Fear

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 Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  The last day I ever pounded seasoning for souse was in the summer of my fifteenth year. It had been a fairly unpleasant summer for me. I had just finished my first year in high school. Instead of being able to visit my newly found friends, all of whom lived in other parts of the city, I had had to accompany my mother on a round of doctors with whom she would have long whispered conversations. Only a matter of utmost importance could have kept her away from the office for so many mornings in a row. But my mother was concerned because I was fourteen and a half years old and had not yet menstruated. I had breasts but no period, and she was afraid there was something “wrong” with me. Yet, since she had never discussed this mysterious business of menstruation with me, I was certainly not supposed to know what all this whispering was about, even though it concerned my own body. Of course, I knew as much as I could have possibly found out in those days from the hard-to-get books on the “closed shelf” behind the librarian’s desk at the public library, where I had brought a forged note from home in order to be allowed to read them, sitting under the watchful eye of the librarian at a special desk reserved for that purpose. Although not terribly informative, they were fascinating books, and used words like menses and ovulation and vagina . But four years before, I had had to find out if I was going to become pregnant, because a boy from school much bigger than me had invited me up to the roof on my way home from the library and then threatened to break my glasses if I didn’t let him stick his “thing” between my legs. And at that time I knew only that being pregnant had something to do with sex, and sex had something to do with that thin pencil-like “thing” and was in general nasty and not to be talked about by nice people, and I was afraid my mother might find out and what would she do to me then? I was not supposed to be looking at the mailboxes in the hallway of that house anyway, even though Doris was a girl in my class at St. Mark’s who lived in that house and I was always so lonely in the summer, particularly that summer when I was ten. So after I got home I washed myself up and lied about why I was late getting home from the library and got a whipping for being late. That must have been a hard summer for my parents at the office too, because that was the summer that I got a whipping for something or other almost every day between the Fourth of July and Labor Day.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Then one day they were jostled greatly and thrown into confusion. They looked at each other with alarm; it was clear that their enclosure was being tossed around on some ocean or tumbled down some steep incline. There was a sudden sharp concussion and an inrush of blinding searing light, which poured in as their fluid suspension slowly leaked away. They lay cupped and sprawling in one half of a silver egg that had cracked apart. After a moment, they stood. Their hands found each other. They were a couple, newly hatched. Loud sounds blossomed from enormous fleshy flushed faces, and Gallanos and Mellinnas were frightened. Moreover, their silver skin began to dry, and as it did they felt an almost unbearable warmth. They held on to each other tightly for protection but also because it soothed the burning of their acclimatizing skin. Gallanos’s penis was swollen and hot, and it seemed almost without their knowing it to slide inside Mellinnas. Then they were tightly embraced, a writhing ball of silver. The huge faces came closer to watch, and the silver couple could hear enormous booming noises, which they later understood were speech. But all they could do was move together to try to adjust to the shock of being exposed to air. Gallanos lay down on the surface of something hard and smooth, with a grain to it—the wooden tabletop—and his eggmate squashed herself to him and moved with amazing flexibility around and around on his molten twig. She opened her mouth, and he opened his, and then as feelings they hardly remembered gushed through them they pushed against the muteness of their throats until finally a series of small cries came out, strange uncertain sounds that increased in volume and pace until, as they reached the final throes of their lovemaking, they became groans of joy. The faces, watching, blinked and smiled. Gallanos and Mellinnas crawled onto a folded washcloth and fell asleep. More from the Author [image file=image_rsrc2SY.jpg] [image file=image_rsrc2SZ.jpg] The Way the World WorksThe Anthologist [image file=image_rsrc2T0.jpg] Human SmokeWe hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook. Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Four thirty-four.” “Wow, thanks, Dune.” “And now, before my time runs out, I hope you’ll let me slap or spank your ass.” “Sure, that’s what it’s for,” said Shandee. “But wear the mitts, and don’t spank too hard. Some guys spank me too hard.” Dune blew on her ass and rested both his mitts on it for a moment. “Shandee, honey, I’ll spank you so soft you won’t even know it’s spanking, I’ll spank you real tender, and you’ll know it’s me, because I’m really just touching your ass with a man’s gentle touch and showing you how much respect I have for it.” “That’s nice,” said Shandee. “And can I kiss your ass, too? And worship it?” “Yes, you can kiss and worship my ass.” He bent close and kissed, closing his eyes, and then he whispered, “And can I pull out your hanky and stick one pinky finger in your pretty pussy? I know I’ll find true peace if I do.” “If you do that with your pinky, Dune, they’ll cut it off,” said Shandee, putting her knees together. “Look up on the wall above you.” Dune glanced at the long, bony row of dried fingers that were nailed there. Then he noticed a small blood-stained chopping block in the corner. It was not a pleasant sight. “Damn savages,” said Dune. “It’s almost worth it, except I play guitar and keyboards. Can’t they make an exception for an old friend?” Shandee shifted her weight fetchingly, considering. “Krock is a stickler,” she said finally, “but you’ve been so helpful, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Pull out the cloth of Ka-Chiang, and I’ll push some fresh juice from my cunny for you.” Dune breathed. “Oh, that would be a welcome treat.” He pushed an oven mitt into Shandee’s upper leg, softly, and palmed her left asscheek. Then he thumped the asscheek a little on one side, so that she jumped and her elegant flesh shimmied. He pinched her thighs gently three times and tugged on her hanky till it fell out. “Now let me see your pussy cry,” he said. Shandee was wet already; she arched her back up and pushed. Dune saw a tender shining weep of wetness that brimmed over her slit and leaked down one leg. “Oh, my glory!” Dune said, losing control. Before he realized what he was doing, he’d flung off an oven mitt and slid one pinky finger knuckle-deep into her velvet draperies. There was a bonging sound and a commotion. A disembodied male arm leapt up, twirled once in the air, and seized Dune by the wrist. Krock hurried in and grabbed the knife. Mischa set out the chopping block on a towel. “Dune, why did you do it?” said Shandee, full of disappointment and concern. “I forgot myself, I’m sorry,” said Dune, disengaging the viselike fingers of Dave’s arm.

