Theology

• Christology
  • Christ as Light of the World — Christ as the true light that enlightens every man, sharing His name and light with Apostles, Doctors, and Preachers — His prerogatives bestowed on His servants
  • Christ Prefigured in the Old Testament — The theme of Christ hidden and prefigured throughout the Old Testament -- in events, types, and prophecies -- who is the soul and purpose of all history
  • Logos (The Word) — Jerome's discussion of the Greek term Logos as applied to Christ in the prologue of John's Gospel -- signifying word, reason, reckoning, and the cause through which all things subsist
  • Passion of Christ — The death of Christ on the cross as the summit of history and poetry -- at once most true and most beautiful -- and its prefiguration in the Old Testament
  • Wisdom of God and Worldly Wisdom — Christ as the wisdom and power of God, hidden in mystery and predestined before the ages, contrasted with the false wisdom of the world
• Creation
  • Angels — The knowledge of angels obtained from Scripture, including their guardianship, hierarchy, and role in revelation and in protecting Moses and the sacred books
  • Creation Ex Nihilo — The doctrine that God created the world from no pre-existing matter, against philosophers who posited eternal matter or co-eternal principles
  • Image of God in Man — The doctrine that man is made in God's image and likeness, situated in the rational soul — its six endowments, its natural indelibility, its supernatural dimension in grace, and its moral implications
  • Light as Image of God — The creation of light on the first day as the noblest, most joyful, and most useful quality — a living image of God according to Dionysius, with tropological, allegorical, and anagogical applications
  • Man as Microcosm and Priest of Creation — Man as microcosm (small world) and horizon of the universe, containing all degrees of being — and as the high priest of creation, exercising priesthood on behalf of all creatures
  • Man's Dominion over Creatures — Man's God-given dominion over all animals and the earth, both in the state of innocence and after sin — diminished by the Fall but recovered by the saints
  • The Beginning of Time — The nine interpretations of "In the beginning" (bereshit), exploring the relationship between time, eternity, and creation — time began with the world, not before it
  • The Empyrean Heaven — The first and highest heaven — the seat of the Blessed, created on the first day and adorned with all its beauty, the roof of the fabric of the world
  • The Goodness of Creation — The declaration "And God saw that it was good" — all things created by God are good, against the Manichaeans; the comprehensive "very good" at the end of the sixth day, with nine reasons for the beauty of the world
  • The Holy Spirit in Creation — The role of the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters, imparting generative force to all creation, as a bird broods over its eggs — with allegorical application to baptism
  • The Six Days of Creation — The Hexaemeron or work of the six days, the progressive ordering and adorning of the world over six literal days, against Augustine's theory that all was created simultaneously
  • The Vernal Creation and the Liturgical Year — The world was created at the vernal equinox, on March 25 — the same date as the Annunciation, the Incarnation, and (in some traditions) the Passion or Resurrection of Christ
  • The World as Book of God — The world as a book, poem, and temple of God — proclaiming His glory through its beauty and order, readable by the wise as a text of divine authorship
• Eschatology
  • Hell and Damnation — The creation of hell on the first day after the fall of the angels, prepared in the center of the earth as a prison with fire and brimstone for the fallen angels
  • Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead — The doctrine of Purgatory and prayers for the dead, established from the books of Maccabees, which Reformers struck from the canon because they could not refute this teaching
• God
  • Holy Spirit and Preaching — The Holy Spirit's role in inspiring and guiding preaching — symbolized by the dove whispering sermons to the saints
  • Providence — God's providential governance of the world and human affairs — ordering events sweetly and strongly for the good of the Church and individuals
  • The Nature of God — Thirteen definitions of God (Elohim) drawn from Scripture, Fathers, and philosophers, exploring God's incomprehensibility, omnipotence, goodness, and governance of all things
  • Trinity — The Holy Trinity as the ultimate object of worship, study, and consecration of one's labors
• Scripture
  • Apocalypse / Revelation — The Apocalypse of John as the prophecy of the New Testament and the entire future of the Church on earth, containing as many mysteries as words
  • Apocrypha — Books placed outside the Hebrew canon by Jerome -- Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Maccabees -- identified as non-canonical in the Helmeted Prologue
  • Biblical Canon — The definitive enumeration of the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments as decreed by the Council of Trent, with anathema against those who reject any book or its parts
  • Difficulty of Sacred Scripture — Sacred Scripture is far more difficult to understand than all profane writings, requiring knowledge of Hebrew and Greek idiom, the Fathers, and divine assistance
  • Errors of the Philosophers — The errors of pagan philosophers demonstrating the insufficiency of natural reason without divine revelation, and Scripture's role in correcting them
