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 397 of 529 · 20 per page

• From The Case for God (2009)

  The most famous of the Mysteries was celebrated annually at Eleusis, some twenty miles west of Athens. When Demeter had stormed off Mount Olympus after Persephone’s abduction, she wandered all over the earth, disguised as an old woman, searching for her daughter. Metaneira, queen of Eleusis, had taken her into the royal household as a nurse for her son Demophon, and to repay her kindness, Demeter decided to make the child divine by burning away his mortal parts each night in the fire. One night, however, she was interrupted by Metaneira, who was understandably horrified to see her little boy in the flames. Revealing herself in all her glory, Demeter left the palace in a rage but later returned to teach the Eleusinians how to cultivate grain and instruct them in her secret rites. There had probably been some kind of festival at Eleusis since the Neolithic era. But in the sixth century, an enormous new cult hall was built, and for over a millennium the Eleusinian Mysteries would remain an integral part of the religious life of Athens.10 Each autumn, a new set of mystai voluntarily applied for initiation. What happened inside the cult hall was kept secret because a mere recital of events would sound trivial to an outsider, but the secrecy means we have only partial glimpses of what went on. It seems, however, that the mystai reenacted Demeter’s sojourn in Eleusis. Like any ancient initiation, these rituals were frightening. The mystai understood that the rites and the myth of Eleusis were symbolic: if you had asked them if there was sufficient historical evidence for Demeter’s visit, they would have found the query somewhat inept. Mythos was theologia (“speaking about a god”), and like any religious discourse, it made sense only in the context of the disciplined exercises that brought it to life.11 The fact that the myth could not be understood literally made it more effective. “What is surmised (but not overtly expressed) is more frightening,” explained the Hellenistic writer Demetrius. “What is clear and manifest is easily despised, like naked men. Therefore the mysteries too are expressed in the form of allegory, in order to arouse consternation and dread, just as they are performed in darkness at night.”12 The rites enabled the mystai to share Demeter’s suffering. Her cult showed that there was no life without death. Seeds had to be buried in the depths of the earth before they could bring forth life-giving food, so Demeter, goddess of grain, was also a mistress of the underworld. The Mystery would force initiates to face up to their own mortality, experience the terror of death, and learn to accept it as an integral part of life.

• From City of Night (1963)

  The snow melted in quilted brown patches, it rained, there was slush. The sun came out with renewed cold fury. Monday. The Parade of Proteus, who can assume any shape, any form, will pass tonight in a flaming snake of torches. Whiterobed mummers, ghosts of ghosts.... And at midnight, Mardi Gras begins.... Negro children somersault along the street for Tips. Stray Dixieland bands become more numerous. Spasm bands sprout.... And this birthplace of Jazz is now shaking and rolling, twisting, to the new sounds of our ravenous time. Through the open doors of the welcoming nightclubs on Bourbon (aggressive hawkers like recruiting sergeants luring the tourists with unfulfilled promises), you hear the drum-dominated, subterranean sounds of take-it-off music from the vast neighborhood of sexless sex. In the cramped rooms, the smoke-choked apartments, the old, old houses, into the patios, the parties are impromptu and laughter reigns over the city like a reckless deity. And the afternoon has already aged into grayish yellow, the shadows are lengthening to pull down the night. And soon even that fading light wearies. Stars appear cautiously in the wings of dark. The gray darkness reaches insidiously soothingly for its anxious children. In the swelling cankerous crowds, men and women in the streets drink out of giant hurricane glasses from O’Malley’s bar, tilting the glasses to capture each drop, seemingly toasting the faint moon which has already appeared in her own sequined drag.... And the cops continue intrepidly, pointlessly, vengefully to scour the city, nailing the youngmen who look like vagrants—and who, as the cops stop to interrogate someone else, can dart into the crowded streets, escaping before their absence is discovered. Past the Cathedral, obliviously, swelling groups snakedance dizzily through the weird streets and alleys. And in the rushing night, the Cathedral—its nebulous spires trying more urgently to fade into Heaven—girds itself stonily for the masked revelers who will soon appear.... And gray, as if preparatory to mourning, donning the night’s dark shroud, it waits—frozen, austere, ashen—for its own redemptive day: Ash Wednesday. Near the French Market is an enormous chicken and rooster coop. Earlier, I had stood before the wire, watching in fascination as the roosters sliced frantically at the air, feathers like sparks of many-colored fire.... Suddenly, one jumped above the others, clawing directly before me, urgently at the wired cage. Remembering that now as if I were standing before that cage again, one thought thundered in my mind: I’ll go to the airport right now, I’ll get a plane, I’ll fly out of this city! But already, night has inundated New Orleans.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  Tea over, the commoding old lady pleady urgent business (which indeed was true) to go out, and earnestly desired me to entertain her cousin kindly till she came back, both for my own sake and her; and then, with a “Pray, sir, be very good, be very tender to the sweet child,” she went out of the room, leaving me staring, with my mouth open, and unprepared by the suddenness of her departure, to oppose it. We were now alone; and on that idea a sudden fit of trembling seized me. I was so afraid, without a precise notion of why, and what I had to fear, that I sat on the settee, by the fire side, motionless and petrified, without life or spirit, not knowing how to look or how to stir. But long I was not suffered to remain in this state of stupefaction: the monster squatted down by me on the settee, and without farther ceremony or preamble, flings his arms about my neck, and drawing me pretty forcibly towards him, obliged me to receive, in spite of my struggles to disengage from him, his pestilential kisses, which quite overcame me. Finding me then next to senseless, and unresisting, he tears off my neck handkerchief, and laid all open there, to his eyes and hands: still I endured all without flinching, till emboldened by my sufferance and silence, for I had not the power to speak or cry out, he attempted to lay me down on the settee, and I felt his hand on the lower part of my naked thighs, which were crossed, and which he endeavoured to unlock. Oh then! I was roused out of my passive endurance, and springing from him with an activity he was not prepared for, threw myself at his feet, and begged him, in the most moving tone, not to be rude, and that he would not hurt me. “Hurt you, my dear?” says the brute, “I intend you no harm. Has not the old lady told you that I love you? that I shall do handsomely by you?”

