Friendship and Trouble

 It is not reasonable to refuse to undertake any honourable task or activity, or to lay it aside once undertaken, in order to avoid trouble. If we are to run away from anxiety, we must run away from virtue, which naturally feels a certain sense of anxiety when it meets things contrary to itself, and finds them hateful and repulsive; as good nature is repelled by ill nature, self-control by excess, courage by cowardixe; similarly one may see that just men are most distressed by instances of injustice, brave men by cowardly behaviour, decently-behaved men by indecency. It is the property of a well-constituted mind to be glad at good things, and to be distressed by the opposite. Therefore, if distress of mind is permissible in a wise man at all (which it surely is, unless we think that human qualities have been altogether uprooted from his mind), what reason is there why we should totally remove friendship from life merely to avoid having to go to some trouble because of it? 

[ Cicero, Laelius: On Friendship, section 47; from Cicero, On Friendship and The Dream of Scipio, Powell, tr. (Oxbow: 2005) p. 51.]

And So I Went to Fairyland

Modern Elfland
by G. K. Chesterton 

 I cut a staff in a churchyard copse,
I clad myself in ragged things,
I set a feather in my cap
That fell out of an angel’s wings. 

 I filled my wallet with white stones,
I took three foxgloves in my hand,
I slung my shoes across my back,
And so I went to fairyland. 

 But lo, within that ancient place
Science had reared her iron crown,
And the great cloud of steam went up
That telleth where she takes a town. 

 But cowled with smoke and starred with lamps,
That strange land’s light was still its own;
The word that witched the woods and hills
Spoke in the iron and the stone. 

 Not Nature’s hand had ever curved
That mute unearthly porter’s spine.
Like sleeping dragon’s sudden eyes
The signals leered along the line. 

 The chimneys thronging crooked or straight
Were fingers signalling the sky;
The dog that strayed across the street
Seemed four-legged by monstrosity. 

 ‘In vain,’ I cried, ‘though you too touch
The new time’s desecrating hand,
Through all the noises of a town
I hear the heart of fairyland.’ 

 I read the name above a door,
Then through my spirit pealed and passed:
‘This is the town of thine own home,
And thou hast looked on it at last.’

Et j'entens de leurs voix le concert admirable

On the Transfiguration of Our Lord
by Laurent Drelincourt

Great God! Am I on Earth, or am I in the Skies?
My heart is transported by a pleasure ineffable.
The Saints, old and new, are present to my eyes
and I hear their voices in concert admirable.

I see, by the millions, the Angels glorious,
and of their Divine King the Person adorable,
whose brilliant robe and radiant brow
efface the Sun's brilliance incomparable.

The Holy Spirit on Jesus seems to me to rest:
The Father in the Son shows his majesty,
and the Son is marked out by the Father's oracle.

But if I contemplate you -- O Monarch of Kings! --
Bloody, disfigured, dying on Calvary,
I admire you much less on Tabor than on the Cross!

My rough translation. Laurent Drelincourt was a seventeenth century Calvinist. He seems to be most famous today for his Marian poems; some early Calvinists had a 'High Christology of Mary' (it was an argument going back to John Calvin that the Catholic view of Mary was too low, although Calvin himself doesn't put a lot of emphasis on this argument). This fell out of favor over time, but Drelincourt is one of the resources modern Reformed theologians go back to when they are trying to reclaim that particular early strand of the Reformed tradition. In any case, many of his other devotional sonnets are quite good.

Our Intellectual Estate and Property

 With all these arts and pursuits of practical life, the intellectual business of thinking -- of such thinking at least as is common to most men -- and of communicating thought, has a sort of affinity and resemblance. For, unquestionably, it is one among the many problems of philosophy to establish a wise economy and prudent stewardship of that ever-shifting mass of incoming and outgoing thoughts which make up our intellectual estate and property. And this is the more necessary, the greater are the treasures of thought possessed by our age. For, in the highly rapid interchange of, and traffic in ideas, which is carrying on, the receipts and disbursements are not always duly balanced, There is much cause, therefore, to fear lest a thoughtless and lavish dissipation of the noblest mental endowments should become prevalent, or a false and baseless credit-system in thought spring up amidst an absolute deficiency of a solid and permanent capital safely invested in fundamental ideas and lasting truths. 

 Friedrich Schlegel, The Philosophy of Life, Lecture I.

