Praedicare: Theology and Pastoral Practice
of useful things. 'Bad conversation corrupts good habits.' The word is also useful to whoever is tempted, for the word of the Lord instructs the ignorant: 'Your word is a light to my feet'; similarly, it inflames the lukewarm: 'The word of the Lord has inflamed him.'"52
The stories of the biographers completely corroborate this teaching. Precisely about his preaching, Tocco reports, "He was often heard to say that he was astonished when certain people, primarily the religious, allow themselves to speak of something other than God and of what concerns the edification of souls. Also, he had the habit since youth of immediately leaving the parlor or meeting, whatever it might be, when, in their common recreations, his interlocutors diverted the conversation toward subjects other than God and what is ordered to him."53 Rigorism perhaps? More simply, doubtless, translation into action of what Thomas had learned from his holy patron in the Order of Preachers, who spoke only of God or with God (nonnisi cum Deo aut de Deo loquebatur).
The interesting thing about this last collation from the handwritten part of the commentary on Isaiah is that it allows us to grasp in a very direct way the personal preoccupations of the young Dominican. In fact, the discreet but precise allusions to the ideal of Saint Dominic, which the young preacher would honor in so eminent a fashion, are not at all rare in the Collationes. But one finds there also, at least sketched out, the great spiritual themes of all times: God, to be sure, Christ, and the Holy Spirit; but also more precise subjects: the approach to God, prayer, raising our gaze toward God, cooperation in the work of the Holy Spirit, the evil effects of sin, the return to oneself, tears of compunction, the demands of poverty, temperance, and discretion, a peaceful death. All this is still more striking since it appears that these several points stem from a spontaneous outpouring. Thomas probably was not thinking about sketching out here the main points for a treatise on the spiritual life, but nothing prevents our consideration of them from that perspective.
Turning from the themes themselves to manner in which they are treated, we see Thomas proceeding by means of word associations. This is not immediately detectable in translation, but it is manifest in the Latin: in each citation, there is a characteristic word that triggers the sequel. Once this pattern is brought to our attention, we notice it throughout. We might be tempted to believe that Thomas worked with the aid of a concordance—
52. Collationes XVII, p. 238–39.
53. Ystoria 48, p. 351 (Tocco 48, p. 122).
they already existed in his time—and this is a possible but not a complete explanation. For of the 130 biblical references in these 24 collations, 25 come from the Psalms. The next most oftenquoted book (Isaiah excepted, having 12 references) is the book of Proverbs; with its 10 citations it lags far behind the Psalms.
If we are seeking a reason for the great predominance of the Psalms over all the other books, we might in the first place hear an echo of Thomas's prayer. He did not just work with a concordance; the material that came spontaneously to his heart and mind is that on which he had meditated longest. In this, he enters into the great Patristic tradition, where the Psalter is by far the most frequently cited book. But Thomas himself gives us the reason for this preference in his prologue to the commentary on the Psalter, "Everything that touches on the final goal of the Incarnation is presented in the Psalter with such clarity that we might think that we are reading the Gospel, not a prophet." And in the clear tradition from Augustine, which he too inherits, he explains a little more: "The subject matter of this book is Christ and His Church."54
After the Psalms and Proverbs and Isaiah, the biblical books most mentioned are the Canticle of Canticles and Ecclesiastes (8 and 7 references respectively). A surprising thing is that the New Testament is much less frequently quoted (Matthew, 5 times; John, 5; Ephesians, 5; Second Corinthians, 5; and Romans, 4). This disparity may be explained by a general rule observable in Thomas's contemporaries as well. They give their preference to the wisdom books, because these books lend themselves more easily to "moralizing," an integral part of exegesis at the time.55
Beyond the mere statistical analyses, we also see to what extent these spiritual elaborations are permeated with the experience of prophets and sages, apostles and evangelists. The Thomist spirituality has an undeniably biblical tone. But we also grasp what strikes him in the texts and thus something about his attitude before God and God's Word, and, notably in our example here, his concern as a preaching friar—in a word, his apostolic and saintly soul. Knowing Thomas's reticence, which only rarely
54. Prol. au commentaire sur les Psaumes: "Omnia enim quae ad finem incarnationis pertinent, sic dilucide traduntur in hoe opere, ut fere videatur evangelium, et non prophetia. . . .
Materia huius libri est Christus et membra eius."
55. Cf. J. Verger, "L'exégèse de l'Université," in P. Riché, G. Lobrichon, Le Moyen Age et la Bible (Paris, 1984), pp. 199–232; cf. pp. 244 and 232.
allows us to pierce the veil of the text to see the man behind, we find these indications priceless. As the Leonine editors have well said: "Only in the manuscript of the Super Isaiam can we be present, in the margins of the literal commentary, at the outpouring of the collationes, with their play of sacred texts that shatter the univocity of the historia."56
56. Leonine, vol. 28, p. 20*. We should add to the documentation on the Super Isaiam a fine study by D. Bouthillier, "Le Christ en son mystère dans les Collationes du Super Isaiam de saint Thomas d'Aquin," in Ordo sapientiae et amoris (Fribourg, 1993), pp. 37–64.
Chapter III—
First Teaching Years in Paris (1252–1256)
According to William of Tocco, near the end of the Cologne period (1251, therefore, or at the start of 1252), the master general of the Dominicans asked Albert to designate a young theologian who could be appointed a bachelor to teach in Paris.1 Albert proposed Thomas, whom he thought sufficiently advanced in scientia et vita.2 John the Teuton seems to have hesitated, but not because he did not know Thomas—he had already met him in the highly unusual circumstances surrounding the beginning of his Dominican life. Tocco would never have suggested this explanation if he had not erred about the master general's identity. More probably, John hesitated because of Thomas's youth. Thomas was only twentyseven then and, according to the university statutes, he should have been twentynine to receive these responsibilities canonically.3
It has also been suggested that John the Teuton, knowing the troubled situation in Paris at the time, hesitated to send a man there whom he 1. Ystoria 15, p. 235 (Tocco 14, pp. 80–81); in his fourth version, Tocco thought he could specify that this master general was John of Vercelli. In reality, it was John of Wildeshausen (the Teuton), who remained in charge until his death, 3/4 November 1252 (cf. Käppeli II, p. 47). John of Vercelli only assumed such responsibilities in 1264, after Humbert of Romans had been master general.
2. Tocco uses this formula twice within a few lines, probably not unintentionally. The statutes of Robert Curçon specify that no one could be a master in theology at Paris except a theologian exemplary in knowledge and virtue: nisi probate rite fuerit et scientie ( Chartul. no. 20, p. 79).
3. Cf. P. Glorieux, L'enseignement, p. 114.
judged too peaceful. If this is what he thought, Thomas would not take long to correct John's impression. In any case, Albert insisted and wrote to Cardinal Hugh of SaintCher for his support. Hugh had been the second Dominican master in theology at Paris and is celebrated even today for his theological and exegetical work.4
Hugh knew the situation well. He was at the time (1251–53) Innocent IV's legate in Germany and in that role made several trips to Cologne, where he would have had every opportunity to converse with Master Albert as well as with his assistant, Thomas.5 And he probably met John the Teuton twice during those years.6 It seems, then, Tocco is right to say that it was through Hugh's intervention that Albert got what he wished.7 Thomas thus received the order to present himself in Paris at once and to prepare himself to teach the Sentences there (ut . . . ad legendum sententias se pararet).8 He began his teaching as a bachelor in September of the same year (1252) under the guidance of Master Elias Brunet de Bergerac from the Dominican province of Provence. Elias himself held the post left vacant by Albertus Magnus.9
Thomas must have found the intellectual climate in Paris less peaceful than the one he had known in Cologne. It was a large city, one of the intellectual centers of Christendom, and one with an already long and turbulent university tradition. It suffices to recall the general strike of masters and students from 1229 to 1231; some left Paris to establish themselves at Angers, many more went to Toulouse. Originally planned to last six years,10 the strike's effects were rapidly ended when, after the beginning of the academic year in September 1229, the Dominican Roland of Cremona
4. Cf. Käppeli II, pp. 269ff. Glorieux, Répertoire I, no. 2, pp. 43–51.
5. Cf. J. H. H. Sassen, Hugo von St. Cher, Seine Tätigkeit als Kardinal, 1244–1263 (Bonn, 1908), p. 62.
6. Cf. ibid., pp. 38 and 62.
7. Ystoria 15, p. 235 (Tocco 15, pp. 80–81): "suasu domini Vgonis cardinalis eiusdem ordinis, cui erat de ipso per litteras intimatum, predictus magister ipsum (Thomam) in predicti studii baccellarium acceptauit"; cf. WN, p. 79.
8. It was therefore the master of the order who designated Thomas for this teaching post at Paris. We see here anticipated in practice something that would become official only later after the general chapters of Bologna (1267) and Paris (1269), cf. MOPH 3, pp. 138 and 150. The general lines of the delicate agreement that regulated the relationship between the studium of SaintJacques and the university may be seen in Glorieux, Répertoire I, pp. 36–38. On the bachelor of the Sentences in general and the concrete development of his teaching, cf. Glorieux, L'enseignement, pp. 111–18.
9. We know very little about Elias except that he had been a lecturer in the studium at Montpellier from 1246 to 1247 before being called to Paris. We have little by him except for some excerpta, cf. Käppeli I, p. 363; Glorieux, Répertoire I, no. 12, p. 84.
10. Cf. the decree by the university's twentyone overseers, 27 March 1220, Chartul. no. 62, p. 118.
took up his chair in theology. The mendicant orders thus acted as strikebreakers, something for which they were bitterly reproached later. And this was not unrelated to the progressive deterioration in relations between them and the secular masters, which followed.11
Since the beginning of the century, another question had periodically shaken the little Parisian intellectual world: What place should be given to the teaching of Aristotle? Commenting on certain of his books was still officially prohibited in 1250.12 This restriction remained a dead letter, as we have already said, but it permitted the relatively new university at Toulouse cleverly to hinge its promotion on the fact that those books could be studied in Toulouse that were forbidden in Paris.13
Between 1252 and 1255 moreover, that is, during the first part of Thomas's stay, the arts faculty finally received authorization to teach publicly all of Aristotle's work.14 Although it was only a confirmation of an alreadyexisting state,15 and although for Thomas the teaching of Aristotle did not constitute an absolute novelty (we can conjecture that he had already come into contact with Aristotle in Naples), it had notable repercussions. It would contribute to the crystallization of opposition between the theology faculty and the arts faculty, which would reach its height in the 1277 condemnation. The young Dominican would be among the victims of the general mistrust of the Philosopher by a reactionary current. Twentyfive years later, he would be included in condemnations aimed against "Averroism," a term that must be clarified.
To explain this process, it would be necessary to record various stages of the conflict, which was still brewing at the time Thomas arrived in Paris. But perhaps this is the place to set straight a misunderstanding tenaciously reproduced for some time in numerous books aimed at a more or less large audience. It has been repeated continually since the end of the nineteenth century16 that this period was dominated by the opposition between Au11. Cf. the secular masters' declaration against the religious, especially the Dominicans, Chartul. no. 230, pp. 252ff.
12. A useful survey of the successive interdictions and permissions may be found in F. Van Steenberghen, La Philosophie au XIIIe siècle, pp. 81–117 (2d ed. 1991, pp. 74–107); a shorter account is in E.H. Wéber, La personne humaine au XIIIe siècle, "Bibl. thom." (Paris, 1991), pp. 1–15.
13. Letter addressed to all masters and students in the whole world toward the end of 1229, Chartul., no. 72, pp. 129–31, cf. p. 131.
14. Chartul., no. 246, pp. 277–79; Dufeil, Guillaume de SaintAmour et la polémique universitaire parisienne 1250–1259 (Paris, 1972) (hereafter: Dufeil, Polémique), pp. 150–52.
15. F. Van Steenberghen, pp. 143–48 (2d ed. 1991, pp. 130–34), shows that after 1240 (and probably even before) the repeated pontifical interdictions were a dead letter.
