Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologiae

by Bernard McGinn

  Many disciplines were taught in the medieval universities, but theology was the highest, “the queen of the sciences,” as some put it.3 This was certainly the case at Paris. But what exactly was the scholastic theology of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries? Scholastic theology is a particular way of thinking about belief, done in a special location, the formal setting of the university and the lower theological institutions that prepared students for the university. In other words, scholastic theology is distinguished primarily by a method or approach, as well as by a style of teaching.4 We should not think of the scholastic method as uniform and rigid. Different modes of argumentation—expositive, deductive, inductive, axiomatic, analogical, and more—were all employed by the scholastic masters. These masters used the same materials (the Bible, the Fathers of the church, the councils, papal decrees, etc.); they employed logical modes of argument based directly or indirectly on Aristotle; and they argued to new conclusions. Nevertheless, their ways of arguing and the conclusions they reached were often diverse, so we cannot summarize scholastic theology according to any particular set of teachings, or to a single system of thought. We should rather see it as a rationalized system of ways of appropriating Christian faith in an organized academic setting.

  The scholastic theologians were professional educators and rigorous scientists in their pursuit of an understanding of belief. In line with the search for order and logical clarity that marked twelfth- and thirteenth-century society in general, they strove to organize the diversity of patristic theology (the thought of the Christian Fathers of East and West), with its inconsistencies, contradictions, and unsolved problems, into a coherent and teachable model that would not only educate the clergy and instruct the faithful, but also rebut attacks on Christianity both from without (Jewish and Arabic thought) and from within (i.e., heresy). The schoolmen were convinced that there was a reasonableness to faith, albeit they saw this in different ways. In this sense, there was a common purpose to the scholastic endeavor, despite the differences among its practitioners.

  The scholastic masters based their curriculum on the Bible, but as taught in formal courses that demanded organized tools for scriptural study and using methods that subjected the text to philological and logical investigation. The earliest great textbook of the medieval schools, composed by different authors in the first half of the twelfth century, was the Ordinary Gloss (Glossa ordinaria), an immense running commentary on the entire Bible culled from the Fathers, especially Augustine. Glossing, or explaining, the Bible by citing authorities was not new, but the academic context of the professional classroom demanded a new and more extensive kind of textbook. Classroom study of the Bible produced a more positive sense of the importance of the literal meaning of the text, though not to the detriment of spiritual readings.5

  Education in the schools was based on reading and explaining the text (lectio), both of the Bible and of a variety of other textbooks. What was essential to scholasticism, however, was the second academic operation: the quaestio, that is, asking what the issues revealed in the texts meant. Aristotle had said that questioning was the essential operation of the human mind, a passage often quoted by the schoolmen. Setting the “question” was a complex endeavor, involving not only attempting to know what could be known about the truths of faith, but also discerning the limits of reason in investigating belief. In studying the Bible and Christian tradition, scholastic teachers encountered a mass of “authorities” (auctoritates), that is, positions argued by the early church Fathers and found in ecclesiastical texts. These authorities often seemed to be (or actually were) in conflict, but the need to order church and society sought to bring coherence out of differing viewpoints. Legal scholars led the way at the end of the eleventh century in pursuing a “concord of discordant views,” and the early twelfth-century theologians soon followed their example. The first task in working toward the solution of discordant positions was to create textbooks that would gather and organize the data of Christian teaching (often called Books of Sentences, that is, compilations of statements of doctrine); the second was to establish principles and procedures that would allow teachers to identify solutions in cases where authorities disagreed. An early example of this was Peter Abelard’s Yes and No (Sic et non), composed about 1122, in which he says, “It is by doubting that we come to investigation, and by investigating that we attain truth” (Prologue). The quest for solutions to inherited problems centered on the nature of the quaestio. By the mid-twelfth century, one of the masters of this era, Gilbert of Poitiers, put the issue this way: “Not every contradiction makes a question … , but where both sides appear to have valid arguments, there you have a question” (Commentary on Boethius’s “De Trinitate”).

  By this time scholastic masters were producing works of linked quaestiones on difficult biblical texts or knotty theological issues. The evolution of the quaestio was furthered by a variety of factors, especially greater accessibility to Aristotle’s logical works (the “Old Logic” had been known for centuries, but the “New Logic” of the Analytics, Topics, and Sophistics was translated ca. 1120–50). Aristotle was not only the master of logic, but also a philosopher who wrote on every aspect of philosophical learning. Scholastic hunger for access to the full Aristotle led to several waves of translations of his corpus between circa 1190 and 1260, a development that had a great impact on Thomas Aquinas.6 Late in the twelfth century the academic evolution of setting and solving questions evolved into formal “disputations” (disputationes), public events where a master and his pupils would debate various aspects of a problem and set forth their solution. In the thirteenth century such disputations became a regular part of every master’s job description.

