Disgust

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 City of God

  Where and when those initiated in the mysteries of Coelestis received any good instructions, we know not. What we do know is, that before her shrine, in which her image is set, and amidst a vast crowd gathering from all quarters, and standing closely packed together, we were intensely interested spectators of the games which were going on, and saw, as we pleased to turn the eye, on this side a grand display of harlots, on the other the virgin goddess; we saw this virgin worshipped with prayer and with obscene rites. There we saw no shame-faced mimes, no actress over-burdened with modesty; all that the obscene rites demanded was fully complied with. We were plainly shown what was pleasing to the virgin deity, and the matron who witnessed the spectacle returned home from the temple a wiser woman. Some, indeed, of the more prudent women turned their faces from the immodest movements of the players, and learned the art of wickedness by a furtive regard. For they were restrained, by the modest demeanor due to men, from looking boldly at the immodest gestures; but much more were they restrained from condemning with chaste heart the sacred rites of her whom they adored. And yet this licentiousness--which, if practised in one's home, could only be done there in secret--was practised as a public lesson in the temple; and if any modesty remained in men, it was occupied in marvelling that wickedness which men could not unrestrainedly commit should be part of the religious teaching of the gods, and that to omit its exhibition should incur the anger of the gods. What spirit can that be, which by a hidden inspiration stirs men's corruption, and goads them to adultery, and feeds on the full-fledged iniquity, unless it be the same that finds pleasure in such religious ceremonies, sets in the temples images of devils, and loves to see in play the images of vices; that whispers in secret some righteous sayings to deceive the few who are good, and scatters in public invitations to profligacy, to gain possession of the millions who are wicked? [115] 2 Cor. xi. 14.

• From The City of God

  That theology, therefore, which they call natural, being put aside for a moment, as it is afterwards to be discussed, we ask if any one is really content to seek a hope for eternal life from poetical, theatrical, scenic gods? Perish the thought! The true God avert so wild and sacrilegious a madness! What, is eternal life to be asked from those gods whom these things pleased, and whom these things propitiate, in which their own crimes are represented? No one, as I think, has arrived at such a pitch of headlong and furious impiety. So then, neither by the fabulous nor by the civil theology does any one obtain eternal life. For the one sows base things concerning the gods by feigning them, the other reaps by cherishing them; the one scatters lies, the other gathers them together; the one pursues divine things with false crimes, the other incorporates among divine things the plays which are made up of these crimes; the one sounds abroad in human songs impious fictions concerning the gods, the other consecrates these for the festivities of the gods themselves; the one sings the misdeeds and crimes of the gods, the other loves them; the one gives forth or feigns, the other either attests the true or delights in the false. Both are base; both are damnable. But the one which is theatrical teaches public abomination, and that one which is of the city adorns itself with that abomination. Shall eternal life be hoped for from these, by which this short and temporal life is polluted? Does the society of wicked men pollute our life if they insinuate themselves into our affections, and win our assent? and does not the society of demons pollute the life, who are worshipped with their own crimes? --if with true crimes, how wicked the demons! if with false, how wicked the worship!

• From The City of God

  When we say these things, it may perchance seem to some one who is very ignorant of these matters that only those things concerning the gods which are sung in the songs of the poets and acted on the stage are unworthy of the divine majesty, and ridiculous, and too detestable to be celebrated, whilst those sacred things which not stage-players but priests perform are pure and free from all unseemliness. Had this been so, never would any one have thought that these theatrical abominations should be celebrated in their honor, never would the gods themselves have ordered them to be performed to them. But men are in nowise ashamed to perform these things in the theatres, because similar things are carried on in the temples. In short, when the fore-mentioned author attempted to distinguish the civil theology from the fabulous and natural, as a sort of third and distinct kind, he wished it to be understood to be rather tempered by both than separated from either. For he says that those things which the poets write are less than the people ought to follow, whilst what the philosophers say is more than it is expedient for the people to pry into. "Which," says he, "differ in such a way, that nevertheless not a few things from both of them have been taken to the account of the civil theology; wherefore we will indicate what the civil theology has in common with that of the poet, though it ought to be more closely connected with the theology of philosophers. "Civil theology is therefore not quite disconnected from that of the poets. Nevertheless, in another place, concerning the generations of the gods, he says that the people are more inclined toward the poets than toward the physical theologists. For in this place he said what ought to be done; in that other place, what was really done. He said that the latter had written for the sake of utility, but the poets for the sake of amusement. And hence the things from the poets' writings, which the people ought not to follow, are the crimes of the gods; which, nevertheless, amuse both the people and the gods. For, for amusement's sake, he says, the poets write, and not for that of utility; nevertheless they write such things as the gods will desire, and the people perform.