16. One of the first to formulate it—but with nuances that sometimes would be neglected—
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gustinianism and Aristotelianism, the latter being identified with Saint Thomas and the Dominicans, and the former with Saint Bonaventure and the Franciscans. This view is so well anchored in many minds that it has become a veritable historiographical commonplace. Meanwhile, over the last fifty years the work of several intellectual historians for this period shows without a shadow of a doubt that Augustinianism quietly made use of Arab and Jewish sources, and its own practitioners studied Aristotle.17 By contrast, their adversaries, Thomas Aquinas at their head, considered themselves legitimate heirs of Saint Augustine as well. To render justice to these actors—and we will have many occasions to repeat this point—the history requires a much more nuanced approach than the summary schemes allow us to suppose.
The Bachelor of the Sentences
In the meantime, before becoming profoundly engaged in these inglorious episodes, Thomas came to grips with a great new task: commenting on Peter Lombard's Sentences. This second stage of his journey to becoming a master in theology followed his stint as a biblical bachelor in Cologne. According to an ofteninvoked parallel, the commentary on the Sentences was like the chef d'oeuvre that the apprentice was required to present in order to become a master artisan. After that, Thomas would have had to complete only the third and final step, the phase of a fully "formed" bachelor (baccalarius formatus), in which his principal task would be to assist his master in disputes.18
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was F. Ehrle, "Beiträge zur Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Scholastik. II: Der Augustinismus und der Aristotelismus in der Scholastik gegen Ende des 13 Jahrhunderts," Archiv f.
Literaturund Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters 5 (1889) 603–13; id., "L'agostinismo e l'aristotelismo nella scolastica del secolo XIII. Ulteriori discussioni e materiali," Xenia tomistica 3, pp. 517–88.
17.Among the works that have contributed to the changed approach during this period, let us recall F. Van Steenberghen, Aristote en Occident. Les origines de l'aristotélisme parisien, Essais philosophiques 1 (Paris, 1946) (a revised and expanded edition, translated by Leonard Johnston, was published in English under the title Aristotle in the West: The Origins of Latin Aristotelianism (Louvain, 1955); D. A. Callus, Introduction of Aristotelian Learning at Oxford, Proceedings of the British Academy 29 (London, 1944). The first known commentaries on the Physics and the Metaphysics are the work of Roger Bacon in Paris and Richard Rufus at Oxford. Kilwardby was one of the first to comment not only on the Logic but also on the Ethics. All three are "Augustinians," pure and simple, as is the anonymous master of arts around 1245–50 whose course has been published by R.A.
Gauthier, Lectura in librum De anima a quodam discipulo reportata (Grottaferrata, 1985), cf. pp. 18*–22*.
18.Cf. P. Glorieux, L'enseignement, pp. 93 and 97–99; J. Verger, art. "Baccalarius," Lexikon des Mittelalters 1 (1980) 1323; G. Leff, Paris and Oxford Universities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, London, 1968, p. 167.
Already a century old—since its definitive edition was published between 1155 and 1158—the Sentences entered the university with Alexander of Hales, who was the first to take it as a basic text for his teaching, from 1223 to 1227. It was very probably this future Franciscan master who divided the work into distinctions, chapters, and articles. Initially, it had been divided solely into books and chapters.19 The Sentences would remain in use—they were quickly made obligatory—in the schools for three centuries. And uolens nolens, all the scholastic writers were obliged to pour their instruction into this mold, even if in reality the process became more and more of a fiction. A detail that affected Thomas reveals the considerable importance attached very early to the Sentences. The Dominican constitutions, in a text dating from 1234, prescribe that the friars destined for study ought to receive from their province the three basic books: the Bible, the Sentences, and the Historia scolastica by Peter Mangiador.20
As we know, Peter Lombard wanted to create a new teaching style. He therefore undertook to assemble in a single volume the different opinions (sententiae) of the Fathers of the Church on the diverse subjects that theology addresses. Lombard quotes the texts themselves at length for the convenience of masters and students. As Father Chenu has rightly observed, Lombard's work offers "the benefits, but also the limits, of the Patristic inheritance, well ordered, decanted, digested, wisely assimilated . . . rather prosaic . . . but for that very reason, it permitted the surest progress and, for the future, furnished a field of labor on which the freest initiatives would be able to exercise themselves, rendering the soil from which they sprang less and less fertile."21
In fact, the theologians were not slow to abandon the servitude of a strict commentary and forcefully to introduce new considerations, sometimes quite distant from Lombard's. This is why the commentaries on the Sen19.The Sentences hardly need to be introduced. We refer the reader to the old but useful study by J. De Ghellinck, "Pierre Lombard," DTC 12, 2 (1935), cols. 1941–2019. The bibliography needs to be updated by consulting I. Brady, "Pierre Lombard," DS 12, 2 (1986), cols. 1064–1612, and in particular the Prolegomena to the recent edition of the Sententiae, 2 vols. (Grottaferrata, 1971 and 1981).
20. Constitutiones Antique II 28, ed. A. H. Thomas, p. 361; M.D. Chenu, Toward, p. 227, n. l, which drew our attention to this point, mistakenly refers to the Acta of the Montpellier Chapter, held in 1265 ( MOPH 3, p. 129). But this text does not say a word about the question and, as we have seen, the prescription is much older.
21.Chenu, Toward, pp. 228–29; cf. p. 226–37, which situate the Sentences within Thomas's oeuvre. See also the longer treatment in P. Glorieux, art., "Sentences (Commentaires sur les),"
DTC 14, 2 (1941), 1860–1884.
tences may be considered theological works in their own right, revealing their author's thought.
Thomas was, therefore, not the first or only commentator to go "beyond Lombard." But he was without question one of those who did so most resolutely. Materially, his commentary on each distinctio presents itself as a series—longer or shorter as the case requires—of questions that are themselves subdivided into articles and subarticles (quaestiunculae). The whole is framed by a divisio textus at the beginning, and an expositio textus at the end. Between these two markers, we can see the vestiges of the literal commentary, which was honored less and less. If we wish to get an idea of the proportions of the young professor's text compared with that of the Master, we can consider the example Father Chenu once gave: the two pages of distinction 33 of Book III provide Thomas with the occasion to pose 41
questions, which he develops over 88 pages.
But more than length, content and inspiration change. The young bachelor did not hide his aims, and his choices show up immediately. There are more than 2000
quotations from Aristotle in the commentary on Lombard's four books. (The Nicomachean Ethics ranks first with some 800 citations; the Metaphysics follows far behind with around 300; the Physics and the De Anima account for around 250. Since the currently available editions of Thomas's commentary do not identify all the citations, these figures are approximate, but they do indicate an order of magnitude.) Saint Augustine, the most honored author after Aristotle, barely adds up to 1000
quotations. There are 500 for PseudoDionysius, 280 for Gregory the Great, 240 for John Damascene. Father Chenu thought it possible to draw some striking comparisons by underlining the 133 quotations from the Nicomachean Ethics in distinction 33 of Book III alone, compared with only 12 in Albert's commentary and 3 in Bonaventure's.22 In reality, these figures must be handled with caution, since in 1245, the date when Albert was drawing up the Third Book of his Commentary on the Sentences, only Books I to III of the Ethics had been translated. Furthermore, in the absence of a critical edition of Thomas's commentary as well as of Albert's, the true terms of comparison are not known. In any case, these figures do not say all there is to say and must be nuanced: their Aristotelian fervor does not eliminate the roots in Augustine. We must, therefore, read with
22.Chenu, Toward, p. 271, has counted 125 quotations, but we would correct this along with Charles Lohr, St. Thomas Aquinas "Scriptum super Sententiis": An Index of Authorities Cited (Avebury, 1980). This, too, is a provisional study until we have trustworthy critical editions.
some reservations the wellknown passage where Tocco lyrically celebrates Friar Thomas's beginnings: In his lessons, he introduced new articles, resolved questions in a new and clearer way with new arguments. As a consequence, those who understand him to have taught new theses and to treat them according to a new method cannot doubt that God illumined him with a new light: in effect, can someone teach or write new opinions unless he has received from God a new inspiration?23
This piece of bravura, lest there be any doubt, does not directly convey the impression of students of Thomas. Tocco borrowed it from Thomas of Celano who, with equal insistence, had celebrated Saint Francis of Assisi as a nouus homo.24 It would be wrong, however, to use this literary larceny as a pretext to deny Thomas's original contributions. In fact, even if we can identify the immediate sources on which the young bachelor drew, his surpassing of Lombard's work with respect to the clarity of his positions has frequently been emphasized. Though the fact of being tied to Lombard's book did not always allow him to deploy fully his own genius, Thomas was able to let it break through sufficiently that no one can overlook it.25
The most striking example may be found perhaps in the first pages, which deal with the organizing principles behind the theological matter. As Francis Ruello has observed, Saint Thomas's Prologue corresponds exactly to what we might expect in a good introduction. Placed ahead of the body of the book, but really drawn up after the work was finished, the Prologue suggests the spirit of the work and its general outline in full knowledge of the facts.26
23. Ystoria 15, p. 236 (Tocco 14, p. 81), translated WN, p. 87.
24.This was brought to light by Henri de Lubac, La posterité spirituelle de joachim de Flore. I. De joachim à Schelling (Paris, 1979), p. 138, n. 2; cf., R.A. Gauthier, ''Introduction" to Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Somme contre les gentils, ed. Henri Hude (Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1993).
25.To take only one example, see his way of speaking about charity, which is inspired simultaneously by PseudoDionysius and Aristotle. Cf. A. Stevaux, "La doctrine de la charité dans le commentaire des Sentences de saint Albert, de saint Bonaventure et de saint Thomas," ETL 24 (1948) 59–97.
26.F. Ruello, "Saint Thomas et Pierre Lombard. Les relations trinitaires et la structure du commentaire des Sentences de saint Thomas d'Aquin," Studi Tomistici 1, n.d. (but ca. 1974) 176–209, cf. p. 176: "Having compared Saint Thomas's remarks with the portions of his commentary that seem to clarify them, we are convinced that the general Prologue was written for the definitive edition, and that the three special prologues address questions that grew out of certain theses advanced in the general Prologue." This observation, criticized in RLT
9 (1977) no. 445, pp. 152–53, is at least highly credible.
Peter Lombard, as we know, divided his material into four books according to an order that is "simultaneously historical and logical": (1) the Triune God, in His essence and His persons, with some considerations on His presence in the world and in the lives of Christians; (2) God as Creator and His work (Creation in general, creation and fall of the angels, creation and fall of man and woman, grace, original and personal sin); (3) Incarnation of the Word and His redemptive work, to which are attached the analysis of the virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as the Ten Commandments (since they are all found within the commandment of love);
(4) teaching on the sacraments, to which is joined the teaching on our final ends.27
This simple enumeration tells us we are dealing with a compendium of materially juxtaposed questions rather than a treatise ordered around a central idea. The author in no way emphasizes the contours of his rather loose plan. Thomas, by contrast, gets the most out of what he does not hesitate to call the Master's intentio: he proposes to organize the theological material with God as the center and everything else around Him, according to the relationships that they maintain with Him, whether they come from Him as their first cause or return to Him as to their final end.28
If we do not remember the biblical affirmation of God as the Alpha and Omega of all that is visible and invisible, this plan may seem only a rather flat assertion. We do not perceive all its depth until we grasp the organizing ratio that gives it its intelligibility. Thomas sees the ratio in the fact that the creation—the emergence of creatures from God, the first principle—finds its explanation in the fact that even in God there is an "emergence of the Principle," which is the procession of the Word from the Father. The divine efficacy that works in the creation is thus related to the generation of the Word, just as the formal cause of the grace that will permit creatures to return to God is linked to the spiration of the Holy Spirit. More precisely and fully, we might therefore say that the divine missions ad extra are explained according to the order of the processions of the divine persons ad intra.29
27.This summary draws on I. Brady, "Pierre Lombard," DS 12, 2, col. 1608.
