The Plan of the Summa theologiae
such is the "necessary foundation of the entire work . . . if that is not achieved, then the entire study of the divine realities sinks fatally."59 A parallel reading of the beginning of the Summa theologiae allows us a first confirmation here: Thomas will broaden his course, but he will maintain the same structure quite well for both works. We also notice in both cases the essential role that he gives to the negative way (via remotionis) in his arguments: through the positive way, he says, we arrive solely at the existence of God. When we are dealing with his essence, this path shows itself to be inadequate: The divine substance, in effect, exceeds in its immensity all forms that could reach our intelligence, and we cannot therefore grasp it in knowing that which it is. We have, however, a certain knowledge of it in studying that which it is not [quid non est]. And we approach closer to that knowledge insofar as we are able, thanks to our intelligence, to discard more things from God Himself.60
We cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of these lines. For Thomas, there is nothing to know about God except to know that which He is not, for we distinguish Him thus from all that is not Him. Thus, from negation to negation, we shall arrive at a "proper knowledge of the divine substance when God will be understood as distinct from everything. But there will not be perfect knowledge in this, for we will not know what God is in Himself." The theological discourse in its entirety is thus prefaced in each case—in the Contra Gentiles and in the Summa, but also in the Sentences—by an apophatic declaration. It will be necessary to keep this in mind when we find it in rather a poignant way at the end of the author's life; but, in fact, it never ceased to accompany him in his journey.
The experts in the history of medieval thought have no difficulty in recognizing here what Thomas Aquinas owes to Maimonides and his Guide for the Perplexed. The sharp sense of the divine transcendence in that Jewish thinker leads him to place first in his thinking the via negationis and the negative attributes; as a result, he assures us we cannot know of God "what He is," but only "that He is"—and this furthermore on the condition that we conceive that divine existence as completely other than our own. In a beautiful book dedicated to the relations between the two
59. SCG I 9, to the end; the references in the text of the following pages refer entirely to the Contra Gentiles; the Arabic figures designate the chapter of the book in question in this section.
60. SCG I 14; cf. ST Ia q.3 Prol . . .
thinkers,61 Avital Wohlman recalled not long ago that Thomas worked on his text with Maimonides in front of him, but she has forcefully underlined that the doctrine of analogy allowed Thomas to commit himself to a path where Maimonides' equivocation keeps him from going forward. In distinguishing between the ratio significata (the perfection designated by the attribute) and the modus significandi (the way in which it is realized in God), Thomas gives himself the means for a valid discourse on God—permitting him to attain and say something real about God—but respectful of the divine mystery, since the properly divine mode, in which is realized the perfection signified, definitively escapes us.
This basic datum having been established and presented, Thomas can then enumerate all the divine perfections as if he ignored nothing of them. Having denied all change in God (15–17)—a philosophical necessity as much as a biblical revelation—and all composition (18–27), he can state that He is sovereignly perfect (28–29) but at the same time the object of analogical knowledge and of naming (30–36). The theologian can truly speak about God—without which he would only be able to keep silent. Such a discourse is not possible except on the basis of what God Himself has given us in revelation, but it is possible, and it is indeed this that distinguishes Thomas radically from Maimonides.
As to God's perfections, His goodness comes first: in itself and in its connection to creatures (37–41); not only is God good but He is the Good of all good; then follow His unity (42) and His infinity (43); His intelligence, by which in His eternal present God knows Himself and all things in their actuality—even down to the thoughts of our hearts and to the most humble of creatures (44–71); His will also, by which He wills and loves all that is, in willing Himself—even if He cannot will the impossible nor remove from things their contingent character (72–85). These last theses, as one may guess, will be the heart of his future disputes; has Thomas imprudently placed limits on the divine omnipotence? . . . He ends this first Book by specifying in what way we can speak of free will, passions, and virtues in God (88–96), but above all, he emphasizes that He is the Living One par excellence (97–99) and the very realization of perfect happiness, which is called beatitude (100–
102).
As we already know, Book II studies the "departure," or the procession of creatures from God. After several preliminary reflections (1–4), the tri61. A. Wohlman, Thomas d'Aquin et Maïmonide. Un dialogue exemplaire (Paris, 1988), see in particular pp. 105–64.
partite plan is stated in chapter 5: (1) the production of beings (6–38); (2) their distinction (39–45); (3) the nature of these created and distinct beings (46–101); the author wishes to treat of all this "inasmuch as this touches on the truth of the faith." This last note is of the highest interest, for it shows that, far from being a "Summa of philosophy" as is sometimes said, the Summa contra Gentiles is indeed a theological work.
From that point of view, the preliminary considerations with which Book II opens are of the highest importance. Thomas the theologian gives several reasons why a knowledge of creatures may provide a means of knowing God: first, we cannot perfectly know a being if we do not know its action; further, meditation on the works of God causes the building up of faith; but above all "given that creatures show a certain resemblance to God, errors about them lead to errors about divine things."
Thus, although the philosopher and the theologian have different points of view about creatures, the latter is no less interested in them than the former (1–4).
Thomas therefore proposes for us a treatise on creation. God the principle of being is also a principle of activity through his active power (6–14); He is the universal cause of existence of all beings and of all being, and His action as creator exerts itself without a preexisting subject, without movement or change or succession (15–
19). As to its modalities, this action is exclusively proper to God alone, is omnipotent, wise, free, gratuitous (20–29), and—a qualification that carries weight—
temporal in its effects (30–38). The question here is the muchdebated eternity of the world, which we find in these last chapters; but while in his celebrated opusculum De aeternitate mundi, of which we will soon speak, Thomas allows himself sometimes to be carried away by passion, here he expresses himself with gravity and measure. And he gives us one of his most beautiful explanations of the subject. Faithful to the teaching of the first chapters of Genesis, which speak of a beginning, he rejects the philosophical notion of an eternally existing world, but he raises himself with the same vigor against the Christian teachers who claim to be able to prove rationally that the world truly had a beginning. This point we cannot hold except by faith.
The several chapters of the second section add that, even if the first production of things must be attributed to God, their distinction cannot be the effect of chance, or of prime matter, or of secondary causes, good or bad. Distinction among creatures can only be the effect of the ordering wisdom of God, who willed it for the perfection of His work (39–45).
The third section inquires, therefore, into the nature of God's effects,
especially on intellectual creatures, whom God wished to place at the summit of the universe He created (46–55). The material is divided here into two large subsections: first the intellectual creatures united to a body, men (56–90); next the separated intellectual substances, the angels (91–101). Without going further into this, we can find in these pages (especially in chapters 56–58 and 68–72) Thomas's fundamental and characteristic position on Aristotelian hylomorphism: in spite of its incorruptibility and immateriality, the soul is nevertheless immediately united to the body as its substantial form.
Book III, the most voluminous, has 163 chapters. As in the earlier books, the first pages are crucial, for the author clarifies his purpose in them and connects it with what he has already done:
As in the First Book we have dealt with the perfection of the divine nature, in the Second in the perfection of its power by which it is the cause and master of all beings, it now remains in this Third Book to study the perfection of its authority and its dignity insofar as it is the end and ruler of all beings. We will therefore follow this order: (1) God as end of all beings; (2) His universal government, inasmuch as He rules over every creature; (3) His particular government over intelligent creatures. (III, 1) The general theme is therefore God's providence as He takes care of this universe that He created and governs. Put differently, it deals with the way that He guides it toward Himself (the very first statement of this plan says: de ordine creaturarum in Deum sicut in finem). To follow this plan in detail would take us too far away from the purposes of this book. We must however point out a similarity to and a difference from Thomas's execution of the same plan in the Summa theologiae: a similarity, in that the Secunda Pars also speaks of the return of man to God; a difference, in that what properly concerns divine government has already been dealt with in the Prima Pars. The result is that the section on providence is much more developed in the Summa contra Gentiles, while the part that touches on virtuous action by men in search of their true end is much more fully dealt with in the Summa theologiae.
This simple statement of what is immediately perceptible in a quick glance at the plan of the two works should be seriously refined. It may be that the fullness of treatment devoted to providence has a completely contingent cause (at that time Thomas was working on his Expositio super Job, where providence is a major theme). But we also rather sense that he is here seeking the best way to construct his exposition of the whole of the
ology. Such a powerfully synthesizing spirit as his could not be satisfied with the scattered efforts to which his commentary on the Sentences had condemned him. He therefore sought other paths. The plan of the Summa theologiae will satisfy him more, no doubt, but the reader will not conclude from this that he no longer has to return to the previous work, the Contra Gentiles. It still remains indispensable.
The different choices of plans for the two Summae, as well as their complementarity, also appear in the fourth Book, since the author placed a treatise on the Trinity there (IV 1–26), while in the Summa theologiae, he put it in the Prima Pars. This is, one recalls, because he had preferred to refer at the end of his proposal to the
"truths inaccessible to reason." But as we have said, the plan of the Contra Gentiles also announces that of the Summa theologiae: the Incarnation (27–55); the sacraments (56–78); the final end of man (79–97). These three last parts allow us to emphasize the complementarities. The Summa theologiae is more complete about the Incarnation, for it is enriched with an ample existential Christology (which is called the "life of Jesus," IIIa qq. 27–59). By contrast, since death prevented Thomas from finishing his treatise on the sacraments and on man's final end in the Summa theologiae, it is in the Summa contra Gentiles that we find his most complete exposition of these subjects, for the latter work concludes with them. We might even say that it could conclude only with them, because it is only in them that God's work is finally accomplished, "for it is when it returns to its beginning that an effect is sovereignly perfect" (II 46). It is not only to Neoplatonism that Thomas owes this, but to the Bible, and it is to the Bible that he makes his final appeal: "I see a new heaven and a new earth."62
62. Revelation 21:1; Isaiah 65:17–18, quoted at the end of SCG IV 97.
Chapter VII—
The Stay in Orvieto
(1261–1265)
Even if we admit that Thomas enjoyed several months of relative liberty for the composition of the Summa contra Gentiles, we may not conclude from this fact that he did not have other obligations. His new role as preacher general made him a member by right of the provincial chapters, and imposed on him obligations to participate in their sessions. Thanks to the acts of the chapters of the Roman province, which have been preserved and sometimes mention his name, we can reconstitute with relative certitude his series of annual movements and can sketch a chronological framework for his activities in the years he passed in Orvieto, and then in Rome.
Thus on 14 September 1261, the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, Thomas was at Orvieto in the company of priors and delegates from each priory of the province;
on 6 July 1262, for the Octave of Saints Peter and Paul, he found himself with them at Perugia; in September (?) 1263, at Rome; on 29 September 1264, feast of Saint Michael in Viterbo; on 8 September 1265, the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, at Anagni; on 5 August 1266, the Feast of Saint Dominic, at Todi; in July (?) 1276, at Lucca; 27 May 1268, Pentecost, at Viterbo.1
According to Tocco, Thomas preferred contemplation and enjoyed traveling very little; if he obeyed promptly, it was because he knew that, 1. Cf. MOPH 20, pp. 25–35; WN, pp. 117–18.
by the humility it inspires, obedience is the mother of all the virtues.2 We can easily imagine the reasons for his repugnance: in addition to his corpulence, which could scarcely have facilitated things, the time passed in these comings and goings must have seemed lost from his other activities in writing and teaching, which had an entirely different importance in his eyes. He needed first of all to finish writing the Contra Gentiles; but many other things would soon come along demanding his attention.
Conventual Lector in Orvieto
On 14 September 1261, which is to say to during the first chapter in which he participated, Thomas was named lector to the Orvieto priory (pro lectore in conventu Urbevetano).3 Let us emphasize something in passing. Contrary to what Mandonnet once wrote,4 Thomas had not been teaching in the studium established in 1244–
45 by Innocent IV, as an annex to the pontifical curia, but in the Dominican priory. The titles lector or prior, or the expression conventus romanae curiae, that are found beginning in this period among the mendicant orders, do not signify anything more than lector or prior of the priory in the city where the Roman curia resides.
After the welldocumented studies devoted to this subject,5 doubt on this matter is no longer possible and we should not continue to repeat old errors.6
The position of conventual lector had to be exercised in each Dominican priory in light of the recommendations issued by the general chapter of Valenciennes two years earlier to provide for what one would today call "permanent formation." Thomas would thus have had to devote himself to regular teaching of those who were called the fratres communes, which is to say all those who had not been able to study in the studia generalia 2. Ystoria 25, p. 282 (Tocco 25, p. 98).
