Prima Secundae
Lecture 275: Know Thyself and Nothing Too Much: Reason, Wisdom, and Divine Likeness

Transcript
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The seven is a symbol of wisdom, as you know. Seven angels that stand before God is in the Bible. So they said two things. According to the legend, they met at the Oracle of Delphi, right? And the pious legend says that they put up two words, right? Know thyself and nothing too much. And of those two words, which one comes first? Yeah. And everybody thinks of the kind of obvious things, you know, don't eat too much or drink too much for yourself, you know, and that sort of thing. The guy who ran, what, from the marathon, was it, to announce the news, he felt dropped dead because he ran too far. Yeah, yeah. And there was a Russian story about the man who can have as much land, he can run around in a day. Well, he does manage to run around quite a bit, but he drops dead, so, you know. So, but those are kind of obvious examples of nothing too much, right? And they depend upon what, know yourself to avoid those, right? But now let's go a little more subtle into this, right? In these two things, huh? Because you say, know thyself, that's an exhortation, right? An exhortation is given to someone, right? So to whom is this exhortation given, see? Is it given to the dog, or is it given to the angel? Who's it given to? But why do you say man, and not the dog, or not the angel, right? Or God? Well, the angel or God naturally knows himself, right? So you don't have to exhort him to know yourself. The dog can't really know himself. The dog doesn't know what a dog is. A fortioria tree doesn't know what a tree is, right? Or a stone, what a stone is. It's not addressed to them, I don't think, do you? But it must be something that is able to know itself, right? But maybe it doesn't know itself, or it doesn't know itself too well, right? And that fits man exactly, right? So you see, it's directed to man, right? Okay. Now you look a little more carefully and you say, yeah. But man has a body and a soul, right? And can the body know what a body is? So if it's addressed to man, isn't it really more addressed to the soul? I mean, study the Dianna, right? Know thyself, right? Okay. But now you think a little more deeply and you say, but just a minute now. The soul has many parts, huh? Can each part know itself? Does anger know what anger is? Does hunger know what hunger is? What's the only part that can know itself? Yeah. The eye doesn't know what an eye is, does it? So it's addressed most of all to reason, right? Okay. And when reason knows itself, it's knowing what's best in man, right? Now, you know something very profound about this, huh? We said that God knows himself, right? So when reason knows itself, it is what? Like God. Now this is a likeness of what ratios, right? For God to know himself, for man to know himself, or for reason to know itself, to be more precise. For reason to know itself, it's something like for God to know himself, right? So they're urging you to be God-like, huh? True. God most of all knows himself, right? He doesn't know anything else except by knowing himself or in-knowing himself. But chiefly he knows himself and he's blessed because of that, right? He's not blessed because he knows the universe, huh? Yeah. Yeah. So, that's very profound, right? But now, what do they add? Nothing too much. You might say that if reason knowing itself is like God knowing himself, and God knowing himself is the beatitude of God, right? Well, then reason knowing itself must be the what? But in this case, you are what? Making a mistake, aren't you? It's a very noble thing for reason to know itself. It is to be godlike in some way, right? But there's this big difference that God in knowing himself knows what's best to know. And reason in knowing itself doesn't know what's best to know. It's not what its highest object is. That's God himself, right? Nothing too much. Sure, reason should know itself. But, if you make that, the end all and be all, that's too much. You've gotten too much, right? It's good to know, for reason to know what reason is. So it can direct itself and so on, right? But if it makes that its end all and be all, that's too much. Making that, it's not that good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can see how that, you know, apart from the obvious things, like, you know, don't eat too much, don't drink too much, you know? Don't, you know. Yeah, and some people actually hurt their body, you know, overdoing it, you know, exercising or something, you know, or, you know, and so on, all these things. But, I mean, the more hidden thing is, right, if you see, to what that know-thyself is directed most of all is directed to reason knowing itself. And that's very profound because it becomes like God, but proportionally, right? But likeness is the cause of, what, deception. I had a conversation with Lady Wisdom here, and the conversation I had with Lady Wisdom was about likeness as being the cause of deception. And the way