Peter J. Leithart

Gregory of Nyssa illustrates the incomprehensibility of creation by taking a page from Solomon: “Let, then, the man who boasts that he has attained the knowledge of real existence, interpret to us the real nature of the most trivial object that is before our eyes, that by what is . . . . Continue Reading »

Jorge Luis Borges cited the classification of animals from a fictional Chinese dictionary, and Foucault used that list to demonstrate the relativity of classification systems. Augustine beat them both to it.  Faustus wants to distinguish neatly between sects and schisms, and concludes that . . . . Continue Reading »

Jim Rogers of Texas A&M writes in response to my post about God and Eros (the rest of this post is from Jim): Re: your question, “What assumptions about sex are behind the common opinion that the Song is only an erotic poem, only a celebration of human sexuality and marriage, full . . . . Continue Reading »

Church history provides a compelling argument in favor of infant baptism, but not in the usual way.  The argument is not that there is evidence of the practice of infant baptism throughout church history (though there is).  The argument is rather that the shape of church history is more . . . . Continue Reading »

The erotic intensity of the Song is, these days, an argument against allegorizing.  Walsh rightly argues the opposite: “Desire for an absent lover pulsates throughout eight chapters in a heady mixture of glee, frustration, exhaustion, and surrender.  Experientially, readers would be . . . . Continue Reading »

What Carey Walsh calls the “jumpiness” of the Song ( Exquisite Desire ) has sometimes been taken as evidence of multiple authorship or sloppy editing.  Walsh claims it is deliberate, a literary depiction of the desire that is the content of the Song. It is, as Walsh says, . . . . Continue Reading »

Given the high view of marriage and sexuality in Scripture, Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians are odd and out of character.  Why would Paul think it good for everyone to be as he is? Jeremiah 16 provides a clue.  In verse 2, Yahweh instructs Jeremiah not to take a wife or raise . . . . Continue Reading »

In  Genesis 20, Abimelech takes Sarah.  In chapter 21, Isaac is born and Hagar is sent away.  At the end of chapter 21, though, Abimelech is back, and Abraham brings up a complaint against Abimelech about the seizure of his wells. As Larry Lyke notes, “Following the events of . . . . Continue Reading »

In his book on Gregory of Nyssa ( Presence and Thought: Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa (A Communio Book) ), von Balthasar contrasts Nyssa’s epistemology with that of Zeno and the Stoics.  Zeno described a progression of thought under the image of the hand: an open . . . . Continue Reading »

What is Galatians about?  Augustine says that the question at stake was how to induct Gentiles into the people of God.  Paul circumcised Timothy, since “these rites and traditions [of Judaism] were not harmful to people born and raised in that way,” but for those who came from . . . . Continue Reading »