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Let me return to the story. When the poor widow and her two daughters heard the crying and confusion of the hens, they rushed into the yard. They were just in time to see the fox racing back to the wood with Chanticleer in his grip. So they called out: ‘Harrow! Harrow! The fox! The fox! Havoc! Havoc!’ They ran after him, and they were joined in the pursuit by the whole village. There was Talbot and Garland and Malkyn, still with her distaff in her hand. The dog, Colin, sprinted beside them with his tail up. The cows and the calves, even the pigs, were roused by all the shouting and all the barking. They were all running as if their hearts would break. They were yelling as loudly as the fiends in hell. The ducks were quacking up a storm. The geese flew backwards and forwards. The bees came out of the hive in a wild swarm. The noise was so great that no London mob or riot over the price of wheat could equal it. They screamed after the fox. They blew their trumpets and beat their drums. They sounded their horns. They shrieked and whooped. They made so much din that it seemed that the heavens might fall. Now, good pilgrims, I ask you to pay attention. See how Dame Fortune can ruin the hopes and expectations of her enemies. Chanticleer, caught in the jaws of the fox, trembling with fear, spoke out. ‘If I were you, sir,’ he said to his captor, ‘I would turn upon my pursuers now and taunt them. I would tell them to go back from where they had come. For good measure, I would damn them to hell. I would tell them that you are safely on the margins of the wood, and that I will never escape from your jaws. I would tell them that I am dead meat.’ ‘That’s a very good idea,’ the fox replied. And at that moment, as soon as he had opened his mouth, Chanticleer leaped out and flew up into a tree. ‘Alas,’ the fox cried, looking up at him. ‘Alas, dear Chanticleer. I am embarrassed. I am afraid that I have given you the wrong impression. I must have frightened you when I grabbed you and ran out of the yard. But I had the best intentions. I meant you no harm. Come down from that tree, and we can talk about it. I will tell you the truth and nothing but the truth.’ ‘You must be joking,’ the cock replied. ‘I’ll be damned if I am fooled again. Your flattery won’t work any more. I am not going to close my eyes and sing for you. He who keeps his eyes shut deserves his misfortunes. That is the lesson I have learned.’ ‘There is another lesson,’ the fox said. ‘Bad luck will come to one who opens his big mouth at the wrong moment.’

• From The Case for God (2009)

  In Israel, an aggressively religious form of Zionism (which had originally been a defiantly secular movement) had risen to political prominence, and the ultra-Orthodox parties, which David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973), Israel’s first prime minister, had confidently predicted would fade away once the Jewish people had their own secular state, were gathering strength. In the United States, Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) founded the Moral Majority in 1979, urging Protestant fundamentalists to get involved in politics and to challenge any state or federal legislation that pushed a “secular humanist” agenda. This militant religiosity, which would emerge in every region where a secular, Western-style government had separated religion and politics, is determined to drag God and/or religion from the sidelines to which they have been relegated in modern culture and back to center field. It reveals a widespread disappointment in modernity. Whatever the pundits, intellectuals, or politicians thought, people all over the world were demonstrating that they wanted to see religion more clearly reflected in public life. This new form of piety is popularly known as “fundamentalism,” but many object to having this Christian term foisted on their reform movements. They do not in fact represent an atavistic return to the past. These are essentially innovative movements and could have taken root at no time other than our own. Fundamentalisms too can be seen as part of the postmodern rejection of modernity. They are not orthodox and conservative; indeed, many are actually anti-orthodox and regard the more conventional faithful as part of the problem. 6 These movements have mushroomed independently, and even those that have emerged within the same tradition do not have an identical vision. However, they bear what has been called a “family resemblance,” and seem instinctively to follow the pattern set by American Protestant fundamentalism, the earliest of these movements. All are initially defensive movements rooted in a profound fear of annihilation, which causes them to develop a paranoid vision of the “enemy.” They begin as intrafaith movements, and only at a secondary stage, if at all, do they direct their attention to a foreign foe. Protestant fundamentalism was chiefly exercised by theological questions that had been challenged by the new scientific discoveries. Fundamentalisms in other traditions have been sparked by entirely different problems and are not preoccupied with “belief” in the same way.

