Prima Secundae
253. Summa I-II Q.102 a.6 (end) and Q.103 a.1: Clothing, Animal and Priestly Laws, and Whether There Were Ceremonies Before the Law
Class of 2015-12-10
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/253-summa-i-ii-q-102-a-6-end-and-q-103-a-1-clothing-animal-and/

[0:04] God our enlightenment, guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, enlighten our minds, and arouse us to consider more quickly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written.

[0:26] So we're in 102, Article Six, right? Are we up to about the sixth objection? That's kind of where I think we are at six. Do we're in 102, Article Six?

[0:39] Okay, hope so. He's got English text there because my little Cavaliers though. To the sixth, it should be said, as is said in Ecclesiasticus, "He is a clothing of the body, announces about the man." Okay.

[0:57] And therefore, the Lord wished that His people would be distinguished from other peoples, not only by the sign of circumcision, right, which was in the flesh, but also by certain distinction of clothing or habitus, right. And therefore, it's prohibited that they be put on a vestment from what wool and linen. Now, lana is what? It's lana and lino. Lino is. which is. yeah, it's lana and lino.

[1:29] Lino is linen. Which is is lana or lino lino wool? Lana, lana, then, yeah, yeah. And and that woman be not dressed right in male clothing, right? Huh? Or the reverse, right? On account of two things: first, to avoid the worship of idolatry, right, the cult of idolatry, because they used various vestments put together from these diverse things, right? The Gentiles in the culture of their what, or worship of their what gods, right?

[2:27] And therefore, in the worship of Mars, women used the arms of men, weapons, I suppose, and in the worship of Venus, a converso, conversely, men used the clothing of women, huh?

[2:46] Another reason was for declining or from what lust, right, luxurium, for through these various mixtures and vestments, all disordered mixture of what intercourse was excluded, huh? For that the woman put on the male vestment, or the reverse, was incentive of what concupiscence, and gave a occasion to what libido, to a lust.

[3:20] The figurative reason was because in the vestment put together from wool and linen was forbidden the conjunction of what simple innocence, which is figured by wool, and a subtle malice, which is figured by what linen, huh?

[3:41] And prohibited also the woman would not what usurp teaching for herself, right? Or other offices of men, huh? Or that a man would not decline to the softness of what woman, huh?

[4:00] Now this goes over in Catholic you, huh? That love others they have sometimes, you know, nuns or students, you know, and of course seems to be so many different kinds of nuns. You know, in the vestments, you know, we're always trying to remember what kind of nun this was, you know, and so on. And once in a while, I'd see the young carpenter with the nuns, you know, and they'd always get so embarrassed, you know.

[4:31] It's kind of funny, though. We kind of get used to that. You can collect like have a field guide for different creatures on a horse. Have a field guide for nuns? Yeah, your kids. We have it in our library. Every nun, I think, I think everyone should be stamped extinct because I've never seen them. I think that one's gone. It was a super, super big headdress for battlefield nurses.

[4:57] Actually, it's really kind of interesting tradition. Okay, so let's look now at the septimum, right? To the seventh, it should be said that as Jerome says upon the Gospel of Matthew, the Lord what ordered was it? What? Commanded. Yeah, commanded that in the four angles of their what garments they would make hyacinth. Violet colored fringes. Fringes, yeah. To distinguish the people of Israel from other what peoples, huh?

[5:40] Whence through this that they professed to be Jews, and therefore through the what sight of this sign, they were led into remembering the law, right?

[5:57] What however is said, you will bind them in your hand, and they always be before your eyes. The Pharisees. Badly interpreted, right? Writing in the membranes of the decalogue of Moses, and they what tied them in front as a word crown, right? I don't think walking like the thing in front of you a little bit.

[6:20] Yeah. Um, wear crown, crown as you say, yeah. That they might be moved before their eyes, right? Whenever the intention of the Lord commanding was that they be bound in the hand, that is, in their operation, right? And they would be before the eyes, that is, in what in meditation, yeah. Meditation. So if I say keep this before your eyes, it doesn't mean around the piece of paper in front of your eyes, especially when you're driving.

