Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.

boniface viii, unam sanctam, 1302 a.D.

unam sanctam was a papal bull which, by every standard in a brief search of the interwebs, is ex cathedra and infallible. The document itself is prefaced in part:

"The statements concerning the relations between the spiritual and the secular power are of a purely historical character, so far as they do not refer to the nature of the spiritual power, and are based on the actual conditions of medieval Europe. 'Unam' is frequently quoted, and misquoted, by anti-Catholics trying to prove that Boniface VIII, and Popes in general, are arrogant and evil men, intent on extending their own power."

seriously people. remember innocent iii? just misquoted. the borgias? well, it's hard to misquote a slit throat, but you've definitely misinterpreted them. i have no problem with the brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic church. what i have a problem with is a man telling me i am going to hell unless i believe him to be the sole arbiter of the Word of God. that's called a Mediator, and i already have One.

Spike TV's 10 Baddest Soldiers Of All Time.

(a lert: bit of language here)

10. Brian Chontosh

Brian Chontosh, currently serving in the Marines, got the Navy Cross in 2003, which is hardcore, but not quite hardcore enough to make a top 10 list.



Now, being ambushed and driving your Humvee directly at the enemy's entrenched position, after which you leap into the trench, shoot terrorists until you run out of bullets for your Marine-issue guns, then take two AK-47s and kill some more terrorists, and then you find a rocket-propelled grenade and blow the mess out of even more terrorists? That's hardcore enough to make this list and then some. Chontosh killed twenty terrorists and seriously wounded several others, and probably ate three steaks and drank a keg of beer after, because he's ridiculously manly enough for that to be his lunch.





9. Craig Harrison


It's very rare to set a world record in your field. And it's even rarer to break that record immediately after you set it. Unfortunately for two members of the Taliban, they were volunteered to secure Craig Harrison a place in the history books. 



Harrison was a British sniper assigned to Afghanistan, and on this particular day, he had a Taliban fighter in his sights. One problem: they were almost two miles away. But it was perfect sniping weather, the air pressure was just right, and Craig was feeling lucky.

After nine shots to gauge the distance, he got his bearings, placed the target precisely on the Taliban fighter, and made him go away. Then Harrison noticed the friend of the guy he just wasted a little further back, and drilled him too. Two world record shots, and the record is currently set at 2707 yards. Modern Warfare players across the world are jealous.





8. Dirk Vlug

It takes a lot of guts to go up against a tank, even if you happen to have a rocket launcher.

In 1944, Dirk Vlug and his guts were in the Philippines, helping General Douglas MacArthur settle a small disagreement over whether the Japanese were allowed to stay or be removed forcibly with dynamite. He had a fairly boring guard job, and just had a pistol and a rocket launcher with six rounds.



Then he saw two Japanese tanks coming up the road. Vlug, being a sane, rational man, quickly figured out that he had enough rockets to really ruin the Japanese's day, which he proceeded to do by marching out under machine gun and artillery fire, and blowing up one of those tanks one-handed with his rocket launcher. The second tank crew decided they were going to beat the crap out of him, something he promptly explained was a bad idea by shooting one of them in the face with his other weapon, a pistol. So they get back in the tank, which he promptly blew up before they could even get started.



Three more tanks show up, and make the serious mistake of irritating Dirk Vlug. By the time he's done, two are burning wrecks, one has been knocked off the road, and Vlug has earned the Medal of Honor...and the eternal fear of the Japanese.




7. Alvin York

Alvin York was a man who'd put violence behind him. After years of drinking and fights, his best friend had been beaten to death, and Alvin had sobered up and was flying right as a pacifist. Unfortunately, they don't really let you be a pacifist when you're drafted into the Army, so Alvin was packed off to World War I, given a gun, and told to kick some ass. So he kicked the absolute minimum needed.



Unfortunately for Germany, the minimum was pretty high.

York and his unit were trapped by German machine guns, and thanks to everybody else in charge being dead or wounded, York was running the unit. So York, not particularly enjoying the situation, began sniping the Germans out of their nest with his standard-issue rifle while politely asking them to surrender, kind of like a cross between Mr. Rogers and Dirty Harry. Instead they sent eight men with fixed bayonets to kill him, so he drew his pistol and drilled all eight.



