Tertia Pars
76. Christ's Merit and Beatific Vision from the First Instant of His Conception; Is Birth Said of the Person or the Nature?
Class of 2010-02-11
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/13-tertia-pars/076-christs-merit-and-beatific-vision-from-the-first-instant/

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

[0:27] Thomas is talking about in the Summa Contra Gentiles how men left to themselves, you know, would make many mistakes in trying to understand God, and he says he gives two reasons for it. And one, he says, is the debilitas, the weakness in their ability to judge, and the other is the permixtio of phantasms of images, right? So I was thinking about that in regards to this prayer we say.

[0:59] We ask the angels to what strengthen the light of our mind, because it's the light of our mind that what enables us to judge, and then order our images, right? That keeps us away from getting led astray from images. So, it ties in a little text there from the

[1:21] third chapter, I guess it is, no fourth chapter, fourth chapter of the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles Okay, Whether Christ in the first instant of his conception was able to what merit, huh? To the third one goes forward. Thus, it seems that Christ in the first instant of his conception was unable to what merit, huh?

[1:53] For just as free judgment or free will is to meriting, so it is to what demeriting, huh? But the diabolus, huh, the devil, in the first instant of his creation was not able to what sin, as has been had in the first part. Therefore, neither was the soul of Christ in the first instant of his creation, which was the first instant of the conception of Christ, huh?

[2:26] Neither was he able then to what merit, right? You couldn't demerit, you couldn't merit, right? That first instant. Okay. Now, of course, as Plato says, likeness is a slippery thing, right?

[2:43] And so the devil and Christ may not be altogether alike in the first instant of their creation, right? But we have to wait for the master to enlighten us on this matter.

[2:57] Moreover, that which man has in the first instant of his conception seems to him to be what natural, and this is part of the reason why we say the devil, right? His first act is natural, right? And there is not one who is going to merit by it,

[3:17] because this is that to which natural generation ends up with him. But by natural things we do not what merit. So I didn't merit today by digesting my food, right?

[3:34] Or my grandchildren didn't merit by by growing today, huh? Therefore, so this is this is going back to the reason behind why we said that about the devil, right? Okay, so it's interesting when he develops this there. Therefore, it seems that the use of free judgment, which Christ had as man in the first instant of his conception, could not have been meritorious. He would have had a natural act there rather than a free act.

[4:09] That's interesting. We apply this to the question about God and His love right now. Because God loves Himself by natural necessity? At the same time, if you use the word time there, right? The same eternal now, right? Could He also freely love us? And

[4:38] be by the same what act though, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in us, the in the devil, even right, the natural act is not the what free act. huh? They're the same. They're The same. Yeah. In one the same act is natural and free. Yeah, but not with respect to the same things. Yeah, yeah. It's very hard for us to understand the simplicity of God. is hard to understand.

[5:10] It's not necessary to. love us. It's right. that's clear. It's a point. in us. It's free. It's a free. So, nevertheless, we have to know the simplicity of God in a composite way, right? Just like we say, you know, why does God have a will? Because of His understanding, right? But does not the one is really the cause of the other? Because His understanding and His will are the same thing, right?

[5:34] We have to understand it that way. If I was reading, I was reading Augustine's letter one twenty there today, and he's talking about. How you should try to help people to understand what they believe, right? But according to their capacity of understanding, right? Some which is much and some is little, you know. And he kind of gives you know a threefold distinction there about what the mind might be like, right?

[6:07] And some can't really understand at all what they believe, but they can still believe it, right? Some can understand a little bit, some some more, and so on. And you have to, you know, have some, you know. Plant mac. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so I probably can't tell what they're trying to instruct the the grandchildren, right?

[6:32] Try to make them understand more than they're capable of understanding at these at their young ages, right? Moreover, that which someone what at once is it At once. At once merits he already makes in some way his own, right? And thus it does not seem that again he's able to merit that same thing, because no one merits what is his own. If therefore Christ in the first instant of his conception merited, it would follow that afterwards he merited nothing, which is clearly false.

