Prima Secundae
255. God's Beatitude, 'Know Thyself', Shakespeare on Ignorance, and Whether the Old Law's Ceremonies Could Be Kept After Christ's Passion
Class of 2016-01-14
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/255-gods-beatitude-know-thyself-shakespeare-on-ignorance-and/

[0:00] Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gratias. God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, Lord, illumine our images and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Pray for us to Help us to understand all that you have written.

[0:24] I was mentioning how I was reading the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles when I was out with my kids there, and the last three chapters are on the beatitude of God, right? So the first of the three chapters is God blessed, right? Well, Thomas begins by saying blessedness, beatitude is the chief good of something that understands, right? So he says, nor for this to be the chief good four things necessary.

[0:54] Beautiful the way Thomas orders it, right? But what's the first thing he says? It's going to have to be some doing, right? And that is not a making or a what? Moving of things. It's got to be a doing that remains in the what? Yeah. What's the reason for that? Why must the chief good of

[1:20] us or God Himself be that kind of an activity? It doesn't produce anything. It doesn't move anything. Why is let's say listening to the music of Mozart, right? Better than making a chair.

[1:46] Why is it perfecting me more than making a chair? Well, it acts on your uh or is your acting on the, listening to the music of Mozart, which is the most beautiful, the most perfect music ever written, right? It's perfecting my what? Ear, right? Okay. I'm hearing the most beautiful thing my ear could hear, right? Okay. If I'm making a chair, what am I perfecting?

[2:14] Yeah. So when you make something, right, you have an exterior product. That's the end or purpose, right? And that's what's being perfected, right? So it's accidental to the maker that he be perfected in any way by making something, right? Okay. And especially God, right, who knows how to make things without any instruction. Yeah. He doesn't learn from. He doesn't learn from making anything, right? There's no one giving any instructions, right?

[2:43] Yeah, yeah. See, so that's that's the first thing. It's got to be right. It's got to be an activity that remains in the doer and doesn't have anything outside of it. Okay. Rather to be the perfection of something else rather than the the doer, right? Okay. Then the second thing, it's got to be an activity of his highest what? Power, right? Well, the highest power one who understands is his his his mind, his understanding, his his reason, right?

[3:12] This got to be an activity of God's what? Understanding. What's the third thing required, huh? No, no. He's talking about what's most essential, you see. It's got to

[3:36] be an activity of the understanding, but its object has got to be the best thing to what? Yeah. Which happens to be God Himself, right? Okay. Now, what's the fourth thing required, right? huh? I guess it has to be commensurate the object and the one and the other Yeah, he says the form of the act, right? And and he says four things, right? It's got to be what?

[4:02] Perfect act, right? Huh? It's got to be what? Easy. It's got to be firm, right? Not fleeting. It's got to be pleasant, enjoyable. And so God's understanding Himself has all those things, right? He understands Himself perfectly. He understands Himself what? Easily, huh? Easily, huh? Yes, he firmly does, right? It's eternal. It's understanding Himself, right? Not flitting on and off or something like that. And and and because of perfection, the act becomes most pleasant, right?

[4:39] Okay. So if it has those, so that's what God's beatitude is, right? What kind of strikes me because in the that's where he ends the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, but that's about God in Himself, right? Huh? In the second book, he talks about God as the beginning of things other than Himself, right? As the maker of other things, right? Huh? The creator of things, and then in the third book, he talks about God as being the end or purpose of all things other than Himself, and

[5:11] is moving all things to Himself as an end, right? Well in the second and the third books, you're talking about the activity of God that is affecting something outside of Himself, right? Making something other than Himself, and moving something other than Himself, right? Huh? So that's perfecting something outside of God, right? So it's appropriate that he ended up the first book by talking about the what? Beatitude of God.

[5:42] And so the first chapter is to show what God's beatitude is, right? The second one is to show that God is is beatitude itself, and the third is that our beatitude, you know, excels in the other beatitude that there is, huh? Okay. Now I was thinking, you know, of the distinction there between. The meaning of a name, what the name is placed upon, and that from which the name is taken.