the conversation began was that, you know, we had this huge table, right, and there's kind of a centerpiece there, right, with little strawberries and things, right? And I don't know how many of the kids were taking one of these and offering it to Grandpa, right? But Grandpa was not deceived by likeness, right? But this was the occasion for a conversation, right, about likeness being the, what, cause of deception, right? And that's the possibility, right, with this thing, you know, saying, well, I'm God-like, right? I'm just like God. Well, not just like God, but you are like God in some way, when your reason, reason, when it knows itself, is in some way like God, right? Because God, most of all, knows himself, right? It doesn't know anything else except by knowing himself, right? But reason by knowing itself doesn't know everything. And it's not the best thing it can know, right? I was reading Thomas today in the, what, the 19th distinction, I think it was, of the second book, or third book, rather, the sentences, right? Kind of editing these, you know, and reading them. And beautiful description of beatitude, right, you know. But, you know, he's talking about the friendship between man and those who see him face-to-face, right? And those are the ones that he loves. Some feature there, Thomas says, right? Shows them, shows them himself. He has a very great qualification. Beautiful, you know. So, I asked my student last Tuesday, he said, what Shakespeare play you've been reading recently? So he tells me what it is. Now, when I went out to the grandchildren there, I took Symbeline, which is a play that I have a lot of liking for, you know. Kind of story by itself. But before I had left, I'd been reading the Henry IV, you know, part one. And as I came back, I read Henry IV, part two, and Henry V. And I said, why should I read Richard II, because that's part of the tetralogy, right, huh? Because Henry IV gets to power by overthrowing what? Richard II, and so on. But anyway, I started reading Richard II again. And you know the words of Mowbray there when he's exiled, right? He's never going to come back to England, and he's an old man, and he can't learn a foreign language. going to be, you know, cut off, huh? And the beautiful words, you know, but just one line, you know, struck me, huh? Where he's just talking about the ignorance he's going to be in, right? But he describes ignorance in one line. He says, dull, unfeeling, barren, ignorance. Can you explain to me those three words he says about ignorance? He calls it dull, dull, unfeeling, barren, ignorance. That's easy to do by this. Exile. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody has a sharp line. Yeah. Yeah. Now going back to the definition of reason, remember? In the definition of reason, you have the words looking before and after, right, huh? Remember that? But then we said, if you look before, you realize that you have to look for, what? Distinction, right, huh? Hence, the dullness of the mind that prevents you from seeing a, what? Distinction. So that comes first, right? It's the opposite side of the coin, right? Okay. And then the second word is unfeeling, right? Well, what does Thomas call the first act of reason? Grasping. Yeah. Simple grasping, he calls it, right? So you can't grasp something if you can't distinguish it from other things, right? If I can't separate this cup here from the air, I couldn't, what? Grasp it, huh? Perfectly ordered, right? Dull and therefore unfeeling, right? Now, we took that the first part of the definition there that reason is the ability for, what? Discourse, right? And in discourse, the chief kind of discourse is reasoning, right? And the premises that are brought together give rise to what? Yeah. So it's like when the husband and the wife come together, right? And they produce something, right, huh? Okay. And so when the major and the minor premise come together, or the genus and the difference come together, you get a definition or you get a conclusion, right? And then you are not what? The mind is not buried, right? But the definition, the definition of discourse there in the strict sense is coming to know what you don't know through what you do know, right? So you got to know something in order to come to know something else through it, right? So knowledge is what? Fruitful, yeah. But ignorance, which is the non-being of knowledge and something able to know, is going to be what? Barren. See? Isn't that amazing, huh? That Shakespeare should say that, right? Dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance, right? Same knowledge of opposites as Plato and Aristotle say, right? But it does cast some light upon the definition, right? And the definition, of course, casts light upon it, right? It's absolutely amazing, Shakespeare, right? I say, I say, somebody jot that down, I say, you know, but it sticks in my mind, you know, just, it's so amazing, huh? You know, when you go to the distinction there, you go to the distinction of the four kinds of cause, right? And you know what these