• From City of Night (1963)

  I noticed a door slightly ajar, in a small house with a narrow porch. The door opens. A gaudily braceleted hand summons me to the porch. Swarthy-skinned, about 40, a gypsy woman stood there, a flowered bandanna around her head; dangling gleaming earrings, at least five bracelets tawdrily rainbowing each hand; rings—which she exhibits by holding her fingers open. “Come in.” I hesitated. Her eyes are so light they look impossible in the dark skin, as if whoever made her had used too much color on her face and had to compensate with the colorless eyes. “I have an Important Message for you,” she persisted. “Youve got me confused with someone else.” “No. It’s for You. Come in,” she coaxed. Impulsively I walked into a littered room. Although the day is warm, a fire is burning in a sooty fireplace. The room is excessively hot, closed. “Just got into town, didn’t you, boy?” she asked me. I nodded. “See!” she exclaimed proudly. “I know!” There are several couches about the room—all upholstered noticeably amateurishly in bright flowered prints. On the dirty peeling wall was a spiritualist chart—the words LOVE, DEATH, DESIRE, HATE, WEALTH prominent in the beehive map of life. In the center of the room is a table, draped in a screamingly bright serape. “I been waiting for you,” she said mysteriously, pressing her spangled hands to her forehead, posing at intense concentration. Now she takes my hand. I pulled it away instinctively. “I aint gonna charge you nothin,” she says. She reaches again for my hand. “Whatsamatter? Afraid of The Unknown?” She fixes the bizarre eyes on me. Feeling challenged, I relaxed my hand. Truthfully, she did frighten me, but I watch her coolly as she studies my palm. “You can get Lost mighty bad,” she warned, staring into my hand. “I dont mean lost in the streets or in the Quarter. I mean: Lost deep down. Inside. In your Soul.... This is an evil city, boy.” She smells rotten. The heat, the odor of stale food, imprisoned for days in this airless room, the closeness to this filthy woman, nauseate me. An urchin-boy was standing by the door, picking pecans out of a sticky praline. Now he moves next to me, peering into my palm too. He smells like the woman—his mother, Im convinced: He has the same colorless eyes in the extravagantly brown face. With sugargrimy hands he took my palm. I feel the sticky substance gluing our hands together. “Evil city, boy,” he echoes the woman. And the woman: “He got Powers too. See, he know!” “Thanks for warning me,” I said, forcing my hand away. I walked to the door—the rancid air is choking me. “You wanna stay here?” she asked me. “Lotsa space—see?” She indicates the cluttered room. She can tell Im not interested. “New Orleans is Evil, boy,” she warns me again coaxingly. “I got Powers. They can protect you. You wanna stay here?” “Im staying with a friend,” I lied.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  For Marx the death of God had been a project—something to be achieved in the future; for Nietzsche it had already occurred: it was only a matter of time before “God” would cease to be a presence in the scientific civilization of the West. Unless a new absolute could be found to take its place, everything would become unhinged and relative: “What were we about when we uncoupled this earth from the sun?” the madman demanded. “Where is the earth moving to now? Are we falling continuously? And backwards and sideways and forwards in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as though through an infinite nothingness?” 82 Nietzsche was, of course, familiar with the philosophical and scientific arguments for the denial of God, but he did not bother to rehearse them. God had not died because of the critique of Feuerbach, Marx, Vogt, and Buchner. There had simply been a change of mood. Like the ancient Sky God, the remote modern God was retreating from the consciousness of his former worshippers. The century that had begun with a conviction of boundless possibility was giving way to a nameless dread. But, Nietzsche believed, human beings could counter the danger of nihilism by making themselves divine. They must become the new absolute and take the place of God. The God they had projected outside themselves could be born within the human spirit as the Übermensch (“Superman”) who would provide the universe with ultimate meaning. To achieve this, we had to rebel against the Christian God who had marked the limit of human aspiration, estranged us from our bodies and passions, and enfeebled us with the ideal of compassion. As an incarnation of its will to power, the Übermensch would push the evolution of the species into a new phase so that humanity would finally become supreme. But what would happen when human beings did indeed imagine that they were the highest reality and a law unto themselves? What if the ideal of kenosis was replaced by the naked lust for empowerment, backed by the immense capacity of scientific technology? Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), founder of the science of psychoanalysis, illustrates the shift in mood that Nietzsche had diagnosed. 83 Although he grew up in a Jewish household that took religion very seriously—or, perhaps, because of his religious upbringing—God was indeed dead for Freud. He did not become an atheist as a result of his study of psychology; he was a psychoanalyst because he was an atheist. For Freud, the idea of God was simply untenable. In 1875, he had discovered the writings of Feuerbach, who had fallen into eclipse since the 1840s, and believed implicitly in the “warfare” myth: in this seemingly interminable conflict, religion must be eliminated. 84 Science alone could ensure the physical and mental health of humanity, and, in fact, its victory was inevitable.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Pythagoras’s vision was in part shaped by religious changes in Greece during the sixth century. The Greeks had a uniquely tragic vision of the world. Their rituals were designed to teach participants to come to terms with the sorrow of life by making them face up squarely to the unspeakable. Every year at the festival of Thesmophoria, for example, they reenacted the story of Demeter, goddess of the grain that provided the economic basis of civilization.8 She had borne Zeus a beautiful daughter called Persephone. Even though he knew that Demeter would never agree to the match, Zeus had betrothed the girl to his brother Hades, lord of the underworld, and helped him to abduct her. Distraught with rage, Demeter left Olympus and withdrew all her gifts from humanity. Without corn, the people began to starve, so the Olympians arranged for Persephone’s return on condition that she spend four months each year with her husband. When Persephone was reunited with her mother, the earth burst into flower, but when she returned to Hades during the winter, it seemed to die in sympathy. Thesmophoria compelled the Greeks to imagine what might have happened if Demeter’s favors had been permanently withdrawn. Married women left their husbands and, like the goddess, disappeared from the polis. Together they fasted, slept on the ground as people had done in primitive times, and ritually cursed the male sex. The festival forced the Greeks to contemplate the destruction of civilization, which depended upon the institution of marriage, and to appreciate the real antagonism that existed between the sexes. They also meditated on the catastrophe that would ensue if the crops ceased to grow. At the end of the festival, the women went home and life returned to normal, but everybody knew that the alternative was a lurking, fearful possibility. As the concept of the individual developed in the polis, however, Greeks wanted a more personal spirituality alongside the public cult and developed the Mystery Cult. The word “mystery” needs clarification. The musterion was neither a hazy abandonment of rationality nor a self-indulgent wallowing in mumbo jumbo. In fact, the Mysteries would have a profound effect on the new philosophical rationalism. Musterion was closely related to myesis, “initiation;” it was not something that you thought (or failed to think!) but something that you did.9 The Mysteries that developed during the sixth century were carefully constructed psychodramas in which mystai (“initiates”) had a direct and overwhelming experience of the sacred that, in many cases, entirely transformed their perception of life and death.

