Tertia Pars
Lecture 109: The Passion of Christ: Necessity and Suitability

Transcript
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I'm trying to do another article at least. Okay, the second article. To the second one proceeds thus. It seems that it was not possible for there to be another way of the liberation of man, of human nature, than through the passion of Christ, right? This is the only way to do it. For the Lord says, in John chapter 12, unless the grain of wheat, you know, falling on the earth dies, right? It remains alone. If our word dies, it brings much fruit. Where Augustine says that he calls himself the grain of wheat, unless therefore he underwent or suffered death, he could not have, what, in the other way, have brought about the fruit of our, what, liberation, right? Moreover, Matthew, that's a pretty good argument. Matthew 26, the Lord says to the Father, Father, Father, if it is not possible for this chalice to go away, unless I drink it, that your will be done. He speaks there of the chalice of his, what, passion. Therefore, the passion of Christ is not able to, what, pass away. Whence, Hillary says, therefore, the chalice is not able to go away unless he drinks it, because we are not able to be repaired except from his, what, passion. Moreover, the justice of God requires that man be freed from, what, sin. Christ satisfying for this, through his passion. But Christ cannot forego his own justice, right? For it is said in the second epistle to Timothy, if we do not believe, he remains faithful. For he's not able to deny himself or negate himself, right? But he would deny himself if he denied his own justice, since he himself is justice. Therefore, it seems there was not possible in another way for man to be liberated than through the passion of, what, Christ. Moreover, falsehood could not come under faith, but the ancient fathers believed that Christ was to suffer, right? Therefore, it seems that he could not but suffer, right? Because that's a clever supposition, though, right? But against this is what Augustine says in the 13th book about the, what, Trinity. Now, what's he talking about the incarnation of the book on the Trinity, huh? Can you keep these things separate? That way in which we, through the mediator of God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, God designed to liberate, right? We assert to be, what, good or suitable, good and suitable to the divine dignity, right, huh? But we show it to be true that some other way was possible to God, right, huh? Whose power all things equally, what, subject, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he says, I answer it should be said that something can be said to be possible or impossible in two ways, huh? This is something like the distinction you made if necessary, right? In one way, simply and absolutely. In another way, by what? Supposition, right? Simply and absolutely speaking, it would be possible for God to what? In some way, in some way, free man other than through the passion of Christ. Because it is not impossible before God every, what, word, everything does not involve a contradiction, right? As is said in Luke chapter 1. But from some supposition made, it becomes, what, impossible, right, huh? Because it is impossible for the foreknowledge of God to fail, right? And for his will or the disposition to, what, fail, right? Supposing, therefore, the foreknowledge and the foreordering of God about the passion of Christ, it was not at the same time possible for Christ not to suffer and for man in some other way to be liberated than through his, what, passion, right, huh? And there's the same reason about all those things which are foreknown and foreordered by God as has been shown or had in the first part that takes up the providence of God and so on. So he's pretty clear there right now. There's some supposition, right? Well, can I go and marry some woman now, today? Only on supposition that you're not married anymore. Yeah, yeah. So is it possible for me to marry this woman there out in the street? In some large way. Yeah. But given your circumstances, no. Oh, okay. It's just, I know that. Given your present circumstances. Given your present circumstances. Given the supposition that I am already married, right? Already committed. Yeah. Yeah. So I have to say that this woman in the street, then it's impossible for me to marry you, right? But it would be in this sense of a supposition, right? Or a whistle. Okay. Now, the text from John there, right? About the green of the thing. Green, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that the Lord speaks there, supposing, right, the foreknowledge and the foreordering of God, right? According as it was ordered, that the fruit of human, what? Salvation would not come about or follow, right? Except by Christ, what? Suffering, right? And likewise in the second objection, right, huh? Father, if it's not possible, right? For this. Okay. And likewise should it be understood in the second objection. If it is not possible, right, for this, what, chalice to pass unless I drink it, to it, on account of this, that you have thus, what, disposed, right? When C joins, or adds, your will be done, right? He could have willed something else, right? But if he's willed that, then it's possible not to be, right? Now, what if the third objection, which is from the, what, idea of justice, right, huh? To the third, it should be said that this justice also depends on the will of God requiring satisfaction from the human race for, what, sin, huh? Otherwise, if he wished without, what, without any satisfaction to liberate man from the, what, sin, it