Pride

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)

  Woman’s Work for Woman was the title of the monthly magazine of the main US Presbyterian missionary organization from the 1870s; it stood as a programme for the whole movement, which broadened in its self-understanding and aims as the work expanded, away from simple evangelism towards medical skills, childcare, education and a broadening concept of women’s rights. The overwhelming majority of female missionaries through the period were single, and so not constrained by families in patriarchal mode: they could justifiably claim to be more free than men to listen to the experiences of those women to whom they sought to minister, and they had the capacity to acquire multiple skills after appropriate training that formed them into as much of a profession as the male clergyman. All this was so successful that after the 1920s a half-century of separate female leadership was subsumed in mixed missionary societies. In one sense that was a statement of equality between the sexes, but it was also an end to the separate female world of control and initiative which possessed its own distinctive agenda. [47] Nevertheless, by that time, female missionary efforts had created institutions that carved out a permanent place for women to co- operate and express themselves in ways that cut across male institutions. The Mothers’ Union, one of the most large-scale and effective, was created for Anglicans in 1876 by Mary Sumner, the wife of an Anglican bishop. Notably it was one of the very few voluntary organizations in the Anglican Communion not to take on the colours of one theological ‘party’. Its ideology of motherhood and family sounds conservative (Queen Victoria graciously agreed to be its patron in 1897), but in fact such assumptions sheltered a remarkable degree of flexibility and freedom of thought, rather as the profession of papal loyalty had done for the old Society of Jesus. The leadership was female and international; discussions among members led some of them to become among the earliest Anglican advocates of the ordination of women. [48] In some circumstances, the Mothers’ Union might wield formidable social power, such as the occasion in 1953 when the British Governor of Uganda was startled to receive an angry delegation from distinguished members of the colony’s MU after he exiled the Kabaka (King) of Buganda for political reasons. They denounced his action as a threat to all Christian marriage in the Kingdom of Buganda, since the Kabaka’s coronation was a marriage to the Kingdom, sealed by the bestowing of a ring by the Anglican Bishop. [49] This was a directly Christian intervention in Ugandan politics, but, over the previous century and a half, the self-assertion of women in Western society had a wider effect in the cultures to which the missionaries travelled. In India, the rhetoric and intentions of the Deobandi movement (and other revivalist moves in Islam) were emphatically conservative and in opposition to ‘Western’ institutions of the British Raj, but their effectiveness involved a necessary adjustment in their own approach to the Muslim faithful. In defence against Western encroachment, they gave women an unprecedented degree of agency. To begin with, it was expressed in a literature of men writing for women, but that was in itself a novelty, reaching out to an audience now broadly assumed to be literate or wishing to be, and to have a rational grasp of how to make the most of women’s admittedly highly bounded place in society. In the twentieth century, such hitherto unexpressed thoughts went on to be the basis of an Islamic feminism. [50] POLYGAMIES

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

  I was a predator on two legs. The worst kind, if you asked my opinion. I preyed on the insecurities of women and bent them to my will. I didn’t do it out of malice, or because I liked hurting people. It was more of an addiction than anything else. It was my drug of choice, so to speak. I got high from the hunt and the conquest of women. Chandra opened her mouth to say something, but I silenced her with my tongue. Her breath was sweet, with just a hint of the wine she had been sipping as she prepared herself for the sinful act she was about to commit. I inhaled deeply, as if I could share in the drink with her. Chandra’s body went stiff when my fingers traced a line down her back. When I went to slip my fingers between her pussy lips, Chandra pulled back. “I’ve never done this before,” she said, slightly out of breath. “Yeah, but I’m sure you’ll like it so much you’ll be calling for me again.” Sometimes I can be a little arrogant, but chicks got off on a confidant man. I think I surprised Chandra when I scooped her in my arms and stood up. I must admit, my knees felt like they might give out on me, but it was all for effect. I gently laid Chandra back on the leather sofa and took a step back. She just lay there looking up at me, wondering what I had in mind. Well, I was just about to show her. I slipped out of my leather jacket and tossed it onto the love seat. I could tell she was impressed at how the tight wife-beater hugged my muscled chest and arms. As cool as I could, I ripped the T-shirt down the middle. I could see Chandra’s eyes light up, but the best was yet to come. Kneeling beside Chandra, I kissed along her thighs and knees. Her skin was streaked with stretch marks, but I pretended not to notice as I licked her navel tenderly. A low moan came from somewhere deep within Chandra. My nimble tongue darted in and out of her navel then worked its way down to the rim of her panties. Her hands tried to cup the back of my head, but I moved it. As a rule, I didn’t allow tricks to play in my hair, especially when my braids were fresh. I pulled Chandra’s panties down over her thick hips and admired her stuff. Her pussy had been recently shaved, but bore signs of new growth. Using just my fingers I spread her lips and found them soaked. Chandra squirmed, but didn’t pull away. “Take it,” she panted, but I wasn’t quite ready yet. I stood up so that Chandra could take in all that I was packing. Her eyes hungrily moved from my six-pack to the bulge in my baggy jeans. “You think you ready for this?” I dared.

