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

  Chapter 18. --What We Should Believe Concerning the Transformations Which Seem to Happen to Men Through the Art of Demons. Perhaps our readers expect us to say something about this so great delusion wrought by the demons; and what shall we say but that men must fly out of the midst of Babylon? [1141]For this prophetic precept is to be understood spiritually in this sense, that by going forward in the living God, by the steps of faith, which worketh by love, we must flee out of the city of this world, which is altogether a society of ungodly angels and men. Yea, the greater we see the power of the demons to be in these depths, so much the more tenaciously must we cleave to the Mediator through whom we ascend from these lowest to the highest places. For if we should say these things are not to be credited, there are not wanting even now some who would affirm that they had either heard on the best authority, or even themselves experienced, something of that kind. Indeed we ourselves, when in Italy, heard such things about a certain region there where landladies of inns, imbued with these wicked arts, were said to be in the habit of giving to such travellers as they chose, or could manage, something in a piece of cheese by which they were changed on the spot into beasts of burden, and carried whatever was necessary, and were restored to their own form when the work was done. Yet their mind did not become bestial, but remained rational and human, just as Apuleius, in the books he wrote with the title of The Golden Ass, has told, or feigned, that it happened to his own self that, on taking poison, he became an ass, while retaining his human mind.

• From The City of God

  Chapter 11. --Of the End of This Life, Whether It is Material that It Be Long Delayed. But, it is added, many Christians were slaughtered, and were put to death in a hideous variety of cruel ways. Well, if this be hard to bear, it is assuredly the common lot of all who are born into this life. Of this at least I am certain, that no one has ever died who was not destined to die some time. Now the end of life puts the longest life on a par with the shortest. For of two things which have alike ceased to be, the one is not better, the other worse--the one greater, the other less. [60]And of what consequence is it what kind of death puts an end to life, since he who has died once is not forced to go through the same ordeal a second time? And as in the daily casualties of life every man is, as it were, threatened with numberless deaths, so long as it remains uncertain which of them is his fate, I would ask whether it is not better to suffer one and die, than to live in fear of all? I am not unaware of the poor-spirited fear which prompts us to choose rather to live long in fear of so many deaths, than to die once and so escape them all; but the weak and cowardly shrinking of the flesh is one thing, and the well-considered and reasonable persuasion of the soul quite another. That death is not to be judged an evil which is the end of a good life; for death becomes evil only by the retribution which follows it. They, then, who are destined to die, need not be careful to inquire what death they are to die, but into what place death will usher them. And since Christians are well aware that the death of the godly pauper whose sores the dogs licked was far better than of the wicked rich man who lay in purple and fine linen, what harm could these terrific deaths do to the dead who had lived well? [60] Much of a kindred nature might be gathered from the Stoics. Antoninus says (ii. 14):"Though thou shouldest be going to live 3000 years, and as many times 10,000 years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses. The longest and the shortest are thus brought to the same. "

• From The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon (2009)

  We illustrate with the first and fullest story. Paul was on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus in Syria to find followers of Jesus and bring them bound to Jerusalem. Then: As Paul was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” (Acts 9:3–5) Paul experienced “a light from heaven,” a photism, to use William James’s term. He also heard a voice, what James calls an audition, sometimes but not always part of a mystical experience. Paul addressed the light and the voice as “Lord” and asked, “Who are you?” This suggests that Paul had not seen a visual figure, but a light, as the text itself says. Then the voice announced, “I am Jesus,” identifying the light as Jesus. Of course, this is the post-Easter Jesus, the risen Christ; the historical Jesus, the pre-Easter Jesus, had been dead for at least a few years. As the story continues, the theme of illumination appears again. The light was so brilliant that it blinded Paul (Acts 9:9). Then, three days later, he was led to a Christian Jew in Damascus named Ananias. Ananias laid his hands on Paul and said, “The Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored ” (Acts 9:17–18; all italics in biblical quotations have been added). Paul now saw differently—the light that was Jesus, and the Spirit with which he was now filled, had brought enlightenment: “something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored.” The story in Acts 9 ends with Paul being baptized, the early Christian rite of incorporation. Paul had become “in Christ,” as he puts it in his letters. “In Christ” was for Paul a new identity that involved a new community and way of being. So decisive was this experience that it divided Paul’s life into two parts, the pre-Damascus Paul and the post-Damascus Paul. Commonly called his conversion experience, it is and it is not, depending upon what we mean by “conversion.” In a religious context, the word has three meanings, not all of which apply to Paul. The first is conversion from being nonreligious to being religious, the second is conversion from one religion to another, and the third is conversion within a religious tradition. Paul’s experience was neither of the first two. Clearly, he was deeply religious before his Damascus experience. In his own words, he was filled with religious passion: “zealous for the traditions of my ancestors”; “as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Gal. 1:14; Phil.