would not be done against, what, justice, huh? He, he, the judge, right, is not able, I guess, huh? Did you say that? Maybe that judge is not. Yeah. Saving justice, right, to dismiss guilt or punishment, who has in his, what, duty, you might say, to punish guilt committed by another, right? As in another man, right, huh? Or either what has been done against the whole republic, right? Or to a superior prince, right, huh? But God has, what, does not have any ones above him, right? And he is the supreme and the common good of the whole, what, universe, huh? That's what Thomas Harkin said, he's the supreme good, right? Because the common good is greater than the private good. He's the common good of the whole universe. He must be the greatest good. And therefore, if he dismisses a sin, which has the, what, notion of guilt from the fact that it is committed against him, right? He does injury to, what, no one, huh? Just as if any man remits the offense committed against him, right? Without satisfaction, he acts with mercy and not unjustly, right? And therefore, David, asking mercy, says, to you only have I sinned, as if to say, you are able, without injustice, to dismiss it from me, huh? So he's not acting against, what, his justice if he dismisses it, huh? It's against him, huh? Now what about the faith? Well, he says human faith and also, what? Divine scriptures by which faith is instructed, right, huh? They rest upon, right, the foreknowledge and ordering, and divine ordering, right? And therefore, there's the same reason for the necessity which comes from their supposition, and the necessity which comes from the foreknowledge and divine, what, will, huh? So you want to do another article, or what? Yeah, sure. Okay. This, this, we kind of go. together, you know, because they're all dealing with what way it's necessary now. Would there some other way be more suitable? To the third one proceeds thus, it seems that some other way would be more suitable for the liberation of man than through the passion of Christ. For nature in its operation imitates the divine work, right? As being moved and ruled by what? God, right? But nature does not do through two things what is he able to do through one. Since therefore God is able to liberate man by his will alone, right, it does not seem suitable for the liberation of the human race, that Christ, that the passion of Christ be added to this, right? Okay? It is the will of God. How's that for? Pretend you're piping and smoking. More of those things which come about by nature, more soon will they come about than those things that come about through violence, right? Because the violent is a certain what? Cutting out, or falling from what is according to nature, as is said in the book about the universe. But the death of Christ, or the passion of Christ, brought in a violent death, right? Therefore it would have been more suitable that Christ would, by an actual death, right, liberate in dying man, and that he undergo this violence. Moreover, it is most suitable that the one who, in violence and unjustly detains, right, he be, what, despoiled to a power that is superior. Whence, Isaiah chapter 52, it is said, freely you have, what, yeah, without silver you are redeemed, huh? But the devil had no right in man, right, whom he deceived by fraud, and through a certain violence he detains him as subject to slavery. Therefore it seems most suitable that Christ would dispoil the devil through power alone without his passion. First time I was seeing you in the commentary on the Psalms there, you know, that man sinned by, no, not there, it was, it says like a, that man fell by desiring knowledge, right, not the knowledge of good and evil, but the devil desiring power, right? So God wanted to overcome him by justice rather than by power, right? Now again, the great Augustine says, in the thirteenth book of the Trinity, our miseries ought to be, what, healed, could not be healed in a, what, suitable way, than through the passion of Christ, huh? Now Thomas begins with the principle, I answer it should be said, some way to that extent is more suitable to achieving some end, the more through it many things come together which are suitable and expedient to the end, right? But through this, that man is, what, liberated through the passion of Christ, many things run together, right, pertaining to the salvation of man, in addition to the liberation from what? Sin, huh? First, because through this man knows how much God loves man, and through this he is provoked to loving him, in which the perfection of human, what, salvation consists. So that's the reason it's given both the Summa Theologiae and the Summa Congentiles, you know, it's original reasons for the incarnation, right? That he shows his love by uniting human nature to himself, because it's a property of love to unite the lover with the loved, right? That's why, you know, you compare it to a marriage, right, huh? Okay? Sign of love. Whence the Apostle says that, in St. Paul, huh? Let's say, what? Figures. Yeah, Thomas, yeah. He and Peter. Whence the Apostle says, Romans 5, God commended his charity in us when we were enemies, right, John? Christ died for us, huh? Secondly, because through this he gives us an example of, what? Obedience, humility, constancy, justice, and the other virtues shown in the Passion of Christ, huh? Which are necessary to human salvation. Whence it is said, in the other Apostle, Peter, Christ suffered, what? For us, leaving us an example, we might follow his footsteps, yeah. Now, this is another reason that it's given both in the Summa Teologiae for the Incarnation, right? And the Summa