sat in jail, writing virulent letters to Muhammad Shah, the Qajar “usurper,” he was allowed to receive large gatherings of his disciples. Even after the authorities moved him to the remote fortress of Chihrig, outside Urumiyya, there was not enough room in the hall to receive all his visitors, and crowds of people were forced to stand outside in the street. When he visited the public baths, his devotees bought his bathwater. There was huge excitement when he was finally brought to trial in Tabriz in the summer of 1848. Hordes of people thronged to greet him, so that he entered the courtroom in triumph. A mass of supporters stood outside during the trial, expecting the Bab to demolish his enemies and inaugurate a new age of justice, productivity, and peace. But, as with Shabbetai, there ensued a shocking anticlimax. The Bab did not overcome his interrogators. In fact, he appears to have performed very badly. 65 His examiners revealed his deficiency in Arabic, theology, and Falsafah; he had no understanding of the new sciences. How could this man be the Imam, the repository of divine knowledge (ilm)? The court sent the Bab back to prison, gravely underestimating the threat he posed to the regime, for by this time, the Babi movement was no longer simply a call for moral and religious reform; it had become a demand for a new sociopolitical order. Just as Shabbateanism had appealed to all social classes, the Bab was able to attract the masses with his messianism, the philosophically or esoterically inclined with his mystical theology, and the more secularly minded revolutionaries with his social doctrines. As in the earlier Jewish movement, there was an intuitive sense that the old world was passing away and that traditional sanctities would no longer apply. In June 1848, the Babi leaders held a mass meeting in Budasht, Khurasan. The Koran was formally abrogated, and the Shariah was to remain in place only until the Bab was acknowledged by the world. For the time being, the faithful must follow their own consciences and learn to distinguish good from evil by themselves, instead of relying on the ulema . They must feel free to reject the laws of the Shariah if they chose. The charismatic woman preacher Qurrat al-Ain removed her veil as a symbol of the end of female subjection and the end of the old Muslim era. All “impure” objects were henceforth to be regarded as “pure.” Truth was not a doctrine revealed all at once, in one moment of time. God’s decrees were gradually revealed to the masses through the elect. Like Shabbetai himself, the Babis reached toward a new religious pluralism: in the new order, all previously revealed religions would unite as one. 66 Many of the Babis who attended the meeting at Budasht were appalled by this radical message, and fled in horror.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  In June 1535, after a siege that lasted a little over a year, the city fell. Jan van Leiden and two other leaders were brutally tortured and executed in January 1536, their remains put in iron cages that were hung from the tower of St. Lambert’s Church, where the cages can still be seen. It is difficult to know exactly what happened in Münster, since all the reports we have were composed by the victors and are hostile, and the town records were largely destroyed. The episode is usually viewed as an aberration in the history of the Reformation, and this is certainly how Luther regarded it. Most shocking to contemporaries was its introduction of polygamy. Yet although Luther himself condemned the Anabaptists for their theological arrogance and their contempt for true doctrine, and though he condemned them as “Epicureans,”20 he had consistently pointed out that the Old Testament patriarchs had practiced polygamy. His attitude would later have important consequences. —IN the meantime Martin Bucer had not given up trying to come to an agreement with the Wittenbergers. He had visited a grumpy Luther in Coburg Castle in late September 1530 on his way back from the Diet of Augsburg, and he finally persuaded him to begin negotiations with the sacramentarians.21 As Luther put it in early 1531, he had begun to see “how necessary your fellowship is for us….I have become so much aware of this that I am convinced that all the gates of hell, the whole papacy, all of Turkey, the whole world, all the flesh, and whatever evils there are could not harm the gospel at all, if only we were of one mind.”22 This struck a different tone from his usual conviction that his very isolation in his struggle against the forces of Satan proved Christ was on his side, and it was not one he sustained for long.23 He continued to be wary of Bucer, who traveled tirelessly in Switzerland and among the cities of Upper Germany to try to produce a formula all parties could approve. The effort took him nearly four years, but when he did finally arrive at a formula Luther would accept, the Swiss then rejected it out of hand.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The local Lutheran Urbanus Rhegius preached to barely two hundred listeners, but Michael Keller, the Zwinglian whom Jonas thought both uneducated and a gossip, regularly attracted crowds of six thousand to his rousing sermons in the huge Church of St. Ulrich. When Agricola dared to preach vigorously against the Zwinglians, he stirred up a “wasps’ nest” of criticism in return. 23 When Charles finally did arrive on June 15, the Feast of the Ascension, he entered Augsburg in a stunning pageant, which heightened expectations after all the weeks of waiting. The procession lasted until eight in the evening and Jonas described it in loving detail to Luther, even though he knew how little store “you set by such things.” The emperor, who had been crowned by the Pope in Bologna just a few months before, was dressed in gold, carried a golden sword, and sat astride a bejeweled white horse under a golden canopy. The Elector of Saxony rode close by, followed by Charles’s brother, King Ferdinand. The papal legate Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, Jonas noted gleefully, at least did not precede the emperor, entering the city by his side. 24 For the Lutherans, the extravaganza would have driven home the sheer power of the forces lined up against them. For many years Charles had been preoccupied with affairs in Italy, so it had been possible almost to forget just how strong imperial might was. Now it was on show, for all to see. And yet this spectacle, designed to parade the magnificence of the empire, also displayed its divisions. On his arrival, Charles spoke to the Catholic and Lutheran princes separately, and lost no time in warning the evangelicals that he would not tolerate their preaching. 25 The day after his formal entry, he celebrated the feast of Corpus Christi, during which a procession ceremonially circled the boundaries of the city, with the Host held high. Charles had deliberately timed his arrival for the feast, and the ritual honoring of Christ’s body was intended to celebrate the unity of the empire as the princes, cardinals, and bishops all processed as one, showing secular and religious authorities in harmony. But the evangelical princes and most of the townsfolk ostentatiously declined to take part; what had been planned as a display of unity and reconciliation in fact highlighted the existence of separate factions, as the Catholics paraded through sullen crowds of Augsburgers and the evangelicals went straight to their lodgings.