[7:21] Therefore, Christ in the first instant of his conception, but did not merit? huh? I start to remember Father Baumgartner talking about the significance of this, you know, that Christ, you know, is already able to merit for us, you know, from the very instant of his creation, right?

[7:43] Okay. But against this is what Augustine says upon Exodus, huh? That Christ did not what have altogether right according to the merit of the soul by which he was able to progress. What does that mean?

[8:05] Able to go for. Saying he can go for or not. None have. What does Augustine say there? Increase of merit was absolutely impossible to the soul of Christ. Increase of merit. Okay. Increase of merit was absolutely impossible to the soul. Oh, and then he's the next sentence. He'd be able to progress in merit if, in the first instant of his conception, he had not merited.

[8:40] Therefore, in the first instant of his conception, Christ merited, huh? I try to read Augustine's Latin is harder for me than St. Thomas's, and I look at this letter one twenty. There is I kind of found and and

[8:59] Sidney am I pronouncing that correctly? Yeah, it's definitely Yeah, that's where that text comes, you know, from the Latin one twenty. where he says, "Intellectum valde ama." Yeah, love the understanding. Yeah, quoted by I think Paul the Sixth, maybe, or John the Twenty-third, or being John Paul the Second. You know, that text of his. So, intellectum valde ama. Put these put these Franciscans in their place.

[9:39] Love, love, love very much the understanding. Yeah, love the understanding very much. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The answer should be said that. In the first, as has been said above, Christ in the first instant of his conception was what sanctified by grace. And

[10:11] I suppose some modern scholars would want to say that, you know, taking away. The relief we have from the first moment of his conception. Okay. There is, however, a twofold sanctifying. One of adults, right, who are sanctified according to their own act, right. The other of boys, right. Children. Yeah. Okay.

[10:45] Who are not sanctified according to their own act of faith, right? But according to the faith of the parents or the church, huh? Now the first sanctifying is more perfect than the second. I mean, they're adults, right? Just as act is more perfect than habit, and what is per se than that is than that which is per alia, right?

[11:19] Incidentally, there that word per se, right? In the fifth book of wisdom, huh? On the third part of the fifth book of wisdom which is the book about names, right? Equivocal by reason that are used in wisdom, especially, but also in the axioms and so on. When he gets to the third part, he takes up the words "perfect" and the word "whole, which mean almost the same thing, right?

[11:42] It takes up the word "perfect" first, and then after that, he takes up three words that are connected with perfection. And one is is end, and one is per se, and the other is half. Okay. So notice he's saying here, actus est perfectior quam habitus, right? And more generally, quod est per se, than what is per alio, right?

[12:21] Since therefore the sanctifying of Christ was perfectissima, because he was thus sanctified that he might be the sanctifier of others. Consequently, is it that he, according to the his own motion of what free will towards God was what sanctified? So what does he mean that he moved towards God in his will in the very instant of his what? Yeah. And not just habitual, you know. Okay.

[13:07] Like Saint Paul would say to somebody who's a little getting slack, you know, stir up the grace that's in you, but the habitual grace, right, into something that's it's more actual. Which motion of free will is meritorious? Whence it follows that in the very first instant of his conception, Christ what merited?

[13:32] And did we are enough there to to save us right then? Probably, I don't think so. Yeah. He didn't have to do much. That's what I've been reading a lot about lately. He didn't have to do much anything to save us from our sins, but he chose to do much the most glorious, most painful, so that we would have no doubt no excuses not to love it Yeah.

[13:56] But you have to catch your breath here now. You see, you can breathe freely once you know he's been conceived, right? Okay. Now, what about this likeness between the the that the first objection is given between the devil and Christ, right?

[14:17] Well, very interesting what the great Thomas does here. To the first, therefore, it should be said that free will, not in the same way, has itself to good and to bad. And now you see the difference here.

[14:35] For it has itself to the good, per se, and naturally, but to the bad by way of defect and outside of nature. Ran across a text there from Cicero, right? And I kind of added to a little thing I was writing upon the fall of the devil, remember? And and Shakespeare, right? Where Thomas is saying the same thing about the fall of the devil that Shakespeare says about evil, that you're departing from your nature.

