Self-Published Borges

Last updated on: September 15, 2017 at 2:03 am By Peter Leithart

The first published book of Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentinian poet and short-story writer, was Fervor de Buenos Aires. Borges later wrote, “Fervor de Buenos Aires foreshadows everything I would do afterward.” It was a slapdash production, Borges claimed in his autobiography: “The book was actually printed in five days; the printing had to be rushed, because it was necessary for us to return to Europe. . . . [It] was produced in a somewhat boyish spirit. No proofreading was done,... Read more

Secular Salvation

Last updated on: September 15, 2017 at 2:01 am By Peter Leithart

John Colmer observes in his study of E.M. Forster that Forster’s novels transpose Christian terms into a secular key: “a whole set of religious terms – salvation, grace, conversion, transfiguration – become assimilated into an essentially secular vision. . . . Men now seek their happiness on this earth not in heaven; they develop what Pater calls, in Marius the Epicurean (1885), ‘a religious veneration for life as such’; when men can no longer find the true ground of their being in God they... Read more

Fall of the Creative Class?

Last updated on: September 15, 2017 at 1:59 am By Peter Leithart

Richard Florida’s 2002 Rise of the Creative Class was a manifesto for urban hipness. As Joseph Bottum sums up the book, Florida argued that “cities thrive when these creative types are allowed to build the creative economy. Their tolerance for alternative lifestyles and their acceptance of unconventional housing broke down the rigidity that had almost killed urban life in the collapse of manufacturing. As he looked at Boston, New York, and San Francisco, he saw a creative economy that fed upon itself... Read more

Medieval Tolerance

Last updated on: September 14, 2017 at 6:07 pm By Peter Leithart

“Medieval tolerance” sounds like an oxymoron. Everyone knows the medievals were intolerant. Everyone knows that tolerance was invented in the modern world. Everyone who knows such things is wrong. Istvan Bejczy demonstrates in a 1997 essay that medieval thinkers had a well-developed concept of tolerance. He goes further than saying that medievals had a concept of tolerance. He argues that “Medieval tolerantia is a full-fledged example of what tolerance could be. It is an even more coherent and forceful concept... Read more

What Is Thanks? Daily Eucharist

Last updated on: September 18, 2017 at 6:07 pm By Peter Leithart

Thanksgiving isn't an emotion. Read more

What Is Thanks? Eucharist in the Church

Last updated on: September 11, 2017 at 2:11 am By Peter Leithart

The combined sacrificial-verbal todah (thank offering) carries over directly into the Christian Supper. The main elements of the ancient Israelite rite are present, either in the New Testament or in very early post-apostolic celebrations of the Eucharist. 1) Jesus instructs his disciples to “do this” – not only to eat and drink but to re-perform his preparation for eating and drinking: Take, give thanks/bless, break and distribute. Christians early acknowledged the central role of thanksgiving in the rite, assigning the name... Read more

What Is Thanks? Rite and Speech Act

Last updated on: September 10, 2017 at 6:56 pm By Peter Leithart

Most English translations introduce the terminology of “thanks” in of Leviticus, as a translation of todah (Lev 7:11-15), a noun derived from yadah. In the Levitical system, todah does not refer to emotions or verbal expressions of gratitude but to a sacrificial ritual, a specific form of the peace offering (shelem). Leviticus 7, which describes the thank offering, assumes the general shelem rite of Leviticus 3, prescribes an assortment of cakes and breads, and requires that the flesh of the... Read more

Walking In Light

Last updated on: September 10, 2017 at 6:10 pm By Peter Leithart

The following is an excerpt from my commentary on 1-3 John, From Behind the Veil. The chapter division in our Bibles does not follow the flow of John’s argument in 1 John, which slips past the end of chapter 1 and flows into the beginning of chapter 2. The first verses of chapter 2 deal with sin, the topic in 1:8-10. The word “sin” is first used in the letter at the end of 1:7, and then used another seven... Read more

What Is Thanks? A Name

Last updated on: September 11, 2017 at 7:26 pm By Peter Leithart

“What is thanks?” Scripture answers that thanks is neither an emotion nor a virtue.[1] It is accompanied by emotions, and as we get to the New Testament it broadens to become a tone or stance of life, something like a meta-virtue. Fundamentally, thanks is a name, a ritual, and a speech act. Let us start there and see what it yields. In this first installment, I look at “thanks” as the name of a man, tribe, kingdom, and people. Hebrew has... Read more

Capitalism and Community

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 5:12 am By Peter Leithart

Brian Jones argues that defenses of capitalism are anthropologically thin. They “need a more humane anthropology, sensitive to man’s social and communal nature, lest they forget to ask the crucial question of what economics is for.” He cites a 2002 article from the American Spectator to illustrate the reductive character of some defenses of capitalism economics. In that article, John Rutledge defined economics as “the interactions of systems of people in markets. Just as in physics, our concerns are work and... Read more