Joy

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 Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  the end of traditional family life when God flooded the whole earth in the time of Noah: ‘they ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day when…the flood came and destroyed them all’ (Luke 17.27, echoed in Matt. 24.38–39). [25] In the new end-time set of relationships that Jesus creates around him, we read of a mixture of male and female disciples and apostles, supplemented by a record of two sparky but positive conversational encounters between Jesus and resourceful foreign women, who both made a good account of themselves in the exchanges. [26] Among the disciples and apostles who followed Jesus, the Twelve had to be male, because they represented the male identities of the Twelve Tribes. Others did not bear this symbolism, and the biblical text may contain more females than are at first apparent – for instance, only unthinking assumptions about one important story lead the reader to identify as male both of the disciples who encountered the risen Christ on a road to Emmaus. [27] Among the most important followers were sisters from a village called Bethany, Mary and Martha, along with their brother Lazarus, clearly a particular favourite of Jesus, though Lazarus says nothing recorded in the Gospels. Then there is the stand-out figure of Mary Magdalen; all four Gospels name her as among the first witnesses of the Resurrection. Mary Magdalen’s role is particularly enhanced in John’s dramatic presentation. She meets the risen Jesus alone – first in deep distress mistaking him for a gardener, and then in deep joy, recognizing the reality (John 20.11–18). For this reason, she has often been called ‘Apostle to the Apostles’, for she passes the astonishing news on to the wider disciple-group. In the course of later history, she has undergone almost as many transformations as her familial opposite number, Mary the Mother of the Lord. John the Evangelist is responsible also for the theme that there was one special male disciple whom Jesus ‘loved’. It sits untidily beside the motif recorded in the Synoptics that Jesus sternly rebuked some of the Twelve for seeking a special place in Heaven (Mark 10.35–45; Matt. 20.20–28; Luke 22.24–27). The beloved disciple is never named in John’s Gospel, though it says that he provided its textual content (John 21.24); traditionally the character has been elided into the person of John the Evangelist himself. Other identifications have been suggested, such as Lazarus, but the indications are that the final editor wished the content of his Gospel to be seen as coming from John, son of Zebedee; John was one of the Twelve, and was actually one of those whom the Synoptic Jesus rebuked for seeking special treatment. This language of love and particular favour has inevitably aroused interest in those aware of Graeco-Roman institutions of same-sex relationships. Like the turbulence built into the picture of Mary Magdalen, the resonance passed down the centuries for those inclined to find it (see Plate 19).

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Diligence as a copyist sometimes stood monks in good stead when they came to face the realities of the future world. Of such an one, Ordericus makes mention.1232 This monk had copied with his own hand a bulky volume of Scripture, but he was a man of many moral offences. When the evil spirits laid claim to his soul, the angels produced the holy volume which the monk had transcribed. Every letter was counted and balanced against a sin. At last, it was found the letters had a majority of one. The devils tried to scrape up another sin, but in vain, and the Lord permitted the fortunate monk to return to the body and do proper penance. Copying was sometimes prescribed as a punishment for cloistral offences and the Carthusian rules withheld wine from the monk who was able to copy and would not ply his art. It seems at times to have been a most confining and wearisome task. Lewis, a monk of Wessobrunn in Bavaria, had some of this feeling when he appended to a transcription of Jerome’s commentary on Daniel the following words and claimed the prayers of the reader: — Dum scripsit friguit, et quod cum lumine solis Scribere non potuit, perfecit lumine noctis. "When he wrote he froze, and what he could not complete by the light of day, he finished by the light of the night."1233 The price of books continued to be high till the invention of the printing-press. A count of Anjou paid for a copy of the homilies of Haimo of Halberstadt 200 sheep and a large quantity of provisions. In 1274, a finely written Bible sold for 50 marks, about $l70, when labor cost a shilling a day. Maitland computed that it would take a monk ten months to transcribe the Bible and that the labor would be worth to-day £60 or £70.1234 The prices, however, were often greatly reduced, and Richard of Bury, in his Philobiblion, says that he purchased from the convent of St. Albans 32 volumes for £50. The copyists, like the builders of the cathedrals, usually concealed their names. It was a custom with them to close their task by appending some pious or, at times, some witty sentiment. A line, frequently appended, ran, finito libro, sit laus et gloria Christo. "The book is finished. Praise and honor be to Christ." The joy authors often feel at the completion of their writings was felt by a scribe when he wrote, libro completo, saltat scriptor pede leto. "Now the book is done, the scribe dances with glad foot." Another piously expressed his feelings when he wrote, dentur pro penna scriptori caelica regna. "May the heavenly reward be given to the scribe for his work with the quill."1235 The pleasures of converse with books in the quiet of a library are thus attractively set forth by a mediaeval theologian, left alone in the convent when the other monks had gone off for recreation: —

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints (2023)