• From The City of God

  But, besides the punishments of childhood, without which there would be no learning of what the parents wish,--and the parents rarely wish anything useful to be taught,--who can describe, who can conceive the number and severity of the punishments which afflict the human race,--pains which are not only the accompaniment of the wickedness of godless men, but are a part of the human condition and the common misery,--what fear and what grief are caused by bereavement and mourning, by losses and condemnations, by fraud and falsehood, by false suspicions, and all the crimes and wicked deeds of other men? For at their hands we suffer robbery, captivity, chains, imprisonment, exile, torture, mutilation, loss of sight, the violation of chastity to satisfy the lust of the oppressor, and many other dreadful evils. What numberless casualties threaten our bodies from without,--extremes of heat and cold, storms, floods, inundations, lightning, thunder, hail, earthquakes, houses falling; or from the stumbling, or shying, or vice of horses; from countless poisons in fruits, water, air, animals; from the painful or even deadly bites of wild animals; from the madness which a mad dog communicates, so that even the animal which of all others is most gentle and friendly to its own master, becomes an object of intenser fear than a lion or dragon, and the man whom it has by chance infected with this pestilential contagion becomes so rabid, that his parents, wife, children, dread him more than any wild beast! What disasters are suffered by those who travel by land or sea! What man can go out of his own house without being exposed on all hands to unforeseen accidents? Returning home sound in limb, he slips on his own doorstep, breaks his leg, and never recovers. What can seem safer than a man sitting in his chair? Eli the priest fell from his, and broke his neck. How many accidents do farmers, or rather all men, fear that the crops may suffer from the weather, or the soil, or the ravages of destructive animals? Commonly they feel safe when the crops are gathered and housed. Yet, to my certain knowledge, sudden floods have driven the laborers away, and swept the barns clean of the finest harvest. Is innocence a sufficient protection against the various assaults of demons? That no man might think so, even baptized infants, who are certainly unsurpassed in innocence, are sometimes so tormented, that God, who permits it, teaches us hereby to bewail the calamities of this life, and to desire the felicity of the life to come. As to bodily diseases, they are so numerous that they cannot all be contained even in medical books. And in very many, or almost all of them, the cures and remedies are themselves tortures, so that men are delivered from a pain that destroys by a cure that pains. Has not the madness of thirst driven men to drink human urine, and even their own? Has not hunger driven men to eat human flesh, and that the flesh not of bodies found dead, but of bodies slain for the purpose? Have not the fierce pangs of famine driven mothers to eat their own children, incredibly savage as it seems? In fine, sleep itself, which is justly called repose, how little of repose there sometimes is in it when disturbed with dreams and visions; and with what terror is the wretched mind overwhelmed by the appearances of things which are so presented, and which, as it were so stand out before the senses, that we can not distinguish them from realities! How wretchedly do false appearances distract men in certain diseases! With what astonishing variety of appearances are even healthy men sometimes deceived by evil spirits, who produce these delusions for the sake of perplexing the senses of their victims, if they cannot succeed in seducing them to their side!

• From The City of God

  Man, then, mortal and miserable, and far removed from the immortal and the blessed, what medium shall he choose by which he may be united to immortality and blessedness? The immortality of the demons, which might have some charm for man, is miserable; the mortality of Christ, which might offend man, exists no longer. In the one there is the fear of an eternal misery; in the other, death, which could not be eternal, can no longer be feared, and blessedness, which is eternal, must be loved. For the immortal and miserable mediator interposes himself to prevent us from passing to a blessed immortality, because that which hinders such a passage, namely, misery, continues in him; but the mortal and blessed Mediator interposed Himself, in order that, having passed through mortality, He might of mortals make immortals (showing His power to do this in His own resurrection), and from being miserable to raise them to the blessed company from the number of whom He had Himself never departed. There is, then, a wicked mediator, who separates friends, and a good Mediator, who reconciles enemies. And those who separate are numerous, because the multitude of the blessed are blessed only by their participation in the one God; of which participation the evil angels being deprived, they are wretched, and interpose to hinder rather than to help to this blessedness, and by their very number prevent us from reaching that one beatific good, to obtain which we need not many but one Mediator, the uncreated Word of God, by whom all things were made, and in partaking of whom we are blessed. I do not say that He is Mediator because He is the Word, for as the Word He is supremely blessed and supremely immortal, and therefore far from miserable mortals; but He is Mediator as He is man, for by His humanity He shows us that, in order to obtain that blessed and beatific good, we need not seek other mediators to lead us through the successive steps of this attainment, but that the blessed and beatific God, having Himself become a partaker of our humanity, has afforded us ready access to the participation of His divinity. For in delivering us from our mortality and misery, He does not lead us to the immortal and blessed angels, so that we should become immortal and blessed by participating in their nature, but He leads us straight to that Trinity, by participating in which the angels themselves are blessed. Therefore, when He chose to be in the form of a servant, and lower than the angels, that He might be our Mediator, He remained higher than the angels, in the form of God,--Himself at once the way of life on earth and life itself in heaven.