28. Sent. I d. 2 div. textus: "consideratio hujus doctrinae erit de rebus secundum exitum a Deo ut a principio [Books I and II] et secundum quod referuntur in ipsum ut in finem [III and IV]." Weisheipl, pp. 70–7l, remarks that Alexander of Hales anticipated Thomas here. Alexander also mentions this movement of exitus and of reditus [ Glossa in quatuor Libros Sententiarum (Quaracchi, 1951), vol. 1, p. 4, no. 8]. But this is only materially true; Alexander does not propose to substitute this for Peter Lombard's scheme, as Thomas does.
29.The implications of this theology have been thoroughly developed by G. Emery, "Le
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It would be easy to show that Thomas arranged that the Books of his Commentary would reproduce that vision of things. It is more important to emphasize that his presentation—which already anticipates the plan of the Summa—does not stem from a simple pedagogical option. It expresses a deep spiritual intuition, whose fecundity we shall soon trace. Here, however, we must identify two of its major implications. First, attentive to the demands of the word theology, Thomas sees in God Himself the primary "subject" of his discourse; if he allows the Incarnate Word only second place—something for which he is sometimes criticized—it is because he gives first place to the Trinity. Like the creation, the Incarnation cannot be explained all by itself. It is necessary to "return" to the fountain of charity in the Father.30
We must further emphasize that, in this way of conceiving things, the entire universe of created beings, spiritual and material, thus appears animated by a deep dynamism that, when the time came, would without difficulty permit the integration of historical becoming into theological reflections. This will become clearer in the Summa, but we may grasp right away the bearing of this proposition in all its audacity when we see that the possibility mentioned by Thomas only in the second place is Augustine's (put first, in fact, by Lombard) which bases itself on the distinction between res and signa.31
Whatever Tocco may say, these lectures were not the fruit of an infused knowledge, but the result of hard work. The handwritten manuscript of the Third Book, which has come down to us, as has the Super Isaiam, with erasures and second thoughts, still bears the traces of that labor.32 We find here a Thomas attentive to but also dependent on his contemporaries:
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Père et l'oeuvre trinitaire de création selon le Commentaire des Sentences de S. Thomas d'Aquin," in Ordo sapientiae et amoris, pp. 85–117; also his La Trinité créatrice: Trinité et création dans les commentaires aux Sentences de Thomas d'Aquin et de ses précurseurs Albert le Grand et Bonaventure, Bibliothèque thomiste 47 (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1995). See also F. Marinelli, Personalismo trinitario nella storia della salvezza (Rapporti tra la SS.ma Trinità e le opere ad extra nello Scriptum super Sententiis di San Tommaso) (Rome, 1969); G. Marengo, Trinità e Creazione. Indagine sulla teologia di Tommaso d'Aquino (Rome, 1990).
30.This, too, has been well said by F. Ruello, La christologie de Thomas d'Aquin, Paris, 1987, p. 44: "The notion of Incarnation is therefore not primary in theology. It takes its place in a dialectic whose fundamental notions are those of departure (exitus) from God within God Himself (eternal processions) and outside of Himself (Creation), and of return (reditus) to God, in as much as the creature who is not united to God as a person, through the Person who is united to Him, but who in one of his natures comes himself from God."
31.To see these things in greater detail, cf. P. Philippe, "Le plan des Sentences de Pierre Lombard d'après S. Thomas," BT 3 (1930–1933), Notes et communications, p. 131*–54*.
32.Cf. P.M. Gils, "Textes inédits de S. Thomas: les premières rédactions du Scriptum super Tertio Sententiarum," RSPT 45 (1961) 201–228; 46 (1962) 445–462 and 609–28.
Master Albert, surely, whose influence is very powerful in the first three books, but less clearly perceptible in the fourth. Bonaventure is there too. Father Chenu has been able to find a series of nine arguments taken from him in as many objections in an article from the treatise on the sacraments33—but Thomas also often borrows from Bonaventure as well as from many others, including an anonymous quidam who cannot always be identified (350 mentions of these quidam). A better acquaintance with contemporary currents of ideas now makes it easier to find further traces of the era in this work—for instance the allusions to the "endoftheworldism" of Joachim of Fiore and of William of SaintAmour noted by MarieMichel Dufeil.34 But only the critical edition, yet to appear, will permit a more exact estimate of what Thomas owed to his predecessors and contemporaries. Only then will we be able to judge, in full possession of the facts, the extent and limits of his originality.
Alia lectura fratris Thome
The ampleness of this work fits only with difficulty into the chronological framework that assigns the two first years in Paris to biblical teaching and the next two to the Sentences. But if we accept the solution that naturally suggests itself from the sources, we may spread out the composition of this immense, fivethousandpage commentary over a little more than four academic years (though the teaching, according to the university statutes, had to be completed within two years). All this accords with Tocco, who makes the time of composition spill over into the following period, not just the time of the "formed" bachelor, but that of the master as well.35
We may thus understand Thomas's achievement much better. He was far from thinking his work definitive, however, and, from all appearances, he modified it, trying to improve it, when he took it up again to deliver to his students at Santa Sabina almost a decade later.
We know of this effort from Tolomeo, who says he saw in Lucca a copy of these lectures, which were given at Rome.36 Until recently, the histo33.Cf. Chenu, Toward, p. 273.
34.Dufeil, Polémique, pp. 160–61, 210–12.
35. Ystoria 15, p. 236 (Tocco 14, p. 81): "Scripsit in baccellaria et principio sui magisterii super quatuor libros Sententiarum."
36.Tolomeo XXIII 15 (ed. A. Dondaine, p. 155): "Scripsit etiam eo tempore quo fuit Rome . . . iam magister existens, primum super Sententias, quem ego vidi Luce sed inde subtractus nusquam ulterius vidi." Tolomeo says here that he never saw this book again, for he himself left Lucca, where the book was located. Bernard Gui has badly misread this passage as insinuating that the book was stolen, cf. Gui 53, p. 217.
rians were still divided on this question. Though it was hard to reject Tolomeo's testimony, no one had found written evidence of these new lectures by Thomas on the Sentences. But the researchers of the Leonine Commission discovered in an Oxford manuscript (Lincoln College, lat. 95) at least three references to an alia lectura fratris Thome. Father Hyacinthe Dondaine, who established an edition of fifteen such passages together with a meticulous and circumspect study on them, felt himself forced to a rather negative conclusion: these annotations are by an anonymous author who faithfully draws on Thomas. But there are no truly decisive arguments that would indicate that the passages are taken from an Alia lectura at Rome.37
Leonard Boyle has subjected the question to a new examination and, taking Dondaine's arguments point by point, Boyle highly praises the quality of analysis. But he draws an opposite conclusion: the text of these annotations—clear (sometimes more so than that of Thomas himself), intrepid, and so forth (these are Dondaine's terms)—is not from an indifferent anonymous author but from Thomas himself. The hand is that of a reporter who followed the courses at Rome in 1265/66. As to the alia lectura, it is not the course from Rome but from Paris, as we can tell from someone who heard Thomas in Rome and not in Paris.38 This argument, which plausibly echoes Tolomeo's suggestion, appears conclusive, and it has already received a good critical reception.39
Leonard Boyle's work was completed several years later by Mark Johnson, who published a complete list of the ninetyfour marginal additions to that Oxford manuscript ( incipit and explicit enough samples of the diverse passages to give an idea of their content).40 Johnson, who worked in connection with Boyle, relates that Boyle is preparing a critical edition of the group of passages and that Boyle told him that Dondaine had come to 37.H.F. Dondaine, "'Alia lectura fratris Thome'? (Super I Sent.)," MS 42 (1980) 308–36.
38.L. E. Boyle, "Alia Lectura fratris Thomae," MS 45 (1983) 418–429. Thanks to an indication of the owner on the manuscript, Boyle believes he can take a further step and identify the reporter from Oxford as Jacobus Raynuccii, who became archbishop of Florence in 1286 after being conventual lecturer at Città de Castello in 1273, when the priory was founded. Then he became prior of Santa Sabina until 1286. It is entirely possible that he was one of Thomas's students there in 1265–66. On Jacobus, see E. Panella, "Jacopo di Ranuccio da Castelbuono OP testimone dell' alia lectura fratris Thome," Memorie domenicane N.S. 19 (1988) 369–85.
39.L.J. Bataillon, Bulletin, RSPT 73 (1989), p. 591: "L. Boyle . . . has made some completely convincing arguments, in my opinion, for their authenticity as Thomas's;" C. Vansteenkiste, RLT 19 (1986), no. 73, P 40, takes a more qualified view.
40.M. F. Johnson, " Alia lectura fratris thome: A List of the New Texts found in Lincoln College, Oxford, MS. Lat. 95," RTAM 57 (1990) 34–61.
agree with his position on the authenticity of these texts.41 We must wait for the publication of this work to speak from a better knowledge of the facts about the improvements that Thomas may have made to his text, but the agreement of two such eminent researchers is our best predictor of how this question will be settled.
However this turns out, it was not this return to the subject in Rome that came down to posterity, but the Paris lectura. Thomas's text was transmitted along with Lombard's. The latter unintentionally contributed to the success of his young rival and to the persistence of a kind of misunderstanding. University rules required commenting on Lombard. Thomas's commentary was used much more than the Summa, which expressed more personally evolved thought (Thomas's adversaries, such as William de la Mare, were not mistaken, as we shall see).
Even in the fifteenth century, the first great commentator on Thomas, Capreolus, the princeps thomistarum, comments on the Sentences and not on the Summa.
However, after about 1280, one of his disciples drew attention to the fact that Thomas had notably progressed on several points between the Sentences and the Summa.42 Furthermore, it is striking to discover that Lombard is hardly quoted in the Summa. We may certainly point to forty or so references, but Lombard is little referred to as an authority. Most references merely interpret him, and others ultimately reject his view.43
Two Opuscula
Two wellknown minor works are usually assigned to this period. The first is called (on the basis of printed editions that have popularized the title), De ente et essentia. But this is only one title among many others in the manuscript tradition. According to Tolomeo, Thomas wrote it "for his brothers and companions when he was still not a master."44 We interpret that remark to mean that he was not yet an active regent master, which would take us back to the years 1252–56, when he was at SaintJacques. Tolomeo also says a bit earlier that this was the same period in which he
41.Cf. M. Johnson, p. 37, n. 11.
42.Cf. R.A. Gauthier, "Les 'Articuli in quibus frater Thomas melius in Summa quam in Scriptis'," RTAM 19 (1952) 271–326; cf. BT 9 (1954–56), no. 1797, pp. 935–43.
43.Cf. G. Geenen, " Les Sentences de Pierre Lombard dans la Somme de saint Thomas," in Miscellanea Lombardiana (Novara, 1957) 295–304.
44.Tolomeo XXIII l2 (ed. Dondaine, p. 152): "Tractatus de ente et essentia, quem scripsit ad fratres et socios nondum existens magister;" cf. XXII 21, p. 150.
was commenting on the Sentences. The historians have tried to narrow the date further. RolandGosselin thought it possible to propose that it was "around the moment when Saint Thomas was commenting on Distinction XXV of the First Book." Other writers are much less certain, and H.F. Dondaine, in reporting the different opinions, remains prudently reserved.45
As to the intention of the work, we may refer to the edition and commentary of RolandGosselin. It will suffice here to note that it bears entirely on the notion of essentia and on the connections that essence has with reality and logical intentions. Thomas shows himself to be very close to Avicenna, whose system gives a central place to the idea of essence, so that "in the cultural context of the 1250s," when Avicenna was still by far the most dominant figure, "to elucidate the notion of essentia and its resources of intelligibility, was simultaneously to make oneself understood among one's students or colleagues [as a follower of Avicenna] and also to introduce them to a clearer universe, the thomist universe—then in the process of being born."46 This opusculum, whose Latin the learned in the Renaissance found uncultivated and barbarous—sometimes to the point of rewriting it—enjoyed extraordinary success. Even today there are 181 manuscripts, of which 165 are complete. And it has appeared in some forty printed editions.47
Though it did not enjoy the same success, the De principiis naturae also had a more than respectable diffusion for a youthful little work (more than eighty manuscripts and forty printed editions). Composed for a certain Brother Sylvester, who is not otherwise known to us (he too may be from the priory of SaintJacques), its date remains uncertain. Mandonnet proposed 1255.48 RolandGosselin thought it earlier than the De ente.49 The Leonine editor, H. Dondaine, thinks of a stillearlier date:
"The lucid little memento may even go back to Friar Thomas's student years, when he
45.M.D. RolandGosselin, Le "De Ente et Essentia" de S. Thomas d'Aquin, Bibliothèque thomiste 8 (Paris, 1948), p. xxvi; Leonine vol. 45, p. 320: "There is general agreement on dating the opusculum to the years 1252–1256. We do not see any objection."