  17. Saints and Modernity Benedict XVI. Miracles and the putative saint’s way of life still must be verified, a process that involves doctors, lawyers, archivists, and historians, as well as theologians and cardinals. Pope John Paul II single-handedly canonized or beatified as many holy dead as all his predecessors combined. Under his papacy, canonizations became enormous events, and St. Peter’s Square became an exuberant, joyful sea of proud national groups waving flags and celebrating their saints. Miracles and Modern Science In the face of modern medicine and science, how should we understand, investigate, and even verify miracles? This is a problem the Catholic Church has been grappling with for centuries. Even as early as the 13th century, doctors might be called in to examine the bodies of the holy dead and confirm signs of sanctity. This might take the form of curious anatomical findings, as with Saint Clare of Montefalco. When she died in 1308, a local doctor helped the sisters of her community perform an autopsy. They discovered her heart muscle had altered to form the shape of the instruments of the Passion, and three gallstones represented the Trinity, making her a kind of “living reliquary,” in the words of scholar Cordelia Warr. Other medical experts might be called in to examine the exhumed bodies of saints, who were regularly moved from their initial resting place to a prominent location beneath or near the altar of a church. A common early physical indicator of sanctity was supposed to be the appearance of an “incorrupt body,” or one that was at least partially mummified, with a “sweet odor” instead of the stench of decomposition. 127

• From Soaking Wet: Lesbian Sex Stories (2014)

  Then there it was, her climax, like a shock to both our systems as she shuddered beneath me. After a few moments we came back to earth. She looked up at me, squinting. “Baby, I just have one question,” she said. “I know I got a perfect score, but can we have a wet T-shirt contest next time we go to the beach?” “Of course,” I said, and kissed her. We’d be fools not to. SABRA Lux Zakari I bet I could change your mind, Mrs. B,” Sabra said with a smile as we stood next to each other on the pavement. She continued to hold open the limo door for me, the gold streetlight making her dark skin seem luminescent. The night’s crisp air turned her breath into clouds. I stopped scrambling in my purse for her tip and froze, startled. “Change my mind about what?” I had no idea what she was talking about, but my skin prickled anyway. “Everything.” She purred the words as she urged me back into the limo. For the past few hours she’d been driving me to my meetings, just as she had the last time I’d been in the city. She’d shown up at my door with a cocked hip and a crooked, knowing smile, but had remained professional all evening. Despite that, every glance she shot me in the rearview made my heart pound; no one had ever looked at me with such intensity, such want . I was sure she’d gotten a sneaking suspicion of the sudden, inexplicit dampness between my legs by the way I’d nervously cleared my throat and looked down at my hands, clenched in my lap. Now we were parked across from my hotel on a quiet street, and although her duties were technically considered to be over, she clearly had other things in mind. Sabra closed the limo door behind her and sat down next to me on the leather seat, still wearing that mysterious smile. She pulled off her black chauffeur’s cap, shaking her braids free. Her fingers went to the giant gold buttons on the front of her uniform and she undid them slowly, watching my face for any reaction. When she opened her top, her naked breasts sprung free, presenting her already stiff nipples. I sucked in a gulp of air and tried to will my body to stop shaking. This all was certainly different from the last time she’d driven me to my meetings, which had just been a few months ago, when I was still married and spent the majority of the time in her limo arguing with my ex-husband on my cell phone. She’d remained silent, but I’d seen her knowing smirks in the rearview mirror. At any rate, now it looked like she wanted to take me on a different kind of ride.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Mission accomplished! Dushawn let out a loud groan that echoed through the large empty building. On his last stroke, he tried to plunge his big-ass dick up through the roof of my pussy. I felt like I was ’bout to bust wide open, but I kept ridin’. He moaned and kept grindin’. I threw my ass into overdrive and bounced on the leftovers until I finished my second hard cum. • • • We got dressed in the purple light of night. Just before we climbed out of a secret third-story entrance, Dushawn hugged me tightly and gently devoured my lips and tongue. He gave me one last sweet deep kiss and said, “Let’s bounce.” Holding hands, we left the old abandoned factory where we’d played hide-and-seek as kids, and started walkin’ back to Alameda to where we had parked our cars by Angel’s Doughnuts. We figured it was safe there cuz it’s always some old guys on the patio playin’ dominoes and takin’ bets. As we got closer to Angel’s, the streets got noisier and more crowded than usual because it was Friday night. All the soldiers lined the sidewalks and steps of their apartments, laughin’ and plottin’ capers. Pook and Dre were at the curb slippin’ dimes of Chronic, and a slick song was blastin’ from the windows of a big tan-and-white apartment building on Willowbrook. A couple of young moms were sittin’ out front, bouncin’ their babies to the beat while they kicked it and cut it up. “Hey, gurrrrrrrrrrrl!” It was this bitch named Nakisha. She knew me and Cami from Willowbrook. I could tell she was shocked to see me holdin’ hands with Dushawn. Life had not been kind to her. She was fat as fuck, with a kangaroo pouch in the front and two grocery bags of ass in the back. “Camille never told me you and her brother was kickin’ it.” “Did I miss something? When did you and Cami start kickin’ it? We talk er’ night and she never mentioned yo ass.” I shut that shit straight down, but I knew I’d have to talk to Cami right away. Dushawn never said a word, but he never let go of my hand either. A little further down, somebody was fryin’ the hell out of some chicken. It was smellin’ up the whole block. TVs were flickering through every other window. Dushawn was quiet and I was pretty quiet my damn self. My pussy was still clenching and throbbin’ from being broke off proper. I thought about Camille. I wondered how she’d act when I told her about me and Dushawn. She used to haaate the bitches that tried to get to Dushawn by tryin’ to strike up a fake-ass friendship with her. I knew I had to tell her before Nakisha blurted it out just to see the look on her face. You know how foul bitches do it. • • •

