Peter J. Leithart

Augustine on visible words again: Verbs change in sound and visual sign when they are referring to the same event at different times; a future verb and a past verb refer to the same thing, but the sign changes. So too do sacraments: Christ’s future coming is announced by one set of signs, the . . . . Continue Reading »

“Think about hamburger,” I said to my daughter. She was holding her nose against the acrid smell of warm manure. The man pulled faded yellow waterproof overalls over his narrow hips and snapped the fasteners on his black rubber boots. He hooked a chain around his waist. A knife . . . . Continue Reading »

The Son is sent to redeem (Galatians 4:5). He comes under the law to redeem those under the law. Redemption is manumission language. To redeem is to deliver from bondage, or to buy from bondage. Those under the law are in bondage (cf. 4:1), still under the probationary regulations that apply to . . . . Continue Reading »

RD Laing offers a trenchant analysis of the letter that Raskolnikov’s mother sends him, and its effects on Raskolnikov. She is informing Raskolnikov that his sister Dunya has agreed to marry, and tells him he should be grateful and happy. If he is unhappy, he will make his mother and sister . . . . Continue Reading »

Think of Milbank’s question, Can a Gift Be Given? Derrida says no, because the purity of the gift is always polluted by expectations of return. Dostoevsky asks, Can a Crime Be Committed? And he returns something like Derrida’s answer, though ironically. Raskolnikov claims in his . . . . Continue Reading »

Dostoevsky wrote about crime, but not only crime: He also wrote about punishment. As Wasoliek suggests, Raskolnikov doesn’t flee the crime, or try to cover it. He seems instead to flee toward it, regularly leaving clues, nearly confessing, reviving Porfiry’s investigation when it is . . . . Continue Reading »

Edward Wasiolek argues that from the time Dostoevsky wrote Notes from Underground , he had worked out a metaphysical outlook that centered on the dialectics of human freedom, free will and society, and nihilism. What he lacked was a plot to go with his metaphysic, but he found the plot by focusing . . . . Continue Reading »

Exodus 15:27: Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters. There’s water everywhere in the exodus. Israel passes through the sea; they get thirsty in the wilderness and Yahweh miraculously provides water; they come . . . . Continue Reading »

Dostoevsky is sometimes accused of being an indifferent artist. As long as it sprawls, it must be good. Several essays in Richard Peace’s collection, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment: A Casebook (Casebooks in Criticism) , prove the opposite. I give only a few highlights. Several . . . . Continue Reading »

In USA Today , Jody Bottum reminds us of the suffering of Egyptian Christians: “About 10% of the Egyptian population (and declining, down more than half over the past century ), these people have suffered discrimination under 30 years of rule by the now-embattled president, Hosni Mubarak. And . . . . Continue Reading »