four kinds of causes are? Matter, matter, form, that's the fourth one, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting how you put the mover and the maker together, right? Well, I was thinking about mover and maker, and strictly speaking, they both name, are named from an activity that does not remain in the doer, right? So you make something, or you move something, you're producing something outside of yourself, right? Or you're moving something other than yourself, right? And it's interesting that in the second book of the Simaconda Gentiles, you're talking about God making things, right? And they chose that word, didn't they, in the creed, huh? They say that, yeah, he made heaven and earth, I guess, huh? And now the third book, when we first give the reason for the third book, right? It's not in terms of the third kind of cause, it's in terms of the fourth kind of cause. The third book is going to show that God is the end or purpose of everything other than himself, right? And it doesn't stop there, though, right? Because after you learn that God is the end or purpose of everything else, then you learn that God is also moving things towards himself, right? And so you got those two things, the maker and the mover, right? But the second book is more the maker and the third book is more the, what, mover, right? But they're both the other kind of activity that has an outside, what, effect, right? Okay? That is making something outside yourself, right? You don't really make yourself. You can't really move yourself. And therefore, right? And then you go back to the fact that he takes up the attitude in the first book, right? Because that's to have the activity that is within, huh? Kind of amazing, huh? Amazing, simple things. I was reading Thomas today, he was talking about how, like, Christ is a mediator, right? It just always down. Is the mediator as God or as man, right? It goes down, right? It really takes up each of these things, you know, huh? They learn things in those days, right? I was looking at that book that Warren Murray there contributed to, that Canadian saints, you know, and I was reading about the Garnier, right, who was a Jesuit, right, came over to Canada, you know, and then she was modern, but very, very, very, I think. But it kind of struck me because when I was in Quebec there, there was always this bookstore called Garnier, you know, I used to go to and they had some old, you know, copies of Thomas there, you know, in the Latin and so on, so I was kind of rich. Okay, let's turn to 103, Article 4, I guess, huh? That's where, we haven't got too far to go. until we get to uh what to grace i have a grandchild i call the graceful one her name is actually grace i call her the graceful one so it's kind of funny though you know they have this um they're taking these uh what do you call these uh i don't know little telephones you know and they call you know they're around to make them and so on they all get a secret name right and and uh sophia she took the name lady wisdom so she'll never live that down i always tell her i'm i'm a philosopher a lover of sophia so i must i must love you i can't to the fourth then one goes forward thus it seems that after the passion of christ the legal things cannot be what observed without mortal sin oh my goodness it should not be believed that the apostles after having received the holy spirit sinned mortally and it says the holy spirit is a pledge of eternal life okay for of his fullness we were what power from above this is said in the last chapter was it luke but the apostles after the coming of the holy spirit observed legal things for it is said in acts chapter 16 that paul circumscribed timothy that's the vengeance right and acts 21 it said that paul according to the council of james right assuming what yeah purified with them purified with them into the temple announcing they what until they'd be offered for each one of them they're what offered therefore after mortal sin without mortal sin they were able to what observe the legal things after the passion of christ i'm really confused now aren't you which my old teacher because they're excited it's the duty of the teacher to confuse things so thomas he's somebody yes well i've been reading through you know the the uh the uh container already and i finally got now to start in john right and through the first three and uh i'm really kind of puzzled there you know in the beginning there that in the container it doesn't seem to be recognition that the greek word is post there right and even you expect on the part of the greeks i don't know the translation into latin so on in the container but you know i can't be the first person to have seen this i don't think you know it seems that's kind of a thing that they would have yeah and it's such an important thing right see in rk in who logos right the logos was pros ton fan see it doesn't say how would you translate awkward in in english yeah yeah yeah it doesn't have the sense of pros towards right the greek word is pros towards right which