Tertia Pars
Lecture 80: The Virgin Mary's Role in Christ's Conception

Transcript
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Supposedly it's traced back to the White House, but they don't know who is that. This is our B.O. Supposedly, it's like the same letter, too. Well, on these loose things on the internet, you know, they have a place where people can write in the comments. And I just look at the first 10, 12 comments of the evening, and they're all anti-Obama, you know. And they say, he's like a man selling snake oil, you know. You know, if he was a used car salesman, a car salesman, he'd be the lowest 10%, you know, of the sales force. It's one day I've done it like this, you know. And one year ago, he was the salvation of the world. Remember when Clinton was first president? I thought if he was the cause of his reports on his stories, rage. As his popularity started. Oh, really? I had to try to remember that. And there's people that were writing this system. What helps people is to have these little tantrums that couldn't. Okay, now, where were we now? The last objection. The last objection? Okay. To the third should be said that, as the great Augustine says in the Ingridian, not in the same way as is said that Christ is conceived or born de Spiritus Sancto, right? And de Maria Virgine, right? For de Maria Virgine, he was materialiter, right? And de Spiritus Sancto effected it, right? Et idio non habud het blocum comixia, right? Two different matters, but... You know, when Thomas talks about from, he sometimes gives various meanings. But from can be used for matter, right? And it can be used for the opposite, right? And it can be used for the efficient cause, right? So it's got that equivocation now. And here, a prime day can have that. You know, it's got that. Now, whether the Holy Spirit should be called the Father of Christ according to humanity, this is a nice, interesting article. Be very careful that we're not calling that. To the third, then, one goes forward thus. It seems that the Holy Spirit ought to be called the Father of Christ according to humanity. For, according to the philosopher, in the book on the generation of animals, the Father gives the active principle in generation. The mother ministers the matter, right? I used to say to the students, you can say when the man's role in generation is over, right, there's very little matter there. And all that matter from that in the next nine months, right, comes from the mother, right? So there's still some truth in the saying, you know, that the matter comes from the mother than the male, right, huh? You get the word mater from... Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a great, great, great lecture on the mother nature, you know, and mother earth and so on, okay? But the Blessed Virgin is said to be the mother of God, right, according to the matter which she served in the conception, right? Therefore, it seems that also the Holy Spirit ought to be called his Father, on account of being the active principle in his conception, right? He took the role of the Father, right? So we call him the Father, right? That's a good argument. We'll see how the man, Thomas Holtz, how that answers that, I think. Moreover, as the minds of the other saints were formed by the Holy Spirit, so the body of Christ was formed by the Holy Spirit. But the other saints, on account of the forced formation, are said to be sons of the whole Trinity, right? And consequently, the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it seems also that Christ ought to be said to be the Son of the Holy Spirit, insofar as his body was formed by the Holy Spirit. Moreover, God is said to be our Father, according to this fact, or for reason of this fact, that he made us, according to that of Deuteronomy 32. Is he not your Father, who possesses you, and made you, and created you? But the Holy Spirit made thee, what? Body of Christ, as has been said. Therefore, the Holy Spirit ought to be called the Father of Christ, according to the body formed by him. But against this is what Augustine says in Ingeridion. That Christ is born De Spiritu Sancto, but not as a, what? Son. And De Maria Virginie, as a son. Augustine likes to say that you have a Father in Heaven, but no Mother in Heaven. As on Earth, a Mother, but no Father, right? I answer, it should be said, that the names of fatherhood and motherhood and sonship follow upon generation. Not, however, just any generation, but properly the generation of the living, huh? And especially of, what? Animals, huh? So, the acorn is not the son of the... Okay. Well, in some way, in some way, it's a living thing. But more, especially animals. The acorn is the father of Obama. Acorn is the father of Obama. No, I think that's actually the child of Obama. But we do not say that the fire generated is the son of the fire, what? Generating it, right? Except, perhaps, it's a kind of metaphor, huh? Quite a metaphor. But we say this only in animals whose generation is more, what? Perfect, huh? Not, however, everything that is generated in animals takes on the