[6:56] But keep it in mind, right? But in your hands, it means what you what you do, right? Okay. In the hyacinth, what? Vitis, what is that? Okay, what you inserted in the clothing. They signified the celestial intention, which ought to be joined to all of our what works. Doing this.

[7:29] Um. Can also be said that because that people was what carnal or fleshly, and of hard what stiff neck, stiff neck, yeah. Is necessary through sensible things of this sort that they be what aroused to the observance of the what law.

[7:55] Okay. To the eighth, it should be said. Up to the eighth objection here in one o two article six. To the eighth, it should be said that the affection of man is twofold. One is by reason or according to reason; the other is according to what passion. Now, according to the affection of reason, it makes no difference what man does about the brute what animals. Because all are subject to him, right?

[8:27] Are subject to the power from God, according to that of Psalm eight. You have put all these under your what feet. And according to this, the apostle says there is no care for God about what the cattle or something. Because God does not ask from men what they do about the cattle or about the other what animals, huh? But since we're body and soul, right? But as regards the affection of passion, the affections of man are moved about animals.

[9:01] Because for the passion of mercy, right, arises from the what afflictions of others, right, huh? And happens at even what brute animals sense pains, right, huh? Therefore, there can arise in man the affection of mercy about the afflictions of what animals, huh?

[9:29] And is near that one who is exercised in the affection of mercy about animals is more from this disposed for the affection of mercy about men, huh? Or vice versa, if you're cruel to the animals, you might pass over and be cruel to men, right?

[9:50] For the just man knows the souls of his what beasts, huh? But the viscera of the impious are cruel, right? I'm always struck by Aristotle, you know, when he begins the book on the poetic art, and he talks about what tragedy, right? And tragedy moves us to what pity and fear, right? What pity is like what mercy, in a sense, right? It's kind of the first thing that civilized, in some sense, right?

[10:21] The kind of a fiction, right, has a civilizing influence, right? And therefore, that the Lord would recall the Judaic people being prone what to cruelty. It's really whacking, isn't he? Right, don't he? You would recall what them to mercy, right? Because they were they were prone to cruelty. He wished to exercise them in mercy, also about what brute animals, right? So they would be inclined to be what kind to men.

[11:04] Prohibiting some things about animals that come about, which seem to pertain to a certain what cruelty, right? And therefore, he prohibited that they cooked the what goat in the milk of his mother, right? And it did not bind the mouth of the ox. wanted to feed when he's working, right? And they wanted not to kill the mother with her what young offspring. Although it could also be said that these were prohibited in detestation of idolatry, right?

[11:46] For the Egyptians regarded it as what bad that the cattle they're running around, I mean, putting around, eat of the what fruits, right? To feed them, I guess.

[12:03] What? Uh it says here uh this translation is for the Egyptians held it to be wicked to allow the ox to eat of the grain while threshing the corn. Yeah.

[12:16] And some of the evildoers, right, use the mother of the bird and its young, right, captured together, right, for the fecundity and fortune about the nourishment of their what children.

[12:33] And also because in their auguries, they're they're yeah omens, yeah. They recognize or regard this as being something fortunate, right, fortuitous, that they found the mother incubans with the children, right. Nice. That means what? Would she had her young or giving birth to them or what incubans? She'd be sitting on, I guess, giving birth, sitting on her

[13:13] young. Yeah. Yeah. I remember as a little boy going to the corner grocery store, and my mother would send me over there into this kind of wooded area to get over to the the corner grocery store, and and there had been, you know, at one time, you know, walkway through there, you know, and so on. So I kind of, you know, like that came to it. There was a mother cat with her kittens, right?

[13:35] I was kind of very surprised by this, you know, and I started looking at it, and then, then, kind of, I sensed that the mother cat was a little bit, you know, nervous of my presence, you know, and I so I ran away, you know. But I remember that, you know, huh? Yeah, it's a kind of striking scene to see, you know. Um,

[13:59] my wife and I always talk about my daughter when she was a little girl, and she had a cat there, and the cat was giving birth to kittens, you know. She's, you know, holds the tears, you know, and so and the one day she has ten children, huh?