Gentiles. Thomas says that virtue is the road to happiness, right? So that, but we can't be sure about any man, because even the greatest saints, he says, that it's in fault, right? So both the words and the example of Christ, you know, are most credible, right? Augustine says, what? Man can be seen, but it's not a perfect model to follow. God can be followed, but he's not seen, right? So God became a man. Third, because Christ, through his Passion, not only, what, liberated man from sin, but he also, what, merited justifying grace and the glory of Beatitude for him, as will be, what, sin later on, on top of the fruits of this, I guess. Fourth, because through this is to man, indicted or allegation, right, a great necessity of conserving himself immune from sin, right, according to that of 1 Corinthians 6, you have been bought with a, what, precious gift, huh? Having been bought with a precious price, a great price, right, the blood of Christ, glorified and carried God in your, what, body, yeah. Of course, he does touch upon that in the Incarnation, too, right, the reasons for the Incarnation, that man would realize how noble his nature is and not, as he quotes Leo the Great there, right, you know, not staying this great, yeah, he realizes how great his nature is, that God would join him to himself, right, and therefore, but, but here, there's an added thing here, though, because you're, in a sense, responsible for his suffering, you could say, huh, by your sins, and so that, it kind of sobers you up, you know? That same, this reason seems, to me, maybe it follows more on the first reason that he gets, is that if we're provoked to love him more, then we'll, for his sake, love ourselves more, to love ourselves more. Yeah. I mean, in both Sumas, you know, you have the good, promotion to the good, and, you know, leaving the bad, right? It's more explicit in Summa Theologiae, but there is in both words. I noticed in that prayer that we say there, you know, before the crucified Christ, you know? It's kind of standard prayer there in the church. You say, you contemplate the wounds of Christ, but both, what, with joy and sadness, right, then? So joy, because it's a sign of what Christ loved, right? But sadness, because it shows the reality of his suffering, right? But also one's own, what, sinfulness and being, the cause of this, yeah. And so, if he'd done it an easier way, we wouldn't feel so indebted. And definitely not so obligated to try to avoid sins, huh? Fifth, because this, what, gives rise to a greater dignity, that man... And overcome and deceived by the devil, right? But also, what? Be a man who would overcome the, what? Devil. And just as man merited death, so a man by dying overcame death, right? As it said in 1 Corinthians 15, gratias Deo, thanks be to God, who gives us victory through Jesus Christ. I mean, he gives us victory, right? Because he's a man, too. And therefore, it was more suitable through the passion of Christ to be liberated than through the will of God alone, right? So there he's kind of, as I say, these first three articles go together, right? He's trying to show that it's necessary, but in the second, third article, he brings out that, in the second article, that it's not, what? At the end, it could not in any way be had about this, you know? But then, no more suitable way could it be had than by this, right? So it's necessary in that sense in which, you know, something is necessary to achieve the end well, right? Thomas said, you can make a journey without a horse, but to make it well, you need a horse. I mean, you say, he's also not just bearing that it's made the best of all. Yeah, yeah. It seems to be better. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, here's what I guess it says, and there's no better way in which he could have redeemed us, right? Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. What's interesting, though, is you can say that God chose to become man, right? God the Father didn't choose to have God the Son, right? Or nor did they choose to have, let's say, well, third guy, you know? I think he's the first time we say, oh, you know, let's have a third guy. No, it was not a matter of choice at all, right? You know? It's absolutely necessary to be three persons in God, right? Although we wouldn't know this without the faith, right? Okay, so the first objection. Nature also, that it makes something more suitable, right, sometimes takes on many things for one thing, right? As two eyes are seen. That's very interesting. That's a good example. Yeah. Or two legs, right? Two ears are hearing, two hands. Yeah, yeah. You wouldn't have quite the depth if you only had one eye, right? I guess if you only had one ear, you wouldn't have quite, you wouldn't have Mozart so well, huh? Yeah, I was thinking about, speaking of listening to Mozart, it occurred to me, I don't remember when, it was a while then, thinking before they had recordings of music, how often would somebody hear Mozart? Yeah, yeah. So you figure, when they went to him, maybe they went several times, maybe they had, you know, a theater would put on a symphony or whatever, many times in a week or a month or something, that people would return to hear it, because how many have their lifetime been? Yeah, interesting. Only once in a while. Yeah. So that maybe also explains why sometimes the works of music, the art, wasn't appreciated until longer. Yeah. Because I don't remember you were out of it, so nobody would hear it. I know we're reading the descriptions, you know, the performance of the 22nd Pianic Manchelle, you know, they so much liked the second movement, you know, that they had