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

  Pretty found an antique mirror on the wall adjacent to the door. He pushed his braids flat to his head with one smooth stroke from front to back. He gave the ends a few determined twists to get them proper. He turned his head to the side and practiced his look, and then he straightened his tie again. He never said he wasn’t cocky, but arrogant? He wouldn’t buy that. That’s what women around the way said. They told him that he looked better than most, but he knew it. They always marveled at his skin. They said it was Hershey brown, but smoother than the candy bar. They loved his teeth. He always smiled. He couldn’t wait for the summer so he could wear the hell out of his wife-beaters. His arms spoke volumes for his work ethic. He looked back toward Mr. Patterson and wondered if he loved the winter. It was a way to hide all that shit he had underneath his shirt. Pretty checked his watch and cleared his throat. Mr. Patterson offered Pretty a seat with a hand gesture. “Do you know why you’re here?” “No.” “The ladies love you, Jarvis. You want to know how I know?” Petty’s tone was defensive. “How?” “I listen. Women rumble like volcanoes when something is hot. That’s what they talk about. They refer to you as Pretty.” He smiled. “Isn’t that what they call you, Jarvis?” Pretty dusted his pants off. His nerves got the best of him. He was getting a little uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was going in. References like this on the street would’ve gotten his boss the shank. His foot beat the ground. He closed his eyes and rocked back. It calmed him. He inhaled with strength and blew it out softly. “They do call me Pretty,” he said with pride. His eyes opened slowly. “Is there a problem with having a nickname?” He massaged his face and felt anger and heat on it. Two more quick breaths did little to calm him down. He rubbed his hands together and rest his lips on them when they went to mock prayer position. “And they call you?” He paused and laughed. It wasn’t hearty. It was a gritty laugh that cut into Mr. Patterson and left him wondering. Mr. Patterson’s thick untamed gray eyebrow shot up. Phlegm hustled and bustled around inside his mouth; his face showed his distaste for the texture and the comment. His tone was aggressive. “They call me what?” Pretty loved the power of the unknown. Mr. Patterson had never seemed fazed by anything until now. He controlled the whole ship. He stayed in his office and peeked his head out from time to time to scare a few, but if people really paid attention they would know that. He let his pen do the talking. It talked about raises and firings and promotions. Mr. Patterson always remained in control, even when the ship seemed to be sinking.

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

  158 Lecture 22: The Court of Justinian and Byzantine Christianity In effect, through his uncle and on his own, Justinian exercised imperial power for 47 years. o He married a much younger woman named Theodora in 525. Procopius claims she was a former prostitute, but given his general hostility toward her, the information must be taken with caution. She proved to be a formidable power at Justinian’s side. o Justinian faced severe difficulties from the start of his reign: the loss of the western empire, the threat of the Persian (Sassanid) Empire at his eastern borders, the revolt of city factions against him in 532, and being personally afflicted with the plague in 540. Yet his great energy and his ambition drove him to significant accomplishment. • Justinian’s ambition was nothing less than to restore the former greatness of the Roman Empire through conquest, organization, and adornment; his ambition was abetted by a willingness to exercise supreme rule and to concentrate all control in himself, as well as the personal traits that accompany political greatness. o On the positive side, Justinian was brilliant, courageous, tireless, tough, and bold. Examples include his marrying and sharing power with Theodora and his brilliant commissioning and efficient construction of the great church Hagia Sophia. o On the negative side, he was ruthless and cruel. Witness the slaughter of his foes in the Nika rebellion or the blinding of General Belisarius in later life out of jealousy. o His religious disposition was sincere and grew stronger as he aged; his commitment to Nicaean Christianity went hand in hand with the willingness to suppress other traditions. The Restoration of Roman Greatness • By concentrating all power in himself yet making use of superb generals and administrators, Justinian went a long way at the political level toward restoring the greatness of Rome.

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

  158 Lecture 22: The Court of Justinian and Byzantine Christianity In effect, through his uncle and on his own, Justinian exercised imperial power for 47 years. o He married a much younger woman named Theodora in 525. Procopius claims she was a former prostitute, but given his general hostility toward her, the information must be taken with caution. She proved to be a formidable power at Justinian’s side. o Justinian faced severe difficulties from the start of his reign: the loss of the western empire, the threat of the Persian (Sassanid) Empire at his eastern borders, the revolt of city factions against him in 532, and being personally afflicted with the plague in 540. Yet his great energy and his ambition drove him to significant accomplishment. • Justinian’s ambition was nothing less than to restore the former greatness of the Roman Empire through conquest, organization, and adornment; his ambition was abetted by a willingness to exercise supreme rule and to concentrate all control in himself, as well as the personal traits that accompany political greatness. o On the positive side, Justinian was brilliant, courageous, tireless, tough, and bold. Examples include his marrying and sharing power with Theodora and his brilliant commissioning and efficient construction of the great church Hagia Sophia. o On the negative side, he was ruthless and cruel. Witness the slaughter of his foes in the Nika rebellion or the blinding of General Belisarius in later life out of jealousy. o His religious disposition was sincere and grew stronger as he aged; his commitment to Nicaean Christianity went hand in hand with the willingness to suppress other traditions. The Restoration of Roman Greatness • By concentrating all power in himself yet making use of superb generals and administrators, Justinian went a long way at the political level toward restoring the greatness of Rome.

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

  It was a Friday night and there was a line of people outside waiting to get in. The bouncers were very picky about who they let in on weekends, and would send your ass home if they thought you weren’t dressed the right way. I gave a bouncer named Freddy dap and proceeded through the glass door. Though I was technically properly dressed, the normal rules didn’t apply to me. I was a regular at Mochas. Everyone knew Chocolate. It was just after one in the morning so the spot was in full swing. There were beautiful women, single and in groups, scattered around the lounge, and thirsty men trying to pump them full of alcohol. I paused by the bar and scanned the crowd for my partners. It didn’t take long for me to spot them; sitting on a love seat near the DJ booth, trying to charm a group of young ladies out of their panties. These niggaz thought they had game, but they knew who the real Don was. As I made my way across the room all eyes were on me. I nodded to a few of the guys I knew and flashed smiles at some of the bitches I had fucked. A time or two I caught sight of some nameless female that I’d probably slept with but hardly remembered, trying to get my attention, but I acted like I didn’t see them. I didn’t feel like the headache. All I wanted to do was have some drinks with my boys and chill. I had almost made it over to where my friends were sitting when my path was suddenly blocked. The brazen young thing had yellow skin, and wore her hair in a straight weave. I knew her angelic face, but for the life of me couldn’t remember her name. Her ass was plump, but not large. Just enough to where it looked good. She stared at me with her bright green eyes and waited for me to say something. Since I knew that’s what she wanted, I remained silent. “You can’t speak, Chocolate?” Ms. Green Eyes asked. The sound of her sweet voice reminded me of a string quartet. “What’s happening, baby?” I grinned, but was careful not to give her a full smile. Though I would’ve liked nothing more than to take her in the bathroom and slam her pussy, I couldn’t seem too thirsty. I was Chocolate, and like the rest, this bitch would recognize. “Oh, you on it like that? You can fuck me in a park, and then act like you don’t know a bitch?” My groin tingled as my mental Rolodex finally placed her.

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

  Both were created through the eighth and ninth centuries against a wider background of steadily more bitter tensions between Western and Eastern Christianity (see Chapter 10); that gulf remained when the issues moved on. [51] The Emperor was fascinated by the Roman imperial heritage he had annexed. He filched columns from imperial Ravenna to decorate his stately new Palace chapel at Aachen (from which its French name, Aix-la-Chapelle, is derived); he bathed nude in the hot springs of Aachen as a good Roman gentleman would have done, and in his last years he issued a most remarkable coinage, meticulously imitating Roman coins from more than half a millennium earlier, bearing a portrait bust of himself depicted in a thoroughly un-Frankish manner, laurel-wreathed and clean-shaven. [52] Yet this was a Christian Roman Empire; among Charlemagne’s favourite books (read aloud to him for relaxation) were Augustine’s great meditation on the divine shaping of world history, The City of God , and the writings of Bede on history, angels and much more. The Emperor’s energetic programme of codifying law for his empire compared him with God’s ancient ministers Moses and King Josiah of Judah. This enterprise of rediscovering the Graeco-Roman world and interpreting it for a new age is just as worthy of being termed a ‘Renaissance’ as later convulsions of cultural excitement in the twelfth century and in fourteenth-century Italy; it was the recovery of a culture and a language that were in severe decay through most of Europe. [53] Annexing the Classical and Christian past like this demanded that the Empire should conserve what remained of its literature, and then expand on it with new explorations. A vital part of the multiform programme that Charlemagne launched was the copying of manuscripts, so alarmingly neglected since the mid-sixth century. He even sponsored a new Latin script to produce easily readable texts reproduced with relative speed; it is now known as ‘Carolingian minuscule’, a direct ancestor of the typeface employed in modern printed books such as this. [54] This mammoth task, which saved the collective memory of the Latin West from further loss, would absorb the time of countless professional scribes, and the most readily available source of such specialist labour was the monastery, or indeed the nunnery. Anglo-Saxon monastic life as created by 700 was at the height of its self-confidence and creativity and provided a model for the new monastic culture in mainland Europe. It is remarkable that such a latecomer to Latinity as the Anglo-Saxon Church should become one of the chief energies behind the recovery of idiomatic high-level Latin for speaking and writing, and one of the most honoured scholars of the Carolingian court was a late product of that energy, Alcuin of York ( c .735–804), who is likely to have been the source of the Emperor’s interest in Bede.

• From The Girls (2016)

  It had happened, after all, and I kept up a vivid catalog of happy data: the fact that I was sitting beside Suzanne, our friendly silence. My perverse pride that I’d been with Russell. I took pleasure in replaying the facts of the act, even the messy and boring parts. The odd lulls while Russell made himself hard. There was some power in the bluntness of human functions. Like Russell had explained to me: your body could hurtle you past your hang-ups, if you let it. Suzanne smoked steadily as she drove, occasionally offering her cigarette to me with serene ritual. The quiet between us wasn’t slack or uncomfortable. Outside the car, olive trees flashed by, the scorched summer earth. Far-off waterways, sloughing to the sea. Suzanne kept changing the radio station until she abruptly snapped it off. “We need gas,” she announced. We, I echoed silently, we need gas. Suzanne pulled into the Texaco, empty except for a teal-and-white pickup towing a boat trailer. “Hand me a card,” Suzanne said. Nodding at the glove box. I scrambled to open it, loosing a jumble of credit cards. All with different names. “The blue one,” she said. She seemed impatient. When I handed her the card, she saw my confusion. “People give them to us,” she said. “Or we take them.” She fingered the blue card. “Like this one is Donna’s. She lifted it from her mom.” “Her mom’s gas card?” “Saved our ass—we would’ve starved,” Suzanne said. She gave me a look. “Like you hustling that toilet paper, right?” I flushed at the mention. Maybe she’d known I had lied, but I couldn’t tell from her shuttered face—maybe not. “Besides,” she continued, “it’s better than what they’d do with it—more crap, more stuff, more me, me, me. Russell’s trying to help people. He’s not judgmental, that’s not his trip. He doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor.” It made a kind of sense, what Suzanne was saying. They were just trying to equalize the forces in the world. “It’s ego,” she went on, leaning against the car but keeping a sharp eye on the gas gauge: none of them ever filled up a tank more than a quarter full. “Money is ego, and people won’t give it up. Just want to protect themselves, hold on to it like a blanket. They don’t realize it keeps them slaves. It’s sick.” She laughed. “What’s funny is that as soon as you give everything away, as soon as you say, Here, take it—that’s when you really have everything.” One of the group had been detained for dumpster diving on a garbage run, and Suzanne was incensed, recounting the story as she pulled the car back onto the road. “More and more stores get wise to it. Bullshit,” she said. “They throw something away and they still want it. That’s America.” “That is bullshit.” The tone of the word was strange in my mouth. “We’ll figure something out. Soon.” She glanced in the rearview.

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

  The Maccabean rebels suffered terribly in fighting him, but they succeeded in returning Judaea to a native dynasty descended from heroes in the liberation struggle; known from an earlier ancestor as the Hasmoneans, they ruled as high priests for the Jerusalem Temple. Though the Hasmonean monarchy proved to be the last Judaean experience of prolonged independence in the ancient world, it was an extraordinary achievement against a great power: a victory to cherish, reinforcing the sense of a unique Judaic destiny and distinctiveness in God’s purpose. The Hasmoneans remained a significant regional force in the eastern Mediterranean for a century until conquered by a new imperial power arriving from far to the west of Judaea’s previous overlords. When the Hasmoneans first encountered the Roman Republic in the second century BCE , Rome was still a far-away city, a potential ally against their threatening neighbours. By 63 BCE , the Roman army’s invasion of Judaea was part of its mopping-up operations around Rome’s real prizes, the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires. Roman conquest led to a further Jewish Diaspora into the western Mediterranean: the Jewish community in Rome was one of the first to be affected by Christian activism in the first century CE . In 37 BCE , looking for a compliant local ruler for Judaea but finding no convincing Hasmonean candidate, the Romans displaced the last Hasmonean and replaced him with a relative by marriage, who reigned for more than three decades. Their choice, an outsider from the land of Edom (which the Romans called Idumea) south of Judaea, was Herod I, ‘the Great’. Herod rebuilt the Second Temple as one of the largest sacred complexes in the ancient world; its remnants still impress by their monumentality. Yet his subjects gave him little thanks, and self-conscious Judaean upholders of purity in God’s Covenant were angered by Herod’s Greek-style innovations such as public sporting contests (male nudity always a possibility), gladiatorial combats or horse-racing in newly built arenas. [4] After Herod’s death in 4 BCE , his sons divided the extensive territories that the first Roman emperor Augustus had allowed the puppet king to build up. For more than a century thereafter, and during the life of Jesus, Rome experimented with a mixture of indirect rule through various members of the Herodian family and, for parts of Judaea, direct imperial control through a Roman official.

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

  Intervening in a long-standing debate in the Church about how often laypeople should receive the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine when attending Mass, he recommended as frequent reception as possible. In 1907 he further decreed that the minimum age for a first communion should be lowered from twelve or fourteen years to seven. Now this ‘First Communion’ became a new piece of charming theatre for young children dressed in appropriately innocent finery, with their putatively adoring parents looking on. This innovation in Catholic folk-culture liturgically affirmed family life in the local parish church: it is a fixture now, though so comparatively recent in origin. [37] The Roman Catholic Church as it had evolved by the beginning of the twentieth century might be considered the unwanted but spectacularly successful child of the French Revolution. For all its rhetoric of tradition and its campaign against Modernism, it was a new creation, rebuilt out of the trauma and lack of leadership of 1800. It followed newly constricted doctrinal paths backed by the restored prestige and authority of its celibate clergy, against the backdrop of vigorous numerical growth across the world aided by all the possibilities of communication that technological advance offered. Memories of both the Enlightenment and Revolution combined with the Papacy’s new self-confidence in its teaching role to determine how it would face a host of fresh challenges to Christian life and belief. Not all have concerned sex, but many do. During the same period the rival heirs of medieval Western Christianity, Protestants of all varieties, produced their own solutions to these same questions, equally played out on a global stage.

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

  122 Lecture 17: The Emergence of Patriarchal Centers o Each of these cities had its own claims to importance within Christian history, and each was eager to emphasize that importance. The practice of competition among Greek and Roman cities was common, as attested by the orations of Dio Chrysostom to the cities of Asia Minor, which fought to be “number one” in their region. The Primacy of Rome • After the loss of the symbolic first city of Jerusalem—the place where the Christian movement started—the primacy of Rome (and the bishop of Rome) was broadly recognized in the early centuries, though this primacy did not at first bear the sense of administrative authority. Jerusalem itself was recognized as one of the patriarchates, but its position was strictly honorary, and it was not a player in subsequent rivalries. • An important dimension of Rome’s primacy was the position ascribed to Peter in the New Testament compositions and Peter’s connection to Rome. o In the Gospels, Peter is the chief spokesman among the disciples, the one who recognized something of Jesus’s identity before the others. The “confession of Peter” is found in all the Gospels in one form or another and is most elaborated by Matthew, which has Jesus respond with the declaration that he will build his church on the rock who is Peter. Although he betrayed Jesus before his death—also reported by all the Gospels—Peter is the primary witness of the Resurrection, both in the Gospel narratives and as listed by Paul. The “confession of Peter” (“You are the messiah”) is found in all the Gospels; in the Gospel of matthew, Jesus responds by declaring that Peter is the rock on which he will build his church. © iStockphoto/Thinkstock.

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

  184 eripmE namoR yloH ot eripmE namoR morF :52 erutceL • “Popes and Franks” may sound like ballpark food, but the phrase sums up precisely the two power sources that worked to create the catholic world of the Middle Ages. Political Context: 9th to 15th Centuries • The second stage in the medieval political context begins with Charles the Great (Charlemagne, 742–814), the son of Pepin III, who is one of the most significant figures in the political and religious history of the West. • Charles was anointed as king of the Franks by Pope Stephen III in 754 and became sole heir of the kingdom in 771. He immediately engaged in a path of conquest and consolidation under his authority. o Between 771 and 799, he Charlemagne’s military triumphs conquered Lombardy, the established his authority firmly over the West; he was crowned Saxons, Bavaria, the Avars, emperor in the year 800 by Pope Pannonia, and Italy. Leo III in Rome. In 778, he crossed the Pyrenees to conquer Spain, which was o in the hands of the Muslims, and was defeated at the Battle of Roncevalles. Thirteen years later, in 801, he conquered Barcelona and made it the center of the Spanish March (a buffer zone separating the Muslim and Frankish kingdoms). • In view of these triumphs, Pope Leo III, on Christmas Day, 800, in the city of Rome, crowned Charlemagne as emperor. It was an extraordinary act, and its implication (that the Franks were the approved continuation of the Roman heritage) was not appreciated by the Byzantines. Eventually, the emperor of the West would claim the formal title of Holy Roman Emperor. .kcotsknihT/aremeH ©

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

  Up onstage, Monique ignored the noise from the crowd as she did her nasty thang like she’d been born with a golden pole wedged between her legs. She slipped her hips and popped her spine the way she had practiced a thousand times before in the mirror, and it was that kind of dedication to her grind that had made her the Spot’s top moneymaker for the last two years. Monique didn’t mind the fact that all kinds of niggahs wanted to fuck her. She was proud to be the kind of freak that men just couldn’t resist. And yeah, her body was simply fuckin’ stunning. Damn right they was feenin’ for her, because what good was having the best shit on the shelf if you couldn’t make a niggah cry for it? Tonight Monique was doing one of her new ill na-na routines. She had about thirty dance acts she worked, switching the moves up every other night, and every last one of her routines kept niggahs digging deep in their pocket stash, producing guaranteed cash results each time. Some long-legged hustler sitting right up front screeched like a bitch as Monique squeezed her firm cantaloupe-sized breasts in her hands and let her red-polished fingernails flick her inch-long nipples seductively. He screamed again as she lowered her head and licked that stiff little nipple that sat smack in the middle of her upper chest, the one protruding from her tiny third breast that was round and perfect, but sat up closer to her neck than her normal breasts did, and was much, much smaller, like a twelve-year-old’s. Yeah, she thought as niggahs started whistling and wildin’ at the sight of her tongue swirling around that little tiny titty. Everybody loved a freak. And of all the things Monique could claim to be, she was a true freak-a-leek above all else. She turned her back on the crowd and popped her hips, letting her chips dip and her backbone slip. Ya’ll niggahs take a good fuckin’ look at all this chocolate birthday cake, Monique thought, clapping her thick booty cheeks and showing them flashing bits of her pink pussy and her sweet asshole. ’Cause a bitch is gonna be off this stage and paid in a minute. Straight fuckin’ paid. Niggahs moaned out loud and nutted in their drawers, but Monique couldn’t care less about their sexual satisfaction. She had thoughts of retirement on her mind, and if shit went down the way she and Pluto planned, she was about to give up the poles and become the number-one bitch at her very own strip club down in B-More.

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

  It is possible that the office of rector goes back as far as 1200, when an official was called "the head of the Paris scholars."1292 As early as 1245 the title appears distinctly and the rector is distinguished from the proctors.1293 At a later time it was the proper custom, in communicating with the university, to address the "rector and the masters." The question of precedence as between the rector and other high dignitaries, such as the bishop and chancellor of Paris, was one which led to much dispute and elbowing. Du Boulay, himself an ex-rector, takes pride in giving instances of the rector’s outranking archbishops, cardinals, papal nuncios, peers of France, and other lesser noteworthies at public functions.1294 The faculties came to be presided over by deans, the nations by proctors. In the management of the general affairs of the university, the vote was taken by faculties. The liberties, which the university enjoyed in its earlier history, were greatly curtailed by Louis XI. and by his successors in the latter half of the fifteenth century. The university was treated to sharp rebukes for attempting to interfere with matters that did not belong to it. The right of cessation was withdrawn and the free election of the rectors denied.1295 The police of the city were invested with larger jurisdiction, and the sovereign’s will was made a controlling element. The fame of the University of Paris came from its schools of arts and theology. The college of the Sorbonne, originally a bursary for poor students of theology, afterwards gave its name to the theological department. It was founded by Robert of Sorbon, the chaplain of St. Louis, the king himself giving part of the site for its building. In the course of time, its halls came to be used for disputations, and the decisions of the faculty obtained a European reputation. Theological students of twenty-five years of age, who had studied six years, and passed an examination, were eligible for licensure as bachelors. For the first three years they read on the Bible and then on the Sentences of the Lombard. These readers were distinguished as Biblici and Sententiarii. The age limit for the doctorate was thirty-five. One of the most interesting chapters in the history of the university is the struggle over the admission of the mendicant friars in the middle of the thirteenth century. The papacy secured victory for the friars. And the unwilling university was obliged to recognize them as a part of its teaching force.

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

  246 Lecture 34: The Great Plague bishops, although they still relied on secular authorities to carry out their decisions. o Even more extreme, Innocent IV’s Ad extirpanda in 1252 authorized the use of torture by the inquisition, although there is no evidence of its use in the 13 th century. Those found to be heretics who repented received the same sorts of penances (fasting, pilgrimages) that other sinners would receive after confession. Serious offenders could be confined in the inquisition’s prisons and burned at the stake by secular authority; perhaps three people a year, on average, were thus executed. o The inquisition was turned against the Knights Templar by Philip IV of France in 1307 and was even used by Pope John XXII against Franciscan “spirituals” in 1318. o In the late 15 th century, Spanish rulers received permission from Sixtus IV to organize the inquisition against “Christianized Jews.” After an auto-de-fé (“act of faith”) confessing their crime, those convicted were executed. • The hostility toward, and persecution of, Jewish communities that began with the First Crusade and was expressed in the controlling laws of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215)— and the burning of the Talmud in Paris (1242)—exploded in unparalleled violence in response to the great plague: Jews became a handy scapegoat for the sudden and unexplained deaths. o Fear and hysteria were fomented by rumors of Jews’ poisoning wells or causing the plague by sacrificing Christian children. o In 1349, the Jewish communities of Mainz and Cologne were wiped out; in the same year, 2,000 Jews were murdered in Strasbourg. In all, some 60 major Jewish centers and 150 smaller settlements were destroyed during these irrational and violent outbursts. 247 The Rise of Mysticism • Perhaps not surprising in an age of such external turmoil, the 14 th

