Prima Pars
Lecture 92: Divine Justice, Truth, and Mercy in God

Transcript
================================================================================

house and mommy and daddy and i make the rules daddy says no that's not exactly right kate she's trying to associate herself with the authority of me always in me that's important to big sister yeah yeah yeah but that's the last picture they're all there you know and the two years when she's got you know her two like she's the mother of us you know as you get them around there and uh it's funny it's like one of the little uh i think it was the city there yeah like the younger one the newborn baby that had to be brought here every night to be kissed before i went to bed you know so you find that maternal instinct coming out especially little little girls when they regard their younger sister or brother for that matter as their own in a sense and it's good to see um there's such an example you know if you've got a musical instrument to whom do you give the violin right or the piano right well the guy's got some musical talent you give him the violin and the piano don't give it to somebody like me who can't take a note or something you know you'd be wasted on them you know so what's in the body article then is you call the aristotle's distinction between these two kinds of justice right and uh so you might give more food to one child than another because this child is what bigger or yeah or you might give medicine to one you don't get another one because this one's got a cough and someone doesn't have a cough or something right huh so you're you're distributing right okay that's not a quid pro quo like the other kind of commutative justice and so one of those kind of justices is being attributed to god in a supportive way because he's doing this not just for the family but for the whole universe right he's giving to each one what is suitable to get to them and uh the other justice is being denied of god right now in regard to the first thing there why is justice applied to god but not other virtues like temperance right to the first therefore it should be said that of moral virtues some are about passions or emotions or feelings and these emotions or passions or feelings are something bodily bodily change and so on but those aren't found properly speaking god as temperance is about what sense desires some uh courage or fortitude is about fears and boldnesses right uh mildness meekness is about what anger right then so when Aristotle takes up the moral virtues beginning in book three there in the Nicomachean Ethics halfway through book three he first takes up courage and then what temperance those two first and then in the fourth book he takes up uh among other ones this monstituto right anger the time is singles those out because they're very clear you also have um magnanimity which is about hope and despair right and uh philatomia the love of honor um okay and virtues of this sort are not able to be attributed to god right except by what a metaphor right because in god neither are there passions emotions feelings there's no undergoings there right nor the sense desire in which these virtues are as in a subject as the philosopher says in the theory book the Nicomachean Ethics right and i might mention you know that Thomas other places goes further and says only some of them could be applied metaphorically to god right and uh you couldn't even apply temperance to god even metaphorically because there's no likeness there to that but you might speak of god as being what you know strong or something you know because there's some likeness there to you know strong man and to god's strength right which isn't going to those that distinction here but he's putting out that none of them could be said properly about god right and i can see why why maybe takes up mercy after justice right because mercy seems to be named mercy is the latin word in a sense for pity and you know we say in in mass that we still keep the latin some i mean the greek kiriereison right well if you look at Aristotle's book on the poetic art and on tragedy and how tragedy moves us to the emotions of what pity and fear and purges this pity and fear right the same word that you have there kiriereison right let's say now that thing said metaphorically of god or did we borrow a word which uh properly speaking would be said of god metaphorically if we wouldn't have any other word right you can see why it may be a little that's clearly right as the fact that justice applied to god but some moral virtues are about what operations doing some as about the giving uh and and taking and he gives the example here justice and liberality and magnificent right which are not in the sense part but in the what will god has a will as we have learned right whence nothing prevents these virtues to be placed in god not in this narrow sense about civil actions in the city right but about actions so to god right before it's laughable to praise god according to political virtues as the philosopher says in the generosity um thomas often quotes the arab philosopher the great abysundi right who says god alone is liberal right because the liberal man gives him not expecting anything in return and uh you know that's what god does he gives getting nothing in return really so um it says god especially or god alone really is liberal because if i'm liberal i get at least my good act out of this right but god doesn't get even a good act in addition to what he is right he doesn't get something um you know he's not a good act added to god by his giving us something right by something added to me a good act but he didn't have before when i give money to the poor or something like that right even though they can't return to me when i'm given to them so it's well said by avicenna so you can see that's the reply to the