Prima Secundae
Lecture 272: Dietary Laws, Animal Symbolism, and Figurative Interpretation

Transcript
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But the animals which were conceded to the Jews for eating, they did not eat, right? And they, as it were, as gods worshipped, right? On account of some other clause from them, they abstained, as has been said above. Whose was it? That's people in India, don't they? They have the sacred what? Yeah, something like that, isn't it? I was just thinking about that at McDonald's. At that time, they're the gods of India. You know, that chain Chick-fil-A, right? They always have these cows, you know, eat chicken, you know, eat chicken. Oh, that's a good answer. They even spotting some of the big football games now, too, you know. And you see that, you know, that comes on, the big, you know, cow saying, you know, eat chicken, eat chicken. He's very clever, very clever. I think it goes up on Sunday, you know, because I remember, we have a Chick-fil-A there now, down at 9 there, and, now in Shrewsbury, just down the road there, and Rosanera up there on Sunday, around that area. I say, gee, Rosanera, that looks like it's closed. Yeah, she said, they close on Sunday. Oh, they must be Christian. Yeah, yeah, they're in trouble with the government, you know, for something, you know. You know, a gay thing or something. Yeah, one of the same things. They didn't sign on with us, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I remember they were, I don't know where they originated, but I know they were, I knew them down south. Here's when I've never seen them up here, and now they're, I guess, they're stuck. Yeah. You know, the fact that they're advertising like this, and that they're spreading up north, says a lot that, even though they're an enemy of the government, you know, that there's a lot of public support. Oh, yeah. Well, when they got in trouble, everybody was going to try to find the place, they didn't eat the other places, you know. Well, that was the way that we looked at, when the government, all the media people were poo-pooing, and so everybody went by. Yeah, we went down to Boston, I think, to go to one of the places. That tent wasn't in our area. It's just... I'll go down there just to buy something. Yeah. Okay. The third reason is to taking away a, what, exceeding diligence about foods, and therefore they can see it to them, those animals, which easily and promptly can be had. Now, generally, it was permitted to them the eating of what? Blood. And the effects of... Mediums, yeah. Of blood to avoiding what? Cruelty or crudeness? Cruelty? Cruelty. Yeah. That they detest, what? To shed human blood, as has been said above, huh? And also to avoiding the right of idolatry, huh? Because it was their custom to, what, around blood to, what, congregate, to be united, to eating in honor of the idols, to whom they regarded blood as most, what, acceptable. And therefore, the Lord commanded that blood be, what? Shed. That blood be. Yeah. Is that what he was referring to so far? No, that was, that was a very different look for anything. Okay. Yeah. This is a long plight of the first objection here, huh? Yeah. Okay. Wow. And the count of this was also repeated to eat animals that were suffocated or strangled, huh? Because the blood of them was not separated from the flesh. What did they do with the Jewish food there, what do you call it? Kosher. Yeah. You have to cut through the fruits. Yeah, they cut the throats. What? I guess you slit their throat, I suppose. When you hang them up, they don't. That's what they still need. But they drain the blood out, or what? I think so. I know, by the other hour, they have to slaughter animals. He's just slaughtering animals and stuff. I don't know if they could hang the cow. But if it was smaller ones, I know that's what they did. That would kill rabbits and chickens. They take a chicken, you hang it upside down, and then you cut his throat. As they say, the Duke would deer, you shoot a deer, and then you cut his throat. That's probably what a baby tries to do with the mold. The Duke of Witches twice been scratching on the door here. So I brought him down to the library, get him a line on St. Thomas, and he's reading an introduction. Now I'm going to make sure he's keeping Thomas books or something. Can I agree? And come to this, it was prohibited for them to eat animals suffocated or strangled, because the blood of them was not separated from the flesh. Or because in such a death, animals were much afflicted. And the Lord wished them to rid them from cruelty, so that they might more recede from cruelty than men, right? Having the exercise of piety, even brought towards the beasts. Of fat, also, eating was prohibited, because the adulterers aided in honor of their gods. Go back to a homie description there of preparing those meals, you know? Also, because they, what, printed in honor of God? Also, because blood and fat not generate good nourishment. Which Rabbi Moses, hey, maybe he's the guy behind these things. Which he brought in for a cause. And the cause of the prohibition of the eating of what is expressed in Genesis 32. That the sons of Israel should not eat, what? And that they touched Jacob, and that they touched him. Silly. Yeah. And