Thursday, April 30, 2009

Mater synagoga

"a very beautiful expression that one can read as an index of [St. Thomas'] positive appreciation of Judaism".

     Jean-Pierre Torrell, "Saint Thomas et les non-chétiens," Revue thomiste 106, no. 1/2 (2006): 32 and 32n55. St. Thomas got this from St. Augustine (see the article by Lamirande), who got it from St. Paul.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Zangerle on the sole point of Christian culture

"The Christian may first quit the battlefield of the world when the Lord comes. Until then he must do everything [he can] to shape this world in a Christian fashion [(christlich)]. Activity like this is no end-in-itself. All Christian culture . . . has only th[is] single point: to facilitate the home-turning of as many souls as possible into the Father's house, into the Church"; to facilitate the assumption of "the whole of humankind into the river of love that is the triune God [(in den Liebesstrom des dreieinigen Gottes)]".

     Ignaz Zangerle, "Zur situation der Kirche," Der Brenner 14 (1933/34): 77. This shouldn't be given an escapist sense.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Wisdom on the doctrine of "analogy"

"from the greatness and beauty of created things is their Creator correspondingly [(analogôs)] discerned."

Wisdom 13:5, NETS (Michael A. Knibb), http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/29-wissal-nets.pdf. I was put onto this by Jean-Pierre Torrell, who says that the presence of analogôs (or "par analogie") here "would have delighted" Aquinas, who quoted this verse several times, but from the Vulgate, where cognoscibiliter appears (Jean-Pierre Torrell, "Philosophie et théologie d'après le Prologue de Thomas d'Aquin au Super Boetium de Trinitate: essai d'une lecture théologique," Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 10 (1999): 309). Would it have delighted Barth?