first objection then right involves understanding the virtues you know erstelle begins with the virtues concern with the emotions your passions because they're more known than the acts of the will and i know this myself when you teach about love let's say i come in the first day of class and say what is love and uh everybody's you know but you should get some woman to say it's a very special emotion and i say well so is anger but they can't really see what love is but i mean you think of it right away as being an emotion right and uh you know if you see there's no emotions in god well it's going to be a loving god i don't know it was and i can remember as a little boy sitting in church there in nativity church there in saint paul minnesota there you know and the priest talking about the love of god and thinking about girls or something you know and and uh something like quite right about this you know i mean you're trying to think of god's love in terms of an emotion right even you have you know even some contemporary theologians don't want emotions back into god you know because He's not emotional, he's not very appealing, you know, and we expect our politicians to show emotions, you know, and even our priests and our popes to show emotion, you know, and so on, and so God has no emotions, you know, what a cold fellow he must be, you know. I mentioned before how C.S. Lewis was trying to correct us, you know, talking about the love of the angels, you know, they're ferocious, you know, and they talk about burning love. There's nothing, you know, it's another weak milksop thing, you know, compared to the love of the angels, right? But the love of the angels is not an emotion, it's more intense than anything we could possibly imagine. Okay, now the second objection, I don't know if I got the thing there, God's willful, right, and so on. To the second it should be said that the good understood is the object of the will. Since the good understood is the object of the will, it is impossible for God to will something except what has what? The thought of his wisdom has, which is as the law of justice, right? By which his will is correct and just. Whence what he does by his will, he does what? Yeah. Just as what we do according to the law, we do justly, right? But we, according to the law, are someone above us, but God is to himself a law, right? Okay, now the third thing is, the act of justice is to render a debt, but God is a debtor of no one, right? Therefore, to God does not belong to be just. To the third it should be said that to each one, maybe the best way to translate it, there should be owed, right? Answer, it should be, to the third it should be said that to each one is owed what is his own, okay? But that is said to be what? Someone's own, which is ordered to him, just as the, what? Servant of the Lord, not to the averse. For the free is what is for its own sake. In the name, therefore, of debt is implied a certain order of, what? Need, yeah? Or necessity of that to which it is ordered. Now there is a two-fold order to be considered in things. One by which something created is ordered to another thing created, just as parts of a thing are ordered to the whole. And accidents are ordered to substances, and each thing to its own end. And then there is another order by which all created things are ordered to God. Thus, therefore, debt, or owe, can be noted in two ways in what God does. Either according as something is owed to God, right? Or according as something is ordered, is owed to a created thing. And in both ways, God renders what is owed, right? For that is owed to God that there be fulfilled in things what his wisdom and will has. And what makes known is goodness, right? And in this way, according to this, the justice of God regards the suitability of himself, according as there is rendered to him what is owed to him, right? Now that is owed to some created thing, that it has, that it have that which is ordered. As to man, that he have hands, right? Which is a part that is owed to man. And that to him other animals serve. And thus also God does what is just, or does justice, when he gives to each thing what is owed to it by reason of its very nature and what? Condition. But this debt, or owing, depends upon the first. Because to each thing is owed what is ordered to it by the order of divine wisdom. And thus, although God gives to each thing what is owed to it, nevertheless he is not a debtor. Because he is not ordered to other things, but rather other things are ordered to him. And therefore, in God, justice sometimes is said, the, what, condescensia, what is fitting to his goodness, huh? Sometimes what is given for merits. And both modes are touched upon by Enselm, saying that he, what? When he punishes the bad, it is just, because it is suitable to their merits. When he, wicked, it is just, because it is suitable to his goodness. So does God owe anybody anything? Not strictly speaking, huh? But we all owe God something. But then something can be said to be owed by one of us to another, or something can be said to be owed to me by reason of my, what, parts or my acts, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or by reason of my merits or the opposite of that. Yeah, yeah. Let's apply it to the third objection, right? So God can say, does something just when he gives to things what is owed to them, right? But not by him, from him. Or when he sees that what is owed to him is what? It's not that he owes anybody anything. The fourth one was talking about the act. To the fourth it should be said that although justice regards the act, nevertheless, through this is not excluded, but that it be the essence of God. Because also that which is of the essence of the thing can be a source of its, what, action. But good does not always regard an act, because something is said to be