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.

Page 236 of 529 · 20 per page

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

  I. absol. to flee, take flight, run away, opp. to διώκω, Il. 22. 157, etc.; βῆ φεύγων ἐπὶ πόντον 2. 665 ; πῆ φεύγεις ; 8.94; πόσε φεύγετε; 16. 422; ποῖ φύγωμεν χθονός ; Aesch. Supp. 777; ποῖ τίς ἂν φύγῃ ; Soph. Aj. 403, etc.; φ. ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε Plat. Theaet. 176 A ;—with Preps., φ. ἀπό τινος Od. 12. 120, Plat., etc.; &« πολέμοιο, éx θανάτοιο Il. 7. 118., 20. 350; ἐκ κακῶν Soph. Ant. 437, cf. Hdt. 1.65; ὑπὲκ κακοῦ Il, 15. 700, cf. 17. 461; rarely c. gen. only, πεφυγμένος ἣεν ἀέθλων (ν. infr. 11) Od. 1. 18; τῆς νόσου πεφευγέναι Soph. Ph. 1044 ; —>. és πατρίδα γαῖαν Il. 2. 140, cf. 158, etc.; ἐπὶ Σάρδεων, ἐπὶ τὸν “Ἑλικῶνα Xen. Cyr. 7. 2, 1, Ages. 2, 11; πρὸς τὸ ὄρος Id. Hell. 3.5, 19; ὑπὸ γᾶν Aesch. Eum. 175; φ. ὑπό τινος to flee before him, Il. 21. 23, 554, V. infr. 111. 2):—c. acc. cogn., φύγε λαιψηρὸν δρόμον ran the course full swiftly, Pind. P. 9. 215; φεύγειν φυγήν Eur. Hel. 1041; φ. τὴν παρὰ θάλασσαν (sc. ὁδόν) to flee toward the sea, Hdt. 4. 12 ; cf. infr. ΤΠ; —also, φυγῇ φεύγειν, v. φυγή τ. τ. 2. the pres. and impf. tenses properly express only the purpose or endeavour to flee: hence the part. φεύγων is added to the compd. Verbs droped yw, ἐκφεύγω, προφεύγω, to distinguish the attempt from the accomplishment of the flight, βέλτερον, ὡς φεύγων προφύγῃ κακὸν ἠὲ ἅλώῃ it is better that one should flee and escape than stay and be caught, Il. 14. 81; φεύγων exp. Hdt. 5. 95, Ar. Ach. 177; . καταφ. Hdt. 4. 23; φ. ἄποφ. Ar. Nub. 167; cf. Pors. Phoen. 1231. 3. φ. εἰς .. to have recourse to .., take refuge in.., Eur. Hipp. 1076. 4. c. inf. to shun or be shy of doing, shrink from doing, Hdt. 4. 76, Antipho 112. 44, Plat. Apol. 26 A ; and with the inf. omitted, φεύγουσι yap τοι χοὶ θρασεῖς shrink back, Soph. Ant. 580 :— the inf. often has a seemingly pleonast. μή put with it, like all Verbs con- taining or implying a negation, as in Soph. Ant. 263, cf. Heind. Plat. Parm. 147 A, Soph. 235 B. IT. c. acc. to flee, i.e. to shun, avoid, escape, τινά Hom., etc.; φ. τινὰ ἐκ μάχης Hdt.7. 104; φ. ἐς τὴν ᾿Ασίην τοὺς Σκύθας Id. 4.12: also φ. τι, 45 φ. μοῖραν, ὄλεθρον, πόλεμον, κακόν 1]. 6. 488, al.; ἐνθ᾽ ἄλλοι μὲν πάντες ὅσοι φύγον αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον, οἴκοι ἔσαν πόλεμόν τε πεφευγότες ἠδὲ θάλασσαν Od. I. 11 ; so, φ. ὄνειδος, ἀμα- χανίαν Pind. O. 6. 152, P. 9. 163; φ. φόνον to flee the consequences of the murder, Eur. Med. 795; φ. αἷμα συγγενὲς χθονός Id.Supp.148; φ. τὰν Διὸς μῆτιν Aesch. Pr. 907; ὀσμὴν .., μὴ βάλῃ, πεφευγότες Soph. Ant. 412; φυγῇ φεύγειν γῆρας Plat. Symp. 195 Β; ἐς πόντον .. φύγε πέτρας νηῦς Od. το.

• From Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (2018)

  As her daughter, I always thought my mother was not afraid of anything. But as soon as she was diagnosed, with tears gushing out, we all recognized that she was afraid. My mother was terrified of dying. Her fear continued through the last six months of her life. A close friend who was a minister came to the hospital to offer prayers for my mother. He wanted to pray alone with my mom, so he asked my sister and me to leave the hospital bed. After some time he finished and said that we could all rejoin my mother. The minister had done some “self-emptying prayer.” The minister prayed that my mother could empty herself and give up her power and allow the Spirit to come in. It was clear that my mother gave up her power and allowed the Spirit to move. She was finally at peace, and the fear was gone from her eyes. She passed away peacefully two weeks later. There are many ways of giving up power and different kinds of power. Part of relinquishing our power, whatever it may be, is to surrender ourselves to the power of the Spirit, who moves us, empowers us, and gives us new life. After giving everything up, Paul spoke of the power he discovered in Jesus Christ. This is the power of Jesus’ resurrection. It is the power of “participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:10-11 ). Are you struggling to relinquish power for the sake of Christ and others? Paul talks of his own struggle to give all this up for the sake of Christ. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Phil 3:12-14 ) Relinquishing power (and giving up our confidence in the flesh) isn’t natural or easy. But the Spirit of Christ enables us. Practices, Challenges, and Activities for Small GroupsHere is a small group simulation game to help your group think about relinquishing power. We have also offered a practice for conference and panel organizers and speakers. Both will help you embrace the practice of relinquishment. Stop organizing all–white male panels and conferences, and stop speaking at them. If we are truly the church of Jesus Christ, why are we excluding so many groups from meaningful contribution? We can’t tell you how often we look at a conference and panel lineup and think, “Where are the women speakers?

