Prima Pars
107. Summa I, Q.29, Art. 2: Person, Hypostasis, Subsistence and Essence, with Asides on Fiction, Shakespeare and Mozart
Class of 2007-11-29
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/107-summa-i-q-29-art-2-person-hypostasis-subsistence-and-essence/

[0:00] The second article here now. Whether person is the same as what hypostasis, subsistence, and essence. The second one proceeds thus: It seems that person is the same as hypostasis, subsistencia, and essentia.

[0:27] For Boethius says in the book on the two natures that the Greeks call by the name of hypostasis an individual substance of a rational nature.

[0:44] But this also among us is signified by the name person. Therefore, person is altogether the same thing as what hypostasis. Moreover, just as in divine things we say there are three persons, so in divine things we say there are three subsistences, which would not be unless person and subsistence signified the same what thing. Therefore, person and subsistence signify the same thing.

[1:28] Moreover, Boethius says in the commentary in the Predicamenta, that's the categories of Aristotle. If you look at the at the at Albert the Great says the paraphrases of the Isa Goge of Porphyry and the categories of Aristotle for the genus, species, difference, property, the predicabilia the predicabilia, and then the substance, quantity, quality, and the other ten, the predicamenta, right? So Boethius translated this in his commentary that ousia, now actually in Greek that would be O U right?

[2:05] Ousia, which is the same as what essence, right? That signifies just the one meaning of the word substance in Greek. usia, is what a thing is. huh? So Plato and Aristotle. will use sometimes for a definition Logos teisusia. It's a ratio substantiae, right? I don't have an article, so okay. That signifies something composed from matter and form, at least in material things, right? But that which is composed from matter and form is the individual substance, which is called the hypostasis of the person.

[2:49] Therefore, all the four said names signify seem to signify the same thing, right? So this second article is really to clear up the meanings of these words and to distinguish them, right?

[3:03] But against this is what Boethius says in the book on the two natures that genera and species subsist only. Individuals not only subsist but they also stand under substantia. But from subsistendo, subsisting, are said substances, subsistences, I should say, just as from standing under substantia, what hypostasis. And so that you know, this is the great problem in the thinking about these things in the beginning. That how do you translate hypostasis into Latin?

[3:52] Well, etymologically speaking, hypostasis corresponds to what substantia. But if you say there are three substances, in Latin substantia also means what a thing is, the nature or substance of a thing. And so, if you speak of three hypostases and you translate into Latin as three substances, then you into a heresy, right? There are three natures here, and so on. And so, it shows you difficulties until they clear these things up, right?

[4:26] Since, therefore, to be hypostases or persons does not belong to genera and species, hypostases and persons are not the same thing as what subsistentia.

[4:45] That's a little bit going back to what we're seeing over here, right? Subsistentia, right, seems to apply in some way to the genera and the species, huh? Because man or dog is not the kind of thing that exists in others in a subject by geometry and health and shape and so on, things that exist in others in a subject, right?

[5:11] Okay. Moreover, as Boethius says in the commentary on the Predicaments, the Categories, that hypostasis is said matter, ousiosis, that is, subsistence, form. But neither form nor matter can be called a person. Therefore, person differs from the four said, right? You see how confusing I can get with all these uses of the word here, right? But Thomas will clear it up. Have no fear.

[5:46] I answer: It should be said that according to the philosopher, that's Aristotle, in the fifth book of Wisdom or first philosophy, the Metaphysics, substance is said in two ways. In one way, that is called substance. The What it is of a thing, right? Which the definition signifies,

[6:13] according as we say the definition signifies the substance of a thing. So sometimes we say that definition signifies what a thing is, right? But we also say it signifies the substance of a thing. Then substance of beings, so what a thing is,

[6:34] which substantiam the Greeks call ousiam, right? Which we are able to call what? Essence, named it from the essence. Essence, rather. In another way, that is called substance, which is the subject or suppositum that subsists in the genus of what? Substance, huh? That's individual you or me.

