De Anima (On the Soul)
99. Summa I, q. 78, a. 2: Nutritive, Growth and Generative Powers, and the Sacraments
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[0:00] So let's take a little break here before we look at the second article, which is going to. To the second one proceeds thus, it seems unsuitably distinguished, huh? Or assign the parts of the living soul, namely the feeding power, the generativum but in English that would be the feeding power, right? The growing power, right? And then the what generating power, huh? You have three there.

[0:36] The first objection is that these powers are called what natural, right? But the powers of the soul are above the natural powers, right? Therefore, these powers, um, or yeah, should not be called powers of the soul. That's partly what you mean by calling these powers natural, right? Partly your problem in the in the word there, right?

[1:07] Moreover, that to that which is common to living things and nonliving things, ought not to assign some power of the soul. But generation is common to all things that are generable and corruptible, both living things and nonliving things.

[1:25] Therefore, the generative power ought not to be laid down to be another power of the soul. So it seems to the ancients there, right? We've got a candle here with a flame, and I put to your book, right? I generate another flame over there, right? Okay, so you have you know generation in the nonliving world as well as in the living world. So how can the power to generate be a what?

[1:47] A power of the living soul, yeah. Moreover, he says the soul is more potent than bodily nature, but the bodily nature, by the same active power, gives the what? Species, the kind of thing it is, and a suitable quantity. Therefore, much more the soul. Therefore, the power to grow should not be another power from the what? Generating power, huh?

[2:21] Sort of interesting objection, huh? Moreover, each thing is conserved in being through that to which it has being. But the generating power is that by which existence or being is acquired by the living thing. Therefore, through that same thing, the living thing is conserved. But to the conservation of the living thing is ordered the feeding power, as is said in the second book of the soul, where he defines it as a power, right, able to save the one without having it, right.

[3:00] We're not now therefore to distinguish the nutritive power from the what, generative power. So the first objection was against all these powers, right, Because they're called virtutes naturales naturales. The second one was against the generative power, right, and the third and fourth were saying that the other two powers, they're going to be distinguished. We should be reduced to the generative power. Okay, because the generative power of the living thing should be stronger than that of the non-living thing, but the non-living power gives both being and a suitable quantity to what it makes, right?

[3:39] Therefore, or it ought to be the same thing that gives something existence and maintains its existence. Just like God created us and conserves us in existence, right?

[3:55] But against all this is what the philosopher says. That's the man with a capital P there, right? That's Aristotle himself. This is Aristotle called Homer what? The poet with a capital P. And I call Mozart the musician.

[4:16] But in the, I think I mentioned before how in the Federalist Papers, right? Where they're talking about that if we don't unite, we're going to be weak and picked off by the European powers, right? And in the words of the poet, a long farewell to all my greatness. Well, it doesn't identify the poet by his own name, right? But years later, I saw this as in Henry the Eighth by Shakespeare.

[4:45] They call him the poet, right? When the tourist came to the United States, he'd find in the log cabin was only two books: the Bible and some plays of Shakespeare. That's all he found. He said, "I first read Henry the Fifth of Shakespeare in a log cabin in the United States."

[5:04] So that was the kind of authority, right? You know, the Bible and Shakespeare. That's what you'd have if you had anything. Of course, they say they're much better off than we are because we have all these trashy books, you know, to distract us and when I get to the books we should really read. Everybody reads a newspaper every day. Charlie, I worked with at the package store there.

[5:26] You know, he hadn't picked up a book since what high school, right? Oh, you're just taking newspaper. That's why you're read. Yeah, sure. So that's what's most read. How many people have picked up the Bible and read it today?

[5:40] Very few compared to those who have read the newspaper. And you make it a prerequisite for your students not to watch soap operas while they're taking your class. Watching. Yeah, so he's

[5:53] talking about that. You're like, my God, dude. Yeah. Get rid of the TV sets, you know. So if my kids are young, we didn't have a TV set there, and everybody's offering us the free TV sets, you know. Yeah. They're new and bigger ones, you know. No, no, I said, no, I don't want one. They thought we were couldn't afford one. Well, we could afford one in another sense.

[6:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, very, very bad for kids, you know. Yeah, sure. And my daughter now, she's she's expecting the number five now. Yeah, great. But has no no TV set there, right? They don't want TV set, you know. Because. Yeah, sure, and maybe kind of you know, a waste of time if not much worse, you know. Yeah, much worse.

[6:41] So. It doesn't conserve the life of one who receives it. Yeah, yeah, and it doesn't help the imagination and the ability to read and so on. Yeah. And kids who grow up reading books and having books read to them, yeah, it helps them in their studies too. Sure. You know, people have kind of lost the ability to read or absorb or know what they're reading. Yeah. You know, bring that.

[7:09] It's pretty bad So, so one of my colleagues said, "You know, they think the computer is going to write the paper for them. " right well, maybe it doesn't. I don't know.

[7:33] I guess the ancients they had they're much more able to memorize than we are. Sure. You know, they speak of Thomas, you know, memorizing the Bible, memorizing the Sentences of Peter Lombard, huh? I know. Well, that's what they say with the Chinese now. They still pretty much have that kind of memory. That unbelievable memory this one doctor friend about in California. he said he always had 93, 94s on his test, but because he was great on a curve and he was going to California University, all these Chinese guys were just getting hundreds, and he came out getting Cs in the class.