[14:15] Um, now about the mixture of animals, diverse in species, right? The sense of the letter is can be threefold, right? One for detesting the idolatry of the Egyptians, right, who used diverse mixtures in service of the what planets, who, according to diverse conjunctions, huh, have diverse effects and upon diverse species of things. You know, for another reason, to excluding what coming together against nature, right? Third, for taking away universally the occasions of concupiscence.

[15:02] For animals of diverse species do not mix together easily to each other, unless this be what procured by men, right? And in the aspect of coitus of animals is excited what emotion of concupiscence in men, huh? Whence also in the tradition of the Jews the precept was found, as Rabbi Moses said, that men should avert their eyes from animals going together, right?

[15:36] The figurative reason of these things is because to the ox grinding the thing, right? To the preacher bringing forth the seeds of doctrine, right? It was not necessary to subtract what food, as the apostle says, so that you can live from your. Profession.

[16:03] We ought not to what hold the mother with the children, because in some things the spiritual senses should be retained as were sons, and should be dismissed as little observance as the mother, just as in all the ceremonies of the law. This is very solemn stuff, huh?

[16:27] And is prohibited also that the beast that is the popular man right, we do not make to come together, that is to have a union with other kinds of animals, that is with Gentiles, huh, or Jews, huh?

[16:48] The ninth, it should be said, that all those mixtures in agriculture are prohibited in the letter in detestation of idolatry, because the Egyptians in the veneration of stars made diverse mixtures, huh, and in the seeds and in animals and in vestments, clothing, representing diverse conjunctions of the stars.

[17:15] Or all these mixtures were prohibited. Various mixtures are prohibited for detesting the union that is against what nature, huh? They have also a figurative reason, because the Jews shall not what.

[17:39] Yeah, is spiritually to be understood that the church, which is the spiritual vineyard, well not not to to plant alien doctrine, right, huh? Not to put the seeds of alien doctrine out there, and that the field that is the church, which is the church, the the idea is the field, is the church, should not be seeded with diverse seed, that is, Catholic doctrine and heretical doctrine, huh?

[18:12] Nor should one what have plowing at the same time the ass and the what ox is it? Because the foolish one ought not to be associated in preaching with the wise men, right, huh? Because one impedes the other.

[18:31] See how Thomas uses sometimes the word ass there, you know, huh? Now to the eleventh one, it should be said that the malefici, the doers of evil, right, and the priests of idols, huh, using their rites the bones and the fleshes of dead men, right? There's something going on and whisked there, you know. There are some bones, you know. Stolen from some mausoleum, and today the headline says it's a second mausoleum.

[19:09] Then it was people were getting bones. Now what? What? What people are doing that for? You know, are they malefici, as he says, right? This reminds me kind of what's going on in Worcester, right, right now.

[19:23] What? The mausoleum? There was some bones stolen from a mausoleum at the Hope Cemetery, I think it is. In Worcester, yeah, and then I guess there was, you know, suspicion after the second, you know, robbery of bones from some other mausoleum, have been right. So they're, yeah, and so they these what we've got here in the eleventh one, the malefici, right? the doers of evil, and the priests of idols use in their rites the bones and the fleshes of dead men, right?

[19:59] What do they want? these for I think it's a gruesome thing, you know, huh? You know, you wonder what kind of, you know, what they're up to, you know. And therefore, to removing the the cult of idolatry, the Lord commanded that the what lesser priests, who in definite times ministered in the sanctuary, should not be what. inquinati, what?

[20:34] Yeah, they shouldn't be in contact with the death, right? Except those who may be, those who are very close, right? Father and mother and persons of this sort, right? For the high priest ought to be always prepared for administering the sanctuary, and therefore there was totally prohibited to him access to the dead, huh? No matter how close they were, right? Won't the Jews, you know, bury very quickly too.

