From a period of time beginning shortly after Constantine the Great, the Emperor whose conversion gave the Church Toleration in the Roman Empire, the Church has played an important role in western Europe and above all in Italy. What became known as the Papal States had in 1870 about 16,000 square miles with a population of about three million that stretched from coast to coast in central Italy and, of course, included Rome.

As western Europe became increasingly Catholic, the Papal States became increasingly important. Maintaining their integrity and freedom absorbed much of the Pope’s time. At the same time the development of the Papal Office gave the Pope a more important role in the expanding Catholic world which Father McBrien covers competently though it does not please him. He deals fairly with the “bad popes” who rightly occupy enough space in a book of this sort. He has listed the “worst popes” among whom, by extraordinary judgment and clear contradiction of the well-known facts, he has the temerity to include Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), who was widely known as the Pope of the Eucharist and whom many consider the greatest pope of modern times. He initiated a revolution in the spiritual life of the Church which is ongoing and seems to be permanent. He did it by two Apostolic Letters: Sacra Tridentina Synodus (December 20, 1905) which advocated frequent, even daily Communion, and Quam Singulari (August 8, 1910) which called for early reception of the Sacrament by children who had reached the age of reason.

Benedict XV, his successor, said of him in a single short sentence, “He shed upon this Apostolic Chair the luster of his most holy life.”

The author deals fairly with Clement XIV who suppressed the Jesuits in 1773 and died miserable in 1774 having done damage from which the Church in Latin America has not yet recovered. On July 21, 1773, he released the whole 11,000 Jesuits from their vows of obedience to him and imprisoned the Superior General in solitary confinement until his death. Clement died of fright based on the false assumption that former Jesuits were conspiring to murder him.

In chronological sequence the book traces not only the development of Christian doctrine in its formulations of the creeds, in its definition of Christ’s divine and human nature, and in its theology of the Trinity but also lucidly explains the various heresies that threatened Catholic teaching. To the Docetist Christ was not truly incarnate only “seemed” to be human. The Gnostic held that the ordinary Christian did not possess the intellectual capacity to know God’s Word—knowledge bestowed upon only the privileged elite with their secret mystical illumination. The Montanist and Donatist considered some sins to be unforgivable, thus necessitating the phrase “the forgiveness of sins” in the Apostles’ Creed to vouchsafe orthodoxy. The Pelagians denied original sin and the necessity of grace for salvation. Arius denied the divinity of Christ. In short, The Fathers of the Church provides the historical background and the theological framework to understand the development of Christian doctrine and the arguments of the heretics.

With discerning judgment Mr. Aquilina provides copious excerpts from the writings of the Church Fathers to illustrate their heroic faith and sublime wisdom. St. Clement’s “Letter to the Corinthians” urges unity and order in the Church: “Why, then, are there strifes, tumults, divisions, schisms, and wars among you? Have we not one God and one Christ?” Polycarp’s letter testifies to the spirit of the martyrs who face death rather than “swear by the fortune of Caesar”: “ . . . I give you thanks that you have counted me worthy of this day and this hour, that I should be counted in the number of your martyrs . . . .” Tertullian’s Apology distinguishes Christians from other sects: “See how they love one another, how they are even ready to die for one another.” Unlike the pagans, Christians eschew “the madness of the circus, the immodesty of the theater, the atrocities of the arena.” St. Ambrose writes “Of True Fortitude,” personified in Job who resisted the devil with the power of his mind and refused to allow misfortune to break his spirit: “He then is brave who finds consolation in any grief.” Thus these short selections from the works of the Fathers present a cornucopia of Christian teaching on a myriad of topics: marriage, why do infants die, the four senses of Scripture, and on images and icons.

In the Introduction to this new paperback edition, Kass touches on why, as many Christian readers have obviously asked him, he does not touch on the Eucharist. He simply says that, as a Jew, it is not his task to see this relation, or perhaps better, to develop it. This is, of course, correct. Yet, the lyrical style of this book, its concern with the difference between feeding, eating, and dining, clearly brings up the question of the profound spiritual meaning to our most basic and mundane acts, such as eating, and, if we be Christians, why the Last Supper might indeed be the locus of the highest of things. We often forget to begin our philosophizing at the most basic levels. Beginning with eating, Kass is in a position of referring to all that we do because we are the kind of beings we are, because of the unity of the kind of being we are.

