From Nabokov’s lectures on literature, quoted in Smith’s book: “All we have to do when reading Bleak House is to relax and let our spines take over. Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic relight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver behind . . . . Continue Reading »
Jamie Smith’s latest book ( Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Cultural Liturgies) ) is excellent. He rightly challenges the tendency for “worldview-talk” to take a rationalist bent, and in place of the assumption that “man is a thinking . . . . Continue Reading »
Athanasius points out to Marcellinus that the Psalms cover every “eventuality.” They are a mirror of the soul because they are a mirror of human experience - of suffering, of desperation, of exultation, of thanksgiving, of prosperity, of adversity, of garden and wilderness, of . . . . Continue Reading »
No one would dare, Athanasius writes to Marcellinus, to take the words of the patriarchs, or Moses, or the prophets as his own. No one would dare imitate the prophets by saying “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand today.” The Psalms are different. When someone reads, . . . . Continue Reading »
Paul ends 1 Corinthians (16:22) with a neat chiastic sign-off. Anyone who does not love the Lord is declared “accursed” ( anathema ) and Paul follows this with the cry of maranatha (“the Lord comes”). Anath-ma/mar-anatha . Substantively, it is a striking phrase. . . . . Continue Reading »
In his superb introduction to the New City Press edition of Augustine’s de Trinitate ( Trinity, The (Works of Saint Augustine A Translation for the 21st Century) ), Edmund Hill offers a chiastic outline of the treatise: 1. Introduction, 1 2. Divine missions: exegetical, 2-4 3. . . . . Continue Reading »
In Epistle 11, Augustine attempts to explain an apparent contradiction in the Catholic faith. On the one hand, all of God does all that God does, since the Persons of the Trinity are inseparable and act inseparably: “For the union of Persons in the Trinity is in the . . . . Continue Reading »
David Garland comments that the first part of Matthew’s Passion narrative (26:2-56) begins with the plot of the priests and elders and then is divided into six scenes: 1. Anointing for burial, 26:6-13 2. Judas’ betrayal, 26:14-15 3. Preparation for Passover, 26:17-19 4. Last Supper, . . . . Continue Reading »
INTRODUCTION After the Olivet Discourse, Jesus “finished all these words” (26:1; cf. 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1). His public ministry of teaching Israel is over. Like Moses (Deuteronomy 32:45), nothing remains for Him but to die. THE TEXT “Now it came to pass, when Jesus had . . . . Continue Reading »
Protestants agreed with Catholics that the Song elaborates a nuptial analogy to the church’s relation to Christ, but Scheper finds a significant difference between Protestants and Catholics when they explain why that analogy is apt in the first place. Protestants, consistent with the . . . . Continue Reading »
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