[21:05] Don't they say that about the Jews? That's their custom. I don't know why exactly it is, but it's something to do with this. I don't know. Did they reprieve these? To the Jews, very, very quickly, you know, the dead. I heard people say that. I don't know whether it's true or not, but I heard people say that that's their custom. The highest cultural standards of hygiene, washing hands, for example, before eating.

[21:30] They didn't know anything about microorganisms. Yeah. But also bearing of excretions. Yeah. Instead of letting it just lay about. Yeah. And um and also bearing the dead. Yeah. And also the the rules about what foods were unclean, shellfish in particular, which would spoil like that. Yeah. In those conditions, no refrigeration. So it's quite amazing how the Lord led them towards basic principles of hygiene millennia before anybody else.

[21:57] Yeah. And that's without germ theory. Yeah. They're very excellent medical people, aren't they? Usually, the Jews. They're very, very, very, quite a few doctors for their number. Is command also that they did not lead into a wife a what?

[22:19] Yeah. But a virgin, right, huh? Both on account the reverence that one should have for the priests, whose dignity, in a way, would seem to be diminished by such a conjugal relation, right? And also on account of the sons, to whom it would be what ignominy, the baseness of their mother, right, huh? Which most of all should be avoided, because the dignity of priesthood was conferred according to the succession of the genus, right, You had to be in a certain tribe didn't you, to be a priest.

[22:54] It was commanded also that they do not what cut the hair, right, or the what Beards. You guys, that's why you're going to beards, right?

[23:06] Nor that they make in their flesh right incision right to removing the right of idolatry, for the priests of the Gentiles was it cut their hair and their beard, Once it said in Baruch VI, the priests sat what having cut tunics and their heads and their beard shaved yeah. Did the Indians shave a lot too or what? Yeah, I don't know what the reason for that was.

[23:45] And also in the worship of idols they cut themselves with knives and lances little lances is there something. It's a surgical, you know, there's no time on it. Whence there are contrary precepts for the priests of the old law. Now the spiritual reason of these things is because the priests ought to be entirely removed from the works of the dead right which are the works of sin, and therefore they ought not to what, cut the hair, the head rather, that is to lay down their wisdom right because they they say the hair is your thoughts right that has that sense, nor to put down the what beard that is perfection of what wisdom huh.

[24:39] And what does Shakespeare say and and love which great birds call divine. nor to cut their vestments or to cut their flesh right that they do not incur the vice of schism huh. Quite as take a little break there huh. Before we go on to the duration of the ceremony precepts, but this is not his, his detail down to all the little things. Looking ahead at that part on on grace you know where Thomas would divide the treatise on grace and the grace grace by itself and then the causes of grace and then the effects of grace right.

[25:33] That you know looking before and after right huh. It's just like you know the treatise on love where he takes up love in itself or by itself and then the causes of love and then the effects of love right huh. That that that's you know nice division into three right but this is all over you know the place in a sense. get you thinking about these things all right.

[25:58] Now imagine if you went and read through you know the books of the Old Testament and from time to time and you come back and read this and you know. Yeah, then one will will interest you, and the other, right?

[26:15] Yeah. Okay. Then we have to consider about the duration of the ceremonial precepts, huh? And first, four things are asked: whether there were ceremonial precepts before the law? I mean, before Moses or what?

[26:44] Yeah. Whether in the law they they had some power of what, justifying one, I suppose, from what, sin, right, freeing you from sin. Third, whether they ceased when Christ Christ coming, right? And fourth, whether it be a mortal sin to observe them after Christ, huh? Okay.

[27:21] To the first, then one goes forward. Thus, it seems that the ceremonies, the law, that there were ceremonies of law before before the law, yeah.

[27:37] For the sacrifices and holocausts pertain to the ceremonies of the old law, as has been said above. But there are sacrifices and holocausts before the law. For it is said in Genesis chapter four that Cain offered of the fruits of the earth gifts to what the Lord, right? Abel offered from the firstborn of his flock, right, and from their what fat, huh? And that Noah also offered holocaust to the Lord, as is said in chapter eight, huh?

