Tertia Pars
Lecture 101: Christ's Public Teaching, Offense, and the Use of Parables

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in his way of living, right? Living without sin. That's interesting, all the things he says there. Miracle is kind of an obvious thing, huh? Confirming the teaching. But the efficacy of persuading, huh? Delectat, as Guston says, right? Persuasion means literally, what, through the sweet, right? What's Indiana said on it? Persuasion is found, first of all, in music, huh? And then in fiction, and then in rhetoric, huh? So, music is the most, what, persuasive thing there is, huh? That's why they used to get volunteers to fight, you know? Coming to a little band playing, you know? And the guy gets a young kid, you know? It's like a pie-piper, and all of a sudden you're in the army, you know? They used to do it in Portugal, I remember. When we visited there, the American tourists would show up, especially if they knew they were young. You'd get a busload of American tourists, they'd show up at some shrine, and they wanted to buy stuff over here at this store. As soon as the bus opens the doors, they'd turn on the rock and roll. And all American people were right over there. They'd skip the shrine, and go over there. That's what they do. It was really corrupt. I didn't know. I mean, wow. These shops, I don't know. No, no, this is what I mean. When I was a tourist, this is the place that was the touring car. Well, the box, he told us. That's what they do. Every time they get off the bus, they turn on the music over there, and all the boys go over there. It was a particular place. It was persuasion, a perversion of persuasion. I have that film that they made there, the Nazi film, you know, the use of propaganda. Have you ever seen that? No. It takes place in Nuremberg, for the great rally of the Nazis there. It was shown throughout the war, right, just to keep the people up in frenzy. But it begins, you know, you see Hitler. You end up playing fine war, you know, descending down through the clouds. Right? Yeah, yeah. You've got to realize, I suppose, the movies are not as well, you know, so the people are more, a little more naive, you know, but it's really very impressive, you know. Yeah. Nothing like a Nazi, I mean, you know. Yeah. A friend of mine had some, a couple of CDs at one of the, just different German cavalry marches, right, and then the French cavalry marches. It's really impressive. Wow. Where do you get your martial spirit going, you know. You don't have a particular weakness for that, doctor. Yeah, I always say, I always say, it feeds my delusions of glad and glory. Yeah, that's what somebody asked me, what's the fire at a vision? I said, well, the delusions of grandeur count? They do, I do them all the time. You know, people talk too about, you know, Hitler is taken up with Wagner and so on, you know, and this kind of, so it is a very persuasive thing, you know. And, you know, how, if you go back to the origins of fiction, you know, poetry really, the names are taken from music, right? They were originally sung, you know. So, ode means a song, right? Tragedy means, a goat song, but I mean, you still have, you know, you know, poems are called the ode on this and the ode on that, huh? And, you know, Shakespeare's, they call it sonnet, right? Which means song, right? You can kind of see the connection there, huh? Even the words, huh? Whenever a scholar defines tragedy, you know, part of the definition is in sweetened language, huh? He does, you know, you know, he does. Yeah, it's a, a likeness of an action that is serious, completely not some magnitude, right? In sweetened language, right, huh? Oh, sweetened language, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They have metaphors and things of this sort, huh? Yeah. But you know, you've got a good speaker, people kind of just tanging on his words, huh? It's interesting to use the word persuasion, huh? You could say, you know, that the Gospels even are more persuasive than the Summa, right? Don't say they're more argumentative, you know, they're more persuasive, huh? Well, that's what the temple cards said. No one ever spoke of it. Yeah, someone who wants to go there and get some dirt, you know, and come back, you also, you know, I mean, the Pharisees, I mean, the pencils, yeah. So the second paragraph, minus two paragraphs, I mean, it's a different point, right? But the power of Christ is shown both in his immediate teaching and then in the teaching through the apostles. Kind of marvelous, you know, read the Acts of the Apostles, and that's what we're having all the time in this, after Easter season, you know? Well, today, it's the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena, do you have that? Yeah. You observe that, huh? Mm-hmm. Good. And you have Pius V tomorrow, too? We have him, Pius V, I don't think we have him. He's a Dominican that was Pope, right? That's why we're quite the white. We won't go against him, but, but, no, I don't have Pius V