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.

Page 54 of 90 · 20 per page

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  Proverbs 16 Contrast the Upright and the Wicked 1 T he plans and reflections of the heart belong to man, But the [wise] answer of the tongue is from the LORD . 2 All the ways of a man are clean and innocent in his own eyes [and he may see nothing wrong with his actions], But the LORD weighs and examines the motives and intents [of the heart and knows the truth]. [1 Sam 16:7 ; Heb 4:12 ] 3 a Commit your works to the LORD [submit and trust them to Him], And your plans will succeed [if you respond to His will and guidance]. 4 The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked [according to their role] for the day of evil. 5 Everyone who is proud and arrogant in heart is disgusting and exceedingly offensive to the LORD ; Be assured he will not go unpunished. [Prov 8:13 ; 11:20 , 21 ] 6 By mercy and lovingkindness and truth [not superficial ritual] wickedness is cleansed from the heart, And by the fear of the LORD one avoids evil. 7 When a man’s ways please the LORD , He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. 8 Better is a little with righteousness Than great income [gained] with injustice. [Ps 37:16 ; Prov 15:16 ] 9 A man’s mind plans his way [as he journeys through life], But the LORD directs his steps and establishes them. [Ps 37:23 ; Prov 20:24 ; Jer 10:23 ] 10 A divine decision [given by God] is on the lips of the king [as His representative]; His mouth should not be unfaithful or unjust in judgment. [Deut 17:18–20 ; 2 Sam 14:17–20 ; 1 Kin 3:9–12 ; Is 11:2 ] 11 A just balance and [honest] scales are the LORD ’s; All the weights of the bag are His concern [established by His eternal principles]. 12 It is repulsive [to God and man] for kings to behave wickedly, For a throne is established on righteousness (right standing with God). 13 Righteous lips are the delight of kings, And he who speaks right is loved. 14 The wrath of a king is like a messenger of death, But a wise man will appease it. 15 In the light of the king’s face is life, And his favor is like a cloud bringing the spring rain. 16 How much better it is to get wisdom than gold! And to get understanding is to be chosen above silver. [Prov 8:10 , 19 ] 17 The highway of the upright turns away and departs from evil; He who guards his way protects his life (soul). 18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall. 19 It is better to be humble in spirit with the lowly Than to divide the spoil with the proud (haughty, arrogant).

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  5 “Oholah played the prostitute while she was Mine; and she adored and lusted after her lovers (allies), the Assyrians, her neighbors, 6 who were clothed in purple, governors and officials, all of them attractive young men, horsemen riding on horses. 7 “She bestowed [freely] her immoralities on them, the choicest men of Assyria, all of them; and with all whom she adored and lusted after, she defiled herself with their idols. 8 “She did not c give up the acts of prostitution that originated during her time in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her, and they handled her virgin bosom and poured out their depravity on her. 9 “Therefore, I placed her in the hand of her lovers (allies), into the hand of the Assyrians whom she adored. 10 “They uncovered her nakedness; they took her sons and her daughters and they killed her with the sword. So she became d notorious among women, and they executed judgments on her. 11 “Now her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt in her lust than she, and her acts of prostitution were more [wanton] than the immoralities of her sister. 12 “She lusted after the Assyrians—governors and officials, her neighbors, magnificently clothed, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. 13 “I saw that she had defiled herself; they both behaved the same way. 14 “But Oholibah carried her depravity further, for she saw men pictured on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans (Babylonians) sketched and portrayed in vermilion (bright red pigment), 15 girded with belts on their e loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers, like the Babylonian men whose native land was Chaldea. 16 “When she saw [the sketches of] them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. 17 “The Babylonians came to her to the bed of love and they defiled her with their evil desire; and when she had been defiled by them, she (Jerusalem) broke the relationship and pushed them away from her in disgust. 18 “So she flaunted her acts of prostitution and exposed her nakedness; then I became disgusted with her [and turned away], as I had become disgusted with her sister [and turned away]. 19 “Yet she multiplied her depravities, remembering the days of her youth, when she was actively immoral in the land of Egypt. 20 “For she lusted after her lovers [there], whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses. 21 “Thus you longed for the lewdness and vulgarity of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom on account of the breasts of your youth.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  My lord leech, finding himself in that abominable place, struggled to arise and strove as best he might to win forth thereof; and after falling in again and again, now here and now there, and swallowing some drachms of the filth, he at last succeeded in making his way out of the dyke, in the woefullest of plights, bewrayed from head to foot and leaving his bonnet behind him. Then, having wiped himself as best he might with his hands and knowing not what other course to take, he returned home and knocked till it was opened to him. Hardly was he entered, stinking as he did, and the door shut again ere up came Bruno and Buffalmacco, to hear how he should be received of his wife, and standing hearkening, they heard the lady give him the foulest rating was ever given poor devil, saying, 'Good lack, what a pickle thou art in! Thou hast been gallanting it to some other woman and must needs seek to cut a figure with thy gown of scarlet! What, was not I enough for thee? Why, man alive, I could suffice to a whole people, let alone thee. Would God they had choked thee, like as they cast thee whereas thou deservedst to be thrown! Here's a fine physician for you, to have a wife of his own and go a-gadding anights after other folk's womankind!' And with these and many other words of the same fashion she gave not over tormenting him till midnight, what while the physician let wash himself from head to foot.

