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 What Belongs to You (2016)

  It was the strongest earthquake to strike Bulgaria in a century, the papers would say the next morning, though really it had only been of a middling strength. In Sofia the blokove had swayed but none had fallen, and there wasn’t much damage beyond broken windows and cracked facades; even in the villages only the oldest structures collapsed. There was one death, the articles said, an old woman whose heart stopped at the shock of it. It was the first earthquake I had ever experienced, and the first time I had known that absolute disorientation and helplessness, the first time I had felt in that incontrovertible way the minuteness of my will, so that underlying my fear, or coming just an instant after it, was total abandon, a feeling that wasn’t entirely unpleasant, a kind of weightlessness. It was the noise that made me feel that fear again, just for a moment, and then I was on my feet as I realized the sound that had woken me wasn’t a calamity, but someone pressing again and again the whirring chime of my door, while at the same time striking the door itself, not knocking but pounding, quickly and heavily. I knew who it was, of course, though he had stayed away for many weeks. I had promised R. I wouldn’t let him in again if he returned, You can’t speak to him, he had said, if you speak to him, if you give any sign to him at all, he will come back; he has to stop existing for you, he said, using almost those words.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Petersen rose, fresh, cheerful and confident, with a brave demeanor, pugnacious and ready to risk the bouquet. And yet today his downfall was destined! Yes, the hour was not to pass without some catastrophe far more terrible than that of poor short-sighted Mute... Petersen translated by occasionally glancing at the other side of his book, where he really shouldn't be. He did this with skill. He pretended that something was bothering him there, passed his hand over it and blew on it as if to remove a stamen or something that was bothering him. And yet the terrible thing happened. Doctor Mantelsack suddenly made a violent movement, which Petersen answered with a similar movement. And at the same moment the ordinarius left the lectern, he literally threw himself headlong down and walked towards Petersen with long, unstoppable strides. "You have a key in the book, a translation," he said as he stood by him. "A key...I...no..." Petersen stammered. He was a handsome boy, with a blond tuft of hair across his forehead and extraordinarily beautiful blue eyes, which now flickered with fear. "You don't have a key in the book?" "No... Herr Obermeister... Herr Doktor... A key?... I really don't have a key... You're wrong... You suspected me wrong..." Petersen spoke in a way that was not customary to speak. Fear caused him to speak well-chosenly, with the intention of shaking the Ordinary. "I don't cheat," he said in extreme need. "I've always been honest... all my life!" But Dr. Mantelsack was all too sure of his sad cause. "Give me your book," he said coldly. Petersen clung to his book, he lifted it imploringly with both hands and continued to declaim with a half paralyzed tongue: "Believe me... Herr Obermeister... Herr Doctor... There's nothing in the book... I don't have a key.... I haven't cheated... I've always been honest..." "Give me the book," repeated the Ordinary, stamping his foot. Then Petersen went limp and his face turned gray. 'Good,' he said, delivering the book, 'here it is. Yes, there is a key in it! See for yourself, there it is!... But I didn't need it!' he suddenly shouted into the air. Only Dr. Mantelsack ignored this nonsensical lie, which sprang from desperation. He pulled out the "key," looked at it with a face as if he were holding stinking rubbish, put it in his pocket, and scornfully threw Ovid back in Petersen's seat. "The class register," he said dully. Adolf Todtenhaupt diligently brought the class register, and Petersen received a censure for attempted fraud, which destroyed him for a long time and sealed the impossibility of his transfer at Easter. "You're the eyesore of the class," said Dr. Mantelsack, and then returned to the lectern. Petersen sat down and was judged. You could clearly see how his neighbor moved a bit away from him. Everyone looked at him with a mixture of disgust, pity, and horror. He had fallen, lonely and completely abandoned because he had been caught.