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints (2023)

  18. Joan of Arc: Peasant-General The next day, in defiance of their plans, Joan attacked the most important of the English fortifications, known as Les Tourelles, which controlled access to the main gate of the city. With this critical victory, they liberated all of Orléans. Within days, the news was all over Europe. Joan had fulfilled the first of her divine missions; it remained only to see Charles crowned in Reims, more than 150 miles away. The main army departed Gien on June 29, and letters flew thick and fast as Joan commanded cities in their path to open their gates, provide supplies, and acknowledge their king properly. The city of Troyes offered some challenge but surrendered on July 10. After Troyes, cities began to readily open their gates to the king’s forces, and they made rapid progress. Charles entered Reims on July 16, 1429, and was crowned the next day. His coronation was the peak of Joan’s career, as she stood at his side during the long day of ceremony. After the nobles had done homage to him, she knelt before the new king and wept. Joan proved herself fearless and repeatedly put herself into the thick of the action, though she personally refused to shed blood. It was taken as a further sign of her holy status. Joan’s Capture and Trials Having fulfilled her two divine missions, Joan now embarked on a more aggressive goal: to expel the English entirely from French soil. But Charles organized a truce with Burgundy. Joan was unhappy. She was also furious when Charles deferred besieging Paris until September, then called it off after only a few days. He disbanded the army at the end of the month. It was a long and frustrating winter for Joan, detailed to attack a regional bandit but prevented from engaging with the English. The following spring, she was given only a small number of men to harass the Anglo- Burgundian forces north of Paris. She managed several small victories, but 138

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  So I resolved to make the best of the opportunity and humour her inclination, and do all in my power to gratify her in her own way, trusting that on some more propitious occasion I might obtain my wishes in their fullest extent. Ascertaining, therefore, that there was no one in sight and that we were in such a position as to be able to command a view all round of some considerable distance so that no one could approach us without being observed, I said that all I desired was to contribute to her happiness, and that I only wanted to know in what manner that could be best done, and that I was quite ready to use every exertion in my power to effect it; that if she had any curiosity about her new acquaintance, I was quite prepared to do anything I could to gratify her. She said she was curious about it, and would be delighted to have a better view of it and see what it could do. I immediately unbuttoned my braces and let down my trousers and tucked up my shirt under my waistcoat, then, bringing my leg over the horse so as to sit on one side in her own fashion, exposed everything to her view. She seemed perfectly enchanted as she took hold of and played with the ivory column and uncovered its ruby head and explored the secrets of the pendant receptacles of the liquid of life. She seemed to be fully aware of the effect of her soft hand moving up and down upon the object of her worship, and she watched with eagerness the consequences her operation produced. I did not attempt to conceal my emotions from her in the least, and gave myself up to the voluptuous sensations which her proceedings could not fail to occasion, till they attained such a height that a full overflow of the precious liquid, spouting from the overexcited tube, fairly attested the effect produced upon me. She gazed upon the charming sight with evident delight, and dwelt upon every excited motion I made, endeavouring by every means in her power to heighten and increase my enjoyment. When I had in some measure recovered from the pleasure-trance, I threw my arms around her and thanked her for all the pleasure she had afforded me and said it was not fair that I should enjoy all the delight, and I trusted she would allow me to repeat upon her the lesson she had thus practised on me. She said at once that she would not get off the horse, but that if it would afford me any pleasure she was quite willing that I should do anything I liked with her in that position. I saw it was no use to attempt more, so I resolved to make the most of my situation.

