TOMMASO D'AQUINO, SANTO - Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. XII, p. 182

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

THOMAS AQUINAS, Saint. — He is the greatest representative of Scholasticism (v.) and the official Doctor of the Catholic Church.

SUMMARY:

I. Life

II. Works

III. The formation of Thomism

IV. Doctrinal principles

V. Thomism

VI. Art.

I. LIFE

N., it now seems certain, was born in the castle of Roccasecca, in the Kingdom of Naples, to Landolfo d’Aquino, lord of Roccasecca, and Teodora of Chieti but of Lombard origin. Since the date of his death (7 March 1274) is certain and the official biographer G. Tocco states that the Saint was then barely 49 years old, the date of his birth falls in the last months of 1225 or the first of 1226.

Of his early childhood, the episode of the lightning bolt that killed a little sister at Roccasecca castle, leaving the young T. unharmed as he stood beside her, is especially remembered. In 1230, at the age of five, T. was placed by his parents among the *pueri oblati* of Montecassino to be educated there with the intention of steering him toward monastic life, secretly hoping that he might rise to the highest office and thereby enhance the family’s power. Instead, certainly by his own mature decision and, according to G. Tocco, with the advice of the abbot himself (Vita s. Th. Aq., cap. 65; in Fontes Vitae s. Th., fasc. II, ed. D. Prümmer, St. Maximin, Var. 1924, p. 138), and also because of the devastation Montecassino had suffered in 1239 at the hands of Frederick II, T. returned home and went on to pursue his studies at the University of Naples. There he received his first direct initiation into Aristotelian philosophy under the masters Martino da Dacia for logic and Pietro d’Irlanda for natural philosophy (so G. Tocco, loc. cit.); though other, more succinct biographers such as P. Calò and Bernardo Gui make no mention of this. It was at the University of Naples that the Dominican vocation was born through the preaching of Fr. John of St Julian. Against the opposition of his family, which spared no physical or moral violence, T. displayed heroic firmness, which even won his sister Marotta to the religious life. It seems that the Saint received the religious habit at the hands of the Master General John Teutonicus between 1243 and the end of 1244. Having finally secured his freedom by fleeing, he was sent to complete his higher studies. Some (Mandonnet, Grabmann, Glorieux, Castagnoli), following the hint in Tocco (op. cit., cap. 7; ed. cit., p. 72), maintain that the first half was spent at the University of Paris from 1245 to 1248, a supposition supported also by the famous letter of the Masters of Arts of Paris (of 2 May 1274) where the ‘most noble city of Paris of all studies’ is presented as the one that ‘first educated, nourished, and fostered him’ (cf. Chartul. Univ. Paris., ed. Denifle-Chatelain, I, Paris 1889, no. 447, p. 505). In 1248, with the foundation by Albert the Great of the Dominican *studium generale* in Cologne, T. attended the theology courses in preparation for the priesthood. At Albert’s school, St. T. came into contact not only with the entire Aristotelian corpus but also with the Arabic and Greek commentators then available, especially through the *corpus divinum*, and revealed to his master his true capacity. At Albert’s insistence, who solicited the good offices of Cardinal Hugh of St. Cher, the Order’s General in 1252 summoned T. to Paris to take up the vacant position of bachelor in theology at the Dominican chair. After various disputes, fomented by the secular masters, who had to yield through the direct intervention of Pope Alexander IV (cf. Lett. al Can. cell. dell’Univ. di Parigi of 3 March 1256, in Chart. Univ. Paris., I, no. 270, p. 307; cf. nos. 293, p. 339, and 317, p. 366), T. obtained the *licentia docendi* within the same year, but was not admitted to the College of Professors (along with St. Bonaventure) until 15 August of the following year (1257), when he began his teaching as *magister regens* the following October.

From then on, T.’s entire life was absorbed by scholarly activity, which alternated between the University of Paris and Italy. His first Parisian magisterium (1256–59) was disrupted by the attack of the secular masters, led by William of St Amour, to prevent the mendicant orders from entering the University: his adversaries even invoked the question of the *Evangelii gaudium*, but without success. At the end of the academic year 1259, after taking part in the Pentecost Chapter (June 1259) at Valenciennes, where he collaborated with St. Albert the Great and Peter of Tarentaise (later Pope Innocent V) in drafting the *Ratio studiorum* of the Order (cf. Chart. Univ. Paris., t. I, no. 385, p. 385 ff.), S. T. set out for Italy. This first Italian sojourn (1259–68), lasting nearly ten years, was the most continuous and tranquil period of the Saint’s life, during which he displayed prodigious scholarly activity. He taught at the *Studium Curiae*, summoned by Urban IV to Viterbo and then to Orvieto; in the years 1263–67 he was at the Roman convent of Santa Sabina with the task of reorganizing the Order’s general *studium*; in 1267–68 he was probably again at Viterbo in the service of Clement IV. At the papal court he formed a friendship with his Flemish confrere William of Moerbeke, who proved invaluable to him both by revising old translations and by providing new ones from the Greek of Aristotle and the principal Greek commentators on Aristotle, as well as Neoplatonic texts, in particular the *Elementatio theologica* of Proclus in 1268, the commentaries on the *Categories* of Simplicius in 1266 and on *De caelo et mundo* by the same in 1271, on the *Peri hermeneias* of Ammonius in 1268, on *De anima* by Themistius in 1268, and on *De anima* by John Philoponus also in 1268. Of an earlier date is the translation of the commentary on the *Meteorologica* of Alexander of Aphrodisias, made at Nicaea in 1260. Toward the end of 1268, perhaps by order of the Pope himself, St. T. was on his way to Paris, where in January 1269 he began teaching, continuing through the academic year 1270–71. This second Parisian magisterium was the most turbulent period in the Saint’s life and one of the fiercest struggles on all fronts: first, the outbreak of Averroism in the Faculty of Arts; then the open opposition to his Aristotelianism from the dominant Augustinian trend in the Faculty of Theology (and seemingly under the direct inspiration of St. Bonaventure: cf. J. D’Albi, *S. Bonaventura et les luttes doctr. de 1267–77*, Paris 1923), culminating in the stormy disputation of 1270 that embraced the principal theses of Thomas (and in particular the ‘unicity of substantial form’) in the presence of Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, in which T. was almost alone in upholding this view; finally, the renewed struggle by the secular masters Gerard of Abbeville and Nicholas of Lisieux against the mendicant orders, which provoked from the Saint the two admirable writings *De perfectione vitae spiritualis* and *Contra retrahentes a religione ingressu*. In the spring of 1272, T. received from his superiors the assignment (at the invitation of Charles of Anjou) to reorganize the teaching of theology at the University of Naples: in addition to the teaching that occupied the entire academic year 1272–73 and the first part of 1273–74 up to January, St. T. devoted himself with intensity to the

He devoted part of the Summa Theologiae to the composition of pamphlets and commentaries on Aristotle, and to Lenten preaching to the people in the vernacular. In January 1274 he was invited by Gregory X to the Council of Lyons: setting out on the journey with the company of his faithful secretary Reginald of Piperno, he was struck by an unusual illness along the way which, unresponsive to the loving care of his niece Francesca, the Countess of Ceccano, who received him in her castle at Maenza, carried him off on 7 March 1274 in the Cistercian abbey of Fossanova, where, foreseeing his end, he had sought hospitality. He was canonized by John XXII at Avignon on 18 July 1323, and in 1567 St Pius V, the Dominican, declared him the Angelic Doctor, a title of honour alongside his official title of Doctor Communis. Already his master St Albert the Great, hastening to Paris to defend him from the condemnation of 1277, had acclaimed him as the splendour and flower of the whole world (Fontes vitae s. Th. Aq., fasc. IV, p. 382).

II. WORKS

St Thomas’s scientific activity has a twofold origin: first, the duty of teaching which obliged him to interpret official texts such as Holy Scripture, Peter Lombard’s Sentences, the works of Aristotle, Boethius, the Pseudo-Dionysius, etc., and to compose disputed questions and the seasonal academic conferences (Quodlibeta); secondly, occasional writings prompted by brotherly charity and the courtesy of responding to assignments received from the Pope and superiors and to questions put to him. In this second class of occasional writings may be included, besides the pamphlets, his two most original works: the Summa Contra Gentiles, composed (it seems) at the request of the Order’s General, St Raymond of Peñafort, and the Summa Theologiae — his unfinished masterpiece — written for the benefit of young students of the Order to guide them through the chaos into which theological teaching, tied to commentaries on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, often led them astray (cf. the Prologue).

1. Chronology

Most of the dates are approximate: following Grabmann (Die Werke..., posthumous ed. 1949), the most probable extreme termini a quo and ad quem are given for disputed dates, according to the researches of P. Castagnoli, J. A. Destrez, A. Dondaine, T. Käppeli, P. Glorieux, O. Lottin, A. Motte, A. Manzoni, F. Pelster, A. Pelzer, P. Synave, G. Théry, A. Walz and above all P. Mandonnet and the same monogram. The problem of the chronology of the writings, for a critical study of St Thomas’s thought, is at least as important as that of their authenticity. Yet the importance of following, in the study of doctrines, the chronological order of the works has not yet been sufficiently grasped: this has prevented an understanding of the development of his thought (cf. P. Mandonnet, Les écrits aut. de s. T. D’A., 1st ed., Fribourg 1910, p. 10, note; J. De Guibert, Les doublés de s. T. d'A., Leur étude méthodique, Paris 1926; examines problems concerning God as one and three, doctrines on faith, the salvation of the unfaithful, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the nature of charity).

a) Commentaries on Holy Scripture. — 1. Expositio Job (Tolomeo of Lucca, 1261–64; Mandonnet, 1269–72). 2. In Psaltos Davidis lectura (1271–73). 3. Expositio in Cataciorum (lost). 4. Expositio in Isaiam prophetam (Mandonnet, 1256–59; Destrez, 1269–74). 5. Expositio in Jeremiam prophetam (Mandonnet, 1267–68). 6. Expositio in Threnos Jeremiae prophetae (Mandonnet, 1264–69). 7. Catena aurea super quattuor Evang. (1261–64 for St Matthew; 1262–64 for the others). 8. Expositio (lectura) in Ev. s. Matthei (1256–59). 9. Expositio in Ev. s. Joannis (1269–72). 10. Expositio in s. Pauli apostoli epistolas (for I Cor. 11 to the end: 1259–65; for Rom. – I Cor. 1–10: 1272–73).

b) Commentaries on Aristotle. — 1. In libros Periermeneias expositio (up to bk. II, lect. 2: 1268–72). 2. In libros Posteriorum Analyticorum expositio (1268–72). 3. In libros Physicorum expositio (after 1268). 4. In libros De Caelo et Mundo expositio (up to bk. III, lect. 8: 1272). 5. In libros De Generatione et Corruptione expositio (up to bk. I, lect. 17: 1272–73). 6. In libros Meteorologicorum expositio (up to bk. II, lect. 10: 1269–72). 7. In libros De Anima lectura (bk. I; c. 1270, Verbeke) expositio (bks. II–III: 1267–72). 8. In libros De sensu et sensato expositio (1267–72). 9. In librum De memoria et reminiscentia expositio (1267–72). 10. In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum expositio (1266–72). 11. In decem libros Ethicorum expositio (1260–69). 12. In libros Politicorum expositio (up to bk. III, lect. 6: 1269–72). 13. In librum de causis expositio (1269–73).

c) Systematic works. — 1. Commentum in quattuor libros Sententiarum magistri Petri Lombardi (1254–56; a second, later commentary has been lost). 2. Summa Contra Gentiles (1261–64). 3. Summa Theologiae (up to pars III, q. 90. The Supplementum follows, compiled by Reginald of Piperno from the Commentary on bk. IV of the Sentences): pars I, 1266–68; pars II: 1a–2a, 1269–70, 2a–2ae, 1271–72; pars III, 1272–73. 4. Quaestiones disputatae: De veritate: Paris arts. 1–84 (1256–57); arts. 85–168 (1257–58); arts. 169–253 (1258–59); De potentia: Rome, arts. 1–55 (1265–67); Veroli, arts. 56–83 (1267–68); De spiritualibus creaturis, Viterbo (1268). In Paris: De anima (1269); De virtutibus in communi (1269–70); De malo (1269–72); De caritate (1269–72); De spe (1269–72); De correctione fraterna (1269–72); De unione Verbi incarnati (1270–72). 5. Quaestiones Quodlibetales (held during the Christmas and Easter vacations): Quodl. VII–IX (1256–59); Quodl. I–VI and XII. Fr Mandonnet suggests the following distribution: Quodl. VII (Christmas 1256); Quodl. VIII (Christmas 1258); Quodl. IX (Easter 1258); Quodl. XI (Easter 1259); Quodl. I (also Easter 1259); Quodl. II (Christmas 1269); Quodl. III (Easter 1270); Quodl. IV (Easter 1271); Quodl. V (Christmas 1271); Quodl. VI (Easter 1271). The doubts raised by P. Glorieux regarding the authenticity of Quodl. IX have been rejected as unfounded by J. Isaac in Arch. d'hist. doctr. et litt. du m. à., 22–23 (1947–48), pp. 187 ff.

d) Authentic opuscules. — 1. *Contra errores Graecorum* addressed to Pope Urban IV (1261–64). 2. *Compendium theologiae* addressed to his most beloved companion Brother Reginald (1272–1273; unfinished, up to ch. 256 on the virtue of hope). 3. *De rationibus fidei contra Saracenos, Graecos et Armenos* addressed to the Cantor of Antioch (1261–64). 4. *De duobus praeceptis caritatis et decem legis praeceptis* (reportatio) (1273). 5. *Most devout exposition on the Apostles’ Creed* (1273). 6. *Most devout exposition on the Lord’s Prayer* (1273). 7. *Most devout exposition on the angelic salutation* (1273). 8. *De articulis fidei et Ecclesiae Sacramentis* addressed to the Archbishop of Palermo (1261–68). 9. *Reply to Brother John of Vercelli, Master General of the Order of Preachers, on article XLII* (1271). 10. *Reply to Brother Leonard on article XXXVI* (1269–71). 11. *Reply to Brother William of Auxerre on article VI* (1271). 12. *De differentia verbi divini et humani*. 13. *De natura verbi intellectus*. 14. *De substantiis separatis seu de angelorum natura* addressed to his most beloved companion Brother Reginald (unfinished; 1272–73). 15. *De unitate intellectus contra averroistas* (1270). 16. *Contra pestiferam doctrinam retrahentium homines a religionis ingressu* (1270). 17. *De perfectione vitae spiritualis* (1269–1270). 18. *Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem* (1256–57). 19. *De regimine principum* addressed to the King of Cyprus (up to Book II, ch. 4: 1265–66). 20. *De regimine Judaeorum* addressed to the Duchess of Brabant (1270). 21. *De forma absolutionis* addressed to the Master General of the Order (1269–72). 22. *Exposition on the first decretal* addressed to the Archdeacon of Todi (1259–68). 23. *Exposition on the second decretal* addressed to the same (1259–68). 24. *De sortibus* addressed to Lord James of Burgos (1269–72). 25. *De iudiciis astrorum* addressed to his most beloved companion Brother Reginald (1269–1272). 26. *De aeternitate mundi contra murmurantes* (1270). 27. *De principio individuationis*. 28. *De ente et essentia* (1254–56). 29. *De principiis naturae* addressed to Brother Sylvester (1255). 30. *De natura materiae et dimensionibus interminatis* (1252–56). 31. *De mixtione elementorum* addressed to Master Philip (1273, Walz). 32. *De occultis operibus naturae* addressed to a certain knight (1272). 33. *De motu cordis* addressed to Master Philip of Castrocol (1269–72). 34. *De instantibus*. 35. *De quattuor oppositis*. 36. *De demonstratione*. 37. *De fallaciis* addressed to certain noble artists. 38. *De propositionibus modalibus*. 39. *De natura accidentis*. 40. *De natura generis*. 41. *De emptione et venditione ad tempus*. 42. *Exposition on Boethius’ De hebdomadibus* (1255–61). 43. *Exposition on Boethius’ De Trinitate* (1255–61). 44. *Exposition on Dionysius’ De divinis nominibus* (1261–68). 45. *Office for the Feast of Corpus Christi* at the command of Pope Urban IV (1264). Hymn “Adoro te devote.” 46. *Epistle on the manner of studying*. 47. *De secreto*. 48. *Reply to Brother John of Vercelli, Master General of the Order of Preachers, on article CVIII taken from the work of Peter of Tarentaise* (1265–67). 49. *Reply to Bernard, Abbot of Monte Cassino* (1274; the last writing of the Saint, composed while he was traveling to the Council of Lyon).

e) Various. — Sermons (the number is uncertain. A new collection of 11 sermons was discovered in Spanish libraries by Fr. T. Käppeli, V. *Arch. Fr. Praed.*, 13 (1943), pp. 59–94). Prayers (the number is uncertain). Two *Principia* (or inaugural lectures): one as “Baccalaureus biblicus” in 1252 on the theme *“Hic est liber mandatorum Dei”*, and the other as “Magister regens” in 1256 on the theme *“Rigans montes de superioribus suis”* (ed. F. Salvatore, *Due sermoni inediti di s. T. d’A.*, Rome 1912).

2) Observations. — a) Spurious opuscules. — Grabmann (op. cit., p. 395 ff.) lists 33 titles of opuscules attributed to St. Thomas but certainly spurious. Some are compilations extracted from authentic works (e.g., *De nat. loci*; *De nat. luminis*; *De tempore* for chs. 1–4; *De quo est et quod est*, etc.). An Italian sonnet attributed to St. Thomas in Cod. 9 A 27 of the Estense Library in Modena, accepted as authentic by Fr. Mandonnet, has aroused serious doubts, and Grabmann (op. cit., p. 413) suggests it may belong to St. Thomas’s brother, Reginald of Aquino, who left a collection of poems. Grabmann (op. cit., p. 441 ff.), relying on the critique of Fr. A. Dondaine, also rejects the *Quaest. de nat. beatit.*, discovered in Cod. Vat. lat. 784.