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  A black-leathered man, no pants under his chaps, which are open in a circle in back, pushes his ass against Jim's cock; it's still soft. Instead of attempting to enter the ass, Jim directs the man's mouth to his groin. Blowing him, the man holds a vial of amyl for Jim to inhale. Not even the gathered rush of blood hardens his cock. He directs his soft cock into another mouth. Jim moves into a smaller room. Red lights transform the shadows into fiery outlines—but within a cold, cold fire. In quick succession, several mouths take his cock, take others’. Now one mouth sucks his cock and another's simultaneously. But both cocks, pressed together in the hot mouth, are soft. Leaving that room, moving back into one not as crowded, Jim sees the shirtless muscular man again. Again their eyes meet across the sexual battlefield. Again the two men move toward each other, are almost together—and again dark forms crouch before each—as if taking sides. Looking at each other, Jim and the other muscular man reach out slowly and touch hands. Jim feels his cock begin to harden. Their hands lock more firmly over the bobbing heads, the sucking mouths, the licking tongues. Slowly, Jim breaks away, wanting the man to do so too, to follow him outside. Yes, he wants to leave, to go home-but not alone. Instantly Jim realizes he miscalculated; the man he wanted and who clearly wanted him has misinterpreted the severed contact as rejection. Not looking back, he moved away abruptly into another room. Jim is tempted to go to the same room—no, not to follow, no, but just to indicate that he didn't leave. But he knows the contact has been irrevocably cut. Jim stands amid the churning, moaning, carnivorous mass. In an open restroom, a man—head leaning back on a toilet seat, mouth stretched widely—receives the piss of two men straddling him. On the table in the main room, a skinny man lies totally naked with an inhaler of amyl glued to his nose. His thin legs are being held spread out widely by two leathered men; a third man, an ugly pock-faced figure in black gleaming leather, and wearing dark goggles and a vizored black cap, is methodically pushing his fist into the naked-man's ass. The straining arm pushes. Farther in. A portion of the wrist slides into the stretching hole. Farther. A portion of the lower forearm. The naked man is wet with sweat. Rapt, intent, others watch silently as if around an operating table. The wrist disappears. The naked man on the table lets out a howl of ecstatic pain. Jim feels a sweeping disgust. Outside, totally alone, he breathes the air purified by the earlier breeze. Recurring, the breeze rustles the palmtrees. 3:44 A.M. Selma. Greenstone Park. Montana Street. Hanson Avenue. Selma.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  μύσος, τό, uncleanness of body or mind: metaph. az abomination, defilement, Lat. piaculum, like μίασμα, Trag., as Aesch. Cho. 650, Eum. 839, Soph. O. T. 138, Eur. H. F. 1155; also in Hipp. 303. 39, and in late Prose, as Schol. Luc. J. Trag. 8. [Sometimes written properisp- μῦσος, but wrongly, for v is always short, Draco 65. 15, E. M. 588. 52: perhaps μῖσος caused the error. } μῦσός, 7, dv, =pvoapds, Hesych. Micés, ὁ, a Mysian, Aesch. Pers. 52, etc.; proverbs were founded on their feeble and effeminate character, as, Μυσῶν λεία, i.e. a prey to all, of anything that can be plundered with impunity, Dem. 248. 23, Arist. Rhet. I. 12, 20; 6 Μυσῶν ἔσχατος the most worthless of men, Magnes Ποαστρ. 1, cf. Philem. Sued. 3, Menand. ᾿Ανδρογ. 7; τῶν λεγομένων M. ὁ ἔσχατος Plat. Theaet. 209 B; Mysorum ultimus in Cic. Flacc. 27. μυσ-πολέω, (μῦς) to run about like a mouse, Ar. Vesp.140, with a play on μυστιπολεύω. μύσσομαι, Med. to blow the nose, μύσσονται δὲ οὐδέν Hipp. 369. 13: —the Act. is cited by Hesych., but is only found in compds. ἀπο-. προ-μύττω. (From 4/MYK, cf. μυκ-τήρ, μύξ-α, ἀπο-μύξ-ασθαι ; Skt. muk, munk-ami (abjicio), Lat. mung-o, e-mung-o, muc-us, muc-edo.) μυστἄγωγέω, c. acc. pers., like μυέω, ¢o initiate, τινά τι Pseudo-Luc. Philopatr. 22; opp. to μυεῖσθαι, Plut. 2.795 E: to act as a guide to one, like fevaywyéw, Strab. 812 :—in Eccl. zo baptize. μυστἄγώγημα, τό, initiation into the mysteries, Theod.Stud.: generally, teaching, training, Eumath. 134. μυστἄγωγία, ἡ, initiation into the mysteries, Plut. Alcib. 34. μυστἄγωγικός, ή, ov, of or for initiation, Cyrill. μυστἄγωγός, dv, (μύστης, ἄγω) introducing or initiating into mys- teries, a mystagogue, Plut. Alcib. 34, etc., v. Lob. Aglaoph. p. 29. 2. generally, a teacher, guide, βίου Menand. Incert. 18, cf. Himer. 15. 3. 4. in Sicily -ε- περιηγητής, a Ciceroné, esp. at the temples, Cic. Verr. 4. 59. μυστάκιον, τό, Dim. of μύσταξ. Moschop. μύσταξ, ἄκος, 6, Dor. and Lacon. for μάσταξ 1, and always masc., whereas μάσταξ is fem.:—the upper lip, the beard upon it, our moustache, Strattis Incert. 6 (et ibi Meineke), Theocr. 14. 4: the Spartan Ephors on coming into office issued an edict, κείρεσθαι τὸν μύστακα καὶ πρόσ- exew (or πείθεσθαι) τοῖς νόμοις, Arist. Fr. 496, Plut. 2.550 B; v. Miller Dor. 3. 7. § 7.—Cf. βύστας. μυστ-άρχηβ, ov, 6, a chief of μύσται, C. 1. 3662. 3., 3803. το. Adv. μυσταρχικῶς, like a μυστάρχης, mystically, Heliod. de Chrysop. 55. 59. μυστηριάζω, to initiate into mysteries, Phot., Eust. Opusc. 91. 29, etc. μυστηριακός, 7, dv, = μυστηρικός, Schol. Ar. Pl. 27. μυστηρι-άρχηΞ, ov, ὅ. -- μυστάρχης, C. I. 3666. 5. μυστηριασμός, 6, initiation, Eust. 1854. 46, etc. μυστηρικόξβ, ἡ, dv, of or for mysteries, mystic, Ar. Ach. 747.