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  When I had recovered a little from my transports, still retaining my place, I thought it was time to endeavour to appease her indignation which I feared might have been aroused at the trap I had evidently laid for her. But I soon found I had no occasion to be alarmed on this subject. She had no hesitation in admitting that, though she had so long resisted my entrance, it had only been from the fear of the consequences and she had all along been as anxious as I was for the crowning pleasure from the first moment when she had viewed the potent charms of my pleasure-giver, and she had been as much disappointed and annoyed at the unsatisfactory manner in which our intercourse had hitherto been conducted; and she even went on to say that whatever the consequences might be to her, she was rejoiced I had had the courage to make her break through the restraint she had imposed on herself. Accordingly, when I asked her whether her new acquaintance had not justified, by the result he had produced, all that I had predicted as the consequences of his being admitted into his present delicious quarter, she frankly confessed that though she at first had suffered dreadfully from the tearing open of her interior, the final close had much more than gratified all her expectation and had fully made up for all she had endured. And she added that she never would have forgiven me, if I had yielded to her entreaties and left the performance unfinished. "But now," said she, "that this little darling has done his duty so well, do get up and take a look about, in case anyone should stray in this direction. I don't want to part with you so soon, but it would never do for anyone to come in and catch us in this situation." "No, no, dearest," I replied, "you only half enjoyed yourself the last time, and I am afraid if I were to withdraw this little gentleman I might have to give you more pain in replacing him, and as I want you thoroughly to enter into all the blissful sensations of this occasion, you must let him remain where he is." "What," said she, "do you mean to say he can do it again? Oh! That would be delicious! But I am so frightened for anyone coming." "Well, dearest, just keep your arms round me, and I shall raise you up till we can take a look about us." And clasping her round the waist so as to keep us still firmly united by the pleasantest of all links, I raised her up to a position from which we could command a view all round us, and thus satisfy ourselves that all was safe.

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  Upon me the effect was most delicious. To find myself lying there stark naked before a lovely girl and undergoing the delightful touches with which she covered every part of my person as she explored my most secret charms, and at the same time to gaze on all her splendid beauties which were as freely exposed before me, was bliss indeed which roused me to the highest pitch of excitement, and again I repaid her in the most delicious manner for all the pleasing sensations her charming researches had excited in me. After this we lay for some time in each other's arms luxuriating in the blissful feelings caused by our complete conjunction, till morning beginning to appear, I suggested that she should endeavour to obtain a little repose to prevent the fatigues of the night exhibiting their traces upon her too obviously the next day. Not yet satisfied, however, she laid her hand on the weapon of love, as if to ascertain whether it was yet capable of again conferring upon her the bliss she desired. Quite understanding and appreciating her object, I soon satisfied her in the most practical manner that his powers were by no means wholly exhausted, and having achieved another victory over our raging desires, we at length fell asleep locked in each other's arms.

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  It was not long before I discovered that this invasion of her inmost recesses occasioned Laura the greatest delight. She seemed at first to hesitate a little, but summing up courage she took hold of my hand and, inserting my fingers within the warmly moist cavity, made me move it up and down within her. At the same time she grasped my weapon and rubbed it backwards and forwards more rapidly and more forcibly than she had ever done before. I felt greatly excited and continued the titillating movements of my finger within her with the greatest zest, until I saw her stretch her legs out and sink backwards on the bed sobbing violently, while with quick hurried movements of her buttocks she responded to every thrust I made in her inflamed interior. These violent motions only lasted a few seconds, and then I felt something wet apparently issue from her, trickle over my fingers and down her thighs. She still retained her grasp of my machine, which I felt throbbing and burning more fiercely than ever and giving me more pleasure than I had ever previously experience, though in her crisis of delight she had ceased to operate upon it. I now begged of her not to stop, but to continue her employment which afforded me so much delight. Suspecting what was indeed the case, that the sight of her charms and of the enjoyment she had undergone had stirred me up to an unwonted pitch of desire which might perhaps be attended with a happy result, she good-naturedly resumed her efforts, and every succeeding movement of her hand upon the throbbing and inflamed member evidently added intensely to the flame that consumed me. She persevered until she had produced the desired result, and I saw a drop or two of white liquid burst from the inflamed point, while at the same time a most delicious sensation pushed through the part affected and from thence seemed to thrill through my whole frame, as overcome with the exquisite delight. I fell back upon the bed, she kissing me tenderly and congratulating me on having at length attained the powers of a man; then she left me to my repose.

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  Her very struggles, caused partly by pain and partly by apprehension, as she endeavoured to rise up, only aided me in effecting my purpose, and after a short contest, I had the satisfaction and delight of feeling the resistance which her virgin obstacles had offered to my progress entirely give way, and my victorious champion had penetrated her inmost secret recesses in such an effectual manner as to produce the most delicious conjunction of the most sensitive parts of our bodies that can possibly be conceived. The effect upon her, however, was not so immediately delightful as it was upon me. The pain occasioned by the last few thrusts by which I had completed the achievement had been so severe as to make her abandon her resistance, and when it suddenly ceased, on my weapon obtaining complete entrance, she sank back on the couch as if exhausted. I followed her example and sank down upon her, pressing her more closely in my arms, and being now relieved from the necessity of using force, I regulated the movements of my victorious champion so as to try to avoid as far as possible giving her any further pain, and endeavoured to replace it with more delightful sensations. But with the removal of the pain her apprehensions revived, and she again entreated me to let her rise. Her request, however, now came too late—even had I been disposed to comply with it, which I certainly was not, the excited state into which she had worked herself previous to my appearing on the scene had produced such an effect upon her frame that very few up-and-down movements of my pleasure-giver within the now thoroughly opened up premises were quite sufficient to remove all traces of the pain and to produce the consummation he was labouring to effect and was so eager to join in. Before she had time to repeat her request and even before I was quite prepared to respond to the tide of joy, her head again sank back and she exclaimed, "Oh! Oh! Delicious, oh! Dearest, oh! I can bear it no longer." Her ecstatic movements, while in the act of enjoyment, were all that was required to make me join in her delight, and pouring forth a torrent of bliss I sank motionless on her breast enjoying a happiness that may be conceived but cannot possibly be described.