• From From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets (2019)

  say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God.” 40:9 The declaration, “Here is your God” is an assertion that after a long season of absence YHWH is back in play. When YHWH takes such an initiative, the imperial power of Babylon and its gods are helpless to resist. In the Realpolitik of the time, that newness came to expression as the rise of Persia (Iran) in the East under the leadership of Cyrus, who, in 45:1, is termed by YHWH as “my messiah.” Given that turn in geopolitics and given the new prospects of the Persian Empire, the dislocated persons from Jerusalem are now permitted to go home after a long season of displacement (see 2 Chr. 36:22–23). Thus the poetry reflects changed political circumstance but voices it theologically as a turn in the intent of YHWH. The task of the poet is to provide his displaced listeners news of the changed theological reality that is reflected in changed political circumstance. No doubt the force of Babylonian rule and the attractiveness of the Babylonian economy had caused many Jews to settle and to regard Babylon as the context for their life and faith. The poet, however, summons his listeners to the joyous and arduous alternative of return to the city of Jerusalem. The poet utilizes a number of rhetorical strategies to recruit his listeners into the prospect of homecoming. A series of “salvation oracles” are issued on behalf of YHWH that tell the people not to fear: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 43:1; see 41:10, 14; 43:5; 44:8 It was fear of and submission to the power of Babylon that blocked the possibility of discerning YHWH’s new resolve in the world. The overcoming of fear, accomplished by articulation of the gospel, was designed to liberate exilic Israel from the grip of imperial ideology, and so to evoke the awareness of an historical possibility outside the domain of imperial ideology. The poet imagines a great cosmic courtroom in which there is a trial to determine who the real god is. Babylonian gods are invited to offer evidence of their divinity, that is, their power; but they offer no such evidence (41:22–23). The inescapable verdict is that they are nothing, not to be feared, honored, or obeyed (41:24). By contrast, YHWH cites as evidence of the transformative capacity that YHWH has “stirred up” Cyrus, the Persian, who has initiated the radical transformation of international politics (41:25). The conclusion to which the poem drives is that those who listen to the poet, exilic Israel, can observe that their submission to Babylon is out of step with reality, because the singularly effective reality is the God who will bring them home.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  “You know, Father, probably, like I said, he got out of town as soon as he ran away from the girl.” That was an immense, shirtless creature, shaven skull, mat-chested, whose boots thumped the wharf boards and whose voice sounded like a rasp doing something to rock. And he was swinging a rifle against his hip. “But, Sheriff, we can’t take any chance! We just can’t allow a beast like that to roam our streets, attacking women. If you had seen what that monster had done to the poor, poor child.” That was the priest! “If you had seen!” “You just point him out to me, and I’ll blow his fuckin’ head off—excuse me, Father. But I’m just saying I don’t think it’s very likely you will.” “If he isn’t down here by the docks, Sheriff, I think we can probably assume you’re right. They’ll catch him in one of the towns along the coast here. I just hope they get him before he kills some other innocent creature.” Horror struck through Robby like long crystals forming. He pulled back against the wall as they passed the alley entrance. And almost gagged again. “When we work our way down to the end of the docks, then I’m afraid you’ll have to turn me loose. I promised I’d do some work for Proctor before the night was up. He needs me.” They passed beyond his vision. Robby ran down the narrow street. His shirt was a cold tongue lapping his chest. His pant leg went flap, flap. He tried to run close to the wall. Small streets kept emptying him onto bigger ones. He would turn off them again, ducking down behind wooden fences— Two, ahead of him in workmen’s greens: white and black; he recognized them in the lamp light, and froze. They were laughing, and the white one was elbowing the black one over some stupendous joke. They stopped, looked around. Robby wasn’t breathing, sure that they had seen him, not knowing why he should fear if they did, but fearing it more than anything. Then there was an unfamiliar voice. A figure vaulted over the fence. Robby ground his flank on the wall. “Where the hell you two guys been? I’ve been huntin’ all over.” “Tearin’ up a little cunt down in front of St. Mark’s,” Nig said. “Redheaded whore. Shit, she had some mouth-fillin’ pussy,” Dove said. A black-haired man, a leather jacket open on a naked chest. And a chain around his neck with a black swastika, silver rimmed: “Bull said he thought it was you two. Look, you better come with me.” “What for, Nazi?” “Whyn’t you come with us, Nazi? We still out huntin’.” “Proctor needs you.” “Oh.” Then, “Maybe we better go.” The three hurried away.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  He turned his head. A dragon of tarnished bronze writhed about the candle stub that guttered and flapped its light through the room. A tiny screeching over metal: He jerked around to stare at the bird cage. It wasn’t a bird inside. All his muscles contracted. The back of his hand dragged more grit. Claws ticked the floor. He jerked up. The dog waited. His body shrank from the beast. The only thing his mind could touch were new facets of fear. It is a big dog. On the wall the carcass of a horse fell apart. Crouching in the livid cage, he, distorted, pawed between her legs. She, grotesque, flopped his gross cock from thigh to thigh. It stayed limp. Flames sputtered about the protecting ribs. Skull and fore-hooves pawed and wagged before the infernal sea where six feet dangled. The dog sprang. Robby screamed. Nothing hit. The black cock and balls rolled off its brass plate, slipped from the table, and flopped to the floor. Where it fell, blood inched the wood. He snatched his hand away. Jerked again because teeth clicked. Dog breath lanced his ear. He fell on his belly and began to cry. His cheek slipped on puddled blood. The dog barked. As he flailed out, the light went insane. Three candles fell from the window sill. He pulled back, expecting the floor to fire. Two went out. He got to his feet. The blood patch burned, flames half an inch above the