[15:14] And Cicero is saying that he's talking, I guess, in the in De Republica there about the natural law, right? Huh? And that if a man goes against that, he's what Departing from himself and going against his nature, right? And if he's not punished, he says, you know, in the ordinary sense, people think of punishment, he is really going to be punished very severely for this. Kind of a striking passage for me, huh?

[15:38] But Thomas is touching upon here again here, right? Bonum se habet, what to the to to the good, free will has itself per se, right, et naturaliter, right? Huh? To the bad by way of defect and apart from nature, right? So it's not a defect in God's will that he can't will the bad. Okay.

[16:05] But as the philosopher himself says in the second book about the universe, that is what afterwards, that is outside of nature, right? From that which is according to nature, because that which is outside or apart from nature, against nature in a sense, right? Is a certain what cutting off or falling down from what is according to nature,

[16:33] and therefore the free will of the creature in the very first instant of creation is able to be moved to what meriting the good, not, however, what to evil by what sinning, if, however, the nature is what is whole, right? Which the the angel was right when he

[17:03] was created. Now the second objection is going down to the reason order. To the second, it should be said that that which man has in the beginning of his creation, according to the common course of nature, is natural to man, right? But nothing prevents, but that some creature in the beginning of its creation, achieves or or acquires some benefit of grace from God, right? And in this way, the soul of Christ in the beginning of his creation attained to a grace by which he was able to what merit, and for the same reason that grace, according to a certain what likeness, is said to have been natural to that man, right?

[17:56] As is clear by Augustine in the Enchiridion. That's very interesting way of speaking, right? That is natural to him, right? Is this used maybe somebody would speak of it in terms of being co-natural, given grace, sort of co-natural. Well, given that given that that the second person of the Trinity has taken this on, because how about in the case of Adam? Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

[18:29] Yeah, no. Why don't these? Well, maybe there is something. Yeah, we have to go into the details of that, but because he was created in grace, right? Yeah, grace. That's that's what I do. I tend to use the word if it's I'm picking this up right. I would speak of as co-natural, meaning given grace. Yeah. That's the natural progress of grace. But but but much more so in the case of Christ because being joined to his person, I'm thinking that text in the Gospel St.

[18:55] John where he said we saw him what? It's the only begotten son of him, then full of grace and truth. And Thomas says, well, one is following upon the other, right? Then you know. So, because his human nature is joined to the second person, then you might say it's natural that it be full of grace and what truth.

[19:22] Now, the third about merit: nothing prevents something from being of someone from diverse what causes, right? And thus, and according to this, Christ, the glory of immortality, which he merited in the very first instant of his conception, right? He was able also by later acts and passions, sufferings, to merit, huh?

[19:58] Not that it would be. What more owed to him, but that we owe to him for many causes. Do you ever get very indebted to somebody, right?

[20:12] You couldn't be indebted to them more. But my daughter's birthday there yesterday, or the sixth there, I should say, February. And my wife called her up on the phone, you know, to so on. Of course, I was saying, "Lord, you know," and so on. And I thought she said, "You know, thank you for giving life to me." I said, "Yeah." I said, "That you said, yeah, yeah."

[20:43] So okay. Now going to Article Four here, right? Who the Christ was a perfect comprehensor in the first instant of his what conception, right?

[21:03] To this fourth one goes forward. Thus, it seems that Christ was not a perfect comprehensor in the first instant of his conception, right? You have the full vision or something. For merit precedes reward or reward, just as guilt punishment. But Christ, in the first instant of his conception, merited, as has been said. Since, therefore, the status of comprehender is the principal or chief reward, it seems that Christ, in the first instant of his conception, was not a what comprehensor.

[21:52] Moreover, the Lord Himself says these things is necessary for Christ to undergo, to suffer, and thus to enter into His glory. But glory pertains to the status of comprehension, right? Saint Thomas uses the word glory there, you know, in those prayers, huh?

