Corporations, cont’d

Last updated on: July 1, 2010 at 11:55 pm By Peter Leithart

Eric Enlow from the Handong University of South Korea writes with some clarifications about corporations and corporate law. The rest of this post is all from Eric. I think Daly’s argument misses some important details. The Berman quote does not demonstrate that medieval law recognized the natural reality of groups to a greater extent than modern law. First, the Berman quotation deals with canon law, not the general civil law of the middle ages. Thus, it provides no support for the claim... Read more

Corporations, cont’d

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:51 pm By Peter Leithart

One God

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:05 am By Peter Leithart

Of the atonement, Robert Jenson writes: “We do not want to share the Son’s relation to the Father, we do not want there to be a Father; and that is why the one who said, ‘When you pray, say ‘Our Father,’ had to die. The Father sends servant after servant and finally the Son. The vineyard-keepers kill each in turn; given the project that defines their lives, to have no one over them, they could not do otherwise.” Again: “The... Read more

Joined Levites

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:45 pm By Peter Leithart

Isaiah 56:3, 6 promises that the sons of strangers will be joined to Yahweh. Zechariah 2:11 says the same. In both passages, the verb “join” translates the Hebrew lawah , the verb on which the name “Levi” is a pun. The prophets are not simply talking about Gentiles becoming distant hangers-on among the covenant people, but about Gentiles becoming joined like the Levites who have been brought near. They anticipate the priesthood of the plebs. Read more

Corporations and the Corpus Christi

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:51 pm By Peter Leithart

In an interview on Ken Myers’ Mars Hill audio magazine, Lew Daly comments on the failure of American law to recognize the reality of groups. Corporations are recognized as legal persons endowed with rights, but other groups are not. This gives corporations enormous legal clout in contest with individuals, even if those individuals band together; and it is evidence that American public life is rooted in individualistic assumptions. Daly cites Harold Berman’s discussion of corporation law in the medieval period,... Read more

Distributism and Development

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:53 pm By Peter Leithart

In his book on the Peruvian village of Pomatamba, Adam K. Webb applies the much-mocked Distributism of GK Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc to issues of globalization and development. In an interview available on the Intercollegiate Studies Institute web site, he answers a question of whether he is a liberal or conservative this way: “In the usual sense, neither. Obviously I’m concerned with social justice, with a fairer distribution of the world’s goods and with relieving poverty. I think most so-called... Read more

Mangled Names

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:10 am By Peter Leithart

Tournay also has an explanation for the apparent mangling of names in the Song. “Amminadab” appears where we might expect Abinadab, Shunammite where we might be thinking of Shulamite. This, he argues, is purposeful. The names are to bring to mind their historical equivalents, but by changing the spelling of the names the poet also distances the names from their historical predecessors, thus pushing the poem toward an eschatological fulfillment. The poem is not about an historical “Shulamite,” but instead... Read more

Turn, Turn

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:50 pm By Peter Leithart

Like other commentators on the Song, Raymond Jacques Tournay suggests that the “chariots of Amminadab” and the dance referredto at the end of Song of Song 6 allude to David’s entry into Jerusalem with the ark. What he adds is an allusion to the exile ad return: “In Song 7:1, the fourfold entreaty ‘Come back’ can remind us of rhe return of the exiles of Judah from the four quarters of the world.” The ark becomes the symbol of restored... Read more

Kvetching

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:46 pm By Peter Leithart

David Brooks’s NYT editorial today puts Gen. McChrystal’s removal in cultural context. Everyone in DC and in the military kvetches, Brooks says; it’s part of the culture, part of the way political groups maintain their cohesion over against everyone else. It has always been so. What has changed in the last few decades, though, is the development of a media ethic of exposure that replaced the ethic of reticence sometime after Vietnam. Brooks concludes: “The reticent ethos had its flaws.... Read more

Jacob the Sacrifice

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:45 pm By Peter Leithart

The Bible first mentions “fragrance” in connection with Noah’s sacrifice following the flood. He offers up a pacifying (a “noachic”) fragrance by turning animals to smoke (Genesis 8:21). The next time there’s a fragrance, it’s Jacob dressed in borrowed clothing, seeking blessing from Isaac (Genesis 27:27). As Yahweh “smelled the smell” of Noah’s sacrifice, so Isaac “smells the smell” of the firstborn’s garment on the second-born’s body. Isaac corresponds to Yahweh, Jacob to Noah (or, more strictly, to Noah’s sacrifice).... Read more