My only, very slight, complaint about Jane Austen’s England is its somewhat misleading title. Roy and Lesley Adkins mention Austen regularly throughout the book, using her letters and novels as sources for sketching the social life of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. But . . . . Continue Reading »
In The Religious Sense , Luigi Giussani quotes from the Italian mathematician Francesco Severi, an associate of Einstein: He “proclaimed that the more he immersed himself in scientific research, the more evident it became to him that all that he discovered, as he proceeded step by step, was a . . . . Continue Reading »
Advent meditations on the holy family at Firstthings.com. . . . . Continue Reading »
James of Viterbo ( From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought ) distinguishes between two modes of priesthood. “Individual” ( proprium ) priesthood belongs to “each of the faithful” insofar as each “offers to God for himself a spiritual . . . . Continue Reading »
James of Viterbo ( From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought , 381) says that the church is not only metaphorically a kingdom, but “properly called a kingdom.” He explains by citing 1 Corinthians 15:24, where the kingdom of God that is delivered to the Father . . . . Continue Reading »
Explaining how spiritual lordship exceeds natural, Giles of Rome argues that the church makes kings through baptism and penance: “Though the sacrament of baptism, which is the direct remedy against original sin, and through the sacrament of penance, which is the remedy against actual sin, you . . . . Continue Reading »
Christian political thought has historically gotten off on the wrong foot through misinterpretation of Genesis 1-2. Adam and Eve are taken as “family,” and hence the family becomes a “natural” institution. Families band together and soon there are cities and kingdoms, also . . . . Continue Reading »
In a 1549 letter to Calvin, Bucer sketched his hierarchy of loyalties. It’s one of the great statements of Protestant Catholicity: His aim, he said, was “most fullyto consent, first, with the Lord himself and the Holy Spirit, then also with thetrue and orthodox Church of primitive . . . . Continue Reading »
In a chapter of her Eating Together: Food, Friendship and Inequality , Alice Julier compares Emily Post’s instructions for “formal dinners” and Martha Stewart’s concept of “entertaining.” Much has changed in between. For starters, Post insists that “formal . . . . Continue Reading »
Isaiah 59 is arranged in a loose chiasm: A. Israel’s sins have separated her from Yahweh, vv 1-2 B. Israel is full of blood, falsehood, injustice, vv 3-8 C. Therefore, justice, righteousness and salvation never arrive, vv 9-11 B’. Israel’s confession of lies and injustice, vv . . . . Continue Reading »
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