to repeat the whole movement right then and there, you know. We got a little bit jaded, you know, because you hear it too often, you know. Sure. But I kind of, you know, rotate around my collection, you know, and I call it a self-sustained collection. It's big enough that you don't get bored, you know, because you keep on, you know, going around the collection and you're looking well. I know sometimes, you know, I get into the automobile, you know, and I turn on the classical music station and there's a piece of Mozart that I know, but, you know, there's nothing to do in the car, really, you know, except hear that maybe and then you listen to it more carefully than you sometimes at home, you know. That's really good stuff, you know. That's really good stuff. Yeah. I suppose it could also be a different recording too. Yeah, yeah. So, that's interesting the way you answer that, huh? Some concrete talks, huh? Maybe, it's sort of like the same to the effect of your own eyes rebuking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, what about the natural rather than the violent, right? The second, it should be said, as Chrysostom says, Christ, not his own, what? Death, which he did not have, since he is, what? Life, but he came to consume, what? The death of men, huh? Whence, not by his, what? Did he, what? Body, but he sustained that inflicted upon him by men, huh? But if he, what? Made sick his own body, a week? Or maybe if his body was sick, because he was sick. And in the sight of all, it was dissolved, right? It would be unsuitable that the one who healed the sicknesses of others would have his own body affected with, what? Sickness. But if without any, what? Sickness, uh, yeah, and then offered himself, it would not be believed, huh? Abba's resurrection, the one discoursing of this? Making it known, it would be, it would be known, it would rise in the human. What way would Christ undergo in death victory, except before all undergoing it through the incorruption of his body he would, what? Prove that death was extinct? Yeah. Yeah. But they're accusing him when he's dying, you know, that he's cured, other than not, he can't do himself. That's why I follow entirely the argument there. Okay, now what about the old guy, devil, here? The theory should be said that although the devil unjustly invaded man, right? Nevertheless, man, on account of his sin, unjustly was, what? left by God under the slavery servitude of the devil. And therefore it was suitable that through justice, man be liberated from the, what? Servitude of the devil, right? If he was just under him, right? Christ satisfying for him through his passion, it was also suitable to overcoming the private devil with the, what? Man who gave up justice, you might say, and was a lover of, what? power. So all these men in the world, you know, like Hitler, loving power are imitating the devil, right? That Christ might overcome the devil and the brave man, not through only the power of his divinity, but also through the justice and the humility of his passion, right? So the injustice and the pride of the devil be overcome by the justice and humility of Christ. justice, as Augustine says in 50. Hmm. That's in his last word on so many things. Hmm. Hmm. İzlediğiniz için teşekkür ederim. And why did God make Augustine and Thomas, those two guys, so much more intelligent than us? Why did he do that? Something to learn. We want this likeness, you know, of what? Just as, what, God gives everything to creatures, right? Gets nothing from them, right? But they all depend upon him, right? So we might, some of us, like Augustine and Thomas, right? A little bit, what? Yeah, I mean, if Christ, you know, is God, is the one, you know, enlightens every man coming into this world, right? Well, if no man, like Augustine and Thomas, was not around to enlighten other men, right? Then there'd be nothing like God when enlightens every man comes into this world, right? In some way, by enlightening, at least some man, right? So, I mean, this thing I said about likeness, right? God wants one creature to be superior to another one, so that it might be a cause of, what? Goodness for others, right? Cause of enlightenment in this case, right? Mm-hmm. Now, there's another reason, or it's an extension of that. I'm just reading when St. Thomas talks about the hierarchy of angels, because he talks about, doesn't God enlighten the angels directly? How can one angel enlighten another kind of thing? He used the example of the soul of the body. He says, well, the soul is the form of the body, because life's the body immediately. But then there's some things that it affects the body that it does immediately, like when it moves. It moves one member to another member. So, it moves, so it moves this hand through my heart. It doesn't move it directly. I'd say, and that's it. It moves one member to another emotion. So, maybe something like that, too. Yeah. It's kind of marvelous, because all the angels are equal, too, right? So, the higher one is always enlightening the one below in some way, you know? And, therefore, they're like God, enlightening others, right? If we're all equal, equally, then one will also not, but, yeah. A lot of the things that are not fair in this life, some go to war and some stay over here to drill, others can go to war, you know, so. So, we could accept the fact that we had to get drilled by St. Thomas. And by Euclid in geometry and the science of numbers, right, huh? How's Euclid? Why is he so much more intelligent about numbers and figures and so on than I am, you know? So, to not recognize that inequality is a kind of way to reject God's, what, plan, right? It's