[6:10] You've met that distinction before. The id a, quo nomen imponitur, that from which the name is placed upon something, and what the name is actually placed upon. See, not the same thing. Same. And Thomas mentions this example in the Summa Contra Gentiles, one place he mentions it. He takes up the fact that God is universally perfect, right? Well, the word perfect comes from per factum. Yeah. Well, God isn't made, right?

[6:45] Huh? See. But that's that from which the what. Name is taken. Yeah. Yeah. But something is not perfect unless it's fully made, right? Lacking nothing. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so you got it. You don't confuse that from which the name is taken and that which is placed upon, right? Okay. But now coming back, you know, to the word beatitude, there, right now. I know when I first read the Nicomachean Ethics, huh?

[7:16] I first maybe read it in English, right, in the Oxford edition, there, right? And then I started to read Thomas's commentary, right, huh? And then I started to learn the Greek words and so on, right? Well, in the English text they called it happiness, the end or purpose of man. In the Latin they called it what felicitas, and in the Greek they called it eudaimonia, right? Well, these were used as synonyms in the translating, but they all were different in that from which the name was taken.

[7:50] And happiness was taken from the worst, right? From hap, right? Like Shakespeare talks about that, huh? You meet with good hap, which we partake of your happiness and so on. The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Um, felicitas is taken from fruitful, right? That's that makes more sense, doesn't it, huh? Because the fruit is a natural result of what? The development of the plant, right? The apple produced, right, or the banana or the whatever it is, and a fruitful life, right, is a good life, right?

[8:26] And it's not by luck, you know. An apple tree produces apples, and as Thomas says in one place, you know that virtues are road to happiness and vices the road to misery, right? So happiness is a natural result of virtuous behavior, right? And misery is a natural behavior, you know, result of of vicious behavior, right? You can see in the newspaper every day of the week, right?

[8:55] And so many people are miserable, right, for something they've done or done to them. So, but you got to be careful too, because we're more used to the word happier and happiness than we are to blessedness or something, right? So, I mean, you could say God is happy, right? That would be chapter one hundred in the Summa Contra Gentiles And then chapter 101 in book one would be what?

[9:24] He's happiness itself. He's not just happy, but he's happiness itself. And then finally, God's happiness excels that of all others, any other happiness, right? Anybody else has. Even though you had a quo nomen imponitur here it's not so good, right? But makes it more clear to us, right?

[9:45] Rather say God is blessed. God is blessedness itself. Use the word beatitude, right? Okay. Now, let's come back to the seven wise men of Greece, right? The seven is a symbol of wisdom, as you know. Seven angels that stand before God, is in? The Bible. So they said two things. According to the legend, they met at the Oracle of Delphi, right? And the pious legend says that they put up two words, right?

[10:21] Know thyself, and nothing too much. And of those two words, which one comes first? Know thyself. Yeah. And everybody thinks the kind of obvious things, you know, don't eat too much or drink too much for yourself, and you know, and that sort of thing. Um. Guy who ran what from marathon was it to announce the news? He fell, dropped dead because ran too far. Yeah, yeah. And there was a Russian story about the man who can have as much land he can run around in a day.

[11:05] Well, he does manage to run around quite a bit, but he drops dead. So, you know, so but those are kind of obvious examples of nothing too much, right? And they depend upon what know yourself to avoid those, right? But now let's go a little more subtle into this, right? In these two things, huh? Because you say know thyself, that's an exhortation, right? An exhortation is given to someone, right?

[11:35] So, to whom is this exhortation given? Say. Well, is it given to the dog, or is it given to the angel? Who's it given to? But why do you say man and not the dog, or not the angel, right, or God?

[11:58] Well, the angel or God naturally knows himself, right? So you don't have to exhort him to know yourself. The dog can't really know himself. The dog doesn't know what a dog is. A a fortiori tree doesn't know what a tree is, right? Or a stone, what a stone is. It's not addressed to them, I don't think, do you? But it must be something that is able to know itself, right?

[12:21] But maybe doesn't know itself or doesn't know itself too well, right? And that fits man exactly, right? Huh? So you see, it's directed to man, right? Okay. Now you look a little more carefully, and you say, yeah, but man has a body and a soul, right? And can the body know what a body is?

[12:42] So if it's addressed to man, isn't it really more addressed to the soul? We studied the diadem, right? Know thyself, right? Huh? Okay. But now you think a little more deeply, and you say, but just a minute now.

