by Jonathan Bennett | Jan 6, 2026 | Essays
In the Angel of the Archive series by Jonathan Bennett, this one is about a footnote that baffled generations. In 1723, a minor German philosopher named Johann Andreas Grüber published a dense metaphysical and epistemological treatise entitled De Tenebris Rationis...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Dec 30, 2025 | Essays
The new year is here… As the year turns, I find myself thinking about what we carry forward and what truly matters. The grand sweep of The Lord of the Rings enthralled me in high school. I had read it two or three times by the time I reached university. It was...
by Jonathan Bennett | Dec 23, 2025 | Essays
Jonathan writes about a mythic book with marginalia that might reveal more than any book today. What kind of an Ironist are You? Take the quiz and find out. It is well known—at least among those who subscribe to obscure theological journals—that Anselmo of Bruges held...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Dec 16, 2025 | Essays
We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness – Wordsworth, Independence and Resolution, Stanza VII Children prove we all seek a better life. They quickly learn that walking helps them . They learn that talking gets...
by Jonathan Bennett | Dec 9, 2025 | Essays
Jonathan revives the myth of an angel who collects the edges of the written world. What kind of an Ironist are You? Take the quiz and find out. Among the minor curiosities of the early Rhineland monastic tradition there exists a nearly forgotten medieval legend,...
by Peter Scotchmer | Dec 2, 2025 | Essays
In this piece, Peter talks about the enduring power of inherited wisdom and how neglecting it leaves us unmoored. In a speech delivered in 1858, Abraham Lincoln foresaw the consequences of the ruinous Civil War that was to devastate his nation: “A house divided...