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 The City of God

  153 Lecture 7 Transcript—Augustine’s Political Vision (Book 4) addictive, so that once you have begun exercising it, you very quickly lose the ability to stop doing so. Once you have power, you realize, were you to let it go, someone else would gain it and use it against you. Great power, then, brings great compulsion in its wake, and Vergil’s line imperium sine fine—an empire without end—which sounded so attractive and so pretty becomes not an infinite horizon but a bottomless pit. Nor does the exercise of power, once you have it, make you happy. Happiness purchased through worldly power is only and always insecure, and its insecurity drains away your happiness in its exercise. As he himself says, Augustine says, in Book 4, Chapter 3, is it wise or prudent to wish for glory in the breadth and magnitude of an empire when you cannot show that the men whose empire it is are happy? The joy of such men may be compared to the fragile splendor of glass: they are horribly afraid lest it be suddenly shattered. Here, again, Augustine shares political realists’ skepticism towards nations’ claims to their own unique moral excellence or pronouncements of special virtue. And indeed he finds the Romans’ theological version of this especially dangerous, not just for their political understanding, but for the fate of their very souls. Indeed, has the extension of the Imperium Romanum across all of Europe, much of Africa, and far into Asia brought Rome greater happiness? Or has it brought greater worries? Augustine thinks the latter. Happiness is not magnified by the magnitude of the kingdom—size doesn’t matter. Or if it does, it only matters in the opposite direction. Political power, that is, is self- subverting. It becomes its own self-legitimating end, and before you know it you are addicted to the exercise of power for the sake of exercising power. A political desire for freedom can become enslaving—this is part of what Augustine means by that phrase libido dominandi.

• From The City of God

  70 Books That Matter: The City of God ›The Pelagians, a small group of Christian intellectuals, often at least as educated and at least as elite as Augustine, found his vision of the nature of human sin and the need for divine grace to be theologically confused and spiritually and psychologically distasteful. ›Christians who would probably never read The City of God, but who might hear their bishop or priest quote it in a sermon, were the people Augustine was most afraid of misleading, especially as the work continues into the latter books, into thinking they could trust him to do their thinking for them. „Part of the power of the work, in its own time and thereafter, lies in how it heard these diverse concerns and how Augustine’s sheer rhetorical and argumentative genius braided them together in its pages. Theological View of Empire „Augustine used the sack of Rome to rethink the meaning of Rome itself and to address fundamental themes of civic life in general. Knowing that pagan suspicion of Christians was not entirely unfounded, he used that civic upheaval to offer a new vision of how Christians ought to behave in the world. These themes are clear in a sermon of Augustine’s that may mark his earliest response to the sack of Rome, in spring 411: ›Physical suffering and death are not the greatest evils; those who think they are should meditate on Hell. God uses historical traumas to sort the blessed from the damned, so we should see suffering as training and learn to use it. ›The fall of Rome was not a world-changing event. The human condition remains the same no matter what the political situation and will remain so until the end of time. Rome was “corrected not destroyed” by the violence.

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

  Plat. Tim. 74 B; mp. κακῶν Ar. Vesp. 615 ; κρύους mp. ἡ ἐσθής Plut. 2. 691 D; but, 3. mp. φόβου ἢ αἰδοῦς ἔχειν to have fear or shame as a defence, Soph. Aj. 1076 :—rov ποταμὸν mp. ποιεῖσθαι, λαβεῖν Polyb. 2. 66, 1., 3.14, 5. TIL. anything put forward as an excuse or screen, mp. τοῦ τρόπου Dem. 1122. 21; so, mp. λαβεῖν τινα (as we say) to make a stalking horse of him, Soph. Ph. 1008. IV. that which is proposed as a task, a task, business, Eur. ΕἸ, 985, ubiv. Seidl. 2. a problem in Geometry, Plat. Rep. 530 B, Theaet. 180 C sq., Plut. Marcell. 14, 19, etc. 3. in the Logic of Arist. a question as to whether a statement ts so or not, Arist. Top.1. 4, 3, cf. 1.11, 1, al. :—ra προβλήματα was a work written by Arist., v. Meteor. 2. 6,1, P. A. 3.15, 2, G. A. 2.8, 3, al.; also called τὰ προβληματικά, Id. Somn. 2, 1g; but the work we now possess is not genuine, v. Bonitz Ind. p. 103. 24. 4.4 problem, i. e. a difficulty, Polyb. 28. 11, 9. προβλημᾶτίζομαι, Med. to put before one as a defence, Eust. Opusc. 204. 69, etc. προβλημᾶτικός, ἡ, dv, of or for a problem, v. πρόβλημα IV. 3. προβλημάτιον, τό, Dim. of πρόβλημα, Arr. Epict. 2. 20, 33. προβλημᾶτο-πλόκος, ον, framing problems or riddles, Tzcetz. προβλημᾶτουργικός, ἡ, dv, of or for the construction of fortifications, Poll. 7. 207; 7 mp. δύναμις the faculty of constructing them, Plat. Polit. 280 D. προβλημᾶτώδης, ες, (πρόβλημα IV) problematical, Plut. Cato Mi. 25. πιροβλής, 770s, ὁ, ἡ, thrown forward, fore-stretching, jutting, προβλῆτι σκοπέλῳ 1]. 2. 396; πέτρῃ ἐπὶ προβλῆτι τό. 407 ; στήλας τε προβλῆτας (v. sub στήλη) Τ2. 259; ἔνθ᾽ ἀκταὶ προβλῆτες ἔσαν Od. 5. 405, cf. Lo. 89., 13.97 ; also προβλῆτες, without Subst., forelands, headlands, Soph. Ph. 936, cf. Q.Sm. 10. 175, and in sing., Opp. H. 5. 252; mp. ἔπαλξις, ἐρίπνα, ὑπωρείη, etc., Anth. P. 5. 294, 3.» 7. 147, etc—For Soph. Ph. 1455, Ve προβολή 11. 2. πρόβλησις, ews, 4, an eruption, ὑγρασίης Aretae. Cur. M. Ac. 1. IL. promotion, Byz. προβλητικός, 7, dv, putting forth, productive, τινός Eccl. προβλῆτις, ἐδος, fem. of προβλής, Schol. Opp. H. 3. 460. πρόβλητος, ov, thrown forth or away, Lat. projectus, κυσὶν mp. cast to the dogs, Soph. Aj. 817. προβλήτωρ, opos, ὃ, --προβολεύς, Eccl. προβλύζω, to gush forth, Eccl. προβλώσκω : aor. inf. προμολεῖν :—to go or come forth, to go out of the house, δμωὰς δ᾽ οὐκ εἴα προβλωσκέμεν Od. το. 25; 6 δὲ προμολών 4. 22, cf, 24. 388, Il. 21. 37; μή τι θύραζε προβλώσκειν Od. 21. 239, 285. προβοάω, Zo shout before, cry aloud, Tw γε προβοῶντε μάχην ὥτρυνον (v. προβαίνω init.), Il. 12.277; δεινόν τι προβοᾷ Soph. Ph, 218. προβοηθέω, Ion. —Bw0éw, to hasten to aid before, προβωθῆσαι ἐς THY Βοιωτίην Hdt. 8.144; v. 1. προσβωθῆσαι.

