Authors Cited by Aquinas
{xiv}
Thomas Aquinas flourished in the second and third quarters of the 13th century of our era (A.D. 1224/1225–1274). A Dominican friar, he lectured at the University of Paris and taught Dominican students at Naples. Some of his writings take the form of commentaries, and we have included several selections from his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Other writings express more directly his views on certain topics, and we have included several chapters from one of these, the treatise On Kingship. In this genre is the Summa Theologica, a summary of theology he wrote toward the end of his life to introduce beginners to the study of the disciple. Selections from the Summa constitute the bulk of the texts in this volume.
The Summa Theologica is divided into four parts. Part I deals with God, creatures, and human nature. Part I–II deals with the human end, human acts in general, virtue in general, and law. Part II–II deals with specific moral virtues and specific human acts. Part III, which Aquinas did not live to complete, deals with Christ’s redemptive sacrifice and the role of the sacraments in communicating its merits to the faithful.
Each part of the Summa consists of a number of general topics called questions, most of which are subdivided into particular inquiries called articles. For example, ST I–II, Q. 90 examines the definition of law, and A. 1 of the question defends the position that law is essentially an ordinance of reason. The articles begin with a series of objections, some of which incorporate Aquinas’ own previously expressed positions into arguments against the positions he is defending in the articles. He then states and defends his own position in the particular inquiry. He concludes with replies to the objections. As Joseph Pieper has observed,1 the structure of the articles is somewhat similar to the Socratic method employed in Platonic dialogues, but unlike the reader of Platonic dialogues, the reader of the Summa knows exactly what position Aquinas holds.
In the course of summarizing Christian theology, Aquinas explicitly deals with many topics of philosophical interest and advances explicitly philosophical arguments, that is, arguments based on reason rather than on Scripture or church authority. This anthology aims to present such arguments on topics related to legal, moral, and political philosophy.
{xv} The Intellectual Context
The chief institution in which Aquinas studied and taught was the University of Paris. Beginning at Bologna in the 11th century of our era, universities rose in western Europe to provide scholarly and professional education beyond that provided by cathedral and monastic schools.2 The University of Paris, which developed from the cathedral school of Notre Dame in the last quarter of the 12th century, was, like other universities, a corporation of students and masters free to govern itself.
The University of Paris had four faculties: arts, medicine, law, and theology. Aquinas taught in the theology faculty but also had to contest certain positions held by members of the arts faculty. The arts faculty taught arts of writing and speech (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), mathematical arts (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and harmony), and Aristotelian scientific and philosophical arts (principally physics, psychology, ethics, and metaphysics). The theology faculty was the most distinguished in medieval Christendom and boasted such masters as Alexander of Hales (A.D. 1170/1185–1245), Albert the Great (A.D. 1200?–1280), Bonaventure (A.D. 1217?–1274), and Aquinas himself. The lecture format typically consisted of a master’s commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (A.D. 1100?–1160), but the public disputation provided the discipline’s cutting edge. The Summa adopted the basic question-and-answer format of the public disputation.
The chief intellectual event of the 12th and 13th centuries of our era was the reintroduction of the texts of the major works of Aristotle into western Europe.3 Aside from logic and rhetoric, Aristotle’s works had been lost to the West since the collapse of the Roman empire, although early medieval thinkers knew citations of the works by Latin authors. In the 12th century, James of Venice translated the Physics, the De anima, and the Metaphysics of Aristotle into Latin. In the 13th century, Robert Gosseteste produced the first complete translation of the Nichomachean Ethics, and William of Moerbeke revised the translations of James and newly translated other works of Aristotle. In short, by the last quarter of the 13th century, the basic corpus of Aristotle’s philosophical work was {xvi} readily available to Latin-literate scholars of the universities of western Europe. The Arabic works of Averroes (A.D. 1126–1198) had also been translated into Latin by 1240 A.D.4
Reconciling Aristotle with the tenets of the Christian faith posed serious problems.5 Aristotle held that the world was uncreated, and he could be read to hold the common Greek view that the world always existed and could not have not existed, but the Christian church taught that God freely created the world and that the world had a beginning and could have not existed. Aristotle’s Prime Mover was a self-absorbed intelligence who had no providential design for the world or its human inhabitants, but the Christian God was an intelligence who providentially created the world and each human being. Aristotle never clearly affirmed the personal immortality of the individual human soul, and he considered proper human behavior exclusively as a prerequisite for happiness in this life, but the Christian unequivocally affirmed the personal immortality of the individual human soul and unequivocally conditioned blessedness in the next life on proper human behavior in this one.
