Part One Student (1245–56)
PART ONE
STUDENT (1245–56)
Student of the liberal arts at Monte Cassino, student at the University of Naples in the faculty of arts, student at Paris, at Cologne and then at Paris again – Thomas Aquinas served a long apprenticeship before he became a master of theology in his early thirties. He was twenty-seven when he returned from Cologne to Paris as a Bachelor of the Sentences. The task of giving a superficial or cursive commentary on the Bible that was part of the apprenticeship of the aspiring theologian seems to have been fulfilled while Thomas was at Cologne.
Lodged in the Dominican Convent of St Jacques, Thomas lived the life of a mendicant friar, bound by the three great vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and he was now a priest as well. It is easy for us to think of him as the dominant figure at the University of Paris. We have already recounted the story of the faculty of theology requesting that the body of Thomas be returned to Paris so that he might be permanently venerated by his fellow masters. But this posthumous collegiality should not obscure the fact that from the outset Thomas and his fellow friars would have felt a little less than welcome.
There was an animus against mendicant masters. It was one thing for the new religious orders to want their men to profit from a Parisian theological education, after which they could return to their Dominican and Franciscan houses of study and teach there. And there is no doubt that the frequent turnover in the two Dominican chairs in theology was a feature of the effort to credential as many friars as possible for teaching roles within the order. The secular masters, understandably perhaps, felt that their turf was being invaded by friars who came to stay.
There were at the time some dozen masters in the faculty of theology at Paris. Of these, three were held by the mendicants, the Franciscans had one, the Dominicans two. The canons of the cathedral of Notre Dame also held chairs, so the secular masters understandably felt their position to be precarious. When to this is added the great popularity and success of the non-secular masters, and the memory of the fact that when the whole university went on strike in 1229, the Dominicans remained in place and continued to teach, all the ingredients for a feud are present. A disciple of Joachim of Fiore, in promulgating his master’s view that mankind had entered into a new age, a third age, the age of the Holy Spirit, which had been preceded by the Age of the Son and the Age of the Father, suggested that Antichrist might be identified with the mendicants. The Convent of St Jacques, where Thomas lived and taught, was the site of demonstrations and protests.
The campaign against the mendicants reached rhetorical excesses that must seem overdrawn to us. William of St Amour, as if to prove that names are not destiny, became a rabid foe of the mendicants, who were, he was convinced, the Antichrist himself. Among the early writings of Thomas at Paris are those defending his vocation and the practices of his order. When he completed his apprenticeship and had become a master of theology, teaching at St Jacques, he was refused admittance into the corporation of masters. Bonaventure, who became master at the same time, was similarly excluded. When a year later, at the command of the Pope, they were admitted, only Thomas functioned as a regent master. Bonaventure had been elected master general of the Franciscan order, would eventually be named a cardinal and, in 1274, at the Council of Lyons that Thomas failed to reach, Bonaventure died.
In this part will be found two of the inaugural sermons Thomas delivered at the extended academic ceremony that marked the successful completion of his theological apprenticeship. Two works that antedate that occasion are also found here, one that summarizes Aristotelian hylomorphic theory, the other on being and essence that might have been written when Thomas was at the very height of his powers. These little works were said to have been composed by Thomas for his fellow students. Throughout his life, Thomas responded to requests for help on one difficult question or another. It is plausible that he would have written these opuscula on request. That Thomas was early recognized as an intellectual phenomenon is supported by a number of stories.
The Scriptum or commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard grew out of the teaching tasks Thomas performed prior to being named master. But the commentary was polished and prepared for publication during Thomas’s first regency. None the less, it seems fitting to include an important section of it here.