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Gilbert Keith Chesterton, of course, we have canonized above. (Aquinas was canonized by a higher authority.) Besides being known as the author of the Father Brown Mysteries, Chesterton was one of the great commentators on his times, and on all times, and used to kick it around at London's original Reform Club with guys like Bernard Shaw, to the delight of all.
GK was religious as hell, a convert to Catholicism, and had a hand in turning the eventual and eventually famous Christian apologist CS Lewis' head away from his navel.
The splendid neo-retro-Catholic blogger The Anchoress recommended GK's wonderful book on Thomas, The Dumb Ox. I bought it and I love it, but wait: only a fool goes out and buys a book based on some silly blog recommendation!
And so, we're all in luck---I just found it online free, here. Such a deal. It's short and it's sweet, and worth a browse, if only on The Anchoress's authoritative say-so.
For example, in my own inelegant paraphrase:
Thomas thought that we, as humans, are essentially both body and soul. (This is what the theological concept of "resurrection of the body" is getting at.)
Many of us, me included, despite our Christian backgrounds (and Thomas [c. 1225 – 1274] is pre-Reformation, i.e., back before there were Protestants), are still disposed to think of body and spirit in a dualistic, a separate way. This was the Manichean heresy: they believed a pure spirit was imprisoned by the icky, dirty body. (That's why seeing things in terms of black and white is today called "Manichean.")
One day, in the middle of a formal dinner with his Italian relative Tomasso D'Aquino in attendance, the King of France Louis IX (and for whom St. Louis is named) said,
"Vanity should be avoided; but every man should dress well, in the manner of his rank, that his wife may the more easily love him."
The corpulent, celibate Thomas, wakened from his philosophical brooding at the feast, hit the table with his fist and shouted,
"And that will settle the Manichees!"
So of course, sex isn't dirty, nor could it be. It is an instrument of love, of divine love. Strangely enough, even after all my years of Catholic education, I'm just beginning to see the world, and us, and me, as Thomas saw them.
I think a lot of what bugs us all about Christianity isn't really there at all---it's just a hangover from the Manichees. GK and Thomas get to that.
But I mean to entice, not to distract: There are many more riches to be gathered from The Dumb Ox, and from GK himself. The book shows Thomas as a very real human being, whose concerns and great thoughts were for real human beings. See what you can find. Get to know him. Mebbe even make the full investment of a few pennies for ink and paper and print it out. I solemnly assure you, the gentle reader, that it will be very happy reading indeed.
1 comment:
I have a copy of this book, which I haven't read. I also have a copy of Chesterton on St. Francis, which I have read. He does a real bang-up job with St. Francis, so I suspect the Aquinas treatment will be quite delightful as well. Read 'em both. I'll have the Aquinas book as a treat after my qualifying exams next week.
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