on our calendar. It's a strong tie, you see, back to back, these 29th and 30th, you're two Dominican saints, huh? We'll have to put it in. Of course, she was in cement, wasn't she, bringing the Popes back to Rome, so, you know, Brother Beat was talking about that this morning. Nice. Yeah, a little bit. There were two things, huh? I am who I am, and you are she who is not. Yes, that's it. Yeah. But I was mentioning how Father Dalzon, you know, like to say Mass there, and she's buried there at the, it's a supermaneura there, the church, the Dominican church there. He's buried there. He's buried there. We went to one Mass there at Sofa Minerva when the Dominicans, you know, they've kind of come in and group with them, a procession union, and so on. I think the head of the, some are just going to try to see a Mass rest there if he can too, you know, arrange it. We'll see. But I like that church, the beautiful chapels in there, one for Thomas too. I guess they've liked the Popes from that, from Sofa Minerva. Is it the Evangelical buried there? I think so, yeah. Except for Canadian Station, I don't know how far he's gotten there. He's blessed, I know. Yeah. My brother always said that impressed him the most in Europe, you know, was the Evangelical paintings there in Florence, you know, in the monastery there. Really beautiful. One in each cell, you know, in some halls and so on, you know, it'd be really, really impressive. And they've been kept up, you know, so they're very impressive. He brought back these, you know, these angels that he has, you know, angels that he really look like, you know, and his, you know, funny-ditty stuff, you know. Really like a superior being, you know, the way they, so far as a painter can bring out the, you know. This is a third ejection, huh? Why did he instruct a couple of these and not the multitude of Gentiles? So the third should be said that as Christ ought not from the beginning to what? Indifferently, right? Communicate his teachings to Gentiles. He observed, right? That's to the Jews, right? As to the firstborn people, right? Dedicated to them, he might observe, right? His teaching. So also he ought not to altogether repel the Gentiles, right? Less the hope of what? Salvation for them would be precluded. So here we get that theological virtue of hope coming up again, huh? And that's one of the reasons he gave for the miracles, I mean, not for the miracles, for the temptation, right? That we could approach him as one who'd also been tempted. Yeah. Unlike Angelou there in Shakespeare's play, you know. When other men talk about temptations, he always, you know, kind of smiles. Like he's, you know, they're bothered. And all of a sudden he falls, you know, and falls worse than anybody else. Measure for measure, I'd say in that play. That's a probable play. And because of this, some of the Gentiles in particular were admitted, right? On account of the excellence of their faith and their what? That's kind of remarkable about the Samaritan woman there, right? Because she went in and she announced what he had said and she kind of converted them, right? Then they came out because what's they heard Christ? I mean, now we're doing because of him and not because of you but she got them all to come out there and you don't find anything among the Jews hiding like that, do you? So in some particular way she was worthy of being what? Spoken to, right? Subli, spoken to. Kind of the excellence of fide, right? In the devotion. That's what St. Ephraim brings up with like harlot or something. Yeah, she had the husband. He said if she was a harlot she was like the other one she would have kept her mouth shut. She wouldn't have talked to him. She'd be so ashamed of herself. But this one doesn't act like that. So he plays on it. He explains it very well and he says I know I'm not explaining this the way anybody else does but I've got reasons. And he does it very well. She's a type of consecrated virginity because her husband had successively died so she was considered cursed. So she consecrated he says when you're now a witness that's your wife he explained this by saying that in order to avoid being considered cursed she told a man let's say we're married but I've consecrated myself to God my virginity to God so it's obvious that a man would better keep a husband so that was her secret and that was why she said it was great if he can tell me my secret then I'll believe he's the Messiah and then he said to her the manager had five husbands and the guy you're with now isn't your husband and she said he told me her and everything he told me he told me he told me he told me he told me So, it's unique, he's a doctor of church, I wonder. Okay, so now we're up to Article 2, right? Where the Christ, the second one, proceeds thus. It seems that Christ, what, ought to have preached to the Jews without, what, offending them? Okay. So that's the meaning of the second one, huh? A little not so clear over the other part, you know. That is the saying, you