A Short History of Valentine
It is common to celebrate days with little knowledge of their origin. The traditional Valentine’s Day or The Feast of Saint Valentine is such a day. “Valentine” derives from “valens,” which means strong, worthy, or powerful. These are apt descriptions for this little-appreciated martyr. Tradition and legends abound. The truth is we have yet to learn much about the life of St. Valentine. We know that around 278 AD, Valentine, a holy priest in the days of Emperor Claudius II, was executed. The precise day is well acknowledged as February 14th. Claudius was known for his cruelty. His unpopular and bloody … Continue Reading “A Short History of Valentine”
Redeeming the Six Arts: A Review by Jeremy Tate
Classical education is a great gift of the Western world; but what about the world beyond the West? Traditional Chinese education is currently seeing a revival in China, not entirely unlike the classical renewal movement here in the United States. However, where ours is a grassroots movement and tends to have strong ties to Christianity, the revival of classical Chinese education is favored by the officially atheistic state, leaving many Chinese Christians ambivalent at best. Moreover, the materials brought to China by Western educators (both Christian and secular) tend, naturally enough, to be European classics rather than Chinese ones, and … Continue Reading “Redeeming the Six Arts: A Review by Jeremy Tate”
Four Reasons to Read Dante in the New Year
Audio version of this article It’s a new year. You are looking back at the number of books you read during the past twelve months and perhaps sighing. You therefore look ahead and resolve to read more. But where do you begin? Allow me to give you four reasons why you should place Dante’s Comedy at the top of your New Year to-read pile. POETRY Poetry teaches, shapes, edifies, and enriches us not by giving us a lecture, but by inviting us into an experience. Poetry surrounds us and ushers us into an imaginative landscape where we meet timeless truths in beautiful … Continue Reading “Four Reasons to Read Dante in the New Year”
Don’t throw out your turkey carcass!
“Here, ladies and gentlemen, is an eminently practical book. And an eminently wise book.I highly recommend his book; even if you buy it for yourself and never lend it out, if taken to heart it will be a gift to others.I recommend it because it is full of joy and gratitude. It is difficult to find a book that talks about what food is for, and what people are for, that doesn’t become either pedantic or shrill. Joy and gratitude are the solution to that. There is such a thing as good food, what food ought to be. And thinking … Continue Reading “Don’t throw out your turkey carcass!”
Dante and the Nature of Sanctification
A central question in the Christian life is this: what does it mean to grow in holiness, and that particular holiness without which we will not see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14)? You should not be surprised to hear me say there are seriously helpful answers to this question to be found in Dante’s Comedy. If you are a thorough-going protestant like myself, you might be surprised to hear that many of those answers are found in Purgatorio. There will be a time and place for unpacking the full nature of what our relationship to the notion of Purgatory should be … Continue Reading “Dante and the Nature of Sanctification”
Q/A: Old Western Culture Credits without Reading
There was a question from a parent asked in the comment section of a YouTube video (embedded below) that I think might benefit other families that use Old Western Culture. Q: Thanks for the video! How would you recommend assigning credits if the student only watched the videos? A: That’s a great question! It opens up the somewhat complicated question of credits altogether. I will answer in two ways. First: While how this is enforced may vary by state, we would strongly affirm the fundamental rights of parents to be primary educators and decision makers for k-12 education. Often homeschoolers are held to a … Continue Reading “Q/A: Old Western Culture Credits without Reading”
Dante, Protestant
Ok, so of course I’m being provocative. Dante was not a son of the Protestant Reformation. His Comedy was published in 1320, a full 200 years before Luther said, “Here I stand…” at Worms. And yes, his epic poem is full of doctrines that make actual protestants squirm. He prays to Mary; he prays for the dead; he holds to a purgatorial state where, even if man is reconciled to God by the blood of the cross, sinful habits that remain at the end of one’s life still must be purged after death before one ascends to Heaven. So how … Continue Reading “Dante, Protestant”
An Intro to Dante, by Dante
This Article is an excerpt from the introduction to Inferno: Reader’s Guide. Dante Alighieri finished his Comedy (it was only called the Divine Comedy after his death) in 1320. He dedicated the final volume, Paradiso, to his friend and benefactor, the “magnificent and most victorious Lord, the Lord Can Grande della Scala.” In a famous letter written to his patron, Dante acknowledges the helpfulness of introductions. He says, If any one, therefore, is desirous of offering any sort of introduction to part of a work, it behooves him to furnish some notion of the whole of which it is a … Continue Reading “An Intro to Dante, by Dante”
Hell is Obscene
For those coming to Dante’s Inferno for the first time, you might be surprised to find brief instances of vulgarity coming out of the mouth of the narrator. “This is a Christian poem…why are there bad words?!” And the question really is directed at me, as the translator. “Couldn’t you have used ‘crap’ or ‘poop’?” Well, I could have. But I didn’t, and I wanted you to know why. The primary reason is that Dante didn’t pull any punches, and so I didn’t want to either. But more than that, one of the great benefits of reading the Inferno, and … Continue Reading “Hell is Obscene”
Logic: A Science and Art
Is logic a science or an art? Of course, a logician would answer Yes, and here is why. A science is a systematic study of some aspect of the natural world that seeks to discover laws (regularities, principles) by which God governs His creation. Whereas botany studies plants, astronomy studies the sky, and anatomy studies the body, logic studies the mind as it reasons, as it draws conclusions from other information. Logic as a science seeks to discover rules that distinguish good reasoning from poor reasoning, rules that are then simplified and systematized. These would include the rules for validity, of inference and replacement, and … Continue Reading “Logic: A Science and Art”