• From The City of God

  For let those who will and can read the letter of Alexander to his mother Olympias, in which he tells the things which were revealed to him by the priest Leon, and let those who have read it recall to memory what it contains, that they may see what great abominations have been handed down to memory, not by poets, but by the mystic writings of the Egyptians, concerning the goddess Isis, the wife of Osiris, and the parents of both, all of whom, according to these writings, were royal personages. Isis, when sacrificing to her parents, is said to have discovered a crop of barley, of which she brought some ears to the king her husband, and his councillor Mercurius, and hence they identify her with Ceres. Those who read the letter may there see what was the character of those people to whom when dead sacred rites were instituted as to gods, and what those deeds of theirs were which furnished the occasion for these rites. Let them not once dare to compare in any respect those people, though they hold them to be gods, to our holy martyrs, though we do not hold them to be gods. For we do not ordain priests and offer sacrifices to our martyrs, as they do to their dead men, for that would be incongruous, undue, and unlawful, such being due only to God; and thus we do not delight them with their own crimes, or with such shameful plays as those in which the crimes of the gods are celebrated, which are either real crimes committed by them at a time when they were men, or else, if they never were men, fictitious crimes invented for the pleasure of noxious demons. The god of Socrates, if he had a god, cannot have belonged to this class of demons. But perhaps they who wished to excel in this art of making gods, imposed a god of this sort on a man who was a stranger to, and innocent of any connection with that art. What need we say more? No one who is even moderately wise imagines that demons are to be worshipped on account of the blessed life which is to be after death. But perhaps they will say that all the gods are good, but that of the demons some are bad and some good, and that it is the good who are to be worshipped, in order that through them we may attain to the eternally blessed life. To the examination of this opinion we will devote the following book.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  One way in which civic pride flourished in olden times was in the expenditure of local wealth on temples, ceremonies, and shows. Those traditions had begun to fade in the half-century before Augustine’s life. In his time and, to some extent, through his work, they lost out decisively to new practices and traditions. For three hundred years, followers of the teachings of Jesus had collected in smaller and larger bands around the Greek and Latin worlds, forming and dissolving over time, but gradually becoming familiar in more and more places. Traditional Romans could be forgiven for failing to distinguish Christians from Jews during those years. Augustine shows us a world in which the lines between religious communities are clear and unmistakable, but he speaks as preacher rather than sociologist. In reality, the boundary between one group and another was often porous and the distinction between a religious ritual and a “secular” ceremony was often negligible. It was, as one recent writer has called it, a world full of gods, with a long history of eclectic toleration. Augustine’s most vivid picture of that more-than-Christian world is his recollection of that god-filled world: When I was a young man, I used to go to their spectacles of sacrilege and their “pagan” games, to watch the priests in their frenzies and listen to the music. I got a thrill out of the disgusting shows enacted in honor of their gods: of Caelestis, their virgin god, and Berecynthia, the mother of the gods. Their lewd actors sang songs in front of Berecynthia’s processional litter on the day of her solemn purification that were unfit for the ears of the mother of a senator—no, really, unfit for the ears of the actors’ mothers, to say nothing of the mother of the gods!…But they sang them before a teeming crowd of both sexes…. I don’t know where the worshipers of Caelestis got their ideas about chastity, but when they set her image up in her shrine, people thronged in from all sides, and we watched the sketches they played out there, looking back and forth from the virgin goddess to the crowd of whores, worshiping the one and reveling in the filthiness of the other…. They knew how to please the virgin goddess and displayed publicly things for the thoughtful married lady to take home with her.22 Some were too embarrassed to watch, but still they peeked. The Jewish and Christian gods were not especially remarkable. Their followers were occasionally found to be hardheaded and offensive in proclaiming the excellence of their gods, and the Christians in particular ran afoul of authority for refusing to show appropriate respect to the few common rites of reverence for the emperor in his divine persona that anybody took seriously. Christian writers spoke of these occasional outbursts in the days before the emperor Constantine as “persecution” and complained of systematic judicial terror. Those in authority wouldn’t have found the complaints particularly interesting or persuasive.

• From The City of God

  At that time the king, or rather tyrant Busiris, who is alleged to have been the son of Neptune by Libya the daughter of Epaphus, is said to have offered up his guests in sacrifice to the gods. Now it must not be believed that Neptune committed this adultery, lest the gods should be criminated; yet such things must be ascribed to them by the poets and in the theatres, that they may be pleased with them. Vulcan and Minerva are said to have been the parents of Ericthonius king of Athens, in whose last years Joshua the son of Nun is found to have died. But since they will have it that Minerva is a virgin, they say that Vulcan, being disturbed in the struggle between them, poured out his seed into the earth, and on that account the man born of it received that name; for in the Greek language eris is "strife," and chthon "earth," of which two words Ericthonius is a compound. Yet it must be admitted that the more learned disprove and disown such things concerning their gods, and declare that this fabulous belief originated in the fact that in the temple at Athens, which Vulcan and Minerva had in common, a boy who had been exposed was found wrapped up in the coils of a dragon, which signified that he would become great, and, as his parents were unknown, he was called the son of Vulcan and Minerva, because they had the temple in common. Yet that fable accounts for the origin of his name better than this history. But what does it matter to us? Let the one in books that speak the truth edify religious men, and the other in lying fables delight impure demons. Yet these religious men worship them as gods. Still, while they deny these things concerning them they cannot clear them of all crime, because at their demand they exhibit plays in which the very things they wisely deny are basely done, and the gods are appeased by these false and base things. Now, even although the play celebrates an unreal crime of the gods, yet to delight in the ascription of an unreal crime is a real one.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  By contrast, Lemnius consistently praised Melanchthon as the only serious scholar in Wittenberg, the light of all Germany—an encomium that was unlikely to heal the rift between the two men. One poem about Luther spilled out pure bile: You suffer yourself from dysentery and you scream when you shit, and that which you wished on others you now suffer yourself. You called others shitters, now you have become a shitter and are richly blessed with shit. Earlier anger opened your crooked mouth, now your arse opens the load of your stomach. Your anger didn’t just come out of your mouth—now it flows from your backside. This is hardly great poetry, but Lemnius was not wrong about how anger was darkening Luther’s final years. Luther responded by penning his own Latin verse, “Luther’s Dysentery Against the Shit Poet Little Lemmie,” which pitied Albrecht of Magdeburg as the recipient of Lemnius’s execrable poetic offerings, and mocked the poet as constipated: “with your stomach you press out the shit, and you would like to poo a huge heap, but, shit poet, you manage nothing!” 52 Lemnius kept his promise to dish the dirt on Wittenberg. In 1539 he produced the Monachopornomachia ( The War of the Monk’s Whores ), a play that owes much to Cochlaeus’s Tragedy of Johann Hus but is far cruder and less psychologically shrewd. 