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  I stood there until I was chilled beneath my clothes and my face was numb with cold. Then I turned and walked back toward the shore, stamping my feet a little to quicken the sluggish blood. II A GRAVE I was in the middle of a sentence when there was a knock at the door and a woman entered my classroom without a word. I knew her, of course, she worked in the front office of my school, but there was something in her manner that checked my greeting before I spoke it, perhaps her silence or the oddly formal way she carried the single, unfolded page in her hand, so that she walked toward me through an atmosphere strangely ruffled or unquiet, in which my interrupted sentence still hung. The students perked up at her knock, not that they had been to that point bored exactly, but any interruption is welcome, and especially when it suggests some hidden drama, as when this woman, whom I considered almost a friend, who had always been kind to me and who surely thought she was doing me a kindness now, walked quickly but with a subdued manner to deliver me what she held. I found myself flustered as I took the page from her hand, standing awkward in front of students to whom a moment before I had been speaking freely, even eloquently, rehearsing thoughts that had burned for me once and that now were a repertoire of dull gestures, a custom. It was mid-September, the very beginning of the year; the sun beat down and the room, which was high and received the brunt of the morning light, was almost unbearably hot, despite the windows we had opened. It was toward these windows that I longed to look, not toward the page now in my hand but toward the trees and the field beyond them and the road and, though I had only a glimpse of it, the mountain that hovered beyond the huge blocks of government buildings. But of course I did look at the page, an e-mail that had been sent to the school’s address and that this woman, my friend or almost friend, had printed out to deliver by hand. She stood beside me as I read, still without speaking, and her silence inspired or inflicted silence upon the students as well, who were aquiver with interest, sensing it was news of some import and hoping it was news of freedom, or at least of a break in routine. And it was such news, there would be no more class that day, or not with me. My father had fallen ill, I read, suddenly and gravely; he was in danger, he might be dying, and he had asked that I come to him, despite the fact that we hadn’t spoken in years.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  But it was once these practical measures had been taken that the impractical day after day of Arthur and me in the flat began. The only thing to do was nothing. Life this week was a black parody of life the week before. Then we had stayed in for pleasure; now we could not risk going out. I was free, but Arthur did not dare go out, and was nervous to be left alone. If the phone rang he looked ill with anxiety. Ordinary sounds, such as distant police sirens in Holland Park Avenue, took on for both of us a retributory grimness. I was shocked to find that my heart raced when I heard them, and the look we exchanged as they died away must have told him how frightened I was. It had been wonderful after three days of this to go to the Corry, and when I got back I made no mention of Lord Nantwich and my own adventures. I saw at once that their secrecy would be essential to me. They were my right to a privacy outside this forced sharing of my home. Stepping into the roasting heat of the flat I found Arthur restive and relieved to see me. He came up and held me. He had altered his appearance in my absence, and undone his braids, though his hair still retained much of its former tightly combed and twisted nature and jutted out in wild spirals. The swelling of his face was going down and he had begun to look beautiful again, the protective dressing on his cheek almost decorative. Yet as he stood there in my old red jersey and my army surplus fatigues I felt a kind of hatred for him and his need to disguise himself in my things. There was a pretty bad half-hour after that, when I was not in control of myself. I poured myself a drink, though I did not give him one—and he didn’t seem to mind. My whole wish was to throw things around, make a storm to dispel the stagnant heat, assert myself. Yet I found myself fastidiously tidying up, tight-lipped, not looking at him. He followed me helplessly around, at first retailing jokes from the television, dialogue from Star Trek, but then falling silent. He was confused, wanted to be ready to do what I wanted, but found he could only annoy me further. Then I hurled the stack of newspapers I was collecting across the floor and went for him—pulled the trousers down over his narrow hips without undoing them, somehow tackled him onto the carpet, and after a few seconds’ brutal fumbling fucked him cruelly. He let out little compacted shouts of pain, but I snarled at him to shut up and with fine submission he bit them back. Afterwards I left him groaning on the floor and went into the bathroom. I remember looking at myself, pink, excited, horrified, in the mirror.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I instantly pictured James, as he had described himself, kneeling over corpses on long train journeys, as a doctor honour-bound to attempt to resuscitate them, long after hope was gone. I also fleetingly saw the Arab boy, wandering off under the budding trees, and thought that if I’d never succumbed to this fantasy, I wouldn’t be in this fix now. Still, I thought I knew what to do, partly from involuntary recall of life-saving classes by the swimming-pool at school, and I immediately knelt beside the old man, and punched him hard in the chest. The three other men stood by, undergoing an ashamed transition from loiterers to well-wishers in a few seconds. ‘He didn’t hang about, he knew the old bill’d do for him, soon as look at him,’ said one of them, in reference, apparently, to their companion who had fled. ‘Shouldn’t you loosen his collar?’ said another man, apologetic and well spoken. I tugged at the knot of the tie, and with some difficulty undid the stiff top button. ‘He mustn’t swallow his tongue,’ explained the same man, as I repeated my chest punchings. I turned to the head, and carefully lowered it, though it was heavy and slipped within its thin, silvery hair. ‘Check the mouth for obstructions,’ I heard the man say—and, as it were, echoing from the tiled walls, the voice of the instructor at school. I remembered how in these exercises we were only allowed to exhale alongside the supposed casualty’s head, rather than apply our lips to his, and the alternate relief and disappointment this occasioned, according to who one’s partner was. ‘I’ll go for an ambulance,’ said the man who had not yet spoken, but waited a while more before doing so. ‘Yeah, he’ll get an ambulance,’ the first man commented after he had left. He was well up on the other people’s behaviour. The patient had no false teeth and his tongue seemed to be in the right place. Stooping down, so that his inert shoulder pressed against my knee, I gripped his nose with two fingers and, inhaling deeply, sealed my lips over his. I saw with a turn of the head his chest swell, and as he expired the air his colour undoubtedly changed. I realised I had not checked in the first place that his heart had stopped beating, and had ignorantly acted on a hunch that had turned out to be correct. I breathed into his mouth again—a strange sensation, intimate and yet symbolic, tasting his lips in an impersonal and disinterested way. Then I massaged his chest, with deep, almost offensive pressure, one hand on top of the other; and already he had come back to life.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Whether servile fear is good?Objection 1: It would seem that servile fear is not good. For if the use of a thing is evil, the thing itself is evil. Now the use of servile fear is evil, for according to a gloss on Rom. 8:15, “if a man do anything through fear, although the deed be good, it is not well done.” Therefore servile fear is not good. Objection 2: Further, no good grows from a sinful root. Now servile fear grows from a sinful root, because when commenting on Job 3:11, “Why did I not die in the womb?” Gregory says (Moral. iv, 25): “When a man dreads the punishment which confronts him for his sin and no longer loves the friendship of God which he has lost, his fear is born of pride, not of humility.” Therefore servile fear is evil. Objection 3: Further, just as mercenary love is opposed to the love of charity, so is servile fear, apparently, opposed to chaste fear. But mercenary love is always evil. Therefore servile fear is also. On the contrary, Nothing evil is from the Holy Ghost. But servile fear is from the Holy Ghost, since a gloss on Rom. 8:15, “You have not received the spirit of bondage,” etc. says: “It is the one same spirit that bestows two fears, viz. servile and chaste fear.” Therefore servile fear is not evil. I answer that, It is owing to its servility that servile fear may be evil. For servitude is opposed to freedom. Since, then, “what is free is cause of itself” (Metaph. i, 2), a slave is one who does not act as cause of his own action, but as though moved from without. Now whoever does a thing through love, does it of himself so to speak, because it is by his own inclination that he is moved to act: so that it is contrary to the very notion of servility that one should act from love. Consequently servile fear as such is contrary to charity: so that if servility were essential to fear, servile fear would be evil simply, even as adultery is evil simply, because that which makes it contrary to charity belongs to its very species.

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  It was all I could do to reach out and turn off the lights, listening for any noise outside as I thought again of the face Mitko had shown me, his real face, I thought now. He had so carefully arranged our trip; maybe he had chosen this hotel not because of price or its nearness to the sea, but for a different set of reasons altogether, its ease of access and the inadequacy of its locks. I thought of the many friends he had introduced me to, some of whom he had encouraged me to invite into our room, where I would have been, it now occurred to me, completely vulnerable; I thought of the boy he called brat mi , who had been so obedient in the bathrooms at NDK, ready to do Mitko any service. They were probably together at that very moment, walking the streets as Mitko waited for the right time to come back. All of Mitko’s proposals seemed to me now like snares, the invitation to the thermal baths, even to his home among the blokove , both of them places where Mitko might have become any of the hypothetical selves he had listed, might have become all of them at once. I was convinced now, there would be no sleep for me in that room, and so I gathered together my things and went out into the central yard. The attendant emerged from his booth to meet me; he was the same man who had greeted Mitko so warmly the night before, and surely he had seen him leave. He was full of solicitude when I told him I wanted to change my room, though he did ask me why; Ne mi e udobno , I said, unable to say more, it isn’t comfortable for me. He shrugged at this and smiled, and then showed me to a much smaller room with a single window that faced the courtyard, looking almost directly at the attendant’s porch. He helped me transfer my things, made sure I was satisfied, and then looked at me expectantly, as if knowing I must have more to say. The man who was with me, I said then, burning with shame to say it, he shouldn’t come back here, he isn’t welcome, he’s not my friend. At this the man’s face brightened, not with malice or the scorn I had feared, but with comprehension, and also with a sympathy I hadn’t expected.