Elias again: “In the eleventh century a Venetian doge married a Greek princess. In her Byzantine circle the fork was clearly in use. At any rate, we hear that she lifted food to her mouth ‘by means of little gold forks with two prongs.’ “This gave rise in Venice to a dreadful scandal: ‘This novelty was regarded as so excessive a sign of refinement that the dogaressa was severely rebuked by the ecclesiastics who called down divine wrath upon her.... Read more
Elias suggests that the blossoming of German literature in the late 18th century was largely led by middle-class writers and thinkers whose tastes and styles ran directly counter to the Francophile culture of Frederick’s court: “This German literary movement, whose exponents included Klopstock, Herder, Lessing, the poets of Sturm und Drang , the poets of ‘sensibility,’ and the circle known as the Gottinger Hain , the young Goethe, the young Schiller” were among them. He continues, “In the writings of... Read more
A couple of weeks ago, I quoted Frederick the Great’s judgment that Shakespeare’s plays were fit only for “savages of Canada,” what with their “jumble of lowliness and grandeur, of buffoonery and tragedy,” their sins “against all the rules of the theatre, rules which are not at all arbitrary.” Frederick was gentle with the Bard’s “bizarre errors,” since “the beginning of the arts is never the point of maturity.” Frederick’s opinions were widely shared, both among the French-inspired courtly classes... Read more
A few scattered notes on this section of John’s first epistle. 1) There is a repeated emphasis on the contrast between word and action, word and walk. Three times John uses the clause “if we say that” (1:6, 8, 10), and another three times he uses “the one who says” (2:4, 6, 9). In each case, something in the conduct of the speaker falsifies his words. John gives a pragmatic test of truth: Our words must be confirmed by our... Read more
INTRODUCTION John’s gospel is about the character of God: He proclaims that God is light, and has no darkness at all (1:5). This gospel comes with the demand to walk in the light (1:6). What does that mean? THE TEXT “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we... Read more
1 John 1:1: What our hands have handled. We often think fondly of how wonderful it would have been to be alive in Palestine when Jesus was around. We wouldn’t have to believe on the testimony of anyone else. We could have seen all those miracles with our own eyes. We wouldn’t have to hear about people handling Jesus; we could have touched Him with our own hands. We could have sat with Him at a meal. Being there was... Read more
At the beginning of his epistle, John emphasizes the eyewitness testimony of the apostles. They preach about things that they have seen and heard with their own ears and eyes, things they have touched. Since we haven’t done any of that, we rely on their testimony, and that is troublesome for many Christians. Our knowledge of Jesus seems much less reliable than that of the apostles had. Like Thomas, we want to see it for ourselves. (more…) Read more
Some thoughts on the sun/light symbolism in Genesis, inspired by a number of fine student papers on the subject. 1) The symbolism is set up in the first day of creation. Creation’s original state is dark, formless, and empty; and the work of creation produces a world that is bright, ordered, and teeming. From 1:2 on, darkness is a “reversion” to an original state, prior to the ordering work of the Spirit; light is the beginning of a new creation.... Read more
An epic poem by my son Christian. Sing goddess, of the procrastination of Peter’s son Christian and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon his GPA, hurled in its glory to the house of hated C’s, and his strong soul of a hero quailed at the thought of the righteous punishment from parents, and all authority, when their will would be accomplished through grounding, and extra homework, since that time when first there stood in division of conflict Peter’s son,... Read more
An epic poem by my son Christian. Sing goddess, of the procrastination of Peter’s son Christian and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon his GPA, hurled in its glory to the house of hated C’s, and his strong soul of a hero quailed at the thought of the righteous punishment from parents, and all authority, when their will would be accomplished through grounding, and extra homework, since that time when first there stood in division of conflict Peter’s son,... Read more
Leithart
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