Commonplaces--Nov/Dec 2023

 

“This is what defines the peculiarity of Augustine’s pilgrim city in this world: its members…refer these concerns to the enjoyment of eternal peace. Thus when a Christian, from such an eschatological perspective, affirms some secular value, some human enterprise or achievement, his affirmation will not be an simple self-identification. His peculiar posture to the world precludes identifying himself with its values without some reservation. The fullest endorsement of a secular value is tinged with criticism. What others may affirm simply as good the Christian has to subject to a more exacting standard. His good must survive the more deeply penetrating questioning from an eschatological perspective.”—R.A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine

“It is necessary in this age for the citizens of the kingdom of heaven, surrounded as they are by the lost and the impious, to be vested by temptations, so that they can be trained and tested like gold in a furnace. We ought not therefore to wish to live only with the holy and the just before the time is right; so that we might deserve to be granted it at the proper time.”—Augustine, Augustine’s Political Writings Letter 189

From Plato's Republic (Jowett translation)

“Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a violent reaction.”—III.388

“Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good.”—III.389

“Here, then, is a discovery of new evils, I said, against which the guardians will have to watch, or they will creep into the city unobserved. What evils? Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.”—IV.422

Thanksgiving A.D. 2023

 

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!

Another Thanksgiving is upon us—another riot of food and relatives and small children and mashed potatoes and singing and noise and joy and pie. What shall we do with it all?

We cannot hold onto it. Our minds are not big enough. No brain is spacious and tenacious enough. Try to recall every detail of last year’s Thanksgiving and see how far you get. One fleeting detail—perhaps two—and you’re done. We are locked in time and no matter how often we rattle the cage of memory, no one has a key. All our grasping and clutching for one produces only rage and empty wind.

The Book with the Curl in the Middle of Its Forehead

 

Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization is one of those really frustrating books whose overall value fluctuates depending on what chapter you're currently in. It's rather like that old Longfellow rhyme:

There was a little girl,
    Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
    When she was good, 
    She was very good indeed.
But when she was bad she was horrid.

Commonplaces--Sep/Oct 2023

“What is really lost when a civilization wearies and grows small is confidence, a confidence built on the order and balance that leisure makes possible.”—Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization

“There is a kind of pedantry common to all the crafts which derives from the exaggeration and intemperance of those who practice them, making those affected by it seem extravagant and ridiculous. We smile with indulgence upon those drudges of the "republic of letters" who bury themselves in the learned dust of antiquity for the good of knowledge, bestow the light from this darkness upon the human

race, and commune with the dead (whom they know intimately) for the benefit of the living, whom they scarcely know. This pedantry, which is excusable somehow in scholars of the first order (prevented by their profession from circulating in the civilized world) is entirely unbearable in military men for just the opposite reason. A soldier is pedantic when he is too meticulous, when he blusters, or when he plays the Don Quixote. These faults render him as ridiculous in his profession as a musty appearance and Latin affectations do a scholar.”—Frederick the Great, Anti-Machiavel 

"You must not think that these priests were idle, or occupied only with sacrifices. An altogether greater responsibility and a greater burden

The Things At Hand

 

The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Lord, we keep many things near at hand. Some of them are good things: blessings, honors, every kind and every sort of stuff. Some of them are not as good: fears, sins, even sheer indifference. But you call us here to remember that you are truly the God who is near, and so we bring our petitions to you with renewed awareness.

Book of the Month August 2023: The Prince

 

“Friendships that are acquired at a price and not with greatness and nobility of spirit are bought, but they are not owned; and when the time comes they cannot be spent.”

This month's work might be called a classic, though we would be better served by inventing an adjective in English that means "famous by means of being continually controversial." Such a word is sorely needed in our online age of furor--but perpetual indignation is by no means a new idea, for this book has been furrowing brows since it was published in 1532.

A Garden of Bright Eyes

 Psalm LXIX: I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify Him with thanksgiving.

Lord, we come before you absolutely loaded down with blessings. One of the greatest of these blessings stands (or sits, or wiggles) among us during this service. In this room are a horde of small immortal souls--the children you have given our families. We thank you for all of them. In an age of barren desolation we live in a garden of bright eyes, tiny fingers, and innocent laughter. We thank you especially for the safe arrival of Eben, Lucas, and Hazel. May they grow strong and holy over the coming years.