Keep in mind, he was being shot at the entire time. With machine guns. From some increasingly scared and angry Germans. Finally, after the commander had emptied his pistol trying to kill York and realizing he was rapidly running out of men, volunteered to surrender. So York and the seven guys he had left wound up escorting 132 Germans back behind American lines, much to the shock of the Germans.



Then York went home and founded a high school. Seriously. Something to think about the next time you want to make fun of your principal.




6. Charles Upham


Charles Upham is one of the few men who won the Victoria Cross, and then promptly found it so nice he did it twice.



The first time he was granted the highest award England can give a soldier because he took on a machine gun nest with a pistol and won, and then decided he really should rescue all those wounded. Keep in mind he did this while surrounded by Germans trying to kill him, and in the process put quite a few Germans into the ground.



For the second time, obviously the bar was raised higher. They don't just hand these things out in Crackerjack boxes. So he'd have to go really over the top to land a second VC, which he did handily by wasting a truck full of Germans with some grenades, getting wounded twice in the process. Deciding that medical attention was for wusses, and that he really liked what these grenades could do, he decided to lead the charge into battle, and managed to destroy a tank with grenades. Did we mention one of his injuries was a broken arm?



Later he was captured, and sent to Colditz, where he proceeded to bring new meaning to the term “pain in the ass” by repeatedly trying to escape. One of his escape attempts involved him jumping from a moving truck and getting 400 yards away on a freshly broken ankle.

5. Audie Murphy


If you want proof that being a short guy isn't going to stop somebody from being a powerful soldier, look no further than the most decorated soldier in World War II, Audie Murphy, who got every medal the Army could give him (literally) and a few from foreign countries as well.



Murphy, 5'5” and skinny to boot, first went into battle in 1943, where he gunned down two Italian officers. He then proceeded to pretty much tear the Axis powers [apart] wherever he went, consistently getting promoted after creatively handing some Germans or Italians what was left of their heads. But his greatest moment probably came at Holtzwihr.


Murphy's unit was down to 19 men out of 128. They couldn't fight, they needed to rearm, and they needed somebody to hold the line. So Murphy stayed behind, shooting Germans until he ran out of ammo. Then, deciding he wasn't done killing Germans, he jumped onto a burning tank and starting using its .50 caliber machine gun. He even killed an entire squad of Germans trying to sneak up on him. Oh, and he did this for almost an hour, while wounded in the leg. And then his men showed up, and Murphy led them on a forward action. Translation: after spending an hour in the freezing cold on a burning tank spraying Germans with machine gun fire, he decided that wasn't enough and decided to get close and personal.



That was enough to land him the Medal of Honor, and a movie career. By the way, the movie of his life, starring the man himself, might make him seem like a bit less of a badass than he was. This is because it was toned down at the request of one Audie Murphy: he thought nobody would believe he'd actually done all that.

4. Peter Francisco



Peter Francisco grew up an orphan under the care of the uncle of Patrick Henry, so it was logical he'd join the American militia in the Revolutionary War. What made it especially logical was his being six-foot-six and 260 pounds of sheer muscle. He was so big, in fact, that he got the nickname “The Virginia Hercules” and needed a broadsword specially forged to suit his height. The guy was so strong he could, and often did, pull around half-ton cannons to get just the right aim.


Francisco is widely considered one of the greatest American soldiers ever, seeing action all up and down the Colonies, including Monmouth, Stony Point, Brandywine, and Guildford Courthouse, where he pretty much killed eleven enemy soldiers with his bare hands and a broadsword. At Guildford, he was severely wounded and sent home...which didn't stop him from coming across a British raiding party of eleven men.



Francisco was severely wounded by highly trained elite soldiers, but needless to say, they didn't stand a chance: Francisco killed one, wounded eight, and just to rub it in, stole all their horses and delivered them to the American army. Reports differ on whether he also gave them wedgies before he left, but we think it's pretty likely.





3. Tlahuicole

Before Cortez showed up and started slapping them around, there was nobody scarier on the North or South American continents than the Aztecs. This was mostly because the Aztecs' idea of Super Bowl Sunday were mass sacrifices to the gods, and they weren't shy about going out, beating other tribes senseless, and then wiping them out.



So to impress these guys, you have to kick an awful lot of ass. Which is what Tlahuicole proceeded to do, so much so that when he was captured, the Aztecs decided they couldn't sacrifice him. So instead they gave him honors and freed him. 



Tlahuicole had other ideas. He was going to be sacrificed, but it was going to be by a guy who could take him in single combat, no doubt a cunning plan to kill every single Aztec warrior with his bare hands. The Aztecs looked nervously at each other, shoved one guy in front of him, and it was on. It took twenty-eight fights, eight of which were fatal to the other guy, before he was killed, and we're pretty sure they had to cheat to make that happen. Otherwise, Cortez would have shown up and there'd just be Tlahuicole, hanging out, asking “'Sup?”





2. Saito Musashibo Benkei


In feudal Japan, if you were tall, ugly, and strong as an ox, there weren't a lot of decent jobs available. One of them, fortunately, was Buddhist monk, which Saito Musashibo Benkei took up with great skill. Another thing he took up with great skill was the naginata, a spear as tall as he was with what amounted to a katana on the end. You see, monks were expected to have military skill, which is pretty weird for men of peace until you realize that feudal Japan was basically a hellhole, so it was either know how to kick ass or get your ass kicked repeatedly. Still, give a guy like Benkei that and it's like arming the Hulk. It's just not going to end well for whoever makes him angry.



Benkei posted himself at a bridge and started collecting swords, forcibly, possibly out of boredom. On the thousandth sword, he met the one guy who could beat him up, Minamoto Yoshitsune, who he followed for the rest of his life.



Which ended with Benkei, on a bridge, holding off soldiers while his boss committed seppuku. Benkei killed so many people, and withstood so much damage, that after he died standing up, it still took the soldiers hours to get up the testicular fortitude to get close enough to realize he was dead. That's respect, right there.




1. Baba Deep Singh



"Baba," despite the Western connotations of baby talk, is actually an honorific among the Sikhs, roughly “Respected Elder,” and from this you might assume Baba Deep Singh was a religious man, which he was, and a man of peace, which he was. But you don't get to be a martyr by being a wuss, and Baba Deep Singh was going to earn the title.

He'd earned the right to retire, having served with distinction as a soldier. Unfortunately, he'd managed to offend Ahmad Shah Durrani, mostly by going in and inconsiderately freeing all those people he'd enslaved and raiding his treasury. In retaliation, Durrani, not really one for half measures, found the sacred shrine Harimandir Sahib, descrated it, and blew it up.



Singh, no believer in half measures himself, swore to rebuild the shrine and prayed that his head would fall at the Sahib (this is important to remember). So he went with a few guys, and on his way managed to raise an army of five thousand, setting the stage for the Battle of Amritsar, a truly epic fight, in the course of which, Singh was nearly decapitated.



Not that this actually killed him right there, mind you. No, Baba Deep Singh actually supported his head to keep the wound closed until he could kick enough ass to reach the shrine and die there. The dude actually put his head back on because he wasn't done beating up the guys who destroyed his shrine. And that's how you get number one, kids....deciding instant death can just wait a minute because you're not finished.

via spike, which has more language than this. just so you know.

Rule #84

Opinions may differ, but if you're my son, you'll be giving the highlights tour.

Rule #85

Art speaks for itself. All it needs from you is an introduction.

via dilbert

A Meeting in A Part

In a dream I meet 


my dead friend. He has, 


I know, gone long and far, 


and yet he is the same 


for the dead are changeless. 


They grow no older. 


It is I who have changed, 


grown strange to what I was. 


Yet I, the changed one, 


ask: "How you been?" 


He grins and looks at me. 


