De Imitatione Christi, I.I

Quid prodest tibi alta de Trinitate disputare, si careas humilitate unde displiceas Trinitati? Vere alta verba non faciunt sanctum et justum, sed virtuosa vita efficit Deo carum. Opto magis sentire compunctionem quam scire definitionem. Si scires totam Bibliam, et omnium philosophorum dicta quid totum prodesset, sine charitate et gratia? Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas præter amare Deum et illi soli fervire. Ista est summa sapientia per contemptum mundi tendere ad regna cælestia. (I.I.3)

What does it profit you to dispute the lofty matters of the the Holy Trinity, if you lack humility, and so displease the Trinity? In truth it is not deep words that make you holy and upright, but a virtuous life which makes you dear to God. I rather prefer to know contrition than to know in its definition. If you know the whole Bible, and the maxims of all the philosophers, what does the lot of this profit you without charity and grace? ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,’ save to love God and to serve Him alone. This is the highest wisdom: to cast off the world  and to strive towards the heavenly kingdom. (Translation mine)

Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

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Constructing community

Only if we back off some distance from the actual content of the Pauline letters can we posit a dichotomy between Paul’s theology and his ethics — or between kerygma [κήρυγμα] (the proclamation of the gospel) and didache [διδαχὴ] (the teaching of standards of conduct), or between indicative (what God has done in Christ) and imperative (what human beings are called upon to do). The more closely we read Paul’s letters, the more fragile there familiar dichotomies appear. In these texts, it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between theology and ethics. They are packing together, under pressure: specific pastoral problems in Paul’s churches elicit his theological reflection. Thus, we see theology in progress, unfolding. Paul is not simply repeating already formulated doctrines; rather he is theologizing as he writes, and the constant aim of his theological reflection is to shape the behavior of his churches. Theology is for Paul never merely a speculative exercise; it is always a tool for constructing community.(18)

Richard B. Hays, Moral Vision of the New Testament (1996)

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El Greco, St. Paul (1606)

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Nolo episcopari

Much vague and sentimental journalism has been poured out to the effect that Christianity is akin to democracy, and most of it is scarcely strong or clear enough to refute the fact that the two things have often quarreled. The real ground upon which Christianity and democracy are one is very much deeper. The one specially and peculiarly un-Christian idea is the idea of [Thomas] Carlyle – the idea that the man should rule who feels that he can rule. Whatever else is Christian, this is heathen. If our faith comments on governments at all, its comment must be this – that the man should rule who does not thing that he can rule. Carlyle’s hero may say, “I will be king”; but the Christian saint must say “Nolo episcopari.” If the great paradox of Christianity means anything, it mean this – that we must take the crown in our hands, and go hunting in dry places and dark corners of the earth until we find the one man who feels himself unfit to wear it. Carlyle was quite wrong; we have not got to crown the exceptional man who knows he can rule. Rather we must crown the much more exceptional man who knows he can’t. (220-221)

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

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Nolo episcopari, Latin, lit., “I do not wish to be bishop”.

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So they nominated two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs.” Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles. (1.23-26)

The Acts of the Apostles

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Duccio di Buoninsegna, Pentecost (1308)

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theopolitical

Paul was not just an itinerant preacher, but also a pastor. He was, nevertheless, a preacher — a proclaimer of the good news of God’s intervention in human history through Jesus Christ. This good news was not a private message of personal salvation, though it included the salvation of individuals. It was a political announcement, or better a theopolitical announcement (politics involving God), that challenged–and challenges–the very core of how people relate to one another in the real world. (41)

If God’s salvation, including peace and justice, comes through Jesus, then it does not come through Caesar–or any other political or imperial force or figure. This does not mean that Paul’s gospel was political neither than religious; it is just that the two were inseparable. Words like justice (or righteousness), salvation, savior, peace, church (or assembly), gospel and, or course, Christ (Messiah) were–and are–both political and religious because they had to do with how people relate to both God and others in the real world. Paul’s gospel, therefore, is theopolitical. (44)