46.H.F. Dondaine, Leonine vol. 43, P. 321.
47.Among the many studies dedicated to this work, we mention: Thomas D'Aquin, L'être et I'essence, Text, translation and notes by Catherine Capelle, "Bibliothèque des Textes philosophiques," 8th ed., Paris 1985; Dietrich Lorenz, I fondamenti dell'ontologia tomista, Il trattato De ente et essentia, "Philosophia 10," Bologna, 1992.
48.P. Mandonnet, "Chronologie sommaire de la vie et des écrits de saint Thomas," RSPT 9 (1920), P. 152.
49.M.D. RolandGosselin, Le De Ente, pp. xxvii–xxviii.
would be sharing with another student his reading about the Physics in the Commentator."50
As these last words allow us to understand, if Avicenna was foremost in the De ente, Averroes emerges in the other opusculum. B. Montagnes once pointed this out about the teaching on analogy.51 The Leonine editors extend this insight to the whole work. This would put us in Thomas's youth, before he had yet distanced himself from certain positions. 52 Nevertheless, the early presence of the these two Arabiclanguage thinkers—as well as the presence of Maimonides, whom we shall soon encounter—draws our attention to what Thomas received from the Arab and Jewish worlds, starting with Aristotle. Without going so far as to say that he and his master, Albert, "silently plundered" their philosophico—theological arguments, it is important to be aware of what they owe to these predecessors. 53
Besides their contents, what is even more remarkable in these two opuscula is the point on which they resemble each other: Thomas composed them at the request of his brothers to render them a service. It was a common practice at the time, it seems: Albertus Magnus and William of Moerbeke, to name only two of his brothers, gave themselves to the same kind of fraternal help. Thomas thus began a long series of twentysix works (out of ninety) that he composed "on request," whether at the request of friends (as with these works as well as the Compendium theologiae, which Thomas wrote for his socius Reginald) or upon official request (of Pope Urban IV, which led to the Catena aurea, or of John of Vercelli, the general of the Dominicans, who consulted him several times). 54 Despite heavy teaching and writing responsibilities, Thomas never neglected these demands of intellectual charity, and in this lies one of the elements of his sanctity. For anyone seeking the means he adopted, the secret is not to be found in
50.Leonine vol. 45, P. 6.
51.Cf. La doctrine de l'analogie de l'être d'après saint Thomas d' Aquin (ParisLouvain, 1963), pp. 169–80: "The literary and doctrinal sources of the De principiis naturae," which points out that the work's exposition on analogy is "almost a literal summary" of Averroes's doctrine in his Commentary on the Metaphysics.
52.[Note for English edition: We refer the reader to two translations into English: The Principles of Nature, included in the compilation An Introduction to the Philosophy of Nature by R. A. Kocourek (St. Paul: North Central, 1948); and The Pocket Aquinas, ed. R. 1. Henle and V. I. Bourke (New York: Pocket Books, 1975).]
53.This is A. de Libera's formula in Penser au Moyen Age, p. 102, who properly recalls the capital importance of this "forgotten heritage," pp. 98–142.
54.Cf. Responsio de art. 108; Responsio de art. 43; De secreto (Leonine, vol. 42); De forma absolutionis (Leonine, vol. 40).
austerities or in special devotions, exterior to his intellectual life, but in the very concrete exercise of his intellect.55
The Inaugural Lecture
By definition, the duties of a bachelor were transitional. In February 1256, Aimeric Veire, chancellor of the University,56 awarded Thomas the Licentia docendi and ordered him to prepare his inaugural lecture. We know of this decision through a bull of Alexander IV, dated 3 March 1256, in which the pope congratulates Aimeric for taking this initiative even before receiving the alreadydispatched pontifical letter that invited him to do so. 57
Such a papal letter for a simple university routine would be surprising, were it not for its allusion to the "sons of iniquity" who were disturbing the friars at the priory of SaintJacques. Indeed, the circumstances were far from peaceful for the Parisian Dominicans in the spring of 1256. Full guerrilla warfare had broken out among the secular masters against the mendicant masters. The former had even excommunicated the latter.58 Alexander IV, who had recently been elected, vigorously took the side of the mendicants in his bull Quasi lignum vitae, in which he abrogated the excommunications and demanded reintegration of the regulars.59 His intervention with the chancellor was not merely fortuitous: the pope wanted to encourage him to push Thomas to deliver his principium as soon as possible and to thank him for the good will he had shown toward the friars of SaintJacques.60
This episode also is known to us through Tocco. Without mentioning the pope's intervention, he emphasizes another important detail. Other candidates could have been chosen, but the chancellor preferred Thomas, even though he still had not reached the required age.61 In fact, he was 55.Maritain once wrote of the "sanctity of intelligence," cf. Le Docteur Angélique, in J. and R. Maritain, Oeuvres complétes, vol. IV (FribourgParis, 1983), p. 101.
56.On Aimeric, see Glorieux's note in Répertoire I, no. 149, p. 332. Aimeric conferred the license on Saint Bonaventure as well as on Thomas.
57.The earlier letter is now lost, but the letter from 3 March has survived. Cf. Chartul., no. 270, p. 507 (= Documenta no. 11, pp. 544–45).
58.Cf. Chartul., nos. 222, 224, and 230, pp. 247–49 and 252–58.
59.Cf. Chartul., nos. 247, pp. 279–85. See Chapter V below.
60.The same day, Alexander also wrote to the archbishop of Paris ordering him to excommunicate the masters and students who continued to block access to the Dominicans's courses. Cf. Chartul. no. 269, pp. 505–6.
61. Ystoria 17, p. 245–46 (Tocco 16, pp. 84–86): non seruato ordine secundum anticipotionem temporis consueto.
only thirtyone or thirtytwo, and should have been thirtyfive according to university statutes.62 Tocco elaborates on Thomas's reaction to the news: he would have preferred to avoid the responsibility, but constrained by obedience, he could not extract himself from the position. He therefore prayed (with many tears, the fourth edition adds). The following night, a certain venerable looking Dominican friar appeared to him in a dream and asked him the reason for this insistent prayer. When Thomas had explained, adding that he had no idea what subject he could address, the apparition reassured him and proposed the subject of his lecture: "From your heights you water the mountains, the earth is filled with the fruits of your works."63
According to the testimony by Peter of Montesangiovanni, a monk of Fossanova, at the canonization process, Thomas himself told this story to the prior of Fossanova in the presence and at the request of Reginald, several clays before his death.64 Peter of Caputio, another witness at the process in Naples, reported that he had learned this fact when he was in the priory of SaintJacques, during the reading that was done to the friars at times of bleeding.65 He adds that all the friars in Paris were convinced that the frater antiquus who appeared had been none other than Saint Dominic himself.66 Except for this last detail, where the hagiographical process seems to be at work, the different stories agree, and historians have every reason to believe that we have here a personal confidence that goes back to Thomas himself.67 He set to work and prepared his inaugural lecture, which was given sometime between 3 March and 17 June 1256.68
This prineipium by the new magister in actu regens is the text we know as Rigans montes de superioribus suis. The discourse is clearly inspired by Dionysius. In the world of spirits as well as of bodies, God acts through a whole series of intermediaries. Thus, wisdom is communicated first by spreading into the intelligence of the doctors—mountains are the symbol
62.Cf. Chartul., no. 20, p. 79.
63.Psalm,103;13 according to the Vulgate.
64. Naples 49, P. 331.
65.The book read during bleeding was Gérard de Frachet's Vitae fratrum IV 24, 8. Already in circulation during Thomas's lifetime, it appears to be the source of the other stories.
66. Naples 92. p. 398.
67.The story had been transmitted by three different sources, all of which lead back to Thomas himself. Cf. K. Foster, The Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas (London, 1958), p. 69, n. 33. On hagiographic developments, see the study we made in another field: D. Bouthillier and J.P. Tortell, "De la légende à l'histoire. Le traitement du miraculum chez Pierre le Vénéable et chez son biographe Raoul de Sully," Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 25 (1982) 81–99.
68.Cf. Chartul. no. 270, p. 307, and no. 280, pp. 319ff.
for them here. Then, by their ministry, wisdom bathes the intelligence of their hearers in waves of celestial light. From that starting place, Thomas develops four points: (1) The grandeur of spiritual doctrine; (2) the dignity of its doctors; (3) the conditions required in its disciples; (4) the economy of communicating doctrine. Better than anything else, this text's conclusion tells us what Thomas's spiritual state was at the time:
Surely, no one would claim to possess in himself and from his own resources the needed aptitude to fulfill such a ministry. But this aptitude can be hoped for from God: '' We cannot claim anything as our own. The power we have comes from God (2 Cor. 3:5)." But to obtain it from God, we must ask it of Him: " If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God and it will be given him, for God is a generous giver who neither grudges nor reproaches anyone (James 1:5)." Let us pray to Christ that he may wish to grant it to us.
Amen.69
We do not possess a contemporary document that tells us exactly how the installation ceremonies of a new doctor occurred. If we may project onto Saint Thomas's age what we glean from the statutes of the faculty of theology at Bologna (which reproduces the Paris statutes, but in a text from after 1326), the ceremony occurred in two sessions: during the vesperie and in the aula. As the name indicates, the vesperie took place the afternoon of the first day, and two of the four questions that the future master had proposed to all the masters or bachelors several days earlier were solemnly discussed. That first evening, he returned to conclude the discussion on the second question with his magisterial response.70
The second solemn gathering was held the following morning in the great hall of the bishop's palace, from which it took its name: aula. During the first part of the session, the new master took an oath between the hands of the chancellor, received the square flat cap, insignia of his office, from the hands of his sponsor, and then delivered his principium. After all this, the two final questions that he had proposed were discussed according to a complicated ritual in which it was expected that he would perform the determinatio magistralis on the third question.
Though he was not alone in defending his theses (his bachelor often
69.The Latin text can be found in Opuscula theologica I (Turin, 1954), PP. 435–43. A French translation is in PèguesMaquart, pp. 365–77; detailed commentaries in Weisheipl, pp.
101–3, and in Tugwell, pp. 267–71, who also provides an English translation. See also A. Lobato Casado, "Santo Tomás, Magister in Sacra Teologia. El 'Principium' de su Magisterio," Communio (Seville) 21 (1988) 49–70.
70.Cf. Chartul., no. 1188, pp. 691–95, especially note 5, P. 693. A good summary appears in Glorieux, L'enseignement, pp. 141–47, and in Weisheipl, pp. 96–101.
contributed, too), and even if he was not equally engaged in every one of the different moments of the ceremony, it is clear that the young master was nonetheless constantly involved. As Glorieux emphasizes, his position could be "rather uncomfortable right to the end." But these two sessions did not finish everything. As we have seen, the new master did not intervene in discussion of the first and fourth questions. And he could legitimately still want to say something on them or to add to those points that were defended by his bachelor. An opportunity for these additions was given to him the first day of class following his reception, in what was called the resumptio or reprise. He thus had an entire morning for as lengthy an explanation as he wished (determinatio ualde prolixa). There was neither a lecture nor a dispute in the other schools that day, in order to allow everyone to attend.
We will return to the questions that Thomas proposed for discussion at his inceptio, but we may benefit here from a suggestion by Weisheipl. There are two known texts claiming to be Thomas's inaugural lecture. One is the principium, which we have just presented. The other is in praise of Holy Scripture, which clearly corresponds to what the statutes require to begin teaching. This text, transmitted under the title " sermo secundus fratris Thome," takes for its theme Baruch 4:1: " Hic est liber mandatorum Dei," and its commendatio Scripturae is followed by an explanation of how the different books of the Bible are divided.
