Prima Secundae
11. Felicitas as Fruit, Boethius on False Happiness, and Why Happiness Is Not Honor or Glory (ST I-II q.2 aa.1-3)
Class of 2011-03-10
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/011-felicitas-as-fruit-boethius-on-false-happiness-and-why-happiness/

[0:00] The Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas, St. Gregorius. God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels, bring the lights of our minds, ordinate luminar images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that's written. The Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

[0:32] Well, last Monday there, the mass there, the saints were perpetua and felicitas, okay. So I was thinking of perpetua felicitas, huh? But coming back a little bit to that word, you know, Thomas will use say we are finding the Latin translation say of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, the word that is translated in English as happiness, and which is eudaimonia in the Greek, is translated into the Latin by felicitas, huh?

[1:04] And I think I mentioned how the word felicitas comes from felix, which means what fruitful, right? Now, if you look at question seventy here in the prima secunda, which is the question on the fruits of the Holy Spirit, in the body of the article, the first article there, you have Thomas giving a kind of explanation of this word fructus which he is doing there at that point to explain the what, why we St.

[1:40] Paul speaks of the fruits of the Holy Spirit and what these things mean, right? But we're interested in for the more just the basic meaning of how the word fruit is extended. So he says, I answer. It should be said that the name fructus, huh, which I suppose you could translate as fruit in English, is carried over translatum. It's the word translatum means from bodily things to spiritual things, huh?

[2:07] And that's a common thing with our names, huh? Now that is called fruit in bodily things, which is produced from a plant when it has arrived at what perfection, right? And has in itself, and which has in itself suavitatuma, which means what sweetness, huh? Okay. So you can see how the word felicitas might be applied to the end of man, right? Huh? Because it comes when he's arrived at perfection, and it is what pleasant or sweet, huh?

[2:51] And then Thomas goes on a little bit. He says, which fruit can be compared to two things? To the tree producing it, and to the man who obtains fruit from the tree, right? According to this, therefore, the name of fruit in spiritual things we're able to take in two ways. In one way, as it is called, the fruit of man, as it were, of a tree, right?

[3:17] That which is what produced by him, right? And I say, in some way, that word felicitas is appropriate in the ethics, right? Because Aristotle is talking about how felicitas or happiness is a result of your virtuous behavior, right? And so that kind of fits this sense, huh? Okay.

[3:41] Another way that that is called the fruit of man, that which man himself what obtains, huh? And he goes on. He says, not, however, everything that a man obtains has the notion of a fruit. But, and this is two things that that which is ultimum or last, and having pleasure, right? Okay, that's why it's called sweet, metaphorically, right?

[4:11] Now you have this thing explained in other parts too. There, where he talks about the fruition, you know, that act of the will, we see it there, huh? Okay. Now a little side here to Shakespeare, right? To my current reading now, or re-reading, I should say, huh? Which is the was the taming of the shrew? Just finished it, huh? I think I mentioned before how in the beginning of the taming of the shrew, there after the induction, you have Shakespeare's most explicit statement about philosophy.

[4:52] And Lucenio, the young man there who's traveling around Italy, huh? He says to his servant Tranio, who's an older man actually, kind of his pedagogue, you might say, or is Tranio, since with a great desire I had to see fair Padua, nursery of arts, I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy, the pleasant garden of Great Italy, and by my father's love and leave, am armed with his good will and thy good company, my trusty servant, well approved in all.

[5:32] Here, let us breathe and happily institute a course of learning and ingenious studies. Pisa, renowned for grave citizens, gave me my being and my father first, a merchant of great traffic through the world, Vincentio come of the Bentivolii Vincentio's son, brought up in Florence, it shall become to serve all hopes conceived. To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds, and therefore, Trainio, for the time I study virtue, and that part of philosophy will I apply that treats of happiness by virtue especially to be achieved.

[6:19] That's a good description of what the ethics is about, right? That part of philosophy that treats of happiness by virtue especially to be achieved.

[6:32] So he says to Trainio, "Tell me thy mind, for I have Pisa left, and M to Padua come is he that leaves a shallow plash to plunge him in the deep, and with satiety seeks to quench his thirst." And Trinio says, and, Shakespeare's a little bit Italian. mi perdonate, great master of mine, I am in all affected as yourself, glad that you thus continue your resolve to suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.

[7:06] That's a lot of sweetness in that line, right? To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy. Now, make a little aside here. What's the Latin word for wisdom? huh? Sapiens. Yeah, and that comes from what? Taste. Okay. And Thomas sometimes explains the word, or the etymology of the word, as sapida scientia, right? Which could be translated as savory knowledge, right? Tasty knowledge, right? It's something you have to what?

[7:41] Savor, right? The same we have to savor Shakespeare, right? Okay. But notice how wisdom is in a way our end, isn't it? Right. And the end is called what? Sweet, right? The sweets of sweet philosophy.

[8:01] Only good master, while we do admire this virtue and this moral discipline, let's be no Stoics nor no stocks. I pray. Well, that's kind of the the Stoics were saying, you know, if your wife and children are being killed in front of your eyes, you can't do anything about it. You just feel like a what? Stone. Yeah. Yeah. So let's be no Stoics nor no stocks, right?

[8:27] It's kind of a pun on the word Stoics there. I pray. Or so devote to Aristotle's checks as Ovid, the poet of love, now the art of love, be an outcast, quite adjure Balk logic with the acquaintance that you have, and practice rhetoric in your common talk. Music and poesy used to quicken you. The mathematics and the metaphysics. Now these are flights of nature, but mathematics and metaphysics—what, alliterate, right?

[9:01] So the beginning and the end of looking philosophy, huh? The mathematics and metaphysics fall to them as you find your stomach serves you. No profit grows where there's no pleasure attained. In brief, service, study what you most affect, huh? Now he used out natural philosophy, but in King Lear he calls natural philosophy the wisdom of nature, right? And I've mentioned before how I like that way of speaking, huh?

[9:30] You could say that the wisdom of nature is about the wisdom of nature, and that's not to say it's about itself, but you have those two senses of the wisdom of nature, right? The wisdom which is about nature, and the wisdom which nature shows in its works, huh? Which is really partaking of God's heart, right? Just like you know the the term word of God is about the word of God, right?

[9:58] Okay, two different. Senses there, right? Or we could say that Shakespeare's agitation is reason, is a knowledge of reason, in both senses. So knowledge which reason has about reason, right? So a knowledge of reason could say either what the knowledge is about, or of whom or of what, what has the knowledge, right? Okay.

[10:33] Now, I won't go into the whole play, but as you know, Petruchio tames the shrew, right? So at the end, what does he say? When finally, you know, kind of superiority now of his married life over that of the other two people who get married in the course of the play, huh?

[11:12] People are amazed at how he's tamed her. Here is a wonder, Gremio says. If you talk of a wonder, Hortensio says, and so it is. I wonder what it bodes. Petruchio says, "Mary," he says, "peace it bodes, right? And love, and quiet life, and awful rule—that's awful in the good sense, now, right? And right supremacy, and to be short, what not that's sweet and happy.

[11:46] Don't say it doesn't. What's not that's sweet and happy? Put the two together, right? You think about that in terms of the explanation of felicitas, huh? It's very what good, huh? Okay.

[12:04] Now, second point that we made last time—we're talking here a little bit about the question two here, which we're now into the what was it, Article three we left out? Yeah, I think. What Article two we started today? Okay.

[12:28] If you look at the proemium here to question two, where he's going to consider in what things beatitude consists, right? And about this, he says four things are asked. First, whether beatitude consists in wealth or riches. Secondly, whether in honors. Third, whether in fame or glory. Fourth, whether in power. Fifth, within some bodily good or. Six, whether in pleasure, right, huh? And then in some good of the soul, or in some greater good.

[13:07] But the first six articles quite correspond to the parts of false happiness, right? In Boethius, huh? So in a way, Thomas is following the order of Boethius in the Consolation of what? Philosophy, huh? And I brought the Consolation of Philosophy with me today. And you find in the third book of the Consolation of Philosophy, Lady Wisdom has come down to console him, right? Like you met Lady Wisdom very other time, huh?

[13:44] But the commentator says, you know, Lady Wisdom comes down the form of a woman because women are more consoling than a man, right? And so wisdom is feminine and like it too, of course, huh? But anyway, in the third book, Lady Wisdom first talks about false happiness and goes through what false happiness is, and then she turns to what True happiness, huh? And the ninth reading of the ninth part, third, the third book, huh?

[14:15] It's a turning point there. Just read you in the English here. Now let what I have so far shown you of the shape of false happiness suffice. If you look at that properly and thoroughly, the right order now is to show you what true happiness is. So Thomas seems to be following that what order, right, huh? Okay.

[14:41] Ordo est in seipsa quae vera monstrare. Okay. Now, in the beginning of the third book here, huh? When Lady Wisdom is talking about false happiness, huh?

[14:58] There she touches upon the. Yeah. Just read a little bit what she says here. But you say you are desirous to hear more. With what desire you would burn if you knew where I was going to lead you? Where I asked. To that true happiness, said she. She, which your spirit too dreams of, but cannot see as it is really because your sight is too occupied with images.

[15:35] Then I said, "Tell me, show me without delay, I beg you, what the true happiness is." I shall willingly, she answered, for your sake. But first, I shall try to describe in words and delineate a subject better known to you.

[15:56] So that when you have seen that clearly, you may, since you will then have turned your eyes on its opposite, recognize the appearance of true blessedness.

[16:10] Said quae tibi causa notioris, right? And that's the false happiness, huh? And then she goes on there in the next little reading. She says, "The whole concern of men, which the effort of a multitude of pursuits keeps busy, moves by different roads, yet strives to arrive at one and the same end—that happiness. Now that is the good which once a man attains, it leaves no room for further desires, and is the highest of all goods, containing in itself all that is good.

[16:46] For if there were anything lacking to it, it could not be the highest good, since there would remain something outside it which could be desired. So it is clear that happiness is that state which is perfect, since all goods are gathered together in it. This it is, as I have said, that all men strive to obtain by various paths. For the desire for the true good is naturally inborn in the minds of men, but they are led astray after false goods.

[17:16] Now some men believe that the highest good is to want nothing, so that they labor to abound in riches. But others hold whatever is most worthy of honor to be the good, and strive to be honored and respected by their fellow citizens for the distinctions they receive. There are some who think that the highest good lies in the greatest power.

[17:41] But those who think fame is something very good hasten to spend their names abroad, made glorious through skill in war or peace. War, however, measure their enjoyment of the good in terms of joy and gladness, and think it most happy to abandon themselves to pleasure. Right? Then he goes in and shows how none of these are really true happiness, right? So I think that's kind of interesting thing to see the order there that Moethius has, huh?

[18:07] And in a way, Thomas I think kind of follows that too in the third book of the Summa Contra Gentiles when he's taking up at length human happiness, huh? But he often returns to this false happiness. Even he talks about the happiness of God, right? And he shows that whatever men might seek in false happiness is found in a much better, true and more abundant way in true happiness, right?

[18:31] Because there's some element of truth in false happiness, or men would not pursue it as if it were the true happiness, huh? That's really a great book there, The Consolation of Philosophy.

[18:45] It's interesting that our best writer here, Washington Irving, right, even the sketch book, right, he touches upon that one of the things here. It's kind of amazing the the learning of Irving because he never went to college, right? He never went to high school. I don't know where he got his knowledge, right? He's described, you know, the the future James I of Scotland, right, was prisoner for years in England, right?

[19:14] And just read you a little passage here, huh? Where he's talking about this poem that's attributed to him, huh? He lay in bed, wakeful and restless, and took a book to beguile the tedious hours. The book he chose was Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy, a work popular among the writers of that day, and which had been translated by his great prototype Chaucer. Chaucer, you know, Chaucer, what Spencer, Milton, Shakespeare—those kind of the big names in English fiction.

[19:51] From the high eulogium in which he indulges, it is evident that this was one of his favorite volumes while in prison. That's when he wrote it, huh? In prison, huh? Great, Boethius. And indeed, it is an admirable textbook for meditation under adversity. It is the legacy of a noble and enduring spirit, purified by sorrow and suffering, bequeathing to its successors in calamity the maxims of sweet morality, and the trains of eloquent but simple reasoning by which it was enabled to bear up against the various ills of life.

[20:35] It is a talisman which the unfortunate may treasure up in his bosom, or, like the good King James, lay upon his nightly pillow. Did you see that he talked about sweet morality?

[20:51] Okay, yeah, okay. So let's go back now to the text of Thomas. actually We've been refreshed by these article two, huh? In question two, whether the beatitude of man consists in honors, huh? Let's

[21:18] notice that the word here being used is beatitude rather than felicitas, right huh? I suppose because in theology, everything is defined in reference to God, right? And so that our beatitude or our true happiness is in a way a blessing from God, right? Behold how good it is and how pleasant for brethren to dwell at one. And then it speaks of him as blessing us, right? And so that's the word being used.

[21:51] Why, in the commentaries, they say in the Ethics, the word in Latin there is felicitas, huh? But Thomas says here in the first objection, beatitude bonum sive felicitas, right? Okay. But in English, we've got the so important word happiness, right? Yeah. Is the reward of virtue, as the philosopher says in the first book in the Ethics. I think we did this, didn't we? But the honor, most of all, seems to be that which is the what reward of virtue, as the philosopher says in the fourth book of the Ethics.

[22:27] Therefore, an honor, most of all, consists what beatitude, right? I mentioned before how Aristotle, at the end of the first book, when he's kind of introducing the subject of ethics, huh? And the distinction between moral virtue and the virtues of reason itself, then he kind of takes as a line around virtue that's a praiseworthy, an honorable quality, right? And vice is a dishonorable quality, right? So, you might say, well, okay, maybe honor then is the reward of virtue, and that's what it's all about, right?

[23:09] It's an honorable quality, right? So why should I pursue it for happiness? Because happiness is honor, I guess. Moreover, that which belongs to God and to the most excellent ones, most of all, seems to be beatitude, which is the perfect good. But of this sort is honor, as the philosopher says in the fourth book of the Ethics. There he takes up the virtues that are concerned with honor, right?

[23:50] One of which is magnanimity, which is concerned with great honors, and the other is philotimia, concerning with little honors. And also in one Timothy one, the apostle says, "Honor and glory to God alone, soli Deo. Therefore, in honor consists beatitude, right?

[24:18] Moreover, that is most desired by men. That which is most desired by men is beatitude. But nothing seems to be more desirable for men than honor, right? Because men suffer what? Injury, might say, in all other things, lest they suffer some detriment of their what? Honor. Therefore, in honor, beatitude consists, right? So Heraclitus is kind of summing up, you know. Most of men, he says, are like beasts, you know, pursuing the pleasures of food and so on.

[24:52] But the the noblest ones seek honor, right? Okay, that's like Achilles, right? Okay. But against this is that beatitude is something in the one who is blessed, right? But honor is not something in the one who is honored, but more in the what? One honoring him, who shows reverence to the one honored, as the philosopher says in the first book of the Ethics. Therefore, in honor, beatitude does not what?

[25:26] Consist. I think I was comparing that last time to what Aristotle was saying about friendship, you know, and friendship consists in loving and being loved, right? You got to not only love but be loved before you are friends, right? But then he asks the question later on: Does friendship consist more in loving or being loved, right? And of course, consists more in loving than being loved, right?

[25:52] Because being loved is nothing in the man being loved, huh? Might be a sign of something good in him, right? But the being loved is really something said of him. Because someone else is loving him, right? And so friendship is consists more in loving than in being loved, huh?

[26:15] So Thomas answers, "I answer it should be said that it's impossible, cannot be, huh? Not able to be. That beatitude consists in honor, right? Huh? For honor is shown to someone on account of some excellence of him, right? And thus it is a sign and testimony of a certain excellence which is in the one honored, right? Huh? So I told you about that famous time when the Haydn first heard the quartets of Mozart, huh?

[26:52] That he was later to dedicate to Haydn, right? They're sort of called the Haydn quartets, right? But they're written by by Mozart, right? And so he came to Mozart's father, and he says, "Before God is honest man, right? Your son is the greatest composer known to be, right? " Okay. But he goes on to describe the excellence of Mozart and so on. But above all, Mozart's taste, right?

[27:13] He talked about. Interesting word, taste, right? Comes out. So honor is shown to someone on account of some excellence he has, right? And thus it is a sign and a certain testimony to that excellence which is in the one who is being honored, right? But the excellence of a man is most of all to be noted according to his what? Beatitude, huh? Which is the perfect good of what?

[27:52] Man, huh? I mentioned before how Aristotle takes up the word "perfect." The first meaning he gives a perfect or complete is what has all its parts. And the second meaning he gives a perfect is what has all the ability of its kind, huh? The perfect carpenter, right, can do all these different things, huh? And then the third meaning he gives a perfect is what has reached its end, right?

[28:23] That's kind of culminating meaning of perfect, right? So the end and the bonum perfectum, the perfect good, go together, right? Which is the perfect good of man, and according to its parts, that is according to those goods by which something of beatitude is partaken of. And therefore honor is able to be something that follows upon beatitude, which is a sign and witness to, right? But chiefly it cannot be that in which beatitude what consists, right?

[29:04] Any more, Aristotle says that something like that in the book on friendship that to be loved in a way says to be honored, right? It's not exactly the same thing he says, huh? But you know, even that popular song, nobody until somebody loves you, right? Those the words of the popular song, but you feel like nobody until somebody loves you. But it's true that, right? You see, but again, to be honor cannot be the one's chief good any more than to be loved can be one's what chief good, right?

[29:39] But it's a kind of witness, huh? That you are honored or you are loved to some good in you, right? huh? But what if the one loving is God? Yeah, well, that's a good point. But in the case of God's loving, God's love is the cause of the good in us, right? Well, our love is aroused by the good we find in them. huh?

[30:00] So,Speaking about honor in the sense of honor from men, yeah, yeah, honor from God, yeah, yeah. And we talked about that. We talked about how in heaven you have true honor, right? Huh? Because you're honored for what you really are, not for what people might think you are, but you are not.

[30:23] Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that, as the philosopher says there, that honor is not the reward of virtue, on account of which the virtuous what act, huh?

[30:38] But they take honor from men in place of a reward, as it were, from those not having anything better to give them. So that's a magnanimous man, right? He accepts the honor, but it doesn't make you know. What does he care about that, right?

[31:00] Mother Teresa is talking about all the awards you would get from people. Yeah, got a whole room full of all these trophies and plaques and bowls and vases and just another one.

[31:14] For the true reward of virtue is beatitude itself, huh? I used to say virtue is its own reward, but kind of way of saying that, but not as precise as this, right? Because virtue is not really its reward, but it's it's result of virtue. If, however, one acted on account of honor, it would not be virtue, but more what ambition, right? Okay. So you have that disordered man, right?

[31:47] Huh? And yet, when the man is acting for the sake of honor, he seems to have kind of excelled him in in some way, though, right? Okay. And

[31:59] basically, he's ambitious, right? He wants to be president. He wants to be something else. Now he says honor is owed to God and to those who are most excellent, as a sign or testimony of an excellence already existing in them, huh? Not that the honor itself makes them excellent, huh? Let me kind of confuse that, right?

[32:32] You've read the Iliad, there, you know, and when Achilles at the end there is sliding around, you know, the blood's all placed, you know, he's grating his way through to immortal glory, right? Honor.

[32:53] Now, what about this this intense desire? To the third, it should be said. That from the natural desire of beatitude, which honor what follows, right? Huh?

[33:07] And in a way, when when they canonize a saint, that's kind of an honor, Is it? Being paid to the saint, huh? But it's a sign of their what beatitude right? When they let me call it first thing, is, beatification, right? They talk of being raised to the honor of the altars. Yeah, yeah, but don't they call beatification, or what do they call? Yeah, canonization. Yeah, but but beatification means being made blessed.

[33:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Being made blessed. But to not be made blessed, it's kind of a sign of it, you know. It's being we're being notified of their. They're recognizing recognizing the beatitude, right? But the the word is canonization in a sense, huh? Well, maybe maybe it's in the sense that they've been made blessed, rather than we're making them. Yeah, I mean, somebody else than us, yeah, we're not.

[33:54] Yeah, we're not. But we're we're pretty on the celebrating beatification. So what what you what you're doing there? Are you making? He says, "From the natural desire of beatitude, which honor follows upon, it happens in men maxime, right? Most of all, desire honor, right? "

[34:13] So Shakespeare represents, I say, Hotspur there, right? Henry V, you know, is very much desirous of honor, right? Now, in Henry IV, Part One, where Hotspur gets killed by Prince Hal at the end of the play, towards the end of the play, one time the students there, Assumption, put on Henry IV, Part One, and the guy who did Hotspur, he did a marvelous job, you know. Yeah, he kind of stole the whole thing, you know.

[34:40] But you know, you can see this man, you know, and when he's killed at the end, there, he's he's dying, you know. It's not his death that annoys him, but the fact that his honor is now all passing over to Prince Hal, right now, you know, because everybody thinks that Hotspur is doing all the great things, right, and getting all the honors, you know. But once Prince Hal overcomes him, right, all these things he's piled up will now go over to Prince Hal, you know.

[35:06] It's kind of kind of like you know in in the history of philosophy, right? You know where these philosophers want to be honored, right, above other philosophers, right? And so what they try to do is to refute the most famous of those who've come before. So if you've overcome, you know, the most honored man before them, then you are the most honorable, right? No it doesn't. Yeah, yeah.

[35:31] But it's it's funny though, you know, just like in in a way what what Prince Hal is doing, right now. You know, everybody's concerned about the fact that he's not piling up his honors the way Hotspur is. And but really, really beautiful Shakespeare describes that that desire of honor.

[35:55] Did Lincoln have that desire for honor? Right. He wanted to be president. We'll talk about that sometimes, you know. Some things in thinking's character, right?

[36:10] I wonder if he's getting tired of sitting down. That's wise. Hundred years. It looks like a choir stall. Okay. To the third, then one proceeds thus. Oh, excuse me. I haven't finished the interception. Whence men seek most of all to be honored by the wise, right? Whose judgment they believe, right then.

[36:45] By whose judgment they believe, they themselves to be excellent, or what? Phidias right? I didn't get the word Phidias So I always wanted to be approved by Monsignor Dionne right? I can't believe there was something good in my mind. Glad to have the crowd out there, you know, praising my latest book, bestseller. Okay. To

[37:26] the third one proceeds thus: It seems that beatitude of man consists in glory, right? This is fairly close to honor, but a little difference in meaning.

[37:40] For in that beatitude seems to consist in what is rendered to the saints for the tribulations which they underwent in the what world, right?

[37:53] But about this is glory, for the apostle says in Romans eight that the passions and sufferings of this time are not worthy, huh, to be compared to the future glory, huh, which will be revealed in us.

[38:09] Therefore, beatitude consists in glory. That's interesting. He's the same father, huh? Yeah. What was Thomas had at the end of his prayer there in the communion prayer there?

[38:31] Fiat illud quattuor Oh, this one yeah, yeah Yeah they use the word glory, right? Yeah, God's glory. Okay. Moreover, the good is diffusum of itself, as is clear through Dionysius in the fourth chapter about the divine names. But the what? But through glory, the good of man most of all is what diffused to the knowledge of others, because glory, and this is a definition that Thomas often quotes, because glory, as Ambrose says, is nothing other than clear knowledge with praise, right?

[39:21] Therefore, beatitude of man consists in what glory. Nobel Prize or the Medal of Honor or something, right? Moreover, beatitude is the most stable of goods, huh? But this seems to be fame or glory. I thought hard as I could say, because through this, in a way, men are given eternity. Eternity, right? So what did? Was it

[40:06] not Herodotus, but what is his name? Yeah, yeah. Ktema is a right a possession forever. That's what this is. Ktema es aei a possession forever?

[40:25] Just just like Al Gore. Nobel Prize. We see the in the circle of Samuel Johnson, right? The rule was it takes a hundred years to tell poet, right? If a poet's work is still being read a hundred years after he's dead, then that's prima facie evidence, right? There's something about his work, right? Well, Homer is still being read, you know, but two thousand, three thousand years almost, and Shakespeare still being read, right?

[41:02] You know, there's still more plays of Shakespeare performed than anybody else. And on, what go on for the rest of time? I don't know. But he seems to have a kind of immortality, right? When when when he's visiting the Gray's and so on in Westminster Abbey, right? You know, he says that he tend to go to the poet's corner more than to the great soldiers or the great kings and so on, right?

[41:30] As if they have kind of bond with them, you know. But there's kind of you know, through all this time, they're still being read. Yeah, yeah. He has two essays here. Though it's Shakespeare, one serious and one kind of tongue in cheek, but they're both very good.

[41:48] And towards the end of his life, he said, you know, to his nephew there who was helping him in his researches there and the great biography of George Washington, right? He says it's kind of idle for us to seek any honor for the written, you know. Shakespeare and one or two others have said it all. That's pretty good, you know. Saw that, huh?

[42:13] Of course, Deacon could say, you know, I'm just trying to teach you how to read Thomas, you know. Once you know how to read Thomas, then that's frivolous, right, so to speak. He didn't say that, but but he said I'm trying to teach you how to read Thomas, you know. And since all my great teachers are doing that, I told you how Kasurik would say, you know, I come in with some text, asking some questions.

[42:39] Man, you don't read very carefully, he says. So carefully. Won't let that happen again. I, you know. Carefully, frequently, and reverently. Yeah. Okay. Because to this, in some way, men achieve eternity, right?

[43:16] Of course, especially if you think this life is more or less all there is. Well, I mean, how can I be immortal except through my great deeds? that? Will be sung, you know.

[43:26] Whence Boethius says, in the book of a Consolation of Philosophy, you what seem to make yourselves immortal, yeah. When you think of what fame in future time, right? Therefore, the beatitude of man consists in fame or glory, right? It's a Machiavelli thought, right?

[43:56] From now until the end, they'll be reading me. I remember was I don't know what was it the Cuban invasion that got fought up. Everybody's running off to read the Machiavelli, right? Yeah, the Kennedy White House there.

[44:16] So, but against this, huh? Beatitude is the true good of man, right? Huh? But fame or glory can be what false, right? As Boethius says in the third book of the Consolation, huh? That many what a great name, right? By the false opinions of the multitude, I guess, huh? They are taken up by that,

[44:51] for and what more, but uglier than this, shameful to be thought of, for those things which are falsely spread, but which what necessary for them to be embarrassed by these praises, huh? Yeah. Okay.

[45:10] Therefore, the beatitude of man consists in fame or glory, right? Does not consist in fame or glory. I was meeting with my brother Mark at a bus or something there, trying to go someplace, and so the man was there, and I said, "This gentleman, maybe can help us." I said, "Guy says I'm no gentleman." What are you off to do that night? He was no gentleman. I just called him that.

[45:46] Be polite. Was he offended by it, or no? But he realized it's so false. to call him a gentleman. No, no, no, no, no. I answered, It should be said that it's impossible. That was impossible. Impossible. Every one of these, impossible. Impossible.

[46:16] Is impossible for the beatitude of man to consist in fame or human glory, for glory is nothing other than clear knowledge with praise, as Ambrose says. That's the definition he often gives, taking it over from Ambrose. Right.

[46:36] Now, the thing known is, in a different way, compared to human knowledge, and another way to what? Divine Divine knowledge. For human knowledge is caused from the things known, but divine knowledge is the cause of the things known. That's kind of amazing, right? Just like we were saying about the about the good, right? That good is the cause. The good in things is the cause of our love of those things.

[47:06] Why God's love is the cause of the good that's in things. Whence the perfection of the human good, which is called beatitude, cannot be caused by human knowledge. But more, the human knowledge of what beatitude of someone proceeds and, in some way, is caused from the human beatitude itself, right? Either that has been begun or has been what perfected.

[47:44] And therefore, in the fame or in glory, cannot be not possible that the beatitude of man consists, right, in fame or glory. But the good of man depends, as from a cause, on the knowledge of God, and therefore, from the glory which is with God, depends the beatitude of man, as from his what cause, huh? According to that of Psalm 90, huh? I will what save him and glorify him, right, huh?

[48:23] I will fill him with the length of days, huh, and show him my salvation. Now, should also be considered that human knowledge is often mistaken, deceived, huh? And especially in singular contingent things, huh? Of which sort are human what action? And therefore, frequently, often, huh? Human glory is fallacious. This is the way Boethius especially, argued. But because God cannot be what deceived, huh? His glory is always what true, true.

[49:08] On account of which it is said, he is proven whom God commands, huh? Saint Paul says something like that, right? Didn't mention to me what you think of me, you know. He kind of says that, right? Or what I think of myself. What what God says, huh? In another way, he says that in uh the letter of the Corinthians he says uh my conscience doesn't accuse him, but I'm not thereby justified.

[49:33] Yeah, yeah. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that text from Saint Paul that the passions or sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared to the future glory which will be revealed in us.

[49:51] The first, therefore, it should be said that the apostle does not speak there of the glory which is from men, but of the glory which is from God before his what angels, huh? Whence it is said in Mark chapter eight, huh? The Son of Man will confess him, right, in the glory of his Father before his what angels, huh?

[50:36] The second should be said, huh? That the good of some man, through fame or glory, is in the knowledge of many, right, huh? If that knowledge is what true, huh, is necessary that it be derived from a good existing in that man, and thus it presupposes perfect beatitude or at least the beginning of that perfect beatitude in the man.

[51:06] If, however, the knowledge is false, it does not what agree with the thing, and thus the good is not found in the one whose fame is celebrated, huh, or had celebrated.

[51:26] Whence it is clear that fame in no way is able to make a man what blessed, huh? Now, what about the stability, huh? To third should be said that fame does not have stability, huh?

[51:51] Nay, by false rumor it is easily what lost, huh? And if stable, it sometimes perseveres and remains. This is by accident, huh? But beatitude has to itself stability and always.