Socrates’s discussion of purity in the Sophist treats the concept in a refined fashion. He admits the existence of bodily impurities, but his focus is on the mental impurities that need to be cleansed if someone is to escape the evils of ignorance and error. Benjamin Jowett provides this summary of Plato’s taxonomy of purity in his edition of the dialogue: “Do not our household servants talk of sifting, straining, winnowing? And they also speak of carding, spinning, and the like.... Read more
“Sensing that Africa had been cast aside by the West in the wake of the Cold War,” writes Howard French in China’s Second Continent, “Beijing saw the continent as a perfect proving ground for some Chinese companies to cut their teeth in international business.” That Africa is rich in natural resources was a nice perk too, and as Africa develops it also becomes a new market for the world’s biggest factory that is China. Chinese investment in Africa has grown in a... Read more
My friends at Romans Road Media have posted a brief essay of mine on the penetration of Christianity into Germanic literature. While you’re there, check out some of the educational resources, especially the video courses on Old Western Culture taught by Wes Calihan. Read more
Abraham is the first man in the Bible who is called a “prophet” (Genesis 20:7). A prophet, Abraham Heschel pointed out, is a member of Yahweh’s council, an officer of the court who listens in on the proceedings and has the privilege of the floor. Fittingly, Abraham is called “prophet” when the Lord tells Abimelech that Abraham will intercede for him; a few chapters earlier, Abraham engaged in a dialogue with Yahweh about the fate of Sodom, displaying his prophetic... Read more
US Army Captain Benjamin Summers warns against hero-inflation in a piece in the Washington Post: “Many veterans deserve high praise for their heroism, but others of us do not. Infantrymen who put their lives on the line for a mission, aircrews who flew into harm’s way to evacuate the wounded, servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice — these are some of the heroes I’ve been privileged to know. Applying the label ‘hero’ to those of us who haven’t earned... Read more
Jonathan Arnold’s Sacred Music in Secular Society poses a question and offers an answer. Sacred music is popular: Witness the sales of chant albums, the popularity of the Tallis Scholars, the Sixteen, and other groups.The question is why music composed for liturgy or with liturgical interests, music once used in liturgical contexts is still popular. Is something more than aesthetic going on? Arnold thinks so. Regardless of the faith of the listener, or the composer, “the attraction of beautiful and profound... Read more
“Ritual” wasn’t a hooray term in early Protestantism. Catholics had their rituals and ceremoniousness, and Protestants had little interest. Yet it was a Scot, and a professor of divinity, Robertson Smith, who first focused scholarly attention on the phenomenon. As Jan Bremmer points out in his contribution to Ansichten griechischer Rituale, Robertson Smith’s contemporaries did not share his interest. Tylor had a single chapter on rituals in Primitive Culture, and there was no entry on ritual in the Encyclopedia Britannica, that... Read more
Socrates claimed that the aim of philosophers was “to practice for dying and death,” and this means that the philosopher must be eager for death all his life and face his eventual death as with equanimity. Preparation for death involves dying before death, and this is a process of purification and consecration that separates soul and body: “does purification not turn out to be . . . to separate the soul as far as possible from the body and accustom... Read more
John Walton’s discussion of Intelligent Design is a mess (The Lost World of Genesis 1). He writes, “The difficulty they face is that if there is intelligent design, there must logically be an intelligent designer” (126). That inference is not a “difficulty,” but one of the aims of the project. He goes on, “Given the existence of a designer, it would logically be inferred that such a designer is not simply playing games or being artistic, but working with a... Read more
Evangelia Anagostou-Laoutides’s Eros and Ritual in Ancient Literature is a complex, footnote-stuffed delight. She examines three myths with erotic overtones – Atalanta, Daphnis, and Orpheus – summarizing the different presentations of the myths in early Greek (Hesiod, Greek drama), Hellenistic (Theocritus, Callimachus), and Roman (Virgil, Ovid, Propertius) literature. Along the way, she uncovers traces of ancient near eastern myths: Artemis is linked with Ishtar, Daphnis with Tammuz and Gilgamesh. There are even hints of the Song of Songs in Hellenistic versions... Read more
Leithart
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In