• From The City of God

  Chapter 2. --Of that Death Which Can Affect an Immortal Soul, and of that to Which the Body is Subject. But I see I must speak a little more carefully of the nature of death. For although the human soul is truly affirmed to be immortal, yet it also has a certain death of its own. For it is therefore called immortal, because, in a sense, it does not cease to live and to feel; while the body is called mortal, because it can be forsaken of all life, and cannot by itself live at all. The death, then, of the soul takes place when God forsakes it, as the death of the body when the soul forsakes it. Therefore the death of both--that is, of the whole man--occurs when the soul, forsaken by God, forsakes the body. For, in this case, neither is God the life of the soul, nor the soul the life of the body. And this death of the whole man is followed by that which, on the authority of the divine oracles, we call the second death. This the Saviour referred to when He said, "Fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. " [578]And since this does not happen before the soul is so joined to its body that they cannot be separated at all, it may be matter of wonder how the body can be said to be killed by that death in which it is not forsaken by the soul, but, being animated and rendered sensitive by it, is tormented. For in that penal and everlasting punishment, of which in its own place we are to speak more at large, the soul is justly said to die, because it does not live in connection with God; but how can we say that the body is dead, seeing that it lives by the soul? For it could not otherwise feel the bodily torments which are to follow the resurrection. Is it because life of every kind is good, and pain an evil, that we decline to say that that body lives, in which the soul is the cause, not of life, but of pain? The soul, then, lives by God when it lives well, for it cannot live well unless by God working in it what is good; and the body lives by the soul when the soul lives in the body, whether itself be living by God or no. For the wicked man's life in the body is a life not of the soul, but of the body, which even dead souls--that is, souls forsaken of God--can confer upon bodies, how little so-ever of their own proper life, by which they are immortal, they retain. But in the last damnation, though man does not cease to feel, yet because this feeling of his is neither sweet with pleasure nor wholesome with repose, but painfully penal, it is not without reason called death rather than life. And it is called the second death because it follows the first, which sunders the two cohering essences, whether these be God and the soul, or the soul and the body. Of the first and bodily death, then, we may say that to the good it is good, and evil to the evil. But, doubtless, the second, as it happens to none of the good, so it can be good for none.

• From The City of God

  All these things were said and done in a vision from God; but it would take long, and would exceed the scope of this work, to treat of them exactly in detail. It is enough that we should know that, after it was said Abram believed in God, and it was counted to him for righteousness, he did not fail in faith in saying, "Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? " for the inheritance of that land was promised to him. Now he does not say, How shall I know, as if he did not yet believe; but he says, "Whereby shall I know," meaning that some sign might be given by which he might know the manner of those things which he had believed, just as it is not for lack of faith the Virgin Mary says, "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? " [912] for she inquired as to the way in which that should take place which she was certain would come to pass. And when she asked this, she was told, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. " [913]Here also, in fine, a symbol was given, consisting of three animals, a heifer, a she-goat, and a ram, and two birds, a turtle-dove and pigeon, that he might know that the things which he had not doubted should come to pass were to happen in accordance with this symbol. Whether, therefore, the heifer was a sign that the people should be put under the law, the she-goat that the same people was to become sinful, the ram that they should reign (and these animals are said to be of three years old for this reason, that there are three remarkable divisions of time, from Adam to Noah, and from him to Abraham, and from him to David, who, on the rejection of Saul, was first established by the will of the Lord in the kingdom of the Israelite nation:in this third division, which extends from Abraham to David, that people grew up as if passing through the third age of life), or whether they had some other more suitable meaning, still I have no doubt whatever that spiritual things were prefigured by them as well as by the turtle-dove and pigeon. And it is said, "But the birds divided he not," because carnal men are divided among themselves, but the spiritual not at all, whether they seclude themselves from the busy conversation of men, like the turtle-dove, or dwell among them, like the pigeon; for both birds are simple and harmless, signifying that even in the Israelite people, to which that land was to be given, there would be individuals who were children of the promise, and heirs of the kingdom that is [914] to remain in eternal felicity. But the fowls coming down on the divided carcasses represent nothing good, but the spirits of this air, seeking some food for themselves in the division of carnal men. But that Abraham sat down with them, signifies that even amid these divisions of the carnal, true believers shall persevere to the end. And that about the going down of the sun great fear fell upon Abraham and a horror of great darkness, signifies that about the end of this world believers shall be in great perturbation and tribulation, of which the Lord said in the gospel, "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning. " [915]

