A translator can turn “swift” into “sharp” and never notice he has left the writer behind. Augustine says that is not an obscure reading. It is a false one—and false texts are to be corrected, not interpreted. Greek and Hebrew, or a tighter Latin, exist so the sense can be recovered; a solecism that still tells the truth may be endured, but an idiom that makes God’s folly sound wiser as men must be rewritten. The Confessions then measures Deus Creator omnium. The short syllable is gone before the long one begins. What remains to be measured is not the sounds. It is what memory still holds. Aquinas takes the same problem into the church’s speech. Tongues give the languages. The grace of the word makes the utterance do its work. Knowing a thing, saying a thing, and getting that thing into another mind are not one gift.

Today’s Readings:

Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 12–13 (Sections 18–20)

Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapter 27 (Section 35)

Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Questions 176–177 (The Gift of Tongues; The Grace of the Word)

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First read the plain places. Then let them light the dark ones. Augustine will not let a man hunt figures before he knows the books, or treat an ox as only an ox when the apostle has already said what the ox means. Hebrew and Greek are not ornaments. They are the remedy when Latin translators multiply. Two renderings of Isaiah can both tell the truth: without faith you will not understand; without faith you will not abide. The Confessions then tries to measure a voice—and finds that while it sounds it is not finished, and when it is finished it is gone. We measure neither future, nor past, nor present, nor what is passing. And yet we do measure times. Aquinas takes the mind past its ordinary tools. Paul was caught up. He knew what he saw. He did not know whether he was in the body.

Today’s Readings:

Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 9–12 (Sections 14–17)

Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapter 27 (Section 34)

Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Question 175 (Rapture)

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Fear of God is the first step; wisdom is the last. Between them Augustine sets a climb that ends in a single eye—one that will not put neighbor, or self, before the truth. Then he comes back down to the third step and names the books: the canon judged by the churches, forty-four of the Old, and the New from the four Gospels to John’s Revelation. The Confessions still cannot say what time is, only that we measure it—long verse by short syllable—until even that measure slips, and he wonders whether the protraction is of the mind itself. Aquinas sorts the prophets the same way Augustine sorts signs: the image is one gift; the light that understands it is a greater one.

### Today’s Readings:

Augustine of Hippo — On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, Chapters 7–8 (Sections 11–13)

Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 11, Chapters 25–26 (Sections 32–33)

Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Questions 173–174 (The Reception and Degrees of Prophecy)

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