daniel persigehl — ostraka

The Spears Were Real

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 04:00:00 +0000

21 July 2026

From Alan Jacobs’ post Auden’s faith.

I said earlier that I wouldn’t say much about the poems, but here I do want to bring one of them in: “Friday’s Child.” Now, we know that Auden believed that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical person who “was crucified under Pontius Pilate.” There’s a funny story Mendelson has told about a lecture that Joseph Campbell gave at Smith College, when Auden was teaching there, in which he spoke of the oneness of Jesus and the Buddha, each of whom had spears thrust at him, though in the case of the Buddha they were transformed into flowers. Auden shouted from the back of the room, “ON GOOD FRIDAY THE SPEARS WERE REAL.”

and

Did he believe all this with unwavering faith? Certainly not. Often, it seems, his affirmations were more aspirational than full of conviction. (I know the feeling.) But the aspiration was real: he perceived his small faith and small love as deficiencies, felt himself tempted to acquiesce in faithlessness and lovelessness, and earnestly desired a deeper faith and a greater love. He regularly received Communion not, I think, for the reasons given by Mendelson but because he understood that “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” And so also he prayed

That we, too, may come to the picnic
With nothing to hide, join the dance
As it moves in perichoresis,
Turns about the abiding tree.

Which strikes me as an echo of the image in “Deep River”

Oh, chillun, Oh, don’t you want to go, to that gospel feast,
That promised land, that land, where all is peace?
Walk into heaven, and take my seat,
And cast my crown at Jesus feet
Lord, I want to cross over into camp-ground.

On potsherds

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 04:00:00 +0000

30 June 2026

When papyrus ran short, the monks of the Egyptian desert wrote their psalms on broken pottery — an ostrakon cost nothing, and a verse held in the hand is a verse half-learned already.

Schoolboys, too, scratched their letters on them, and tax-collectors their receipts. The humblest writing surface in the ancient world turns out to have preserved a great deal of ordinary life.

There is no shame in a small surface. Some things are meant to be written quickly and kept anyway.

Augustine on singing

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 04:00:00 +0000

28 June 2026

Cantare amantis est. — Singing belongs to one who loves.

A whole theology of music folded into four words. You do not sing what you are indifferent to; the act presupposes the affection. Worth remembering on the mornings the choir is flat and I am tempted to think the singing is the problem.

The shape of a mode

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 04:00:00 +0000

24 June 2026

Taught the difference between Dorian and Phrygian today by ear before ever naming them. The students heard it at once — one rises and opens, the other leans down and broods — and only then did the theory have anywhere to land. The name is a hook to hang a thing already known on, never the thing itself.

Festina lente

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 04:00:00 +0000

19 June 2026

Festina lente — make haste slowly. Augustus’ favourite motto, Suetonius says, and a printer’s device for Aldus Manutius fifteen centuries later: a dolphin twined round an anchor, speed and ballast in one mark. The best advice usually contradicts itself a little.

A line of Horace

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 04:00:00 +0000

12 June 2026

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

Everyone knows the first half and forgets the second, which is where the sense lives: pluck the day, trusting as little as possible in the one that follows. Not seize-the-day bravado — a gardener’s caution about tomorrow’s weather.

On memorizing declensions

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 04:00:00 +0000

5 June 2026

A student asked why we still chant the endings aloud when a chart is right there on the page. Because the chart is in the book and the chanting is in you. Rote has a bad name it only half deserves; the ear keeps what the eye lets slide.