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

  νεσθαι, to have a price paid one, or return made one, so that these tenses | properly belong to τίνω: v. sub Tivw. τίω, Tiws, Dor. forms for σοῦ. τλάθῦμος, ov, Dor. for τλήθυμος, Pind. τλανπαθής, és, τλαισίφρων, 6, ἡ. -- τηλ--, Hesych. τλάμων, Dor. for τλήμων, Pind., Trag. Ἀτλάω, a radical form never found in pres. (except in very late writers, as Tzetz.), this tense being supplied by the pf. τέτληκα, or the Verbs τολμάω, ἐνέχομαι, ὑπομένω, etc.: fut. τλήσομαι 1]. 11. 317 and Att. Poets, (cpt. τλήσοι Babr. p. 2.91); Dor. τλάσομαι Pind.; later fut. ταλάσσω Lyc. 746:—Ep. aor. 1 ἐτάλασσα 1]. 17. 166; subj. ταλάσσω 3. 829., 15. 164 (an aor. med. ταλάσσατο, Opp. C. 3.155); in late writers érAnoa Chr. Pat. 22, (δι--) Ep. ap. Diog. L. 9. 4 :—but the aor. in com- mon use was ἔτλην (as if from a pres. ἔτλῆμι), Ep. TARY, Dor. ἔτλᾶν, 3 pl. ἔτλησαν Eur. Supp. 171, cf. Soph. Ph. 1201, Ep. é7Ady Il. 21. 608 ; imperat. τλῆθι Orac. ap. Hdt. 5. 56, Soph., etc., Dor. τλᾶθι Pind.; 2 sing. subj. τλῇς Trag.; opt. TAainy, 3 pl. τλαῖεν Il.17.490; inf. τλῆναι Trag., Ep. τλήμεναι Theocr. 25.1743 part. TAds, τλᾶσα :—pf. (with pres. sense) τέτληκα, but as a real pf. in Ar. Pl. 280:—from the pf. τέτληκα, which Hom. uses only in indic., is formed the poét. syncop. 1 pl. τέτλαμεν (Od. 20. 311), imperat. τέτλἄθι Il. 5. 382, τετλάτω Od. τό. 275; opt. τετλαίην Il. 9. 373; Ep. inf. τετλάμεναι Od. 13. 307, τετλάμεν 6. 190, terAavat Ath, 271 A, Ep. part. τετληώς, fem. τετληυΐα Od. 20. 23, gen. τετληίτος Hom., -ὥτος, Orph. Arg. 1358, etc. (From ATAA come also τλῆ-ναι, “A-TAas, πολύ-τλας, TaA-as, TAN μων, τάλ-αντον, TOA- paw, TeA-apwy, τάλ-αρος, Τάν-ταλ-ος, prob. also ἀν-τλέω, Lat. tolleno, and perh. 7éA-os in the sense of foll; cf. Skt. ζῶ], téla-yami, tula-yami (tollo, pondero), tul-a (libra), tul-yas (aequus, cf. ἀ-τάλ-αντος) ; O. Lat. tol-i (=tul-i), toll-o, tol-ero ; Goth. thul-a (ἀνέχομαι) ; us-thulains (ὑπο- povn); A.Sax. thol-ian, Scott. thole(to endure); O.H.G. dol-ém, dul-tu(dul- de).) Poét. Verb, used by Isocr.60C (cf. Arist. Rhet. 3.7,11), Xen. Cyr. 3. 1, 2; but τολμάω is the common prose form (cf. τλήμων): 1. to take upon oneself, to bear, suffer, undergo hardship, disgrace, etc., but never like φέρω, of bodily loads or burdens: 1. absol. to hold out, endure, be patient, submit, ἤτοι ἔγὼ μενέω καὶ τλήσομαι 1]. 11. 317, cf. 19. 308; ἔτι τλαίης ἐνιαυτόν Od. 1. 288., 2. 2193; esp. in imperat., τέ- τλαθι, μῆτερ ἐμή. καὶ ἀνάσχεο Il. 1. 586 ; τλῆτε, φίλοι, 2. 299; τέτλαθι δή, κραδίη Od. 20. 18; so in inf., σὺ δὲ τετλάμεναι καὶ ἀνάγκῃ 13. 370; and in part., τετληύτι θυμῷ 4. 447. εἴς. ; κραδίη τετληυΐα 20. 23 :—sometimes [0]], by a relat. clause, τλῆ δ᾽ “Apns, ὅτε μιν.. δῆσαν Il. 5. 385, cf. 392, Ap. Rh. 1. 807. 2. c. ace. rei, ἔτλην οἷ᾽ οὔπω καὶ ἄλλος Il. 24. 505; ἔτλην ἀνέρος εὐνὴν I submitted to be wedded to a man, 18. 4333; ῥίγιστα.. τετληότες εἰμέν 5.873; TAR δ᾽ ᾿Αἴδης .. ὀϊστόν submitted to be wounded by it, Ib. 395; ἔτλα πένθος Pind. I. 7 (6). 52; οἷα χρὴ πάθη τλῆναι πρὸς Ἥρας Aesch. Pr. 704, cf. Ag. 1453, Cho. 753, Soph. O. C. 1077. 11. c. inf. to dare or venture to do, πῶς ἔτλης ἐλθέμεν οἷος ; 1]. 24.5193 οὔτε Adxovd ἰέναι τέτληκας θυμῷ I. 228; cf. 21. 150., 7. 480, etc.; so also in Hes., Pind., etc. :—in Att. Poets, to dare to do something contrary to one’s feelings, whether good

