Clemens Romanus

 Today is the feast of St. Clement I of Rome, Bishop and Apostolic Father. He is traditionally thought to be the Clement mentioned by Paul in Philippians 4:3 and was the third bishop of Rome after Peter, but sometimes is treated as the first; at least according to one way of reading the tradition, while he was the third bishop of Rome assisting under Peter, he was the first bishop of Rome to be the actual successor of Peter, by Peter's own wishes. In any case, he is an important figure for the transition from first-century to second-century Christianity.

From 1 Clement 55:3-56:2 (perhaps worth noting that 'manly' in ancient Greek is exactly the same word as 'courageous'):

Many women being strengthened through the grace of God have performed many manly deeds. The blessed Judith, when the city was beleaguered, asked of the elders that she might be suffered to go forth into the camp of the aliens. So she exposed herself to peril and went forth for love of her country and of her people which were beleaguered; and the Lord delivered Holophernes into the hand of a woman. To no less peril did Esther also, who was perfect in faith, expose herself, that she might deliver the twelve tribes of Israel, when they were on the point to perish. For through her fasting and her humiliation she entreated the all seeing Master, the God of the ages; and He, seeing the humility of her soul, delivered the people for whose sake she encountered the peril. Therefore let us also make intercession for them that are in any transgression, that forbearance and humility may be given them, to the end that they may yield not unto us, but unto the will of God. For so shall the compassionate remembrance of them with God and the saints be fruitful unto them, and perfect. Let us accept chastisement, whereat no man ought to be vexed, dearly beloved. The admonition which we give one to another is good and exceeding useful; for it joineth us unto the will of God.

Praise and Thanks and Love

Thanksgiving, 1863
by Mary Elizabeth Blake 

God of the day and night!
 Whose presence dwells, serene and lovely still,
Above all waves of human good or ill,
 In darkness as in light! 

When summer skies are fair,
 When Peace and Plenty reign above the land,
The weakest soul can feel Thy guiding hand,
 And read Thy mercy there; 

 But when the tempest's might
 Sullenly bursts above the faded flowers,
 And all that smiled upon this earth of ours
 Is dashed from vale and height, --

It needs a stronger trust,
 Beyond the wrecks of hope and light to see
 A purer life made beautiful by Thee,
 Whose ways are ever just! 

We do not weakly fear
 Beneath the roughest blast of Winter's breath,
 Nor shrink before his icy calm of death
 When all is dark and sere; 

 We know he holds the Spring;
 Till flinging back its robe of ice and showers
The sunshine laughs on bees and buds and flowers,
 And bids its wild birds sing. 

 Yet do our spirits faint,
 When, rolling on the blood-stained cloud of war,
 We catch the shadow of the strife afar,
 And smell the battle taint, 

 Forgetting, in our pain,
 The Lord of Hosts, who strikes from scenes like these
 The grandest chords of human destinies,
 And makes all bright again! 

 Teach us O Lord! to see
 With the same faith that laughs the clouds to scorn, 
Past the dark night, and to the coming morn
Made glad and fresh by Thee! 

 So shall our anthem sweet,
 Of Praise and Thanks and Love, swell glad on high,
 And pierce beyond the clouds of soul and sky
To seek Thy blessèd feet.

Parresian eis ten Eisodon ton Hagion

 Therefore, brothers, having boldness with respect to entering the holy places in the blood of Jesus, by which he consecrated for us a newly-made and living way through the veil, which is his flesh, as well as a great priest over God's house, we should approach with true heart in complete confidence of faith, hearts aspersed away from wicked conscience and body washed with pure water. We should hold tight the profession of hope, for faithful is the promised one. And we should consider one another so as to stimulate devotion and fine work, not deserting our assembly, according to the habit of some, but encouraging, and much the more as you see the day draw near.

If we willingly sin after receiving discernment of truth, sacrifice for sins no longer remains, but only a frightful waiting for judgment and fiery heat about to devour those who are opposed. Anyone violating the law of Moses dies without compassion on two or three witnesses; how much worse do you think will he deserve punishment, that one who has trampled down the Son of God and who has thought common the blood of the contract, by which he was consecrated, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we remember the one who said, Mine the vindication, I will repay; and again, The Lord will judge his people. Frightful, falling into the living God's hands.

Remember the former days in which, having been illuminated, you survived a great, tormenting struggle; yes, through both reproaches and afflictions having been exposed to view, and having become comrades of those who endured. For you sympathized with those who were bound, and the robbing of your possessions you received with joy, knowing that you had nobler and lasting property. Therefore do not throw overboard your boldness, which has a great repayment. For you have need of steadfastness so that, God's will being done, you may carry off the promise.

[Hebrews 10:19-35, my rough translation. The word for 'boldness' usually means 'outspokenness', but here certainly means something broader. As with the previous passage, 'approach' has the suggestion of approaching an altar for sacrifice, i.e., worship. 'Contract', of course, is usually translated as 'covenant', and rightly so, but it's worth sometimes preventing the idea from being encrusted with the sacred tones of the latter word, which can make us forget that a covenant is in fact literally a contract, albeit in this case one sealed by sanctifying blood and enforced by divine authority.

One important feature of this whole passage is that it insists, quite strongly, that God is terrifying (phoberon); this point is presented as essential, in fact, to understanding the significance of the boldness with which we can approach through the blood of Christ and baptism. Anyone who denies the former will not understand or properly appreciate the latter.

This passage is one of the several passages in the New Testament that discusses what later became known as the theological virtues: faith (v. 22), hope (v. 23), and love (v. 24, here translated as 'devotion'). (The other passages are from the Paul's letters, making this one of the things that the epistle to the Hebrews shares with the Pauline works with which it has historically often been associated.) Note that the way they are presented here, they capture essentially the whole structure of Christian life: we approach God in faith, we hope in Christ who is faithful, and we come together to excite each other to love and beautiful deeds.]

Links of Note

 * Matthew K. Minerd, The Influence of John of St. Thomas Upon the Thought of Jacques Maritain (PDF)

* Gregory DiPippo, The Feast of St. Brice, St. Martin's Bad Disciple, at "New Liturgical Movement"

* Ryan Miller, Looking for Levels (PDF)

* Mario Hubert, The Nature of Natural Laws, on different conceptions of the laws of nature, at "Aeon"

* David Bannon, Joan of Arc's Grief, at "Front Porch Republic"

* Robert Reimer, Play as an Autotelic Activity: A Defense (PDF)

* Max Wade, The Dance of Reality: Plotinus and the Activity of the Whole, at the JHI Blog

* Ruth Boeker, Thomas Reid on Promises and Social Operations of the Human Mind

* Brendan de Kenessey, Ethics and the Limits of Armchair Sociology (PDF)

* Kevin Schmiesing, Cause for Conflict: The Catholic Church and Property Rights in American Law, at "Catholic World Report"

* Nico Fassino, The surprising history of the Children's Mass, at "The Pillar"

* Tyler Colby Re, The Art of Work in Kant's Critique of Judgment (PDF)

* Matthew Miller, Empty Words: Against Artificial Language, at "Mere Orthodoxy"

* Christopher Shannon, Etienne Gilson and post-conciliar theology, reviews Florian Michel's recent biography of Gilson, at "Catholic World Report"

Tracking, Tramping Soft and Low

 The Wolf-Tamer
by Elizabeth Stoddard 

Through the gorge of snow we go,
 Tracking, tramping soft and slow,
 With our paws and sheathed claws,
 So we swing along the snow,
 Crowding, crouching to your pipes -- 
Shining serpents! Well you know,
 When your lips shall cease to blow
 Airs that lure us through the snow,
 We shall fall upon your race
 Who do wear a different face.
 Who were spared in yonder vale?
 Not a man to tell the tale!
 Blow, blow, serpent pipes,
 Slow we follow:-- all our troop
 Every wolf of wooded France,
 Down from all the Pyrenees -- 
Shall they follow, follow you,
 In your dreadful music-trance?
 Mark it by our tramping paws,
 Hidden fangs, and sheathèd claws?
 You have seen the robber bands
 Tear men's tongues and cut their hands,
 For ransom we ask none -- begone,
 For the tramping of our paws,
 Marking all your music's laws,
 Numbs the lust of ear and eye;
 Or -- let us go beneath the snow,
 And silent die -- as wolves should die!