[22:16] Rhythmus of St. Thomas. huh? The last one. The last one. Yeah, Yeah. So he was not in the state of comprehension in the first instant of conception, when not yet had he undergone any what passion.

[22:40] Well, yeah, it doesn't mean his divine nature, but I mean his body, his body, body, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oops. Yeah, it's like we're doing

[22:57] logic last night. That I had these two guys at the house there, you know, between the A's and C's. Galvanic stuff, you know, and and you see what you want to say, you know, and

[23:08] and it keeps on changing, you know, huh? Because because you get a an argument in one syllogism through the impossible, and then you say that can be shown directly in another figure, and you kind of figure out the other syllogism might be. Well, then the letters are different arrangements, you know. You tend to remember the first letters.

[23:28] It would be great to be in heaven and do that stuff. It would make me fun of Obama, you know, because he's been saying corpse man for the corpsman. Yeah, yeah, and apparently he's done it, you know, three or four months ago, and then recently he did again, you know, and so everybody's making fun of him, you know, for for this. He's been doing it correctly, you know, I mean, for this sort of thing, and he's you know with the naval academy at one time and another time, soldiers there and so on.

[24:00] Corpse man, I mean. A bunch of cadavers laying out there. Yeah, it happens. It's humbling. And Biden is trying to claim, you know, the success that they had in Iraq was, you know, great accomplishment of our administration. He was opposing the the the surge, you know. Yeah. But they end up these guys are kind of clowns in the sense. Anyway.

[24:45] Third objection, all right. More of that which does not which belongs, neither to man nor to an angel, right? Seems to be proper to God, right? And thus would not seem to belong to Christ according as He is man. But to always be blessed, does not belong neither to man nor to the what? Yeah. That's not double negative there. That takes away it's emphasis upon the negative there, right?

[25:20] For if they had been conditioned blessed, right? Constructed, I mean, created, yeah, blessed. Afterwards, they would not have sinned, right? Therefore, Christ, according as man, was not blessed in the first instant of his conception. That sounds like a modern scriptural scholar would be saying that, right?

[25:43] Yeah, he had earned his. Had earned just like the rest of us, right? Division. He's like us in all things of sin. Yeah, yeah.

[25:53] But against this is what is said in Psalm sixty-four. Beatus quem elegisti huh? Blessed whom you have chosen and assumed, right? Which, according to the gloss,

[26:13] they refer to Augustine, I guess. Refers to the human nature of Christ, right? Which was taken on by the Word of God in unity of person.

[26:25] But in the first instant of what his conception, human nature was taken on by the Word of God. Therefore, the first instant of his conception, Christ, according as his man was what, blessed, huh? Which is to be a comprehensor.

[26:52] Thomas argues there in the Summa Contra Gentiles that nothing is more perfect than pursuit of wisdom, right, for man. And he says, as the reason why it's more perfect is that, in a way, man is already partaking of his end, which is beatitude, right? And then he quotes Ecclesiasticus,

[27:18] right, where it says, "Blessed is the man who dwells with what wisdom, right? " So, already has something of the end, right? That's the third thing Aristotle gives in the fifth book of Perfect, right? Was reached its end, right? So, if the man who dwells with wisdom isn't already blessed, as it says, it shows how perfect this pursuit is.

[27:50] Okay, let's see what Thomas says now in the body article. I answer: It should be said, as is clear from the fourth set of things said already, it was not suitable that Christ, in his conception, would receive what grace habitual only, right, without the act.

[28:18] For he received grace not to some what measure or limit, huh? But the grace of the wayfarer, how do you translate that, huh? Via. That's a pretty good idea. The grace over the wayfarer, since it is what falling short of the grace of the one who comprehends, has a lesser measure with respect to the one who is a comprehender. Well, and Christ has got to have what the comprehender has.

[28:55] Whence it is manifest that Christ, in the very first instant of his conception, accepted not only so much grace. As the comprehensors have, but also greater than that of all comprehenders. How do they translate comprehenders in that text?

[29:17] Not only as much as greatest comprehensor, but also greater than that which they all have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And because that grace was not without act, it follows that he was in act a comprehensor, seeing God right through his essence more clearly than other what creatures, huh?