Following Mandonnet, everyone up till now saw in this second text Thomas's inaugural lecture as he began his teaching as biblical bachelor at Paris in 1252. Now, as we have seen, to all appearances, Thomas never filled that post at Paris. He, therefore, could not have given this discourse on that occasion. Thus Weisheipl suggests that in this second discourse we have the text of Thomas's presentation on the day of his resumptio. This text is clearly continuous with the principium analyzed above and, in fact, completes and extends it. We may thus form a more precise idea of what happened in September 1256, during Thomas's entry into regency. 71
71.Cf. Weisheipl, p. 104. The text may be found in Opuscula theologica I, Turin, 1957, PP. 435–39.
Chapter IV—
Magister in Sacra Pagina
(1256–1259)
When Thomas gave his inaugural lecture, he had not yet finished writing his commentary on the Sentences.1 But beginning in the following September he had to perform the three functions of the master in theology. These were announced at the end of the twelfth century by Peter Cantor and later confirmed in the statutes of the theology faculty: legere, disputare, praedicare.2 Thomas was completely aware of this, and an entire passage in his principium explains the qualities that the doctors in Sacred Scripture ( doctores sacrae scripturae, the title should be noted) must possess in order to carry out their triple function. They must be "elevated" (alti) by the eminence of their lives to be able to preach effectively; "enlightened" (illuminati) in order to teach in an appropriate way; and ''fortified" (muniti) to refute errors in disputation.3
1.Cf. the preceding chapter.
2 Peter Cantor, Verbum abbreviatum, cap. I, PL 205, 25: "In tribus igitur consistit exercitium sacrae scripturae, circa lectionem, disputationem et predicationem;" Chartul. II, no. 1185, p. 683. In giving their degree to the newly promoted, the chancelor "dat eis licenciam disputandi, legendi, et predicandi et omnes actus exercendi in theologica facultate qui ad magistrum pertinent." This text comes from 1350, but we may reasonably suppose that the formula was hardly different in Thomas's time. For a rather complete exposition of what the three functions covered, see Glorieux, L'enseignement, pp. 105–61.
3. Rigans montes, Marietti, no. 1213: "Doctores sacrae scripturae esse debent alti per vitae eminentiam, ut sint idonei ad efficaciter praedicandum . . . illuminati, ut idonee doceant legendo, . . . Muniti, ut errores confutent disputando . . . Et de tribus officiis, scil. praedicandi, legendi, et disputandi dicitur," etc.
Legere:
To Comment on the Bible
Legere is "to read" Holy Scripture and comment on it verse by verse. This is something that has been well known to specialists for a long time but too much ignored by the great theological public. The great systematic works have monopolized attention. But "to read" Scripture was the first task for the master in theology, and therefore also for Thomas.4 Unlike the cursory lectures, which were the only form allowed the biblical bachelor (the Super Isaiam is a good example), the teaching method assigned to the master allowed him to give a much more searching commentary, as may be seen in the Super Job or the In Ioannem.5 Though long overlooked in favor of the Sentences or the Summa, this kind of biblical teaching was nevertheless Thomas's ordinary labor. And it was in this way that he commented on a little more than half of the New Testament and several books of the Old. If we wish, therefore, to get a slightly less onesided idea of the whole theologian and his method, it is imperative to read and use in a much deeper fashion these biblical commentaries in parallel with the great systematic works.
The scholars find themselves in difficulties when they try to identify the biblical books that relate to this first period of teaching in Paris. It was generally thought that Thomas commented on Saint Matthew,6 but I. T. Eschmann showed quite a while ago not only that this could not have been prior to 1263, but also that many indications point toward the second period of teaching in Paris (1269–72).7 Following this line, Hugues Shooner brought forward some new arguments in favor of the later date,8 and we take into account a letter by H.F. Dondaine that strongly supports this later dating: the Lectura super Matthaeum "clearly supposes the discussion
4.It is still useful to look at the pioneering work on this subject by H. Denifle, "Quel livre servait de base à l'enseignement des maîtres en théologie dans l'université de Paris?" RT 2
(1894) 149–61. More recently, Chenu has offered comments in his Toward, pp. 234–63. More comprehensive are the first pages of E. Panella, "La Lex nova tra Storia ed Ermeneutica. Le occasioni dell'esegesi di s. Tommaso d'Aquino," Memorie Domenicane, n.s. 6 (1975) 11–l06, where one will also find a good example of the Thomist exegesis on the religious life, based on Matthew 10:9–10.
5.Cf. Chenu, Toward, chap. 7, PP. 234–63: "Les commentaires sur la Bible."
6.Weisheipl, pp. 371–72, echoes the position of MandonnetSynave, who proposed 1256–59.
7.I. T. Eschmann, "The Quotations of Aristotle's Politics in St. Thomas's Lectura super Matthaeum," MS 18 (1956) 232–40; cf. the same author's Catalogue, pp. 397–98.
8.Cf. the review of Esehmann's work in BT 10 (1957–59) no. 269, pp. 153–57; of. also the review of F. Stegmüller, ibid., pp. 99–112.
in 1270 on the state of perfection" and "certain passages could not have been composed before the Quodlibet (XIV) by Gerard of Abbeville and the responses by Saint Thomas."9 Beyond the allusions to France that we find in the Lectura, as well as the fact that it supposes the existence of the Catena (which is to say, after the sojourn in Orvieto), Dondaine's is a clinching argument. We will permit ourselves therefore to sum up this demonstration here.
The dispute, as is well known, centered on the question of whether parish priests and archdeacons are in the same status perfectionis as bishops (and therefore superior to the religious). It is easy to see by a simple reading that Thomas uses materials in the Lectura super Matthaeum that he also puts to work in his other writings of this epoch.10 In places, however, the formulation of the Lectura is closer to that of the De perfectione spriritualis uitae than to that of his other contemporary writings.11 We also find in the Lectura an echo of an argument that Gerard of Abbeville had drawn from a quotation by Chrysostom, according to which the bishop is in a state of perfection superior to that of any monk, be it Elias himself (etiam si des Eliam, uel quemcumque).12 This allusion is also present in Thomas's refutations and therefore places the Lectura in this general context; we can thus situate it with great probability during Thomas's second Parisian sojourn, the scholastic year 1269–70.13
We should add to this discussion on the date an important clarification concerning the content of the text. We have always known that the Lectura super Matthaeum is defectiua,14 incompleta as Nicholas Trevet classifies it.15 Whatever the exact meaning of these two words in the ancient cata9.J.P. Torrell, Collationes, p. 16–17, with the references where we deal with the date of the preaching on the decalogue, of which at least the fair copy by Peter d'Andria is contemporaneous with that of the Lectura.
10.Cf. Lectura, no. 1594–1596 (ed. Marietti), with De perfectione, chap. 20 and ff., ST IIa IIae q. 184; Quodl. III, q. 6 a. 3 [17], and especially Lectura no. 1596 and ST IIa IIae q. 184 a. 8.
11.Cf. for example the distinction between status and actus perfectionis: Lectura, end of no. 1596; De Perfectione, chap. 23, ll. 79–84.
12. Lectura, end of no. 1594; of. Gerard, Quodlibet XIV (XVIII), Leon., vol. 41, p. B 17, ll. 122–27.
13.This is also the opinion of L.J. Bataillon, whose objections have helped me to clarify my position, which was still hesitant after reading M. Arges, "New Evidence concerning the Date of Thomas Aquinas's Lectura on Matthew," MS 49 (1987) 517–23 (cf. DS 15, col. 733). The latter brings forward some new arguments that confirm the impossibility that the Lectura on Matthew was prior to 1263, but he wants to prove too much in saying that we should place it in 1263 or in the immediate neighborhood of that date.
14.Bartholomew of Capua's list: Naples 85, p. 389.
15.Cf. the study by Shooner, in the following note, pp. 134–35.
logues, it is certain that the text currently transmitted in the printed editions is not only incomplete but erroneous. A good part of Thomas's authentic commentary on the Sermon on the Mount is missing. That lacuna has been filled by the hardly scrupulous zeal of his first editor, Bartholomew of Spina (1527), who put in the place of the text missing from the manuscripts a part of the commentary by Peter de Scala, a Dominican of the late thirteenth century.
We can read the details of this operation in Shooner,16 but we must understand that the interpolated passages extend from chapter V, 11, to VI, 8, and, again, among some lines of chapter VI, 14 to VI, 19.17 Thanks to the researches undertaken by the Leonine Commission for a critical edition, however, a new witness to the Lectura super Matthaeum was discovered some forty years ago, and it contains Thomas's commentary in its entirety.18 While we wait for the Leonine Commission to give us a complete edition of the text, we are limited in our knowledge of the missing passages to the partial editions that the labors of H.V. Shooner and J.P.
Renard have produced.19
If we return now to Thomas's work as magister in sacra pagina, we can be certain that, whatever book he commented on in this period, the choice already made in the Super Isaiam in favor of the literal sense must have continued, as is witnessed by the Super Iob, whose dating is the nearest to this text:20 Saint Gregory having said everything on the mystical sense of this book, Thomas thought that all that remained for him to do was to explain it according to its literal sense.21 His biographer was astonished at this claim, which no teacher had made before him: Thomas speaks as if he had been chosen as judge by common agreement of Job and his friends, 16. Cf. H.V. Shooner, "La Lectura in Matthaeum de S. Thomas (Deux fragments inédits et la Reportatio de Pierre d'Andria)," Angelicum 33 (1956) 121–42.
17. This corresponds to nos. 444–582 (lects. 13–17) and 603–10 (lect. 19) of the Marietti manual edition.
18. This is the manuscript from Basel, Bibl. Univ. B. V. 12., described in Shooner, "La Lectura."
19. Shooner, "La Lectura," pp. 138–42, has published the passage on Matthew 5:13–16; J.P. Renard, "La Lectura super Matthaeum V:20–48 de Thomas d'Aquin," RTAM 50 (1983) 145–90, has published the passage indicated in his title.
20. According to Tolomeo XXIII 24, Leon., vol. 26, pp. 17*–20*, it was composed during the pontificate of Urban IV, while Thomas was in Orvieto, which is to say 1261–64.
21. Prol., in fine: "Intendimus . . . librum istum qui intitulatur Beati Iob secundum litteralem sensum exponere; eius enim mysteria tam subtiliter et diserte beatus papa Gregorius nobis aperuit ut his nihil ultra addendum videatur"; cf. Leon., vol. 26, pp. 25*–30*, for the nature and the method of the Super Iob.
pronouncing one by one on the rightness or wrongness of the different interlocutors.22
Tocco was mistaken. Thomas had had at least one predecessor in Roland of Cremona, the first Dominican master at Paris, who had proposed a literal interpretation of Job some thirty years earlier.23 But Tocco's praise underlines one of the characteristics of Thomas's method. This is a point on which he will never vary, as the theoretical expositions of his scriptural method bear witness.24 This priority of the literal sense signifies in the first place that it alone is suited to the necessities of the theological arguments, but also that all spiritual interpretations should be confirmed by a literal interpretation of sacred Scripture in order to avoid all risk of error.
Much has been written on the four senses of Scripture in general and on the priority of the literal sense in particular. This is not the place to go into the question very deeply, but it is necessary to know that the most recent authors do not hide their hesitations nor even their retractions on the subject. A figure as competent as Beryl Smalley confessed toward the end of her life that she had not taken seriously enough the conclusion of the prologue of Job: If Thomas limits himself to the literal sense in his interpretation of this book, that is effectively because Gregory had said everything on the spiritual sense; but when he comments on the Gospels, Thomas feels himself obliged to give the spiritual sense.25 The same author emphasizes elsewhere, and justly, the noticeable differences that we can find on this point between the theory and the practice of the medieval authors, including Saint Thomas.26 If the literal sense is more and more considered the only invalidating argument in a strictly theological discussion, that is fitting in large part, but this does not prevent recourse to the spiritual sense. The priority of the literal sense therefore does not exclude the spiritual sense, which remains de necessitate sacrae Scripturae; it only translates the growing recognition of the limits of allegorizing exegesis.27
22. Ystoria 18, p. 251 (Tocco 17, p. 88).
23. This commentary has unfortunately remained unpublished; cf. A. Dondaine, "Un commentaire scripturaire de Roland de Crémone," AFP 11 (1941) 109–37.