• From The City of God

  But who but a very small number are aware of the cure which was wrought upon Innocentius, ex-advocate of the deputy prefecture, a cure wrought at Carthage, in my presence, and under my own eyes? For when I and my brother Alypius, [1616] who were not yet clergymen, [1617] though already servants of God, came from abroad, this man received us, and made us live with him, for he and all his household were devotedly pious. He was being treated by medical men for fistulae, of which he had a large number intricately seated in the rectum. He had already undergone an operation, and the surgeons were using every means at their command for his relief. In that operation he had suffered long-continued and acute pain; yet, among the many folds of the gut, one had escaped the operators so entirely, that, though they ought to have laid it open with the knife, they never touched it. And thus, though all those that had been opened were cured, this one remained as it was, and frustrated all their labor. The patient, having his suspicions awakened by the delay thus occasioned, and fearing greatly a second operation, which another medical man--one of his own domestics--had told him he must undergo, though this man had not even been allowed to witness the first operation, and had been banished from the house, and with difficulty allowed to come back to his enraged master's presence,--the patient, I say, broke out to the surgeons, saying, "Are you going to cut me again? Are you, after all, to fulfill the prediction of that man whom you would not allow even to be present? "The surgeons laughed at the unskillful doctor, and soothed their patient's fears with fair words and promises. So several days passed, and yet nothing they tried did him good. Still they persisted in promising that they would cure that fistula by drugs, without the knife. They called in also another old practitioner of great repute in that department, Ammonius (for he was still alive at that time); and he, after examining the part, promised the same result as themselves from their care and skill. On this great authority, the patient became confident, and, as if already well, vented his good spirits in facetious remarks at the expense of his domestic physician, who had predicted a second operation. To make a long story short, after a number of days had thus uselessly elapsed, the surgeons, wearied and confused, had at last to confess that he could only be cured by the knife. Agitated with excessive fear, he was terrified, and grew pale with dread; and when he collected himself and was able to speak, he ordered them to go away and never to return.

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

  λιάζομαι, aor. ἐλιάσθην, Ep. 3 pl. λίασθεν Hom.: 3 sing. plqpf. λελί- αστο Mosch. 4. 118 (for Act. v. sub fin.):—Ep. Dep. of dub. origin (whence also d-AiagTos), -- κλίνω, to bend, incline ; and so, 1. mostly of persons, to go aside, withdraw, recoil, shrink, ἐς ποταμοῖο λιασθείς Od. 5. 462; ἀπὸ πυρκαϊῆς ἑτέρωσε λιασθείς 1]. 23. 231; νόσφι λιασθείς τ. 349., 11. 80; ὕπαιθα λιάσθη he shrank beneath his attack, 15. 520, cf. 21. 255; δεῦρο λιάσθης hither has thou retired, 22. 12; παρὰ κληῖδα λιάσθη ἐς πνοιὰς ἀνέμων, of a Vision, disappeared by the key-hole, Od. 4. 838 ; ἐλιάσθην πρός σε I have come away to thee, Eur. Hec. 100, ubi v. Herm. 2. to sink, fall, πρηνὴς ἐλιάσθη 1]. 15. 543; λιαζόμενος προτὲ γαίῃ 20. 420, cf. 418; ἐν γῇ Mosch. 4. 118. II. of things, ἀμφὶ δ᾽ dpa σφ: λιάζετο κῦμα retired, drew back, Il. 24.96; πτερὰ πυκνὰ λίασθεν (for ἐλιάσθησαν) the dying bird’s thick wings dropped, 23. 879,—where Aristarch. read λίασσεν it dropped its wings, though the Act. is not used except impf. λίαζον in Lyc. 21. λίαν [v. fin.], Ion. and Ep. λίην; a monosyll. form Ay restored by Bgk. in Theogn. 352 from Hesych.: Adv.: (v. sub Ac- and Adw B). ‘Very, exceedingly, Hom., who uses it like the later ἄγαν, with an Adv., A. ἕκας Od. 14. 496; οὐδέ τι A. οὕτω Not so very much, 13. 238: with an Adj., λίην μέγα 3. 227., 16. 243; λίην τόσον 4. 371; A. λυπρός

