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Through the Church Fathers

C. Michael Patton

Join Through the Church Fathers, a year-long journey into the writings of the early Church Fathers, thoughtfully curated by C. Michael Patton. Each episode features daily readings from key figures like Clement, Augustine, and Aquinas, accompanied by insightful commentary to help you engage with the foundational truths of the Christian faith.

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Let’s journey through the wisdom of the Church Fathers together—daily inspiration to deepen your faith and understanding of the Christian tradition.

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  • S2 · E310
    Today · 12 min

    Through the Church Fathers: November 9

    Truth is not to stand unarmed, and a house that clings to God is still granted by the objectors. Augustine says he is not writing a treatise on the rules of rhetoric. Those are learnt elsewhere, if they are learnt at all, and boys may give them a little time. The art itself is lawful. Eloquence is available for falsehood and for truth, and it is a poor wisdom that leaves the defenders of the truth tedious, obscure, and unarmed while the other side knows how to win the ear. Men become eloquent by reading and hearing the eloquent, as infants learn to speak by living among those who speak, and the rules are exemplified by those who do not think of them while they are speaking. In the Confessions the objectors grant the house. It is not co-eternal, yet according to its measure it is eternal in the heavens, and changes of times are sought there in vain. They grant the formless matter also. Where there was no form there was no order, and where there was no order there was no change of times, and yet this almost nothing was from Him from whom is whatever is. Aquinas asks how the Passion saves. It was the most suitable way, not the only possible one. He was slain by others, in obedience, and the Father delivered Him in the same counsel. The one act is merit, satisfaction, sacrifice, redemption, and the instrument through which the grace is given. ### Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 4, Chapters 1–3 (Sections 1–5) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 15 (Section 22) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 46–48 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #Passion #Eloquence #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E309
    Yesterday · 13 min

    Through the Church Fathers: November 8

    The narrative goes back without saying so, and a house that clings to God is still not the Self-same. Augustine says the scattering of the nations seems to come before the one language, until the reader marks the recapitulation: the sentence about one speech returns to the time before the tower, and the judgment on the arrogance is what divides the tongues. “In that day” does not mean that the warning about Lot’s wife waits for the revelation. The day of the preaching is already the last time, and the day of judgment closes it. The seventh rule is the devil and his body. As Christ and the Church are spoken under one person, so the devil and the wicked. What is said of Lucifer under the figure of the king of Babylon is said of the head, and the grinding on the earth fits the body, in which the head is present. All the rules but one make a meaning be understood where another is expressed. The student is to learn the forms, and, before all, to pray. The Lord gives wisdom. In the Confessions the house is manifestly another than God, and not the Self-same. Time is not in it. Mutability is. Clinging, it shines like a perpetual noon. He has loved its beauty, and he asks to be brought back, a lost sheep, on the shoulders of the Shepherd. Aquinas asks why the miracles, and why the mount. The works confirmed the doctrine, and they were the works of the divine person through the flesh. They began at Cana. The Transfiguration was a brief showing of the clarity, so that the cross might be read as the cross of the one whose face had shone. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 36–37 (Sections 53–56) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 15 (Section 21) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 43–45 Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #Transfiguration #Recapitulation #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E308
    Saturday · 13 min

    Through the Church Fathers: November 7

    A part may stand for a whole day, and a creature may rest in God without being co-eternal. Augustine says the fifth rule of Tichonius is the rule of times: synecdoche, and the legitimate numbers. Six days and eight days can both be true if the broken day is counted or not counted. The three days and three nights in the heart of the earth are made out in the same way, by joining the part to the whole. Seven, ten, and twelve, and their multiples, are put for the whole of a time, or for the whole of a people, as a hundred and forty-four thousand is put for all the saints. The sixth rule is recapitulation. Genesis seems to plant the garden after the man is put in it. The narrative has gone back, without saying so, to tell what was passed over, and then it repeats the placing of the man. In the Confessions he presses the objectors. They grant that the eternal God does not will now this, now that. Do they deny a sublime creature, clinging to Him with so chaste a love that it does not flow into times? This is the house of God, spiritual, made fast for ever, and not co-eternal, because it was made. A created wisdom was before all things, not the Wisdom that creates, but the intellectual nature that in the contemplation of light is light. Aquinas asks why the baptism, the life, the temptation, and the teaching took the form they took. He was baptized to sanctify the water and to begin the work. He lived among men, in poverty, under the law. He was tempted in the desert after the baptism, and conquered. He taught the Jews first, by the living voice, and openly. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 35–36 (Sections 50–52) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 15 (Sections 19–20) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 39–42 Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #BaptismOfChrist #Tichonius #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E307
    Friday · 12 min