24. Cf. Quodl. VII q. 6 a. 1–2 [14–15]; ST Ia q. 1 a. 10; In Gal. cap. 4 lect. 7.
25. B. Smalley, The Gospels in the Schools c. 1100–c. 1280 (London and Ronceverte, 1985), pp. 265–66.
26. B. Smalley, "Use of the 'Spiritual' Senses of Scripture in Persuasion and Arguments by Scholars in the Middle Ages," RTAM 52 (1985) 44–63.
27. This has been clearly seen by J. Verger, "L'exégèse de l'Université," in Le Moyen Age et la Bible, under the direction of P. RichéG. Lobrichon (Paris, 1984), pp. 199–232, cf. p. 208–
12.
Henri de Lubac, agreeing here with C. Spicq, once thought it possible to define the relevant character of the "novelty" of Thomas's method: "Thanks to his ordinary quality of robust simplicity, justness, and precision, Saint Thomas summarizes the common teaching quite nicely."28 Beryl Smalley is clearly more positive in her appreciation—since she emphasizes that Thomas and Albert are the only two authors studied for whom she has not been able to find a principal source.29 We must recognize that we find here indeed some of Thomas's qualities, and that they are perhaps the reason for his success: the style of the Super Iob inspires Albertus Magnus, Matthew of Aquasparta, Peter Olivi, and Nicholas of Lyre, to mention only the most ancient authors.30 As Synan has noticed, Richard Simon mentions Nicholas of Lyre as the most striking exegete since Saint Jerome, but Nicholas would not have been able to play this role if Thomas had not opened a path for him.31
Thomas's exegesis is assuredly not comparable to the historical critical methods of today, but it has not ceased inspiring new studies.32
Disputare:
The De Ueritate
The second function of the master was the "dispute." This still meant to teach, but under another form, that of active pedagogy where one proceeded by objections and responses on a given theme. Without being able to discover the exact date of the disputatio's first appearance (during the course of the twelfth century), we know it had already acquired its autonomy by the beginning of the thirteenth century, and it is entirely possible 28. H. de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale. Les quatre sens de l'Ecriture, vol. 4/2, 2, Théologie 59 (Paris, 1964), pp. 285–302; cf. C. Spicq, Esquisse d'une histoire de l'exégèse latine au moyen âge, Bibliothèque thomiste 26 (Paris, 1944), p. 315.
29. Cf. The Gospels, above, note 25, pp. 257–71; cf. p. 274.
30. Cf. Leon., vol. 26, pp. 33*–44*.
31. E. A. Synan, "Aquinas and His Age," in Calgary Aquinas Studies, ed. A. Parel (Toronto, 1978), pp. 1–25, cf. p. 23.
32. We will have to quote several of them in our future book; in addition to the titles mentioned in the preceding notes, we add here what remains without doubt the single most notable work of some length: C. Spicq, "Saint Thomas d'Aquin exégète," in DTC 15, 1 (1946) 694–738, and several general titles among the most recent ones: S. H. Seidl, "Thomas von Aquin und die moderne Exegese," ZKT 93 (1971) 29–44; M. Arias Reyero, Thomas von Aquin als Exeget. Die Prinzipien seiner Schriftdeutung und seine Lehre von den Schriftsinnen (Einsiedeln, 1971); S. Lyonnet, "L'actualité de saint Thomas exégète," in Tommaso d'Aquino nel suo settimo centenario, vol. 4 (Rome, 1976), pp. 9–28; Th. Domanyi, Der Römerbrief des Thomas von Aquin. Ein Beitrag zur Untersuchung seiner Auslegungsmethoden (BernFrankfurt, 1978); W. G. B. M. Valkenberg, Did Not Our Hearts Burn? Place and Function of Holy Scripture in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Utrecht, 1990); M. M. Rossi, Teoria e metodo esegetici in S. Tommaso d'Aquino. Analisi del Super Epistolas Sancti Pauli Lectura Ad Romanos, c. I, l.6 (Rome, 1992).
to situate it within the evolution of forms of teaching. There had first been, as we have just seen, the lectio, which is to say, a commentary on a text, either from the Bible or from the Sentences. Then, because a strict commentary did not always lend itself to treatment of the problems that masters and students might pose, the quaestio appeared, which is to say, a more ample development of a precise subject that goes beyond a direct commentary (we might apply this characterization to all the questions that Thomas develops on the basis of texts from Peter Lombard, who serves as hardly more than a pretext).
The disputatio represents another stage in this "progressive detachment with regard to the text," a "natural process owing to the maturation of the medieval scientific spirit and to a greater mastery of the dialectical method."33 To summarize the nuanced definition given by its most recent analyst,
[The quaestio] is a regular form of teaching, apprenticeship, and research, presided over by the master, characterized by a dialectical method, which consists in bringing forward and examining arguments based on reason and authority which are furnished by the participants and conflict over a theoretical or practical problem. The master must arrive at a doctrinal solution by an act of determination that confirms him in his magisterial function.34
Compared to the lectio, one element has disappeared: the text. But another element has appeared: discussion. And while in the lectio the arguments began from
"authorities" in conflict, arguments in the quaestio are initiated by the participants—who nonetheless do not deprive themselves of recourse to authorities.
The dispute came in two essential forms. The first, private dispute (disputatio privata), was held within the school—the master with his students and bachelor only.35
The second type was public ( disputatio publica or ordinaria), and the masters had to hold it at regular intervals, though many 33. These are B. Bazán's expressions in what is today the most uptodate study on the subject: "Les questions disputées, principalement dans les facultés de thélogie," in B. C.
Bazán, G. Fransen, J. F. Wippel, D. Jacquart, Les questions disputées et les questions quodlibétiques dans les facultés de théologie, de droit et de médecine, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental 44–45 (Turnhout, 1985), pp. 13–149.
34. Bazán, p. 160.
35. We think we have identified one of these questions held by Hugh of SaintCher, cf. J.P. Torrell, Théorie de la prophétie et philosophie de la connaissance aux environs de 1230, Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense 40 (Leuven, 1977), pp. xv–xxi, with some indications on the concrete development of this exercise.
willingly dispensed themselves from it, for the exercise could be perilous. The difference between the first and the second form was therefore the public, since the students from other schools could attend, and sometimes masters as well. On occasion, they did not refrain from raising difficulties for the colleague engaged in the exercise.36 In one of its forms, this second genre of disputed questions could even be a solemn public occasion (the famous Quodlibets), which were held twice a year, during Lent and Advent. They interrupted the regular courses in the university. As a result of P. Mandonnet's labors, we can agree today in dating from this first period of teaching in Paris Thomas's Quodlibets VII through XI.37
Scholars long hesitated over the question of what constituted the basic unity of the disputed question. According to P. Mandonnet, each article furnished the material for dispute, while according to A. Dondaine it was the question itself.38 The two theses collide with one another over certain insurmountable difficulties as to the duration and frequency of this exercise. In order to escape the difficulty, we may think about distinguishing between the dispute itself and its conversion into writing; the latter, not being subject to the time limits of the actual discussion, could become the object of a more extensive elaboration and of a fullness of development that the oral exchange never permitted.
By means of this latter suggestion and with the addition of a point that seems to impose itself, we would incline toward the hypothesis of Bernardo Bazán; if accepted, this would put to an end the long hesitation by researchers. According to Bazán, the diverse series of disputed questions by Saint Thomas do not belong to the genre of ordinary or public disputes, but indeed to the private disputes. And they arose, therefore, from his 36. We have, perhaps, a good example from December 1255, if William of SaintAmour, the great adversary of mendicant poverty, in fact came to oppose Saint Bonaventure on this subject. Cf. S. Bonaventure, Quaestio reportata de mendicitate cum annotationibus Gulielmi de S. Amore, ed. F. Delorme, BFSMAe 8 (Quaracchi, 1934), pp. 328–56; see also
" Reportatio de la Quaestio disputata de mendicitate de Bonaventure par un étudiant favorable à l'opponens: Guillaume de SaintAmour," in M.M. Dufeil, Saint Thomas et l'histoire, Senefiance 29 (AixenProvence, 1991) (=Dufeil, Histoire), pp. 457–93, according to whom William would actually have been present during the dispute; cf. Dufeil, Polémique, pp. 176–85.
37. L. E. Boyle, "The Quodlibets of St. Thomas and Pastoral Care," The Thomist 38 (1974) 232–56; reprinted in the same author's Pastoral Care, Clerical Education and Canon Law, 1200–1400 (Variorum Reprints: London, 1981).
38. Cf. P. Mandonnet, "Chronologie des questions disputées de saint Thomas d'Aquin," RT (1918) 271, n. 1; Mandonnet's Introduction to his edition of the Quaestiones disputatae, vol. 1 (Paris, 1925), pp. 12–17; A. Dondaine, "De l'étendue de la question disputée," in the same author's, Secrétaires de saint Thomas (Rome, 1956), pp. 209–16.
regular teaching.39 It is thus possible to pronounce both Dondaine and Mandonnet correct: with the former, Bazán recognizes that the unity of the public dispute comes indeed from the question, but given that the De ueritate arises from another genre, there is no difficulty in admitting that its unity is the article. The collection of several articles into a single question derives from the plan followed by the master and appears only at the stage of final editing.
Thus we can show the development of a day's teaching at SaintJacques in the following manner. In the first hour of the day, Thomas gave his lecture; after that came the lecture of his bachelor; in the afternoon, both gathered with their students to "dispute" on a chosen theme. The three hours of this active pedagogy not being sufficient to exhaust the subject, they continued, article after article; eventually certain articles that were very short could be regrouped into a single session and, conversely, a longer or more delicate subject could be broken down into several sessions. The result (objections, responses, and magisterial determinations) was gathered together later into a final version, with a view to publication within the ultimate unity of the question. The elaboration of the De ueritate was thus extended over three scholastic years (1256–59), at the rate of some eighty articles per year, a number that corresponds rather closely to the number of days of teaching.40
This general framework seems to us to correspond to reality; but we should, however, make two indispensable additions. First, it appears probable that the final result does not resemble, except in a very general way, the real unfolding of these private disputes between the master and the students. It suffices to read the text of the De ueritate or the De potentia to understand that these texts are very much above the level of what a discussion could be for average students. The students of Paris, better formed than those later at Rome, could doubtless follow the most difficult expositions, but even with them the discussion could not have taken the exact form of long, complex, and probing research; by necessity, it was briefer and simpler. We, therefore, must admit that what has come down to us bears witness to considerable editing.
39. Cf. Bazán, especially pp. 70–85; see his review of the preceding historical literature. The author's argument bears directly on the De ueritate, but nothing prevents extending it to the De malo or the De potentia.
40. Cf. in Bazán, pp. 72–76, the dense discussion which allows him to count 79 dies legibiles in the university year, which approaches the 75 days available to the arts faculty, according to Charles Thurot.