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  The overcrowding was especially difficult for women students, many of whom had come from a traditional background and found it intolerable to be crammed up against young men on the benches or in the buses that conveyed the students back to their equally crowded halls of residence. Learning was by rote and success in the examinations required the mechanical regurgitation of the lecture notes and manuals issued by the professors. The humanities, law, and the social sciences were known as “garbage faculties,” and virtually written off. Whatever their personal inclinations, able students would be forced to study medicine, pharmacology, odontology, engineering, or economics, or else resign themselves to being taught by the worst professors and to having even less chance of a reasonable job after graduation. In this setting, the students were not trained to think creatively about the problems of humanity or of society. Instead, they were required to absorb information passively and soullessly. Their introduction to modern culture was chronically superficial, therefore, and left their religious beliefs and practices entirely untouched. 37 The jamaat produced few books or pamphlets, but an article written for al-Dawah in 1980 by Isam al-Din al-Aryan sums up their main ideas. Sayyid Qutb was clearly an inspiration; the jamaat believed that it was time for Egyptians to shake off the Western and Soviet ideologies that had dominated the country for so long, and return to Islam. Egypt was still in effect controlled by infidels, and there could be no true independence unless there was a great religious awakening. 38 The jamaat did not confine themselves to the discussion of ideas, but applied the Islamic ideology creatively and practically to their own circumstances. In 1973, the students began to set up summer camps in the major universities. 39 They studied the Koran, prayed together at night, and listened to sermons about the Golden Age of Islam, the career of the Prophet, and the four rashidun . By day, there were sporting activities and classes in self-defense. For a few weeks, the students lived, thought, and played in a wholly Islamic setting. It was, in a sense, a temporary hijrah , a migration from mainstream society to a world where they could live out the Koran and experience for themselves its impact on their lives. They learned what it was like to live in an environment which really did endorse the teachings of scripture. The camps gave them a taste of an Islamic utopia, in marked contrast to the inauthentically Muslim life of the regime. Preachers and speakers discussed the bitter disappointment of the modern experiment, which may have worked beautifully in Europe or America, but which only worked to the advantage of the rich in Egypt. When they returned to university life, students tried to reproduce some of this experience on campus.

• From Satyricon (1)

  HIS FATE WAS UNAVOIDABLE NO ROCK-HEWN TOMB NOR SCULPTURED MARBLE HIS, HIS NOBLE CORPSE FIVE FEET OF EARTH RECEIVED, HE RESTS IN PEACE BENEATH THIS HUMBLE MOUND. CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEENTH. We set out upon our intended journey, after this last office had been wholeheartedly performed, and, in a little while, arrived, sweating, at the top of a mountain, from which we made out, at no great distance, a town, perched upon the summit of a lofty eminence. Wanderers as we were, we had no idea what town it could be, until we learned from a caretaker that it was Crotona, a very ancient city, and once the first in Italy. When we earnestly inquired, upon learning this, what men inhabited such historic ground, and the nature of the business in which they were principally engaged, now that their wealth had been dissipated by the oft recurring wars, “My friends,” replied he, “if you are men of business, change your plans and seek out some other conservative road to a livelihood, but if you can play the part of men of great culture, always ready with a lie, you are on the straight road to riches: The study of literature is held in no estimation in that city, eloquence has no niche there, economy and decent standards of morality come into no reward of honor there; you must know that every man whom you will meet in that city belongs to one of two factions; they either ‘take-in,’ or else they are ‘taken-in.’ No one brings up children in that city, for the reason that no one who has heirs is invited to dinner or admitted to the games; such an one is deprived of all enjoyments and must lurk with the rabble. On the other hand, those who have never married a wife, or those who have no near relatives, attain to the very highest honors; in other words, they are the only ones who are considered soldierly, or the bravest of the brave, or even good. You will see a town which resembles the fields in time of pestilence,” he continued, “in which there is nothing but carcasses to be torn at and carrion crows tearing at them.” CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEENTH.