Denken wir an das Erlebnis des Geführtwerdens! Fragen wir uns: Worin besteht dieses Erlebnis, wenn wir z.B. einen Weg geführt würden? - Stelle dir diese Fälle vor: Du bist auf einem Spielplatz, etwa mit verbundenen Augen, und wirst von jemandem an der Hand geleitet, bald links, bald rechts; du mußt immer des Zuges seiner Hand gewärtig sein, auch achtgeben, daß du bei einem unerwarteten Zug nicht stolperst. Oder aber: du wirst von jemandem an der Hand mit Gewalt geführt, wohin du nicht willst. Oder: du wirst im Tanz von einem Partner geführt; du machst dich so rezeptiv wie möglich, um seine Absicht zu erraten und dem leisesten Drucke zu folgen. Oder: jemand führt dich einen Spazierweg; ihr geht im Gespräch; wo immer er geht, gehst du auch. Oder: du gehst einen Feldweg entlang, läßt dich von ihm führen. Alle diese Situationen sind einander ähnlich; aber was ist allen den Erlebnissen gemeinsam?

While Paul was preaching this sermon ... a certain virgin, named Thecla ... sat at a certain window in her house. From whence, by the advantage of a window in the house where Paul was, she both night and day heard Paul's sermons... ...

My daughter Thecla, like a spider's web fastened to the window, is captivated by the discourses of Paul, and attends upon them with prodigious eagerness, and vast delight; and thus, by attending on what he says, the young woman is seduced. Now then do you go, and speak to her, for she is betrothed to you.

Accordingly Thamyris went, and having saluted her, and taking care not to surprise her, he said, Thecla, my spouse, why sittest thou in this melancholy posture? What strange impressions are made upon thee? Turn to Thamyris, and blush.

Her mother also spake to her after the same manner, and said, Child, why dost thou sit so melancholy, and, like one astonished, makest no reply?

Then they wept exceedingly, Thamyris, that he had lost his spouse; Theoclia, that she had lost her daughter; and the maids, that they had lost their mistress; and there was an universal mourning in the family.

cited by bloch, heritage of our times p. 114

Sin could take an infinite variety of forms, though a commonly employed (alliterative in the Latin) formula of interrogation to be used by priests in the ritual of confession -- 'when, where, how, with whom, and how often' -- inescapably brings to mind sexual transgression.

Peter Heather's Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion

"no one could number the vastness of the cavalry contingents [so] every man was ordered to carry a stone so as to throw it down ... so as to form a mound ... a fearful sign [left] for the morrow to understand past events. And wherever they passed, they left such markers at every crossroad along their way." - the epic histories attributed to p'awtos buzand, quoted in Peter Brown's the rise of western christendom

"Our knowledge of Dictinius's book is derived entirely from the hostile account of its argument given by Augustine ... Dictinius saw that to assert with Priscillian the Church's possession of doctrines and documents [i.e., Apocrypha] suitable for some believers, unsuitable for others, implies that one is morally justified in concealing or darkly hinting at doctrines unfitted for the ears of the unworthy. Dictinius therefore set out to show that the Bible provided precedents for not telling all that is in one's heart..."

"That sacrifices must be offered unshod was a Pythagorean priciple, and appears in the precepts of a number of ancient sanctuaries, opinion among ancient antiquarians being divided whether the cultic taboo was based on objection to the hide of animals or to the knots which tied the shoes."

"Augustine remarks that it is easier to persuade a confirmed drinker to forsake his bottle than the dissuade a man from walking barefoot for eight days, so great is the force of cultic custom ('praesumptio')."

"The fifth sermon of Gaudentius ... triumphantly proves from John the Baptist's protestation of his unworthiness that Jesus himself must have worn shoes which John felt too humble to untie."

My apology for this letter is to ask your assistance in obtaining employment. For, say what you will, this frostbitten ‘forked carrot’ of a body must be fed and clothed after all. It is ungrateful, to say the least, to suffer this much abused case to fall into so dilapidated a condition that every nothwester may luxuriate through its chinks and crevices, blasting the kindly affections it should shelter, when a few clouts would save it. Thank heaven, the toothache occurs often enough to remind me that I must be out patching the roof occasionally, and not be always keeping up a blaze upon the hearth within, with my German and metaphysical cat-sticks.

No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption.

Diese göttliche Gewalt bezeugt sich nicht durch die religiöse Überlieferung allein, vielmehr findet sie mindestens in einer geheiligten Manifestation sich auch im gegenwärtigen Leben vor. Was als erzieherische Gewalt in ihrer vollendeten Form außerhalb des Rechtes steht, ist eine ihrer Erscheinungsformen. Diese definieren sich also nicht dadurch, daß Gott selber unmittelbar sie in Wundern ausübt, sondern durch jene Momente des unblutigen, schlagenden, entsühnenden Vollzuges. Endlich durch die Abwesenheit jeder Rechtsetzung. Insofern ist es zwar berechtigt, diese Gewalt auch vernichtend zu nennen; sie ist dies aber nur relativ, in Rücksicht auf Güter, Recht, Leben u. dgl., niemals absolut in Rücksicht auf die Seele des Lebendigen.