We should add that it is important to be attentive to the fact that the disputed question is also a literary genre. Formed in the dialectic of pro and contra, the minds of that epoch naturally express themselves in this form; the most beautiful specimen in this genre is the Summa theologiae, which is entirely composed according to this scheme. But one could easily multiply examples. This amounts to saying that certain quaestiones disputatae could not really have been disputed, either in public or in private. That is perhaps the case for the question De anima, to which we will have to return. But there are doubtless other examples. By making use of Bazán's labors, we can free ourselves from a toostrict servitude to the scholastic calendar, which has given so much difficulty to researchers.41
To return to the De ueritate, the final redaction had to follow very soon after the discussion, for its existence is attested very early. Well before the deposition during the canonization process at Naples by Bartholemew of Capua,42 a catalogue of Thomas's works published prior to 1293 mentions the questions De ueritate "quas disputauit Parisius."43 But we have two other even earlier testimonies. Beginning in 1278, William de la Mare, Thomas's Franciscan adversary, author of the famous Correctorium, dedicated a section of nine articles attacking the (in his eyes) faulty theses of the De ueritate—an indisputable sign of Thomist authenticity. Thomas's friends also evidently recognized this, since they came to his defense.44 At a still earlier period, Vincent of Beauvais introduced (prior to 1264/65, the date of his death), in his second edition of the Speculum maius, important
41. Bazán must still, however, resolve difficulties; two points still remain to be explained, it seems to us. On the one hand, according to his hypothesis, Thomas would have held only private disputes and no public ones (apart from the Quodlibets); now, if we can admit that the public disputed questions were not held between the time of his admission to mastership and that of his reception into the consortium magistrorum, we still do not see why he would not have taken part in them later. We must, therefore, recognize that both by their length and by their technicality, the questions De ueritate resemble magisterial disputes more than they do private exercises (that is why we must suppose in the latter case a considerable editorial activity). On the other hand, we do not understand very well why Thomas made so great an effort in composing these private exercises when he did not do so for his lectures in sacra pagina (which were, however—at least at Paris—his primary occupation); we have to wait until later, when he would become a celebrity, for the reportatio of his courses on Scripture, which we have in more finished forms. Our schema of a day's teaching at SaintJacques seems defensible, but we would have to be much clearer than we are about university regulations that were in fact applied during that period to be able to speak with less uncertainty.
42. Naples 85, p. 388.
43. This is the list of the ms. Praha, Metr. kap. A 17/2, of which we can find a transcription in Grabmann, Die Werke, pp. 97–98; for the date see our discussion in Collationes, p. 6.
44. See some of the details on this subject in the Leon. ed., vol. 22/1, p. 6*; we will return to William de la Mare in chap. 15.
fragments from questions 11, 12, and 13 of the De ueritate under the explicit name of their author.45 The use of the book was therefore practically contemporaneous with its completion, and this permits us to emphasize both the rapidity of its diffusion and the vitality of Parisian university circles at the time.
The De ueritate presents still another interesting aspect to which, generally speaking, too little attention has been paid, but which gives it a place completely apart in the whole of Saint Thomas's writings. While for the majority of these writings, we have only copies—rare handwritten texts excepted—the De ueritate is unique in that we possess the original dictation by Saint Thomas. Father A. Dondaine of the Leonine Commission began to explain in 1956 the reasons that permitted him to advance this thesis, and he has restated his demonstration at greater depth in the critical edition of this text that he produced several years later.46 With the exception of some few opponents—whose reticence it is difficult to understand in light of the arguments being advanced47—the whole scholarly world has accepted this position, and we must emphasize the benefits that have resulted from the discovery.
A dictated original is practically the equivalent of an autograph manuscript and has, therefore, all the advantages of the latter. We see in it the author at work in the very outpouring of his thought, making efforts to find its best formulation, about which he frequently hesitates. It suffices to cast an eye over the editorial corrections (erasures of a word or paragraph, hesitations about terms, the search for the best authority, etc.—the editors have given some examples among hundreds possible) to understand that the text did not emerge in a single block from Thomas's thinking.
The matter is even more striking in that this text had already undergone testing by discussions; Thomas dictated it with the notes taken during the sessions in front of him. For our knowledge of the man and of the author, the original text is an indisputable aid. Beyond this, we also discover something of Thomas's work methods and his organization: Thomas worked from ''files," and he had an entire team of secretaries at his disposal; this is an important point to note and it is a subject to which we will return.
But it is primarily the text that must be reckoned with in the austere
45. Leon., vol. 22, p. 7*, and p. 189* for a list of these borrowings by Vincent.
46. Cf. A. Dondaine, Secrétaires de saint Thomas (Rome, 1956); Leon., vol. 22 (Rome, 1975), pp. 44*–60*.
47. Cf. (C. Vansteenkiste), RLT 11 (1978), no. 131, pp. 49–54, who otherwise recognizes the irreproachable quality of the Leonine edition.
work of the editors and, finally, by us readers. Father Dondaine was able to show that the current printed text of the De ueritate, derived from the university tradition that quickly spread through the booksellers, was highly faulty: recourse to the original for questions 2–22 permitted the correction of some 10,000 passages where Thomas's text had been more or less severely altered. Everyone will easily grasp that scientific honesty imposes on whoever wishes to understand Thomas's thought a preliminary and serious verification of the accuracy of the text that he uses.
To turn now to its contents, the De ueritate is an imposing assembly of 253 articles, grouped into 29 questions. The first question has given its name to the entire series, but the other questions are more or less distant from that subject. Since it is probable that Thomas had thought out the plan in advance, at least in its large outline, we might suggest that he proceeded in two phases, as if he had anticipated a program spread out over two years, to which a third year would later be added.48
We can see quite well that the whole is subdivided into two large parts: (1) truth and knowledge (qq. 1–20); (2) the good and the appetite for the good (qq. 21–29).
S.Th. Bonino thinks he can also discern a similarity in the internal organization of each of the two parts; we find, in effect, the same sequence; in God (among the angels), in man. For man, we can further discern a principle of organization that, prefiguring that of the Prima Secundae, treats first of structures, then of historical realizations.49
Since we cannot go very much into the content of this work here, we must at least give an idea of the subjects that are treated in it. In the first question, universally and justly known, Thomas does not deal solely with truth but with the transcendentals and their convertibility. After this "introduction," he comes to the problems that present themselves about God's knowledge: knowledge in general,50 divine ideas, the Word, providence, predestination, and the additional question of the "book of life" (qq. 2–7). For the angels, he first considers the problem of angelic knowledge, then
48. The suggestion is P. Synave's in "La révélation des vérités divines naturelles d'après saint Thomas d'Aquin," Mélanges Mandonnet I, Bibliothèque thomiste 13 (Paris, 1930), pp. 327–70, cf. p. 358. It is repeated by J. Tonneau, in his introduction to Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Trois questions disputées du De Veritate. Q. XV: Raison supérieure et raison inférieure; Q. XVI: De la syndérèse; Q. XVII: De la conscience, Texte, traduction et notes (Paris, 1991).
49. S.Th. Bonino, Quaestiones disputatae De veritate. Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Question 12: La prophétie, Présentation, traduction et notes, Licentiate thesis record (Fribourg, 1989), p. 161; also dealt with in the book cited in note 50, p. 97.
50. This question is the subject of a remarkable book by S.Th. Bonino, Thomas d'Aquin. De la vérité. Question 2 (La science en Dieu) (Fribourg/Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1995).
the problem of the communication of that knowledge (qq. 8–9). Man is the subject of a much fuller treatment: the mind (mens) in general, the master, prophecy,51
faith, superior and inferior reason, synderesis, conscience (qq. 10–17, for "structural" questions), the knowledge of the first man in the state of innocence, knowledge of souls after death, and the knowledge of Christ's soul (qq. 18–20, for the historical realizations). The subdivision De bono deals with the following points: the good and the appetite for the good in general (qq. 21–22), the will in God (q. 23), the will in man (free will), the sensibility and the passions of the soul (qq. 24–26, dealing with the "structures"), grace in general, justification of the wicked, Christ's grace (qq. 27–29: historical realizations).
This brief list still says nothing about the interest of this material, which makes of the De ueritate a remarkable work in more ways than one way. Not only does it help us to grasp the subjects that occupied Thomas and his students in this period, but even more it helps us to see in this work the genius of the young master. This confirms itself as we read on and, particularly, as we become conscious of the evolution of his theology: he has already changed his mind about certain points that he had dealt with in the Sentences, and he will change it again in later works.
To take only one example, the way in which he speaks of grace in the Summa supposes a path that has passed from the Sentences through the De ueritate.52 In the domain of Christology, the way in which he speaks of Christthehead as being in his humanity the cause of all grace, somewhat in the way in which God himself is the cause of all being, shows the progress that he has made since an early, overly strict vision of the instrumentality of that humanity.53 Thomas will sometimes say clearly that he
51. In addition to the three questions translated by J. Tonneau (cf. n. 48), and those on prophecy and knowledge in God translated by S.Th. Bonino (notes 49 and 50), see also Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Questions disputées sur la vérité, Question XI: Le MaÎtre (De magistro), et Question IV: Le Verbe (De Verbo), intro., trans., and notes by B. Jolles, Paris, 1983 and 1992. A partial translation by F.X. Putallaz of the first question can also be found in R. Imbach and M.H. Méléard, Philososophes médiévaux. Anthologie de textes philosophiques (XIIeXIVe siècles) (10/18), Paris, 1986, pp. 69–94.
52. It suffices to compare Sentences I d. 17 q. 1 a. 1 (or Sent. II d. 26 q. 1 a. 1) with De ueritate 27, 1–2, and ST Ia IIae q. 10 a. 1 (or IIa IIae q. 23 a. 2), to see how the large thesis about the created nature of charity or of grace (contra the position of Peter Lombard) is reinforced and better organized.
53. De ueritate, 29, 5: "Christus . . . principium quodammodo omnis gratiae secundum humanitatem, sicut Deus est principium omnis esse"; of. ibid., ad 3: "Christus autem operatus est nostram salutem quasi ex propria virtute." This aspect of things has been explored by J. R. Geiselmann, "Christus und die Kirche nach Thomas von Aquin," Theol. Quartalschrift 107
(1926) 198–222; 108 (1927) 233–55.
has changed his mind on certain points (for example, on the knowledge acquired by Christ); sometimes he does not think it useful to specify further. But it is important never to forget this: if he is consistent with himself in his largescale choices, Thomas shows nothing of the fixed systematician. Rather, he is a genius in motion, perpetually in the act of discovery.
It is precisely to this that another work from this time witnesses: the Super Boetium De Trinitate. This little book, we know, is distinguished by several unique features. Beyond the fact that Thomas is the only author in the thirteenth century to have commented on this text, it is principally distinguished as one of the rare works that have come down to us in Thomas's own handwriting, and it is a windfall for the editor of the text, who has drawn from it some things that we will speak about below. Furthermore, it is unfinished, but that is less rare among Thomas's works (we have thirteen that were never finished). Finally it is in this theological work that Thomas produced his most developed arguments on the epistemology of the sciences.54
Why did Thomas write this opusculum? The question is asked about all his commentaries, whether on Dionysius or Aristotle, and the scholars do not find any absolutely certain answer. We borrow from P.M. Gils a series of hypotheses that may be formulated: "Some scholastic activities intra muros, while the official courses given at SaintJacques were in principle public? A literary genre that the author gives to some personal works? University teaching parallel to the Lectura and Disputatio, of which there is no trace in the regulations that have come down to us?"55 If we must choose, the hypothesis of a personal reflection conducted with pen in hand and according to the system of the spontaneous quaestio in the style of one familiar with dialectic as Thomas was, appears to us the most satisfying explanation. It was for him a means of preparing, in a more
54. For a presentation of the whole of the Super Boetium, we refer to the introduction by P. Gils, Leon., vol. 50, p. 5–9; but see also Chenu, Toward, pp. 237–39; Weisheipl, pp. 134–
38; Tugwell, pp. 250–51; A. Maurer, St. Thomas Aquinas. The Division and Methods of the Sciences, 4th rev. ed. (Toronto, 1986). There are also several recent studies on this opusculum: L. Elders, Faith and Science. An Introduction to St. Thoma's Expositio in Boethii De Trinitate (Rome, 1974); F. Ruello, "La doctrine de l'illumination dans le traité Super librum Boethii de Trinitate de Thomas d'Aquin," RSR 64 (1976) 341–57; J. I. Saranyana, "Sobre el In Boethii de Trinitate de Tomás de Aquino," MM 19 (1988) 71–81; R.
McInerny, Boethius and Aquinas (Washington, 1990) [cf. review by S.Th. Bonino, RT 91 (1991), pp. 322–24]; D. C. Hall, The Trinity: An Analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas's Expositio of the De Trinitate of Boethius, Studien und Texte z. Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters (Leiden, 1992).
55. Leon., vol. 50, p. 6.
or less preliminary fashion, his own writing; for us it is a first indication of that perpetually awake spirit we will come upon frequently in what follows.