The book is a treatise in anthropology, in comparative anatomy, in health, in cooking, in manners, in conversation, in the finest things of life. Kass has sharp criticism for anthropologists and cultural relativists who cannot see that there is an abiding human nature, and who hence cannot see how it is perfected or even whether it can be. Kass quite frankly says that one does not need to know everything to know something. If there is a human nature, if we each have a soul, then it is quite possible that each of us knows something of the highest things no matter what culture or era we abide in.

Kass writes unapologetically. He wonders in his own Jewish tradition about the reason for ritual meals. He quite frankly states that his concern is not primarily health but rather with whether the ritual meal in the family was not designed to teach something both about food and about family, indeed about God. I read recently that there is a huge increase in the sales of Kosher foods evidently on the grounds that they were more healthy. This is not at all Kass’s point, whatever the truth of the assumption. Kass begins with a long, rather technical examination of the human body. Why do we have one? Why is it shaped as it is? Why do we stand straight?

Kass does not hesitate to see design here. Unlike so much of modern science, he does not reject final causality as a theory because he sees that it is present in the reality he is examining. Too many disparate things fit together. Designed for what? What I like especially about Kass, something found also in E. F. Schumacher’s discussion of “progressions” in his Guide for the Perplexed, is his ability to see that faculties and operations that exist at an animal level, when transformed to the human level, retain their animal functioning but in that very functioning are redirected to a higher purpose, to knowing, loving, even worshiping.

Kass mentions in his introduction that the publishers of his hardback edition were not quite sure what to do with this book. There is a huge market for cookbooks or books on food. There is a huge health food industry. They were simply not prepared for the depth of this book. Yet, it is a book that shows us how it is that every part of us is both good in itself and is ordered to something higher. Kass’s discussions of the elegance of dining, of conversation, of how human beings reach their most lofty purposes when bringing out the best both in food and themselves is quite profound.

Kass remarked in a lecture that one of the reasons he wrote this book was to show why, in confronting the elaborate ritual of the Jewish dietary laws, we did not have to conclude that they were silly; we are not “lobotomized” if we think they might make sense. They had a purpose related to the “perfecting of our nature.” If St. Paul freed us from the Jewish dietary laws, he did not free us from the perfection of our nature even in dining, nor did he forbid us from learning something from the Hebrew ritual meal and dietary laws. Kass’s discussion of the components of fine dining is both Jewish and Pauline, if I might put it that way. We are often so concerned with poverty and luxury that we forget that our purpose in this world is to perfect our nature and in this perfection to reach eternal life. Kass’s book is a remarkable examination of why this double relationship exists.

Kass further points out that he uses the word “soul” in this book quite seriously to describe that which unifies us and stands at the core of our action. He is an unapologetic Aristotelian who cannot deny that things fit together in the most astonishing ways. He also understands that if our natures are to be perfected, we have to perfect them by our activities. Each time we rise to something more perfect, we are opened, often unexpectedly, to a greater and higher perfection. He implies that when human nature is involved in its most humanly perfecting activity, the lovely and serious dining of friends, it is both something good and worthy in itself and something that points to a camaraderie or delight that perhaps intimates a higher destiny for us. The “heavenly banquet” is not merely a velleity but a “progression,” to use Schumacher’s term.

Rev. Black writes that friendship is a communion of two hearts and, as such, is both a mystery and a miracle. When one recognizes the goodness and beauty in the soul of a friend, he can then see these qualities in others. Friends give one faith in man, which the author believes is prerequisite for faith in God. Furthermore, the countless acts of self-giving which friendship requires train the individual in charity. Friendship leads to God when the individual sees human love as a sign of divine love, just as all creation points to the Creator. Yet this also occurs when one realizes that human love has limits and that only God can satisfy the deepest longings of man’s heart. The author believed that not only is friendship with God the real end of human friendships but also that these in turn are enriched and deepened by that divine friendship. The author gives the reader a true insight into the meaning of friendship by emphasizing its supernatural purpose.

He also gives the reader much good, practical advice on choosing and keeping friends. He describes the types of selfish behaviors and character faults which can ruin and even prevent friendship. He warns the reader of the dangers of keeping company with bad friends, of indiscriminately seeking friendship with just anyone, and of situations in which one friend demands that the other violate his conscience, thus exceeding the rightful limits of friendship. He discusses the ways that one can mend a broken friendship or renew an existing one, exhorting the reader to always take the initiative in these situations. Above all, he stresses that friendship requires the constant exercise of charity. In this way he leads the reader to an understanding that friendship is not the passive enjoyment of another’s love, but a relationship of self-giving which must always be oriented toward the spiritual good of the friends.