• From City of Night (1963)

  For a terrible moment, I felt a soul-corroding temptation, but quickly stifling that disturbing flash of excitement at the prospect of violence, I said no to this boy next to me. He shrugged, moved away. I saw him talking to another youngman hustling the street. That other youngman looks interested. Together, they walk along the Boulevard, turn toward Selma. I wonder what will happen tonight on that street. And that season, which—lulling me with the false Highness—I had thought would be largely a period of drifting and blotting from my mind all thoughts beyond Today, became, instead, a time that would lead me through a series of self-discoveries, culminating in violence outside of San Francisco. LANCE: The Ghost of Esmeralda Drake III IN THAT SHADOWED WORLD OF DIM bars characterized by nervous gestures, furtive looks, masked Loneliness—the World of the Gay Bars—over which the image of an intensely adoring Mother hovers nebulously like a figure created by the clouds of smoke—in that world, Lance O’Hara had sparkled in its cloudy heaven: A Legend. True—although he had been a part of the world of glittering moviedreams—Lance had never Made It Big, and you will not remember his name among the enchanted moviecredits. He had been a chorus boy at first, later a dancing partner for the Goddesses of the Screen. Nevertheless, in his world—That World—Lance had been a Star: “the greatest beauty in Hollywood,” the most Desired and sought after.... From the beginning, Lance O’Hara (secure in his own desirability, which was recognized and whispered about, longed for enviously or wantingly even among The Stars) had valiantly dropped the mask: He desired young males like himself, and he admitted it openly. About him, in the fringes of that world which Lance had ruled unquestionably—and sometimes mercilessly with the disdain of those who know that beauty rules anarchy—the “extras” had existed to carry his legend into the bars—because that world of bars, extending like an underground from New York to Hollywood with fugitive stops in other cities, is a world of whisperers deliciously recording each conquest, each new skirmish of its stars—but, also... a chorus waiting eagerly in the wings to enter and announce a new Downfall. And it waits to be alerted of an imminent Fall. Off Hollywood Boulevard—in a pseudo-New-Orleans decor of grillwork and French posters, draped scarlet velvet, dusty winebottles—the gay world of Hollywood finds its headquarters at the Splendide bar: In the subdued amber and pink lights, friendly to its overwhelming, if imposed, guilt, it finds its haven; in its members, it finds its fleeting nightlong meaning (the unsatisfied hunger, the hurried goodbyes after sexual intimacy...). Among its patrons are the Young, the good-looking, the masculine—the sought-after—and, too, the effeminate flutterers posing like languid young ladies, usually imitating the current flatchested heroines of the Screen but not resorting to the hints of drag employed by the much more courageous downtown Los Angeles queens. It was at the Splendide that I first heard of Lance O’Hara.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  “The family had not been down at that seat for years, so that it was neglected, and committed entirely to my aunt, and two old domestics to take care of it. Thus I had the full range of a spacious lonely house and gardens, situated at about half a mile distance from any other habitation, except, perhaps, a straggling cottage or so. “Here, in tranquillity and innocence, I grew up without any memorable accident, till one fatal day I had, as I had often done before, left my aunt asleep, and secure for some hours, after dinner; and resorting to a kind of ancient summer house, at some distance from the house, I carried my work with me, and sat over a rivulet, which its door and window faced upon. Here I fell into a gentle breathing slumber, which stole upon my senses, as they fainted under the excessive heat of the season at that hour; a cane couch, with my work basked for a pillow, were all the conveniences of my short repose; for I was soon awaked and alarmed by a flounce, and noise of splashing in the water. I got up to see what was the matter; and what indeed should it be but the son of a neighbouring gentleman, as I afterwards found (for I had never seen him before), who had strayed that way with his gun, and heated by his sport, and the sultriness of the day, had been tempted by the freshness of the clear stream; so that presently stripping, he jumped into it on the other side, which bordered on a wood, some trees whereof, inclined down to the water, formed a pleasing shady recess, commodious to undress and leave his clothes under. “My first emotions at the sight of this youth, naked in the water, were, with all imaginable respect to truth, those of surprise and fear; and, in course, I should immediately have run out, had not my modesty, fatally for itself, interposed the objection of the door and window being so situated, that it was scarce possible to get out, and make my way along the bank to the house, without his seeing me: which I could not bear the thought of, so much ashamed and confounded was I at having seen him. Condemned then to stay till his departure should release me, I was greatly embarrassed how to dispose of myself: I kept some time betwixt terror and modesty, even from looking through the window, which being an old fashioned casement, without any light behind me, could hardly betray any one’s being there to him from within; then the door was so secure, that without violence, or my own consent, there was no opening it from without.