name of, what? Sonship, right? But only that which is generated in a likeness of the one, what? Generating. Whence, as Augustine says, we do not say that the hare, which is born from the man, right? Is the son of the man, right? Nor also do we say that the, what? Man who is born is the son of the seed, right? Because neither the hare has the likeness of the man, right? Nor does the man who is born have the likeness of the, what? Seed, huh? But of the man generating, right? And if there is a perfect likeness, there would be perfect sonship, right? Both in divine and in human things. If, however, the likeness is imperfect, there will also be an imperfect sonship. Just as in man there is a certain likeness of God, but this is imperfect, huh? And insofar as he is created to the image of God, and insofar as he is created according to the likeness of grace, huh? And therefore, in both ways, man can be said to be his son, right, huh? And because he is created to his image, and because he is assimilated or made like him by grace, huh? It's a kind of partaking of the divine nature, as Peter says. It should be considered, however, that that which is said to be of something, de alico, according to a perfect notion, should not be said to be of it according to a, what? Imperfect ratio. Just as because Socrates is said, naturally, what? Man, according to the proper notion of man, never is he said to be a man according to that signification in which the picture of a man is said to be a man, right? Even though, perhaps, he is assimilated to another, what? Man. Now, Christ, as, however, is the son of God, according to a perfect notion of sonship, right? Whence, although according to human nature, he is created and justified, nevertheless, he should not be said to be the son of God, neither by reason of creation, huh, nor by reason of his justification, but only by reason of his eternal generation, according as he is the son of God alone, right? And therefore, in no way ought he, ought Christ to be called the son of the Holy Spirit, nor even of the whole, what? Eternity. Yeah. So that the most perfect affiliation assumption. Yeah, yeah. It excludes the reason that calling us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So not the son of my painting, right? On my statue. You know, it had the light. What? Even though it had the light. Yeah. He uses that about the hair, that's what he uses, and when Job, when Job, when he gets to his son's daughter, he tears his garment and cuts off his hair as well. The garments are like the goods that are close to your body, but they're not part of your body. Whereas your hair is like it's from your body, but it's not your body. You're cutting that off and trying to get the sign that you are with the loss of all these things. But things that he possessed outside, I don't think it came from his body. So. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that Christ is conceived, De Maria Virginia, right? Ministering, or supplying, right, the matter in the likeness of species, because he's a human being. And therefore he is said to be her son, yeah. Now, Christ, however, according as man, is conceived of the Holy Spirit as of an active principle, but not according to a likeness of species, as a man is born of his, what, father. And therefore Christ is not called the, what, son of the Holy Spirit, huh? Now, men who are spiritually formed by the Holy Spirit cannot be said to be sons of God according to the perfect notion of, what, sonship. And therefore they can be said to be sons of God according to an imperfect sonship, which is according to the likeness of grace, which is from the whole, what, trinity. But of Christ is another reason, as has been said in the body of the article, right? And the same answer gets to number three, right, huh? Wait, wait too long, let me get stuck in a little bit. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our mind, order and bloom in our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, help us to understand all that you have written. Father, Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. I was looking at a little text of Thomas there, you know, in the Articles of Faith and the Sacraments, to the Bishop and Ormitonimus or something. And when Thomas divides up the sacraments, to distinguish all seven sacraments, how many distinctions or divisions does he give to write up the seven? Probably two. I'm guessing two. I'm guessing two. No, he does it by five divisions, right? Five distinctions. Four of which are into two, and one is into three. Now, the first distinction is between those sacraments that are to the good of the individual, his spiritual life, and the other ones that are kind of to the common good, right? That's the first division, right? And in that first group, there are five sacraments, and the second group, two. But then he divides that first group into those that are ordered, you might say, to the good, right? Then those who are ordered to, what? Against sin, right? And that's the, what? Second division, right? Then he divides the first part of that