good, not only according as it does or acts, but also according as in its very, what, nature it is perfect. An account of this it is said there, I guess by the great Boethius, that the good is compared to the just as the general to the, what, special, right? Okay. He takes up good, the goodness of God, when he takes up the, what, substance of God, right? So you might also say, you know, that the substance of God and the doing of God are the same thing. But there is a, what, distinction in our thoughts, because we're knowing God from creatures, where the substance of things and what they do are not the same, right? And it's just a little bit like if I would say, you know, that my favorite example, that you don't understand that everything but it continues, right? You say these two points at the end of these two lines, we'll call them A and B, A and B, and this point here are the two of the meat. Well, A and B are really different points, right? Now you could say C is what? The source of A and the source of B, so we call C those two things, right? Can I think we do two things in C? You could say C is the beginning of the line C-A, the God that reaches, and C is the beginning of the line C-B, so C is the beginning of two lines. It's the beginning of C-A, it's also the beginning of C-B. But it's really one and the same point, right? A is the end of line C-A, and B is the end of line C-B, but it's really not the same, what? Point. But because we're knowing C starting with A and B, then we have two things to say about C, even though it's one, right? The two thoughts about C. But that distinction of those two thoughts does not correspond to a distinction of two points. But the two thoughts I have down here correspond to two things, or to two points, A and B. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Let's say our little prayer. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, think from the lights of our minds, order to illumine our images and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, help us to understand what you've written. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. I was reading Thomas this morning there in my favorite book there, the Summa Karagintilas, of how the devils could sin, right? And what their sin actually consisted in. And it's kind of stopping at their own excellence, and not, Thomas says, retulet, which I think means bring back. They didn't bring back their own perfection or goodness to God, yeah. So it's kind of frightening to read about. So excellent a creature, and did that wrong. And then, once they did that, then they could have other faults, prizing on that, like the hatred of God, resisting them, and their envy of man, and so on. But fundamentally, it was this pride that they'd not want to be subject to a higher thing. Okay, you're up to Article 2, I believe, right? To the second one proceeds thus. It seems that the justice of God is not truth, then. Well, I guess this word truth can have more than one sense. That's the main problem here, right? It is kind of striking how those two words are brought together, though. Justice is in the will, for it is the rightness of the will, as St. Anselm says. But truth is in the understanding, according to the philosopher in the sixth book of Wisdom and the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics. Therefore, justice does not pertain to what? Truth. Moreover, truth, according to the philosopher in the fourth book of the Ethics, and he's taking up the moral virtues, there's one called truth, right? Veracity here, it's like the truth. Truth is a certain virtue other from justice. Therefore, truth does not pertain to the notion of what? Justice. So I think these first two arguments are based upon two other senses of the word, what? Truth, right? Truth is the name of one of the last three virtues taken up in Book 4 of Nicomachean Ethics. You have friendliness, right? Which is not to be confused with friendship, right? Friendliness is something you have to everybody, even the clerk in the store, you know, you're friendly with. And then Aristotle calls you tropoleia. So it's a humor we call it, you know. But Shakespeare, you know, he speaks of what this guy is being easily turning, right? He can easily turn whatever you say and give it kind of humorous touch. Within the limit of the coming worth, you know. There you have exactly the Greek word, you tropoleia. It means easily turn, and easily turn, just say, make it kind of funny, you know, without going to excess of these matters. But against this is what is said in Psalm 84. Mercy and truth have met together, right? And truth is put there for, what, justice, huh? I am sure it should be said, Thomas says, that truth consists in the making equal, right, of the understanding and the thing, as has been said above. Now, the understanding, which is a cause of the thing, the divine understanding is, is compared to the thing as the rule and measure of it. But the reverse is true about the understanding, who gets its knowledge from things. When, therefore, things are the measure and the rule of the understanding. Truth consists in this, that the understanding is made equal to the thing, as happens in us. For from this, that the thing is, or is not, our opinion and our statement, our ratio, right, is true or false, huh? That's what Aristotle says even in the, what, categories in the chapter on before and after, if you recall, right? But when the understanding is the rule and measure of things, truth consists in this, that the things are made equal to the understanding, just as the artist is said to make a true work when it accords to the, what, art, huh? And so, you know, we might say it even about a musician, right, he makes a piece, well, this is not really a true symphony, right? You know, we're not true this, because it's not according to the