3. Documenta 30, p. 582.
4. P. Mandonnet, "Thomas d'Aquin lecteur à la curie romaine. Chronologie du séjour (1259–1268)," Xenia thomistica III, pp. 9–40.
5. See on this subject the studies of R. Creytens, "Le Studium Romanae Curiae et le Maître du Sacré Palais," AFP 12 (1942) 5–83, and of R. Loenertz, "Saint Dominique écrivain, maître en théologie, professeur à Rome et Maître du Sacré Palais d'après quelques auteurs du XIVe et XVe siècle," ibid., pp. 84–97, repeated with some rearrangements by Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, pp. 153–63.
6. The studies by Creytens and Loenertz have been confirmed and completed by E. Panella, "Il 'lector romanae curiae' nelle cronache conventuali domenicane del XIII–XIV secolo,"
CIVICIMA 5 (1992) 130–39, who has established that teaching in the studium annexed to the pontifical curia conferred the distinctive title of lector sacri palatii or in sacro palatio (starting with the Avignon papacy) and that no Dominican from Saint Albert to that epoch ever occupied the post.
or even the provincialia—which was the case for nine out of ten friars—to prepare them better for the two principal missions entrusted to the Dominicans by Pope Honorius III, preaching and confession. Thanks to Leonard Boyle's work,7 we know rather well in what that teaching consisted.
In that period, the Dominican order, founded in 1217, was almost fifty years old. In order to prepare their confreres to fulfill the tasks that would be entrusted to them, several Dominicans had already written a whole series of moral manuals. The best known are the Summa de casibus by Raymond of Peñafort (the first edition goes back to 1224, but it was reedited and improved in 1234–35), the Speculum ecclesiae by Hugh of SaintCher (around 1240), the Summa uitiorum and the Summa uirtutum by William Peyraut (1236 and 1249/1250), and the Speculum maius by Vincent of Beauvais (1244 and 1259). In Orvieto, Thomas, who had as his primary task the formation of the brothers with a view to pastoral practice, would not have been unaware of these manuals. He knew very well, among others, the Summa de casibus by Raymond of Peñafort, from which he had borrowed liberally for his commentary on the distinction in the Sentences concerning marriage.8 He would also remember it later in the drafting of the Summa theologiae, for we find precise echoes of it in the Secunda Secundae.9 It is true, as Gauthier emphasizes,10
that this use is not a blind one and that Thomas knows how to keep his distance from Raymond; this approach could be a specific instance of a more general attitude, since only the books of Scripture are absolute authorities for Thomas;11 but it appears
7. "Notes on the Education of the Fratres communes in the Dominican Order in the Thirteenth Century," Xenia . . . Käppeli, pp. 249–67 (reprinted in Pastoral Care, Study 6).
8. Cf. J.M. Aubert, Le droit romain dans l'oeuvre de saint Thomas (Paris, 1955), p. 32, n. 6: "Saint Raymond is the principal canonical source for Saint Thomas on the subject of matrimony"; Aubert has counted at least fifty places where Thomas depends on Raymond in the Fourth Book of the Sentences alone; see also pp. 19–23 and the index.
9. Compare Boyle, The Setting, p. 7, who has been able to find several literary borrowings in IIa IIae q. 100 a.l ad 5; a.2 ad 6; a.6 ad 5. Thomas was present at the general chapter of Valenciennes (1259) and at the provincial chapter of Lucca (1267), which recommended Raymond's work [cf. MOPH 3 (1898), p. 99, and 20 (1941), p. 33].
10. R.A. Gauthier, Somme contre les gentils, chap. IV, quotes a passage of the Quodl. XI q. 8 a.2 ad 1 and 2, where Thomas takes a position contrary to that of the canonists (among whom we find Raymond) who maintain that one could not frequent an excommunicated person without mortal sin; he finds that this position allows too much weight to positive law, and he prefers to give greater importance to natural law (which was the position of the new school of the Hostiensis). Thomas sees in such encounters only a venial sin; compare also Contra Retrahentes XI 131, where adversaries pit Raymond's and other jurists' authority against Thomas, and XIII 183–86, where he replies that it is improper and ridiculous for theologians to take seriously the glosulas of the jurists.
11. Cf. la q. 1 a.8 ad 2.
that already by this time there has developed an attitude of hostility toward Saint Raymond's rigorism, and perhaps Thomas participated in it.12
Perhaps Thomas took advantage of this period of teaching on pastoral morals to sketch the first drafts of what he would take up again later and more fully in the Secunda Secundae. But it is rather certain that he also noticed the partial and spotty character of this casuistic formation of Dominican preachers. Not only did it not possess an intelligibility as a whole, since teachers were content to take up the different virtues or the different sins or even the different sacraments one after the other, to examine concrete problems that each of them proposed, and to do all this without worrying further about founding these things in the teachings of the Gospels. But most serious of all, the proper dogmatic formation in the great truths of the Christian faith was dangerously neglected. Thomas certainly remembered this experience at Orvieto when he began the Summa theologiae several years later.
Commentary on the Book of Job
Parallel with this teaching, Thomas also had to comment on a book of Scripture for his brothers; Tolomeo says that this was the Book of Job.13 Despite the contrary opinion of Mandonnet and several others, the editors of the Leonine edition have aligned themselves with Tolomeo's view.14 Added confirmation is provided by the fact that one of the major themes of the Expositio super Job is the mystery of providence. Thomas is very clear about this subject in his prologue: ''The entire intentio of the book is to show by probable reasons that human affairs are ruled by divine providence." Now, this is also the central subject of the Third Book of the Contra Gentiles, which was written at almost the same time. It would therefore be entirely consistent for Thomas to have chosen to comment on this book in order not to disperse his thinking too much.15
As an invitation to the reading of this book, we can say that it is among the most beautiful scriptural commentaries that Thomas has left us. But it is still good to be warned about its scholastic and theological nature. Thus we will not ask from Thomas's exegesis what we look for in modern 12. Cf. E. Panella, "I Quodlibeti di Remigio dei Girolami," Memorie Domenicane, N.S. 14 (1983) 1–149; cf. pp. 56–59.
13. Tolomeo XXII 24 (ed. Dondaine, p. 151).
14. Leonine, vol. 26, pp. 17*–20*; accepted by Weisheipl, p. 368.
15. Cf. Leonine, vol. 26, p. 5; cf. S. Ausín, "La providencia divina en el libro de Job. Estudio sobre la 'Expositio in Job' de Santo Tomás de Aquino," Scripta Theologica 8 (1976) 477–
550.
authors, nor will we seek the kind of immediate spiritual application that Gregory the Great gives to his readers. The editors of the Leonine edition have clearly explained the difference in approach:
Since Saint Gregory, commentators have seen in the book of Job an exhortation to patience during trials; God had permitted the just man to be tormented so that he would show his constancy in suffering: that is a moralizing aim. With Saint Thomas, the story of Job presents the occasion for discussion of the metaphysical problem of providence; the subject of the dispute, the suffering of a just man, establishes the limits of the debate. This, in effect, presupposes that we are already in agreement on the fact of divine government over natural things. Doubt arises on the subject of human affairs because the just are not spared from suffering; for such persons to be afflicted without cause seems to contradict the idea of providence.16
One original feature of this commentary consists in the way in which Job's propositions are explained, even the most excessive ones. "Thomas distinguishes three kinds of discourses by Job: those in which he is led by his sensibility, those in which he rationally disputes with his friends, and those, finally, in which he gives in to divine inspiration." Divine inspiration, manifesting itself not by an exterior word but in the pathways of a man's conscience; thus one can follow "the successive stages through which the just man who is afflicted passes, from the first overturning of his sensibility even to his total conversio ad Deum, without doing violence to the unity of his person."17 For it is indeed the same man from one end of the process to the other. And we thus better understand his human and religious evolution.
Like the biblical book itself, Thomas's commentary offers, therefore, a reflection on the most fundamental questions that are put to man, since the tragic reality of the suffering of the just and innocent man remains of a nature to inspire doubts about the existence of divine justice, particularly if there is no future world in which good and evil will be properly rewarded. Beyond the philosophical and theological anthropology that is found in Thomas's text,18 this book presents itself therefore, as a profound meditation on the human condition.19
16. Leonine, vol. 26, p. 28*, with reference to the Prologue of the book (ll. 58–71). See also the excellent dissertation of D. Chardonnens, Dei providentia circa hominem: Providence divine et condition humaine selon l'Expositio super lob ad litteram de Thomas d'Aquin (Fribourg, 1995).
17. Ibid., p. 29*, with a reference to chap. 39, ll. 370–79.
18. Cf. M. F. Manzanedo, "La antropologia filosofica nel commentario tomista al libro de
(footnote continued on next page)
A Theologian Much in Demand
If we glance now at the other works attributable to this period, we immediately get the impression of intense literary activity. Without being able to linger equally on all these works, we will try to say a few words about each of them and at least mention their titles. For quite often these are works of circumstance, undertakings meant to respond to a question that is more or less official, or from a friend. Such requests are a flattering echo of confidence in his competence, which arose spontaneously at the master's arrival from Paris. We may also guess, by means of these texts, something about his daily life and the human relations that Thomas maintained in this little provincial town.
De emptione et uenditione
In line with his preoccupations about pastoral theology, which we have Just seen, we should recall first the opusculum, De emptione et uenditione ad tempus, also known as "buying and selling on credit," dedicated to what Thomas called usury but we would prefer to call speculation. Dated 1262, this short letter gives Thomas's response to the question that the conventual lector of Florence, a certain James of Viterbo, had posed to him.20 No doubt these problems were posed in great number at Florence, an important merchant city. But they were also to be found in numerous other places in the industrious Italy of the thirteenth century. Beyond the interest of the response in itself, this little work has the advantage of showing us Thomas's involvement in the world of his time. All the more remarkable is the fact that, before giving his carefully thought out response, Thomas took the time to confer about it with two experts: his confrere Cardinal Hugh of SaintCher, and the chaplain to Pope Urban IV, Marin d'Eboli, elected archbishop of Capua. These
(footnote continued from previous page)
Job," Angelicum 62 (1985) 419–71; idem., "La antropologia teologica en el commentario tomista al libro de Job," ibid., 64 (1987) 301–31.
19. For a French translation: Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Job, Un homme pour notre temps, trans. J. Kreit (Paris, 1980); see also R. Coggi, "Dolore, Provvidenza, Risurrezione nel libro di Giobbe. Validità di un'intuizione esegetica di S. Tommaso," Sacra Doctrina (Bologna) 27 (1982) 215–310; D. Chardonnens, "L'espérance da la résurrection selon Thomas d'Aquin, commentateur du Libre de Job. 'Dans ma chair, je verrai Dieu' (Job 19:26)," in Ordo sapientiae et amoris, pp. 65–83.
20. Otherwise unknown, this person should not be confused with the Augustinian of the same name at the end of the century and the beginning of the fourteenth century, who was the author of De Regimine christiano; the opusculum is dated to around 1262 by H.F. Dondaine, from whom we borrow the following details, cf. Leonine, vol. 42, pp. 380–94.
two figures, who resided in the pontifical curia of Urban IV, were certainly acquaintances of his, and we see his thought maturing in the exchange with them.
Contra errores Graecorum
Composed at the request of Urban IV himself, the Contra errores Graecorum dates from the same period, 1263 or the beginning of 1264.21 Although rather badly titled, this little work is an irenic and wellintentioned examination of a collection of texts from the Greek Fathers, probably compiled by Nicolas de Durazzo, the bishop of the former Crotone beginning in 1254, which the editors of the Leonine edition have published following Thomas's text.22 This florilegium interested Thomas even though it was not critical enough, used doubtful attributions, and amplified texts with the personal glosses of the compiler, who bent the texts in the direction of Latin theology. But owing to an a priori confidence in the Greek Fathers's teaching in matters of faith, Thomas abstained from contradicting them and sought rather to detach the true doctrinal content from the sometimes doubtful assertions. Perspicaciously, he noticed that the use of the texts and the translations were defective, and that is why, in the first part, he occupies himself with explaining the equivocal texts. It is striking to notice that, though Thomas doesn't know it, it is most often the unauthentic quotations that he has to elucidate, which is to say, he corrects the personal theology of the compiler. The second part is unhappily compromised by its a priori confidence in the text; examining it more closely, on four specific questions concerning the procession a Filio, the primacy of the pope, the Eucharistic celebration with unleavened bread, and purgatory, Thomas is clearly forced to rely more on the texts that are closer to Latin theology, when in fact these are often only glosses foreign to the Fathers.