53 Its schoolboy humor derides Luther for being forced into marriage with Katharina von Bora, who everyone knows is a whore. But Luther, suffering from gout and the stone, cannot travel, so she is permanently under his watchful eye and does not get enough time with her young lover. Her friends, the wives of Spalatin and Jonas, recount the wonderful sex they enjoyed while their husbands were away at Augsburg at the Diet. At times Luther is presented as virile, foolishly enslaved to his lusts, but in another scene he begs Katharina to stroke his member and help it stand. Spalatin’s wife explains how she manages to satisfy both her husband and her lover without having two vaginas: She “raises her bottom” for her beau. Lemnius and Cochlaeus let their imaginations run riot about the private lives of Luther and the reformers, and their obsession sprang from what was still so shocking in Luther’s theology: His marriage to a nun and his surprisingly positive attitude toward sexuality. Lemnius could not bear it.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Peter’s convent next door to the church, and one wonders what they made of this fairly explicit eroticism. Staupitz defended himself against the objection that human love cannot be a model for divine love because it springs from concupiscence, by arguing (in line with tradition) that what matters is not “the contact of bodies but…the perversion of the [natural] order, that is when temporal enjoyment is given preference to eternal ones.” 64 But this hardly obliterated the powerful sexual charge of his language. Erotic mysticism was not unusual in the late Middle Ages, dwelling on sweetness, pleasure, melting, and union, but in Staupitz’s hands it has a saccharine literalness that exploited its potential for eroticizing suffering. 65 Eroticism of this variety, characterized by displaced desire, can readily be twinned with suspicion of the other sex. Some of Staupitz’s most evocative and yet harshest writing is about the love of women, which is inborn in us through the love of our mothers, and through the fact that Eve is made from Adam’s rib. “We suck it from our mothers, yes we draw it from the maternal hearts hidden in the body,” Staupitz wrote. At the same time he warns that for the sake of women “we leave honor, body, and good virtue and reason, and are captured in their love, becoming stupid and losing reason.” 66 His 1504 preface to the revised statutes for the united Augustinian order states that: Even if your eyes fall on some woman, let them rest on none….For women’s desire…seeks…not with silent feelings alone, but with feelings and glances too. And do not say that you are keeping your minds chaste if you have unchaste eyes: the unchaste eye is the messenger of an unchaste heart. And when unchaste hearts announce themselves in turn with mutual glances, even if the tongue is silent, and if, following desire, the flesh of each is delighted by ardor, even if the bodies are untouched by unclean violation, chastity herself flees from their morals. 67 The monks should only go to the baths in groups of two or three; they should only wash their clothes when the provost thought fit, “lest excessive appetite for clean clothing should bring with it internal squalor of the mind.” An almost allergic reaction toward women—although he dedicated both his German treatises to female followers 68 —accompanies Staupitz’s passionate love of the Virgin, who pleads our case with God.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  72 Just as witches can impede the sexual act and prevent conception, so the backbiter can destroy a community by poisoning relations between individuals, and he who was once loved and “embraced” is rejected. To be in good odor is to have a good reputation, which is born from without; to be in bad odor is to have a bad name, which comes from the ordure within. The backbiter does not allow the ordure of others to remain hidden but loves “to roll in it” like a pig. He is like the bird who hops about in muck so that people say, “Look how he has shit himself,” to which the best response is: “eat it yourself.” 73 In the most lurid of all the comparisons, Luther describes how backbiters are like hyenas or dogs who dig up stinking human corpses, pullulating with decay and full of worms, and bite into them—“Ugh, what a dreadful monster the backbiter is!” 74 We are all sinners, Luther argues, and should be preoccupied with our own excrement. Those who rejoice in the sins of others are avoiding their own sin, and they destroy not only the person of whom they speak ill but also those who are polluted by their poison. “If we do not consider our sin,” Luther warned, “but see only the cover and veil of our external dealings, hiding our true inward self from others, then we become dirty with the excrement of others.” 75 Hatred, envy, and speaking ill of others clearly troubled Luther deeply—for they are among the “real knots.” It was not accidental that he drew on the language of demonology here, for the ultimate envier was the witch, who whips up storms, blasts the crops, destroys fertility, digs up dead and rotting bodies, and destroys prosperity and life. But the emotional pitch suggests that Luther, too, struggled with backbiting: Quick to impute envy to others, Luther wrestled with his own feelings of envy, hate, and aggression, which he could all too readily turn against others, and which he therefore saw as the greatest obstacle to recognizing God. It may be that this led to the sensations of utter unworthiness and anxiety that characterized his religiosity. It was Luther’s own internal “shit”—his sinful nature—that created the barrier between himself and God. Although Luther does not say so here, the remedy for sin is confession, as our failings are named and confessed before God. In this respect, this highly emotive sermon is a testament to the relationship with his own father-confessor, Staupitz. The sermon is also a psychological document at a more profound level. By stopping just short of the point where the listener might have been comforted by the idea of confession, Luther leaves his audience, as it were, “in the shit”; he has evoked in his hearers the kind of unbearable revulsion that was his own spiritual staple.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther argued that the Jews were a people who had been punished by God for 1,500 years, since the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, because they did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. In the 1530s Luther’s tone was relatively sober, but by 1543 it had changed markedly. In response to a request from a certain Count Wolf Schlick of Falkenau, who had read a Jewish response to Against the Sabbatarians, Luther produced On the Jews and Their Lies . 27 Three “Learned Jews,” he wrote, had come to him in the hope “that they would find a new Jew in me” because he had introduced Hebrew studies at the university, but from then on the tract is a diatribe against rabbinic interpretation of Scripture and against the Jews themselves. 28 Much of it is devoted to accusations of arrogant pride in their race; Luther evokes revulsion for circumcision, describing how the rabbi rips the foreskin with his fingernails, and imagines a father’s distress at the baby’s scream. 29 Luther insults Jews as soiled brides and the worst kind of whores, who ignored God’s prophets. As he moves to attacking rabbinic interpretation, he blames the Jews for splitting word and sign, so that they get drawn into “works righteousness,” trusting in their obedience to the law. Luther likened those who trusted in works, like the Jews, to the sow that “is washed only to wallow in the mire.” 30 The Jews, he alleges, look for biblical truth “under the sow’s tail,” that is, their interpretation of the Bible comes from looking in a pig’s anus; they accuse Christians of stupidity that could not even be assigned to a sow, which “covers itself with mire from head to foot and does not eat anything much cleaner”; they defame Christian belief, “impelled by the Devil, to fall into this like filthy sows fall into the trough.” If they see a Jew, Christians should “throw sow dung at him…and chase him away.” 31 Luther calls for the secular authorities to burn down all the synagogues and schools, and “what won’t burn should be covered over with earth, so that not a stone or piece of slag of it should be seen for all eternity.” The Jews’ houses should be destroyed and they should be put under one roof, like the gypsies. The Talmud and prayer books should be destroyed and Jewish teachers banned. They should be prevented from using the roads, usury banned, and the Jews forced to undertake physical labor instead. Assets from moneylending should be confiscated and used to support Jews who converted. This was a program of complete cultural eradication.