• From Austerlitz (2001)

  summer’s day years later, and passed a house with all its windows thrown open, I felt an extraordinary sense of being carried away and out of myself. It was only a few days ago that, thinking over that experience of liberation, I remembered how one of the two windows of my bedroom was walled up on the inside while it remained unchanged on the outside, a circumstance which, as one is never both outside and inside a house at the same time, I did not register until I was thirteen or fourteen, although it must have been troubling me throughout my childhood in Bala. The manse was always freezing, Austerlitz continued, not just in winter, when the only fire was often in the kitchen stove and the stone floor in the hallway was frequently covered with hoarfrost, but in autumn too, and well into spring and the infallibly wet summers. And just as cold reigned in the house in Bala, so did silence. The minister’s wife was always busy with her housework, dusting, mopping the tiled floor, doing the laundry, polishing the brass door fittings and preparing the meager meals which we usually ate without a word. Sometimes she merely walked round the house making sure that everything was in its proper place, from which she would never allow it to be moved. I once found her sitting on a chair in one of the half-empty rooms upstairs, with tears in her eyes and a crumpled wet handkerchief in her hand. When she saw me standing in the doorway she rose and said it was nothing, she had only caught a cold, and as she went out she ran her fingers through my hair, the one time, as far as I remember, she ever did such a thing. Meanwhile it was the minister’s unalterable custom to sit in his study, which had a view of a dark corner of the garden, thinking about next Sunday’s sermon. He never wrote any of these sermons down, but worked them out in his head, toiling over them for at least four days. He would always emerge from his study in the evening in a state of deep despondency, only to disappear into it again next morning. But on Sunday, when he stood up in chapel in front of his congregation and often addressed them for a full hour, he was a changed man; he spoke with a moving eloquence which I still feel I can hear, conjuring up before the eyes of his flock the Last Judgment awaiting them all, the lurid fires of purgatory, the torments of damnation and then, with the most wonderful stellar and celestial imagery, the entry of the righteous into eternal bliss. With apparent ease, as if he were making up the most appalling horrors as he went along, he always succeeded in filling the hearts of his congregation with such sentiments of remorse that at the end of the service quite a number of them went home looking white as a sheet. The minister himself, on the other hand, was in a comparatively jovial mood for the rest of Sunday. At midday dinner, which always began with tapioca soup, he would make a few informative and semi-jocular remarks to his wife, who was exhausted from cooking the meal, inquired after my welfare, generally by

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Watching me, Kianna got on all fours and crawled along the floor until she was between my legs. She inhaled Monster, taking long, slow, sloppy drags along the length of my shaft, making him swell to his full length and width. It was heavenly. I allowed her to suck it for about five minutes, all the while staring at her huge ass as her head bounced up and down on me. “You know what,” I began. “I need to hit that.” Loudly slurping her drool off my dick, she pulled Monster out of her mouth, then looked at me mischievously. “You wanna hit this?” “Yea, I think I wanna hit it. You gonna charge me more?” “No,” she answered, spinning on her knees and crawling to the middle of the floor. On all fours, she laid her head on the carpet and reached back, spreading her ample ass with both hands. Her perfectly round ass and open wet slit beckoned me to tap her. “You can have it. You don’t have to give me more money. You’re an ass man. So you probably want it like this.” “Oh, got-damn,” I sighed. “Hold up, baby. Keep it right there. Let . . . me . . . go get a condom . . .” • • • After doing the nasty, I took my new friend back to where I found her on Gilbert Avenue. “My car is parked over at Kroger. Would you drop me off there?” Kianna asked. “No problem,” I said as I drove up Gilbert the additional block and dropped her off at her car in the Kroger parking lot. Kianna got out of my car and then hesitated, leaning down and sticking her head back into the vehicle. “Save this number in your phone . . . 241–0813.” Pulling out the cell, I dutifully saved the number she recited. “What’s up?” I asked. “That’s my mama’s number. Call me sometime,” she said as I cocked my head and raised my left eyebrow. “Not to fuck . . . I mean . . . we can fuck . . . but on a . . . personal . . . tip . . . not . . . professional. Call me if you wanna kick it. Or if you just want to chill. I can cook dinner and we could watch movies. I get bored and lonely sometimes sitting at the house watching Mama all day.” “Oh . . . so . . . now . . . it’s like that!” I remarked sarcastically, grinning from ear to ear. “Yea . . . now . . . it’s like that!” Kianna replied, imitating me, smiling even broader. • • •

• From Saint Augustine (Penguin Lives) (1999)