The nearly simultaneous introduction of Averroes as the most authoritative interpreter of Aristotle compounded these problems.6 Where Aristotle could be interpreted to suppose rather than to affirm that the world was eternal and necessary,7 Averroes explicitly affirmed that the world was such. Where Aristotle could be interpreted to hold that the individual human soul was intellectual and so immortal,8 Averroes categorically denied that the individual human soul was intellectual by its own power and held that it perished with the dissolution of the human composite. And Averroes asserted not only that philosophical and religious faith were different ways of knowing but also that the way of reason, that {xvii} is, the way of philosophy, is superior to the way of faith, that is, the way of theology. (Needless to add, the latter position in particular aroused opposition from contemporary Muslim theologians.)
Some masters of the arts faculty of the University of Paris enthusiastically embraced a radical Aristotelianism on the world and the human soul similar to that of Averroes. Prominent among these masters were Siger of Brabant (A.D. 1240?–1281/1284) and John of Jandun (A.D. 1286?–1328). Since radical Aristotelian views about the world and the human soul were clearly in conflict with central tenets of Christian belief, masters who taught such views openly risked condemnation by the church. Whether for this practical reason or for theoretical reasons, radical Aristotelians like Siger and John seemed to resort to what orthodox adversaries called a theory of double truth. Such a theory would involve maintaining that a proposition can be true from the perspective of reason and philosophy and simultaneously false from the perspective of faith and theology.
Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354–430) was the foremost Western patristic theologian, and the theology faculty of the University of Paris regarded his explanation and exposition of Christian doctrine as authoritative and quasi-normative. Augustine’s theology reflects the dominant Neoplatonist philosophical tradition of his time.9 Some aspects of the Neoplatonist tradition were unacceptable to Christian thinkers. The Neoplatonist theory of emanation, the theory that the material world necessarily originated by a series of hierarchically descending radiations from an infinite source, for example, is clearly contrary to the Judeo-Christian theory of creation. But there were other elements of Neoplatonism that were attractive to Christian thinkers. The infinite perfection of the One of Neoplatonism is compatible with the infinite perfection of the Christian God. The ideal forms of Neoplatonism, if interpreted as ideas in God’s mind regarding the natures of the things he created, ground the intelligibility of the world and his providence. And the Neoplatonist emphasis on the superiority of spirit over matter resonated with Christian doctrine.
{xviii} On the other hand, the Aristotelian approach to philosophy was attractive from many perspectives. Aristotle’s explanation of intellection, rooted in sense perception and not merely occasioned by it, seemed to correspond more closely to human experience. Where Neoplatonists regarded material things as ephemeral and unintelligible apart from the ideal forms of which they were obscure reflections, Aristotle regarded material things as unqualifiedly real and intelligible by reason of their own forms. Aristotle was thereby able to study material things, including the human composite of matter and spirit, in terms of their four causes (efficient, final, formal, and material) and foster physical sciences, albeit not physical sciences in the modern sense. Where Neoplatonists argued to the existence of the One from intramental data, Aristotle argued to the existence of the Prime Mover from extramental data (motion and change). Some of the arts faculty of the University of Paris embraced the Aristotelian philosophical perspective without reservation, and Aquinas adopted it with caution.
The Aristotelian Background
Aristotle’s epistemology is realist: external reality is the measure of consciousness, and consciousness is the window on external reality. Human beings with their senses perceive an extramental material world and the things in it, and human beings with their intellects understand the nature, that is, the essential structure, of different kinds of material things, including their own. And human beings in the course of their intellectual activity know themselves as the source of their internal activities and external human actions.
We tend to identify intellectual activity with the process of reasoning, that is, the process of drawing inferences from observed facts and general principles. This reasoning can be theoretical or practical. In empirical sciences, scientists, among other things, form theories to explain observed events, deduce from the theory consequences that can be observed, and then test to see whether the deduced consequences occur. If the consequences do occur, the theory is supported but not conclusively verified; if the consequences do not occur, the theory is demonstrably false. In mathematics, mathematicians employ pure deduction to draw conclusions from postulated premises. In everyday affairs, human beings employ both inductive and deductive reasoning to reach conclusions about everything from tomorrow’s likely weather to the best route to use during rush-hour traffic.