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 2: As Dionysius says (Div. Nom. ix) “the same things are both like and unlike God. They are like by reason of a variable imitation of the Inimitable”—that is, because, so far as they can, they imitate God Who cannot be imitated perfectly—“they are unlike because they are the effects of a Cause of Whom they fall short infinitely and immeasurably.” Hence, if there be no fear in God (since there is none above Him to whom He may be subject) it does not follow that there is none in the blessed, whose happiness consists in perfect subjection to God. Reply to Objection 3: Hope implies a certain defect, namely the futurity of happiness, which ceases when happiness is present: whereas fear implies a natural defect in a creature, in so far as it is infinitely distant from God, and this defect will remain even in heaven. Hence fear will not be cast out altogether. Whether poverty of spirit is the beatitude corresponding to the gift of fear?Objection 1: It would seem that poverty of spirit is not the beatitude corresponding to the gift of fear. For fear is the beginning of the spiritual life, as explained above [2482](A[7]): whereas poverty belongs to the perfection of the spiritual life, according to Mat. 19:21, “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor.” Therefore poverty of spirit does not correspond to the gift of fear. Objection 2: Further, it is written (Ps. 118:120): “Pierce Thou my flesh with Thy fear,” whence it seems to follow that it belongs to fear to restrain the flesh. But the curbing of the flesh seems to belong rather to the beatitude of mourning. Therefore the beatitude of mourning corresponds to the gift of fear, rather than the beatitude of poverty. Objection 3: Further, the gift of fear corresponds to the virtue of hope, as stated above (A[9], ad 1). Now the last beatitude which is, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God,” seems above all to correspond to hope, because according to Rom. 5:2, “we . . . glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God.” Therefore that beatitude corresponds to the gift of fear, rather than poverty of spirit. Objection 4: Further, it was stated above ([2483]FS, Q[70], A[2]) that the fruits correspond to the beatitudes. Now none of the fruits correspond to the gift of fear. Neither, therefore, does any of the beatitudes. On the contrary, Augustine says (De Serm. Dom. in Monte i, 4): “The fear of the Lord is befitting the humble of whom it is said: Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (Tr. xxv. s. 3. et seq.) There is a mystical meaning in our Lord’s feeding the multitude, and ascending the mountain: for thus was it prophesied of Him, So shall the congregation of the people come about Thee: for their sake therefore lift up Thyself again: (Ps. 7) i. e. that the congregation of the people may come about Thee, lift up Thyself again. But why is it fled; for they could not have detained Him against His will? This fleeing has a meaning; viz. that His flight is above our comprehension; just as, when you do not understand a thing, you say, It escapes me. He fled alone unto the mountain, because He is ascended from above all heavens. But on His ascension aloft a storm came upon the disciples in the ship, i. e. the Church, and it became dark, the light, i. e. Jesus, having gone. As the end of the world draws nigh, error increases, iniquity abounds. Light again is love, according to John, He that hateth his brother is in darkness. (1 John 2:9) The waves and storms and winds then that agitate the ship, are the clamours of the evil speaking, and love waxing cold. Howbeit the wind, and storm, and waves, and darkness were not able to stop, and sink the vessel; For he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. (Matt. 10:22) As the number five has reference to the Law, the books of Moses being five, the number five and twenty, being made up of five pieces, has the same meaning. And this law was imperfect, before the Gospel came. Now the number of perfection is six, so therefore five is multiplied by six, which makes thirty: i. e. the law is fulfilled by the Gospel. To those then who fulfil the law Jesus comes treading on the waves, i. e. trampling under foot all the swellings of the world, all the loftiness of men: and yet such tribulations remain, that even they who believe on Jesus, fear lest they should be lost. THEOPHYLACT. When either men or devils try to terrify us, let us hear Christ saying, It is I, be not afraid, i. e. I am ever near you, God unchangeable, immoveable; let not any false fears destroy your faith in Me. Observe too our Lord did not come when the danger was beginning, but when it was ending. He suffers us to remain in the midst of dangers and tribulations, that we may be proved thereby, and flee for succour to Him Who is able to give us deliverance when we least expect it. When man’s understanding can no longer help him, then the Divine deliverance comes. If we are willing also to receive Christ into the ship, i. e. to live in our hearts, we shall find ourselves immediately in the place, where we wish to be, i. e. heaven.

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  He only stood there an instant before he propelled himself forward and fell on top of me, and I must have flinched, I must have shut my eyes, though it wasn’t a blow I felt on my face but his mouth, his tongue as it sought my own mouth, which I opened without thinking. I let him kiss me though it didn’t seem like a kiss, his tongue in my mouth, it was an expression not of tenderness or desire but of violence, as was the weight with which he bore down on me, pinning me to the bed as he ground his chest and then his crotch against me; and then he grabbed my own crotch with one hand, gripping it not painfully but commandingly, and I thought whatever happens next I will let it happen. But nothing happened next, he was on me, unbearably present, and then he sprang off the bed and was gone, without taking anything or speaking another word, though of course he could have taken whatever he wanted. I lay there after he left, feeling my fear, which grew more intense, so that for a minute or perhaps for two or three I couldn’t force myself to move, not even to close the door. I observed, as if at a distance, my quick breathing and the pain I felt, not an especially bad pain, maybe there would be no bruise to explain away. Finally I hauled myself up, surprised by how unsteady I was though so little had happened, everything was fine, I said to myself, I was safe now. But as I turned the latch on the door I realized I wasn’t safe, that the thin tongue of metal between the two wooden wings might easily be forced, it offered almost no resistance at all. And the latches on the windows were flimsy too, a push would be enough to snap them. They were large windows, big enough to pass in or out of, and some of them faced the street, which meant there wouldn’t be any need to enter the courtyard to gain access, anyone could avoid the supposed watchman sleeping in his glassed-in porch. I paused then and looked at those windows, realizing that I was visible to anyone peering in through the ill-fitting drapes. So the crisis isn’t past, I thought, using that word, crisis; I was right to still be afraid. I was frozen in place, pinned where I stood, a feeling I remembered from childhood, when stillness was the only response to the terror I often felt at night.