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  Yet, she noticed that Black people with class privilege were known for not meddling: “[T]hose who have had the advantages of education and culture do not, as a rule, make sufficient inquiries about the habits and conditions of the unwashed, unlettered, and the unkempt.” 15 Despite her important critique of class privilege, she undercut the power of her own observation in the next line by suggesting that “the literate do not interfere sufficiently with the illiterate, whose conduct and whose crimes bring shame to the race and disgrace to themselves.” 16 On the one hand, Terrell seemed disgusted at the apathy of the Black middle class and framed agitation, interference, and meddling as work in service of racial justice. On the other hand, she often shamed and demonized the Black poor. At best, Terrell’s formulation of meddling is understood as a double-edged sword. Her condescension reeked of the worst kind of racial respectability politics that unwittingly upheld the logics of white supremacy, even as she and her counterparts tried to ameliorate the terrible social conditions faced by the Black poor. 17 Despite these critical blind spots in regards to the Black working class, Terrell had begun under the guise of “the meddler” to lay out an explicit theory of racial agitation. She continued to develop her theory of agitation in an unidentified speech written around 1913. “Some time ago it became the fashion to hoot and jeer at agitators in every conceivable way,” she told her audience. 18 Those colored people who insisted that it was our duty to let the world know, for instance, how we felt about having our rights as citizens violently snatched away, how alarmed we were at the result of wholesale disfranchisement of colored men in a whole section, how we were misrepresented when lynching was discussed, how cruel and terrible is the Convict Lease System, that new form of slavery in some respects more cruel and more crushing than the old & If a Colored Person insisted that it was our duty as a race to call attention to all this, I say, he was told that he was just stirring up trouble, that he had better be quiet, agitation never did any good. 19 Not much had changed in the way of Black elite apathy by 1913. Not only had these people not become meddlers, but they also had become the group, who in Terrell’s estimation, most stridently discouraged agitation: “Intelligent men and women who hold doplomas [sic] from college, whose brains had been trained to think were as loud and bitter in their denunciation of agitators as was the humble toiler who did not know his a-b-cs. And yet these people had read history.” 20 That reading of history, she argued, should have exposed them to men such as abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. In her 1905 essay, she had invoked Garrison as an exemplary meddler whose willingness to interfere with the Peculiar Institution had been instrumental in ending slavery.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  But if high, unforgiving standards were ascribed to real or potential guests, the hosts were as eager to judge their friends. A man who dropped in would be laughed at for wearing cologne or even the chastest ring or for showing his calf when he crossed his leg or for turning the creases in his trousers when he sat down as poor men do, and his wife would invariably have too loud a voice and too much jewelry and she’d smoke and drink too much, availing herself, in other words, of those very bottles we’d laid in and those silver felt-bottomed lighters we’d posed on side tables with such anxiety to make them appear casual. It was a milieu where even the most passing acknowledgment of the body was considered “off color.” Now that I’d lived away from home for several years at boarding school and college, I found myself breaking the delicate membrane that sealed off decent talk from the world’s grossness. That night, my stepmother escorted Annie to her room, far from mine, since in those days there was no question of putting an unmarried man and woman even in adjoining rooms. My father lit another cigar and said, “Damn nice young woman. And seems to have a good head on her shoulders. She asked good solid questions about group versus individual life insurance.” I doubt whether my father thought Annie was either solid or nice, but she was a woman—a step in the right direction. My stepmother discovered in the morning that the entire ham and turkey had vanished from the refrigerator overnight. That evening, when my father arose, he found that his sink had stopped up. The blocked drain was located exactly one floor below in Annie’s bathroom. When he put on his special, comical plumber’s cap and overalls and roguishly opened the pipe leading down from her sink, his face fell, his mouth turned down in disgust, and he pulled out stinking, half-chewed gobs of turkey and ham with his bare hands. “I just don’t understand,” my stepmother whispered. “Why couldn’t your friend get sick in the toilet instead of the sink? And it seems such a waste of

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  Nevertheless, The United States had an “imperative need” for “active, insistent and fearless meddlers who will spend their time investigating institutions, customs, and laws whose effect on any color or class is depressing or bad.”13 For instance, in the U.S. context, unlike Russia or Great Britain, which also needed their own meddlers, “the meddler should take it upon himself to ask disagreeable questions about the political corruption which makes a single white man in one section equal to seven in another.” The American meddler should further inquire why intelligent, worthy, and well-to-do citizens are denied the rights guaranteed them by the constitutions, because their complexion happens not to be fashionable in the particular section which treats them as peons and slaves, while men who are inferior to them in both intelligence and respectability are granted all their rights, privileges, and immunities simply because their faces are white, although it is through no effort, or merit, or prowess on their part that this desirable complexion has been secured.14 Like her counterpart Fannie Williams had done a decade earlier, she exposed the myth of American meritocracy and the unfairness of white-skin privilege. Yet, she noticed that Black people with class privilege were known for not meddling: “[T]hose who have had the advantages of education and culture do not, as a rule, make sufficient inquiries about the habits and conditions of the unwashed, unlettered, and the unkempt.”15 Despite her important critique of class privilege, she undercut the power of her own observation in the next line by suggesting that “the literate do not interfere sufficiently with the illiterate, whose conduct and whose crimes bring shame to the race and disgrace to themselves.”16 On the one hand, Terrell seemed disgusted at the apathy of the Black middle class and framed agitation, interference, and meddling as work in service of racial justice. On the other hand, she often shamed and demonized the Black poor. At best, Terrell’s formulation of meddling is understood as a double-edged sword. Her condescension reeked of the worst kind of racial respectability politics that unwittingly upheld the logics of white supremacy, even as she and her counterparts tried to ameliorate the terrible social conditions faced by the Black poor.17 Despite these critical blind spots in regards to the Black working class, Terrell had begun under the guise of “the meddler” to lay out an explicit theory of racial agitation. She continued to develop her theory of agitation in an unidentified speech written around 1913. “Some time ago it became the fashion to hoot and jeer at agitators in every conceivable way,” she told her audience.18 Those colored people who insisted