Fr. Mandonnet initiated fundamental research, based on a comparative study of manuscript tradition, into the authenticity of the opuscules by G. F. Rossi, *Gli opuscoli di s. T.: Criteri per conoscere l’autenticità*, in *Divus Thomas Plac.*, 56 (1953), pp. 211–36.

b) Autographs. — The Library of Monte Cassino (Cod. 82) holds the text of the Saint’s last writing, the *Reply to Bernard, Abbot of Monte Cassino*, written in the margin of a manuscript of St. Gregory the Great’s *Moralia*, which Tosti and Uccelli declared to be an autograph (cf. P. Mandonnet, op. cit., 1st ed., p. 107; he concurs in the attribution). The Vatican Apostolic Library possesses two codices—donated by the Diocese of Bergamo to Pius IX in 1874—which are recognized without doubt as being in the Saint’s own hand. Cod. Vat. lat. 958 contains a substantial portion of the following three works: *Summa contra Gentiles* (about half the entire work, ff. 2r–85v); *Commentary on Boethius’ De Trinitate* (complete, ff. 90r–104v); *Postillae on Isaiah* (chs. 34–50, ff. 105r–14v). The Leonine edition (vols. XIII–XV) of the *Summa contra Gentiles* is based on the portion preserved in this autograph codex. Cod. Vat. lat. 958 also contains the commentary on Book III of the *Sentences* (fundamental study: G. F. Rossi, *L’autografo di s. T. del Comm. al III lib. delle Sent.*, 2nd ed., Piacenza 1933). The Vatican autographs are written in the so-called *littera inintelligibilis* (Cod. 958 begins from f. 11), which has finally found a reliable interpreter in Fr. P. Mackey of the Leonine Commission (cf. vol. XIII, p. IV a–b, the plate reproducing the *littera inintelligibilis* of f. 34, *Summa contra Gentiles* II, 25–26, with diplomatic transcription). For some other alleged autographs, apart from a few fragments found in reliquaries, there is no secure evidence (cf. M. Grabmann, *Die Werke...*, p. 436 ff.). Even if it cannot be recognized as an autograph, as Fr. Kaeppeli has shown, the codex VIII. F. 16 of the National Library of Naples, containing the commentary on Aristotle’s *Metaphysics*, is noteworthy as it appears to have been corrected by St. Thomas himself or certainly under his direction. Another, even more famous, codex in the National Library of Naples, containing St. Albert the Great’s commentary on the entire *Corpus Dionysianum*, was traditionally believed by local scholars and by Uccelli to be a *reportatio* and thus an autograph of St. Thomas from the period of his stay in Cologne; however, there is no decisive argument to support this (cf. P. Mandonnet, op. cit., 1st ed., p. 133 ff.; G. Meersseman, *Introd. in opera Alberti M.*, Bruges 1931, p. 102; M. Grabmann, *Die Werke...*, p. 341 ff., p. 436 ff.).

c) Lost works. — In their letter, the masters of the Faculty of Arts at Paris requested that they be allowed to have those works which the Saint, upon leaving Paris in 1272, had taken with him, namely certain philosophical writings he had begun there, which they hoped he had completed in Italy. Specifically mentioned are the Commentary on Simplicius’ *On the Heavens and the World*, the Exposition of Plato’s *Timaeus*, and the book *On the Conduction of Waters and the Construction of Machines*. The first work certainly inspired the commentary by T. on the *De coelo et mundo*, which remained unfinished and is dated precisely to his final stay in Naples. Recent studies by Birkenmajer and Grabmann have shown that Moerbeke had completed the translations of the three works indicated: a large fragment in three parts of Moerbeke’s translation of Proclus’ Commentary on the *Timaeus* has been identified in the encyclopedic work of E. Bate of Mechelen, *Speculum divinorum et quorundam naturalium*, Book XI, ch. 24; Book XXII, ch. 10 and ch. 25 (cf. A. Birkenmajer, *Neues zu dem Briefe der Pariser Artistenfakultät über den Tod des hl. Th. V. d.*, in *Xenia Thomistica*, III, Rome 1925, esp. pp. 65ff.). Among the commentaries on Holy Scripture, those on St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John, as well as the *reportatio* on St. Matthew, appear to have been lost, according to the indications of the official catalogue compiled by the notary Bartolomeo di Capua, who had known St. T. personally in his youth. Also lost are the commentary on the *Song of Songs* and a second redaction of the commentary on Book I of the *Sentences*: these seem to have been contemporary with the first part of the *Summa Theologiae* (cf. P. Mandonnet, *op. cit.*, pp. 34, 53, 57). No trace has been found of a commentary by St. T. on the other two works, and it is highly probable that they remained at the project stage. In this matter, it should be noted that despite significant advances in historical criticism regarding the works of St. T., it is not impossible—especially concerning his minor works—that the discovery or identification of another work may yet occur. For example, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Latin ms. 14,546, of great authority as it appears to date from around 1280, contains, among other works of undoubted authenticity, the treatise *De concordia dictorum S. Thomae* (cf. G. F. Rossi, *Il Cod. lat. 14.546 della Bibl. naz. di Parigi con gli opuscoli di s. T.*, in *Divus Thomas Plac.*, 54 [1951], pp. 301ff.).

Incomplete commentaries: the commentary on the *Peri Hermeneias* extends only to the third lecture of Book II; what follows in the editions is by Cardinal Cajetan. The commentary on the *Metaphysics* ends with Book XII; the commentary on the *Politics* reaches lecture 6 of Book III; that on *De Coelo et Mundo* reaches lecture 8 of Book III; the commentary on the *Meteorology* extends to lecture 8 of Book II (completed by the secular master Peter of Auvergne) and that on *De Generatione et Corruptione* to lecture 17 of Book I (the rest is by the Dominican T. de Sutton). The *De regno principum* also breaks off at chapter 4 of Book II; the remainder appears to be the work of Ptolemy of Lucca.

III. THE FORMATION OF THOMISM

1. The problem of sources in Thomist thought is crucial and constitutes the key to understanding its formation. It is a matter of first identifying the texts—and possibly the translations (from Greek and Arabic)—which St. T. actually had at his disposal; then it is necessary to determine the precise doctrinal context in which these sources influenced the development of Thomist thought; finally, one should indicate the other interpretations these sources received in the medieval cultural environment, in order to make an exact assessment of the Saint’s doctrinal work.

As to the first point, it can be said that the revolutionary novelty of 13th-century libraries was the translation of works on natural philosophy and metaphysics, ethics, and politics by Aristotle. The fact that St. T., barely an adolescent, attended lectures on logic and natural philosophy at the University of Naples under the masters Martino and Peter of Ireland can be considered a decisive moment in his future orientation toward Aristotelianism, breaking with the Augustinian Platonism of tradition. The Angelic Doctor could have known Plato’s *Timaeus* directly through Calcidius’ commentary-translation (which inspired the humanist Platonism of the School of Chartres) and perhaps also the *Phaedo* and the *Meno*; Platonic doctrine was also diffused through the works of Cicero and especially in Macrobius’ commentary on the *Somnium Scipionis*. However, the principal source of medieval Platonism was St. Augustine (cf. *De Trinitate*, Book VII; *De Civitate Dei*, Books VIII–X), and this must guide our understanding of the precise meaning of the Platonism-Aristotelianism antithesis that dominated the Middle Ages and lay at the heart of St. T.’s activity and the controversies aroused by his work. For it is well known that St. Augustine did not read any of Plato’s works directly and knew Platonism only through the later elaboration of Plotinus, whose *Enneads* had been translated by the rhetorician Marius Victorinus, who can be credited with having adapted the terms and problems of Neoplatonic speculation to Christian theology in the West (cf. E. Benz, *Marius Victorinus und die Entwicklung der abendländischen Willensmetaphysik*, in *Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Geistesgeschichte*, I, Stuttgart 1932, esp. pp. 39ff.; 343ff.). In this historical context, the common thesis expounded by Bäumker—that Platonism was dominant in the 12th century, receded in the 13th, and regained vigor in Humanism (C. Bäumker, *Der Platonismus im Mittelalter*, in *Studien und Charakteristiken*, *Bäumker’s Beiträge...*, 25 [1928], pp. 58ff.)—states a simple historical fact but does not specify its extent or cultural significance. If it can be acknowledged that medieval doctrinal struggles indeed revolved around the Plato-Aristotle alternative, it must be admitted that authentic Plato (with his rigid dualism, the κτῆμα, the separation between appearance and reality, between the sensible world and the ideas) is absent. The alternative reduces rather to Plotinus (or Neoplatonism in general) versus Aristotle, where the divergence between Plotinus—who conceives of necessary emanation and remains a monist of transcendence—and Plato—the dualist who creates the myths of the Demiurge and the soul—may be greater than that between Plotinus and Aristotle, the monist of immanence who recognizes neither myths nor any transcendence (cf. E. Hoffmann, *Platonismus und Mittelalter*, in *Wartburgvorträge 1923–24*, Berlin 1926, esp. p. 71ff.). In the controversies of the 13th century, therefore, Plato was not in play, which explains why a critical mind like St. T. had intended, as is evident from the letter of the Faculty of Arts dated May 10, 1274, to provide a direct commentary or study of the Platonic *Timaeus*. Such a commentary would certainly have provided the key to understanding the inspirational principles of Thomist metaphysics in its final phase, about which, as will be discussed, the Thomist school has yet to shed full light. It is thus understandable that the Angelic Doctor had at his disposal only scant elements, insufficient for an attempt to interpret Plato, unlike what he was able to do for Aristotle. The principal source for the knowledge of Plato, as for all pre-Aristotelian philosophy, was Aristotle himself in the introductions to his treatises (cf. Book I of the *Nicomachean Ethics*, the *Metaphysics*, *On the Soul*, and *On Generation and Corruption*), where theories are now simplified and, in a sense, bent to highlight polemical opposition.

The second decisive fact in the sources of Thomistic thought, regarding the Platonic-Aristotelian alternative, is the complex superstructure of influences with Neoplatonizing inspiration that intervened in the debate. First among these is St. Augustine himself, whose authority as the undisputed master of medieval theology was accepted by St. Thomas no less than by his contemporaries, especially in matters concerning Trinitarian theology, sin, and grace. More delicate is the relationship between the two Doctors in purely philosophical questions, where Thomistic Aristotelianism could not accept compromise:

He, however, accepts the fundamental doctrines of causal transcendentalism and divine exemplarism, where the inevitable contrast with the foundational tenets of Aristotelian thought is skillfully overcome through that "synthetic" interpretation to be discussed (on the Thomistic synthesis of Augustine and Aristotle, see M. Grabmann, Des hI. August. quaest. de Ideis in libr. inhaltl. Bedeutung u. mittelalt. Weiterzu-kung, in Mittelalt. Geistesleben, part 2, Munich 1936, p. 32). Recent controversies regarding the agreement between St. Augustine the Neoplatonist and St. Thomas the Aristotelian have yielded no appreciable results, nor can they, because the doctrinal function of the two Doctors belongs to two distinct cultural epochs, the ancient and the medieval, which are not commensurable for the comparison intended; and St. Thomas himself provides sufficient criteria for this (cf. In II Sent., 13, q. I, a. 3 ad 1; Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 15 De ideis; ibid., q. 77, a. 5 ad 3; ibid., q. 84, a. 5; ibid., q. 85, a. 2, etc.). Nevertheless, St. Thomas is well aware of St. Augustine’s Platonism and emphasizes his work of purification concerning heterodox doctrines inadmissible to Christian faith, such as the existence of “separate ideas” (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 84, a. 5): the metaphysics of participation expounded by the two Doctors expresses, so to speak, the transcendental structure of finite being in its dependence on God (cf. De spir. cr., a. 10 ad 8: “Non multum refert dicere quod ipsa intelligibilia participatur a Deo vel quod lumen faciens intelligibilia participatur a Deo.” The first is the solution of St. Augustine, the second is that of St. Thomas, who assimilates the Aristotelian doctrine of the active intellect (on the nature of St. Thomas’s dependence on St. Augustine, see G. von Hertling, Augustinuszitate bei Th. V. A., in Sitzungsb. d. phil. - philol. u. hist. Klasse der kais. Bayer. Akad. d. Wissensch., Munich 1914, pp. 535-502; reprinted in Hist. Beitr. s. Philos., Kempten-Munich 1914, pp. 97-151). Therefore, the controversy, agitated in Neoscholastic circles, regarding the agreement or divergence between these two greatest Doctors of the Church, should not present a polemical task but only one of execution: the two doctrinal stances correspond to two different moments in Christian culture, so that questions such as whether St. Augustine admitted the Thomistic doctrine of abstraction or whether he conceived the spiritual soul as the substantial form of the body in an Aristotelian-Thomistic sense are not susceptible to any precise answer because the differing cultural perspectives do not allow for an either/or response (cf. B. Kaelin, Die Erkenntnislehre des hl. Aug., Sarnen 1921, p. 42; the theory of abstraction of the intelligible from the sensible is foreign to St. Augustine). The profound transformation of Augustinian doctrine through contact with Aristotelianism is often obscured by St. Thomas: it appears that he attributes most of the errors in the Augustinian school’s metaphysics to the extrinsicism of Avicenna and M. Maimonides and to the exaggerated realism of the Jew Avicebron (this is the correct thesis, albeit with a perhaps unfortunate title, of E. Gilson in the article: Pourquoi st Th. a critiqué st Aug., in Arch. d'hist. doctr. et litt. du m. d., I [1926], p. 5 ff., cf. p. 117 ff.). A striking yet significant example of the synthetic character of Thomistic exegesis is the prologue to the responsio of article 1 of Q. de spir. creat., where St. Thomas precedes the authority of St. Augustine to that of Aristotle for the metaphysical concept of prime matter as “pure potency” (“...ut patet per Augustinum XII Confess. et I Super Gen. ad litt. et per Philosophum in VII Metaph.”, ed. L. W. Keeler, p. 10, 2-5).

More original is St. Thomas’s relationship to the other source of theological Neoplatonism, namely the Pseudo-Dionysius (see), whose influence equals and in some problems surpasses that of St. Augustine himself. St. Thomas commented on only the De divinis nominibus from the Corpus Dionysianum, adhering—as he did in his commentaries on Aristotle and Scripture—to the literal method: noteworthy is the Saint’s effort to find, among the various versions, the most intelligible reading, which is usually that of the Sarrazin translation (cf. G. Théry, L’entrée du Ps. Denis en Occident, in Mélanges Mandonnet, Paris 1930, vol. I, p. 23 ff.). The influence of the Pseudo-Dionysius runs deep and touches upon the most difficult problems of metaphysics, such as the doctrine of the transcendentals and of analogy, the knowledge of God (affirmative and negative theology), and the problem of evil; moreover, according to St. Thomas, Dionysius better than anyone else refuted the error of Platonic philosophy and incorporated its profound core of truth into Christian theology (cf. the declarations of St. Thomas in the Prologue to the Commentary on De div. nom. and especially in De subst. separ., ch. 17). It is especially in the atmosphere of Dionysian texts, dense with profound mystical resonances and continual appeals to transcendence, that St. Thomas achieved that reconciliation between Platonism and Christian truth which emboldened him to incorporate the methodological principle (not the method!) of Platonism within a metaphysics elaborated and expressed with Aristotelian principles. That this was his precise intent is shown above all by the 1,700 explicit citations of the Pseudo-Dionysius found in his works (cf. Duralet, S. T. et le Pseudo-Denis, Paris 1919), so much so that his authority is invoked to settle, for example, the theology of the De Causis: “Hanc autem positionem corrigit Dionysius quantum ad hoc quod ponebant (Platonici) diversas formas separatas quas dicebant deos, et aliud per se bonitas, et aliud per se esse, et aliud per se vita et sic de aliis. Oportet autem dicere quod omnia ista sunt essentialiter ipsa prima omnium causa...” (In I. De Causis, lect. 3ª; ed. cit., p. 722 a). Another sign of the exceptional theoretical value that Dionysian speculation holds in Thomism lies in the concern to refute heterodox interpretations in the sense of the formal pantheism of the School of Chartres, which leads him to pose in good time the question: “Utrum Deus sit esse omnium rerum” (In I Sent., dist. 8, q. 1, a. 2); in Sum. c. Gent., I, 26: “Quod Deus non est esse formale omnium.” The Saint protests against the “intellectus perversus” that some have made of the Dionysian expression “Deus est esse existentibus” (De div. nom., § 4: PG 3, 81§), doing open violence to the context (Cusanus explicitly refers to this energetic correction of St. Thomas in Apol. doctae ignorant., Paris s.d., but 1514, f. XXXVIII V). Furthermore, the Dionysian affirmation, inspired by the purest Platonism, of the primacy of the good over being, is expressly accepted by St. Thomas as the principle of dynamic order (“in causing”: Sum. Theol, 1ª, q. 5, a. 2 ad 1), by virtue of which even “prime matter,” which is non-being, could be created by God (on the primacy of the good over being, see Q. de malo, q. I, a. 2. Also In I. De Causis, lect. 4, ed. cit. p. 724 b: “Dionysius... in c. 4 De div. nom. parodiat nomen boni in Deo omnibus divinis nominibus et dicit quod eius participatio usque ad non ens extenditur, intelligens per non-ens materiam primam”). Finally, it is Dionysian the “principle of degrees” or of the decreasing continuity of forms of being according to which “the extremes touch,” or: “semper fines primorum consingens principiis secundorum” (PG 3, 872), which St. Thomas renders in clearer terms: “Supremum infimi attingit infimum supremi” (Q. De Spir. creat., a. 2; ed. L. W. Keeler, p. 29, 5), providing him with a valuable key to escape the pitfall of Averroism.

The final group of metaphysical sources consists of Boethius, the De Causis, and Avicenna, from whom St. Thomas derived the direct suggestion of the capital thesis of Thomistic metaphysics: the real distinction between essence and act of being in creatures (cf. De Verit., q. 21, a. 5; De Pot., q. 3, a. 5). Here the notion of participation was matured, which, when inserted by St. Thomas into Aristotelian metaphysics, elevates it to the affirmation of the total dependence of the creature on the Creator and integrates the Aristotelian concept of causality as a process of otherness and distinction with the Platonic concept of “presence” and “likeness.” To Boethius belongs the credit, among the Latins, of first proposing the translation of all of Aristotle’s works and the Dialogues of Plato and of showing their fundamental agreement (Comm. in Arist., IIepi 'Eggevelæ, 2nd ed., II: PL 64, 433; ed. Meiser, Leipzig 1877, p. 80). From Boethius, moreover, St. Thomas drew from the text of the De Hebdomadibus the fundamental doctrine that the structure of the concrete, at every predicamental and transcendental level, is according to participation. The fact that Boethius was the first master of medieval Aristotelianism—first through his translations and then through the rigor of his logical method and scientific methodology and terminology—suggests

The observation that the theme of the synthesis of Plato and Aristotle is the fundamental element, variously operative but present everywhere, in the cultural rebirth of Europe. The fruit of the high teaching of Boethius and inspired by him is the Thomistic commentary on the De Trinitate (partially preserved in the Vatican autograph): in it, St. Thomas addresses the problem of science, the division of the various fields of knowledge, and the scientific method, from natural philosophy to mathematics, and up to theology, with a breadth and precision not found in any of his other works. The De Causis, once its true origin and Neoplatonic nature are recognized, engaged St. Thomas in his final rapprochement between Platonic metaphysics of transcendence and Aristotelian metaphysics of immanence: the Thomistic commentary on the opuscule (common editions are very corrupt) contains elements of exceptional specialized interest for a theory of being whose content is decidedly Platonic within the solid Aristotelian framework. The commentary also has the merit of frequently comparing the De Causis with St. Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius (cf. propositions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 14, 16, 19) to overcome the Platonic conception of "wisdom," to which, as St. Thomas expressly notes, the foundation in philosophy pertains, but not the author of the De Causis, for whom "as for Christians—everything leads back to God" (lect. 16; ed. cit., p. 744 a). It would be most instructive, for the purpose of clarifying the originality of Thomism, to be able to compare the Thomistic commentary with the other medieval commentaries on the De Causis, and in particular, for example, with that of St. Thomas’s master, Albert the Great (found in vol. X of the Borgnet edition, Paris 1891). Albert shows little interest in the author of the opuscule and has no suspicion of its dependence on Proclus. The commentary is divided into 2 books, each book containing various treatises, and each treatise comprising several chapters, as well as with that of Giles of Rome, who was his disciple in Paris, who wished to specify that the author of the opuscule is Alfarabi (Giles of Rome, *Opus super aucth. de causis Alfarabiun*, Venice 1550). At prop. 12, f. 40v, one reads the declaration: "Liber iste extractus est ex libro Procli et est totus platonicus." One may note, among other things, a polemical allusion by Giles to the Thomistic commentary in the commentary on prop. IV, at the end: "Notandum quod secundum quosdam per dicta huius authoris potest solvi ratio commentatoris ponentis unitatem intellectus. Voluit commentator quod unius et eiusdem rei non plurificareut species, nisi propter materiam... At patet per authorem istum quod possunt plurificari species intelligibiles propter diversitatem recipientium, dato quod illa recipientia non sint materialia, ut in diversis substantiis sunt diversae species intelligibiles, quamvis substantiae immateriales existant" (ed. cit., f. 187). St. Thomas, however, had written exactly the opposite: "The disciple does not seem very perspicacious" (Lect. IV of St. Thomas, ed. cit., p. 742 b. The date of Giles’s commentary is: A.D. MCC nonag., Die Mercurii ante Purif. B. M. V.; col. 112v).