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  Livni and Etzion and their fellow-conspirators believed that the Israeli government had committed a great sin in permitting the Arabs to remain in control of the Haram al-Sharif, the Temple Mount. The Dome of the Rock, in their eyes, was an “abomination,” and the “root cause of all the spiritual errors of our generation.” 89 One of the chief ideologues of the Jewish underground was Yeshua ben Shoshan, a gentle, soft-spoken Kabbalist who believed that the Dome of the Rock was the abode of the evil forces of the “Other Side” that were impeding redemption. It was he who had approached Livni and Etzion with the idea of purging the “abomination” during the Camp David negotiations, which, in his view, had been inspired by these demonic influences. Their power would be neutralized by the destruction of the Dome, and the accursed peace process would come to an abrupt end. At the very least, the dramatic action would shock the Jewish people worldwide into a proper awareness of their religious responsibilities, and cause them to abandon this talk of reconciliation with the enemy. It had been a perilous moment. Not only would the bombing of the Dome of the Rock have ended the peace process, it would almost certainly have resulted in a war in which, for the first time, the whole Muslim world would have joined forces against Israel. Strategists in Washington agreed that, in the context of the Cold War, when the Soviets supported the Arabs and the United States, Israel, the destruction of the Dome of the Rock could well have sparked World War III. 90 The specter of nuclear catastrophe did not trouble these extreme Kookists, however. They were convinced that by instigating an apocalypse here on Earth, they would activate powers in the divine world and “oblige” God to intervene on their behalf and send the Messiah to save Israel. 91 This was kabbalistic thinking gone mad. It is a terrifying example of the fundamentalist tendency to use mythology as a blueprint for action. On the practical level, there was nothing irrational about the conspirators’ plans. Livni had been trained as an explosives expert in the IDF. He had studied the Haram al-Sharif meticulously for two years, and purloined a large quantity of explosives from military camps in the Golan Heights. He had manufactured twenty-eight precision bombs that would have destroyed the Dome but not its surroundings. 92 They were entirely ready for the attack. All that stopped them was that they could find no rabbi who was willing to sanction their plan. The Dome of the Rock plot represented an abdication of reason, a reliance upon the miraculous, and a nihilism that could have entirely destroyed the Jewish state.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Next Luther engages in his habitual wordplay, turning the wonder-working word into the “shame here,” using mock Hebrew word derivations. The rabbi, he says, is looking into the “shame here” and it denotes not God but the Devil; the Jews are therefore sorcerers who dig around in excrement and worship only the Devil. The point of attacking the Jews for turning Hebrew into a magical code is that it allows Luther to replace the rabbis as biblical interpreter, and claim for the Lutherans the status of being the chosen people. 37 Luther’s anti-Semitism then reached a crescendo of physical revulsion. He imagined Jews kissing and praying to the Devil’s excrement: “the Devil has…emptied his stomach again and again, that is a true relic, which the Jews, and those who want to be a Jew, kiss, eat, drink and worship.” In a kind of inverted baptismal exorcism, the Devil fills the mouth, nose, and ears of the Jews with filth: “He stuffs and squirts them so full, that it overflows and swims out of every place, pure Devil’s filth, yes, it tastes so good to their hearts, and they guzzle it like sows.” Whipping himself into a frenzy, Luther invokes Judas, the ultimate Jew: “When Judas Schariot hanged himself, so that his guts ripped, and as happens to those who are hanged, his bladder burst, then the Jews had their golden cans and silver bowls ready, to catch the Judas piss (as one calls it) with the other relics, and afterwards together they ate the shit and drank, from which they got such sharp sight that they are able to see such complex glosses in Scripture.” 38 Whenever Luther starts talking in this fashion, his deepest impulses are on display. This is no longer rational argument—he did not seriously believe that Jews had sharp sight because they ate ordure. Rather, he puns, condenses ideas into a single figure, leaps from one idea to another, as if caught in a fantastical nightmare. Rhetoric like this stops thought; it overwhelms through the torrent of violent imagery. Luther knew how to turn this kind of anxiety into humor, and he had used it to devastating effect against the papacy. Yet here its effect is not to make the reader laugh, but to induce physical revulsion. Vom Schem Hamphoras is the crazed fantasy that underpinned the apparently rational On the Jews and Their Lies . In that work, Luther had written: “if God would give me no Messiah but the one the Jews hope for,” he would rather be a pig than a human because the Jewish Messiah does not overcome death. 