From Joseph Ratzinger in Communio: Vol. 1, The Unity of the Church (Ressourcement: Retrieval & Renewal in Catholic Thought) : “The true chance for ecumenism does not lie in revolt against the Church as it is, in a Christianity as free of the Church as possible, but in a deepening of the reality which is the Church . . . . In practice, this means that one cannot live ecumenism against one’s own Church, but only by trying to deepen... Read more
A “mighty angel” descends from heaven holding an open book (Revelation 10:1). I agree with Richard Bauckham’s argument ( Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation ) that this is the same as the book opened by the Lamb. When the book first appears, it is on the right side of the Father, the Enthronement (Revelation 5:1). The Lamb took the book, opened the seals. The angel is clearly the angel of Yahweh, Jesus in Angelic form (as... Read more
Peter Leithart and James Jordan are among America’s most penetrating Christian preachers and teachers, at once rigorously biblical and richly catholic. Their ambitious vision of the Lordship of Christ gives a vital role to the liturgical worship, helping us to see that the church is the New Israel, a nation of disciples that is a light unto the nations, a form of life capable of ordering society as a whole in accord with divine precepts. Today a hostile secular elite... Read more
Ancient temples were houses for the gods, represented by images. That is what Isaiah is talking about when he describes idolaters carrying their gold images, setting them in place, standing them up, and bowing to them (46:5-7). Yahweh too brings something to His House. Isaiah 46:13 pictures Yahweh as a worshiper ascending to Zion with a gift for the house. What He sets up on Zion is His own righteousness, salvation, and His glory. Those are His contributions to the... Read more
In Isaiah 46:11, Yahweh announces that He is bringing a bird of prey from the east to do all his counsel and pleasure. It is a “man,” a reference back to Cyrus, the Shepherd who does all Yahweh’s pleasure (44:28). This is proof of the kind of God Yahweh is, a point that He makes explicitly in the following lines: A. Surely I speak B. Surely I cause it to come A’. I form ( yatsar ) B’. Surely I... Read more
Isaiah describes the Babylonian planet gods Bel (Jupiter) and Nebo (Nabu, Mercury) at the beginning of chapter 46. They are weary, bowed and stooped in defeat and fatigue. Their images are being carried on carts because they are incapable of bearing them themselves. The could not deliver ( malat ) the burden ( massa ), and are taken into captivity, presumably by the all-conquering Cyrus (44:28-45:1). Yahweh is different. “Hear,” He announces to Jacob and Israel, echoing the Shema. He... Read more
In her TNR review of Andrew Frisardi’s translation of Dante’s Vita Nova , Helen Vendler observes that Dante’s autobiographical cycle of prose and poems was not published until 1576, “almost three hundred years after its composition.” How was the Comedy understood in its absence? Beatrice appears in the Comedy of course, but would anyone know who Beatrice was without access to the Vita Nuova ? Various theories would have been developed about the nine-fold structure of each zone of the... Read more
In an essay on Thomas Nagel’s recent Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False , Edward Feser (at firstthings.com) describes what he calls the “eliminative materialism” that is strongly implied in post-Cartesian philosophy. Feser writes, “On the new view of nature inaugurated by Galileo and Descartes, the material world is comprised of nothing more than colorless, odorless, soundless, meaningless, purposeless particles in motion, describable in purely mathematical terms. The differences between dirt, water,... Read more
“In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah . . . Eval-merodach king of Babylon . . . released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison” (2 Kings 25:27). Jehoiachin was elevated above other kings, given royal robes, and allowed to sit at the table of the king of Babylon the rest of his life. This incident divides the exile in two. For the first thirty-seven years of Jehoiachin’s exile, the Davidic king was imprisoned. In the... Read more
As John H. McKenna sees it ( Become What You Receive: A Systematic Study of the Eucharist (Hillenbrand Books) , 207 ), neither Protestants nor Catholics started from the right spot in debating Eucharistic sacrifice. The “fatal flaw” in both was the equation of sacrifice with immolation. Catholic equated the two and said the Mass was a sacrifice; Protestants equated the two and said, No. This fatal flaw was actually two flaws. On the one hand, they started from the... Read more
Leithart
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