What are you reading now?

[gherkin]

The Last Samurai by Helen De Witt (it has nothing to do with the Tom Cruise movie). I had to force myself to put it down in order to go to sleep.

Speaking of guilty pleasures, I actually like the Tom Cruise Last Samurai movie.

[gherkin]

Earlier, I mentioned watching the baddish Britbox version of Agatha Christie's Murder is Easy. We very recently made the inexplicable decision to watch a recent remake of her Ordeal by Innocence. I found it deeply objectionable right from the start, but mrs. gherkin prevailed on me to continue watching. It was deeply, truly, horrifyingly awful.

On the reading front, I've kind of hit a brick wall. I finished rereading the Lord Peter Wimsey stories, which are great fun, and have finished rereading the various Agatha Christies that I didn't know so well. I have read a couple of the Father Gabriel mysteries, which are not bad at all, and need to try to get ahold of the rest. I dunno how many there are. Maybe 4 total, so that won't last long. Good mysteries are hard to find. I like cozy mysteries, not like Dashiel Hammet stuff.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Nero Wolfe?

[Tired]

Going to try your suggestion with "Jurassic Park".

Ohh, yay! I hope you like it! The book is fun. You need to put yourself back in the late 80s/early 90s before computers were so ubiquitous.

[Tired]

One of my other (somewhat) recent favs is Ready Player One. There were maybe 2 pages early on with a slight at God/religion in general and then another 2-3 pages later on (about sex) that didn't improve the book in anyway and could have just been left out. They seem out of place and not sure why the author put them in. But I think that book is a lot of fun.

More on the religious side, I'm going to start reading Army of Angels again. I really like the author's prose and style.

[Irenaeus]

Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses

Well, I read it a few months ago, but it crossed my mind in the last several days that the author, Erik Varden, might be papabile (Pope Francis was laid to rest yesterday, so we are in an interregnum) were he not so young (born 13 May 1974), though he is already the Bishop of Trondheim, Norway, and a Trappist monk. In 2019, Pope Francis appointed him as Bishop of Trondheim. That Pope Francis appointed him might raise eyebrows but what little I've read by Bishop Varden so far seems not only kosher, but impressive.

Bishop Varden has a blog: Coram fratribus intellexi

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

He's also not a cardinal, and while it's not impossible for a non-cardinal to be elected, it would be most unexpected.

[Irenaeus]

He's also not a cardinal, and while it's not impossible for a non-cardinal to be elected, it would be most unexpected.

And he's also not an archbishop. Not sure how much that affects things. Does getting a cardinal's hat usually follow or accompany getting an archbishopric?

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

No. Cardinals often come from the ranks of archbishops, but many archbishops aren't cardinals.

[Riverboat]

Better than halfway finished with The Mill on the Floss by Victorian writer Eliot. Interesting section in which the heroine Maggie Tulliver encounters Thomas a Kempis and the virtue of silence in suffering:

"[S]he felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: “Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, ever" (Book Fourth/chapter 3 - A Voice from the Past).

[Irenaeus]

A few nights ago I finished Clement and the Early Church of Rome: On the Dating of Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians by Rev. Thomas J. Herron. This book is according to the preface a re-working of the late author's doctoral dissertation from 1988 at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Monsignor Herron died of pancreatic cancer in 2004). It argues for a date of circa 70 AD for 1 Clement rather than the commonly accepted circa 96 AD. Rev. Herron was not the first to argue for this earlier date. There is little dispute that the letter was written by Clement, but such an early date means it may have been written before Clement was monepiskopos of Rome. Rev. Herron also concludes that the letter shows no trace of monepiscopacy.... He also states "[a]n earlier 1 Clement, [sic] would help locate Ignatius [of Antioch, who was martyred in Rome circa 107-110 AD] on a more linear track of development from the simple presbyteral doctrine of 1 Clement. In effect, then, 1 Clement should not be seen to conflict with Ignatius' monepiscopal emphasis since 1 Clement does not represent the Roman church order shortly before Ignatius, i.e. in AD 96, but substantially before, i.e., in AD 70. Thus 1 Clement can be seen to provide a precious and primitive defense of the apostolic origin of church order in itself, while Ignatius gives us the earliest extant specification of that order in tripartite form." [T]ripartite form refers to the bishop (singular), priests, and deacons that St. Ignatius repeatedly indicated in his several letters.

So just what was St. Clement when he wrote this epistle if in fact it was before he was Bishop of Rome, that is, before he was pope (presuming Clement, the author of the epistle, is the same Clement as Clement I)? According to his entry in A Dictionary of Popes, which places Clement's papacy as c.91-c.101 AD: While Clement's position as leading presbyter and spokesman of the Christian community at Rome is assured, his letter suggests that the monarchical episcopate had not yet emerged there, and it is therefore impossible to form any precise conception of his constitutional role.

Anyway, Rev. Herron's book is fairly technical reading but should interest those curious about the first century church. And it is only 136 pages. And as many good books do, it alerts the reader to other good books, one of which I'm now reading and about which I wrote in another thread: .pdf books online & Amazon's Send to Kindle

[Tired]

Better than halfway finished with The Mill on the Floss by Victorian writer Eliot. Interesting section in which the heroine Maggie Tulliver encounters Thomas a Kempis and the virtue of silence in suffering:

It's been years since I read this but I recall enjoying it.