Commonplaces--August 2023

 

“So it teaches men both these truths: that there is a God we are capable of knowing, and that there is a corruption of nature which makes us unworthy of him. It is equally important for us to know both these points, and it is equally dangerous for man t know God without knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his wretchedness without knowing the Redeemer who can cure him of it. Knowledge of only one of these points leads either to the arrogance of the philosophers, who have known God and not their own wretchedness, or to the despair of the atheists, who know their wretchedness without knowing the Redeemer…Those who go astray only do so for lack of seeing one of these two things: one can then easily know God but not one’s own wretchedness, and one’s wretchedness without knowing God. But one cannot know Jesus Christ without knowing God and one’s wretchedness together.”—Pascal,

Pensees

“He is blind indeed who fancies that pardon is all we want in order to get to heaven, and does not see that pardon without a change of heart would be a useless gift. Blessed be God that both are freely offered to us in Christ’s gospel, the one as well as the other!”—J.C. Ryle, Knots Untied

“The influence of the two great philosophies upon theology was beneficial or injurious, according as the principle of Christianity was the governing or the governed factor. Both systems are theistic (at bottom monotheistic) and favorable to the spirit of earnest and profound speculation. Platonism, with its ideal, poetic views, stimulates, fertilizes, inspires, and elevates the reason and imagination, but also easily leads into the errors of gnosticism and the twilight of

On All Those Moscow Firebrands

I live in Moscow, Idaho and my town has something of an infamous name amongst a certain stripe of the Christian faith. And as one dust-up follows another kerfluffle, I often spot a certain amount of internet chatter weighing in on how the leaders here are heretics, or just after popularity, or aren't preaching the gospel but building brands, etc.

Honestly, I can see why that could be your take-away. There are thousands of people who only know these men from their online presence. That's all they see. And just like when you're forced to view a room by peering through a keyhole, that can lead to some odd perspectives. And the particular perspective I want to focus on here is the "they're concerned with politics rather than the Gospel" charge. Closely related is the "they're just building their own brand" charge.

Book of the Month June/July 2023: Stealing the General

 This book of the month is dedicated to eight-year-old me, sitting enthralled on the living room floor, glued to the screen while Fess Parker battled to change the course of the War Between the States by wrecking a Confederate railroad in The Great Locomotive Chase. That movie intersected two of my great loves: trains and warfare. I recommend it to all of you who haven't seen it. And if you watch it and want to know more about what really happened, you should pick up this book. 

Russell S. Bonds' Stealing the General is a relatively recent (2006) monograph on the Civil War event usually called the Andrews Raid. During the early days of the war, a group of Western Union soldiers volunteered to go south in disguise, under a civilian blockade runner named James Andrews. They commandeered a train near Atlanta and headed north. The plan was to wreck track, bridges, and telegraph lines all the way to Chattanooga until the Confederate Army was unable to reinforce the town. 

It nearly worked, but the train's conductor, William Fuller, refused to admit defeat and chased the train; first on foot and then with a series of locomotives. He raised the alarm and prevented the raiders from doing much damage until the army caught up with them. The Yankees were imprisoned, but even there the story didn't end--there were two spectacular prison breaks, a hanging, and enough newspaper headlines and panic to drive up the price of ink. When the surviving raiders finally made it back to the north, they were awarded the very first Medals of Honor--still the nation's highest military decoration.

Bonds writes well and easily, and he evaluates the various first- and second-hand sources with a clear eye. Rather than simply accepting some of the famous accounts of the time, he compares them--both to the terrain and to other primary sources. The result is an insightful work that picks apart both the Disney version and some of the laudatory news myths of the time to show what happened, why it happened, and how the participants told it in their own words. 

This is, quite simply, good history. And if you have an interest in trains, the Civil War, spying, guerilla warfare, trains, the Medal of Honor, perspective, or trains, you should find a copy and enjoy the chase.