  We have only one letter from this correspondent, Maximus, with Augustine’s answer to it, but references in the letters indicate that there was correspondence preceding them, and (probably) following. The tone is one of joshing familiarity on both sides. Maximus asks Augustine not to dazzle him with his customary rhetoric, but to argue seriously: Eager as ever for the joy of hearing from you—for the energy of your words that recently gave me, in all charity, a pleasant pommeling—I am not loath to answer in kind (L 16). Augustine pretends that Maximus must be joking if he thinks that lascivious pagan gods are more admirable than men who died for their faith: Are we engaged in something serious here, or is it time to tell jokes? I cannot judge, from the tone of your letter, whether you prefer wit to pertinency because your arguments are weak or because you are, as usual, so affable. (L 17) Hasn’t Maximus noticed where he lives? How can you forget who you are, an African addressing Africans (we are both in Africa, you know), that you find Phoenician names so despicable? Since Augustine lumped the Berber and Phoenician languages together, he thought his mother’s name was Phoenician—like Dido’s. His own love of his country comes out in this rebuke to Maximus: If the Phoenician language offends you, and you deny (what the most learned admit) that much wisdom survives in Phoenician documents, then you must be ashamed of your birthplace, the cradle of that language. Augustine calls Maximus his elder. Was he a teacher or just an originally revered mentor? He was, at any rate, in a position to say that Augustine was of his religious party (secta). We can gauge from that the depth of Augustine’s seduction by pagan literature, and understand better his later denunciation of those who exposed him to it. He knew what power the pagan poets had—they had, for a while, made him a pagan. Attended only by his pedagogue in Madauros, Augustine was able to get his way, telling lies to pedagogue, teacher, and parents to avoid school and slip off to games in the amphitheater (T 1.30). When he was forced to attend school, he hated the flogging system upheld by parents and universal custom. Despite the lash, he refused to learn Greek—not because he could not, but because he would not learn it this way. He had learned Latin quickly because his “heart was laboring to express itself,” but with Greek his “unfettered inquisitiveness” was checked by “intimidating assignments” (T 1.23). Later he dutifully repented his stubbornness, but his schoolfellows probably admired his proud resistance despite repeated floggings. The lack of Greek severely limited him in later days—though even this he managed to turn into a partial advantage. His deep originality comes in part from his lack of dependence on other traditions. 3. Thagaste: 370–371

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  Another scene of delicious toying succeeded. The darling objects which had already given us so much delight were again investigated and admired, and each new proof of the bliss they were capable of conferring upon us only made us more eager to offer up our worship to them. Another delicious combat succeeded. Sir Charles this time took the combat-position, and I again received his member within me. But my concern being now well saturated with the blissful libations that had been already poured into it, the monster slipped into me this time with very little difficulty. Frank, on the other hand, was delighted as well as surprised to discover that he had no easy task to force his way into the agreeable fortress he was about to storm in Sir Charles' rear. But the difficulty only enhanced the pleasure when the breach was fairly made, and the invader revelled in full and undisputed possession of the interior works. And if I might judge from the exclamations of delight, they both enjoyed themselves to their hearts' content when they had once gained admission to their respective destinations. So much so that after they had run one course they gave no signs of wishing to change their positions. I put my hand behind to ascertain the state of matters, and found both the heroes still in such an excited condition that I said if they were disposed to break another lance in the same lists I was quite willing to keep my place, provided Sir Charles would take my charger in hand and lead him on to participate in the pleasing conflict. This proposal was highly approved of and at once carried into effect, to the entire satisfaction of all parties. After this I made Sir Charles leave us, not wishing that we should be entirely worked out as I was quite aware poor Laura would be in a sad state if she found that we were unable to do anything in the way of appeasing her longings after the excitement she must have undergone while witnessing our voluptuous proceedings. As soon as he was gone, Laura made her appearance and scolded us heartily for having wasted so much of our precious strength and enjoyed ourselves so completely without her. But as we each contrived to give her pretty satisfactory proof that we had not spent all our treasures, we soon put her in a good humour again; especially as Sir Charles was to leave on the next day, when she would have us all to herself again.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  I made it back to my desk, and sank into my chair with a pleased look plastered across my face. Even Carol noticed it when she looked at me and said, “Damn, Ayeesha, that must have been some break. You looking like a whole new woman.” I smiled and thought, If she only knew. • • • After work, I rode east with Raheem in his new 2007 S-Class, gleaming black Benz. He had his hand up my skirt finger-popping me as he did eighty miles an hour on the Long Island Expressway as we headed to his ten-acre ranch in Riverhead, Long Island. And of course I sucked his dick in the car for a good twenty minutes! We got there around eight that evening, and I was in awe. His crib was all that. I stepped out of the car amazed. He showed me around, which took damn near an hour, but when we walked out the back of the house and into a barn, my mouth dropped open. It was the same barn I’d been seeing in my dreams! “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Nothing. Nothing at all,” I said, staring at his big black horses. “It’s just funny, because I feel like I’ve seen this place before,” I marveled. “You hungry?” he asked. We ended up having dinner, drinking champagne and having some real good conversation. He introduced me to his butler, Henry, who had been taking care of Raheem since he was in diapers. But the exciting news came when Raheem told me that he’d made up his mind to let my agency handle his account. That would bring a lot of money into the office, and he admitted that he was giving his business to my agency all because of me. He also said that he was going to give Mr. Robinson some really good reports about me, and I was thrilled because his word could help me get a promotion. Around ten that night I found myself in the barn with Raheem, fucking him once again. He had me bent over one of the stable doors, my skirt pulled up, panties on the ground, as he did to me what he did best. Moments later, we were butt naked in the hay wilding the fuck out. I was in the missionary position, legs straddled around him, and screaming at the top of my lungs. He did me justice that night! It seemed like every time we fucked, it just got better and better. It was so good that I passed out nestled against Raheem in the hay, and we slept butt-naked in each other’s arms the whole night.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  ii Professor Johnson is married to Joy Randazzo. They share 7 children, 13 grandchildren, and 6 great-grandchildren. Professor Johnson’s other Great Courses are The Apostle Paul; Early Christianity: The Experience of the Divine; Great World Religions: Christianity (2 nd edition); Jesus and the Gospels; Practical Philosophy: The Greco-Roman Moralists; The Story of the Bible; and Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. ■ iii Table of Contents Professor Biography ............................................................................i Course Scope .....................................................................................1 INTRODUCTION LECTURE GUIDES LECTURE 1 The Historical Study of Christianity.....................................................3 LECTURE 2 The First Cultural Context—Greece and Rome ................................10 LECTURE 3 The First Cultural Context—Judaism ................................................17 LECTURE 4 The Jesus Movement and the Birth of Christianity ...........................25 LECTURE 5 Paul and Christianity’s First Expansion ............................................32 LECTURE 6 The Diversity of Early Christianity.....................................................39 LECTURE 7 The Unpopular Cult—Persecution ....................................................47 LECTURE 8 Forms of Witness—Martyrdom and Apologetic ................................54 LECTURE 9 Extreme Christianity in the 2 nd and 3rd Centuries ..............................61 LECTURE 10 The Shaping of Orthodoxy................................................................68 Table of Contents iv LECTURE 11 Institutional Development before Constantine ..................................75 LECTURE 12 The Beginnings of Christian Philosophy ...........................................83 LECTURE 13 Imperial Politics and Religion ...........................................................90 LECTURE 14 Constantine and the Established Church .........................................97 LECTURE 15 The Extension of Christian Culture .................................................105 LECTURE 16 Monasticism as Radical Christianity ...............................................113 LECTURE 17 The Emergence of Patriarchal Centers ..........................................120 LECTURE 18 Theological Crisis and Council—The Trinity ................................... 127 LECTURE 19 Theological Crisis and Council—Christology ..................................135 LECTURE 20 The Distinctive Issues of the Latin West .........................................143 LECTURE 21 Expansion beyond the Boundaries of Empire ................................150 LECTURE 22 The Court of Justinian and Byzantine Christianity ..........................157 LECTURE 23 The Rise of Islam and the Threat of Iconoclasm ............................165 Table of Contents v LECTURE 24 Eastern Orthodoxy—Holy Tradition ................................................173 LECTURE 25 From Roman Empire to Holy Roman Empire .................................181 LECTURE 26 Benedictine Monasticism and Its Influence ....................................188 LECTURE 27 Evangelization of Western Europe .................................................195 LECTURE 28 The Great Divorce between East and West ...................................202 LECTURE 29 Monastic Reform ............................................................................209 LECTURE 30 Cathedrals and Chapters................................................................216 LECTURE 31 The Crusades .................................................................................223 LECTURE 32 Papal Revolution ............................................................................230 LECTURE 33 Universities and Theology ..............................................................237 LECTURE 34 The Great Plague ...........................................................................244 LECTURE 35 Corruption and the Beginnings of Reform ......................................251 LECTURE 36 The Ever-Adapting Religion............................................................258 Table of Contents vi SUPPLEmENTaL maTERIaL Bibliography ....................................................................................265