Burdensomeness

  In human affairs whatever is against reason is a sin. Now it is against reason for a man to be burdensome to others, by offering no pleasure to others, and by hindering their enjoyment. Wherefore Seneca [Martin of Braga, Formula Vitae Honestae: cap. De Continentia] says (De Quat. Virt., cap. De Continentia): "Let your conduct be guided by wisdom so that no one will think you rude, or despise you as a cad." Now a man who is without mirth, not only is lacking in playful speech, but is also burdensome to others, since he is deaf to the moderate mirth of others. Consequently they are vicious, and are said to be boorish or rude, as the Philosopher states (Ethic. iv, 8). 

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-2.168.4] 

Skian gar Echon ho Nomos

 For the law having an outline of the about-to-be goods, not the image of the deeds themselves, each cycle with the same sacrifices that they perpetually offer, it is never able to complete the worshippers. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, no one having any more awareness of failures, the worshippers having once been purified? But in these is remembrance of failures every year, the blood of bulls and goats powerless indeed to cut off failures. 

Therefore coming into the world, he says: Sacrifices and offerings you have not wished; but you have readied a body for me. Whole-burnings and those for failures you have not approved. Then I said, See! I have arrived to do your will, God; in the book's roll it is written about me. 

Previously saying, Sacrifices and offerings and whole-burnings and those for failures, which are offered according to law, you have not wished or approved, he then adds, See! I have arrived to do your will. He abolishes the first so that the second might stand. By the willing we are consecrated, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once.

And indeed every priest stands each day serving, and often offering the same sacrifices, which can never eradicate failures. But he, however, one having sacrificed for failures unto perpetuity, sat to the right of God, beyond that waiting until his enemies should be laid down, a footstool for his feet. For by one offering he has completed the consecrated unto perpetuity.

[Hebrews 10:1-14, my very rough translation. The author of Hebrews is discussing Jeremiah 31, an immensely important passage for early Christians, and very formative for Christian self-understanding. The manuscript tradition disagrees about whether the first sentence should be 'it [i.e., the law] is never able to provide completion' or 'they [i.e., the sacrifices] are never able to provide completion'. 'Failures' is more usually translated as 'sins', but practically speaking I think this passage has something broader in view. For instance, the sin-offerings ('those for failures' in the above translation) were offered not for what we usually think of as sins but for sins of ignorance and purely unintentional violations of the law. They are the sacrifices you'd offer if you accidentally broke the law and only later realized it, for instance. Given that they are twice mentioned in this passage, which as a whole is specifically about sacrifices not being able to complete, it seems reasonable to take the term to be used broadly here, including even unintended and accidental failures. These accidental failures don't play a large role in most of theology, but a way of reading the above passage is as saying that Christ's sacrifice provides a consecration so complete that it deals with even unintentional and accidental moral failures, for all time.

Famously, the book of Hebrews identifies four impossible things: it is impossible for those who wholly fall away to be restored (6:4); it is impossible for God to lie (6:18); it is impossible for blood sacrifices to remove failings (10:4, above); it is impossible to please God without faith (11:6). These can be seen, I think, as the essential conditions for the new covenant that constitutes Christian life.]

A Poem Draft

 Leaves Falling

A man may love a woman, and a woman love a man,
so take my hand in yours, though we have no path or plan,
that we may dance in springtime when the flowers bloom in cheer,
and spin a pirouette to defy the turning of the year.
Then after comes a summer, when we wear a splendid crown,
and then we weep in autumn when the leaves are falling down.

A love may be as pure as sky and burn with blazing light,
undoing every darkness and making day from night,
but we ourselves, like water, through our fingers slip away;
can our love be everlasting when we have no strength to stay?
Beginnings come to endings for all we love and know;
we weep while leaves are falling, then after, only snow.

So take my hand in dancing, for the time will swiftly run,
but we may love together for a while in hope and sun;
perhaps it will give smiles that endure to our recall
even as our tears well up as leaves begin to fall.