[7:04] And this, taking it commonly, can be named both by a name signifying an intention, and thus it is called the suppositum one. It's like the subject, right? Placed under.

[7:24] And is named by three names signifying a thing, which are a thing of nature, subsistence, and hypostasis, according to a threefold consideration of substance. That's there. Now what's all this about? I'm not going to explain. For according as it exists by itself, right, and not in another, it is called what? Subsistence. Yeah. Okay.

[7:57] For those things are said to subsist, which are what? It's exist, not in another as in a subject, right? But in themselves, right? Which is a way of saying what? Not in another. Okay.

[8:17] In in the fourth book of natural hearing physics when Aristotle is talking about place, and he's about to define place, but he takes up the word in, and he distinguishes eight different meanings of in, right? And he doesn't order them, right? And Thomas says, well, we're going to order them in the way that Aristotle taught us in the fifth book of wisdom, and he orders them, right?

[8:46] But then after he orders the eight meanings, he goes on to show that nothing is in itself. And he shows this inductively, and he shows it from the by reason, huh? But then at the end of that when Thomas is commenting, he says, but sometimes we say in say.

[9:09] Meaning what? Kind of a affirmative way grammatically of saying something that's negative in meaning, right? So if we say substance exists in itself, we mean really it doesn't exist in another, not another. That way of speaking, I'd be careful with, right?

[9:35] Okay. So according as it exists by itself and not in another, it is called subsistence. For those things we say subsist that exist not another but in themselves, right?

[9:56] But according as it is what. Placed under, you might say, some common nature, it is thus called a thing of what? Nature. As this man, like you over there, are a thing of a human nature. Okay. Okay. Or the dog is around here. There's a dog around here, isn't there? Somewhere. Is a thing of a what? Doggy nature. canine nature. But according as it what is placed under accidents, right?

[10:32] It is called a what? hypostasis substantia. So substantia means, mean etymologically, either one of those words in Greek or Latin means to stand under, right?

[10:49] So it stands under accidents, huh? Because accidents exist in it. But what these three names signify, communiter, commonly, in the whole genus of substance, right? This name person signifies, in particular, in the genus of rational substances, substances that have mind or reason, right? Okay.

[11:24] Now, is that crystal clear? Huh? That's what he's doing there, right? He begins with a text from Aristotle from the fifth book of Wisdom, right? Where two principal meanings that Aristotle gives of the word substance is what a thing is, right?

[11:57] And then, right, the subject or suppositum, as he calls it, that subsists in the genus of substance, huh? The individual substance, right? And then he's got to talk about how that second thing can be named, right? Huh? And by a name that signifies an intention, and then by three names signifying the thing. And what do those three names signify, right? Well, one is comparing it to what?

[12:36] Well, that's true, yeah. Or it has what? Sort of nature that thing, right? And it underlies sort of what? Accidents, huh? Okay. So Socrates, in so far as he does not exist in others, in a subject, is said to subsist, right? Insofar as he's an individual of human nature, he's said to be a res naturae, right? And insofar as he what stands under certain accidents, right? Courage, wisdom, and so on, then he's called a what?

[13:16] Hypostasis or substance, right? Okay, I think I'm interested in that word substance because it's named from standing under something else. And what does it stand under? Accidents, right? Now, why is it named in a way from its position with reference to accidents? Well, partly because accidents are more what? Yeah, because they're more sensible, right? Okay.

[13:45] Now you know, you know, the moderns always have problems with substance, right? And Bertrand Russell said, you know, the the accidents of Mister Smith, he said, have no more need of a substance to exist in than the earth has need of an elephant to rest upon.

[14:04] But then, what would you call them accidents, right? Now, Descartes a little different problem because Descartes identifies the substance of material things with their size, with their quantity,

[14:23] and so it's really confusing an accident with the substance, right? Now, if you want to speak in English and speak in a way that could be understood by even the common man, you could ask a man, you know, is what a dog is and the size of a dog the same thing?