  • Excellence and Dignity of Sacred Scripture — The supreme excellence, dignity, and authority of Sacred Scripture as God's own letter to humanity, surpassing all human learning and philosophy
  • Hebrew Alphabet (Mystical Significance) — The mystical significance of the twenty-two Hebrew letters, their correspondence to the books of the Old Testament, the five doubled letters (Caph, Mem, Nun, Pe, Sade), and the alphabetical structure underlying several psalms, Lamentations, and Proverbs
  • Heresies Against the Old Testament — The heretical movements that proscribed the Old Testament — Simon Magus, Marcion, the Manichaeans, Albigensians, Libertines, and Anabaptists
  • Heresy and Scripture — The misuse of Scripture by heretics and the necessity for Catholic theologians to know Scripture well enough to refute them
  • Inspiration of Scripture — The divine authorship of Scripture -- God moved the will of the writers, aroused and directed their thoughts, so that the Scriptures are a divine work in which the prophets contributed only the garment of their style
  • Moses as Most Ancient Theologian — The argument that Moses preceded all Greek and Gentile sages and that they drew their wisdom from him, establishing Moses as the fountainhead of all theology and philosophy
  • Moses: Life and Greatness — The life, character, offices, and greatness of Moses as lawgiver, pontiff, prophet, general, wonder-worker, and type of Christ
  • Necessity and Fruit of Sacred Scripture — Sacred Scripture is necessary both for salvation and for sound theology, supplying the principles of faith from which theology draws its conclusions
  • Object and Breadth of Sacred Scripture — Sacred Scripture has for its object everything knowable and embraces all disciplines — physics, ethics, metaphysics, history, geometry — serving as queen and mistress of all sciences
  • Paul's Apostolate and Epistles — The singular character of Paul's apostolate and epistles -- at once more rigorous than Aristotle and more passionate than Plato, a vessel of election and armory of the law
  • Profanation of Scripture — The misuse of sacred Scripture for profane purposes — divination, incantations, satire, defamation — condemned by the Council of Trent
  • Prophecy — The prophetic dimension of Scripture -- the prophets as seers who perceived Christ hidden in mystery, their individual missions from Hosea through Malachi, and the culmination in the rejection of Israel and calling of the nations
  • Psalms and Prophetic Poetry — The psalms of David and the prophetic books as the summit of biblical literature, surpassing all secular poetry in power because their source is the love of God and their object is Christ
  • Salvation History — The narrative unity of Scripture as the history of God's plan for the world, from creation through the patriarchs, prophets, and the coming of Christ, all oriented toward Christ as the center
  • Scripture and Tradition — The relationship between written Scripture and unwritten apostolic traditions as twin sources of divine revelation, both received with equal reverence
  • Scripture as Foundation of Theology — The inseparable relationship between Sacred Scripture and Scholastic theology — Scripture supplies the principles of faith from which theology draws conclusions
  • Scripture Interpretation: Authority of the Church and Fathers — The principle that Scripture must be interpreted according to the sense held by the Church and the unanimous consent of the Fathers, not by private judgment
  • Study of Sacred Scripture — The lifelong devotion to reading, meditating upon, and teaching Sacred Scripture — as practiced by the Fathers and by Lapide himself
  • The Gospel — The unique power and character of the Gospel as the living account of the life of Christ, surpassing all prophecy, revealing Christ in His true and perceptible form
  • The Old Testament: Value and Necessity for Christians — The Old Testament is necessary and useful for Christians, not merely proper to the Jews; its rejection is heretical, and its study yields rich fruit in faith, morals, history, and typology
  • The Six Utilities of the Old Testament — Lapide's systematic enumeration of six benefits of the Old Testament: establishing faith, richness of content, necessity for understanding the New, allegorical surpassing, figures and examples, and forerunner to the New
• Soteriology
  • Beatific Vision — The vision of God face to face as the ultimate blessedness of the saints, known only through Scripture; Moses's possible reception of this vision in his earthly life
  • Free Will — Man's possession of free will as a distinctive excellence setting him apart from other creatures, which determines his moral goodness
  • Original Justice — The state of original justice given to Adam at his creation — grace, all virtues, the subjection of appetite to reason and reason to God, and interior peace
  • Redemption and Grace — Christ's redemptive work as simultaneously vengeance against sin and salvation of the sinner; the sinner as a twofold person — man to be liberated and demon/vice to be vanquished; also the metonymic use of "sin" in the Pentateuch for sacrifice, punishment, or legal uncleanness
  • Resurrection of the Body — The bodily resurrection prophesied in Job, who testifies that he will rise from the earth on the last day and see God in his flesh -- the clearest prophecy of bodily resurrection in the Old Testament
• 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