[13:02] The soul has many parts. Can each part know itself? Does anger know what anger is? Does hunger know what hunger is? What's the only part that can know itself? Reason Yeah, The eye doesn't know what an eye is, does it? So it's addressed most of all to reason, right? Okay.

[13:33] And when reason knows itself, it's knowing what's best in man, right? Now, you know something very profound about this. We said that God knows himself, right? So when reason knows itself, it is what like God. Now this is a likeness of what ratios, right? For God to know Himself, for man to know Himself, or for reason to know itself, to be more precise, for reason to know itself is something like for God to know Himself, right?

[14:14] So they're urging you to do to be godlike, huh? True. God most of all knows himself, right? He doesn't know anything else except by knowing himself, by knowing himself. But chiefly he knows himself, and he's blessed because of that, right? He's not blessed because he knows the universe, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[14:45] So that's very profound, right? But now what they add, nothing too much. Say, you might say that if if reason knowing itself is like God knowing Himself, and God knowing Himself is the beatitude of God, right? Well, then reason knowing itself must be the what? Beatitude of God. Yeah. But in this case, you are what making a mistake, aren't you? Say, it's a very noble thing for reason to know itself.

[15:22] It is to be godlike in some way, right? But there's this big difference that God in knowing Himself knows what's best to know, and reason in knowing itself doesn't know what's best to know, and it's not what its what highest object is. That's God Himself, right? So nothing too much. Sure, reason should know itself,

[15:46] but if you make that the end all, the all, that's too much. You've gone too much, right? It's good to know for reason to know what reason is, so it can direct itself and so on, right? But if it makes at its end all and be all, that's too much. Making that, it's not that good. That's when Saint Teresa says, "Even in what is good, we must be measured and restrained."

[16:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We can see how that you know, apart from the obvious things like you know, don't eat too much, don't drink too much, you know, don't you know? Yeah, and some people actually hurt their body, you know, over doing it. You know, exercising or something, you know, or you know, so on all these things. But I mean, the more the more hidden thing is, right?

[16:44] If you see, to what that know thyself is directed most of all is directed to reason knowing itself, and that's very profound because it becomes like God, but proportionally, right? But likeness is the cause of what deception. I had a conversation with

[17:06] Lady Wisdom here, and the conversation I had with Lady Wisdom was about likeness as being the cause of deception. And the way the conversation began was that you know we had this huge table, right, and there's kind of a centerpiece there, right, with little strawberries and things, right. And I don't know how many of the kids were taking one of these and offering it to Grandpa, right?

[17:33] But Grandpa was not deceived by likeness, right? But this was the occasion for a conversation, right? About likeness being the what cause of deception, right? And that is a possibility, right, with this thing, you know. Say, well, I'm godlike, right? I'm just like God. Well, not just like God, but you are like God in some way, right? When your reason, reason, when it knows itself, is in some way like God, right?

[18:03] Because God, most of all, knows himself. Right. He doesn't know anything else except by knowing himself, right? But reason by knowing itself doesn't know everything. It's not the best thing it can know, right? I was reading Thomas today in the was the 19th distinction, I think it was, of the second book, a third book, rather, the sentences, right? Kind of editing these, you know, reading them, so and beautiful description of beatitude, right?

[18:37] You know, but you know he's talking about the friendship between man and the those who see him face to face, right? Yeah, and those are the ones that he loves. Saint Peter, dear Thomas, says, right? You know, shows him shows himself.

[18:57] He has a very great qualification for people like you. Yeah, the flowers. It's beautiful, you know. So I asked my student last Tuesday, "So, what Shakespeare play you been reading recently?" So he tells me what it is. Now, when I went out to to the grandchildren there, I took *Cymbeline*, which is a play that I have a lot of liking for, you know, kind of standing by itself.

[19:28] But before I had left, I've been reading the Henry IV, you know, Part One, and as I came back, I read Henry IV, Part Two, and Henry V. And he said, "Well, I should have read Richard II because that part of the tetralogy, right? Huh? Because Henry IV gets to power by overthrowing what Richard II and so on. But anyway, started reading Richard II again. And you know the words of Mowbray there when he's exiled, right?

