St Gregory on Heretics, II

III.47. When they had lifted up their eyes, they did not know him. Now when heretics consider the deeds of Holy Church, they look up at her, because they are placed down below and when they see her works, what they regard is placed on high; but when the Church is set amid sorrow they do not know her. For she seeks to accept evils so that, being purged, she can come to the reward of eternal recompense. Often she fears prosperity and rejoices to learn from discipline. Therefore heretics, who desire present good as the great thing, do not recognize her covered with wounds. For they do not read written in their own hearts what they see in her. When therefore the Church profits even from adversities, they are stuck in their own stupor, because what they see is unknown to their experience.

48. They tore their clothes, and scattered dust to heaven upon their heads. As we and all the faithful receive the clothes of the Church, for which reason the prophet says: You clothe all these like a decoration; so the clothes of the heretics are all those who by agreeing with them and sticking with them are wrapped up in their errors. For heretics have this property, that they are not long able to stand on the level they came to on leaving the Church; but daily they fall down to lower places and by thinking worse and worse things they cut themselves into many parts and are divided from each other more and more by their arguments and confusion. Therefore because they tear into pieces those they join to their faithlessness, it is rightly said that the friends who come tear their clothes. When the clothes are ripped the body is revealed, because often when the heretical followers are cut away, the malice of their thought is openly seen; so that discord reveals the treachery that the burdensome guilt of their previous harmony concealed.

49. Now they scatter dust to heaven upon their heads. What should we understand by dust except things of the earth? What is designated by the head, except that which is our principle part, namely the mind? What is meant by heaven except the command spoken by heaven? Therefore to scatter dust to heaven on the head is to corrupt the mind with a secular understanding and to think earthly things about heavenly words. For they dissipate the divine words more than they receive them. Therefore they scatter dust because they bring against the commands of God an earthly understanding which is in fact beyond the power of their minds.

50. They sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights. In daytime, we can know what we see; at night either, being blind, we see nothing, or if it is dim what we see is doubtful. So day stands for understanding and night stands for ignorance. By the number seven the whole universe is expressed; so that this transitory time is completed in no more than seven days. What then does is mean that the friends of blessed Job sat with him for seven days and seven nights, except that, whether in those things about which they really see the light, or in those things about which they suffer the darkness of ignorance, they act in a pretending condescention towards the Church (as though towards an invalid), and under a show of kindness prepare the treachery of deception? And although, whether in those things which they do understand, or in those which they are unable to understand, among themselves they can think great things about themselves, swelled up with the character of exaltation, still sometimes they make a show of respect to Holy Church, and while they use soft words, they pour in the poison. Therefore to sit on the ground is to show something of the image of humility, so that while they fake being humble they can persuade their hearers of the pride which they teach.

51. The ground or the earth can also stand for the incarnation of the Mediator. So that it was said to Israel: Make for me an altar of earth. To make an altar of earth for God is to hope in the incarnation of the Mediator. Our offering indeed is accepted by God when upon the altar of faith in the Lord’s incarnation our humility places whatever we do. We place an offering upon an altar of earth when we solidify our actions with faith in the Lord’s incarnation. But there are some heretics who do not deny the fact of the Lord’s incarnation, but think differently from us either about the divinity itself or about the quality of the incarnation. So those who profess along with us the true incarnation of the Redeemer, as it were sit equally on the ground with Job. They are said to sit with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights because, whether they understand something of the fulness of truth or are blinded by the darkness of their stupidity, still they cannot deny the mystery of the incarnation. To sit on the ground with blessed Job, therefore, is to believe along with Holy Church in the true flesh of the Redeemer.

52. Sometimes the heretics rage against us with punishments, sometimes they pursue us with words alone, sometimes if we are quiet they provoke us, and sometimes if they see us silent they are quiet too; friends to the silent, they are enemies to us if we speak. So because blessed Job had not yet said anything to them it rightly follows: And no one spoke a word to him. For we have silent adversaries if we neglect to beget sons of the true faith by our preaching. But if we begin to speak what is right, we will immediately feel the heavy blows of their response; they will instantly leap forward in enmity and burst out against us with the voice of indignation, because they fear lest a voice speaking what is right lead to the heights the hearts which the weight of their stupidity has dragged to the depths.