[8:09] Because you know that was where he ended up on the curve. How can you compete with that? So again, this is what the philosopher says in the second book about the soul that the works of this soul are to generate and to use food and again to make growth, right? And he says, "I answer. It ought to be said that there are three powers of the living part.

[8:43] " Huh? For the living, as has been said, has for its object the body, right? Living through the soul, and for such a body, a threefold operation of the soul is necessary. One by which it acquires existence, right? And to this is ordered the generating power. Another through which the living body, right, acquires a suitable quantity. To this is ordered the what? Growing power.

[9:24] This augmentativa. Another to which the body of the one living is saved, both in its being and in its what, suitable quantity. And to this is ordered the feeding power, right? The nourishing power, right?

[9:45] Here we got a division into three, right? Okay. There is, however, a difference to be noted among these powers, huh? For the feeding power and the growing power have their effect in that in which they are, right?

[10:06] Because the body united to a soul grows and is conserved through the growing power and the nourishing or feeding power existing in the same soul. But the generating power has its effect not in the same power, but in a what, another, right? Because nothing is what generates itself. Nothing is generative of itself. Right? Makes sense, right? I can't bring myself into existence, right? So the power to to generate is a power to generate another body, right?

[10:50] Another one from oneself, right? By the first two powers, are to what? Yeah, to act to make my own body grow, right? And to keep my own body and keep body and soul together, as they say, right? To stay alive, right? And and okay.

[11:14] And notice he says that. And therefore the generative power, in a certain way, approaches to the dignity of the what? Sensing soul, right? Now why is that so? Because it it extends to another body, right? And not just to one's own body, right? See, if you recall back in the previous article there, he said that the sensing power has a more universal object than the living powers, right?

[11:45] It's not just one's own body, right? But one senses the bodies around one, okay? Well, this power to generate is approaching that dignity because you generate another body, a body other than your own body.

[12:05] So he says, therefore, the generative power, in a certain way, approaches to the dignity of the sensing soul. That's very interesting. Which has an operation in exterior things,

[12:19] although in a more excellent way and more universal way, the senses have, huh? And then this is the famous principle that Dionysius and Aristotle said before too. But he often quotes Dionysius that the highest of the what lowest nature right attains that which is lowest in the higher,

[12:40] as is clear through Dionysius in the seventh chapter of the Divine Names. And therefore, among these three powers, more final, more in, and more principal chief, and more perfect, right, is the generative power, as is said in the second book about the soul. For it belongs to a thing now perfect to make another as itself is, right?

[13:16] For the growing power and nourishing power, feeding power, serve the generative power, right? And the nourishing power serves the what? Growing power, right? Now, Plato in the

[13:41] Symposium, right? And Aristotle following him, they both talk about reproduction as being something godlike, huh? They speak of by reproduction, the mortal is trying to be like the immortal. Oh, yes. Now, these mortal animals and mortal plants, right? As individuals, can't are not immortal. But by reproducing another like themselves, right? They give their what

[14:26] kind of animal or kind of plant a kind of immortality. If you look at Shakespeare's sonnets, some of the first sonnets there are urging someone to marry, right, and reproduce and so on, huh? And Shakespeare begins like the first sonnet begins with the lines, "From fairest creatures we desire increase, that thereby beauty's rose might never what Decrease die, huh? Yeah, see. Now you see this beautiful man or beautiful woman, right?

[15:00] And they're going to get old and wrinkled and lose their good looks and so on, right, huh? And therefore they got a duty, right, to reproduce themselves, huh?

[15:13] So that what time they're old, there's someone to look pretty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. See, you kind of see that, you know. When my wife and I were at churchyard on Sunday, there and and a couple we've known there, you know, growing old now, even older than we are, in the parish and so on. But one of their daughter's husbands was there with the little boy, and he was a real handsome little fellow.

[15:40] He really, really, you couldn't help but notice the guy, you know. And and and my wife was remarking how he looked like his mother, you know, and so on, you know, and good looks, you know, and so on and so. So you see that you're immortalizing this, huh? Yeah. And

[15:59] in case of the animals too, or even human beings, Plato is, in a sense, explaining why one is sexually attracted more to a good-looking person, other things being equal, right? Than not to a good than to a person that's not so good-looking, huh? It's natural because you want to perpetuate the what? Yeah, from fairest creatures, meaning most beautiful ones, right? We desire increase. That thereby beauty's rose, right?

[16:30] Might never die, huh? But as the reaper should by tying disease as tender air might bear his memory. But they're trying to be like God so far as possible, see? And

[16:44] so it's the mortal seeking to be immortal so far as possible. That's kind of striking, huh? Sure. Now that's in the Symposium, huh? Now in the dialogue called the Theaetetus, Plato gives a definition of philosophy as becoming like God so far as possible for a man. That's a very profound definition of philosophy. And of course, when Aristotle takes up the two culminating parts of the two kinds of philosophy, wisdom and political philosophy, right?