Reexamining the dating, Gils concluded that we must place this work "somewhere in the middle of the way between the period of the De ueritate and the beginning of the Contra Gentiles, whether in the years 1257–1258 or the beginning of 1259, as Father Mandonnet more or less divined." The relationship of this proposal to the first books of the Contra Gentiles is not the only thing that makes the date plausible. The conflict between the seculars and religious also entered at this time into a period of provisional peacefulness. Without losing any time, Thomas therefore launched into some of his most demanding intellectual labors.
Except for the fact that it deals with a work by the same author, nothing obliges us to place here the reference to the other commentary by Thomas on Boethius.
Historians habitually mention these two works one after another because of their common subject.56 In the preface to the Leonine edition, Father Bataillon thinks instead—given the internal data that reveal differences—that the Expositio libri Boetii De ebdomadibus is probably later than the Super Boetium De Trinitate. But without external data that would permit us to situate it better (through dated sources, for example), Bataillon declares himself unable to propose a precise date.57
Even if Thomas has furnished a Prologue with theological allure (explanation of a biblical verse), Boethius's subject in this opusculum is essentially metaphysical, and the commentator deals with it as such. To state it in its proper terms: "Given that all beings are good, we must determine the mode of that goodness, which is to say, how beings are good. Now, a predicate can be attributed to a subject in two ways, either substantially or by participation. The question therefore is to know if beings are good in their essence or by participation."58 This reflection explains why the philosophers often begin their study of participation in Thomas with this work.59
56. Cf. WN, p. 103; 22; Weisheipl, p. 158; 414; Grabmann, Werke, pp. 358–60.
57. Leon., vol. 50 (1992), pp. 263–64.
58. Chap. 3, beginning.
59. Cf. L.B. Geiger, La participation dans la philosophie de S. Thomas d'Aquin, Bibliothèque thomiste 23 (Paris, 1942, 1953); C. Fabro, La nozione metafisica di partecipazione secondo S. Tommaso d'Aquino (Torino, 3d ed. 1963); for a rapid general presentation, see G. Casey, "An Explication of the De Hebdomadibus of Boethius in the Light of St. Thomas's Commentary," The Thomist 51 (1987) 419–34.
Without getting ourselves further embroiled in this material, we call the reader's attention to the quite beautiful Prologue on the advantages of a life dedicated to the pursuit of wisdom:
Zeal [ studium] for wisdom has this privilege that, in pursuing its end, it suffices to itself. . . . In this the contemplation of wisdom is comparable to a game, for two reasons. First, because a game is enjoyable and the contemplation of wisdom carries with it the highest delight. . . . Then, because a game is not ordered to something else but to itself, and it finds in itself its own end; we also find this in the enjoyment of wisdom. . . . But contrary to what occurs in the case of our ordinary enjoyments, about which we anticipate that the least hindrance will bother our joy, sometimes greatly disturb it, . . . it is in itself that the contemplation of wisdom finds the cause of its delight. It does not suffer, therefore, from any anguish such as when we need to wait for something. . . . That is why divine wisdom compares its own delight to that of a game: "I rejoiced day after day, playing in his presence" (Proverbs 8:30).
Without any doubt, we are dealing here with a sort of program, and we will find other echoes of it as we proceed in our reading of this text.
Praedicare:
Theology and Pastoral Practice
Preaching was the third and last of the master's main obligations.60 The people of the Middle Ages saw no opposition between the scientific teaching of theology and its pastoral application. On the contrary, the first was seen as the normal preparation for the second. Peter Cantor even specifies: "It is after the lectio of Scripture and after the examination of doubtful points thanks to the disputatio, and not before, that we must preach."61
The masters occupied themselves with this aspect of things and not only labored to put at the disposal of pastors such working implements as concordances and distinctions for a more leisurely and surer use of the Bible,62 but also frequently joined to their own lectio both entire sermons, and plans 60. On this subject see the general presentation by Glorieux, L'enseignement, pp. 148–61.
61. Verbum abbreviatum 1: PL 205, 25 A–B.
62. Cf. L.J. Bataillon, "Les instruments de travail des prédicateurs au Xllle siècle," in Culture et travail intellectuel dans l'Occident médiéval, ed. G. Hasenohr and J. Longère (Paris, 1981), pp. 197–209; by the same author: "lntermédiaires entre les traités de morale pratique et les sermons: les distinctiones bibliques alphabétiques," in Les genres littéraires dans les sources théologiques et philosophiques médiévales (LouvainlaNeuve, 1982), pp. 213–26; " Similitudines et exempla dans les sermons du XIIIe," in The Bible in the Medieval World.
Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley, ed. K. Walsh and D. Wood, Subsidia 4, (OxfordNew York, 1985), pp. 191–205.
or condensations of sermons that could aid their listeners in making the transition from the lectio to the praedicatio.63 In addition, they knew how to make good use of their own works when they had to preach; thus, Thomas used the patristic files that he had gathered together in the Catenaaurea.64
The practice shows that the theory provided in the statutes of the faculty was indeed well honored. Even before presenting himself for the tests needed to receive the license, the young theologian had to promise to give two collationes personally to the university, or a sermo and a collatio.65 Once he was a master, he was not dispensed from further preaching. The statutes also provided for the creation of a commission, consisting of four regent masters, charged with assigning to others the sermons they would have to give in the course of the year. It was furthermore provided that, if the designated master could not carry out this obligation himself, he had to find another master as replacement.66 The obligation was not limited to Sundays; it included the feasts when the faculty of theology was shut down; in this latter case, preaching was given at the residence of the mendicants, either the friars minor or the preachers.67 For the mendicant masters, a special clause provided that they would give a sermon in the morning coram universitate in a house of their order, and they were also supposed to carry out the collatio at Vespers; but if the morning sermon took place elsewhere, they were not held to this obligation.68
In line with these dispositions, which doubled the demands on his vocation as a member of the Order of Preachers, Thomas therefore had to preach at least several times per year at the university; these university sermons are far from ever having known the same distribution as the rest of his work—not only his theological works properly speaking, but even his
63. Cf. here L.J. Bataillon, "De la lectio à la praedicatio, Commentaires bibliques et sermons au XIIIe siècle," RSPT 70 (1986) 559–75, who gives a number of examples of these matters, which have received the names of processus, adnotatio, or even collatio; he suggests (p. 58) that we see something analogous in the collationes of the Super Isaiam.
64. Cf. L.J. Bataillon, "Les sermons de saint Thomas et la Catena aurea," in Commemoratives Studies I, pp. 67–75.
65. Cf. Chartul. II, no. 1190, p. 705, Juramenta (12).
66. Cf. Chartul. II, no. 1189, p. 703, Stat. no. 66.
67. Chartul. II, no. 1188, p. 692, Stat. no. 4; in a written communication, L.J. Bataillon has assured me that "the Parisian practice, well attested from the sermones de tempore from Bonaventure on, is that the university sermons on Sundays would normally take place at the residence of the Dominicans and those on the feast days that fell during the week at the residence of the friars minor."
68. Chartul. no. 1188, p. 692, Stat. no. 14.
preaching on the Pater, Ave Maria, Credo, or the Decalogue.69 While each one of these four series is confirmed by at least 80 testimonies and sometimes, the Credo for example, by almost 150, there is no university sermon that has come down to us in more than four manuscripts, and frequently we do not have more than one.
From what does this difference stem? It is difficult to know. We should not say that Thomas's preaching would have been considered a minor genre since the other preaching series on the great Christian prayers had a quite good diffusion. The difference comes perhaps from the fact that these four series were treated as opuscula and transmitted as such, while the sermons that were presented as separate entities did not enjoy the same esteem with posterity. This would doubtless have been different if Thomas himself had undertaken the compilation of a substantial body of these sermons, as, for example, Saint Bonaventure did.70
Through patient labor, L.J. Bataillon, the unrivaled specialist on this material, has succeeded in establishing a list of 20 authentic university sermons, of which 11 are furnished with their collatio. But he thinks Thomas preached "a good deal more frequently."71 As to the dates when these sermons were preached, it is frequently difficult to say; we can calculate them beginning with the places that are sometimes indicated: Bologna, coram universitate; Milan, coram clero et populo civitatis;
Paris, coram universirate. Paris is the probable site of at least 12 of these sermons (13 with the Ave Maria), given their positions in the collection of sermons of Parisian origin. It is therefore plausible that those not otherwise designated are similarly Parisian in origin.
Some echoes of Thomas's preaching coram universitate have come down to us; the most colorful is dated from 6 April 1259. We know of it through a letter of Alexander IV dated 26 June 1259: the pope asked the bishop of Paris, Renaud de Corbeil, to punish energetically the beadle of the Picard nation, who had allowed public injury to Friar Thomas Aquinas. The preceding Palm Sunday, this beadle, named Guillot, had taken 69. On Saint Thomas's preaching see our study: "La pratique pastorale d'un théologien du XIIIe siècle: Thomas d'Aquin prédicateur," RT 82 (1982) 213–45 (= Pratique).
70. Cf. S. Bonaventure, Sermones dominicales . . . , ed. J. G. Bougerol (Grottaferrata, 1977); the editor mentions 32 manuscripts, some that transmit the total corpus of these sermons, and some that transmit only a part.
71. L.J. Bataillon, "Les sermons attribués à saint Thomas. Questions d'authenticité," MM 19 (1988) 325–41; he recalls that the Sermones dominicales as well as the Sermones festiui included in the large collections of Thomas's Opera omnia, are apocryphal in their entirety.
it upon himself to interrupt Friar Thomas, who was in the process of preaching, in order to publicize in conspectu cleri et populi the little book by William of Saint Amour against the religious mendicants. To punish this audacity, the pope asked that the beadle be excommunicated, deprived of salary, and definitively relieved of his office.72 The pope pleaded without much success it seems, since several years later, 27 August 1266, we find the same Guillot still beadle of the Picards and still an agitator. On 7 July 1267—as beadle of the university now—he acted against the decision by the legate Simon de Brion, the future Martin IV.73 This episode might have been comic if it did not take place in the tense context that we have seen above.
The small number of university sermons is a true handicap for our knowledge of Thomas the preacher, but the condition in which they have come down to us (sometimes in the form of a skeletal summary,74 corresponding to hardly onetenth of the actual sermon), is even more regrettable. Happily, in addition to these sermons, we have the three series of preachings on the Pater, Credo, and Ave Maria as well as the Decalogue. Even if, despite Mandonnet's affirmations,75 their date is not more sure than the date of the majority of other sermons,76 they do permit us to form a rather precise idea of Thomas's style and themes.
Though not generally remarked, this part of Thomas's literary output is precious if we wish to know him better. Compared with a number of his contemporaries, Thomas distinguishes himself by his simplicity and sobriety, the absence of scholastic subtleties and technical terms.77 This commitment to sobriety not only excludes a mandarin vocabulary; it equally rejects oratorical flights. Thomas believes orators need an art that can move the feelings, but he refuses to reduce that art to the wisdom of
72. Cf. Chartul. , no. 342, pp. 390–92; cf. Documenta, no. 16, pp. 562–63; Dufeil, Polémique, pp. 104–5, points out another story of a beadle mistreated by the friars in the exercise of his functions (according to Excelsi dextera, Chartul., p. 256).
73. Cf. Chartul. , no. 409, p. 450; no. 416, p. 468.
74. This is the case for the three sermons transmitted by Bonaventure's secretary (a clarification we owe to Father Bataillon).
75. P. Mandonnet, "Le Carême de saint Thomas d'Aquin à Naples (1273)," in Miscellanea storicoartistica (Rome, 1924), p. 195–212; this position was accepted without discussion by the great mass of scholars including Weisheipl, pp. 319 and 401–3, nos. 86–89.
76. Cf. J.P. Torrell, Collationes, pp. 9–17, where we show the weakness of Mandonnet's position.
77. On this see: L.J. Bataillon, "Les crises de l'université de Paris d'après les sermons universitaires," MM 10 (1976) 155–69; "L'emploi du langage philosophique dans les sermons du treizième siècle," MM 13/2 (1981) 983–91.
this world. That is why we scarcely find in him those little stories (exempla) so valued by so many preachers. He warns us, on the contrary, against what he calls