• From Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)

  He saw, as though it were a vision, Royal’s body, sprawled heavy and unmoving for ever against the earth, and tears blinded his eyes. Royal watched him, a distant and angry compassion in his face. ‘I know,’ he said abruptly, ‘but they ain’t going to bother me. They done got their nigger for this week. I ain’t going far noway.’ Then the corner on which they stood seemed suddenly to rock with the weight of mortal danger. It seemed for a moment, as they stood there, that death and destruction rushed towards them: two black men alone in the dark and silent town where white men prowled like lions—what mercy could they hope for, should they be found here, talking together? It would surely be believed that they were plotting vengeance. And Gabriel started to move away, thinking to save his son. ‘God bless you, boy,’ said Gabriel. ‘You hurry along now.’ ‘Yeah,’ said Royal, ‘thanks.’ He moved away, about to turn the corner. He looked back at Gabriel. ‘But you be careful, too,’ he said, and smiled. He turned the corner and Gabriel listened as his footfalls moved away. They were swallowed up in silence; he heard no voices raised to cut down Royal as he went his way; soon there was silence everywhere. Not quite two years later Deborah told him that his son was dead. And now John tried to pray. There was a great noise of praying all around him, a great noise of weeping and of song. It was Sister McCandless who led the song, who sang it nearly alone, for the others did not cease to moan and cry. It was a song he had heard all his life: ‘Lord, I’m travelling, Lord, I got on my travelling shoes. ’ Without raising his eyes, he could see her standing in the holy place, pleading the blood over those who sought there, her head thrown back, eyes shut, foot pounding the floor. She did not look, then, like the Sister McCandless who sometimes came to visit them, like the woman who went out every day to work for the white people downtown, who came home at evening, climbing, with such weariness, the long, dark stairs. No: her face was transfigured now, her whole being was made new by the power of her salvation. ‘Salvation is real,’ a voice said to him, ‘God is real. Death may come soon or late, why do you hesitate? Now is the time to seek and serve the Lord.’ Salvation was real for all these others, and it might be real for him. He had only to reach out and God would touch him; he had only to cry and God would hear. All these others, now, who cried so far beyond him with such joy, had once been in their sins, as he was now—and they had cried and God had heard them, and delivered them out of all their troubles.

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

  κατ-ἄπειλέω, strengthd. for ἀπειλέω, κ. ἔπη to use threatening words, Soph. O. C. 6593; ἀκραιφνεῖς τῶν κατηπεϊλημένων by the threats uttered, Ib. 1147 :—Med. to threaten one with, τινά τι Eumath. p. 309. / , κατάπειρα — καταπλακών, κατάπειρα, ἣ, an experiment: k, νόσου an attack, cited from Paul. Aeg. καταπειράξω, to make an attempt on, τήν τινος Ψῆφον Lys. 186. 29; τοὺς τόπους LXX (2 Macc. 13. 18). 2. c. gen. to make trial of, TOV πολεμίων, τῆς πόλεως Polyb. 4. 11, 6., 12. 5. καταπειράομαι, Pass. to be much tr ied, ᾿καταπειραθεὶς ὑπ᾽ ἀρρωστίας Diod. 17. 107. καταπειρασμός, 6, an 2 attempt, attack, Diosc. Ther. 3, Suid. καταπειρᾶτηρία, Ion. -πειρητηρίη, 7, a sounding-line, Hdt. 2.5, and 28 ; catapirates in Lucil. ap. Isid. Etym. 19. 4: cf. βολίς. καταπείρω, fut. -περῶ, to transfix, τινά Heliod. 10. 32, Phalar. 13. 2. Pass. to be driven through one, βέλη Eus. V. Const. 2.9: καταπᾶρεῖσαι (part. aor. 2) τῇ φάρυγγι ἄκανθαι Paul. Aeg. 6. 32. κατάπεισις, ews, 77, persuasion, Hdn. Epimer. 110. καταπελεκάω, to hew with an axe, Schol. Il. 16. 642. καταπελεμίζω, strengthd. for πελεμίζω, Ap. Rh. 2. 92. in tmesi. καταπελμᾶτόομαι, Pass. to be cobbled, clouted, of shoes, LXX (Jos.9.5). καταπελτάζω, fut. ἄσομαι, to overrun with light- armed tr oops (πελτα- oral), καταπελτάσονται τὴν Βοιωτίαν ὅλην Ar. Ach. 160. καταπελτ-ἄφέτης, ov, 6, one who shoots the bolt from a catapult, Philo in Matth. Vett. 82. 13; καταπαλταφέτης C. I. 2360. 29:—the art of working a catapult, Ib. 25. kataméATyS, ov, 6, (prob. from καταπάλλω, indeed it is written κατα- πάλτης in Inscrr., C. 1. 2360. 36, Ussing Inscrr. Att. 57.14) :—a war- engine for throwing bolts, a kind of huge cross-bow, Lat. catapulta, first mentioned by Poets of the Middle Com., when the Maced. power was becoming formidable, Mnesim. Φιλιππ. 1, Timocl. “Hp. 1; κ. ἀφιέναι Arist. Eth. N. 3. 1, 17, cf. Audib. 9, Perizon. Ael. V. H. 6.12, Wess. Diod. 14. 42. 2. also the bolt or shot of a catapult, Hesych. 11. an instrument of torture, Diod. 20. 71, Charito 3.4, Lxx (4 Macc. 8. 12). καταπελτικός, 7 ή, Ov, of or Sor a catapult, βέλος Strab. 330; κ. ὄργανα καὶ βέλη Polyb. 11. 11,3; τὰ x. (sub. ὄργανα) -- καταπέλται, 9. 41, 5: τὸ k. the art of using catapults, Diod. 14. 42. καταπεμπτέος, a, ov, to be sent down, Luc. D. Deor. 5. 4. κατάπεμπτοξ, ov, sent down, Attic. ap. Eus. P.E. 510 A. καταπέμπω, fut. yw, to send down, eis ἔρεβος Hes. Th. 515; esp. from the inland to the sea-coast, Xen. Hell. 5. 1, 30, An. 1. 9. 7. 11. to send from head-quarters, to dispatch, Dem. 162.11; στρατηγὸν κ. τινά as general, Plut. Flam. 15; ἐς ἐπισκοπήν τινος Luc. D. Deor. 20. 6. καταπενθέω, to mourn for, bewail, Anth. P. 7.618, Lxx (Ex. 33. 4). καταπεπαίνω, strengthd. for πεπαίνω, Philo 2. 429, in Pass. καταπεπτηνυῖα, Ep. fem. part. pf. of καταπτήσσω. καταπέπτω, late collat. form of καταπέσσω, Iambl. V. Pyth. 255.