[17:18] When he's in the Ethics, he says it's lovable, He says to help one man to be happy. He says, but it's more godlike to help a city become happy. Right. That's kind of striking, huh? And of course, Thomas says, well, of course, God operates for the good of the whole universe, right? We can't do that, right? But when we operate for the good of the whole city and the happiness of the whole city, right, we're more like God than when we do something for the happiness of one individual.

[17:54] That's good and desirable too, right? But it's more godlike, right, to help a city become happy, huh? See, so something godlike about George Washington, huh? Or something like that, huh? The father of his country, huh?

[18:13] And then, of course, Aristotle talks about wisdom. He says this is the most divine science, huh? Because it's about God, and because God, most of all, would have this knowledge, as you may recall, right? And so, philosophy is what becoming like God so far as possible. Plato says so well in the Theaetetus, huh? You might say, well, isn't that kind of presumptuous? You know, sounds kind of presumptuous to people nowadays.

[18:43] But even the plants in reproducing, right? You know, the Greeks always used kind of mortal and immortal as kind of synonyms, almost for men and gods, right? So in Homer, you know, you refer to the mortals as you and I, and the immortals are the gods, right? Huh? You know. So when the mortal is trying to be immortal, so far as possible, right? Then it's trying to be what like God, huh?

[19:14] See, so each in its own way is trying to be like God. This is interesting too about Shakespeare's great exhortation to use reason there, right? You know, he gives all these reasons why we should use reason, but one reason of course, is to obey God, right? And he says, "Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and godlike reason to fust in us unused, right?

[19:46] " But he also calls reason godlike, right? And so usually I develop that as two different reasons, right? If you use your reason, you become like God in some way, who made all things in wisdom, as Scripture tells us, and you are obeying God's plan for us, right? But if you put the two together, I say, what does this suggest? That God's plan for us is to become godlike, but in a way that's his plan for what?

[20:15] The plants too, and his plan for everything to become like him so far as possible. When you were talking about going from helping a person to helping a city, becoming more godlike, it reminded me of a saying that one of the priests would always say when I was taking his political science class. He would always say, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts, absolutely. " You know, you kind of talk about how we try and become more like God, but that that problem.

[20:46] Danger there, yeah. More like God. The danger is that if you aren't spiritual or something, you can easily be corrupted as opposed to being more like. God. What would you think of you know, as the founder of an order, like Saint Benedict, let's say, right? Or Saint Dominic, right? Or Saint Francis, right? They set up a way of life, right? In which many, right, Benedictines or many Franciscans or many Dominicans have what flourished and attained to some kind of sainthood, right?

[21:17] Huh? Not everybody, obviously, right? And so these men are more godlike than one of us who might help some friend get straightened out a mess in their life, you know. And that's good and desirable, right? To help some individual that you run into get out of this mess that they're in, but it's more godlike, right? To what? How many? Yeah, yeah. But you know the famous words of Gregory the Great, though, you know he said, "Where they made him a bishop, he began to what doubt his salvation, his own salvation, When they made him a pope, he began to despair of his salvation.

[21:59] " It's a good way of putting it, though, right? Because you are under a great responsibility there, right? Like Saint Paul says in the epistles, there you know the solicitude of all the churches, right, is kind of weighing him down there, huh? I am sure that's true of the Pope too, huh? He's

[22:21] seeing bishops from all over the world and getting reports, right? And so he's seeing what's going on and so on. Okay, so Thomas doesn't mention that here, but it's well worthwhile seeing that both Plato and Aristotle say that that there's that reproduction is the immortal trying to be so far as possible like the immortal, and they can't be immortal as individuals, but they can their kind can be immortal.

[22:53] Of course, in in the sonnets you have the sonnets aiming at that, right? And the other sonnets are trying to immortalize somebody in the sonnet, right? But so long as maybe you read, you know, and read the sonnet, you know, you get your beauty there. Just like you make make a famous painting, huh? You know, somebody, at the prime of life, huh? You kind of perpetuate their beauty, right?

[23:16] Even though they're gonna get older and wrinkled and lose that beauty, right? Huh? So you have those two. huh Fred and Spencer too, right? huh You know He's down by the ocean there, and he's writing the girl's name in the sand, right? And the wave comes in and washes it out. Says you can't immortalize me, but it's the poet he can, right? You know. See, read his Epithalamion, right?

[23:46] Oh, you know, yeah. It's the same, but same thing as the what Song of Songs, right? The Song of Songs is Epithalamion. Oh yeah. On the day of marriage, right? So to speak. Yeah. Huh? Epi means upon, thalamion means the day of marriage. Yeah. There are two poems of Spencer, right? The Prothalamion, right, which is written for, I think, two daughters who are going to get married, right?

[24:14] And that's before the day, right? Beautiful poem, right? You know, represents him as two swans, everything else. But the Epithalamion is to celebrate his own marriage to Elizabeth. Okay. So it's really really beautiful, beautiful thing, yeah. It's kind of a you know, poetic rendering of his courtship of Elizabeth. Interesting thing.

[24:35] But you read the commentaries on the Song of Songs, and they'll call it Epithalamion, huh? And one of the one of these psalms is that too, huh? The one that has the same, is it forty something? Yeah, but it has the same matter, Thomas says in his commentary on the Psalms, as the Song of Songs, huh? Okay, sure. Very very interesting.

[24:59] But anyway, Spencer has these poems, you see, where he's he's immortalizing Elizabeth. In his poems, right? Okay. So you have the same thing in Shakespeare. You have this double thing. But you see the mortal striving to be immortal, huh?

[25:19] Either by reproducing itself, right? Or by enshrining it in a poem or something, right? Yeah. So trying to be like God, huh? The immortal, the eternal.

[25:38] So you know, when the great Aristotle gets through there, talking about the soul, and you can call this the living soul because this is where life is first found in bodies, right? Okay. Not the highest life, you know. The animal is a higher life, and man even higher life than the animal. But this is called the living soul because this is where life first appears, right? In these powers, and sometimes you call it the feeding soul, right?

[26:04] The nutritive soul, because of this basic activity of feeding there. But Aristotle wants to call it in the end what the reproducing soul, isn't? Because that's the the most perfect thing it does, right? And that's where it's becoming most like the divine, right? And we tend to name something by its what utmost, huh? They can do, right? We see man has an understanding soul, but. These cats have a sensing soul, right?

[26:30] Well, man senses too, but he does something more than he understands. So we have an understanding soul, as Shakespeare says. And so we name something by the the ultimate thing it can do. While this reproducing is the ultimate thing that this kind of soul can do. So this is a soul that can make another like itself, right? Marvelous thing, there.

[26:57] Maybe try to get rid of dandelions or something like that. You know, you realize how great is the desire to reproduce and to make oneself immortal. And the plants resist being exterminated.

[27:10] And remember my farmer neighbor that used to be, you know, he had been there for some years before I moved in, you know, and you know, talking about the grass and so on, and the weeds and so on. But his last remark was, "It's losing battle, though," he says. You know, you cut down one year like that, you're back, you know, with all kinds of weeds and other things, right?

[27:35] All these things seeking their own immortality, huh? Okay. Now the first objection was a little different. The first objection was saying that the powers are called what? Natural powers, right? Huh? And therefore, they don't belong to the soul, right? Now sometimes we distinguish between nature and soul because nature is determined to one of two opposites, like I was saying, huh? And the soul, even the plant soul, starts to rise above that, right?

[28:07] Because it grows in contrary directions, huh? And by the time you get up to reason, but it's the same knowledge of opposites, right? And so by my knowledge of the medical arts, I could cure you, maybe, or make you sick. either one, right? Save your life or kill you, right?

[28:28] That's true of knowledge and the same knowledge of opposites, huh? You transcend that being determined to one of two opposites, huh? So, but he says these powers are called naturals because they have an effect like nature, right? Which also gives existence and quantity and conserves, right? Although these powers have this in a higher way than the non-living thing does, huh?

[29:02] But it also shows that these are the closest to nature, huh? Least rising above it, huh? And because these powers exert their actions instrumentally through active and passive qualities, which are the principles of natural actions, huh? So in Aristotle's more primitive chemistry, the soul, right, digests food using the properties of fire, right? And our soul digests food using chemicals that you could maybe isolate in the lab, right?

[29:35] Okay, and use to break something down, right? Okay. So that's why these are called natural powers, although they have something above the natural powers because the natural powers are more instruments of the soul, tools of the soul.

[29:56] Now the second objection was saying that generation is something found in the non living world, so why should this be a power of the living soul? Well, he says the second it should be said that generation in inanimate things, things without a soul, is wholly from the outside, but the generation of living things is in a what higher way, through something of the living one himself, which is the what seed, right?

[30:25] Okay, in which there is some principle or cause that was formative of the body, right? That can form the body, and therefore it's necessary that there be some power the living thing to which seed of this sort is prepared, and this is the what generating power. Or forms of animal life, you know, they they what produce an egg, but the egg is not really alive, right? They have to sit on it and then finally it germinates, huh?

[30:58] But the higher animals, they give birth to these things within, right? Okay. And when Thomas will talk about you know the Trinity and the generation of the Son, right? It's much more intrinsic, right, than even in human beings, huh? Okay. So you go up in in life, the generation is more inward, huh? Than the one generating.

[31:29] Now the third objection was, well, what about the non living powers generating a thing and at the same time giving it the quantity it should have, huh? Well, he says that the generation of living things is from some seed, and because of that, it is necessary that in the beginning an animal be generated with a small quantity. And on account of this it is necessary that it have a power of the soul to which it can arrive at a what suitable quantity.

[32:08] And that's why Plato and Aristotle and Thomas and so on, when they're talking about a principle in philosophy, they always compare it to a seed, because the seed is small in size but great in its power, what it can produce, huh?

[32:29] So the seed through which an animal or plant is produced is very small, and then the plant or animal that's generated by that seed needs to have a power whereby it can get a suitable what size eventually, huh? Where it can grow. But the inanimate body said is generated from a matter that is determined by an extrinsic agent, and therefore at the same time it receives the species, the kind of thing it is, and its what quantity according to the condition of matter, huh?

[33:03] Of course, seed is very important in Scripture too, right? Yeah. Christ speaks of the mustard seed and so on, right? And how it's something very small in size that goes into something so large that the birds come and.