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  [Hos 10:12 ; Gal 6:8 , 9 ; James 3:18 ] 19 He who is steadfast in righteousness attains life, But he who pursues evil attains his own death. 20 The perverse in heart are repulsive and shamefully vile to the LORD , But those who are blameless and above reproach in their walk are His delight! 21 Assuredly, the evil man will not go unpunished, But the descendants of the righteous will be freed. 22 As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout, So is a beautiful woman who is without discretion [her lack of character mocks her beauty]. 23 The desire of the righteous brings only good, But the expectation of the wicked brings wrath. 24 There is the one who [generously] scatters [abroad], and yet increases all the more; And there is the one who withholds what is justly due, but it results only in want and poverty. 25 The generous man [is a source of blessing and] shall be prosperous and enriched, And he who waters will himself be watered [reaping the generosity he has sown]. [2 Cor 9:6–10 ] 26 The people curse him who holds back grain [when the public needs it], But a blessing [from God and man] is upon the head of him who sells it. 27 He who diligently seeks good seeks favor and grace, But he who seeks evil, evil will come to him. 28 He who leans on and trusts in and is confident in his riches will fall, But the righteous [who trust in God’s provision] will flourish like a green leaf. 29 He who troubles (mismanages) his own house will inherit the wind (nothing), And the foolish will be a servant to the wise-hearted. 30 The fruit of the [consistently] righteous is a tree of life, And he who is wise captures and wins souls [for God—he gathers them for eternity]. [Matt 4:19 ; 1 Cor 9:19 ; James 5:20 ] 31 If the righteous will be rewarded on the earth [with godly blessings], How much more [will] the wicked and the sinner [be repaid with punishment]! Proverbs 12 Contrast the Upright and the Wicked 1 W HOEVER LOVES instruction and discipline loves knowledge, But he who hates reproof and correction is stupid. 2 A good man will obtain favor from the LORD , But He will condemn a man who devises evil. 3 A man will not be established by wickedness, But the root of the [consistently] righteous will not be moved. 4 A virtuous and excellent wife [worthy of honor] is the crown of her husband, But she who shames him [with her foolishness] is like rottenness in his bones. [Prov 31:23 ; 1 Cor 11:7 ] 5 The thoughts and purposes of the [consistently] righteous are just (honest, reliable), But the counsels and schemes of the wicked are deceitful.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  Then inform them of their atrocities [the detestable and vile things they do]. 37 “For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery [against Me] with their idols and have even forced their sons, whom they bore to Me, to pass through the fire as [an offering of] food to them (idols). 38 “Moreover, they have done this to Me: they have defiled My sanctuary on the same day [of their idolatries] and have profaned My Sabbaths. 39 “For when they had killed their children [as offerings] to their idols, then they came the same day to My sanctuary to profane it [by daring to offer a sacrifice there also]. And behold, this they did within My house. 40 “Furthermore, you have even sent a messenger for men to come from far away; and behold, they came—those for whom you bathed, painted your eyes, and decorated yourself with ornaments; 41 and you sat on a splendid couch with a table arranged before it on which you had set My incense and My oil. 42 “The sound of a carefree crowd was with her; and drunkards were brought from the wilderness with men of a common sort, who put bracelets on the hands of the women (both sisters) and beautiful crowns on their heads. 43 “Then I said concerning the one (Oholah) worn out by adulteries, ‘Will they now commit adultery with her when she is like this?’ 44 “But they committed adultery with her as they would with a prostitute. So they went in to Oholah (Israel) and to Oholibah (Judah), the lewd women. 45 “And they, righteous men, will judge and condemn them with the judgment (punishment) of adulteresses and with the judgment of women who shed blood, because they are adulteresses and blood is on their hands. 46 “For thus says the Lord GOD , ‘Bring up a horde (mob) against them and hand them over to terror and plunder. 47 ‘And the horde will stone them with stones and cut them down with their swords; they will kill their sons and their daughters and burn down their houses with fire. 48 ‘Thus I will make lewdness cease from the land, that all women may be admonished and taught not to commit immoral acts as you have done. 49 ‘Thus your lewdness will be repaid to you, and you will suffer the penalty for your [sinful] idolatry; and you will know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord GOD .’ ” Ezekiel 24 Parable of the Boiling Pot 1 A GAIN IN the ninth year [of King Jehoiachin’s captivity by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon], in the tenth month, on the tenth [day] of the month, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, record the name of the day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  wonder why these germs have been considered inferior for centuries? Anyway. I got out on the street, and the front wheel from my bike had been stolen.” “But this is like a—” “It’s not a nightmare, baby. It’s New York City. That’s what it is. So I hailed about forty cabs. They’d slow down but then see the bike and take off. If you rode a bike you’d recognize how interesting it is that we take the most criminal element of our society, license them as cabdrivers, and set them loose behind ten thousand wheels on our city streets. And not one of them can speak English.” He sighed. “Well, I walked, I walked all the way across town, and by this time I had to shit so bad I went down into the IND, finally located a dime, and what do I find in the john: there are two toilets and roosting on each of them is a big grinning fairy!” Lou paused after the lightning exclamation and waited for the thunder of his own revulsion to roll over him. “Ugh! I could strangle every fucking fairy. You know how we used to deplore efforts to clean up Times Square? Well, turns out the cops are right, fairies are subhuman, they are going to pervert our children. An adult man works hard for a living and tries to provide for his family in his little apartment—no wonder he wants to bash every lush-life pansy in the teeth, the grinning chortling gargoyles right off the roof of Notre Dame! Nobody would let me take a crap. I went back to the street, unlocked my wreck of a bike from the street lamp, and wheeled it home, like one of Beckett’s tramps. “I had given up all hope of getting back to the office—they may fire me—and I had almost made it to my building when I shit in my pants. I couldn’t use the elevator; I wasn’t fit to ride with normal people. I walked up the four flights and took off my three-hundred-dollar Meledandri suit and washed it out with soap and water, and then took a shower. You wanted to know how I was.” “Oh, Lou,” I said, “I don’t know what to say.” “Why did I get diarrhea?” “Couldn’t it have been just an accident?” “Come on, Bunny. You’ve been in therapy.” Just as I was beginning to speculate, Lou whispered into the phone, “Bunny, you’re the one. I don’t want to marry Ava. I see what a mistake I’ve made. Will you wait for me?” “What do you mean?” “You’re the real love of my life. Do you love that boy?” “Who?” “What’s-his-name.” “Sean? I think so.” “And you don’t love me anymore?” “Lou, you’re my best friend.” “Really?” “Yes.” “I never had a friend. I don’t like what’s-his-name.” “Why not?” “I’m jealous. You’re my lover. He’s taken you away from me.” “He hasn’t taken me away. I’m your friend. I love you.” “Do you?” “Yes.” “Baby, I can’t talk anymore. Ava’s calling me to supper. Goodbye.” “Take care. Goodbye.” “Goodbye. You’re wonderful.”