is the word that her style uses when he talks about relation right you know he doesn't use the abstract word right he calls it pros t right and and in the you know albert the great in predicaments on the categories he'll translate it ad aliquid which is you know towards something yeah pros t and that's how you distinguish between the father and the son right yeah and this idea of being sharp right and so well opposites you know was fundamental way of distinguishing things right and uh in both the uh categories and in the fifth book of wisdom when aristotle takes up the word before right before the word before he takes up the word what opposite right so the chapter on opposites in the categories is right before the chapter on before which is followed by the chapter on hama together right one is not before or after the other in the same way in in the fifth book of wisdom right the book on on the names equivocal by reason that are used especially in wisdom but to some extent everywhere right he had the opposites right before right so what is this distinction of the father and the son right the holy spirit too but i mean just stick with the father and son you know can they be distinguished by the opposites of contradiction or lacking see or even contraries right see yeah if one contrary is more is lacking in something compared to the other right yeah one's healthy one's sick you know the only one is towards something right if god is i am who am right the other three kinds of opposites have got some what um opposition of being and unbeing right i can't have that and the one who says i am who am right so you're left with yeah towards something yeah so i don't know why they don't i'm going to read through the the thing that you read thomas is coming to me but i don't remember him saying that poor man you know they left these crowns to fall from their table maybe process some other meanings you know that are closer to uploaded but you know i see the word process struck by it you know i took you know a semester of greek there which is only formal study of greek you know but we had little quotes you know from the greeks right oh philas estinalis autos a friend is another self you know and they kind of stick in my mind but they had the beginning of john's gospel there right and so i mean that was very simple beginning was the word the word was of the god you know towards god the word was god right you know very simple right repetitive you know so the word was and so on but they had little thing quotes there from the greek and some scripture you know and so on so it was very nice to take in touch with the not just you know jill did this or john did this something you know i'm going to talk to thomas about that when i get up there yeah and especially greek teachers i mean you know anyway i'll pass here moreover it pertains to what yeah to avoid the what consortia the contact with gentiles right but this the first pastor of the church observed right for it said in the pat in the epistle to galatians that when they came to antioch right he subtracted himself and segregated peter right from the gentiles and therefore without sin after the passion of christ the ceremonies of law could be what observed yeah yeah moreover the precepts of the apostles do not what induce men to sin but from the decree of the apostles the statue it was established you might say that the some gentiles right would observe about the ceremonies of the law for it is said in acts 15 it seems to the holy spirit and to us for nothing further to impose upon you No further what? Burden. Then the things necessary, that you abstain from what? The offerings of, yeah, and blood and suffocating and what? Fornication. Therefore, without sin, the legal ceremonies can be observed after the Passion of Christ. But against this is what the Apostle says in the Epistle to the Galatians. That's St. Paul, by the way, by Antonio Messiah. If you are, what, circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing, right? You'll be subordinate. But nothing excludes the fruit of Christ except, what, mortal sin. Therefore, to be circumcised and to observe other ceremonies after the Passion of Christ is a mortal sin. Right now. So Thomas says, I answer it should be said that all the ceremonial things are certain, what, professing of the faith, not protesting it, in which consists the, what, inward worship of God. Now man can profess, what, his inward faith by deeds as also by, what, words. And in both professing, if a man professes something false, he sins, what, mortally. So although there be the same faith which we have about Christ and which the, what, ancient fathers had, nevertheless, because they came before Christ and we come after, the same faith is signified by diverse words, by us and by them. For by them it is said, behold, a virgin will conceive and will bring forth a son. Now that's in the future, right? Which are words or verbs of the future time. But we however represent them through words of the past time, saying that he is conceived and brought