• From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  I know it must have been spring or early fall, because without the protection of a heavy coat, I can still feel the stinging soreness in the flesh of my upper arm. There, where my mother’s sharp fingers had already tried to pinch me into silence. To escape those inexorable fingers I had hurled myself to the floor, roaring with pain as I could see them advancing toward my ears again. We were waiting to pick up my two older sisters from story hour, held upstairs on another floor of the dry-smelling quiet library. My shrieks pierced the reverential stillness. Suddenly, I looked up, and there was a library lady standing over me. My mother’s hands had dropped to her sides. From the floor where I was lying, Mrs. Baker seemed like yet another mile-high woman about to do me in. She had immense, light, hooded eyes and a very quiet voice that said, not damnation for my noise, but “Would you like to hear a story, little girl?” Part of my fury was because I had not been allowed to go to that secret feast called story hour since I was too young, and now here was this strange lady offering me my own story. I didn’t dare to look at my mother, half-afraid she might say no, I was too bad for stories. Still bewildered by this sudden change of events, I climbed up upon the stool which Mrs. Baker pulled over for me, and gave her my full attention. This was a new experience for me and I was insatiably curious. Mrs. Baker read me Madeline , and Horton Hatches the Egg , both of which rhymed and had huge lovely pictures which I could see from behind my newly acquired eyeglasses, fastened around the back of my rambunctious head by a black elastic band running from earpiece to earpiece. She also read me another storybook about a bear named Herbert who ate up an entire family, one by one, starting with the parents. By the time she had finished that one, I was sold on reading for the rest of my life. I took the books from Mrs. Baker’s hands after she was finished reading, and traced the large black letters with my fingers, while I peered again at the beautiful bright colors of the pictures. Right then I decided I was going to find out how to do that myself. I pointed to the black marks which I could now distinguish as separate letters, different from my sisters’ more grown-up books, whose smaller print made the pages only one grey blur for me. I said, quite loudly, for whoever was listening to hear, “I want to read.” My mother’s surprised relief outweighed whatever annoyance she was still feeling at what she called my whelpish carryings-on. From the background where she had been hovering while Mrs. Baker read, my mother moved forward quickly, mollified and impressed. I had spoken.