[19:56] He's never going to come back to England, and he's an old man, and he can't learn a foreign language. He's going to be, you know, cut off. And the beautiful words, you know, but just one line, you know, struck me.

[20:10] Where he's just talking about the ignorance he's going to be in, right? But it describes ignorance in one line. He says dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance.

[20:27] Now, can you explain to me those three words he says about ignorance? He calls it dull, dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance. That's easier to stoop by this example. Dull is the opposite of sharp. Yeah. Sharp is what penetrates. Yeah. Penetrates what we saw. Somebody has a sharp mind. Yeah, yeah. Now, going back to the definition of reason, remember? In the definition of reason, you have the words looking before and after, right?

[21:00] Huh? Remember that. But then we said if you look before, you realize that you have to look for what distinction, right? Huh? Hence the dullness of the mind that prevents you from seeing a what distinction. So that comes first, right? It's the opposite side of the coin, right? Okay. And then the second word is unfeeling, right? Huh? What does Thomas call the first act of reason? Grasping.

[21:30] Yeah, simple grasping, he calls it, right? So you can't grasp something if you can't distinguish it from other things, right? If I can't separate this cup here from the air, I couldn't what grasp it, huh?

[21:49] Perfectly ordered, right? Dull and therefore unfeeling, right? Now we took that the first part of the definition there that reason is the ability for what discourse, right? And in discourse, the chief kind of discourse is reasoning, right? And the premises that are brought together give rise to what? Yeah. So just like when the husband and the the wife come together, right, and they produce something, right, huh?

[22:23] Okay. And so when the major and the minor premise come together, or the genus and the difference come together, you get a definition or you get a conclusion, right? And then you are not what the mind is not barren, right? Huh? But the definition, the definition of discourse there in the strict sense is coming to know what you don't know through what you do know, right? So you got to know something in order to come to know something else through it, right?

[22:53] So knowledge is what. Fruitful, Fruitful, yeah, but ignorance, which is the non-being of knowledge and something able to know, is going to be what barren. See, isn't that amazing? Huh? That Shakespeare should say that, right? Huh? Dull unfeeling, barren ignorance, right? Same knowledge of opposites, as Plato and Aristotle say, right? But it does cast some light upon the definition, right? And the definition of course casts light upon it, right?

[23:28] It's absolutely amazing, Shakespeare, right? Say, say, when he jotted down, say, you know, yeah, but sticks in my mind, you know, just it's so amazing, huh?

[23:44] You know, when you go to the distinction there, you go to the distinction of the four kinds of causes, right? And you know what these four kinds of causes are?

[24:05] Matter. Matter, form. That's the fourth one, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting how you put the mover and the maker together, right? Huh? Well, I was thinking about mover and maker, and strictly speaking, they both name are named from an activity that does not remain in the doer, right? So when you make something or you move something, you are producing something outside of yourself, right? Or you are moving something other than yourself, right?

[24:44] And it's interesting that in the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, you are talking about God making things, right? And they chose that word didn't they in the creed, huh? They say that, yeah. He made heaven and earth, I guess, huh? You know. But now the third book, when we first give the reason for the third book, right? It's not in terms of the third kind of cause.

[25:12] It's in terms of the fourth kind of cause. The third book is going to show that God is the end or purpose of everything other than Himself, right?

[25:23] And it doesn't stop there, though, right? Because after you learn that God is the end or purpose of everything else, then you learn that God is also moving things towards Himself, right? And so you got those two things: the maker and the mover, right? But the second book is more the maker, and the third book is more the what mover, right? But they're both another kind of activity that has an outside what effect, right?

[25:55] Okay, that is making something outside yourself, right? You don't really make yourself. You can't really move yourself. Unless your car won't. And therefore, right. I mean, you go back to the fact that he takes up the attitude in the first book, right? Because that's the type of activity that is within. Kind of amazing, huh? Amazing, simple things. I was reading Thomas today. He was talking about how, like Christ is a mediator, right?

[26:36] Just, just going down. Is the mediator as God or as man, right? Huh? Goes down, right? Takes up each and every thing you know, just.