A work that arose owing to circumstance, rapidly composed, this opusculum of Thomas suffers from its almost exclusive dependence on the 21. The critical edition of this work has been done by H.F. Dondaine in the Leonine edition, vol. 40, pp. A 69–105; for the date cf. p. A 19; cf. Weisheipl, pp. 168–71; the edition of P. Glorieux, Saint Thomas d'Aquin Contra errores Graecorum (Paris, 1957), is clearly superseded by the Leonine edition, but it also contains the Libellus and various additions;
the Abbé Bandel's translation may still be used. Published by Vivès in 1856, it may be found today in the Opuscules de Saint Thomas d'Aquin (VrinReprise), vol. 2 (Paris, 1984), pp. 1–76.
22. Leonine, vol. 40, pp. A 109–51: Liber de fide Trinitatis ex diversis auctoritatibus sanctorum graeconam confectus contra grecos; cf. on this subject M. Hubert, "Note sur le vocabulaire grécolatin d'un Libellus, 'Liber de fide Trinitatis' , édité par le Père Hyacinthe Dondaine," ALMA 37 (1970) 199–224.
Libellus, which had been given to him for his examination.23 We cannot therefore look for a wideranging confrontation between the respective positions of the Greeks and Latins in this text, but we see emerge here a constant principle of Thomas's method: for discussion with a given adversary, he makes use only of authorities accepted by the adversary.24 Thus the exegetical arguments of the first five chapters of the second part are borrowed solely from the Greek Fathers.
The Prologue of this work is justly celebrated for its methodological considerations. Thomas states at the outset the principles that should inspire every good translator:
"While safeguarding the meaning of the truths that he translates, he ought to adapt his style to the genius of the language in which he is expressing it." Furthermore, Thomas also explains here at some length the rules of reverent exposition:25 far from being an arbitrary operation that would consist in twisting the "wax nose" of the authorities in various directions, it obeys—at least in Thomas—some precise norms that make it into a true hermeneutic.26
De rationibus fidei
In certain respects, the De rationibus fidei takes up the same main subject, and Thomas gives some further valuable advice about method. Addressed to a "cantor of Antioch," whom nothing enables us to identify, this little work responds to several questions put by his correspondent after his meeting with people coming from the most diverse
23. Except for some occasional quotations from the Sentences of Peter Lombard, all his documentation comes from the Libellus.
24. Quodl. IV q. 9 a. 3: "A certain type of dispute is meant to dispel all doubt about the question of the existence 'of a given truth' [ an ita sit], and therefore, in a theological discussion of this type, it is necessary to make use primarily of the authorities admitted by those with whom one is debating. If it is with Jews, we should make use of the authorities of the Old Testament; if it is the Manicheans, who reject the Old Testament, we should only use the authorities of the New Testament; if it is the schismatics, who admit the Old and New Testaments, but who reject the doctrine of our sancti (the Latin Fathers), one will discuss with them in light of the two Testaments and of those Fathers of the Church that they accept.
If the adversary does not admit any of these authorities, then we will have recourse to rational arguments alone."
25. Expositio reverentialis or exponere reverenter describes a method for interpreting texts—common in the Middle Ages in all disciplines—which, without tampering with the letter of the auctoritas, sometimes borders on emptying it of its primary sense. But it also frequently allows us to rediscover the author's intention beyond the immediacy of the letter; in addition to the studies quoted in the following note, see Chenu, Toward, pp. 122–25, and our concluding thoughts on Thomas's exegesis of Aristotle in chapter XII.
26. Cf. Yves Congar, "Valeur et portée oecuménique de quelques principes herméneutiques de saint Thomas d'Aquin," RSPT 57 (1973) 611–26; M. D. Jordan, "Theological Exegesis and Aquinas's Treatise against the Greeks,'" Church History 56 (1987) 445–56; J.P. Torrell, "Autorités théologiques et liberté du théologien. L'exemple de saint Thomas d'Aquin,'' Les Ethos de SaintMaurice, N.S. 18 (1988) 7–24.
lands bordering the Near East.27 Along with the Saracens, who ridiculed (irrisores fidei) the Christian dogmas of the Trinity, Incarnation, redemption, and Eucharist, there are Greeks and Armenians who do not believe in purgatory, and other nations (alias nationes), who share with the Saracens a conception of divine foreknowledge that does not allow any place for free will or merit.
The recipient of this text asks for rational arguments (rationes philosophicas et morales). Thomas concedes that it would be vain to argue from authority against those who do not admit those authorities (I, 55ff.), but he also puts his interlocutor on guard against the temptation to prove the faith by rationes necessariae. In a discussion with infidels, the Christian can have no other aim but to defend the faith and to show through reason that it is not false.28 In contrast, for the Greeks and the Armenians, Thomas uses the authority of sacred Scripture (chapter 9). It is remarkable that this little work frequently reminds us of the Contra Gentiles. Thomas, who had just completed his great work, refers to it explicitly three times and draws on it abundantly; these indications invite us to date this text slightly after 1265.29
Expositio super primam et secundam Decretalem
We are a little less sure of the date of the Expositio super primam et secundam Decretalem, but the fact that it is dedicated to Giffredus d'Anagni, archdeacon of Todi beginning in 1260, invites us to place it during the Orvieto period.30 The first
27. This work is edited in the Leonine edition, vol. 40, pp. B 57–73, but see also the valuable introduction by H.F. Dondaine, pp. B 5–8; taking this edition into account, one may still use the French translation by the abbé Fournet, which appeared in 1857 and is republished in Opuscules de saint Thomas d'Aquin (VrinReprise), vol. 2 (Paris, 1984), pp. 411–
53. For a good presentation of the work, see also L. Hagemann and R. Glei, Thomas yon Aquin, De rationibus fidei, Kommentierte lateinischdeutsche Textausgabe, Corpus IslamoChristianum 2 (Altenberge, 1987), which reproduces the text of the Leonine edition along with a German translation and an introduction largely drawing on L. B. Hagemann,
"Missionstheoretische Ansätze bei Thomas von Aquin in seiner Schrift De rationibus fidei," MM 19 (1988) 459–83.
28. De rationibus fidei II 17–22: "Ad hoe igitur debet tendere christiani disputatoris intentio in articulis fidei, non ut fidem probet, sed ut fidem defendat . . . ut scilicet rationabiliter ostendatur non esse falsum quod fides catholica confitetur."
29. WN, pp. 122–23, and Weisheipl, p. 394, following Grabmann, would like to place this opusculum in 1264, but the Leonine edition (vol. 40, p. B 7) contents itself with situating it in a relative fashion, "after the Contra Gentiles, which was probably already published"; at the time that would mean perhaps before 1268, but in light of the most recent labors of Father Gauthier (see our preceding chapter) one might date it two or three years earlier.
30. An edition of this has been done in the Leonine series, vol. 40, pp. E 30–44; for the recipient and the date, see pp. E 5–6; see also A. Dondaine and J. Peters, "Jacques de Tonengo et Giffredus d'Anagni auditcurs de saint Thomas," AFP 29 (1959) 52–72, cf. pp. 66–72; some (footnote continued on next page)
decretal, as we know, is simply the "profession of faith, solemn, precise, and complete," known also under the name Firmiter, promulgated by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Without concerning himself about the historical conjuncture, Thomas gives a rich doctrinal commentary on it. The second decretal, Damnamus, is a text from the same council, which recalls, refutes, and condemns the book in which Joachim of Fiore attacks the Trinitarian doctrine of Peter Lombard. The conciliar text, which is already quite elaborate, leaves only a little room for the work of a commentator, who must content himself with making a simple paraphrase.
De articulis fidei et ecclesiae sacramentis
This opusculum was composed at the request of Leonard, archbishop of Palermo from 1261 to 1270—the years, therefore, within which we can situate its composition. Scholarly agreement scarcely goes any further: Mandonnet proposes 1261–62 and Weisheipl 1261–65; G. Lafont—who points out that the opusculum has a very exact knowledge of Pelagianism, as in the Contra Gentiles III 149—proposes a 1262 (which hardly agrees with the latest clarifications of Gauthier, who proposes as date of composition the stay in Rome, i.e., between September 1265 and September 1268); then there is Mongillo, who perceives in the Prologue an allusion to Thomas's intention to write the Summa, and proposes to situate this work between 1266 and 1268; Father Hyacinthe Dondaine, being more reserved, sees in the dating of this opusculum "a hopeless enterprise."31
Whatever its exact date, the archbishop of Palermo, who might have met Thomas at the pontifical curia, asked him for a doctrinal summary of the articles of faith and the sacraments, accompanied by questions that might arise about them. Thomas remarks that this material is much too large and, in fact, encompasses all of theology;
he thus proposes a more modest development by following the articles of the Credo and the sac
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remarks on the writing itself may be found in Yves M.J. Congar, "Saint Thomas et les archidiacres," RT 57 (1957) 657–71; for an interesting attempt to sharpen the date, see also M. F. Johnson, "A Note on the Dating of St. Thomas Aquinas's Expositio super primam et secundam decretalem," RTAM 59 (1992) 155–65.
31. Introduction to the Leonine, vol. 42, p. 211, with references to the diverse authors; for the text see page 245–57; cf. G. Lafont, "Simbolo degli Apostoli e metodo teologico: Il Compendium Theologiae di San Tommaso," La Scuola Cattolica 102 (1974) 557–68, cf. p. 561; D. Mongillo, "L'opuscolo di Tommaso d'Aquino per l'arcivescovo di Palermo," O
Theologos 2 (1975) 111–25; C. Militello, "De articulis fidei et Ecclesiae sacramentis ad archiepiscopum Panormitanum," ibid., pp. 127–206 (Latin text, Italian translation, index of quotations and of errors denounced).
raments. Faithful, however, to the request of his correspondent, he divides his material into two large sections, and the brief explanation that he gives of each article is followed by the principal errors that have been made on the subject. But the unity of this work suffers from its occasional nature, and the two parts are rather juxtaposed than truly coordinated. This little text has nevertheless enjoyed a considerable diffusion, notably in Germany during the fifteenth century, and its second part
"has furnished the basis—and frequently the letter—of the section on sacraments in the decree on the Armenians of the Council of Florence."32
De divinis nominibus
We are in a similar state of uncertainty about the date of the commentary on PseudoDionysius's De divinis nominibus. WalzNovarina proposed 1261, making the text the subject of Thomas's teaching among the friars at Orvieto. But Weisheipl, more conservative on this subject, places the text at a later stage, when Thomas was in Rome.33 Although the conventual lector was not obliged to comment on Scripture, we may doubt that this text was indeed linked to teaching, especially if we recall the low intellectual level of the friars at Orvieto. In any case, Thomas had known the work for a long time since, we recall, he once recopied by hand the course that Saint Albert gave on Dionysius' text; it is not, therefore, astonishing that he had the idea of making it the subject of deeper study.
The apostolic origin that the genial forger of this text claimed for himself was, without doubt, for many people the reason for the authority that he exercised during the Middle Ages. In any case, through him a considerable dose of Neoplatonism passed into the Thomist synthesis and notably nuanced the material drawn from Aristotle.
Father Chenu long ago noticed that, if Thomas was at first deceived by certain exterior resemblances that made him believe that Dionysius was following Aristotle, Thomas knew very well what to hold onto when he commented on the Divine Names: it is not without reason that Dionysius uses an obscure style, he says, but in order to shield Christian doctrines from the mocking of the infidels. He
32. Leonine, vol. 42, p. 212; the Leonine editors have discovered about 200 manuscripts from the fifteenth century (out of a total of 275), the majority of which are of German origin.
