The form of The Silmarillion is not a romantic novel, like its forerunners, but a sort of Elvish Bible. The general “feel” most resembles that of the Old Testament. Dialogue and invididual character have about the same degree of importance that they have in the Old Testament—that is to say, characters appear and vanish, subordinate to history and narrative flow as they are not in Lord of the Rings.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

At its strongest when detailing the depth, breadth, and longevity of prejudice against and fear of African Americans in U.S. history, and in its comparison with the Indian caste system. I would have liked Wilkerson to analyze more about what’s changed and what’s stayed the same since 1965. She addresses this to some degree, but not in the comprehensive way that she does with the long history leading up to it. Illustrative stories about some of her own experiences do give the reader a sense of what hasn’t changed.

At its weakest when analyzing 21st-century American politics through the lense of caste to the exclusion of other important factors. Her argument that the caste system and anxiety about it being upended is the major thing that prevents progressive policies from being put into place was not persuasive to me, both because it was too simplistic a framework and it treats policies desired by progressives as the norm and opposition to them as inherently wrong-headed.

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An in-depth evaluation of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, seeking to explain the content and rhetorical appeals of the speech in the context of the 19th century, the Civil War, and Lincoln’s own life. White argues that Lincoln’s musings about God’s purposes and judgment were influenced by Lincoln’s informal but real relationship with Christian churches (specifically Old School Presbyterian churches).

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Doyle gives a great account of how both the Union and Confederate governments sought to persuade European political leaders and the general public to support their sides, as well as how foreign leaders of governments and of public opinion perceived the Civil War. One interesting thing is that foreign public opinion often interpreted the war in terms of the contemporary questions of the endurance of republican government in opposition to aristocracy and monarchy and in terms of the moral question of slavery, which the Lincoln adminstration famously tried to avoid until the middle of 1862. Doyle also brings in the ill-fated French attempt to extend its influence into “Latin America” (a term coined around this time), which Confederate diplomats hoped could be a boon to their cause. Finally, one is left with the impression that Confederate leaders vastly overestimated the ability of their cause and their cotton to appeal to European public opinion, and that they had few talented foreign policy thinkers.

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An interesting account of the development of Lincoln’s constitutional thought based on a close reading of his public explanations of his ideals and policies. Explaining Lincoln’s evolving thought from defending a compromise Constitution (maintaining the Union through compromise on slavery) to a broken Constitution (as he saw it, violating the Constitution in order to save it and the Union from the Constitution-breaking secession) to a moral Constitution (the “new birth of freedom” based on liberty and equality) may be too simplistic, and does seem to be related to Feldman’s view of a living Constitution (as far as I can tell).

Feldman is quite frank in his evaluation of Lincoln, pointing out what he sees as flaws in Lincoln’s logic and documenting the large-scale repression of war critics. It’s a good book written at the popular level that reframes Lincoln in a thought-provoking way.

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I looked at this topic before, but when listening through the second edition Milton’s description of Babel in Book 12 caught my attention. He starts this section with Nimrod, whom he describes in a way that echoes Satan. Note the rebellion that leads to the laughter of Heaven:

This second source of Men, while yet but few,
And while the dread of judgement past remains
Fresh in their minds, fearing the Deity,
With some regard to what is just and right
Shall lead their lives, and multiply apace;
Labouring the soil, and reaping plenteous crop,
Corn, wine, and oil; and, from the herd or flock,
Oft sacrificing bullock, lamb, or kid,
With large wine-offerings poured, and sacred feast,
Shall spend their days in joy unblamed; and dwell
Long time in peace, by families and tribes,
Under paternal rule: till one shall rise
Of proud ambitious heart; who, not content
With fair equality, fraternal state,
Will arrogate dominion undeserved
Over his brethren, and quite dispossess
Concord and law of nature from the earth;
Hunting (and men not beasts shall be his game)
With war, and hostile snare, such as refuse
Subjection to his empire tyrannous:
A mighty hunter thence he shall be styled
Before the Lord; as in despite of Heaven,
Or from Heaven, claiming second sovranty;
And from rebellion shall derive his name,
Though of rebellion others he accuse.
He with a crew, whom like ambition joins
With him or under him to tyrannize,
Marching from Eden towards the west, shall find
The plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge
Boils out from under ground, the mouth of Hell:
Of brick, and of that stuff, they cast to build
A city and tower, whose top may reach to Heaven;
And get themselves a name; lest, far dispersed
In foreign lands, their memory be lost;
Regardless whether good or evil fame.
But God, who oft descends to visit men
Unseen, and through their habitations walks
To mark their doings, them beholding soon,
Comes down to see their city, ere the tower
Obstruct Heaven-towers, and in derision sets
Upon their tongues a various spirit, to rase
Quite out their native language; and, instead,
To sow a jangling noise of words unknown:
Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud,
Among the builders; each to other calls
Not understood; till hoarse, and all in rage,
As mocked they storm: great laughter was in Heaven,
And looking down, to see the hubbub strange,
And hear the din: Thus was the building left
Ridiculous, and the work Confusion named.

His description of Nimrod’s lust for sovereign power has some similarity with Locke’s later critique of absolutism in his Second Treatise. I don’t know exactly how relate those further without knowing more about anti-absolutist rhetoric in the late seventeenth century.

I began this series with a suspicion: that what many Christian thinkers call the “theology of culture” is misnamed and therefore misconceived, and that we need instead a theology of the Two Cities. I now feel more strongly even than I did then that “What is the proper relationship between Christ and culture?” is a fruitless question, one doomed to lead nowhere (not least because, as I have noted, I can’t figure out what theologians mean when they talk about “culture”).  I am convinced that the much more fruitful questions, and ones more grounded in the biblical story and the Christian account of the world, are: How do we live charitably and justly with our neighbors whose citizenship is other than ours? What is the common good that we share with them? What are the instruments — the tactics, the tools, the arts, the practices, the dispositions — by which we might pursue that common good? And, finally, when and how must we make it clear that, while we are all neighbors and owe one another love, we do not belong to the same city?

A mixture of sweet and sad. The story is set in the 1680s as the last vestiges of toleration of the Huguenots are being dismantled by King Louis XIV. The characters do express strong criticisms of the Catholic church, which seemed off-putting to some reviewers, but I think those are historically accurate. The family also teaches the children to pray for the king and to love their Catholic neighbors (some of whom are themselves kind, and some of whom are not). You get a little picture of a Huguenot family trying to live faithfully and pass on the faith in the face of hostility.

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Sam: Thou knowst I am an Ebrew, therefore tell them,
Our Law forbids at thir Religious Rites
My presence; for that cause I cannot come.

Off: This answer, be assur’d, will not content them.

Sam: Have they not Sword-players, and ev’ry sort
Of Gymnic Artists, Wrestlers, Riders, Runners,
Juglers and Dancers, Antics, Mummers, Mimics,
But they must pick me out with shackles tir’d,
And over-labour’d at thir publick Mill,
To make them sport with blind activity?
Do they not seek occasion of new quarrels
On my refusal to distress me more,
Or make a game of my calamities?
Return the way thou cam’st, I will not come.

Off: Regard thy self, this will offend them highly.

Sam: My self? my conscience and internal peace.
Can they think me so broken, so debas’d
With corporal servitude, that my mind ever
Will condescend to such absurd commands?
Although thir drudge, to be thir fool or jester,
And in my midst of sorrow and heart-grief
To shew them feats, and play before thir god,
The worst of all indignities, yet on me
Joyn’d with extream contempt? I will not come.

Off: My message was impos’d on me with speed,
Brooks no delay: is this thy resolution?

Sam: So take it with what speed thy message needs.

Off: I am sorry what this stoutness will produce.