39 The sow rolls about in muck, has no worries, and does not fear death: When the butcher comes, she is dead in a moment.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ἄποπτος, ov, (améWopar) seen or to be seen from a place, ὅπως μὴ ἄπ. ἔσται ἡ Κορινθία ἀπὸ τοῦ χώματος Arist. Pol. 2.12, 9; ἐν ἀπόπτῳ ἔχειν in a conspicuous place, Arr. An. 2. 10, 3; ἐν ἀπ. εἱστιᾶσθαι Joseph. A. J. 13.04, 2; εἴς: II. out of sight of, far away from, τοῦδ᾽ ἄποπτος ἄστεως Soph. O. T. 762; ἄποπτος ἡμῶν Id. El. 1489 :-—absol. far away, κἂν ἄποπτος ἧς ὅμως Id. Aj. 17, ubi v. Lob.; ἐξ ἀπόπτου μᾶλλον ἢ ᾿γύθεν σκοπεῖν Soph. Ph. 467; ws ἐξ ἀπ. θεώμενος Plat. Ax. 369 A. 2. dimly seen, Dion. H. 2. 543 unseen, invisible, Cyrill. ἀπόπτυγμα, τό, (πτύσσω) a piece of drapery, C.I. 151. ἀποπτυέλισμα, ατος, TO, (πτύελοΞ) spittle, Damasc. ἀποπτύρω, to scare, Gloss. ἀπόπτυσμα, τό, that which is spit out, A. B. 223. ἀποπτύσσω, to unfold, spread out, Aen. Tact. 31. ἀποπτυστέος, a, ov, verb. Adj. to be loathed, rejected, Clem. Al. 163. ἀποπτυστήρ, 7pos, 6, one that spits out : ἀποπτ. χαλινῶν a horse that will not bear the bit (cf. respuere), Opp. H. 2. 11. ἀπόπτυστος, ov, spat out: hence abominated, detested, θεοῖς Aesch. Eum. 191; absol., Soph. O. C. 1383, Eur. Med. 1373, etc. 2. c. gen., νεφῶν 2 , 2 aATOTTUW —— απορος. ἀποπτύω, fut. ύσω, ἐο spit out, ὄνθον ἀποπτύων Il. 23. 781 ; of the sea, ἀποπτύει ἁλὸς ἄχνην 4. 426; ἀπ. σίαλον éx τοῦ στόματος Xen. Mem. 1. 2, 54: 4050]. to spit, Aesch. Fr. 376, Xen. Cyr. 1. 2, 16:—Pass., Philo I. 29, Galen. 2. to abominate, spurn, Lat. respuere, ἀποπτύουσι δέ τ᾽ ἀράς Hes. Op. 724; ἀποπτύεις λόγους Aesch. Eum, 303; ἀπέπτυσαν εὐνὰς ἀδελφοῦ Id. Ag. 1192, Pr. 1070, cf. Ar. Pax 528, Eur. Andr. 607: simply ¢o disown, Aesch. Cho. 195 ;—the aor. ἀπέπτυσα being commonly used in the sense of a pres., ἀπέπτυσα μὲν λόγον Eur. Hel. 664, cf. I. A. 874; and often absol., ἀπέπτυσα, omen absit, Id. Hipp. 614, Hec. 1266, I. T. 1161; ἀπ. χαλινόν of a horse, Philostr. 781, cf. ἀποπτυστήρ. [v of pres. long in Ep.; v of fut. and aor. short in Trag. ] ἀπόπτωμα, ατος, τό, an unlucky chance, misfortune, Polyb. 11. 2, 6. ἀπόπτωσις, ews, 7, a falling off or away, Hipp. Mochl. 860; ἀπ. τῆς ἀρχῆς deposition, Ath. 530 A. ἀποπτωτικός, 7, dv, falling off, failing, unsuccessful, Origen. ἀποπῦδαρίζω, v. sub πυδαρίζω. ἀποπῦέω, to suppurate, Hipp. 1012 Ὁ. ἀποπῦητικός, 7, ὄν, promoting or causing suppuration, Hipp. Coac. 165. ἀποπῦυΐσκω, (πυέω) to promote suppuration :—Pass. to suppurate, Hipp. 470. 54. i ἀποπυκνόομαι, Pass. to be condensed, consolidated, Diog. L. 10. 107. ἀποπυνθάνομαι, fut. -πεύσομαι: Dep.:—to inguire or ask of, ἀπ. [αὐτοῦ] εἰ... asked of him whether .., Hdt. 3. 154. ἀποπυργίζω, (πύργοΞ) to defend by towers, Suid., Hesych. s.v. Διαγόρας. ἀποπῦρίας (sc. ἄρτος), ov, 6, a kind of toasted bread, Cratin. Μαλθ. 3, cf. Ath. 111 E. ἀποπῦριάω, to foment, Antyll. in Matthaei Med. 150.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  away, ἀπ. ἀπ᾿ ἀλλήλων Id. H. A. 9. 3, 5: esp., 1. to turn one’s face away from, abandon, avoid, Lat. aversari, c. acc., Phocyl. 2; μή μ᾽ ἀποστραφῇς Soph. O. C.1272; μή μ᾽ ἀποστρέφου Eur. I. T. 801, cf. Ar. Pax 633, Xen. Cyr. 5.5, 30; τὸ θεῖον ῥᾳδίως ἀπεστράφης Eur. Supp. 159; also, c. gen., aoppos οἴκων τῶνδ᾽ ἀποστραφείς Soph. O. T. 431: —absol., μή, πρὸς θεῶν, . . ἀποστραφῇς Ib. 326; ἀπεστραμμένοι λόγοι hostile words, Hdt. 7.160. 2. to turn oneself about, turn back, Xen. Cyr. 1. 4, 253 to turn and flee, Ib. 6. 2,17; ἀποστραφῆναι to escape, Plat. Rep. 405 C. 3. ἀποστραφῆναί τινος to fall off from one, desert him, Xen. Hell. 4. 8, 4. ἀποστριγγόω and -στρίγγωσις, ews, 7, in Eust. 879. 35., 1416. 31; words of uncertain meaning, having reference to unpleasant alliteration, as ἴῃ Ἤλιδι δίῃ. ἀποστροφέω, -- ἀποστρέφω, to avert, ὀπωπάς Tzetz. Hom. 283. ἀποστροφή, ἡ, (ἀποστρέφομαι) a turning back, Xen. Eq. 9. 6; ἀπο- στροφὴν λαμβάνειν to have one’s course turned, Plut. Lucull. 27. II. a turning away from, an escape, refuge, c. gen., τύχης, κακῶν Aesch. Pr. 769, Soph. Fr. 684; ζημίας Eur. Med, 1223. 2. a resort, re- source, Hdt. 8. τοῦ, Thuc. 4. 76; ἥκει βίου τελευτὴ κοὐκέτ᾽ ἐστ᾽ ἀπ. Soph. O. C. 1473, cf. Eur. Med. 603; οὐκ ἔχων ἀπ. Dem. 42. 2:—c. gen. objecti, οὔ opi ἐστι ὕδατος οὐδεμία ἄλλη ἀπ. no other means for getting water, Hdt. 2.13; so, σωτηρίας ἀπ. Thuc. 8. 75; βίου Luc. D. Meretr. 6.1; ἀπ. τοῦ δήμου assistance from them, Philostr. 549- III. in Rhet. an apostrophé, when one turns away from all others to one, and addresses him specially, Longin. 16. 2, Quintil. 9. 2, 38. ἀποστροφία, 7, she that turns away, epith. of Aphrodité, Paus. 9. 16, 2. ἀπόστροφος, ov, turned away, ἀποστρόφους αὐγὰς ἀπείρξω (i.e. ἀπο- στρέψω καὶ ἀπείρξω) Soph. Aj. 69: turned away from, c. gen., Manetho 1.57- 2. to be turned from, dreadful, epith. of the Erinyes, Orph. Η. γο. 8. II. as Subst., ἀπόστροφος, 7, an apostrophe, An. Ox. 3. 