[33:28] And that's the way Plato and Aristotle will compare the beginning in philosophy, right? Something small in size but great in power. Yep. They're always quoting the Greek proverb, "Arche pleon hemisu." The beginning is half of all. And Thomas and and uh, Albert the Great and so on, pick up on that.

[33:57] Now, to the fourth, it should be said. This is talking now about the what? The generative power should also be what conserves the thing, right? Now, it should be said that the operation of the living principle is completed by means of heat, of which it belongs to consume moisture, right? And therefore, for the restoration of the humidity lost, is necessary to have a power that is nutritive, through which what food is converted into the substance of the body, which is also necessary for the act of the growing power and the generative power.

[34:45] What's the old science there, right? Get dried up and that's it, huh? Turn to dust, huh? Moisture lose that moisture, huh? But anyway, the body that is generated is separated in space eventually, right? From the body generated, so how can that

[35:18] continue to support it in life? But no, it's not. When the baby is generated in the mother's womb, for the first nine months, the baby is actually attached to the mother and it's getting its food from the mother, right? That's when the mother has to kind of watch what she eats sometimes because it affects the baby, right? And women get to know that kind of you know eat this food the baby's gonna jump into dinner or something, right?

[35:43] And some other baby will be a little more sedate or something, you know. Eat this other food, huh? And so on, huh? Some of these women now getting me, you know. Don't touch any alcohol or even tea, you know, huh? My sister-in-law would drink any tea when she was pregnant, you know. I think they go a little bit over overboard, you know, huh? Even emotions sometimes. I would have.

[36:08] Yeah, oh my mother goes through a lot of trauma for a lot of months, opposed to being very peaceful surroundings. Yeah, yeah. My daughter said, "This one's going to be another boy," she says. It feels just like the boy. Yeah. She had three girls, and she's a boy. And now she's. We don't know what this is, but she thinks it's going to be a boy. She took him away.

[36:29] It's behaving in there like like the boy did that was born, rather than the girl. So. I guess you know it was. Was it? Is the girl's heart is heartbeat is faster? I think than the boys. Oh, yeah. There's something. Yeah. Remember when we went in for the first one, you know, and at the old hospital they were doing operation. But anyway, had the head nurse comes in there, you know, works there, and she listened to it, you know, she says, "Going to be a boy," you know.

[36:58] So anyway, it was a boy, the first one, and she says, "Listen, this, listen, she listens to every baby that comes in there, see, you know, she gets very expert at that." I said, "So I happened to run into her by chance afterwards." I said, "You were right; it was a boy." We just asked many times; he says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Just by the by the sound of the beat of the heart, he's going to listen.

[37:21] I also say because of the mothers who carries babies in the back with their girls or in the front if they're boys. That's interesting. I don't. I have to ask my daughter. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard a number of women say that. It's interesting.

[37:43] So let's make a little theological footnote here, shall we? How is this second article used? The truth of the second article used in theology. Not obviously now, but when you're talking about the sacraments.

[38:18] Oh well, sure, because marriage and ordination would be generative, comparable to generative. Well, that's the comparison they make. say. What three sacraments are compared to these three? You see, when you talk about sacrament, you have to realize a sacrament is always something sensible, right? Huh? And it's a sensible sign that's going to be giving grace, so on. But you have to realize that God understands that we're animals, right?

[38:55] We're growing. with reason, right? Yeah, and therefore the importance of the sensible for us to understand things. So, under the likeness of bodily life, right, we receive the elements of what the spiritual life, right? Okay. And so, under the likeness of these three, we have three what? baptism. Yeah. Because it's gives an indelible seal. Yeah. And you also have

[39:29] confirmation because it's also gives an indelible seal. And then the third would be ordination. No, no. Eucharist, see? I see. In other words, the generative power, right? Huh? Corresponds to baptism, just a kind of another birth, right? Okay. And then the. Of course, you didn't see that when in the conversation between Christ and Nicodemus, right? Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit to enter into heaven?

[39:58] Nicodemus is saying, "Well, can a man get back into his mother's womb and be born again? " Right? He's understanding in two material way, right? There's a likeness there, right, between being born of your your own mother, right? And we're born of our mother, the the church, let's say, right? Okay.

[40:21] Then the sacrament of confirmation corresponds to growth. So just by growing, you get a certain what maturity, right? As a as an animal, right? The kitten becomes a cat, and the puppy a dog, and the boy a man, and the girl a woman, and so on. So confirmation is a kind of what becoming an adult, so to speak, but in the spiritual life. And that's why you know might hit you a little bit on the cheek, something like that.

[40:53] So you're supposed to be able to stand and fight for the church, right? But obviously the food is what Eucharist, right? And so the Eucharist is given to us, the body and blood of our Lord, under the likeness of bread and wine, which Thomas says are more commonly used for for food, huh? Okay, So you get wine for your meal. No, I mean, obviously

[41:22] he's being an Italian, right? Yeah. And bread and wine are what are most commonly used, and so on. Um. So if you read Thomas say in the Summa, Contra Gentiles and probably in the Summa too, you know, explicitly compare those three sacraments, right? Which are sometimes put together, you know, like especially in the Eastern Church, right, where one is baptized and then maybe it's confirmed, right, and then you receive communion.

