Granted the great Spanish reactionary thinker Juan Donoso'Cortes was defending the absoluteness of royal decree when he characterized “discussion” as “the universal dissolvent” that “has destroyed your adversaries, and will destroy yourself” and announced, “As to me, I am resolved not to tolerate it.” But since a politics without public deliberation makes the sense of a religion without prayer or a literature deficient in the rhythms of thought, and since he was writing in 1851 (ironically about the same time that Herman Melville was discussing practically everything in Moby Dick), his words have been intruding on my reading the last few weeks. Donoso-Cortes's fame, if he has any, rests in part on Pius IX having borrowed some of his points of view in writing the Syllabus of Errors. Were Vladimir Nabokov, quirky genuis, to compile a syllabus, one error would be the discussion of “general ideas” by literary critics, another the discussion of Big Topics by characters in a novel. Mary McCarthy is resolved not to tolerate the intolerance, pushy mensch that she is, and claims the right “granted to the Jewish novel” and “never conceded to us goys“—that is, “to juggle ideas in full view of the public.”

To my knowledge I've met only one true spy. He didn't disappoint me.

Some years ago I was visiting a writer friend in Washington who lived in a large luxury apartment complex a mile or so northwest of the Watergate. Because it was close enough to evening to justify our consuming something stronger than tea, and because we felt that it would be more enjoyable to do so with company, we decided to visit a friend of the writer’s who lived in the same complex. The friend had been one of the CIA’s top people in Vietnam, but when I met him he was retired from the Agency—or so he said.

He was a tall fellow, about fifty years old, fit, goodlooking, with a graying, aristrocratic mane of hair and a well-tanned face—the kind of man advertisers like to place at the helm of a sixty-foot sloop. And he was as witty, charming, and intelligent as he was good-looking. In fact, he was much fun to talk to—no simple cold war party line from him, you bet. Whatever line he followed was way beyond that.

In the years surrounding the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) questions concerning the Church dominated theological literature. Then came Wolfhart Panncrr berg s seminal Jesus—God and Man, which served as a timely reminder that more fundamental christological issues could not be even temporarily forgotten. More recently theologians recognizing the need for serious reexamination of the very foundations of Christianity, have increasingly directed their attention to the center of Christian faith Jesus Christ himself. Such prominent figures as Walter Rasper, Hans Rung, Jiirgen Moltmann, Karl Rahner, and Edward Schillebeeckx have published major works devoted largely if not entirely to christology; and numerous less renowned authors have also made significant contributions to an intense discussion that shows no signs of abating.

Despite important differences among themselves, these recent christologies generally exhibit certain basic traits that distinguish them from most christologies of the immediate past. First contemporary authors usuallv envision their christologv as part of an overall effort to provide an integrated account of the whole of Christianity; christology is one element of an attempt to express anew the meaning of the gospel in the modern world.

Outside a tiny loft on downtown Church Street, a group of people are clustered, hoping for late ticket cancellations for the current production at The Theatre Exchange, a new OffOff Broadway group whose space seats about fifty. The settings and, indeed, the very platform upon which the audience sits are ingeniously fashioned from scrap lumber found along Canal Street. The cast is young, but Alex Demetriev has directed them with such intensity that they successfully capture the spirit and savagery of post W.W.I Germany.

On Broadway, Christopher Reeve, formerly of Superman fame, now plays a legless, homosexual Vietnam veteran in a comedy-drama that is part of a series of plays about the Talley family, written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Lanford Wilson. The production is supported by extensive publicity and a full ad campaign in the media.

Until fairly recently it was a general assumption throughout the Western world that educated men of every nation, language, and class shared a common tradition based upon the heritage of classical antiquity. Latin, the universal language of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, remained the focus of education as well as the language of learned discourse until well into the eighteenth century. James Boswell could still avoid being arrested for espionage in Germany in 1764 by explaining himself in Latin; but except for such an anachronistic "adventure (as Boswell called it), the classics had already surrendered their influence outside the classroom to the Babel of modern languages and literatures. The peace and unity of the Christian Middle Ages, Novalis lamented nostalgically in 1799, had degenerated into European diversity and conflict.

Kim Chi Ha, the South Korean poet long imprisoned for opposition to his government, was released from jail on December 11. His precarious health and the fear that he might be rearrested at any time (as happened after his “pardon” in 1974) temper one’s relief at this good news. It will be important for international public opinion to maintain vigilance on his behalf.

I have written elsewhere about Kim Chi Ha's poet ry,* which is a powerful contribution to world literature,- and readers might remember that Muriel Rukeyser wrote of him, in the prefatory note to her last major work, The Gates. “The poet has written his stinging work—like that of Burns or Brecht— and it has got under the skin of the highest officials.” (In 1975, as president of American PEN, Rukeyser undertook a journey to Seoul in the hope of securing Kim Chi Has release by personally appealing to various officials, including cabinet ministers and the cardinal The attempt failed.) With The Middle Hour and The Gold Crowned Jesus and Other Writings** Kim Chi Has validity as a poet is well established. What I'd like to speak of here is his politics.