Always interesting when you’re reading a work of history, in this case Charles Norris Cochrane’s matchless Christianity and Classical Culture, and find something that shines a bright and direct light on your own moment.
To Eusebius the glorious and unexpected triumph of the Church constituted decisive evidence of the operatio Dei, the hand of God in human history. At the same time, by an easy and natural confusion of thought, it suggested the dangerous error that Christianity was a success-philosophy. Eusebius quotes with approval the emperor's own profession of faith, made after the defeat of Licinius had delivered him from his last formidable enemy:
… It appears that those who faithfully discharge God’s holy laws and shrink from the transgression of His commandments are rewarded with abundant blessings and endued with well-grounded hope as well as ample power for the accomplishment of their undertakings. On the other hand, those who have cherished impiety have experienced consequences in keeping with their evil choice…. I myself was the agent whose services God deemed suitable for the accomplishment of His will. Accordingly... with the aid of divine power, I banished and destroyed every form of evil which prevailed, in the hope that the human race, enlightened through my instrumentality, might be recalled to a due observance of God's holy laws and, at the same time, our most blessed faith might prosper under the guidance of the almighty hand….
Our concern is not so much with the truth or falsehood of these sentiments as with the consequence of their acceptance. From this standpoint, Constantine is portrayed as the champion delegated by the Most High to be the minister of His vengeance upon the persecutors, whose fate is described in terms which recall the fulminations of Hebrew prophecy.
Inordinately pleased with my little hack of hanging the jacket of the album I’m listening to from a binder clip. This record, by the way, is a neglected masterpiece, with Miles as a sideman (if Miles ever actually is a sideman, which I doubt). Also: Blue Note’s design staff in this era! This jacket was designed by the great Reid Miles. 🎵
Currently reading: Middlemarch by George Eliot. This won’t be my last time reading this infinitely lovable book, but it will be my last time teaching it, so I’m warning my students to expect some melancholy moments. 📚
I’m very frustrated by Ezra Klein’s timidity in his interview with Jensen Huang. Ezra seems unaware that Huang is a salesman; he should have conducted the entire interview with that in the forefront of his mind. He offered very little pushback and effectively let Huang make a 2-hour sales pitch for his company and his industry.
Chilling after a nice long walk through the neighborhood, during which two different people I don’t know said “Hi Angus!” So my dog is a local hero as well as an internet celebrity.
When Grant conquered Vicksburg, did Lincoln say, “The Union now controls the full length of the Mississippi River”? He did not. Instead he said, “The Father of Waters flows unvexed to the sea.”
These are just lovely.
European resistance to air conditioning is often framed as a story of puritanical self-flagellation, as an insistence on managing energy crises by a regime of perpetual austerity rather than building out clean, abundant energy sources. But I think this is an over-generous framing driven by pundits who have never had a frivolous bone in their effectively altruistic bodies. Some of us just really hate looking at ugly things, and we’re willing to make you suffer so that we don’t have to.