"I been eating peaches 


off some mighty fine trees."

wendell berry

First, there was no pristine Christian purity in patristic, or even the apostolic, Christianity. The New Testament is the infallible word of God, but many heard the gospel through the filter of Hellenistic conceptualities that distorted the sound waves. One cannot read Justin the martyr without realizing that he is in a very different thought world from the apostle Paul.

dr. peter leithart, medieval theology and the roots of modernity, in andrew hoffecker's revolutions in worldview, p.145

Nowhere in the New Testament, in fact, is Christianity presented as a cult or as a religion. Religion is needed where there is a wall of separation between God and man.

alexander schmemann, for the life of the world, ch.1.5, p.19

In our perspective, however, the 'original' sin is not primarily that man has 'disobeyed' God; the sin is that he ceased to be hungry for Him and for Him alone, ceased to see his whole life depending on the whole world as a sacrament of communion with God. The sin was not that man neglected his religious duties. The sin was that he thought of God in terms of religion, i.e., opposing Him to life. The only real fall of man is his noneucharistic life in a noneucharistic world. The fall is not that he preferred world to God, distorted the balance between the spiritual and materical, but that he made the world material, whereas he was to have transformed it into 'life in God,' filled with meaning and spirit.

alexander schmemann, for the life of the world, ch.1.4, p.18

When we see the world as an end in itself, everything becomes itself a value and consequently loses all value, because only in God is found the meaning (value) of everything, and the world is meaningful only when it is the 'sacrament' of God's presence. Things treated merely as things in themselves destroy themselves because only in God have they an life. The world of nature, cut off from the source of life, is a dying world. For one who thinks food in itself is the source of life, eating is communion with the dying world, it is communion with death. Food itself is dead, it is life that has died and it must be kept in refrigerators like a corpse.

alexander schmemann, for the life of the world, ch.1.3, p.17

All rational, spiritual and other qualities of man, distinguishing him from the other creatures, have their focus and ultimate fulfillment in this capacity to bless God, to know, so to speak, the meaning of the thirst and hunger that constitutes his life. 'Homo sapiens,' 'homo faber' ... yes, but, first of all, 'homo adorans.' The first, the basic definition of man is that he is the priest. He stands in the center of the world and unifies it in his act of blessing God, of both receiving the world from God and offering it to God - and by filling the world with this eucharist, he transforms his life, the one that he receives from the world, into life in God, into communion with Him. The world was created as the 'matter,' the material of one all-embracing eucharist, and man was created as the priest of this cosmic sacrament.

alexander schmemann, for the life of the world, ch.1.2, p.15

But the unique position of man in the universe is that he alone is to bless God for the food and the life he receives from Him. He alone is to respond to God's blessing with his blessing.

alexander schmemann, for the life of the world, ch.1.2, p.15

Whether we 'spiritualize' our life or 'secularize' our religion, whether we invite men to a spiritual banquet or simply join them at the secular one, the real life of the world, for which we are told God gave his only-begotten Son, remains hopelessly beyond our religious grasp.

alexander schmemann, for the life of the world, ch.1.1, p.13

Man must eat in order to live; he must take the world into his body and transform it into himself, into flesh and blood. He is indeed that which he eats, and the whole world is presented as one all-embracing banquet table for man. And this image of the banquet remains, throughout the whole Bible, the central image of life. It is the image of life at its creation and also the image of life at its end and fulfillment: 'that you eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom.'

alexander schmemann, for the life of the world, ch.1.1, p.11

'Man is what he eats.' With this statement the German materialistic philosopher Feuerbach thought he had put an end to all 'idealistic' speculations about human nature. In fact, however, he was expressing, without knowing it, the most religious idea of man. For long before Feuerbach the same definition of man was given by the Bible. In the biblical story of creation man is presented, first of all, as a hungry being, and the whole world as his food.

alexander schmemann, for the life of the world, ch.1, p.11

Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak arabic, love music, and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers, and warriors.

hunter s. thompson

via rules for my unborn son

Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971) and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (1973).

He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to such a degree that they become central figures of their stories. He is known also for his unrepentant lifelong use of alcohol, LSD, mescaline, and cocaine (among other substances); his love offirearms; his long-standing hatred of Richard Nixon; and his iconoclastic contempt for authoritarianism. While suffering a bout of health problems, he committed suicide in 2005, at the age of 67.