But Aristotle identifies another kind of intellectual activity, the activity by which we understand the nature or essential structure of things, including our own nature, and he is chiefly concerned with this activity. {xix} Understanding the nature of things is at the heart of Aristotle’s philosophy generally, and understanding human nature is at the heart of his ethical theory specifically.
The central theme of Aristotle’s metaphysics is that the natures of things determine their type of activity, and, conversely, that their specific type of activity indicates the things’ natures. Plants, horses, and human beings have different ends and act in specifically different ways to achieve their ends. In Aristotle’s view, the essences or natures of things, their specific ends, and the ordering of activities to ends are intelligible to human beings.
Aristotle recognizes rationality in all its dimensions, that is, both activities of reason itself (intellectual virtues) and activities in accord with right reason (moral virtues), as the characteristic that specifically distinguishes the activity of human beings from that of other animals. (See .) Human beings, of course, have animal appetites that they act to satisfy: they eat to satisfy hunger, they seek to avoid pain, and they engage in sexual activity. But as long as they act consciously, the animal activities are not merely animal but also subject to judgments of reason. That is to say, human beings have to make judgments about the relation of animal activities to the human end; they have to decide when and how much is humanly proper to eat, how to avoid and alleviate pain in humanly proper ways, and when and with whom it is humanly proper for them to have sex. They perceive food and sex as good for them, but they also, on reflection, understand that food and sex are not always good for them as individual human beings or as members of human society. And so human beings are presented with choices in their conscious activities. Human beings can understand their essential constitution and much about the world in terms of cause and effect (e.g., that eating and drinking too much will make them sick, and that indiscriminate sex will cause harm to others). And human beings by their free acts determine how they are to live in the world. Moreover, Aristotle insists that human intelligence and freedom enable human beings to develop friendships and to love other human beings.
Aristotle identifies happiness as the ultimate goal of human life and understands happiness as the objective fulfillment and perfection of human nature, not a subjective state of euphoria. And since human nature is specifically rational, human beings, in order to be happy, should engage in activities of reason itself and other activities according to right reason.10 By repeatedly good acts, human beings develop good habits of behavior, moral virtues such as justice, moderation, and courage. {xx} The intellectual virtue of practical wisdom (prudence) determines the appropriate means to achieve moral virtues and so governs them. (See .) Selections in this anthology chiefly involve the moral virtue of justice and the intellectual virtue of practical wisdom, especially the practical wisdom in governance. (See .)
Aristotle situates the individual’s quest for virtue quintessentially within a structured society with other human beings. For him and ancient Greeks generally, only those who were more than human (pure spirits) or less than human (brute animals) could be fulfilled apart from the polis (the Greek city-state), and Aristotle accordingly devoted an entire work, the Politics, to the right ordering of the polis, which would develop intellectually and morally virtuous citizens. Human beings are by their nature inclined to live cooperatively in a community with other human beings, and they should do so if they wish to be happy.
The first level of human society is the family. Because human beings by their nature incline to mate and procreate, they form nuclear families, and nuclear families form extended families of blood relatives and in-laws. Out of these extended families come clans and tribes. But neither families nor small groups of families can adequately provide for their physical security or their economic sufficiency. Moreover and especially, they cannot adequately provide a broad base for the development of intellectual and moral virtues or for the cultivation of personal friendships. Only a larger, politically organized society can adequately do so.
The Thomist Perspective
Aristotle proposed the limited, albeit daunting, goal of theoretical wisdom as the most important ingredient of human happiness. (See .) Aquinas agrees with Aristotle that theoretical wisdom is a major ingredient of happiness in this life, and that human beings, in order to be happy in this life, need a suitably sound body, external goods, and the company of friends. But Aquinas insists that the happiness attainable in this life is incomplete and imperfect, a pale reflection of the perfect happiness of beholding God’s essence, and that no material or created spiritual thing, including human friendship, is essential to such perfect happiness.11
Both Aristotle and Aquinas recognize that human happiness in this life requires right reason to direct external action and govern internal {xxi} emotions, as well as a rightly ordered will regarding the requisite ends of human actions and emotions. But Aquinas goes beyond Aristotle to argue that rectitude of the will entails loving as good whatever God loves, and that there is no complete rectitude of the will without conformity to God’s will and his commands.12 Reason and revelation communicate God’s commands, and so human beings should conform their wills to the divine commands of both. Although it may be true, as Aquinas thought and most Christians then thought and now think, that there can be no real conflict between right reason and Christian duty, there remain questions about whether particular moral judgments of reason are right, whether Christian faith imposes particular religious duties, and how to reconcile apparent conflicts.