[41:50] And those three are especially close together. Those three, right? Why the confession and extreme unction and, so on, or last, anointing, whatever call it, are more than they've gone wrong, right, some defect, right? But these three really are very close together. Those three, right? And and they are given to us under likeness of these three here. It's kind of it's kind of interesting to see that, huh?

[42:19] And of course, you know, when Christ talks about the division there in the Gospels and so on, he speaks of you sitting at the same table with him and eating the same food, right? And what is that referred to? Well, it doesn't mean we're eating food in the ordinary sense here in the next world, right? But we'll be seeing God through God being joined to our mind, so we're eating the same food, but it's food for thought, you'd say, right?

[42:53] You know, feast of reason, as as Socrates says, right? Okay. But as I mentioned before, you know, Shakespeare sometimes will will borrow the word "food" and apply it even to the object of the emotions, huh?

[43:13] Like Beatrice is making fun of Benedict, you know, and how could she stop making fun of him when she has such you know food for her laughter? This man. It's

[43:25] very cleverly said. But we use that question "food for thought," right? And we speak of feeding a emotion, right? If I keep on telling you about how nasty somebody is and what they've been saying about you and what they think of you, and you're getting more and more angry, I'm feeding your what anger, your hate, or something of this person, right? You see. So it's interesting that the object.

[43:47] Of the first power here, the feeding power, which is food, right? It's sometimes kind of metaphorically right applied to the object that nourishes some emotion, right? Or the object that even nourishes the what mind? Thomas sometimes quotes to the great Dionysius here, who will say that the higher angels are as food, cibus, food for the lower angels, huh? You know, and

[44:21] you know something similar. If I think of myself, and others being gathered around Monsignor Dion, you know, and he feeding us, so to speak, right? Like like a mother bird feeding little birds with a worm, right? You know, they're already know something like that, right? It says in scripture, you know, there is no one to break the bread and distribute it, huh? The bread of scripture, so to speak, had to break it into something that's bite-sized you can eat, right?

[44:50] you distribute it the way Thomas divides the text for you, right? So to me, it's very striking. Now, if you study the sacraments there in Thomas, huh, they make that very explicit, huh? That these first three sacraments, right, that we receive,

[45:11] and they're they're put together. If you look at even the catechism of the Catholic Church, right, those three are put together, right? That they're seen under the likeness of something sensible, and this is the likeness under these three powers, huh?

[45:27] Isn't it? That's very, very, very striking, very concrete, huh? For those three sacraments. So maybe not aware the fact that you grew when you were confirmed, huh?

[45:54] You grew spiritually, but it's given to you under the likeness of that, huh? But it's most clear in the case of the Eucharist, huh?

[46:07] Which is the the end of all the other sacraments, right? Based on sacraments, huh? But there, the likeness to food couldn't be more clear, right?

[46:21] Right. Panis vivus, Thomas says, right? Vitam praestans hominibus. But then you see, when they go into this more, they'll say, "What's the difference between spiritual food and material food?" Right. Say, and and the first difference that strikes you is that material food is not living. You don't eat the chicken when it's still alive, do you? If you cook the carrots or something, then not really alive either, right?

[46:57] Okay. And you in a way give life to what is not living when you what? Yeah, when you digest this food and make it part of yourself, right? Okay. But in the case of spiritual food, the food is alive, right? And it gives life to the one who eats it. It's just the reverse, isn't it?

[47:21] Now another difference may seem more fundamental than that is that in material food the lower is the food of the higher. So the plants are the food of the animals, for the most part, these strange plants, and the animals, the lower animals, are the food of the higher animals, right? And all the plants animals are kind of the food of man, right, who has a more varied diet, huh?

[47:46] But in spiritual food it's just the reverse. The higher is the food of the lower, right? Yeah. So the great Dionysius says that the higher angels are as food to the lower ones, huh? Okay. In the same way, I could say you know that Thomas Aquinas or his writings are food for my mind, right? You know, I'm nourished, so to speak, my mind. But the the higher right is the food of the lower right.

[48:13] Okay. But the higher gives something of its life to the lower. So the lower lower partakes in the life of the higher. So I partake in something of the life of Thomas's mind here when I read him, right? I read scripture. I partake in the life of of God's mind in some way, right? Some perfect way, yeah. But when I eat food, right? I don't, you know, take on the life of the carrot, the life of the chicken, the life of the cow, but they are broken down by me and they take on the life of what human being, right?

[48:50] So there's very striking differences, right? But you wouldn't be able to notice and be struck by those differences unless you saw first of all that you're receiving our Lord under the likeness of what material bread and wine, huh? You see.

[49:10] But Augustine and Thomas will point that out, huh? You know, like in the prayer, there. Panis vivus, right? Well, right away is the bread that we eat in the morning. Ordinary bread is that living? No. No. That'll be like the the bread on the the old ships, you know, where they see you know, and there's all kinds of things and those horrible stories of what was like to be in the British Navy in the 19th century or 18th century, right?