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  disgusted, methods of registering collective racial protest. Despite her fiery rhetoric, her calls for dignified protest could be read as subdued. However, she had honed and articulated her theory of agitation over the course of nearly forty years. Where she had generally always insisted on a certain level of propriety with her agitation, by 1951 she had moved from proper and dignified, to dignified, disgusted, and defiant. Moreover, her speech, given just as McCarthyism and the Red Scare were set to reach a fevered pitch, connected African American struggles in the U.S. to the struggles of “four-fifths of the world’s population [who] are colored people.” 93 “Russia,” she told the audience, “is assiduously cultivating the friendship of colored people all over the world.” Fanning the flames of anticommunist, anti-Russian sentiment and attempting to use that sentiment for her argument, she insinuated that communism would become an increasingly attractive option to “these colored people,” who “are dominated by the great white countries through the medium of Colonialism which the colored people of the world hate and are determined to throw off just as fast as they can.” “And,” she warned with even more foreboding, “I believe they will succeed.” 94 These colonized peoples, including Black people in the U.S., whom she implicitly connected to those struggles, were paying close attention to the racial politics of the U.S. The blatant and unrepentant racial discrimination at the hands of a “Law Enforcement Officer of the Capital of the United States” had great symbolic import around the world. “It was hard to understand,” Terrell argued, “how anybody who loves his country can deliberately do something which will cause four-fifths of the world’s population to hate it.” 95 Terrell offered a sophisticated analysis of the ways that radical left social movements would come to appeal to people of color in global anticolonial struggles over the next decade. She believed that “making democracy” more inclusive would halt the forward march of communism. She thus attempted to co-opt the rhetoric of the Cold War to advocate for racial freedom in the U.S.

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  62 samohT fo stcA ehT :41 erutceL around. In these books, the wealth and beauty are to be despised for the rewards of heaven. Social life, here, is to be spurned for the life of heaven. Sexual love is to be renounced for the greater love of God, reserved for those who maintain their continent purity. Nowhere can this paradoxical twisting of the genre be seen more clearly than in possibly the most famous of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of Thomas. This narrative is well known because it is the (cid:191) rst account of the familiar legend that the apostle Thomas became a missionary who spread the gospel of Christ in far-off India. The Acts of Thomas tells the tale of how it happened. The book was originally written in Syria, probably in the third century. There is considerable doubt about the historical accuracy of its tales, even the basic theme that Thomas took the gospel to India. There is little doubt, though, about the entertaining nature of the narrative or its overarching intent to cast aspersions on values of contemporary society: wealth, power, sexual love. The plot itself is basic: Thomas is portrayed as Jesus’ twin brother, who is sold into slavery by his “master” (= Lord), after Jesus’ death, to an Indian merchant so that he will be forced to go abroad to spread the gospel among the people and royal family of India (chs. 1–2). The overarching themes of the book can be seen in the series of tales that takes place in the course of its narrative. Some have to do with showing the supernatural nature of the main character, Jesus’ twin brother, who has prophetic power (ch. 6, 9). This book stands in direct opposition to the celebration in the Greek romances of marital love as the glue that holds together society. Here, sex of any kind, even within marriage, is seen as foul and to be avoided at all costs (chs. 11– 16). Also opposed are other values that seemed so commonsensically good to many ancients: for example, the accumulation of wealth (thus, ch.17, the palace of Gundaphorus). Stressed is the power of God, especially in his sacraments (ch. 51) and in the life to come, where those who commit sins— especially sexual sins—are punished forever (chs. 55–57). Many of these themes are celebrated in the Hymn of the Pearl, one of the most moving pieces of poetry to come down to us from the ancient world, which is embedded in the Acts of Thomas, perhaps as an illustration of