The goodness of the will depends exclusively on the will’s object, and so it depends on reason, which presents the object to the will as in accord or discord with reason. Since the light of human reason participates in the eternal law, the goodness or malice of the will depends even more on that law. Every will acting contrary to reason, even erroneous reason, is evil, but some acts of the will in accord with erroneous reason may be evil, since human beings may be directly or indirectly (through avoidable ignorance) responsible for the fact that their reason judges erroneously.13
The most striking contrast between Aquinas’ treatment of human acts and Aristotle’s is the attention that Aquinas pays to the moral goodness and malice of individual human acts. Aristotle was largely concerned about the moral character of human acts in connection with the development of moral virtue, that is, with the consequences of morally good and bad acts for acquiring morally good or bad habits.14 But Aquinas, although similarly concerned about the development of morally good habits, is also and primarily concerned about the moral character of individual human acts for attaining heavenly blessedness or incurring eternal damnation. That is to say, he is concerned about the moral character of human acts not only in relation to dictates of right reason and to the acquisition of virtue in this life, but also and primarily in relation to dictates of God’s law and to the acquisition of the beatific vision in the next life.
For Aristotle, a virtuous life constitutes its own reward, and a vicious life constitutes its own punishment. For Aquinas, a virtuous life in this world does not confer complete happiness on human beings, and a vicious {xxii} life does not sufficiently punish human beings with unhappiness. Moreover, not only are morally bad acts bad for their perpetrators, in Aquinas’ view, but they are also and primarily offenses against God and for that reason are justly punished by him. Accordingly, the morality of every human involving serious matter is of supreme importance for human beings. For example, murder is not only contrary to the humanity of the murderer and an offense against the victim but also a serious offense against God, who justly inflicts the punishment of hell on unrepentant murderers. Conversely, just acts are not only acts that are just to others and virtuous but also acts that God’s grace can render salvific, that is, worthy of heavenly reward.
Aquinas holds that some external acts are intrinsically evil.15 Some acts are evil because their objects are evil. For example, an innocent human being does not deserve to die, and so no one should deliberately kill such a person.16 Other acts are evil because they frustrate the intrinsic purposes of the acts. For example, lying, narrowly defined, is always wrong because it frustrates the intrinsic purpose of communicative speech,17 and some sexual behavior is always wrong because it is contrary to the intrinsic purpose of sex.18 Such a position on the intrinsic evil of some acts rests on the unarticulated premise that no larger purpose, however good, can render the evil acts good, and the position differs at least from Aristotle’s general concern.
In his treatment of moral virtues, Aquinas follows Aristotle in many respects. As with Aristotle, the key virtue in moral matters is intellectual. Practical wisdom, that is, practical reason, directs the moral virtues by prescribing their ends (e.g., to act justly, moderately, and courageously) and by choosing the means to achieve those ends. And Aquinas, like Aristotle, recognizes that human beings acquire moral virtues by repeatedly acting virtuously. But Aquinas does not rest there. To live a consistently virtuous life, human beings after the fall of Adam need added help. And so, to strengthen the radically weakened power of human beings after the fall, God infuses supernatural moral virtues and the theological virtue of charity, which informs every moral virtue, whether naturally acquired or supernaturally infused, in those he justifies. (See )
Neither Aristotle nor Aquinas is optimistic about the possibility or likelihood of most human beings by their own power living a virtuous life. Natural aptitude, of course, will decidedly limit the possibility of most human beings acquiring scientific knowledge or theoretical wisdom, and {xxiii} the dominance of inordinate desires will limit the possibility of most human beings acquiring moral virtues. Both Aristotle and Aquinas think that a rightly organized community could considerably rectify the individual’s moral situation, although moral evil and its consequences can never be eliminated. They look to enlightened political leaders, that is, those with a specific practical wisdom, political prudence, to guide the community by framing laws that encourage virtue and discourage vice. Political prudence, as practical reason, should do so only in reasonable ways, sometimes punishing vice, sometimes rewarding virtue, and sometimes refraining from doing either. Coercion is appropriate only to repress vices harmful to society, and it is most appropriate to repress the vices most harmful to society (e.g., murder and robbery).19
But Aquinas looks primarily to the church to inculcate moral virtues in the faithful. The church accomplishes this, in part, by promising heavenly blessedness to the virtuous and by threatening sinners with the punishment of hell. This poses a problem. If both church and state are assigned authoritative roles, conflict is likely and almost inevitable unless the respective roles are clearly distinguished. In this context, it is important to realize how much Aquinas’ concept of the role of religion in organized society differs from that of Aristotle. For Aristotle and the Greeks generally, religion was a necessary part of civic life that required of citizens only ritual observance. For Aquinas, the Christian religion calls the faithful to a comprehensive way of life, and the Christian church inculcates a comprehensive moral code of conduct.