    Through the Church Fathers: November 6

    The prophet passes from one Israel to the other without a change of name, and the eternal will does not take up a new act. Augustine says the species is not always overstepped. When Ezekiel has spoken of the house that defiled the land and was scattered, and then promises a new heart and clean water and a gathering out of all countries, the reader is to leave the one nation and take the genus. The spiritual Israel is made of all the nations promised in the seed, which is Christ. The land of the fathers is the Church, or the land of the age to come, given already in the purpose of God, as grace is said to have been given before the world began. In the Confessions he answers those who will not have his reading of the heaven of heavens. The substance of the Creator is not changed by time, and the will is not separate from the substance. He does not will now this, now that. Expectation becomes sight, and sight becomes memory, and that variation is mutable. God has not made any creature by a new will. Aquinas asks why the birth was told to some and not to all, and why the child was circumcised and came to John. The shepherds were told, and the Magi were led. He was shown. He did not show Himself. He received the seal and the rites as one born under the law, not as one who needed them. The baptism of John was a preparation. He received it, and it ceased. ### Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapter 34 (Sections 48–49) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 15 (Section 18) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 36–38 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #Circumcision #SpiritualIsrael #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E306
    Thursday · 12 min

    Through the Church Fathers: November 5

    Faith itself is a gift, and a part is sometimes named when the whole is meant. Augustine says the third rule of Tichonius, the promises and the law, the spirit and the letter, is a great question rather than a key to other questions. Tichonius gave works to God and left faith to us. He had not yet met the Pelagian heresy. Peace and love with faith are from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is given to believe, and given to suffer. The fourth rule is species and genus, a part and the whole. What is said of Jerusalem, or of Tyre, or of Egypt, may overstep the city and the nation. What is said of Solomon reaches beyond Solomon, and is properly read of Christ and the Church, of which he is a part. In the Confessions the opening of Genesis names no day, and he takes it of two things that are not yet in days: the intellectual heaven, where to understand is to know all at once, face to face, and the formless earth, where there is no this and that. The firmament of the second day tells which heaven was meant. The depth of the oracles is awe, and a tremor of love. He would have the enemies of the book slain unto themselves, that they might live unto God. Aquinas asks whether a birth in time can be said of the Son, and whether the Virgin is the Mother of God. Birth is said of the person. The births are two. The son is one. The name Theotokos does not mean that the Godhead began from her. It means that the one she bore is the Son. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 33–34 (Sections 46–47) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapters 13–14 (Sections 16–17) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Question 35 Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #Theotokos #Grace #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E305
    Wednesday · 12 min

    Through the Church Fathers: November 4

    Seven rules are keys, not the whole lock, and two creatures stand outside the compass of time. Augustine says Tichonius the Donatist wrote a book of rules, and claimed too much for them. They assist. They do not open every obscure place, and the book is to be read with caution, because the author remained a Donatist. The first rule is the Lord and His body. Head and body are sometimes spoken under one person, and the speech passes from Christ to the Church without a change of name. The second rule he called the twofold body. The name will not do. What will not be with Christ in eternity is no part of His body. The rule is about the mixed Church: good and bad in one net for a time, spoken of as one subject, and not forever one. In the Confessions he finds two things made, neither of them co-eternal. One enjoys God without failing and without interval, changeable and not changed. The other was so formless that it could not yet be subject to time. God did not leave it formless. From it came the heaven and the earth in which days take place. Aquinas asks what was true in the first instant of the conception. The body was formed, the soul infused, and the nature assumed, in that instant, not by the slow work of seed. The child was already sanctified, able to will, and able to merit. The stature was still to come. The Person in the nature just assumed was not waiting on it. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 30–32 (Sections 42–45) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 12 (Section 15) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 33–34 Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #Tichonius #ConceptionOfChrist #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E304
    Tuesday · 11 min