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As all of you know, Fiesole, whose hill we can see hence, was once a very great and ancient city, nor, albeit it is nowadays all undone, hath it ever ceased to be, as it is yet, the seat of a bishop. Near the cathedral church there a widow lady of noble birth, by name Madam Piccarda, had an estate, where, for that she was not overwell to do, she abode the most part of the year in a house of hers that was not very big, and with her, two brothers of hers, very courteous and worthy youths. It chanced that, the lady frequenting the cathedral church and being yet very young and fair and agreeable, the rector of the church became so sore enamoured of her that he could think of nothing else, and after awhile, making bold to discover his mind to her, he prayed her accept of his love and love him as he loved her. Now he was already old in years, but very young in wit, malapert and arrogant and presumptuous in the extreme, with manners and fashions full of conceit and ill grace, and withal so froward and ill-conditioned that there was none who wished him well; and if any had scant regard for him, it was the lady in question, who not only wished him no whit of good, but hated him worse than the megrims; wherefore, like a discreet woman as she was, she answered him, 'Sir, that you love me should be mighty pleasing to me, who am bound to love you and will gladly do so; but between your love and mine nothing unseemly should ever befall. You are my spiritual father and a priest and are presently well stricken in years, all which things should make you both modest and chaste; whilst I, on the other hand, am no girl, nor do these amorous toys beseem my present condition, for that I am a widow and you well know what discretion is required in widows; wherefore I pray you hold me excused, for that I shall never love you after the fashion whereof you require me; nor do I wish to be thus loved of you.'

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  62 Lecture 14: The Acts of Thomas around. In these books, the wealth and beauty are to be despised for the rewards of heaven. Social life, here, is to be spurned for the life of heaven. Sexual love is to be renounced for the greater love of God, reserved for those who maintain their continent purity. Nowhere can this paradoxical twisting of the genre be seen more clearly than in possibly the most famous of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of Thomas. This narrative is well known because it is the ¿ rst account of the familiar legend that the apostle Thomas became a missionary who spread the gospel of Christ in far-off India. The Acts of Thomas tells the tale of how it happened. The book was originally written in Syria, probably in the third century. There is considerable doubt about the historical accuracy of its tales, even the basic theme that Thomas took the gospel to India. There is little doubt, though, about the entertaining nature of the narrative or its overarching intent to cast aspersions on values of contemporary society: wealth, power, sexual love. The plot itself is basic: Thomas is portrayed as Jesus’ twin brother, who is sold into slavery by his “master” (= Lord), after Jesus’ death, to an Indian merchant so that he will be forced to go abroad to spread the gospel among the people and royal family of India (chs. 1–2). The overarching themes of the book can be seen in the series of tales that takes place in the course of its narrative. Some have to do with showing the supernatural nature of the main character, Jesus’ twin brother, who has prophetic power (ch. 6, 9). This book stands in direct opposition to the celebration in the Greek romances of marital love as the glue that holds together society. Here, sex of any kind, even within marriage, is seen as foul and to be avoided at all costs (chs. 11– 16). Also opposed are other values that seemed so commonsensically good to many ancients: for example, the accumulation of wealth (thus, ch.17, the palace of Gundaphorus). Stressed is the power of God, especially in his sacraments (ch. 51) and in the life to come, where those who commit sins— especially sexual sins—are punished forever (chs. 55–57). Many of these themes are celebrated in the Hymn of the Pearl, one of the most moving pieces of poetry to come down to us from the ancient world, which is embedded in the Acts of Thomas, perhaps as an illustration of