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  I contrived to give Laura a hint before dinner that all was right and that she would get the details at night. She was so delighted with this that the distance and hauteur with which she had lately treated Sir Charles were greatly removed, and he on his part, animated by the scene which had just taken place and his victory, as he thought, over my virgin charms, was more lively and bolder than usual. So that by the end of the evening they were on a better and more familiar footing than they had even been before. When the ladies retired to bed, Sir Charles again urged me to go to his room. I still refused, but at last I suggested that perhaps he might come to me early the next morning, as this would be less liable to suspicion, for if anyone saw him we might go out immediately together, when it would be supposed he had only come for the purpose of calling me, while if he was not observed, he might remain for a time with me. Of course, that night I explained to Laura and Frank all that had passed, and we contrived to make two apertures in the partition wall of the closet between Frank's room and mine, from which they would have an uninterrupted view of the scene of operations. The next morning I heard Sir Charles open my door, but I lay quiet as if still asleep. I was conscious that he fastened the door and then came round to the side of the bed where I was lying. He removed the bedclothes, raised up my nightshirt, and remained for some minutes contemplating me. Of course, the principal object of his worship was my virile member which, as was usual at that period of my life, always held up its head proudly erect when I awoke in the morning. I heard him undress himself and get into bed, and then kneeling down by my side, after kissing and caressing my organ of pleasure, he took the point of it into his mouth and commenced sucking it and moving it backwards and forwards between his lips. I opened my eyes, as if just awakened, and beheld him kneeling beside me perfectly naked with his tremendous member standing stiff and erect. He immediately made me take off my shirt, and employed himself for a time in examining me all over and caressing all my charms. During this time I also made a more minute inspection of my acquaintance of the preceding evening, and I was even more than ever astonished at its proportions, and at how I had managed ever to get it within my narrow aperture as far as it had been.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Margarita Nikolaevna dropped on to the chair in front of the hall mirror and burst out laughing. ‘Natasha! You ought to be ashamed,’ Margarita Nikolaevna said, ‘you, a literate, intelligent girl . . . they tell devil knows what lies in the queues, and you go repeating them!’ Natasha flushed deeply and objected with great ardour that, no, they weren’t lying, and that she herself had personally seen today, in a grocer’s on the Arbat, one woman who came into the shop wearing shoes, but as she was paying at the cash register, the shoes disappeared from her feet, and she was left in just her stockings. Eyes popping out, and a hole in her heel! And the shoes were magic ones from that same séance. ‘And she left like that?’ ‘And she left like that!’ Natasha cried, blushing still more from not being believed. ‘And yesterday, Margarita Nikolaevna, the police arrested around a hundred people in the evening. Women from this séance were running down Tverskaya in nothing but their bloomers.’ ‘Well, of course, it’s Darya who told you that,’ said Margarita Nikolaevna. ‘I noticed long ago that she’s a terrible liar.’ The funny conversation ended with a pleasant surprise for Natasha. Margarita Nikolaevna went to the bedroom and came back holding a pair of stockings and a flacon of eau-de-cologne. Telling Natasha that she, too, wanted to perform a trick, Margarita Nikolaevna gave her both the stockings and the bottle, and said her only request was that she not run around on Tverskaya in nothing but stockings and that she not listen to Darya. Having kissed each other, mistress and housemaid parted. Leaning against the comfortable soft back of the trolley-bus seat, Margarita Nikolaevna rode down the Arbat, now thinking her own thoughts, now listening to the whispers of two citizens sitting in front of her. They were exchanging whispers about some nonsense, looking around warily from time to time to make sure no one was listening. The hefty, beefy one with pert, piggish eyes, sitting by the window, was quietly telling his small neighbour that the coffin had to be covered with a black cloth . . . ‘It can’t be!’ the small one whispered, amazed. ‘This is something unheard-of! . . . And what has Zheldybin done?’ Amidst the steady humming of the trolley-bus, words came from the window: ‘Criminal investigation . . . scandal . . . well, outright mysticism! . . .’ From these fragmentary scraps, Margarita Nikolaevna somehow put together something coherent. The citizens were whispering about some dead person (they did not name him) whose head had been stolen from the coffin that morning . . . This was the reason why Zheldybin was now so worried. And the two who were whispering on the trolley-bus also had some connection with the robbed dead man. ‘Will we have time to stop for flowers?’ the small one worried. ‘The cremation is at two, you say?’

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  It was some time before Laura came to herself, but when she did she was delighted to find that we still retained our respective positions within her. On my inquiring whether they felt disposed for a renewal of the combat in a similar manner, they both declared with the most impassioned caresses that nothing would give them greater delight. Telling Frank that as the entrance to both fortresses was now well lubricated, we might venture to carry on the warfare more boldly without the risk of doing any damage. I desired him to keep time with me and thrust his weapon as far in and out as he could at each heave, first alternately with me and then on a given signal both together. At the same time I advised Laura to remain quiet and try what would be the effect of our efforts. The result far surpassed her expectations. When, after heaving alternately for some little time, I gave Frank the signal and we made a simultaneous thrust together, burying both our weapons as far as they would go within the soft yielding flesh, she exclaimed, "Oh, this is exquisite, it could not possibly be more heavenly." We continued this mode of action for some time, alternately changing from one variety to another, while she responded merely by twisting and wriggling her buttocks, and in turn compressing and squeezing the darling object before or behind, which for the moment affected her senses the more powerfully. Gradually, however, she became too much animated to adhere to any settled plan, and she could not refrain from meeting and returning our lusty efforts to promote her enjoyment. This only animated us to fresh exertions in which we were so successful that we were soon rewarded by as overpowering an overflow of bliss as before. As soon as it was over, she insisted on laying us both out at full length on the bed quite naked, bringing our organs of pleasure so close together that she could caress them at the same time, and placing herself upon us so that her mouth came in contact with them. In this position she remained for a long time—kissing, caressing, and sucking the instruments of delight and thanking us in the warmest manner for the excessive joy we had given her until her luscious caresses, exciting us almost to madness, forced us again to allay the irritation produced on our burning weapons by again bringing them into her delightful sheaths.