Author: Thomas Fleming

15

Eating with Sinners, Part One of Two

To Americans, who treat eating as either a shameful necessity–the worse food tastes, presumably, the more moral is the consumer–or as an opportunity for displaying a lifestyle choice, the sacred meal is a notion even more alien than the good meal.  Americans eat worse than any wealthy nation in the history of the world.

18

To Marry or To Burn: The Question of Celibacy

Although the revolution did not take place all at once, the Christian doctrine of “one flesh” influenced virtually every aspect of marriage.  Celibacy remained the highest ideal in the Middle Ages, but marriage was an institution created by God for the procreation of the human race, though the pursuit of sexual pleasure for its own sake was condemned even in marriage. 

0

Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off, Conclusion

Early specialization has eliminated the common culture that could produce a D’ Arcy Thompson or an Anthony Powell or a Douglas Young, and we are left with an intellectual life dominated by trained savages who can do their job, understand (perhaps) some little corner of the universe (and, in the case, of cosmologists, that corner is very tiny, indeed!), but they cannot integrate what they have learned into a larger picture.  Read popular books by scientists, and whenever they step outside their field of specialization, they either fall back on the platitudes of the Durants or, what is worse, rely...

5

Χρίστος Ανέστη

This great Easter hymn was composed by Venantius Fortunatus, an Italian who lived roughly from 530 to  600 or some time thereafter. Born in Venezia, near Treviso, he was educated in the then still-civilized Ravenna some time after Justinian’s reconquest of Italy.  He made his way to the Frankish court in Metz, where he established himself as court poet.