Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Malachi Martin, The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion Between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev & the Capitalist West (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990). Reviewed by Peter J. Leithart. The subtitle of this massive volume gives a good idea of its major theme. Martin, the…
The Abomination of Desolation: PART 1 The Abomination of Desolation: PART 2 What I intend to do in this series of studies is this: First, in the present essay we shall survey the occurrences of the Abomination of Desolation in the Bible in a cursory way, in order to get…
We previously surveyed what is meant by the abomination of desolation . We suggested that it refers to sacrilegious acts performed by the religious leaders of Israel, captained by their High Priest, right in front of God’s face in the Temple. Later studies in this series will provide evidence for…
Throughout history, the Christian Church has had to guard against the heresy of gnosticism. Gnosticism is not an ordinary heresy, because it does not manifest itself as a set of defined beliefs. Rather, gnosticism is a tendency, a tendency to replace the historic facts of Christianity with philosophical ideas. Gnosticism…
In Rite Reasons Nos. 9-12, I discussed the errors of Roman Catholicism, Anglo-Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. I have had several requests to comment further on the so-called Seventh Ecumenical Council, held at Nicaea in A.D. 787. That Council ordered the excommunication of anyone who rejects the veneration of icons. 1…
The drink offering or libation ( nesek ) is mentioned in only three places in the book of Leviticus. When the sheaf of the firstfruits was waved before the Lord, a grain offering was to be burned, along with "its libation, a fourth of a hin of wine [approx. one…
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In the course of a review of Vittorio Montemaggi's Reading Dante's Commedia as Theology , Rowan Williams offers these observations on Inferno and Purgatorio : "There is still a tendency among not very attentive readers – not to mention people who have read almost nothing of the work but have…
"God's work in history," writes Mark Searle ( Liturgy Made Simple ), "is to gather into one the scattered children of God, to overcome divisions, to provide a place for the homeless and the lonely, to give support to those whose burdens are heavy, and to create an oasis of…
John Milbank argues in his Beyond Secular Order that " historicism cannot straightforwardly be considered as something specifically modern" (8). In fact, it originates from a Christian insight: "the sense of estranged distance from the past is initially the fruit of the Christian contrast between old and new covenants and…
Last week, I wrote a Firstthings.com column summarizing the argument of Graham Allison's Destined for War , a study of Sino-American relations organized around the concept of the "Thucydides Trap." Allison says that the ancient Greek historian claimed that Athens and Sparta went to war because Sparta was fearful of…
Christine Chaillot has a fascinating summary of the liturgical traditions of the "Ancient Oriental Churches" (Egyptian, Ethiopian, Syrian, Assyrian, Indian) in The Oxford History of Christian Worship . She quotes this Eucharistic hymn from the fifth-century Saint Yazdin (p. 164): "Strengthen, O our Lord, the hands which reach out and…
In ST I, 45, 5, Thomas Aquinas asks whether God alone creates. His sed contra cites Augustine’s de Trinitate (3.8), where Augustine says that angels cannot create anything. If angels cannot, Thomas reasons, neither can any other creature. He presents several arguments in favor of this conclusion. Creation is, Thomas…
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