Sacred Scripture
Lecture 1: Eternal Life, the Theological Virtues, and Scripture's Purpose

Transcript
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and the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas de O'Gracias. God, our knight in it, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order them marriages, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, help us to understand what you have written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Okay, let me ask you a little question here. What would you call our goal, our end or purpose, right, as Christians or as Roman Catholics, right? What would you say is our last, our ultimate end or goal? What would you say? What would you call it? Well, is that what you call it, or is that what it is? I was asking somebody, you know, if I said to you, uh, what do you call this figure, you know? Yeah. You wouldn't say it's an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. That'd be saying what it is. So what you call it is not exactly what it is, right, huh? Although, I mean, they're almost a changeable course. But, see, if you ask me in grade score, I'd probably say heaven, right? I don't think heaven, you know, is too good a way of naming it, right? I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, right? Okay? Maybe a better way of naming it is, is, is the kingdom, right? You could say that kingdom come, right? Yeah. So you get John there, they're calling it the house of God, right, huh? The house is where someone lives. Well, that's where God lives. He's got to get to that house. It's going to be in your house. But, uh, uh, I was struck by the, the, uh, the reading through the New Testament. I mean, reading through the Gospel of John, I should say in particular, reading Thomas's commentary and so on, but reading the Greek and so on, how often this idea of eternal life as a way of naming it comes up, right? Now, I'll give you two texts there where it might be interesting, huh? And one is that I've given you already, but we'll do it again here because it's relevant here. One is from the Epistle of St. Jude, right? Which is one of the canonical, what, epistles, right? The last one, I guess, in order to give it here. It's a very short epistle and it's not divided into chapters, and it's just the verses of the book. So it's in verses 20 and 21 in this edition, I suppose it's the same in yours. Mm-hmm. And he says, Umes, right? Aga petoi, ah, beloved. You, my beloved, right? Ep oiko dumuntes, huh? Which they translate here in English, building up, right? Right? Comes from oikos for a word for a house. I was in the supermarket with my wife the other day and, and this Greek stuff, I don't know some of that stuff, it's called oikos is the name of the, the bland, yeah, oikos. The house, something for the house, right? Oikos. Ep oiko dumuntes, I'm building up, hey, autus, yourselves, right, huh? Te hajotate humon, in the most, what, holy, piste, humon, your faith, okay? Pistis. Then, in penumati hajio, in the Holy Spirit, pros yuko menoi, praying, right? He autus, yourselves, in agape theo, in the love of God, keep yourselves in the love of God, right? Okay. Now, those three that he just mentioned there, right, are really, maybe what? Belief, and hope, and what? Charity. I love. Use the word tistis there, right, or that different case, and the word agape, right, which is kind of the word for karitas in Greek, huh? He doesn't say hope, but he says praying, as you know from Augustine and Thomas, when they take up Christian doctrine on the basis of faith, hope, and charity, right? They talk about the creed with faith, and with the, what, hope, the Our Father, and then with the charity, the two commandments of love, and the ten commandments, right? Okay. So, he's saying, first, what? You're building yourself up, starting with faith, right? Now, sometimes, I remember reading in some of the church fathers, and they use the words there in the Psalms, unless the Lord build the house that Abraham Vain built it. Well, the word house there can refer to the church, right? Also refer to the heavenly kingdom, right? But it can also refer to the individual soul, right? And then, in the metaphor of the house, the foundation is, what? Is faith. The walls are, what? Hope. And the roof is, what? Charity, right? So, it's very concrete, this way of speaking, huh? Jude, huh? He says, building up, huh? Ep oikudumuntes yourselves. How do you do that? Starting with the most holy faith, right? Then, in the act of, what? Faith, of hope, rather. Praying, right, huh? In the Holy Spirit. We don't have to pray to all by ourselves. And then, finally, right? Holding on to the, what? Love of, what? God, right? Which, who's that, right? Now, but this is all for an end other than these, right? Prostecomeno, huh? Awaiting, right, huh? To Elias, the mercy of, what? Our Lord, right? Jesus Christ. Eis, what? Zoem Ionium. Eternal life, right? That's a beautiful text. But you might say that our goal is eternal life, right? Now, how do you get to eternal life? Well, you begin by believing God, right? And then praying to God, right, huh? And then, what? Loving God, right, huh? Okay. And Thomas says sometimes, you know, that faith tells us what our end is, right? By hope, we, what? Pursue that end, right? And by love, we're, what? Joined to it, right? And that's why charity remains in the next life if you get to heaven, right? You'll have charity, but in a more perfect way. But still you have charity, right? Agatha. Caritas. But you won't have, what? Belief. Because you have the vision in place of that. And you won't have hope because you already have it, right? Okay. So, what is the order here of those three theological virtues? Faith, hope, charity. That's the order in which he speaks of them, right? But what is the order of them and also the order of them to eternal life, huh? What sense of before and after is that? Yeah, it's at least in time, right, huh? Actually, you're going to believe God, right? That there is a God before you hope in him, right? You have to believe that he created you and that he has providence over you and so on, right? And then you're going to have to have