Undusted Texts

I have added a number of old papers to my website.  One of them, "The Marriage Liturgy and the Married Life," is an interesting reflection based on the Byzantine Rite of Crowning; it certainly wasn't for a class, and I don't think I ever attempted publication of it.  (In connection with this essay, one might want to peruse my undergraduate thesis, "The Symbolism of the Mystery of Crowning." )  Most of the rest are old school papers, mostly from my graduate courses: "Θεία νύξ: The Mystical Union as Unknowing in St. Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite" (2012)  "The History and Legacy of Photios I, Patriarch of Constantinople" (2014) "The Exegetical Principles of Joseph Ratzinger" (2014) "The Spirituality of St. Hildegard of Bingen" (2015) "The Effects of Liturgy on Culture" (2016)  Finally, I have rescued from the abyss of the Internet my very first published writing, "The Best Meani...

  Introduction Maurice Barrès (1862-1923) was a novelist, traveloguist, and politician.  After the initial portion of his life—in which he wrote a novel trilogy entitled The Cult of I and ran for office as a" national socialist" (long before the Nazis adopted the name)—he became a strongly anti-German nationalist.  His nationalism involved both strong ties to one's local land (his homeland of Lorraine was a polestar for his politics and writing) and Catholicism as part of the national French character (hence his push to have Joan of Arc declared patron of France and to be given a national patriotic feast).   Barrès' last prehumous novel was A Garden on the Orontes (1922).  The novel told the story of a Crusader who renounces the chance to recapture Jerusalem in order to spend his life with a Saracen princess with whom he had fallen in love.  Somewhat surprisingly, the novel stirred up a virulent reaction from some Catholics, who claimed the novel was...

The front matter of my Vulgate for pleasure-reading—the Colunga-Turrado edition from the Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos series—includes a selection of Magisterial documents relating to Sacred Scripture. One section includes the responses and declarations of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (or, as it was once known, “the Pontifical Commission on Biblical Things,” Pontifica Commissio de Re Biblica ), instituted by Pope Leo XIII on October 30, 1902. A number of the early responses are considered infamous in exegetical circles for their rejection of historical-critical methods of exegesis; such methods later received an allowance in Pope Pius XII’s Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943). Amidst the more famous responses, such as “On the Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch” (1906), and “On the Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis” (1909), I noticed one I hadn’t heard of before, the very first response given by the Commission, which I translate below (Latin origi...