On August 20, 2005, in a private ceremony, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon atop a 153-foot (47 m) tower of his own design (in the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button) to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man."Red, white, blue, and green fireworks were launched along with his ashes. As the city of Aspen would not allow the cannon to remain for more than a month, the cannon has been dismantled and put into storage until a suitable permanent location can be found. According to his widow Anita, Thompson's funeral was financed by actor Johnny Depp, a close friend of Thompson. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out."

Other famous attendees at the funeral included U.S. Senator John Kerry and former U.S. Senator George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, Bill Murray, Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; singers Lyle Lovett, John Oates and numerous other friends. An estimated 280 people attended the funeral.

wow. just wow. all i can say about that. if you had read that in a book, you'd say there's no way, there's nobody quite that strange in the world. and you'd be wrong.

via wiki

“This morning, with her, having coffee.”

johnny cash, when asked for his definition of paradise. what a dude.

via vanity fair, that generally vapid stream of hollywood excrescence.

"And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;"

mark 7.18

Christ seems to have a whole new vision of the purity laws, yet it's the same vision Yahweh had. Christ isn't making new standards, He's interpreting the old standards for all of life. He's forcing israel into circumcising their hearts, and they are kicking against His goads.

"Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness."

-David Foster Wallace

via gibbs

The result is that you cannot think of anyone as human whom you see transformed by wickedness.

boethius, consolation of philosophy, IV.iii, p.94

Men who give up the common goal of all things that exist, thereby cease to exist themselves. Some may perhaps think it strange that we say that wicked men, who form the majority of men, do not exist; but that is how it is. I am not trying to deny the wickedness of the wicked; what I do deny is that their existence is absolute and complete existence. Just as you might call a corpse a dead man, but couldn't simply call it a man ... A thing exists when it keeps its proper place and preserves its own nature. Anything which departs from this ceases to exist, because its existence depends on the preservation of its nature.

boethius, consolation of philosophy, IV.ii, p.91

What the end of all things was. For certainly it is the same as that which all things desire; we have deduced that that is goodness, and so we must agree that the end of all things is the good.

boethius, consolation of philosophy, III.xi, p.77

For bad fortune, I think, is more use to a man than good fortune. Good fortune always seems to bring happiness, but deceives you with her smiles, whereas bad fortune is always truthful because by change she shows her true fickleness. Good fortune deceives, but bad fortune enlightens.

boethius, consolation of philosophy, II.viii, p.44

And lastly we may reach the same conclusion about Fortune as a whole. She has nothing worth pursuing, and no trace of intrinsic good; she never associates with good men and does not turn into good men those with whom she does associate.

boethius, consolation of philosophy, II.vi, p.40

If happiness is the highest good of rational nature and anything that can be taken away is not the highest good - since it is surpassed by what can't be taken away - Fortune by her very mutability can't hope to lead to happiness.

boethius, consolation of philosophy, II.iv, p.31

So nothing is miserable except when you think it so, and vice versa, all luck is good luck to the man who bears it with equanimity.

boethius, consolation of philosophy, II.iv, p.31

You are a happy man, then, if you know where your true happiness lies, since when the chief concern of mortal men is to keep their hold on life, you even now possess blessings which no one can doubt are more precious than life itself. So dry your tears. Fortune has not yet turned her hatred against all your blessings. The storm has not yet broken upon you with too much violence. Your anchors are holding firm and they permit you both comfort in the present and hope in the future.

boethius, consolation of philosophy, II.iv, p.30

via dilbert

A. The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness;

according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me.

B. For I have kept the ways of the Lord,

and have not wickedly departed from my God.

C. For all his rules were before me,

and his statutes I did not put away from me.

B'. I was blameless before him,

and I kept myself from my guilt.

A'. So the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness,

according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.

psalm 18:20-24 2

Monastic theology is a theology of admiration and therefore greater than a theology of speculation: both words describe the act of looking. But the gaze of admiration adds something to the gaze of speculation. It does not necessarily see any farther, but the little it does perceive is enough to fill the whole soul of the contemplative with joy and thanksgiving.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.226

Monastic theology is, in a way, a spiritual theology which completes speculative theology; it is the latter's completion, and fulfillment. It is the added something, the sursum in which speculative theology tends to transcend itself and become what St. Bernard calls an integral knowledge of God: integre cognoscere.