Commonplaces: June/July 2023

[On John VII 37, “Let him come to Me and drink”] “Nor let him go to the heathen philosophy, which does but beguile men, lead them into a wood, and leave them there; but let him go to Christ, admit his doctrine, submit to his discipline, believe in him; come to him as the fountain of living waters, the giver of all comfort.”—Matthew Henry, Commentaries

“Wherever a new generation takes up the attack against the resisting forces of evil or against a tense obsession with a security which clings to the delusion that the disharmony of the world is fundamentally curable by cautious and correct “tactics,” it is above all necessary to maintain a lively and vigilant awareness that such fighting can only reach beyond sound and fury if it draws its strongest forces from the fortitude of the spiritual life, which dares to submit unconditionally to the governance of God. Without a consciously preserved connection with these reserves of strength, all struggle for the good must lose its genuineness and the inner conviction of victory, and in the end can lead only to the noisy sterility of spiritual pride.”—Joseph Peiper, The Four Cardinal Virtues

“Weak people are those who know the truth, but who maintain it only as far as it is in their interest to do so. Beyond that, they abandon it.”—Pascal, Pensees

“Indeed, contemporary debunking of the author and the author's explicit intentions has proceeded at such a pace that it seems at times as if literary criticism has become a jolly game of ripping out an author's shirt-tail and setting fire to it.”—D. Stienmetz, “The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis” Theology Today"

“Jesus says, ‘Take freely.’ He wants no payment or preparation. He seeks no recommendation from our virtuous emotions.”—Spurgeon, Morning and Evening M. June 13

“We dread fostering men’s favorite notion that a little church-going and sacrament-receiving—a little patching, and mending, and whitewashing, and gilding, and polishing, and varnishing, and painting the outside—is all that his case requires. Hence we protest with all our heart against formalism, sacramentalism, and every species of mere external or vicarious Christianity.”—J.C. Ryle, Knots Untied

“There are times when there is a mine of deep meaning in our Lord’s words, ‘He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” To such times we have come.”—Ryle, Knots Untied

“There are only two sorts of people who can truly be called reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart, because they do not yet know Him.”—Pascal, Pensees

“Armis munimenta, non munimentis arma tuta esse debent.”—Livy, IX.xxiii

“Ferte signa in hostem!”—Livy, IX.xxiii

“Friendships that are acquired at a price and not with greatness and nobility of spirit are bought, but they are not owned; and when the time comes they cannot be spent.”—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Lines in Pleasant Places

Psalm XVI: The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. For the LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; you maintain my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

Lord, we know that we are to look to you alone for refuge, and when we are safely in that refuge we are to praise you for what you have given. Our thanksgivings are to be a confirmation of your goodness. They are to be our testimony before the world that you are a God who answers, unlike all those silent gods who cannot even speak their own names. So we come before you to offer the cup of our praising hearts, back to the one who gave them in the first place.

Thank you for what has fallen in pleasant places: for our wonderful community of the saints, which may gather without danger or interruption for the gifts of the word and sacraments. And you do not bless us alone, but all your people in the West have this unappreciated gift. In particular, we thank you for the gathering of saints in Denver called Redeemer Community Church. May Pastor Rodland and their elders shepherd them well during a time of growth.

Book of the Month May 2023: Why Liberalism Failed

 “The cultivation of virtue requires the thick presence of virtue-forming and virtue-supporting institutions, but these are precisely the institutions and practices that liberalism aims to hollow and eviscerate in the name of individual liberty. In a deep irony, liberalism claims legitimacy based upon democratic consent, yet it ultimately hollows out the prospects for functioning democracy.”

If you pay any attention at all to my commonplaces for each month (and why would you?) you might have noted that most of the ones from last month were from one book: Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick J. Deneen. This is not a perfect book, but it is a good one. If I were pressed to name three books to help someone understand America's current political moment, they would be Carl Truman's The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Christopher Caldwell's The Age of Entitlement, and this one.

Commonplaces--May 2023

 

“Domesticity itself is altered beyond recognition; women no longer marry to help their husbands get a living, but to help them spend their income.”—Ann Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture

“The cultivation of virtue requires the thick presence of virtue-forming and virtue-supporting institutions, but these are precisely the institutions and practices that liberalism aims to hollow and eviscerate in the name of individual liberty. In a deep irony, liberalism claims legitimacy based upon democratic consent, yet it ultimately hollows out the prospects for functioning democracy.”—Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed

“Yet this [government] expansion continues, largely as a response to people’s felt loss of power over the trajectory of their lives in so many distinct spheres—economic and otherwise—leading to demands for further intervention by the one entity even nominally under their control. Our government readily complies, moving like a ratchet wrench, always in one direction, enlarging and expanding in response to civic grievances, ironically leading in turn to citizens’ further experience of distance and powerlessness.”