know, because they're, you know, they've got a rabid crowd, you know, why should you talk to this group, you know? Here he's saying, should you speak to them without, what, offending them, right, huh? Back from the crappie there, he lays down the law. Because, as Augustine says in the book on Christian struggle, should we say? Agony. In the man, Jesus Christ, huh? The Son of God, he stored upon us an example of right life, huh? But we ought to avoid offense, right? Not only of the faithful, but also of the faithless, right? Because, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, Without offense, he, to the Jews and the Gentiles and the Church of God, huh? Therefore, it seems that also Christ, in his teaching, ought to have avoided, you know, offending the Jews, huh? Moreover, no wise man, huh? No one wise ought to do, whence he will be impeding the effect of his work, right? But through this, that by his teaching, Christ, what, disturbed the Jews, right? The effect of his teaching was, what, impeded, right, huh? Because, when the Lord reprehended the Pharisees and the scribes, right, they began to, what, greatly, shall we say? Insist, right, huh? And to, what, attack what he said, I suppose, in many things. Plotting against him, right? And seeking something from his mouth that they might, what, accuse him, huh? Therefore, it does not seem suitable that he offend them, in his what teaching, huh? Okay, when I see those first sermons of Peter to the crowd, you know, there in the Acts of the Apostles, he doesn't come around and say Christ is the Son of God, does he? When he speaks of, you know, God raised him up, you know? It's kind of, you know, he's being light in them, right, huh? Not that he's denying that Christ, you know, rose from his own power, right? But he doesn't seem to emphasize that, right? Let alone that he is, in fact, the Son of God, huh? Kind of avoidance, gradually leading people in, you know? Moreover, the Apostle says, do not, what, scold the old man, but beseech him, you might say, as your father, right? But the priests and the princes of the Jews were the seniors of that people. Therefore, it seems that, what? They ought not to have been, what? Yeah, argue against with, dear, hard, you know? Root of vipers, and so on. Those things that John the Baptist says sometimes, too, are pretty, pretty rough, huh? But against this is what is said, Isaiah 8, that it is prophesied that Christ would be a stone of, what, offense, and a rock, a scandal to the two houses of, what, Israel, huh? Because as I was reading that kind of second chapter, isn't there, of Luke, you know, huh? It's going to be a sign of contradiction, and so on, huh? I had not come to bring peace, but... The sword. Yeah. That's what I'm looking for. See? That's what you say. I actually have to give you a sermon on Sunday. You say that, huh? I did, I actually did that just before 9-11, too. I was in Canada, and I said, what we need is a good war. Thomas says, I answer, it should be said that the salvation, or you might say the salus, of the multitude should be preferred to the peace of any, what, singular man, huh? That's a tough saying, huh? It's kind of marvelous, though, isn't it? Everyone can apply it to the practical order, right? And therefore, when some, by their own perversity, right, impede the saving of the multitude, right, or the salvation of the multitude, right, one ought not to fear their offense, right, their being offended, the preacher or the teacher ought not to be, what, afraid of offending them, right, in order that he might provide for the safety or the salvation of the, what, multitude, right? That's why they're crappy. It's definitely not, they're crappy. What about funny, bishops? Tell the people what they need. The scribes of her, and the Pharisees, and the princes of the Jews, by their malice, huh, much, very more, huh, impeded the salvation of the people, right, huh? Both because they fought against the teaching of Christ, huh, through which alone, is able to be salvation, right? And also because by their depraved morals, huh, they corrupted the life of the people, and therefore the Lord, notwithstanding the offense given to them, right, taught publicly the truth, which they hated, right, and he upgraded them, you might say, huh? Their various vices, right, huh? Okay? It's white and supplicant, you know. And therefore, it is said, Matthew 15, that the disciples saying to the Lord, do you know the Jews hearing this word are scandalized? I don't remember that. And he says, let them be, he says, huh, they are blind in the leaders of the blind. If the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch, or the tetya. He says, you offended us too. Woe to you! Let's just take a breath. The first, therefore, it should be said that a man thus ought to be without offense, right, to all, that to no one he gives by his deed or by what he says, right, huh? In a less right way, right? An occasion of what? Rune, right? Yeah, yeah. If, however, there arises scandal