boethius, consolation of philosophy, i.VI, p.20
creation is the foundation of philosophy.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
It is nothing serious, only a touch of amnesia that he is suffering, the common disease of deluded minds. He has forgotten for a while who he is, but he will soon remember once he has recognized me. To make it easier for him I will wipe a little of the blinding cloud of worldly concern from his eyes.
boethius, consolation of philosophy, i.II, p.6
At the sight of the Muses of Poetry at my bedside dictating words to accompany my tears she became angry.
"Who," she demanded, her piercing eyes alight with fire, "has allowed these hysterical sluts to approach this sick man's beside?"
boethius, consolation of philosophy, i.I, pg.4
heh. philosophy is a true woman. capon would be proud.
Monday, February 21, 2011
i think if we fully realized the magnitude of God's constant interest in every molecule of this universe our heads would explode. God continually speaks every molecule of ink in every word on every page of every grocery store novel? the snow that randomly fell down the back of my neck friday went there because He was continually speaking water molecules in the icey-snow mode in the key of sliding-due-to-gravity. awesome doesn't begin to describe it.
What you have done is to draw two peoples,
the Geat nation and us neighboring Danes,
into shared peace and a pact of friendship
in spite of hatreds we have harbored in the past
beowulf, 1855-1858
beowulf is a Christ figure -- one who brings not peace but a sword, but by his destruction brings life and peace.
It was engraved all over
and showed how war first came into the world
and the flood destroyed the tribe of giants.
They suffered a terrible severance from the Lord;
the Almighty made the waters rise,
drowned them in the deluge for retribution.
beowulf, 1688-1693
it's pretty amazing that grendel's mother is slain by the sword of a giant-killer, but also that they had this idea of giants being the cause of the flood. just interesting.
But the Lord was weaving
a victory on His war-loom for the Weather-Geats.
Through the strength of one they all prevailed;
they would crush their enemy and come through
in triumph and gladness. The truth is clear:
Almighty God rules over mankind
and always has.
beowulf, 696-702
as a side-note to the general awesomeness of this passage, the image of God at a loom weaving the story of the world seems like a much truer picture than zeus with his jars of good and evil. just saying.
They had seen me boltered in the blood of enemies
when I battle and bound five beasts,
raided a troll-nest and in the night-sea
slaughtered sea-brutes...
therefore, to heighten Hygelac's fame
and gladden his heart, I hereby renounce
sword and the shelter of the broad shield,
the heavy war-board: hand-to-hand
is how it will be, a life-and-death
fight with the fiend. Whichever one death fells
must deem it a just judgment by God.
beowulf, 419-441
beowulf is a new david: a king who comes with three triumphs (remember david had already killed the bear and the lion before goliath, so having killed goliath and triumphed a third time he was ready to become king) and now, like david, renounces armor, saying that the battle is the Lord's.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
It is important to break away from the modern notion that an artist should strive for originality and that a creator has a kind of monopoly on his own designs. A medieval artist was expected to work according to a specific formula, and this must have often meant using designs and compositions with a familiar precedent. In fact, the genius of a medieval illuminator is reflected in the skill with which he could execute an established subject.
christopher de hamel, history of illuminated manuscripts, pgs.194-195
Sunday, February 13, 2011
After the assassination of Salman Taseer, Governor of Punjab Province in Pakistan, there has been a surge in Islamic orthodoxy, threatening the civilian Government in Islamabad. In the Soviet era, communist states would view dissent as deviation from ideology. In the 21st century, dissidence is being equated increasingly with blasphemy in Islamic countries. For instance, in Pakistan, at least 30 people are reported to be on the death row for alleged violations of the tough anti-blasphemy laws of that country.
via the pioneer, a daily in new delhi, india
in other words, 30 christians are about to die because the one man who stood up to the fundamentalist muslims is dead. they're just waiting until we stop looking. i give them two weeks.
Friday, February 11, 2011
But He [the Son of God] did take true flesh, even if the Valentinians go crazy; and the Word was true God by nature, even if the Arians go mad. In this flesh there has come about the beginning of our new creation because he has been created as a human being for our sake and has renewed the way for us, as has been said.
athanasius, orations against the arians, 2:70
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Over at First Things, George Weigel reports on the latest findings of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research.
Some of the statistics are provocative, particularly those related to the number of martyrs:
"The provocation in the 2011 report involves martyrdom. For purposes of research, the report defines “martyrs” as “believers in Christ who have lost their lives, prematurely, in situations of witness, as a result of human hostility.” The report estimates that there were, on average, 270 new Christian martyrs every 24 hours over the past decade, such that “the number of martyrs [in the period 2000-2010] was approximately 1 million.” Compare this to an estimated 34,000 Christian martyrs in 1900."
This is stunning and seems unbelievable, and one wonders how well we (western Christians) really are mourning with those who mourn. Are we really bearing the burdens of our brothers and sisters suffering for the sake of the gospel? How can we stand with them?
