Aquinas Quoting Augustine on Scripture Alone

“Nevertheless, sacred doctrine makes use of these authorities as extrinsic and probable arguments; but properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet merely as probable.  For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets who wrote the canonical books, and not on the revelations (if any such there are) made to other doctors.  Hence Augustine says (Epis. ad Hieron. xix, 1): ‘Only those books of Scripture which are called canonical have I learned to hold in such honor as to believe their authors have not erred in any way in writing them.  But other authors I so read as not to deem everything in their works to be true, merely on account of their having so thought and written, whatever may have been their holiness and learning.’”

— St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia,
Part 1, Question 1, Article 8.
Emphasis added.

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The Religion of Conan the Barbarian

He [Conan] had entered the part of the city reserved for the temples.  On all sides of him they glittered white in the starlight—snowy marble pillars and golden domes and silver arches, shrines of Zamora’s myriad strange gods.  He did not trouble his head about them; he knew that Zamora’s religion, like all things of a civilized, long-settled people, was intricate and complex, and had lost most of the pristine essence in a maze of formulas and rituals.  He had squatted for hours in the courtyards of the philosophers, listening to the arguments of theologians and teachers, and come away in a haze of bewilderment, sure of only one thing, and that, that they were all touched in the head.

His [Conan's] gods were simple and understandable; Crom was their chief, and he lived on a great mountain, whence he sent forth dooms and death.  It was useless to call on Crom, because he was a gloomy, savage god, and he hated weaklings.  But he gave a man courage at birth, and the will and might to kill his enemies, which, in the Cimmerian’s mind, was all any god should be expected to do.

(The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, “The Tower of the Elephant” by Robert E. Howard, pages 64-65).

I enjoy Howard’s Conan the Barbarian stories, and usually rue the fact that Howard committed suicide at age 30.  He lived from 1906 to 1936 A.D., and that’s a life too short.  I’ve never seen any evidence of Christianity in his writings, and all lives whether they be 30 years or 80 years are far too short compared to an eternity in Christ.

The reason I enjoy Howard’s Conan stories is because there is something elemental to human nature in them, or in Conan.  He believes in the gods, but is wise enough to reject the mysteries and secret powers of complex man-made religions and philosophies; instinctively knowing that the physically weak priests and philosophers use those “formulas and rituals” to attain power, just as he would use his sword to attain power.  A complex man-made religion is simply a tool of the hierocracy.  A simple religion is better for Conan, and yet, who can understand Crom?  Any god that could be fully understood by any man would be no god at all.  Truth and wonder cannot be separated.

In his fallen nature, which is barbarism, man can grope toward the real God of the Law: a God of “dooms and death” who hates sinners and weaklings.  That would all be true.  But thankfully someone came to add to the truth, to be truth himself: Jesus Christ.  Only through the revelation of Jesus Christ can we see the mercy of God.  He is the truth, both simple and complex, both fully man and fully God.  Only the Holy Spirit can give us the sight to see his cross as not just more “dooms and death,” but mercy and life.

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St. Chrysostom Quote – Justification

The favors of God so far exceed human hope and expectation, that often they are not believed.  For God has bestowed upon us such things as the mind of man never looked for, never thought of.  It is for this reason that the Apostles spend much discourse in securing a belief of the gifts that are granted us of God.  For as men, upon receiving some great good, ask themselves if it is not a dream, as not believing it; so it is with respect to the gifts of God.  What then was it that was thought incredible?  That those who were enemies, and sinners, neither justified by the law, nor by works, should immediately through faith alone be advanced to the highest favor.

Upon this head accordingly Paul has discoursed at length in his Epistle to the Romans, and here again at length.  “This is a faithful saying,” he says, “and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

- St. John Chrysostom (347-407 A.D.), Saint & Doctor of the Church: Homily 4 on First Timothy.

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