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

  ταρβέω, (τάρβος) intr. to be frightened, alarmed, terrified, 1]. 2. 268, etc., Od. 7. 51, etc.; θάρσεο .. φρεσί, μηδέ τι τάρβει 1]. 24. 171, cf. 21. 288, Od. 18, 330, etc.; 7. φόβῳ Soph. Tr. 176, Eur. H. F. 971:---τ. μὴ .. Od. 16.179, Soph. O. T. rot, Tr. 297, etc.; τ. ἀμφί τινι Ap. Rh. 3. 459; τ. εἰπεῖν Eur. Bacch. 775 :—absol., οὐδέ τι θυμῷ ταρβεῖ οὐδὲ φοβεῖται neither skews fear nor turns to flight, Il. 21. 575, cf. Eur. Phoen. 361; τὼ μὲν ταρβήσαντε καὶ αἰδομένω βασιλῆα στήτην 1]. 1.331; πῶς δ᾽ οὐχὶ ταρβεῖς τοιάδ᾽ ἐκρίπτων ἔπη ; Aesch. Pr. 932, cf. 698, Pers. 685 ; ο. inf., τὸ ταρβεῖν a state of fear, Eur. Or. 312 ; μή με ταρβήσας προδῷς from fear, Soph. Ph. 757; ταρβήσασ᾽ ἔχω Id. Tr. 37; τεταρβηκώς fear-stricken, Eur. 1. A. 857. II. c. acc. to Sear, dread, ταρβήσας χαλπόν 1]. 6. 469; πληθύν 1 1.405; and so, τίς κέ σ᾽ ἔτ᾽ ἄλλος ᾿Αχαιῶν ταρβήσειεν 17.586; so Aesch. Pr. 960, Theb. 35, Soph, Tr. 723, etc. 2. to stand in awe of, revere, σέβας, χρησμούς Aesch. Eum. 700, 714, cf. Soph. O.C. 292.—Poét. word, rare in Prose, as Epicur. ap. Diog. L. 10. 128, Plat. Ax. 370 A, Plut. τάρβη, 77, =sq., Suid. τάρβος, cos, τό, Sright, alarm, terror, Il. 24. 152, 181, inaigsnetcers περίφοβόν μ᾽ ἔχει τ. Aesch. Supp. 736; ἐν χρόνῳ ἀποφθίνει τὸ τ. Id. Ag. δ58 ; ἀμφὶ τάρβει (ν. ἀμφί B. IV. 2); foll. by an acc., ζωπυροῦσι τ. tov .. λεών fear of .. (cf. δέος 1), Id. Theb. 280. 2. awe, reverence, τινός for one, Id. Pers. 696. II. an object of alarm, a fear or alarm, ἔχεις τι θάρσος τοῦδε τοῦ τάρβους πέρι; Soph. El. 412; πόλει τάρβος ἦσθα Eur. Bacch. 1311.—Poét. word, rare in Prose, as in Aretae. Caus. M. Diut. 1. 6, Plut. 2. 666 B. (Hence tapB-éw, rapB-aréos ; cf. Skt. zarg, targ-dmi (minor); O.Norse pjark-a (inerepare); A.S. prac-ian (terrere).) ταρβοσύνη, ἡ, Ep. for τάρβος, Od. 18. 3.42. ταρβόσυνος, 7, ov, affrighted or affrighting, φόβος Aesch. Theb. 240. ταρβύζω, =TapBéw, Hesych., who cites ταρμύζομαι in same sense. τἄργα or τἄργα, Att. crasis for τὰ ἔργα. Tapyatvw, --ταράσσω, Hesych. Tapyavy, 7, =capyavy, plaited work, Hesych. τἀργᾶνον, τό, vinegar, bad wine, Lat. lora, Phoenix ap. Ath. 495 E. Tapyavdopar, Pass. : 1. (rapyavov) to be turned into vinegar, οἶνος τεταργανωμένος Plat. Com. Incert. 0. ΤΙ. (ταργάνη) to be plaited or entwined, Hesych., E. M. τἀργύριον, Att. crasis for TO ἀργύριον ; τἀργυρίου for τοῦ apy-, etc. τάρες, gen. τάρων, shortd, for τέτταρες, Amphis Πλάν. 1. 113 cf. Tap- τημύριον. τἄρϊχεία, Ion. —yly, 7, α preserving, pickling, in pl., εἰς ταριχείας φαῦλοι Arist. H. A. 8. 30, 6, cf. Meteor. 2. 3, 36. 11. ai Tapi- xetae prob. factories for salting fish, not (as Wessel.) a place for mum- mies, Hdt. 2. 15, 113, cf. Strab. 140, Poll. 6. 48. τἄρτχ-έμπορος, ov, a dealer in salt fish, Diog. L. 4. 46.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  I SIT PARKED in my car in Greenstone Park. It's past midnight. I'm alone, these moments. The tide of hunters has flowed elsewhere for now. Soon, cars will drive up, and the hunt will resume as always. I feel the presence of the night. So strange to be alone here now. When the hunt is raging, the darkness doesn't hang ominously on the trees, and you don't wonder how many shouts of loneliness the quiet stifles. You don't notice—… A car is driving up the curve of the road, its lights carve sliding shadows out of the darkness before I see it. It passes mine slowly—two men in it—and then parks parallel to mine a few feet away in the concrete arc. Both men look at me and smile. Instinctively I start my car and begin to back up; I'm not sure why, because it isn't rare for hunters to cruise in pairs. The two look wrong, like plainclothes cops, relentlessly drab despite mustaches. If they are cops, they'll hassle me, ask me for I.D.; what are you doing here?—don't you know this is a queer park? I back my car up farther. Smiling even more broadly at me, the driver opens the door to get out. He's out of the car, a burly man in a sweater. Now they'll flash a light, badges, nag me with questions, knowing all along why I'm here. Suddenly reality alters. The burly man is running at me with a bully club! His hateful face is frozen in a smile. I hear crazy broken laughter. The man on the passenger side has rushed out with his own raised menacing club. And he too is laughing loudly, the sound insane and roaring. In a moment of thundering comprehension, I realize that I may be murdered by gay-haters who periodically raid sex areas. It has happened in this very park. I continue backing up my car as quickly as I can on the one-way circle. But I can't maneuver fast enough in reverse in the declining arc. The two strange laughing forms, clubs poised to shatter windows and me, advance closer. In the cold flood of my headlights, they look like giant puppets raging out of control. The bodies thrust murderously toward me in striding gaits, elongated shadows askew and ugly. My car almost cascades down the side of the hill. I brake abruptly. The evil dancing forms are almost on me. Smashed windows, bones— …! The decision is made without thought. Only these moments, focused tightly in threatening closeup of them and me, exist. I shift the gears into forward, gun the engine, and plunge toward the bounding puppet forms. Will they try to jump my car? I dash forward. Don't let me run them down!—let them jump aside! No, not the crush of bones and spattering flesh! I force myself to look straight ahead. I hear—feel— metal-tipped sticks crash savagely on the rear of my car.