[14:49] Is what a man is and the size of a man the same thing? But if you take away your size, it's hard to see what's left. Yeah, yeah. How it gets that problem, right? See. But if you ask the common man, is what a man is and size of man the same thing? No, you can have what a man is comes in different sizes, right? See, so the size of man is not what a man is.

[15:17] But furthermore, as you go through life, your size changes, especially in the first years of your life. And and yet you remain, right? So I used to joke about Descartes. Descartes never grew up.

[15:38] It wouldn't be the same substance if you have different size there, right? But notice, Aristotle does give quantity as the first category of accident, so closely related to substance, huh? And and that's why you know people like Descartes, it's confused with that, and to some extent the Platonists did that. They agree on some.

[16:05] Okay. Nevertheless, the word substance does show that accidents, in some way, are what more known to us, because they are sensible as such. Why substance is not, right? Okay. So I see your color and I see your shape. In a way, I don't see you. Okay. But something else in me understands you when I see your color and shape and so on.

[16:38] Einstein gets very confused about that, right? Because he ends up, you know, thinking that that you are an hypothesis. It's nice to make fun of Einstein and say, you know, for Einstein the existence of his wife is an hypothesis to explain a bundle of, you know, smells and colors and sounds and so on.

[17:02] Okay. So the individual substance is of some nature, and therefore it's called a res naturae, says right, huh? Okay. It stands under accidents, and therefore it's called a hypostasis or substantia, right? And it exists not in another, and therefore it's called a subsistence, right? So there's a little different reason for giving each of those three names to it, right? But that could be applied to a dog as well as a man, or even to a tree, right?

[17:38] Those three names, right? Because the dog doesn't exist in another as a subject, so he's subsistent, the dog, right? He has by accidents, uh colors and health and nasty nature and so on. And and he's also what a individual of some nature, right? The canine nature. But

[18:02] the word person is naming what has those three qualities in a more particular way, just in the genus of what rational substances. Okay. Now something happened with the Greek word in custom, right? And this way doesn't imply to the first one here. Because the Greeks, and you find this in theology a lot, they'll speak of the hypostatic what union, right? What does that mean? It means that the human nature and the divine nature of Christ are joined in the what one person in the Word of God, and that's what what they're called the hypostatic union.

[18:46] As if hypostasis means the same thing as person, right? But Thomas says to the first, it should be said that hypostasis among the Greeks, from the proper meaning of the name, right, it has to signify any individual. What a substance, right? It's etymologically the same thing—as substantia right? But ex usu solet quod they are accustomed, right, to what it has that be taken for an individual of a rational nature, by reason of its excellence, right?

[19:23] So the word, etymologically speaking, so on, would signify an individual of any kind in the genus of substance, right? But the Greeks are accustomed to use it just for what?

[19:40] Yeah, for the for person, right? Okay. So that's that's it happens sometimes with words, right? It's like like the word someone, right? Is this someone here? Well, it's some one thing, isn't it? Huh?

[20:09] So if you look at the etymology, there is someone, right? Some is kind of you know, maybe something particular. One and one is saying it's it's something one, right? This is one glass, right? It's some one glass, right? Isn't it? So it's someone, right? See what I mean? So you say you know, you might say like to use like Thomas says ex propria significatione nominis, right? Someone could be applied to to this one.

[20:37] This is someone, right? That's not the way we speak in English, right? Ex usu loquendi, someone is always a what? Yeah, I don't think we even probably wouldn't think of a cat as someone, would we? Huh? See? See what I mean? So you can see something like that with words, right? Like my French teacher used to explain sometimes the way he'd say it in French. Don't fight it, he says.

[21:01] just accept it. That's what they say, You know. So you have to realize, you know, those things. I mean, you know, you know how how no no sound signifies by nature, right? It's by human custom agreement. And it's interesting that we have as much agreement, you know, that we generally, you know, I mean, if one of these cats around here comes around, I call him a cat, and you call him a cat, and this guy calls him a cat, you know, and the other one we call a dog.

[21:26] It's it's amazing to have as much agreement as we do, you know. You expect to be much more chaos given the irrationality of human beings and their and their willfulness and so on, you know. It's surprising we have any. things at all.

[21:43] Or you know the Greeks. What's a Greek word for nothing? Yeah, Greek word for nothing. Yeah, oodan, oodan, yeah. Now that comes from the negative ood and and and hen one. It means no one. Now in English, in English, in English, we'd say what? No thing, nothing. You see. So those are peculiar things, you know. You see. Now, so how do you translate oodan in English? If you said no one, you wouldn't you wouldn't get the sense, right?

[22:22] So we we'd oppose something and nothing, right? Not something and no one. We oppose no one to someone, right? With that peculiar use. So you've got to, you know be aware of these things. Otherwise, it causes problems, right? But the main problem that came from hypostasis was not it's being used for a person, but it was translated as substantia, right? And then you say, well, we're professing in our faith that there are three substances of God, and then you see that the Latins, I mean, the Greeks don't use hypostasis to name the the nature of the thing.

[22:56] But we use the word substance to name the nature of the thing, what it is. So there's three what it is, you know. Then you're into heresy, right? So you gotta take a while, you know, to clear these things up.

[23:12] Now to the second objection, about the what when we speak of three persons and three subsistences. But to the second, it should be said that just as we say that in divine things in a plural way there are three persons, right, and three subsistences, so the Greeks speak of three what hypostases.

[23:46] But because the name of substance, which according to the propriety, properness and signification, responds to hypostasis, they're etymologically the same, right? Hupo is sub under, right, And stasis is like standing, right, stand under. But because substantia is what equivocata, I would note, right? Because substance can mean not only hypostasis, but the nature, the essence of the thing. Since it sometimes signifies the essence, sometimes hypostasis, right? Lest it be an occasion of error, right?

[24:27] We would rather transfer, right, subsistence than substance for hypostasis, hypostasis, right? We'd rather speak of three subsistences than three substances, right? Because you're gonna think of it in this other sense of substance, so common, right?

[24:51] So we tend to use it even daily speech somewhat. The substance of the thing means what's essential, right? Okay. So so much in our mind, you know, there be, yeah. So what would be the difference between the Latin persona versus what you're saying there? Well, subsistence is could be applied to any individual substance, right? Okay. Because it exists not in another, right? But person is such a thing, you know, with a rational nature, right?

[25:21] So it's more particular. Okay. Now the third one. Boethius said, go back to objection here. Boethius says in the commentary and the predicaments that ousia, which is the same as essence, huh? Now I see usia in Greek has as one meaning, the essence, what the thing is. Like I was saying, Plato and Aristotle refer to the definition as a logos tes ousias, right?

[26:01] Okay. Now it signifies, at least in material things, something composed from matter and form. But that which is composed from matter and form is individual substance, which is called hypostasis and person. Therefore, all the four said names signify or seem to signify the same thing. Okay, Tom's going to clear this up now. To the third, it should be said that essence properly is that which is signified through the definition, right?

[26:35] But the definition contains or brings together the principles of the species, the particular kind of thing it is in material things, but not the individual principles, huh? So the definition of man as an animal that has reason, right, brings together the principles of this kind of thing called a man, but doesn't bring out what makes me to be me, as opposed to being you, right? Okay.

[27:06] Whence, in things composed from matter and form, essence signifies not only form nor only matter, but something put together from matter and form, but in common, right? So when I say that man is an animal that has reason, animal is more its material nature and reason is formal nature, but in general, in so far as they are beginnings of the species, particular kind of thing it is.

[27:37] But what is put together from this matter, right? This flesh right here, you know, it's falling apart here, huh? And this form, this soul of mine, huh? Has the notion of an hypostasis or what? Person, right? Because this person is made up of my individual body, this flesh, you know, and and this soul, right, individual soul, huh?

[28:04] For soul and flesh and bone are of the notion or the definition of man, but this soul and this flesh and this bone are of the definition of man, if individual had a definition, right? It's of the notion of this man, right? Okay. And therefore, hypostasis and person add above the notion of essence the individualizing principles of the thing, huh? Okay.

[28:42] Nor are they the same with the essence in things composed from matter and form, as has been said above. When one treated of the divine simplicity, right?

[28:54] This goes back, you know, to what we say that matter, as subject to quantity, is the source of the individuation of us. And so, the matter as divided up—this flesh is my flesh, and that flesh is your flesh. Right? This is tied up with our individuality, right? And that's individual—my flesh or your flesh—not in the definition of man, right? But we keep the definition of man in general that there is flesh and bone and so on.

[29:28] But not my flesh or your. So you in the definition of man? But you're not a part of the definition of man, right? And my flesh and my bones are not in the definition of man, right? But flesh and bone in general are in the definition of man, right? And therefore, in the essence of man, right?

[29:58] But this person, you or me. Has something in addition to that that makes us an individual, right? And this is signified when you talk about the hypostasis of a person, right?

[30:15] Now, notice he's going to reply to the said contra right? There's still things to be cleared up. So this is a question here about Boethius says in the book about the two names or two natures that genera and species subsist only. Individuals not only subsist, but in truth they also what stand under, right? But from subsisting are said subsistences, just as from standing under substances are hypostases.

[30:54] Since therefore to be a hypostasis or a person does not belong to genera and species, hypostases or persons are not the same as subsistence. To the fourth, it should be said that Boethius calls genera or says that genera and species subsist in so far as it belongs to some individuals to subsist. From this fact that they are what under genera and species in the predicament of substance, huh?

[31:27] Not that the species of the genus themselves subsist, right? Except according to the opinion of Plato who has these up in the world of forms, right? Who laid down the species of things to subsist separately from singulars. Okay. But it's going back in sense to the sense they're saying over here that right column, right? Okay. You can say well, man, even though man in general doesn't subsist, it's only individual men that subsist.

[31:57] Man is a kind of thing that doesn't exist in others in a subject, right? And because you and I belong to that genus, and the dog and the cat do, then we subsist, right? And that way he attributes subsist to them, not that he's a Platonist and thinks that there are you know world of forms out there. Remember how we talked about one of the reasons why Plato made that mistake was because he thought that truth required that the way we understand things be the way they are.

[32:29] And you can see how person could think that truth does require that, huh? But Aristotle says no, you can understand things truly in separation that don't exist in separation.

[32:45] And when Thomas explains it, he starts off with the accidental, right? So like I'm a philosopher and my grandfather again now I got a 13th grandchild, and Thomas. Jerome.

[33:04] Okay. But you can. I'm both a grandfather and a philosopher, right? So the nurse at the hospital could know me truly to be the grandfather, right? One of the grandfathers, without what knowing that I'm a philosopher, leaving that out. And my students could know that I'm a philosopher, leaving out that I'm a grandfather and knowing nothing about that, right? I don't think so Not us. That would not be a true Now, if the nurse said this grandfather is not a philosopher, she'd be false, right?

[33:47] But if she knows that I'm a what grandfather without knowing that I'm a a philosopher, she remains false. You could say her knowledge of me is incomplete, but is it false? Because one of these things is knowable about me, right? Without

[34:09] the other, right? So Aristotle discovered that, right? That you can know sometimes something without another, even though it can't exist without the other. And the other example of that would be in mathematics. So I can know sphere, or I can know cube without ice cube, right? And without wooden cube, any other kind of material cube. Not that there exist maybe cubes that aren't either ice cubes or wooden cubes or some other kind of material cube, but cube is knowable without ice, without wood, and so on.

[34:48] And sphere is knowable without rubber, like a rubber ball or glass sphere, whatever it might be made out of, right? And so the mind is not false in knowing sphere in separation from these things, even though it doesn't exist in separation from these things.

[35:07] But Plato is thinking, hey, your mind would be false if it knows things in a way other than they are, right? What you say about things has to agree with them. But does the way you know them have to agree with them?

[35:25] Can we talk about the past now? Can we know the past truly now? Our knowledge is in the present, and therefore can we know what's in the present.

[35:43] Hmm. But as. Lady Macbeth says, "You've transported me out of the ignorant present." It's Dickens picks up, you know, in David Copperfield. He gets engaged there, right, in the novel. He's in the ignorant present, right.

[36:06] And see before after, right? So, um, so when we speak of substance, then as what a subsistent thing, we don't mean it in the sense that what?

[36:24] Yeah, by itself, apart from the individuals, right? But that man and dog is the kind of thing, right? That individuals of that kind subsist, right? Okay. So it's said to be subsistent in a different way than the individuals, right? While quality or quantity is not the kind of thing whose individuals,

[36:56] it's not the kind of thing which individuals belong as species or genera that subsists, but exists only in another, right? Health and things of this sort.

[37:13] So he says to the fourth, it should be said that Boethius says that genera and species subsist in so far as to subsist belongs to some individuals. From this, that they are under those genera and species in the category of substance, right? Not that the species or the genera themselves subsist, right?

[37:43] Except according to the opinion of Plato, right? Who laid down that the species of things separately subsisted from the what? Singulars, right? Aristotle in the books of wisdom a little bit of fun, you know, he compares Plato a bit to the the poets, right? Where the poets, you know, think of Zeus and the other gods as kind of superhuman beings, right? And Plato thinks of the forms as being, you know, you know, this kind of purified nature of the animal, the man, the dog, and the cat, and so on.

[38:15] Not really knowing what these separate substances are really like. But substare to stand under belongs to these same individuals in order to accidents, which are something outside the notion of what genera and species. So I am

[38:44] a what individual in the genus of substance because I'm in that genus. I'm the kind of thing that subsists, right? Exists not another. But I'm also standing under my health and my knowledge of geometry and so on, which are outside the genus of substance.

[39:17] Therefore, I can have a lot of accidental being, right? Be a philosophical grandfather, accidental being. Now, this other comparison that Boethius makes, you have to be careful about this. He connects hypostasis with matter, usiosis, that is subsistence, with form, right? Neither of these are called. person. Which says to the fifth, it should be said that the individual composed of matter and form has that it what stands under accident from the what?

[39:59] What's proper to matter? Because matter is like the subject, right? Whence Boethius says in the book about the Trinity that a simple form cannot be a subject like God, Divina Substantia Forma est says. But what subsists by itself has this from the what? Propriety of its own form, which does not what? Come to a subsisting thing, but gives actual being to matter, so that it is able to subsist.

[40:35] So it's through the form that something has existence, right? And therefore, existence not in another, right? Subsistence. An account of this, therefore, hypostasis is attributed to matter by Boethius, and subsistence to form, not because it's exactly identical, but because matter is the source of standing under, and form is the what? Source of subsisting, right? Okay.

[41:08] So is that perfectly clear? So notice those first two articles are really what? More general than the ones coming up, all right? Because we're understanding what a person is, an individual substance of a reasonable nature, and we're clarifying, you know, the difference in meaning, right, between the word person and the word what? Substance, hypostasis, yeah. Resnator and so on, right? Okay. But now the next two articles are going to be more particular, right?

[41:49] And we have to see them for next time, right? Okay. But now should use this name person in divine things, huh? Because the church does, you know. Thomas is going to take it up now, kind of formally, right? Okay. How this came from fiction,

[42:14] so Thomas and he talks about the poetic art, huh? In the Premium to Logic, there he says that Poeta est inducere ad aliquid virtuosum per decentem repraesentationem. It belongs to the poet to lead us into something virtuous through a suitable representation, right? But now is the way the poet is to do that the same as the way the preacher does when he gives a sermon and exhorts the people, right?

[42:47] He preaches them and exhorts them to be, you know, is it going to be the same way? I'm seeing this bell, right? You see. It's not preaching to the poet, right? You see, and it's more effective for not being that way, right? This is moving people to what is virtuous. Um. In a way different than the man preaching a sermon would do so, right? Okay.

[43:24] Now, I've often been struck by the likeness between the Merry Wives of Windsor by Shakespeare. You know that play? It's one of Shakespeare's good-natured comedies, and and the last of the good-natured comedies in time that he wrote. I'm often struck by the likeness between the The Merry Wives of Windsor and Le Nozze di Figaro Mozart, right? Okay.

[43:55] And they both, I think, have a moral effect upon the audience. They do what Thomas says the poet should do, right? To lead us into something virtuous through representation, but without preaching, right? See, and of course the way in which Shakespeare does it in The Merry Wives of Windsor

[44:21] is more by making the lustful person Falstaff, who's making proposals to Mary Wives of Windsor, right? And they pretend to accept, and they play a joke that a very I make comes right. Of course, the husband one of the men, you know, one of the wives thinks that you know, thinks it's really going on. Right? He's gathering all his friends to go up there, you know, to expose, you know, and and he's making a fool of himself all the time because nothing's going on.

[44:46] And and so after the the the first way which they do with Falstaff is that they they put him in a huge bucket, you know, dirty clothes, you know, and so on, and have the servants carry it out and dump it in the water, and so he's made ridiculous the lustful man, right? Of course, he he's not attractive, you know, he he's is gross in size and so on.

[45:13] And the second time they dress him up like an old witch woman, you know, in this this old neighborhood, he gets you know beaten, you know, like the husband hates the witch woman, and so on. And and and finally, of course, they let the husbands in on the joke, you know, and then the you know three is enough, and the the third time, the final time, is they're going to meet have false staff, meet the woman in the woods, you know, huh?

[45:37] And they they have the all the children out there, you know, and with little things to burn him with and so on. Five, five simple fantasy, and but

[45:50] you find the lustful man there is ridiculous, right? You see, so you're not being preached to, you know, huh? That way, see. Of course, yeah, something like that in Mozart's Figaro, right? Because the the right of the senior is for the the maidenhood of the his his lady servants, right? And of course, he's he's trying to get

[46:14] Susanna, right, to marry the barber of Seville to this. Of course, the the the wife of the of the count is you know dovecone, where of all my choice gone, see? But finally, there's a Susanna pretends to agree to to meet the count in the in the garden, right? It's night time, and of course, what happens is that Countess takes the place of Zeth.

[46:45] Of course, Christy holding her kind of you know withered hand. What a sweet soft hand, you know. And so, everybody's kind of you know surrounding them, you know, kind of singing. And of course, finally, you know, his the the tooth comes to life, right? And so finally, he's down on his knees, you know, asking forgiveness to his wife.

[47:05] Well, in a sense, but but also, if you listen to the music you say? You you want the barber and Susanna, you know, to succeed in getting married without the the right to the senior, so called, huh? Getting in there, and so you're emotionally attacked to this thing, you see. So there's no preaching there, right? So I'm struck by the light, in the way Mozart did it, in the way that the Shakespeare did it, you know, huh?

[47:30] And the same way you see the bell, right? You know, my wife was remarking about that for me. It didn't you know take a preachy or kind of moralistic you know thing, but it moved you to the virtuous in a way that is proper to fiction to do, huh?

[47:46] Ah, that's a difficult thing to do, you know. Pope Paul VI had an allocution about that. He talks to artists, and he spoke of that exactly. Says you have an advantage over the preacher because you can present virtue in a way that people are moved to admire the antagonist, the protagonist, whoever it is, if he's virtuous, and to make people love virtue because they love this man and they're moved by the story.

