Subject

• Devotion
  • Liturgy and Sacred Scripture — The role of Scripture in the sacred liturgy — its distribution in the Mass, the Canonical Hours, table readings, and the liturgical pairing of Old Testament readings with Gospels
  • Marian Devotion — Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary — her intercession, miraculous aid, and role in calling individuals to religious life
  • Pilgrimage — The practice of religious pilgrimage to holy sites, undertaken as an act of piety
  • Prayer to Moses — Lapide's concluding prayer invoking Moses's intercession for understanding the Pentateuch, asking to be led to Christ, who is the end of the law
  • Relics — The veneration of the bodily remains of saints and their use in supplication for divine aid against afflictions such as plague
  • Sacred Images — The veneration of sacred images, including their miraculous properties and role in prayer
  • The Eucharist and Scripture — The parallel veneration of the Eucharist and Sacred Scripture in the liturgical tradition, with twin shrines in churches for both
  • Veneration and Reverence for Sacred Books — The physical and liturgical veneration shown to sacred books throughout history — twin shrines in churches, Jewish customs of kissing and not touching with unwashed hands, and miracles protecting sacred books
• Ecclesiology
  • 📁 Authority
  • 📁 Clergy
  • 📁 Councils
  • 📁 Papacy
  • 📁 Persecution
  • 📁 Religious Life
  • Schools and Education in Sacred Scripture — The history of schools and academies dedicated to the study of sacred Letters, from the Alexandrian school through Nisibis, Constantinople, York, Paris, and Louvain
• Exegesis
  • 📁 Methods
  • 📁 Textual Criticism
  • Patristic Scripture Study — The labors of the Church Fathers over sacred books night and day — their commentaries, schools, methods, and lifelong devotion as models for every age
• Morals
  • 📁 Practices
  • 📁 Vices
  • 📁 Virtues
• Natural Philosophy
  • Astronomy and the Heavenly Bodies — The nature, magnitude, distances, and motions of the sun, moon, and stars — refuting astrology and the animation of stars, with detailed calculations of cosmic distances and speeds
  • Natural Philosophy of Animals — The creation of fish, birds, and land animals with extensive moral symbolism — bees, cranes, storks, the kingfisher, the turtle-dove, ants, dogs, and many others as mirrors of human virtue and vice
  • Natural Philosophy of Plants and Seeds — The creation of plants and trees on the third day, with their seeds and propagative power — including poisonous herbs, thorns, and the question of harmful creatures before the Fall
  • The Firmament and the Waters — The nature of the firmament (rakia) as the starry heaven and celestial orbs, made from condensed waters on the second day, with true waters placed above the heavens
  • The Sea and the Earth — The formation of the earth and sea on the third day — the gathering of waters, the making of mountains and valleys, the cavities beneath the earth, and the earth as center of the universe
• Sacraments
  • Baptism — The prefiguration of baptism in the Spirit hovering over the waters, and the Eucharistic implication of accidents existing without a subject
  • Confession (Sacrament) — The sacrament of penance — hearing confessions as a priestly ministry
  • Eucharist — The Most Holy Eucharist — the sacrament of Christ's body and blood, offered daily as a perpetual sacrifice and carried to protect it from profanation
  • Holy Orders and Gradual Ascent — The sacrament of ordination and the principle that one should ascend through all ecclesiastical offices gradually rather than seizing the episcopate
• Spirituality
  • Contemplative Life vs. Active Life — The transition from the active life (Martha) to the contemplative life (Mary Magdalene), especially in old age — solitude, prayer, reading, and writing as paths to union with God
  • Contemptus Mundi (Contempt of the World) — The deliberate rejection of worldly wealth, honors, and comforts in favor of devotion to God — renunciation of riches, indifference to earthly loss
  • Conversion Through Scripture — The transformative power of Scripture to convert hearts, turn people from vice to virtue, and kindle radical commitment to the Christian life
  • Desire for Martyrdom — The ardent, lifelong desire to seal one's faith with blood, as exemplified by Cornelius a Lapide and by Basil's readiness to die
  • Dispositions Required for Scripture Study — The fourfold preparation for fruitful Scripture study: frequent reading and constancy, humble modesty of mind, purity of heart, and prayer
  • History and the Reading of Scripture — Lacordaire's meditation on how to read Scripture -- as a practice requiring patience, repeated return, and interior transformation, where Scripture is "a well dug by the hand of God"
  • Prayer as Prerequisite for Understanding Scripture — Prayer as the indispensable heavenly conduit for drawing the meaning of God's word from God Himself, exemplified by Daniel, Thomas Aquinas, and the saints
  • Saints as Stars — The extended symbolic comparison of saints to stars — their humility, constancy, purity, swiftness, spiritual light, and heavenly glory — drawn from the work of the fourth day
  • Scholarly Martyrdom and Self-Sacrifice — Lapide's concept of the commentator's vocation as a slow martyrdom — consecrating eyes, brain, hands, blood, and life to God through the labor of expounding Scripture
  • Zeal for Souls — Burning pastoral zeal for the conversion of sinners and the salvation of souls — a central apostolic motivation
• Theology
  • 📁 Christology
  • 📁 Creation
  • 📁 Eschatology
  • 📁 God
  • 📁 Scripture
  • 📁 Soteriology
  • Creation — The doctrine of creation from nothing, known through Genesis, demonstrating God's omnipotent power and serving as the foundation of the biblical account of origins