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

  58 Lecture 8: Forms of Witness—martyrdom and apologetic circa 165; his trial before the Roman prefect was recorded and is extant. When the prefect orders him a final time to offer sacrifice to the gods, Justin refuses, saying, “Through prayer we can be saved on account of our Lord Jesus Christ.” • Evidence also exists for the arrest, imprisonment, and execution of relatively unknown Christians. o A letter from the churches of Vienne and Lyons attests—shortly after the event—to the suffering and death of a considerable number of Christians in Gaul under Marcus Aurelius in 178. o Later in the 2 nd century, the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs likewise provides evidence of North African martyrs. o The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity is an account, close to the events, of the imprisonment and death of Christians in North Africa in 203. • The most passionate statement concerning the ideal of martyrdom is found in Origen of Alexandria’s Exhortation to Martyrdom in 235: The death of the martyr is the closest possible conformity to the witness of Christ. Origen speaks of the inducements to turn away from the pain of suffering and says, “if turning from all of these we give ourselves entirely to God ... with a view to sharing union with his only begotten son and those who have a share in him, then we can say that we have filled up the measure of bearing witness” (3.11). Apologetic Literature • A second response to persecution is the composition of apologetic literature. Such literature also had its roots in Judaism and in the New Testament. • Apologetic literature arose among Diaspora Jews, such as Philo and Josephus, who responded to anti-Semitic charges of misanthropy with histories and philosophical treatises that demonstrated that the Jewish Law and manner of life were actually philanthropic. 59 • Although supposedly directed to outsiders, such apologetic literature played an important role in shaping Jewish identity, by portraying the tradition in terms understandable to the wider world. • In the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles has many of the elements of apologetic literature: “The way” is portrayed as benevolent and nonthreatening to the social order. Luke tries to show that the Christian movement is continuous with Israel and is philanthropic in character. • The Christian literature termed “apologetic” in the 2 nd and 3 rd

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

  122 sretneC lahcrairtaP fo ecnegremE ehT :71 erutceL Each of these cities had its own claims to importance within o Christian history, and each was eager to emphasize that importance. The practice of competition among Greek and Roman cities was common, as attested by the orations of Dio Chrysostom to the cities of Asia Minor, which fought to be “number one” in their region. The Primacy of Rome • After the loss of the symbolic first city of Jerusalem—the place where the Christian movement started—the primacy of Rome (and the bishop of Rome) was broadly recognized in the early centuries, though this primacy did not at first bear the sense of administrative authority. Jerusalem itself was recognized as one of the patriarchates, but its position was strictly honorary, and it was not a player in subsequent rivalries. • An important dimension of Rome’s primacy was the position ascribed to Peter in the New Testament compositions and Peter’s connection to Rome. In the Gospels, Peter is the o The “confession of Peter” (“You chief spokesman among are the messiah”) is found in the disciples, the one who all the Gospels; in the Gospel recognized something of of matthew, Jesus responds by declaring that Peter is the rock on Jesus’s identity before the which he will build his church. others. The “confession of Peter” is found in all the Gospels in one form or another and is most elaborated by Matthew, which has Jesus respond with the declaration that he will build his church on the rock who is Peter. Although he betrayed Jesus before his death—also reported by all the Gospels—Peter is the primary witness of the Resurrection, both in the Gospel narratives and as listed by Paul. .kcotsknihT/otohpkcotSi ©

• From An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (1995)

  I am fortunate that I have not died from my illness, fortunate in having received the best medical care available, and fortunate in having the friends, colleagues, and family that I do. Because of this, I have in turn tried, as best I could, to use my own experiences of the disease to inform my research, teaching, clinical practice, and advocacy work. Through writing and teaching I have hoped to persuade my colleagues of the paradoxical core of this quicksilver illness that can both kill and create; and, along with many others, have tried to change public attitudes about psychiatric illnesses in general and manic-depressive illness in particular. It has been difficult at times to weave together the scientific discipline of my intellectual field with the more compelling realities of my own emotional experiences. And yet it has been from this binding of raw emotion to the more distanced eye of clinical science that I feel I have obtained the freedom to live the kind of life I want, and the human experiences necessary to try and make a difference in public awareness and clinical practice. I have had many concerns about writing a book that so explicitly describes my own attacks of mania, depression, and psychosis, as well as my problems acknowledging the need for ongoing medication. Clinicians have been, for obvious reasons of licensing and hospital privileges, reluctant to make their psychiatric problems known to others. These concerns are often well warranted. I have no idea what the long-term effects of discussing such issues so openly will be on my personal and professional life, but, whatever the consequences, they are bound to be better than continuing to be silent. I am tired of hiding, tired of misspent and knotted energies, tired of the hypocrisy, and tired of acting as though I have something to hide. One is what one is, and the dishonesty of hiding behind a degree, or a title, or any manner and collection of words, is still exactly that: dishonest. Necessary, perhaps, but dishonest. I continue to have concerns about my decision to be public about my illness, but one of the advantages of having had manic-depressive illness for more than thirty years is that very little seems insurmountably difficult. Much like crossing the Bay Bridge when there is a storm over the Chesapeake, one may be terrified to go forward, but there is no question of going back. I find myself somewhat inevitably taking a certain solace in Robert Lowell’s essential question, Yet why not say what happened?