• From The City of God

  151 Lecture 7 Transcript—Augustine’s Political Vision (Book 4) Augustine thinks this is bad because the only things that benefit from this popular polytheism are in fact the demons—immaterial agents who are the fallen rebel angels, Satan and his minions. That is to say, the demons leverage the Romans’ belief in their own uniqueness into a racket whereby those demons get worshipped, honored, and heeded by the masses. The Romans need to believe that they have special divine favor, and they stumble unknowingly across wicked trickster creatures who are willing to pretend to offer such favor—but at the price of the Romans’ souls. And that, Augustine thinks, is a terrible bargain for the Romans to accept. This is coupled with another aspect of Augustine’s political critique of Rome that is part of his overall political realism: a suspicion of the language and symbols employed in politics. It is too easy for political authorities to use language in deceptive ways, and even—perhaps especially—in ways that are self-deceptive. It’s clear for Augustine that the rulers use superstitions to shore up their own authority and position—we see this in how the ruling elite don’t reject the vulgar crowd’s crass polytheism but try to use it. But the rulers are themselves fooled by this language. In Augustine’s case, they think they can use the demons but end up getting used by them instead. Indeed, as he mentions here but doesn’t develop very far, this very critique of the rulers is not basically a Christian critique, but it’s derived from the pagan philosophers’ critique of popular religion, as the examples of Cicero and Varro make clear. Those philosophers are, as we’ve seen, afraid of the crowd, so they do not stand up to them. Finally, he offers a novel political psychology in which three important claims are made: one about what motivates political actors to obey, one about what motivates political powers at all, and the third about how the exercise of power is itself dangerously addictive. First, people and states are motivated by the logic of obedience, not consent. It is not reason but force that coordinates between differing