into three, you know. And of course, he all makes comparison to the plant soul, right? You know, generation, growth, and nourishment, and so on. And then he divides, in the fourth division, he divides the other part into a confession or penance, when I call it, and the last anointing, and so on. And then he divides the other one into the matrimony and orders, right? And it's like, there's five divisions all together, right? And they're all into two or three, but in this case, one is into three, and the rest are into, what? Two, right? So anyway, I was thinking about this distinction there between confession and the last anointing, I don't want to call it. And he's speaking of how confession is ordered to the good of the, what? Soul, right, huh? In curing the soul of sin and so on. While the last anointing can act upon the body, if what? Necessary for the salvation of the soul, right? As well as upon the soul, right? It's kind of an interesting distinction, but kind of a hard sense to understand, right? And I was talking about it the other day to somebody, and I said, you know, like, just when somebody's on their deathbed, you know, I guess you can't give them communion unless they respond to the thing. You don't just come and give it to somebody. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Or if their mind is wandering, you know, even then, you know? But I was remarking about it when my grandmother was at the inn there, was in the hospital. And, you know, she was like, her mind is wandering all the time, you know, but the priest came with the thing, she came out of it, you know? And one of the other persons who was there said, you know, the priest had told him, this often happens, that they come out, you know? But there you can see that the body needs to be strengthened, right? And therefore, that's something different, you know? It's kind of a truthful thing there, see? Well, I got thinking, you know, I got thinking about this prayer that we say very often, the Hail Mary, right? And you say, in the second, the first part is really praising Mary, right? But the second half is the prayer, the asking, and you say, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, right? Right? Now and at the hour of our death, huh? So you're explicitly praying, or asking her to pray for you as what? Sinners, right? And then you ask her to pray for you as sinners, both now and at the hour of your death. Something is singled out about the special need at that time, right? So it corresponds, in a way, to the distinction between the two sacraments, huh? It's just that there's two sacraments, right? One to purge of your sins now, and then another one to purge of your sins at the hour of death, right? Because of the special needs that the soul has at that time, right? And you ask Mary to pray for you as sinner now and at the hour of death. So it's the same distinction, it seems, you know? It corresponds to it, I mean, huh? It's not the same thing, but it corresponds to the same fact that there's a need now to have your sins forgiven, but then there's a special need, right? And you have to distinguish it from that, huh? I was teaching that prior to this, right? I'll say, wait, you have something like this in the human thing, right? Because the paralytics is addressed to the soul, to the reason, right? And the emotions and the senses and the imagination take no delight in what we're doing. It's just the tool of reason, right, huh? But now you go and you read and say, you know, great fiction like Shakespeare's plays, huh? Shakespeare's plays appeal to the senses and the imagination and the emotions as well as to the reason, right? So it's a kind of similar, what? Distinction, right, huh? Okay. Well, then when Thomas gets to the last distinction, where he's distinguishing between matrimony and holy orders, right, huh? He seems to give a similar distinction there, right? Because matrimony is ordered both to the bodily good and the spiritual good of the children. So the three things you just say for the parents is, well, you degenerate your children, you nourish them, huh? And then you instruct them, right, huh? So you're concerned with both their body, when you generate their body, you don't generate their soul, but their body. And you're nourished by that body, right? And then you, what? Address yourself to the soul. So both the body and the soul, right, huh? While the priest is such, right, huh? It's actually not the priest who would ever feed you, right? I mean, in some case. But, I mean, it's not the duty of the priest to feed us, right? And therefore, he seems to be directed directly to the, what? Exclusive to the soul, right? So, you kind of, if you understand the distinction between confession and the last anointing, right, huh? There's some similarity between that distinction, and the distinction between matrimony and, what? Yeah. And between the two things that you ask Mary to pray for our sinners now, and at the hour of our, what? Death, you know? It's kind of interesting to see that distinction. It's kind of a hard distinction for us to