33. WN, pp. 132–34; Weisheipl, p. 382; there still does not exist a critical edition of this commentary (although the Leonine labors on this are rather advanced), nor is there a French translation; we can still recommend the now old, but welldone work by J. Durantel, Saint Thomas et le PseudoDenis (Paris, 1919), pp. 208–34, for the commentary on the Divine Names; cf. also H.F. Dondaine, Le Corpus dionysien de l'Université de Paris au XIIIe siècle, Rome, 1953.
adds further: another difficulty is the fact that Dionysius uses Platonic ways of speaking, which are unfamiliar to the modern reader.34
Opinions are divided on the precise influence of PseudoDionysius in transmitting Platonic elements to Thomas's thought. According to certain scholars, "Dionysius was chosen among all others as the indisputable master."35 Such a view perhaps slights the Liber De causis, about which we will need to speak later and through which Thomas found himself directly linked through Proclus to the Platonic heritage. According to other scholars, "If Thomas is a Platonist, it is because Aristotle himself is more of one than we usually think," which can be illustrated from the dialectic of more and less that we find in Book XII of the Metaphysics and in the quarta via.36
Walz and Chenu complained that this strain in Thomas's thought had still not been sufficiently studied, but that is much less true today than fifty years ago.37 Toward Understanding Saint Thomas by Father Chenu, which emphasizes the Neoplatonic inspiration in the plan of the Summa, has doubtless been decisive. But we cannot ignore the transposition of the Platonic theory of ideas into the form of eternal reasons present in the divine understanding, in which everything that is participates;
Thomas received that directly from Saint Augustine, but he was not ignorant of its origin.38 For the Christian faith, that participation does not occur by em34. We can easily trace this evolution in the brief series of quotations that follow, where we see Thomas (c. 1255) say at the outset that Dionysius follows Aristotle almost everywhere and close (c. 1270) by saying that Dionysius is most of the time in agreement with the Platonists: Sentences II d. 14 q. 1 a. 2: "Dionysius autem fere ubique sequitur Aristotelem, ut pater diligenter inspicienti libros ejus"; Expositio super librum de divinis nominibus Prooemium: " . . . Dionysius in omnibus libris suis obscuro utitur stilo ( . . . ) plerumque utitur stilo et modo loquendi quo utebantur Platonici"; De malo q. 16 a. 1 ad 3 (Leonine, vol. 23, p. 283, l. 389): "Dionysius qui in plurimis fuit sectator sententie platonice."
35. This is P. Faucon's expression, Aspects néoplatoniciens de la doctrine de saint Thomas d'Aquin (LilleParis, 2975), p. 391 [on this book see the reviews by A. Reix, RPL 76 (1978) 257–59, who is very favorable, and by M. Corvez, RT 77 (1977) 287–89, who is more skeptical].
36. This is C. Giacon's thesis in "Il platonismo di Aristotele e S. Tommaso," DC 28 (1975) 153–70, summed up by R. Imbach, "Le (néo)platonisme médiéval, Proclus latin et l'Ecole dominicaine allemande," Rev. théol, phil. 110 (1978) 427–48 (cf. p. 441), in whom we find numerous indications and judgments about this matter, which is still being worked on.
37. It is not very well known, but one of the first directors of the Revue thomiste, H.A. Montagne, in a text titled "Notre programme," said as much quite explicitly: to penetrate into Thomas's teaching, is not solely to study him in himself, but "to determine what he owes to the Stagirite, and what he owes also to Plato, and to the other great thinkers of antiquity" [ RT 17 (1909) 15]; in fact, two years later, he accepted a study on this subject: C. Huit, "Les éléments platoniciens de la doctrine de saint Thomas," RT 19 (1911) 724–66.
38. Cf. ST la q. 84 a. 5: "ldeo Augustinus in libro 83 Quaest. <q. 46> posuit loco idearum quas Plato ponebat, rationes omnium creaturarum in mente divina existere, secundum quas omnia formantur, et secundum quas etiam anima humana omnia cognoscit."
anation but by free creation, yet Christianity nonetheless supposes the divine exemplarity. As has been well said, "Thomas retained from the Neoplatonic tradition the principle of exemplarity and the double participation [cf. Ia q. 84 a.4]; what he rejects are the ways of participation."39
Since Father Chenu's remark mentioned above, works on this subject have multiplied, especially in the last few years.40 Examples of the influence of the Platonic ideas have been given in the domain of noetics, ontology, Christology, and theological methodology to show that "Thomism presents itself to us as an attempt at reconciling Platonic and Aristotelian sources."41 Beyond the rather summary positions that do not wish to see anything in Thomas other than an Aristotelian, we must now recognize that he knew how to take the good where he found it; for the rest, the manner in which he uses his preferred authors does not leave them intact; the inspiration of his own synthesis profoundly transformed those borrowed elements.42
The Office of Corpus Christi
We must also situate the composition of Thomas's Office for the Blessed Sacrament during this same period at Orvieto, which was decidedly very fruitful. Once disputed by the Bollandists because of its late attribution, the Thomist authenticity of this work was not long ago still a problem for 39. J. Moreau, "Le platonisme dans la 'Somme théologique,'" in Tommaso d'Aquino nel suo settimo centenario, vol. l, pp. 258–47, cf. p. 242 (my emphasis). In the same work see the two pages (256–57) by A. yon lvanka, "S. Thomas platonisant," where he shows very well that only a platonizing reading of Aristotle prevents us from seeing that the final causality exerted by the Absolute Good as desired by everything and by every one ( Movet ut desideratum; cf. ST la q. 6 a. 1 ad 2; SCG III 19) is an authentically Platonic heritage.
40. In addition to Faucon, Aspects néoplatoniciens, we mention the nowold study by R. J. Henle, Saint Thomas and Platonism. A Study of the Plato and Platonici Texts in the Writings of Saint Thomas (La Haye, 1956), which presents an inventory of texts accompanied with an index and a commentary [see the reviews of B. Montagnes, RT 57 (1957) 587–91, and of C. Vansteenkiste, Angelicum 54 (1957) 518–28, who gives a list of complementary texts]. Closer to our time: W. N. Neidl, Thearchia. Die Frage nach dem Sinn yon Gott bei PseudoDionysius Areopagita und Thomas von Aquin (Regensburg, 1976) [cf. RLT 12 (1979) 58–62]; I. E. M. Andereggen, La metafisica de santo Tomás en la Exposición sobre el
"De Nominibus" de Dionisio Areopagit a, Diss. PUG (Rome, 1988); M. B. Ewbank, "Remarks on Being in Saint Thomas's Expositio de divinis nominibus," AHDLMA 56 (1989) 123–49;
F. O'Rourke, PseudoDionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas, Studien un Texte z. Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 22 (Leiden, 1992).
41. P. Faucon, Aspects néoplatoniciens, p. 73, who even speaks of an "ancillary function" of the Aristotelianism in service to the Platonism (cf. 76, 117, 241).
42. We must remember that Thomas was in good company in his recourse to Plato. We might refer to the recent translation by E. yon lvanka, Plato christianus. La réception critique du platonisme chez les Pères de l'Eglise (Paris, 1990) (German ed., Einsiedeln, 1964).
authors such as C. Lambot or L. M. J. Delaissé. It is true that we must wait for Tolomeo to hear mention of it,43 followed a little later by William of Tocco,44 but since the labors of Father PierreMarie Gy, attribution to Saint Thomas can no longer reasonably be placed in doubt.45
As we know, the Roman Office of Corpus Christi was preceded by an office from Liège (Animarum cibus), because it was through the impetus of Saint Julienne of MontCornillon that this feast began to be celebrated around 1240. But it also exists in two forms in the Roman office, which are identical in some places. The manuscript from which Father Gy prepared the critical edition for the Leonine Commission (Paris B.N. lat. 1143) has the distinction of coming from the library of Boniface VIII and, according to the signs that it shows, it seems to be the original booklet for the feast.
In comparing his text with those earlier edited by Dom Lambot, Gy accepts the latter's opinion that this office, designated by the name Sapientia, had a provisional form, which was used in the first celebration of the feast in 1264. It already contained certain elements from the second office, Sacerdos in aeternum. The latter, accompanied by the Mass Cibavit, is the one that was passed on to posterity (even if neither the Mass nor the office corresponds entirely to the Vulgate transmitted by contemporary breviaries and missals), and it was promulgated on 11 August 1264 by Pope Urban IV with his bull Transiturus, which instituted the feast for the universal Church.
43. It is worth quoting Tolomeo (XXII 24, ed. A. Dondaine, p. 151), for he draws attention to the beautiful unity of this office, notably in its readings from the Old Testament, which are in fact among its original features: "Officium etiam de corpore Christi fecit ex mandato Urbani, quod est secundum quod fecit ad petitionem Urbani. Hoe autem fecit complete et quantum ad lectiones et quantum ad totum officium tam diurnum quam nocturnum quam etiam ad missam et quidquid ilia die cantatur; in qua historia, si attendimus ad verba scribentis, quasi omnes figure Veteris Testamenti in hoe officio videntur contineri, luculento et proprio stylo adaptata ad Eucharistie sacramentum."
44. Ystoria 18, p. 252 (Tocco 17, p. 88).
45. P.M. Gy, "L'Office du Corpus Christi et S. Thomas d'Aquin. Etat d'une recherche," RSPT 64 (1980) 491–507 [newly presented in his La Liturgie dans l'histoire (Paris, 1990), pp.
223–45; the affirmative title—"L'office du Corpus Christi, oeuvre de Saint Thomas d'Aquin"—and the conclusion of this summary, which omits the "probably" of the first study, show clearly that the author no longer has any doubt]; cf. ''L'Office du Corpus Christi et la théologie des accidents eucharistiques," RSPT 66 (1982) 81–86; we thank Father Gy, who kindly sent us in advance the text that he has prepared for the critical edition (the first three readings from it have since been published in the reprint indicated above, pp. 144–45). We add that the argument in favor of authenticity has been further confirmed by R. Zawilla, The Biblical Sources of the Historiae Corpotis Christi Attributed to Thomas Aquinas, Diss.
(Toronto, 1985); see also the same author's "Saint Thomas d'Aquin et la théologie biblique de l'eucharstie du XIe au XIIIe siècle," an unpublished communication to the Journée thomiste de Saint Jacques (Paris, 24 November 1987).
In addition to the external data, into which we cannot enter here, a set of internal arguments permits Father Gy to argue for attribution to Saint Thomas as a very probable conclusion. Since the matter has seemed doubtful, it will be useful to recall the internal arguments at greater length. The first argument draws on the omission in Sacerdos of Matt. 28:20: "Behold I am with you even until the end of time." Thomas's contemporaries saw in this a promise of Christ's presence in the Eucharist, and the bull Transiturus itself makes that point. Thomas, on the contrary, never uses this text in that sense; there are, thus, strong reasons why its absence from the office may stem from a deliberate choice.
We also notice in this office the absence of the idea of praesentia corporalis. Whereas that idea was much in evidence in the first office of Liège for Corpus Christi (Animarum cibus), in contemporaries like Bonaventure and Peter of Tarentaise, and in the bull Transiturus, it is carefully avoided in the reading for matins (the Legenda " Immensa divinae largitatis beneficia" was written, however, after the bull), which makes no allusion to it by way of gloss and speaks rather of the
"ineffable mode of the divine presence in the visible sacrament." That expression well suits Thomas's usage. In the earlier phase of his thought, Thomas preferred to avoid speaking about a "corporal" presence of Christ in the sacrament, for it appeared to him linked with a ''localization," while the presence in loco pertained only to the accidents. It is only in the Tertia Pars, several years later, that he will accept speaking of corporal presence, but, as we will see later, in an entirely different sense.46
The second reading for matins furnishes an even clearer argument if we recall the contemporary theological debate: "Accidentia enim sine subiecto in eodem existunt, ut fides locum habeat dum visibile invisibiliter sumitur, aliena specie occultatum, et sensus a deceptione immunes reddantur, qui de accidentibus iudicant sibi notis." The entire passage certainly appears a little bit incongruous in a liturgical celebration, but it is in fact the equivalent of a signature. The italicized words, which show to best advantage a judgment on the meaning of the Eucharistic accidents, express a position that occurs five times in the context of this Legenda. Although this is not a point of view that is exclusively Thomas's own, his rigorous Aristotelian perspective makes him probably the only one of his 46. Cf. Gy, L'office, p. 506, which refers notably to Sent. IV d. 10 a. 1 ad 4, and to Resp. de 36 art. proposition 33: "corpus Christi non est in sacramento ut in loco"; cf. IIIa q. 75 a. l, which we cite further on.
contemporaries who would think to use it in such a context, for it was he alone who gave it such great importance.47
The Adoro Te
If the Office of the Blessed Sacrament, properly speaking, no longer poses a problem of authenticity, the same cannot be said for the Adoro Te. In a study that has remained a point of reference, Dom André Wilmart has explained the particular problems the tradition of this text poses.48 Without concluding one way or another, Wilmart strongly leans toward discarding this piece from Saint Thomas's literary heritage. We also know that the error of the senses with respect to the eucharistic accidents of which the hymn speaks has been suspect for some time in the eyes of the Thomists.49 This appears in all its incongruity in the context we have just mentioned, and Father Gy has forcefully stated it: "Neither poetic emotion nor devotion would have made Thomas write: ' Visus, gustus, tactus / in te fallitur. Sed solus auditus / tute creditur.'"50
From the point of view of external criticism, the argument drawn from the relative silence of the manuscripts has not convinced all the researchers,51 for it is quite remarkable that the manuscripts do not attribute the authorship of this text to anyone other than Saint Thomas. Nevertheless, a new element has been added to the file, since we now find this hymn in full in the fourth version of Tocco.52 If this fourth version is valid, as the 47. Father Gy notes that the formula " Et si sensus deficit" of the Pange lingua, which was prior to the formula in the Legenda, does not show that sense is deceived, but that it is impotent to go beyond its proper object.