bright surface as though it were kerosene. He looked at his right hand, which was in pain. Two drops of hot wax dulled on his skin. The creature in the cage scraped its claws on the bars. He slapped at the puddle. Fire splashed. The whole floor was pocked with amethysts. His hand stung. He scraped at the spots, to pry up the wax scales with his thumb nail. His hand fell off. His wrist spurted fire. He whirled, waving fire. Fire hit the cage bars. The creature inside shrieked. The bars sagged, dribbled away. The thing leaped, clawing and shrieking, on pale green wings. It walked across the floor on its hind legs, foreclaws scraping at the ceiling beams. Its wings masked out the door behind it. The forelegs thumped down. The dog ran to grovel between them. It yawned hugely on flame-colored gums, reared again. Clawed toes splayed in ashes. Amethysts glittered between its talons. The wings made a wind that tugged his hair. The candles about the room roared. And the tarnished dragon was crawling from around the mash of wax to the table’s edge. The floor was cluttered with emeralds and cut spinel besides. On knees and one hand, he crawled the points. Then his hand mashed something soft. He reared back from the crushed flesh. The dog had gotten to its feet again, chin and underbelly flickering in the floor’s litter.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  With darkness, she couldn’t even move. She shivered, and her body wouldn’t do any of the things she wanted. Trying, now, only to avoid pain, realized she had been thinking, Maybe he won’t hurt me anymore if I cooperate, though she already hurt between her legs where he had pinched her. He was pulling her panties down. And with his hands on her belly he moved down against her. “Feed papa all that pretty pussy.” That, mumbled into her. She reached down and caught hold of his hair, not to get him away, but to keep from falling. She felt numb, and his face slipping in her numbness. He was squeezing her buttocks. She thought: Why am I thinking; if I don’t move maybe he won’t— “Hey, there, pretty baby. How about some of that pussy for me? Dove boy, you got it all set?” She skinned her hand on dried paint and tried to kick the one on his knees. Because the second one was coming at her. He was black and his pants were open. The white one pulled back his head. “Come on, Nig. Swing that black mother-fucker around here.” She felt herself start to collapse. (She cannot fight. Watch her beautiful fear. I will not let her fight.) The black one caught her by the shoulders and slammed her on the door. “Open your mouth, bitch! Lemme get some tongue.” She cried and tried to keep her teeth together. Only the sobs pried them open from behind, and his tongue from the front; suddenly she hissed because of what the second one did with four fingers between her legs. When she moved her arms he hurt them with his hands that could go all the way around. Her thighs shook against Dove’s cheek. He turned away, and Nig’s cock hit his face (Nig’s legs leaned across his back). He ducked and reached up to feel the hot, rough sack with its wiry hair, bitter with her. Sweat, and the stench of (his own) shit; to touch it with the tip of his tongue. With his hand he guided the wide head. Dove grunted when she began to squirm hard against what he was pushing in her. He bit her thigh when she tried to yank aside, so he could push it in another inch. Now Nig jammed too. “Suck on my balls while I dick this pussy, boy,” growled from above. Dove nosed the balls, ministered with tongue and fingers to the plunging junction. He held their legs till Nig’s thighs clamped his head. Which meant get out of the way. He came up, tired. Her arms hung on Nig’s neck. Dove leaned on the wall and watched Nig convulse in her. Once he stuck his hand between their slapping bellies, fingered the slippery thickness, put two fingers into her, then, with his wet hand, kneaded the hairy bag.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  That is because he is saying things that he has said before to other people, and the artist smiles, nods, makes explanations of complicity or indignation in the places where other people have, and it is reassuring. Occasionally Robby finds his eyes suddenly snatched away from the sympathetic face by some trick of a candle on the paintings, and chills clutch along his nerves. Still, Proctor listens like any ordinary man. “You seem a lot better,” Proctor, finally. “Perhaps you can go now.” “Oh,” Robby, warily. “Yeah, I guess I should.” He stands, a little shakily. “Thanks. For the coffee.” At the bottom step he realizes how cold it is. And the pressure on his bladder. Leaning one hand against the wall, he urinates, occasionally looking up to see if anybody is coming. Down the street, toward the harbor, there is mist. He starts for the coiling fogs. A sound makes him look back. A black dog has come around the corner, has stopped by the door frame. He laps the puddle by the wall. He looks up, panting, drops his head again. Robby puts his hands in his pockets to stop the terror that begins at the base of his spine, and hurries toward the wharf. Sambo’s cock came out of her ass, and she was left sucking Dove deep, and the smell of his groin, and her fingers pressing brass hair, and the smell of the water around the boat. The smell of fog, the rocking around them, Her tongue played him, troweled beneath the foreskin, and as she felt the boy’s father’s juice dripping down the back of her leg, she drank the son’s first gout, and let it wash about the cylinder as he spilled in her. Later, when she thought they were asleep, Kirsten went to the rail and looked at the ordered arc of moons the dock lights made in the fog. The night poured its damp smokes over the water. She heard bare feet behind her on the wet deck. Nig grinned at her. His shirt hung open, his left hand held his balls. His cock angled like a piece of the night between the fallen flaps of his pants. His right reached for her smock hem. He put his other arm, now, around her shoulder, brushed his lips on her cheek, mumbling, “. . . Hey, sweet pussy . . . oh yeah, some shitty pussy . . . ain’t this little blonde whore got some hot ole nasty pussy . . .” There was the smell of old effort, and on that new effort bloomed. He moved his fingers back and forth in her.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  Then, “Maybe we better go.” The three hurried away. Robby felt the bonds with which he gripped what he knew as real begin to loosen. “Bull,” and he had remembered their description of the lawman. They were searching for him: And the man with the gun who searched for him thought him innocent! He thrilled with unresolvable terror. Turning left, turning right, he ran the labyrinthine alleys, turning again, and turning, now recognizing houses he had passed before, now passing strange porches, fences, windows. At the cafe, he ducked into the alley, keeping near the wall. Something caught his ankle. He staggered. As he turned to see, it jerked him again; he fell, scraping his palms on brick. A hand, from between the bars, had grasped his leg, was hauling him back. He grabbed the window edge to push himself away. A second hand came out and caught his wrist. He kicked, jerked, with his throat constricted so that the sound trying to push out was a gurgle. “Let me . . . let me out,” rasped from the window. “They forgot to let me out! Proctor needs me!” He kicked his leg free, tore scabby fingers from his wrist; then he was running. Slapped at a wall to keep from banging into it, and ran again. The small street dumped him out on the square. He came up short, thirty feet before the dark stones. There was no wind. Shadowed carvings took his eyes upward to the steeple, to lose his vision on crazed, moon-lined clouds, uncurling. There was no wind at all in the street. Something moved on the church steps. He looked. Uncurling, the black shape rose to its feet; barked. The dog cantered down the steps, paused at the bottom, barked again. Robby ran. The paws clicked after him; whatever was solid in him melted and flowed, lost edges and became terror. On a strange street, he turned, grabbed the side of a doorway to keep from falling. It stood on the corner. Its eye was red glass. Its tongue was foamy meat, shaking over barbs. The tail whipped the night. He closed his eyes, shook his head. Looked back. It still stared. Then it took three steps. His stomach and thighs jerked him to a crouch. His palms stung. The dog (it is a big dog) trotted into the street. It closed its mouth for a swallow he could hear. The tongue shook out again, shook, shook. He thought about walking away, just turning and— The dog barked, sagged back to spring, rushed forward. He fell in the doorway, rolled over and clambered up the gritty steps. There was another door at the top. He dove through; curled up and rolled. Claws scrabbled on the steps. His teeth were clenched too tight to scream. Shoulder, arm and hip were bruised. He waited and didn’t breathe. He realized he was waiting. And realized there was only silence to wait through.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  The little dragon leapt to the dog’s back and clung. The great beast that had stepped from the broken cage went “Ahhhhh—” and the heat hit his chin, whirled inside his eye sockets. The dog was barking. Its second head—beaked and feathered—cawed. The tongue of the third—flat and scaled—slithered and whipped on the bony gum. The little dragon had slipped to the floor. It hissed and beat translucent wings. The woman in the carcass was battling to get free. The ribs closed and opened, closed and opened as she crawled in the livid offal. Her arms glistened to the elbows. Her hair fell forward like yarn. She fell; sprawled on the floor; crawled forward dragging coiled horse gut. His severed hand scuttled through flame toward the three-headed dog that barked at her. The fingers reached up, fell, reached again and grasped at the chimera’s scrotum. The dripping wrist cleared the floor, hauled itself along the sheathed cock. Thumb and forefinger worked the black bristles till the shaft bulged at its half length. The tip rubied the pursed hose of over-flesh. The working fingers massaged the sheath back. The inner shaft, wet, thrust from the husk. Raw in the firelight, it sagged from the hairless belly. The grasping hand thumbed the husk over the bulge. Niger barked again and sprang at the crawling woman. She stopped shaking her hair. Nervous forepaws scraped her flanks. The dog head yipped. Hawk and snake head made their softest sounds. Bunched haunches hunched. And hunched. The fingers guided the slick stick between her hams: flexed the wet tip in the hairy sheath; fed the mucus-filmed meat into the meat of her. Her thighs wobbled. He stared at his delinquent appendage prodding the bestial juncture. He kept trying to breathe. And breath kept snagging on words for which there was no syntax. With his good hand he reached for her hair. It was dry and crisp. He pulled it back. “Kiss me . . .” she whispered from bad teeth. Her lips shook with the hound’s rhythm. Blind sockets dribbled ocher down her nose. Snake, dog, and bird breath were rank. She seized his lower lip in her loose, brown mouth. And she was pulling at his maimed arm, holding it to her stomach, hauling him closer. Her dugs swung against his bicep. A tickling at the stump became pain. He tore his mouth from her (blood bubbled inside his lips and drooled his chin) to see she had a penis, the blotched color of a new bruise, jutting from her hair. She jabbed his wound, laid it along the bone. With the dog on her back, she humped his glowing stub, He jerked away. She howled and reared, almost unmounting the beast on her. Blood from her clotted cock drooled her thigh. He rolled on floor, cuddling his aching wrist, eyes tight. He lay on his back. His breath made multiple S sounds between clamped teeth.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  There were too many other things he liked to talk about, the three chambered hearts of birds, the evolution between the bird and the lizard. Later, when I took my boat to the east and came to ports where German is still the trade tongue, I had to try all over again. It is still my least good language. He said once, walking from his house in the village to the sea, “Do you want to know the most valuable piece of information there is? Always remember the objects you are working with. When you make a bridge, remember you are putting steel on stone and dirt. When you build a raft, remember you are floating wood in water. Someday you will write poems to a little girl: marks with ink on paper. When you want to turn them into songs and sing them, remember you are squeezing wet bags of air over the cartilages in your throat. When you are making love, you are moving flesh against flesh. That is the basis of all magic. It is very simple and very complicated.” Later he asked me, “Do you know any more magicians besides me?” “Two,” I said. He was surprised. I told him about the man and woman in the doorway. But I haven’t told what makes Herr Bildungs one of those special kinds. The third night I worked for him, nearly two years before what I just told you on the beach, he was working one night and I came to ask something. I surprised him, he turned and dropped the lens and it missed the rug and broke on the tiles. There it is. The two of us staring at the bits of glass, the metal ring. He was mad, too. He called me a little black devil and said I was clumsy and tried to hit me, and that I couldn’t work any more if I didn’t learn to knock first and know manners. But too many people had hit and cursed me already for it to make much difference but I was scared. He changed his mind. But can you see with that attention by kerosene light a white man, a black boy, a broken lens? I took trips with Herr Bildungs in my two and a half years with him to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Caracas. Once we flew to Houston, Texas, for a weekend when he went to all sorts of meetings. That’s when I decided I would have to make my English much better. It was a good idea. Six months and Herr Bildungs went back to Germany. I started working on boats. The third one I was on stalled in New Orleans.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  Opened his eyes. Beams ran the ceiling. Shadows pulsed on the white plaster between. He turned his head. A dragon of tarnished bronze writhed about the candle stub that guttered and flapped its light through the room. A tiny screeching over metal: He jerked around to stare at the bird cage. It wasn’t a bird inside. All his muscles contracted. The back of his hand dragged more grit. Claws ticked the floor. He jerked up. The dog waited. His body shrank from the beast. The only thing his mind could touch were new facets of fear. It is a big dog. On the wall the carcass of a horse fell apart. Crouching in the livid cage, he, distorted, pawed between her legs. She, grotesque, flopped his gross cock from thigh to thigh. It stayed limp. Flames sputtered about the protecting ribs. Skull and fore-hooves pawed and wagged before the infernal sea where six feet dangled. The dog sprang. Robby screamed. Nothing hit. The black cock and balls rolled off its brass plate, slipped from the table, and flopped to the floor. Where it fell, blood inched the wood. He snatched his hand away. Jerked again because teeth clicked. Dog breath lanced his ear. He fell on his belly and began to cry. His cheek slipped on puddled blood. The dog barked. As he flailed out, the light went insane. Three candles fell from the window sill. He pulled back, expecting the floor to fire. Two went out. He got to his feet. The blood patch burned, flames half an inch above the bright surface as though it were kerosene. He looked at his right hand, which was in pain. Two drops of hot wax dulled on his skin. The creature in the cage scraped its claws on the bars. He slapped at the puddle. Fire splashed. The whole floor was pocked with amethysts. His hand stung. He scraped at the spots, to pry up the wax scales with his thumb nail. His hand fell off. His wrist spurted fire. He whirled, waving fire. Fire hit the cage bars. The creature inside shrieked. The bars sagged, dribbled away. The thing leaped, clawing and shrieking, on pale green wings. It walked across the floor on its hind legs, foreclaws scraping at the ceiling beams. Its wings masked out the door behind it. The forelegs thumped down. The dog ran to grovel between them. It yawned hugely on flame-colored gums, reared again. Clawed toes splayed in ashes. Amethysts glittered between its talons. The wings made a wind that tugged his hair. The candles about the room roared. And the tarnished dragon was crawling from around the mash of wax to the table’s edge. The floor was cluttered with emeralds and cut spinel besides. On knees and one hand, he crawled the points. Then his hand mashed something soft. He reared back from the crushed flesh. The dog had gotten to its feet again, chin and underbelly flickering in the floor’s litter.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  The little dragon leapt to the dog’s back and clung. The great beast that had stepped from the broken cage went “Ahhhhh—” and the heat hit his chin, whirled inside his eye sockets. The dog was barking. Its second head—beaked and feathered—cawed. The tongue of the third—flat and scaled—slithered and whipped on the bony gum. The little dragon had slipped to the floor. It hissed and beat translucent wings. The woman in the carcass was battling to get free. The ribs closed and opened, closed and opened as she crawled in the livid offal. Her arms glistened to the elbows. Her hair fell forward like yarn. She fell; sprawled on the floor; crawled forward dragging coiled horse gut. His severed hand scuttled through flame toward the three-headed dog that barked at her. The fingers reached up, fell, reached again and grasped at the chimera’s scrotum. The dripping wrist cleared the floor, hauled itself along the sheathed cock. Thumb and forefinger worked the black bristles till the shaft bulged at its half length. The tip rubied the pursed hose of over-flesh. The working fingers massaged the sheath back. The inner shaft, wet, thrust from the husk. Raw in the firelight, it sagged from the hairless belly. The grasping hand thumbed the husk over the bulge. Niger barked again and sprang at the crawling woman. She stopped shaking her hair. Nervous forepaws scraped her flanks. The dog head yipped. Hawk and snake head made their softest sounds. Bunched haunches hunched. And hunched. The fingers guided the slick stick between her hams: flexed the wet tip in the hairy sheath; fed the mucus-filmed meat into the meat of her. Her thighs wobbled. He stared at his delinquent appendage prodding the bestial juncture. He kept trying to breathe. And breath kept snagging on words for which there was no syntax. With his good hand he reached for her hair. It was dry and crisp. He pulled it back. “Kiss me . . .” she whispered from bad teeth. Her lips shook with the hound’s rhythm. Blind sockets dribbled ocher down her nose. Snake, dog, and bird breath were rank. She seized his lower lip in her loose, brown mouth. And she was pulling at his maimed arm, holding it to her stomach, hauling him closer. Her dugs swung against his bicep. A tickling at the stump became pain. He tore his mouth from her (blood bubbled inside his lips and drooled his chin) to see she had a penis, the blotched color of a new bruise, jutting from her hair. She jabbed his wound, laid it along the bone. With the dog on her back, she humped his glowing stub, He jerked away. She howled and reared, almost unmounting the beast on her. Blood from her clotted cock drooled her thigh.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  Do you know what he did for her?” Gunner shook his head. “He brewed her strange drugs that shatter the mind and the vision: a hallucinogen that the body cannot break down, it explodes the consciousness for an hour or more, till it is passed with the urine, intact. Always a hunchback, he became so lost in the pits of their joint depravity that he is only a fouled vision of his former self, and lives in nauseous squalor, devouring his own or any filth that falls to him, a pathetic but vicious thing, less than an animal.” “Let him out!” Gunner whispered. “I have given Bull the keys.” Proctor stuck two fingers into his shirt pocket, pulled out a small vial. He thumbed up the top and rolled a ruby capsule onto his palm. “Open your mouth.” Gunner did. Proctor pushed his palm over the boy’s mouth. Gunner swallowed. “What was that?” “Five hundred micrograms of the drug whose abuse reduced that poor fool to the creature he is.” He put another of the capsules into his own mouth, then poured some more into his palm. “A couple, Captain? You’ll get off in an hour. Here, Kim. Three for you, Sambo. A buck your size needs an extra dose.” The black reached for the capsules. The others crowded behind him, tried to push ahead. “Jon!” Benny pushed through the crowd. “Hey, Jon! Nazi!” “What is it, boy?” Proctor halted his largesse. “In the bar,” Benny said. “Somebody wants to see Bull! He says it’s important. It’s police business.” The bald lawman was just about to take the pill. He stopped. “Who is it?” “Father Michael.” “Now what could—shit!” He handed the pill to Benny and pushed from the crowd, frowned back at Proctor, before disappearing into the doorway. Proctor grunted disgustedly and stood up. “Her priest, the one she and the little redhead study with. Sometimes I think a great great grandmother of hers must have invented religion. After swallowing one of these little red pills, she pissed in some chalice, and the poor man who drank from it was never the same.” He turned to the others. “Here! I have a dozen more. Who’s hungry for visions of the beasts that lurk behind the night!” The others crowded forward. Bull picked up the rifle from the bar, turned around, and let the stock thump the floor. He lay the barrel up along the black denim. The tip was cold through the hair matting his belly. He moved his boot, clearing sawdust. “You want to tell me what this is all about, Father?” The priest, from the chair he had taken off the bar, looked up at Bull.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  Father and son, faces pressed together, bit her belly. When Guido rose, Pietro clawed into her like a nervous weasel. She bled. I rose to stop him, but Guido halted me. “While she was still as the corpse on the table, she attracted them. They invited me to take her. I did. Their excitement excited me. As well, I realized that while I covered her lacerated body, it was harder for them to wound her further—though, as I toiled in her, they nipped at her feet and ankles, or shoved their fingers in alongside my prick. Between us, we entered her nine, ten times. But though she kept them stiff, neither Guido nor Pietro could empty himself into her. Only I filled her cavity. Then father and son got their heads between her legs and I drew their final juices. Several times I heard Guido restrain the boy: ‘No, no, go in her gently. We have all night, and the beauty on the table still to go . . .’ “We rested a while. “Once I opened my eyes to see Guido, in the firelight, kneeling to lick the blood from the face of his sleeping son. Toward dawn, I felt Guido rousing me with a boot, and Pietro kicking at me with his bare foot. ‘Come to the table . . .’ “Later, when Guido was buttoning his fly, and Pietro had gone to the wall to pee, I helped the Duchessa up. She was barely able to walk. Guido held the door silently for us. The cool air revived her a little as we walked along the road. It was growing light. “ ‘Are you . . .?’ I ventured inanely. “She looked at me with bruised and scabbed face. ‘Go away . . .’ she said. ‘Go away from this town.’ “ ‘But—’ “Her expression was suddenly recognizable through the injury. I started at it and tried not to show my start. “I said, ‘You shouldn’t have—’ “She stopped me: ‘My husband is looking for me. I shall take him to the cemetery and he will have those two monsters arrested. They will be tried for their abominations and hung.’ “ ‘But—’ “ ‘My husband is looking for me, Jonathan,’ she said. ‘Do you hear the horses . . . ?’ “There were horses. “ ‘Those can’t be the Duke’s . . .’ “ ‘Don’t you think I told him where I was going? If I was not back before dawn, he was to send men out to look for me. Go away. Or I shall tell them your part in this and you will be arrested too.’ “I turned and fled into the bushes at the side of the road as the hooves clattered on the turning. There was no time to warn Guido and Pietro. I hid in the woods all day.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  “While she was still as the corpse on the table, she attracted them. They invited me to take her. I did. Their excitement excited me. As well, I realized that while I covered her lacerated body, it was harder for them to wound her further—though, as I toiled in her, they nipped at her feet and ankles, or shoved their fingers in alongside my prick. Between us, we entered her nine, ten times. But though she kept them stiff, neither Guido nor Pietro could empty himself into her. Only I filled her cavity. Then father and son got their heads between her legs and I drew their final juices. Several times I heard Guido restrain the boy: ‘No, no, go in her gently. We have all night, and the beauty on the table still to go . . .’ “We rested a while. “Once I opened my eyes to see Guido, in the firelight, kneeling to lick the blood from the face of his sleeping son. Toward dawn, I felt Guido rousing me with a boot, and Pietro kicking at me with his bare foot. ‘Come to the table . . .’ “Later, when Guido was buttoning his fly, and Pietro had gone to the wall to pee, I helped the Duchessa up. She was barely able to walk. Guido held the door silently for us. The cool air revived her a little as we walked along the road. It was growing light. “ ‘Are you . . .?’ I ventured inanely. “She looked at me with bruised and scabbed face. ‘Go away . . .’ she said. ‘Go away from this town.’ “ ‘But—’ “Her expression was suddenly recognizable through the injury. I started at it and tried not to show my start. “I said, ‘You shouldn’t have—’ “She stopped me: ‘My husband is looking for me. I shall take him to the cemetery and he will have those two monsters arrested. They will be tried for their abominations and hung.’ “ ‘But—’ “ ‘My husband is looking for me, Jonathan,’ she said. ‘Do you hear the horses . . . ?’ “There were horses. “ ‘Those can’t be the Duke’s . . .’ “ ‘Don’t you think I told him where I was going? If I was not back before dawn, he was to send men out to look for me. Go away. Or I shall tell them your part in this and you will be arrested too.’