[26:49] Yeah. They learned learn things in those days, right? Yeah. I was looking at that book that Warren Murray there contributed to, that Canadian saints, you know. I was reading about the Garnier, right, who was Jesuit, right, came over to Canada, you know, and then she was martyred them, but very, very thing. But it kind of struck me because when I was in Quebec, there was always this bookstore called Garnier, you know, I used to go to, and they had some old, you know, copies of Thomas there, you know, in the Latin and so on.

[27:27] So I was kind of rich. Okay, let's turn to one and three, article four, I guess. That's where, we haven't got too far to go. To get to to what to grace?

[27:43] I have a grandchild. I call the graceful one now, but her name is actually Grace. I call her the graceful one. Yeah. So it's kind of funny though, you know, they have this. They're taking these. What do you call these? I don't know. Little telephones, you know, and they call, you know, they try to make them and so on. They all get a secret name, right? And and Sophia, she took the name Lady Wisdom.

[28:10] So she'll never live that down. I always tell her I'm I'm a philosopher, a lover of Sophia. So I must I must love you. I can't. help it

[28:33] To the fourth, then one goes forward. Thus, it seems that after the passion of Christ, the legal things cannot be what observed without mortal sin. Oh my goodness!

[28:51] It should not be believed that the apostles, after having received the Holy Spirit, sinned mortally. But it says says the Holy Spirit is a pledge of eternal life. Okay. For of His fullness we were what. They were power from above. This is said in the last chapter. Isn't Luke?

[29:28] But the apostles, after the coming of the Holy Spirit, observed legal things. For it is said in Acts chapter 16 that Paul circumscribed Timothy.

[29:44] That's the vengeance, right? Observing the law. And Acts 21, it said that Paul, according to the counsel of James, right, assuming what? Yeah. Purified with them, purified with them, into the temple, announcing they what?

[30:10] until they'd be offered for each one of them their what? Offering. Therefore, after mortal sin, without mortal sin, they were able to what observe the legal things after the passion of Christ. I'm really confused now, aren't you? Which my old teacher Kierkegaard said is the duty of the teacher to confuse things. Thomas, he's something. Yes. I know a priest. Every ten times in the

[30:42] Holy Week, he had these selections from the Gospel of John. It was no weird days. I may explain some of them to you, but he would always refer to these passages leading up to the Passion. These confusing passages in Saint John. No, I don't think they're confusing. They're weird. Well, I've been reading too. You know the the the Catena Aurea, you know, and I finally got now to starting John, right?

[31:07] and through the first three, and I'm really kind of puzzled there. You know, in the beginning there, that in the Catena Aurea, doesn't seem to be recognition that the Greek word is pros there, right? And even you expect on the part of the Greeks, I don't know, the translation into Latin, so on in the Catena Aurea, but you know, I can't be the first person to have seen this.

[31:29] I don't think. You know, it seems that's kind of a thing that they would have. Yeah, and it's such an important thing, right? See, in en archē ēn ho logos, right? The logos was pros ton theon. See, it doesn't say how would you translate apud in in English?

[31:53] Yeah, yeah. It doesn't have the sense of pros towards, right? The Greek word is pros towards, right? Which is the word that Aristotle uses when he talks about relation, right? You know, doesn't use the abstract word, right? He calls it prosti, right? And and in the you know Albert the Great and and the predicate on the categories, he'll translate it ad aliquid, which is you know towards something, yeah, prosti.

[32:23] And that's how you distinguish between the Father and the Son, right? Yeah. And this idea of being sharp, right? And so, well, opposites, you know, was fundamental way of distinguishing things, right? And in both the categories and in the fifth book of Wisdom, when Aristotle takes up the word before, right? Before the word before, he takes up the word what? Opposite, right? So the chapter on opposites in the categories is right before the chapter on before, which is followed by chapter on hama together, right?

[33:04] One is not before or after the other. In the same way, in in the fifth book of Wisdom, right, the book on on the names equivocal by reason that are used, especially in wisdom, but to some extent everywhere, right? You have the opposites right before, right? So what is this distinction of the Father and the Son, right? The Holy Spirit too, but I mean, just stick with the Father and Son.

[33:32] Can they be distinguished by the opposites of contradiction, or? Lack and see, or even contraries, right? See, yeah. If one contrary is more, is lacking in something compared to the other, right? Yeah, one's healthy, or, one's sick. The only one is towards something, right?

[34:02] If God is I am who am, right? The other three kinds of opposites have got somewhat opposition of being and non-being, right? But you can't have that in the one who says I am who am, right? So you're left with yeah, towards something, yeah. So I don't know why they don't. I'm going to read through the the thing that read Thomas's commentary, but I don't remember him saying that.

[34:34] Poor man, you know. They left these crumbs to fall from their table, I might say, for the rest of us. Maybe process some other meanings, you know, that that are closer to apud than, but you know, I see the word process. Struck by it, you know.

[35:01] I took you know semester of Greek there, which is my only formal study of Greek, you know. But we did had little quotes, you know, from the Greeks, right? ho philos estin allos autos, a friend is another self, you know. Make a stick in my mind, but they had the beginning of John's Gospel there, right? And so I mean that was very simple. The beginning was the word, and the word was of God, you know, towards God.

[35:23] The word was God, right? And you know, very simple, right? Repetitive, you know, and so the word was, and so on. But they had old thing quotes there from the Greek and some scripture, you know, and so on. So it was very nice to be in touch with the not just Jill did this or John did this something, you know.

[35:46] Yeah, yeah. But I'm going to talk to Thomas about that when we get up there. Why did you? Yeah, and especially with Greek teachers, I mean, you know.

[36:02] Anyway, let them pass here. Okay. Moreover, it pertains to what? Ceremonies of the law. huh. Yeah, to avoid the what? Consortia, the contact with Gentiles, right? But this, the first pastor of the church observed, right? For it said in the in the epistle to Galatians that when they came to Antioch, right, huh? He subtracted himself and segregated Peter right from the Gentiles.

[36:49] Therefore, without sin after the passion of Christ, the ceremonies of the law could be what observed. We know about that one. We know about that one.

[37:03] Yeah. Yeah. Moreover, the precepts of the apostles do not what induce men to sin. But from the decree of the apostles, was statute; it was established, you might say, that the some Gentiles right would observe about the ceremonies of the law. For he said in Acts fifteen, it seems to the Holy Spirit and to us, for nothing further to impose upon you. No further what burden Burden uh than the things necessary that you abstain from what offerings of yeah and blood and suffocating and what Fornication.

[37:49] fornication therefore without sin the legal ceremonies can be observed after the passion of Christ but against this is what the apostle says in epistle to the Galatians that Saint Paul by the way by Antonomasia if you are what circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing right You'll be subordinate. but nothing excludes the fruit of Christ except what mortal sin therefore to be circumcised and to observe other ceremonies after the passion of Christ is a mortal sin I'm confused now I know Paul got Timothy circumcised so I got to find out about that one what excuse to see unless he had a confession so I'm going to wait till we get there so Thomas says I answer it should be said that all the ceremonial things are

[39:01] certain what professing of the faith not protesting it we're not Protestants in which consists the what inward worship of God now man can profess what his inward faith by deeds as also by what words and in both professing if a man professes something false he sins what mortally

[39:38] so although there be the same faith which we have about Christ and which the what ancient fathers had nevertheless because they came before Christ and we come after the same faith is signified by diverse words by us and by them

[40:05] for by them it is said behold a virgin will conceive and will bring forth a son that's in the future right which are words or verbs of the future time but we however represent them through words of the past time saying that he is conceived and and brought forth

[40:31] And likewise, the ceremonies of the old law signify Christ as something to be born and to undergo, right? But our sacraments signify Him as having been born and undergone, undergone. Thus, there, therefore, one would sin mortally who now, in professing his faith, would say that Christ would be born,

[40:59] which the ancients piously and truly could say. Yeah. So also he sins mortally if someone now observes the what ceremonies which the ancients piously and faithfully observed. I guess he's making a comparison there, right? This is similar to the language, right? And this is what Augustine says in his work against Faustus.

[41:27] For now, it is not permitted to what use the words? I guess nascituris to be born, right? To undergo, to resurrect, right? Be resurrected. It's not permitted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That some will be born, right? That some undergo, some will be resurrected. That those sacraments, in some way, what? Personabant Yeah. But is announced that he is born, that he has suffered, that he has risen from the dead, and these sacraments, which are what undergone or done, by Christians Yeah, They personate them.

