A recent publication of Leviathan, a long work by the seventeenth century English thinker Thomas Hobbes, shows him arguing for the position that the only reality is material or corporeal, human beings, and apparently even God, being no more than physical entities. He was the heir to a distinguished philosophical tradition already expressed by the Greek Democritus, according to whom atoms, […]
Read moreIn his study of the thought of St Gregory Palamas, across a number of pages Anestis Keselopoulos considers his notion of virtue: ‘Examining the texts of the holy Fathers, we see that they clearly describe the beginning of the journey to God with a practical philosophy that is composed of two basic aspects of the spiritual struggle. The first aspect of the […]
Read moreI recently overheard an American point to a large lizard of a kind familiar in Australia and say ‘Look at the iguana!’ In fact she was looking at the animal known as a goanna, but the mistake was a very easy one to make (particularly in the light of something I’ve just discovered in editing this post: the spell-checker doesn’t […]
Read moreIt’s always a good idea to be prepared, and here’s a book that covers an unlikely eventuality that would nevertheless be an exciting one. Should you find yourself puzzling over the bill of fare in a restaurant in medieval Constantinople, it contains a fifty page phrase-book of Byzantine foods and aromas! This is a book full of interest. After providing a […]
Read moreA gift from a friend has finally led me to read a book which I should have read ages ago. It covers the history of one of the world’s great cities from the time of its capture by the Ottomans till the fall of the last sultan. This is territory mapped out by the fiction of Ohran Pamuk, but here we […]
Read moreIn his presentation of the thought of St Gregory Palamas, Anestis Keselopoulos observes: ‘The aim of repentance and mourning is to perfectly cleanse the soul from the passions, which ultimately means to overcome the Fall…repentance is the great opportunity God gives man and the potential for intimacy of sonship and union with Him…Man’s purification is the work of the grace of […]
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