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  This then was the master to which my conscientious benefactress, who had long been his purveyor in this way, had doomed me, and sent for me down purposely for his examination. Accordingly she made me stand up before him, turned me round, unpinned my handkerchief, remarked to him the rise and fall, the turn and whiteness of a bosom just beginning to fill; then made me walk, and took even a handle from the rusticity of my charms: in short, she omitted no point of jockeyship; to which he only answered by gracious nods of approbation, whilst he looked goats and monkeys at me: for I sometimes stole a corner glance at him, and encountering his fiery, eager stare, looked another way from pure horror and affright, which he, characteristically, attributed to nothing more than maiden modesty, or at least the affectation of it. However, I was soon dismissed, and reconducted to my room by Phœbe, who stuck close to me, not leaving me alone, and at leisure to make such reflections as might naturally rise to any one, not an idiot, on such a scene as I had just gone through; but to my shame be it confessed, that just was my invincible stupidity, or rather portentous innocence, that I did not yet open my eyes to Mrs. Brown’s designs, and saw nothing in this titular cousin of hers but a shockingly hideous person, which did not at all concern me, unless that my gratitude for my benefactress made me extend my respect to all her cousinhood. Phœbe, however, began to sift the state and pulses of my heart toward this monster, asking me how I should approve of such a fine gentelman for a husband. (Fine gentleman, I suppose she called him, from his being daubed with lace.) I answered her very naturally, that I had no thoughts of a husband, but that if I was to choose one, it should be among my own degree, sure! so much had my aversion to that wretch’s hideous figure indisposed me to all “fine gentlemen,” and confounded my ideas, as if those of that rank had been necessarily cast in the same mould that he was. But Phœbe was not to be put off so, but went on with her endeavours to melt and soften me for the purposes of my reception into that hospitable house: and whilst she talked of the sex in general, she had no reason to despair of a compliance, which more than one reason showed her would be easily enough obtained of me; but then she had too much experience not to discover that my particular fixed aversion to that frightful cousin would be a block not so readily to be removed, as suited the consummation of their bargain, and sale of me.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  People had no doubt that they could ascend to the Good by their own natural powers. Origen, a Platonist, believed that he could get to know God by contemplating the universe and had seen the Christian life as a Platonic ascent that would continue after death until the soul was fully assimilated to the divine. The Egyptian Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus (c. 205–70) believed that the universe emanated from God eternally, like rays from the sun, so that the material world was a kind of overflowing of God’s very being; when you meditated on the universe, you were, therefore, meditating upon God. But by the early fourth century, people felt that the cosmos was separated from God by a vast, almost unbridgeable chasm. The universe was now experienced as so fragile, moribund, and contingent that it could have nothing in common with the God that was being itself. A terrifying void lay ready to engulf all living things. The primordial question (Why does anything exist rather than nothing at all?) no longer inspired awe, wonder, and delight but had been replaced by a sickening vertigo. The possibility of nothingness lurked threateningly at both the beginning and the end of human existence. Some Christians had already started to promote the new doctrine, entirely unknown in antiquity, of creation ex nihilo. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215) believed that the philosophical idea of an eternal cosmos was idolatrous, because it presented nature as a second coeternal god. Nothing could come from nothing, so the universe could only have been summoned out of the primal void by the God that was Life itself. Instead of “deifying the universe,” people needed to know that “the sheer volition of God is the making of the universe.” 1 The idea that God had deliberately created all things posed huge problems: Did it not imply that God was responsible for evil? Yet the belief that matter was eternal seemed to compromise God’s omnipotence and sovereign freedom. Monotheism implied that there was only one omnipotent power, so God’s decisions could surely not be influenced by the independent requirements of matter, which, like Plato’s craftsman, he was merely permitted to arrange and finish off. 2 Today the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is regarded as the linchpin of Christianity, the truth on which theism stands or falls. So it is interesting to note how slowly and uncertainly this idea emerged. It was entirely alien to Greek philosophy.