48. A. Wilmart, "La tradition littéraire et textuelle de l'Adoro Te devote," in Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du moyen âge latin (Paris, 1932), pp. 361–414 [first published in RTAM 1
(1929) 21–40, 149–76]: the Adorn Te is not mentioned until rather late in the manuscript tradition; only three go back to the fourteenth century (some fifty years after Thomas's death);
the others are all from the fifteenth century.
49. Cf. E. Hugueny, "L' Adoro Te estil de saint Thomas?" AFP 4 (1934) 221–25, who reminds us of some texts that are strongly contrary: " In hoc sacramento non est aliqua deceptio neque fictio" ( Sent. IV d. 11 q. l a. l qc. 2 ad l); " In hoc sacramento nulla est deceptio" ( ST IIIa q. 75 a. 5 ad 2); furthermore, discarding the idea that there are only appearances here as in magic, Thomas emphasizes: " Veritatis sacramento nulla fictio decet'' ( De rationibus fidei 8, Leonine, vol. 40, pp. B 68–69).
50. L'Office . . . et la théologie, p. 83; for supporting proof, the author also remarks that the velatum ( Iesu quem velatum nunc aspicio), a frequent term of the theologians of the time, hardly appears in Thomas's vocabulary in this context.
51. Thus M. Grabmann, Werke, pp. 368–69, along with a series of researchers for whom authenticity is not in doubt.
52. Ystoria 58, pp. 380–81; although it would not be unthinkable, the editor does not give here any indication that would permit us to suspect that the manuscripts have been interpolated; it would be necessary to suppose that the interpolation was produced by an intermediary on whom they both depend (as, for example, two of the manuscripts in the fourteenth century quoted by Wilmart, when they allude to the same circumstances of composition as does Tocco). We can hardly see why we ought to suspect this page any more than the other retouchings of the fourth version.
editor thinks, we then have the most ancient direct testimony for the Adoro Te, and that would suffice to ruin Wilmart's argument. Wilmart further underscores quite honestly that we might go back by conjecture to a manuscript from the beginning of the fourteenth century which has a Friar Thomas pronouncing this prayer on his death bed.53 But Wilmart sees an insurmountable objection to this point in the fact that Tocco does not say anything about this ultimate prayer.54 Now, it is exactly this testimony of Tocco's that we find in his fourth version.
Continuing on the basis of external criticism, another reference to the Adoro Te has been discovered, an indirect but clear one, in Jacopone da Todi (died Christmas Eve 1306). In one of his poems that we can date between 1280 and 1294, we find the following lines, where we emphasize the most important words: "Li quattro sensi dicono / Questo si è vero pane / Solo audito resistelo / Ciascun de lor fuor remane / So' cueste visibil forme / Cristo occultato ce stane / Cusí a l'alma se dáne /
En questa misteriata."55 The solo audito of this text is an evident allusion to the solus auditus of the Latin eucharistic poem and, in order to be understood, it supposes that the other poem is already widely known.
Jacopone's poem contains another highly revealing detail, the word forme (forms). One of the most interesting results of Dom Wilmart's research has been to reestablish the original text of the first two verses of the Adoro Te, which should be read thus: "Adoro deuote, latens ueritas / Te qui sub his formis uere latitas." Now formis is also in the text of the fourth version of Tocco (in place of figuris in the current text) and it was clearly this that the term forme in Jacopone translates. Less than twenty years after Thomas's death, the text of the Adoro Te is thus attested to according to Wilmart's research, in an unexpected way, but nonetheless credibly. If we doubt that the verses were composed on Thomas's deathbed, it is no longer unreasonable at least to attribute them to him.
As to the problems of internal criticism—the doubts raised by the error of the senses—we might ask ourselves if the objection is as strong as at first we might think. It is true that, according to common doctrine in Thomas's time, sense cannot deceive itself about its proper object: "sensus . . . propriorum semper uerus est."56 But can one reasonably expect to find in a
53. Frater, and not sanctus, could go back to before 1323; but we can hardly insist on this point, for frater has continued to be used even since canonization.
54. Wilmart, pp. 404 and 389–90.
55. Cf. F. J. E. Raby, "The Date and Authorship of the Poem Adoro Te Deuote," Speculum 20 (1945) 236–38, from which we borrow this text and the other data in this paragraph.
56. Aristotle, De anima, 427b11–12; 428b18–20; Nemesius, De natura hominis, trans. Bur
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prayer—which is a poem in addition—all the rigor of a theological treatise? Even in such a treatise, we find that Thomas does not hesitate to say that the Eucharist stimulates faith to its maximum of merit, for it conducts the believer to give his commitment "not only beyond reason, but even against sense."57 With the exception of
"it seems" (ut videtur), which weakens the expression in the text of the Sentences, we are here very close to the Adoro Te.58
Another argument from internal criticism deserves at least a mention here. As has often been recalled, the sixth stanza of the Adoro Te celebrates the precious blood of Christ, of which "a sole drop would suffice to save the whole world."59 Now this is an expression that Thomas uses elsewhere twice, attributing it to Saint Bernard: una gutta sanguinis Christi fuit sufficiens pretium nostre redemptionis.60 Although it appears each time in a concessive mode (since the Passion of Christ is indeed more expressive of God's love), Thomas does not hesitate to say that because of the dignity of Christ's person a single drop of his blood would have sufficed to save the entire world. There is, therefore, a doctrinal parallel here, which, joined
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gundio (ed. VerbekeMoncho, p. 78, 3–4): " Visus enim in propriis sensibilibus non fallitur: colorem enim et formam nouit"; I owe these two references, as well as other suggestions that I have followed up in these pages, to the kindness of Father Gauthier.
57. Sent. IV d. 10 q. 1 a. 1: "et maxime meritum fidei in hoc quod creduntur multa in hoc sacramento quae non solum praeter rationem sunt, sed etiam contra sensum, ut videtur." A.
Dondaine, BT 5 (1937–1939), pp. 111–12, mentioned this text to express his doubts about Wilmart's thesis. For those familiar with this difficult aspect of Thomist psychology, i.e., knowledge through the senses, we can still submit for examination the following argument: the text of the Adoro Te does not say that all the senses are deceived, it specifies to the contrary that the auditus is not deceived; that could perhaps suffice to save the truth of sense judgments, for that pertains to the sensus communis, the place where the five senses meet one another, cf. Q. De anima a. 13; ST Ia q. 78 a.4.
58. We might also ask ourselves if " fallitur" has indeed the strong sense that we are inclined to give it; if we can believe the dictionaries (Littré, final etymological remark on faillir; F.
Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française, on faillir, or défaillir), fallor easily also takes the weakened sense of "fail," "be lacking," ''to be incapable of," and we would then have a case similar to that of the sensus deficit of the Pange lingua, of which Father Gy has reminded us of the exact meaning. It is precisely this that was retained in the Greek translation of the hymn done by André Sclenghias between 1450 and 1460, cf. J.P. Cavarnos, "Greek translations of the 'Adoro Te devote' and the 'Ave verum,'" Traditio 8 (1952) 418–
23.
59. "Me immundum munda tuo sanguine / Cujus una stilla saluum facere / Totum mundum posset ab omni scelere" ( Ystoria 58, p. 380).
60. Sent. III d. 20 a. 3 arg. 4 and ad 4; cf. Quodl. II q. 1 a. 2 [2] compare under a stronger form: minima gutta. For the attribution to Saint Bernard, Father Gauthier (in the Leonine edition of the Quodlibet, of which he has sent us an advance text) refers with caution to the Super Cantica, Sermo 22, iii 7, from which we might infer it; it also signifies that Henry of Suso, Hostiensis ( Summa aurea, c. 5, De remissionibus, Lyon, 1556, fol. 430a), whom Thomas surely read, had already used this expression and the idea.
to the other arguments based on external and internal criticism, not only prevents us from being too negative in our appreciation of the Thomistic authorship of the Adoro Te but even invites us, on the contrary, to lean toward it.61
The Eschatological Banquet
To return to the Office of the Blessed Sacrament, it seems that this was a decisive moment in Thomas's spiritual evolution.62 He centered the celebration on the mystery of Christ, God and perfect man, entirely contained in the sacrament, to such a point that he does not say: receive the body or the blood of Christ, but indeed: receive Christ (Christus sumitur, or even: Deus sumitur). The notion of presence also begins to be refined, and we intuit what will become the definitive formulation in the Summa: Christ does not become present to us (a "localizing" conception that Thomas continued to discard), it is we whom He renders present to Himself: What is entirely proper to friendship is to live with one's friends [ convivere amicis] . . . , and that is why Christ has promised us his bodily presence in compensation. . . . But in the meantime he did not want to deprive us of that bodily presence during our pilgrimage, but by the truth of his body and blood he joins us to him in this sacrament [ nos sibi coniungit in hoc sacramento]. . . . Thus this sacrament is the sign of the greatest love and the comfort of our hope because of this highly intimate union with Christ.63
This evocation of hope in connection with the Eucharist does not occur by chance: full of the memory of the Passion, the celebration is entirely turned toward the eschatological achievement, since it is the pledge, the pignus, of future glory.64 According to Father Gy, who is quite convincing, 61. Since these lines were written, Professor Robert Wielockx, of the Catholic University of Louvain, has twice referred to the Adoro te (at the Journée thomiste de SaintJacques, 3
December 1994, and at the conference "Christ among the Medieval Dominicans," 7 September 1995); the comparison of the manuscript tradition and the attentive examination of internal parallels in Thomas's work leads without reservation to a conclusion of its authenticity.
62. We owe, again to Father Gy, these crucial remarks, cf. his study "La relation au Christ dans l'Eucharistie selon S. Bonaventure et S. Thomas d'Aquin," in Sacrements de Jésus
Christ, J. Doré, ed. (Paris, 1983), pp. 69–106; reproduced in the same author's La liturgie dans l'histoire, pp. 247–83; we also ought to mention the more technical study by the same author that allows us to verify the centrality of the office in Thomas's thought: "Le texte original de la Tertia Pars de la Somme Théologique de S. Thomas d'Aquin dans l'apparat critique de l'Edition Léonine: le cas de l'Eucharistie," RSPT 65 (1981) 608–16.
63. ST IIIa q. 75 a. 1.
64. Everyone recalls the wellknown anthem, a remarkable condensation of eucharistic theology: "O Sacrum convivium in quo Christus sumitur, recolitur memoria passionis eius, mens impletur gratia et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur."
this displacement of Thomas's eucharistic theology toward eschatology, of which the Office of Corpus Christi bears several signs, and of which "we will hardly find an equivalent among contemporary theologians," is entirely in line with his "theological and spiritual personality," so deeply marked by a ''straining toward the vision of God."65
It is also at this moment that we can confirm a new cognizance of the affective element in the eucharistic communion. While it is hardly emphasized in the Sentences, the words suavitas and dulcedo return in the lessons of the Sacerdos, and in the Summa Thomas will emphasize that though venial sins or distraction do not hinder a fruitful reception of the Eucharist, whoever receives communion in that state deprives himself of the sweetness of a certain spiritual repast.66 Against that background, the biographers' stories concerning Thomas's eucharistic devotion do not appear as lacking in credibility. Without going so far as to guarantee the literal truth of the stories that have been reported, this theology gives such stories a cachet of truth that is not at all surprising.67
The Catena aurea
In the midst of the intense literary output of this period, we must make a special place for the commentary on the four evangelists through a series of quotations from the Fathers of the Church.68 Known as the Catena aurea, this work was undertaken by Thomas at the request of Urban IV toward the end of 1262 or the beginning of 1263. The speed of Thomas's work has something surprising about it, since the volume on Matthew was 65. Among the indications of this straining toward the vision of God and typical of Thomas's intellectualism, we recall the conclusion, rather unexpected from the liturgical point of view, but as clear as one could wish, of the hymn Sacris solemniis: "As you visit us, we honor you / Lead us through your ways to where we are going (duc nos quo tendimus) /
in the light that you inhabit."
