High Church Donatists

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

The Donatists are usually seen as the sectarians of the early church but Robert Dodaro points out that for Augustine their sectarianism derived from their clericalism: “Augustine explains that cultic acts which remit sins, such as baptism, are in reality performed by Christ, who acts through Christian priests. Augustine’s frequent insistence on this point is due, in part, to his conclusion that the Donatists, by erroneously attributing to their bishops the power of obtaining forgiveness of sins through intercessory prayer,... Read more

Sermon notes, Second Sunday of Lent

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:02 am By Peter Leithart

INTRODUCTION Like Moses (Numbers 27:17), Jesus sees that Israel is like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36), a field white to harvest. Moses gave authority to Joshua to lead Israel in and out in conquest; Jesus gives authority to the Twelve to carry out another conquest (10:1). THE TEXT “And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds... Read more

Eucharistic exhortation, First Sunday of Lent

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:36 pm By Peter Leithart

Matthew 9:36: And seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were harassed and thrown down like sheep having no shepherd. I mentioned in the sermon that the phrase “sheep without a shepherd” appears in the prophecy of Micaiah who warns Ahab that he will die if he goes out to fight the Arameans. AhabHe will die and leave Israel scattered like sheep without a shepherd. That is the condition of Israel in the first century as well.... Read more

Exhortation, First Sunday of Lent

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:40 pm By Peter Leithart

After His baptism, Jesus went into the wilderness to fast and to be tempted by the devil for forty days and nights. The first temptation concerned food. Jesus was the new Adam, facing a food test not in a garden but in the wilderness. Jesus was the new Israel, hungering in the desert but refusing to grumble or distrust His Father. Satan tried to get Jesus to turn stones into bread, but Jesus answered, “Man does not live by bread... Read more

Classy exit

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:49 pm By Peter Leithart

Mitt Romney bowed out before he embarrassed himself with further losses. He had no chance, and his exit is a bow to the inevitable. But give him his due: While Clinton and Obama spend millions fighting each other over the next few months, Romney has given McCain time to raise money, solidify his base, to rest. Nothing in Romney’s campaign became him like the leaving of it. Read more

Covenant kin

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

In a recent article on Ruth 1:16-17 in CBQ , Mark Smith comments on the relation between covenantal and familial terminology in Ruth and elsewhere. Even when covenants have political dimensions, as in international treaties, they are fundamentally mechanisms for extending kin ties beyond immediate blood relations. Smith writes: (more…) Read more

Ends and Beginnings

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:36 pm By Peter Leithart

Ruth begins with death – the death of the land in famine, the death of exile, the death of Elimelech, the death of Naomi’s sons, the death of Naomi’s future. Naomi goes out full, and comes back empty. Ruth 1 is a perfect tragic story, a story of endings and emptyings. But it is chapter 1, and the author wants us to realize that this series of deaths is not an end. The end of chapter 1 is a beginning,... Read more

Hazlitt’s Helena

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

Hazlitt defends Helena’s ( All’s Well ) virtue in a gentlemanlike way: “The character of Helen is one of great sweetness and delicacy. She is placed in circumstances of the most critical kind and has to court her husband both as a virgin and a wife: yet the most scrupulous nicety of female modesty is not once violated. There is not one thought or action that ought to bring a blush into her cheeks, or that for a moment lessens... Read more

Politics of brotherhood

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:04 am By Peter Leithart

Abimelech gains the support of the Shechemites by emphasizing his kinship through his mother – “I am your bone and your flesh” (Judges 9:2). The Shechemites resonate to the rhetoric: “He is our brother,” they say (9:3). It’s not a stable partnership. Kinship isn’t a sound foundation for kingship, at least in this case. No doubt that’s partly due to the fact that Abimelech gets his Shechemite “brothers” to finance the slaughter of 70 “brothers,” the sons of Jerubbaal, in... Read more

Sympathy for Bertram

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:56 pm By Peter Leithart

Coleridge, on the other hand, stood up for Bertram: “I cannot agree with the solemn abuse which the critics have poured out upon Bertram in All’s Well that ends Well . He was a young nobleman in feudal times, just bursting into manhood, with all the feelings of pride of birth and appetite for pleasure and liberty natural to such a character so circumstanced. Of course he had never regarded Helena otherwise than as a dependant in the family; and... Read more