Unfortunately, there is one area where the author’s advice comes up short. Although he writes that friendship transcends death and that one must always remember departed friends, he never mentions the possibility of praying for the dead because, like most Protestants, he evidently did not believe in Purgatory.

For example, in his counsel, “Develop your mind through study,” as a principle for success and happiness, Father Garesche recalls that the Latin etymology for the words “study” and “student” emphasizes desire and will power: “The word comes from the Latin studium, meaning eagerness of the will for truth, for fact, for honest decision, must lie at the root of all our study.” Rigorous study demands and cultivates concentration that comes only from effort and attention. In a chapter entitled, “Be pleasant,” the advice recommends “the habit of judging kindly of others” and the deliberate effort to oblige and to wish to please: “It requires a good deal of self-discipline, observation, and effort to acquire really beautiful manners, which are not obtrusive and yet are perfect in their charm and poise.” Always emphasizing the virtue of perseverance, which derives from the Latin severus (“strict”), Father Garesche writes, “A persevering person is one who is strict with himself, who is hard on himself, who disregards his natural feelings and weariness, his cravings and grudges, and hammers through in spite of his own weakness.” Although he does not specifically discuss the sin of acedia (sloth), many of the various principles of happiness he recommends—zeal, perseverance, fortitude—are the virtues which oppose this deadly sin that embraces the lowest common denominator.

Whatever principle of success he discusses, the theme is always moral courage and strength, will power and effort. Advising “Discipline your imagination,” defined as “the fool of the house” because of the fantasies and daydreams it projects, Father Garesche warns that it creates unfounded fears and unrealistic fancies: “The imagination must be brought into the dominion of the reason and will.” Good literature and great art, the contemplation of God’s created world, and the enrichment of stimulating conversation discipline and cultivate the imagination so that it is filled with “noble, worthy, strong, pure images” which form the sources of creativity. The moral life is impossible without this constant exertion and vigilance.

In his exposition of the counsel, “Be temperate,” again Father Garesche stresses the constant struggle required of those who wish to live nobly: “The better you get to know yourself, the more you will see that all your faculties make unreasonable demands for gratification.” Our minds are too curious, our self-esteem excessive, our hands too acquisitive, our love of pleasure insatiable, our craving for food and drink uncontrollable, our desire for rest too pampering. These unruly passions and appetites are like wild horses whose spirit needs taming by a strong, determined master. Temperance is not a virtue for the cowardly or fainthearted: “There is no way to get this virtue except by practice, by deliberately exercising yourself in self-denial, self-control, and self-discipline, by acting against the impulses in your nature that you see are too strong and unruly, unreasonable and excessive.” The virtues of the athlete, the soldier, and the ascetic exemplify the art of living well.

To build a noble character imposes a rigorous regimen: the daily exercise of virtue is a daily, constant habit, and character formation results from repetition—from the accumulation of the various moral acts and choices that shape a person and cultivate the cardinal virtues: “Every time you will strongly, rightly, and vigorously, your will becomes stronger, more correct, and more vigorous. . . . There is nothing to which you cannot aspire in the matter of training the will, if only you are patient and constant in your exercise of that faculty.” In commenting on the habit of justice, Father Garesche explains that this virtue grows customary and becomes natural inasmuch as the person fulfills obligations to God, parents, and neighbor, obeys just laws, speaks the truth, honors promises and keeps vows, and expresses gratitude. A just person is also bound to be kind, friendly, generous, and pleasant, giving to others not only their due but “a little more than their due.” Thus, as Aristotle remarked, just as one beautiful day does not mean the arrival of spring, it is not one magnanimous deed that develops a noble character but the daily regular exercise of many small, cumulative actions that strengthen virtuous habits and develop moral courage.

The story is worth telling and thanks are due to Father Buckley for his wide and, at times, ingenious research which puts abundant flesh on its bare bones. Anyone interested in the Mission and the beginnings of the Church in the Pacific Northwest should acquire this book. Those wishing to know something about the Society in France during the third quarter of the nineteenth century will find it very instructive.

This reader was fascinated by the account of the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1880 and the life they made for themselves in England. The account depicts men whose commitment to their call left no room for complaints about the harsh treatment and great difficulties they encountered when forced from their homeland by the anti-clericalism dominating the nation’s life (cf. pp. 149-161).