Aquinas distinguishes the two roles. He calls the earthly society secular, its end the secular common good, and its structure of authority the secular power. And he calls the ecclesial society spiritual, its end the spiritual common good, and its structure of authority the spiritual power. In his view, the pope is the supreme ruler of the secular societies of medieval Christendom and of the church but ordinarily exercises secular power only in the Papal States.20 Secular rulers exercise secular power elsewhere, and they should exercise that power to assist the spiritual power of the church,21 even to the point of putting persistent public heretics to death.22 They should also defer to the spiritual power of the church in cases of conflict regarding religion and morals.23
Aquinas’ subordination of secular society to the church is incompatible with the democratic principle of personal religious freedom. The secular-spiritual {xxiv} terminology may have contributed to the inadequate distinction of the two societies, since secular things can involve spiritual things, and spiritual things can involve secular things. Liberal thinkers made a conceptually sharper and more functionally useful distinction. They distinguished the secular order from the sacral order, not the spiritual, and they explicitly denied to the state any competence in sacral matters as such, and to the church any competence in secular matters as such. This distinction is now normative in the Western world.
God’s act of creation is the foundation of Aquinas’ theory of moral obligation as legal obligation. By that very act, God ordains created things for their specific goals, and specific goals for an architectonic goal, and he manifests his ordinance in the natures he creates. Aquinas can properly refer to God’s act of creation as law because God ordains the activities of creatures, and as eternal because his act is identical with himself.
Human beings have no choice regarding their specific goal or the rectitude of means to that goal, but they are endowed with reason and so understand that they should act in ways conducive to their specific goal. In doing so, they participate freely in the eternal law and share with their own reason and will in God’s plan for themselves as individuals and as a community. And so Aquinas can properly refer to this human participation in the eternal law as natural law. Contrary to the Kantian critique of natural-law theory, Aquinas, by assigning a participatory role to human beings in legislating the eternal law for and to themselves, recognizes the necessity of personal autonomy for authentic moral decisions.
Aquinas was a Christian theologian. He considered creation, and so natural law, as one aspect of God’s salvific plan for humankind. Whereas Aristotle rested content with human goodness in a self-sufficient polis, Aquinas was concerned as well with Christian holiness and with obedience to God’s commands as part of God’s salvific will. It is in this regard that the natural law has a supernatural dimension: observance of the natural law can be a grace-enriched act, and failure to observe the natural law is a sinful act. In Aquinas’ view, divine revelation plays a supportive role in recognizing demands of the natural law, and divine grace plays an indispensable role in its consistent and substantial observance. Moreover, love of God is the guiding source of the morally virtuous activity of the faithful.
For both Aristotle and Aquinas, human beings need to form a body politic in order to promote their proper human development, that is, to develop themselves intellectually and morally as well as materially. But Aquinas links human law essentially to the natural law: human law is either a conclusion based on the natural law (e.g., do not steal) or a further specification of natural law (e.g., drive on the right side of the {xxv} road).24 This linkage is absolutely essential if human law is to qualify as law at all, that is, to be morally obligatory, and if human law departs from the natural law in any way, it is no law at all, that is, not morally obliga-tory.25 Aquinas, however, admits that citizens may be morally obliged to obey some unjust laws, if those laws are not contrary to divine law, for the sake of the common good, namely, to avoid civil unrest and the breakdown of legal observance.26
Conclusion
The issues of political philosophy considered by Aquinas—the nature of the political order, the power of reason, the function of law, the meaning of justice, the relation of human acts to God’s designs—reflect the concerns of the society and theology of his time. With the Western rediscovery of Aristotle in the late 12th and early 13th centuries of our era, Christian philosophers and theologians were forced to rethink the rational underpinnings of their faith. To understand Aquinas, one needs to know his philosophical and theological milieu.