[29:54] Looking down to the first, it should be said. You know, it says merit precedes reward, right? The first. Therefore, it should be said that as has been said above, Christ did not merit the glory of the soul by which he is said to be a what comprehensor, but the glory of his what body to which he arrived at through his what passion.

[30:24] And then Thomas, you can answer the same way, I guess. The second one, right? He says these things was necessary for God to what suffer, undergo, and thus enter into His glory, right, into His glory of His body.

[30:43] Now the third objection says, well, neither man nor angel, right? Okay. To the third, it should be said that Christ, from the fact that he was both God and man, even in his humanity, had something apart from other creatures, or more so than other creatures, that to wit, statim at once. From the beginning, he was what blessed, yeah, that he was full of grace and truth, as as it says in the Gospel of Saint John.

[31:20] Does the church say that's the greatest gospel or not? Does the church say? I don't know. No, Origen does. I was just going to say the word Origen. I know Vatican II says that even among the books of the New Testament, Testament huh the Gospels have a yeah. so they put the Gospels before all the books of the New Testament, all the rest of the books in the Old Testament, but it doesn't go and say it doesn't pick among the Gospels of it at all.

[31:58] I was talking last night to him a little bit about that thing I was talking to earlier there about Peter's confession of faith, you know, and then how Saint John has it also in a way, but in the account of the of the of Mark and Luke, you just say there are the Christ, doesn't get as far as as Matthew does, but in Matthew, only in Matthew you have the account of, and therefore you're going to build the church upon this, right?

[32:27] So you only have a complete confession, you know, so you can't build the church and just say you're Christ, you've got to say you are Christ, the Son of God, and build the church on that. I think their lost scandal was it? Scanvise wasn't in Mark and Luke, right? Just says Christ, but that's why they say you know they have the two apostles at the two ends there, you know, to hold up the guys in the middle, right?

[32:54] I think Augustine says that, yeah. Yeah, and one of them said it, but they also mentioned that. you got two eyewitnesses, Matthew and John, and you got two disciples, of two chief eyewitnesses, the disciple of Saint Peter and Saint Mark, Yeah. Disciple of Saint Paul and Saint Luke. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

[33:19] Well, hearsay and then direct. Yeah, yeah. I kind of wonder why why Thomas did the commentary on John and Matthew. You know, Matthew would have not may not done the other yet to do it. Why did those two first? You know. Chris has done them too. Yeah, Matthew and John. They didn't do Mark and Luke either. Yeah, he he only has homilies on Matthew and John. Yeah.

[33:46] As far as I know, and he has homilies on I think almost every other book in the New Testament except the Apocalypse. Yeah. Yeah. But they're they're not it's not like a complete commentary. It's just sort of rambling. It's typical of the fathers, just rambling homilies, but it's taken from those gospels in order, or those books? But in mass there over the last month or so they've been doing Luke and Mark.

[34:05] I say, I remember that in John, though. Got to get John. I remember that a little bit over there. To give you an idea, to give you an idea of the generation I grew up when when they start you know the different years they have the different gospels now because that's my whole life. Yeah. The cycle of gospels and so and I'd hear some account from the Passion I hadn't heard and immediately my first assumption was the priest was changing something.

[34:31] I didn't hear that before. He's saying you know he dropped something out or That's my generation. We grew up with that kind of thing. I just wasn't ready for the gospel. I remember being kind of you know mildly scandalized by seeing there's no account of the Eucharist there in John at the Last Supper. It was in chapter six, but there's no account of the institution of the sacrament there.

[34:54] You know, see, why do you just look so important? But I think he had he was supposed to be the last gospel to be written, isn't it? And he's filling in things that they didn't. You know. That's what I always- Yeah, he takes a bit earlier time with Christ, I think, too, in his public life. Yeah. So what I always noticed is the disproportion between the account of the Last Supper in John's gospel versus the other gospels.

[35:19] It's almost a quarter of the whole gospel is just the Last Supper. Mm hmm It's kind of huge proportion. Do you celebrate today is Our Lady of Lourdes Yes, it's Father's birthday today. May Christus be the Lady of Lourdes today.