It is commonplace today to read that this or that book could have used a strong editorial hand. Unfortunately, Father Buckley’s book is no exception to what seems to be becoming the rule rather than the exception. The “Prologue” to Part Two would be useful were it presented in the traditional chronological format; presented as it is in prose form, it loses almost all its value. At times he writes with an opulent density that buries the content and leaves the reader weary (cf. p. 63). In other places, there are references that seem to have neither antecedents nor subsequent explanations (cf. “. . . the old mansion,” p. 50).

John Jenkins’s fine study on the Thomistic view of knowledge and faith proposes an alternative. He sees Aquinas’s last major work as intended to offer “a science of sacred doctrine” in the technical Aristotelian sense of scientia (the Latin translation for Aristotle’s episteme) and as providing a culmination to the philosophical and theological program of advanced students—in short, it is a program for teaching the teachers of Christian doctrine. Like Thomas Hibbes’s recent book Dialectic and Narrative (Univ. of Notre Dame Press), which is designed to show that the pedagogical purpose of the Summa contra Gentes was not just the education of missionaries for the Muslim world but the philosophical formation of the Christian intellect, Jenkins’s study tries to understand the Summa Theologiae in terms of Aquinas’s own intellectual milieu and to avoid simply reading our contemporary epistemological concerns back into a medieval text.

Jenkins respectfully takes issue with such diverse modern interpreters of Aquinas as M.-D. Chenu (theological materialism), Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson (existential Thomism), Joseph Maréchal and Bernard Lonergan (transcendental Thomism), and Eleonore Stump (analytical Thomism). It is not that any of these interpreters, even amid their profound disagreements with one another, fails to bring out genuine insights from Aquinas useful for our current way of envisioning the problems, but that their concern with various issues raised in modern philosophy (e.g., the Kantian critique of knowledge presumed by Maréchal and Lonergan, or Rahner’s confrontation with Heideggerian existentialism) has inclined them to argue more for the correctness of their own take on Thomism as a better alternative than the solution favored by their preferred dialogue-partner instead of appreciating Aquinas’s own conceptual world and the problems which he thought he was resolving.

Mindful of the risk that his own efforts could just as easily fall victim to the same lure, Jenkins tries to keep our attention fixed on the Aristotelian theory of “science” as Aquinas received it in the Posterior Analytics. With frequent reminders to the reader about how this notion of “science” differs from the understanding common in our own day (both in popular usage and in the more precise sense favored by professionals), Jenkins argues both for a stronger sense of theology as a “science” than is customary today and for the necessity of grace to influence one’s cognitive powers so as to bring about assent to the articles of faith which are to serve as the principles of the “science” of theology (“sacred doctrine”).

Now, any theory of science will involve a knowledge of various effects in terms of their causes, but often this will mean working backwards from effects that are rather well known to us, toward as good an account of the cause as we can manage. For Aristotle, this meant a knowledge in terms of the material, formal, efficient, and final causes. But what is most noteworthy about Aquinas’s theory of science is his insistence that to have a perfect scientia of anything, we need to know the cause better than the effect—a condition that might well seem initially implausible in the case of theology, and perhaps for any science.

For Aquinas, this condition simply means that the acquisition of a science will have to occur in at least two stages: first, the stage of becoming familiar with the basic concepts in a given field and of discovering which cause it is that brings about a given effect; second, the period of coming to know those causes so well that they actually become the bases of one’s thinking in that discipline and thereby genuinely the cause of one’s own knowledge of their effects. The change in perspective here between the first and second stages would be somewhat like the case of a mechanic who had initially learned his trade from long experience of working in a garage but then undertook the study of chemistry until he came to the point of understanding the physical nature of automotive phenomena like gasoline combustion in terms of the principles of chemistry.

In the field of sacred doctrine, according to Jenkins’s reading of Aquinas, the theologian will somehow need to participate in God’s own scientia in order to perfect his understanding enough so as to do theology. The “articles of faith” which he comes to accept as truly revealed by God can thus become the principles of his scientia even if they necessarily remain genuine mysteries of the faith during his whole earthly life.

As a consequence of this analysis of Aquinas’s adoption of the Aristotelian criteria for a scientia, one can readily see with Jenkins that the Summa theologiae was not intended for the initial familiarization of beginners so much as for the development of the intellectual habitus of those already familiar with the concepts and principles of Christian theology. The whole structure of the Summa uses the articles of faith as the foundation and cause of those habits of thought by which one thinks methodically within this field. It is aimed not just at laying out what the tenets of Christian doctrine are but at bringing one to see how those tenets flow from these principles as their true effects.