This begins the notebook started in March 2023.
the vestment of divine names, woven by the human mind and worn by God with fatherly grace
Documentations occur 'within' manifestations.
The moral authority of professional organizations in civil society is a moral authority specifically relevant to *advising*.
Free will is one mode of the self-diffusiveness of the good.
person as the ultimate term of nature
A lot of Anglo-American ethics is as if you said, "You shouldn't drive in bad weather conditions," and someone replied, "But what if it were the only way to escape serial killers from outer space?"
Unrestricted quantification is a recurring source of failure in analytic philosophy.
Possible worlds, as commonly understood, are not things like-the-actual-world-but-not; they are the actual world considered a particular way. The actual world is not one world among others; it is the world, and takes a whole manifold of possible worlds to describe even at the level of what is possible in the actual world. The actual world is not any of these possible worlds; all possible worlds are particular aspects of the actual world. The notion of possibility is not something we discover by looking at possible worlds; it is something we discover by looking at the actual world.
Philosophy does not exist to be a mere opinion-expander.
For most things, only such possible worlds should be admitted as have causes to justify them.
relevant as subaltern of important
Wittgenstein's entire philosophy is woven out of analogies.
clock (periodic process) + 'when next' and 'when last' operators -> metric tense operators.
Every morality implies a set of metaphysical views.
Dialectical effectiveness and rhetorical effectiveness are not the same, but are often confused.
the work of art as the ideal that is made
It's not possible to support people simpliciter; support is always directed to a particular set of problems or is support in their doing something specific. When people talk about supporting people, the question of importance is always, "Support them in doing or in enduring what?"
title : right :: standing : claim
degrees of title
A mother has both a role of motherhood and an office of motherhood, which are distinct.
The practice of the Church is such a vast universe that there are entire regions without any adequate account, no one ever having had the time to work out one. Five hundred years of concentrated hard work could scarcely suffice to clarify all of the essentials of some of these regions, and work has never been concentrated but diffused among many topics.
"There is nothing beautiful, pleasing, or grand in life, but that which is more or less mysterious. The most wonderful sentiments are those which produce impressions difficult to be explained. Modesty, chaste love, virtuous friendship, are full of secrets." Chateaubriand
"The Eucharist announces the reunion of mankind into one great family. It inculcates the cessation of enmities, actual equality, and the commencement of a new law, which will make no distinction of Jew or Gentile, but invites all the children of Adam to sit down at the same table."
three forms of unity of a community: common origin, common likeness, common presence
(heritage, constitution, vicinity)
acrostic poems in Scritpure as indicating a totality
-- Ps 25 &34 omit the difficult waw line and add a pe line at the end to keep the number; Ps 25 substitutes an extra resh line for the qop line
-- Ps 37 is acrostic at every other line, Ps 145 in the Masoretic has no nun line & is acrostic at half-verse
-- Ps 119 (Scripture as cosmos), Ps 31:10-31 (Church as cosmos), Ps 111 (divine works as cosmos), Ps 112 (reward of righteous as complete), Ps 25 (dependence of God as complete), Ps 34 &37 (just life as complete), Ps 9-10 (God's complete authority with respect to world), Ps 145 (greatness of God's total praiseworthiness), Lam 1 & 2 & 4 (totality of abjection) --- (something to all this, but needs fine-tuning)
Infallibility is not insight, and insight is not infallibility.
"The Fathers are primarily to be considered *witnesses*, not as *authorities*." Newman
The Via Media between Catholic and Protestant is in the Catholic Church.
In minor sacraments, neither the substance of the signs nor their natural qualities and quantities are changed, but they are given a new end in the prayer life and ritual of teh Chruch, just as wax may be given a new end in sealing a document for legal purposes.
What cannot have a coherent set of life activities cannot understand anything.
the 'fat' of oil as symbol of sacrifice
Professional ethics is an expression of professional reason; professions are habitual formations of reason to particular ends, and professional ethics expresses consistency with this.
The Church Triumphant clings to God both by habitude, expressing nature, and by similitude, effect of grace.
Doing and allowing are not sharply distinguishable; obviously one can do both at once, and there are regions of confusion whose relation to either is difficult to determine.
Many accounts of the diversity of early Christianity seem to provide no adequate account of why the episcopally associated groups won out.
F. C. Burkit (Journal of Theological Studies Vol 23) suggests that 'Barbelo' is a garbling of 'Bara elohim'.
Irenaeus's basic diagnosis of the Gnostics -- that htey are attempting to a creat a super-narrative combining Greek theogony, philosophical explanations of the world, and Scripture -- seems plausible given the structures we actually see.
divine wisdom as the exemplar cause of history
It pertains to the Father to have the Spirit and from the Father the Son has it it that it pertains to the Son to have the Spirit.
ecclesial rights of publicity and of privacy
The inability to think of sympathy except in terms of 'identity' (genus) is perverse and yet common.
Many Gnostic texts seem to have a particularly anti-Apostolic thrust (probably as part of an anti-episcopal thrust).
Gnostic gospels ar enot put forward as a canon but as an anti-canon, as private revelations for the few fit to see the falsehood of the alleged public revelation, as an individual rather than communal tradition.
the proto-Nestorianism of the Gospel of Judas
The anti-episcopal thrust of many Gnostic texts explains why Irenaeus emphasizes Apostolic succession -- and, what is more, the multiplicity of Apostolic successions -- in response.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan takes the angels to be created on the Second Day.