But Aquinas’ views on law, morality, and politics remain relevant today. The norm of morality, the function of law, the meaning of justice, and the purposes of organized society are perennial concerns. For contemporary students of moral and political theory, as for those of the past, Aquinas’ views can provide insight into central problems of ethical and political life.
{xxvi}
Col.
Colossians
Cor.
Corinthians
Dan.
Daniel
Dt.
Deuteronomy
Eccl.
Ecclesiastes
Eph.
Ephesians
Est.
Esther
Ex.
Exodus
Ez.
Ezekiel
Gal.
Galatians
Gen.
Genesis
Heb.
Hebrews
Hos.
Hosea
Is.
Isaiah
Jer.
Jeremiah
Jgs.
Judges
Jn.
John
Jos.
Joshua
Kgs.
Kings
Lev.
Leviticus
Lk.
Luke
Mc.
Maccabees
Mt.
Matthew
Num.
Numbers
Pet.
Peter
Prov.
Proverbs
Ps.
Psalms
Rom.
Romans
Sam.
Samuel
Sir.
Sirach
Th.
Thessalonians
Tim.
Timothy
Tit.
Titus
Wis.
Wisdom
Zech.
Zechariah
A., AA.
article, articles
ad
response to objection
c.
chapter
CS
Commentary on the Sentences
dist.
distinction
Lat.
Latin
n.
number
Obj. (obj.)
objection
PG
Patrologia Graeca
PL
Patrologia Latina
Q.(q.),
question, questions
QQ.
ST
Summa Theologica
tr.
treatise
v.
verse
{xxvii}
Alexander of Hales
Summary of Theology
Ambrose, St.
On Abraham
On Duties
On Faith
On Paradise
Sermons
Anselm, St.
On Truth
Aristotle
Categories
Ethics (Nicomachean)
Metaphysics
Physics
Politics
Rhetoric
Augustine
Against Adimantus, Disciple of Mani
On Catechizing the Uneducated
On the Morals of the Church
The City of God
Commentary on the Book of Genesis
Commentary on Genesis, against the Manicheans
Commentary on the Gospel of John
Confessions
Eighty-Three Questions
Enchiridion
Against Faustus
On Free Choice
On Heresies
Letters
{xxviii} On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount
Against Lying
On the Marital Good
Narrations on the Psalms
On the Nature of Good
On Order
Questions on the Heptateuch
Response to the Letter of Parmenian
Sermons
Sermons to the People
On the Spirit and Letter of the Law
On the Trinity
On True Religion
Against the Two Letters of Pelagius
Basil, St.
Homily on the Beginning of the Book of Proverbs
On the Six Days of Creation
Bernard of Clairvaux, St.
On Contemplation
Boethius
On the Consolation of Philosophy
On Groups of Seven
Bonaventure, St.
Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard
Caesar, Julius
Gallic Wars
Cassiodorus
Expositions on the Psalms
Cato, Denis
Concise Opinions and Distichs on Morals
{xxix} Chrysostom, St. John
Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
On Duties
On Friendship
Rhetoric
Damascene, St. John
On Orthodox Faith
Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite
On the Divine Names
Glossae interlineares
Glossae ordinariae
Gratian
Decretum
Gregory the Great, Pope St.
Morals
Gregory IX, Pope
Decretals
Hilary, St.
On the Trinity
Hugh of St. Victor
On the Sacraments
Isidore, St.
Etymologies
Synonyms
{xxx} Jerome, St.
Commentary on the Book of Ezekiel
Commentary on Galatians
Letters
Justinian
Code
Digest
Institutes
Lombard, Peter
Glossae Sentences
Nicholas I, Pope
Letters
Origen
Commentary on the Letter to the Romans
Plato
Timaeus
Pseudo-Chrysostom
Incomplete Work on the Gospel of Matthew
Seneca
On Benefits
Valerius Maximus
Memorable Deeds and Sayings
Vegetius
Institutes of Military Affairs
{xxxi}
Alexander of Hales (A.D. 1170?–1245)
Ambrose, St. (A.D. 340?–397)
Anselm, St. (A.D. 1033–1109)
Aristotle, “the Philosopher” (384–327 B.C.)
Augustine, St. (A.D. 354–430)
Basil, St. (A.D. 329?–379)
Bernard of Clairvaux, St. (A.D. 1090–1153)
Boethius (A.D. 480?–524?)