kind of a pride, you know, huh? They had on the National Review Online there. They had an interview with, what's his name at Harvard there? Oh, with Harvey, you know? And he gives two grades, you know? He gives one grade for the office and one for what the grade really is. You know, it's grade inflation, you know, huh? And Harvey Mansfield, yeah, I mean, so, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And he gives two grades, right? You know, the guys when they, you know, graduate, you know, they thank him for the real grades, you know, what they got as well. For the one they, you know, he has to give a little higher grade for the office because everybody else is giving all these A's out and so on, you know? He's kind of, you know, he's been interviewed about all these different things he does. So when you get tenure, he says you can decide to have a little bit of fun, you know? But since to grad everybody is equal, right? Kind of democratic idea, right? In a sense to reject God's plan, right? As well as I'll learn anything from the girls. Moreover, because this kind of death, this genus of death, this kind of death, is most suitable, what? For satisfying, right? For the sin of our first parent, huh? Which was from this, that against the command of God, he took, what? The apple, right? The fruit? Out of the forbidden tree, right? And therefore it was suitable that Christ, to satisfy for that sin, himself should be, what? On the wood, right? As we're restoring what Adam had, what? Taken, huh? Sometimes they say that it was like a tree he was actually crucified on, or was it, or was it, you know, like we have that, you know, like that, boards, you know, and we grew, grew, grew, tea. He was kind of a tree, I don't think that, uh... It seems to me the most common, historically, is to have the one fixed and the, you know... The steep ends and the patibola, you know. Right. That's known that the Romans did that. It was a finished wood, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean... Like a beam, it's rough beams or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the one beam was fixed and it all was carried by the crown. Yeah. And Catherine Emmerich had mentioned that the wood was made up of, or the cross was made up of a number of different types of wood, especially prepared, whether what she writes about is true or not. Yeah, because he just says ligno here, he didn't say, he didn't say tree, yeah, yeah. And that's interesting, too, because that's the wood, the word that Volga is using. The garden of paradise is called the ligno, the wood. The whole garden is called wood. Like the woods here. Wooded, the area is wooded. Tweed. Tweed, yeah. Wooded. According to that is Psalm 68, what I did not, what, take, I guess, right? That I have, what, paid back, yeah. Once Augustine, who is this Augustine? He may get quoted, doesn't he? Thomas quotes Augustine as much as the catechism quotes Augustine, right? Once Augustine says in a certain sermon on the Passion, right, that Adam had, as you might say, contempt for the command, right, taking from the, what, tree. But whatever Adam lost, Christ found on the cross. So, that's an interesting reason, he says, huh? Okay, now you get Chrysostom, that's a say, right? The third reason is because, as Chrysostom says, huh? In his sermon on the Passion, in a, what, excelsus ligno, raised up, and not under a roof, right? He suffered, right, huh? That he might also cleanse the nature of the, what, air itself, huh? But also, the, what, earth, uh, sensed a similar benefit, right? Blood running down on the side, right? That a true, what, dropping? Still outside the onion? Not from the, uh... Cleansing, huh? And upon that of John 3, 14, it is necessary for the Son of Man to be exalted, right, huh? To be exalted, hearing right, he understands his life being suspended on high, that he might sanctify the air, who also sanctified the earth, walking in it, huh? And water being baptized, too. Kind of interesting reason that Chrysostom, see why Thomas gives it, you know, after the ones from Augustine, which are more clearly seen, but it's kind of interesting what he says here, right? Especially when you think of the air as being the place of the devils, huh? Yeah. A fourth reason is because through this, that he died in it, he prepares an ascend for us to heaven, as Chrysostom says, right, huh? And this is what he himself says, huh? In John chapter 12. That for I, if I am exalted from the earth, I would draw all to myself, huh? And see why Kajitana is right when he says, you know, Thomas seems to have inherited the mind of all the church fathers, huh? He so venerated them, huh? Fifth reason is because this fits... The, what, universal salvation of the whole world, huh? Whence Gregory of Nyssa, huh, says that the figure of the cross from the middle, contact, right, divided into, what, four parts, signifies the power and providence, the one who hung it, I guess, diffused everywhere, right, huh? And Chrysostom also says that on the cross, his hands being extended, right, huh? He died, huh? That by what? One hand, he might grab the old people, right? The Jews, I guess, huh? And the other, he might draw those who are from the Gentiles, huh? The sixth reason is because by this genus of death, diverse virtues are designated, right? Whence Augustine says in the book, on the grace of the Old and New Testament, huh? Not in vain did he, what, choose such a kind of, what, death. They wanted to film one time, you know, when he was in the hometown over the cliff, remember that? He didn't choose to die that way, right, huh? Not being as appropriate, huh? And