Last in this list of Neoplatonic sources, but first with Aristotle in the formation of Thomistic thought, is Avicenna, known in the 13th century through the translation by Gerard of Cremona. Avicenna’s presence is continuous, but following St. Thomas’s citations, one has the clear impression that while in his early works (Commentary on the Sentences, *De Ente et essentia*, *De Veritate*: cf. A. Forest, *La constitution métaphysique de l’être fini*, Paris 1932, pp. 331-60, a collection of all explicit citations of Avicenna) his influence is predominant, in his mature works it undergoes a notable decline (cf. the aporia of *De Substantiis separatis*, ch. 10). Nevertheless, Avicenna’s influence was significant at crucial moments in Thomistic metaphysics: 1) The Thomistic solution to the problem of universals (cf. *Quodlibet*, VIII, q. I, a. 1) and the theory of the correspondence between the logical composition of genus and difference and the metaphysical composition of matter and form is attributed to Avicenna (cf. W. Kleine, *Die Substanzlehre Avicennas bei Thomas von Aquin*, Freiburg in Br. 1933, esp. pp. 93 ff., 113 ff.). 2) The real distinction in creatures between essence and act of being is affirmed by St. Thomas in his early works with a verbal dependence on Avicenna’s text (cf. *In I Sent.*, dist. 8, q. 5, a. 1: the article summarizes Avicenna, *Metaphysica*, bk. III, ch. 8 and bk. V, ch. 3; and in q. IV, a. 2 the article summarizes Avicenna, *Metaphysica*, bk. V, ch. 4 and bk. IX, ch. 1, and in ad 2 it refers to *Metaphysica*, bk. II, ch. 1 and bk. III, ch. 8: for the real distinction). St. Thomas’s position, however, soon rejects Avicenna’s extrinsicist conception of *esse* as an "accidens additum," defending being as the "actus substantiae" (In IV *Metaphysica*, lect. II, n. 556; cf. O. Pretzl, *Die frühislamische Attributenlehre*, in *Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Klasse*, 1940, fasc. 4, p. 61 note. Also A.-M. Goichon, *La philosophie d’Avicenne et son influence en Europe médiévale*, Paris 1944, p. 44 ff.). Another Avicennian doctrine connected with this is the distinction between the possible *esse* proper to the creature and the necessary *esse* proper to God, which certainly inspired the third way of St. Thomas in demonstrating the existence of God (esp. in *Summa Contra Gentiles*, I, 15; it seems that the exposition in *Summa Theologiae*, I, q. 2, a. 3 is inspired by Maimonides). Yet even at this point St. Thomas departs significantly from Avicenna in that he attributes (with Averroes) a form of necessary *esse*, dependent on God, to spiritual creatures. 3) The distinction between the causes *toû fieri* and the causes *toû esse*: a distinction that underpins the entire Thomistic metaphysics of causality. Even in this regard, St. Thomas will denounce the extrinsicism of Avicenna’s doctrine of the "Dator formarum" and will develop, on the one hand, the Aristotelian principle of predicamental immanence that "omne agens agit sibi simile, quia agit per formam..." and, on the other, the principle of transcendental immanence from the *De causis*: "Causa prima plus influit in effectum quam causa secunda..." (prop. 1; ed. Bardenhewer, p. 163).

These critical-textual findings lead to two conclusions: 1) St. Thomas intends and declares that he wishes to present the Aristotelian conception of reality. His activity as a commentator on the philosopher’s principal works, aimed above all at discovering the most genuine reading of the text and its direct meaning, confirms his adherence to Aristotelianism, which is unconditional with regard to both the fundamental theoretical orientation and the content of being, as well as the method for expressing the definition of truth. 2) St. Thomas, from the very beginning, introduces and progressively refines, with greater critical awareness, a complex of theses, principles, and methodological insights of evident Platonic—or more precisely, Neoplatonic—derivation. This leads him to make the immediate aim of his speculation the reconciliation of Plato and Aristotle, a task to which he devotes intense speculative fervor in his later years (cf. *De Subst. sep.*, ch. 2: *In quo conveniunt Plato et Aristoteles*; ch. 3: *In quo differunt*...). This attitude, which is decisive for an interpretation of Thomism, is first suggested to the Angelic Doctor by Boethius, but it takes shape and becomes explicit in his mind especially in his later writings, when he gains direct knowledge of the great Aristotelian commentaries translated by the generous Friar G. of Moerbeke.

Alexander of Aphrodisias had sharply denounced the irreducibility between the conceptions of Plato and Aristotle (cf. *In I. Metaph.* 8-9, 990 a 34-44; ed. M. Hayduck, Berlin 1891, p. 78, 4 ff.); but the Neoplatonic approach, adopted by Simplicius, prevailed over him, asserting a substantial agreement between the two philosophers on the fundamental issues, so that Aristotle’s anti-Platonic polemic concerned only Plato’s “terminology,” which was more poetic than philosophical (cf. Simplicius, *In III De Coelo*, 7, 306 a 1; ed. J. L. Heiberg, Berlin 1894, p. 640, 21 ff. See also: *In III De Anima*, 5, 430 a 23-33; ed. M. Hayduck, ibid. 1882, p. 247, 14 ff. Again: *In Categore.*, Prooemium; ed. C. Kalbfleisch, ibid. 1907, p. 7, 29. St. Thomas seems to allude to this text in *Comm. III. Metaph.*, 11, n. 468 and *Q. De Spir. creat.*, a. 3, ed. Keeler, p. 41, 3. The older Latin translation by Moerbeke was completed by March 1266. Cf. ibid., Praef., p. XIX col. a). Among the Arabs, Alfarabi, Avicenna’s master, continued the endeavor to demonstrate the agreement between the two philosophers, which was to serve as a prologue to the harmony between reason and Qur’anic monotheism. The fact that the mystical Neoplatonist Avicenna held a privileged position in most of medieval Scholasticism, and that St. Thomas himself, especially in his early works, fully favored him, clearly demonstrates that medieval Aristotelianism was oriented toward the “synthesis” rather than the “crisis” of the two philosophers. Indeed, the Angelic Doctor ultimately became aware, through Simplicius’ text, of the discord among Greek commentators; but since he was unable to provide his own interpretation of Plato, he too resigned himself to Simplicius’ syncretic interpretation (cf. *In I De Coelo et mundo*, lect. 22; ed. Parm. vol. XIX, p. 58 b).

Thus, in St. Thomas’ work, considered in its historical development, there appears the paradox that his Aristotelianism was far more intransigent in its formulations at the beginning—when his thought was still significantly influenced by St. Augustine, Avicenna, and others—than when, in his mature years, he had a thorough knowledge of the philosopher’s works and engaged with Latin Averroism. This has given rise to P. Duhem’s accusation (*Le syst. du monde de Platon à Copernic*, V, Paris 1917, p. 569; a thesis taken up by L. Rougier in his essay *La scolarité et le thomis*, 1923) that the Thomist synthesis is artificial; but this is unjust, for such a synthesis was achieved in continuity with a tradition of thought rediscovered by the Angelic Doctor from classical philosophy and expanded in a Christian context to overcome the impasse of classical thought through the intensity of the Plato-Aristotle synthesis.

2. **The “Literal Method” of the Commentaries.** — There is no doubt that the originality of St. Thomas’ doctrinal innovation is chiefly due to his knowledge and assimilation of Aristotle’s writings. Indeed, unlike Albert the Great, who, like Avicenna, employs paraphrase, St. Thomas, following Averroes, adopts the literal method. The primary concern in Thomist commentaries (a principle that applies to all commentaries, whether biblical or doctrinal) is to grasp the direct meaning of the philosopher’s *littera*, which at that time, due to the various, incomplete, and often discordant translations, was not always an easy task (cf. *In Periherm.*, I, 1, lect. 5, n. 20; ed. Leon., I, 28 a: *“Et ideo magis sequamur verba Aristotelis...”*). St. Thomas then takes care to show the “structure” of the period within the chapter, the chapter within the book, and the book within the entire work and the *Corpus Aristotelicum*, with a critical intent that no commentator before him sought or achieved. For each book, treatise, and chapter, he provides an outline of the subject matter in its inner articulation (cf. the plan of the logical works, *In Post. Anal.*, I, 1, lect. 1; for natural philosophy, see *In I Physic.*, lect. 1). The *intentio Aristotelis*, which he seeks, emerges from textual criticism and mastery of principles, which, even without direct use of the Greek text and relying on translations that were far from clear, enables him to discern the philosopher’s exact thought with a certainty that still astonishes today: *“Patet igitur praedicta verba Philosophi diligenter consideranti quod non est intentio eius excludere a Deo simpliciter aliarum rerum cognitionem”* (*De subst. sep.*, ch. 13; ed. De Maria, vol. III, p. 251; ed. Perrier, ch. 12, n. 77, p. 174). Thus, St. Thomas can reproach Averroes, on the basis of contextual analysis, for failing to grasp the philosopher’s method... *“quia non coniungit totum ad unam intentionem”* (*In I Physic.*, lect. 1; ed. Parm., vol. XVIII, p. 228 a).

The literal commentary is often supplemented by pertinent discussions on debated points: these digressions, rare in his early commentaries, became predominant in his later ones, thanks to his deepening engagement with Averroes’ commentaries and his knowledge of the great Greek commentators (cf. M. Grabmann, *Die Aristoteleskomm. des hl. Th. V. A.*, in *Mittelalt. Geistesleben*, I, Munich 1926, esp. p. 281 ff.). In particular, the Thomist commentary on the *Metaphysics* is judged superior to any other for the mastery St. Thomas displays of this work, which is the most difficult ever written (cf. E. Rolfes, *Arist. Metaphysik*, I, Leipzig 1904, Introduction, pp. 15 and 17). Clearly, to grasp the importance of the Thomist commentaries (or rather *expositiones*) on the Aristotelian text, one must consider the Latin version (or versions) that St. Thomas consulted and sometimes explicitly discussed (the first volume of *Aristoteles latinus* [Rome 1939] can serve this critical inquiry with valuable guidance). On the preponderant influence of Boethius on the Thomist commentaries on Aristotle, cf. J. Isaac, *S. T. interpr. d’Arist.* in *Scholast. ra-*

He surpassed his age, yet could not perform the impossible: thus throughout his life he too, like his contemporaries, accepted the authorship of Dionysius the Areopagite for the corpus dionysianum and of certain works falsely attributed to St. Augustine. But it is to his personal credit first of all to have spurred William of Moerbeke to revise previous translations of Aristotle and to translate afresh the Philosopher’s most important works as well as the Greek commentaries and those of Proclus (cf. the dedication to Urban IV of the Catena super Matthaeum, S. Th., which laments the inconvenience in using the “Olimiario” of St. John Grissom “propter hoc quod est translatio vitiosa,” and the other dedication to Cardinal Annibaldi for the “Catenas” of the other three Gospels declares that “ut magis integra et continua praedicta sanctorum expositio redderetur, quasdam expositiones Doctorum graecorum in latinum feci transferri”: Catena aurea, ed. A. Guarienti, Torino 1953, vol. I, p. 4; vol. II, p. 429). St. Thomas earned special merit for having identified the origin of the celebrated opuscule De Causis: at first it was attributed to the Philosopher (In I Sent., dist. 8, q. I, a. 2 contra), then doubts arose and it was cited without the author’s name (Quodl. V, a. 7); finally it was declared an Arabic compendium of Proclus’s Theology based on a precise comparison made with the translation of Moerbeke—which he had solicited—of each proposition of the opuscule with the paragraphs of Proclus’s work (Sup. lib. de Causis, lect. 1; Op. Omnia, ed. Parm., vol. XXI, p. 718). On the attribution of the opuscule, St. Thomas’s conclusion has been declared definitive by modern criticism: O. Bardenhewer, Die pseudo-arist. Schrift: Über das reine Gute, bekannt unter dem Namen Lib. de Causis, Freiburg in Br. 1882, p. 12).

Another pseudepigraphon that enjoyed great authority in the controversy over spiritual matter and hence also over the plurality of substantial forms was the opuscule De unitate et uno, attributed to Boethius even in the editions of the “socius” and even in Migne (PL 63, 1076 ff.). In the Commentary on the Sentences (I, I, dist. 24, q. I, a. 1; ed. Mandonnet, vol. I, Paris 1929, p. 576), St. Thomas expressly attributes it to Boethius; but already in Quodlib. IX, q. III, a. 6; ad 2: “Liber ille non est Boethii, unde non oportet quod in auctoritatem recipiatur”; in his mature years the caution takes on explicit critical force: “Liber de unitate et uno non est Boethii, ut ipse stilus indicat” (Q. de spir. cr. a. 1 ad 2; ed. L. W. Keeler, Roma 1936, p. 18, 21). It is well known that the opuscule is a compilation made by D. Gundissalvi (cf. P. Correns, Baeumker’s Beitr., I, I, Münster in V. 1891). The same must be said of the other opuscule De spiritu et anima, attributed to St. Augustine by the same partisans of the plurality of forms (and as such in: PL 40, 7), which St. Thomas soon suspected to be spurious (“Liber ille non est Augustini, nec est multum authenticus”: De Spir. cr. 3 ad 6. Later, at 11 ad 2: “Liber De spiritu et anima est apocryphus, cum enim auctor ignoretur; et sunt ibi multa vel falso vel improprie dicta; quia ille qui librum composuit, non intellexit dicta sanctorum a quibus accipere conatus fuit.” Ed. cit. L. W. Keeler, p. 46, 147 and 144, 5). He approaches the identification of the true author of the Q. De anima, a. 9 ad 1 and especially a. 12, ad 1: “Liber iste De spiritu et anima non est Augustini, sed dicitur cuiusdam Cisterciensis fuisse, nec est multum curandum de his quae in eo dicuntur.” Indeed modern criticism CLERVAUX (CLERF) (v.). Similarly the work De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus is restored to Gennadius of Marseille (Quodl. XII, a. 10), who enjoyed great authority in the Middle Ages, and the opuscule De mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae attributed to St. Augustine is rejected by St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 3rd part, q. 45, a. 3, ad 2).

In the 3rd part of the Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas cites the works of St. Cyril of Alexandria directly; in the IVth book of the Contra Gentiles he cites the acts of the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon; in the Quaestio De Unione Verbi Incarnati and in the 3rd part he also cites the acts of the Second Council of Constantinople, only recently discovered by St. Thomas himself (cf. III, q. II; a. 1, 2, 3…). The growing importance of St. John Damascene in Thomist theology must also be noted. The Angelic Doctor, both in his knowledge of the genuine text of Aristotle and of his Greek commentators in philosophy and in theology in his knowledge of the Greek Fathers and the councils, surpassed all his contemporaries and not only them (cf. J. Backes, Die Christol. der hl. T. V. A. u. die griech. Kirchenväter, Paderborn 1931, p. 324 ff.).

It is to this novelty of method and of problems that we owe the sudden and uncontested fame that greeted him, a young bachelor, in Paris (“ita ut omnes etiam Magistros videretur excedere”: G. di Tocco, Vita…, ed. cit., ch. XIV, p. 81).

IV. PRINCIPLES OF DOCTRINE
1. The Structure of Knowing
Both pure Platonism and pure Aristotelianism are incompatible with the Christian faith, according to which the world is created by God and thus possesses its own consistency of reality and truth; it is not merely a realm of shadows and appearances, yet it is also created by God according to the divine “Ideas” and made for His glory. It may be affirmed that the whole of Thomist thought revolves around this central theme. It is in this world, therefore, that man must first know the truth and see the very reflection of God. Yet the human soul, endowed with the principle of knowing which is the intellect, is, according to Christianity, of a supernatural nature and of divine origin, so that man, by reason of his intelligence, is said to be “in the image of God.” It is on this biblical principle that Greek patristic thought and St. Augustine distinguished in man an empirical and contingent knowledge through the experience of the sensible world (ratio inferior) and an absolute knowledge of first, unchangeable truths attained through divine illumination (ratio superior). Thus the human spirit, in its higher part, when it is purified and draws near to God, participates in His absolute truth (cf. St. Augustine, 83 Quaestiones, Q. 46: De ideis: PL 40, 29) and escapes the contingency of corruptible things.

However, it was to Aristotle’s advantage (as it was to Heraclitus’, the Stoics’, and others who had a direct impact on patristic literature) that he viewed this sensible world as permeated by the divine λόγος: the “substantial form,” which is the act of material substances, is said to be “something divine” (cf. Physic. I, 9, 192 a 16), in agreement with the Christian doctrine according to which a “likeness” of the deity is found in creatures and that man can and must ascend from sensible things to the knowledge of God (Wis 13:1; Rom 1:19). The same Aristotelian doctrine of the active intellect (νόος ποιητικός: De An. III, 5, 430 a 10), which was the principal scandal of medieval Augustinianism, in fact conferred upon man a consistency and ontological dignity that is required by the very notion of the Christian person as a conscious and responsible agent. Furthermore, the Aristotelian world, arranged according to a marvelous hierarchy of perfection—from inanimate beings up to intelligent man, pure intelligences, and God, who as “beloved object” (ὁς ἐφώμενον: Metaph. XII, 17, 1072 b 3) draws all things to Himself—suggested a “presence of God” in the world and of the world to God, which fully justifies a phenomenon (perhaps the most complex in the history of Catholic culture): that the Church’s official Doctor radically changed course with respect to the patristic tradition.

Thus, in Aristotelianism, the “concept of truth” as the “conformity” of the intellect with reality (cf. Metaph. II, 1, 993 b 31) is grounded in the earth and in the human mind itself, not relegated to the indefinite, but directly engaging each person before being and capable of grounding, in the moral order, the responsibility of merit and demerit that underpins Christian ethics and eschatology. Finally, deepening this Aristotelian metaphysics of act, the Aristotelian notion of substance (v.)—with its two elements of subsistence (ὁσύλας) and inherence (ὁρυκτικένος)—proved particularly suited to explaining how the individual real thing could at once remain continuous and consistent in its being and, at the same time, follow a cycle of development through material and spiritual accidents. And this is all the more necessary in the Christian conception of human development and corresponds also to the Christian concept of “history” as the actual unfolding, in this temporal world, of the divine plan of salvation for humanity (cf. E. Hoffmann, *Platonismus u. Mittelalt.*, ed. cit., p. 72 ff.).

The situation is therefore as if an Aristotelianism of structure were by its very nature in fundamental consonance with the presuppositions of Christianity regarding the structure of finite being: in this sense, it is no wonder that the Platonic predominance in patristics provoked nearly all the Trinitarian and Christological heresies.

St. Thomas’s Aristotelian realism corresponds to that maturity attained by Christian consciousness, which considers it a greater honor to divine omnipotence that even the creature should possess *true reality* and *its own activity* (cf. C. Gent., III, 21 and 69; *Summa Theologiae*, 1a, 105, 5, etc.): thus man has in his intellect the immediate principle of his understanding, not in divine illumination, which is evidently presupposed. In St. Thomas’s earliest writings, traces of Augustinian extrinsicism can still be discerned in the assertion that the first principles are known as principles of moral action and preexist in us *naturaliter* as *semina* of the sciences and virtues, and are therefore *quodammodo* innate (cf. *De Veritate*, q. 14, a. 2; *In I Sent.*, dist. 24, q. 2, a. 3 and passim). But on coming into more direct contact with the Aristotelian text, St. Thomas soon grasped the importance of the doctrine of *εἰσαγωγή* (cf. *Posterior Analytics*, II, 19, 99 b–100 b; *Metaphysics*, I, 1, 980 b 25–981 a 30), understood as the progressive conquest that the human intellect makes of truth in the ferment of experience. This process, which Aristotle describes in broad outline, St. Thomas deepened with the aid of the Greek and Arabic traditions (cf. H. A. Wolfson, *The internal senses in Latin, Arabic and Hebrew philosophical texts*, in *The Harvard Theological Review*, 28 [1935], pp. 69 ff.).

The fundamental principle of Aristotelian epistemology is that the only form of intuitive knowledge is direct knowledge that attains existence, and this is given by sense: colors, sounds, tastes… are for man the first attestation of the presence of being to consciousness, and it is symptomatic that Aristotle appeals to this presence for the indirect foundation of the principle of contradiction (cf. *Metaphysics*, IV, 3, 1010 b ff.). This process of experimental induction of the intelligible presents three main stages, corresponding to the three “objective levels” of human consciousness.

1) There is the first *formal synthesis* by means of the so-called “common sensibles” (cf. *De Anima*, II, 6, 418 a 17 ff.; III, 1, 425 b 2 ff.), which organize the immediate contents of experience into immediate perceptual unities, whether static or of movement (perception of figures, numbers, states of rest and motion…). St. Thomas insisted forcefully, against the interpretation of the Averroist current, in vindicating these first syntheses for the perception of the external senses, thus ensuring the continuity between the cognitive syntheses and the immediate attestation of the real in sensation.