• From From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity (2004)

  The account is preserved for us in a letter written by the Christians who survived the persecution to Christians in Asia Minor and preserved for us in the writings of the fourth-century church historian Eusebius. The account indicates that the driving force behind the persecution was the devil, who inspired the mobs to oppose Christians and deprive them of public privileges and civil rights. The anger of the mobs against the Christians increased, and they physically assaulted the Christians and finally urged the authorities to have those professing faith in Christ to be arrested. The general unacceptability of the Christians was heightened by the claims of some of their slaves that Christians engaged in highly immoral and illegal activities, including cannibalistic practices and incestuous orgies. We then have an account of the arrest, trials, torture, and martyrdom of several Christians, including a church leader named Sanctus and a woman named Blandina. 1. The narrative provides graphic details of the public torments that these Christians endured (beatings, floggings, the rack, the iron seat). 2. It also stresses their absolute refusal to abandon their Christian faith, despite such horrible suffering. 3. Eventually, these Christians were put to death by being thrown to wild beasts; their bodies were left on display as an act of further humiliation, until they were burned and their ashes cast into the river. ILI. This account raises a number of disturbing questions about the early persecution of the Christians. IV. 164 A. B. G. What motivated the pagan opponents to treat Christians in this way? How involved were the civil authorities? Why did they go along with the mob mentality? Was the religion seen as illegal? If so, for what reasons? What were the actual charges against the Christians, and could any of them have been true? How often did this sort of thing happen? Was it going on all the time, all over the empire? How did Christians react? Did they all willingly face torture and martyrdom for their faith? Or did some recant to save their skins? What drove those Christians who willingly underwent such public humiliation, torment, and death? Why were they so willing to die for their faith? These and similar questions go on and on. | will try to address them in what remains of this lecture and the ones to follow. To begin our reflections, | would like to dispel some common myths about early Christian persecution. A. Myth |: Christianity was an illegal religion in the empire, constantly opposed by the Roman emperors. In point of fact, it was never declared illegal by an emperor until the middle of the third century. The emperors almost never were involved with Christian persecution. Myth 2: During the first three centuries, Christians were everywhere hunted down and martyred for their faith. In fact, in most times and places, Christianity was tolerated, just as other religions were.

• From Sister Outsider (1984)

  By bringing the goals of these diverse groups together, the Revolution became even more threatening to the U.S. To the average Grenadian, the United States is a large but dim presence where some dear relative now lives. Until the information campaigns of the PRG, the lack of international news coverage and commentary kept Grenadians largely unaware of the U.S. position in world politics and its history of institutionalized racism and classism. Ronald Reagan was seen as a fatherly movie star unconnected to policies of systematic economic and military oppression of people of Color throughout the developing countries of the world. But the average Grenadian is also extremely involved with the political affairs of his and her own country, wherever there is room beyond survival concerns for such involvement. Facets of the October events surface in every conversation, guarded or unguarded, casual or otherwise. The conflicts in the New Jewel Movement, Bishop’s house arrest, the subsequent demonstration of ten thousand Grenadians, the second smaller march which resulted in Bishop’s liberation and murder along with other Ministers and hundreds of Grenadians on Richmond Hill, and the four-day military curfew that followed these events left terror in the hearts of all Grenadians. Any ending seemed preferable at the time. The U.S.-operated Spice Island Radio went into operation the afternoon of the invasion, and most Grenadians obtained whatever information they got about events from posters and handbills put up around the countryside by P.S.Y.O.P.S. Rumors have been rife among the people, attempting to explain the inexplicable. One shopgirl in St. Georges told me she had heard the reason why the army fired upon the people at Fort Rupert was because “the Russians had put tablets into their milk that would make them shoot anybody on sight.” It remains to be seen if the future plans of the U.S. for Grenada will justify the vision of many Grenadians of the United States as savior. Even now this view is not nearly as widespread as the american media would have us believe. Says a newly unemployed nineteen-year-old laborer in St. Georges, “They can call it a rescue mission all they want, but I haven’t been rescued yet.” There is much pain beneath the veneer of gratitude: too many fathers and uncles and brothers and daughters injured and killed because “the americans thought there were Cubans living in there.” All over Grenada I felt the deadening effect of horror and disbelief in every conversation about the war, often beneath a surface animation. I came to Grenada my second time six weeks after the invasion, wanting to know she was still alive, wanting to examine what my legitimate position as a concerned Grenadian-american was toward the military invasion of this tiny Black nation by the mighty U.S. I looked around me, talked with Grenadians on the street, the shops, the beaches, on porches in the solstice twilight.

• From Sister Outsider (1984)

  Today, with the defeat of ERA, the tightening economy, and increased conservatism, it is easier once again for white women to believe the dangerous fantasy that if you are good enough, pretty enough, sweet enough, quiet enough, teach the children to behave, hate the right people, and marry the right men, then you will be allowed to co-exist with patriarchy in relative peace, at least until a man needs your job or the neighborhood rapist happens along. And true, unless one lives and loves in the trenches it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless. But Black women and our children know the fabric of our lives is stitched with violence and with hatred, that there is no rest. We do not deal with it only on the picket lines, or in dark midnight alleys, or in the places where we dare to verbalize our resistance. For us, increasingly, violence weaves through the daily tissues of our living — in the supermarket, in the classroom, in the elevator, in the clinic and the schoolyard, from the plumber, the baker, the saleswoman, the bus driver, the bank teller, the waitress who does not serve us. Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you, we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs upon the reasons they are dying. The threat of difference has been no less blinding to people of Color. Those of us who are Black must see that the reality of our lives and our struggle does not make us immune to the errors of ignoring and misnaming difference. Within Black communities where racism is a living reality, differences among us often seem dangerous and suspect. The need for unity is often misnamed as a need for homogeneity, and a Black feminist vision mistaken for betrayal of our common interests as a people. Because of the continuous battle against racial erasure that Black women and Black men share, some Black women still refuse to recognize that we are also oppressed as women, and that sexual hostility against Black women is practiced not only by the white racist society, but implemented within our Black communities as well. It is a disease striking the heart of Black nationhood, and silence will not make it disappear. Exacerbated by racism and the pressures of powerlessness, violence against Black women and children often becomes a standard within our communities, one by which manliness can be measured. But these woman-hating acts are rarely discussed as crimes against Black women. As a group, women of Color are the lowest paid wage earners in america.