[42:23] yeah. Okay, kind of interesting. Where the word persona. Yeah. Okay, now who needs got to get out of the the ropes that he tied, right?

[42:42] To the first, therefore, should be said that about this diversely seem Jerome and Augustine to sense, right? Those are two of the what top doctors of the Western Church, I guess, huh? Jerome and Augustine. For Jerome distinguishes two times, right? One time before the passion of Christ, in which the legal things were neither what, yeah, as were not having the obligatory force, right? Or being expiative for their own what way?

[43:23] Nor were they what killing. Killing. Because they did not sin, who observed them, right? But immediately, however, after the passion of Christ, they began to be not only what dead, but not having power and obligation, right? But they were also Mortiferum, death giving, causing, so that those sinned mortally, whoever what observed them. right? Whence the apostles, the ascended apostles never observed the legal things after the passion, in truth, right?

[44:07] But only with a pious simulation. though. this is a really kidding thing. Nay, unless they scandalize the Jews and impede their what? Conversion. Yeah. Simulation is not dissimulation. always remember Yeah. Not the same thing.

[44:30] Which simulation should be thus understood? Not that those acts they did not make according to what truth, yeah, but that they did not make them as it were what observing the ceremonies of the law. Just as if someone right takes off the the skin there of the male member, right, on account of health, right. So apparently they do it nowadays, right? The doctor doesn't think he's performing the legal rights of the Jews.

[45:05] Yeah. Not as a cause of the legal circumcision to be observed, right? But because it seems indecent, not fitting, that the apostles what hide on account of scandal the things which pertain to the truth of life and what teaching.

[45:29] Truth ought not to be set aside to avoid scandal, and that they use what simulation in those things which pertain to the salvation of the world. Of men. Therefore, more suitably Augustine distinguishes what three times. One before the passion of Christ, in which the legal things were neither dead nor causing death, right. Another after the time of the gospel when it's been set forth, in which the legal things are now dead and causing death, and the third is a what Middle time from the passion of Christ to the time when the gospel is spread about, right.

[46:17] In which the legal things were dead, because neither do they have some strength. nor is someone held to observe them, right? But they were not what causing death, because those who were converted to Christ and the Jews were able to licitly observe those what legal things.

[46:43] They did not put their hope in them, as regarding them as necessary for salvation. As it were, without the legal things, thinking that the faith of Christ could not be what justify.

[46:59] But from those who were converted from gentility, right, not the Jews, but from the Gentiles to Christ, there was not a cause that they be observed, right. And therefore Paul circumscribed Timotheus, Timothy, uh, who was from what a mother, born a Jewish mother. Yeah. But Titus, however, who was born the Gentiles, he did not wish to what. Circumcise. Yeah. Lucky guy. Therefore, the Holy Spirit did not what wish that at once one what?

[47:46] Being prevented, I guess. Yeah, those who were being converted from the Jewish, from the Jews, the observation of legal things, as are inhibited those who were converted from Gentiles, right? The right to gentility, that they might show a certain difference between these two rights, huh? Because salvation is from the Jews. Yeah, yeah. There's some, there's some kind of question sometimes that they say about nowadays, you know, like you're not supposed to try to convert the Jews, you know.

[48:22] That's I don't know. That's kind of. Well, it's I wonder about these Christians who have the seder meals and so forth. It's one thing to study the matter historically and see the Christian significance and foreshadowing. Yeah. Another to go through the ceremony itself. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of Judaizing, I think. And the church. Yeah, it's kind of Judaizing. And yet, on one hand, that's okay, that's tolerable.

[48:49] But don't you dare try to convert a Jew What? Yeah. We're supposed to go back to their stuff, but they're not supposed to come forward. to ours Yeah. This kind, of this outreach to the Jews is kind of strange that way, you know. You don't exactly come and say we're going to try to convert you now, but. but. uh, to announce it, one shouldn't be trying to do that.

[49:17] It's a good thing. For the right of the gentility is repudiated as being omnino illicitus, entirely illicit, and from and prohibited by God always, right?