forth. And likewise, the ceremonies of the old law signify Christ as something to be born and to undergo, right? But our sacraments signify him as having been born and undergone. Thus, therefore, one would sin mortally, who now, in professing his faith, would say that Christ would be born, which the ancients piously and truly could say, yeah, so also he sins mortally, if someone now observes the, what, ceremonies, which the ancients piously and faithfully observed. You see, he's making a comparison there, right? This is similar to the language, right? And this is what Augustine says in his work against Faust, huh? For now it is not permitted to, what, use the words, I guess, and actually tourists to be born, right? To undergo, to resurrect, right? Be resurrected? It's not permitted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That some will be born, right? That some undergo, some will be resurrected. That those sacraments in some way, what? Personabante. How do they ever recognize the image? Those sacraments work and they personify. Yeah. But it's announced that he is born, that he has suffered, that he has risen from the dead. And these sacraments, which are, what, undergone or, I don't know, yeah. They impersonate them, yeah. Kind of interesting. We're the right persona. Okay, now Houdini's got to get out of the ropes that he tied, right? Okay. To the first, therefore, it should be said that about this, diversely seem Jerome and Augustine to sense, right? Well, those are two of the, what, top doctors of the Western Church, I guess, huh? Jerome and Augustine. For Jerome, it distinguishes two times, right? One time before the Passion of Christ, in which the legal things were neither, what? Yeah. As we're not having the obligatory force, right? Or being expeditive for their own, what? What? Right. Nor were they, what, killing? Because they did not sin who observed them, right? But immediately, however, after the Passion of Christ, they began to be not only, what, dead? But not having power and obligation, right? Mortifiora. Death-giving. Causing. So that those sinned mortally, whoever, what, observed them, right? Whence the apostles, the ascended apostles, never observed the legal things after the Passion, in truth, right? But only with a pious simulation, though. This is a really kidding thing. Nay, unless they scandalize the Jews and impede their what? Yeah. Yeah. Which simulation should be thus understood, not that those acts they did not make according to what? True. But they did not make them, as it were, what? Observing the ceremonies of the law, just as if someone, right, takes off the skin there of the male member, right? An account of health, right? That's why apparently they do it nowadays, right? No. The doctor doesn't think he's performing the legal rights of the Jews. Yeah. Not as a cause of the legal circumcision to be observed, right? But because it seems indecent, not fitting, that the apostles hide, on account of scandal, the things that you pertain to the truth of life, and what? Teaching. Truth ought not to be set aside to avoid scandal. And that they use, what? Simulation in those things which pertain to the salvation of men. And therefore, more suitably, Augustine distinguishes, what? Three times. One before the Passion of Christ, in which the legal things were neither dead nor causing death, right? Another after the time of the Gospel, when it's been set forth, in which the legal things are now dead and causing death. And the third is a, what? Middle time. From the Passion of Christ to the time when the Gospel is spread about, right? In which the legal things were dead. Because neither do they have some strength, nor is someone held to observe them, right? But they were not, what? Causing death. Because those who were converted to Christ and the Jews were able to illicitly observe those, what? Legal things. They did not put their hope in them as regarding them as necessary for salvation. As it were, without the legal things, thinking that the faith of Christ could not be what? Justify. But from those who were converted from Gentility, right? Not the Jews, but from the Gentiles to Christ, there was not a cause that they be observed, right? And therefore, Paul circumscribed Timotheus, Timothy, who was from, what, a mother, born a Jewish mother. Yeah. But Titus, however, who was born from the Gentiles, he did not wish to, what? Yeah. He did not wish to be born from the Gentiles, but he did not wish to be born from the Gentiles, but he did not wish to be born from the Gentiles, but he did not wish to be born from the Gentiles, but he did not wish to be born from the Gentiles, but he did not wish to be born from the Gentiles. Therefore the Holy Spirit did not, what, wish that at once one, what, yeah, those who were being converted from the Jews, the observation legal thing is, as are inhibited those who were converted from Gentiles, right, the right to Gentility, that they might show a certain difference between these two rights, huh? Yeah, yeah. There's some kind of question