Evening Note for Sunday, November 17

Thought for the Evening: Guised Being

Everything that we consider, we consider under the aspect of being. This can include either actual being or potential being or merely possible being; such a thing is traditionally known as ens realis, or real being, because they can actually exist as something. However, we also often consider things that cannot exist as something; for instance, I can consider a hole in a wall, which is not an existing thing. Yet when I consider it, I consider 'on the model of' (in Latin: instar) or 'along the lines of' an existing thing. Such a thing is known as ens rationis, or rational being. Ens rationis is not necesarily fictitious or illusory -- it is not a fiction or an illusion that there is a hole in the wall; rather, it is something that actually is there, but not as a something that has a being of its own. Likewise, to say that evil is a privation is to say that it is an ens rationis; it is not to say that there is no evil.

In any case, this notion of 'on the model of' is interesting, and I've come to think that there are other ways besides ens rationis in which it plays an important role. A significant case is when we consider one ens realis on the model of another being (either ens realis or ens rationis). Let's call this 'guised being', since we are considering one being under the guise of another.

Consider a painting. This obviously is an ens realis. Taken entirely on its own it is canvas stretched over a frame, with pigmented gunk in various shapes and textures and layerings on it. As a painting, however, it is not 'entirely on its own'; for instance, it is a sign, and has a relationality to that of which it is a painting. But it is possible to go beyond this. Someone could, for instance, talk to the painting as if it were the person painted. In such a case, the painting has guised being as the person painted. The Baroque scholastic philosopher Caramuel held that signs occur when they undergo moral transubstantiation, and become for practical purposes (in will, hence the 'moral') the things for which they stand. (Moral transubstantiation, of course, is not physical or natural transubstantiation, which would take divine power; rather, the natural thing in being considered by us also has moral being, in this case as a painted canvas, and becomes in the realm of the will the person painted, while remaining painted canvas in the realm of nature.) For a very great many reasons this cannot be an adequate or correct account of most signs. Nonetheless, I think Caramuel discovered, without adequately capturing the nuances, guised being, in which we think of one being not merely as like another, nor merely as related to another, but as another.

Guised being is not only found in art. It plays a significant role in modern science. Physicists are always considering physical systems (ens realis) in terms of idealized models (ens rationis) -- i.e., they think of something that is not a model on the model of a model, so to speak.  The fact that people are able to do this is important for understanding how the model can explain the actual thing in ways that (for instance) a mere metaphor doesn't;  we posit ens rationis because it allows us to make true judgments and more adequate explanations, and we guise a being as an idealized model for exactly the same reason.

Every guised being involves (1) that which is guised, (2) that which guises, and (3) a conflation for a purpose, such that the purpose structures (4) the domain of the guising. A child playing at being a knight might take a stick (the guised) and for the purpose of pretending to be a knight guise it as a sword (the guising); the stick is then a knight's sword within the context of the play-pretend. This guising then lets us analogically predicate of the stick things that are true of swords, again within the context of the play-pretend.

Various Links of Interest

 * Matthew Minerd, The Political Implications of Acquired Moral Virtue -- Even Amid the Life of Grace, at "A Thomist"

* Mark Zachary Taylor, The Most Controversial Nobel Prize in Recent Memory

* Ilana Raburn, Intrinsic Kinds in Internal Medicine (PDF)

* Chiara Palazzolo, It's Not Just the Music: The Ethics of Musical Interpretation (PDF) -- a very nice discussion, good both for those interested in philosophy of music and for those interested in the virtue of prudence.

* Sympawnies by Noam Oxman, which are pictures of pets in musical notation that can actually be played.

* Ben Orlin, Proof as a form of literature, at "Math with Bad Drawings"

* Kenneth L. Woodward interviews Denys Turner on Dante's Purgatorio, at "Commonweal"

* The Pillar had a nice interview recently with the chief foreign minister of the Knights of Malta.

* David Landy, Shepherd's Claim that Sensations Are Too Fleeting to Stand in Causal Relations with Other Sensations (PDF)

* Ryan Holston, Straw Men and the Possibility of Community in Modernity, at "The Front Porch Republic"

Currently Reading

Heinrich von dem Turlin, The Crown
Thomas Aquinas, Quodlibetal Questions
Edward Feser, Immortal Souls
Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View
Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things

In Audiobook

Stephen R. Lawhead, The Spirit Well
Kenneth W. Harl, Empires of the Steppes