see, you know? But there's something like that in human affairs, huh? And it's one distinction I gave us between logic there and the fiction, right, huh? And a woman, too, he could fly to that. We'll let you know the last one I'll say today. Okay. So let's go to Article 4 here in Question 32. To the fourth, one goes forward thus. It seems that the Blessed Virgin did, what, something actively, right, in the conception of the body of Christ, huh? And the first argument is from the great Damascene, right, in the third book, huh? The Orthodox faith, right? So it should be okay, huh? For the most part. For Damascene says in the third book that the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin, purging her, right, and giving her a, what, power? Susceptive of the word of God, likewise a, what, generative power, right? But she had, by nature, the, what, passive generating power, right? Just as every woman, right, according to the teaching of Aristotle. Therefore, he must have, he gave her something in addition, right? It must have been an active generative power, right? And thus she did something actively in the, what, conception of Christ, huh? Now you put a accomplishment, right? Moreover, all the powers of the living soul are active powers. So, as the commentator, that's what, Averroism, the Thomas Bedezer is that, tied up, I don't want to see it, as the commentator says in the second book about the soul. But the generative power, both in the male and in the woman, pertains to the, what, living soul. Therefore, both in the male and in the woman, it operates actively to the conception of the, what, osprey. Moreover, the woman, to the conception of the offspring, administers the matter from which naturally the body of the offspring is born. But nature is a, what, intrinsic beginning resource of motion. Therefore, it seems that in matter itself, which the Blessed Virgin administered to the conception of Christ, there was some active principle. That's an old mistake about matter, anyway. That's a fine line of philosophy discussed. But against this is that the active principle in the generation is called the ratio seminalis, right? The seed leg, or a ratio reason. But as Augustine says on the 10th book of Genesis to the letter, the body of Christ in what? Only bodily matter, only bodily matter, through the divine, what? Conception and formation was taken from the Virgin. Not, however, according to some seed-like human thing, huh? Therefore, the Blessed Virgin did nothing active in the conception of the body of what? Christ, huh? Okay. Let's see what Thomas says about this. I answer, he says, it should be said, that some say that the Blessed Virgin did something actively in the conception of Christ, huh? Both by a natural power and by a, what? Supranatural power. Now, they said by a natural power because they place in every, or in any natural matter, some active principle, right? And this is something that Thomas attacks on the natural philosophy. Otherwise, what? Sorry, do you know where that comes from? Because it says down here that it was, that the son says Bonaventura, now is there anything else? Is that, um, are they following something from Plato or something? Or when you said that, also sort of? Well, I don't know where it comes from exactly, but I mean, it is an opinion that Thomas, even the first book of natural hearing, the first book of physics, right? You know? Argus against, right? Mm-hmm. And the principle that they have in mind is, otherwise, they believe there would not be a, what? Yeah. You see, they go back to the idea that nature is an intrinsic principle, right? So if the active principle was not in the matter, it wouldn't be natural. But when Aristotle defines nature there in the second book of natural hearing, then he goes on to say that both matter and form are nature, right? But in a different sense, yeah. And so something can be natural just by reason of the matter. And that's, it comes up a lot in natural philosophy in the old, when you talk about, say, this, the heavenly bodies, right, huh? They're being moved by the, what? Material substances. So is this a natural motion? Well, there's a natural aptitude in the heavenly bodies to be moved in this way. So there's a passive principle, and that makes it, what? Natural, right, huh? Okay. So Thomas says, in which they are deceived, right, huh? Okay. Because a transmutation, transformation, is said to be natural on account of an intrinsic principle, not only an active one, but also a, what? Passive one. As the philosopher says expressly, right, in the eighth book of the physics, huh? Where he's speaking that in heavy bodies, right, and in light bodies, there is a passive principle of natural motion, and not an active, huh? Nor is it possible, he says, that matter act for its own formation, because it is not in act. Nor is it possible that something move itself, unless it be divided in two parts, of which one is moving, and the other is, what? Moved. Which happens only in animated things, as is proven in the eighth book of the physics. So he kind of dismisses the idea