[48:13] Whereas the preacher is more of an antagonist; he's preaching at the people, and they're not as unless they're really spiritual, they're not as inclined to like that. they're not as inclined to move to virtue in the same way by a preacher is up there yelling at them as when they admire a hero in the story. And it's probably you know if you represent these people as they really are and well, then then virtue is more attractive than than vice, huh?

[48:38] I was got kicked out of that thing though the the short-lived pope there. Yeah, yeah. Jerry read his illustrissimi, and they're written you know letters to famous people in history, right? And there's one written to. To Goethe, the German poet, talking about the recent movie festival as it was in Europe, you know, and it's talking about the moral responsibility of the artists to do these things. And I guess what happened in real life, you know, with Goethe, he wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther, which is a story about a happy love affair, right?

[49:18] And when people read it, you know, so I'm that same thing, and they commit suicide too. So I mean, I mean, Goethe, you know, was was was you know, one you know, seeing someone's responsibility, you know, so so it's appropriate he writes a letter to Grety, you know, about about this thing, you know, and he says you know it's got to be, you know, arise naturally from the play this moral effect.

[49:42] It can't be something taxed on at the end. You know a little bit more detail. And as my old teacher Kasurik used to say, you know, you can tell a man's mind by the examples he chooses, whether they're well chosen, right? And so to illustrate the point there, uh Pope. uh Said he says after seeing or reading

[50:06] Oedipus, huh? One is anything but enthusiastic about incest. I mean, incest I understand, but you know, what is anything but enthusiastic? I mean, you

[50:26] know, contemporary things you you'd have even incest, you know. I mean, represented as a kind of a normal thing or something. I don't know, but but.

[50:52] See the thing too about about Shakespeare's play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, is you get other plots going on, right? And those who the the two Merry Wives of Windsor are playing these jokes on Falstaff, and there are two husbands, right? Now one husband, of course, is is the one who thinks his wife is involved somehow, and and he gets you know all his neighbors up to go up there to march up, you know, to catch him in the act, so to speak.

[51:21] He doesn't catch him in the act, and then there's people, you know, this thing. He's a guy who's who's got a jealous streak in his nature, you know, and people are ridiculous. You know, I don't ever know anybody who's really jealous, you know. I used to work with a guy who who had a wife who was insanely jealous, right? And he would. sit at the boss's house one time, and the boss's wife, not not the boss's wife, the boss's sister, wanted to show him something in the bedroom, right?

[51:53] She just went to the bedroom. You think I tried? Got trouble doing that, right? And and I was working there one day at the package store, and the the woman worked in the bank there, you know, around the corner, you know, in the same shopping mall. They would come in to get maybe a Coca Cola or something in their little break from the from the working, and so we'd be friendly with these people and just talking, and then they come in like you rather doers like that.

[52:21] And one one one day they're talking in summer, you know, going on vacation, you know, and she's a woman from the bank. was talking about she has been going to someplace, you know. It was the same place that Charlie and his wife were going. And his sister, for heaven's sake, she says, "If you see me on the, you know, on the boardwalk or anything, don't don't greet me because you know, who's that you know.

[52:48] " So so so so so so the the one man is is you know is is you know you know you know like like he's absurd, you know, in his suspicions of his wife, right? See. And then the other man though, and his wife have a have a daughter they're going to marry off, and they want to marry off a particular you know man back in those days, right?

[53:12] And instead, she runs off with a young man, and so they're deceived too, you know. So there isn't this horrible pressure upon Falstaff, right? Because other people are ridiculous in some ways too, right? At the end, they say, let's all go down and let's have a nice meal, you know. Come to Falstaff, you know. Even he goes down. He's kind of you know. So I mean, there's not nothing preachy about, you know, but you certainly can't go in, you know, without having some kind of a moral effect upon you.

[53:37] The cleverest case, you know Shakespeare did it. It's unusual.