• From Science and Religion (2006)

  28 Lecture 7: God the Watchmaker materialism continues to characterize intellectual theological responses down to the present. Materialism further invokes the danger of determinism - —without entities external to matter and able to interact with it, then the motions of particles determine all future events, and there can be no free will. Materialism also almost unavoidably leads to atheism (“no spirits—no God”). Fear of atheism was common in the late 17 th century—this was, at the time, a new concern, but it has characterized religious (especially Protestant) apologetics and fears ever since. Numerous responses to the mechanical philosophy were proposed to address its potential toward materialism, atheism, and other theologically unacceptable ideas. Some thinkers, such as the Cambridge Platonists (including Henry More), argued that brute matter and motion were simply insuf¿ cient; they posited non-sentient, non- corporeal entities (the “spirit of nature” and the “plastic principle”) to guide natural processes. Robert Boyle (1627–1691) rejected this notion of the Cambridge Platonists, believing such entities to be unnecessary intermediaries between God and his creation. Boyle was deeply religious and viewed the role of the natural philosopher (“scientist”) as a “priest of nature.” This view of the study of the natural world as an inherently religious, devotional activity was common—it is linked to the concept of the Two Books. Boyle believed that God’s activity was necessary to uphold the “common course of nature,” because brute bodies cannot, of themselves, obey laws. He attempted to defuse atheism and materialism by seeking authentic instances of spirit activity—in witchcraft and apparitions. This was a widespread project in late-17 th-century England, resulting partly from the loss of ecclesiastical recognition of miracles and, thus, of divine activity. Boyle even brought his interest in alchemy (meaning the transmutation of metals into gold) in to help, because he believed that the philosophers’ stone might be able to attract angels and facilitate communication with them. One characteristic of the science-religion landscape of the 17 th century was the conviction that scienti¿ c discoveries would provide the best support for religious belief.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 3: From the fact that love is the origin of fear, it does not follow that the fear of God is not a distinct habit from charity which is the love of God, since love is the origin of all the emotions, and yet we are perfected by different habits in respect of different emotions. Yet love is more of a virtue than fear is, because love regards good, to which virtue is principally directed by reason of its own nature, as was shown above ([2473]FS, Q[55], AA[3],4); for which reason hope is also reckoned as a virtue; whereas fear principally regards evil, the avoidance of which it denotes, wherefore it is something less than a theological virtue. Reply to Objection 4: According to Ecclus. 10:14, “the beginning of the pride of man is to fall off from God,” that is to refuse submission to God, and this is opposed to filial fear, which reveres God. Thus fear cuts off the source of pride for which reason it is bestowed as a remedy against pride. Yet it does not follow that it is the same as the virtue of humility, but that it is its origin. For the gifts of the Holy Ghost are the origin of the intellectual and moral virtues, as stated above ([2474]FS, Q[68], A[4]), while the theological virtues are the origin of the gifts, as stated above ([2475]FS, Q[69], A[4], ad 3). This suffices for the Reply to the Fifth Objection. Whether fear decreases when charity increases?Objection 1: It seems that fear decreases when charity increases. For Augustine says (In prim. canon. Joan. Tract. ix): “The more charity increases, the more fear decreases.” Objection 2: Further, fear decreases when hope increases. But charity increases when hope increases, as stated above ([2476]Q[17], A[8]). Therefore fear decreases when charity increases. Objection 3: Further, love implies union, whereas fear implies separation. Now separation decreases when union increases. Therefore fear decreases when the love of charity increases. On the contrary, Augustine says (Qq. lxxxiii, qu. 36) that “the fear of God not only begins but also perfects wisdom, whereby we love God above all things, and our neighbor as ourselves.” I answer that, Fear is twofold, as stated above ([2477]AA[2],4); one is filial fear, whereby a son fears to offend his father or to be separated from him; the other is servile fear, whereby one fears punishment. Now filial fear must needs increase when charity increases, even as an effect increases with the increase of its cause. For the more one loves a man, the more one fears to offend him and to be separated from him.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 3: Temporal goods are to be despised as hindering us from loving and serving God, and on the same score they are not to be feared; wherefore it is written (Ecclus. 34:16): “He that feareth the Lord shall tremble at nothing.” But temporal goods are not to be despised, in so far as they are helping us instrumentally to attain those things that pertain to Divine fear and love. Whether fearlessness is opposed to fortitude?Objection 1: It seems that fearlessness is not opposed to fortitude. For we judge of habits by their acts. Now no act of fortitude is hindered by a man being fearless: since if fear be removed, one is both brave to endure, and daring to attack. Therefore fearlessness is not opposed to fortitude. Objection 2: Further, fearlessness is a vice, either through lack of due love, or on account of pride, or by reason of folly. Now lack of due love is opposed to charity, pride is contrary to humility, and folly to prudence or wisdom. Therefore the vice of fearlessness is not opposed to fortitude. Objection 3: Further, vices are opposed to virtue and extremes to the mean. But one mean has only one extreme on the one side. Since then fortitude has fear opposed to it on the one side and daring on the other, it seems that fearlessness is not opposed thereto. On the contrary, The Philosopher (Ethic. iii) reckons fearlessness to be opposed to fortitude. I answer that, As stated above ([3329]Q[123], A[3]), fortitude is concerned about fear and daring. Now every moral virtue observes the rational mean in the matter about which it is concerned. Hence it belongs to fortitude that man should moderate his fear according to reason, namely that he should fear what he ought, and when he ought, and so forth. Now this mode of reason may be corrupted either by excess or by deficiency. Wherefore just as timidity is opposed to fortitude by excess of fear, in so far as a man fears what he ought not, and as he ought not, so too fearlessness is opposed thereto by deficiency of fear, in so far as a man fears not what he ought to fear. Reply to Objection 1: The act of fortitude is to endure death without fear, and to be aggressive, not anyhow, but according to reason: this the fearless man does not do. Reply to Objection 2: Fearlessness by its specific nature corrupts the mean of fortitude, wherefore it is opposed to fortitude directly. But in respect of its causes nothing hinders it from being opposed to other virtues. Reply to Objection 3: The vice of daring is opposed to fortitude by excess of daring, and fearlessness by deficiency of fear. Fortitude imposes the mean on each passion. Hence there is nothing unreasonable in its having different extremes in different respects.

