Tree of Life

 Around the tomb, Mary cried "Have pity on me!" for she was remembering you who made her, instead of a dwelling of demons, a dwelling of your love. She had bought spices to perfume your precious Body, by which the scent of our mortal race was perfumed. "By your Resurrection, O Good Lord of the deceased, I beg you, O Tree of Life, who raised Adam who has been passed over, O Fruit that our race did not want to taste, my Savior, may the dew of your mercies sprinkle me!"

[From the Basilica Hymn for Resurrection Sunday, in The Book of Before and After: The Liturgy of the Hours of the Church of the East, Fr. Andrew Younan, ed. and tr., The Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2024), p. 501.]

Links of Note

 * Mark K. Spencer, Habits, Potencies, and Obedience (PDF)

* James Chastek, No choice is discovered, at "Just Thomism"

* A major portion of Antoni Gaudí's beatification process is completed, and now just requires final approval.

* Domenik Jarczewski & Wayne D. Riggs, Socializing Virtue Epistemology (PDF)

* Recorded Music Sales by Format Shares 1973-2024 (press the play button in the lower left-hand corner), by Mark Perry

* "God Is....": Saying Various Names of God, on Alan of Lille, at "Quodlibeta Theologia"

* Joseph M. Magee, Aristotle and Aquinas on Proving the Intellect's Immateriality (PDF)

* Nicholas Carr, Epistemological Slop, at "New Cartographies"

* Asanga Welikala, The 'Common Good' in Legal Constitutions, at "The New Digest"

* Stephen Harrop, Sufficient Reason Vindicated (PDF)

* Gregory B. Sadler is interviewed at "Why Philosophy?"

* Therese Cory, How to Reason Prudentially about Immigration: A Reply to Feser, at "Public Discourse". Unfortunately, I think Cory just pendulum-swings to the opposite of the error she diagnoses in Feser (who, however, I think is slightly more nuanced than she is suggesting). An obvious question that needs answering is how Cory's view differs from tutiorism; the claim that "Disagreement is legitimate when prudence fails, not when prudence is operating normally" would normally be a huge red flag for a rigorist position, for instance. I don't think such a position is what Cory intends, but it's what she seems to say throughout. My suspicion is that in trying to be concise she has confused the individual level of prudence (in which we must act according to our prudent judgment) with the social level of prudence (in which, inevitably, we have to deal prudently with differing prudent and apparently prudent judgments). But she does make some worthwhile points about prudence in the process.

* Simona Aimar and Carlotta Pavese, Technical Knowledge as Scientific Knowledge in Aristotle (PDF)

* Anand Vaidya & Manjula Menon, In light of brahman, at "Aeon"

* Gideon Lazar, Scotus on the Abolition of the Old Law

* Nicolae Turcan, The Phenomenology of Prayer and the Relationship Between Phenomenology and Theology (PDF)

* A. D. Hunt, The Problem with Nominalism, at "The Occidental Tourist"

* Alex Fisher, In defence of fictional examples

* Joseph Heath, Why philosophers hate that 'equity' meme, at "In Due Course". As people have pointed out before, there are more than a few oddities to the meme -- the people are not in the stadium, calling the left-hand side 'equality' is obviously arbitrary, the assumption seems to be that goods are limited, discrete, and smoothly distributable in a precise way. And, as Heath notes, it has the problem memes generally have -- you can label anything anything in a meme, and, outside very specific and obvious contexts, you start getting problems when you start asking why it should be labeled this way rather than some other way. 

Ouk Epaino

 In this instruction, I do not praise, because you do not convene so as to be stronger, but weaker.  For firstmost, as you convene in assembly, I hear that there are divisions among you, and partly I credit this, for it is also necesary for there to be partisanships among you so that also the approved should become obvious among you. Therefore as you are convening all together, it is not to eat Lordly supper, for one does his eating of his own supper beforehand, and this one famished, that one drunk. Do you really not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you have contempt for the house of God and disgrace those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Should I praise you in this? I do not praise!

For I learned from the Lord what I likewise handed down to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night he was handed over, laid hold of bread and, having given thanks, broke it and answered, This is my body, which is for you; do this in recollection of me. In like manner also the cup, after having supped, saying, This cup is the new contract in my blood; do this, as often as you might drink, in recollection of me. For provided that you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he should come.

Therefore whoever should eat the bread or drink the Lord's cup unworthily, will be liable for the body and the blood of the Lord. So let a man test himself and in this way let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For the eater and drinker not judging the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. Because of this many of you are weak and unhealthy, and many slumber. For if we are not judging ourselves, we are judged. And being judged by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we are not with the world condemned.

So my brothers, in convening in order to eat, wait for each other. If anyone is famished, let him eat at home, so that you might not convene for judgment. And the rest, when I come, I will arrange.

[1 Corinthians 11:17-34, my very rough translation. The words for 'stronger' and 'weaker' can also have the figurative  meanings of 'better' or 'worse'. Divisions (schismata) gives us the word for 'schism', and parties/partisanships (haereseis) gives us the word for 'heresies', but they are being used more broadly here. 'Assembly' is ekklesia, so is also 'church'. 'Recollection' could also be 'commemoration'; it is an active term for keeping in mind or bringing to mind or preserving something in memory or as a memorial. 'Contract' is also 'covenant', but the latter, of course, is a contract; covenant and memorial are ideas with longstanding mutual associations.

It's notable that Paul is not merely telling the story of the Lord's Supper; he is doing so explictily as a part of a sharp criticism of the Corinthians, highlighting what he thinks they are egregiously forgetting, that participation in it must be worthy.]