2) Next comes the *real synthesis* of the concrete values of lived experience, which St. Thomas calls *intentiones*, as distinct from the neutral contents of the preceding spheres, which are termed *formae*. It is in this zone that *εἰσαγωγή* properly unfolds, for within the sphere of direct sensation (proper and common sensibles) one cannot speak of development except secondarily and in dependence on the higher spheres. The development of these real syntheses constitutes the object in the concreteness of the accumulation of experience, and is therefore entrusted to the operation of the “internal senses,” which St. Thomas divides into two groups: the formal senses (sensus communis and imagination) and the intentional senses (cogitative and memory with reminiscence; *Summa Theologiae*, 1a, q. 78, a. 4). The key faculty of Thomist epistemology is the cogitative, barely hinted at by Aristotle but developed by the Greek-Arabic tradition and especially by Averroes. To the cogitative, also called *ratio particularis*, belong the following functions:
a) apprehending the contents of value or *intentiones insensatae* (*Summa Theologiae*, *loc. cit.*);
b) judging of common and proper sensibles (*De Veritate*, q. 1, a. 11);
c) preparing the *phantasma* from which the intellect may abstract knowledge of essence (*Contra Gentiles*, II, 60; cf. *ibid.*, cc. 73, 80, 81);
d) perceiving concretely those fundamental ontological notions (reality, substance, cause, relation… and the other categories) which the intellect then grasps in the universality of abstraction (*Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima*, II, lect. 13, n. 396).

On this basis, St. Thomas holds that the proper object of the human mind is the *essences of material things*.

3) The *real knowledge* of corporeal essences through the “conversion to the phantasm,” which constitutes the constitutive moment of the process of abstraction proper to the human intellect: “Hence the nature of a stone or of any material thing cannot be known completely and truly unless it is known as existing in a particular. But we know particulars through sense and imagination; and therefore, in order that the intellect may actually understand its proper object, it must turn to the phantasm in order to consider the universal nature as existing in a particular” (*Summa Theologiae*, 1a, q. 84, a. 7).

In reality, for St. Thomas:
a) it is through *experimentum* (the Aristotelian ἐπιστέλεσις), in which the cogitative operates, that the human intellect ascends from individual facts and experiences to knowledge of the universal and even to the formulation of first principles (cf. *In I Sent.*, dist. 20; cf. Parm., t. XVIII, p. 224 b. Earlier, bk. I, lect. 4 c: “The universal is not known by sense, but from many particulars seen, in which, after being often considered [= experimentum], the same thing is found to occur, we arrive at universal knowledge.” *Ibid.*, p. 171 a);
b) it is through the cogitative that the human intellect indirectly perceives singular substances… my friend Peter (*Summa Theologiae*, 1a, q. 86, a. 1; *Quaestiones De Anima*, a. 20 ad 1 sec. ser.) and this is what accomplishes that *reflexio* which secures and maintains the indirect yet immediate contact of the intellect of human consciousness as such with the reality of the external world;
c) it is again through this cogitative—now it is clear—that the human intellect is inserted into concrete reality, disposes of particular things, and can exercise moral judgment, for it is the cogitative that supplies the “minor” of the prudential syllogism (*De Veritate*, q. 10, a. 5 and ad 2).

The Thomist cogitative thus bridges the gap between intellect and sense both in its ascending and descending functions, and likewise between deliberating will and the opened concupiscible and irascible powers; in it, therefore, is gathered that which forms the matter of the higher actualizations of the spirit: science and virtue.

Thus St. Thomas did not choose between the two members of the Platonic–Aristotelian alternative (as E. Hoffmann, *art. cit.*, p. 67, maintains), but rather embraced their opposed demands of transcendence and immanence on a higher plane through the notion of participation. Indeed, the cogitative is capable of performing the remarkable functions just indicated precisely because “it participates” in intellect by a certain continuity of function: “The cogitative is what is highest in the sensitive part, where it somehow touches the intellectual part so as to participate in something of what is in the intellectual part, namely the lowest element of discursive reason, according to the rule of Dionysius” (*De Veritate*, q. 14, a. 1, ad 9).

At this point, after the first phase of the prevailing Aristotelian immanence, there follows a phase of Platonic predominance in the sense of the ontological transcendentalism indicated above. Human intellect and the first principles, both of the speculative order (intellectus properly so called) and of the practical sphere (synderesis), attain absolute value insofar as they are «a participation in the divine light within us and in the eternal law» (cf. *Summa Theol.*, 1a, 2ae, q. 91, aa. 2-3). St. Thomas, to indicate what might be termed the «transcendental moment» of human knowing, also employs the term that would gain currency in mystical literature of the *scintilla animae* (cf. *In II Sent.*, dist. 39, q. 3, a. 1. Cf. in this regard: H. Willms, *De scintilla animae*, in *Angelicum*, vol. I [1937], pp. 194 sg.). The originality of the Thomistic doctrine of knowledge (and of the corresponding doctrine of human action insofar as both operate on the platform of the «cogitativa») lies in having first upheld and developed the Aristotelian principle of the immanence of act throughout the entire line: humanity, and thus also the soul, understanding, value, and sensation... constitute the reality and the substantial or operative act of the *singular substance*. At the same time, however, every act, form, and inferior activity is still related to that which is superior as its participation, so that each has in this relationship its metaphysical foundation; and in general, every reality and perfection is something participated that must be grounded in the absolute perfection which is God by essence. Both moments, it should be noted,

are equally constitutive of the Thomistic synthesis: the Aristotelian moment, in that things first of all are and operate not by participation or mere derivation, but because they are endowed with their own principles in the ontological order... It is these principles that God has given to things that constitute them and cause them to act. There is, however, also a second moment: beyond this first, which may be called a participated causality, common to all Christian philosophy, there is in St. Thomas also the more intimate moment of a participated formal causality of Neoplatonic derivation, which Meister Eckhart would later attempt to impose in an exclusive form. First, the expression that the agent intellect with the first principles is a participation in the divine light within us (cf. *De Ver.*, q. 10, a. 6; *De spiritu creat.*, a. 10) does not have a merely causal meaning, because it is through the intellect, as the highest peak of the mind, that man attains God and remains in a certain continuity with Him. Second, and this second moment follows and completes the first, the intellect in every judgment of truth does not attain its definitive certainty except by divine virtue. Thus, one is beyond both Platonism and Aristotelianism, and the later St. Thomas has achieved a formula pregnant with meaning: God aids man in understanding not only (1) by proposing objects to him or (2) by increasing the light of his intelligence, but also (3) because the natural light of the intellect comes from God, and (4) «by this also, since He Himself is the first truth, from which all other truth derives its certitude, just as conclusions in demonstrative sciences derive theirs from first principles, nothing can be certain to the intellect unless by divine virtue, just as conclusions are not made certain in sciences except by the virtue of first principles» (*Compendium Theologiae*, c. 219; ed. De Maria, III, p. 185. Cf. *Summa Theol.*, 1a, q. 105, a. 3. Further: *Expositio in Ioannem*, c. 1, lect. 1, n. 33, ed. R. Cai, Turin 1952; a text that is worth a treatise). When care is taken to place the Thomistic doctrine of abstraction, in which the core of Thomistic realism is expressed, between these two poles—the *cogitativa*, which gathers the experience of lived life because it participates in the intellect, and the intellect itself, which attains the absolute truth of essences because its certitudes are guaranteed by the presence or assistance of divine truth—the Thomistic doctrine escapes the accusation of naturalism leveled at it by followers of medieval Augustinianism and by modern idealism.

2. The structure of being. The emergence of act (polemic against Augustinianism and Averroism). — Medieval Augustinianism had, under the authority of the great African Doctor, constituted a synthesis of elements of quite heterogeneous origin, yet tenaciously connected by a zealous tradition that had developed the consequences of his preference for Plato over Aristotle. In metaphysics it admitted a certain actuality of prime matter, then identified potency or receptivity with matter so that in the essence of every creature matter enters as a component: in corporeal creatures, corporeal matter; in spiritual ones, spiritual matter (universal hylomorphism). Moreover, and consequently, since the genus as a logically indeterminate element corresponds to matter, which is the ontologically indeterminate element, it admitted in every substance as many matters and as many forms as there are logical genera and the corresponding differences present in its notion: e.g., in man, those of substance, body, living being, animal, rational, and in the individual Peter..., thus at least six matters and as many forms (multiplicity of substantial forms).

The methodological principle of this exaggerated realism is the direct correspondence between the logical order and the ontological order: the genus is matter and the difference is form; the parts of the definition are also the parts of things. Someone, e.g., H. Meyer, *T. V. A.*, Bonn 1938, p. 79, has dared to level the same accusation of «parallelism» between the logical and ontological orders even against St. Thomas himself. Cf. C. Fabro, *Logica e Metafisica. A proposito di alcune critiche recenti al realismo tomistico*, in *Acta Pontificiae Academiae Romanae S. Thomae Aquinatis*.

therefore no act exists, and all its actuality comes from the form, so that not even God can cause matter to exist without form (*Quodlibet III*, q. 1, a. 1).

From the new concept of act (and potency) derives the «second» moment of Thomistic metaphysics, namely the thesis most opposed during the lifetime of St. Thomas: that of the unity of the substantial form in all bodies, even in living beings and in man himself, who is endowed with a spiritual soul; and thus the admission that the spiritual soul is, in itself and immediately, the substantial form of the human composite. A plurality of «forms,» even if ordered and subordinated to the spiritual soul, or even the admission of only an intermediate form (the *forma corporeitatis*), would destroy the essential unity of man, because the spiritual soul, as the ultimate form, would be merely a perfective and hence accidental form. To the theological difficulty—chiefly responsible for the controversy—that the body of Christ «in triduo mortis,» separated from the soul, could no longer, in the Aristotelian position, be called the body of Christ except «equivocally» (cf. *De Anima*, II, 412 b 21), St. Thomas expressly accepts the consequence but sees no harm to dogma in it, because the dead body of Jesus, though separated from the soul, remained always united hypostatically to the divinity of the Word (cf. *Quodlibet III*, q. 2, a. 5 and ad 1). The identity of the rational soul as the unique substantial form confers upon man not only spirituality but also the lower ontological grades: «Thus we say that in this man there is no other substantial form than the rational soul, and that by it man is not only a man, but an animal, a living being, a body, a substance, and a being» (*De spiritu creat.*, a. 3; ed. Keeler, p. 44, 1 ff.). Therefore the intellective soul virtually contains the lower forms, i.e., it includes the sensitive and vegetative powers that operate through the body (cf. *Summa Theol.*, 1a, q. 76, aa. 3-5): thus Aristotle says of geometric figures that the higher figure, e.g., the square, contains the lower, the triangle, and that essences are «like numbers» which differ by addition or subtraction of units (cf. *De Anima*, II, 3, 414 b 28; *Metaphysics*, VII, 6, 1043 b 34).

In this “third” moment of the Thomistic metaphysics of act, the defense is mounted—against the principal thesis of Averroism (v.)—of the personal individuality of the spiritual principle. The refutation unfolds in two stages: 1) a phenomenological stage, which is self-consciousness understood as the individual awareness each person has of being himself, the single N. N., the one who understands, wills, loves, etc.; *hic homo intelligit*. The intellect (and the will) is act, an individual perfection upon which all the other values of the single human person depend. This self-consciousness underlies the whole of human life, the duties and rights of each person as an individual human being. Hence the task is to “found” this fact on the metaphysical plane. 2) a metaphysical stage, inasmuch as the consciousness of understanding (second act)—which is an absolute *prius* in spiritual life—can be explained only by admitting that each single human being is endowed with his own individual spiritual soul (first act), which is at once the substantial form of the body and emerges above the body through spiritual operations. Only inasmuch as the same subject possesses the first act (the substantial intellectual principle) can the second act (understanding) be attributed to the individual (*De unitate intellectus* c. Averroistas, c. 3 § 8; ed. L. W. Keeler, p. 50 ff.). Clearly the spiritual soul is the substantial form of the body insofar as it is the principle of vegetative and sensitive functions, and not insofar as it is the principle of intellectual functions by which it emerges above the body and is a subsistent form in itself (cf. op. cit., § 6; ed. cit., p. 38). The positive immateriality of understanding provides the proof of the absolute spirituality of the human soul: since it possesses an operation proper to itself that transcends the body, it is a form subsistent in itself, to which therefore belongs *esse* directly (and not in common within the composite, as material forms do), and this being it communicates to the body. Thereby the immortality of the soul is rigorously proved metaphysically: if the human soul, as a spiritual form, is the immediate and per se subject of the act of being, this *esse* belongs to it definitively and inseparably: “*Esse autem per se convenit formae quae est actus... Impossibile est autem quod forma separetur a seipsa; unde impossibile est quod forma subsistentis desinat esse*” (*Summa Theologiae*, I, q. 75, a. 6; cf. ibid., q. 50, a. 5).

The “fourth” moment of Thomistic metaphysics is the establishment of the real distinction between essence and act of being (*esse*) in all creatures, which is the conclusion of the new concept of act. This is today considered the keystone of the entire Thomistic system. Presented in the early works under the direct influence of Avicenna’s extrinsicist metaphysics, in the mature works it is formulated with the most perfect expression of the “primacy of act” through the notion of participation in two stages: a) Pure perfection (separated perfection) can only be one, and being is the first perfection and the act of all acts (*Quodlibet II*, a. 3; *Summa Theologiae* I, q. 4, a. 1 ad 3 and a. 2); therefore the subsistent being is one alone, and this is God, who is being by essence. b) All creatures are then beings by participation insofar as essence participates in *esse*, and essence is therefore potency with respect to *esse*, which is the ultimate act of every reality (cf. *In VIII Physic.*, lect. 21, ed. Parm. vol. XVIII, p. 532: a text very well known in the Averroist school). In this way St. Thomas, by means of the notion of participation, can surpass Augustinianism, for he demonstrates that the soul and created intelligences (Angels), although simple in essence, are composite as creatures in the order of being. With the same notion of participation he can also vindicate, against Averroism through the ontological composition, the absolute dependence of the intelligences upon God through creation and conservation (*Summa Theologiae* I, q. 44, a. 1 ad 1; ibid., q. 104 and 105). Finally, the formula of participation provides the expression for the analogy between creatures and the Creator: “It is not said that there is a likeness between God and creatures because of a convenience in form according to the same ratio of genus or species, but only according to analogy, inasmuch as God is by essence and other things by participation” (*Summa Theologiae* I, q. 4, a. 3, ad 3). In this final conception of St. Thomas, *esse* is no longer the accident of Avicenna but the immanent act of substance, substantial *esse*, which is the proper effect of divine causality (*Quodlibet* XII, q. V, a. 5).

A twofold corollary of Thomistic metaphysics of act is the explanation of the multiplication of individuals within the same species (predicamental participation) by means of the principle of individuation indicated in the potential part of essence considered in the determination of “quantified matter” (*materia signata quantitate*), and the doctrine of the principle of subsistence of beings by participation, which is referred to *esse* as “act of substance”: “Properly speaking, *esse*... is attributed only to substance that subsists per se” (*Quodlibet* IX, q. II, a. 3, and ad 2; “*Esse* is that in which the unity of the suppositum is founded”). Pure spiritual substances (Intelligences according to philosophers, Angels according to theology), lacking the principle of individual multiplication which is matter, each one is the entire species. In his later works St. Thomas fully satisfied Simplicius’s thesis of the fundamental agreement between Plato and Aristotle (cf. *De substantiis separatis*, c. 3): thanks to the notion of participation, which at once gives the ultimate foundation of the doctrine of act and potency and overcomes the obstacle of Greek dualism. The Thomistic synthesis is absolutely original: it indeed takes up the metaphysical core of Platonic transcendence (notion of creation, composition of *esse* and essence, theory of analogy), which is welded to the act of Aristotelian immanence (the unity of the substantial form, the intellectual soul as substantial form of the body, doctrine of abstraction, etc.).

In the field of moral philosophy the polemical aspect that clarifies Thomistic progress is less prominent, but no less real, as has been demonstrated especially by the fundamental researches of D. O. Lottin. The “natural law” (v.) is no longer conceived, as in earlier Scholasticism, as an innate disposition of the will or a special faculty of the soul, but consists in the “habitus of first principles” of practical reason. These principles constitute the “natural law,” which is defined as a “participation of the eternal law in a rational creature” (*Summa Theologiae*, I-II, q. 91,

a. 2); it has in the practical sphere a function analogous to that of the first principles of theoretical reason in the speculative field (cf. ibid., 1a-2ae, q. 9, art. 1, ad 1). Natural law therefore constitutes the foundation of *synderesis*, which is the habit of the first moral principles and thus presupposes it (ibid., 1a-2ae, q. 9, art. 4, obj. 2). In elaborating the structure of the human act, St. Thomas, while not abandoning the Augustinian doctrine of *intentio* and *frui*, deepens and develops the elements of the Aristotelian doctrine concerning *usus* and *consensus*. Therefore, in the formation of moral judgment, *synderesis* provides the universal premise ("it is not to be stolen") and the *ratio particularis*, or *cogitativa* (q.v.), presents the concrete situation upon which a decision must be made ("this is theft"); the conclusion is the province of "conscience" (q.v.), which must apply the universal precept to the particular case. In any case, in the ethics of St. Thomas the natural order receives full recognition, and in harmony with Aristotelianism the proximate rule of "morality," according to which an act is said to be good or bad, is "right reason" applied to the object according to the perfect formula: "An act receives its moral species from its object insofar as it is compared to reason. And for this reason it is commonly said that certain acts are good or bad by reason of their kind, and that a good act is one that falls upon the proper matter, as feeding the hungry; a bad act by reason of its kind is one that falls upon improper matter, as taking what belongs to another: for the matter of an act is said to be its object" (De Malo, q. 2, art. 4, ad 5). And since it is the province of practical reason to order acts to the ultimate end, there can be no concrete acts (in an individual) that are indifferent in themselves: because either the act is ordered by deliberative reason to the ultimate end or it is not; in the first case the act is good, in the second it is bad (Sum. Theol. 1a-2ae, q. 18, art. 9, corpus and ad 3). This principle, which reason has by nature over human acts, is also evident in the technicalities of Thomistic moral teaching regarding the sinfulness of the so-called *motus primo-primi* of the lower appetite: "Reason, by anticipating it, can command it or even prevent it; it was within man's power to restrain it" (Quodl. IV, art. 21; cf. ad 2).

At this point, therefore, the will enters the scene as the moving principle of moral life and thus as the proper subject of the moral virtues. In all this matter St. Thomas uses with sure judgment the advances of his predecessors and always arrives at some original insight, drawing inspiration not only from Aristotle but also from Cicero and Macrobius, both in his general theory and in the treatment of individual virtues, which have their natural center in prudence.

Entering more particularly into the field of doctrinal problems of natural law, the Thomistic treatment not only surpasses those of his predecessors and contemporaries but represents the most complete synthesis of Roman law with the Christian conception. For this reason it is not surprising that the Thomistic principles of the treatises *De justitia* and *De legibus* are praised by Grotius, and that one of the most esteemed modern cultivators of the philosophy of law, Jhering, confessed that he would not have written his *Der Zweck im Recht* (2nd ed., Berlin 1884) had he known the treatment of St. Thomas, "in which the principles of this matter are set forth with perfect clarity and in the most pregnant form" (cf. B. C. Kuhlmann, *Der Gesetzesbegriff beim hl. Th. V. A.*, Bonn 1912, p. VI ff.). Even in sociology, in economics, and above all in politics, the principles of St. Thomas have guided the revival of Catholic thought against the attacks of liberal secularism and Marxist socialism in defense of the higher values of the human person (an attempt has even been made to draw a parallel between St. Thomas and Marx by G. Hohoff; cf. G. W. Plechanov, *La quest. fondam. del marxismo*, Italian trans., Milan 1947, p. 145 ff.).

3. The theological method: reason and faith

It is now recognized that St. Thomas merits the credit of having been the first to conceive theology as a "science" in the strict sense. Indeed, according to Fr. Chenu (*La Theol. comme science au XIIIe siècle*, 2nd ed., Paris 1943, p. 9 ff.), he dared to lay down clearly the principle of a complete application of scientific procedures to the data of Revelation, thus constituting an organic discipline in which Sacred Scripture, the article of faith, is no longer the very matter, the subject of theological exposition and inquiry, as in the sacred doctrine of the 12th century, but constitutes the previously known principle from which theology proceeds and works according to all the laws and exigencies of Aristotelian demonstration: "What we hold by faith are for us as first principles in this science, and other things are as conclusions" (In Boeth. de Trin., q. 11, art. 2; ed. De Maria, p. 298; cf. ad 4 and ad 5).