66. ST IIIa q. 79 a. 8: quaedam actualis refectio spiritualis dulcedinis.
67. Recall simply the confession of faith in the Eucharist that Thomas gave on his deathbed, according to Bartholomew of Capua: "I receive you, price of my soul's redemption, I receive you viaticum of my pilgrimage, for the love of whom I studied, watched, labored, preached, taught. . . . " ( Naples 80, p. 379).
68. Catena aurea in quatuor evangelia, ed. A. Guarienti, 2 vols. (TurinRome, 1953); in translation, cf. Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Exposition suivie des quatre Evangiles . . . La chaîne d'Or, trans. by Abbot E. Castan, 8 vols. (Paris, 1854–55); St. Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea. Commentary on the Four Gospels, trans. M. Pattison, J. D. Dalgairns and T. D. Ryder, 4
vols. (Oxford, 1841–45) (preface by Newman); S. Tommaso d'Aquino, Catena aurea, Italian trans, ed. by E. Logi, 2 vols. (Siena, 1954). Among the recent studies, see G. Berceville,
"L' Expositio continua sur les quatre Evangiles de Saint Thomas d'Aquin (Catena aurea): le commentaire de Marc," Memoire de D.E.A. (1988), deposited at Le Saulchoir; C. G.
Conticello, "San Tommaso ed i Padri: La Catena aurea super Ioannem," AHDLMA 65 (1990) pp. 31–92, who makes this point in a welldocumented introduction on the set of problems concerning the Catena.
offered to the pope before his death on 2 October 1264. We might suppose that Thomas had already begun to assemble some texts even before the papal request, but his work was also greatly facilitated by the fact that he could use some florilegia and that he was helped by a staff of secretaries. The secretaries did not need to be highly qualified in order to group texts according to the Gospel verses; Thomas took charge of the final ordering of the text. To all appearances, he worked simultaneously on the other three evangelists. These texts also were rapidly developed, since the work was finished in Rome between 1265 and 1268, before Thomas returned to Paris. The author dedicated the rest of his work to Cardinal Annibaldo d'Annibaldi, his former student and his provisional successor at SaintJacques, with whom he was united by bonds of friendship.69
Though the purpose of the Catena is similar to that of the Gloss that came from Laon in the preceding century,70 this compilation of patristic texts differs from the Gloss, in the sense that it is an expositio continua, verse by verse, of the totality of the four evangelists. The whole is done in such a way as to permit a continuous reading of it, as if it had come from a single author (Quasi unius doctoris uideatur esse littera). To comment on Matthew, Thomas made use above all of what he already had at hand, the Latin authors and Saint John Chrysostom. But the table of heresies that we find present in the very first lesson also cites Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria, of whom Thomas had some knowledge thanks to the Collectio Casinensis.
By contrast, in his dedicatory letter to the section on Mark, Thomas emphasizes that he also had to have translated what had not been available in Latin.71 This constitutes the great novelty of the work and we will have to return to it, but we should also note Thomas's care in introducing each quotation with the name of its author. When he does not know the author, he says simply Glossa or Grecus. This is worth remarking, because few authors before him, with the exception of the Venerable Bede and Raban Maur, took care to identify their sources.72
69. Cf. the end of the dedicatory epistle: "et antiqua dilectio, amoris affectum in offerentis munere comprehendat," ed. A. Guarienti (Turin, 1953), vol. I, p. 429.
70. Cf. B. Smalley, "Glossa ordinaria," TRE 13 (1984) 452–57.
71. We do not yet know everything that Thomas had at his disposition; beyond the Commentary of Theophylactus (for Mark, Luke, and John), he had a catena by Victor of Antioch (Mark) and another by Nicetas of Hericlea (Luke); Conticello (pp. 56ff.), who goes over the results that we have already recorded above, has been lucky enough to discover the original florilegium of the text by Saint Basil on Saint John.
72. Cf. C. Spicq, Esquisse, p. 307.
We should also emphasize that Thomas was completely clear about his methodological presuppositions. In introducing us to the way to use his work, he explains how he proceeded and declares straightforwardly that he worked on large sections to avoid prolixity and changed certain passages for purposes of continuity; he also specifies the meaning of certain texts (sensum posui) and sometimes even omits some words (verba dimisi).73 This procedure is presented with particular clarity in Chrysostom's homilies because of the translatio vitiosa, but the procedure is even clearer when it uses an apocrypha of Chrysostom, the Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum, in which Thomas carefully corrects two Arianizing passages.
However, contrary to what one might fear, the fidelity of this work to the original cannot be said to be substantially altered. To judge it according to the anonymous Opus imperfectum (the author most often cited in the Catena: 444 times), all the citations are literal, as J. Van Banning's studies have allowed us to see. Thomas abridges, but only twice does he change words—for the two Arian passages already mentioned.74 One should also see that Thomas's critical sense makes him distinguish carefully between the authentic homilies by Chrysostom, which he reads in Burgundio of Pisa's translation and designates as Homiliarium, and the Opus imperfectum, which he calls Commentarium.
If we leave the Catena aside for a moment to verify how Thomas uses patristic texts in his systematic works, we can note that he maintains his liberty of spirit even with regard to the authors most assiduously followed; thus it is that he is more strict than Chrysostom on matrimonial morals, less so in what concerns riches.75 These few indications, which it would be necessary to multiply systematically, show at least that Thomas never accepted the auctoritates Patrum without subjecting them to an attentive critique, which the term expositio reverentialis has sometimes misrepresented. On the contrary, he had "a personal knowledge, which was quite uptodate, of hermeneutical methods."76
73. Cf. Conticello,"San Tommaso ed i Padri," pp. 65 ff. for a concrete example of the application of this method; see also C. Dozois, "Sources patristiques chez saint Thomas d'Aquin," Revue de l'Université, d'Ottawa 33 (1963) 28*–48* and 145*–167*; 34 (1964) 231*–241*; 35 (1965) 75*–90*
74. J. Van Banning, Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum. Praefatio, CCSL 87 B (Turnhout, 1988), pp. cxcvi–ccvii; see also by the same author: "Saint Thomas et l' Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum," Studi Tomistici 17 (1982) 73–85.
75. Cf. Van Banning, Praefatio, pp. cci–cciii.
76. Cf. W. H. Principe, "Thomas Aquinas's Principles for Interpretation of Patristic Texts," in Studies in Medieval Culture VIII–IX (Western Michigan University, 1976), pp. 111–21, cf.
p. 116: "A quite sophisticated and skillful knowledge of hermeneutical method"; in addition to (footnote continued on next page)
Initially a simple compilation, this work in reality takes on a considerable importance: First, for the quantity and the quality of the material assembled, then because Thomas shows here an exceptional knowledge, for his time, of Greek Patristics; thus he cites fiftyseven Greek authors compared with twentytwo Latins, of whom certain ones such as Theophylactus were unknown in the West before their use in the Catena.77
The importance of the work may also be measured by the use to which Thomas himself and others after him put it. The last chapters of his commentary on Saint John are a rewriting of the Catena,78 and we easily discover the influence of this work in his preaching.79 The same holds true for his theology, and we note that the patristic documentation in the realm of Christology sextupled between the Sentences and the Summa.80
To know this is to better understand why Weisheipl, following Eschmann, could speak of the Catena as a turning point in the development of Thomas's thought. But it also had great importance for Catholic theology in general, because the Catena had a wide diffusion. Without taking into account the fragments, we count seventythree complete manuscripts for Saint Mark, eightytwo for Saint Luke, eightyeight for Saint John, eightynine for Saint Matthew, and the editions produced after the invention of printing run to high figures.81 As C. Spicq once remarked, by its very richness this repertory constitutes "a mine for the exegetes, the theologians, and the preachers." But for our knowledge of Thomas it is even more interesting that the person whom we willingly regard as the archetype of the metaphysician and speculative theologian, "[also] has a place of the first order in the history of positive and patristic theology."82
(footnote continued from previous page)
the studies of Congar, Valeur et partée, and Torrell, Autorités théologiques, quoted above note 26, cf. also C. G. Geenen, Le fonti patristiche come 'autorità' nella teologia di San Tommaso, Sacra Doctrina, no. 77 (1975), pp. 7–17; J. J. De Miguel, "Los Padres de la Iglesia en la criteriologia teologica de santo Tomas de Aquino," Scripta theologica 7
(1975) 125–61.
77. Cf. C. G. Geenen, "Saint Thomas et les Pères," in the article "Thomas d'Aquin," DTC 15/1 (1946), col 738–61.
78. Cf. here especially Conticello, "San Tommaso ed i Padri," pp. 79–86.
79. Cf. L.J. Bataillon, "Les sermons de saint Thomas et la Catena aurea," in Commemorative Studies I, pp. 67–75.
80. Cf. I. Backes, Die Christologie des hl. Thomas v. Aquin und die griechischen Kirchenväter (Paderborn, 1931), p. 122; the reemployment of the Catena in the Christology has been carefully studied by L.J. Bataillon, "Saint Thomas et les Pères: de la Catena à la Tertia Pars," in Ordo sapientiae et amoris, pp. 15–36. We can also add to this the related fact that Thomas is the first Latin theologian to quote literally the acts of the first five ecumenical councils. Cf. C. G. Geenen, "En marge du concile de Chalcédoine. Les textes du Quatrième Concile dans les oeuvres de saint Thomas," Angelicum 29 (1952) 43–59.
81. Conticello, "San Tommaso ed i Padri," pp. 42–43.
82. C. Spicq, Esquisse, p. 310.
In their own fashion, the ancient biographers themselves testified to this attitude toward sources as one of Thomas's major character traits. This is the clearest meaning of the famous anecdote in which Thomas would much prefer to have the commentary of Chrysostom on Matthew than to possess the entire city of Paris.83 The same intellectual curiosity appears when Tocco says that Thomas "was going from one priory to another, reading the works of the different Fathers, and learning by heart a great part of the commentaries, which he later transcribed."84 We can easily identify some of the places where Thomas could have consulted documents: the Abbey of Monte Cassino, which he knew contained a twelfthcentury manuscript of the Acts of the councils of Ephesus and of Chalcedon. But the florilegia of the Greek patristic authors could not have escaped him there either. Thomas without doubt could also have gone to the archives of the papal curia, even to Orvieto after 1261. In fact, the works from that period begin to testify to the new documentation. A notable fact: Thomas, along with Albert, his master, from whom he no doubt learned this habit, belonged to that rare category of authors who are not content with florilegia and frequently have direct recourse to the sources.85
The stay at Orvieto was also a period rich in human contacts for Thomas. If he was unquestionably a lover of solitude and study, we also know that he had friends among his confreres, and the proximity of the papal court led to many encounters with them. We may guess this from the simple enumeration of the works of circumstance (which we have mentioned above). The historians have given us inventories of the names of the people who entered or could have entered into relations with Thomas.86
If we cast a retrospective eye on this period of Friar Thomas Aquinas's life, we cannot help but be impressed by the speed with which he worked.
83. Ystoria 42, pp. 331–32 (Tocco 42, p. 115); cf. Naples 78, p. 376, where the dialogue reported by Bartholomew of Capua is perhaps closer to the true event; cf. Van Banning, Praefatio, pp. clxxviii–clxxx.
84. Ystoria 18, pp. 250–51 (Tocco 17, p. 87); on Saint Thomas's memory, cf. Ystoria 41, p. 329 (Tocco 41, p. 114).
85. Cf. H.F. Dondaine, "Les scolastiques citentils les Pères de première main?" RSPT 36 (1952) 231–43 (on Dionysius); "Note sur la documentation patristique de saint Thomas à Paris en 1270," RSPT 47 (1963) 403–6.