Spy Wednesday

Today is Holy Wednesday, also known as Spy Wednesday. So to mark the day, I give here again a poem based on medieval tales of Judas Iscariot:

 

Judas

Christ was looking to the heavens,
looking with a sigh and frown,
looking for the time of day;
'Judas, make my way,' he said,
'buy a room in Zion-town.'
Judas said, 'A stately dwelling
I will buy us for the feast --
money rings within the wallet,
bells of silver, thirty piece.'

Judas searched then over, under,
Judas searched then broad and deep.
Nowhere did he find a dwelling,
nowhere was a room for having,
nowhere would his money buy it,
coins of silver, thirty piece.

Tired from his ceaseless searching,
ceased he then to nap a while,
deeply on the lawn he slumbered.
When he woke, the noon-time vanished,
nowhere could he find the wallet,
nowhere could he find the money,
treasured silver, thirty piece.

Judas wept and beat his breast,
crying, 'What can now be done?'
Judas wept for thought of failure,
wept (for what would others say?),
fearing to return to Jesus
without dwelling, without wallet,
without silver, thirty piece.

But a young man near was shouting,
'Have you heard? The priests have posted
prize for word to help them capture
Joshua the Nazorean,
trouble-making, rabble-raising:
prize of silver, thirty piece!'

Straightway Satan spoke to Judas,
'Never has the Lord been caught,
grasping hands he has eluded.
Can they capture one who conquers
blindness, sickness, lameness, death,
walks on water, loaves and fishes
multiplies like grains of sand,
water turns to wedding wine?
Crowds he passes through unharmed!
If he from the temple height
were to fall, the Lord's own angels,
soaring down, would surely save him!
If he were in starving hunger,
stones he'd surely change to bread!
If he wanted all the kingdoms,
kings would fall before his power!'
Judas to the scribes and priests
made a promise to betray,
promised to deliver Jesus,
for reward to fill the wallet,
costly silver, thirty piece.

Judas came again to Jesus,
saying he had found no dwelling,
nowhere taking merely silver.
Christ then looked up to the heavens,
looking with a sigh and frown.
John he called, and also Peter,
gave to them a different mission:
'Silver cannot buy a dwelling,
time is short, too soon too late.
Go now quickly to the city.
When you enter in the gate
you will find a water-bearer;
let him guide you to his home.
Ask the master of the house
"Where is found the special room?
He who asks has pressing need."'

Judas followed, worries lightened,
thinking how he was so clever,
how the priests he had outsmarted,
how he trusted in his Master,
how he had made right the problem,
thinking he would get the money,
shining silver, thirty piece.

En Ligne Droite

 Just as the Author of nature is the universal cause of all motion found in matter, so is He also the general cause of all natural inclinations found in minds; and just as all motion proceeds in a straight line [en ligne droite] unless it encounters particular external causes that influence its course and that by their opposition alter it so that it proceeds in a curved path, so all the inclinations that we have from God are right [droites] and could have no other end but the possession of good and of truth were there not some external cause that directed the impression of nature toward evil ends. Now it is this external cause that is the cause of all our evils, and that corrupts all our inclinations.

[Nicolas Malebranche, The Search After Truth, Lennon & Olscamp, trs. & eds., Cambridge University Press (New York 1997) p. 4.]

To Be a Warning Word to Us

 The Blasted Fig-Tree
by John Newton

One aweful word which Jesus spoke,
Against the tree which bore no fruit;
More piercing than the lightning's stroke,
Blasted and dried it to the root. 

 But could a tree the Lord offend,
To make him show his anger thus?
He surely had a farther end,
To be a warning word to us. 

 The fig-tree by its leaves was known,
But having not a fig to show;
It brought a heavy sentence down,
Let none hereafter on thee grow. 

 Too many, who the gospel hear,
Whom Satan blinds and sin deceives;
We to this fig-tree may compare,
They yield no fruit, but only leaves. 

 Knowledge, and zeal, and gifts, and talk,
Unless combined with faith and love,
And witnessed by a gospel walk,
Will not a true profession prove. 

 Without the fruit the Lord expects
Knowledge will make our state the worse;
The barren trees he still rejects,
And soon will blast them with his curse. 

 O Lord, unite our hearts in prayer!
On each of us thy Spirit send;
That we the fruits of grace may bear,
And find acceptance in the end.

John Newton, of course, is most famous for "Amazing Grace", but he has quite a few other poems. 

Fortnightly Book, April 13

 The Orkneyinga Saga is a complicated Icelandic saga. Parts of it seem to go back to the early twelfth century, but parts were probably written in the thirteenth or even fourteenth century. It was originally titled the Earl's Saga, and it actually covers not merely the Orkneys, as the modern title suggests, but also the Shetlands. The saga is in some ways quite loose with history, and it's unclear how much of this free hand with history is deliberately written, how much is just recording the actual legends and rumors of the time, and how much is an accidental byproduct of its multi-layered composition through an extended period of time. Like many of the 'national' sagas produced by Icelanders, it depicts Christianity coming to the Northern Isles, but this is perhaps partly just conventional; historically, Christianity in the Orkneys probably predates the events of the saga. Even in the saga itself, the coming of Christianity seems presented as a long, stuttering, complex, and perhaps not always consistent process -- and, again, it is unclear how much of this is deliberate, how much due to sources, and how much due to accident of composition.

In any case, the Orkneyinga Saga is the next fortnightly book. I am reading it in the Penguin Classics edition, translated by Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards. It has a sort of minor connection to a prior fortnightly book, since it is dedicated to George MacKay Brown, whose Magnus was a fortnightly book in 2018; Magnus, of course, is partly influenced by the account of St. Magnus in the Orkneyinga Saga. 

The Northern Isles of Scotland (i.e., the Orkneys, bottom left, and the Shetlands, upper right).