Prima Secundae
245. Aquinas on the Old Law Sacrifices (Holocaust, Sin and Peace Offerings) and the Trinity as Alpha and Omega
Class of 2015-11-05
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/245-aquinas-on-the-old-law-sacrifices-holocaust-sin-and-peace/

[0:01] God, our enlightenment, guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds, illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:24] Okay. To the eighth, it should be said that there was a threefold genus of what sacrifices. One was where the whole was what burnt up, and this is called the Holocaust, as the word totum incensum, entirely burnt up or consumed.

[0:53] A sacrifice of this kind was offered to God in a special way for the reverence of His Majesty and also the love of His goodness,

[1:07] and it belonged to the state of perfection in the fulfilment of the what consuls. So you people are entirely burnt up, I assume, then. Okay.

[1:23] And therefore, the whole was burnt up, as just as the whole animal was resolved into what vapor, right, and ascended upwards. So it signifies that the whole man and all things which are of him.

[1:41] Read one or two now, article three. Yeah, article three. Okay. Okay. So it also signifies that the whole man and everything which is of him should be subject to the Lord or the dominion of the Lord, right, or God, and to be offered to Him, right. Okay.

[2:10] Now there's a second kind of sacrifice, which is not the Holocaust now, right? And this was for sin, which was offered to God from the necessity of the remission of sin, and it pertained to the status of those penitent. That's me now, in satisfaction of our what sins. You found that. Which was divided into two parts. For one part of it was burnt up, right, and the other was turned over to the use of the priests.

[2:46] And it signified the expiation of sins came about from God, but through the ministerium of the priests. So that's we give them part of it, right, and part you burn up.

[3:04] Except when a sacrifice was offered for the what sin of the whole people, right? Or in a special way for the sin of the priest himself, then the whole was burnt up, huh? Okay.

[3:20] For it was not suitable to come into the use of priests those things which are offered for their sin, right? Was offered for their sin, so that nothing of their sin would remain what in them, right?

[3:37] And because this was not satisfaction for sin, if something was left in the use of those for whom the sins are offered, the same would seem as if it had not been what offered at all.

[3:52] Okay. Now the third sacrifice was called the Hostia Pacifica, the peaceful peace offering, which was offered to God either for the action of thanksgiving or for the salvation and prosperity of those offering from the debt of the benefit, either which has been accepted or received already, that'd be the thanksgiving, right? Or that one hopes to to receive, right? And this belongs to the status of those progressing in the fulfillment of the commands, huh?

[4:37] Okay. And this was divided now into three parts, huh? One, two, three, right? For one part was what burnt up to the honor of God. Another part was ceded to the use of the priests, and the third part in the use of those what offering to signifying that the salvation of man proceeds from God

[5:05] by the ministers of God being directed, and by the cooperation of the men who are what saved, huh? So they all get a share of the sacrifice, huh? Okay. That's kind of interesting, huh? To see that sometimes you consume the whole thing, right? Sometimes that's a Holocaust to show that everything is from God. Everything should be in His honor, right? And then sometimes for the sin, you divide it into one part to consume for the sinner, so to speak, and one part is given for the food of the priests, right?

[5:46] Um, because it's through their intercession, right, and their agency, right, that God forgives them and so on. And the third one is when something is for what either thanksgiving, is it? Or. Hoping to get something from God, right? And you divide it into three, right? One part is for God, one part is for the priest, and one part for the person who's thanking, giving thanks, or hoping to get something, right?

[6:14] Okay, one, two, three. Okay, now it goes into some special things about blood and dips, I guess, which is fat or something, huh? Okay.

[6:31] And this was generally observed that blood and fat did not come, either, neither in the use of the priests nor in the use of those what offering, huh? But blood was what poured out at the, at the footstool of the altar, or what? Foot of the altar. Foot of the altar, yeah. In honor of God, and fat was burned up in the what? In the fire. Okay.

[6:59] And the reason for this was for excluding what idolatry, huh? Because being Thomas there in the, in the Compendium of theology, right? He's talking about how man became subject to idolatry after the fall, right? And he's thought to receive from the demons, you know, his share of the earthly goods, right, and so on. For the idolatrous people, drank from what the blood of the victims, right? And they ate the what fat parts, huh?