86. Cf. WN, pp. 104–7 and 128–31; A. Walz, "L'Aquinate a Orvieto," Angelicum 29 (1952) 176–90; M. Grabmann, "Die persönliche Beziehungen des hl. Thomas von Aquin,"
Historisches Jahrbuch 57 (1937) 305–22.
In five years (after leaving Paris), he composed the Summa contra Gentiles, the Commentary on the Book of Job, a good part of the Catena aurea, and an entire series of opuscula. The three great works hardly need to be praised, since a single one of them would have sufficed to occupy the time of more than one author. The briefer writings display without doubt a little bit of haste, but they have the merit of showing a theologian at work in the world of his own time, attentive to problems that are posed to him, and trying to respond as best he can. The solitude of his priory had nothing of the isolation of an ivory tower.
Chapter VIII—
The Roman Years (1265–1268):
The Beginning of the Summa
On 8 September 1265, or during the following days, the provincial chapter held at Anagni enjoined Thomas "for the remission of his sins" to take up residence at Rome and found there a studium—at Santa Sabina, to all appearances—for the formation of chosen friars from the various priories of the Roman province. Their houses of origin should provide for their support, but Thomas would have full authority over them and could return them to their priories if they did not perform satisfactorily in their studies.1
The Studium at Rome
According to Boyle, to whom we owe a perspicacious rereading of this period of Thomas's life,2 the Roman chapter's measures should be understood in the context of the declarations made by the two preceding chapters deploring the sad state of studies in the province. The matter merits even further notice in that, with rare and hardly explicit exceptions (the nomination of a Friar Philip as lector in the new priory at Pistoia in 1259; the nomination of Thomas himself at Orvieto in 1261), this is the first time
1. MOPH 20 (1941), p. 32; the stock phrase "for the remission of his sins" signifies that the responsibility imposed on the religious and accepted by him in virtue of his vow of obedience will serve for his growth in charity.
2. L. Boyle, The Setting of the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas (Toronto, 1982), pp. 9–12.
that the question of studies arises in the acts of the chapters of this province after the recommendations of the general chapter of 1259, at Valenciennes.3
We have to be careful not to conclude from this that no one was interested in the life of the mind in the province. History has preserved names, among them Ambrosio Sansedoni of Siena, a former student of Albertus Magnus in Paris and Cologne, lector and preachergeneral (1220–87); James of Benevento, lector and preacher of renown (dates unknown); Romano of Rome, bachelor of the Sentences for Thomas in 1270–72, who succeeded him as regentmaster in Paris from 1272 to 1273
and died 28 May 1273.4 These individuals would suffice to save the intellectual honor of the province; but by definition the chapters addressed themselves to the entire body of friars and were not afraid of pointing out what was missing.
The Rome chapter allows us to suspect that the friars had little ardor for study, but it contents itself with a simple warning to the priors and subpriors.5 The warning at the Viterbo chapter is much more direct and pressing: "Since we see that study is neglected in this province, we desire and we strictly order that the priors use the greatest diligence in pursuing this matter." They are therefore enjoined to compel the friars to study, to order that they review their lessons once a week and to make sure that the master of studies checks what the friars, especially the youngest ones, learned during the week. As to the lectors, they must not too easily give up offering courses, particularly without the permission of the prior.6
Now it may help to explain the above if we recall that, from 1261 on, Thomas participated in these provincial chapters as a member by right. Since he was also well placed to know what had been decided at Valen3. MOPH 20, p. 24 (Rome, 1259); Documenta 30, p. 582 (Orvieto, 1261); the only other earlier mention is an interdiction of the study of astronomy and of teaching the artes seculares (Viterbo, 1258: MOPH 20, p. 22). With regard to the absence of names, we should doubtless qualify this remark, for we have noted that the Acta only begin to give them (particularly for the priors) at a much later date, cf. E. Panella, "Priori di Santa Maria Novella di Firenze 1221–1325," Memorie Domenicane N.S. 17 (1986) 253–84, cf. p. 258.
4. See also the notices of Käppeli, Scriptores, for the various names.
5. MOPH 20, p. 28: "Item monemus priores et suppriores . . . quod faciant quod tam iuvenes quam alii fratres frequentent scolas et quod repetant lectiones, et compellant eos stare in cellis, et vacantes otio dure corrigant et . . . in studio teneant occupatos."
6. MOPH 20, p. 29: "Item quia videmus quod in ista provincia studium negligitur, volumus et districte iniungimus quod priores circa hoc diligentiam maiorem apponant et ad studium cogantur fratres, et ordinent quod in qualibet septimana lectiones semel repetant; et examinentur diligenter, maxime iuvenes, a magistro studentium de hiis que in scolis per septimanam audierint a lectore. Volumus etiam quod lectores non sint faciles ad dimittendum lectiones et maxime absque priorum suorum licentia et assensu."
ciennes, it seems plausible that he must have intervened toward that goal; the foundation of a house of studies in Rome thus appears as the culmination of his efforts and as a concrete opportunity given to him to remedy this state of affairs.
This foundation, doubtless rather modest, had nothing of a studium generale, comparable to the ones at Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Cologne, or Montpellier, the great study centers of the order in that age. It was probably not even a studium provinciale, which might occupy a place midway between a priory school and the great centers.7 It was rather, thinks Boyle, a studium personale, founded as an experiment so that Thomas could freely apply there a study program of his own choosing. In fact, we do not see any assistant or any lector alongside Thomas, and the enterprise does not seem to have survived his departure from Rome.8
The innovation that Thomas would attempt cannot be properly appreciated if we do not recall his work at Orvieto. Parallel to his commentaries on Scripture, he had the task of forming the friars in moral theology and in the pastoral work of confession, which went along with the mission of preaching that had been entrusted to the order. For this, he had at his disposal the manuals published by the first generations of Dominicans; but that predominance of practical theology in the formation of friars, as we have said, gave them only a partial and narrow view of theology; this resulted in a marked imbalance, to the detriment of dogmatic theology, which could not help but leave Thomas dissatisfied. We must therefore read what he was about to do in Rome as an attempt to put the formation of the friars on a broader basis.9
History has preserved at least two indications of Thomas's dissatisfaction. He tried immediately, as we have said, to reuse the commentary on the Sentences that he once taught at Paris for his new students. This did not appear sufficient to him, however, and he abandoned that attempt at the end of the first year (1265–66) in order to make a second effort: the composition of the Summa theologiae. Boyle seems entirely well founded in saying that, though the execution of the project did not begin until the time of his stay in Rome, its true cause may be found in Thomas's expe7. A city of clerics and pilgrims with a minimal economic life, Rome of the thirteenth century was not at all large, having only between 17,000 and 20,000 inhabitants (the most optimistic estimates reach only 30,000), cf. J. C. Russell, Medieval Regions and their Cities (Newton Abbot, 1972), pp. 51–52.
8. Despite the suppositions by Weisheipl, pp. 197 and 231–32.
9. Cf. L. Boyle, The Setting, pp. 15ff.
riences during four years teaching among the fratres communes at Orvieto. As a result of that experience, Thomas wanted to contribute to the already long and remarkable tradition of the manualists in his order, but he also wanted to fill in the most conspicuous gaps by giving moral theology the dogmatic basis it had been lacking.
The Summa theologiae
The context we have recalled here permits us better to understand the opening of the Summa and its purpose. Often quoted, these few lines are sometimes only half understood:
Since the teacher of Catholic truth should not only teach the most advanced but also instruct the beginners . . . our intention is therefore to explain what concerns the Christian religion according to the mode that is necessary for the formation of beginners.
The intellectual gifts of the students for whom a manual of such exceptional quality was intended have often been questioned. It is possible that Thomas overestimated their abilities, but he was thinking less about the intrinsic difficulty of the material being taught than about its arrangement in a body of doctrine that would offer students, not only a simple series of questions (sometimes well, sometimes ill juxtaposed), but indeed an organic synthesis that would permit them to grasp internal links and coherence:
We have observed in effect that, in the use of the writings of diverse authors, the newcomers to this material are hampered, sometimes by the multiplication of useless questions, articles, and proofs, sometimes because what they must learn is not treated according to the demand of the materials being taught [ secundum ordinem disciplinae] but according to what the explanation of books or the occasion of disputes requires. It may be that the frequent repetition of the same things engenders in the listener's spirit weariness and confusion.
Here indeed we find the concerns of a pedagogue, and we understand them much better if we know to listen for an echo of the Orvieto experience.
Did Thomas really teach the Prima Pars of the Summa and a portion of the Prima Secundae in Rome, as Boyle suggests, or did he only compose them there? It is difficult to respond to this question in a decisive way. If we remember that the first task of the magister in sacra pagina in Paris was
to comment on Scripture, we will be tempted to respond ''no." But it is not proved by irrefutable texts that the same obligation was applied elsewhere. The courses on Saint Paul could well have taken place at this moment, but, curiously, no record has been preserved of it, or of which books would have been commented on during these years. If we accept, on the contrary, that the Anagni chapter gave Thomas carte blanche, we would lean rather toward an affirmative response; it would then be necessary to recognize that Thomas was even more of an innovator than we generally think. What is certain is that he began a project that was going to occupy a good part of the rest of his life.
The dates of composition for the Summa are still debated by scholars. It seems certain that during the time he was at Rome (until September 1268), Thomas composed the Prima Pars in its entirety and that this portion was in circulation in Italy even before his return to Paris. The difficulty begins with the Prima Secundae;
it is generally admitted that this part was not begun before the return to Paris. According to Glorieux and Eschmann, whom Weisheipl follows,10 the completion of the Prima Secundae should be situated during the summer of 1270. The Secunda Secundae, begun shortly thereafter, during the long scholastic vacation, would have been finished (according to these scholars) before December 1271—perhaps even during the long vacation, some say, but this seems scarcely plausible.
Gauthier, who at first accepted this view,11 recanted and thinks now that the Prima Secundae was not written until 1271.12 He has a rather weighty argument for this view: Thomas uses in massive fashion (more than 100 times) Aristotle's Rhetoric in Moerbeke's translation. That text did not come into his hands until near the end of 1270. Gauthier also agrees with the position defended in 1928 by Dom Lottin, who had placed the Prima Secundae after Question VI of the De malo, having established that the latter dates from around the end of 1270.13
The most apparent obstacle to this last proposition stems from the fact
10. P. Glorieux, "Pour la chronologic de la Somme," MSR 2 (1945) 59–98; I. T. Eschmann, "A Catalogue," pp. 386–88; Weisheipl, p. 221–22.
11. R.A. Gauthier, "La date du Commentaire de Saint Thomas sur l'Ethique à Nicomaque," RTAM 18 (1951) 66–105.
12. Somme contre les gentils, p. 80; cf. pp. 65–67; cf. the same author's earlier view, L'Ethique à Nicomaque, I, 1, Introduction, 2d ed., 1970, pp. 128–29, note 135.
13. Cf. O. Lottin, Psychologie et Morale, vol. VI, pp. 353–72, and what we say below (chap. IX) on the date of the De malo; on this point, Lottin agrees with P. Synave, "Le problème chrono1ogique des questions disputées de saint Thomas d'Aquin," RT 31 (1926) 154–59.
that it overburdens the end of Thomas's time in Paris. It leads us to think that in eighteen months he would not only have composed the Prima Secundae and the enormous Secunda Secundae but also begun the Tertia Pars (we accept that the first 20 or 25 questions of the Tertia were written in Paris). This schedule seems hardly believable, but it is difficult to escape the constraints that impose it. We must therefore go back and try to explain how Thomas composed all that—and many other things as well—in such a short lapse of time.
The composition of the Tertia Pars was probably begun in Paris at the end of the winter of 1271–72, and continued in Naples until 6 December 1273, the date on which Thomas ceased writing. He had by then arrived at the sacrament of penance (IIIa q. 90 a.4). The sequel, known under the name of Supplement, was composed by his disciples on the basis of his commentary on the Sentences.14 Thomas would thus have carried on with this work during the last seven years of his life despite other occupations. This is without doubt the clearest sign of the importance that he attached to it.
