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Essays and readings

Essays on philosophy, theology, Church history and the classics, written with the same philosophical-Christian lens as our lessons. By John Wanzer.

Philosophy and theology

What is fideism?

The faith that despises reason: its origin in Tertullian, why it turns against faith itself and what the Christian tradition responds to.

Philosophy and theology

Faith and reason: rivals, separate or allies?

The three answers to the relationship between faith and reason, from fideism and scientism to NOMA, to the image of Saint John Paul II's two wings.

Philosophy and theology

What is Fides et Ratio

Saint John Paul II's 1998 encyclical on faith and reason: what it says, the image of the two wings, and where to start reading.

Church History

History of the Church of Christ, from Daniel Rops: the 10 volume guide

From the Roman Empire to the Second Vatican Council: what each of the ten volumes covers and where to start reading Daniel Rops.

Church History

Who was it Daniel Rops?

The French historian who dedicated his life to telling the history of the Church without filters, with the rigor of a scientist and the elegance of a novelist.

Latin and culture

Verba volant, scripta manent

The words fly, the writing remains. The origin of the Latin maxim and why recording changes your relationship with ideas.

Greek philosophy

Kairos vs Chronos: the two Greek words for time

Chronos is the time that is measured; Kairos, the opportune moment. The difference that changes the way of living and creating.

Art and Renaissance

What is Raphael's "Parnassus"?

The Vatican fresco in which Apollo and the Muses bring together Homer, Virgil, Dante and Sappho in creative silence.

Greek mythology

Who was Mnemosyne?

The titanoid that personifies Memory and mother of the nine Muses. Because, for the Greeks, inspiration is the daughter of memory.

Etymology and culture

Where does the word "museum" come from?

Museum comes from the Greek Mouseion, the house of the Muses. The origin of the term, its connection with memory and the path to the modern museum.

Greek mythology

What are the 9 Greek Muses?

Calliope, Clio, Erato and the others: the domain of each of the nine Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, Memory.

Philosophy and creativity

How to be more creative: the lesson of the Muses

Creativity is the daughter of memory. What the Greeks knew about inspiration and how to build your inner museum, from Homer to Raphael.

Church History

History of the Catholic Church: summary of the 20 centuries

From the catacombs to the Second Vatican Council, the great periods of the Church in a single thread, to see the entire story before delving into the details.

Church History

Where to start studying Church History

The mistakes that make most people give up, the right reading order and the shortest way to truly enter the twenty centuries of the Church.

Church History

What is Church History?

More than dates and names, it is the story of how Christianity shaped Western culture, thought and politics. What it is, and where to get in.

Church History

Why study Church History today

It is neither nostalgia nor catechesis: it is the antidote to anachronism and the key to understanding the roots of Western culture and ideas.

Church History

What were the first councils of the Church

What is a council, why were they called and what was decided from Nicaea to Chalcedon, when the Christian faith gained its definitions.

Church History

The early Church: from the catacombs to the Edict of Milan

Three centuries of persecution, the martyrs and what were in fact the catacombs, until the decree that brought Christianity out of hiding.

Church History

The Second Vatican Council

The Church's great attempt to dialogue with the modern world without giving up itself. What Vatican II was, what changed and why is still debated.

Church History

The Protestant Reformation: causes and consequences

The century in which Western Christianity broke apart. The causes, Luther's ideas, Trent's response and the religious map that was born from this.

Church History

The Eastern Schism (1054)

The year in which Christianity split between Rome and Constantinople. The causes that went back centuries, the episode and consequences of the Great Schism.

Church History

The Church Fathers: who they were and why they matter

The thinkers of the first centuries who defined faith and stitched it together with Greek philosophy. Who the Fathers were, and why we still read each of them.

Church History

The Crusades: what they really were

Neither gratuitous barbarity nor pure devotion. The context, the real people and the myths behind the most caricatured chapter in Church history.

Church History

The Church in the Middle Ages

Far from the darkness of cliché: the time when the Church preserved ancient culture, founded universities and built cathedrals. What the Middle Ages really were.