“Perhaps above all, liberalism has drawn down on a preliberal inheritance, and resources that at once sustained liberalism but which it cannot replenish. The loosening of social bonds in nearly every aspect of life—familial, neighborly, communal, religious, even national—reflects the advancing logic of liberalism and is the source of its deepest instability."

“In this world, gratitude to the past and obligations to the future are replaced by a nearly universal pursuit of immediate gratification: culture, rather than imparting the wisdom and experience of the past so as to cultivate virtues of self-restraint and civility, becomes synonymous with hedonic titillation, visceral crudeness, and distraction, all oriented toward promoting consumption, appetite, and detachment."

Favorite Student Blunders and Bloopers of 2022-23

 It's that time of year again--classes are over, the pressure is off, and we can all laugh at the small stuff. Here is a collection of some of my favorite mistakes, blunders, malapropisms, or slips of the 22-23 school year. If any of my students read this, don't be embarrassed--such errors simply make me laugh and love you more. Enjoy!

In the place of honor, my absolute favorite of the year: “Martin Luther wrote the 95 Theses against the Catholic practice of selling pennants.”  😆🚩🚩🚩

"To explain my upbringing of this statement, I observed an assertion that Socrates had placed forth to Adeimantus about gods, specifically, God.”

“From these questions and comments, Socrates deducted these facts into a paragraph which I will announce as follows”

“Louisa wrote many works but had limited acknowledgment until her autobiographical Little Women was released, from which, she contracted fame.”

Book of the Month April 2023: Life Together

 

“I do not know in advance what love of others means on the basis of the general idea of love that grows out of my human desires—all this may rather be hatred and an insidious kind of selfishness in the eyes of Christ. What love is, only Christ tells us in his Word.”

A young German pastor wrote Gemeinsames Leben in 1939, just after the Nazis had ordered him to close down his unofficial seminary for training "Confessing Church" pastors--that is, men who did not agree with the official German Lutheran embrace of Hitler and his party. That group of pastors and pastors-in-training at Finkenwalde had been a special place for him and the others; a place where the study of the Word was paramount and the resulting fellowship sweet. His reflections on that time have become the "modern classic" Life Together, first published in English in 1954. His name, of course, was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, now famous as the pastor who plotted to assassinate Hitler and died on a gallows in the last days of WWII.

Commonplaces--April 2023

 

“A great man lays upon posterity the duty of understanding him.”

“From his agonies and exultations he emerged with a great charity towards men, and something nobler than humanism. The world with all its suffering and sinning mortals was God’s world, which He had created and redeemed, and he looked upon it with a patient kindness. Of such a creed as his, and of such a temperament, quietism could not be the fruit. He must be up and doing, for he was called upon to assist in the building of the City of God….A man all his days must be busy making his soul, and forcing the world to conform to the heavenly will.”—John Buchan, Oliver Cromwell


“Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.”

“I do not know in advance what love of others means on the basis of the general idea of love that grows out of my human desires—all this may rather be hatred and an insidious kind of selfishness in the eyes of Christ. What love is, only Christ tells us in his Word.”

“For the mature Christian, every Scripture reading will be “too long” even the shortest one. What does this mean? The Scripture is a whole and every word, every sentence possesses such multiple relationships with the whole that it is impossible always to keep the whole in view while listening to details. It becomes apparent, therefore, that the whole of the Scriptures (and hence every passage in it as well) far surpasses our understanding.”

Book of the Month March 2023: Beau Geste

 

If the above Peanuts strip makes no sense to you, then you need to read this Book of the Month.

Percival Christopher "P.C." Wren was an English author who penned the tale Beau Geste (French for a "gallant, hopelessly romantic gesture") in A.D. 1914. It is a double-layered mystery, crossed with an epic foreign adventure, crossed with a tale of harrowing survival; the sort of story that begged to be made into an early Hollywood star-studded film. It was, too--several times!