The Summa theologiae is today still the most widely used work by Thomas and without doubt the best known, even by those who open it only occasionally.15 It is an even greater pity that the text, published at the beginning of the twentieth century among the first volumes of the Leonine edition, is not entirely satisfactory.16 The critical edition remains to be redone according to the criteria that have made the Leonine Commission's 14. Like Grabmann ( Werke, pp. 296–301) and A. Dondaine ("Sermons de Réginald," p. 378, and note 68), many people believe, with varying degrees of uncertainty, that Reginald might have been the author of the Supplement; that was already the opinion of QuétifEchard, followed by Mandonnet, but the Leonine edition is more circumspect (cf. Praef., vol.
12, pp. xvi ff., as well as the introduction by Father Suermondt for the reprint in the manual edition, Turin, 1963, pp. xi–xiii); cf. also Eschmann, "A Catalogue," p. 388.
15. Leonine, vols. 4–12; this same text has been reproduced in a pocket edition in 3 vols., in Turin (1963), but we might also mention the fivevolume edition published by the Studium Dominicain, Ottawa (1941–45), or the onevolume edition that appeared by the Editions Paulines, Rome (1962), which is perhaps preferable. It does not seem that Thomas himself gave the title to the work; we retain the most ancient and the most widely attested title, Summa Theologiae (not theologica), cf. A. Walz, "De genuino titulo Summae Theologiae,"
Angelicum 18 (1941) 142–51.
16. Cf. P.M. de Contenson, "Documents sur les origines et les premières années de la Commission Léonine," in Commemorative Studies II, pp. 331–88; L.J. Bataillon, "L'édition léonine des oeuvres de saint Thomas et les études médiévales," in Atti dell'VIII Congresso, vol. I (1981) pp. 452–64, notes that the deficiencies primarily concern the Prima Pars and the Prima Secundae, the Secunda Secundae being already much improved; cf. the same author's ''Le edizioni di Opera omnia degli scolastici e l'edizione leonina," in Gli Studi di filosofia medievale fra otto e novecento (Rome, 1991), pp. 141–54, cf. pp. 151–53.
reputation what it is today.17 It does not cease in any case to stimulate studies and translations.18
The Contents of the Summa
Before returning in greater detail to specific parts, a general presentation of the work is clearly necessary. At the outset, it would not be useless to distinguish between its plan and its content. Many commentators agree on the second point, however much their ideas may differ on the first. There cannot but be unanimity that Thomas divided his work into three large parts; the second being itself subdivided into two subparts. These initial data, even today, structure the usual presentation of the Summa in four volumes. To get a more precise idea of the contents that this material division covers, it suffices to refer to the Prologue of Question 2 of the First Part.
We present here, in a translation with gloss, what Saint Thomas condensed into a few lines with a sobriety that no one but he possessed.
Since the principal purpose of sacra doctrina is to transmit knowledge of God [which has just been explained in Q.1, itself a kind of discourse on method], we will speak first about God (Prima Pars), then about the movement of the rational creature toward God (Secunda Pars), and finally about Christ who, according to his humanity, is for us the way that leads toward God (Tertia Pars).19 This is, therefore, the entire proposal in its grand simplicity; Thomas will be more explicit at the beginning of the Secunda Pars and the Tertia Pars about the contents of each, but he is already quite clear about the purpose of the Prima Pars.
He is going to speak about God first, according to what God is in himself
17. The work has in fact already begun for the Tertia Pars, cf. M. Turrini, "Raynald de Piperno et le texte original de la Tertia Pars de la Somme de Théologie de Thomas d'Aquin,"
RSPT 73 (1989) 233–47; cf. also P.M Gy, "Le texte original de la Tertia pars de la Somme Théologique de S. Thomas d'Aquin dans l'apparat critique de l'édition léonine: le cas de l'eucharistie," RSPT 65 (1981) 608–16.
18. The most recent French translation, in four volumes (text only with brief annotations), appeared in Paris (1984–1986); it does not replace the older one, the socalled "Revue des jeunes" (from the name of the review that supported it) in 68 vols. in a popular edition that has the added advantage of giving the Latin text and full, highquality annotations. Among English translations there is the Blackfriars' edition, Summa theologiae, ed. Thomas Gilby and T. C. O'Brien, 60 vols. (London/New York, 1964–73).
19. We should perhaps read this text in its Latin original: "Quia igitur principalis intentio huius sacrae doctrinae est Dei cognitionem tradere, et non solum secundum quod in se est, sed etiam secundum quod est principium rerum et finis earum, et specialiter rationalis creaturae . . . ad huius doctrinae expositionem intendentes, primo tractabimus de Deo; secundo de motu rationalis creaturae in Deum; tertio de Christo qui secundum quod homo via est nobis tendendi in Deum" (ST Ia q. 2 Prol.).
(secundum quod in se est). These words announce the first two subdivisions of the Prima Pars: (1) those things that refer to the divine essence ( ea quae pertinent ad essentiam divinam: QQ.2–26); (2) those that belong to the distinction of persons ( ea quae pertinent ad distinctionem personarum: QQ.27–43). But since God is also the beginning and the end of all things (sed etiam secundum quod est principium rerum et finis earum), it is also necessary to speak about the way creatures proceed from God; thus he announced the conclusion of the Prima Pars (QQ.44–119). That conclusion includes three large sections: creation in general (QQ.44–
46); the distinction of creatures (QQ.47–102), with the three major subdivisions being dedicated to angels (QQ.50–64), to the work of the six days and a commentary on the biblical story of creation (QQ.65–74) and to man: first in his intellectual nature (treated with a strong Aristotelian flavor), but also as a creature made in the image of God (QQ.75–102). That part finishes with a section that explains the way God governs his creation both in himself and through the mediation of secondary causes (QQ.103–19).
In a few words, Thomas has therefore stated in stages his overall project and the relevant detail for the First Part. He will not be any less brief in the Prologue to the Secunda Pars; it is even striking to see how he guides the enormous and complex mass of his reflections, which are both very fine and detailed, into two essential categories: since we are speaking about the return of man to God, his ultimate end, the first considers that end in itself (QQ.1–5: beatitude), then the means by which man arrives at that end or, on the contrary, turns away from it.
The category of "means" is vast and extends over two volumes. In the first phase (Prima Secundae), Thomas studies, in a detailed fashion, human acts (QQ.6–89) as formally human, which is to say voluntary and free, and therefore capable of being good or bad (QQ.6–21); then the passions of the soul (QQ.22–48); after that, he deals with the internal principles that qualify human powers, which is to say, the habitus, good or bad, which are virtues and vices in their generality (QQ.49–89);
finally come the exterior principles that influence human activity: law (QQ.90–108) and grace (QQ.109–14).
In a second phase (Secunda Secundae), Thomas makes a probing return to these first data and gives an analysis of the theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity (QQ.1–46); of the cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude (QQ.47–170), specifying for each of them their proper acts and their contrary sins.
This reflection concludes with a study
of charisms and states of life, a small treatise on ecclesial diversity that ends with the contemplative life (QQ.171–89). Here we find, in a masterful recapitulation, the definition of beatitude that was placed at the beginning of the entire Secunda Pars.
The prologue to the Tertia Pars is slightly more explicit:
Our Savior, the Lord Jesus . . . showed Himself to us as the way of truth, through which it is possible for us now to come to resurrection and to beatitude in eternal life. And to bring to conclusion our entire theological enterprise, we must now, having studied the ultimate end of human life, then the virtues and vices, continue our study by way of the Savior of all things, considered in Himself, then by way of the benefits with which He has graced the human race.
Here again sections and subsections present themselves as evidence. The first section is dedicated to Jesus the Christ, the Savior who brings our salvation (QQ.1–59).
This lends itself to two large developments: (1) the mystery of the Incarnation in itself (QQ.1–26); (2) that which the Word did and suffered for us in the flesh (QQ.27–59). The second section of the Tertia Pars consists of a study of the sacraments through which we arrive at salvation: in general first (QQ.60–65), then baptism, Eucharist, penance (QQ.66–90, partly unfinished). The third was to consist of a detailed reflection on the end to which we are called, eternal life, into which we enter by being raised through Christ. (Thomas was not able to write this part.)20
The Plan of the Summa theologiae
All the commentators agree in recognizing the existence of these large parts and sections; the differences arise the moment we put the question of whether this apparently simple division does not hide another, less evident plan, whose internal movement would be much more illuminating for the understanding of Thomas's purposes.
To speak solely of contemporary Thomists, this discussion was begun in 1939 by M.D. Chenu,21 but it was only after 1950 and the appearance of his Toward Understanding Saint Thomas that studies begin to appear on this theme.22 Beyond the technical side of the question, what is at stake 20. Numerous authors have tried to give a synopsis of the contents of the Summa; we refer, for example, to J.J. Berthier, Tabulae . . . Summae Theologicae (Paris, 1903), or to Thomas Aquinas, Somme théologique (Paris, 1984), vol. 1, pp. 68–89.
21. M.D. Chenu, "Le plan de la Somme théologique de saint Thomas," RT 47 (1939) 93–107; reprinted in the same author's, Toward, pp. 297–325.
22. In addition to the works mentioned above, these are some of the other principal studies
(footnote continued on next page)
is not only the place of Christ in the plan of the Summa, but indeed, for Thomas, the capacity to take into account the history of salvation. Sharply schematicizing and dealing primarily with the French literature on the subject, we can, it seems, distinguish three principal positions.23
1. In the first phase, M.D. Chenu proposed reading the Summa in the light of the Neoplatonic scheme of the exitus and of reditus. According to him, the Prima Pars deals with the emanation of things from God considered as principle; the Secunda Pars speaks of their return toward God as toward their ultimate end.
According to Chenu's own formula, the Prima Pars and the Secunda Pars "are between them like the exitus and reditus." They are strictly connected in their unity, which is that of two inverse movements. Thus he starts from the Bible, where all creatures gush forth from the hand of God and return toward him according to his design, for he guides the history of his creation. Likewise theology envisages reality "from the point of view of God," secundum quod est principium rerum et finis earum (Ia q. 2 Prol.). As Max Seckler has well said:
In a surprising way, there appear here, in strict correspondence with one another, the origin and end of history, the source and the completion of being, the first and last cause of understanding, so that not only can theology turn itself into a 'science' of the history of salvation, but the history of salvation itself bears within itself the fundamental theological design. It is not therefore, according to Thomas, the theologian who brings order into the tangled events of salvation, but it is the order of salvation that structures theology.24
(footnote continued from previous page)
on the subject: A. Hayen, Saint Thomas d'Aquin et la vie de l'Eglise (LouvainParis, 1952); idem., "La structure de la Somme théologique et Jésus," Sc. Ecclés 12 (1960) 59–82; P.
E. Persson, "Le plan de la Somme théologique et le rapport ratiorevelatio," RPL 56 (1958) 545–75; Y. Congar, "Le sens de 'l'Economie' salutaire dans la 'Théologie' de S. Thomas d'Aquin (Somme théologique)," in Festgabe J. Lortz, vol. 2 (BadenBaden, 1957), pp. 59–82; idem., "Le moment 'économique' et le moment 'ontologique' dans la Sacra Doctrina (Révélation, Théologie, Somme théologique),'' in Mélanges offerts à M.D. Chenu, Bibl. thom. 37 (Paris, 1967), pp. 135–87; G. Lafont, Structures et méthode dans la Somme théologique de saint Thomas d'Aquin (ParisBrussels, 1961); U. Horst, "Ueber die Frage einer Heilsökonomischen Theologie bei Thomas von Aquin. Ergebnisse und Probleme der neueren Forschung," MThZ 12 (1961) 97–111 [reprinted in Thomas von Aquin, ed. K. Bernath, vol. 1, Wege der Forschung 188 (Darmstadt, 1978), pp. 373–95]; O. H. Pesch, "Um den Plan der Summa Theologiae des hl. Thomas von Aquin," MThZ 16 (1965) 128–137 (reprinted and completed in "Wege der Forschung 188," pp. 411–37); L. Elders, "La méthode suivie par saint Thomas d'Aquin dans la composition de la Somme de théologie," NV 66 (1991) 178–92.
23. See also the presentation of H.D. Gardeil, in S. Thomas d'Aquin. Somme Théologique: La théologie, "Revue des jeunes" (Paris, 1968), pp. 171–202.
24. Chenu, Toward, pp. 297–322; M. Seckler, Le salut et l'histoire. La pensée de saint Thomas d'Aquin sur la théologie de l'histoire, Cogitatio fidei 21 (Paris, 1967), pp. 30–31.