[7:36] According to that of Deuteronomy chapter thirty-two, of whose victims they ate the fats and drank the what wine of the offering. Okay. Now the second reason for this, huh, is for the informing of human life, for they prohibited to them the use of blood, so that one might have what in horror the effusion of human blood, huh? Can we still use the expression to shed blood, right?

[8:07] Huh? Don't say shed your flesh, but shed blood when you kill somebody, right? Whence it is said in Genesis nine, huh? You shall not eat flesh with what blood, huh? I will require the blood of your animals, huh? And the eating of what the fats are inhibited to avoiding what?

[8:31] Yeah. Whence it is said Ezekiel thirty-four, what is what gross, I guess, crassum, or? that which was fat. Yeah. Okay. The third reason is an account of divine reverence, because blood is most of all necessary for what life. By reason of which the soul is said to be in blood. That's a quote from Leviticus. And fat demonstrates the abundance of nourishment, right?

[9:07] And therefore, one might show that from God is both what life and the sufficiency, right, of all goods. To the honor of God, blood is what poured out, and the fat is what burnt up.

[9:27] And the fourth reason, because through this is figured the pouring out of the blood of Christ and the fatness of His what charity, right? And you see that you see that word pingueto, right? huh? For the fatness of devotion, sometimes they talk about, right? Okay, I see that in the Psalms. Have you seen that word of fatness? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Christ, you know, through love of God and of us, right, shed his blood, right, huh?

[10:12] And so, uh, through these things he offered himself to God, right? So that's the fourth thing, huh? Let's anticipate that, huh? I hope you can remember all this now, huh? I give you an exam now, I'd say now, what are the four reasons why the eating of blood and fat and the sacrifices is not allowed, huh? Well, there's a lot of reasons for it, huh? I know we have the one of the blood as the life.

[10:42] That the life, the life is in the blood. Yeah. Especially brought up during the Mass for the resurrection after, uh, after the, the, uh, consecration of the bread and wine, body and blood of Christ, there's the part where the, the priest does this intinction, well, he takes part of the, the host, dips it into the blood, then he starts doing the sign of the cross onto the remaining parts of it, and then comes the resurrection where he lifts up the host and the wine and the blood.

[11:21] But it's, it's kind of showing the, the blood is what's coming back into the body. That's the, in the mass. It's a very beautiful little image. And then all the, everybody's rising, standing up at the same time as the host is burning. Yeah, yeah. So we have a signing in the chalice, so we used to, until they sang that life-giving blood, but then it is not supposed to be consecrated, so it's not his, but then it's kind of his.

[11:51] Yeah, that's that. But in the Anima Christi, right now, it says sanguis Christi inebria me, right? That's referring more to charity, right now? You know, which is taking up with the fat, right?

[12:10] Now, of the peaceful, peace offerings, I guess, uh, in the use of the priest, right, was seated the what? Breast, was it? Yeah. To excluding a certain species of divination, huh? Which is called what? Spatula. Yeah, that's his favorite word. Yeah, when I, we learned about it in one of our classes, I drew a little, uh... Spatula. I drew a spatula, you know, in a circle with a line.

[12:45] Yeah, yeah. Saying spatula Nancy prohibited. Put in the kitchen. Because in the spatulas of animals immolated, they what? Divine, right? And likewise in the bone of the what? Chest? In the breast bone. Yeah, and therefore these were what? Subtracted from those offering, right, huh?

[13:13] But this also signified that pertains to necessary for the priests to have sapientia, wisdom of the heart, right? And to instructing the people, which is signified through the what? Breast, which is the, um, covering of the heart, and also fortitude to sustaining what? The defect, which is signified through the right arm, right?

[13:46] Your right arm. Okay. Why is it signified by the right arm? I don't have anybody left-handed here, do we? You'd be sinister if you were left-handed.

[14:09] That's off. Okay. It reminds me of something I read. Dr. Feingold had, I read a bunch of, a bunch of his stuff. One of them, which is very interesting, because, you know, he used to be Jewish. Yeah, yeah. And he mentions how the, um, among Jews, there's a loss of the sense of sin because they don't see the sacrifices that were done Mm. before. It was very, very graphic when you see a, an animal's blood being poured out Yeah.

[14:44] for your sin. Yeah. You realize what sin Yeah. was, but now they don't have sacrifices anymore. Yeah. They kind of lose that sense. Mm-hmm.

[14:57] How do they justify not having sacrifices anymore? I mean, because this is a, when we say, you know, this is replaced by the new, but they don't have the new, so. Is it because the temple no longer exists once it was destroyed? Is that, is that when it ended? Expose it. That was when it ended, and that's when you get the two schools, the Hallel and the, um, what was the other one?

[15:19] Hallel, and like the two schools, and the one of them had the, that got the upper hand. Mm. Was about how sacrifices can be replaced by praise in the synagogue, and that's, that's how you started to get this shift away from the temple. Mm-hmm. When the temple was gone. Yeah.

[15:40] Do you happen to know if there were any groups within Israel amongst the more orthodox, uh, uh, sects to reinstitute some sort of sacrifices on the Temple Mount? Has there ever been any talk about that? I never heard anything. They're trying to do it. Really? It would cause a war if they did so. Yeah. What's the problem? Yeah. So they need a red heifer. That's the red heifer thing, to try and get a red heifer.

[16:05] That's what it's necessary. The blood of a red heifer is necessary to purify. If you have a red heifer, you can't do it. But they're working on it. They're working on it. No, Mohammedans don't have any, uh, sacrifice or what? Yeah, yeah. Okay, we're up to ad nonum now, to the ninth one here, huh? To the ninth, it should be said that the Holocaust was the most perfect among the sacrifices.

[16:43] That reason was given in the reply to the eighth objection, right? That's the most perfect one, right? And therefore there was not offered in the Holocaust except the what? The male, right, huh? For the feminine is a imperfect animal.

[17:00] Are they teaching this still in the seminaries, huh? The sisters haven't quite gotten to one yet, but... the offering of the what turtle doves and the doves and so on was an account of the poverty, right, of those offering, who are not able to offer the greater, what, animals. And because the peace offerings were offered gratis, right, freely and not what, demanded, huh? And no one was what, were forced to offer them, right?

[17:41] Except spontaneously they did it. Therefore, birds of this sort were not offered among what, the peaceful offerings, but among the holocausts and hosts for sin, which at some time was necessary to offer. For birds of this sort, on account of the altitude of their height, there agreed the, what, perfection of the, what, holocaust, and also of hosts for sin, which had, what, a this mourning for their song, right?

[18:18] The sound of the bird is kind of a mourning. Yeah. It's appropriate, right, for sin. Yeah. To the tenth, it should be said that among all the sacrifices, the Holocaust was the most special one, so.

[18:41] Of course, now the Jews want to use the word Holocaust just for the, for the, uh, Hitler's uh thing. Because the whole was burned in honor of God, right, huh? And nothing from it, what, was eaten, right? The whole thing was consumed, like he says, in reply to the eighth objection.

[19:05] Second place in sanctity was the host for what? Sin, right? That's the one where you divide it into two, like he said in the eighth objection, right?

[19:19] Which was eaten only in the, what, atrium by the priests and on the day itself of the, what, sacrifice, huh? The third grade was held by the peaceful offerings for the action of thanksgiving, which were eaten the same day, but everywhere in, what? Jerusalem, not just in the atrium of the... The fourth place was held the what? peaceful offerings from exvoto,

[19:58] whose flesh were able to be eaten In the what next day, and this reason for this order was because man is most of all obligated to God on account of His Majesty, secondly on account of the offense committed, third on account of the benefits already received, fourth on account of the benefits to be hoped for. So Thomas is ordering all these things.

[20:40] To the eleventh, it should be said that sins are made more grave from the status of the what sinner, one sinning, and therefore other hosts are commanded to be offered for the sin of the priest and the prince, or for another, or for another what private person. It should be noted, however, as Rabbi Moses says, that the more grave the sin, the more vile the species of animal was offered for it.

[21:17] Huh? Whence the what copra? That's the goat, is it? Which is the most vile animal? Was offered for idolatry, which is a most what grave sin, right? For the ignorance of the priest is offered the what bull calf, yeah. For the negligence of the priest. The prince is offered what the what

[21:56] The ram is by separate poverty. Didn't Abraham offer the ram? What did he offer? Yeah, the ram that was caught in the pig. Yeah, yeah.

[22:14] To the twelfth, it should be said that the law and sacrifices provided wish to provide for the poverty of those offering. That those could not offer or have a four-footed animal, right? Would at least offer a what bird, huh?

[22:36] Which who could not have would at least offer what bread, and if this could not be had, it offered at least what flour or what what ears of corn, yeah. Okay.

[22:56] The figurative cause was because the bread signified Christ, who is the true bread, huh? Comes down from heaven. As is said in John, chapter six. Who was as in a what?

[23:14] For the state of the law of nature. In the faith of the what? Fathers. For it was what? It was like flour. In the law of the prophets, yeah. It was also as bread formed after humanity was assumed.

[23:43] Cooked in fire by fire by. That is formed by the Holy Spirit in the virginal uterus, which is also cooked in what? What? In a pan. Okay. The labors that he sustained in the world, in the cross, as it were, in a what?

[24:24] To the thirteenth, it should be said that those things which come in the use of man come from what things growing? Out of the earth, I guess. Are either in food, and of these is offered bread, right? Or, or they are in drink, and of these is offered what? Wine. Or they are in a what? Yeah, we still have that in the supermarkets. Some condiments, you see, little sign, you know, a condiments.

[25:01] And of these is offered oil and what? Salt. Or in a what? Medication, I guess. And of these is offered what? Which is aromaticum, huh? And consolidating the things.

[25:28] Through bread is figured the flesh of Christ. Through wine is blood. Now that's easy enough to understand for us. By which we are redeemed. For by oil is figured the grace of Christ. By salt is what? Knowledge, huh? Grain of salt, as they say, right? Sake to have the grain of salt, some judgment, some knowledge. And by the incense, by yeah.

[26:02] I was down, we were down town there last last Sunday there, you know, for the end of the forty days, you know. And so, you know, after the the prayers out there and so on, we went over to the little

[26:18] the pro life place across the street. You know, the and they have a little chapel there, right? So the so the priest offered his benediction, right? So I know there's one person who left, has to out in the hall because the incense is too much for them. It's a woman, I know. And I remember sometimes, you know, people say I can hardly stand it when they when they when they do that, you know.

[26:44] And we had benediction when I was younger more often, you know, once a week or something, you know. So we always can't, so I don't want to be consolated to you or something. There's always somebody who is, you know. That's yeah, yeah.

[27:01] We had a tough priest too, you know. If he put too much of that stuff in there, you'd say next time you do that, Makita.

[27:12] He was a tough guy. Yeah, yeah. Well, me and my me and my friend Tom Jennings, now we are we we're kind of friends, and we're both altar boys, right? So you know, we were had two altar boys assigned, right, to each mass, you know. They had the same. They had like at six thirty mass, you know, and seven fifteen mass, eight o'clock mass. In those days, they did daily mass, and we had kind of contests who could get there first, right?

[27:44] The same tough guy, you know. Ah, we get there because he was he was already there praying, you know, and I don't know what time he was there, you know, but he looks up and he's very surprised. He's altar boys coming in, you're like an hour ahead of the mass. We're just trying to see who can get there first. I thought we were more saintly than we were, you know, but.

[28:02] Boys have priestly vocations. Yeah, yeah. Was just talking to the the pastor, you know, about when he first got the thought of becoming a priest, right? That's kind of interesting. Is it his first Holy Communion, right? And he felt this presence of God, you know, and he wanted to become a priest at that moment. That's the first time he was having this. That's kind of interesting, huh?

[28:33] What? That's young. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was that young. Yeah. Now, we felt the warmth of God there, you know, Eucharist. It's interesting. Interesting when you get these people who are converts, you know, to the Catholic faith, and it's a great attachment they had to Eucharist, right? You know, in anticipation, for instance, and so on. It's kind of interesting to hear them talking, you know, when he interviews them on EWTN there, you know, on the journey home.

[29:03] Interesting. Interesting things. Okay, we're down to the Decimum Quartum, right? The last one in this. What? What? Yeah. To the fourteenth, it should be said that honey was not offered in the sacrifices of God, huh? Both because it was offered in the sacrifices of the what idols, right? Huh? And also to excluding all carnal seductiveness, right? And pleasure, right? Huh? Ah. From those who intend to offer sacrifice to God, right? So? not taking up with that, huh?

[30:04] They don't use soda pop instead of wine, right? You know, that's that's kind of sweetness, is pleasure. That was Jewish wine, though. No, I know.

[30:20] Now, fermented bread, I guess, it is was not offered to excluding what corruption, and perhaps also the sacrifice of idols that was a custom to be what offered, huh? But salt is offered because it impedes the corruption of

[30:41] putridness. huh For the sacrifices of God ought to be incorrupt, huh? I guess I guess salt preserves meat, huh? Too, I guess, huh? And also because in salt is signified the discretion of wisdom. That's what I like, huh?

[31:02] Or also the mortification of the flesh. So, when Thomas explains the the Latin word for wisdom, which is what sapientia, and it's derived from sapor, right? Now, so it's savory knowledge, right? Now, well, your meat is not savory if you don't have some salt, right? So it's

[31:37] so it's good to see it's pertaining to wisdom, right? Huh? And you know the other animals eat their meat without salt, don't they? You know, find that the cat they're salting is His victim, What? They don't cook their meat either. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[31:59] You still see the cat back home there, you know, and you know, kind of bowl of milk, they're kinda out there, scattering some milk. But if there's some cream left over, you know, from dessert or something, you know, we tend to, you know, put it in the the milk of the cat, right? And that cat, you know, the whole the whole wall behind it would be splattered because the cat is.

[32:24] So they have a little bit of a sick tooth, you know, huh? Kind of a funny animal, right? Okay. Now the incense, right? That's just incense in general. It's not a particular kind of incense. What? Just incense. Okay. I think incense usually means frankincense. Yeah. Is offered to designate the devotion of the mind, right? Huh? Which is necessary for those offering, huh? If you study the virtue of religion, which you might study someday, you know.

[33:06] But then the primary act of the virtue religion is devotion, right? And then the you know prayer comes from that and so on, right? And sacrifice.

[33:17] And also to designate the odor of good what, fame, right? Huh? For incense is both fat and what odiferous, right? Yeah. So then you got so many of the bodies of the saints, don't they? And you get this, so this, which you might expect, you get this, you know, flowers, right? Huh? Something like that to smell the flowers, which is the the odor of good fame, huh?

[33:43] You know. Okay. And because the sacrifice of what, I did not proceed from devotion, but more from suspicion. Therefore, in it, incense is not offered. Huh?

[34:04] That's quite analytical. Other little details, but you have to have all these animals in front of the the kids and so on, you know. Okay. Article 4 this got long replies too, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll give you a little refreshment here from the opinion of theology.

[34:39] You know what they call appropriation in Trinity Trinity theology, right? And you probably one of the most common ones is you know that they attribute

[34:53] power to the Father, right? And to the Son, wisdom, maybe, and to the Holy Spirit, goodness. And it doesn't mean that one of them has more power than the other, one has more goodness than the other, or more wisdom. But there's a certain connection between this attribute of God, really, right? And what's personal or proper to this person, right? Well, anyway, when you get into say understanding the creed, right?

[35:22] Say, you say one of the creeds. You say, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth," right? Well, you're not to understand that to mean that the Father alone created the heaven and earth, right? You know, and that the Holy Spirit and the Son didn't, right? But you're appropriating the work of what creation and the power that that requires, yet omnipotent to create, um, to the to something appropriated to the what Father, okay.

[36:00] Now, in the creed, is there anything appropriated to the Son? Say. What special he said about the Son? There is mainly dealing with its incarnation, which is not appropriation, right? I mean, he's really the only person who what? Became incarnate. Yeah, yeah. So that that's not appropriation at all, right? Okay. But now, what about the Holy Spirit, right?

[36:32] We'll go back to something here. I was looking in the in the last book of the Bible, there, the Apocalypse, Book Revelation. I noticed that early in the book, you say God says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega." Okay. Just by itself, he says that, right? Then a little bit later on, he says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last." But that's all he says.

[37:04] Then a little bit later on, he says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end." That's all he says. And finally, at the end of the book, he says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the what? End." Okay. Now

[37:28] you got to be careful how you understand God being the first and the last, right? Because first and last would seem to be defined by before and after.

[37:42] Because the first is before all the rest, right? But it's not after anything, right? And the last is after everything else, but it's not before anything, right?

[37:59] And then if there's something in the middle that would be both before and after, right? But Thomas has a whole article, for example, showing that God the Father is in no way before God the Son. Okay. And say the same thing that the Father and the Son are not before the Holy Spirit, right?

[38:22] But is there a certain likeness there to being before and after, right? See, Augustine says there's not the order of before and after in the Trinity, but there's the order of this from that, right?

[38:39] And so Thomas will admit that the Father is a what beginning, huh? In respect to the Son, because the Son proceeds from him, and then that the Father and the Son are the beginning from which the Holy Spirit proceeds, huh? And so he'll say that the Father is the beginning that has no beginning, and the Son has a beginning, but he's also a beginning. See, kind of in the middle position there, right?

[39:13] Why the Holy Spirit is from a beginning, but He's not a beginning, huh? Some person. And so there's some similarity there to, you know, the beginning and the middle and the end, like you have in the plot of tragedy and so on, and the first and the last and the middle, right? Okay.

[39:36] Now, it's interesting, huh? When you appropriate to the Father that He's the Creator, the Maker of all things, you're appropriating to Him what belongs to the what, beginning, what comes first, right? Okay, and that's explicitly in the creed, right? Now, what about going back to the Book of Apocalypse, right? Where you say, "Okay, God says, 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

[40:12] '" This is being said of Him as God, right? But you kind of appropriate the beginning to the Father, right? Now, to whom would you appropriate the end to, or would you?

[40:37] Well, who's more like the last or the end, the Father? I mean, the Son or the Holy Spirit? Yeah, yeah. Now, if you look more deeply into

[40:54] what is meant by "end" here, right? It means that God is the what end of the whole universe, right? Everything else is for the sake of what God, huh? As I mentioned before, Thomas in chapters was it thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, and forty-one. They're the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? In thirty-seven, he shows that God is good.

[41:24] In thirty-eight, he shows that God is goodness itself. In thirty-nine, he shows that there can't be nothing bad in God, huh? Because He's goodness itself. And then in forty, he shows that God is the good of every good. And then forty-one, that He's the highest good, right? Okay.

[41:56] So there is connection there between good and end, isn't there? And to whom do we appropriate goodness? Holy Spirit. Yeah, yeah. So Holy Spirit is like the what? When we might appropriate not creation, which is appropriate to the Father because He's the beginning, right? But God's providence, right, is moving things to their end, right? Now, does it touch upon this in one of the two creeds, right?

[42:30] And it's dressed in the way Thomas, you know, calls the creed. If you see in the Latin official text, just is too. They always call a creed their symbolum, right? Okay, and they speak of the in the scriptural text, the official text, the symbolum apostolorum, which we call the Apostles' Creed, and the symbolum patrum, the symbol of the what. Fathers, right? And so the what do we call the Apostles' Creed is the symbolum Apostolorum, and then what we call the Nicene, Nicene Constantinople like, creed, really, is the Symbolum Patrum, of the Fathers, right?

[43:13] Symbol of the Fathers, Creed of the Fathers. When there, I guess, isn't the Creed of the Fathers? He's called the Vivificantem, right? Huh? He's called the what? Life giver Yeah, yeah. And so Thomas goes back and he and he he takes really text you see in Aristotle, but it's also given, it says the Church Fathers, that God moving creation, right? Huh? Just like our soul moves our body, right?

[43:44] Huh? The soul is the cause of the life to the body, right? So God moving the universe is said to be giving life to the what? Universe, right? Huh? Okay.

[43:56] So just as the creation of the universe is is appropriated, right, to the Father, right? Huh? So the movement of the created things towards the end and God's moving them towards the end is appropriated to the what? Holy Spirit, yeah, yeah. I never kind of thought about that, and I've seen the one about the, the Apostles' Creed, and so on, which you're more familiar with, right? About that, this other one should be appropriated to the what?

[44:32] Holy Spirit, right? So God says in the Creed, I mean, in the Apocalypse, I am the Alpha and Omega, right? The first and the last, the beginning and the end. These things are said of God, right? Huh? God is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, right? But as being the beginning of things is appropriated to the Father, right? Although not limited to, him, obviously, and being the end of all things, and therefore the what source of providence and the moving of things towards the end is appropriated to the what?

[45:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's kind of interesting, huh? Nothing's left for the for for the second person, but he, you know, emphasizes becoming what? Man, right? Because this thing is more than appropriation, right? Huh?

[45:32] You might appropriate, you know, being first to the Father, right? And last to the the Holy Spirit, and then the Son is kind of like the what? Middle, right? Huh? So he's a middle person, right? So how can you appropriate first or last to him if he's the middle one? Say. And first and last, then are kind of similar to beginning and end, right? So you got to appropriate the beginning, the end, to the Father and the Holy Spirit.

[45:59] huh? There's a beautiful little text there where Thomas is in the companion of theology, you know. I don't know if he says this elsewhere, but a beautiful little text there where he talks about how the end is what same thing as the good, as Aristotle himself had taught, right? And because we appropriate goodness to the Holy Spirit, because he proceeds by way of love, right? And the object of love is goodness, right?

[46:24] That's why goodness is appropriated to the Holy Spirit, right? It is a spiritual connection with Himself, right? Because he proceeds by way of love, right? It's being love, and so therefore this connection between him and goodness, because goodness is the object of love, right? But also because the Holy Spirit, you know, the Spirit is what tends to move us, right? Right? You know, I remember as a little boy hearing my mother, you know, she'd be sitting at the dining room table there, my father sat one end, my mother at the other end, and us boys in the middle and so on.

[47:01] And in those days, you didn't have a washing machine like that, right? It was, you know, had to go wash the dishes, and usually one of us would wipe or something, but but my mother'd be there, you say, and we'd all finish dinner and dessert and everything whatever there was, and she's waiting for the Spirit to move her, she'd say, right? You know, the Spirit would move her, then she'd get up and you know, but no, it's appropriate today that the Spirit is what moving her, right?

[47:29] See, she was not going to get up from that chair until the Spirit moved her, right? So it's interesting, how I mean, when you speak of creation, we use the word make, right? Okay. But when you talk about God leading us towards Himself as an end, you speak God more as the what the mover, right?

[47:56] Kind of kind of strike you know, and when you read in the Sumas, you know, the arguments for existence of God, right? You first show God is the unmoved mover, right? And then you show that He's the first efficient cause and the first maker, right? When you talk about God creating the world, you use the word maker first, right? And then His what moving us to Himself or towards Himself, and moving the whole universe towards Himself, right?

[48:26] Use the word mover, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's already there, right? See, and here is more the activity of us, right? See, by creation is creating our substance, our form, right?

[48:47] But as I say, there is a similarity with the the use of the word Spirit too, right? The Spirit moves us. That's kind of appropriated, right, to the Holy Spirit, now that He's moving us, He's moving us towards the end, which is the goodness of God Himself, right? Which is also appropriated to him. That's kind of interesting to see that, you know. Interesting. Mover and end Mover and end Hmm.

[49:15] Yeah, yeah. See, when when Thomas takes up now in the first part of the in the first books he had the Summa Contra Gentiles, he doesn't bring in the Trinity at all, because that's something the Mohammedans would know about. Right. But you know, you have three parts there, right? The first part is about God by Himself, right, for Himself. Then God is the beginning of things, right, the Maker of things, and then God is the what end, and after you show that God is the end of the universe, then you take up the divine what providence, right, and how He's directing things towards Himself, right.

[49:59] When you take up the God's creation, universe. Then you take up what He created, the material world and the spiritual world, and then man who's the kind of foot in both worlds, right? And

[50:16] so Thomas there is attributing then or saying it's being appropriate to the Holy Spirit, right? The end and the providence, the moving, directing things towards that end. So it's beautiful, beautiful. See that?