356. ἀποστρώννῦμι, to take off the trappings, Hesych. 5. v. ἀπέσαξεν. ἀποστῦὕγέω, fut. -στύξω: aor. 1. -εστύγησα Soph. O. C. 692, also -€orvéa Opp. H. 4. 370: aor. 2 ἀπέστὔγον Call. Del, 223: pf. with pres. sense -εστύγηκα Hat. 2.47:—to hate violently, abhor, loathe utterly, Hdt. 2. 47, Soph. O. Ὁ. 186, 692, Eur. Ion 488 ; ἀπ. ὕδωρ (in comparison with wine) Melanipp. 4: c.inf., ἀπ. γαμβρόν of γενέσθαι Ἱπποκλείδην Hdt.6. 129. ἀποστύγησις [Ὁ], ews, 7, abhorrence, Schol. Aesch. Cho. 77. ἀποστῦὕγητέον, verb. Adj. oxe must abhor, Byz. anootimale, to drive off with blows, Archil. 114. ἀποστὔφελίζω, to drive away by force from, τινά Twos 1]. 18. 158, Anth. P. 7. 603.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ἀ-χάλαζος, ov, without hail, Or. Sibyll. 3. 369. ἀ-χάλαστος, ov, unrelaxed, Greg. Nyss. ἀ-χαλέπως, Adv. without difficulty, Matth, Vett. p. 92. ἀ-χἄλινάγώγητος, ov, =sq., [renae. ἀ-χάλϊνος, ov, unbridled, στόμα Eur. Bacch. 385, cf. H. F. 383, Ar. Ran. 838, Plat. Legg. 701 C; dy. im ἀργύρου, i. e. uncorrupted by bribes, Epigr. Gr. 855.7. Adv. —vws, Cyrill. ἀ-χἄλίνωτος [1]. ov, unbridled, without bridle, ἵππος Xen. Eq. 5, 3; στόμα Anth. P. 11.177; ἀνάγκαι Orph. H. 55. 13. ἀχάλκεος, ov, without a χαλκοῦς, penniless, dx. οὐδός (with a pun on χάλκεος οὐδός), Anth. P. 11. 403. Ce aaa ov, not forged of metal, πέδαι Aesch. Cho. 493, cf. Soph. Fr. 640. ἀχαλκέω, (χαλκοῦς) to be penniless, Anth. P. 11. 154. ἀ-χαλιήσ, és, without brass, ὅπλαί Tryph. 87. d-xah«os, ov, without brass, ἄχαλκος ἀσπίδων, i.e. ἄνευ ἀσπίδων χαλ- κείων, Soph. Ο. 'T. 190. ἀ-χάλκωτος, ov, not brasened; without money, Anth. P. 6. 298. ἀχάνεια, 7, (ἀχᾶνής 11) immense width, a chasm, M. Anton. 12. 7:—in Medic. a wide opening, Paul. Aeg. 6. 107. axavy, 7, a Persian (also Boeotian) measure, =45 μέδιμνοι, Ar. Ach. 108, 109. 2. a chest, box, Phanodem. Fr. 25, Plut. Arat. 6.—V. Poll. 10.164 sq. [a avy, Elmsl. Ach. 1. ο.7 ἀ-χἄνής, és, (χάσκω, xaveiv) not opening the mouth, of one mute with astonishment, Hegesipp. ‘A. 1. 25, Polyb. 7. 17, 5, Luc. Icarom. 23 :—in Theophr. Vent. 29, δι ἀχανοῦς through a nxarrow opening. II. (a euphon.) yawning, κρημνός Timae. Fr. 28; πέλαγος Plut. Alex. 31, etc., v. Wyttenb. 2.76 C; χάσμα Anth. P. 9. 423 :---τὸ ἀχανές the void of space, Arist. Meteor. I. 3, τό; ἀχανές: τὸ μὴ ἔχον aTéynv.., ἐπὶ Tov λαβυρίνθου Soph. Fr. 852. 2. generally, vast, immense, στρά- τευμα Plut. 2. 866 Α; πέλαγος Id. Cic. 6. ἀ-χαρακτήριστος. ov, without distinctive features or character, Epiphan. ἀχάρακτος, ον, not graven or cut, Nonn. Ὁ. 13. 84., 16. T58, etc. a-xapakwtos, ov, not palisaded, Polyb. 10. 11, 2, Plut. Mar. 20. πτως, Appian. Civ. 3. 70. ἀχἄριότηϑς, ητος, 7, awkwardness, stupidity, with a play on the name Χαριμόρτης, Polyb. 18. 38, 2 (Lob. ἀγριότητα). ἄ-χἄρις, 6, 7, ἄχαρι, τό, Ben. tos :—without grace or charms, grace- less, συμπόσιον ue οὐκ ἄχαρι Theogn. 496; of an immature girl, Sappho 38. 2. unpleasant, disagreeable, οὐδὲν ἄχαρι παθέειν Hdt. 2. 141., 6.9; πρός τινος 8:143: ᾿οὐδὲν ἄχ. παριδεῖν τινι 1. 38, τοῦ; ἐνδιδόναι οὐδὲν ἄχ. 7.52: esp. as euphem. for a grievous calamity, ἄχ. συμφορή τ. 41., 7.190; TO τέλος σφι ἐγένετο ἄχ. 8.13; Bios οὐκ ἄχαρις εἰς τὴν τριβήν Ατ. Αν.156. IL. πριργαοίοις, thankless, Lat. ingratus, ἄχ. τιμή a thankless office, Hdt. 7. 36; χάρις ἄχαρις a graceless grace, thankless favour, Aesch. Pr. 545, Ag. 1545; κακῆς γυ- ναικὸς χάριν ἄχαριν ἀπώλετο Eur. 1. T. 566; cf. ἀχάριστος, ἀχάριτος. ἀχἄριστέω, to be thankless, shew ingratitude, Xen. Mem. 2.2/2, Plut: Phoc. 36. 2.=00 yapiCopa to discourage, τινί Plat. Symp. 186 (ΘΕ 8. Pass. to be treated ungratefully, Polyb. 23. 11, 8. ἀχᾶριστία. ἡ, thanklessness, ingratitude, Xen. Cyr. 1. 2, 7; εἰς ax. ἄγειν Dem. 330.14. 2. ungraciousness, rudeness, grossness, Plat. Rep. 411E. ἀχάριστος, ov, Qcapiopar) ungracious, unpleasant, unpleasing, οὐκ ἀχάριστα μεθ᾽ ἡμῖν ταῦτ᾽ ἀγορεύεις Od. 8. 236; irreg. Comp., δόρπου ἀχαρίστερον (for -ἰστότερον) Od. 20. 392: without grace or charms, οὐκ ἀχάριστα λέγειν Xen. An. 2.1, 133 cf. sq.; dy. ἐπιμέλημα a thank- less business, Id. Oec. 7, 37. IL. of persons, wagracious, wn-

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ἀχθεινός, ἡ, dv, (ἄχθος) burdensome, oppressive, wearisome, of persons, Eur. Hipp. 94; of things, Id. Hec. 1240, Xen. Mem. 4. 8, 1 :—Adv. -νῶς, unwillingly, Id. Hell. 4. 8, 27. ἀχθέω, to weigh down, oppress, fatigue, τινα Aretae. Sign. M. Diut. 2. 12: 2. intr. to be oppressed, Ib. 2; cf. Hesych. 5. ν. ἀχθήσας. ἀχθηδών, dvos, 7, a weight, burden, ax. κακοῦ Aesch. Pr. 26. ΟΣ metaph. grievance, distress, vexation, annoyance, Thuc. 2. 37. Plat. Legg. 734 A; ἐρέσθαι τινὰ δι ἀχθηδόνα for the sake of teasing, Thuc. 4. 40; πρὸς ἀχθηδόνα μου with anger towards me, Luc. Tox. 9. (From ἄχθος, as ἀλγηδών from ἄλγος, cf. Plat. Crat. 419 C.) axOnprs, és,=sq., Hesych. ἀχθηρός, dv, grievous, Antiph. Ἔπικλ. 1: elsewhere as v. 1. for ἀχθεινός. ἀχθηφορέω, = ἀχθοφορέω. Lob. Phryn. 680. ἀχθίζω, fut. cw, to load,” Apa κάμηλον ἀχθίσας Babr. 8. 1.