Peter J. Leithart

According to the Economist , the Estonian language has 14 cases (including inessive, elative, adessive, abessive), “Bora, spoken in Peru, has more than 350” genders, and the Solomon Island language of Kwaio has an exclusive and inclusive form of “we” and in addition to . . . . Continue Reading »

Christ is the “living will” of the Father, says Athanasius.  Rowan Williams glosses this with: “since Scripture makes clear that the Word is the understanding and purpose of the Father, then to claim that the Son exists by an act of will is absurd: he is the Father’s . . . . Continue Reading »

The impassible suffered, the church fathers said.  Why?  To make passible humanity impassible.  As usual (“God became man, to make man God”), a neat chiasm. But what can human impassibility mean?  Can it mean that we no longer feel ?  That’s what it sounds . . . . Continue Reading »

God does not have accidents, says Augustine, and virtually every other theologian since.  It’s the corollary of God’s simplicity: He always is what He is, nothing added or taken away.  God cannot lost any attribute without losing His being as God. But then along comes the . . . . Continue Reading »

In an essay on the Christian use of the Greek philosophical conception of God ( Basic Questions in Theology, Vol. 2 ), Pannenberg notes that the Platonic tradition only gradually drew the conclusion that God was incomprehensible.   Even Middle Platonists conceived of God as mind, and . . . . Continue Reading »

This night is different, O Lord, from all nights.  On this night, You opened the womb of the virgin Mary, so that she brought forth the seed of the woman, the new Isaac, the firstborn of Israel, David’s Son, Immanuel.  On this night, Your Word, the eternal Light that lightens every . . . . Continue Reading »

even in the private sphere the Christian is not only vindicated in defending another, but actually has a serious obligation in this matter: qui enimn on repellita socio injuriams, i potest, tam est in vitio quam quifacit (De Off. Min. 1.36.178 [PL 16.8I]). Thus, Moses’ slaying of the Egyptian . . . . Continue Reading »

McGivern again, pointing to the ambivalence regarding military service evident in the accounts of military martyrs.  On the one hand: “When Maximilian, the first known conscientious objector in Christian history, declared at his trial in A.D. 295 that ‘It is not right for me . . . . Continue Reading »

In trying to evaluate the significance of the shift from third-century pacifism to fourth-century concern with the just-war theory, it may be helpful to give more attention to Lactantius, a man who lived through the Constantinian revolution and wrote seriously about the problem of military service . . . . Continue Reading »

Hunter summarizes a 1983 article by RA Markus on Augustine and just war.  By examining Augustine’s statements on war and Christian society in the context of his intellectual biography, Markus comes up with “a highly nuanced account that stresses Augustine’s deepening . . . . Continue Reading »