Jesus has not confined his journey to Jerusalem to exclusively Jewish territories. He has wandered in Samaria, and indeed Galilee was what we might now call a multicultural environment, known as Galilee of the Gentiles. This would be greatly reassuring to those of Luke’s readership who were of Gentile rather than Jewish provenance. Christ’s physical journey to Jerusalem marks a journey from inward-looking and narrow sectarianism to a redemptive faith which is inclusive of all [ … ]
This reading of Saint Gregory of Nyssa presents a concentrated meditation on the orientation of the human mind towards Christ as the condition for true wisdom. The argument is structured around a single governing image: the direction of one’s gaze. To ‘keep one’s eyes fixed’ on Christ is not merely a metaphor for devotion, but a description of the ordering of the whole person [ … ]
The Wanderer is preserved in the Exeter Book, a manuscript compiled in the late tenth century. It is an elegy, though this label is a modern critical category. The poem addresses exile, loss, memory, and the search for meaning within a transient world. It presents an individual speaker reflecting on past experience and present condition, and moves toward more general statements about human life. The poem traces a development from the experience of exile to a broader reflection on transience, concluding with a shift toward a religious framework. The poem combines personal expression with more generalised reflection [ … ]
