Why nausea?

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:48 pm By Peter Leithart

William Desmond ( Being and the Between ) points out that humans continue to experience a “surge of mind’s self-transcendence” in the face of skeptical arguments from empiricists and idealists. Metaphysics won’t stay down, and the attempt to keep it down is a self-defeating attempt to suppress the wonder at the world that is the source of philosophy in the first place. To dissolve metaphysics into “matters of habit and custom” simply relocates the question: Why should there be these... Read more

One sense?

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

Milton describes the hoards of fallen angels as scattered, fallen leaves: “thick as Autumnal leaves.” What does this mean? What’s the point of comparison? Is it merely: There are lots of fallen angels, just as there are lots of fallen leaves in your yard? The repetition of “fallen” in the last sentence suggests otherwise. Fallen leaves aren’t just numerous and thick, but evoke a story – a story of life leading to death, of height that leads to a fall,... Read more

Inverted allusion

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

Milton describes Satan’s spear as “equal which the tallest Pine / Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the Mast / of some great Ammiral.” In his translation of the Iliad , Pope describes the death of Sarpedon: “as some mountain Oak, or Poplar tall / or pine (fit mast for some great Admiral) / Nods to the Ax . . . Thus fell the King.” So, we get Homer borrowing a line from Milton, who had originally borrowed it from... Read more

Originary echo

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

Hollander quotes this evocative passage from Thoreau, who describes the sound of distant church bells: “The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood; the same trivial words and notes sung by a wood-nymph.” Read more

Joycean echoes

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

Hollander quotes the final sentence of “The Dead”: “His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.” The chiasm of “falling faintly” and “faintly falling” makes it feel as if you pass through the sentence twice – as if you walked through a revolving door and came back out, but were not where you started. Hollander also notes... Read more

American Adam

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:46 pm By Peter Leithart

John Hollander ( Figure of Echo ) thinks there’s more going on in the Gettysburg Address than “a monument of the antimonumental, of noble plain style”: “the implicit contrasts set up a powerful pair of tropes, and either lack of appropriate access to scripture or exegetical pudeur has passed them over. They might be sketched out as follows: (1) ’ Whereas in the beginning, at Our Father’s command , the earth brought forth grass . . . (Genesis 1:12), a... Read more

Grain of Wheat

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:43 pm By Peter Leithart

The 1967 novel, A Grain of Wheat , by Ngugi wa Thiong’o tells the story of a village as Kenyan independence approaches. There is a love triangle involving Mumbi and the rivals for her love, the collaborator Karanja and the carpenter Gikonyo, who eventually marries her. There is the tortured hermit Mugo, regarded as a hero of the Movement for his endurance during detention camp and for rescuing a pregnant woman from a beating. Hanging over the book is the... Read more

Sermon outline, Second Sunday of Trinity

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:01 am By Peter Leithart

INTRODUCTION Jesus’ ministry is a significant discontinuity in Israel ’s history. But it is not entirely discontinuous with that history. In a series of parables, Jesus explains how He is not the cancellation but the climax of Israel ’s story. Like the Psalmist, he utters hidden things (Matthew 13:34 -35; Psalm 78:2), the hidden meaning of God’s work with Israel . THE TEXT “Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who... Read more

Pentateuchal diversity

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

Jewish biblical scholar Jon Levenson notices the discrepancies between Exodus and Deuteronomy, specifically regarding the length of time for eating unleavened bread (Exodus 12:18; Deuteronomy 16:8). The Rabbis noticed them too. Instead of concluding that this is a signal of multiple sources, he follows the rabbis in suggesting that (in Matthew Levering’s summary) “the operative law is to be discovered by taking both passages into account. The unity of the Mosaic Torah requires that all data be considered.” That’s an... Read more

Uncharity and the secular

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

David Yeago writes “The modern secularity project was not a demonic upsurge of incomprehensible hostility to the faith; it was in large measure the attempt of decent minds to cope with the chaos public Christianity had wrought in the wake of the Reformation. The incapacity of Christians to live together in charity in the biblical world subverted the cultural plausibility of that world and motivated the urgency with which the secularist project strove to get the Bible under control. Indeed,... Read more