that the width and the height and the length and the depth about which the apostle speaks, he might exist as the, what, teacher, huh? For the latitude is in the, what? The wood, I guess, was transverse, right? Placed above, huh? And this pertains to good, what, deeds, because there the hands are, what? Yeah. Longitude, in that from, what? The wood, huskwe, I tear him down to the earth, right? He's conspicuous, huh? And there in some way he, what? Stands, that is to say, persists and perseveres, huh? Which is a tribute to, to longevity, huh? Altitude is in that part of the, what? Wood, which is from the transverse part towards the above, right? And this is the head of the, what? One crucified. Because there is the, what? High expectation of those hoping, as they should hope, right? In the speranciama. Already from that wood, which is, what? Hidden, I suppose, in the earth, right? Yeah. Whence the hole rises, to signify the depth of gratuitous grace, right? And therefore, Augustine says upon John that the wood in which was fixed in the members of the one's suffering was also the chair of the master teaching, huh? I might think, you know, that, uh, Frangelica, right? All the saints are looking at the cross, you know, and mostly are, you know, doing some kind of penance, you know, or penitential. Point, uh, Thomas is there, you know, trying to, but if it is the, the, uh, cathedral, right, uh, that's one attitude or one time you could have in looking at the cross, right? What is going on here, right? What is the, what is the meaning of this, you know? And, uh, Fr. Thomas, right, who was very much, uh, I don't know if it's a reference to this text of the saint. John Paul II said that in one of his, uh, letters on catechesis, he said, that one of the most popular and sublime images of Christ the teacher against the crucifixion. Mm-hmm. That's kind of interesting. The seventh reason is because this kind of death does correspond, huh, to many figures, right? For, as Augustine says in the Sermon on the Passion, that from the, what, flood of the waters, the human race was freed by a wooden, what? Bark. Bark, yeah. The people of God, uh, withdrawing or receding from Egypt, right, huh? Moses divided the, what, sea with the rod, right? And he prostrated the Pharaoh, you might say, and redeemed the people of God. Likewise, the same, Moses cast the wood into the, what, water? Bitter water. And he changed the bitter water into sweetness, huh? That from the, what, wooden staff. Staff. Brought forth. Brought forth. Unda, waves. Waves, yeah. Waves of salt. South terror. Very helpful. Hellfire. Yeah, the spiritual rock, huh? And that Amalek might be, what, overcome against the, what, rod of Moses extended by his ten hands, yeah. And the law of God of the, what, Ark of the Testament is believed to be, what, Wooden. That to all of these, to the wood of the cross, as we're through certain, what, steps we might, what, come. It's kind of appropriate that he's a son of a, or put it a son of a carpenter, right? It's kind of appropriate, huh? Who is it? One of the Marian orders there, I think, they have kind of a devotion to the hidden life of Christ, you know, in Nazareth there. Because most of his life is spent, what, kind of hidden, right? Between his birth and, he didn't start his public life at around 30 or so. The only mention we have is a temple, you know. I mean, the rest of it's all kind of hidden, right? But, if he's a son of a carpenter, you probably would be doing, what? Especially if he was poor. Yeah, but, but work with wood, right? It's kind of, given the significance of wood here and the seventh reason, right? and what's coming for it. I remember in my father's factory, you know, there was a machine shop, you know, and a metal shop, and so, there's a wood shop right now. And of course, my brother Mark used to always remark that how the guys work in the wood shop seemed to be more human or more, more attitude towards life, you know? Oh, it's all good. I thought you guys are there welding, you know, like that. It seems like like a, you know, it seems like some human, you know? There's a good idea. You go up there, pile lumber, you know, and so on on the woodshed, and so on. So now in your exam, you'll be asked for those seven reasons, okay? Notice how intelligent, how loving is Thomas, and all these little details, you know, about if you had to give a sermon on that, this recent feast there, the exaltation of the cross, right? You could absorb these seven things and unfold them. You'll say, where do you get these wonderful ideas? You'll say, where do you get these wonderful ideas now for these things? I'll say, not for myself. Now the first ejection was a true thought of corresponding to the figure, right? To the first effort should be said that the altar of the Holocaust, in which the sacrifices of animals were offered, was in fact made from wood, as it's had in Exodus 27, and as he guards this, truth corresponds to the, what, figure, just as the animals are sacrificed on wood, so Christ is sacrificed on the wooden cross, right? It's not however necessary, right? That is, he guards all things, It's all things, It's all things, it's all things, it's all things, it's all things, it's all things, it's all things, Because then there would not be, what, likeness, but truth, as Damascene says in the third book. But especially, or in particular, as Christendom said, not that his head would be, what, amputated, as happened to John, right? And Thomas sometimes, you know, you always thought, does he sing with the tongue-in-cheek, you know, he must increase, I must decrease, right? And Thomas, you know, mentions, you know, it's not only the first of fame, you know, but the first of the fact that the one would be stretched out, so to speak, on the cross, and the other would be shortened by losing his head. And I think that was just kind of, you know, without trying to humor it, right? I went around. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nor was he, what, was Isaiah's cut in half or something? Sawed. Sawed in half, yeah, that's... A prophet? Yeah. The Hebrew was mentioned, but it's not, I don't think it's explicitly mentioned, but I think it's a customary way of referring to Isaiah. I don't know if it's in Scripture that that's maybe an apocryphal or something, I'm not sure. He was sawing it, too. Deer Isaiah. Deer Isaiah, yeah. Super-white, yeah. So that his Christ body, right, might be, what, preserved, right? Yeah. Yeah. All integral and indivisible, right, huh? And not come, what, not be the occasion for those who want to, what? Right, the church. The fire of the church. That's interesting, isn't it? That's very interesting. And in place of the material fire, that's the other part that's in the injection, right? There was, in the Holocaust of Christ, the fire of charity, huh? That's really beautifully said, huh? Very good, Thomas. Very good. If my commendation means a thing to you. That's like, you know, where Mozart wanted to, you know, his father would have friends over, you know, musician friends over to play a quartet or something like that, and Mozart wanted to play, you know, and he said, well, you can sit next to so-and-so, you know, and kind of play along with him, you know. And before long, the other guy put his violin down at Mozart, you know, for Mozart to play the whole part, huh? Is that, which, was that from, is that from a biography or? Well, this didn't know, Life of Mozart, right? Was it Einstein or what? Well, Alfred Einstein, he might like to be in there, yeah, yeah. Is that a relative of Albert Einstein? It's kind of a distant cousin, yeah, there's some relation there. Oh. We have something here on the, uh, John Paul in, uh, Benedictine 16th recently, on the, uh, Requeue of Mozart. Oh, wow. We have, we have, we have, we have, we have, we have, we have, we have, we have, we have to do the break, do the break, we'll have a. Oh, we have done the break, okay. Yeah, we have a little musical interlude there. We got the one from John Paul II, you know, which is at the occasion of the performance of the Requeue of Mozart, too. Oh. But this is one that was just, uh, a week ago or so, you know, in the castle of Glendalpha, you know. Um, they, they had a, an orchestra there and, uh, and a Turin choir there and so on, and they performed the, the, uh, Requeue of Mozart. So he says some things about Mozart and about the Requeue in particular, so. Interesting. Yes, yes. So I have some kind of excuse, you know, in this. When I get the last judgment, I say, why did you listen, spend as much time listening to Mozart? For the Pope himself. I'm sorry, man. I'll always consult, you know, but Thomas says that there, there'll be pleasure of the senses, right? And they're compatible with the, you know, final stage, you know? And it'll be the beautiful, you know, the eye and the ear right now. So there'll be music in heaven, properly speaking. You know, there won't be any steaks or, or wine or those things. Don't be here. Yeah. Say, Bridget, I feel there, sitting there, we'll sit around the lake of ale. She didn't say we'd drink it, but she said we'd be around the lake of ale. Well, there was a, we have horrified bodies. The body has to have some type of... Now, the second objection, huh? Okay, this is kind of the death being a kind of, what? Ignominious death and so on, right? It's a little more glorious death, you know? He says, Christ refused, right? To take on detracting passions, right? That pertain to the defect of knowledge or grace, right? Or also of, what, virtue, right? Not over those which pertain to injury bestowed, you might say, from the outside, huh? Rather, as it said in Hebrews chapter 12, he sustained cross, holding in contempt be, what, confusion as opposed to, what, glory, right? Actually, if you go back to the ten reasons he gives you the incarnation, and the five, you know, for the good and for the bad, he has two ones in terms of, what, pride, right, in particular, right? That's what's kind of new in the Summa Theologiae, it's not in the Summa Concentilas, right? Right, singling out the curing of our pride and knowing that we didn't get these things from ourselves, right? The third objection, huh? It says in Scripture itself, right? Cursed is the one who hangs on the wood, right? To the third it should be said, as Augustine says, huh? In the 14th book against Faust, huh? You have a lot of works of Augustine that are contra, contra, contra, right? But that's why in Vatican II there, in the thing where Thomas, the teaching of priests, you remember that one? And he says, you know, one should read Scripture first, and then one should read the Church Fathers for what they, what, contributed to the individual mysteries of the faith, you know? And this contest so-and-so is because he's made a mistake about this article, the faith, and this particular thing he's mistaken on, and we're going to defend, you know, against this particular error. So it's kind of an ad hoc development there, theology. I mean, Thomas, to see it as a whole, right, theology, that's why you should read Thomas, right, huh? That's one of the reasons to read him, right? But it's kind of the contrast there, you know? You have all this contra, you know? So even though you have to assume a contra