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  I went into treatment years later because I was afraid that I was dead or empty.” The Castle Secrets FAMILIES LIKE CAROL’S rarely come into public view because they are so normal-looking from the outside. Had I met this couple at a party, I would have found them to be cultured, respectable members of the community. The children were never hit so hard that they had visible bruises or needed to be taken to an emergency room. Nothing about the family’s behavior in the public domain—in business, social, or school life—would have given any clues as to what happened from five o’clock on. A man’s home is his castle. It is surrounded by a moat and outsiders are not invited in. But if you could cross the moat, guided by a child who lives in the castle, you would see a capricious inner sanctum where anything can happen. Sometimes the parents are benevolent and kind. Carol lovingly remembers the velvet dresses she and her mother wore and the sherbet and soda when she was sick. These memories strengthened her yearning for loving parents. But more often, family life was terrifying and destructive. Carol and her brother and sister lived in constant fear as they watched their parents engage in a perpetual cycle of drinking and violence. The children’s presence was required because the parents needed spectators and an escape valve for their anger. Everyone in this family was caught in an ineluctable web of mutual destruction. All were committed to keeping it hidden from the eyes of the world. The key to understanding such families is to realize that the parents are committed to each other. The nightly rituals of drinking, violence, and sometimes sex reinforce their powerful ties. But the children, who live in fear of being ejected from the home, have no power, no bargaining chips, no champions. Instead, they are swept into a conspiracy of silence. Everyone participates and no one ever breaks the rules. It’s hard to know at what age children become aware of the conspiracy, but I’ve seen it in four-year-olds. What transpires within the family is never to be divulged. The result, of course, is that the children are isolated from outside support. They cannot talk to their friends, teachers, minister, or even close relatives. The dreaded secret increases their shame and, oddly, makes them loyal to their parents. The loyalty is based on a sense of inclusiveness—we are separate as a family and we are in this together. One sad result is that the children have very little opportunity to enter into the social world of their peers or to learn about other families.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  It was like I had two identities. It was a heavy thing for me to carry. I know that after awhile I began to feel sort of dead inside. I went into treatment years later because I was afraid that I was dead or empty.” The Castle Secrets F AMILIES LIKE CAROL’S rarely come into public view because they are so normal-looking from the outside. Had I met this couple at a party, I would have found them to be cultured, respectable members of the community. The children were never hit so hard that they had visible bruises or needed to be taken to an emergency room. Nothing about the family’s behavior in the public domain—in business, social, or school life—would have given any clues as to what happened from five o’clock on. A man’s home is his castle. It is surrounded by a moat and outsiders are not invited in. But if you could cross the moat, guided by a child who lives in the castle, you would see a capricious inner sanctum where anything can happen. Sometimes the parents are benevolent and kind. Carol lovingly remembers the velvet dresses she and her mother wore and the sherbet and soda when she was sick. These memories strengthened her yearning for loving parents. But more often, family life was terrifying and destructive. Carol and her brother and sister lived in constant fear as they watched their parents engage in a perpetual cycle of drinking and violence. The children’s presence was required because the parents needed spectators and an escape valve for their anger. Everyone in this family was caught in an ineluctable web of mutual destruction. All were committed to keeping it hidden from the eyes of the world. The key to understanding such families is to realize that the parents are committed to each other. The nightly rituals of drinking, violence, and sometimes sex reinforce their powerful ties. But the children, who live in fear of being ejected from the home, have no power, no bargaining chips, no champions. Instead, they are swept into a conspiracy of silence. Everyone participates and no one ever breaks the rules. It’s hard to know at what age children become aware of the conspiracy, but I’ve seen it in four-year-olds. What transpires within the family is never to be divulged. The result, of course, is that the children are isolated from outside support. They cannot talk to their friends, teachers, minister, or even close relatives. The dreaded secret increases their shame and, oddly, makes them loyal to their parents. The loyalty is based on a sense of inclusiveness—we are separate as a family and we are in this together. One sad result is that the children have very little opportunity to enter into the social world of their peers or to learn about other families. This affects their childhood relationships and later adult relationships in almost every domain.

• From The City of God

  114 Books That Matter: The City of God They are more afraid of suffering physical pain than of the corruption of their souls. ›Dissolution is harm inflicted upon the self, a kind of suicide. Because humans belong not simply to ourselves but are works of art that God has wrought, we owe to God a basic respect that does not insult the gift that God has given us. ›Depravity exemplifies the religious impiety of those who are drawn to worldly delights. Augustine draws parallels between human dissolution and that of the fallen angels who try to seduce us into sin and servility to their will. ›The end state of the depraved is as much a theological concept as a political one. It encourages self-indulgence and fantasy, which in turn reinforce the belief that domination is the only way we can truly be happy. Once we become people for whom happiness amounts to nothing but the immediate satisfaction of our basest desires, we inevitably begin to treat our gods as we treat our servants. „This debased and dissolute vision of happiness is exhibited in the public spectacles and dramas the Romans put on and flocked to see. Two points are important to understand Augustine’s complaints about the spectacles and the performances. ›Roman spectacles often involved real violence, inertly witnessed by the audience. He was against rape and murder with real blood spraying the audience. ›Spectacles were more than entertainment. They were explicitly rituals, civic and religious at once, that attempted to express something of deep importance to the citizens. „Instead of these perverse entertainments, Augustine offers the spectacles that God provides—the wonders of Creation, the glorious stories of saints and martyrs. The Christian liturgy,

• From The City of God

  146 Books That Matter: The City of God In fact, the 19 th -century British prime minister, Lord Palmerston, once put it this way. A Roman could be anywhere in the world, within the imperium or beyond it, and he felt that all he needed to say to secure himself from harassment or indignity was civis Romanus sum: “I am a Roman citizen.” And he would remain free of molestation or delay, for he and his hearers would know that behind him stood the weight of all the legions, all the glory, all the magnificence of the entire empire. But there was a complication, for this freedom was conceived of as integrally involving domination of others. Ever since the Greeks encountered the Persians, freedom had been conceived as a zero- sum game: I only am free if I dominate others; if I dominate you. True political freedom involved hegemonia in Greek: domination or command over others. The Romans believed this as well. Their liberty was defined in crucial part by the fact that they held other people in bondage. Augustine takes all of this ideology apart with a pair of pliers. He offers a three-pronged attack on the nature of what constitutes a polity; on what is the role of the stories that a polity tells itself; and on what motivates political actors actually, whether those actors are individual people, communities, nations, or empires. First, he attacks what we can call the ontology of politics—that is, what exactly constitutes a state, and thus what counts as a political community. Now, we’ve seen already that he denies Cicero’s rather self-congratulatory vision of what constitutes a city. Against Cicero’s argument that it was a common sense of justice that held the city together, Augustine insists it is not justice but love, and even more crassly perhaps appetite, that makes a nation move. Now, understand that this radically expands the kinds of communities that get counted as political communities in ways that do not cast a good light on the noble self-presentations of states. It means that political communities are organizations of humans with some generally encompassing common purpose, organized to achieve

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  When you face your own death, life’s never the same. It’s just not.”1040 Wambli Sina Win, a former Oglala Sioux tribal judge and authority concerning authentic sweat-lodge practices, told the press, “Whatever he led was not a sweat-lodge ceremony as I understand it…He evidently learned bits and pieces and created a Frankenstein.” Linda Andresano, a nurse who had attended traditional sweat lodges but passed out and had to be carried out of Ray’s version, testified, “It was much hotter than any one I’d been in before.” She explained that in a traditional sweat lodge, leaders “would ask how everybody was doing, and pass water around.”1041 In one segment of his training, called the Samurai Game, Ray literally commanded participants to feign death. Connie Joy, a frequent participant of Ray retreats, said, “You have to picture him in the Samurai Game dressed in a white robe, pointing at people. When they say he said to die, I mean in a booming voice, pointing at you and saying, ‘Die!’ And if you didn’t drop instantly, he really started screaming at you to die.” Typically, the command to die followed an infraction of Ray’s rules or some form of noncompliance. Joy, who became disenchanted with Ray after problems at one of his retreats held in Peru, told the press, “He enjoyed playing God.”1042 “This could have happened to any of us. If you’re with a group of people for a week, and everyone walks into a situation, you’re going to go, too. And if your leader tells you it’s OK, you’re going to believe him. As you spend time together, a group mentality develops,” explained Christine B. Whelan, PhD, a visiting assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied the self-help industry.1043 Sweat-lodge participant Dennis Mehraver described how reliant he had become on James Ray’s leadership. “With all my experiences before with Mr. Ray I believed he knew how far I could go better than myself,” Mehraver stated in court.1044 “He was strong with the people. They were too intimidated, they were too committed to him,” Jennifer Haley observed. Haley was a volunteer member of what Ray called his Dream Team.1045 Ray also used various techniques including Holotropic Breathing, an accelerated breathing technique to reach an “altered state of consciousness.”1046 James Ray reached a financial settlement with the families of those who had died in his sweat lodge. They were each paid $3 million. This money came from James Ray’s insurers.1047 After his criminal conviction and subsequent sentencing, Ray sold his home in the Beverly Hills area of California for $3.015 million.1048 In 2012 James Ray claimed he was broke and $11 million in debt. He requested that the court declare him “indigent” for the purpose of costs associated with his appeal.

• From The City of God

  149 Lecture 7 Transcript—Augustine’s Political Vision (Book 4) could be something other than power politics. But Augustine, like other political realists, refuses to imagine that the crucial response to our recognition of this political reality is outrage and disappointment, and a belief that some sort of other politics is possible. He goes on, and he next critiques the rhetoric of politics in two ways— in the ways that history and symbols, including religions, are used to obscure realities and so mislead us as to what is going on. Consider here his ruthless critique of the piety surrounding Roman patriotism. This comes in two parts. First, a critique of Roman nostalgia for their glorious past; and second, a critique of the myths and the gods the Romans use to enframe that noble past as a sign of a special divine favor upon them. First, the Romans nostalgically assume that their ancestors’ behavior was essentially especially heroic and morally pure, that there was an era of heroism from which they can judge the shallowness and shabbiness of the present, and to which they can aspire once again. Second, the Romans believe that there is some deeply theologically- charged character to their polity, unlike every other polity in the world. This kind of what we might call Roman exceptionalism, akin to our present-day American exceptionalism, attracts a great deal of scorn from Augustine. Let’s take each of these in turn. Now, Augustine makes relatively quick work of Roman nostalgia for their own greatest generation. His is a radically anti-nostalgic picture of the past. In Book 4, he repeatedly recalls Sallust—the pagan historian Sallust—on what kept the Romans together in their greatest generation. It was fear, a mortal fear of Carthage, a fear that Carthage might win, might conquer Rome. This is a much more sober account than the one that focuses on the idea that Roman heroic self-sacrifice was motivated fundamentally by some autonomous noble positive vision of the glory of Rome. The Romans were focused, ruthlessly self- sacrificial, and did not quarrel among themselves, not because they were uniquely virtuous, but because they had a wolf at their door and they knew that any dissent or lack of focus could be deadly.

• From The City of God

  Chapter 11. --Of Gog and Magog, Who are to Be Roused by the Devil to Persecute the Church, When He is Loosed in the End of the World. "And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed from his prison, and shall go out to seduce the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and shall draw them to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. "This then, is his purpose in seducing them, to draw them to this battle. For even before this he was wont to use as many and various seductions as he could continue. And the words "he shall go out" mean, he shall burst forth from lurking hatred into open persecution. For this persecution, occurring while the final judgment is imminent, shall be the last which shall be endured by the holy Church throughout the world, the whole city of Christ being assailed by the whole city of the devil, as each exists on earth. For these nations which he names Gog and Magog are not to be understood of some barbarous nations in some part of the world, whether the Getae and Massagetae, as some conclude from the initial letters, or some other foreign nations not under the Roman government. For John marks that they are spread over the whole earth, when he says, "The nations which are in the four corners of the earth," and he added that these are Gog and Magog. The meaning of these names we find to be, Gog, "a roof," Magog, "from a roof,"--a house, as it were, and he who comes out of the house. They are therefore the nations in which we found that the devil was shut up as in an abyss, and the devil himself coming out from them and going forth, so that they are the roof, he from the roof. Or if we refer both words to the nations, not one to them and one to the devil, then they are both the roof, because in them the old enemy is at present shut up, and as it were roofed in; and they shall be from the roof when they break forth from concealed to open hatred. The words, "And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints and the beloved city," do not mean that they have come, or shall come, to one place, as if the camp of the saints and the beloved city should be in some one place; for this camp is nothing else than the Church of Christ extending over the whole world. And consequently wherever the Church shall be,--and it shall be in all nations, as is signified by "the breadth of the earth,"--there also shall be the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and there it shall be encompassed by the savage persecution of all its enemies; for they too shall exist along with it in all nations,--that is, it shall be straitened, and hard pressed, and shut up in the straits of tribulation, but shall not desert its military duty, which is signified by the word "camp. "

• From The City of God

  [1524] 2 Tim. ii. 19. [1525] Rom. viii. 14. [1526] Gal. v. 17. Chapter 16. --The Laws of Grace, Which Extend to All the Epochs of the Life of the Regenerate. But such is God's mercy towards the vessels of mercy which He has prepared for glory, that even the first age of man, that is, infancy, which submits without any resistance to the flesh, and the second age, which is called boyhood, and which has not yet understanding enough to undertake this warfare, and therefore yields to almost every vicious pleasure (because though this age has the power of speech, [1527] and may therefore seem to have passed infancy, the mind is still too weak to comprehend the commandment), yet if either of these ages has received the sacraments of the Mediator, then, although the present life be immediately brought to an end, the child, having been translated from the power of darkness to the kingdom of Christ, shall not only be saved from eternal punishments, but shall not even suffer purgatorial torments after death. For spiritual regeneration of itself suffices to prevent any evil consequences resulting after death from the connection with death which carnal generation forms. [1528]But when we reach that age which can now comprehend the commandment, and submit to the dominion of law, we must declare war upon vices, and wage this war keenly, lest we be landed in damnable sins. And if vices have not gathered strength, by habitual victory they are more easily overcome and subdued; but if they have been used to conquer and rule, it is only with difficulty and labor they are mastered. And indeed this victory cannot be sincerely and truly gained but by delighting in true righteousness, and it is faith in Christ that gives this. For if the law be present with its command, and the Spirit be absent with His help, the presence of the prohibition serves only to increase the desire to sin, and adds the guilt of transgression. Sometimes, indeed, patent vices are overcome by other and hidden vices, which are reckoned virtues, though pride and a kind of ruinous self-sufficiency are their informing principles. Accordingly vices are then only to be considered overcome when they are conquered by the love of God, which God Himself alone gives, and which He gives only through the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who became a partaker of our mortality that He might make us partakers of His divinity. But few indeed are they who are so happy as to have passed their youth without committing any damnable sins, either by dissolute or violent conduct, or by following some godless and unlawful opinions, but have subdued by their greatness of soul everything in them which could make them the slaves of carnal pleasures. The greater number having first become transgressors of the law that they have received, and having allowed vice to have the ascendency in them, then flee to grace for help, and so, by a penitence more bitter, and a struggle more violent than it would otherwise have been, they subdue the soul to God, and thus give it its lawful authority over the flesh, and become victors. Whoever, therefore, desires to escape eternal punishment, let him not only be baptized, but also justified in Christ, and so let him in truth pass from the devil to Christ. And let him not fancy that there are any purgatorial pains except before that final and dreadful judgment. We must not, however deny that even the eternal fire will be proportioned to the deserts of the wicked, so that to some it will be more, and to others less painful, whether this result be accomplished by a variation in the temperature of the fire itself, graduated according to every one's merit, or whether it be that the heat remains the same, but that all do not feel it with equal intensity of torment.

• From The City of God

  Thus various, then, are the conjectural explanations of the obscure words of the apostle. That which there is no doubt he said is this, that Christ will not come to judge quick and dead unless Antichrist, His adversary, first come to seduce those who are dead in soul; although their seduction is a result of God's secret judgment already passed. For, as it is said "his presence shall be after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all seduction of unrighteousness in them that perish. "For then shall Satan be loosed, and by means of that Antichrist shall work with all power in a lying though a wonderful manner. It is commonly questioned whether these works are called "signs and lying wonders" because he is to deceive men's senses by false appearances, or because the things he does, though they be true prodigies, shall be a lie to those who shall believe that such things could be done only by God, being ignorant of the devil's power, and especially of such unexampled power as he shall then for the first time put forth. For when he fell from heaven as fire, and at a stroke swept away from the holy Job his numerous household and his vast flocks, and then as a whirlwind rushed upon and smote the house and killed his children, these were not deceitful appearances, and yet they were the works of Satan to whom God had given this power. Why they are called signs and lying wonders, we shall then be more likely to know when the time itself arrives. But whatever be the reason of the name, they shall be such signs and wonders as shall seduce those who shall deserve to be seduced, "because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. "Neither did the apostle scruple to go on to say, "For this cause God shall send upon them the working of error that they should believe a lie. "For God shall send, because God shall permit the devil to do these things, the permission being by His own just judgment, though the doing of them is in pursuance of the devil's unrighteous and malignant purpose, "that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. "Therefore, being judged, they shall be seduced, and, being seduced, they shall be judged. But, being judged, they shall be seduced by those secretly just and justly secret judgments of God, with which He has never ceased to judge since the first sin of the rational creatures; and, being seduced, they shall be judged in that last and manifest judgment administered by Jesus Christ, who was Himself most unjustly judged and shall most justly judge. [1404] 2 Thess. ii. 1-11. Whole passage given in the Latin. In ver. 3 refuga is used instead of the Vulgate's discessio.

• From The City of God

  [1650] 1 Cor. iii. 1. [1651] 1 Cor. xv. 44. [1652] Ps. xxvi. 8. Chapter 22. --Of the Miseries and Ills to Which the Human Race is Justly Exposed Through the First Sin, and from Which None Can Be Delivered Save by Christ's Grace. That the whole human race has been condemned in its first origin, this life itself, if life it is to be called, bears witness by the host of cruel ills with which it is filled. Is not this proved by the profound and dreadful ignorance which produces all the errors that enfold the children of Adam, and from which no man can be delivered without toil, pain, and fear? Is it not proved by his love of so many vain and hurtful things, which produces gnawing cares, disquiet, griefs, fears, wild joys, quarrels, lawsuits, wars, treasons, angers, hatreds, deceit, flattery, fraud, theft, robbery, perfidy, pride, ambition, envy, murders, parricides, cruelty, ferocity, wickedness, luxury, insolence, impudence, shamelessness, fornications, adulteries, incests, and the numberless uncleannesses and unnatural acts of both sexes, which it is shameful so much as to mention; sacrileges, heresies, blasphemies, perjuries, oppression of the innocent, calumnies, plots, falsehoods, false witnessings, unrighteous judgments, violent deeds, plunderings, and whatever similar wickedness has found its way into the lives of men, though it cannot find its way into the conception of pure minds? These are indeed the crimes of wicked men, yet they spring from that root of error and misplaced love which is born with every son of Adam. For who is there that has not observed with what profound ignorance, manifesting itself even in infancy, and with what superfluity of foolish desires, beginning to appear in boyhood, man comes into this life, so that, were he left to live as he pleased, and to do whatever he pleased, he would plunge into all, or certainly into many of those crimes and iniquities which I mentioned, and could not mention?

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  Fortunately for many children of divorce, their fears of loss and betrayal can be conquered by the time they reach their late twenties and thirties. But what a struggle that takes, what courage and persistence. Those who succeed overcome their difficulties the hard way—by learning from their own failed relationships and gradually rejecting the models they were raised with to create what they want from a love relationship. Those lucky enough to have found a loving partner are able to interrupt their self-destructive course with a lasting love affair or marriage. In other realms of adult life—financial and security, for instance—some children were able to overcome difficulties through unexpected help from fathers who had vanished long before. Still others benefit from the constancy of parents or grandparents. Many men and women raised in divorced families establish successful careers. Their workplace performance is largely unaffected by the divorce. But no matter what their success in the world, they retain some serious residues—fear of loss, fear of change, and fear that disaster will strike, especially when things are going well. They’re still terrified by the mundane differences and inevitable conflicts found in every close relationship. I’m heartened by the hard-won success of these adults. But at the same time, I can’t forget those who’ve failed to straighten out their lives. I’m especially troubled by how many divorced or remained in wretched marriages. Of those who have children and who are now divorced, many, to my dismay, are not protecting their children in ways we might expect. They go on to repeat the same mistakes their own parents made, perpetuating problems that have plagued them all their lives. I’m also concerned about many who, by their mid-and late thirties, are neither married nor cohabiting and who are leading lonely lives. They’re afraid of getting involved in a relationship that they think is doomed to fail. After a divorce or breakup, they’re afraid to try again. And I’m struck by continuing anger at parents and flat-out statements by many of these young adults that they have no intention of helping their moms and especially their dads or stepparents in old age. This may change. But if it doesn’t, we’ll be facing another unanticipated consequence of our divorce culture. Who will take care of an older generation estranged from its children?

• From The City of God

  [542] The Alexandrian Neo-Platonists endeavored in this way to escape from the obvious meaning of the Timaeus. Chapter 13. --Of the Revolution of the Ages, Which Some Philosophers Believe Will Bring All Things Round Again, After a Certain Fixed Cycle, to the Same Order and Form as at First. This controversy some philosophers have seen no other approved means of solving than by introducing cycles of time, in which there should be a constant renewal and repetition of the order of nature; [543] and they have therefore asserted that these cycles will ceaselessly recur, one passing away and another coming, though they are not agreed as to whether one permanent world shall pass through all these cycles, or whether the world shall at fixed intervals die out, and be renewed so as to exhibit a recurrence of the same phenomena--the things which have been, and those which are to be, coinciding. And from this fantastic vicissitude they exempt not even the immortal soul that has attained wisdom, consigning it to a ceaseless transmigration between delusive blessedness and real misery. For how can that be truly called blessed which has no assurance of being so eternally, and is either in ignorance of the truth, and blind to the misery that is approaching, or, knowing it, is in misery and fear? Or if it passes to bliss, and leaves miseries forever, then there happens in time a new thing which time shall not end. Why not, then, the world also? Why may not man, too, be a similar thing? So that, by following the straight path of sound doctrine, we escape, I know not what circuitous paths, discovered by deceiving and deceived sages.

• From The City of God

  And what account do they give of Julian, whom they do not number in the ten? Did not he persecute the Church, who forbade the Christians to teach or learn liberal letters? Under him the elder Valentinian, who was the third emperor after him, stood forth as a confessor of the Christian faith, and was dismissed from his command in the army. I shall say nothing of what he did at Antioch, except to mention his being struck with wonder at the freedom and cheerfulness of one most faithful and steadfast young man, who, when many were seized to be tortured, was tortured during a whole day, and sang under the instrument of torture, until the emperor feared lest he should succumb under the continued cruelties and put him to shame at last, which made him dread and fear that he would be yet more dishonorably put to the blush by the rest. Lastly, within our own recollection, did not Valens the Arian, brother of the foresaid Valentinian, waste the catholic Church by great persecution throughout the East? But how unreasonable it is not to consider that the Church, which bears fruit and grows through the whole world, may suffer persecution from kings in some nations even when she does not suffer it in others! Perhaps, however, it was not to be reckoned a persecution when the king of the Goths, in Gothia itself, persecuted the Christians with wonderful cruelty, when there were none but catholics there, of whom very many were crowned with martyrdom, as we have heard from certain brethren who had been there at that time as boys, and unhesitatingly called to mind that they had seen these things? And what took place in Persia of late? Was not persecution so hot against the Christians (if even yet it is allayed) that some of the fugitives from it came even to Roman towns? When I think of these and the like things, it does not seem to me that the number of persecutions with which the Church is to be tried can be definitely stated. But, on the other hand, it is no less rash to affirm that there will be some persecutions by kings besides that last one, about which no Christian is in doubt. Therefore we leave this undecided, supporting or refuting neither side of this question, but only restraining men from the audacious presumption of affirming either of them.

• From The City of God

  [1433] 1 John iii. 9. [1434] Isa. lvi. 5. Chapter 23. --What Daniel Predicted Regarding the Persecution of Antichrist, the Judgment of God, and the Kingdom of the Saints. Daniel prophesies of the last judgment in such a way as to indicate that Antichrist shall first come, and to carry on his description to the eternal reign of the saints. For when in prophetic vision he had seen four beasts, signifying four kingdoms, and the fourth conquered by a certain king, who is recognized as Antichrist, and after this the eternal kingdom of the Son of man, that is to say, of Christ, he says, "My spirit was terrified, I Daniel in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me," [1435] etc. Some have interpreted these four kingdoms as signifying those of the Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans. They who desire to understand the fitness of this interpretation may read Jerome's book on Daniel, which is written with a sufficiency of care and erudition. But he who reads this passage, even half asleep, cannot fail to see that the kingdom of Antichrist shall fiercely, though for a short time, assail the Church before the last judgment of God shall introduce the eternal reign of the saints. For it is patent from the context that the time, times, and half a time, means a year, and two years, and half a year, that is to say, three years and a half. Sometimes in Scripture the same thing is indicated by months. For though the word times seems to be used here in the Latin indefinitely, that is only because the Latins have no dual, as the Greeks have, and as the Hebrews also are said to have. Times, therefore, is used for two times. As for the ten kings, whom, as it seems, Antichrist is to find in the person of ten individuals when he comes, I own I am afraid we may be deceived in this, and that he may come unexpectedly while there are not ten kings living in the Roman world. For what if this number ten signifies the whole number of kings who are to precede his coming, as totality is frequently symbolized by a thousand, or a hundred, or seven, or other numbers, which it is not necessary to recount?

• From The City of God

  Worn out with weeping, and driven by necessity, it occurred to him to call in an Alexandrian, who was at that time esteemed a wonderfully skillful operator, that he might perform the operation his rage would not suffer them to do. But when he had come, and examined with a professional eye the traces of their careful work, he acted the part of a good man, and persuaded his patient to allow those same hands the satisfaction of finishing his cure which had begun it with a skill that excited his admiration, adding that there was no doubt his only hope of a cure was by an operation, but that it was thoroughly inconsistent with his nature to win the credit of the cure by doing the little that remained to be done, and rob of their reward men whose consummate skill, care, and diligence he could not but admire when be saw the traces of their work. They were therefore again received to favor; and it was agreed that, in the presence of the Alexandrian, they should operate on the fistula, which, by the consent of all, could now only be cured by the knife. The operation was deferred till the following day. But when they had left, there arose in the house such a wailing, in sympathy with the excessive despondency of the master, that it seemed to us like the mourning at a funeral, and we could scarcely repress it. Holy men were in the habit of visiting him daily; Saturninus of blessed memory, at that time bishop of Uzali, and the presbyter Gelosus, and the deacons of the church of Carthage; and among these was the bishop Aurelius, who alone of them all survives,--a man to be named by us with due reverence,--and with him I have often spoken of this affair, as we conversed together about the wonderful works of God, and I have found that he distinctly remembers what I am now relating. When these persons visited him that evening according to their custom, he besought them, with pitiable tears, that they would do him the honor of being present next day at what he judged his funeral rather than his suffering. For such was the terror his former pains had produced, that he made no doubt he would die in the hands of the surgeons. They comforted him, and exhorted him to put his trust in God, and nerve his will like a man. Then we went to prayer; but while we, in the usual way, were kneeling and bending to the ground, he cast himself down, as if some one were hurling him violently to the earth, and began to pray; but in what a manner, with what earnestness and emotion, with what a flood of tears, with what groans and sobs, that shook his whole body, and almost prevented him speaking, who can describe!