    Through the Church Fathers: November 3

    The same words may bear more than one true sense, and formlessness cannot make a day. Augustine says that if two interpretations of a passage both agree with the truth, and each can be shown from another place in Scripture, the reader is not to be blamed for missing the writer’s own intention. The Spirit foresaw the sense that agrees with the truth. Reason may be called in when Scripture cannot settle a doubt, but it is safer to walk by Scripture. The authors of Scripture use the tropes of the grammarians more freely than the unlearned suppose, and the same figures are already in ordinary speech: metaphor, catachresis, irony, antiphrasis. When the literal sense is absurd, the figure is to be sought. Tichonius the Donatist set down seven rules as keys. They help. They do not open every door, and he himself explains obscure places without them. In the Confessions he asks who would say that formlessness, all figure consumed, can exhibit the changes of times. Without the change of motions times are not, and there is no change where there is no figure. Aquinas asks from what, and by whom, the body of Christ was conceived. The matter was taken from the Virgin, of the flesh of Adam, without the guilt of that descent. The active principle was the Holy Spirit, not as father, but as the power appropriated to the work of love. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 27–30 (Sections 38–42) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 11 (Section 14) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 31–32 Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #ConceptionOfChrist #Tropes #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E303
    November 2 · 10 min

    Through the Church Fathers: November 2

    A word does not keep one meaning wherever it appears, and a house that clings to God is not stretched into times. Augustine says the sins of great men are written so that no one who thinks he stands may despise another. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. The first question about any expression is whether it is literal or figurative. Leaven is the Pharisees, and leaven is the kingdom. A lion is Christ, and a lion is the devil. Water is the peoples, and water is the Spirit. The sense is taken from the place, and the obscure place is read by the clearer one. A shield is the favor of God, and a shield is faith, and faith is also a breastplate. In the Confessions the soul that thirsts, and whose tears are bread, may understand how far beyond all times God is eternal. His house has not wandered. It is not co-eternal, and by clinging it suffers no vicissitude. Formlessness cannot exhibit the changes of times, because without the change of motions times are not. Aquinas asks why the mother of Christ was espoused, and why an angel spoke before the conception. The betrothal guarded the virginity. The marriage with Joseph was true by consent. The announcement came first, so that she might know and consent, and then the Word was conceived. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 23–26 (Sections 33–37) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 11 (Sections 13–14) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 29–30 Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #Annunciation #FigurativeLanguage #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E302
    November 1 · 11 min

    Through the Church Fathers: November 1

    Lust cannot imagine temperance, and a creature can cling to God so as not to be extended into times. Augustine says the man who exceeds with one wife does not believe that the fathers used many wives with temperance, looking only to the duty of those times. Such men measure the saints by themselves, as if praise must puff up and insult must cast down. The apostles were neither puffed up nor cast down. David bore the injury of Absalom and mourned his death for the son’s sin, not for his own loss. The ewe-lamb accused the adultery, and the desire is called a guest, not a king. In Solomon it reigned. What was done then as a duty is not to be transferred now into a habit of life. In the Confessions the heaven of heavens is the creature whose will God is, not co-eternal, drawing its support from Him, varied by no change. He calls it the house of God, a pure mind, the city of holy spirits above the heavens that are seen. Aquinas asks how the mother of Christ was prepared. She was sanctified in the womb after the soul was infused, not before. Original sin was remitted. The spark was bound, and she did not sin. She was a virgin in conceiving, in bearing, and after the birth. ### Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 19–22 (Sections 28–32) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 11 (Section 12) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 27–28 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #BlessedVirgin #VirginBirth #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E301
    October 31 · 12 min