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

  2. terror, poiBaCw — φοινικοφαύς. Aesch. Supp. 786, Theb. 240, Plat., εἴς. ; so, with a Prep., διὰ φόβον, διὰ τὸν φ. Xen. Hier. 1, 38, Cyr. 3. 1, 243 ἐκ φόβου Soph. O. C. 887; μετὰ φόβων Isocr. 20 Α ; ἄρχειν ξὺν φόβοισι Soph. Ο. T. 585; ὑπὸ τοῦ φ. ἀποθνήσκειν Xen. Cyr. 3.1, 25; post., ἀμφὲ φόβῳ (ν. ἀμφί B. IV. 2): —also in pl., not only in Poets, as Pind. N. 9. 64, Aesch. Theb. 134, Soph. Aj. 531, etc.; but also in Prose; φόβους καὶ δείματα Thuc. 7. 80; πόνους καὶ φ. Plat. Legg. 635 C3 κινδύνους καὶ p. Id. Theact. 173 A. 2. an object of terror, a terror, Soph. O. C. 1652; φόβος ἀκοῦσαι a terror to hear, Hdt. 6, 112:—pl. φόβοι, like Lat. terrores, ἢν φόβους λέγῃ Soph. O. T. 917; πολλῶν φ. προσαγομένων Xen. An. 1525: φοιβάζω, fut. dow, (Φοῖβος) to prophesy, utter prophetic words, absol., Anth. P. 9. 525, 21; c. acc., φ. ὄπα Lyc. 6; μύθους Anth. P. 9. 191. 2. to inspire, πάθος φοιβάζον τοὺς λόγους Longin. 8. 4:— Pass., Heliod. 2. 22. II. --φοιβάωτ, Lyc. 731, 875, 1166. φοιβαίνω, =foreg., Hesych., E. M. φοιβάς, άδος, ἡ, a priestess of Phoebus: generally, an inspired woman, prophetess, Eur. Hec, 827, cf. Timoth, Fr. 1: also as fem. Adj., -- φοιβά- ζουσα, Plut. 2.22 A, 170 A. φοίβασμα, τό, a prophecy, oracle, Manass. Chron. 3521, Theod. Prodr. φοιβαστικός, ή, ov, like inspiration, enthusiastic, Longin, 13. 2; c. gen., φ. χρῆσμων uttering oracles, Plut. Rom. 21. φοιβάστρια, ἡ, a prophetess, Lyc. 1468. φοιβάω, to cleanse, purify, χεῖρας φοιβήσασα μύροις Theocr. 17. 134, cf. Ap. Rh. 2. 302, Call. Lav. Pall. 11. 11. = φοιβάζω 1, Schol. Soph. Aj. 322, Hesych. PoiBeros, a, ov, also os, ov, Eur. Ion 461; Ion. Φοιβήιος, 7, ov (also in Eur. I. A.756 (lyr.), cf. "AxéAAeLos):-—of Phoebus, belonging or sacred to him, Hat. 6. 61, Eur. Phoen. 225, Fr. 859 :-—pecul. fem. Φοιβηίς, (dos, Anth. P. 9. 201, etc. Φοίβη, ἡ, Lat. Phoebé, one of the daughters of Uranus and Gaia, who bore Leto and Asterié to Coius, Hes. Th. 136, 404, Aesch. Eum. 7: acc. to others the mother of Phoebus was so called, v. sub Φοῖβος, Aesch. Eum. 8 ;—and, later, Phoebé is a common epith. of Artemis, Virg. G. I. 341, etc.—Cf. poiBos. φοιβητεύω, 1ο be a φοιβητής, Hesych. φοιβητής, 60, 6, a prophet, Manetho 1. 237, C. 1. 4990, -οὔ. φοιβητός, 7, dv, verb. Adj. inspired, prophesying, Manetho 4. 550. φοιβήτρια, ἡ, Ξε καθάρτρια, a purifier, Hesych.; ἡ ®., of Isis, Ο. 1. 4987. φοιβήτωρ, opos, ὃ, -εφοιβητής, Orph. Lith. 383. Φοιβό-ληπτος, ov, possessed by Phoebus, Lyc. 1460, Plut. Pomp. 48: —Ion. Φοιβότλαμπτος, Hdt. 4. 13. Φοιβο-νομέομαι, Pass. to be ruled by Phoebus, i.e. to be purified, Thes- salian word in Plut. 2. 393 C.

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

  The daughter asked what my area of expertise included, and I replied that my work centered on controversial groups called “cults” and the coercive persuasion techniques they use to gain undue influence. The daughter was surprised, but her parents quickly explained that they had some concerns they wished to address about recent events in her life that appeared to reflect undue influence. I then began to recount specific stories of abusive, controlling relationships. I used as examples the personal accounts of women such as Hedda Nussbaum,1123 Nicole Brown Simpson,1124 and Tina Turner, described in the iconic singer’s book.1125 I explained that highly educated, sophisticated, and often seemingly strong women had been victimized through the use of coercive persuasion in such relationships. We then discussed some basic “warning signs” Hedda Nussbaum had once cited at a college lecture about abusive and controlling relationships.1126 One warning sign might be that the controlling partner pushes the rapid development of the relationship. This may often seem too fast, and long-term plans are being made quickly. We discussed how this warning sign aligned with the daughter’s experience. Her recent relationship had begun as a casual meeting at a resort while on vacation, but it quickly developed and led to dropping out of school, leaving her hometown, and moving in with the boyfriend in another state. All this had occurred in less than sixty days. I asked the daughter if she would agree that her life had changed very rapidly. The daughter nodded but resisted the idea that this might actually be a warning sign of an abusive, controlling relationship. Another point Nussbaum cited was that typically controlling male partners often seem to have a strained relationship with their mothers. This was evident regarding the young man in question. The daughter knew this was true, even though the boyfriend had apparently agreed to spend some time with his mother on vacation. The young man also exhibited another telling characteristic, which was his fervent striving for the daughter’s undivided attention. He also wanted to “be in charge” at all times. These were both warning signs Nussbaum had cited in her lecture. The boyfriend further fit the profile through his highly competitive nature coupled with a constant need to win. The daughter recalled how aggressively the young man played team sports, often bullying young children in games at the resort where they first met. She also admitted that he wouldn’t tolerate criticism and always justified his actions. The boyfriend always blamed someone or something else rather than accept responsibility for his mistakes or failings. Another characteristic that fit the profile we discussed was the boyfriend’s unreasonable jealousy regarding the girl’s friends and family. He demanded her total devotion and complete attention, and when anyone else wanted time with her, he seemed to feel threatened and was likely to become envious or even angry.