In theology, therefore, believers, in the condition of wayfarers (in *statu viae*), seek some understanding of supernatural mysteries insofar as, on the unshakable foundation of faith, which is a "participation" in the knowledge of God and the blessed, we proceed to further knowledge: "We come to knowledge of other things according to our mode, namely by reasoning from principles to conclusions" (ibid.).

The problem whether theology can be a "science" appears from the beginning of the 13th century in William of Auxerre, Prepositinus, Alexander of Hales; even the Dominican Roland of Cremona poses it explicitly, but resolves it negatively (cf. E. Filthaut, *Roland V. Cremona und die Anfänge der Scholastik im Predigerorden*, Vechta i. O. 1936, p. 52 ff.). Theology therefore acquires the character of a science insofar as St. Thomas applies the Aristotelian theory of the "subordination" of the sciences (cf. Post. Anal. I, 2, 72 a 14-20 and 13, 78 b 35-39): while some sciences have immediately evident principles, others proceed from principles that are proved by a higher science "as perspective proceeds from principles made known by geometry, and music from principles known by arithmetic" (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 1, art. 2).

Theology therefore has its certainty from this dependence, through faith, on the "scientia Dei et beatorum." This constitutes the consolidation of the distinctive character of Scholasticism according to the "Credo ut intelligam" of St. Anselm: "Faith is in us that we may arrive at understanding what we believe" (In Boeth. de Trin., q. 2, art. 2, ad 7; ed. De Maria, p. 300).

The method of theology is therefore primarily the recourse to faith, i.e., the argument from "authority" of divine Revelation, which for the believer constitutes the most effective criterion of truth (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 1, art. 8, ad 2). The function of reason, when theology has recourse to philosophy and other human sciences, is instrumental in nature: "... it uses them as inferior and ancillary" and more out of condescension than necessity (ibid., art. 5, ad 2), and this redounds to the advantage of reason itself, since "those who use philosophical teachings in Sacred Scripture, reducing them to the service of faith, do not mix water with wine but turn water into wine" (In Boeth. de Trin., q. 2, art. 3, ad 5; De Maria, III, p. 340).

In this way the philosophical concepts that are taken up by theology transcend the meaning of the historical systems (Platonic, Aristotelian, etc.) to which they belong and attain a higher evidence and certainty insofar as they have been elevated to a higher order: e.g., the concepts of "nature," "person," "relation," "cause." In this theological extension of a precise philosophical term to dogma, one may arrive at the so-called "theological conclusion."

The principal object (the *subiectum* in St. Thomas's terminology) of theology is therefore God, because in it everything is treated solely in relation to God... "either because they are God Himself or because they have an order to God as to their principle and end" (ibid., art. 7).

In the Thomistic doctrine of the relations between faith and reason there is shown the positive influence of the Aristotelian conception of reality in the rigorous distinction between the two orders of grace and nature, each of which is endowed with its own principles in its own sphere; unlike the tradition of the Augustinian school. Taking their cue from St. Augustine, Peter Lombard (III Sent., q. 24) had already posed the problem "whether it is possible to have both science and faith about the same object and under the same aspect" (*Utrum aliquid possit esse simul creditum et scitum*), and the Franciscan school (Alexander of Hales, Odo Rigaldus, St. Bonaventure, Matthew of Aquasparta) and the

Mencana (Rolando di Cremona, R. Fishacre, Ugo di S. Caro, Bombologno di Bologna) and St. Albert the Great himself (cf. M. Grabmann, *De quaest. « Utrum aliquid posuit simul esse creditum et scitum» inter scholas Augustin. et Aristotelic» Thom. med. aevi agitata, in Acta Hebd. Augustin. Thom., Torino 1931, p. 110 sgg.) always gave an affirmative answer. Instead, St. Thomas Aquinas, from his earliest writings, took a negative stance (according to the Aristotelian principle that every science has its own principles which provide the evidence of its object (cf. *In III Sent.*, dist. 24, q. unica, a. 2, qc. 1, 2 and 3; *De Ver.*, q. 14, a. 9). In his most mature form (*Summa Theologiae*, 2a-2ae, q. 1, aa. 4-5), St. Thomas clarifies the opposition between the two forms of assent: 1) the assent of science, which proceeds from the intrinsic evidence of the object; and 2) the assent of faith, which proceeds from the will that moves the intellect to assent to the mysteries proposed for belief, which transcend every created intellect. 2. Although in the act of faith the evidence of the object is lacking, there is nevertheless extrinsic evidence of Revelation: « Non enim crederet, nisi videret ea esse credenda vel propter evidentiam signorum, vel propter aliquid huiusmodi » (ibid., a. 4 ad 3). As for the so-called *praeambula fidei*—that is, those truths which in themselves are of natural order but are also revealed (e.g., the existence of God and of moral law, Providence, the spirituality and immortality of the soul... Cf. *Summa Contra Gentiles*, I, 3-5)—and which most of the faithful hold by faith, these cease to be objects of faith when someone understands their philosophical arguments. « Idem non potest simul et secundum idem esse scitum et creditum, quia scitum est visum, et creditum est non visum » (ibid., a. 5, ad 4).

The clear Thomistic distinction between faith and reason, in contrast to the Augustinian school, also emerges from the controversy aroused by the Aristotelian text on the *eternity of the world*. For the Augustinian theologians, the problem of the beginning of the world coincided with that of its dependence on God, so that a world that was « from eternity » would thereby be uncaused. St. Thomas, in opposing this view, denies the claim that the « creation from eternity » is rationally demonstrable and refutes the error of an eternal, uncaused world (*Summa Theologiae*, 1a, q. 46, a. 2 ad 1). To the Augustinians, however, he appeals to a text of St. Augustine (*De civitate Dei*, X, cap. 31) and in his *De aeternitate mundi* demonstrates at length the rational possibility of a « creation from eternity » and declares most categorically that the temporal beginning of the world is an article of faith: « Mundum non semper fuisse, sola fide tenetur et demonstrative probari non potest, sicut et supra de mysterio Trinitatis dictum est » (*Summa Theologiae*, 1a, q. 36, a. 2; *Quodlibeta*, III, a. 31).

With this clear distinction between the two spheres—reason and faith—St. Thomas opened the way for the development of theology as a strict science and for what would later be called the « evolution of dogma » (v. DOGMA), in the sense that theological reflection, with the aid of appropriate rational concepts, can make explicit what was previously only implicit (cf. *Summa Theologiae*, 2a-2ae, q. 1, a. 7: *Utrum articuli fidei secundum successionem temporum creverint*). Yet the work of the theologian’s reason, reflecting on the principles of faith, is guided and supervised by the supreme magisterium of the Church, which is the visible bond of the unity of the Mystical Body: « Non enim potest esse unum corpus, si non fuerit unum caput; neque una congregatio si non fuerit unus rector » (C. error. Graec., cap. 31; ed. De Maria, III, p. 435; cf. pp. 453-58 for the rigorous demonstration of the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff).

The originality of St. Thomas’s work therefore lies in the boldly accomplished project of employing the principles of Aristotelianism within the climate of Christian Revelation (« secundum quod est consequens ad positiones Aristotelis »: *De subst. sep.*, c. 15; ed. De Maria, III, p. 255), of having reflected on dogma according to the sound naturalism of Aristotle (« secundum vera philosophiae principia quae consideravit Aristoteles », *De spiritu creaturarum*, a. 3; ed. L. W. Keeler, p. 42, 14). Hence the frequent characterization of Thomism as intellectualist, in contrast to the Augustinian school, whose voluntarist tendency affirms the primacy of the will over the intellect, the affective-practical character of theology, and places the essence of final beatitude in joy rather than in contemplation.

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(1st. Guidon)

TOMMASO D'AQUINO, Saint - Temptation of St. Thomas Aquinas. Painting by D. Velázquez (18th c.), from the Convent of St. Dominic - Orihuela, Diocesan Museum.

But the accusation is unfounded: in reality, if in Thomism the first moment is entrusted to the object and thus to the intellect (the specification of powers and sciences by their respective objects), the second moment is attributed to the subject, which perfects itself through its acts in the possession of the object. Hence theology is certainly a speculative science, but virtually it is also practical; it treats of human acts, but only insofar as « per eos ordinatur homo ad perfectam Dei cognitionem » (*Summa Theologiae*, 1a, q. 1, a. 4). Moreover, if faith is the beginning of salvation, the true principle of the entire supernatural organism, for St. Thomas, is sanctifying grace through charity (*Summa Theologiae*, 2a-2ae, q. 23, a. 8: *Utrum charitas sit forma virtutum*). In this regard, it may be observed that, if we consider the principles, St. Bonaventure is in this point rather vague and less inclined to affirm the preeminence of charity, since he categorically states (following William of Auxerre) that the acts of faith, hope, and charity « sunt aequalia in ratione merendi quando sunt informata gratia. Tantum enim ipsa charitas est meritoria in suo actu, quantum et fides in uno et eodem homine » (*In III Sent.*, dist. 25, dub. 4, ed. Quaracchi, p. 553; ed. minor 1941, p. 546 b).

Finally, while St. Thomas affirms the superiority of the intellect over the will (*Summa Theologiae*, 1a, q. 82, a. 3) and states that beatitude consists essentially in the contemplation of the divine essence (*Summa Theologiae*, 1a-2ae, q. 3, a. 4), he nevertheless reserves for the will the *delectatio*, the *fruito*, and the *gaudium* of happiness; and in his *Lectura in Matthaeum* the Saint provides a formula that can resolve all unnecessary disputes, precisely by appealing to Aristotle: « Notandum quod secundum Philosophum, ad hoc quod actus contemplativi faciant beatum duo requiruntur: unum substantialiter, scilicet quod sit actus altissimi intelligibilis; aliud formaliter, scilicet amor et delectatio » (*Expositio super Evangelium Matthaei*, c. V, lect. 1; ed. Parm. t. X, p. 49 b).

This sense of Aristotelian concreteness leads the Thomistic theology ever more to value finite reality even within the economy of supernatural life. While traditional theology conceived habitual sanctifying grace as identical with charity and regarded it as an extrinsic gift of divine liberality received in the soul, St. Thomas defines in the *Summa Theologiae* (1a-2ae, q. 110, a. 1) sanctifying

a “participation” in the divine nature (2 Pt 1:4) and therefore conceives it as the formal cause of justification inhering in the essence of the soul as its intrinsic quality, namely an entitative “habitus” (ibid., art. 2); for this he employs the term “gratia actualis” (cf. Lectura in Ioan., c. IX, lect. 1, n. 5; ed. R. Cai, Torino 1952, p. 243 b; cf. E. Filthaut, op. cit., p. 136). Thus the ontological status of the supernatural order is in conformity with that of nature, so that grace is no longer derived merely as an extrinsic accretion but—in harmony with the Aristotelian doctrine of substance—through an intrinsic form of derivation “ex potentia oboedientiali,” in which the soul, under God’s action, develops toward supernatural life: “Et secundum hoc etiam gratia creari dicitur ex eo quod homines secundum ipsam creantur, id est novo esse constituuntur ex nihilo, id est non ex meritis, secundum illud Philip., 2, 10” (Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 110, art. 2, ad 3). Consequently, the sacramental character is also defined as a quality inhering in the soul (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 63, esp. arts. 1 and 4).

In St. Thomas, therefore, Aristotelian immanence and Platonic transcendence coexist in proper balance, whereas the Augustinian school was confined to a timorous extrinsicism that, begun by Peter Lombard, was exacerbated in nominalist theology and reached catastrophe in Luther’s theory of extrinsic justification. Just as grace, which is its root, so too charity and all infused theological and moral virtues are operative qualities (“habitus”) inhering in the subject. The supernatural order, in its structure, cannot be inferior to the natural: if natural activities proceed from immanent potencies in the subject, the same must be admitted for supernatural acts; all the more so since “nulla virtus habet delectationem ad actum suum sicut caritas nec aliqua ita delectabiliter.” Charity and all infused virtues are not therefore reduced to transient motions of the Holy Spirit, but are realities present in the soul elevated to the supernatural order: just as the potencies actualize the soul in the natural order, so too the infused virtues, founded on sanctifying grace, actualize it in the supernatural order (Sum. Theol., 2a-2ae, q. 23, art. 2; Utrum caritas sit aliquod creatum in anima). The transcendental aspect must integrate, not suppress, the immanence of operative principles, because every finite perfection (life, wisdom...) is a participation in the divine perfection that is such by essence... “et sic etiam caritas qua formaliter diligimus proximum est quaedam participatio divinae caritatis.” The fact is that the Augustinian school interpreted formal causality in terms of efficient causality, whereas the problem must be posed in the reverse sense: “Hic modus loquendi consuetus est apud Platonicos, quorum doctrinis imbutus fuit Augustinus: quod quidam non advertentes ex verbis eius sumpserunt occasionem errandi” (ibid., ad 1). And just as for the essence of sanctifying grace St. Thomas expanded the Aristotelian metaphysics of substance, so for the efficacy of the sacraments he transcends the uncertainties of his earlier works, where he had defended the traditional doctrine of dispositive causality, and applies the metaphysics of the subordination of causes: God is the principal perfective cause, and the sacrament is the instrumental perfective cause, that is, the “separated instrument” that draws its efficacy from the “conjoined instrument,” which is the Humanity of Christ (cf. Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 62, arts. 1–5). This new doctrine arose from the synthesis of the Aristotelian distinction between animate and inanimate instruments, namely between the slave and any “separated” tool (Polit., I, 4, 1254 a 15–17), and the doctrine of St. John Damascene on the Humanity of Christ considered as “the instrument of divinity” (δραχνον τῆς θεολογικῆς: De Fide Orth., III, 19; PG 94, 1080 b; cf. c. 15, 1060 a).

Therefore, while acknowledging to St. Augustine the constant prestige that he especially exercises in the theological field upon St. Thomas, the more original developments of Thomistic theology—and in particular of Christology and the entire economy of salvation—depend upon a more direct and profound knowledge of the Greek Fathers. Thus the aforementioned doctrine of Damascene on the causality of the Humanity of Christ is found explicitly formulated already in St. Cyril of Alexandria and in St. Athanasius himself, and St. Thomas is the first to recognize the formula as it passed into the Acts of the Third Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (680–81; Denz-U, 291–92) with the authority of the two aforementioned Fathers: even the citation of St. Leo the Great in these Acts recurs twice in the Tertia Pars (q. 19, a. 1 c; q. 43, a. 2). It must still be noted that St. Thomas is the first in the West to make use of these Acts for theological reflection (cf. Th. Tschipke, Die Menschheit Christi als Heilsorgan der Gottheit, unter bes. Berücksichtigung der Lehre des hl. Th. V. A., in Freib. Theol. Stud., Heft 55, Freiburg in Br. 1940, pp. 188 ff.).

It is with this rigorous distinction between the two orders that St. Thomas can affirm the absolute transcendence of the mysteries of faith, for which reason is absolutely powerless and can exercise only an extrinsic, propaedeutic, and apologetic function under the guidance of Revelation (cf. Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 32, a. 1). For this reason, the Saint reproves the presumption of those who, following the old school, wished to provide arguments to prove the mysteries and thus demonstrate their intrinsic rationality, for this would cause grave confusion and provoke the scorn of unbelievers (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 46, a. 1). According to this criterion of theological sobriety, both for the existence of the mysteries of faith and for the exposition of their content, the selection of appropriate terms, and the correspondences that may intervene among the principal mysteries (Trinity, Incarnation, Eucharist), the primary and principal source is divine Revelation. This criterion was rigorously applied by St. Thomas with regard to the existence of the entire created supernatural order, that is, what has been called the “motive” of the Incarnation.

To the more widespread direction of the Augustinian tradition (cf. Alex. Al., Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 2, memb. 13 and the same Albert the Great: In III Sent., dist. 20, a. 4), which found its historical formulation with Duns Scotus, St. Thomas opposed the solid methodological criterion: “Ea quae ex sola Dei voluntate proveniunt, supra omne debitum creaturae, nobis innotescere non possunt nisi quatenus in Sacra Scriptura traduntur per quam divina voluntas nobis innotescit.” Now, in Scripture and in patristic tradition, the Incarnation of the Word is always presented as the merciful work of God to lift man from sin... “ita quod peccato non existente, incarnatio non fuisset,” even though divine omnipotence, absolutely speaking, could have decreed the Incarnation independently of sin (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 7, a. 3).

Concerning the orientation of patristic theology on this point and its relationship to the Thomistic position, V. A. Spindeler, *Cur Verbum caro factum? Das Motiv der Menschwerd. u. das Verhältnis der Erlösung zur Menschw. Gottes in den christolog. Glaubenskämpfen des viert. u. fünf. Jahrh.*, in *Forsch. z. christl. Dogmen-gesch.*; Bd. XVIII, 2, Paderborn 1938, p. 28 ff.

On the progress that the *Summa Theologica* represents on this and other points of theological material compared to the youthful *Commentary on the Sentences*, a direct influence was also exerted by the *Commentary on the Sentences* of Peter of Tarantasia (cf. H.-D. Simonin, *Les écrits de Pierre de T.*, in *Innocent V, P. de T.*, Rome 1943, p. 145 ff.).

The distinction between the two orders of nature and grace inspires the intimate articulation of Thomistic Christology: for example, the necessity that even the soul of Christ be elevated by habitual grace and endowed with virtues in their respective powers (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 7, aa. 1-2), and the admission in Christ of an “experiential knowledge” acquired, in addition to the beatific and infused knowledge (ibid., q. 12, a. 1-2).

V. TOMISM

I. Historical Development

The controversy aroused by the doctrinal innovations of Thomistic Aristotelianism, far from abating after the death of the Saint, intensified among the most representative exponents of the Augustinian school at the University of Paris, both Franciscans and seculars, and it was thought to renew with greater scope the condemnation of Averroism (already struck in 1270, thanks especially to the definitive critique made by St. Thomas) by including some Thomistic theses. The condemnation was issued, again by Bishop Tempier, on March 7, 1277 (cf. *Chart. Un. Paris.*, t. I, n. 473, pp. 543-55) and included no less than 219 propositions, among which those recognized as Thomistic concern the unity of the world (aa. 34, 77), the individuation of material and immaterial substances (aa. 27, 82, 96, 191), and the localization of separate substances (aa. 69, 218, 219). Codex E. 5532 of the National Library of Florence, ff. 1287, 1287, also considers as Thomistic nos. 124, 129, 156, 163, 173, 187, 212, 218 (cf. J. Hofmans - A. Pelzer, *Etud. sur les manuscrit. de Godefroid de Fontaines*, in *Les philos. Belges*, XIV, Louvain 1937, p. 211, note).

Yet it must be acknowledged that these incriminated articles deal with rather secondary doctrinal points of Thomism, and the explicit formulation of the very thesis of the unity of the substantial form—on which the public dispute of Paris in 1270 raged and which was at the center of the bitter controversies following the death of the Saint—is missing. This censure was lifted on February 14, 1325, after the canonization of the Saint, by the Bishop of Paris, Stephen Bourret, who on that occasion delivered a eulogy of St. Thomas (*Chart. Un. Paris.*, II, n. 838, pp. 280 ff.). Upon the announcement of the condemnation of 1277, St. Albert the Great, heedless of his advanced age, presented himself in Paris to defend his great pupil (cf. the ample and moving testimony of Bartholomew of Capua in the Canonization Process of St. Thomas, ed. M. H. Laurent, n. 82, in *Fontes...*, fasc. IV, pp. 382 ff.).