• From We Were Here (2011)

  WE WERE HERE CaptionMax Page 9 3/23/2011 looking back, I know he died of AIDS, but back then there was no name for it. 1:19:02 EILEEN (VO/ON) I was hanging blood one day in the hospital, and this was the, you know, before the times that you wore gloves, and the infectious disease fellow came in and said, “Eileen, why don’t you put gloves on. We don’t know what this is.” 1:19:22 GUY (VO/ON) I was selling flowers at that time, and there was a guy down the street. Five days. One day, he went to the hospital. Five days later, he was dead. 1:19:36 ON-SCREEN TEXT (on newspaper and headline clip) The Mystery Maladies Who Can I Turn To...? Disease That Hits Gays 1:19:38 PAUL (VO/ON) I’m looking through the gay periodicals, and in one of them, new cancer described. And so I’m aware something has occurred. And I note it. I think everybody who was paying attention to the community noted, well, this could be something to pay attention to. And so we-- I did. 1:19:56 ON-SCREEN TEXT (on newspaper and headline clip) [text obscured by time code] Shorts “GAY MEN’S” PNEUMONIA” Two diseases hit state’s gays 1:20:01 PATIENT (breathes heavily) 1:20:06 EILEEN (VO/ON) People were coming in with pneumocystis pneumonia who were quite well, you know, one day. You know, uh, out there swimming, playing tennis, you know, buffed, coming in and were dying. I mean, were dead ten days later. 1:20:25 ON-SCREEN TEXT (on magazine cover) bluboy A KILLER Kaposi’s Sarcoma

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Some extremists have even murdered doctors and nurses who work in abortion clinics. Like evolution, abortion has become symbolic of the murderous evil of modernity. Christian fundamentalists are convinced that their doctrinal “beliefs” are an accurate, final expression of sacred truth and that every word of the Bible is literally true—an attitude that is a radical departure from mainstream Christian tradition. They believe that miracles are an essential hallmark of true faith and that God will give the believer anything he asks for in prayer. Fundamentalists are swift to condemn people whom they regard as the enemies of God: most Christian fundamentalists see Jews and Muslims as destined for hellfire, and some regard Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism as inspired by the devil. Jewish and Muslim fundamentalists take a similar stance, each seeing their own tradition as the only true faith. Muslim fundamentalists have toppled governments, and some extremists have been guilty of terrorist atrocities. Jewish fundamentalists have founded illegal settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with the avowed intention of driving out the Arab inhabitants, convinced that they are paving the way for the Messiah; others throw stones at Israelis who drive their cars on the Sabbath . In all its forms, fundamentalism is a fiercely reductive faith. In their anxiety and fear, fundamentalists often distort the tradition they are trying to defend. They can, for example, be highly selective in their reading of scripture. Christian fundamentalists quote extensively from the book of Revelation and are inspired by its violent End-time vision but rarely refer to the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus tells his followers to love their enemies, to turn the other cheek, and not to judge others. Jewish fundamentalists rely heavily on the Deuteronomist sections of the Bible and seem to pass over the rabbis’ injunction that exegesis should lead to charity. Muslim fundamentalists ignore the pluralism of the Qur’an, and extremists quote its more aggressive verses to justify violence, pointedly disregarding its far more numerous calls for peace, tolerance, and forgiveness. Fundamentalists are convinced that they are fighting for God, but in fact this type of religiosity represents a retreat from God. To make purely human, historical phenomena—such as “family values,” “the Holy Land,” or “Islam”—sacred and absolute is idolatry, and, as always, their idol forces them to try to destroy its opponents. But it is essential for critics of religion to see fundamentalism in historical context. Far from being typical of faith, it is an aberration. The fundamentalist fear of annihilation is not a paranoid delusion. We have seen that some of the most formative creators of the modern ethos have indeed called for the abolition of religion—and they continue to do so.

• From From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity (2004)

  1. Why do you imagine that a set of religions that was otherwise so tolerant (paganism) would be so intolerant of the Christian religion? 2. Why do you suppose that the Christian persecutions appear to have sprung from the ground up (that is, from the pagan mobs), rather than from the top down (that is, from the imperial authorities)? 166 Lecture Eleven—Transcript The Early Persecutions of the State In the previous two lectures, we saw how Christianity spread throughout the Roman world. There, I argued that the religion spread by word of mouth, and proved attractive to some pagans because the Christian God appeared to be so powerful, capable of doing great miracles for his people. Moreover, the exclusive claims of the Christians—that their God alone was the true God and all others were false, that their views alone were right and that all others were wrong—were unique in that world and facilitated the spread of Christianity, in that it necessarily destroyed the other religions when pagans converted to Christianity. This made Christianity unique; it destroyed the other religions in its wake. It would be a mistake, though, to think that the conversion of the empire happened quickly and unproblematically, for, in fact, there were major obstacles, seen in the circumstance that most pagans (as most Jews before them) rejected the Christian message, found it offensive and worthy of violent opposition. In this lecture, and the three that follow, we will consider the persecution of Christians throughout the empire during the first three centuries. We have numerous accounts of Christian persecution, some of them by Christian authors who celebrate the torture and martyrdom of the faithful as signs of divine favor, others of them by Roman authors, who considered the Christians’ refusal to give up their religion in the face of torture and death to be reprehensible and idiotic. We will begin our reflections by considering one of the most graphic and significant first-hand reports of a significant persecution against Christians, which happened in the towns of Vienne and Lyons in ancient Gaul, which would be modern-day France. This persecution took place in the middle of the second century, during the reign of the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius. We happen to have an account of the persecution of Christians from a first-hand source. There was a letter that was written by Christians who survived the persecution. The letter was addressed to other Christians who lived in Asia Minor. It has been preserved for us in the writings of the fourth-century church historian Eusebius. 167