[49:32] But the right of the law ceased being fulfilled by the passion of Christ, as being instituted by God as a figure of Christ and a sign of Christ. Okay. So

[49:50] the different treatment of Timothy and Titus. To second, it should be said that according to Jerome, Peter what simulatorie subtracted himself from the Gentiles, right? That he might avoid the scandal of the Jews, of whom he was the what? Apostle Yeah. Whence in this, in no way did he sin. But Paul, what similarly? simulatorie Yeah. That he might avoid scandal of the Gentiles of which he was the apostle.

[50:38] This is a good answer. I like this. But Augustine disproves this. Oh, I didn't like that yeah. Because Paul in the canonical scripture, Galatians two, in which is not what.

[50:58] That's contrary to divine law. Yeah, to believe something to be false, says that Peter was what? Reprehensible. That's correcting the Pope there, right? So I don't know. I'm gonna Put this up to our friend. Yeah. Whence it is true that Peter what? Sinned. And Paul, truly, him not in pretending, right? Yeah, reprehended him Footnote here says that St. Thomas later teaches it was only a venial sin Yes.

[51:38] Peter, however, did not sin in this that he observed for some time the legal things, right? Because this was for him what? This is as it were being converted from the Jews.

[51:52] But he sinned in this that about the observance of legal things, he gave exceeding diligence lest the Jews not be what scandalized. Thus that from this there follows the scandal of the Gentiles.

[52:13] You don't have to hear these guys' confession. thank God. I forget that some friend of mine, Brother Richard is there, he's saying, you know, no priest under the age, I forget was thirty or forty, like that, worth going to confession to. Yeah.

[52:57] To a third should be said that some say that that prohibition of the apostles is not to be understood ad litteram, right? But according to a spiritual understanding, right? That in the prohibition of blood is understood the prohibition of homicide. In the prohibition of suffocation, suffocated or choked to death, is understood the prohibition of violence and rape. In prohibition of things offered up, is understood the prohibition of idolatry, right?

[53:35] Fornication is prohibited, as it were, per se malum. And this opinion they take from certain glosses, who expound these precepts mystically. But because homicide and rape, I guess, are also reputed among the Gentiles as illicit, would be not necessary about this a special mandate to be given to those who were converted from gentility to Christ. Whence others say that ad litteram, huh, in the letter, eating of these things was prohibited, right?

[54:17] Not on account of the observance of legal things, but to compress gluttony, huh? Gula. Whence Jerome says upon that of Ezekiel forty-four, everything what? Poisons. I don't

[54:40] want to present. You shall not eat of anything that is dead. Oh, anything dead. Yeah. They condemn priests who, in the what? Foods. And other things, with the um, desire of gluttony, right? to not guard this. Greedy God.

[54:52] But because there are some foods more delicate and provoking gluttony, does not seem a reason wherefore these more than others should be what prohibited, huh? And therefore it should be said according to a third opinion.

[55:10] And he says here in the footnote of my thing here, he alludes here perhaps to an opinion of Augustine, right? Anyway. Um. And therefore it should be said according to the third opinion that in the letter, right, these things are prohibited, not to observing the ceremonies of the law, but in order that there could coalesce a union of the Gentiles and the Jews living together. Yeah, I think so.

[55:50] And the Jews, on account of custom, blood and suffocated were abominable, right? And eating of things offered in. To idols. Yeah. Could in the Jews gender what suspicion about the Gentiles that they're returning to idolatry, huh? And therefore these are prohibited for that time in which newly they came together in the in the in one the Gentiles and the Jews.

[56:24] But preceding time, the cause ceasing, the effect ceases, for being manifested the truth of the gospel teaching. In which Christ teaches that nothing that enters into the mouth stains a man, as is said, Matthew fifteen. Nothing should be rejected that is received with the action of grace. Thanksgiving. I wouldn't thank you for fish, so I thank you for the steak, though. Father Hardin says there are two kinds of grace.

[56:59] There's pleasant grace and painful grace. We still, thank you for that. Same Fornication however, is permitted especially because the Gentiles are not regarded as being what Sin huh Okay, so maybe Thomas thinks it's okay. Wow. When you get to grace, where is grace? here It's pretty soon. here Coming up Any day 109 is it Oh boy! Oh boy! Got to suffer here, huh? I'll take a break Yeah.

[57:35] okay.