he became. And there are people. Stupefied, huh? Jacob walked in the back. He was struggling, wasn't he? I was in. But then the angel struck him on his sciatica. Shall we break here? 43. You have to do the figurative ones now, right? I broke up properly, didn't I? I took a break. I didn't realize we're right here at the figure. The figurative reason of these things is because through all of these animals that are prohibited were designated some, what? Sins, huh? In the figure of which those animals were, what? Prohibited, huh? Because it signified something sinful. So, when Augustine says, huh? In the book against Faust, huh? If one asks about the pig and the lamb, right? Both, right? By nature is clean, right, huh? Because every creature of God is, what? Good, huh? But by a certain signifying, right? The lamb is clean, but the pig is unclean, huh? Just as if, what? It's clean, right? But the signification, one is clean and the other unclean. That's like a subtle thing, huh? Okay. Now, the animal that ruminates, right, is clean and it's signifying, right? Because the hoof signifies the distinction of the two testaments or father and the son or the two natures in Christ or the discretion of good and bad, huh? That's pretty stretched, isn't it? Rumination, now, that's the one that makes some sense to me, signifies the meditation of scriptures and the healthy understanding of them, huh? For to whoever either of these is lacking is unclean, right? Similarly, in the fish, those who have skills and insignification are clean because through the, what? Fins have signified the sublime life or contemplation. Through the scales, is it? Have signified the, um... Aesthetic life. Both of whom is necessary for... Aspera. Aspera. Both of which are necessary for spiritual cleanliness. But isn't there some kind of a slogan there with aspera in it, you know? For aspera, something to the higher things? Yeah, for aspera, aspera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In birds, some genera are what? Revitif, huh? In the eagle, which flies all day high, pride is prohibited, right? I'll say that in the gospel there, you know, where the body is, there the eagle shall be gathered, there the eagle's taken in a good sense, right? But here he's saying that because it flies above all the other birds, I guess, pride is signified by that, huh? Shakespeare does that in the history plays, huh? You know, when the birds are flying up, you know, and this guy's bird is flying around, that comes, and they talk about, you know, their being pride, you know, in their... Shakespeare has that pretty down very much. Okay. In the, what, griff? That's a griffin. It's a griffin. Which is a mythical figure. It's probably between, like, eagles on the line. Yeah. Who is what? Is he made up of them, or what? Horses and men. It's hostile. So, of course, he's a man. Oh, he impressed himself. Horses and men are... Oh, powerful, yeah. A mythical beast, and there was supposed to be particularly, I think, annoying to knights and stuff like that, people go after the horses. That's why it says they were... Horses and men. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting how... I don't remember the use being forbidden to eat griffin. But they don't exist. Well, it must be in the Old Testament. Okay, now in Hali'i'to. Osprey. Who feeds on, what, little birds? Mm-hmm. He signifies those who molest the poor. Yeah. Yeah. Who most of all uses insidious tricks on. Is designated as a fraudulent, huh? Yeah. In the... Multure. Multure. Who follows an army expecting to eat the... They ever commit. Yeah. Signifies those who are what? Or tis. They... Yeah. It was like people... They might have selling weapons. My brother Mark would go climbing the mountains there with Ron MacArthur and so on, you know, and Ron MacArthur and other guys who were better shaped than Ron, you know. Ron would be, you know, kind of leggy behind and you'd see the vultures start, you know, circling you, you know. You'd see somebody kind of falling back, you know. Yeah. You know, that's... It's kind of a warning to you, you know, to get in shape or to... You have to pay. This is going down essentially a cliff of our property here with Habibi. And we got to an impasse where Habibi just couldn't go any further. He was stuck. He was looking a little distressed. And then I noticed a shadow. And I looked up and there were these two vultures over us. Okay. So they signify those who are what? Taking up with the... With the deaths, is it? And the seditions, the fighting, I suppose, of men that they might gain from this. Through animals of the... Those who are degraded, is it? Are degraded. By pleasures. Yeah, lacking with pleasures, I guess. Or who are lacking in good affection, right? Because the raven at once sent from the ark did not return. Through the stuthionum, stuthionum, ostrich. Who, though he'd be a bird, is not able to fly. But it's always around the earth. It signified those what? Fighting God. Yeah? Fight for God. Oh, fight for God. Yeah. And implicating themselves in secular businesses, huh? Yeah. Who in the night is of acute vision, in the day does not see. Signifies those who are astute in temporal things, but dull in spiritual things. The larvus. Who flies in the air and swims in the