sometimes that they say about, nowadays, you know, like you're not supposed to try to convert the Jews, you know, I don't know, it's kind of. But it's one thing to study the matter historically and see the Christian significance and foreshadowing, but then if you go through the ceremony itself, that's kind of Judaizing, I think. Yeah, it's kind of weird, and yet on one hand, that's okay, that's tolerable, but don't you dare try to convert the Jews. What? We're supposed to go back to their style, but they're not going to come forward. Yeah. This kind of, this outrage to the Jews is kind of strange that way, you know. You know, it's like they come and say, we're going to try to convert you now, but. And I'll say, one shouldn't be trying to do that. For the right of the gentility is appreciated as being omnino illicitus, entirely illicit, and from, and prohibited by God always, right? But the right of the law ceased being fulfilled by the passion of Christ, as being instituted by God as a figure of Christ, a sign of Christ. For a different treatment of Timothy and Titus, I don't know. To second, it should be said, that according to Jerome, Peter, what, simulatory, subtracting himself from the Gentiles, right? And he might avoid the scandal of the Jews, of whom he was the, what? Apostle. Yeah. When, in this, in no way did he sin. But Paul, what, similarly, um. He had sin, sin, sin, or. Yeah. And that he might avoid scandal of the Gentiles, of which he was the apostle. But Augustine disproves this. Oh. Yeah. Because Paul, in the canonical scripture, Galatians 2, in which is not, what? It's not, yeah. That's contrary to the divine law. Yeah. To believe something to be false, says that Peter was, what? Reprehensible. That's correcting the Pope there, right? Yeah. So, I don't know. Put this up to our friend. Yeah. Once it is true that Peter, what? And Paul, truly, huh? Him, not in pretending, right? Yeah. Peter, however, did not sin in this, that he observed for some time the legal things, right? Because this was, for him, what? What? He said, as it were being converted from the Jews. But he sinned in this, that about the observance of legal things, he gave exceeding diligence, lest the Jews not be, what? Scandalized. Thus, that from this there follows the scandal of the Gentiles. You don't have to hear these guys' confession, thank God. I forget that some friend of mine, Brother Richard, is there, he's saying, you know, no priest under the age, I forget, was it 30 or 40, like that, worth going to confession to? To a third, it should be said, that some say that that prohibition of the apostles is not to be understood ad literam, right? But according to a spiritual understanding, right? That in the prohibition of blood is understood the prohibition of homicide. And the prohibition of suffocation, suffocated or choked to death, yes, is understood the prohibition of violence and rape. And the prohibition of things offered up is understood the prohibition of idolatry, right? Fornication is prohibited, as it were, paracetamol. And this opinion they take from certain glasses, who expound these precepts mystically. But because homicide and rape, I guess, are also reputed among the Gentiles as illicit, it would be not necessary about this special mandate to be given to those who were converted from Gentility to Christ. Whence others say that ad literam, in the letter, the eating of these things was privated, right? Not an account of the disturbance of legal things, but to compress gluttony, huh? Whence, Jerome says upon that of Ezekiel 44, everything what? They condemn priests who in the, what, in other things, with the desire of gluttony, right? To not guard this. Really, God. But because there are some foods more delicate and provoking gluttony, it does not seem a reason wherefore these more than others should be, what? Revitated. Previtated, huh? And therefore it should be said according to a third opinion. And he says here in the footnote, my thing here. He alludes here, perhaps, to an opinion of Guston, right? And therefore it should be said according to the third opinion that in the letter, right, these things are privated, not to observing the ceremonies of law, but nor that there could coalesce a union of the Gentiles and the Jews living together. The Jews, on account of custom, blood and the suffocated were abominable, right? And the eating of things offered in, yeah, could in the Jews' gender, what, suspicion about the Gentiles that they're returning to idolatry, huh? And therefore these are prohibited for that time in which newly they came together in one, the Gentiles and the Jews. But preceding time, the cause seizing, the effect seizes. For being manifested the truth of the gospel teaching, in which Christ teaches that nothing that enters into the mouth, stains a man, as in said, Matthew 15, nothing should be rejected that is received with the action of grace on Thanksgiving. I wouldn't thank you for fish, so I thank you for the steak, though. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha