Through the Church Fathers

The prophet passes from one Israel to the other without a change of name, and the eternal will does not take up a new act. Augustine says the species is not always overstepped. When Ezekiel has spoken of the house that defiled the land and was scattered, and then promises a new heart and clean water and a gathering out of all countries, the reader is to leave the one nation and take the genus. The spiritual Israel is made of all the nations promised in the seed, which is Christ. The land of the fathers is the Church, or the land of the age to come, given already in the purpose of God, as grace is said to have been given before the world began. In the Confessions he answers those who will not have his reading of the heaven of heavens. The substance of the Creator is not changed by time, and the will is not separate from the substance. He does not will now this, now that. Expectation becomes sight, and sight becomes memory, and that variation is mutable. God has not made any creature by a new will. Aquinas asks why the birth was told to some and not to all, and why the child was circumcised and came to John. The shepherds were told, and the Magi were led. He was shown. He did not show Himself. He received the seal and the rites as one born under the law, not as one who needed them. The baptism of John was a preparation. He received it, and it ceased.

### Today’s Readings:

Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapter 34 (Sections 48–49)

Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 15 (Section 18)

Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 36–38

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Faith itself is a gift, and a part is sometimes named when the whole is meant. Augustine says the third rule of Tichonius, the promises and the law, the spirit and the letter, is a great question rather than a key to other questions. Tichonius gave works to God and left faith to us. He had not yet met the Pelagian heresy. Peace and love with faith are from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is given to believe, and given to suffer. The fourth rule is species and genus, a part and the whole. What is said of Jerusalem, or of Tyre, or of Egypt, may overstep the city and the nation. What is said of Solomon reaches beyond Solomon, and is properly read of Christ and the Church, of which he is a part. In the Confessions the opening of Genesis names no day, and he takes it of two things that are not yet in days: the intellectual heaven, where to understand is to know all at once, face to face, and the formless earth, where there is no this and that. The firmament of the second day tells which heaven was meant. The depth of the oracles is awe, and a tremor of love. He would have the enemies of the book slain unto themselves, that they might live unto God. Aquinas asks whether a birth in time can be said of the Son, and whether the Virgin is the Mother of God. Birth is said of the person. The births are two. The son is one. The name Theotokos does not mean that the Godhead began from her. It means that the one she bore is the Son.

Today’s Readings:

Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 33–34 (Sections 46–47) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapters 13–14 (Sections 16–17) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Question 35

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Seven rules are keys, not the whole lock, and two creatures stand outside the compass of time. Augustine says Tichonius the Donatist wrote a book of rules, and claimed too much for them. They assist. They do not open every obscure place, and the book is to be read with caution, because the author remained a Donatist. The first rule is the Lord and His body. Head and body are sometimes spoken under one person, and the speech passes from Christ to the Church without a change of name. The second rule he called the twofold body. The name will not do. What will not be with Christ in eternity is no part of His body. The rule is about the mixed Church: good and bad in one net for a time, spoken of as one subject, and not forever one. In the Confessions he finds two things made, neither of them co-eternal. One enjoys God without failing and without interval, changeable and not changed. The other was so formless that it could not yet be subject to time. God did not leave it formless. From it came the heaven and the earth in which days take place. Aquinas asks what was true in the first instant of the conception. The body was formed, the soul infused, and the nature assumed, in that instant, not by the slow work of seed. The child was already sanctified, able to will, and able to merit. The stature was still to come. The Person in the nature just assumed was not waiting on it.

Today’s Readings:

Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 30–32 (Sections 42–45) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 12 (Section 15) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 33–34

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The same words may bear more than one true sense, and formlessness cannot make a day. Augustine says that if two interpretations of a passage both agree with the truth, and each can be shown from another place in Scripture, the reader is not to be blamed for missing the writer’s own intention. The Spirit foresaw the sense that agrees with the truth. Reason may be called in when Scripture cannot settle a doubt, but it is safer to walk by Scripture. The authors of Scripture use the tropes of the grammarians more freely than the unlearned suppose, and the same figures are already in ordinary speech: metaphor, catachresis, irony, antiphrasis. When the literal sense is absurd, the figure is to be sought. Tichonius the Donatist set down seven rules as keys. They help. They do not open every door, and he himself explains obscure places without them. In the Confessions he asks who would say that formlessness, all figure consumed, can exhibit the changes of times. Without the change of motions times are not, and there is no change where there is no figure. Aquinas asks from what, and by whom, the body of Christ was conceived. The matter was taken from the Virgin, of the flesh of Adam, without the guilt of that descent. The active principle was the Holy Spirit, not as father, but as the power appropriated to the work of love.

Today’s Readings:

Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 27–30 (Sections 38–42) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 11 (Section 14) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 31–32

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A word does not keep one meaning wherever it appears, and a house that clings to God is not stretched into times. Augustine says the sins of great men are written so that no one who thinks he stands may despise another. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. The first question about any expression is whether it is literal or figurative. Leaven is the Pharisees, and leaven is the kingdom. A lion is Christ, and a lion is the devil. Water is the peoples, and water is the Spirit. The sense is taken from the place, and the obscure place is read by the clearer one. A shield is the favor of God, and a shield is faith, and faith is also a breastplate. In the Confessions the soul that thirsts, and whose tears are bread, may understand how far beyond all times God is eternal. His house has not wandered. It is not co-eternal, and by clinging it suffers no vicissitude. Formlessness cannot exhibit the changes of times, because without the change of motions times are not. Aquinas asks why the mother of Christ was espoused, and why an angel spoke before the conception. The betrothal guarded the virginity. The marriage with Joseph was true by consent. The announcement came first, so that she might know and consent, and then the Word was conceived.

Today’s Readings:

Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 23–26 (Sections 33–37) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 11 (Sections 13–14) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 29–30

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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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