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  “You know, Father, probably, like I said, he got out of town as soon as he ran away from the girl.” That was an immense, shirtless creature, shaven skull, mat-chested, whose boots thumped the wharf boards and whose voice sounded like a rasp doing something to rock. And he was swinging a rifle against his hip. “But, Sheriff, we can’t take any chance! We just can’t allow a beast like that to roam our streets, attacking women. If you had seen what that monster had done to the poor, poor child.” That was the priest! “If you had seen!” “You just point him out to me, and I’ll blow his fuckin’ head off—excuse me, Father. But I’m just saying I don’t think it’s very likely you will.” “If he isn’t down here by the docks, Sheriff, I think we can probably assume you’re right. They’ll catch him in one of the towns along the coast here. I just hope they get him before he kills some other innocent creature.” Horror struck through Robby like long crystals forming. He pulled back against the wall as they passed the alley entrance. And almost gagged again. “When we work our way down to the end of the docks, then I’m afraid you’ll have to turn me loose. I promised I’d do some work for Proctor before the night was up. He needs me.” They passed beyond his vision. Robby ran down the narrow street. His shirt was a cold tongue lapping his chest. His pant leg went flap, flap. He tried to run close to the wall. Small streets kept emptying him onto bigger ones. He would turn off them again, ducking down behind wooden fences— Two, ahead of him in workmen’s greens: white and black; he recognized them in the lamp light, and froze. They were laughing, and the white one was elbowing the black one over some stupendous joke. They stopped, looked around. Robby wasn’t breathing, sure that they had seen him, not knowing why he should fear if they did, but fearing it more than anything. Then there was an unfamiliar voice. A figure vaulted over the fence. Robby ground his flank on the wall. “Where the hell you two guys been? I’ve been huntin’ all over.” “Tearin’ up a little cunt down in front of St. Mark’s,” Nig said. “Redheaded whore. Shit, she had some mouth-fillin’ pussy,” Dove said. A black-haired man, a leather jacket open on a naked chest. And a chain around his neck with a black swastika, silver rimmed: “Bull said he thought it was you two. Look, you better come with me.” “What for, Nazi?” “Whyn’t you come with us, Nazi? We still out huntin’.” “Proctor needs you.” “Oh.” Then, “Maybe we better go.” The three hurried away.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  What made them supreme was not just their inhuman cruelty or their public dishonor, but the fact that there might be nothing left to bury at the end . That bodily destruction was involved in being cast into the fire or thrown to the beasts is obvious enough. But what we often forget about crucifixion is the carrion crow and scavenger dog who respectively croak above and growl below the dead or dying body. Martin Hengel, once again, reminds us of that terrible reality. His book, which is a catalog of the writings of Greco-Roman authors on the subject of crucifixion, quotes, for example, “fastened [and] nailed…[as] evil food for birds of prey and grim pickings for dogs” on page 9, “feed the crows on the cross” on page 58, and “hung…alive for the wild beasts and birds of prey” on page 76. I return to the burial of the crucified later in this chapter with regard to Jesus himself, but for now I want to emphasize that Roman crucifixion was state terrorism; that its function was to deter resistance or revolt, especially among the lower classes; and that the body was usually left on the cross to be consumed eventually by the wild beasts. No wonder we have found only one body from all those thousands crucified around Jerusalem in that single century. Remember those dogs. And if you seek the heart of darkness, follow the dogs. Before the Feast of Passover Mark says that Jesus was crucified on the first day of the Passover feast, after having celebrated the Passover Eve supper the night before. John says that it happened on Passover Eve itself and thus before that celebratory meal could have taken place. But both authors connect his death with Passover, so I accept some such connection, although this is much less certain than the fact of the crucifixion. Passover celebrated the deliverance of the Jews from bondage in Egypt and their departure to conquer the Promised Land. It was obviously a rather dangerous festival in a colonized country with imperial overlords, with Romans replacing Egyptians, as it were—especially as it brought together very large crowds in a very concentrated space. After the death of Herod the Great, for example, and just before his son Archelaus departed for Rome to obtain the southern part of his father’s kingdom in April of 4 B.C.E. , there was a massacre in the Temple itself during Passover, according to Josephus’s twin accounts in War 2.10–13 and Antiquities 17.213–218: At this time there came round the festival during which it is the ancestral custom of the Jews to serve unleavened bread. It is called Passover, being a commemoration of their departure from Egypt. They celebrate it with gladness, and it is their custom to slaughter a greater number of sacrifices at this festival than at any other, and an innumerable multitude of people come down from the country and even from abroad to worship God.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  As the extracanonical Cross Gospel is combined with intracanonical materials, we get this summary: Early in the morning of the Lord’s day Mary Magdalene, a woman disciple of the Lord—for fear of the Jews, since (they) were inflamed with wrath, she had not done at the sepulchre what women are wont to do for those beloved of them who die—took with her women friends and came to the sepulchre where he was laid. (Gospel of Peter 11:50–51) The evidence seems to be moving in the opposite direction. The women are not so much being eliminated or reduced as being introduced and emphasized in the tradition of that story. What exactly is happening to the women who watch the burial, find the empty tomb, and see the risen Jesus? Paul mentions burial and vision, but nothing about finding an empty tomb in between. But above all, he has nothing about the women. Peter, James, and Paul are named, but not Mary. The Twelve and the apostles are mentioned, but not the women (unless implicitly as apostles). How is that to be explained? Before proceeding, let me offer a graphic summary of the data. I will keep it simple to emphasize the main differences. There are three narrative units: the description of the burial, the finding of the empty tomb, and the vision of the risen Jesus. There are also three groups of narrative protagonists: nondisciples such as the enemies or the guards; women disciples such as Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, and Salome; and men disciples, such as Joseph or Nicodemus, Peter, the Beloved Disciple, and others. Those two axes of units and protagonists interact as follows: [image "image" file=Image00036.jpg] In what follows I look at those three units in that order: burial, tomb, and vision. I have two points to make. First, Mark created both the women’s discovery of the empty tomb and the burial story needed in preparation for it. Second, Matthew created the story of the apparition of Jesus to the women to change Mark’s negative ending into a more positive one. John copied that vision from Matthew. In both those cases, it was a message-vision (tell the disciples) and not a mandate-vision (change the world). There is, therefore, no anterior tradition, let alone historical information, in any of those three units. That, however, raises an even more fundamental issue. Why were those stories about the women created at all? The Women and the Burial of Jesus Both anthropological and historical evidence would lead us to expect that, after the death of Jesus, females would bury him and males would observe. What we find in Mark, however, is exactly the opposite: a man buries Jesus and women watch. When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  I am sure, in any case, that it is absolutely not acceptable to say, “I don’t believe in demons,” and think that explains everything. To disagree on a diagnosis is not the same as denying a symptom; to debate an interpretation is not the same as negating a phenomenon. Nevertheless, even if we agree that there is something real, as distinct from faked or simulated, behind events understood by participants as possession, the interpretations may also be very significant. Let me explain why I cannot simply say that these are but different names for the same event and that, for example, whether we talk of demonic possession or of a special form of multiple personality disorder, it is all just the same event in any case. Two examples will suffice. E. Mansell Pattison tells the story of Mary, a thirteen year-old girl on the Yakima Indian Reservation in central Washington.* Her hysterical symptoms were diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia by the local medical doctor, who prescribed Chlorpromazine, an antipsychotic drug. Pattison was, fortunately for the girl, a psychiatrist with cross-cultural sensitivity, and, having learned not only that her dying shaman grandfather had prophesied that his power would descend to her but that she herself wanted to acculturate to majority American society, he advised exorcism of the unwanted shamanistic spirits. Thereafter the girl recovered completely. Compare that with Felicitas D. Goodman’s terrifying account of what happened to a young university student from Klingenberg, in rural Bavaria, between 1968 and 1976.** The student was being simultaneously treated by psychiatrists and priests, the former prescribing anticonvulsant drugs such as Dilantin and Tegretol, the latter practicing repeated exorcistic rituals. Since the patient herself, as well as family and friends, believed she was possessed, the priests had the far better chance of success. But for the exorcisms to work, she had to become entranced, and the drugs impeded that possibility. The two systems fought against one another within her tortured body. For example, at one awful moment during the taped exorcisms the demons, forced by the priest to admit their names, admit also that there are other, newer demons present whose names even they do not know. The diabolical met the chemical, and the chemical won. Anneliese died in the summer of 1976. Recall that exorcism ritual shown on prime-time American television a few years ago. The participants all believed that the young girl was possessed, and when the priest came away from confrontation with the screaming, cursing patient, he said he had looked into the face of evil. Two problems. One is the trivialization of evil, which stalks our world in far more terrible and far more covert forms than a puking adolescent.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  Then it broke out again in a separate area north of the Capitoline hill and for three days threatened but did not penetrate into the open spaces of the Campus Martius, whose public buildings housed the terrified homeless of Rome’s inner city. After those nine days, only four of Rome’s fourteen regions were left unharmed, three had been totally destroyed, and the other seven had been severely damaged. But the great temples on the Capitoline, the ancient buildings in the Forum, and possibly the tenemented slums of the Subura were all untouched. In describing this fire, Tacitus mentions the Christians, and in explaining them tells us about Jesus. Tacitus saw clearly the open and more superficial evil in persons and individuals but not the hidden and more profound evil in structures and systems. And because of that he sought the roots of Roman decline not in her empire but in her emperors, never recognizing the latter as but the former’s personification. In his Histories , written in the first decade of the second century, he had chronicled the decline and fall of the Flavians, Rome’s second imperial dynasty, from Vespasian to Domitian between 69 and 96. In his Annals , written in the following decade, he repeated that process for the Julio-Claudians, Rome’s first imperial dynasty, from Tiberius to Nero between 14 and 68. In the former account he never mentioned Jesus and summarized the state of Palestine between 14 and 37 by commenting, in Histories 5.9.2, that “under Tiberius all was quiet.” But in the latter account, while discussing Nero in Annals 15.44.2–3, he mentioned Rome’s great fire in July of 64. The terrified population looked for a scapegoat and found one in Nero himself, absent from Rome at coastal Antium (now famous as Anzio) when the fire started. Nero himself immediately passed the blame on to “a class of men, loathed for their vices, who the crowd styled Christians,” possibly because those Christians were most heavily concentrated in two swampy valley areas left untouched by the fire, inside Trastevere off the Via Aurelia to the west and outside Porta Capena off the Via Appia to the southeast. Tacitus explained who Christians were in terms of their connection to Jesus, in Annals 15.44 (Jackson et al. 4.282–283, my numbers and headings): [1. Movement ] Christus, the founder of the name, [2. Execution ] had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, [3. Continuation ] and the pernicious superstition was checked for the moment, only to break out once more, [4. Expansion ] not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue. First, the movement . Tacitus was rather laconic on this first point, so it is not totally clear from that sentence alone whether Jesus himself founded the movement before his death or his supporters did so after it.