[35:47] Okay. Yeah, so that in a sense is in that text again as Saint John, right? Huh? We saw him as the only begotten Son of God, right? Full of grace and truth, right? So that unique thing.

[36:12] So he's like us in all things, son of God. Pretty much. And he's like us in a lot of things. He's got a lot more. Yeah, yeah. Got more good things. I assume that the modern scholars who deny these things would be using those kind of texts, right? My impression from what we've experienced is they say, well, if he had vision, then he wasn't like us in all things.

[36:39] That's sort of their reason. He wasn't like us in all things. He had vision. Well, we're not there yet, but that doesn't mean something's wrong. It's like he's not like us. That's not something foreign to human nature. It's supernatural. It's a gift, but we're engineered that. When is

[36:59] in this letter one twenty of Augustine there? You see, when he says intellectum valde amare, right? Now, whether he take intellectum to be the power or the understanding, right? But he's talking about Scripture, and he says, "Well, he says the heretics accept Scripture too, right? But they don't understand it, and they they follow themselves, not Scripture. So intellectum valde amare, right? You know, Scripture's not going to do any good if you don't understand it.

[37:29] So God likes understanding very much because Scripture will become actually harmful, like it does for the for the heretics, right? It leads them astray because they don't have the understanding of Scripture.

[37:44] I suppose whatever the prerequisites are for understanding, if they don't love those, then they won't get the understanding. Yeah, yeah. I got Father Church's guidance in understanding Scripture, and that's what that parable of the seed falling on the footpath and the birds come and take it away, and the birds those that's the ones hear the word but they don't understand it. Yeah. And the demons come and take it away.

[38:03] So if they don't cultivate what's required to understand it, then God will let the demons take it away. And Thomas goes through, you know, all these heretics Arius and Sabellius you know, the father is greater than I. and we just understand what this means and apply it to him in his divine nature. Period. And

[38:27] then intellectum valde amare. Yep. Well, I found like the other quote about humility is in letter one eighteen. Oh, so go back two letters.

[38:42] Okay, now we come to the birth of Christ, huh? Nativitas right? And from Nativity Parish there in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Nativity of Our Lord.

[39:01] Now, consequently, after the conception of Christ, we're not to tweet about his what birth, huh? And first, as regards the birth itself; second, as regards the manifestation of the birth, which will be in the next question.

[39:23] About the first, eight things are asked. First, whether birth is of nature or the person. You want to ask that kind of question. Okay. Second, whether to Christ should be attributed another birth apart from the eternal birth that he has. Well, sometimes wasn't in the Christmas masses there. The first mass was celebrating his eternal birth, wasn't it? The mass during the middle of the night or something, and then, yeah, and there was you know they had the gospel reading, John's gospel, right?

[40:06] And then you get the get the human birth and so. So they remark the two different births. Whether and third, whether according to the temporal birth, so that's good answer. Yes, to the second one. Yeah, the Blessed Virgin is what is mother.

[40:30] Fourth, was she ought to be called the Mother of God? Now, some of the Protestants like to call her the Mother of God. Have you heard that sometimes? They like to, or don't they? They don't like to. They generally don't. It's like you know. They don't understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what Father Heaven says. But we have a blessing every night in prayer before we go to bed.

[40:53] We have a blessing at the icon, and he always says, "Black Nun, Blessed Mother, through the Immaculate Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God." He always tells us about the Protestant was here for the night prayer, pulled him aside after. Did you call her the Mother of God? And I said yeah. Amen Five for the Christ, according to two what sonships, right? Is the Son of God the Father and of the Virgin Mary?

[41:30] I don't think he's going to be two sons. I don't think. Why shouldn't he be his two births? Huh? He's the son of man and son of God. So we'll see what the master says, though. So you don't take my word for it. Six, oh, six question about the manner of the Nativity or birth, huh? And seventh about the place of it, and fourth about the time of the nativity, huh?