from truth, right, huh? More should be sustained scandal than the truth left, as Gregory says, huh? When the conicc was asked one time, you know, to write a defense for the beer industry or something up there, you know. Some people were arguing, you know, this is sinful to drink alcohol, you know. And, of course, the church is teaching it that these things should be drunk in moderation. And, of course, you know, in the beginning of the page, the opening page, something, or the page before the text really begins, you know. And the truth ought not to be dismissed in account of scandal. They had a quote from Thomas or something like this, you know. A little different to the reading, you know. And now they can put a picture of Pope Benedict with his beer style. Yeah. Yeah. My mom said, someone asked him about drinking, he said he likes to keep his mind clear, he said he doesn't drink like anything. So that's kind of a fluke picture. He probably doesn't drink much but he drinks once in a while. George III drank only wine and he didn't drink the other things. He liked to put around like a farmer though. He had a plain wife and he had about fifteen children by her. His great delights was a leg of mutton and his plain wife, his wife was kind of playing the German princess. But his favorite composer was Handel and he adored Bach. And he was very much impressed in 1764 when little Mozart there, he was about eight years old, played the organ. Very impressed. So that's the three greatest composers. So he was kind of getting attacked too much. I guess he did later on, twenty years later, he went mad I guess. He lost his mind or something, I don't know. Did they call him George the Man? Yeah, that was a bunch later. But he played the violin, the piano, and he had one of the best libraries he had developed. So he was not a... This is the German emperor? Yeah, George III. That was George the... No, it was the king, yeah. George III. The one who was king when we broke away. Oh, was that right? Yeah, George III, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. That was the German emperor, for example. Well, I mean, they came with German, they were just the Hanomans. But by George III they were pretty Anglicized, you know. I think the first one couldn't speak very much English. I was reading about Nathaniel Green there, you know. He was one of the generals under Washington. And I guess his father was a very successful businessman, you might have said, right, Quaker. But he didn't have any time for book learning, you know. But Nathaniel, you know, got interested in books and he started to read and so on. And he read, you know, Horace and so on. And Caesar, you know. And he went to his father's forage shop there, you know. And he has a little copy of Euclid that he'd be reading, you know. It's very interesting, you know. It's like when Lincoln didn't have any education, you know, formal education to speak of. But he got a quarter of Euclid and he learned, you know, a number of books of Euclid, you know. And he worked at it, you know. So, I was going to add. George Washington was, yeah. What? George Washington was this young boy. I think Lincoln did. Did he? I didn't know. I didn't know. I know Washington did. Because I've placed things in Red Fox in Middleburg, Virginia. There's some things to admire in these opinions, you know. Okay. So, we've got the reply there to the first ejection, huh? Okay. What about offending, I mean, getting in the way of your own effect, right? To the second it should be said. To this that Christ publicly reproved, you might say, the scribes and the Pharisees, right? He did not impede, but more he, what? Promoted the effect of his teaching, huh? Because when their vices became known to the people, right, huh? The less would turn from Christ, right, huh? On account of the words of the scribes and the, what? Pharisees, huh? Who always objected, you might say, to the, what? Yeah. What about treating, you know, an older man with some respect, huh? I'm an old man, I'm 74, you guys. You better treat me with some respect, you know. To the third it should be said that that, what? Word of the apostle should be understood about those, what? Seniors who, not only in age or authority, but also in, what? The goodness of their morals, right, are old, right, huh? According to that of Numbers 11, gather from me, what? Seventy men from the Seniors of Israel that you know are, what? Yeah. If over, if over the authority of the old, right, has turned into a tool of, what? Malice, huh? Malice, huh? By public ascending. They should be manifestly and bitterly, I guess, huh? Reproved, right, huh? Of course, as Daniel says, what? You've got an old in your evil days? I mean, some of that affect, didn't fit it right. How do you translate that? Oh, now that art grows old in evil days. Yeah, yeah. That's the two old men of Susanna. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, some of these get, you know, worse as time goes on, you know. Can we do another article here? We're going to take a break. To the theory. Everyone goes forward thus, it seems that Christ ought not, what? To teach publicly all things, for it is read that many things apart he said to his, what? Psychos. As is clear in the sermon on, what? Yeah, Simone Chana. Chana. Okay. Whence also Matthew 10, it says, that what you hear in the, here in the corners, I guess, preach from the rooftops, therefore not all things ought to be taught, what? Public, right? Moreover, the profound truths or things of wisdom should not be expounded except to the, what? Perfect, huh? For we speak wisdom among the perfect, as St. Paul says, right? But the teaching of Christ contains the most profound wisdom, therefore not to be, what? Communicated to the imperfect multitude, huh? Yeah. Moreover, this is the same for some truth to be, what? Hidden by silence and by the obscurity of the words. But Christ, the truth which he preached, hid from the crowds, right? By the obscurity of his words, because without parables, he did not, what? Speak to them. And therefore, for like reason, he could, what? Hide things in silence, huh? But against all this is what he himself says, John 18. He stood up. High priest, yeah. Christ said nothing in, what? Hidden. Now, I think Thomas is going to make some distinctions, I guess. I see some distinctions. I answer, it should be said, that the teaching of someone can be in, what? The hidden, I guess, huh? Can be hidden. In, what? Three ways, right, huh? In one way, as regards the intention of the one teaching, who intends not to make known to the many his teaching, right, huh? But more to, what? Hide it, huh? Which takes place in two ways, huh? Which happens in two ways. Sometimes, from the envy of the one teaching, who wishes to excel by his, what? Knowledge, huh? And, therefore, he does not wish to, what? Communicate to others his, what? Knowledge, huh? Aristotle complains there about the theological poets, right? What did they mean, right? Those who did not eat the mana there, they became, what? Corruptible, right? Those who did. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What did they mean? We don't know what they mean. Aristotle says, yes, right? But, they kind of despised us, you know. But, this does not take place in Christ. It has no place in Christ. From whose person it is said, what I have learned, without, what? Fiction. And, without envy, I, what? Communicate. And, I do not hide its, what? It's virtuous, yeah. Now, sometimes this happens on account of the, you know, Anastas is kind of what the goods of the soul, right? So, these are more defects of the people, right? In Anastas. Of those who are taught, right? Oh, excuse me. Oh, not the people he's speaking to, but of those things which are taught? It goes on, as Augustine says upon John, That some things are bad, there are some bad things, right? That human modesty, shall we say, right? Cannot care or bear, right? That's something you shouldn't speak, it's too vulgar or something. Whence about the teaching of the heretics it is said, That hidden waters are more sweet, huh? Oh, okay. But, the teaching of Christ is neither about air, nor about uncleanliness, huh? And, therefore, as the Lord says, Mark chapter 4, Yeah, that is a true and honest teaching that we put under the measure, right? In another way, some teaching is hidden, because it is, what? Proposed to few, right, huh? And, thus, also, Christ taught nothing in a hidden way, right, huh? Because, all his teaching, he proposed either to the whole people, right, huh? Or, to all his disciples in, what? In common, huh? Once Augustine says upon John, Who speaks in a hidden way, when he speaks before, what? So many men, right? Especially, if he says this to a few, That, to them, he wishes it to be made known to the, what? Many, huh? In a third way, some teaching is, In the occulta, is in a hidden way, As regards the way of teaching, right, huh? And, thus, Christ said some things to the crowd in a hidden way, Using parables to make known or to announce spiritual mysteries, To the grasping of which they were not apt or worthy, right? And, yet, it was better for them, That, thus, under the, what? Hiding of the parables, right, huh? For them to hear a teaching about spiritual things, Than to be altogether, what? Deprived to them, huh? But, the open and naked truth of these things, Of these parables, Christ expounded to the disciples on, Yeah, some examples of that in the text even there were, You know, they asked him about it, Kind of, privately afterwards, right? And he starts to, It's given to you to know the mysteries of the thing, But not to them, at least, in a perfect way. Through whom it would, what? Arrive to others who were suitable, right? According to that of 2 Timothy, son, What you have heard from me through many, what? Witnesses. These, uh, Commend to faithful men who are suitable, And teach, what? Others, huh? And this is signified in Numbers 4, Where it is, uh, Command, is it? That the sons of Aaron, um, Which