[49:42] The bread, the biscuits, you know, were hard as rocks and had. Weevils in there, or both. That was, you know, well, you wouldn't want to be alive, right? See, but but no, it's the Eucharist there. Pani's weevils, right? And then it says, "vitam praestans." So many, it's bestowing life upon us, right? Huh? See,

[50:05] but the bread I eat, and the chicken I eat, or the carrot I eat, or the broccoli I eat is not alive, right? And I give life to it if it gets any life. I heard it said in one book I read that when we food becomes part of us, when we take on, when we take in Christ, we become Him. Yeah, yeah, that's the exact difference there, right?

[50:25] See, for so many people, there's all kinds of differences to discover after you kind of see, though, that in some senses, is food, right? Now, in

[50:41] modern philosophy, I don't have any sense of food there. I don't think I'm being fed, you know, you know. Nothing to dip my teeth into. It's just. No matter of form Yeah, just no, no, no substance there. I want. But but when I read Thomas, though, I really think I'm being fed. You know, I mean, I have the kind of the metaphorical way of looking at being really, you know, nourished by this guy.

[51:17] So next time we'll look at the articles on the exterior senses and the what interior senses, huh? Okay, next two articles here. Can I ask the question Yeah. Could it not be said?

[51:46] The churches always say it almost seems so important, critically important, you know, absolutely critically important for, people, especially priests, you know, to be fed on Saint Thomas.

[52:01] If to come to Saint Thomas's writings, or any mind or sense, to read them with understanding requires such preparation of the mind. Could it not be said that in some way it's kind of been made the preserve of an intellectual elite? To some extent, yeah. Very difficult

[52:31] situation. No, no. So you look at Thomas's things, though, like say the the Naples sermons, right? Huh? They were addressed almost to the common man there, right? In Naples, huh? So you so you have that, and then you have the Compendium Theologiae, which is incomplete, right? Mm-hmm. See, but but that's that's not as full blown as the Summa, right? Huh? And sometimes you compare the Summa to the Quaestiones Disputatae, right?

[52:59] Mm-hmm. You go even more into these some of these things, right? Correct. Is it the most advanced thing we have? Well, you see, the Quaestiones Disputatae. I mean, you might have ten or fifteen objections, you know, one side, and maybe ten objections the other side, right? Well, that's you know brought down to maybe three objections against. So he's going to determine in one said contra, right? Sure.

[53:25] So it's kind of an abbreviation of the Quaestiones Disputatae, huh? Oh. And maybe it takes the more important objections, right? Yeah. But he made some of the Quaestiones Disputatae go into a little more than he does even the Summas, right? Huh? So I mean, there's a kind of a build-up there, right? Huh? Um. But you see, you see the.

[53:57] I guess you can get them now again, but you know the the Sunday sermons. Do you know those ones? Those volumes that the Dominicans made. Yeah. What What they have is the gospel of the Sunday, and of course it was simpler before when wasn't as much variety there, right? You know, during the liturgical year. But they give you the gospel that Sunday, and then they give you the Golden Chain of Thomas, which is taken from the Church Fathers.

[54:22] And then they'd have maybe half a dozen sermons, right, on it. And those things are proportioned to people, right? Sure. And you know, if one was giving sermons, you know, that would be an ideal place, you know, to be able to see something fresh and interesting, you know, that would attract the ears, right? But also cast some light upon the text, huh? Yeah. And I know my my mother now was not educated woman.

[54:47] I mean, she never went to college, you know. But she'd come back, you know, from Sunday mass sometimes. Why isn't the priest, you know, explain? I just puzzled by something in the gospel, or so you know. Yeah. And all kinds of little things in there, right? And and they could be explained, you know, and people could understand them, right? Ah. So I mean, there's different, you know, levels to it.

[55:17] Okay. There's an awful lot of time wasted too, though you know, in high school and college, right? For people could have been prepared for things with good things, huh? Yeah. I say you take something as fundamental education as Euclid's elements, right? Right. Now I guess in the Middle Ages, huh? In order to to study theology at the University of Paris, which is one of the greatest schools of the time, right?

[55:41] You had to know the first book of Euclid by heart, right? Yeah. See. And that was real training for the mind, huh? Yeah. See. And this is what trained Leibniz's mind, how they say. Yeah. Okay. Ah, his reading of Euclid, right? Simplicity of that. Einstein said, if Euclid didn't arouse your youthful enthusiasm, you were not born to be a scientist. Then. Now, when was I first introduced to Euclid?

[56:08] Not Not in high school. They didn't, you know, very poor the courses. I was already out of college when I w when I first picked up UCLA. My old teacher, Kasurik says, "Duane uh, get a copy of Euclid, read it." I said, "Why?" I said, "Get a copy of it and read it." He said, "Yeah, get an argument, you know." And so I started reading, you know, Euclid.

[56:29] My God, this thing makes interesting. Yeah, yeah. And then I think I mentioned that story there, where my friend Roy Monroe was in politics, right? And they got to high school with his friend. He said, "But you read Euclid? That's everything Euclid that I, you know, smiled. I was sneering, you know, and so and I'm into one of these interesting things Euclid, right? Yeah. And wow, he was, you know.

[56:53] And he never made fun of me again, you know. I mean, this is something that you could learn, you know. When my kids went to the trivium school, where they do some of the Euclid, huh? And as at Thomas Aquinas College, they did do Euclid the first year, right? But people that don't have that training, huh? And they don't want to teach logic. They sometimes give them a few things of Euclid just to see if they can analyze them, you know.