• From Notes of a Native Son (1955)

  It transpires by the end of the novel, through one of those energetic, last-minute convolutions of the plot, that Eliza has some connection with French gentility. The figure from whom the novel takes its name, Uncle Tom, who is a figure of controversy yet, is jet-black, wooly-haired, illiterate; and he is phenomenally forbearing. He has to be; he is black; only through this forbearance can he survive or triumph. ( Cf. Faulkner’s preface to The Sound and the Fury : These others were not Compsons. They were black:—They endured.) His triumph is metaphysical, unearthly; since he is black, born without the light, it is only through humility, the incessant mortification of the flesh, that he can enter into communion with God or man. The virtuous rage of Mrs. Stowe is motivated by nothing so temporal as a concern for the relationship of men to one another—or, even, as she would have claimed, by a concern for their relationship to God—but merely by a panic of being hurled into the flames, of being caught in traffic with the devil. She embraced this merciless doctrine with all her heart, bargaining shamelessly before the throne of grace: God and salvation becoming her personal property, purchased with the coin of her virtue. Here, black equates with evil and white with grace; if, being mindful of the necessity of good works, she could not cast out the blacks—a wretched, huddled mass, apparently, claiming, like an obsession, her inner eye—she could not embrace them either without purifying them of sin. She must cover their intimidating nakedness, robe them in white, the garments of salvation; only thus could she herself be delivered from ever-present sin, only thus could she bury, as St. Paul demanded, “the carnal man, the man of the flesh.” Tom, therefore, her only black man, has been robbed of his humanity and divested of his sex. It is the price for that darkness with which he has been branded. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, then, is activated by what might be called a theological terror, the terror of damnation; and the spirit that breathes in this book, hot, self-righteous, fearful, is not different from that spirit of medieval times which sought to exorcize evil by burning witches; and is not different from that terror which activates a lynch mob. One need not, indeed, search for examples so historic or so gaudy; this is a warfare waged daily in the heart, a warfare so vast, so relentless and so powerful that the interracial handshake or the interracial marriage can be as crucifying as the public hanging or the secret rape.

• From Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)

  He was standing at the well in his shirt-sleeves, singing softly to himself—praising God for the dangers he had passed. She came down the porch steps into the yard, and though he heard the soft step, and knew that it was she, it was a moment before he turned round. He expected her to come up to him and ask for his help in something she was doing in the house. When she did not speak, he turned around. She was wearing a light, cotton dress of light-brown and dark-brown squares, and her hair was braided tightly all around her head. She looked like a little girl, and he almost smiled. Then: ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked her; and felt the heart within him sicken. ‘Gabriel,’ she said, ‘I going to have a baby.’ He stared at her; she began to cry. He put the two pails of water carefully on the ground. She put out her hands to reach him, but he moved away. ‘Girl, stop that bellering. What you talking about?’ But, having allowed her tears to begin, she could not stop them at once. She continued to cry, weaving a little where she stood, and with her hands to her face. He looked in panic around the yard and toward the house. ‘Stop that,’ he cried again, not daring here and now to touch her, ‘and tell me what’s the matter!’ ‘I told you,’ she moaned, ‘I done told you. I going to have a baby.’ She looked at him, her face broken up and the hot tears falling. ‘It’s the Lord’s truth. I ain’t making up no story, it’s the Lord’s truth.’ He could not take his eyes from her, though he hated what he saw. ‘And when you done find this out?’ ‘Not so long. I thought maybe I was mistook. But ain’t no mistake. Gabriel, what we going to do?’ Then, as she watched his face, her tears began again. ‘Hush,’ he said, with a calm that astonished him, ‘we going to do something, just you be quiet.’ ‘What we going to do, Gabriel? Tell me—what you a-fixing in your mind to do?’ ‘You go on back in the house. Ain’t no way for us to talk now.’ ‘Gabriel——’ ‘Go on in the house, girl. Go on! ’ And when she did not move, but continued to stare at him: ‘We going to talk about it to-night. We going to get to the bottom of this thing to-night!’ She turned from him and started up the porch steps. ‘And dry your face, ’ he whispered. She bent over, lifting the front of her dress to dry her eyes, and stood so for a moment on the bottom step while he watched her.

