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