rules of the, it's not in harmony with the rules of the art. Or even you might say it about the cook, right, it's not really a, you know, creeps his ex, you know? You know, there's some shortcuts that have been taken, it doesn't really measure up to what the recipe says or what the idea is. But just as artificial things have themselves to art, so do just doings to the law to which they should be in accord with them. The justice, therefore, of God, which constitutes order in things, an order that's in conformity with the reason of his wisdom, right, which is his law, is conveniently called, what, truth. And thus also they're said in us to be the truth of, what, justice, huh? So those are all different senses of, what, truth, huh? But it seems to me it's kind of interesting that since truth does have a connection with the understanding, huh, it's even the explanation you have here, it seems that justice is closer to the understanding of mercy, right? And mercy is more a perfection of the will of the heart. It seems the words kind of hint at that in you, huh? And it's kind of interesting the way we use the word just sometimes to mean, what, equal, just so. Truly so, right, huh? As if it's a greater likeness, huh? Greater connection with that. Now, the first objection was that justice is in the will, for it's a rightness of the will, as Anselm says. But truth is in the understanding, right? And Thomas doesn't solve it simply by saying the meanings are different, but he brings out something in addition to that. So the first, therefore, it should be said that justice, as regards the law that is ruling, right, is in reason or the understanding. So if you read the treatise on law, Thomas will say the first thing, it's something of reason, as opposed to Hagel might say something of the will. But as regards command, by which works are ruled according to the law, is in the, what? Will, right? So it kind of presupposes the reason, right? Kind of reminds me of that other way of speaking in Latin. They don't speak of free will, but they speak of liberum arbitrium. Arbitrium means, I guess, judgment, huh? So I'm just naming more of the, what? Yeah, the act of reason. But people would probably translate it, for a lot of a better translation, as free will, right? But you're kind of seeing that as the, what? Foundation of what is in the will, right? It's almost like what they call naming something predicatio per causima, saying the cause and the effect, huh? It's a free judgment that makes the will, in a sense, free. And justice is in the will only when it's reasonable, right? In accordance with the law, right? Now, the second one, huh, is more emphasizing now the different meaning of the word there. To the second, it should be said that that truth, about which the philosopher speaks there, is a certain virtue through which someone shows himself such in what he, what? Says and does, as he is, right? Now, does Iago have that virtue? No. And thus it consists, and thus it consists in conformity of the sign to the, what? Signified, huh? Not however in conformity of an effect to a cause or, what? Rule. As in the truth of, what? Justice. Okay? Notice how someone who's coming to that virtue of our style of veritas, how can that be a moral virtue? Because the moral virtues are in the will or in the emotions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Because in the reason, right? You'd have to, again, point out what you mean by truth here, right? Okay, so the first two articles then were about, what, justice, right? The third article is about the mercy of God, right? And the fourth article will be about, what, both of them together, right? If you want to understand the four articles, you can divide them into three, right? But then the first is subdivided into the two, right? Okay, so whether mercy belongs to God, to the third one proceeds thus. It seems that mercy does not belong to God. Now, you could translate misere cordiae as mercy, or you could record it as pity, right? For mercy or pity is a species of, what, sadness, as Damascene says. But there's no sadness in God, therefore no, what, yeah? So when I was writing on the emotions there, talking about comedy and so on and tragedy, right? And Aristotle says the tragedy moves us to pity and fear, and it purges these and so on. And what kind of, what is this pity, right? Then later on, when we come to comedy, we say, well, it moves us to mirth and hope, and it purges away melancholy. I had all these references in the Greek, I mean, the English comic used to show that it was going to get rid of melancholy, as Shakespeare himself says, and all the time I quote says this. Well, melancholy is a form of sadness, right? But is it the same kind of sadness as pity? And then envy is, again, another kind of sadness, right? And so envy is, what, sadness at the good fortune of another. And therefore envy seems, by its very nature, to be something bad, right? And so in Scripture it said that through the devil, envy came into the world, huh? And that's a beautiful quote from the English novelist about how common this is, right? One of them puts it very, very picklingly, he says, you know, they say it's hard for a man to bear well good fortune. It's even harder for him to bear the good fortune of his friends. And so in a regular college, you know, I would say, you know, to the girls now, suppose you and this girl are roommates, right? And he suddenly gets a boyfriend who's really handsome and going places and going to make a lot of money and so on, and you don't have anything like that. You know, don't you feel a little bit of, you know? And the same way I say, you're two guys, you're seniors now, you know, and you're thinking now of getting a job back to college. And you found a good job and you're all set, you know, and the other guy can't find anything. Don't you feel