- St Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, my translation.

St Gregory on Heretics, I

III.42. In all this Job neither sinned with his lips nor said anything stupid against God. Therefore three friends of Job, hearing about all the evils that had happened to him, came each one from his own place: Eliphaz the Themanite, Baldad the Suhite, and Sophar the Naamathite. In the preface of this work we said that the friends of blessed Job, although they came to him with good intentions, nevertheless take on the appearance of heretics because they fall into guilt by speaking indiscretely. On account of which the same blessed Job says to them: I want to dispute with God, but first showing that you are weavers of lies and keepers of perverse dogmas. And so Holy Church in all the time of its pilgrimage is established in affliction, when she suffers wounds, when she grieves over the lapse of her members, and on top of this when she endures the enemies of Christ coming in the name of Christ. For to the augment of her suffering, in addition to her other troubles heretics also come and pierce her with unreasonable words.

43. But it is well said: They convened from their own place. Now the place of heretics is pride, because unless they were first swelled up in their hearts, they would not have come to the struggle with crooked assertions. So the place of the wicked is pride just as on the contrary the place of the good is humility. About which Solomon says: If a powerful spirit rises up against you, do not yield to him your place. As if he were to say openly: If you see that the spirit of the Temptor is stronger than you in anything, do not abandon the humility of penitence. Because he shows by the following words that our place is the humility of penitence when he says: Because to stop taking medicine produces the greatest sins. For what is the humility of weeping but the medicine of sin? Heretics therefore come from their place because they are moved against Holy Church from their pride.

44. Their perverse actions can be discerned from the interpretation of their names. For they are called Eliphaz, Baldad, and Sophar; and as we said above, Eliphaz interpreted means “contempt of God.” For unless they had contempt of God, they would never have thought perverse things about Him. But Baldad only means “age.” For while they avoid being beaten and by their perverse study they seek to be the victors, they neglect the behavior of the new life, and what they intend comes only from the old. Sophar means “destruction of the watchtower.” For those whose place is in Holy Church humbly contemplate with true faith the mysteries of their Redeemer; but when the heretics come with their false allegations, they destroy the watchtower, because they turn the minds of those they draw to themselves away from the watchfulness of upright contemplation.

45. But the places from which these men come are well described as congruent with the actions of heretics. For they are called Themanites, Suhites, Naamathites. Now Thema means “the South;” Suhi, “speaking;” Naama, “charming.” But who does not know that the South wind is hot? Therefore because heretics wish to taste of [divine things] more ardently, or as it were more than is necessary, they are eager to be inflamed with passion. Of couse ebbing away to the numbness of cold and again to the restlessness of an immoderate curiosity is each consistent with intemperate heat. And therefore because they desire to feel the heat of wisdom more than they ought, they are said to come from the South. Paul took care to temper the minds of the faithful away from this heat of an immoderate wisdom, when he said: Do not taste more than you ought to taste, but taste to sobriety. This is why David struck the valleys of the salt-pans, namely because our Redeemer in his severe judgment against those who think perverse things about him will quench the stupidity of an immoderate taste. But Suhi means “speaking.” Now you see that they desire to have this heat not in order to live well but in order to speak loftily. Therefore they come from Thema and from Suhi, that is, they are said to come from heat and from loquacity, because they like to show how well-studied they are in the scriptures; but they inflamed only with the passion of loquacious words and not with the heart of charity. Now Naama means “charming.” Because they do not wish to be learned, but to appear so, from erudite words they take on the appearance of living well; and through the heat of their loquacity they show in themselves a charming image, so that with the beauty of their tounges they can more easily persuade their hearers of perversities; and so they cleverly hide from the senses the foulness of their lives. Now the narration gives the names of these places in the right order. First it gives Thema, afterwards Suhi, and then Naama; because first inordinate heat kindles the heretics, then the sparkle of loquacity rouses them up, and then finally it shows men charming hypocrisies.