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  A brief evocation, in The City of God, of the sexual act in its form and its unfolding reveals the nature of the problem. In that passage Augustine faithfully reiterates the classic description of the sexual climax with its three essential points: a physical paroxysm that one can’t control, a tremor of the soul which is overwhelmed by pleasure despite its resistance, a final eclipse of thought that seems to resemble death. “The desire (libido) by which the shameful parts of the body are excited” is not satisfied with “taking possession of the whole body and its outward members, but also makes itself felt within, and moves the whole man with a passion in which mental emotion is mingled with bodily appetite, so that the pleasure is the greatest of all bodily pleasures. So possessing indeed is this pleasure, that at the moment in which it is consummated, all mental activity is suspended.” The conclusion addresses the situation rather simply: “What friend of wisdom and holy joys (sapientiae sanctorumque gaudiorum), who, being married, would not prefer to beget children without this ‘desire’ (libido)?”2 The formulation is worth noting: the “friends of wisdom” who would wish to be spared this violent infirmity are undoubtedly also the pagans who have tried to practice the virtue that the Christians who seek heavenly joys in addition to the wisdom of their faith practice. Augustine clearly indicates that he is referring to an ancient idea that the sexual act is a physical event with effects so dangerous to the body and the soul that it is better to refrain from it as much as possible. Perhaps he has in mind the passage in Hortensius that he cites moreover in Contra Julianum:3 “What injury to health is not produced by sensual pleasure? Where its action is the most intense, it is the most inimical to philosophy. Who can follow a reasoning or think anything at all when under the influence of intense pleasure? The whirlpool of this desire is so great that it strives day and night, without the slightest intermission, so to arouse our senses that they be drawn into the depths. What sensible man would not prefer that nature had given us no such pleasures at all?” One is thus placed before an alternative. Either grant that humanity, perfect on leaving the Creator’s hands, already knew this rage of the senses, this weakness of the soul, this little epilepsy that mimics death—things inconsistent with the sovereignty of a creature to which all the others must be subjugated. Or disregard this act’s resemblances to a shameful infirmity and see only what has been natural in it from the founding of the human race. Either, already at the origin, the human body manifested an intrinsic weakness, an evil that belonged to its nature, or else today’s sensual delights come down to us with an innocence the body owes to its initial state. It is this alternative that Augustine reproaches the Pelagians with having artificially constructed by placing the choice between a Manicheism that denounces the evil inherent in the Creation, and their own thesis that sees relations between a man and a woman after the fall as simply the effect of a natural appetite—adpetitus naturalis4—which they go out of their way not to designate by the terms libido or concupiscence.5

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  The example of the hare is analyzed by Clement in the same manner. This time, however, it has to do with an excess not in connection with sterility, but with fertilization itself. Clement moves on from the fable of the hare with the annual anus, replacing it with the idea of superfetation. So licentious are these animals that they tend to copulate constantly, not even respecting the period of gestation and nursing. Nature has given the female a womb with two branches that allows it to conceive with more than one male even before giving birth. The natural cycle of the womb—which, according to physicians, calls for fertilization when it is empty and refuses sexual coupling when it is full—is thus disturbed by a disposition of nature that makes it possible to juxtapose pregnancy and heat in a completely “counter-natural” way.

• From American Swing (2008)

  413 00:20:17,299 --> 00:20:19,843 IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE. YOU HAD TO BE THERE TO SEE THAT. 414 00:20:23,138 --> 00:20:25,682 FAST AND SLOW LOVEMAKING. 415 00:20:35,234 --> 00:20:37,694 Ferrato: EJACULATION JUICES WERE EVERYWHERE. 416 00:20:37,694 --> 00:20:39,780 SO I'M SITTING ON A LOT OF THESE WET CUSHIONS. 417 00:20:39,780 --> 00:20:41,823 AND THEN ON ONE OF THESE NIGHTS I GO HOME 418 00:20:41,823 --> 00:20:44,534 AND I START FEELING REALLY ITCHY. 419 00:20:44,534 --> 00:20:47,246 "OOOH, WHAT'S THAT? WHAT IS THAT?" 420 00:20:47,246 --> 00:20:51,583 AND THEN I LOOKED DOWN AND I SEE ALL THESE CRABS WERE IN THERE 421 00:20:51,583 --> 00:20:54,544 AND I JUST GOT A BIG DOSE OF IT. 422 00:20:54,544 --> 00:20:57,464 YOU KNOW, BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE CRABS BREED 423 00:20:57,464 --> 00:21:02,010 IS IN ALL THOSE DAMP, MOIST... 424 00:21:02,010 --> 00:21:04,513 NETHER PLACES. 425 00:21:04,513 --> 00:21:06,807 I MEAN, I JUST REMEMBER A LOT OF THIS-- 426 00:21:06,807 --> 00:21:09,309 YOU KNOW, IN THE MATTRESS ROOM. 427 00:21:09,309 --> 00:21:12,604 ♪ HOT CHILD IN THE CITY. ♪ 428 00:21:12,604 --> 00:21:15,899 WHAT MADE YOU ORGANIZE-- 429 00:21:15,899 --> 00:21:18,402 ORIGINATE PLATO'S RETREAT, 430 00:21:18,402 --> 00:21:20,612 A PLACE FOR SWINGING COUPLES? 431 00:21:20,612 --> 00:21:23,407 - WHAT IS THE SWINGING MOVEMENT? - IT'S A COUPLES' MOVEMENT. 432 00:21:23,407 --> 00:21:25,909 COUPLES THAT WANT TO BE FREE-THINKING, 433 00:21:25,909 --> 00:21:28,161 FREE-LIVING ADULT COUPLES. 434 00:21:28,161 --> 00:21:30,247 THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN MONOGAMOUS RELATIONSHIPS. 435 00:21:30,247 --> 00:21:33,583 THEY WOULD RATHER GET INVOLVED WITH OTHER PEOPLE 436 00:21:33,583 --> 00:21:36,795 BUT TOGETHER WITH THEIR SPOUSES INSTEAD OF CHEATING WITH THEM. 437 00:21:38,213 --> 00:21:42,592 ♪ I WAS BORN WITH A SMILE ON MY FACE ♪ 438 00:21:42,592 --> 00:21:45,512 ♪ THE WHOLE OF MY LIFE'S BEEN A PANTOMIME... ♪ 439 00:21:45,512 --> 00:21:48,223 Leo: LARRY HAD THE PITCH AND TONE OF A MISSIONARY. 440 00:21:48,223 --> 00:21:51,935 HE THOUGHT HE WAS THE FUTURE AND HE WAS PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN 441 00:21:51,935 --> 00:21:54,813 ON SOMETHING WHOLESOME AND HAPPY. 442 00:21:54,813 --> 00:21:57,107 I ONLY ACTUALLY MET HIM ONCE, 443 00:21:57,107 --> 00:22:00,027 AND I WAS UNABLE TO SHAKE HIS HAND 444 00:22:00,027 --> 00:22:03,322 BECAUSE JUST BEFORE HE EXTENDED IT, 445 00:22:03,322 --> 00:22:05,282 HE WAS DOING SOMETHING WITH IT 446 00:22:05,282 --> 00:22:09,077 THAT WOULD TEND TO MAKE YOU WANT TO STAY SEVERAL YARDS AWAY. 447 00:22:09,077 --> 00:22:12,789 ♪ BORN WITH A SMILE ON MY FACE... ♪ 448 00:22:12,789 --> 00:22:16,168 Hanson: LARRY SAID, "I FALL IN LOVE WITH EVERY WOMAN 449 00:22:16,168 --> 00:22:19,046 I HAVE SEX WITH, EVEN IF I HAVE SEX WITH 10 WOMEN A NIGHT." 450 00:22:19,046 --> 00:22:21,590 AND LARRY COULD HAVE SEX WITH 10 WOMEN A NIGHT. 451 00:22:21,590 --> 00:22:23,550 HE WAS PHENOMENAL THAT WAY. 452 00:22:23,550 --> 00:22:25,886 HE SAID, "IT'S ALWAYS ROMANCE, 453 00:22:25,886 --> 00:22:28,889 IT'S ALWAYS EXCITING AND I'M ALWAYS GRATEFUL." 454 00:22:28,889 --> 00:22:32,309 ♪ TO HAVE YOUR LEISURE GIVE YOU PLEASURE... ♪

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or consider Him worth knowing [as their Creator], God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do things which are improper and repulsive, 29 until they were filled (permeated, saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice and mean-spiritedness. They are gossips [spreading rumors], 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors [of new forms] of evil, disobedient and disrespectful to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful [without pity]. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree and His judgment, that those who do such things deserve death, yet they not only do them, but they even [enthusiastically] approve and tolerate others who practice them. Romans 2 The Impartiality of God 1 T HEREFORE YOU have no excuse or justification, everyone of you who [hypocritically] a judges and condemns others; for in passing judgment on another person, you condemn yourself, because you who judge [from a position of arrogance or self-righteousness] are habitually practicing the very same things [which you denounce]. 2 And we know that the judgment of God falls justly and in accordance with truth on those who practice such things. 3 But do you think this, O man, when you judge and condemn those who practice such things, and yet do the same yourself, that you will escape God’s judgment and elude His verdict? 4 Or do you have no regard for the wealth of His kindness and tolerance and patience [in withholding His wrath]? Are you [actually] unaware or ignorant [of the fact] that God’s kindness leads you to repentance [that is, to change your inner self, your old way of thinking—seek His purpose for your life]? 5 But because of your callous stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are [deliberately] storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 He WILL PAY BACK TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS [justly, as his deeds deserve]: [Ps 62:12 ; Prov 24:12 ] 7 to those who by persistence in doing good seek [unseen but certain heavenly] glory, honor, and immortality, [He will give the gift of] eternal life. 8 But for those who are selfishly ambitious and self-seeking and disobedient to the truth but responsive to wickedness, [there will be] wrath and indignation. 9 There will be tribulation and anguish [torturing confinement] for every human soul who does [or permits] evil, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and inner peace [will be given] to everyone who habitually does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality [no arbitrary favoritism; with Him one person is not more important than another].

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  For so doth pride imitate exaltedness; whereas Thou alone art God exalted over all. Ambition, what seeks it, but honours and glory? whereas Thou alone art to be honoured above all, and glorious for evermore. The cruelty of the great would fain be feared; but who is to be feared but God alone, out of whose power what can be wrested or withdrawn? when, or where, or whither, or by whom? The tendernesses of the wanton would fain be counted love: yet is nothing more tender than Thy charity; nor is aught loved more healthfully than that Thy truth, bright and beautiful above all. Curiosity makes semblance of a desire of knowledge; whereas Thou supremely knowest all. Yea, ignorance and foolishness itself is cloaked under the name of simplicity and uninjuriousness; because nothing is found more single than Thee: and what less injurious, since they are his own works which injure the sinner? Yea, sloth would fain be at rest; but what stable rest besides the Lord? Luxury affects to be called plenty and abundance; but Thou art the fulness and never-failing plenteousness of incorruptible pleasures. Prodigality presents a shadow of liberality: but Thou art the most overflowing Giver of all good. Covetousness would possess many things; and Thou possessest all things. Envy disputes for excellency: what more excellent than Thou? Anger seeks revenge: who revenges more justly than Thou? Fear startles at things unwonted and sudden, which endangers things beloved, and takes forethought for their safety; but to Thee what unwonted or sudden, or who separateth from Thee what Thou lovest? Or where but with Thee is unshaken safety? Grief pines away for things lost, the delight of its desires; because it would have nothing taken from it, as nothing can from Thee. Thus doth the soul commit fornication, when she turns from Thee, seeking without Thee, what she findeth not pure and untainted, till she returns to Thee. Thus all pervertedly imitate Thee, who remove far from Thee, and lift themselves up against Thee. But even by thus imitating Thee, they imply Thee to be the Creator of all nature; whence there is no place whither altogether to retire from Thee. What then did I love in that theft? and wherein did I even corruptly and pervertedly imitate my Lord? Did I wish even by stealth to do contrary to Thy law, because by power I could not, so that being a prisoner, I might mimic a maimed liberty by doing with impunity things unpermitted me, a darkened likeness of Thy Omnipotency? Behold, Thy servant, fleeing from his Lord, and obtaining a shadow. O rottenness, O monstrousness of life, and depth of death! could I like what I might not, only because I might not?