a little bit of, you know? So I mean, you see how frequently this thing is, how frequently envy is. But now what is melancholy, right? And what is pity? Well, pity, in its full sense, is sadness over the misfortune of another. And therefore, pity seems to be something, what? Good, right? Why envy seems to be something bad, right? Now, melancholy is kind of in between, huh? Melancholy is sadness over the, what owns the misery, right? Or perhaps the miserable condition of the work, huh? And so melancholy is something that is not really, really helpful. And therefore, it's something that comedy is supposed to try to purge away in somewhat. Melancholy makes it hard for people to... What's melancholy again? It's sadness over one's own miserable state. Oh, one's own. Or the miserable state of the family, or the city, or the nation, or the world, to which one belongs, right, huh? Okay, so in other words, it's something related to you. It can be, it can be, you know, in your own miserable state. Okay, but also because you're a part of something that's in miserable condition, right? But there's no sadness in God, right? There couldn't be envy of God. But for other reasons, you know, you couldn't see somebody else as good as opposed to his good, right? God can't be a melancholy, right? So, whoever, mercy is a relaxation of justice, huh? But God is not able to, what, omit that which pertains to his justice, huh? For he said in the second epistle to Timothy, chapter 3, if we do not believe, he remains, what, faithful. For he's not able to deny himself. But he would deny himself, as the gloss says there, if he neglected his own dicta, his own sayings. Therefore, mercy doesn't belong to God. I don't know if this is something that Calvin or something might go for. But nevertheless, against us is what is said in Psalm 110, that God is merciful and one who takes mercy on people, right? Incidentally, are pity and mercy synonyms, huh? You see, the Greeks, if you look up in the dictionary, right, miséricorde would correspond to the Greek word for pity, right? But perhaps there's a little bit of difference. And what is that, huh? What is the difference between pity and mercy, if there is any distinction to be made? Is it that mercy actually goes out to help for pity, not necessarily? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pity seems to name simply the sadness and misfortune of another. A sadness you can have when you pick up, you know, I was reading in the news today was this guy who died just in a neighboring town in Iraq, right, then? You know, a young soldier of 20. He's just recently married. They're expecting a child in November, right? So you feel sad for this. What can I do about it? I can't do about it. Why mercy sometimes, as is customarily used, right, implies that you have to do something to relieve the thing. It kind of hints that, that's what I think is the kind of nuance in the words. Well, basically, mercy is a kind of pity, right? Okay? But maybe it kind of adds this idea of being able to do something to relieve, right? The misery of the one that you feel pity for. And the, you know, those last plays of Shakespeare, the ones that they now today put together, we call them the romances and the editions of Shakespeare's plays, Symboline and Tempest and so on, right? Matthew's Tale, Pericles, and there's a couple of earlier plays that kind of anticipate those. I sometimes call those the mercy and forgiveness romances, right? Where there's something that can be done about the misery of the person, right? We can't do much about Othello, right? He's killed his wife already, and he's about to end his own life, right? But, okay. So, how does Thomas handle this, huh? I answer it should be said that mercy should maximize, huh? Most of all be attributed to God, huh? How can he say that? It's kind of sadness, huh? Nevertheless, according to its effect, right? Not according to the affection of the, what, emotion or passion or feeling, huh? Now, this is a little bit like when he speaks of what? Anger as being, what? The justice of God, right, huh? He doesn't have the emotion or feeling of anger, right? But since the angry man punishes the one he's angry with, God, insofar as he punishes us and so on, is said to be angry with us, right? But that's kind of a metaphor, Thomas would usually say, for the, what, justice of God, right? Now, here we have two words. We can say the justice of God and the anger of God. And the one is naming what is in God properly. The other is naming what is in God metaphorically, right? Now, in terms of... The other is naming what is in God. of mercy. What you really have in God is the will to relieve our misery, right? The will to relieve the defect of the creature, but especially the rational creature. Does that will that he has to relieve the misery or the defect of the creature, does that have a name other than mercy? So is it only named metaphorically, or is it that this word mercy, for want of any other word, right, is used to name God's will to relieve our what? Defect and our misery, huh? But the first thing you've got to point out is that it's originally naming an emotion, and therefore the original word can only be so metaphoric of God, right? But maybe because we have no other word, this has now become the word to name the will of God, right? Why in the case of justice and anger, there's another word besides what? Anger, to refer to God's will to, yeah. Which is justice. Justice, yeah. But I don't think you have another word corresponding to that, right? He seems to be explaining the use of the word mercy or pity, said of God, by, in an analogous way, but you can explain the word anger, said of God, right? It's not according to the affection or the passion, the feeling, right? But according to the effect of that, right? Does that make sense? Yeah. But you're