Links of Note

 * Francesco Pierini, Inner speech and the phenomenology of poetry (PDF)

* Duncan Richter, Some Remarks of Anscombe's on Faith and Justice: A Note

* Richard Y. Chappell, The Gift of Life, at "Good Thoughts"

* Paul Faulkner, On the Nature of Faith and Its Relation to Trust and Belief (PDF)

* David, Initiating Unscientific Prelude, at "Words Without Knowledge"

* Joseph Heath, Illness is a social construct, at "In Due Course"

* Roberto di Ceglie, Thomas Aquinas and the certainty of hope in relation to faith and charity (PDF)

* Sam Kriss, Against Truth, at "Numb at the Lodge". One of the more amusing things about this article is that it lays a trap for certain kinds of rationalists and utilitarians by deliberately provocative and hyperbolic language aimed at attacking their insularity and brittle sense of superior intelligence and, judging from some of the responses, does so very effectively, as so very many of the responses showed a failure to understand even common figures of speech, like variant uses of the terms 'true' and 'false'. An interesting example of mocking people above their heads.

* Gene Callahan, Gorgias: Plato's Guide to Online Discussions, at "Front Porch Republic"

* Mark Windsor, The Uncanny as Anti-Sublime (PDF)

* Matt Whiteley, What a Squabble Within Academic Poetry Can Tell Us About Our Culture, at "The Isle Is Full of Noises"

* William F. Vallicella, Butchvarov's Paradox of Antirealism and Husserl's Paradox of Human Subjectivity, at "Philosophy in Progress"

Doctors of the Church

 My last Doctors of the Church post was in 2022, shortly after the addition of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, but is now obsolete, since onJuly 31 of this year, Pope Leo XIV approved the decision to declare St. John Henry Newman as a Doctor of the Church. The formal proclamation has not strictly been made yet, but will presumably be made this year; should it be delayed at some point, I will update this post with any corrections, but we might as well add him already.

'Doctor of the Church' is a special, officially given, liturgical title in Rome's Universal Calendar: it indicates (1) saints in the universal calendar who (2) were and are doctors (i.e., theological teachers) and who (3) have left theological writings that (4) are of extraordinary quality and considerable value for the whole community of the faithful. It originally grew up on its own as applied to a small group of especially important theologians (Athanasius, Basil, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great). It was later conferred on Thomas Aquinas, and shortly afterward, Bonaventure, in order to recognize that these theologians were, in their own ways and according to the formats of their time, teachers of the Church of the same caliber as the prior Doctors of the Church. It has since been extended outward by official recognition of a theologian as being in the same class. Because of (2), it is traditional not to consider martyrs for the title, despite a number of notable theologians in that category who fit all of the other criteria, because 'martyr' is a higher liturgical title than 'doctor' -- martyrs would never be liturgically given a Mass for doctors, only for martyrs, and thus the title would be otiose. (Irenaeus is still a somewhat peculiar quasi-exception; he is sometimes but not always commemorated as a martyr, for reasons that are not very well known.) (3) is likewise rather restrictive; there have been some excellent theologians who don't qualify because we know of their work only indirectly and not from any writings they left (St. Macrina comes immediately to mind). And, of course, there are extraordinarily important theologians who aren't saints on the calendar (Tertullian, Origen, Theodore Abu-Qurra, Leo XIII). 

While the title is, strictly speaking, a liturgical title and an acknowledgement of contribution, it also plays a role as a sort of directory of especially recommended authors for Catholic theology. What follows are various lists in which different kinds of theological periods and overlaps can be observed.

I. By Death Year
(sometimes approximate; year in parentheses is the year they were officially recognized as Doctor of the Church; to show gaps, asterisks indicate approximate length of intervening interval between death years, each asterisk indicating approximately a decade)