• From The City of God

  [579] On this question compare the 24th and 25th epistles of Jerome, de obitu Leae, and de obitu Blesillae filiae. Coquaeus. [580] Ps. xlix. 12. [581] On which see further in de Peccat. Mer. i. 67, et seq. Chapter 4. --Why Death, the Punishment of Sin, is Not Withheld from Those Who by the Grace of Regeneration are Absolved from Sin. If, moreover, any one is solicitous about this point, how, if death be the very punishment of sin, they whose guilt is cancelled by grace do yet suffer death, this difficulty has already been handled and solved in our other work which we have written on the baptism of infants. [582]There it was said that the parting of soul and body was left, though its connection with sin was removed, for this reason, that if the immortality of the body followed immediately upon the sacrament of regeneration, faith itself would be thereby enervated. For faith is then only faith when it waits in hope for what is not yet seen in substance. And by the vigor and conflict of faith, at least in times past, was the fear of death overcome. Specially was this conspicuous in the holy martyrs, who could have had no victory, no glory, to whom there could not even have been any conflict, if, after the layer of regeneration, saints could not suffer bodily death. Who would not, then, in company with the infants presented for baptism, run to the grace of Christ, that so he might not be dismissed from the body? And thus faith would not be tested with an unseen reward; and so would not even be faith, seeking and receiving an immediate recompense of its works. But now, by the greater and more admirable grace of the Saviour, the punishment of sin is turned to the service of righteousness. For then it was proclaimed to man, "If thou sinnest, thou shall die;" now it is said to the martyr, "Die, that thou sin not. "Then it was said, "If ye trangress the commandments, ye shall die;" now it is said, "If ye decline death, ye transgress the commandment. "That which was formerly set as an object of terror, that men might not sin, is now to be undergone if we would not sin. Thus, by the unutterable mercy of God, even the very punishment of wickedness has become the armor of virtue, and the penalty of the sinner becomes the reward of the righteous. For then death was incurred by sinning, now righteousness is fulfilled by dying. In the case of the holy martyrs it is so; for to them the persecutor proposes the alternative, apostasy or death. For the righteous prefer by believing to suffer what the first transgressors suffered by not believing. For unless they had sinned, they would not have died; but the martyrs sin if they do not die. The one died because they sinned, the others do not sin because they die. By the guilt of the first, punishment was incurred; by the punishment of the second, guilt is prevented. Not that death, which was before an evil, has become something good, but only that God has granted to faith this grace, that death, which is the admitted opposite to life, should become the instrument by which life is reached.

• From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  I breathed a sigh of relief as I closed the door behind them. Before they left, they told me that Jim was wanted on a white-slavery charge in Texas, for transporting under-aged girls across state lines for purposes of prostitution. I was so shaken up by this exchange that I woke Gerry up, and he persuaded me to go with him to an air-conditioned movie. It was one of The Branded, Lori, who told me about the many jobs to be had in the factories of Stamford, Connecticut. The idea of leaving New York for a while, with its emotional complications, felt good to me, and the idea of plentiful jobs was particularly appealing. I had decided to leave college, since I couldn’t learn german. I put a combination padlock on the door of my apartment, giving the combination to The Branded, who would soon be returning to college. I packed my few clothes, some of my books and records, took my portable typewriter and moved to Stamford. I had sixty-three dollars in my pocket. I arrived in Stamford on the New Haven local on Thursday afternoon. I went to the Black Community Center whose address I had gotten from a previous visit the week before. From there, I got the address of someone who had a room to rent. I rented the room, which was a shockingly high eight dollars a week, stored my gear, and said goodbye to Martha, who had come up with me to help carry all my portable possessions. The next morning, I got a job at the ribbon factory where Lori had worked during the summer. I was to begin the following Monday morning. My room was very tiny, and I shared the bathroom with two other women who also rented rooms in the private house. There were no cooking facilities, so I sneaked in a hotplate to warm up the cans of soup which became my standard evening meal. That weekend I walked around Stamford, trying to get a feel of the place. I had never lived in a small town before, nor anywhere other than New York. The Liggett’s Drugstore on Atlantic Avenue, the main thoroughfare, did not know what an egg cream was. They also called soda, pop. Walking down Atlantic Avenue to the railroad station and back, across the little bridge over the Rippowam River which separated East from West Main Street and the Black from the white communities, I marveled at the different scale life seemed to move on here. On a Saturday afternoon, the streets seemed strangely uncrowded and unhurried. As I looked into the little dingy stores along the lower end of Atlantic near the station, I wondered why, if they had so much business, they all looked so poor and dull.

• From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  I dared myself to feel any regrets. That night about 8 P.M., I was lying curled tightly on my bed, trying to distract myself from the stabbing pains in my groin by deciding whether or not I wanted to dye my hair coal black. I couldn’t begin to think about the risks I was running. But another piece of me was being amazed at my own daring. I had done it. Even more than my leaving home, this action which was tearing my guts apart and from which I could die except I wasn’t going to—this action was a kind of shift from safety towards self-preservation. It was a choice of pains. That’s what living was all about. I clung to that and tried to feel only proud. I had not given in. I had not been merely the eye on the ceiling until it was too late. They hadn’t gotten me. There was a tap on the alley door, and I looked out the window. My friend Blossom from school had gotten one of our old high school teachers to drive her out to see if I was “okay,” and to bring me a bottle of peach brandy for my birthday. She was one of the people I had consulted, and she had wanted to have nothing to do with an abortion, saying I should have the baby. I didn’t bother to tell her Black babies were not adopted. They were absorbed into families, abandoned, or “given up.” But not adopted. Nonetheless I knew she was worried to have come all the way from Queens to Manhattan and then to Brighton Beach. I was touched. We only talked about inconsequential things. Never a word about what was going on inside of me. Now it was my secret; the only way I could handle it was alone. I sensed they were both grateful that I did. “You sure you’re going to be okay?” Bloss asked. I nodded. Miss Burman suggested we go for a walk along the boardwalk in the crisp February darkness. There was no moon. The walk helped a little, and so did the brandy. But when we got back to my room, I couldn’t concentrate on their conversation any more. I was too distracted by the rage gnawing at my belly. “Do you want us to go?” Bloss asked with her characteristic bluntness. Miss Burman, sympathetic but austere, stood quietly in the doorway looking at my posters. I nodded at Bloss gratefully. Miss Burman lent me five dollars before she left. The rest of the night was an agony of padding back and forth along the length of the hallway from my bedroom to the bathroom, doubled over in pain, watching clots of blood fall out of my body into the toilet and wondering if I was all right, after all.

• From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  In the stall, I was seized with a sudden wave of nausea that bent me double, and I promptly and with great force lost my $2.50-with-tip Coney Island breakfast, which I had never digested. Weakened and shivering, I sat on the stool, my head against the wall. A fit of renewed cramps swept through me so sharply that I moaned softly. Miz Lewis, the Black ladies-room attendant who had known me from the bathrooms of Hunter High School, was in the back of the room in her cubby, and she had seen me come into the otherwise empty washroom. “Is that you, Autray, moaning like that? You all right?” I saw her low-shoed feet stop outside my stall. “Yes ma’am,” I gasped through the door, cursing my luck to have walked into that particular bathroom. “It’s just my period.” I steadied myself, and arranged my clothes. When I finally stepped out, bravely and with my head high, Miz Lewis was still standing outside, her arms folded. She had always maintained a steady but impersonal interest in the lives of the few Black girls at the high school, and she was a familiar face which I was glad to see when I met her in the washroom of the college in the autumn. I told her I was going to the college now, and that I had left home. Miz Lewis had raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips, shaking her grey head. “You girls sure are somethin’!” she’d said. In the uncompromising harshness of the fluorescent lights, Miz Lewis gazed at me intently through her proper gold spectacles, which perched upon her broad brown nose like round antennae. “Girl, you sure you all right? Don’t sound all right to me.” She peered up into my face. “Sit down here a minute. You just started? You white like some other people’s child.” I took her seat, gratefully. “I’m all right, Miz Lewis,” I protested. “I just have bad cramps, that’s all.” “Jus’ cramps? That bad? Then why you come here like that today for? You ought to be home in bed, the way your eyes looking. You want some coffee, honey?” She offered me her cup. “Cause I need the money, Miz Lewis. I’ll be all right; I really will.” I shook my head to the coffee, and stood up. Another cramp slid up from my clenched thighs and rammed into the small of my back, but I only rested my head against the edge of the stalls. Then, taking a paper towel from the stack on the glass shelf in front of me, I wet it and wiped the cold sweat from my forehead. I wiped the rest of my face, and blotted my faded lipstick carefully. I grinned at my reflection in the mirror and at Miz Lewis standing to the side behind me, her arms still folded against her broad short-waisted bosom.

• From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  Mother Josepha, the principal, agreed, and I started school. My first grade teacher was named Sister Mary of Perpetual Help, and she was a disciplinarian of the first order, right after my mother’s own heart. A week after I started school she sent a note home to my mother asking her not to dress me in so many layers of clothing because then I couldn’t feel the strap on my behind when I was punished. Sister Mary of Perpetual Help ran the first grade with an iron hand in the shape of a cross. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen. She was big, and blond, I think, since we never got to see the nuns’ hair in those days. But her eyebrows were blonde, and she was supposed to be totally dedicated, like all the other Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, to caring for the Colored and Indian children of america. Caring for was not always caring about. And it always felt like Sister MPH hated either teaching or little children. She had divided up the class into two groups, the Fairies and the Brownies. In this day of heightened sensitivity to racism and color usage, I don’t have to tell you which were the good students and which were the baddies. I always wound up in the Brownies, because either I talked too much, or I broke my glasses, or I perpetrated some other awful infraction of the endless rules of good behavior. But for two glorious times that year, I made it into the Fairies for brief periods of time. One was put into the Brownies if one misbehaved, or couldn’t learn to read. I had learned to read already, but I couldn’t tell my numbers. Whenever Sister MPH would call a few of us up to the front of the room for our reading lesson, she would say, “All right, children, now turn to page six in your readers.” or, “Turn to page nineteen, please, and begin at the top of the page.” Well, I didn’t know what page to turn to, and I was ashamed of not being able to read my numbers, so when my turn came to read I couldn’t, because I didn’t have the right place. After the prompting of a few words, she would go on to the next reader, and soon I wound up in the Brownies. This was around the second month of school, in October. My new seatmate was Alvin, and he was the worst boy in the whole class.

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

  I asked Larry to tell me about Anja. His manner softened. “I’ve been concerned about Anja for years, just as she’s been concerned about me. We’ve looked out for each other. She was almost the only human being I saw when I was working so hard at school. She would call or she had a key to my hole in the wall and sometimes she would bring over stuff my mom had cooked and put it in the fridge. Her visits meant a lot to me.” “What’s your concern?” “The divorce was hardest on her. Dad didn’t care about her and she knew it. He insulted her or he ignored her. It really affected her self-esteem. When she graduated from high school, she started to get involved with bad guys. She’d come home with a yellow bruise on her face and a rigid posture, so that I knew her ribs were taped and that the guy she lived with had beat her up again.” His tone turned to exasperation. “What can I tell you? For years she lived in a dream world. She’d say, ‘I love Danny, or Joe, or Jim. He has so much potential. If I love him enough, we can get through this.’ She got involved with violent men who were like leeches. She took care of them, supported them, babied them, did everything and they took advantage of her and hit her. She’s a very pretty woman so boyfriends were never a problem. But she didn’t understand that. There were three guys who hit her that I knew about. She was always afraid that she would marry someone like my dad. I was afraid that was exactly what she’d end up doing.” “What do you think this is all about?” “Seeing my dad hit my mom affected her badly. She had nightmares and stomachaches for years after the breakup. Plus she always thought it was her fault that my folks’ marriage was falling apart. She was fourteen before my mom finally sat down with her and explained the divorce and the violence. I’ve really been worried about her getting badly hurt or killed. I’ve gone to get her twice in the emergency room. Each time I told her she needed professional help, not just getting emergency aid. I think that she finally listened. She’s doing better, but it’s taken a lot of years and a lot of beatings.” “It sounds like you were able to help each other.” “That’s true. That’s been one of the good things about our crazy family.

• From Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)

  The sun nearly blinded her, and she heard him whisper behind her: ‘So long, baby. Be good.’ In the streets she did not know what to do. She stood awhile before the dreadful gates, and then she walked and walked until she came to a coffee shop where taxi drivers and the people who worked in nearby offices hurried in and out all day. Usually she was afraid to go into downtown establishments, where only white people were, but to-day she did not care. She felt that if anyone said anything to her she would turn and curse him like the lowest bitch on the streets. If anyone touched her, she would do her best to send his soul to Hell. But no one touched her; no one spoke. She drank her coffee, sitting in the strong sun that fell through the window. Now it came to her how alone, how frightened she was; she had never been so frightened in her life before. She knew that she was pregnant—knew it, as the old folks said, in her bones; and if Richard should be sent away, what, under Heaven, could she do? Two years, three years—she had no idea how long he might be sent away for—what would she do? And how could she keep her aunt from knowing? And if her aunt should find out, then her father would know, too. The tears welled up, and she drank her cold, tasteless coffee. And what would they do with Richard? And if they sent him away, what would he be like, then, when he returned? She looked out into the quiet, sunny streets, and for the first time in her life, she hated it all—the white city, the white world. She could not, that day, think of one decent white person in the whole world. She sat there, and she hoped that one day God, with tortures inconceivable, would grind them utterly into humility, and make them know that black boys and black girls, whom they treated with such condescension, such disdain, and such good humour, had hearts like human beings, too, more human hearts than theirs. But Richard was not sent away. Against the testimony of the three robbers, and her own testimony, and, under oath, the storekeeper’s indecision, there was no evidence on which to convict him. The courtroom seemed to feel, with some complacency and some disappointment, that it was his great good luck to be let off so easily. They went immediately to his room. And there—she was never all her life long to forget it—he threw himself, face downward, on his bed and wept. She had only seen one other man weep before—her father—and it had not been like this. She touched him, but he did not stop. Her own tears fell on his dirty, uncombed hair.

• From The City of God

  375 ›The churches will grow, shrink, be filled with saints, and overflow with sinners. „This raises deep questions about the relationship between exegesis and ontology, between what we are supposed to take history to signify typologically and its actual first-order experience and significance for its inhabitants. Furthermore, there are deep questions for members of the churches here, about whether this leaves the city of God too fugitive in history. „Augustine’s answer to the question of the meaning of history is simple. The Israelite prophets and pagan sages anticipate and prefigure the Christian Gospel by offering hints of and clues to its coming that signify something far beyond their literal significance. So we live in the “now” of the church by understanding that the “then” of the past was always leading to this church, in some way intending it, prefiguring it in partial ways. Prefiguration and Supersession „Prefiguration means that we must learn to see all human actions, including our own, as having their full and complete determination at some point in the indefinite future, so that all our actions now must be undertaken with fear and trembling in the knowledge that they will receive their full and final meaning at a time that we cannot control. „The story of Jonah, the whale, and Nineveh and how Augustine handles it show how prefiguration works. It has at least three distinct layers of meaning for Augustine. Augustine says the earthly city’s day is already over. It goes on, but it lives entirely in the past. Its time is out of joint with the new eon that the Christian churches proclaim and pray to represent. Lecture 18—Translating the Imperium (Book 18)

• From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

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

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

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