[57:15] Oh, you know, yeah, they have they have no training, and they could have done this at an early age, right? And I know myself, and I've done some talks in the parish and so on, you know, and and people do like these things when they hear them, you know. I told you the time I was doing the the parables, right? Right. Because my my wife being an old school teacher, you know, she she she has a good influence upon me, you know, as far as proportioning people.

[57:46] Now, what you should do, Duane, is is give them the parable to read, right? Okay, and let them sit around their tables, blah blah, about the the parable, right? And then bring them back together and tell them what it really means.

[57:59] So I remember one one incident there, the one about the the a man who's there at the wedding feast without the wedding garment, he gets cast out. Yeah. Of course, if you read the Church Fathers, you know what that means, huh? Yeah. But they're they're talking you at the table there, you know. Well, I think it's awful mean just because you you know he didn't have a wedding garment, they had to throw him out, you know, and put ropes around him, and and and it wasn't very nice, you know.

[58:26] Maybe he couldn't afford, you know, like that. But you mean the Church Fathers and the wedding garment signifies what charity? Charity. This is a man who doesn't have the love of God and neighbor, right? What are you doing in here? You know, you see, and that's very profound, you know. But they're going to be missing the point because they haven't read the the Church Fathers, huh? And you know, Cajetan says, you know, at the commentary there on the Summa that Thomas so venerated, right?

[58:57] The Church Fathers, huh? I mean, he read them very carefully and frequently, and so on, that he seems to have inherited the mind of all of them. And because it's something like that about Aristotle, you graduate the first philosophers, right? He read them so carefully, they seem to have inherited the mind of all of them. And so these things are proportioned to people, you know. The parables,

[59:23] an awful lot in them, you see, and yet they're they're easy to kind of read, huh? And kind of think about, huh? Yeah. But then, as you start to unfold some of the meaning, that's that becomes interesting for people, huh? That's kind of scary, though, because I've heard obviously that that scriptural text been messed up many times, and I never heard that the you know wedding garment symbolizes charity.

[59:48] I never heard that in any homilies. I know. Except when I read those of our Bible commentary, then I read it in that commentary. I said, oh. So, so basically, what it comes down to is a lot of priests don't know the church. Yeah, I know. Well, one year was you know when I had this, it was four volumes. They just followed right through the liturgical year, right?

[1:00:08] You know, try to read those sermons for that Sunday, you know, and you kind of familiar with these gospels, right? And it would have the Catena Aurea too, you know, which gives you, you know, it's a chain of little nuggets from the church fathers, right? So you get you know, but the idea of that, huh? And then,

[1:00:30] did you say you've seen some place has it available? I think I think I think it's been reprinted now by by Ignatius Press, huh? Oh, really? Yeah, I think. Because we only, yeah, I think I think yeah. So my my own one was when I first picked it up, it was it was already kind of. getting. out of print And I found I found three of the four volumes at a book store, right?

[1:00:53] Yeah. So I bought them, and then a friend of mine, Jim, he found the other missing volume. So if you look at, it's got a little different. The backing's a little different in the colors, you know, but the volume. But I had all four volumes in. See, but I think the Ignatius Press has that. I just see from the advertisement. I think that's what it is. But it was originally put out by New Regardium, and then had a reprint.

[1:01:17] But those things are very interesting. What they say, you know, and the sermons of Leo, the Leo and the Great, you know. Yeah, sure. And Augustine and Gregory, you know, you know the famous thing of Thomas there when he came over the city of Paris with the Dominican. The guy says, "What would you do here to possess this whole city? This wonderful city down there." And Thomas said, "You'd give the whole city, you know, for a copy of Chrysostom's homilies on the Gospel of Saint John, right?"

[1:01:46] Of course, when you read Thomas on the Gospel of Saint John, there, so looking at two this morning, you know, I got thinking about the passage there. But you know, it's mainly he's following Chrysostom and Saint Augustine, right? Did you know? Occasionally, somebody else, but those two guys, especially, right? You know, one of the great doctors, principal ones in the East and the West, you know. But it's very interesting to read these things.

[1:02:13] Very interesting. Do you have any idea what the what the big thing was with the modern geometry? That's what I had in high school, and then same my same experience with you. I didn't know about Euclid really until I met with Father Anthony in the monastery. So, but anyhow, now I was trying to think back. It's like what exactly were we learning in this modern? What What was their main?

[1:02:44] No, see, the emphasis is upon what they call logisticae, right? The art of calculating, huh? Oh. So it becomes a kind of a practical tool. Hmm. And even the name calculus, for example, you know, indicates it has a kind of a practical purpose to it, right? Okay. When I began high school, you know, the thing you have is a freshman high school algebra. Yeah. And then you go on from there, you know.

[1:03:11] Yeah. And I did very good in algebra. I remember that first year there. And they had a kind of a national test there, you know, testing us, and three of us got a ninety-nine percent off. And one guy I think became an engineer. One guy became a professor of math. I became a philosopher, right? But you know, but I kind of lost interest in math after a while because of the character of the knowledge, right?

[1:03:35] Yeah. And but when you pick up Euclid, you know, it's kind of interesting to think about the things. And I like to