Immediately after the condemnation of 1277, however, the Roman Curia ordered the Bishop of Paris to suspend the effects of that condemnation and to conduct a precise inquiry into the authors of the individual propositions and their exact meaning (cf. the letter of John XXI to the Bishop of Paris, in A. Callebaut, *J. Pecham et l'Augustin.*, *Aperçu historique* [1263-85], in *Arch. Franc. Hist.*, 18 [1925]). The Parisian condemnation had the effect of rallying the forces of the Dominican Order around the doctrine of St. Thomas, which was soon proclaimed the official doctrine of the Order. Already the General Chapter of Milan (June 1278) and that of Paris (June 1279; *Chart. Univ. Paris.*, I, n. 481, pp. 566 ff.) recommended to the provincials, visitors, and priors that they severely punish friars who dared to criticize the doctrine and writings of St. Thomas. In the heat of the controversy, first the General Chapter of Paris (June 1286) and then that of Saragossa in 1309 expressly ordered the superiors to exert every effort to ensure that all teaching friars taught or at least defended the doctrine of St. Thomas and to chastise the recalcitrant in a salutary manner (the ordinance was applied, for example, at the Chapter of Arezzo of the Roman Province in 1315 with regard to a certain Friar Uberto Guidi, who was removed from his chair and condemned to ten days of bread and water; cf. M. H. Laurent, *Fontes...*, fasc. VI, pp. 663 ff.). The obligation to follow the doctrine of the Saint and to explain his text in the schools was proclaimed at the General Chapters of Metz (1313) with the official declaration: “Cum doctrina venerabilis doctoris fr. Thome de Aquino sanior et communior reputetur et eam Ordo noster specialiter prosequi teneatur, inhibemus districte...” The ordinance was repeated at the subsequent Chapters of London (1314) and expressly at Bologna (1315), with the recommendation also to collect all the works of the Saint at the Order’s general houses of study (*Chart. Univ. Par.*, I, n. 704, p. 166 and n. 717, p. 173 ff.).

Meanwhile, in Paris at this time, John of Naples, O.P., defended the question: *Utrum licite possit doceri Parisius doctrina Sancti Thomae quantum ad omnes eius conclusiones*, in which he examined the following articles of the condemnation of 1277: 79, 81, 124, 129, 156, 173, 187, 212, 218 (cf. the edition by C. Jellouschek, in *Xenia Thom.*, I, III, Rome 1925, p. 88 ff.).

The direct struggle against Thomist doctrines was waged especially by the Franciscan Order, stronghold of Augustinianism, under the pretext of the theological consequences feared from Thomist Aristotelianism; it was therefore nothing more than the continuation of the controversy directed against the Saint particularly in the last years of his life. The most active representative of this movement proved to Pecham (v.), colleague and opponent of St. Thomas at Paris, later reader at the Roman Curia and finally archbishop of Oxford. To him is largely due the dispute held at Paignton in 1270, in which, among other things, the Thomist thesis of the unity of substantial form was condemned in a special way; this thesis forms the core of this polemical direction, and Pecham even claimed to pose as a defender of St. Thomas against his own brethren because, as he said, “tiam a fratribus propriis argueretur acute” (Letter to the bishop of Lincoln of June 10, 1285. Apud M. H. Laurent, Fontes..., fasc. VI, p. 643). In the Paris dispute of 1277, according to Friar Roger Marston who was present, “... haec opinio - of the unity of form - fuit excommunicata solemniter tamquam contraria Sanctorum assertionibus et doctrinae et praecipue Augustini et Anselmi” (QQ. Disp., ed. Bibl. Fr. M. E., VII, Quaracchi 1932, p. 116 ff.).

Yet already within the Dominican Order a line of defense of St. Thomas’s doctrines was taking shape, perhaps even under the stimulus and authority of St. Albert the Great, as was the case with Giles of Lessines (cf. M. De Wulf, Le de Unit. formae de Gilles de Lessines, in Les philos. Belges, I, Louvain 1902; cf. esp. p. 79 ff.). Giles’s treatise of 1278 was directed against the Dominican Robert Kilwardby of the older Augustinian school. After the condemnation of Aristotelianism in 1270, Giles had promptly informed Albert the Great, who replied with the treatise De quindecim problematibus, whose last two propositions proposed for condemnation but not condemned concerned the Thomist doctrines of the unity of form in bodies and the simplicity of angels (cf. P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant, II, 2nd ed. Louvain 1911, p. 29 ff.; see also F. Van Steenberghen, Le «De quindecim problemat.» d’Albert le Grand, in Mél. A. Pelzer, Louvain 1947, p. 415 ff.).

Pecham relied on the fact that this thesis had been proscribed not only at Paris but also by his predecessor at Oxford, the Dominican Robert Kilwardby (v.), on March 18, 1277, immediately after the Paris condemnation (cf. Chart. Un. Par., I, p. 588 ff.; propositions 15–30 In naturalibus, all concerning points of Thomist metaphysics; esp. prop. 17: “Quod nulla potentia activa est in materia”; prop. 26: “Quod vegetativa, sensitiva et intellectiva sint forma simplex”; prop. 27: “Quod corpus vivum et mortuum est aequivoco corpus,” to be read together with propositions 28 and 30: “Intellectiva (forma) unitur materiae primae”). The condemnation caused a certain stir and is recalled even by Ockham (cf. the note by M. H. Laurent, Fontes..., fasc. VI, p. 617 ff.). For the historical development of the controversy, see D. A. Callus, The Condemnation of St. Thomas at Oxford, Westminster 1946, p. 11 ff. On Kilwardby’s anti-Thomism, see E. M. F. Sommer-Seckendorff, Studies in the Life of R. K., Rome 1937, esp. p. 159 ff.

Pecham’s action and influence, however, did not prevent a growing favor for St. Thomas’s doctrines among the Franciscans. This alarmed the authorities of the Order, who took steps to counter it: to this end, Friar William de la Mare was commissioned to list and oppose all Thomist theses contrary to the Order’s doctrinal tradition, and thus arose the *Correctionum fratris Thomae* (between 1277 and 1279: Callebaut). The General Chapter of the Friars Minor at Strasbourg in 1282 ordered that the *Summa Theologica* of St. Thomas might be read only by friars “notabiliter intelligentes,” and with the obligation to accompany it with the readings of de la Mare’s *Declarationes* (cf. P. Mandonnet, *Siger de Brabant*, I, 1st ed. Louvain 1898, p. 402). Most probably the *Correctionum* is the elaboration of a previous list of errors attributed by de la Mare to St. Thomas, contained in Cod. 174 (ff. 552–58 v) of the Biblioteca comunale of Assisi, subsequent to the *Correctionum* itself (cf. F. Pelster, Das Ur-Correct. W. de la Mare, Eine theol. Zensur zur Lehre des Hl. Th., in *Gregorianum*, 38 [1947], p. 220 ff.).

The *Correctionum* in substance did nothing more than codify the official teaching that the Order had accepted even in the time of St. Bonaventure (A. Callebaut, art. cit., p. 467 ff.). The Dominicans called it *Corruptionum* and rebutted its arguments with a series of polemical writings, the principal ones bearing the title *Correctionum Corruptioni*, indicated by their opening word. The first of these *Correctiones* seems to be the *Quare*, whose author is already indicated in 16th-century editions as Giles of Rome (recently the attribution has been connected between two English Dominicans, Richard Knapwell and Thomas of Sutton: cf. F. Pelster, *Thomas von Sutton u. das Correct. «Quare detraxistis»*, in *Mél. Pelzer*, Louvain 1947, p. 441 ff.); it is the most complete and consists of 118 articles drawn from the principal works of St. Thomas (*Sum. Theol.*, 1a, 1ae–2ae, 2ae–3ae; disputed questions *De ver.*, *De an.*, *De pot.*, *Quodl.*, and *In I Sent.*; many questions are repeated) and has the advantage of containing the text of de la Mare (P. Glorieux has provided the critical edition in *Bibl. Thom.*, IX, Le Saulchoir, Kain 1927). The *Correctionum Circa* is the work of the Dominican John of Paris and contains the first 60 articles up to *Sum. Theol.* 1a–2ae inclusive; its composition seems contemporary with the preceding, if not earlier, i.e., between 1288 and 1294, while P. Pelster places it around 1300, according to its editor J. P. Müller (*Le Correct. corruptioni «Circa» de J. Quidort de Paris*, in *Stud. Anselm.* XII–XIII, Rome 1941, cf. p. XXXIV ff.). Next, around 1290, comes the *Correctionum «Quaestione»* (unpublished) of Merton College Cod. 167, which seems attributable to William of Macklefield or Hugh of Billom. The authorship of the *Correctionum «Sciendum»*, also unpublished, is contested between Robert of Collotorto and Robert of Oxford, but Durandellus and John of Parma also lay claim to it; for Robert of Collotorto, see P. Bayerschmidt, *R. W. Collotorto Verfasser des Correctionums «Sciendum»?*, in *Divus Thomas* (Freiburg, 17 [1939], p. 311 ff.).

Before 1300, between 1286 and 1287, should be placed the *Apologeticum veritatis contra Corruptionum* of the Dominican Rambert of’ Primadizzi of Bologna, which has the merit of broadening the field of discussion to include other opponents of St. Thomas, such as the Franciscans Matthew of Aquasparta and Richard of Middleton and especially Henry of Ghent and Giles of Rome himself. The date of composition is fixed (this time in agreement with P. Pelster) by the editor J. P. Müller in 1299 (cf. *Studi e testi*, Città del Vaticano 1943, p. XXVI); it comprises only 16 questions, all referring to the *Summa Theologica*, and follows step by step the text of de la Mare.

The names of HENRY OF GHENT and GILES OF ROME (v.) recall the intricate and most serious phase of the early anti-nominalist controversy. As regards Giles of Rome, whom tradition had long regarded as a faithful Thomist, manuscript studies have shown that, especially in theological matters, he often appears among the opponents (cf. G. Bruni, Egidio Rom. e la sua polem. antitom., in Riv. di fil. neosc., 26 [1934], pp. 239-51; see also p. 245 the list “Egidius contra Thomam” in Cod. Vat. lat. 772, which contains no fewer than 73 points of divergence in the single book of the Sentences). Bruni has edited from the same codex the Impugnationes contra Fratrem Egidium contradictionem Thomae super primum Sententiarum by a fervent Dominican whose identity has not yet been established (in Bibl. Augustin. M. Aevi, Città del Vaticano 1942).

In the struggle against Henry of Ghent, Giles defended the Thomist thesis of the real distinction between essence and act of being, but with arguments of his own and by introducing the terminology of esse essentiae and esse existentiae, of esse generis and esse speciei, which reveals an ontological realism foreign to St Thomas and which took the first decisive step down the slippery slope of formalist realism. This led to the reification of the principles of being, confusing not a few Thomists on the important question down to Suárez, and which persists in his work to our own day (cf. E. Hoedez, Aegidii Rom. Theor. de esse et essent., Introd., Louvain 1930, pp. 116 ff.). This “splitting” of Thomist realism in Giles stems from his personal doctrine of participation.

The main opponent against whom Giles and most Thomists had to contend for nearly twenty years was Henry of Ghent himself (v.), a leading and highly influential figure in Paris. The thrust and parry of the controversy over the distinction between essence and existence pursued one another without cease, dominating the intellectual life of the late thirteenth century and relegating other disputed points to the background (cf. J. Paulus, Les disputes d’Henri de Gand et de Gilles de Rome sur la distinction de l’essence et de l’existence, in Arch. d’hist. doctr. et litt. du m. â., 15-17 [1940-42], p. 324 ff.). Faced with the purely logical distinction between concept and abstract and with Giles’s massive real distinction, which ended by conceiving essence and esse as “res et res,” as “duae res,” Henry devised the middle way of a “distinctio secundum intentionem,” inasmuch as the “esse existentiae” of the creature cannot be conceived by the intellect except as dependent on God, so that “essentia” and “esse” are not “duae res” but “duo respectu.” The “essentia” is related to God as to an exemplary cause, and the “esse” to God as to the first efficient cause; hence essence and existence are distinguished not because they form a real composition but only because they indicate a different relation of dependence on God, that is, according to our manner of understanding (J. Paulus, Henri de Gand, Essai sur les tendances de sa métaphysique, Paris 1938, esp. pp. 278-91). This solution had its immediate repercussions not only in the metaphysical determination of the concept of “creature” within the bounds of Christian philosophy, but also in the difficult theology of the hypostatic union in Christ. On the polemical question “Utrum sit duplex vel unum esse in Christo,” Henry directly attacked the Thomist position which affirms in Christ a “duplex esse naturae” and a single “esse subsistentiae,” and from his critique there arose the various anti-Thomist positions on this point (Scotus, Tiffin, Suárez, etc.) down to our own day. Henry attributes an “esse actualis existentiae” also to the human nature of Christ—while denying in the divine Person an “esse absolutum subsistentiae,” since the divine Person is constituted by an “esse ad aliquid” (cf. the fundamental study of P. Bayerschmidt, Die Seins- und Formenmetaphysik des Heinrich von Gent in ihrer Anwendung auf die Christologie, in Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos. u. Theol. d. Mittelalters, XXVI, 3-4, Münster i. W. 1941, p. 81).

In an even more radical manner than Henry, the contemporary secular master Godfrey of Fontaines denied any real composition of essence and esse, while clinging to Giles’s terminology of “esse essentiae” and “esse existentiae,” and vigorously defended the Thomist thesis of the pure potentiality of matter, protesting against the detractors of St Thomas: “Aliqui doctrinam non modico fructuosam cuiusdam doctoris famosi, cuius memoria cum laudibus esse debet, ut in pluribus impugnantes, vel deinde contra dicta sua procedentes, ad diffamationem personae pariter et doctrinae opprobria magis quam rationes inducere consueverunt” (M. De Wulf-A. Pelzer, Les quatre premiers Quodlibets de Godefroid de Fontaines, Quodl. I, a. 4, in Les Philosophes Belges, II, Louvain 1904, p. 7).

Within the Dominican Order, after the official pronouncements in favor of Thomism, opposition to Thomist innovations was reduced to initiatives quickly suppressed by authority. After the Kilwardby episode, the most notorious case is that of Durand of St Pourçain. Research by J. Koch has dispelled the legend, handed down to us, of Durand’s early adherence to Thomism and has shown that he, together with his master James of Metz, belonged to the old Augustinian school within the Order, hostile to the acceptance of Aristotelianism and close, for example in the theory of “modes,” to Henry of Ghent (J. Koch, Jakob von Metz O. P., der Lehrer des Durandus a s. Porciano, O. P., in Arch. d’hist. doctr. et litt. du m. â., 4-5 [1929-30], esp. p. 192 ff.). This conservative secessionist trend was energetically repressed by the authorities of the Order. The driving force behind the defense against the whole trend represented by Henry of Ghent, James of Metz, and Durand was Hervé (v.) Natalis: the first was thoroughly attacked in the Quodlibeta (Venetian ed. by M. A. Zimara 1513), the second in the Correctionum fratris Jacobi Metensis (cf. J. Koch, art. cit., p. 194 ff.), and the third especially in Quodl. II of 1308, qq. 3, 7, and 8; Quodl. IV of 1310, qq. 4 and 14, along with other special dissertations and a body of polemical writings discovered and studied by Koch: Reprobationes excusationum Durandi of 1314, Correct. super dicta Durandi of 1315, De articulis pertinentibus ad IV Sent. Durandi of 1314-15, and the Evidentiae contra Durandum super IV Sent. It is Hervé’s, and seems to have been written no later than 1307, the Defensio doctrinae s. Thomae (cf. J. Koch, Durandus de s. Porciano, Forschungen zum Streit um Thomas von Aquin zu Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts, I. Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos. u. Theol. d. Mittelalters, XXVI, 1, Münster i. W. 1927, esp. p. 211 ff.). Other Thomists identified by Koch who polemicized against Durand include Peter of Palude, James of Lausanne, John of Naples—who was the foremost defender of St Thomas throughout this storm—Bernard Lombard, and the unknown but strong Thomist Durandellus. The Order, by its own authority, published a first list of 191 errors in Durand’s Commentary on the Sentences on 3 July 1314, compiled by Peter of Palude and James of Naples, to which Durand replied with his Excusationes; soon followed a second list of no fewer than 235 articles in which Durand departed from St Thomas, dating between 1316-17, and Durand was placed outside the doctrinal tradition of the Order.

In this controversy the figure of Scotus emerges, from whom Ockham directly derives; Ockham openly attacked the foundations of Thomism both in philosophy and in theology (cf. Fr. Hoffmann, *Die erste Kritik des Ockhamismus durch den Oxford. Kanzler J. Lutterell*, Breslau 1941, pp. 14 ff., 23 ff., 75 ff., passim): but it seems that Durandus also derives from Scotus himself, certainly with regard to sacramental theology (cf. J. Koch, *Die Verteidigung der Theol. des hl. Th. V. A. durch den Dominikanerord. gegen. Durandus de s. Porc. O. P.*, in *Xen. Thom.*, III, Rome 1925, p. 251). Moreover, the research of Fr. Balić for the critical edition of Scotus has established that the principal source from which he derives is Henry of Ghent, namely the leader of medieval anti-Thomism, who remains the main point of reference for most of the philosophical and theological doctrines with which the renewed Augustinian school attempted energetically, not without notable success, to stem the advance of Thomism (cf. I. D. Scotus, *Op. Omnia... ad fidem Cod. ed.*, Rome 1950, vol. I, esp. pp. 166 ff.). In this tumult of polemics during the first half-century after the death of St. Thomas, that doctrinal tradition crystallized which has taken the name of “Thomism.”

For a critical judgment on the historical formation of Thomism, it must be noted that even among the earliest disciples of St. Thomas and the first promoters of Thomism there were considerable divergences: suffice it to mention the position of one of St. Thomas’s secular pupils, Peter of Auvergne, who posits form as the principle of individuation and from whom James of Metz and Durandus derive (cf. J. Koch, *Jakob V. Metz...*, op. cit., pp. 211 ff.). Even Hervé Nédellec, champion of Thomism and Master General of the Order, did not assimilate Thomist doctrines gradually and denied that masterpiece of Thomist metaphysics which is the real distinction between essence and act of being; this distinction is also denied by Bernard Lombardi, O.P. As for Bernard of Trilia (d. 1292), who is reputed a faithful Thomist, the real distinction is for him a “positio probabilior” (cf. G. André, *Les Quodl. de B. Trilia*, in *Gregorium*, 2 [1921], p. 252). Similar divergences have been observed in various philosophical and theological doctrines (for those, e.g., concerning the metaphysics of relation, V. A. Krempel, *La Doctr. de la relation chez st Th.*, Paris 1952, pp. 20 ff. and passim, who speaks of a “demi-fidélité des premiers adeptes”).

The most mature fruit of the first century of Thomist polemics is the work of Capreolus (d. 1444, v.): his *Defensiones theologicae Divi Thomae Aquinatis* (new ed. by Paban-Pèques, Tours 1900 ff.) provide an exact overview of the state of the School in the 15th century, after the struggle that Thomism had waged and continued against its principal adversaries, and contain all the key texts of the School. Capreolus appears to follow mainly the work of Durandellus, and the main line of Thomism, established with him, continues into the 16th century with the Hungarian Peter Nigri (d. 1492) and the Italians Paul Soncinas (d. 1494), Chrysostom Javelli (d. 1534), Peter of Bergamo, author of the *Tabula aurea*, which is the first “Thomistic index,” and F. Ferrara (v.), commentator on the *Summa contra Gentiles*, equal to Capreolus in fidelity to St. Thomas but often surpassing him in synthetic and speculative vigor.

These leading figures were almost eclipsed by the overpowering authority of Cajetan, which was reinforced by the fluid systematic approach of the Spanish followers, such as D. Bañez (v.) and John of St. REID, THOMAS (v.), among whom the formal and excessively systematic tendency often took the place of the original sobriety of the Thomist text adhered to by the older school. Such oscillations were almost inevitable, first because of the predominantly polemical formation of Thomism, and second because until the end of the 15th century the official textbook for teaching, even for Dominicans, was the *Sentences* of Lombard, and only in the 16th century, thanks to the Belgian P. Crockaert, master of F. VITA (v.), was the *Summa Theologica* introduced as a school text. Finally, the lack of study of sources and critical method meant that not a few Thomists relied on spurious pamphlets, preferring them to authentic texts.

It is not surprising, then, that 14th–15th century Thomists, when defending the real distinction between essence and act of being, often resorted to the terms and arguments of Giles of Rome more than to those of St. Thomas (thus even John of St. Thomas himself makes extensive use of the spurious *Summa totius logicae*, which contains the formula that has unsettled, not entirely without reason, the adversaries of the real distinction and has shaken those Dominicans who likewise denied it, beginning with the aforementioned Hervé Nédellec down to Fr. A. Lepidi (d. 1921): “In creaturis esse essentiae et esse actualis existentiae differunt realiter ut duae diversae res” [In creatures, the being of essence and the being of actual existence differ really as two diverse things]—ed. De Maria, vol. 1, p. 23). Another explicit example is found in the *Quodlibeta* of Alverius O.P. (still unidentified) in a miscellany codex of the Biblioteca Antoniana in Padua from the 14th century (Shelf XIII, no. 295): in Quodlibet XIX, *Utrum esse et essentia differant realiter* (fol. 19rb), the three well-known opinions are presented as if canonized, and the author forthrightly opts for the third (“probabilior”), which defends—like Henry of Ghent and later Suárez—the distinction only in modes of signification and rejects arguments for the real distinction, including that of participation (ibid., ad tertium, v.b.).

