TOMMASO di SUTTON. - English Dominican theologian, chancellor at Oxford in 1290–91, regent master of theology around 1299–1300.
A defender of Thomism first against Enrico di Gand and Egidio Romano, he later turned his weapons against a far more formidable adversary, Duna Scoto, and finally against the Franciscan Roberto Cowton, master at Oxford. His literary activity extended from about 1280 to about 1316. After some hesitation concerning the real distinction between essence and existence, he eventually recognized its full importance. He emphasizes far more than s. Tommaso the passivity of sensation and intellect in the face of the sensible and the intelligible. In him there is the ardour of the polemicist, inclined somewhat to exaggerate the theses he defends. His principal writings of certain authenticity are 35 Qq. disputatae, 4 Quodlibeta, the opusculum Contra pluralitatem formarum, formerly attributed to s. Tommaso and printed several times among his Opuscola, and the Tractatus de product. formarum substant. He also completed the Thomistic commentaries on the Perihermeneias and De gener. et corrupt. Pelster restored to him the authorship of the treatise Contra primum Sent. Ioan. Scoti, published under the name of «Thomas Anglicus».
(fot. Alinari)