that it could be by a natural act of power, right? Okay. By a supernatural power, because they say to the mother is required, not only that she administer the matter, which is the menstrual blood, but also the seed, which is mixed with the, what? Male seed. Having an active power generation. And because in the Blessed Virgin there is not made any resolution of seed, on account of her most integral virginity, they say that the Holy Spirit supernaturally gave to her an active power in the conception of the body of Christ, which other mothers have through some, what, seed result, huh? But this cannot stand, huh? Saktan potasnari. Because each thing is an account of its own, what, operation or doing. As is said in the second book, Decelo, right? It's interesting, Thomas, he just says Decelo, right? A lot of times they call it Decelo of Mundo, right? I think the Greek word can mean the heavens or the universe, and really the name of the book is about the universe. But in Latin, I guess Decelo sometimes doesn't mean the universe, but the heavens as opposed to the earth, so they'll say, well, it's about the whole, so it's Decelo of Mundo. But here it just says Decelo, right? Okay, since each thing is an account of its own, nature would not have distinguished, right, for the work of generation, the male and the female sex, unless there were a distinct operation of the man from the operation of the woman. But in generation are distinguished the operation of the agent and the patient. Whence it is left that the whole, what, active power is on the side of the man, the passive power on the side of the woman, right? On the kind of which, in plants, in which there is, what, both powers are mixed, there is no distinction of the male and the female. But I guess there is some kind of distinction of that, huh? So don't take this in being a soldier. Because, therefore, the Blessed Virgin did not take, that she would be the father of Christ, right? But only his mother. Father, as a consequence, that she did not, what, take an active power in the conception of Christ. Whether she did something from which she would follow to be the father of, what, Christ. Or did nothing, right, as some say, from which she would follow that this active power was, what, given in vain. And, therefore, it should be said that in the conception of Christ, the Blessed Virgin did nothing actively, but only administered the, what, matter. But she nevertheless did something actively before conception, in preparing the matter, that it might be apt for, what, conception. And also, we did make that distinction there between the art that prepares the matter and the art that, what, induces the form, yeah. So she's admitting something active there, it seems, in the preparation of the, what? Of the matter, yeah. But not in the, what, formation of it by the irrational soul. So, in regard to the text of Damascene, he explains Damascene now, in a different way than the objection understands it. To the first, therefore, it should be said that that conception had three privileges, you might say, huh? Many things. One, that it was without, what, original sin. That it was not of a, what, pure man, but of one who's both God and man. And third, that it was the conception of a virgin. And third, that it was the conception of a virgin. And these three things it had from the Holy Spirit. And therefore, Damascene says, as it guards the first, that the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin, purging her, right? That is, preserving her, lest she conceive with, what? Original sin. You might have to, you know, conceive herself. She wasn't herself conceived with original sin, right? And as it guards the second, that, what? He's giving a power, susceptible of the Word of God, that she might conceive the Word of God. As it guards the third, simula generativa, which is where the rejection really comes from, right? That remaining a virgin, she could generate, not actively, but passively, as other mothers conceive or attain this from the seed of the, what, man, huh? Now, the idea that all the powers of the vegetative soul, right? The plant soul are active. To the second, it should be said that the generative power in the woman is imperfect with respect to the generating power which is in the man. And therefore, just as in the art, the, what, lower art disposes the matter, huh? The superior art induces the form, as is said in the second book of physics. So also, the generative power of the woman prepares the matter, but the active power of the man forms the matter that's prepared, huh? The third objection, he says. To the third, it should be said that this transmutation is natural, in order that this transmutation be natural, it is not required that in the matter there be a, what, active principle, but only a passive one, right? That's kind of a common thing through the books of natural hearing of physics, that the matter is a sense of nature different from form, huh? And something can be called natural by reason of the matter, right? And not just by reason of the... Now we're up to questions.