• From The Case for God (2009)

  In his landmark book Milestones , we see the paranoid vision of the fundamentalist who has been pushed too far: Jews, Christians, communists, capitalists, and imperialists were all in league against Islam. Muslims had a duty to fight against the barbarism ( jahiliyyah ) of their day, starting with so-called Muslim rulers like Nasser. This was an entirely new idea. In making jihad , understood as armed conflict, central to the Islamic vision, Qutb had distorted the faith that he was trying to defend. He was not the first to do so; he had been influenced by the writings of the Pakistani journalist and politician Abu Ala Mawdudi (1903–79), who feared the effects of Western imperialism in the Muslim world. 11 In order to survive, Mawdudi believed, Muslims must be prepared for revolutionary struggle. This jihad could take many forms: some would fight with the pen, others would engage in politics, but in the last resort every able-bodied Muslim must be prepared for war. No major Muslim thinker had ever made “holy war” a central tenet of the faith before; Mawdudi was well aware that he was making a highly controversial claim but was convinced that this radical innovation was justified by the present political emergency. Qutb took the same view: when asked how he could reconcile his hard line with the emphatic warning in the Qur’an that there must be no compulsion in matters of religion, 12 he explained that Qur’anic tolerance was impossible when Muslims were subjected to such violence and cruelty. There could be toleration only after the political victory of Islam and the establishment of a truly Muslim ummah. 13 This jihadi ideology was not returning to the “fundamental” ideas of Islam, even though Qutb in particular based his revolutionary program on a distorted version of the life of Muhammad. He was preaching an Islamic liberation theology similar to that adopted by Catholics fighting brutal regimes in Latin America. Because God alone was sovereign, no Muslim was obliged to obey any ruler who contravened the Qur’anic demand for justice and equity. In rather the same way, when the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–89) declared that only a faqih , a cleric versed in Islamic jurisprudence, should be head of state, he was breaking with centuries of Shiite tradition, which since the eighth century had separated religion and politics as a matter of sacred principle. It was as shocking to some Shiite sensibilities as if the pope should abolish the Mass. But after decades of secularism as interpreted by the shahs, Khomeini believed that this was the only possible way forward. Khomeini also preached a modern third-world theology of liberation. Islam, he declared, was “the religion of militant individuals who are committed to freedom and independence. It is the school of those who struggle against imperialism.” 14 Many forms of what we call “fundamentalism” should be seen as essentially political discourse—a religiously articulated form of nationalism or ethnicity.

• From Ulysses (Kindle edition — verify full work) (1922)

  Naw, he didn't slap me, he didn't slap me, he pulled my dress up and got between my legs. "Think I can't do nothing. Fuck you like a damn whore." Naw, I'm not lying. He said, "Act like a whore, I'll fuck you like a whore." Naw, I'm not lying. I squeezed my legs around his neck.' (original emphasis) This scene makes conspicuous the degree to which interpretability and coherence are suspended. Not only does this occur because of the questionable nature of Eva's recollection, wherein she asserts one version before digressing into another scenario, but also because of the degree to which the scene itself, in both words and actions, resembles Eva's account of other occurrences that cross time and circumstance. Reverberating in this scene, then, is another exchange that Eva witnesses several years prior, at age twelve, between her parents, when a relatively similar scenario unfolds. Eva's father, John, arrives home from work to find his wife, Marie, with her lover, Tyrone, who is ten years her junior. Eva recalls the encounter, particularly how her parents "dealt" with it, as she listens outside the confines of her parents' closed bedroom door: [I]t was like I could hear her clothes ripping. [... N]ow he was tearing that blouse off and those underthings. I didn't hear nothing from her the whole time. [...] "Act like a whore, I'm gonna fuck you like a whore. You act like a whore, I'm gonna fuck you like a whore." He kept saying that over and over. I was so scared. I kept feeling that after he tore all her clothes off, and there wasn't any more to tear, he'd start tearing her flesh. (37) The questionable nature of the narrative, based on Eva's recollections, confounds as much, if not more, than it reveals. The occurrences are imprecise, whether a reflection of the inaccuracy of memory, madness, or an otherwise deliberate obstinacy, as evidenced by the subjective nature of her language. Phrases such as "it was like" and "I kept feeling that," lack authority, concreteness, and definitiveness to the extent that the account is unsubstantiated and, indeed, nebulous. Moreover, they are characterized by relativity ("it was like") versus a delineation of what it actually was, and are described based on the visceral ("I kept feeling that") rather than the rational.