46. For they said to one another that they would all go visit and console him. Heretics speak to one another when they agree in thinking certain perverse things against the Church; and in certain things where they are all discordant from the truth, they harmonize together in falsity. For what do those do who teach us about eternity, but console us in the affliction of our pilgrimage? But the heretics, because they desire to teach Holy Church their own doctrines, approach her as consolers. Nor should we be surprised if those who are shown to be enemies are called friends, when it was said to the traitor himself [Judas]: Friend, why have you come? And the rich man burning in the fire of hell was called a son by Abaham; because although they refuse to be corrected by us, still it is fitting that we should name them not by their wickedness but out of our kindness.

- St Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, my translation.

Thomism as Protestantism?

As a post a while back made clear, I recently read Joseph Owens' An interpretation of existence. One thing that struck me forcefully at a number of places throughout the book was the peculiar and familiar character of some of his statements. Consider the following passage:

. . . But the genetic leap to judgment as a distinct synthesizing cognition that apprehends an existential synthesizing in the thing appears for the first time in Aquinas. It ushers in a profoundly new metaphysical starting point. Nor is there any evidence that it was understood or appreciated by his successors. The distinction between simple apprehension and judgment did become a commonplace in Scholastic tradition. But the logical background of the distinction proved too dominant to allow the metaphysical import of the Thomistic texts to make itself felt. . . . The Thomistic insight that the judgment itself was the original knowledge of the existential synthesis eluded the attention of the later Scholastic thinkers. The notion that the intellectual activity of synthesizing was itself the knowing of existence escaped them. In Kant's penetrating scrutiny, however, the notion that a synthesis underlies conceptual knowledge reappears . . .

There seems to me something uncannily like what the Protestants like to say about St Paul here. Substitute "Paul" for "Aquinas", "Scripture" for "Thomistic texts," "Scholastic tradition" for "Christian tradition," and what do we get? Paul says something which everyone forgot about or misinterpreted for centuries until Luther rediscovered its true meaning, enabling him to discard all previous Christian tradition at his whim and thereby making it unnecessary for Protestants to even become familiar with the contents of that tradition. (By the way, Owens is by no means the only Thomist who talks like this. I recall both Gilson and Maritain saying very similar things.)

And this is just what many (most?) Thomists do! Like Protestants, they read their sacred texts in isolation from both the historical context of the texts themselves and from the way that the later tradition read them. Thomists tend not to read other scholastics, or not much. Instead they read Thomas in the context of contemporary philosophical and theological thought--like Protestants!--and, lacking the proper context and really appreciating Thomas for his "relevance" to our own concerns rather than for his own sake, they (first subtly, then increasingly drastically) distort Thomas' thought itself, all the while maintaining its supremacy--like Protestants!

The other thing that struck me in Owens' book was this: several times he mentions Heidegger's suggestion in the latter's Introduction to Metaphysics that "being", however interpreted, holds "the spiritual destiny of the West." Owens uses the phrase with approval and makes Heidegger's question his own epigraph. Now here's the funny thing: I was recently also reading Heidegger's book and it stuck me that the very same Protestantlike element pervades Heidegger's own thought! Just replace "Paul" or "Aquinas" with "the Greeks" and take as our texts the Presocratics, and make the tradition the tradition of all Western philosophy, and don't we have almost the exact same claim, namely that the "true meaning" of the original insights were almost immediately forgotten and abandoned by every successor, who mouthed the relevant words under a devastating and ruinous interpretation, until a lone genius prophet rediscovered the Gospel for himself and brought it back to the world? Isn't Heidegger just Luthor redux?

Coincidence? Or is this where the Thomists learned to talk like this? Or am I nuts?

One might in fairness note that many many philosophers have made similar gestures ever since Descartes, though not usually as radically as Heidegger. But if so this may simply reinforce my long-standing suspicion that modern philosophy is in large part simply the rationalistic flip-side of Protestant thinking.

