Fray Timoteo (FT): What
Barbary! The revolutionaries have destroyed the church of St. Thomas and no one
survived.
Fray Geronimo (FG): Indeed
what Barbary.
FT:
God has punished those friars in black and white for speculating too much about
the universe looking at the stars and writing about them. It is with their
intellectual stubbornness that God has decided to smite them with atrocity of
the rebels.
FG:
Dear brother tell me what those Friars in black and white do everyday. I
suppose that they did not do anything that would displease God and instead a
more pleasing act is done within their midst.
FT:
From what I hear about them from eyewitness accounts, they spent most of their
time in their scriptoria writing treatises and then printing them. The sin here
is that most of their time is spent in that philosophical adventure. Indeed it
is a sin, a sin of pride. Have not the LORD said that he has hidden truth from
the learned and gave it to the childlike? Dear brother, the sin against God’s mystery is
being done in that wretched place. Let me tell you more for you are in want of
more. They even speculate about the Universe,
Stars et cetera. Have they no time for prayer? It seems to me that they are
indulged under the ecstasy of pagan knowledge that God has slipped away from
their minds and hearts. I pray for their souls. Requiem donna eis domine.
F.G
Brother such pessimism has entered thy heart! What has made you so infuriated
about speculating? What should we do then? I myself am writing a treatise
defending a particular position in the philosophy of St. Tomas (whose Church
was destroyed). But brother what a proposition! Death! Destruction! What is
your point Timoteo?
FT:
I have been in this monastery more than you Geronimo. I have worked the fields.
I made the oven and all the clay instruments we have. Those were good times. We
pray the lauds with gladness in our hearts and recite the compline with the hope
of God’s continuing sustenance for the life we offer to him through our bodies.
Indeed it was noble times.
FG:
Do other brothers go to the scriptorium?
FT:
we never had a library before. We don’t have enough money to buy books from the
bookseller. But the wisdom of Tertullian whose name I have ascribed to be my
monastic name said: Believe in order to
understand and then stop! The wisdom in those lines was endless and I have
taken it as the supreme axiom of my monastic life. You ask whether they work in
the scriptorium. The last abbot called them the “knowledgeable scoundrels.” He
never expelled them but he distrusted them and ordered strict penances from
them. Do you remember Fray Paulus who was sentenced with flagellation for
writing a treatise against a saint?
FG
do you consider then that the acts of these people who dedicated themselves in
the academic labors as mere persons
who avoid the rigors of physical labor which according to you is the prime of
religious life?
FT:
indeed you grasp my point all too well my brother. Christianity is not founded
on philosophical search on truth. Rather it is through the Truth itself which habitavit
in nobis. Moreover, it is not through Greek philosophy or Scholastic
ambitions that this church stood. It is through the blood of the martyrs along
with the king of martyrs. Do you read in the martyrology the violence of
ancient Rome under the ecstasy of blood? Now, I suppose that you are convinced
of my point that this church survived because of the martyrs and not through
your academic labors.
FG:
splendid usage of the martyrology Timoteo. Thirty years of attending prime has
shaped your mind in the acts of the martyrs. However, do you not remember when
the emperor issued the decree of Milan in which Christian and pagans lived
together?
FT:
yes but I don’t get your point.
FG:
listen, after the fall of Rome did not the pagans blamed the Christians for it
downfall? What if the Church Doctor did not write De Civitate Dei to defend our faith then pagan mobs would be
destroying churches. The church won’t survive at all, you may not be aware of
this fact but it is also with the effort so some intellectuals that this church
was able to survive.
FT:
indeed what do you propose?
FG:
you claim the friars in black and white were not humble and thus a sin of
pride……….
At this
moment Fray Timoteo stood up and said in a loud voice
FT:
a sin against the vow of poverty!
FG:
indeed what is your point; a breech against the vows?
FT:
Fray your insistent position on the importance of studies proves of your
ulterior motive for you participate in this sin. You indulged in the study of
pagan writers and it would presume that you have read more of these people than
looking into your own. Don’t you realize thus sick vanity? Aristotle and Plato
have passed away fray. The world has descended into a new paganism. Go outside!
Women are selling themselves out for money, they throw the sanctity of their
own virginity for want of pleasure or a vain indulging of the passions. Even
the apostle tells us in his speech to the Greeks about the vanity of their gods
made of gold and silver. Fray you are becoming more pagan as you read them [the
pagan writers]. Save thyself remember the Psalm: in his riches man lacks wisdom he is like the beast that are destroyed.
Take brother this psalm that you may not be enticed by the hollow riches of
your pagan philosophy let the friars in black and white suffer from their won
vanity of intellect and let us enjoy the never ending sustenance of the Lord in saecula saecolorum.
FG:
indeed what brilliant position you have
defended. However, let me ask you to expose on what you said a while ago on
“looking into your own,” may you be so kind so as to expound my dear brother.
FT:
what has paganism brought you my brother? You are now clouded with the concepts
of Esse and ens, fray you are being too much obsessed. What I was discussing is
a very important point in our monastic life. We go to the inner labyrinth, the
very fiber of our being. From the world, we search ourselves have not one of
your philosopher told you that? The Church doctor has instructed us to think
that way. We look, perceive and feel things outside and we infer through the
lack or the scarcity of the world thus, a realm of our own scarcity and an
awareness of God’s own omnipotence. Through this and only through this can we
go and proclaim the gospel. You may ask my dear brother why? Pardon me from assuming that you would ask. The gospel is
founded on truth for dominus, domine
nostri, omnipotens est semper eum veritatem esse. Who were the disciples? Are they learned men
who studied Homeric Greek or Ciceronian Latin? Are they disciples of Platonism?