Meanwhile, we continue to splinter: Weigel writes, "As for the quest for Christian unity: There were 1,600 Christian denominations in 1900; there were 18,800 in 1970; and there are 42,000 today."
But as God frequently does, for all the dividing there is growth. The report suggests an overall, worldwide growth in Christianity, but the growth of Christianity in Africa is the most astonishing:
"Africa has been the most stunning area of Christian growth over the past century. There were 8.7 million African Christians in 1900 (primarily in Egypt, Ethiopia and South Africa); there are 475 million African Christians today and their numbers are projected to reach 670 million by 2025."
crushing and beautiful. truth and mercy are meeting more every day, righteousness and peace are forming a more perfect union as we watch.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
If you ignore God in order to love something else - well, he made that too. Anything, I repeat, that you love at the cost of ignoring God, was created by him. If it wasn't beautiful, then you wouldn't love it. But where does its beauty come from if it wasn't created by God, whose beauty is invisible? You love gold. Well, God made it. You love beautiful bodies, you love flesh. God made them. You love your delightful estate. God made it. You love the precious light. God made it. If you ignore God in favour of something he made - well then, please love God himself as well. How much does he deserve to be loved, how much does he deserve to be loved, when he created everything that you love? Love him like this - and your love for him will grow.
I am not saying that you should have no loves; I simply want your loves to be properly ordered.
augustine, sermon 335c: on the feast of a martyr, p.59
i give up criticizing augustine for platonism. not only has the debate gotten ridiculously old, it's a question that shouldn't need answering if you've read enough augustine carefully enough. he loves creation, he just loves God more.
At one time, Latin womenfolk would be kept pure
By humble fortune; and to stop vice tainting their small
Abodes they had to work, slumber brief, and hardened hands
Fretted with Tuscan fleece, and Hannibal beside
The city, and husbands standing on the Colline tower.
Luxury has set in, avenging the conquered globe.
Not one crime has been wanting or one act of lust
Since Roman poverty expired.
juvenal, satires 6. ll.287-295, in juvenal's sixteen satires upon the ancient harlot.
quoted in augustine's letter to marcellinus, pp.39-40
again, america.
If Christian teaching condemned all warfare, then the soldiers in the gospel who were seeking guidance about their security would have been told to throw away their weapons and withdraw entirely from the army. But what was said to them was: 'Do not intimidate anyone; do not bring false charges against anyone; be satisfied with your wages' [Lk 3:14]. He instructed them to be satisfied with their due wages, but he didn't prohibit military service in general.
augustine, letter to marcellinus, p.39
If God allows that sort of thing to flourish, it shows that he is seriously displeased. By letting it go unpunished he inflicts a more savage punishment. But when he overthrows such aids to vice, and reduces their pampered passions to poverty, then his opposition is merciful.
augustine, letter to marcellinus, p.38
exactly why america should be terribly, terribly afraid. God has given us the desires of our own hearts.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
That great contemporary doctor Vindicianus was consulted by someone and he prescribe a remedy for a sickness that seemed suitable at that time. The man used it and was restored to health. A few years later his physical complaint flared up again. He decided to apply the same remedy. His health deteriorated further. He was surprised, and hurried back to the doctor to tell him what had happened. Vincidianus, a very clever man, replied, ‘the reason that you are responding badly to this is that I did not prescribe it.’ As a result, all those listeners who did not know him well thought that he didn’t rely on his medical skill but on some forbidden powers. Later on, when some of those who had been amazed by him questioned him, he explained to them what they hadn’t understood: he would not have prescribed that remedy for a man of that age. A remedy is only effective if it alters in accordance with different ages following a system of expertise that does not change.
The claim that what was once correct action can never be altered is, therefore, untrue. Rather, when the circumstances of time have altered, true reason normally demands that actions that were previously correct now be altered. Consequently while they argue that an action can’t be correct if it is altered, truth, by contrast, proclaims that the action will only be correct if it changes; each action will be correct precisely when it is adapted to each different period of time. The same may hold of different persons during the same period.
augustine, letter to marcellinus (411/412), pp.31-32
dad's only been saying this for like 15 years. but all the same, this is awesome. AWESOME.
In my judgment (if my view is not mistaken) it is a more serious thing to be stripped of resources than to be killed. That is true at least if death entirely removes our perception of evil, while a life of poverty produces endless misfortune - claims which, as you know, are frequently found in literature. It is a more serious matter to live a life full of evils than to put an end to those evils by dying.
nectarius, letter 103 to augustine, p.9
telling that this is how the roman world thought. nectarius, a pagan, lives in a culture of death. death is less evil than an impoverished life. we say that death is a shadow and to bow to it a crime. perhaps, like chesterton would say, nectarius is just bored with the world.
