Flavius Josephus Wars of Jews

Kolbe’s Greatest Books Volume 20

Titus Flavius Josephus is a famed Jewish historian born in Jerusalem four years after the death of Christ. Josephus became a General in the Jewish army and fought in the First Jewish War against Rome. He was forced to surrender and taken as a valued slave by Vespasian who utilized him as an interpreter until Vespasian became Roman Emperor two years later in 69 AD.

Josephus was manumitted and adopted the name Flavius from Vespasian and petitioned for citizenship, which he was granted. He then became a counselor to Vespasian’s son, Titus, the famed Roman general that fulfilled scriptural prophecy by sacking Jerusalem and destroying the temple in 70 AD as Jesus had foretold (Mark 13, Matthew 24). ““When you see the desolating abomination standing where he should not (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains” (Mark 13:4).

Fydor Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov

Fydor Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov
Kolbe’s Greatest Books Volume 80

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was a Russian novelist, journalist and philosopher whose books have been translated into almost every language on earth. He is a highly renowned and lauded master of human psychology, spirituality, politics and social critique.

“The Brothers Karamazov” is the final book written by Dostoevsky who died a shorty four months following its publication.

Since its publication, Brothers Karamazov has been acclaimed as one of the supreme achievements in world literature.

G. K. Chesterton’s Heretics

G. K. Chesterton’s Heretics
Kolbe’s Greatest Books Volume 91

“One of the most respected G.K. Chesterton scholars in the world, Dale Ahlquist is President of the American Chesterton Society, and publisher of its flagship publication, GILBERT.

Dale is also the creator and host of the popular EWTN series The Apostle of Common Sense, and he is the author of three books on Chesterton including G.K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense, Common Sense 101: Lessons from G.K. Chesterton and The Complete Thinker.

His books deliver Chestertonian perspectives on such topics as faith, education, love, and marriage, and unpack the wisdom of Chesterton to explain why modern man has lost his ability to think clearly. He has also edited eight books of Chesterton’s writings” (chesterton.org).

G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy

Goethe’s Faust

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Kolbe’s Greatest Books Volume 71

Johnann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German poet, biologist and statesman. He became a member of the German nobility in 1782 and afterward began placing the German “von” before his surname.

Among his acclaimed works is the Legend of Dr. Faust. The old Faust legend … “is essentially a tragedy of sin and damnation, a characteristic product of the age of the Reformation.

In older legends of great sinners like Robert the Devil, the efficacy of penitence was proclaimed, the saving power of the Church was emphasized. With the Reformation this was changed. The rigid Lutheran orthodox theology denied the redeeming powers of the ancient Church and this harsh spirit is reflected in the legend”.

Although Goethe wrote in this milieu and is thought by some to have been a “sensualist” himself, he choose to emphasize the Mercy of God to which all sinners can flee.

Herodotus

Kolbe’s Greatest Books Volume 11

Herodotus (484-425 BC) was a Greek Historian known as the “Father of History” because if his systematic inductive, yet entertaining, approach to history and because of wide use of sources, albeit sometime specious sources, that was an anomaly in the fifth century BC. In his “Histories” he presents a vast array of geopolitical, psychological, and situational knowledge in an attempt to pinpoint and determine the causes of the Persian Wars and other wars with barbaric peoples.

Herodotus is of special import because he is, to this day, the primary source of ancient Greek history. “Kolbe’s Greatest Books” authors who relied on his Histories include Josephus, Cicero, Aristotle, and Plutarch.

Hilaire Belloc’s The French Revolution

Hilaire Belloc’s The French Revolution
Kolbe’s Greatest Books Volume 88

Hippocrates

However, the achievements of the writers of the Corpus, the practitioners of Hippocratic medicine, and the actions of Hippocrates himself were often commingled; thus very little is known about what Hippocrates actually thought, wrote, and did. Hippocrates is commonly portrayed as the paragon of the ancient physician, and credited with coining the Hippocratic Oath, still relevant and in use today. He is also credited with greatly advancing the systematic study of clinical medicine, summing up the medical knowledge of previous schools, and prescribing practices for physicians through the Hippocratic Corpus and other works

Jacques Maritain

Kolbe’s Greatest Books Volume 94

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) was a French Protestant convert to Catholicism and a leading Thomist of the twentieth century having special influence in the area of politics and education drawing on metaphysics, philosophical psychology and Christian ethics. Maritain rightly understood that political theory begins with philosophical psychology. In the area of psychology, he was an advocate of “Integral Humanism”. Secular forms of humanism were insufficient because they did not deal with the spiritual dimensions of the human person.

Maritain was both a Thomist and an Aristotelian. In short, he was a sincere and prolific lover of truth obtained through philosophy and theology, faith and reason.

He wrote: “The philosophy of Aristotle, as revived and enriched by St. Thomas and his school, may rightly be called the Christian philosophy, both because the church is never weary of putting it forward as the only true philosophy and because it harmonizes perfectly with the truths of faith…. This agreement between a philosophic system founded by a pagan and the dogmas of revelation is no doubt an external sign, an extra-philosophic guarantee of its truth” and a surety for the soundness of his writings.