Because the gospel is about God’s dramatic, cosmic, benevolent intervention, it is not merely a message about personal salvation, as so many perversions of the gospel imply. To be sure, Paul’s gospel calls individuals to a right relationship with God, but it calls them into a community where right relationships with God and with others — both insiders and outsides — are taught, learned, and practiced. Those who believe Paul’s gospel are not fire and foremost invited to eternal life when they die (though that is included: Rom 5:21; 6:22-23), but to a new life in this world under the sway of a new lord and savior in the company of like-minded companions (Phil 1:27-2:16). Hence the adjective “theopolitical” to describe the gospel, meaning a narrative about God that creates a public life together, a corporate narrative, that is an alternative to the status quo in the Roman Empire, the American empire, or any other body politic. (45)

Michael J. Gorman, Reading Paul

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the·o·po·lit·i·cal
adj., or or relating to politics involving God; of a narrative about God creating a public life together

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Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Effetti del Buon Governo in Città or “Effects of Good Government in the City” (c. 1338-40)

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property

The ownership of property is not about power, and the wide distribution of property is not about a greater equilibrium of power. Rather, property has an end, which is to serve the common good. The universal destination of all material goods is in God. As Aquinas says, we should regard property as a gift from God, as gift that is only valid if we use it for the benifit of others (ST II-II66.1ad2). Thus Aquinas sanctions private ownership only insofar as it is put to its proper end, which is the good of all: “Man ought to possess external things, not as his own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate then to others in their need (ST II-II.62.2). Absent such a view of the true end of property, freedom means being able to do whatever one wants with one’s property, and property can thus become nothing more than a means of power over others. (29)

What is most important is the direct embodiment of free economic practices. From a Christian point of view, the churches should take an active role in fostering economic practices that are consonant with the true ends of creation. This requires promoting economic practices that maintain close connections among capital, labor, and communities, so that real communal discernment of the good can take place. Those are spaces in which true freedom can flourish. (32)

William Cavanaugh, Being Consumed

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prop·er·ty

n., something owned; a possession.

[Middle English, from Old French propriete, from Latin proprietas, ownership]

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Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Effetti del Buon Governo in Campagna or “The Effects of Good Government in the Country” (c. 1338-1340)

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philosophy and theology

Finally, and this was [St. Thomas Aquinas'] supreme achievement, when by his genius as a theologian he made use of Aristotle’s philosophy as the instrument of the sacred science which is, so to speak, “an impress on our minds of God’s own knowledge” (ST I, q. 1,a. 3,ad 2), he raised that philosophy above itself by submitting it to the illumination of a higher light, which invested its truth with a radiance more divine than human. Between Aristotle as viewed in himself and Aristotle viewed in the writings of St. Thomas is the difference which exists between a city seen by the flare of a torchlight procession and the same city bathed in the light of the morning sun. (61-62)

Jacques Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy

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phi·los·o·phy
n., “not a “wisdom of conduct or practical life that consists in acting well. It is a wisdom whose nature consists essentially in knowing.” (Maritain, 64)

[Middle English philosophie, from Old French, from Latin philosophia, from Greek φιλοσοφια]

the·ol·o·gy
n., the systematic study of Christian revelation concerning God’s nature and purpose, esp through the teaching of the Church

[Middle English theologie, from Old French, from Latin theologia, from Greek θεολογια]

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Benozzo Gozzoli, The Glory of St. Thomas Aquinas (15th cent.)

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coherence

“I approach Catholic theology as a mythological system and respect it because I think it is probably the greatest, most coherent, most elaborate, most wildly imaginative system for the human mind.”
Leo Steinberg, art historian (1920-2011)
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co·her·ence
n.
logical or natural connection or consistency
[Latin cohaerēre : co- + haerēre, to cleave, hang on.]

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Letters to a Niece

As to worldliness — well, yes, my Gwen, it is a thoroughly vulgar thing, especially when we remember the real call of our souls. There is, however, one consolation about this — worldliness is a less dangerous foe of the spiritual life than is brooding and self-occupation of the wrong, weakening sort. Nothing ousts the sense of God’s presence so thoroughly as the soul’s dialogues with itself — when these are grumblings, grievances, etc. But, of course, the ideal is this, whilst confident that you do not class a right amount of (and kind of) sociability and of pleasure in it, as worldliness. Of course such social activity and pleasure is right, and indeed a duty and a help to God. (43)

Baron Friedrich Von Hugel, Letters to a Niece

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