Sam: Perhaps thou shalt have cause to sorrow indeed. (lines 1319-1347)

After the official leaves, Samson and the Danite chorus discuss his options. Like Delilah’s description of the persuasive tactics of the Philistine leaders (which I quoted here), he conversation uses language that seems connected to seventeenth-century England’s political and religious debates (which is no surprise, since Milton was deeply enmeshed in both). Here’s the conversation, with those expressions that I could connect to those debates underlined:

Chor: Consider, Samson; matters now are strain’d
Up to the highth, whether to bold or break;
He’s gone, and who knows how he may report
Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?
Expect another message more imperious,
More Lordly thund’ring then thou well wilt bear.

Sam: Shall I abuse this Consecrated gift
Of strength, again returning with my hair
After my great transgression, so requite
Favour renew’d, and add a greater sin
By prostituting holy things to Idols;
A Nazarite in place abominable
Vaunting my strength in honour to thir Dagon?
Besides, how vile, contemptible, ridiculous,
What act more execrably unclean, prophane?

Chor: Yet with this strength thou serv’st the Philistines,
Idolatrous, uncircumcis’d, unclean.

Sam: Not in thir Idol-worship, but by labour
Honest and lawful to deserve my food
Of those who have me in thir civil power.

Chor: Where the heart joins not, outward acts defile not

Sam: Where outward force constrains, the sentence holds:
But who constrains me to the Temple of Dagon,
Not dragging? the Philistian Lords command.
Commands are no constraints. If I obey them,
I do it freely; venturing to displease
God for the fear of Man, and Man prefer,
Set God behind: which in his jealousie
Shall never, unrepented, find forgiveness.
Yet that he may dispense with me or thee
Present in Temples at Idolatrous Rites
For some important cause, thou needst not doubt.

Chor: How thou wilt here come off surmounts my reach.

Sam: Be of good courage, I begin to feel
Some rouzing motions in me which dispose
To something extraordinary my thoughts.
I with this Messenger will go along,
Nothing to do, be sure, that may dishonour
Our Law, or stain my vow of Nazarite.
If there be aught of presage in the mind,
This day will be remarkable in my life
By some great act, or of my days the last.

Chor: In time thou hast resolv’d, the man returns.

Off: Samson, this second message from our Lords
To thee I am bid say. Art thou our Slave,
Our Captive, at the public Mill our drudge,
And dar’st thou at our sending and command
Dispute thy coming? come without delay;
Or we shall find such Engines to assail
And hamper thee, as thou shalt come of force,
Though thou wert firmlier fastn’d then a rock.

Sam: I could be well content to try thir Art,
Which to no few of them would prove pernicious.
Yet knowing thir advantages too many,
Because they shall not trail me through thir streets
Like a wild Beast, I am content to go.
Masters commands come with a power resistless
To such as owe them absolute subjection;
And for a life who will not change his purpose?
(So mutable are all the ways of men)
Yet this be sure, in nothing to comply
Scandalous or forbidden in our Law.

Off: I praise thy resolution, doff these links:
By this compliance thou wilt win the Lords
To favour, and perhaps to set thee free.

Sam: Brethren farewel, your company along
I will not wish, lest it perhaps offend them
To see me girt with Friends; and how the sight
Of me as of a common Enemy,
So dreaded once, may now exasperate them
I know not. Lords are Lordliest in thir wine,
And the well-feasted Priest then soonest fir’d
With zeal, if aught Religion seem concern’d:
No less the people on thir Holy-days
Impetuous, insolent, unquenchable;
Happ’n what may, of me expect to hear
Nothing dishonourable, impure, unworthy
Our God, our Law, my Nation, or my self,
The last of me or no I cannot warrant. (lines 1348-1426)

There’s surely more here than I am picking up on. But as a dissenter after the Restoration, Milton surely had to think much about conscience as indeed he had in the religious controversies under the Republic (see an anti-Presbyterian poem here and a pro-Cromwell poem here that I found while searching for “conscience”).