gentiles, right? It's not like, you know, there's all kinds of heresies that are being refuted. It's not Faust in particular, or contra Aries, although it's contra him, it's contra Sibelius, huh? Did he say the Father and I are one, huh? Well, Sibelius took that as being what? One person. The Father and I are one person. No. The Father and I are one, what? One God. One and the same God. But not one and the same, what? Person, yeah. That's how Sibelius took it. So Thomas would be taking up all these, right? So it doesn't matter about contra Sibelius, you know, or contra. But Augustine has these things, right? It's almost like, you know, the Church Fathers would reverence so much the superiority of Sacred Scripture to us, you know, they would not try to really understand it so much, except they're forced to because someone is attacking it. Someone is denying it. So they have to defend the faith against these heresies and so on, and therefore you start to understand also, so far as we can, a little bit the mystery in these things. To the third, it should be said, as the great Augustine says in the 14th book against Faust. He was the, what, the great Manichaean, huh? Right, yeah. I was in the Confessions there where he's going to meet the great Faustus, you know, telling him what a great guy he is, you know. But then he discovers that Faustus doesn't really know the liberal arts, right? So he doesn't know these fundamental things. How can I trust him about these highest things, right? So what's he doing on the importance of Augustine's being educated in the liberal arts, in the strict sense of liberal arts, you know, the trivium and the quadrivium, right? And then seeing, too, there's something wrong with Faustus, you know, claiming to be our teacher, but he doesn't understand these most fundamental things, right? How can he be trusted, teaching about the most difficult and the most exalted and profound things? If Augustine had not seen through Faustus, what would it have become of Augustine, no? Those who came after him, learned from him. That I esteem. He was one of the Manichaeans, yeah. Peccatu maledictum est. Sin is something accursed, right? And consequently, the death and mortality that comes from sin. But the flesh of Christ was, what? Mortal, in the sense that it had, what? A likeness of the flesh of sin. Not that there was any sin there, but it had the punishment for sin, right? Because that is death. An account of this, Moses calls it, what? Cursed. Just as the apostle names it, sin, right? Notice the way Paul speaks very strongly. He who did not know sin, right? Had no sin at all in him. For us was made sin, right? You can understand that properly, Marissa. That is, through the punishment of sin, right? Yeah. It was therefore not any greater, what? Envy, huh? Who said he was, what? Cursed of God, right, huh? For unless God hated sin, right, huh? He would not have sent his own, what? Son, taking it on and taking it away. Probably Augustine is a style, right? Because it's rhetorical. He's a master of rhetoric, right? Teacher of rhetoric, huh? You know, but like Aristotle, right, huh? I guess in the academy there, Plato would put the young students to work, you know? You've got to do some geometry, you know? And he'd put Aristotle to work on the rhetoric, right? And one of the other things, so. Eventually Aristotle wrote that famous work on rhetoric, huh? Which Cicero calls the Golden River. There's a beautiful thing there in the third book of the rhetoric, you know, where Aristotle says, you should kill your opponent's seriousness with jesting. Yeah. And it's jesting with seriousness. And I do those two examples. I take the one from Lincoln and the one from Regan. You know, Lincoln was attacked during the Lincoln-Douglas debates. You know, two-faced, you know. And he turned to the audience, you know, and the kind of ugly man, Lincoln, and says, No, I asked, you know, if I had another face, would I have told this one? Well, he's telling you the seriousness of Douglas there, right? And then during the, what's his name? Yeah, Regan, during the campaign there with, what's his, from Minnesota, the same. Oh, Mundale. Yeah, Mundale. Mundale was, you know, raising questions about, you know, Regan's pretty old, you know, and maybe bringing it up to the job anymore, you know. So one, in the debate, Regan said, I'm not going to take advantage, you know, of Mundale, you know, his youth that didn't experience it. Everybody laughed, even Mundale laughed, you know. But he could never go back and try to, you know, to attack him for being, you know, over the heels, so to speak, right? That's what Geraldine Ferraro said about, you know, he wasn't even a Christian, about Reagan. It was his policy. He's not even a Christian, and they asked Reagan. And I said, well, when I heard him say it, I just tweet. That's because your opponent's suit is adjusting, you know. Aristotle's pointing actually when he remembers, he's gorgeous, you know, but it's kind of a classic, classic example of these things. So to confess, what? Therefore, accursed, taking it on for us, right, you know, is to confess, what? That he died for what? For us. For us. He became accursed for us, right? Because he died for us, because that's the effect of sin, right? Which is cursed. Whence it is said in Galatians chapter 3, that Christ redeemed us from the curse, you might say, of the law, right, huh? Being made accursed for us, huh? That's to the point. Very good, Thomas. Very good. I think I had to write this thing, right? Just to pull these things out, huh? So are you reading Thomas, or are you reading Christmas? I'm reading Thomas.