• From The City of God

  Chapter 2. --That There is No Entity [526] Contrary to the Divine, Because Nonentity Seems to Be that Which is Wholly Opposite to Him Who Supremely and Always is. This may be enough to prevent any one from supposing, when we speak of the apostate angels, that they could have another nature, derived, as it were, from some different origin, and not from God. From the great impiety of this error we shall disentangle ourselves the more readily and easily, the more distinctly we understand that which God spoke by the angel when He sent Moses to the children of Israel:"I am that I am. " [527]For since God is the supreme existence, that is to say, supremely is, and is therefore unchangeable, the things that He made He empowered to be, but not to be supremely like Himself. To some He communicated a more ample, to others a more limited existence, and thus arranged the natures of beings in ranks. For as from sapere comes sapientia, so from esse comes essentia,--a new word indeed, which the old Latin writers did not use, but which is naturalized in our day, [528] that our language may not want an equivalent for the Greek ousia. For this is expressed word for word by essentia. Consequently, to that nature which supremely is, and which created all else that exists, no nature is contrary save that which does not exist. For nonentity is the contrary of that which is. And thus there is no being contrary to God, the Supreme Being, and Author of all beings whatsoever. [526] Essentia. [527] Ex. iii. 14. [528] Quintilian calls it dura.

• From The City of God

  Chapter 36. --Of the Oracle and Blessing Which Isaac Received, Just as His Father Did, Being Beloved for His Sake. Isaac also received such an oracle as his father had often received. Of this oracle it is thus written:"And there was a famine over the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar. And the Lord appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; but dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of. And abide in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee:unto thee and unto thy seed I will give all this land; and I will establish mine oath, which I sware unto Abraham thy father:and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all this land:and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because that Abraham thy father obeyed my voice, and kept my precepts, my commandments, my righteousness, and my laws. " [955]This patriarch neither had another wife, nor any concubine, but was content with the twin-children begotten by one act of generation. He also was afraid, when he lived among strangers, of being brought into danger owing to the beauty of his wife, and did like his father in calling her his sister, and not telling that she was his wife; for she was his near blood-relation by the father's and mother's side. She also remained untouched by the strangers, when it was known she was his wife. Yet we ought not to prefer him to his father because he knew no woman besides his one wife. For beyond doubt the merits of his father's faith and obedience were greater, inasmuch as God says it is for his sake He does Isaac good:"In thy seed," He says, "shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because that Abraham thy father obeyed my voice, and kept my precepts, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. "And again in another oracle He says, "I am the God of Abraham thy father:fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake. " [956]So that we must understand how chastely Abraham acted, because imprudent men, who seek some support for their own wickedness in the Holy Scriptures, think he acted through lust. We may also learn this, not to compare men by single good things, but to consider everything in each; for it may happen that one man has something in his life and character in which he excels another, and it may be far more excellent than that in which the other excels him. And thus, according to sound and true judgment, while continence is preferable to marriage, yet a believing married man is better than a continent unbeliever; for the unbeliever is not only less praiseworthy, but is even highly detestable. We must conclude, then, that both are good; yet so as to hold that the married man who is most faithful and most obedient is certainly better than the continent man whose faith and obedience are less. But if equal in other things, who would hesitate to prefer the continent man to the married?

• From American Religious History (2001)

  II. The ideals of the revolutionaries were, in many instances however, compatible with the ideals of Christians. A. Republican or “Whig” theory, derived from a Renaissance tradition, informed the revolutionary generation. B. These republican ideals often paralleled Christian ideals. 1. Both saw history as a cosmic struggle between good and evil. 2. Republicans feared tyranny; Christians feared sin. 3. The republican ideal of virtue was analogous to the Christian ideal of godliness. 4. Many people were both republican and Christian. 5. Both honored Cromwell’s Puritan soldiers, who fought against royal tyranny in the 1640s. III. Supporters of the Revolution argued that they fought in a godly cause, and many Christians joined the war effort in that belief. A. Colonists suspected that the Quebec Act would introduce Catholicism into the colonies. B. They were afraid that Anglican bishops would introduce ecclesiastical tyranny. C. Thomas Paine was a skeptic (or even an atheist), but he justified declaring independence in Common Sense on biblical grounds. D. John Witherspoon explained that even men fighting in a righteous cause are sinners and must suffer for it. IV. Loyalists were equally sure that theirs was the righteous path. A. They explained the danger and ungodliness of joining the rebellion. 1. Jonathan Boucher enjoined a religious duty of obedience to authority. 2. Miles Cooper, president of King’s College (Columbia University), predicted that revolution would lead to anarchy. 3. Samuel Seabury feared the tyranny of the mob. B. Loyalist members of the clergy were sometimes forced to separate from their pro-revolutionary flock; Philip Reding closed his church rather than violate his oath of allegiance to the king. ©2001 The Teaching Company. 31

• From American Religious History (2001)

  magnetism” sent by her enemies, rather than age and infirmity, were the cause of her demise. Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875). Fiery, Connecticut-born preacher who lacked academic theological education but became the foremost revivalist of his day. Dramatically converted while working as a lawyer, Finney preached passionate revivals along the course of the Erie Canal in upstate New York, culminating in immense revivals at Rochester in 1830 and New York City in 1832. He alarmed contemporaries by declaring that revival preaching was a science and that the conversion of sinners could be induced by rhetorical and oratorical effects. Finney popularized the “anxious bench,” on which potential converts sat and, under acute psychological pressure, became the center of attention. He specialized, too, in prolonged meetings that intensified the drama of his preaching. A perfectionist and a reformer, he insisted that converts show by their actual conduct in the world that their lives had changed. He believed, indeed, that complete elimination of sin was possible. Leaving the Presbyterian Church, whose guardians disapproved of his “new measures,” Finney became professor of theology at Oberlin College, a center of the antislavery movement, in 1835 and, later, its president (1851– 1866). He pioneered in creating a coeducational school environment and in campaigning against Freemasons, whose secret society he regarded as a threat to the nation. Archbishop John Hughes (1797–1864). Catholic Archbishop of New York during the era of mass Irish immigration and widespread political anti-Catholicism. Hughes, born in Ireland, emigrated as a teenager and trained for the priesthood in Maryland. After working as a parish priest in Philadelphia and speaking and writing in the polemical wars over whether Catholics could be good Americans, he became bishop in 1838 and rapidly asserted his authority over New York. He worked to Americanize German and Irish Catholic immigrants; seized control of church property, which until then had usually been held by lay trustees; and demanded of Protestants that Catholics be granted equal treatment. Hughes campaigned to exclude Protestant prayers and the Protestant King James translation of the Bible from New York’s public schools. Dissatisfied with the outcome of the controversy, he then ordered New York Catholics to create a parallel educational system of their own to ensure the preservation of young Catholics’ faith. When anti-Catholic rioting broke ©2001 The Teaching Company. 117

• From American Religious History (2001)

  V. Members of the peace churches, Quakers and Mennonites, protested against the fighting. A. They were persecuted for declining to support the war effort. B. They tried to explain why fighting is wrong. VI. Chaplains served the Continental Army. A. Some chaplains were shocked by the soldiers’ profanity, Sabbath breaking, and drunkenness. B. Soldiers were often equally shocked by the poor quality of the chaplains’ preaching. 1. Washington was dismayed by poor quality and absenteeism. 2. Chaplains sometimes had to uphold morale in face of severe difficulties. C. Some religious soldiers regarded their role in the war as fulfilling a divine mission. D. Chaplains attended the sick and wounded, urged soldiers to avoid sin, and preached sermons justifying the Revolution. The book of Judges was put to relevant use for sermon themes. VII. Millennial sects saw the war as evidence of the “End Times” foretold in the book of Revelation. They were among the earliest utopian religions in America, trying to make themselves perfect in readiness for Christ’s Second Coming. A. They interpreted events as “signs of the times” leading to the Apocalypse. The “dark day” May 19, 1780, in northern New England appeared as a millennial portent. B. Jemima Wilkinson of Rhode Island led the Universal Friends. C. Shadrach Ireland declared himself immortal and created a millennial commune in Massachusetts. VIII. The Constitution enshrined free exercise and non-establishment of religion at the federal level. A. Some states, including Massachusetts and Connecticut, retained established churches. B. Large numbers of Anglican loyalists had fled, eroding their church’s power and membership. ©2001 The Teaching Company. 32 C. Jefferson’s proudest achievement was disestablishment in Virginia. D. America’s small Catholic population was now rewarded for its loyalty to the Revolution. Essential Reading: Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith, ch. 7. Mark Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, ch. 5–6. Supplementary Reading: Sydney Ahlstrom, Religious History of the American People, ch. 23. Charles H. Lippy, Being Religious, American Style: A History of Popular Religiosity in the United States, ch. 3. Questions to Consider: 1. How effectively did advocates of different views of the Revolution support their views from scripture? 2. Why did many of the revolutionaries criticize established churches? ©2001 The Teaching Company. 33 Lecture Eight The Second Great Awakening

• From American Religious History (2001)

  D. Perhaps the fear of nuclear annihilation drove citizens to church in unprecedented numbers. 1. The Partisan Review symposium described the revival as a symptom of a collective failure of nerve. 2. Religious intellectuals, notably Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, denounced the illusion of perfectibility and embraced existentialism. E. The fact that America’s Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union, was explicitly atheist, gave Americans an incentive to emphasize that they represented a Judeo-Christian way of life. F. In 1954, Congress approved the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. G. Will Herberg demonstrated the sociological functions of the revival in Protestant, Catholic, Jew (1955). H. In a famous conversation, Reinhold Niebuhr urged Herberg not to become a Christian but to rediscover the riches of his Jewish heritage. I. The phrase “Judeo-Christian tradition” became a popular way of muting an ancient division. II. After the New Deal, government took care of many social service tasks previously undertaken by religious groups. Churches’ functions narrowed, but they picked up some new ones, including psychological counseling. A. Freud, in The Future of an Illusion (1927), had been dismissive of religion. B. Clergy found a demand for counseling among their parishioners. 1. Hell, and God the vengeful judge, were in decline, except in hard-line evangelical churches. 2. The hazards of clergy-counselors’ work are amusingly recounted in John Updike’s fiction. C. A series of religious/psychological bestsellers shared the market in the late 1940s and 1950s. 1. Norman Vincent Peale, Joshua Loth Liebman, and Fulton Sheen all contributed to this literature. 2. Sheen, a Catholic priest, was an unexpected TV success with “Life Is Worth Living” in the mid-1950s. ©2001 The Teaching Company. 80

• From The City of God

  For we need not say that if that philosopher had thought nothing of those things which he thought he was forthwith to lose, life and bodily safety, he would not have been so terrified by his danger as to betray his fear by the pallor of his cheek. Nevertheless, he might suffer this mental disturbance, and yet maintain the fixed persuasion that life and bodily safety, which the violence of the tempest threatened to destroy, are not those good things which make their possessors good, as the possession of righteousness does. But in so far as they persist that we must call them not goods but advantages, they quarrel about words and neglect things. For what difference does it make whether goods or advantages be the better name, while the Stoic no less than the Peripatetic is alarmed at the prospect of losing them, and while, though they name them differently, they hold them in like esteem? Both parties assure us that, if urged to the commission of some immorality or crime by the threatened loss of these goods or advantages, they would prefer to lose such things as preserve bodily comfort and security rather than commit such things as violate righteousness. And thus the mind in which this resolution is well grounded suffers no perturbations to prevail with it in opposition to reason, even though they assail the weaker parts of the soul; and not only so, but it rules over them, and, while it refuses its consent and resists them, administers a reign of virtue. Such a character is ascribed to AEneas by Virgil when he says,

• From American Religious History (2001)

  Scope: As America became a commercial and industrial nation, it adapted its institutions and ideas to fit new social realities. Several new religious movements catering to the urban middle class, including Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science and Ellen White’s Seventh Day Adventists, linked spirituality to reforms in diet. Both supported the rapidly growing temperance movement, which also had female leaders in Frances Willard and Carry Nation. The women’s suffrage movement, too, was suffused with evangelical fervor. Clergy in the old denominations feared that Christianity itself was becoming “feminized.” One of their methods of regaining manly ground was through the person of Jesus himself, and a literature in which Jesus was the main character (sometimes frankly fictional and sometimes pseudo-biographical) flourished. Women and men could write such books, however, and each muscle-flexing Jesus from a male author was met by a meek and sensitive “gentle Jesus” from the distaff side. Outline I. Several religious movements linked spirituality and health. A. Sylvester Graham (1794–1851) campaigned against alcoholism and for nutritional reform. 1. He lectured young men on the need for chastity. 2. He invented what he thought of as the ideal food, graham crackers. 3. His nutritional ideas influenced the transcendentalists at Brook Farm and Fruitlands. B. Ellen White incorporated his ideas into Seventh Day Adventism. 1. This new denomination incorporated elements of Millerism. 2. White experienced numerous divine visions. 3. She founded a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. 4. Among her disciples were John Harvey Kellogg (of corn flake fame), J. C. Penney, Montgomery Ward, and John D. Rockefeller. ©2001 The Teaching Company. 55

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  Before Augustine, we know nothing of Hippo to suggest cultural or intellectual activity, apart from the anomaly of a statue of the historian Suetonius found there. It was a businessman’s town, a small stage, and unlike today’s cities in many ways. The stretch of class distinction was even wider than we see now, with abject slaves chained, sometimes literally, to their work, rich men and their grand retinues, and precious little egalitarian sentiment to counter such realities. Women were generally confined and excluded from public life. The greatest difference, however, probably lay in the comparative absence of the extraordinary overlay of meaning that marks modern communities. Today we see an urban street and know that every building is a conscious construction, with a sign on every door and every street and every parking place, and with explicit names and numbers that docket and control and define the space. The interpreter and the imagination have little to do but rebel. Ancient cities were naïve by comparison, with islands of overdetermined meaning proclaimed to the viewer in a limited number of public buildings, by inscriptions on stone designed to advertise the dignity of the donor who had them carved, and in the annual round of festivals and spectacles. Games in the circus and gossip in the forum could take people outside themselves, but not much else did, apart from church. Not long before Augustine’s days there, a predictable round of public processions and ceremonies, often culminating in sacrifices in temples, had diverted the urban public. Augustine remembered those days with horror and spoke ill of them, but others must have recalled them fondly. For in 391, the emperor Theodosius had forbidden all public sacrifice and “pagan” ritual. The ban had left empty spaces and times in every Roman city. The stench of butchery and barbecue that had regularly filled the public spaces of the cities faded away. The underlying order of the community came from the preverbal ties of family and community and belonging, an order invisible to a visitor but ineluctable to the resident. Christianity was the official religion and public practice, but Christians were divided and there were many in the city whose adherence to Christianity fell far short of what the bishop would like to have seen.