Peter J. Leithart

There are no tricks to prayer. The crucial thing is not the method we use or the pattern we follow. The crucial thing is confidence in the God to whom we pray. Who is that God? He is the eternal God. For us, what’s done is done and what’s done cannot be undone. We are bound to time, and . . . . Continue Reading »

At 16, Hugo Grotius published a well-regarded edition of the notoriously difficult Marriage of Philology and Mercury by Martianus Capella. . . . . Continue Reading »

Also from John of Salisbury: He attacks teachers who “sift and scrutinize every syllable,” as well as those bloaty-footnoted types who “compile the opinions of all, even the most miserable.” . . . . Continue Reading »

Educational advice from John of Salisbury: “Considerable indulgence must be shown . . . to the young, and loquacity should be tolerated for a time so that they may wax eloquent . . . . As students mature, however, this verbosity ought to be curbed.” . . . . Continue Reading »

Some quotations from Ivan Illich’s book on Hugh of St. Victor’s Didascalicon : Hugh’s life coincided “with the beginning of the epoch of bookishness which is now closing,” which was “a fleeting but very important moment in the history of the alphabet when, after . . . . Continue Reading »

In 1921, Frank Harris argued that Shakespeare’s art reveals the man: “As it is the object of a general to win battles, so it is the life-work of the artist to show himself to us, and the completeness with which he reveals his own individuality is perhaps the best measure of his own . . . . Continue Reading »

Robert Jenson attempts to expound the attributes of God as explications of the statement “God raised Jesus from the dead by the Spirit.” He objects to the traditional “bipartite classification” systems prevalent in Protestant dogmatics, citing John Gerhard’s . . . . Continue Reading »

In his Systematic Theology , Charles Hodge quotes the following from DF Strauss’s Dogmatik : “The ideas of the absolute and of the holy are incompatible. He who holds to the former must give up the latter, since holiness implies relation; and, on the other hand, he who holds fast the . . . . Continue Reading »

INTRODUCTION These verses are framed by corresponding general exhortations, verses 16 and 23. Both proverbs describe the way to life: Whoever keeps commandments keeps his soul or life (v. 16), and the fear of Yahweh leads to life (v. 23). There is a “what’s more” progression . . . . Continue Reading »

Even before Cain, there is a hint – only a hint, but a hint – of a better city to come. It is not good for man to be alone, Yahweh says of Adam, and then takes a rib from Adam’s side and makes that rib into a woman. Eve is not a city. But Eve is the prototype of a different sort of . . . . Continue Reading »