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

  the Neo-Platonic philosophy in Alexandria, distinguished for her beauty, her intelligence, her learning, and her virtue, and esteemed both by Christians and by heathens, was seized in the open street by the Christian populace and fanatical monks, perhaps not without the connivance of the violent bishop Cyril, thrust out from her carriage, dragged to the cathedral, completely stripped, barbarously murdered with shells before the altar, and then torn to pieces and burnt, A.D. 415.102 Socrates, who relates this, adds: "It brought great censure both on Cyril and on the Alexandrian church." § 7. The Downfall of Heathenism. The final dissolution of heathenism in the eastern empire may be dated from the middle of the fifth century. In the year 435 Theodosius II. commanded the temples to be destroyed or turned into churches. There still appear some heathens in civil office and at court so late as the beginning of the reign of Justinian I. (527–567). But this despotic emperor prohibited heathenism as a form of worship in the empire on pain of death, and in 529 abolished the last intellectual seminary of it, the philosophical school of Athens, which had stood nine hundred years. At that time just seven philosophers were teaching in that school,103 the shades of the ancient seven sages of Greece,—a striking play of history, like the name of the last west-Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus, or, in contemptuous diminutive, Augustulus, combining the names of the founder of the city and the founder of the empire. In the West, heathenism maintained itself until near the middle of the sixth century, and even later, partly as a private religious conviction among many cultivated and aristocratic families in Rome, partly even in the full form of worship in the remote provinces and on the mountains of Sicily, Sardinia,104 and Corsica, and partly in heathen customs and popular usages like the gladiatorial shows still extant in Rome in 404, and the wanton Lupercalia, a sort of heathen carnival, the feast of Lupercus, the god of herds, still celebrated with all its excesses in February, 495. But, in general, it may be said that the Graeco-Roman heathenism, as a system of worship, was buried under the ruins of the western empire, which sunk under the storms of the great migration. It is remarkable that the northern barbarians labored with the same zeal in the destruction of idolatry as in the destruction of the empire, and really promoted the victory of the Christian religion. The Gothic king Alaric, on entering Rome, expressly ordered that the churches of the apostles Peter and Paul should be spared, as inviolable sanctuaries; and he showed a humanity, which Augustin justly attributes to the influence of Christianity (even perverted Arian Christianity) on these barbarous people. The Christian name, he says, which the heathen blaspheme, has effected not the destruction, but the salvation of the city.105 Odoacer, who put an end to the western Roman empire in 476, was incited to his expedition into Italy by St.

• From Another Country (1962)

  And it was worse now, since I’d been with you, than it had ever been before. Before, I used to watch them wriggle and listen to them grunt, and, God, they were so solemn about it, sweating yellow pigs, and so vain , like that sad little piece of meat was making miracles happen, and I guess it was, for them—and I wasn’t touched at all, I just wished I could make them come down lower. Oh, yes, I found out all about white people, that’s what they were like, alone, where only a black girl could see them, and the black girl might as well have been blind as far as they were concerned. Because they knew they were white, baby, and they ruled the world. But now it was different, sometimes when Ellis put his hands on me, it was all I could do not to scream, not to vomit. It had got to me, it had got to me, and I felt that I was being pumped full of—I don’t know what, not poison exactly, but dirt, waste , filth, and I’d never be able to get it out of me, never be able to get that stink out of me. And sometimes, sometimes, sometimes—” She covered her mouth, her tears spilled down over her hand, over the red ring. He could not move. “Oh, Lord Jesus. I’ve done terrible things. Oh, Lord. Sometimes. And then I’d come home to you. He always had that funny little smile when I finally left him, that smile he has, I’ve seen it many times now, when he’s outsmarted somebody who doesn’t know it yet. He can’t help it, that’s him, it was as though he were saying, ‘Now that I’m through with you, have a nice time with Vivaldo. And give him my regards.’ And, funny, funny—I couldn’t hate him. I saw what he was doing, but I couldn’t hate him. I wondered what it felt like, to be like that, not to have any real feelings at all, except to say, Well, now, let’s do this and now let’s do that and now let’s eat and now let’s fuck and now let’s go. And do that all your life. And then I’d come home and look at you. But I’d bring him with me. It was as though I was dirty, and you had to wash me, each time. And I knew you never could, no matter how hard we tried, and I didn’t hate him but I hated you. And I hated me.” “Why didn’t you stop it, Ida? You could have stopped it, you didn’t have to go on with it.” “Stop it and go where? Stop it and do what? No, I thought to myself, Well, you’re in it now, girl, close your eyes and grit your teeth and get through it. It’ll be worth it when it’s over.