Commonplaces--March 2023

 

“And yet in your case [Antony], as your most familiar friends are always saying, you practice declamation to evaporate your wine, not to sharpen your wits.”—Cicero, Phillipic II.xvii

“By the most rival impulses, Conscript Fathers, in critical times the scale is turned most completely, not only in all the accidents of public affairs, but principally in war, and most of all in civil war, which as a rule is governed by opinion and rumor.”—Cicero, Phillipic V.x

Book of the Month February 2023: Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician

 

I know, I know, this is a whole lunar month late. Life got exciting (which is French for "I forgot").

February's book of the month is Anthony Everitt's Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician. It's a newer book (2011) so it's quite accessible, but it has other virtues: it is also thorough, detailed, and sympathetic. 

We probably know more personal details about Marcus Tullius Cicero than any other man (or woman) of the ancient world. That is because over nine hundred of his letters, official and personal, have survived to the present in one of those preservational flukes historians love to argue about. "In Cicero's correspondence," writes Everitt, "noble Romans are flesh and blood, not marble. Here is someone who dined with Julius Caesar, 

Occasionally Your Heroes Bump Into Each Other...

 You ever bump into fun little parallels in your studies? That's all this post is--a fun little parallel. I was reading through Cicero's Phillipics (his speeches condemning Mark Antony after the assassination of Julius Caesar) and came across the following passage in the Tenth, where he is denouncing the weak-minded conciliation of his fellow senators:

"Finally—let me give utterance at last to a word, true and worthy of myself—if the purposes of this our order are governed by the nod of the veterans, and all our sayings and doings are regulated according to their will, I should choose death, which to Roman citizens has always been preferable to slavery. All slavery is wretched; but grant there was a slavery that was unavoidable; do you contemplate ever beginning the recovery of your liberty? When we could not endure that unavoidable and almost Fate-designed calamity, shall we endure this voluntary one? The whole of Italy is aflame with the longing for liberty; the citizens can no longer be slaves, we have given the Roman people this war and these weapons long after they have demanded them.

Holy Concert, Batman!

Enjoyed getting to be part of this one.

Commonplaces--February 2023

 “As regards discipline, when was not prosperity to the unwary what fire is to wax, or the rays of the sun to snow and ice? David was wise, Solomon wiser; but, flattered by unlooked-for success, the one in part and the other altogether acted foolishly.”—Bernard of Clairvaux, De Consideratione II.12

“If Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would be changed.”—Pascal, Pensees

“When a soldier or laborer complains about his hard work, give him nothing to do.”—Ibid.

“Too much and too little wine. If you give someone none, he cannot discover the truth. The same happens if you give him too much.”—Ibid.

“We should see [justice] enacted by all the states of the world, in every age, instead we see nothing, just or unjust, which does not change in quality with a change in climate.

What Do I Think of Harry Potter?

 This was composed as an in-class essay for my 8th-grade Humanities students of 21-22. They were allowed to collectively come up with any four questions they wanted me to answer, from which I would select my favorite and write a one-hour reply. The question selected was "What do you think of the Harry Potter books?"

Most people have heard of the “elephant in the room.” That is, something that is well-known to everyone involved, but too embarrassing or prohibited from talking about. Some elephants, however, are too big to ignore. One of these elephants is the publishing phenomenon of J.K. Rowling—the Harry Potter series. Since 1998, Harry Potter has sold over 500 million copies (that’s one book for about every thirteen people on the planet, by the way). It’s been made into a play, eleven blockbuster movies, and enough themed parks, stores, and tourist attractions to fund a small country. No matter what you think of Harry Potter, it’s too big to ignore now.

Book of the Month January 2023: The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor

“Learn everything; you will see afterwards that nothing is superfluous.”—VI.iii

This month was a tough pick. Honorable mentions go to both Cicero’s De Senectute and Littlejohn and Evans’ Wisdom and Eloquence. But the winner for the top book is Hugh of St. Victor’s Didascalicon.

I’m a teacher, which makes me a sucker for books on teaching. Hugh, along with Quintilian and John Milton Gregory, is one of the best. He was the head instructor of a small but famous community—St. Victor’s—just outside of medieval Paris in the early 1100’s. His Didascalicon de Studio Legendi (translated as something close to “The Compendium of Teaching of the Study of Reading") focuses on the foundations of learning. What is the purpose of education? What are its essentials? How should these essentials be imparted to others? 

