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)

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