202 Irenaeus of Lyons (2022)

****************
368 Hilary of Poitiers (1851)
373 Athanasius
373 Ephrem the Syrian (1920)
379 Basil of Caesarea
387 Cyril of Jerusalem (1883)
390 Gregory Nazianzen
397 Ambrose of Milan
407 John Chrysostom
*
420 Jerome
*
430 Augustine
*
444 Cyril of Alexandria (1883)
450 Peter Chrysologus (1729)
*
461 Leo the Great (1754)
**************
604 Gregory the Great
***
636 Isidore of Seville (1722)
*********
735 Bede (1899)
*
749 John Damascene (1883)
**************************
1003 Gregory of Narek (2015)
******
1072 Peter Damian (1828)
***
1109 Anselm (1720)
****
1153 Bernard of Clairvaux (1830)
*
1179 Hildegard von Bingen (2012)
*****
1231 Anthony of Padua (1946)
****
1274 Thomas Aquinas (1568)
1274 Bonaventure (1588)
1280 Albert the Great (1931)
*********
1379 Catherine of Siena (1970)
*******************
1569 John of Avila (2012)
*
1582 Teresa of Avila (1970)
1591 John of the Cross (1926)
1597 Peter Canisius (1925)
**
1619 Lawrence of Brindisi (1959)
1621 Robert Bellarmine (1931)
1622 Francis de Sales (1877)
****************
1787 Alphonsus Liguori (1871)
**********

1890 John Henry Newman (2025)
1897 Therese of Lisieux (1997)

II. By Birth Year
(often approximate, especially for earlier figures)

130 Irenaeus

****************
293 Athanasius
300 Hilary of Poitiers
306 Ephrem the Syrian
313 Cyril of Jerusalem
*
329 Gregory Nazianzen
330 Basil of Caesarea
337 Ambrose of Milan
*
347 Jerome
349 John Chrysostom
354 Augustine
**
376 Cyril of Alexandria
380 Peter Chrysologus
**
400 Leo I
**************
540 Gregory I
**
560 Isidore of Seville
***********
672 Bede
676 John Damascene
***************************
951 Gregory of Narek
*****
1007 Peter Damian
**
1033 Anselm of Canterbury
*****
1090 Bernard of Clairvaux
1098 Hildegard von Bingen
**********
1195 Anthony of Padua
1206 Albert the Great (although perhaps as early as 1193)
**
1221 Bonaventure
1225 Thomas Aquinas
************
1347 Catherine of Siena
***************
1500 John of Avila
*
1515 Teresa of Avila
1521 Peter Canisius
**
1542 John of the Cross
1542 Robert Bellarmine
*
1559 Lawrence of Brindisi
1567 Francis de Sales
************
1696 Alphonsus Liguori
**********

1801 John Henry Newman

*******
1873 Therese of Lisieux

III. By Year of Recognition

[Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great all received it by organically developed custom]

1568 Thomas Aquinas
**
1588 Bonaventure
*************
1720 Anselm of Canterbury
1722 Isidore of Seville
1729 Peter Chrysologus
**
1754 Leo the Great
*******
1828 Peter Damian
1830 Bernard of Clairvaux
**
1851 Hilary of Poitiers
**
1871 Alphonsus Liguori
1877 Francis de Sales
1883 Cyril of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Damascene
*
1899 Bede
**
1920 Ephrem the Syrian
1925 Peter Canisius
1926 John of the Cross
1931 Albert the Great, Robert Bellarmine
*
1946 Anthony of Padua
*
1959 Lawrence of Brindisi
*
1970 Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila
**
1997 Therese of Lisieux
*
2012 John of Avila, Hildegard of Bingen
2015 Gregory of Narek

2022 Irenaeus of Lyons

2025 John Henry Newman

IV. By Number of Years from Death to Recognition
(Color Code, very rough: Patristic Era, Scholastic Era, Counter-Reformation)

[Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great all received it by organically developed custom]

1820 Irenaeus of Lyons

1547 Ephrem of Syria

1496 Cyril of Jerusalem
1483 Hilary of Poitiers
1439 Cyril of Alexandria

1293 Leo I
1279 Peter Chrysologus

1164 Bede
1134 John Damascene

1086 Isidore of Seville
1012 Gregory of Narek

833 Hildegard of Bingen

756 Peter Damian
715 Anthony of Padua

677 Bernard of Clairvaux
651 Albert the Great
611 Anselm of Canterbury

591 Catherine of Siena

443 John of Avila

388 Teresa of Avila
340 Lawrence of Brindisi
335 John of the Cross
328 Peter Canisius
314 Bonaventure
310 Robert Bellarmine