[28:18] And Abraham likewise, huh, similar here, as is said in Genesis chapter twenty-two, huh? When does Moses first appear in Exodus or what that book? Second book? He's not in Genesis, is he? I don't think so. Yeah. So these are all examples taken from Genesis, right, which are are before the law by anticipation. Okay. Therefore, there are ceremonies of the old law before the law, right? That's kind of

[28:56] to me laws. It cannot be before itself Okay. Moreover, the construction of the altar pertains to the ceremonies of sacred things, right, and to their anointing, I guess. But these were found before the law, for it is read in Genesis chapter thirteen that Abraham built an altar for the what, Lord. And about Jacob is said in Genesis twenty-eight that he took a stone and what raised it up as a what,

[29:41] Or entitled oil upon the top of it. pouring oil down upon it, right. Therefore, there were legal ceremonies before the law. I'm convinced about all this, aren't you? How can he how can he possibly think the other thing? Just perversity is always taking the opposite side, right? Showing you how dumb you are when you're you're accepting these arguments on the other side, right?

[30:15] Moreover, among the legal sacraments, first would seem to have been what circumcision, right? So like baptism, right, for us. But circumcision was before the law, as is clear in Genesis chapter seventeen.

[30:33] And likewise, priesthood was before the law, for it is said in Genesis fourteen that Melchizedek was a priest of the high what, God. And Christ is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, isn't he? I mean, this is really something. Therefore, there were ceremonies of the sacraments before the law.

[31:00] I don't think you ever untie these, Thomas. I don't think you ever can. No way can untie these. I got you now. I told you I had a student when I was teaching, first teaching in California. He'd come in very often to class, and he put a real good objection, you know. And I'd heard these, you know, arguments for, so I didn't tie it, you know, and so on, right?

[31:23] Well, he told me after the course one time, you know, he said I came in, you know, a day, and I thought I've got him today, you know, you know. And then I heard these things, you know, but it's new to him, right? He thinks he's got something, and he's going to get me. He's a good student, right? And beautiful like that, because he throws objections like this and like this.

[31:44] And as I started to untie it, you know, you'd see him kind of, you know, act like that. It was just marvelous, you know. You don't often have a student like that, you know, and he was he was good to see that, you know.

[31:57] No, I don't think he did, but he told me after he confessed that he thought he was trying to get me to stay. That's good for that's good for students like that.

[32:10] Okay, so this one from Melchizedek is really strong. Moreover, the discretion, the distinction, you might say, of clean animals from the unclean ones, pertained to the ceremonies of observances, right? This has been said above. But there was such a discretion or distinction before the law, right? For it is said in Genesis seven, from all clean animals take what? Seven and seven. Yeah, seven and seven. And from the animals that are unclean, two and two.

[32:46] Now, what seven and seven and two and two mean, I don't know, but maybe you gentlemen know. Therefore, the legal ceremonies were there before the law, right?

[33:01] Okay. But against this is what is said in Deuteronomy chapter six. These are the precepts and the ceremonies which the Lord, your God, has commanded, huh? That I what? Teach you, right? Okay.

[33:26] Deuteronomy means what? The second law, doesn't it? And second, it's kind of a summary of the law. Second time, you know, the law is being presented.

[33:36] But they would not need to have been taught about these things if before these ceremonies already were, right? Therefore, the ceremonies, the law, were not there before the law. Okay.

[33:53] Well, let's see what Thomas says in the. respondeo? I answer. It should be said that it is clear from the things said that the ceremonies of the law are ordered to two things. Now, what are the two things? To wit, to the worship of God, huh? That's one thing. And to what? Signifying Christ in some way, huh? Now, in the Latin here, it says ad figurandum Christum, right?