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther retorted that he wished that there were no mendicant orders. Criticism of the mendicants was not unusual at the time, but coming from an Augustinian monk, it was hardly likely to commend him to his brethren. 29 The debate concluded with a series of exchanges between Eck and Karlstadt, with the latter insisting again that all human action is sinful. Even the saints do evil, Karlstadt proclaimed, that is, “they feel evil desires in nature,” and these will not cease so long as we are clothed in mortality; only when death is swallowed in victory will it be possible to have a pure, good will without evil desire. Good works, he went so far as to say, were utterly “impure,” like the “filth” that pours out of women’s bodies—menstrual blood being the most shocking and revolting comparison he could think of. Eck retorted that if all good works were evil, confession itself would be pointless and humans would not need to do anything to ensure their own salvation—they could eat, drink, and be merry, leaving it all to God. This was a crude travesty of Karlstadt’s position. But it revealed how uncomfortable the new ideas could be, and how difficult it was to accommodate them to familiar views of human nature. 30 The idea of the sinfulness of all human action had by now become central to early Reformation thinking. It is a difficult concept to grasp, but it is evidently an idea that a man like Karlstadt found liberating. It could lead to a very negative conception of humanity, and to hostility to the flesh, as it did in Karlstadt’s case. Not so in Luther’s, for whom it led to a surprisingly positive attitude toward physicality. Behind it lies the idea, familiar too from psychoanalytic thinking now, that all our actions, even the ones we think stem from the most laudable of motives and of which we feel most proud, are tainted with sin—or as we might put it today, can involve quite murky psychic drives, such as anger, pride, or envy. Therefore, far from being something that might be piled up to make the sinner acceptable to God and help reach salvation, good works can do nothing to make us other than what we are—imperfect people. But while Karlstadt and Luther denied that human beings had free will, Eck argued that this would lead to antinomianism—a state of affairs where people reject all laws and commit all sorts of sin. This matter would soon become a major fissure within Reformation thought.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther, in contrast, came to reject both attitudes, scorning adulation for Mary on the grounds that there can be no mediator between God and man, and also rejecting the idea that sexual renunciation was necessary for holiness. — I N this context, Luther’s sermon in May 1515 to the Augustinian chapter meeting at Gotha is illustrative not only of some of the emotional underpinnings of his later theological development, but also of both his dependence on, and difference from, his father-confessor. The sermon was organized by Staupitz, and again had more than a little to do with the complex internal politics of the order; as a result of it, Luther won the position of district vicar overseeing monasteries in the region, the most senior position he had held in the order up to that time. 69 The sermon dwelt on envy, and was delivered at a time when Staupitz was experiencing some of his greatest difficulties in trying to unite the order; indeed he shortly afterward gave up the attempt altogether. It may therefore have reflected particular tensions within the Augustinians and direct attacks on the vicar general. In addition, the debacle over Luther’s doctoral celebrations—and Nathin’s role in this episode—would have given Luther good reason to think about the subject as well. Yet while its origins had a practical purpose, the sermon hardly reads like a response to a particular incident, still less a tactical sally in a dispute within the order. 70 It shows Luther backing up his superior, but also signals how the two men differed. It employs a style that is almost a mirror version of Staupitz’s own devotional approach, for, like Staupitz he uses sensually overwhelming allegories in quick succession, but whereas the older man deploys this technique to create a sense of meditative reflection on God’s love, Luther exploits it to propel his hearer into an unbearable world of existential disgust and abandonment. The sermon takes us closer than any other testimony to the religious despair and overwhelming sinfulness that Luther felt as a monk. To make his point about envy, Luther compares the backbiter to a murderer and to a debaucher, using language that goes far beyond the biblical text to make the hearer experience revulsion. Just as the Word of God is holy seed, which conceives in the spirit purely and without violation, so by contrast the word of the backbiter is the adulterous and spurious seed of the Devil, corrupting the listener’s soul; indeed, the very name of the Devil is backbiter. 71 Backbiters are “poisoners” and “witches,” Luther says, who “bewitch” and “subvert” the ears of their listeners.