[42:00] Very thorough, Thomas. That's the word, you know, the word diligent, intelligent student. It's a loving one. Yeah, he wants all the little details, right? Yeah. I was looking at a couple little pamphlets I picked up, and they're over in England there at the Stratford Avon, you know, one on Stratford Avon, the one on Shakespeare, you know. Kind of a few little interesting details about Shakespeare, you know.

[42:28] I kind of forgot in there, didn't know, you know, so I was doing, you know, tidbits, yeah, yeah. And no one seems to know exactly when Shakespeare or I got tied up with the actors there, but you know they have records now of the, you know, this one year right around Shakespeare took off. There were five different companies of actors that came to perform in Stratford Avon, right?

[43:00] And we know some of them were short of, you know, personnel, and they need some more personnel. So very likely he might have picked up, you know, one of them, volunteered, and a leading position, and got back, and came to London, and that also started his great,

[43:17] yeah. It's always interesting things, you know. They had a picture there of uh painting, I guess, with Sir Walter Scott who's a very famous per you know, novelist at the time, and poet. he came down to Stratford Avon, you know, and he said some things, you know, noble things about Shakespeare. But anyway, one of his painter friends did a painting of him, you know, there in the church there, you know, kind of standing there in front of Shakespeare's grave, you know, looking down.

[43:46] It's a beautiful picture. Just after we did it, so too just just captures it, you know, just the lighting and everything just captures, you know, the reverence that he has there, you know, for for Shakespeare. Just just amazing. So if you have a diligent love of this man here, Christ, then you want to know all these little details, you know, however insignificant they may look at first, you know.

[44:11] All these little things about him. That's the way you know. Alphonsus does the passion, right? You know, even Isaiah and everybody, you know, songs, you know, yeah. And he does that at Christmas time. He has his meditations right after Christmas on Christ being laid in the straw, how how poor that was, how painful it must have been for the newborn child. What in the world inspired the Blessed Mother to put down a newborn infant on a hard surface?

[44:43] I mean this is what he quotes from one of the saints who says there is a mystery. He inspired him to do this so he could suffer. Oh boy! He just drawn a lot right in the back!

[44:57] To the first, then one proceeds. Thus, it seems that nativity belongs to nature more than to the person. Right? Of course, the word comes from nature. Right?

[45:13] That's one of the words taken up in the fifth book of wisdom. Right? The word nature, which first means birth. For Augustine says in the book on faith to Peter,

[45:31] the eternal nature and the divine right cannot be what? Yeah, conceived and born from human nature, except according to the truth of human nature. Right. Thus, therefore, it belongs. to what? The divine nature, to be conceived and born by reason of the what? Human nature. Much more, therefore, does it belong to what? Human nature.

[46:04] But is human nature born, or is it the person that's born? Oh, here's a reference now to the fifth book of wisdom here. Moreover, according to the philosopher, according to the philosopher in, the fifth book, the name of nature is taken from what?

[46:28] But denominations come about according to the suitableness of likeness. Therefore, it seems that birth more pertains to nature than to the person, right? So birth is is coming to what? Get your nature, right? Moreover, that is properly born, that through birth begins to be. But through the nativity of Christ does not begin to be the person of Christ, but is human nature. Although his person does come to be in that nature.

[47:07] Therefore, it seems that nativity properly belongs to nature, not to the person. And against this is what Damascene says in the third book on the Orthodox faith, right?

[47:25] I ran across a text of Thomas there where he takes Orthodox not to mean a right opinion, right, but right glory. I don't know. I've never seen that before. Yeah, doxa. I mean, it can have that sense, I know. But I mean, you know, I've always thought in terms of doxo, you know, what you what you think, you know. You think rightly, you know. You glory in the right things.

[47:53] Interesting. You never know. So nativity is not is of the hypostasis, right? Not of nature, right? Those Greeks use the word hypostasis there for the person, right? Okay.

[48:16] I answer: It should be said that birth can be attributed to something in two ways. In one way, as to the subject of the birth, right? Another way as the term or end of this process.