• From The Argonauts (2015)

  Many women describe the feeling of having a baby come out of their vagina as taking the biggest shit of their lives. This isn’t really a metaphor. The anal cavity and vaginal canal lean on each other; they, too, are the sex which is not one. Constipation is one of pregnancy’s principal features: the growing baby literally deforms and squeezes the lower intestines, changing the shape, flow, and plausibility of one’s feces. In late pregnancy, I was amazed to find that my shit, when it would finally emerge, had been deformed into Christmas tree ornament—type balls. Then, all through my labor, I could not shit at all, as it was keenly clear to me that letting go of the shit would mean the total disintegration of my perineum, anus, and vagina, all at once. I also knew that if, or when, I could let go of the shit, the baby would probably come out. But to do so would mean falling forever, going to pieces. In perusing the Q&A sections of pregnancy magazines at my ob/gyn’s office before giving birth, I learned that a surprising number of women have a related but distinct concern about shit and labor (either that, or the magazine editors are making it up, as a kind of projective propaganda): Q: If my husband watches me labor, how will he ever find me sexy again, now that he’s seen me involuntarily defecate, and my vagina accommodate a baby’s head? This question confused me; its description of labor did not strike me as exceedingly distinct from what happens during sex, or at least some sex, or at least much of the sex I had heretofore taken to be good. No one asked, How does one submit to falling forever, to going to pieces. A question from the inside. In current “grrrl” culture, I’ve noted the ascendancy of the phrase “I need X like I need a dick in my ass.” Meaning, of course, that X is precisely what you don’t need (dick in my ass = hole in my head = fish with a bicycle, and so on). I’m all for girls feeling empowered to reject sexual practices that they don’t enjoy, and God knows many straight boys are all too happy to stick it in any hole, even one that hurts. But I worry that such expressions only underscore the “ongoing absence of a discourse of female anal eroticism … the flat fact that, since classical times, there has been no important and sustained Western discourse in which women’s anal eroticism means. Means anything.”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xxxviii. 1) Here we learn in the first place, that his disease was the consequence of his sins. We are apt to bear with great indifference the diseases of our souls; but, should the body suffer ever so little hurt, we have recourse to the most energetic remedies. Wherefore God punishes the body for the offences of the soul. Secondly, we learn, that there is really a Hell. Thirdly, that it is a place of lasting and infinite punishment. Some say indeed, Because we have corrupted ourselves for a short time, shall we be tormented eternally? But see how long this man was tormented for his sins. Sin is not to be measured by length of time, but by the nature of the sin itself. And besides this we learn, that if, after undergoing a heavy punishment for our sins, we fall into them again, we shall incur another and a heavier punishment still: and justly; for one, who has undergone punishment, and has not been made better by it, proves himself to be a hardened person, and a despiser; and, as such, deserving of still greater torments. Nor let it embolden us, that we do not see all punished for their offences here: for if men do not suffer for their offences here, it is only a sign that their punishment will be the greater hereafter. Our diseases however do not always arise from sins; but only most commonly so. For some spring from other lax habits: some are sent for the sake of trial, as Job’s were. But why does Christ make mention of this palsied man’s sins? Some say, because he had been an accuser of Christ. And shall we say the same of the man afflicted with the palsy? For he too was told, Thy sins are forgiven thee? (Matt. 9:2) The truth is, Christ does not find fault with the man here for his past sins, but only warns him against future. In healing others, however, He makes no mention of sins at all: so that it would seem to be the case that the diseases of these men had arisen from their sins; whereas those of the others had come from natural causes only. Or perhaps through these, He admonishes all the rest. Or he may have admonished this man, knowing his great patience of mind, and that he would bear an admonition. It is a disclosure too of His divinity, for He implies in saying, Sin no more, that He knew what sins He had committed. AUGUSTINE. (Tr. xviii. c. 12) Now that the man had seen Jesus, and knew Him to be the author of his recovery, he was not slow in preaching Him to others: The man departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus which had made him whole.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 3: In fortitude there is the same reason for restraining daring and for strengthening the soul against fear: since the reason in both cases is that man should set the good of reason before dangers of death. But the reason for restraining presumptuous hope which pertains to humility is not the same as the reason for strengthening the soul against despair. Because the reason for strengthening the soul against despair is the acquisition of one’s proper good lest man, by despair, render himself unworthy of a good which was competent to him; while the chief reason for suppressing presumptuous hope is based on divine reverence, which shows that man ought not to ascribe to himself more than is competent to him according to the position in which God has placed him. Wherefore humility would seem to denote in the first place man’s subjection to God; and for this reason Augustine (De Serm. Dom. in Monte i, 4) ascribes humility, which he understands by poverty of spirit, to the gift of fear whereby man reveres God. Hence it follows that the relation of fortitude to daring differs from that of humility to hope. Because fortitude uses daring more than it suppresses it: so that excess