Do you think that leaving an outrage like that to go unpunished, or failing to reform the guilty as they deserve, will allow you to leave your homeland 'flourishing'? Flowers like that won't produce fruit, but thorns! Compare the choices: would you prefer your hometown to flower with piety or with licence, with reformed characters, or with atrocities unchecked? Compare the choices, and see whether your love for your home-town surpasses ours, and whether you, or we, are more fully and genuinely eager for it to flourish.
augustine, letter 91 to nectarius (408/9 aD), p.3
chesterton says you have to love the city enough to burn it down. turns out he got it from augustine.
Augustine also witnessed direct conflict in Milan when Arian imperial troops attempted to seize a Catholic basilica, with Ambrose, the Catholic bishop, inside.
robert dodaro and margaret atkins, introduction to political writings by augustine, p.xiii
it's hard for me to see any pastor in the u.s. doing this. admittedly, my exposure is limited, but i can only think of a handful of men who would stand outside their church and calmly tell the armed marines outside that they couldn't come in.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Take Matthew's case ... The lawyer has the last sentence in mind when he writes the first. Such a brief, we are told, is planned on one plane, and is of one mind (at least this is the theory; I do not believe in it). But Matthew begins: 'Jesus was the king of the Jews' and at the end, he knows of himself: 'For heaven's sake, I no longer am a Jew' and leaves.
rosenstock-heussy, fruit of lips, p.39
Thursday, February 3, 2011
A Christian of the first century was introduced into a way of life and under way, on the way, was told the things necessary for his becoming a missionary himself, a witness, a confessor, possibly a martyr. To hear was nothing but the first step for telling others. Not curiosity but salvation was served. And its continuous flow was achieved by the foolishness of oral preaching. The tremendous novelty of the written Gospels, therefore, was that anything written should rank as Gospel truth at all.
rosenstock-heussy, fruit of lips, p.26
Many people have written exercises, perfect logical treatises on Christianity to prove or to refute its case. This did not make them into evangelists. An evangelist is a man who, by speaking of Jesus, changes his own mind; by being in process, he leads others into the same process.
rosenstock-heussy, fruit of lips, p.24
This undertaking of a natural history they thought possible because their college halls and libraries seemed firmly established in the shadow of revered institutions like Church and State. Little did they know that scholarship is based on a common bond between laity and scholars called the Church, and on a common law of freedom called the State, in our era. Before we can criticize at leisure, we must be at leisure. No science of man is truly scientific which remains ignorant of this, its own, premise.
rosenstock-heussy, fruit of lips, p.15
But this period of turning upside down [in other words, all modern Biblical scholarship] is at an end. It has no interest to me. For readers who cannot study the question I may mention some facts which put in jeopardy the whole era from Reimarus to Wrede in its quest for an historical Jesus 'behind' our source material. They form a road-clock now against the reductionists. We shall never know an 'historical' Jesus 'behind' so-called 'material.'
1. John writes as an eye-witness who knows the minutest details when he cares to mention them. The apostle is the author of the Gospel. Therefore it carries authority.
2. All four Gospels are apostolic. Matthew was the converted publican, and he wrote under James' (John's brother's) eyes in Jerusalem before AD 42. Mark obeyed Peter. Luke lived with Paul. John dictated to a Greek secretary.
...
rosenstock-heussy, fruit of lips, p.11
or, as i prefer to put the same idea, 'frankly, modern scholarship, i don't give a d***.'
But at the same time the Cross blocks the road backwards towards any of these streams [of speech] ... The modern Greeks, i.e., the physicists, and the modern Jews, i.e., the Zionists, certainly are not the Greeks or Jews of antiquity. The Greeks glorified the beauties of the cosmos; our physicists empty it of meaning. The Jews glorified nothing but God. The Zionists have built a university in Jerusalem, as their first communal building. This road-block of the Word, then, is a fact.
rosenstock-huessy, fruit of lips, p.9
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
So [in the 19th century] Jesus too received his biography. This was new. It was the opposite of the Christian tradition. This had been thanatography. A biography ends with the death of the 'biographee.' The story of Jesus makes sense only when his death begins and antecedes our lives.... it is enough for a Christian to speak of Christ and to call himself a Christian. Yet, the only question which he raises, runs: Have I sealed antiquity for you? Do you live after me? ... Jesus is [to them] the adolscent of innocence, the Y.M.C.A. hero, the good boy. The biographies have deprived him of his real name. For to us he is uninteresting unless he is the Word.... If the tomb of Jesus is not the womb of the Christian era, we had better forget his whole story as a fairy tale.
rosenstock-heussy, fruit of lips, 1.5
in Greek, βιος means life while θανατος means death.
Instead of a mere harmony of the Gospels, I have asked: Are they movements of a symphony? Of course they are. And he who climbs this stair of the wondrous four events, called the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, understands again the wondrous 'Anno Domini' by which we count the stepping stones of the incarnation of the Christian era.
eugen rosenstock-huessy, fruit of lips, preface.xxi
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)