Bonaventure, St. (A.D. 1217?–1274)
Caesar, Julius (100–44 B.C.)
Cassiodorus (A.D. 490?–583)
Cato, Denis (fourth century A.D.)
Chrysostom, St. John (A.D. 345?–407)
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106–43 B.C.)
Damascene, St. John (A.D. 700?–754?)
Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite (early sixth century A.D.)
Gratian (first half of 12th century A.D.)
Gregory the Great, Pope St. (A.D. 540?–604)
Gregory IX, Pope (A.D. 1170?–1241)
Hilary, St. (A.D. 315?–368?)
Hugh of St. Victor (A.D. 1096?–1141)
Isidore, St. (A.D. 560?–636)
Jerome, St. (A.D. 347?–419/420)
Justinian, “the Jurist” (A.D. 483–565)
Lombard, Peter (A.D. 1100?–1160)
Nicholas I, Pope (A.D. 819?–867)
Origen (A.D. 185?–254?)
Paul, St., “the Apostle” (first century A.D.)
Plato (428?–348/347 B.C.)
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (4? B.C.—A.D. 65)
Valerius Maximus (early first century A.D.)
Vegetius, Flavius (fourth century A.D.){xxxii}
1Joseph Pieper, Guide to Thomas Aquinas (New York: Pantheon, 1962), p. 47.
2On medieval universities generally, see Hilda De Ridder-Symoens, ed., A History of the University in Europe, vol. 1: Universities in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
3For an older but useful survey of the reception of Aristotle until 1277 A.D., see Fernand van Steenberghen, Aristotle in the West: The Origins of Latin Averroism, trans. L. Johnson (Louvain: E. Nauwalaerts, 1955). For a recent survey and annotated bibliography, see Mark D. Jordan, “Aristotelianism, Medieval,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, gen. ed. Edward Craig (London: Routledge, 1998).
4Van Steenberghen, op. cit.; Jordan, art. cit.
5On Aristotle generally, see J. L. Ackrill, Aristotle the Philosopher (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), and J. Barnes, Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).
6On Averroes generally, see M.-R. Heyoun and A. de Libera, Averroes et l’averroisme (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1991), and O. Leaman, Averroes and His Philosophy, 2d ed. (Richmond, Eng.: Curzon, 1997). On Averroes and the intellect, see H. A. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
7Aquinas so interpreted Aristotle. ST I, Q. 46, A. 1.
8Aquinas, partially on the basis of a faulty Latin translation, so interpreted Aristotle (Commentary on the De anima of Aristotle, Lecture 10, nn. 742–5). Aristotle himself seems to hold that the human soul as such perishes with the dissolution of the composite. He explicitly holds that the active intellect, and only the active intellect, is immortal (De anima III, 5. 430a17–25), but he is ambiguous about whether that intellect is a faculty of each human being or a separate substance operative in human beings only during their lifetime. If he means the former, which is unlikely, the individual human soul as such would presumably not be immortal, although part of it would be. If he means the latter, which is likely, there would evidently be no immortality of any part of the individual human soul.
9On Augustine generally, see Henry Chadwick, Augustine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). On Neoplatonism in the Latin tradition, see S. Gersh, Middleplatonism and Neoplatonism: The Latin Tradition (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986).
10Human beings should also engage in activities of reason itself according to right reason (i.e., neither too little nor too much).
11Aquinas treats of happiness in ST I–II, QQ. 2–4.
12ST I–II, Q. 19, A. 9.
13ST I–II, Q. 19, AA. 1–6.
14But Aristotle holds certain actions, such as murder, adultery, and theft, and certain emotions, such as spite and envy, to be always shameful, that is, morally wrong. Nichomachean Ethics II, 6 (1107a9–27).
15ST I–II, Q. 18, A. 2.
16ST I–II, Q. 64, A. 6.
17ST II–II, Q. 110, A. 1.
18ST II–II, Q. 154, especially A. 11.
19ST I–II, Q. 96, A. 2.
20CS II, dist. 44, explanation of the text, ad 4.
21CS I V, dist. 37, explanation of the text, comment.
22ST II–II, Q. 11, A. 3.
23See nn. 20 and 21, supra.
24ST I–II, Q. 95, A. 2.
25Ibid. and ST I–II, Q. 96, A. 4.
26ST I–II, Q. 96, A. 4.