"The work of heaven alone was material; the making of a material world. The work of hell is entirely spiritual."

     G. K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas (1933), chap. 4 ("A meditation on the Manichees").

"comme les pommiers produisent des pommes"

"idiots utter idiocies just as plum trees produce plums—it's a normal, natural process.  The problem is that some readers take them seriously. . . .The most charitable thing you can say about [Maoist Maria-Antonietta Macciocchi's book] On China is that it is utterly stupid; because if you did not accuse her of being stupid, you would have to say that she's a fraud."

"Je pense... que les idiots disent des idioties, c'est comme les pommiers produisent des pommes, c'est dans la nature, c'est normal. Le problème c'est qu'il y ait des lecteurs pour les prendre au sérieux et là évidemment se trouve le problème qui mériterait d'être analysé. Prenons le cas de Madame Macciocchi par exemple — je n'ai rien contre Madame Macciocchi personnellement, je n'ai jamais eu le plaisir de faire sa connaissance — quand je parle de Madame Macciocchi, je parle d'une certaine idée de la Chine, je parle de son œuvre, pas de sa personne. Son ouvrage De la Chine, c'est ... ce qu'on peut dire de plus charitable, c'est que c'est d'une stupidité totale, parce que si on ne l'accusait pas d'être stupide, il faudrait dire que c'est une escroquerie."

     "Simon Leys" (Pierre Ryckmans) "on France's prestigious cultural show Apostrophes" in May of 1983, as translated by Henri Astier, "In the age of Sham and Amnesia," Times literary supplement no. 5885 (January 15, 2016):  5 (5-7).

Prayer is an act of the reason

"Prayer is an act of reason directing [(rationis . . . applicantis)] the ardent desire of the will at [(ad)] Him who is not under our power, but above us, namely God."

"Oratio rationis est actus, applicantis desiderium voluntatis ad eum qui non est sub potestate nostra, sed supra nos, scilicet Deus."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, Super Sent. IV.15.4.1.1.co.  Cf. also "Prayer is the act of reason by which one entreats a superior [(Oratio est actus rationis, per quem aliquis superiorem deprecatur)]" (ST II-II.83.10.co).

     I was put onto these by Christoph J. Amor, "'Asking makes a difference . . .':  Das Bittgebet bei Thomas Aquinas in der neueren Diskussion," Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie 50 (2008):  42 (37-61).  Cf. Super Sent. IV.15.4.1.1.ad 2 and ad 4; IV.15.4.1.2.co; IV.15.4.6.2.arg 2; and IV.15.4.6.3.co.  And ST II-II.83.1.co and ad 2 (to restrict this to the nouns oratio (#5730), ratio (#68404), and actus (#01503) only, in proximity).

"What I do not hesitate to honor in you"

"You easily understand what it is that I am ready to honor in you [(quid autem in te honorare non dubitem)].  Naturally, I do not consider the error of schism worthy of honor, since I long to cure all men of it, as far as I can.  But, without any shadow of doubt, I think you are worthy of honor:  first, because you are bound to us by the very bond of human society; secondly, because there are in you clear signs of a peaceful mind, which support the hope that you will readily embrace the truth when it has been demonstrated to you.  Indeed, I owe you as much love as He commanded us to have who loved us unto the ignominy of the Cross."

     St. Augustine, Epistle 33 to the Donatist bishop of Hippo Proculeianus (before 396).  FC 12, trans. Sister Wilfred Parsons (1951), 126-127 (126-130).  CSEL 34.2, ed. Goldbacher (1898), 18.

The submission of a man of great courage

"In the post-Tridentine [(postèrieurs)] writings of [Cardinal] Seripando one finds no further mention of double justice.  This submission showed the high degree to which he was [a] true Catholic.  His filial attachment to the Church was [much] more profoundly rooted in him than his conviction [on the subject] of double justice, as tenaciously [as he argued for the latter throughout the discussions of 1546 (si ferme pourtant)]."

     P. Pas, "La doctrine de la double justice au Concile de Trent,"  Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses 30 no 2/3 (April/September 1954):  51 (5-53).  Pas gives a good sense of the penultimate tenacity of this man, e.g. on p. 17:  "Given this context and the manifest intention of the author to give expression to the opinion of the majority, one is astonished to find yet again in the fourth canon [of Seripando's draft of 19 August (CT V, 828-833)], in the most explicit fashion, the doctrine of double justice.  In the midst of a placid exposé, which is far from requiring the idea, this canon affirms that the Christian possesses, besides grace, 'the very pure justice of the Christ' of whom he is a member.  Seripando had to have been profoundly convinced of the truth of this doctrine in order to reintroduce [(maintenir)] it even after having renounced the personal views that were its native habitat [(qui en formaient le contexte normal)]."  (This, by the way, is said to be "the first time that we find, in Seripando, the technical term" De duplici iustitia (duplex iustitia).)  And on p. 24:  "That he had, despite everything, the courage of his opinion his very profound conviction places beyond all doubt.  In any case he could not consent to the explicit rejection of double justice as he understood it to be enunciated in the new decree.  That transmogrification [(métamorphose)] of his own work he could only accept after a reprobation of his doctrine, not by certain unknown editors, but by the entire council."  Moreover he was virtually alone in this.  "This option for double justice was not driven by fidelity to a long [Augustinian] tradition", for there was none (30; cf. 27 ff.).  Indeed, of all of the five (!) defenders of double justice at the Council of Trent, we know of only one whose commitment to it was independent of Seripando's:  Cardinal Pole (30).

"Dei, quia a Deo, nostra, quia in nobis, Christi, quia per Christum"

Source

"Una est iustitia Dei et nostra per Christum Iesum, qua iustificaur:  Dei, quia a Deo, nostra, quia in nobis, Christi, quia per Christum."

One is [1] the justice of God and [2] ours through Jesus Christ, by which we are justified:  'of God' [(or 'God's')] because from God; 'ours,' because in us; 'of Christ' [(or 'Christ's')] because through Christ.

     Last chapter of the fourth draft of the Tridentine decree on justification dated 11 December 1546 (CT V, -700-), as reproduced in P. Pas, "La doctrine de la double justice au Concile de Trent," Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses, 30 no 2/3 (April/September 1954):  48 (5-53).  "This will become in the definitive text [of 13 January 1547]:  'iustitia nostra . . . a Deo nobis infunditur per Christi meritum'" ("what is called our justice, because we are justified by its abiding in us, is that same justice of God, in that it is imparted to us by God through the merit of Christ" (Tanner, vol. 2, p. 678)).  Fill this out with the analysis on pp. 37 ff.

"Whoever loves someone whom he believes good loves goodness, whether that person is what he is esteemed to be or something quite different."

Emeth, by Pauline Baynes.
C. S. Lewis,The last battle, chaps. 14-15.

". . . qui eum diligit, quem credit bonum, siue ille se ita siue aliter, quam creditur, habeat."

     St. Augustine, Letter 20 to Antonius (390/391), FC 12, trans. Sister Wilfrid Parsons, 46.  CSEL 34.1, 47-49, ll. 24-25.