the... The devites, unveiled, unwrapped, Yeah. Something. Now, the first one here says, What about teaching at the Last Supper, right? To the first, therefore, It should be said, That as Hillary says upon Matthew, Expounding that, uh, Word brought in, Um, We do not read that the Lord, right? Alone, is it? Sully to? To have been, what? To have been, what? To have been, what? To have been, what? To have been, what? To have been, what? and to have treated his teaching in the shadows, rather, in the darks. But he says this because all his, what, speech? And his word to the faithless is night. Also that that which is said by him among the faithless should be spoken with the liberty of faith and, what, confession of faith? Or, according to Jerome, he speaks in a comparative way because he would instruct them in the small place of Judea, right, with respect to the whole world, in which through the preaching of the apostles the teaching of Christ would be, what, made public. I think the word so much that means accustomed. We don't mean that he was accustomed to teaching. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, I think you're right there, yeah. The second it should be said that the Lord did not make known all the profound things of his wisdom by his teaching, right? Did not make known all the profound things of his wisdom, not only to the crowds, but not even to the, what, disciples, to whom he says in John chapter 16, still I have so many things to say to you which you cannot yet carry or bear. But nevertheless, whatever things it was worthy to hand over to others from his wisdom, not in a hidden way, but clearly he proposed, right, huh? Although not... I don't know if I have stood by all, yeah. Once Augustine says upon John, it should be understood that thus the Lord said, I have spoken openly, right, in the world. It suffice to say, many have heard me, right, huh? And again, that it was not, what? Yeah, because they did not, what? So since he's kind of agreed with the second objection, in the sense that the more difficult things shouldn't be expounded to everybody, right, huh? Yeah. The Mozart there, the Mozart said as well. There are things in his piano concert that only a true connoisseur can appreciate, he says. But they're rich in such a way that everybody will like them. Kind of subtle, right, huh? Yeah. And even Shakespeare, you know, still has quite a bit of popularity, right? Even though there are things in Shakespeare that not everybody will understand, you know? Even something Aristotle, like the Nicomachean Ethics, right? Even an uneducated person, you know, person who's been to college can kind of pick it up and read, you know? And still be impressed. I don't get everything in there, obviously, but it makes some sense, huh? It's not like reading conks or something like that. It's not like reading from USA today. Silence and speaking in parables, huh? To the theory it should be said that the Lord spoke in parables to the crowds, right, huh? Because they were not worthy, nor suitable, right, to take the naked truth, huh? Which he expounded to be, what, disciples, huh? Whatever, what is said, that without parables, he did not speak to them according to Christ's dim, should be understood as regards, what, that speech? Although others, and without parable, many things he, what, spoke to the crowds, right? He didn't speak to them only in parables, right? Was he referring to that particular speech, or what? Maybe so, that particular time he spoke, and then all he asked there was my voice. Yeah. Or, according to Augustine, in the book on the questions of the gospel, not because nothing did he say properly, right? It's not to be understood that he said nothing appropriate as opposed to it, figuratively, right? Okay. But because he made no, what, sermon, perhaps, where he did not signify something to a parable, like he used to, you know. Yeah, nearly. Yeah, yeah. That's part of the persuasion and the sweetness of his teaching, huh? Mm-hmm. Although in it, some things he said, what, appropriately, right? It's like what it was said in the beginning about, you know, should sacred scripture use metaphors? Remember that? Mm-hmm. And Thomas, and one of the objections against it is that it's not clear when you use a metaphor, right? Mm-hmm. And Thomas says, well, what is said in one place, metaphorically, is said in another place, but not figuratively, right? So, and in some reason why it's said sometimes metaphorically, right? Partly to bring our imagination into subjection to God, right? But also to stimulate, you know, people say what the meaning of that metaphor is. So, a parable is kind of like that extended metaphor, right? So you get probably the same teaching there, right? Some things he says with the parable and some things he says without. The parable kind of openly, right? Mm-hmm. Work together, right? Mm-hmm. But the parable kind of stimulates the imagination, people's wonder, what does this mean, right? Take a little break here now? Yeah. Yeah.