of daring is more like fortitude than lack of daring is. On the other hand, humility suppresses hope or confidence in self more than it uses it; wherefore excessive self-confidence is more opposed to humility than lack of confidence is. Reply to Objection 4: Excess in outward expenditure and parade is wont to be done with a view of boasting, which is suppressed by humility. Accordingly humility has to do, in a secondary way, with externals, as signs of the inward movement of the appetite. Whether one ought, by humility, to subject oneself to all men?Objection 1: It would seem that one ought not, by humility, to subject oneself to all men. For, as stated above (A[2], ad 3), humility consists chiefly in man’s subjection to God. Now one ought not to offer to a man that which is due to God, as is the case with all acts of religious worship. Therefore, by humility, one ought not to subject oneself to man. Objection 2: Further, Augustine says (De Nat. et Gratia xxxiv): “Humility should take the part of truth, not of falsehood.” Now some men are of the highest rank, who cannot, without falsehood, subject themselves to their inferiors. Therefore one ought not, by humility, to subject oneself to all men. Objection 3: Further no one ought to do that which conduces to the detriment of another’s spiritual welfare. But if a man subject himself to another by humility, this is detrimental to the person to whom he subjects himself; for the latter might wax proud, or despise the other. Hence Augustine says in his Rule (Ep. ccxi): “Lest through excessive humility the superior lose his authority.” Therefore a man ought not, by humility, to subject himself to all.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (Tr. xxv. s. 5) The Evangelist now returns to explain why they went, and relate what happened to them while they were crossing the lake: And it was dark, he says, and Jesus was not come to them. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xlii. 1) The mention of the time is not accidental, but meant to shew the strength of their love. They did not mate excuses, and say, It is evening now, and night is coming on, but in the warmth of their love went into the ship. And now many things alarm them: the time, And it was now dark; and the weather, as we read next, And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew; their distance from land, So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs. BEDE. (in v. cap. Joan.) The way of speaking we use, when we are in doubt; about five and twenty, we say, or thirty. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xliii. 1) And at last He appears quite unexpectedly: They see Jesus walking upon the sea, drawing nigh. He reappears after His retirement, teaching them what it is to be forsaken, and stirring them to greater love; His reappearance manifesting His power. They were disturbed, were afraid, it is said. Our Lord comforts them: But He saith unto them, It is I, be not afraid. BEDE. (in Matt. c. xiv.) He does not say, I am Jesus, but only I am. He trusts to their easily recognising a voice, which was so familiar to them, or, as is more probable, He shews that He was the same who said to Moses, I am that I am (Exod. 3:14) CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xliii. s. 1) He appeared to them in this way, to shew His power; for He immediately calmed the tempest: Then they wished to receive Him into the ship; and immediately the ship was at the land, whither they went. So great was the calm, He did not even enter the ship, in order to work a greater miracle, and to shew his Divinity more clearlyg. THEOPHYLACT. Observe the three miracles here; the first, His walking on the sea; the second, His stilling the waves; the third, His putting them immediately on shore, which they were some distance off, when our Lord appeared. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xliii. 1) Jesus does not shew Himself to the crowd walking on the sea, such a miracle being too much for them to hear. Nor even to the disciples did He shew Himself long, but disappeared immeditately.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  But the Apostle Paul taught the contrary in his sermon to the Athenians, when he said that God is “not far from every one of us; for in Him we live and move and are” (Acts 17:27 f.). That is, our being is preserved, our life is governed and our activity is directed by Him. This is confirmed by Wisdom 14:3: “Your providence, Father, governs all things from the beginning. Not even the most insignificant of living things are withdrawn from God’s providence, as we are told in Matthew 10:29 f.: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Men are placed under the divine care in a yet more excellent way, so that in comparison with them the Apostle could ask: “Does God take care of oxen?” (1 Cor. 9:9). The meaning is not that God has no concern at all for such animals, but that He does not take care of them in the same way He does of men, whom He punishes or rewards in accordance with their good or evil actions, and whom He foreordains to eternal life. This is why, in the words quoted from Matthew, our Lord says: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered,” thus indicating that everything belonging to man is to be recovered at the resurrection. Consequently all diffidence should be banished from our lives. For, as our Lord adds, in the same context: “Fear not, therefore; better are you than many sparrows” (Matt. 10:31). This clarifies the passage we called attention to above: “The children of men shall put their trust under the cover of your wings” (Ps. 35:8). Although God is said to be near to all men by reason of His special care over them, He is exceptionally close to the good who strive to draw near to Him in faith and love, as we are assured in James 4:8: “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” Confirmation of this is found in Psalm 144: 18: “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him: to all who call upon Him in truth.” Indeed, He not only draws near to them: He even dwells in them through grace, as is intimated in Jeremiah 14:9: “You, O Lord, are among us.”