[48:32] But to the subject, it's attributed that it is born, right? And this is properly the hypostasis, not the what? Nature. For since to be born is in a is a certain kind of being generated, right? Just as what is generated, something is generated in order that it might be, right? So something is born that it might be. But being is properly of a thing that what subsists.

[49:07] For the form which does not subsist is to said to be only that is said to be only because by it something is. But the person or the hypostasis is signified in the manner of the thing subsisting, right?

[49:32] Thing that subsists is a thing that exists, not in another as in a subject, right? Nature, however, is signified by manner of what form in which something subsists, huh? Not as that which subsists, but the form in which it subsists, right? And therefore nativity or birth, as to subject, right, properly of being born, being born is attributed to the person or the hypostasis, not to the nature, right?

[50:07] But as to the term nativity is attributed to what nature? For the the end of each generation and every birth is the form. That's one way Aristotle argues that forms be called nature as well as matter, right?

[50:27] He shows in the second book, the Natural Hearing, right, that nature is both matter and form in the genus of substance. Nature, however, is signified by what manner of form, right? Whence birth is said to be a way into what nature, as is clear through the philosopher in the second book of Natural Hearing, right?

[50:59] So the intention of nature ends at form or the nature of the what species, huh? Someone asked me, why do you say natural hearing instead of physics, right? Thomas says physics, because in his day you wouldn't have the same confusion you have today, right? Because of our use of the word physics, huh?

[51:25] Of course, the word natural hearing is is more what revealing, right? That's actually the title of the Greek natural hearing. To the first, it should be said, this is a text now from Augustine, there, right? That an account of the identity which there is in divine things between the nature and the hypostasis, huh?

[52:04] sometimes nature is placed for person or hypostasis, right? And according to this, Augustine says that the divine nature to be what conceived and born, right? Because the person of the Son is conceived and born according to what human nature.

[52:32] A little decline there in Augustine's way of speaking, sometimes, huh? I mean, Augustine. I mean, what's his name? Saint John says, "And the Word was made what flesh? Yeah. You don't say the divine nature was made flesh, do you? Yeah, you say that, do you? Or the divine nature was made man? You don't say that. Yeah, yeah. God is the divine nature, right?

[53:08] But God's way, The word God signifies as that which has divine nature, right? Even though the same thing, right? So in some sense, it's more appropriate to say God, right? Just like when you talk about the Trinity or that problem, you don't say that the divine nature generates, but you can say God generates, huh? Because the Father, who has the divine nature, generates, right? But the divine nature itself doesn't generate, although it's that by which it generates, huh?

[53:38] It's not what generates, huh? Remember that? It's gotta be careful. So you can say more that God became man. You say that, right? God became man, so man might become God. as Augustine says, yeah, but

[54:01] I wouldn't say that divine nature became man. And this is speaking identity there, right? But because of the way of signifying the divine nature, right? It's not really appropriate, huh? Speak that way.

[54:19] Does it feel like contradicting me? I've only qualified one thing. Yeah. This quote is attributed to Augustine, but it's not Augustine. Okay. So we saved the day for Saint Augustine. Okay. Bain says Fulgentius, right? Who, from the use of the custom of the Greeks, seems to have taken that. what. Speech, huh? It's not good, huh?

[55:03] What was it? Basil speaks of the father as being the cause of the son, and that's kind of a way of speaking. Should be piously exposed or expounded.

[55:24] Now, what about what the philosopher says in the fifth book? To the second, it should be said that no motion or change is named from the subject that is moved, right? But from the what end of the motion, from which it has what species? Yeah. When I come in here from the cold, there I I'm becoming what a man. No, I'm becoming warm, right? I'm warming up. So I'm named from the term of my change, not from the one who's.

[56:04] In account of this nativity or birth is not denominated from the person who is born, but from the nature to which birth terminates, ends up.

[56:24] And the third objection here, to third should be said that nature, properly speaking, does not begin to be, but more the person begins to be in some what nature.

[56:40] Because as has been said, nature signifies as that by which something is right. While person signifies as what has to be subsisting, has to be not in another right, but itself. Okay.

[57:01] So who was born? Son. Yeah.