Angels on Pinheads

Although it does not seem that the scholastics ever actually asked how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, still it must be admitted that they do at times discuss questions which seem, at least from this distance, just as trite and ridiculous. Take, for instance, St Bonaventure's In IV Sententiarum Dist. VIII. Pars II. Art. I Q. II ob. 7-8, where someone in Bonaventure's class is worrying about the fact that in the words of consecration--"This is the cup of my blood"--the principle thing referred to, the Precious Blood, is, horror of horrors, declined rather than in the nominative case, that is, crooked obliquo rather than straight recto! I have to admit it's hard to see why anyone would think this is a legitimate problem, or why Bonaventure would deem it worthy of response. It should at least be recalled that Bonaventure's Sentences commentary is a revised record of actual classroom lectures, and that even silly questions might come up and be discussed in a classroom setting which an academic professional would not today include in his published work.

At the same time the present question is extremely interesting in a number of other respects. For one, it sheds light on the present-day "pro multis" controversy. Just a few objections after the frivolous declension ones, it is asked why the words of consecration are "pro vobis et pro multis", for you and for many, and not "pro omnibus," for all, given that the blood of Christ was in fact shed for all. Bonaventure replies that by "pro vobis" Christ meant the Apostles to whom he was speaking, and by extension the Jews, and that by "pro multis" he meant the gentiles; or, similarly, by "for you" Christ meant the priests, the ministers of the sacrament he was instituting, and by "for many" he meant those to whom the priests were to minister. So that "for you and for many" in fact means the same thing as "for all". In the body of the question Bonaventure ventures the opinion that the *exact words* of the Roman canon are not *absolutely necessary* for confecting the sacrament--for one thing they are not the words found in the New Testament--and that so long as the sense remains identical the words might vary without changing the sacrament's form: forma in illis verbis omnibus salvatur, et modica variatio verbi, salvo sensu, formam non mutat. So thanks to St Bonaventure we can dispense with that canard of today's Traditionalists.

In any case, the "for you and for all" translation in today's English mass was approved specifically by Rome. In this same Responsio St B also deals with the question of *why* the form of confection differs from any of the formularies found in scripture, and his response is simply that the Roman Church has declared that this is the form. He affirms Roman primacy--based of course on its founding by Peter and Paul the princes of the Apostles--in explicit and strong terms, as well as the priority of the unwritten Tradition handed down by the Apostles over the authority of Scripture, at greater length than I care to quote and translate.

So here we have an excellent demonstration of the awesomeness of the scholastic method. Right next to merely absurd grammatical quibbles and scruples--just making sure we leave no stone left unturned, thank you--we have an exposition and defense of some of the central doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, with immediate applicability to controversies very much alive today within that Church. Did I mention that St Bonaventure is great?

Thomistica

I came across this interesting passage today, in Thomas. He is talking about whether the separated souls know about things going on here below. His answer is no, insofar as their natural cognition is concerned. He makes the following interesting remark about whether Samuel the prophet, when he appeared to Saul, was appearing by means of divine revelation or demonic deception. Note especially the canonical status of Ecclesiasticus.

Summa theologiae Ia q. 89 a. 8 ad 2:

Unde et de Samuele dici potest quod ipse apparuit per revelationem divinam; secundum hoc quod dicitur Eccli. 46 [23], quod dormivit, et notum fecit regi finem vitae suae. Vel illa apparitio fuit procurata per daemones: si tamen Ecclesiastici auctoritas non recipiatur, propter hoc quod inter canonicas scripturas apud Hebraeos non habetur.

Whence it can be said about Samuel that he appeared by means of divine revelation, according to what is said in Eclesiasticus 23, that "he slept, and made known to the king the end of his life." Or that apparition was procured by demons, if the authority of Ecclesiasticus should not be accpeted, accoridng to this that it is not held to be among the canonical scriptures by the Hebrews.