Through the Church Fathers

Lust cannot imagine temperance, and a creature can cling to God so as not to be extended into times. Augustine says the man who exceeds with one wife does not believe that the fathers used many wives with temperance, looking only to the duty of those times. Such men measure the saints by themselves, as if praise must puff up and insult must cast down. The apostles were neither puffed up nor cast down. David bore the injury of Absalom and mourned his death for the son’s sin, not for his own loss. The ewe-lamb accused the adultery, and the desire is called a guest, not a king. In Solomon it reigned. What was done then as a duty is not to be transferred now into a habit of life. In the Confessions the heaven of heavens is the creature whose will God is, not co-eternal, drawing its support from Him, varied by no change. He calls it the house of God, a pure mind, the city of holy spirits above the heavens that are seen. Aquinas asks how the mother of Christ was prepared. She was sanctified in the womb after the soul was infused, not before. Original sin was remitted. The spark was bound, and she did not sin. She was a virgin in conceiving, in bearing, and after the birth.
### Today’s Readings:
Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 19–22 (Sections 28–32)
Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 11 (Section 12)
Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 27–28
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Charity is the rule that decides when a command is a figure, and eternity is a will that does not change. Augustine says a figurative expression is to be turned until it establishes the reign of love, and if the literal sense already does that, it is not a figure. A command that seems to enjoin a crime, or to forbid a kindness, is figurative. Eating the flesh is a share in the sufferings. Coals of fire are the groans of penitence. Commands given to a lower state are not canceled by a higher one. What was allowed in the Old Testament for those times is not a habit for these, and one man may use many wives with chastity while another uses one with lust. In the Confessions he has been told, in the inner ear, that God alone is immortal, and that every nature which is not God is still from God. Only what is not, is not from Him. Sin is the motion of the will toward what is less, and no sin hurts God or disturbs His rule. Aquinas asks how the one who is equal can still be subject. He is subject, and He prays, and He mediates, as man. He is priest forever, offering once, the virtue of the offering remaining. He is Son by nature, not by adoption. The humanity is adored because it is the humanity of the Son, not because flesh is divine.
Today’s Readings:
Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 15–18 (Sections 23–27) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 11 (Section 11) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 20–26
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What looks like a sin in a holy man may be a sign, and a custom is not yet a law. Augustine says the deeds ascribed to God and the saints, which seem wicked to the inexperienced, are figurative, and the kernel is charity. It is not the use of a thing that is blamed, but the lust of the user. The ointment on the Lord’s feet is not the ointment of a banquet. Hosea’s keeping company with a harlot is not abandoned manners. The plurality of wives among the fathers was blameless then, for the sake of offspring, and could not be done now except through lust. Men who know only their own customs conclude that there is no absolute right. The precept stands against them: whatever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them. In the Confessions he begs the Truth, not his own darkness, to speak. He went astray and remembered. He returns burning to the fountain, and the words of the books are very deep. Aquinas asks what may be said of the one who is both. God is man and man is God, because the Person is one and the natures are not mixed. There is one being, two wills without contrariety, and two operations concurring in the one work. The human action merited, for Himself and for the members.
Today’s Readings:
Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 12–14 (Sections 18–22) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 10 (Section 10) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 16–19
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A man can be free while he is still under a sign, and a creature can share eternity without being eternal. Augustine says bondage to a sign is the use of it without knowing what it signifies. The patriarchs were spiritual and free even while the signs were still imposed, because they honored what the signs referred to. After the resurrection a few rites remain, baptism and the body and blood of the Lord, easy to perform and plain in what they mean. A phrase is figurative when, taken literally, it cannot be referred to purity of life or soundness of doctrine. Scripture enjoins nothing but charity and condemns nothing but lust. Severity ascribed to God, when the sense is plain, is not to be allegorized away. It pulls down the dominion of lust. In the Confessions the Spirit is silent about days when He says that in the Beginning God created heaven and earth. The heaven of heavens is an intellectual creature, not co-eternal, yet clinging to God so as to surpass the rolling change of times. The formless earth is not numbered among the days, because where there is no shape, nothing comes or goes. Aquinas asks what power and what weakness were in the Christ who came. The soul was not omnipotent. It worked as the instrument of the Word. Hunger, pain, and death were assumed, not owed. Sin and ignorance were not. Sorrow was real, and the will that bore it was not captive to it.
### Today’s Readings:
Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 9–11 (Sections 13–17)
Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 9 (Section 9)
Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 13–15
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To take a sign for the thing it signifies is a kind of slavery, and a world can be shaped only out of what is almost nothing. Augustine warns that the letter kills when a figurative word is read as if it were proper. Sabbath and sacrifice then stay on the day and the victim, and the mind never lifts. The bondage of Israel was not the bondage of the nations. Their signs, however misunderstood, still held the one God before them, and those who believed were near enough to spiritual things to become the first church. The Gentiles, even when they called an idol only a sign of the sea, were still worshipping the creature. Christ freed the one by interpreting the signs, and the other by clearing the useless signs away. In the Confessions the heaven of heavens is already for God. The earth given to the sons of men was invisible and without form, a deep almost nothing, yet able to be formed. Times are numbered only where shapes change. Aquinas asks how the soul of Christ knew. It saw the divine essence and did not comprehend it, knew by infused species from the first moment, and advanced only in what experience drew from the senses.
Today’s Readings:
Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 5–8 (Sections 9–12) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 8 (Section 8) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 9–12
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