The unease created in the Thomist school at this point is also reflected in the position of D. Bañez (v.), who knows and expounds the three opinions that had been debated for three centuries and for each indicates a Dominican representative (!). In the first, among the deniers of the real distinction, forgetting the principal ones, namely the Averroists, who would have shown him by contrast the true position of St. Thomas, he places at the head of the deniers Hervé Nédellec, followed by nominalists of every stripe. The second opinion (which would later be Suárez’s), defending the intermediate distinction (“secundum intentionem”) of Henry of Ghent “ex natura rei,” has as its champions Scotus and Alexander of Hales or rather the general Franciscan A. Bonini of Alessandria (cf. C. Fabro, *Una fonte antitomistica della metafisica suareziana*, in *Divus Thomas Plac.*, 50 [1947], pp. 57–68), along with Nifo and the Dominican D. Soto. The third opinion holds that essence is distinct from “esse” as thing from thing, so that not only is the proposition “essentia est esse” false in formal sense (first opinion), but also “essentia est res quae est esse” (D. Bañez, *Schol. Comment. in Primam Partem...*, q. 3, a. 4; ed. Lyons 1588, col. 140). Supporters of this position cited are Capreolus, Cajetan, Soncinas, and Javelli. But Bañez seems to move with difficulty: the opinion attributed to St. Thomas is judged “very probable and more suited to theological use,” and Bañez himself accepts II. Yet—here lies the crux of the problem we are touching upon—Bañez also considers probable the opinion of Scotus (and of Soto), that is, the principal adversary of St. Thomas, Henry of Ghent: “Sententia tamen Scoti et magistri Soto potest probabiliter sustineri et argumenta quae contra illam fiunt ab assertoribus tertiae sententiae [i.e., the Thomist one, note well!] poterunt hoc exemplo dissolvi”... (ibid., col. 141).

A similar attitude had been taken a century earlier by Peter Nigri, an outstanding Thomist, regarding the position of Hervé, according to whom “esse essentiae et esse existentiae differunt secundum diversos modos significandi per modum verbi et per modum nominis significatorum.” And he concluded: “Opinio doctoris huius nolo impugnare quia satis rationabilis videtur et in nullo videtur dictis Sanctorum et philosophorum contraria sed consonaque rationi. Est tamen alia solemnis opinio scil. Doctoris sancti, etc.” (*Clypeus Thomist.*, q. XXXII; ed. Venice, Simon de Luere, 1504, fol. 56vab).

It is no accident that in the prolix discussions of Nigri and Bañez every deepening of the Thomist concept of act and *esse* in relation to the notion of participation is lacking, as had already been noted by the adversaries, the Averroists, and even by Alexander of Alessandria. A more rigorous fidelity to the terms of St. Thomas is found in the secular master G. Versor, for whom “esse est aliud ab essentia vel natura angeli...,” and the Thomist arguments are cited with sober precision (*QQ. in XII Metaph.*, q. XII, Cologne, Quentell 1493, fol. 106vb–107ra).

To this shift of Thomism toward formalism must also be attributed the widespread theses in the Thomist school of an act of “esse” proper to accidents and the consequent thesis, almost official in contemporary Thomism, of the primacy of the analogy of proportionality over the analogy of attribution. Most likely also the thesis attributed to Cajetan of the “terminus substantialis” as constitutive of subsistence (accepted even by Bañez, loc. cit., cols. 125–27) and the conception of the “relatio transcendentalis” (cf. A. Krempel, op. cit., pp. 646 ff.), which found favor in much 17th-century Thomism, betraying the formalist and nominalist infiltrations to which, for historical objectivity, we wished to allude.

It is true that St. Thomas’s work has always enjoyed, throughout the centuries, the favour of the Apostolic See; yet this has not prevented other schools from continuing their own traditions, and in the great universities, right up to the irruption of modern thought, alongside the Thomist chair there stood chairs defending the doctrines of Scotus, Durandus, Gregory of Rimini... Indeed, towards the end of the 18th century, when, with Peter of Ailly, nominalism gained the upper hand at the University of Paris, the Dominicans were excluded from the schools from 1387 until 1403. The most regrettable episode was the attack launched by the Spanish Dominican John of Montesono against the defenders of the Immaculate Conception, going so far as to assert that «whoever believes that the Blessed Virgin was conceived without original sin, is acting expressly against the faith...» and therefore «sins mortally» (cf. the Propositions X–XIII, condemned on 12 July 1391, in Chart. Univ. Paris, vol. III, Paris 1894, p. 486 historical note; V. the 14 propositions condemned in nos. 1557 ff., pp. 493 ff.; V. further on, no. 1572, p. 518, the retraction of Montesono). Perhaps this very rigidity of the Dominican Order in denying the Marian privilege contributed not a little to hindering the understanding and diffusion of Thomism in Catholic schools and to allowing formalism and theological nominalism—which had become ardent champions of that privilege—to gain ground and prestige.

In the field of more strictly philosophical doctrines, opposition to Thomism continued on the part of Averroism (v. down to the 16th century with the explicit or tacit appeal to Siger of Brabant; the thesis of a «substantial conversion of Siger to Thomism», proposed by F. van Steenberghen (cf. Les oeuvres et la doctrine de S. de Br., Brussels 1938, pp. 150 ff), has been strongly contested by B. Nardi (Il preteso tomista di Sigieri di Br., in Giorn. crit. d. fil. it., 17 [1936], pp. 26 ff., who also gained the assent of E. Gilson: «cf. Bull. Thom., 6 [1942], pp. 16 ff.»). Yet it is beyond doubt that the Thomist critique of the De unitate intellectus pushed Siger to revise his formulations and to acknowledge the incompatibility of the thesis of the unity of the intellect with Christian doctrine. The hostility towards St. Thomas is systematic in Siger’s successor as leader of Averroism, John of Jandun, and it extends into Italian Averroism of the Renaissance, even forming alliances with schools of Augustinian (Scotist) and nominalist orientation.

In recent years the question of Dante’s adherence to Thomism has been much debated (Busnelli, Nardi), but it is beyond doubt that, in the substance of his problems, the Poet draws inspiration from St. Thomas, even if the very nature of his work leads him to remain open to the most varied influences: in Florence, in the fourteenth century, the great Parisian controversies could have had only a very faint echo, since in the *Paradiso* Dante has St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, and Siger—i.e., the champions of the three rival currents—celebrating in eternal joy that harmony in truth which they did not achieve in their speculative work on earth, and which their disciples made ever less possible in the schools.

A nucleus of opposition to Thomism, albeit of limited proportions, was also provided by the *alternism* (v. SCOLASTICA), which enjoyed a period of notable activity in Paris and Cologne between the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century, with infiltrations even among Thomists themselves, as for example in Dominic of Flanders, O.P., who is at times in polemic with the integral Thomism of G. Versor (cf. L. Mahieu, Dominique de Flandre. Sa métaph., Paris 1942, pp. 21 ff.).

With the rise of the Society of Jesus, the diffusion of scholasticism (v.) took on new vigour, and the study of St. Thomas secured the place of honour in the original constitutions of St. Ignatius; yet these were subsequently modified after the Saint’s death, and there was even talk of composing a new *Summa Theologica*, entrusted to Fr. Laynez (v. the documentation in P. Garin, *Thèses cartes. et thèses thom.*, Paris n.d., p. 24 note). Worthy of note is a movement of integral Thomism within the Society, occasioned by the Molinist controversy, through the work of John Azor and Benedict Pereira, who expressly disseminated the Thomist thesis of physical premotion (cf. A. Michelitsch, *Die Kommentare zur Summa Theol. des hl. Th. V. A.*, Graz 1923, pp. 35 ff., 59–61, 102 ff.); yet this was an isolated phenomenon soon repressed by the General Acquaviva. Of good Thomist inspiration is the work of Sylvester Mauro (1619–87), which nonetheless could not compete with that of Suárez, who secured almost total adherence in the schools of the Society.

Within the Dominican Order, Thomist doctrines received particular impetus from expositions still appreciated today, such as those of Goudin, Genevois, and, at the beginning of the last century, the Italian S. Roselli, whose *Summa philosophica* (3rd ed., Bologna 1857–59) was probably the first seed for the revival of Thomism. Yet it must be acknowledged that this distinguished work is not immune from rationalist infiltrations, such as, for example, the adoption of the Wolffian division of philosophy and of Leibniz’s principle of «sufficient reason» (cf. op. cit., p. II, *Metaph.*, q. 6, a. 1; vol. II, pp. 98 ff.), which would exercise a massive influence on neo-scholastic and even neo-Thomist manuals, as can be seen in the complicated discussions on the value of the principle of causality (cf. C. Fabro, *Per la difesa crit. del principio di causa*, in *Riv. di filosof. neosc.*, 38 [1936], pp. 121 ff.).

4. Thomism and the ecclesiastical magisterium

Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical *Aeterni Patris* (v.) summoned Catholic forces to unity under the guidance of St. Thomas. The efficacy of the papal injunction is attested by the prompt adherence of Catholic expositors, teachers, cultural institutions, and major superiors, among which is to be noted that of Fr. P. Beckx, General of the Society of Jesus, who assured the Pope that he had «with greater warmth» enjoined upon all the observance of the new provisions, «changing some professors who seemed less suited to the purpose» (J. J. Berthier, *S. Th. A. Doctor Communis*, Rome 1914, p. 600). Leo XIII’s intention was that even the Franciscans should follow St. Thomas, and he made his will clear in these weighty words: «To depart inconsiderately and rashly from the wisdom of the Angelic Doctor is a thing alien to our will and fraught with danger... Let the name of Thomas therefore be held sacred by all the disciples of blessed Francis: let them fear to follow a guide of whom Jesus Christ Himself bore witness that he wrote well of Him» (letter of 27 Nov. 1898, to the Minister General of the Franciscan Order; in J. J. Berthier, op. cit., p. 264).

The work of Bl. Pius X was directed to stimulating the systematic study of Thomist doctrines, above all to counter modernism (v.), which was undermining Catholic truth at its roots: the urgent invitation appears in the encyclical *Sacrorum Antistitum* of 1 Sept. 1910 and is developed with peremptory insistence in the *motu proprio* *Doctoris Angelici* of 29 June 1914 (*AAS*, 6 [1914], pp. 336–341). To clarify his will still further, the Blessed Pontiff, on 27 July, had the Sacred Congregation of Studies publish a list of 24 points or «theses» of

Thomist philosophy ordaining that such “pronuntiatam maiora” must be held sacred by all schools of philosophy (ibid., 383 ff.): these were the last doctrinal documents of his pontificate. With Benedict XV the fidelity to Thomist doctrines passed into the legislation of the Church: in fact the CIC establishes that all Catholic schools must follow in theology and philosophy the principles of St Thomas (canons 580 § 1 and 1366 § 2), and the prescription was reaffirmed in the apostolic constitution *Deus scientiarum Dominus* of 1931 and by Pius XII in the encyclical *Humani generis*. The General of the Society of Jesus, Fr V. Ledochowski, on 9 March 1915 obtained from Benedict XV that the thesis of the real distinction between essence and act of being be left free within the Society (cf. the documents in: F. Ehrle, *La Scolast. e i suoi compiti odierni*, Italian trans., Turin 1935, pp. 108 ff.). Nevertheless it is beyond doubt that this thesis belongs to the essence of Thomism and is the mature fruit of those “pronuntiatam maiora” from which Bl. Pius X warned it was dangerous to depart (motu proprio *Doctoris Angelici* of 29 June 1914; cf. the commentary by T. Pègues, *Intorno a s. T., una controv. recente*, Toulouse-Paris 1918; where in the appendix, pp. 35 ff., Fr Pègues opposed to the 24 Thomist theses an equal number of theses drawn chiefly from the *Disp. Metaph.* of Suárez). The publication of the 24 theses marks the high theoretical level attained by contemporary Thomism, to which every historical-critical deepening of the doctrines must refer.

5. Thomism and modern thought

There still lacks an adequate comparison between authentic Thomist thought and modern thought, both with regard to the general orientation of problems and with regard to the various systems of thought that arose in opposition to the scholastic tradition. Usually the work of St Thomas is implicated in the generic condemnations of scholasticism by modern culture, stimulated first by the hostility diffused by the Reformation and then by the new “principle of immanence.” The strongest opposition to the revival of Thomism came in France from traditionalism (v.) and ontologism (v.), and in Germany from the idealist-leaning group of Hermes, Günther, Frohschammer. For example, the traditionalist Bautain wrote to the dean of the Faculty of Theology at Tübingen seeking support in the struggle against rationalism and old scholasticism to defend the sacred cause of faith against reason; to which, however, the great Möhler (v.) replied energetically that “St Thomas,” in general, the scholastic theologians were right to affirm that the truths of reason that God exists and the rational consideration that Christ deserves belief are ‘preambula fidei’ and not ‘articula (sic!) fidei,’ but that this does not conflict with the position of St Anselm or St Gregory Nazianzen when they denied that faith is the foundation of knowing” (letter of 26 Feb 1835, in J. A. Möhler, *Ges. Aktenstücke u. Briefe*, I, Munich 1928, p. 308).

The revival of scholasticism (v.), desired by Leo XIII, had the immediate effect of forbidding any direct synthesis between Christian faith and modern thought: in particular it insisted on presenting the thought of St Thomas as its explicit antithesis thanks to the clear distinction of the relations between reason and faith and to the adoption of Aristotelian ontological realism for both the structure of being and that of knowing. L. Feuerbach chose Thomist speculation as the type of metaphysical theologism which, disguised in Hegelian form, had to be eliminated in order to restore natural man to his authenticity (cf. the extensive Thomist quotations in: *Das Wesen des Christentums. Erläuterungen...*, in *Sämtl. Werke*, ed. Bolin-Jodl, VI, Stuttgart 1903, pp. 336 ff.). Feuerbach gives many texts translated directly from the major works of St Thomas. The opposition between Thomism and modern thought was recently declared by R. Eucken and, in the Catholic field, by I. Hessen, who accuses Thomist gnoseology of formalist abstractionism (*Abbildrealismus*; cf. I. Hessen, *Die Weltanschauung des hl. Th. V. A.*, Stuttgart 1926, pp. 20 ff.). In Italy it fell to G. Saitta to defend the thesis that the substratum and meaning of all the philosophical and theological speculation of St Thomas lies in the defence of ontological monotheism insofar as this serves as a platform for the political doctrines concerning the temporal power of the Church and the papal primacy (cf. *Il caratt. d. filosof. tom.*, Florence 1934).

However, in various attempts a “positive” rapprochement between St. Thomas and Kant has been made: the problem that has focused the greatest effort of this first century of the return to scholasticism is that raised by Kant concerning the foundation of the objectivity of knowledge, which seemed fundamentally compromised by Kantian apriorism. The objective value of human knowledge in Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy is founded through intentionality, that is, the essential reference that the act of knowing—and with the act, the “species” or subjective means of knowing—has to the reality it represents. According to a recent interpretation, Fr. Sertillanges has highlighted the affinities between Kant’s metaphysical and moral conceptions and those of St. Thomas: the impossibility of a “regressus in infinitum” in causes (Second Way) finds a parallel in Kant’s principle of the Second Antinomy, that “given the conditioned, the entire series of conditions—and thus the Unconditioned itself—is also given.” Similarly, regarding the eternity of the world, the conception of “normal freedom,” and the “kingdom of ends,” Kant would express in other terms the same Thomistic conception (cf. S. Th. d’A., IV, ed. Paris 1925, vol. I, pp. 149, 281; vol. II, pp. 284, 300 ff., 311, 314). St. Thomas and Kant would constitute two analogous and complementary moments of Western consciousness: just as St. Thomas revolutionized Catholic theology with the clear distinction between reason and faith, so too with Kant modern philosophy distinguished the knowledge of reality as the object of science and metaphysics. The Kantian distinction between phenomenon and noumenon, between science and pure philosophy (metaphysics), according to others, is connected to the ancient Greek distinction between nature (φύσις) and convention (νόμος); it is preserved on a higher plane by St. Thomas in the spiritual climate of the 13th century as an essential element of the “philosophia perennis” through the clear distinction between reason and faith. The significance of Kantian speculation lies in having provided the true concept of modern science, in which man—with his “hypotheses,” projects, anticipations—is no longer passive but active; this new fundamental principle of Kantianism is valid in itself, apart from the complex philosophical construction Kant added to it, and can be well reconciled with Thomistic realism (so G. Ardley, *Aquinas and Kant. The Foundations of Modern Science*, London 1950, pp. 3 ff.; 7 ff.).

In Italy, the theoretical problem has been more decisively addressed by A. Carlini, who sees in Kant the one who continued and completed the direction opened by St. Thomas, whose position transcends both pure rationalism and fideism: indeed, for the Angelic Doctor, faith and reason are clearly distinct but not separated; the *intellectus*, despite appearances, is no longer the Aristotelian *Nous* and opens itself to new problems unknown to Aristotle, and ultimately seeks to be the entire soul in its most spiritual aspect; thus, the Thomistic position, like the Kantian, strictly falls neither under intellectualism nor voluntarism (cf. S. T. d’A., *Ragione e fede*, Bari 1949, pp. 149, 149, 162 ff., 219 ff.). Carlini further holds that St. Thomas does not give a peremptory, that is, rigorously demonstrative character to the famous Five Ways: once the epistemological problem is placed at the center of Kantianism and is not resolved in pure subjectivism, as later idealism did, the two positions correspond (ibid., pp. 124 ff., 171 ff.). In particular, like Sertillanges, Carlini emphasizes the enormous importance of the argument for creation in St. Thomas, insofar as he unified it by excluding any intrusion of “naturalistically understood causality,” and St. Thomas would have been the first to hint at the celebrated antinomies upon which modern criticism would rely (ibid., p. 101 ff.). Finally, in this context, the Thomistic theory of freedom must also be recalled, understood not only as valid in the realm of action but also in the sphere of thought as a foundational attribute of spirituality (ibid., p. 123).

In a more limited perspective, G. Zamboni, interpreting the Kantian *Ich denke* psychologically as the act of consciousness, went on to develop, with explicit Thomistic references, an “act-epistemology” according to which it is only in the self-consciousness of the ego, in internal experience, that man directly perceives the act of being, which is later extended to the qualified surfaces of external experience (cf. esp. *La gnoseologia di s. T. d’A.*, Verona 1934). It is not difficult to discern in the two preceding interpretations the influence—explicitly acknowledged—of Rosmini. More closely following the Kantian transcendental method was the Belgian Jesuit G. Maréchal, to whom we owe a theory on the intellectual dynamism of objective knowledge that should satisfy Kant’s demand for the transcendent (cf. *Le point de départ de la métaph.*, cahier V: *Le thom. devant la philosophie*, Louvain-Paris 1926. For a programmatic exposition, see *Le dynamisme intellectuel dans la connaissance objective*, in *Rev. néos. de philos.*, 28 [1927], pp. 137 ff.). Human intellect, which is neither creative like the divine nor intuitive like the angelic, but discursive, must seek the real and objectify it by affirming it as real through the act of judgment; now, since the relation between our knowing and the object cannot be that of cause and effect (reserved to God), it must necessarily be that of an active tendency of the faculty toward the object as its end. The affirmation of the absolute Real is, for finite human spirit, the necessary a priori condition of the objectivity of knowledge itself. The two moments are then: a) the active, natural, and necessary tendency of the intellect toward the real, which contains the implicit affirmation of God (thus taking the place of the Kantian *das Ding an sich* and *das Ich denke*); b) this active tendency of the intellect toward the vision of God is the only means of explaining objectivity, that is, the reference to the real of the content of our thought. Some disciples of Maréchal have explained this transcendent dynamism of human consciousness by attributing to the movement or influence of the will over the intellect the intentional function of knowing (Hayen). However, it must be observed that for St. Thomas, knowing is not resolved into a relation but is a mode of being and a positive perfection of the subject, whose real term is the immanent “species,” and through and within the “species” as similitude, the intentional reference or objectification is accomplished: in Thomism, the fundamental process that allows the reference from thought to the real is the *reflexio*, which is accomplished through the *conversio ad phantasmata*; the corresponding Kantian doctrine is rather the theory of transcendental schematism (developed in this sense, with tacit reference to Aristotle, by M. Heidegger in *Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik*, 2nd ed., Frankfurt am Main 1950).

Maréchal’s position reflects the main concern of Neoscholasticism to justify the existence of the external world (the problem of the *conte*) and to arrive at a foundation for the existence of the thing-in-itself (substance, cause...), which was the stumbling block of Kant’s dualism of phenomenon and noumenon, from which post-Kantian philosophy, especially Hegel, had freed itself by affirming the priority of absolute being (of consciousness) over the act of knowing and thus demonstrating the contradiction in the notion of knowing as a “means or instrument” with respect to being, and therefore the untenability of the so-called critical problem as an introduction to being (cf. Hegel, *Phänomenologie des Geistes*, Introduction: *Von der Erfahrung des Bewusstseins*, ed. J. Hoffmeister, Leipzig 1937, pp. 63 ff.).

The possibility of a critical rapprochement between Thomism and the metaphysics of transcendental idealism seems rather suggested at a distance by the common principle of the primacy of theory over praxis, by the common orientation toward the metaphysics of act in Aristotle, interpreted according to Proclus’s ternary dialectic, and by the common affirmation of the imagination, that is, the presence of the infinite in the finite, so that the finite is entirely contained by the Absolute as by the true Being without predicates, in harmony with the biblical notion of God in Exodus (3:14: “Sum, qui sum”) and with the discourse of St. Paul at the Areopagus (Acts 17:28), which may recall the “est” of Parmenides (B 6; Diels I, 232, 21). In this sense, Thomism has been interpreted by G.

experience and its initial structuring within the same sensible sphere as the foundation of knowledge of the intelligible. Similarly, Hegelian dialectic, which takes as its starting point Spinoza’s principle of the “non-being” of the finite and annuls the distinction between the predicamental and transcendental orders, leads to the negation of the concept of creature and of personal freedom. Thus the comparison between Thomism and existentialism (v.) remains uncertain due to the problematic ambiguity of the new philosophy; yet some attempts at a positive rapprochement are already noted, first and foremost thanks to the decidedly realistic orientation of existentialism in the priority of being over thought and in the structure of personal freedom, in which the two moments of transcendence are manifested. In K. Jaspers, the appeal to Thomism has been noted in the theory of “philosophical faith,” inasmuch as “reason” (Vernunft) does not exhaust the meaning of the being of existence, which remains the object of freedom and is thus actualized through faith (cf. B. Welte, *Der philosophische Glaube bei K. Jaspers und die Möglichkeit seiner Deutung durch die thomistische Philosophie*, in *Symposion. Jahrbuch für Philosophie*, 2 [1949], esp. pp. 72 ff. Welte refers in particular to *De Verit.*, q. 24, a. 7). In M. Heidegger, on the other hand, the comparison concerns the structure of the existent, which is man as a radical “openness” toward being itself (*selbst Sein*), which some interpreters identify with God Himself (M. Müller, *Existenzphilosophie im geistigen Leben der Gegenwart*, Heidelberg 1949, esp. pp. 71 ff.; cf. id., *Sein und Geist. Systematische Untersuchungen über Grundproblem und Aufbau mittelalterlicher Ontologie*, Tübingen 1940, pp. 58 ff.).

A more fruitful approach for a critical evaluation of such comparisons may be a comparative study of the theology of faith in Thomism and in the founder of existentialism, S. KIERKEGAARD, SOEREN AABYE (v.), inasmuch as he remains faithful to the principles of Aristotelian realism and Christian revelation (cf. C. Fabro, *Raison et foi dans l’œuvre de Kierkegaard*, in *Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques*, 23 [1949], pp. 169 ff.; id., *Introduzione* to the Italian translation of the *Diary*, I, Brescia 1948, pp. LXXXVIII ff.). So long as it remains tied to the principle of immanence and Protestant interiority, the new existential concept of “freedom” lapses into a possibility of possibility, suspended between nothingness and being, which withdraws the human act from every metaphysical structure and from dependence on the Absolute.

The most solid point for the positive overcoming of idealist subjectivism should be the deepening of Thomist metaphysics of spiritual being: according to St. Thomas, spiritual substances, being absolutely simple and incorruptible, must be recognized as “necessary” (*necesse esse*) in a positive ontological sense, even though they remain creatures and thus caused (*ab alio*), because contingency in the strict sense is linked to corruptibility, which derives from matter (cf. the decisive texts: *Contra Gentiles*, II, 30; *De Potentia*, q. V, a. 3; *In II Physic.*, lect. 12-15; *Summa Theologiae*, I, q. 2, a. 3; III way; *De Spiritu Creato*, a. 5 ad 4. V. Fabro, *Intorno alla nozione tomistica di contingenza*, in *Rivista filosofica neoscolastica* [1938], pp. 132 ff.). Neoscholasticism, however (and also neo-Thomism), has adopted the opposite thesis, which identifies contingency tout court with the character of creaturehood, as defended by Augustinianism and nominalism in a stark expression by Henry of Harclay (d. 1327): “Omnis creatura potest non esse et nulla, quantum est ex parte sui, est necesse esse nec determinat sibi esse. Dico ulterius quod omnis creatura aequaliter et aequae potest non esse. Ita Angelus sicut rana” (Apud F. Pelster, *H. von Harclay, Kanzler von Oxford und seine Quaestiones*, in *Miscellanea F. Ehrle*, I, Rome 1924, p. 342). The question at issue also constituted one of the masterpieces of the Paris disputation, already mentioned, of G. da Montesono (cf. *Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis*, vol. II, no. 1557, props. VI-VIII, p. 494; the material of the heated controversy is found in Cod. Burgh. 102 of the Vatican Library, cf. A. Maier, *Codices Burghesiani Bibliothecae Vaticanae* [Studi e testi, 170], Vatican City 1952, pp. 133 ff.), but it gradually disappeared from the Thomist school in favor of the Welfian notion of contingency. Upon this notion the formalist extrinsicism of Suárez was founded and still rests, and with its empty metaphysics it bears some responsibility for having stimulated (albeit “at a distance”) modern subjectivism, just as nominalism had previously provoked the doctrine of extrinsic justification on the part of the Reformation.

Once it is recognized, as it must be, the theological derivation and deviation of the metaphysics of immanence with its various offshoots, the task of future Thomism seems to be that of penetrating the exigency of that proclaimed immaculate truth by drawing it into the essential problem of thought, which is the foundation of the finite in the Infinite: thus clarifying its own principles of the “metaphysics of act,” not as an isolated cultural figure, but as the perennial substance of human philosophizing, in which the shortcomings and deviations of systems dissipate. And it is therefore to Thomism, more than to any other school of Christian thought, that falls the mission of unifying human consciousness, from the fragments of its historical becoming, in its universal theoretical structure. — See pl. XXIX.

BIBL.: General bibliographies: P. Mandonnet – J. Destrez, *Bibliographia Thomistica*, Le Saulchoir 1921, continued with unsurpassable breadth of information and critical studies by the *Bulletin Thomiste* (v.); also excellent is V. J. Bourke, *Thomistic Bibliography 1920–40*, St. Louis (Missouri) 1945; and the special section devoted to St. Thomas in the *Répertoire bibliographique* of the *Revue de philosophie de Louvain*. More concise indications in the two fascicles by P. Wyser, *Thomas von Aquin* and *Der Thomismus*, Bern 1950–51 (*Bibliographische Einführungen in das Studium der Philosophie*, nos. 13–14 and 15–16). For the *Summa Theologiae*: A. Michelitsch, *Kommentare zur Summa Theologiae des hl. Thomas von Aquin*, Graz and Vienna 1924.

Encyclopedias: *Enciclopedia Italiana*, XXXIII, pp. 1013–14 (Life and Works: F. Pelster); 1014–20 (Thought: M. Grabmann); M. Grabmann, s.V. in *LThK*, X, cols. 112–21; A. Walz, M.-R. Gagnebet, R. Garrigou-Lagrange, L.-B. Gillen, C. Spica, G. Geneon, *Th. d’A.* in *Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique*, XV, cols. 618–761; R. Garrigou-Lagrange, ibid., cols. 823–1023.

Dictionaries: L. Schuetz, *Thomas-Lexikon*, 2nd ed., New York 1947; J. Deferrari, J. Barry, J. McGuiness, A. Lexicon *Sancti Thomae Aquinatis*, based on *The Summa Theologiae* and selected passages from his other works, 5 fascicles (A–Z), Washington 1948–53.

**TOMMASO D’AQUINO, Saint** – The Apotheosis of St. Thomas. Painting by F. Traini (1363). Pisa, Church of St. Catherine.

Life and Works: the fundamental material in *Fontes vitae s. Th. Aq.* edited by D. Prümmer and M.-H. Laurent, St-Maxim 1924-37 (I-III, the lives by P. Calo, G. di Tocco and B. di Guido; IV-V, the canonization proceedings; VI, documents). Strictly biographical in nature are the researches of A. Toso, *T. d’A., Studio crit. stor. sulla stirpe, la patria e la vita del S. Dott.*, Rome 1941; for the general public the biographies by R. Diaccini, Rome 1934; I. Taurisano, Turin 1941; J. Maritain, *Le Docteur Angélique*, Paris 1934; K. Chesterton, *S. Th. Aq.*, London 1943. A solid synthesis of modern critical inquiry on the biography of S. T. d’A., Rome 1927. For S. T. in art, V. P. W. von Keppler, *Aus Kunst und Leben*, 2nd ed., Freiburg in Br., 1906, p. 1 ff.

Editions of the works: A) Complete: among the ancient editions the foundational one is the *Editio Piana*, ordered by St Pius V, Rome 1570-71, which forms the basis for the following. In the mid-19th century the edition by E. Parmenisi in 25 volumes of the *Facciador*, Parma 1832-73, was of great importance, surpassing in textual quality the later *Ed. Vives* in 34 volumes (1st ed. Paris 1871-80; 2nd ed. 1871-80; 3rd ed. 1880-90). Leo XIII in 1880 issued a new critical edition, known as the Leonine (Rome 1882 ff.), of which 14 volumes of text have appeared to date: I-III, Commentary on the *Perihermenias*, *Posterior Analytics* and *Physics* of Aristotle; IV-XII, *Summa Theologiae* with the commentary of Cajetan; XIII-XV, *Summa contra Gentiles* with the commentary of Ferrara, reprinted (also as a manual edition of the text alone of St Thomas). Rome 1934; XVI, indices to the two *Summae* (also as a reduced manual edition, Rome 1948). B) Partial. The *Summa Theologiae* is the most printed: among the more recent editions is the reprint of the *Piana* by Canadian Dominicans with the particular merit of a comparison of explicit and implicit citations with critical editions of the texts, 5 volumes, Ottawa 1941 ff.; for the *Opuscula*: see the reprint edited by Fr Mandonnet, 5 volumes, Paris 1927; new critical edition begun by Fr Perrier; volume I issued, *Opuscula philosophica*, Paris 1949. For the Commentary on the *Sentences*, see the reprint of the traditional text edited by Frs Mandonnet and Moos, 4 volumes, Paris 1927-47 (the text of volumes III and IV is based on 12 manuscripts and the principal editions and reaches Distinction XII of Book IV). The commentaries on Aristotle and Holy Scripture are published in the current text by Marietti in Turin (recently also the Commentary on *De divinis nominibus* with the Greek text and extensive notes by C. Perri, in 1950, and the latest Commentary volumes on *De caelo et mundo*, *De generatione et corruptione* and the *Meteorologica* edited by R. Spiazzi, 1 vol., 1952. Among the opuscula the best known is *De ente et essentia*: cf. the critical editions by P. Roland-Gosselin, Le Saulchoir 1927 (with the text of the Paris manuscripts) and by L. Baur, Münster in V. 1927 and 1933 (according to 7 Italian manuscripts and 4 from Basel). Other editions: L. W. Keeler, *De unitate intellectus*, Rome 1936 and *Quaest. disp. de spirit. creat.*, 1 vol., 1937; G. F. Rossi, *Expositio super librum De causis*, Piacenza 1931; P. Castagnoli, *De forma absolutionis*, 1 vol., 1933; L. Pauson, *The Opusculum De principiis naturae*, Freiburg-Louvain 1950; P. Wyser, *In Boeth. De Trin.*, *Quaestiones quinque et sexta*, according to ms. Vat. lat. 9850 (autograph), Freiburg-Louvain 1948; J. M. Wyss, *De natura materiae*, Louvain 1953.

TOMMASO D'AQUINO - TOMMASO BECKET

2nd ed., Turin 1950; G. Isaye, *La théorie de la mesure et l’existence d’un maximum selon st Th.*, Paris 1940; L.-B. Geiger, *La participation dans la philosophie de st Th. d’A.*, ibid. 1942; J. Lagrange, *L’univers et l’homme dans la philosophie de st Th.*, 2 volumes, Brussels-Paris 1942; H. Van Rooijen (and collaborators), *De Thomistische Participatieleer*, Nijmegen 1944; J. De Finance, *Être et agir dans la philosophie de st Th.*, Paris 1945; A. Little, *The Platonic Heritage of Thomism*, Dublin 1949; H. Lytteken, *The Analogy between God and the World according to Th. of A.*, Uppsala 1952.

Moral and social problems: M. O. Renz, *Die Synthesis nach dem hl. Th. V. A.*, Münster in V. 1911; M. Meier, *Die Lehre der Th. V. A. «de passionibus animae» in quellenanalytischer Darstellung*, ibid. 1912; W. Müller, *Der Staat in seinen Beziehungen zur sittlichen Ordnung bei Th. V. A.*, ibid. 1916; J. Hassle, *Das Arbeitsethos der Kirche nach Th. V. A. und Leo XIII.*, Freiburg 1923; H. Noble, *La conscience morale*, Paris 1926; id., *Les passions dans la vie morale*, 2 volumes, ibid. 1932; B. Roland-Gosselin, *La doctrine politique de st Th.*, ibid. 1928; L. Lehu, *La raison réglée de la moralité d’après st Th.*, ibid. 1930; J. Hagenauer, *Das «justum pretium» bei Th. V. A.*, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der objektiven Werttheorie, Stuttgart 1931; E. Kunz, *Individuum und Gemeinschaft beim hl. Th. V. A.*, Munich 1932; M. Wittmann, *Die Ethik des hl. Th. V. A. in ihrem systematischen Aufbau*, ibid. 1933; L. Lachance, *Le concept de droit selon Aristote et St. Thomas*, Paris 1933; G. Della Rocca, *La politica di s. T.*, Naples 1934; A. Patrono, *Il pensiero politico di s. T.*, Genoa 1941; J. Ramirez, *De hominis beatitudine*, 3 volumes, Madrid-Salamanca 1942-47; K. Farner, *Christentum und Erkenntnis bis Th. V. A.*, Bern 1945; A. Vikopal, *La teoria del superfluo secondo s. T. d’A.*, Italian trans., Brescia 1945; L. Berg, *Die Gottesähnlichkeit im Moralsubjekt nach Th. V. A.*, Mainz 1947; I. Fuchs, *Die Sexualethik des hl. Th. A.*, Cologne 1949; P. Hadrossek, *Die Bedeutung des Systemgedankens für die Moraltheologie seit der Thomas-Renaissance*, Munich 1950; P. Oliani, *Il concetto di giuridicità in s. T. d’A.*, Milan 1951.

Reason and faith: Th. Heitz, *Essai historique sur les rapports entre la philosophie et la foi de Bérenger de Tours à st Th. d’A.*, Paris 1909; T. Kappelli, *Die Lehre des hl. Th. V. A. vom corpus Christi mysticum*, Freiburg (Switz.) 1929; A. Stolz, *Glaubensglaube und Glaubenswissenschaft nach Th. V. A.*, Rome 1933; H. Wilms, *Die Gottesfreundschaft nach dem hl. Th. V. A.*, Vechta 1933; M. Grabmann, *Verhältnis von Glaube und Theologie zur Philosophie und weltlicher Wissenschaft*, Cologne 1934; J. Fehr, *Das Offenbarungsproblem in dialektischer und thomistischer Theologie*, Freiburg (Switz.) 1933; G. Turbessi, *La vita contemplativa, dottrina tomistica e sua relazione alle fonti*, Rome 1944; H. Bouillard, *Conversion et grâce chez St. Th. d’A.*, Paris 1944; J. Wolf, *La justification de la foi chez St. Th. d’A. et le P. Rousselot*, Brussels-Paris 1946; M. Grabmann, *Die theologische Einleitungslehre des hl. Th. V. A.*, Freiburg in Switzerland 1948; A. Well, *Die Funktion des Thomismus in der neueren Theologie*, Vienna 1948.

There still lacks a comprehensive critical history of Thomism that gathers and coordinates the abundant harvest of materials, following historical-critical method through the polemical and doctrinal shifts. Building on the fundamental researches of Denifle, Ehrle, Mandonnet, Grabmann, De Wulf, Koch, Pelzer, Lottin, Pelster, Gilson, Hocedez... and their pupils on the early formation of the Thomist school, it is necessary to reconstruct on the basis of the published writings and the thought of individual authors so as to establish the precise relationship each bears to the work of St Thomas, both in method and in doctrinal content.

VI. Art

St Thomas Aquinas is usually depicted dressed as a Dominican saint, with an open book in his hand and a small sun radiating from his chest; his figure is robust and corpulent, with broad, very fleshy facial features. There are, however, also representations of St Thomas dressed in the black habit of a doctor; thus he was portrayed by Fra Carnovale in a panel at the Poldi-Pezzoli in Milan. It seems that St Thomas may have been portrayed during his lifetime in a fresco at the convent of Santa Maria di Gradi in Viterbo. That painting has been lost; yet, having been copied many times, it is believed that the image of Thomas Aquinas as defined in his iconography is connected to the authentic features of the Saint. Representations of St Thomas in art became extremely frequent after his canonization (1323), first of all in Dominican churches, where he was depicted alongside various scenes from his legend and in grand allegories of his glory as the Angelic Doctor.

Among the numerous fourteenth-century depictions of the figure of St. THOMAS AQUINAS, one of the most typical is the Dominican triptych in the Vatican Pinacoteca, attributed to the Sienese Lippo Vanni, where in the center is St. Dominic, in the left wing St. Peter Martyr, and in the right wing St. THOMAS AQUINAS. The numerous depictions of St. THOMAS AQUINAS painted by Fra Angelico are particularly noteworthy for Quattrocento art; among these are the lunette in the cloister of S. Marco in Florence and the figure of the Saint, frescoed among the Doctors of the Church in the Niccoline Chapel of the Vatican Palace.

(photo: Brogi)

A scene from the legend of St. THOMAS AQUINAS was painted by Orcagna in the predella of the altarpiece of the Strozzi Chapel in S. Maria Novella in Florence; this altarpiece, dated 1357, shows in its upper part, among other things, Our Lord delivering to St. THOMAS AQUINAS the book of knowledge. The exquisite panel by Sassetta, in the possession of the Vatican Pinacoteca, depicting St. THOMAS AQUINAS in ecstasy before the Cross, from which he heard the words “You have written well of me, Thomas,” seems to be the only surviving scene from a lost predella with the legend of the Saint.

Among the grand allegorical scenes of the glory of St. THOMAS AQUINAS, one should first mention Traini (v.), painted around 1345 for the church of S. Caterina in Pisa, and the fresco by Andrea da Firenze in the Cappellone degli Spagnoli in Florence (c. 1370). A Glory of St. THOMAS, conceived in the humanistic spirit of the Renaissance, was painted in the late fifteenth century by Filippino Lippi in S. Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.

Bibl.: K. Künstle, Iconogr. der Heiligen, Freiburg in Br. 1926, pp. 558-562; L. Ferretti, S. T. d'A., Roma (1923), with 32 reproductions; J. Braun, Tracht und Attribute der Heiligen in der deutschen Kunst, Stuttgart 1943, pp. 695-699; G. Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan painting, Firenze 1952, pp. 977-985.