Peter J. Leithart

In his Discourses on Livy , Machiavelli pointed to the place of sacrifice in the establishment of Roman order. Sheehan ( Representations , 2009) summarizes the argument: “The Samnites knew that ‘it was necessary to induce obstinacy in the spirits of the soldiers, and that to induce it . . . . Continue Reading »

In a 2009 article on “sacrifice before the secular” in Representations , Jonathan Sheehan summarizes Wellhausen’s account of the history of sacrifice. In its original forms, sacrifice was both spiritual and secular, a seamless union of “spiritual solemnity and secular . . . . Continue Reading »

Pat Rogers reviews what sounds like a fascinating new study, Wolfram Schmidgen’s Exquisite Mixture: The Virtues of Impurity in Early Modern England . In Schmidgen’s view “mixture is at the heart of everything, a constitutive part of meaning in all cultural activity. Far from . . . . Continue Reading »

The flood of Gentiles overwhelms Judah in three waves in the book of Isaiah. The first of these is the threat from Aram and Israel, from Syria and the Northern kingdom. Assyria is the rising power to the east, and that power is threatening to overrun the nations to the west of Assyria. The kings of . . . . Continue Reading »

In his editorial introduction to Sermons and Discourses, 1720-1723 (The Works of Jonathan Edwards Series, Volume 10) (v. 10) (228-30), Wilson Kimnach emphasizes the central importance of typology in Edwards’s thinking. It was not simply a way of harmonizing old and new, but a clue to a . . . . Continue Reading »

In his Notes on the Apocalypse (in Apocalyptic Writings (The Works of Jonathan Edwards Series, Volume 5) (v. 5) , 131-2), Edwards offers this lovely typological meditation on the marriage of Isaac, into which he weaves a meditation on the role of the ministry in adorning Christ’s bride: . . . . Continue Reading »

Bombaro ( Jonathan Edwardss Vision of Reality: The Relationship of God to the World, Redemption History, and the Reprobate , 91-2) quotes these passages from Edwards Micellanies indicating that God would have unrealized attributes if He had not created the world: “There are many of the divine . . . . Continue Reading »

1721 was a crucial year not only for Jonathan Edwards’s spiritual formation but for his metaphysics. According to John Bombaro ( Jonathan Edwardss Vision of Reality: The Relationship of God to the World, Redemption History, and the Reprobate , 12), it was from that date that Edwards . . . . Continue Reading »

Revelation 18 calls on the Lord to pay back the harlot city for all that she has done, and elaborates by asking the Lord to return her “double for her all her sins” (18:6). Restitution, it seems, is double restitution. What is the double restitution and why? Apparently, the harlot city . . . . Continue Reading »

Daniel Stanley muses on the fire of God at the Trinity House site. . . . . Continue Reading »