hope before you have what? Before you have that in charity and time, right? And you have all three of these before you have eternal life, right? So, that's one order there, right? There might be another order, right? Being, yeah, yeah. But this, you know, just, you know, see one part of the truth at a time here, right? Okay? That's one text that makes me think that it's a good way of describing, or I mean, what you call our goal. It's eternal life, right? Right, okay? Okay? Now, you may know that our Lord there in the 17th chapter of John, right, huh? He speaks of what eternal life is, right? And so, know God, right, huh? And him whom we have sent, Jesus Christ, right? Okay? And this could also be spoken of as, what, the beatific vision, right? But as St. John says in his epistle, seeing God as he, what, is, or seeing God face to face, as St. Paul sometimes says in the epistles, say that too, right? You know? It's a little more metaphorical. speaking right now that's worth trying to say what eternal life is right it's seeing god as he is seeing god face to face right okay but as thomas says virtue is the road to what happiness to our end right and the principal virtues whereby you get to this end there are as you can see here faith hope and charity right and so in secundi secundi right if you ever get around to read that that's what's the old greek proverb mega biblion mega kakan big book video but you know the the uh secundi secundi is almost as big as the rest of the summa put together right now but it's really the biggest of them right and uh the uh the first it's kind of based basically around the what the three theological virtues and then the the secondary things the four cardinal virtues right so you have faith open charity first right now this is also tied up with one division of sacred what doctrine which is kind of the one for the catechetical one right the catechism one right where you have three parts faith hope and what charity right and so augustine has his ingredient unfaith hope and charity and thomas has his catechetical instructions and so on and even thomas in the compendium of theology he follows faith hope and charity didn't finish it but you know you finish the part of faith and the part of hope he was in the middle of that okay so even that which is more developed doctrine than catechism you're still following that that order right okay that's one of the three chief orders it seems to me of sacred doctrine as a whole right now go here to vatican ii what are the principal documents of vatican ii what are they called yeah yeah there's four constitutions right and they seem to be the chief documents right but two of them are more what pastoral constitutions right like the church in the modern world right and then the one in the liturgy right then you have these two what dogmatic constitutions right okay and one is what completing the vatican one right that's the constitution on the what church right and then you have the one we're concerned with right today a little bit the constitutio dogmatica the divina revelazione the dogmatic constitution on divine what revelation right now the constitution has got a poemia the month indian would be happy when i was at laval there you know the the people were emphasizing the excellence of of aristotle's premium at the beginning of the anima right thomas explains the order and distinction of the premium and so on so we're all trying to imitate that kind of papers are writing you know we're always having a premium it's kind of funny you know what does he do in the premium what does he talk about the premium it's very short work i mean it's just you know this is uh that's the end of the premium right there just yeah yeah but he talks about the same things that jew talks about right or they do talk about the same they talk about what eternal life and then they talk about faith over charity right they don't talk in the same order but they begin talking about eternal life um which is the end right okay and then the way of getting there which is yeah they don't say that explicitly but that's what they do the first part of the premium talks about our sharing in eternal life right and then the second part talks about faith hope and charity but it has it brings out something about the order of faith hope and charity in addition to the order we're seeing here right so this is the order in time right so he says dei verbi now that description of what that's the bible in a sense right okay you know how i'm very fond of the uh and fibbly of of word of god right it can mean the son of god right or it can mean the bible right the word of god so he says dei verbi we did giose audience hearing religiously right devotion and so on the word of god and then what at fidenta faithfully right proclamans okay that's what this book is going to be about right and this this constitution the sacrosancta synodis synodis synodis the most holy synod right verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi verbi 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It disposes, right? Believing disposes you to have hope in God, right? And to have hope in God disposes you for what? Faith. It doesn't complete the movement to the next one, right? But it makes it, what? You're more suitable to that, right? It disposes you to accept this a little bit, huh? Okay? Now, there's this little volume. It's called, it goes back to my 1960 days, right? It's called Rome and the Study of Scripture. Can you see this little volume? Must have picked it up, but it goes back to this edition about 64, right? So, Rome and the Study of Scripture, huh? Abbey Press Publishing Division, St. Mindred, Indiana. A collection of papal enactments on the study of Holy Scripture, right? Together with the decisions of Biblical, what? Commission, okay? What's all here are these fundamental documents, huh? Now, among other things, huh? The three very principal documents is the, what, encyclicals, right? Starting with the one of Leo the, what? 13th, right, huh? And then going down Benedict the 15th, and so on. Okay? But going back to the first one, which kind of started this thing a role here in modern times, huh? Providentissimus