  New modes of investigating faith were only half the story. Rational differentiation of teaching operations and new methods of analysis called out for better models of organizing what had been found. How could the masters of the schools summarize this rapidly expanding knowledge for the students who were expected to convey it to the church in preaching? The drive for systematization led to the creation of textbooks and surveys of theology. The theological textbooks of the twelfth century, however much they used new methods of arguing, looked to the patristic past for their organizing principles, thus showing the continuity of Western theology. Augustine dominated early scholastic efforts at creating textbooks. The most successful textbook was produced about 1140 by Peter Lombard, a Paris master and later bishop of the city. Titled The Books of Sentences (Libri sententiarum), it consisted of four books of theological passages culled from the Fathers with discussions and explanations, arranged according to the Augustinian model (found in On Christian Teaching) of the difference between things and signs and between use and enjoyment. Some of the Lombard’s early followers toyed with his structure, occasionally anticipating aspects of the ordering procedures found in Thomas’s Summa theologiae, but these minor adjustments do not seem to have been a factor in Thomas’s break with the Lombard’s model. By the 1220s the Lombard’s Sentences had become the dominant theological textbook—a position it maintained for almost three hundred years.

  One popular way of describing the scholastic enterprise, “distinguish in order to unite,” raises the question, “Unite for what purpose?” What was the ultimate aim of the new carefully articulated form of theology? Some monks, like Bernard of Clairvaux, criticized masters such as Abelard for seeking knowledge only for the sake of knowledge, but the majority of the scholastics insisted that deeper understanding of faith was intended to foster the spiritual life, both of individuals and of the church as a community. This meant that theology had to be not only taught, but also preached. The Paris master Peter Cantor (d. 1197) summarized the different aspects of scholastic teaching as follows: “Learning sacred scripture consists of three things: reading, disputing, and preaching. … Reading (lectio) is the foundation as it were and basis for what follows. … Disputation (disputatio) is like the wall in this work and edifice, because nothing is fully under
stood or faithfully proclaimed unless it has first been broken up with the tooth of disputation. Preaching (praedicatio), which these serve, is like the roof that covers the faithful from the heat and storm of vices. Thus, you should preach only after, not before, the reading of sacred scripture and the questioning of doubtful matters through disputation” (The Abbreviated Word, chap. 1). Calls for the renewal of preaching grew toward the end of the twelfth century, partly in response to the threat offered the medieval church by heresy, especially dualist heretics called Cathars or Manichaeans. The need for sound doctrinal preaching against heresy was an important factor in the foundation of the Dominican Order, the third context for Thomas Aquinas’s life and work.

  The Dominicans were part of the religious groundswell of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that sought to find more effective ways of living the vita apostolica, the “apostolic life” of Christ and the first disciples. Medieval monks had seen themselves as following the apostolic life, taking the image of the Jerusalem community described in Acts 4:32 as their model; but the spiritual strivings of nonmonastics that began in the early twelfth century viewed the apostolic life according to the picture of the apostles presented in Luke 10 and similar texts—those who went forth in poverty to preach the Gospel and convert the world. There were many apostolic poverty groups in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Some led to the formation of new religious orders that gained papal approval, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans; others, after promising beginnings, came to be condemned as heretical. The reasons for success and failure are not always easy to determine and often seem due to historical accidents or personality clashes.

  Francis of Assisi (ca. 1181–1226), born into a mercantile family, experienced a conversion about 1205 and turned to a life of penance, poverty, and service to the poor, especially lepers. Francis’s model of apostolic service proved attractive. By 1208 he and a few companions began to form a “brotherhood” of those devoted to poverty, and about 1209 they went to Rome to gain papal approval and the “license to preach everywhere,” although their preaching was a matter of moral exhortation and preaching by example. Their new “mendicant,” or begging, life expanded rapidly. Francis’s contemporary, the Spaniard Dominic Guzman (ca. 1174–1221), took a different path in his founding of the Dominican Order of mendicants.7 After his ordination, Dominic joined a group around the bishop of Osma in Spain who were reviving the canonical life (i.e., priests living in a monastic way). He and his bishop traveled to France on embassies in 1203–5 and became involved in preaching against the dualist heretics. They became convinced that only itinerant preaching by priests practicing apostolic poverty could counter this danger to the church. Dominic dedicated himself to this work and by 1215 was put in charge of a group of priest-preachers in Toulouse. This “Order of Preachers” (ordo praedicatorum) received papal approval between 1216 and 1218. Dominic, a superb organizer, traveled widely to attract followers. From the beginning, the Dominicans were meant to receive the best theological education to foster their preaching mission, so it is no surprise that as early as 1217 Dominic established a house at Paris connected with the university. An insight into the preaching charism of the Dominicans can be found in the Treatise on the Formation of Preachers written by Humbert of Romans (d. 1277), the fifth Master General of the order. Reflecting on the relation of study and preaching, Humbert says, “Though the gift of preaching is surely had by God’s gift, a sensible preacher still ought to do what he can to ensure that his preaching is commendable by carefully studying what he has to preach.”8 Thomas Aquinas fully agreed.