    Through the Church Fathers: October 31

    Charity is the rule that decides when a command is a figure, and eternity is a will that does not change. Augustine says a figurative expression is to be turned until it establishes the reign of love, and if the literal sense already does that, it is not a figure. A command that seems to enjoin a crime, or to forbid a kindness, is figurative. Eating the flesh is a share in the sufferings. Coals of fire are the groans of penitence. Commands given to a lower state are not canceled by a higher one. What was allowed in the Old Testament for those times is not a habit for these, and one man may use many wives with chastity while another uses one with lust. In the Confessions he has been told, in the inner ear, that God alone is immortal, and that every nature which is not God is still from God. Only what is not, is not from Him. Sin is the motion of the will toward what is less, and no sin hurts God or disturbs His rule. Aquinas asks how the one who is equal can still be subject. He is subject, and He prays, and He mediates, as man. He is priest forever, offering once, the virtue of the offering remaining. He is Son by nature, not by adoption. The humanity is adored because it is the humanity of the Son, not because flesh is divine. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 15–18 (Sections 23–27) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 11 (Section 11) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 20–26 Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #PriesthoodOfChrist #Charity #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E300
    October 30 · 13 min

    Through the Church Fathers: October 30

    What looks like a sin in a holy man may be a sign, and a custom is not yet a law. Augustine says the deeds ascribed to God and the saints, which seem wicked to the inexperienced, are figurative, and the kernel is charity. It is not the use of a thing that is blamed, but the lust of the user. The ointment on the Lord’s feet is not the ointment of a banquet. Hosea’s keeping company with a harlot is not abandoned manners. The plurality of wives among the fathers was blameless then, for the sake of offspring, and could not be done now except through lust. Men who know only their own customs conclude that there is no absolute right. The precept stands against them: whatever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them. In the Confessions he begs the Truth, not his own darkness, to speak. He went astray and remembered. He returns burning to the fountain, and the words of the books are very deep. Aquinas asks what may be said of the one who is both. God is man and man is God, because the Person is one and the natures are not mixed. There is one being, two wills without contrariety, and two operations concurring in the one work. The human action merited, for Himself and for the members. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 12–14 (Sections 18–22) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 10 (Section 10) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 16–19 Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #CommunicationOfProperties #Charity #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E299
    October 29 · 12 min

    Through the Church Fathers: October 29

    A man can be free while he is still under a sign, and a creature can share eternity without being eternal. Augustine says bondage to a sign is the use of it without knowing what it signifies. The patriarchs were spiritual and free even while the signs were still imposed, because they honored what the signs referred to. After the resurrection a few rites remain, baptism and the body and blood of the Lord, easy to perform and plain in what they mean. A phrase is figurative when, taken literally, it cannot be referred to purity of life or soundness of doctrine. Scripture enjoins nothing but charity and condemns nothing but lust. Severity ascribed to God, when the sense is plain, is not to be allegorized away. It pulls down the dominion of lust. In the Confessions the Spirit is silent about days when He says that in the Beginning God created heaven and earth. The heaven of heavens is an intellectual creature, not co-eternal, yet clinging to God so as to surpass the rolling change of times. The formless earth is not numbered among the days, because where there is no shape, nothing comes or goes. Aquinas asks what power and what weakness were in the Christ who came. The soul was not omnipotent. It worked as the instrument of the Word. Hunger, pain, and death were assumed, not owed. Sin and ignorance were not. Sorrow was real, and the will that bore it was not captive to it. ### Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 9–11 (Sections 13–17) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 9 (Section 9) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 13–15 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #CharityAndLust #DefectsOfChrist #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E297
    October 28 · 12 min