[34:27] So, figure sometimes has a sense of what? Kind of a sign, right? Um. What do we call in in in speech there? Figure speech, here we use the word, right? It's something that what it immediately signifies is not what it means, right? But it's something else that it's signifying, right? Huh? Which means the word figurative speech, right? Huh? So I don't know why it is exactly, huh?

[35:00] Although we take, I suppose, you know, from how do you recognize a dog or a cat or a tree, you know, by their figure mainly, right? Huh? How do you recognize this is a chair? I recognize it's a chair, isn't it? Come in, I'm pretty smart. But how do you recognize this to be a chair?

[35:19] Yeah, yeah. Of course, the case of animals. I mean, is the shape of the animal what the animal is? No, but it's a sign of the kind of animal that he is, isn't it? And that's how we know animals and and plants and even artificial things, right? Is by their what shape, their figure, right? So maybe this gets extended to the idea of being a what a sign, right?

[35:48] When they talk about what they call it in about an image or a likeness, right? It's got to be either in the specific nature of that thing or what is a sign of that specific nature. And so, if I make a statue of a man, we say, "Well, this is a man, right?" Not that it has anything of a man except the what shape of a man, right? huh? Lafayette came back, you know, after Washington died, right?

[36:21] And he saw all these paintings of Washington, all these statues of Washington, you know, huh? I guess he went down to to Virginia with that very famous statue. That that's the man, you know. And he recognized, you know, the man he had known, right? Huh? You know, this was really a likeness, that was good. of Washington, right?

[36:41] So you see that statue, right? Huh? So the interesting the word figure there, I'm always a little puzzled by it sometimes myself, but I think it has the idea of the sign, isn't it, huh? This translation uses the word foreshadow, foreshadowing. Yeah, well, shadows got the the the sign, yeah, yeah, the sheep, of it, yeah, yeah, yeah, Some people are very good at doing that, you know, and giving a shadow and the, you know, and they had that kind of paintings.

[37:09] What they call a shadow? Used to do it in the, yeah, yeah. We have some of them, you know, especially from the, you know, the early days in America, right? Huh? Yeah. Silhouettes of these famous people sometimes. So he says, the ceremonies, the law are ordered to things to the worship of God and to signifying Christ, huh?

[37:36] Now, whoever worships God, it is necessary that through some determined things he what worships him, huh? Which pertain to the exterior, right? Worship, huh? Now the determination of the divine worship pertains to the what ceremonies, huh?

[38:02] And just as the determination of those things through which or by which we are ordered to our neighbor, right? Pertain to the judicial precepts, right? Huh? Which I guess we're going to be taking up after this. Okay, this has been said above.

[38:24] And therefore, just and therefore, as among men, generally there are some what judicial things, not instituted from the authority of the divine law, but ordered by the reason of men, right? So also there are certain ceremonials, not from the authority of any law determined, but only according to the will and the what devotion of men, worshiping what God, huh?

[39:05] And because also before the law, there were some special men, right? Huh? Enjoying the prophetic what spirit, spirit of prophecy. It should be believed credendum est right, that from a divine instinct, as it were, from a what private law, that's kind of strange thing to say, private law, right? Huh? They were led to a certain way of worshiping God, right? Huh? Which was both suitable for the inward what worship, which is the first reason, right, for it, and also was in agreement or congruent for signifying the mysteries of Christ, which were figured or signa signified, right?

[40:04] Through some of the things they what did, huh? According to that of the first epistle of the Corinthians, omnia in figuram contingebant illis. Everything happened to them in what in figure, huh?

[40:25] Look up what Thomas says about that sometime. You know, there's the word figure there, ain't it? Omnia in figurum. The word therefore before the law certain ceremonies, right? He's not denying that, right? There's a large element of truth. Even Bruckeust thought he saw in the objections, right? But not, however, ceremonies the law because they were not instituted by some what lawgiving, right? Huh?

[41:03] To the first, therefore, it should be said, huh, that these offerings and sacrifices and holocausts the ancients offered them before the law from a certain devotion of their what private or of their own will, right? According as seemed to them, right? Huh? Suitable that they take in the things which what they they received from God, I should say, right? Which they offered in what reverence for God, and they protested therefore that they worship God who is the what beginning and the end of all things.

[41:48] There you get the way Thomas divides Summa Theologiae, right? Summa Contra Gentiles, even more explicitly, God Himself, and then God is the beginning and God is the end, right?

[42:03] Yeah. I wanted to ask you, is the Summa Contra Gentiles your favorite book? Read it, read it. You know, in terms of of what you can know about God by natural reason as well as by faith, right? It's more expensive the Summa Contra Gentiles than the Summa Theologiae, right? You know, I always make a comparison there between the

[42:38] consideration, say, the divine what goodness, right? Now, in the Summa Theologiae, you have God is good, and God is goodness itself, right? And then what does it have? huh God is the source of all Well, you can't anything bad in God, right? And then he's a summum bonum, right? Well, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, you've got five chapters, right? And what's the one that's missing in the Summa Theologiae?

[43:07] That God is the what? The good of every good, as Augustine says, right? So he he he unfolds the reason for that, right? So if you look at the at the you know articles here, showing that God is simple, or the article is showing that God is what infinite, right? Or the article that showing that God is one, you'll have more arguments for it in the Summa Contra Gentiles than in the Summa what Theologiae, right?

[43:38] What you have in the Summa Theologica, of course, is a great expansion on the Summa Contra Gentiles in terms of what moral theology, right? So you have the whole secunda secunda, secundae right? The second part, right? I'm reading the first part of the second part now, and then you have the other part, you know, is really the thickest part, right? The secunda secundae, right? We go into all the virtues.

[44:00] So, as far as knowing God in his what nature, right? It's more complete in the Summa, right? See, when I when I think about moral theology, of course, I realize what a bad guy I am, right? I realize how bad the world is, right? And this makes me very what unhappy, right? And I should look at the mirror sometimes and see what I what I really am, right?

[44:27] But I like to think about God. That's the most interesting thing to think about is God, right? And it's more fully developed in the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? Okay.

[44:39] And you know, if you compare to the way he proceeds in the Summa Contra Gentiles, he takes up first, you know, that the argument, after after the arguments for the existence of God, he takes up the way

[44:57] even before he takes up the arguments for the existence of God. If you look the arguments from motion, they're much more complete in the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? This is based upon two premises. The first premise can be shown by three arguments. Second one, you know, in the Summa you might have just one, right? Okay. And he's got two arguments from motion, just one in the Summa, you know.

[45:22] Okay. And then when he gets into it, because he's emphasized the argument from motion even more fully than in the Summa Theologiae later on, he takes up first the fact that God is unchanging, right? And that introduces you, of course, to development of act and ability, right? And while in the Summa, if you look at it, he's got to develop that thing about God being pure act at the beginning of the treatise on the simplicity of God, right?

[45:50] It doesn't arise naturally from that, as it does from the consideration of God being the unmoved mover. Because in both Summas, one of the arguments for the unmoved mover is to begin by saying that nothing moves itself, right? And one of the arguments in that is from the definition of motion, right? Which is the act of what is able to be in so far as it's able to be.

[46:14] And so something is an ability. To motion, right, and so it's got to be actualized by something already in act. So you begin to see how act is before ability, right, and that. So you kind of naturally develop the argument for the what God being pure act. If you look at the arguments in this in the Summa Contra Gentiles, he'll give you right almost like a summary of the ninth book of Aristotle there, right, where act is simply before ability, right.

[46:41] So it's developed much more fully, right. You know, and but you know Summa Theologiae, you know, is very good though with the objections, you know, you have you don't have it so much in the Summa Contra Gentiles, huh? But you get you get into you know maybe even if God made twenty arguments something, you know, so assuming you know three arguments because it's for beginners, so called, right?

[47:08] Huh? You know, but he's giving these guys plenty of ammunition with the Muslims down there in Spain. so. I was going to show you my my brother's the card for my brother's funeral there, you know, my brother Marcus, but it has a quote from Summa Contra Gentiles, right, And how the study of wisdom is the best thing around, right. And what's interesting, they took it from the Summa Contra Gentiles, you know.