Deus, right, huh? Here's a little section in here where he's talking about the contributions of the Church Fathers, right? And the contributions of the Medeals, and then the moderns, right? To the study of Scripture, right? I'm not going to read everything here, but just a few of my favorite things in here, right, huh? Okay? He says, in early times, if we consider the immediate disciples of the Apostles, St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp, huh? Or the apologists, such as St. Justin, St. Aranis. We find that in their letters and their books, whether in defense of the Catholic faith or in its commendation, they drew faith, strength, and unction from the Word of God. When there arose in various seas, catechetical and theological schools, of which the most celebrated were those of Alexandria of Antioch. There were little taught in these schools, but what was contained in the reading, the interpretation, and the defense of the divine written Word. From them came forth numbers of fathers and writers whose laborious studies and admirable writings have justly merited for the three following centuries the appellation of the Golden Age of Biblical Exegesis. And that's a nice testimony to the importance of them, right? The period from Aristotle, from Thales to Aristotle, is called the Golden Age of Greek philosophy, right? Well, this first age is called the what? Golden Age of Biblical Exegesis, huh? Now, I'm very puzzled about Origen, right? Because he made a lot of contributions, but he made some important errors. But it's remarkable what he says here. In the Eastern Church, the greatest name of all is Origen, a man remarkable alike for penetration of genius and for persevering labor, from whose numerous works in his great exalpa, that was a comparison of different languages, right? And almost all have drawn that came after him. Now, I'm kind of puzzled, because Thomas sometimes really take Origen apart and speak of his scandalous errors almost, you know? And really, really, it's a valid, you know? But other times, he's always, you know, bringing in Origen, you know? And I've been reading the Gospel of John over again, right? And who is Thomas' quote? Well, mainly Augustine and St. John Chrysostom. But he often sticks in that little thing from Origen, you know? It's kind of interesting. So I'm kind of struck, you know, by that, huh? Others who are wide in the field of this science may also be named as especially eminent. Thus, Alexandria could boast of St. Clement and St. Cyril, Palestine of Eusebius and the other St. Cyril, Cappadocia of St. Basil the Great, and the two St. Gregorys of Nazianzus and Nyssa, Antioch of St. John Chrysostom. Now he stops him, but he says, in whom the science of Scripture was rivaled by the splendor of his eloquence. So he kind of signals out John Chrysostom, who Thomas, what, uses it almost. In the Western Church, there are many names as great. Tertullian, I've got to be careful of him too. Probably more so even than . St. Cyprian, huh? St. Hillary, huh? St. Andrews, St. Leo the Great, St. Gregory the Great. Most famous of all, St. Augustine and St. Jerome. He signals them out for a special thing there. In some of St. Thomas' commentaries, he has his own prologue, and then he has commentary on the prologue of Jerome, right? So he says, Most famous of all, St. Augustine and St. Jerome, of whom the former was so marvelously acute in penetrating the sense of God's Word, and so fertile in the use that he made of it for the remotion of the Catholic faith. That's the greatest authority there. Praise him. And the latter had to be received from the Church by reason of his preeminent knowledge of Scripture and his labors, for moaning at the name of the great doctor, right? Up in the Middle Ages now. From this period down to the 11th century, although biblical studies did not flourish with the same vigor and the same fruitfulness as before, yet they did flourish. And principally, by the instrumentality of the clergy. It was their care and solicitude that selected the best and most useful things that the ancients had left, arranged them in order, and published them with editions of their own, as did St. Isidore of Seville, the Venerable Bede and Elkion, among the most prominent. It was they who illustrated the sacred pages with glosses or sharp commentaries, as we see in Wallerfrid Strabo and St. Anselm of Lowell, or expended fresh labor in securing their integrity, as did St. Peter Damien and the blessed Launfranc. In the 12th century, many took up with great success the allegorical exposition of Scripture. In this kind, St. Bernard is preeminent, and his writings have babysat our Scripture all through. When you read them, you realize, what a command of the Scripture here. Now we come down to one here, that we're concerned with. These two volumes here. With the age of the scholastics, came fresh and welcome progress in the study of the Bible. You notice that, huh? Fresh and welcome progress since the time of Augustine and so on, right? That the scholastics were solicitous about the genuineness of the Latin version is evident from the Correctoria Biblica, or lists of imitations which they have left. Didn't know about that. Scriptural studies, right, huh? But they expended their labor as an industry chiefly on interpretation and explanation. To them we owe the accurate and clear distinction, that were a distinction for a Jew, such as had not been given before, of the various senses of the sacred words, the assignment of the value of each sense in theology, and the division of books into parts, and the summaries of the various parts, the investigation of the objects of the writers, that's what I'm praying this book to point out, huh? The demonstration of the connection of sentence with sentence, and clause with clause. Looking before and after, right? All of which is calculated to throw much light on the more obscure passages of the sacred Bible. The valuable work of the scholastics in Holy Scripture is seen in their theological treatises and in their scripture commentaries, huh? So Nancy mentioned both of those, right? And now the last sentence here. And in this respect.