    Through the Church Fathers: October 28

    To take a sign for the thing it signifies is a kind of slavery, and a world can be shaped only out of what is almost nothing. Augustine warns that the letter kills when a figurative word is read as if it were proper. Sabbath and sacrifice then stay on the day and the victim, and the mind never lifts. The bondage of Israel was not the bondage of the nations. Their signs, however misunderstood, still held the one God before them, and those who believed were near enough to spiritual things to become the first church. The Gentiles, even when they called an idol only a sign of the sea, were still worshipping the creature. Christ freed the one by interpreting the signs, and the other by clearing the useless signs away. In the Confessions the heaven of heavens is already for God. The earth given to the sons of men was invisible and without form, a deep almost nothing, yet able to be formed. Times are numbered only where shapes change. Aquinas asks how the soul of Christ knew. It saw the divine essence and did not comprehend it, knew by infused species from the first moment, and advanced only in what experience drew from the senses. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 5–8 (Sections 9–12) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 8 (Section 8) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 9–12 Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #KnowledgeOfChrist #LetterAndSpirit #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E296
    October 27 · 11 min

    Through the Church Fathers: October 27

    A question can be asked so that the answer is already No, and a world can be made only if it is not made out of God. Augustine takes the ambiguities of pronunciation next. The rule of faith will not let “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” be read as if God and Christ were the accusers. Inquiry and interrogative are not the same. A short syllable and a long one can hide bone under mouth, and the Greek, or a barbarism clearer than good Latin, settles it. Case, context, and the original tongue leave very little ambiguity in proper words that cannot be cleared. In the Confessions he says the heaven and the earth came from God, and not out of God. Had they come out of Him, they would have been equal to the Only-begotten. There was nothing else from which they could be made. One is near to Him. The other is near to nothing. Aquinas asks what filled the soul that was assumed. Besides the grace of union there was habitual grace from the first moment, not measured, and not increased. That same grace, overflowing, makes Him Head of the Church. ### Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 3–4 (Sections 6–8) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 7 (Section 7) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 7–8 (Articles 1–13 and 1–8) --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #GraceOfChrist #Creation #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E295
    October 26 · 12 min

    Through the Church Fathers: October 26

    A mark in the wrong place can make the Word something other than God, and a mind full of pictures can fail to think what has no picture. Augustine opens the third book of On Christian Doctrine by sending the prepared reader to the ambiguities of Scripture. Where the words themselves are unclear, punctuation and pronunciation are tested first by the rule of faith, then by the context, and, if both are silent, left to the reader’s discretion. The heretical pointing that stops before “the Word was God” is refused. Paul’s strait between two is settled by the word that follows. In the Confessions he confesses that he once called matter formless while still filling it with foul and horrible forms. He could sooner think that the formless was nothing than conceive what lay between form and nothing. What he reached was mutability, able to receive shapes, and already something. Aquinas asks what the Son assumed, and in what order. A true earthly body, and a true human mind. What was not assumed would not have been healed. Soul and flesh were taken at one instant, the soul the medium of congruity, not a step that came earlier in time. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 1–2 (Sections 1–5) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 6 (Section 6) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 5–6 (Articles 1–4 and 1–4) Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #Incarnation #RuleOfFaith #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E294
    October 25 · 13 min

    Through the Church Fathers: October 25

    What the heathen said truly was never theirs to keep, and what has no form cannot be pictured by a mind that wants a picture. Augustine tells the Christian to take the gold and silver of pagan learning, the true things and the useful precepts, and turn them to the preaching of the gospel, as Israel took the vessels of Egypt. The same learning will puff a man up unless charity builds him. Christ is the passover. The meek herb marks the door. Scripture then outruns every book brought out of Egypt: what is hurtful is condemned there, what is useful is already there, and much is there that can be learned nowhere else. In the Confessions he tries to say what formless matter was. Thought finds it is neither an intelligible form, such as life or justice, nor anything the senses can reach. The mind knows it by knowing that it is ignorant. Aquinas asks who assumed, and what was assumed. The whole Trinity caused the work. Only the Son terminated it. He took human nature to His own Person, not a man already existing, and not a second person beside Himself. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 40–42 (Sections 60–63) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 5 (Section 5) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 3–4 (Articles 1–8 and 1–6) Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #Incarnation #SpoilingTheEgyptians #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E293
    October 24 · 13 min