[47:35] I'm going to have to ask my sister-in-law there, who's thought of that passage, you know, to put it on my brother's card, you know. Beautiful, beautiful. Back to now, from college, you know, we had a course called Natural Theology that was in the philosophy department, and we actually did the articles in the Summa Theologiae before you get to the Trinity, you know, and because you have arguments from reason there, right?

[48:06] Huh? And that was my favorite course, you know. But then when I got the Summa Contra Gentiles, even more deeply, you know. So compare the consideration of two things, right? I like to think about God, you know, and it taught me to think about God, huh?

[48:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always say I think about God because I can't think of anything better to think about. It's very interesting, you know.

[48:56] Even he talks about the the incarnation there in the fourth book, you know, he kind of develops it from Scripture, you know, it kind of rises from Scripture, you know. There seems to be this talk about generation, you know, in God, you know, and these gradations into the thing. So in that sense, I would think it's better to begin there, right? Even then, in the Summa Contra Summa Theologiae, right, it talks about.

[49:25] But for the development of moral theology, I have much more of that in the Summa Theologiae, right? And it's much more fully developed there.

[49:36] Okay, so he's not denying that they had a certain, what devotion, and they had good sacrifice, even right, Holocaust, But it's more a what private thing, right? Ex ex quadam devotione, from a certain devotion of their own what will, right? Huh? Okay, but they were what inspired by God to write this and prophetic thing, huh?

[50:23] Okay, to the second should be said that they also instituted certain sacred things, which seem to them suitable, right, in reverence for divine things, huh? That there be some places set apart from others, right, given over to the divine what worship, right?

[50:48] Yeah, yeah. Places where these were to the construction of of the altar and and its anointing, right? Okay, so they found a place suitable for this.

[51:20] Now, what about the circumcision, right? To the third, it should be said that the sacrament of circumcision was established by divine command before the what law, huh?

[51:35] Whence this cannot be said to be a sacrament of the law, as it were instituted in the law, right? As if it began there, but only as it were, to be observed in the law, right? Huh? So it started by what Abraham, wasn't it? Yeah. And so

[51:56] it was commanded by God, right? Huh? Okay. Whence it cannot be said to be a what sacrament of the law in the sense of being instituted in the law, right? But only as being something to be observed in the law, right? Okay.

[52:17] And this is what the Lord Himself says. Well, the argument of authority is the strongest, right? John chapter what seven, that circumcision is not from Moses. Well, he's the one who's the lawgiver, wasn't he? Yeah. But is from his what fathers, right? Abraham.

[52:47] Priesthood also there was before the law, among those what worshiping God, according to a human what determination, right? Huh. Because this dignity they attributed to the what firstborn, is it? Okay. So my brother Richard should be offering up, right? Okay. The firstborn, right? Huh. That's his prerogative, huh?

[53:22] To the fourth about the distinction of animals, huh? To the fourth, it should be said that the distinction of clean and unclean animals was not before the law as regards their what eating. Because it was said in Genesis nine, huh? Everything that moves and lives will be for you what. Yeah, food, right? cibum. But only as regards the what offering the sacrifices, huh? Because they offered sacrifices from certain what definite animals, right?

[54:01] Huh. If, however, there some discretion of animals as regards eating, this was not because the eating of them was regarded as illicit, because none was prohibited by law, but an account of either abomination, right? Something that I don't eat, you know. I don't eat eels for some reason. I don't know. This it turned me off. Or custom, right? Huh. Just as we see now that some what foods in some lands are abominable, right?

[54:37] Which in other ones are what eaten, huh? You know. See this in the movies too, right? Huh. Okay. Now, second article: whether the ceremonies of the old law had the power of justifying in the time of the law, right? Could they cleanse you from sin? What do you think? No.

[55:11] Okay. Yeah, but if they were done insofar as their figures of Christ, right? We'll see what the Master says.