This is what endows monastic theology with both its limitations and its lasting value. The effort it represents is always necessary if theology, while remaining scientific, is to avoid becoming purely abstract (one might venture to say: devitalized); and, as Peter the Cantor expresses it, sacred doctrine is not to be manufactured like machinery.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.223-224

Scholastic theology has recourse more frequently to the philosophers; monastic theology contents itself more generally with the authority of Scripture and the Fathers. But the fundamental sources in both cases are the same. Theology is a method for reflecting on the mysteries revealed in Christian origins.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.223

The scholastics are concerned with achieving clarity; consequently they readily make us of abstract terms, and they never hesitate to forge now words, the profanae vocum novitates which St. Bernard, for his part, avoids. Not that he refuses to use the usual philosophical terminology which through Boethius had come down from Aristotle: on occasion he will use forma, materia, causa efficiens or esse matierale; he does not recoil from the concepts current in the schools, as for example that of satisfactio. But, for him, this terminology is never more than a vocabulary for emergency use and it does not supplant the biblical period.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.200

Monastic knowledge is determined by the end of monastic life: the search for God.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.197

The difference between scholastic theology and monastic theology corresponds to the differences between the two states of life: the state of Christian life in the world and the state of Christian life in the religious life. The latter was what was, in fact, until the end of the twelfth century, unanimously called the 'contemplative life.' It was contemplateive because of its organization and orientation, even if some of those who led it also took part - to a greater or lesser extent depending on the time and the region - in some active service for the Church.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.196

This firm and stable city remains forever. Through the Father, it shines with a dazzling light; through the Son, splendor of the Father, it rejoices, loves; through the Holy Spirit, the Love of the Father and the Son, subsisting, it changes; contemplating, it is enlightened; uniting, it rejoices. It is, it sees, it loves.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.63

From this contemplation of the City of God there is born the desire to be there, an active desire; it is both expectation and inclination; properly, it is hope.

The duties of asceticism flow from this mythical view; detachment is only the reverse of attachment to Christ; it is, henceforth, the condition and the proof of love. he who wishes to fly to his God bends toward Him: he stretches forth his arms, he prays, and his eyes stream with tears of joy.

jean leclercq, the love of learning, p.62

The 'type' which serves to evoke it is, not the Jerusalem of the flesh whose Temple was material, but the spiritual Jerusalem of which St. Paul spoke to the Galatians and of which the earthly Jerusalem was merely a figure. Those who are united with God form a single community: Heaven and the Church. I tis simply given one name; to it is applied what the Bible said of the Holy City, in the description of the Prophets or of Revelation.

jean leclercq, the love of learning, p.56

The monastery is then a Jerusalem in anticipation, a place of waiting and of desire, of preparation for that holy city toward which we look with joy. His biographer wrote of a disciple of St. Bernard, the Blessed David of Himmerod, who was always smiling: 'He had, like the saints, a face shining with joy; he had the face of one going toward Jerusalem.'

jean leclercq, the love of learning, p.56

The content of monastic culture has seemed to be symbolized, synthesized, by these two words: grammar and spirituality. On the one hand, learning is necessary if one is to approach God and to express what is perceived of Him; on the other hand, literature must be continually transcended and elevated in the striving to attain eternal life.

jean leclercq, the love of learning, p.53

For, when he hears of this, he understands it. And whatever is understood, exists in the understanding. And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.

Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.

st. anselm, proslogium, ch.2, p.5

most succinct form of the ontological argument. i realize, of course, that as an argument the ontological argument is weak. kant's objection about predication is, i think, justifiable, and there were and have been arguments that disprove it. but.

I do not endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate your sublimity, for in no wise do I compare my understanding with that; but I long to understand in some degree your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe, --that unless I believed, I should not understand. I do not endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate your sublimity, for in no wise do I compare my understanding with that; but I long to understand in some degree your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe, --that unless I believed, I should not understand.

st. anselm, proslogium, ch. 1, p.4