1 Paul begat Augustine;
2 Augustine begat Thomas,
3 Bonaventure, Bernard, Anselm, Boethius,
4 And Scotus, who prospered before his brothers.
5 Forsooth the son of Scotus was Ockham.
6 And the sons of Ockham were Luther and Calvin.
7 And their sons were Division and Strife,
8 Hobbes, Locke, Shaftesbury,
9 Hume and Smith and Madison.
10 All of whom begat Modernity.
11 And Modernity begat those
12 Who trace intellectual genealogies no less tediously
13 Than did Israelites those of blood.
Matthew Schmitz is deputy editor of First Things.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Paul Ehrlich, False Prophet
Paul Ehrlich, noted author of The Population Bomb, died last week. Few people have been so consequentially…
Restoring Man at Notre Dame
It is fascinating to be an outsider on the inside of an institution going through times of…
Deliver Us from Evil
In a recent New York Times article entitled “Freedom With a Side of Guilt: How Food Delivery…