Commonplaces--January 2023

 “To me nothing whatever seems lengthy if it has an end; for when that end arrives, then that which was is gone; naught remains but the fruit of good and virtuous deeds. Hours may pass, and days and months and years, but the past returns no more, and what is to be we cannot know. But whatever the times given us to live, with the same we should be content.”—Cicero, De Senectute xix

“For even if the allotted space of life be short, it is long enough in which to live honorably and well. But if a longer period of years should be granted, one has no more cause to grieve than the famers do when the pleasant springtime passes and summer and autumn come. For spring typifies youth and holds forth the promise of future fruit; while the other seasons are designed for gathering those fruits and storing them away. And this same fruit of old age, as I have often said, is the memory and abundance of blessings previously gathered.”—Cicero, De Senectute xix

“But the most desirable end of life is that which comes while the mind is clear and the faculties are unimpaired, when Nature herself takes apart the work she has put together.”—Cicero, De Senectute xx

“Only the person who bows down and worships is wise. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. After all, and note this, because He is God, a necessary limit has been imposed on the omnipotence of God in his work of creation: God cannot create gods. That would have meant cancelling out his own unique being God. Thus a contrast, specifically a contrast of subordination, of inferiority, of a lower order, had to remain between God and his highest creature. Only in the image of God, not as God, could the rational creature be created. And it is from this contrast between God and the creature as not-God that all the anxiety of the broken moral life emerges.”—Kuyper, Common Grace II 

Love is Blind: A Review of Veritas Press' A Rhetoric of Love

Introduction 

Rhetoric is an ancient art, with a long and impressive history. Some of the most brilliant minds of any age—Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine—have practiced it and taught it. As classical schools have recovered the lost tools of learning, one of the rustiest has been rhetoric. Various approaches have been proposed to clean off that rust and return it to trusty service. These range from simply shoving the Ad Herrenium under a student’s nose to that put forward by authors Douglas Jones and Michael Collender, in Veritas Press’s A Rhetoric of Love, published in two volumes as the mainstay of a two-year high school course.

Rather than follow the traditional method of using the Greek and Roman pagans, A Rhetoric of Love (hereafter ROL) claims that it follows a distinctively Christian approach to rhetoric: one based on the Bible (and specifically Jesus as presented in the gospels). This allows them to move beyond the taint of power or manipulation, and instead focus on bringing the foundation of all believing activity—love—to bear on communication. It is an intriguing idea, reminiscent of Augustine’s claim that one could learn eloquence by merely studying the Scriptures. A thoroughly effective Christian reworking of classical rhetoric would be something to applaud. But I believe this ROL project, by poorly defining its terms, means, and genre, winds up with several significant issues that quickly bog it down. These issues group nicely under three major headings: first, definitional troubles and an unworkable antithesis between love and power—what we might call paradigm problems—mar the project’s scope and purpose. Second, practical issues would render the text difficult to use in actual high school classrooms. Third, ROL is not a “classical” textbook in most senses of the word, making it a poor choice for the intended audience: classical Christian schools. Though the text is graciously reasoned and wittily written, and has many praiseworthy points, I would not recommend it to any classical school trying to craft a high schooler into a rhetor; its flaws outweigh its foundations.

Commonplaces--November & December 2022

 "It seems to me of practical importance that the analytical and critical bent of our age should not be expended entirely on our ancestors and that confusions should sometimes be exposed while they are still potent. It is more dangerous to tread on the corns of a living giant than to cut off the head of a dead one: but it is more useful and better fun.”—C.S. Lewis, Studies in Words

 “Contamination and barbarism are one set of names for this sort of thing: another name is vitality. Everything which is alive tends to break out into vulgarity at times. Only the dead and embalmed can preserve for ever their changeless armorial dignity.”—Dorothy Sayers, “Ignorance and Dissatisfaction” Address to the Association for the Reform of Latin Teaching, Aug. 26, 1952

 “The basis of wisdom is the wise disposal of time, and full wisdom will be the wise disposal of a whole lifetime.”—Comenius, Pampaedeia V.4 (in John Amos Comenius: A Visionary Reformer of Schools)