294 Thomas Aquinas
255 Francis de Sales

135 John Henry Newman

100 Therese of Lisieux

84 Alphonsus Liguori

V. By Papal Reign of Recognition

225. Pius V
Thomas Aquinas

227. Sixtus V
Bonaventure

243. Clement XI
Anselm of Canterbury

244. Innocent XIII
Isidore of Seville

245. Benedict XIII
Peter Chrysologus

247. Benedict XIV
Leo the Great

252. Leo XII
Peter Damian

253. Pius VIII
Bernard of Clairvaux

255. Pius IX
Hilary of Poitiers
Alphonsus Liguori
Francis de Sales

256. Leo XIII
Cyril of Alexandria
Cyril of Jerusalem
John Damascene
Bede

258. Benedict XV
Ephrem the Syrian

259. Pius XI
Peter Canisius
John of the Cross
Albert the Great
Robert Bellarmine

260. Pius XII
Anthony of Padua

261. John XXIII
Lawrence of Brindisi

262. Paul VI
Catherine of Siena
Teresa of Avila

264. John Paul II
Therese of Lisieux

265. Benedict XVI
John of Avila
Hildegard of Bingen

266. Francis I
Gregory of Narek

Irenaeus of Lyons

267. Leo XIV

John Henry Newman

VI. By Date of Feast

[Feast days without asterisks are the feast days on the current Latin calendar, ignoring local variations; feast days with asterisks are the feast days on some Eastern Catholic, usually Byzantine, calendars, where they differ from the Latin feast days. Many of the saints have feast days that are not here listed, due to local calendars or the calendars of religious orders. The number in square brackets is the number of Doctors celebrated in that month on the Roman Calendar.]

January [5]

1 Basil the Great *

2 Gregory Nazianzen

2 Basil the Great

13 Hilary of Poitiers

14 Hilary of Poitiers *

18 Athanasius of Alexandria *

24 Frances de Sales

25 Gregory Nazianzen *

28 Ephrem the Syrian *

28 Thomas Aquinas

February [2]

18 Leo the Great *

21 Peter Damian

27 Gregory of Narek

March [1]

12 Gregory the Great *

18 Cyril of Jerusalem

April [3]

4 Isidore of Seville

21 Anselm of Canterbury

29 Catherine of Siena

May [3]

2 Athanasius of Alexandria

10 John of Avila

25 Bede

27 Bede *

June [4]

9 Ephrem the Syrian

13 Anthony of Padua

15 Augustine *

27 Cyril of Alexandria

28 Irenaeus of Lyons

July [3]

15 Bonaventure

21 Lawrence of Brindisi

30 Peter Chrysologus

August [3]

1 Alphonsus Liguori

20 Bernard of Clairvaux

28 Augustine

23 Irenaeus of Lyons *

September [5]

3 Gregory the Great

13 John Chrysostom

14 John Chrysostom *

17 Hildegard of Bingen

17 Robert Bellarmine

30 Jerome

October [3]

1 Therese of Lisieux

3 Therese of Lisieux *

9 John Henry Newman

15 Teresa of Avila

November [2]

10 Leo the Great

15 Albert the Great

December [4]

4 John Damascene

7 Ambrose of Milan

14 John of the Cross

21 Peter of Canisius

VII. Various Comments

There are thirty-eight Doctors of the Church. Ten are Eastern in origin (Irenaeus, Hilary, Athanasius, Ephrem, Basil, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, Cyril of Alexandria, John Damascene, Gregory of Narek); the rest are Western.

There are three Carmelites (Teresa, John of the Cross, and Therese), two Jesuits (Canisius and Bellarmine), three Dominicans (Thomas, Albert, Catherine (Tertiary)), four Franciscans (Anthony, Bonaventure, Lawrence, Francis de Sales (Tertiary)), one Redemptorist (Liguori), one Oratorian (Newman), and five or six Benedictines (Isidore [maybe], Bede, Anselm, Bernard, Hildegard, Peter Damian).

There are twenty bishops, of whom two were Patriarchs of Rome (Leo, Gregory), two Patriarchs of Alexandria (Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria), two Patriarchs of Constantinople (Nazianzen, Chrysostom), and one Patriarch of Jerusalem (Cyril of Jerusalem). There is no Patriarch of Antioch with the title. There is one deacon (Ephrem). There are four laypersons, all of them women (Hildegard, Catherine, Teresa, Therese), three of whom were nuns (Hildegard, Teresa, Therese). 

The period in which the most Doctors of the Church were added most quickly was the period from 1920 to 1931; in those eleven years, five saints were given the title. The Popes who proclaimed the most saints 'Doctor of the Church' were Leo XIII and Pius XI, with four each.