naming the, really the will of God, right? And incidentally, in these two prayers we've talked before, I think about the symmetry of the mass and its sung parts, at least in the paprofenology. And the first thing that's sung is the Kyrie elei sun, Piste elei sun. And there you've kept the Greek word for pity. Same word Aristotle has in the book on the poetic art. And the same one he has in the rhetoric, right? He's talking about how was the jury to feel pity for the guy to try to help him. But then the third one is Agnus Dei, he told us we got the one day. Miserere, nobody's saying. But it's the same word, taken in one case of the Latin, all together from the what? The Greek, right? But Thomas here is going to explain the Latin word. To the evidence of this, it should be considered that misericors, someone who said, as we're having a miserum core. So he takes this way the word looks, right? He had the word heart in there, core, in miserum, which means what? Yeah, miserable hearts, he's speaking of, sad. Because one is affected from the misery of another, right? Through what? Sadness. As if it was one's own misery, right? And misery, in a sense, the name is more, not the sadness, but the opposite of happiness, huh? So you've got a number of words in the languages for happiness. In English, the word for happiness, what is the opposite of happiness? That's kind of a thing that happened later on, right? But originally, the word happiness comes from the word happy, you know? Happy-go-lucky. That's what it means, right? Because the common man kind of thought that it happened by luck that you were happy. And so in Latin, they had bona fortuna. And the Greek and Latin have other words, you know, that indicate something else of the cause. So the Latins have the word felicitas, huh? So you read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, you know, they'll usually translate the Greek word eudaimonia by happiness, right? Then you read the Latin text, and they'll have not bona fortuna, which would be etymologically similar to that. But they will have felicitas, right? And felicitas comes from the Latin word felix, which means fruitful. And so felicitas is, in a sense, a better name, really, for it than happiness. Because Aristotle is talking about what is the result of virtuous activity. As Thomas says, virtue is a road to happiness. Vice is the road to misery. So happiness, in that sense, is the fruit of one's good works, huh? And that word fruit comes up again when you talk about the fruits of the Holy Spirit, huh? Because the fruit is something last and sweet and so on, right? And so it's a really, really better word, huh? Now, in Greek, Aristotle uses two words. In the Ethics, he uses the word eudaimonia, which means, what, having a good demon. But it kind of implies that one's happiness depends upon the guidance of something above man, right? That's a very interesting word. But in the Book of the Poetic Art, he uses the word like bona fortuna. You're fortunate in life, right? So you've got to be kind of sensitive to those words, right? But the etymologies are different, and some things bring out something different, right? Is my happiness a result of good luck? Or is it the fruit of my doing good things? Or is it due to some higher one who's directing me on? Well, you might say there's simply some truth in all of these, right? If I go out here and get hit, you know, and paralyzed and so on, well, it's good luck, you know, and I'm not going to be very happy about it. Okay? But to some extent, a person's responsible for his happiness or misery for what he does. Now, the opposite of happiness should be called what? In Latin, it's called miseria. What's the native English word for the opposite of happiness? Or the opposite of happy? There's a native word, though. Unlucky in that sense, or...? Yeah, the opposite of happiness. You wretch. Oh, oh. Wretched. Wretched. Yeah. And it's kind of interesting, if you look at the word etymologically, wretched, I guess, it's related to the word for shipwreck, you know? Oh. And I remember, you know, Pius XII using that, you know, that he's defining one of the mysteries of Mary there, you know? That if you don't believe this now, you're suffering shipwreck. Mm-hmm. And, of course, it's a very, very vivid image there, right? Shakespeare speaks of life's uncertain voyage. As if you're trying to reach the port, which is happiness. But in those days especially, the ships often didn't reach the port. And so you suffer, what? Shipwreck, right? There's a lot of allusion to that in Shakespeare's plays, you know, but it's not private to Italy, I mean. So, so regard the misery or the wretchedness of another, right, with sadness, right? As if it was your own, what? Yeah, as if you were wretched, right? And from this it follows, and this is kind of the thing we were talking about before, right? That one acts to, what? Dispel the misery of another, right? Just as you would act to dispel your own, what? Misery, right? And this is the effect of mercy, right? So we're saying a little bit that the word mercy, perhaps a little bit more than the word pidea, implies that effect that it's going to have, right? Now, to be sad over the misery of another does not belong to God. But to repel the misery of another, this most of all belongs to God. That's very interesting, huh? If we, through misery, understand, in a broader sense, any defect, right? Strictly speaking, misery is the opposite of happiness, right? As Aristotle said, they don't consider the dog happy. Even he gets a good meal. For defects are not taken away, except through the perfection of some good. But the first origin of goodness is God. So we're saying this should most of all, then, be attributed to God, huh? Let's see. It's interesting that, you know, going back to the Mass there, in the Kyrie eleison, we're...