water. Signifies those who degenerate. Or it signifies those who contemplation wish to what? Fly. And nevertheless, they live in the waters of pleasure. A chippeter. Who serve men to what? Ones. Yeah. Those who serve the powerful to depriving. The bubonum. Who in the night seeks food, but to the day hides signify the lustful. Those who seek to be hot in their nocturnal works, as they do. The mergulous. Whose nature it is to be under the, what, waves, is it? What is this? They say a long time. Yeah. Yeah, they die in the water. Signify the, you don't eat too much, I guess. Who emerge themselves in the waters of delight, so. The innocent. Is that a? I think the ibex, I guess you still have. Is it a bird in Africa having a long, what? And he feeds in the serpents. Oh my God. Perhaps it's the same as the chikonia, what's the chikonia? Or the stork. And signifies the envious, who are refreshed with the evils of others, as were with serpents. The cygnus of the swan is of a bright color and a, what, neck. From the deep of the earth, or the water, he draws his food. And he can signify men who, through their exterior candor of justice, seek earthly. Yeah. Oh my goodness. The anacrotus, what's that? The bitterin? The bitterin. The bitterin. The bitterin. The bitterin. The bitterin. The bitterin. The bitterin. 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I don't want to be that curious. Spontaneously, right, earth germinates the plant. Or with little effort, these things growing from the earth are procured in great abundance. But it requires much work to nourish animals or to capture them, right? And therefore, the Lord, wishing to reduce the people to a more simple life, prohibited to them many things in the genus of what? Animals. Not over in the genus of things growing from the earth. Or also because animals were immolated to the idols, but not things growing from the earth. So it's because in the old law about them, it sometimes offers pain and what? Yeah. Did you ever get into those discussions, you know, if you're going to be a biologist, if you could be a botanist or a zoologist, right? Yeah. It's much nicer to cut up in the plants, isn't it, than cut up in the animals, right? Yeah. Yeah. I used to remember some guys, you know, in the dissecting classes, you know. They could sit there, you know, dissecting and eating their sandwich for lunch. Yeah. I found that, you know, if I had a meat sandwich, you know, after kind of being in the lab, it wasn't very attractive to me, you know, meat sandwich. Yeah. That's amazing. You guys could sit there, you know, with the sandwich. Yeah. Poke at it, poke at the thing, you know. Those ones had it cold. Yeah. Yeah. When you've done that segment of the frog, roasting the frog's legs on the Bunsenburg. You already experienced that? No, no. They always smell that I'm doing all that. Yeah. Just adds to the flavor. I think I've had a scheme of stars. Well, the third one is short, huh? Yeah. We get to the third one. We can do the fourth, I think. Okay, I'll get the fourth one. Okay, I'll get the fourth one. To the fourth, it should be said that although the, what, goat is it? Killed, yeah, does not sense in what way it's, what, flesh are cooked. Nevertheless, in the soul of the one, what, cooking it, it pertains to a certain cruelty. If the milk of the mother, right, which is given to her for nourishment, is given as for the consumption of his flesh. Or it can be said that the Gentiles, in their solemnities of the goat, yeah, in such a way cooked the, what, fleshes of the goat, huh, for offering them up or for eating them. And therefore, in Exodus 23, after it was said that about the solemnities to be celebrated in the law, it said you will not cook the goat in the milk of its mother, right? But the figurative reason of this prohibition is because if we figured that Christ, who is called a goat and called the likeness of the flesh of sin, was not, what, to be cooked? To be cooked by the Jews. Yeah. Yeah. In the milk of its mother, that is, in the time of his infancy, or it signifies that the goat, that is a sinner, would not be cooked in the milk of its mother, that is, not be, what? Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't there, in some of the Marian orders, there's something about the hidden life of Christ, you know? Do you meditate on that? Yeah. Because I think, you know, it's kind of, we came down to this earth, you know? And for 30 years, he had cut, you know? Yeah. Just a couple years. Yeah. I've always wondered, well, when was the flight in Egypt? Because obviously, he was still around Jerusalem for the 40th day for the presentations. And also, Thomas takes that up. I like those paintings on one of my wall there, you know. To flight in Egypt. Yeah. There's a, there's a lovely story I just picked up, my sister had it for her kids, and I'm going to give it to somebody who just had a baby, and it's about the flight in Egypt, but it's, it's called Dance in the Desert, and it's this family, and you can't cross the desert by yourself, a small group you'd be killed by animals or bandits or something. Well, anyway, so they, the first one of the nights when they're out in the desert, and there's these animals, and all the guys that are in the company are ready to protect the company from the animals, but then the animals come and they start to dance for the child. It's very beautiful. It's kind of the first, the lion comes. Yeah. And then, and then different ones come, and at the end, there's, there's a unicorn comes, it's a beautiful one, yes, the unicorn comes and bows down for the Christ child, touches his horn to the ground. Mm-hm. And then he goes, and after he bows in Christ, he goes over and he lays down next to the Blessed Mother, and he lays his head in the lamp. Lovely. Lovely. And then there was, the last one that comes, oh, there's the, the, the, the pelican comes, but he was wounded. Mm-hm. And his blood was dripping on the side. And the Christ child just looked at him, very grave, and they looked at each other. And then the last one that comes is the dragon. The dragon comes, and the dragon's the only one that they said he prostrated on the ground. Mm-hm. That's great. Shakespeare in, in that same play there, Hamlet, you know, talks about the pelican, right, you know, the blood. Oh, is that in there? Yeah, yeah. Thomas says that in, in, in his, uh, . Yeah. Where's the, uh, pelican symbolized? I remember coming across. He's supposed to feed as young with, with pecking his breast and, and giving blood. Yeah, that's how they feed, that's why it's always on tabernacles and vessels. And so forth. Because that's how they feed it's young with it's own blood. Okay. Ad quintum here. The Gentiles, the, what, the first fruits, which were called, what, fortunate, I guess? Monkey. They offered them to the, the gods, right, huh? Or they also burnt them to, uh, do some magical things, huh? And therefore, it was commanded them that the fruit of the first three years was regarded as, what, unclean, huh? Mm-hmm. In three years, almost all trees of the earth produce the fruit of them, right? Does that agree with your experience? I have to ask my daughter now, because they were planting these fruit trees down there, on their property. Yeah. Which, by either seeding them, right, or by inserting them, or what? Rarely does it happen that the bones of, what, osa, of the fruits of the tree, or the hidden, and for these more slowly produce fruit. But the law regards that which is more frequent. And the apple of the fourth year, the first of the clean fruits are offered to God, and from the fifth year, and then they're eaten. The figurative reason is because this is prefigured that after the three states of the law, of which one was from Abraham to David, the second as far as the transfiguration of Babylon to Babylon, and the third as far as to Christ, where Christ would be offered to God, who is the fruit of the law. or because the first of our works ought to be suspect to us on account of their imperfection. That's a good thing to tell people, huh? It's just like I just asked, somebody just wrote to me, he started praying the rosary every day since yesterday. So I said, well, that's a good start. That's exactly the way to go. He had something on EWTN that he talks with people and so on. This one guy, he had Catholic people he roomed with and so on. This one guy was always needing instructions about how to say the rosary right. My father's guy got attracted to the faith. He didn't know he should become a Catholic or not. So he said, I think I'll see the rosary every day for a week and see what happens. I was on the third or fourth day of saying the rosary, but he said he had to be a Catholic. It's kind of interesting. Yeah, there was a friend of mine when she first became Catholic. I'd encourage her to say the rosary. She just kind of had a resistance. She carried around with her. I made one for her. Yeah, yeah. She carried around with her because she never really... But then she did, she says, oh, it's my favorite friend. Yeah. And before this, she didn't have a lot of devotions and if she respected her and it looked like it was after that, she would have started to go to the faith. It was very good. Yeah, again, the other day there who had his wife and one of his daughters that were killed in a car crash, right? And he went to his monastery, you know, to say, what should I do with my life now, you know? And he was about 55 at the time or something like that. And so, they kept hearing the voice, go to Mary, go to Mary. If he goes to this place where Mary's up in the hill there, you know, and then there's a cross there, you know, she's going to be a priest, you know? And I said, how could I be a priest at the age of 55? Well, he went and saw some people and they sent him up to the one here, John. Yeah. He says, that was the average age around 55. So, so he's a priest now, you know? So, that's interesting. He's reading one of the Psalms, I guess, which is going up the hill. That's where this very place was, you know? it's everything kind of went for him, yeah. The relationship with a priest. A priest, he was a constant, his wife would die, and then he came to the cabin. But this priest I've ever known was a lawyer in the Wall Street area, a big Catholic family. His wife passed away as kids were growing up. So, he went to the seminary at the age of 60, I think. He was his powerhouse, constantly unmoved, visiting patients in the hospital, going to the jail. Amazing priest. Holy, holy, God bless you. God bless you.