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

  “You know Chocolate be having these bitches acting all out of character,” Hog added. Hog had gotten his nickname because his nose resembled a pig’s snout. He looked like a slightly more handsome version of the Notorious B.I.G., with a shaved head. “Y’all niggaz always got jokes,” I said, plopping down on the chair closest to Max. “Where the fuck is Reggie?” “He dipped out about twenty minutes ago. He went to see that stripper bitch he met last month,” Max informed me. “Sucker-for-love-ass nigga,” I laughed. “I know a lot of niggaz who done paid for pussy a time or two, but Reg is making that shit a regular occurrence. What is that, like the third time he’s seen her this week?” “Fourth,” Hog said. “Silly muthafucka took off work the other day to get a shot of that.” Max shook his head sadly. “That boy is gonna take himself to the poorhouse.” “Anybody ever seen this chick?” I asked. “Nah, we weren’t with him when he met her. He was fucking with Tay and them niggaz from the hill,” Hog said. “She must have some bomb-ass pussy, because she’s got this nigga acting like a schoolgirl.” “Let him tell it, she’s got fairy dust tucked in her twat,” Max joked. “This dude told me that she licked his ass cleaner than Martha Stewart’s kitchen.” “Shit, I wouldn’t mind getting a shot of that,” I admitted. Hog pushed me playfully. “Nigga, your hands are full enough. You got a girl and you’re still fucking everything on two legs. One day your dick is gonna fall off.” “You know these hoes can’t get enough of Chocolate,” I said, referring to myself in third person, as I was known to do. “They pay like they weigh, my dude.” “You pop that shit now, but what you gonna do when these females get together and try to burn your ass at the stake?” Hog said, in his gravelly voice. “I wish the fuck they would. My dick is like crack, and these chicks know who got the best product in town. They all pay homage to the king,” I boasted. “These bitches got you gassed,” Max said. “Chocolate, I ain’t never met a nigga as stuck on himself as you.” “Stop hating, fool, you know how I do. My show, my way. Recognize!” We exchanged high fives and ordered another round of drinks. Though my niggaz loved me, I know that sometimes they got a little jealous. I was young, fine, and doing me in a major way. I got more pussy on a weekly basis than some of them got in a month, and still I had a bad bitch who was madly in love with me. My game was on a million and it was only gonna get tighter, or so I thought. • • •

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Only when convinced that everything had been done impeccably, only when there came flying in the waiter’s hands a covered pan with something gurgling in it, did Archibald Archibaldovich allow himself to leave the two mysterious visitors, and that after having first whispered to them: ‘Excuse me! One moment! I’ll see to the fillets personally!’ He flew away from the table and disappeared into an inner passage of the restaurant. If any observer had been able to follow the further actions of Archibald Archibaldovich, they would undoubtedly have seemed somewhat mysterious to him. The chief did not go to the kitchen to supervise the fillets at all, but went to the restaurant pantry. He opened it with his own key, locked himself inside, took two hefty balyks from the icebox, carefully, so as not to soil his cuffs, wrapped them in newspaper, tied them neatly with string, and set them aside. Then he made sure that his hat and silk-lined summer coat were in place in the next room, and only after that proceeded to the kitchen, where the chef was carefully boning the fillets the pirate had promised his visitors. It must be said that there was nothing strange or mysterious in any of Archibald Archibaldovich’s actions, and that they could seem strange only to a superficial observer. Archibald Archibaldovich’s behaviour was the perfectly logical result of all that had gone before. A knowledge of the latest events, and above all Archibald Archibaldovich’s phenomenal intuition, told the chief of the Griboedov restaurant that his two visitors’ dinner, while abundant and sumptuous, would be of extremely short duration. And his intuition, which had never yet deceived the former freebooter, did not let him down this time either. Just as Koroviev and Behemoth were clinking their second glasses of wonderful, cold, double-distilled Moskovskaya vodka, the sweaty and excited chronicler Boba Kandalupsky, famous in Moscow for his astounding omniscience, appeared on the veranda and at once sat down with the Petrakovs. Placing his bulging briefcase on the table, Boba immediately put his lips to Petrakov’s ear and whispered some very tempting things into it. Madame Petrakov, burning with curiosity, also put her ear to Boba’s plump, greasy lips. And he, with an occasional furtive look around, went on whispering and whispering, and one could make out separate words, such as: ‘I swear to you!