    Through the Church Fathers: October 24

    A man can learn the rules of argument and still miss the truth they serve, and a word can name what has no shape of its own. Augustine warns the studious not to mistake dialectic, rhetoric, or the science of number for the secret of a happy life. The rules are true, and number was discovered rather than invented, but the man who will not trace that truth back to God may be learned and still not wise. What is useful among the heathen is to be taken soberly. What binds a man to demons is to be refused. In the Confessions he asks what name can carry formless matter to a duller mind, and he answers with the earth and the deep, lowest and least beautiful, invisible and without shape, out of which the shapely world was made. Aquinas then asks how the Word took flesh. Not by mixture, and not by a second person set beside the Son. Two natures remain. One Person subsists in both, by grace, with no merits going before. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 37–39 (Sections 55–59) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 4 (Section 4) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Question 2 (Articles 1–12) Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #Incarnation #HypostaticUnion #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E292
    October 23 · 11 min

    Through the Church Fathers: October 23

    A valid argument can still land on a false conclusion, and a true opinion can be joined by a bad one. Augustine draws that line in On Christian Doctrine, then turns it on definition and eloquence: the rules stay true even when poets, heretics, or a clever speaker put them to a false use. In the Confessions he looks further back, at the earth that was invisible and formless, and at the darkness on the face of the deep. That darkness was not a second substance. It was the absence of light, as silence is the absence of sound. And yet the formless matter was not altogether nothing. Aquinas then asks whether it was fitting for God to become incarnate, and whether that coming was necessary. Goodness communicates itself, and the highest good in the highest way. God could have restored us otherwise. There was no more fitting way. Scripture assigns the Incarnation to sin, and the fullness of time was neither the beginning of the world nor its end. Today’s Readings: Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 33–36 (Sections 51–54) Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 3 (Section 3) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Question 1 (Articles 1–6) Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #Aquinas #SummaTheologica #Incarnation #ChurchFathers

  • S2 · E291
    October 22 · 11 min

    Through the Church Fathers: October 22

    Today we move from reasoning, to creation, to disciplined Christian life. In On Christian Doctrine, Augustine explains why Christians should know something of the mechanical arts and especially logic: reasoning can help us understand Scripture, but it must never become an exercise in sophistry, and the laws of logic are not human inventions but realities we discover in the order God has made. In Confessions, Augustine turns upward from the visible heavens to the mysterious “heaven of heavens,” distinguishing the created world we see from the higher reality belonging especially to God. Finally, Aquinas asks why there are different religious orders, why both active and contemplative forms of religious life can be legitimate, and how vows bind those who enter them. Together, the readings ask what it means to use the mind, contemplate creation, and order one’s life toward God. Pasted text Pasted text Pasted text Today’s Readings: Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 30–32, Sections 47–50 Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 2, Section 2 Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Questions 188–189 — Forms of Religious Life and Entry into Religion

  • S2 · E290
    October 21 · 12 min

    Through the Church Fathers: October 21

    Olympiads and consuls are not baptism, but they can keep a reader from making Christ forty-six years old because the temple took forty-six years to build. Augustine will use profane history that way, and he will let Ambrose use it to unmask the slander that Jesus learned His words from Plato. Herbs that heal when drunk are one thing; herbs that heal when hung on the neck are another. The stars may be calculated; they are almost no help to Scripture, and they sit too near the diviners. The Confessions opens a new book with the poverty of inquiry: the hand that knocks works harder than the hand that receives. The promise still stands, because Truth made it. Aquinas then names a school, not a finished saint. Poverty, continence, and obedience are the vows that clear the three chief obstacles. The religious does not claim to have arrived. He claims to stay in the practice. Today’s Readings: Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 28–29 (Sections 42–46) Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 1 (Section 1) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Questions 186–187 (The Religious Life and Its Discipline) Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #ChurchFathers #Augustine #OnChristianDoctrine #Confessions #ThomasAquinas #SummaTheologica #History #Scripture #ReligiousLife #Theology #EarlyChurch

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