  Creating the Summa theologiae

  CHAPTER 2

  The Life of Thomas Aquinas

  We know a fair amount about the life of Thomas, and several good biographies have appeared over the past half century.1 While we have considerable information about the details of Thomas’s career, given the objective character of his writings, we have almost nothing from him that reveals his inner reflections and feelings. We also need to note that many of the stories about him come from the materials put together for his canonization process,2 and since hagiography has a different purpose from biography, these need to be used with circumspection. Still, there is much of historical worth in the sources.

  Thomas was born in 1225 at the castle of Roccasecca, south of Rome, the son of nobility of the lands of the Emperor Frederick II (1196–1250). His father, Landolph, belonged to the house “de Aquino,” hence his name; his mother, Theodora, was an aristocrat from Naples. Thomas, the last of his father’s numerous progeny from two marriages, was destined for a career in the church. At the tender age of five his family “offered” him to the famed Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, where he was brought up as an oblate destined to become a monk and (according to the hagiographers) future abbot of Monte Cassino, given his family’s status in the region. Thomas was thus raised in a monastic environment: the religious life and liturgy formed him in his most impressionable years. Although he preached in his own south Italian dialect, he taught, wrote, and probably often thought in Latin.

  Noting his intellectual precocity, when he was about fourteen (ca. 1239) the abbot of Monte Cassino sent Thomas to study at the new university of Naples founded by Frederick II in 1224—the first state university. Here he absorbed the seven liberal arts and began the study of some of Aristotle’s works under the guidance of first-rate scholars, such as Peter of Ireland. The Dominicans were also present at the university and Thomas began to feel a strong attraction to the new order. Sometime around the age of sixteen (ca. 1242) he joined the Dominicans, much to the chagrin of his family. Their opposition led the Dominicans to attempt to spirit him away from Naples to Paris, but he and his companions were overtaken and captured by some of Thomas’s brothers north of Rome. Thomas spent well over a year in a kind of house arrest, resisting his family’s attempts to make him abandon his Dominican garb, and (at least as recounted in the early sources) his chastity, by introducing a comely young woman into his room—whom he drove off with a burning fireplace log.3 He also profited intellectually from the forced detention, reading the whole of the Bible and beginning to study Peter Lombard’s Books of Sentences.

  By 1245 his family relented and Thomas was back on the road to Paris. From 1245 to 1248 the young friar studied in Paris at the Dominican convent of St. Jacques. He probably took courses under the other great intellect of the thirteenth-century Dominicans, the theologian and polymath Albert the Great (ca. 1200–1280). Albert’s capacious mind embraced scientific interests in botany, zoology, and mineralogy, not of concern to Thomas, but he was also a profound philosopher and theologian, important for encouraging the study of Aristotle and of the “Dionysian corpus,” the body of difficult theological works attributed to the “Dionysius of the Areopagus” mentioned in Acts 17:16, but actually composed by a Syrian monk around 500. Thomas accompanied Albert to Cologne in 1248, when the Dominican Order called on Albert to set up a new general house of theological studies (studium generale) for the Dominican convents of Germany. Thomas remained there as Albert’s assistant between 1248 and 1252. Although Thomas does not mention Albert by name in his writings, the fact that he spent seven years with this master had a profound influence on his thought. It is likely that it was in Cologne that Thomas began to act as a “Biblical Bachelor,” teaching introductions to biblical books. His Commentary on Isaiah probably dates to this period and is his earliest theological work.

  By 1252 Thomas was in his late twenties and his character and genius were evident. Albert advised the Dominican Master General to send him back to Paris to complete his theological studies. The hagiographical accounts give a consistent picture of the young Italian friar. Physically, Thomas was tall, corpulent, and balding. Personally, he was humble, mild, and gentle. What struck his contemporaries most was his silence and his tendency to what his contemporaries called “abstraction.” Thomas lived in his head, constantly occupied with thinking through theological issues, or “rapt in contemplati
on,” as the hagiographers understood it. He often seems not to have noticed what was going on around him. An illustrative story of Thomas at this stage is the account of “the dumb ox” (bovus mutus) from his Cologne years. According to this tale, Thomas’s reticence to speak up in the classroom led some of his classmates to refer to him by this title. Albert, however, was impressed by Thomas’s grasp of his lectures on the Dionysian Divine Names and commissioned the young friar to take part in a public disputation. Thomas’s role as Albert’s assistant was to summarize arguments for and against the thesis, but when he offered his own distinction to settle the issue, Albert pressed him vigorously about his solution. Satisfied by his answers, Albert exclaimed, “We call him a dumb ox, but he will still give out such a bellowing in doctrine that it will sound throughout the whole world!”4

  Another aspect of Thomas’s life noted by the sources, both in his youth and later, was his devotion to prayer. He prayed even more than required by the Dominican daily round of liturgical and personal prayer, and is said to have often had recourse to prayer when confronted by difficult theological problems. The sources are also unanimous that Thomas was characterized from his early years by remarkable powers of memory. He seems to have had what we would call today a photographic memory, that is, he was able to recall word by word almost everything he had ever read. We may take this with a grain of salt, but when one considers the tens of thousands of texts, long and short, cited throughout his works in an age before modern bibliographic or electronic search engines, it is hard to deny that Thomas had phenomenal powers of recall.