Everything meaningful is capable of being allegorical.
almsgiving as ransom for sins: Did. 4:6, Barn 19:10
Poschmann (Penance and the Anointing of the Sick): The sacrament of penance as we find it in the Apostolic Fathers tends to be presented as a one-time restoration for grave sins. (However, it was not the exclusive penitential practice, because deathbed repentance was recognized even for recidivists, at least as far as we can tell, and penitence outside that of the restorative was also practiced.) It was also public, primarily in mortification, but also requried open confession to the community in order to receive their prayers. In some cases, it also seems ot have required taking up a vow of religious life, with a vow of perpetual chastity, in an order of penitents. Slowly an alternative developed for clergy and religious -- private secession or withdrawal into solitude -- to deal with the practical complications in those cases, as well as to conform to the theology of ordination and of monastic vow; and taking a monastic vow (benedictio penitentiae) likewise comes to be seen as an equivalent to joining an order of penitents, if done by permission of the Church for that reason. Private penance arises in fifth or sixth century in remote areas (e.g., Britain and Ireland), where penitential matters had to be handled by priests with often scattered flocks rather than bishops in city centers. This then flows back to the center and, because it puts more emphasis on confession than mortification, intersects with developing practices of spiritual direction. Attempts to crack down on this and return to public canonical penance failed, due to the difficulty of the latter, so instead the procedures for private penance were standardized, although public penance continued for notorious sins. IV Lateran introduces the requirement of periodic private confession, although in this it was supporting an already spreading practice. Reconciliation to communion, however, continued for a long time to be a separate process but (again for practical practical reasons) in the second millenium faded.
-- Note that Jesus Himself is the model of private confession and absolution.
-- At the same time that private confession is spreading, penitential pilgrimage (in which one goes on an extended pilgrimage to receive at the end a penance imposed by a bishop, especially the Pope) also began to be popular as a substitute for canonical penance. (cf. Njal's Saga)
-- Early mortification for penance seems primarily to have been social, but corporal chastisement (esp. flagellation) keeps springing up, especially in monastic contexts.
Every sacrament, in addition to its proper act (and as a result of it) instills a disposition to receive grace.
1 Tm 2:1
deeseis: petitions (from word for 'need')
proseuchas: prayers (from word for 'wish/prayer')
enteuxeis: intercessions (from word for 'intervention' or 'approach to king')
eucharistias: thanksgiving (from word for 'thankfulness')
"For it is known that anyone who denies one of God's perfections denies them all." Mendelssohn
groupoids as abstract possibilities of shapes
Demeter Thesmophoros (Allaire B. Stallsmith, "The Name of Demeter Thesmophoros")
-- thesmos: what is laid down
thesmodotes: law-giver
thesmothetes: lawmaker
thesmosyne: lawfulness
thesmophylax: guardian of law
--> appears to be distinguished (at least sometimes) from nomos by being divine or having great antiquity (cp. Odyssey 23.296)
-- there is also attestation to Demeter Thesmia (at Pheneus)
-- the Thesmophorion was the center of many of Demeter's festivals, of which the Thesmophoria was merely an important example (the mystery-initiation of Demeter)
-- the title is probably associated with agriculture and the mystery rites thereof.
All the parables in Matthew 13 are found in cognate form in the Gospel of Thomas, although not in the same order.
The Valentinian Tripartite Tractate holds that the Son is unbegotten and that "the Father rests upon the Son"; the Son and the Logos are also distinguished, the Logos being a limited and defective aeon who made the world. (Curiously, it still recognizes the Son as Christ and as the knowledge of the Father.) Its Trinity is Father, Son, and Church (the Aeon of aeons), but it still recognizes baptism as "into God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit."
Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 7:17) -- the Valentinians claimed that Valentinus was student of Theudas who was student of Paul.
Tertullian (Presc. Haer. 41) -- the inclusiveness of the Valentinians as a reason for their spread (cf. also Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 1.13.3 and Tertullian, Adv. Valent. 1)
Irenaeus on Valentinian liturgy -- Adv. Haer. 1.21.3
five sacraments according to Gospel of Philip: baptism, anointing, redemption (ransom), eucharist, nymphon -- unclear whether these were completely distinct or seen as parts of the Valentinian 'greater baptismal rite'; some have argued that redemption is a form of exorcism and bridal chamber a form of imposition of hands.
-- Gospel of Philip privileges anointing over baptism because it is a reception of 'everything': "resurrection, light, cross, Holy Spirit" (Phil 74:12-21); note connection to title of Christ (67:19-26)
-- the eucharist is seen as wedding-feast (Theod. 63:1), life-giving food (Phil 55:6-13, 73:19-25), with the wine as full of grace and Spirit (75:17-18); both are associated with flesh and blood of resurrection body (56:26-57:22).
-- In the nymphon, the Valentinians seem to have thought you became united with your heavenly angel (aeon), the bridegroom.
-- Given how they are talked about, the Valentinians may have thought that the whole set of sacraments pre-enact what happens to the saved after death.
-- At least one prayer related to the anointing associates it with trampling snakes, scorpions, and the power of the Devil.
All aesthetic effects are downstream from physical necessities.
Scripture as a history of liturgy
There is no single shared experience all Christians have, but instead vast numbers of experiences given overlap by shared institutions.
