Aquinas Sums Up

[poliphilo]

There's a story they tell about St Thomas Aquinas. I don't have a text to hand and I'm probably misremembering but it goes something like this. Late in life he had a direct experience of the Divine. These things are impossible to communicate. If they weren't we'd all be enlightened by word of mouth and the spiritual life would be a doddle- which it isn't.  Anyway that didn't stop the brothers from pestering him to tell them what it was that had happened to him. So he sat in his chair- he was a very large man- and he scowled and he ruminated and finally he nodded towards the massed volumes of the Summa Theologica- his life's work- one of the foundation stones of Western philosophy- and said, "Put it this way, if I'd known then what I know now I wouldn't have bothered." 

Comments

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

Makes sense!

[margaretarts.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does make sense. In college I translated this chapter from Greek and was amazed to find that the literal translation is more like this: "For now we know in puzzle pieces, and we prophesy in puzzle pieces...." [but when we shall see the completed puzzle, we'll understand].

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I wonder what sort of puzzle Paul was envisaging. A mathematical puzzle perhaps? The Greeks didn't have jigsaw puzzles- or did they?

[margaretarts.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was thinking of some form of "jigsaw" puzzle, not made with a jigsaw of course, but pieces fitting together somehow to make a complete picture. Any society able to make the Parthenon could have made puzzles for kids, eh?