Through the Church Fathers

The stars keep their courses. They do not keep our lives. Augustine will let a man chart a birthday and still refuse to sell him to Mars. Jacob’s hand was on Esau’s heel. The chart could not tell them apart. The Scriptures could. The Confessions then names what time does to a soul: life is a distraction (distentio), scattered among many things, until the Mediator gathers it toward the One—not to what will pass, but to what does not come and go. Aquinas sets Martha beside Mary without making Martha a mistake. Contemplation is simply higher. Action may still be the duty of the hour. Charity in the serving can outrun a colder leisure.
Today’s Readings:
Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 21–22 (Sections 32–34)
Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapter 29 (Section 39)
Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Questions 181–182 (The Active Life and Its Comparison with Contemplation)
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Truth is not pagan property. Augustine will take music, letters, even a heathen report about the Muses, and then refuse the idols, the amulets, and the fear that mice in the boots mean tomorrow’s ruin. Cato already knew the difference. The Confessions then recites a psalm. Before the first line, attention holds the whole. As the lines are said, memory lengthens and expectation shortens, until the whole action has passed into memory—and that is the shape of a life, and of the age of the sons of men. Aquinas names the life that is after the seeing of truth. The intellect gazes. Love moves it. Delight finishes it. God is the principal object. The virtues clear the room. They are not the vision.
Today’s Readings:
Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 18–20 (Sections 28–31)
Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapter 28 (Section 38)
Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Question 180 (The Contemplative Life)
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Forty days, ten strings, a hundred and fifty-three fish: Augustine will not let a reader shrug at numbers as decoration. They are one of the keys that open figures—and music is another, even if the nine Muses were only three artists and three kinds of sound. The Confessions then names the three acts by which the mind handles what is not there: it expects, it considers, it remembers. A long future is a long expectation. A long past is a long memory. Aquinas divides a life the same way he divides an intellect. Some men are given to seeing the truth. Some are given to doing what ought to be done. The life of pleasure is not the second of those.
Today’s Readings:
Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 16–17 (Sections 25–27)
Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapter 28 (Section 37)
Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Question 179 (The Active and Contemplative Lives)
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True eloquence in teaching consists in making clear what was obscure, and a wooden key that opens the lock is better than a golden one that does not. Augustine recalls Cicero’s three aims of the orator—to teach, to delight, and to persuade—and insists that teaching is the necessity. The hearer must be moved as well as instructed, for practical truth is useless unless the will is subdued to practice. In the Confessions he sets out the various ways the words “In the beginning” may be taken: the Word co-eternal with God, the universal mass of the corporeal world, the formless matter of spiritual and corporeal creatures, or the very commencement of the work. All who believe Moses spoke in the spirit of truth may hold one or another of these readings. Aquinas asks what effects Baptism produces. It remits all sin and all debt of punishment, opens the kingdom, and imprints an indelible character. Concupiscence remains as the material of struggle. Circumcision justified only by faith in the future Christ; the preparatory rites dispose but do not regenerate. The character is always given; grace follows when no obstacle is placed.
### Today’s Readings:
Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 4, Chapters 11–13 (Sections 26–29)
Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 20 (Section 29)
Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 69–71
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Unknown words stop a reader. Augustine’s remedy is not guesswork: ask a speaker of the tongue, learn the tongue, compare translators, and correct the copies before you interpret them. He prefers the Itala among Latin versions and the Septuagint among the Greek, and he will use Hebrew names—Siloam, Zion, Jordan—because things as well as words unlock figures. The Confessions then finds where the measure actually lives. The syllables are gone. What remains is the impression in the mind, and the present intention carrying what is still to come into what has already been. Aquinas adds the sign that is meant to confirm the word. A miracle is God’s work, not a performer’s. It may attend true preaching; it is never given to prop up a lie.
Today’s Readings:
Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 14–16 (Sections 21–23)
Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapter 27 (Section 36)
Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Question 178 (The Grace of Miracles)
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