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  I. This princess being at Bois, where she was delivered of a son, the muleteer went thither to receive his quar- terly payment, and left his wife at Amboise, where they lived, in a house beyond the bridges. There lived with them for a long time one of the muleteer's men, who had felt such a passion for her that at last he could not help declaring it ; but she, being a virtuous woman, re- proved him so sharply, threatening to have him beaten and dismissed by her husband, that he never afterwards durst address her with such language. Nevertheless, the fire of his love, though smothered, was not extin- guished. His master then being at Blois, and his mis- tress at vespers at St. Florentin, which is the church of the castle, very remote from the muleteer's house, in which he was left alone, he resolved to have by force what he could not obtain either by prayers or services. To this end he broke an opening through the boarded partition between his mistress's chamber and that in which he himself slept. This was not perceived, being covered by the curtains of the master's bed on one side, and by those of the men's bed on the other. When the poor woman had gone to bed with a little girl of twelve years old, and was sleeping soundly, as one usually does in the first sleep, the man entered the room through the opening, in his shirt, with his sword in his hand, and got into the bed with her. The moment she felt him she sprang out of bed, and addressed such remonstrances to him as would occur to any woman of honour in the like case. He, whose love was but brutal- ity, and who would better have understood the language of his mules than such virtuous pleadings, appeared more insensible to reason than the brutes with which he had long associated. Seeing that she ran so fast round a table that he could not catch her, and that, although iie 24 THE IIEPTAMERON OF THE \Ncrvel 3

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  On the contrary, It is written in praise of certain men (2 Macc. 15:18): “Nicanor hearing of the valor of Judas’ companions, and the greatness of courage [animi magnitudinem] with which they fought for their country, was afraid to try the matter by the sword.” Now, only deeds of virtue are worthy of praise. Therefore magnanimity which consists in greatness of courage is a virtue. I answer that, The essence of human virtue consists in safeguarding the good of reason in human affairs, for this is man’s proper good. Now among external human things honors take precedence of all others, as stated above [3348](A[1]; [3349]FS, Q[11], A[2], OBJ[3]). Therefore magnanimity, which observes the mode of reason in great honors, is a virtue. Reply to Objection 1: As the Philosopher again says (Ethic. iv, 3), “the magnanimous in point of quantity goes to extremes,” in so far as he tends to what is greatest, “but in the matter of becomingness, he follows the mean,” because he tends to the greatest things according to reason, for “he deems himself worthy in accordance with his worth” (Ethic. iv, 3), since his aims do not surpass his deserts. Reply to Objection 2: The mutual connection of the virtues does not apply to their acts, as though every one were competent to practice the acts of all the virtues. Wherefore the act of magnanimity is not becoming to every virtuous man, but only to great men. on the other hand, as regards the principles of virtue, namely prudence and grace, all virtues are connected together, since their habits reside together in the soul, either in act or by way of a proximate disposition thereto. Thus it is possible for one to whom the act of magnanimity is not competent, to have the habit of magnanimity, whereby he is disposed to practice that act if it were competent to him according to his state. Reply to Objection 3: The movements of the body are differentiated according to the different apprehensions and emotions of the soul. And so it happens that to magnanimity there accrue certain fixed accidents by way of bodily movements. For quickness of movement results from a man being intent on many things which he is in a hurry to accomplish, whereas the magnanimous is intent only on great things; these are few and require great attention, wherefore they call for slow movement. Likewise shrill and rapid speaking is chiefly competent to those who are quick to quarrel about anything, and this becomes not the magnanimous who are busy only about great things. And just as these dispositions of bodily movements are competent to the magnanimous man according to the mode of his emotions, so too in those who are naturally disposed to magnanimity these conditions are found naturally.