Are they students of great Jewish Rabbis? Are they experts on the law? They
were fisher men, tax collectors, et cetera. How were they able to speak Greek?
Did they read the works of Plato? Did they study the histories of Herodotus and
Lucan or went to study the sublimity of Homeric poetry and Ciceronian
eloquence? It was with the fire of the Holy Spirit that they received such ability.
They were simple men but the LORD God was in their hearts. Only in such sublime
awareness of the mystical can we comprehend Perfectissimus
Deus.
FG:
again brother the way you delivered yourself to me says more of your enthusiasm
for the vocation of the Monachus yet,
may I ask you.
FT:
Let it be then.
FG:
Suppose that St. Jerome never learned the language of the Hebrews and without
knowledge of their syntax can he translate the Bible?
FT:
Not at all that would be utterly impossible. I can’t see where is this going
brother?
FG:
As you have said a while ago those who embark in the field of study partake of
the sin of pride and a sin against the vow of poverty by possessing more in the
skill of philosophizing or the faculty of knowing languages. Yet a while ago,
you showed me in a rhetorical fashion
par excellence the concept of
humility. You are no idiot on syntax rather you know how to use it better than
our prior. I guess in that fashion also you preached the gospel with eloquence.
I know oftentimes in when you preach in the town your preaching would draw a
crowd. Is it not a property you owned? So you violated the vow of poverty?
FT:
how can that be? I used my words for the greater glory of God. How can then it
be a breech in my vows?
FG:
precisely God has bestowed us with different gifts as much as another person is
gifted with prophetic vision. Part of his will is to bestow it on someone like
Augustine or Thomas who in their status as learned in both Christian and pagan
knowledge was able to produce work of such sublimity that they were able to
fuse seemingly contradicting positions. Then, to people like us, we are no
Augustine or Ambrose or Albertus Magnus and moreover, we are not the apostles
who received the fire of the Holy Spirit rather we are individuals still in the
process of knowing. We accumulate the skills through pedagogical means like
reading Horace or Virgil and studying their syntax. There are various pearls of
wisdom in the world and books are to be seen everywhere nowadays (ever since
that German invented that machine). A few pieces of silver are enough to
procure a copy of the latest works. I suppose it is not a breech of the vows at
all.
FT:
I still don’t get the point of your love for worldly knowledge and how it
applies to our life in the monastery and our task to proclaim the gospel. For
what I know these people (those who dedicate themselves to study) have no Amor for the people outside. They prefer
the confines of their chambers and scriptoriums rather than the city. They look
towards the heavens or they look too much on the earth. Who remains in the
middle? Are they who remain pygmies or swine that dwell the earth naked and
covered in mud? Remember what the scripture tells us: the LORD has hidden this from the wise and the intelligent. What is required of us is not to dwell on
unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos
but rather to the contemplation of what is within as scripture says go into your room.
FG:
The sun and the stars are never sublime in themselves; rather they are part of
a greater reality. If we do not know the intertwining participation of the
divine essence with that of the individual things how can we tell the people
that all things are good. If I am present before a council assembly how can I
tell the abbot of the destruction of monasteries or what if St. Boniface never
understood the attitude of the Germanic tribes and he did not cut the Oak of Thor? Would the pagan Germans
listen to him?
FT:
he may be mangled or worse he may be killed.
FG:
indeed, you know all too well that to understand means to immerse oneself in
the field or in the field of study. I do not undermine the capacity of faith
rather with reason and observation one can encounter the divine in his sublime
personality as the creator. I do not propose that reason overcomes faith rather
the two complement each other. The former looks at God as in his immanence thus,
knowing that he has created all things. The latter tells us of God’s
transcendence and mystery we then realize that all our reason is but a mere
looking glass at unable to grasp the whole thing. Without this intertwining
faculties, we cannot preach. Indeed to love God is better than just knowing
him, however, as Augustine says how can
we love what we do not know? Moreover, how can we instruct people if we
ourselves have not undergone this stage ourselves? You say that service in the
town is better than the confines of the scriptorium. But, let me tell you
without the labors of the people who studied then there would be no doctrine at
all. Indeed Jesus revealed himself to the innocent yet it is our task o
understand what he has revealed through the various writings they have left.
The heresies of the past remind us to watchful in our words and if I go into
the field and proclaim that Jesus is not the son of God like the arians
proclaimed then I led the people to the wrong path indeed I have faith but the
wrong understanding of revelation which is a great sin and then made greater by
leading other people to the same error.
FT:
you have demonstrated your point well my brother. However, I am sad to tell you
that there are more than great things to do than just sitting in the refectory
and discuss these things. Time runs like a river and it does not come back so
it would be better to depart from here and continue if God will allow us. But,
I do admire your point brother and I shall hold on to mine until I have
perfectly grasped what you have just said.
FG:
the world will move in a continuous flux of events but remember brother as we
depart that God will bless us in what we do for the greater glory of his name.
As we proceed to the field lat us put into our hearts that grants us the wisdom
to proclaim and the worldly knowledge we accumulate are but means for the great
glory of our Lord. Deo Gratias
J.R. Garcia
2011
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