The Josias

May 29, 2023March 16, 2024

Book Recommendation: William of Tocco’s The Life of St. Thomas Aquinas

As a translator of medieval Latin, I keep a running list of works that I could potentially bring into English in the future. For years now, near the top of that list—but never quite near enough for me to have actually gotten around to doing it—has been the Ystoria of William of Tocco. Mentioned often in Thomistic circles, this is the great hagiography of St. Thomas Aquinas compiled for his cause for canonization by a fellow Dominican friar, perhaps twenty years his junior, with whom Thomas lived at the Dominican priory in Naples toward the end of his life. Alas, I missed my chance to translate it—because a friend has done so instead, and his edition is marvelous.

May 16, 2023May 16, 2023

The Coronation: A Josias Symposium

For the occasion of the coronation of King Charles III in Westminster Abbey, The Josias asked contributors and friends to share their reflections on the event. The contributions to this symposium cover a variety of topics from a variety of perspectives, all of them Catholic.

May 8, 2023April 27, 2023

Prayer as (Still) a Political Problem

Christians throughout the world are facing various levels of persecution and maltreatment from purportedly secular and agnostic regimes. To temper such abuse, there is a tendency to appeal to the regime’s religious indifferentism, to defend Christian practice in the name of neutral “religious liberty.” But might there not be hidden costs to doing so?

May 1, 2023May 1, 2023

The Josias Podcast, Episode XXXIV: De Koninck on Nietzsche

Urban Hannon is joined by Ed and Pat Smith for a conversation about Charles De Koninck’s unpublished course notes on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Bibliography

Charles De Koninck’s Course Notes on Nietzsche, which we have made available here.

Header Image: Frans Francken the Younger, Mankind’s Eternal Dilemma – The Choice Between Virtue and Vice (1633).

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April 24, 2023April 18, 2023

Our Contraceptive Speech

Master Adamo lies a bloated mass of “watery rot.” His amorphous frame bears his diseased paunch and distended limbs, as his lips curl and crack under his parching fever—despite being a waterlogged waste. He lies before Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil and explains how King Minos poured him into the last ditch of the eighth circle of hell. He was a counterfeiter of Florentine florins. He blurred the lines of reality in life and now he lays blurred—a poor counterfeit of his former self.

April 3, 2023April 3, 2023

The Josias Podcast, Episode XXXIII: Ego Sapientia

Urban Hannon is joined by Fr. Hugh Barbour, O.Praem., of St. Michael’s Abbey, and Fr. Jon Tveit for a conversation on Charles De Koninck’s work, Ego Sapientia: The Wisdom That Is Mary.

Bibliography

Charles De Koninck, “Ego Sapientia: The Wisdom That Is Mary” in The Writings of Charles De Koninck: Volume 2, pg. 1-62. Translated by Ralph McInerny.
For those without access to the McInerny volume, a publicly available translation by Ronald McArthur, a former graduate student of De Koninck’s, may be accessed here.

Header Image: Nicholas of Verdun, The Annunciation panel, Klosterneuburg (Verduner) Altar (1181), Stift Klosterneuburg.

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors(at)thejosias.com.

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March 27, 2023December 5, 2023

A Brief Introduction to the Common Good

The common good is an uncommon concept today, and the genuine article is often confused with counterfeits. It may, therefore, be helpful to set out clearly and simply some definitions and distinctions, to explain what ‘the common good’ means to the integralist, as opposed to what it means to the totalitarian, the utilitarian, or the liberal. These notes are mostly gathered from other Josias posts; follow the links and footnotes for more in-depth treatments.

March 20, 2023March 20, 2023

Ecology and the Theology of Creation

On April 22, the St. Basil Institute for the Theology of Creation will be hosting an online conference on ecology and the theology of creation. Pope Francis has spoken about the importance of the current ecological crisis throughout his pontificate. While the Holy Father discussed the need for a uniquely Catholic approach to this crisis in Laudato Si, unfortunately most Catholics who engage with these issues continue to do so from a secular perspective. Why is a uniquely Catholic approach so important?

March 13, 2023December 5, 2023

Friendship and Politics

The Nature of Friendship

Aristotle discusses friendship near the end of his Nicomachean Ethics, immediately after a discussion of pleasure, and before the final discussion of true happiness. This order is appropriate, because friendship is both man’s greatest pleasure and necessary for the happiness of man’s earthly life. True happiness is to know the good and to have it, and friendship is among the greatest goods a person can have.

March 6, 2023March 6, 2023

The Josias Podcast, Episode XXXII: Jesus Christ

In his inaugural episode as Editor, Urban Hannon is joined by Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. and Pater Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist. for a conversation about our Blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Bibliography