Through the Church Fathers

Today’s Readings Podcast Description
Scripture left one language so that it could enter every language. Readers hunt the mind of the writers only to find the will of God. Then the dark places arrive. Augustine will not call them accidents. Pride is worn down by toil; the mind that finds too easily grows dull. The plain texts feed hunger. The obscure ones wake appetite. Almost nothing buried in figure is not said elsewhere without figure. Fear of God is the first step toward wisdom; piety the second, so that we do not correct the book we do not yet understand; knowledge the third—and knowledge of a good hope makes a man sorrowful, not proud. Strength follows, hungering after righteousness, turning from what passes to the unchangeable Trinity.
Is time the motion of a body? No body moves except in time. That is not the same as saying motion is time. We measure both movement and standing still. Time is the measure, not the thing measured.
Then Aquinas asks what prophecy is. A physician may forecast an illness. That is not prophecy. Prophecy begins where natural causes run out and God himself lights the mind. It is not only the future. It is not a gift the prophet switches on at will. Angels may carry the message. Only God is its source. Zach could guess from schedules and clues. Kylee told him what had actually happened. Inference is one kind of knowing. Revelation is another.
### Today’s Readings:
Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 5–7 (Sections 6–10)
Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapter 24 (Section 31)
Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Questions 171–172
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Smoke means fire whether anyone meant it to. A word means fire only because someone meant to say so. Augustine opens Book 2 of On Christian Doctrine by turning from things to signs: natural and conventional, nod and trumpet, sacrament and speech—and then writing, born because sound dies on the air, divided at Babel because men would not share the chief place. The Confessions will not let the sun own time. Joshua’s sun stood still, and the battle still took time. Time is a certain extension. Whether he sees that, or only seems to, he leaves to the Light. Aquinas asks how anyone knows what reason cannot reach. Prophecy is not a good guess. It is a light given for what would otherwise stay hidden—and the light to judge it.
Today’s Readings:
Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 1–4 (Sections 1–5)
Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapter 23 (Section 30)
Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Question 171 (Prophecy)
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If the reading builds up love of God and neighbor, Augustine will not call the mistake a lie—but he still wants the man back on the road. Love of one’s own opinion can turn the reader against Scripture; and if faith totters, love grows cold. Faith and hope will one day give way to sight. Love will not. The Confessions then prays over the ordinary mystery we all speak without understanding: how long, how short, a double syllable, a potter’s wheel if the stars went out. Time is not simply the circuit of heaven. Aquinas brings the same measure to what we put on. Modesty is neither display nor the performance of looking unimpressed.
Today’s Readings:
Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 1, Chapters 36–38 (Sections 40–42)
Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapters 22–23 (Sections 28–29)
Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Question 169 (Modesty in Outward Apparel)
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God does not use us the way we use a road. He uses us for our good, because He is good—and the holy man, like the holy angel, will not let us make camp in him. On Christian Doctrine sums the whole discussion of things: Scripture ends in love of the Good to be enjoyed, and love of the neighbor who can enjoy that Good with us. Christ is the way; He will not detain us on the way. The Confessions then asks how we measure time at all, if it runs from what is not, through what has no space, into what is not. Aquinas names the vice on the other side of studiousness. Curiosity is not the love of truth. It is the appetite that will not stop at the thing it came to find.
### Today’s Readings:
Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 1, Chapters 32–35 (Sections 35–39)
Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapter 21 (Section 27)
Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Question 167 (Curiosity)
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Who is my neighbor? Augustine will not let the word shrink. Enemy, stranger, even the holy angels who have shown us mercy—and Christ Himself under the figure of the man who stopped on the road. God does not enjoy us as if He needed our glitter. He uses us for our good, that we may enjoy Him, and one another in Him. The Confessions then corrects our speech about time: there are not past and future standing somewhere out of reach, but a present of memory, a present of sight, and a present of expectation. Aquinas names the virtue that keeps curiosity from running the day. Studiousness seeks truth—but not every tab at once.
Today’s Readings:
Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 1, Chapters 30–32 (Sections 31–34)
Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapter 20 (Section 26)
Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Question 166 (Studiousness)
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