COMMENTARY on SAINT PAUL’S
EPISTLE to the EPHESIANSby
St. Thomas AquinasTranslation and Introduction by
Matthew L. Lamb, O.C.S.O.
(Albany, N.Y.: Magi Books, 1966)
Html edition by Joseph Kenny, O.P.CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Saint Thomas Aquinas is a paradox. He was a mystic and a rigorously scientific theologian. His attachment to Judaeo-Christianity was strong enough for him to appreciate and appropriate pagan truths. An Aristotelian, he never ceased utilizing Platonic insights. In him a deep reverence for the Church Fathers was coupled with an astonishing zest for novelty.
All of these cross-currents were to show up in his biblical exegesis. He was neither an Alexandrian nor an Antiochene, perhaps because he was both. No one has successfully categorized his approach to the Bible. Advocates of allegory claim him as their own and defenders of strictly literal interpretation praise him for asserting the sufficiency of the letter. A noted Oxford historian admires the revolutionary quality of his exegetical principles and a prominent Jesuit theologian finds them simply traditional.
Is St. Thomas’ genius really so elusive? Or was he being eclectic at the expense of consistency?
Aquinas effected a real break-through towards system in the domains of Christian philosophy and theology. But what did he do in the area of exegesis? During the centuries when his disciples were eagerly commenting on his Summa and his other systematic works, his commentaries on Scripture gradually became enveloped in thick layers of dust. The dust has been vigorously removed during the past few decades, but not all of it has settled. Nor does the present obscurity on just how systematic theology is related to Scripture clarify the situation.
More than an Introduction would be necessary to come anywhere near an adequate treatment of the complex problems involved.
Nevertheless, a basic methodological distinction may go a long way in establishing St. Thomas’ position in the history of Christian exegesis. That distinction is between a biblical exegete’s presuppositions and his techniques.
In the following pages I shall attempt to substantiate the thesis that , St. Thomas’ specific contributions to biblical exegesis were in the realm of the last mentioned presupposition, while on the level of techniques he adhered closely to the conventions of his day. His lectures on Ephesians can then be read within a general framework of his approach to the Bible.
ST. THOMAS AND EXEGETICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS
To understand the Bible more is needed than a good dose of hermeneutical techniques. They are an indispensable aid in determining the human author’s intended meaning. But this meaning is what no human being could affirm as true on his own power. To understand the Scriptures as its authors meant them to be understood is to accept what they proclaim: the history of salvation culminating in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as revealing the ultimate meaning of human existence—a meaning only God could give it. A challenge to the religious conversion of faith is issued which no interpreter can explain away. Here St. Thomas is one with the entire Patristic tradition. Like an Irenaeus, an Origen, or an Augustine, Thomas had to respond to God’s Word with an unreserved faith before he could even hope to understand something of that Word’s meaning, and what it revealed about the meaning of his own existence.
More than faith is presupposed, however, to scriptural exegesis. Just as revelation is mediated by men, so the faith that responds to revelation does not replace the mind of the believer. Because God’s Word is mediated by men a tradition is necessary to proclaim the Word and explain it to endlessly varying audiences down the ages. Without this continual re-expression, the original inspired expression would be of little help. What good would come of printing the Greek New Testament on the front page of the New York Times? Because faith does not replace the human mind, the operations and drives of human understanding are implicated in both the original expression and the tradition which re-expresses and interprets it.
The exegete’s task within the tradition, which he enters through faith, is to question the revealed message, not in doubt but in an effort to better understand it, and so contribute to its authentic transmission. What questions he asks, and how he answers them, will largely be determined by his philosophical horizon. Hence the presence of what contemporary German exegetes speak of as a Begrifflichkeit, the set of fundamental concepts employed by an interpreter in his questioning of God’s Word.
Here is where St. Thomas marked a notable transition in regard to the Fathers. Before him biblical exegesis in the West had relied mostly on concepts borrowed from a Middle or Neoplatonism. In the great Origenist and Augustinian schools the conceptual orientation was to exemplary and final causality. The visible world and human history were symbols of spiritual realities known through illumination.
Aquinas’ appropriation of Aristotle introduced a different perspective from which to question God’s Word. For Thomas human knowing is impossible without sense and imagination. Efficient and formal causality receive greater recognition. The world and history take on their own value, they are not just symbolic of a higher realm. Reason with its philosophies and sciences is clearly differentiated from faith with its mysteries. Once this differentiation had occurred biblical inspiration became a problem in a way it could not have before. This in turn affected Thomas’ treatment of the senses of Scripture.
The contrast between St. Augustine and the newly recovered Aristotle, which aroused his strongest passions, upset or modified his most cherished notions about the universe and its Creator, was bound to have a disturbing effect on his study of the Creator’s special book. Aristotle caused him to see Scripture as freshly as he saw all creation.
Biblical Inspiration and the Prophetic Mission
Prior to St. Thomas no theologian had felt the necessity of analyzing the exact relationship between the divine and human authors of the Bible. Man’s knowing, and the world he knew, were not thought of as spheres in their own right; hence there was hardly any need to determine how both God and man could author the same book. Following Athenagoras of Athens, the human authors were described as the harp strings played by the Holy Spirit to produce the melody of the Scriptures.
From his lectures on Scripture, St. Thomas became increasingly interested in the psychological and theological structures operative in the transmission of revelation. His thorough analysis of ordinary human knowing demanded that the interplay of the divine and the human in mankind’s growth in supernatural knowledge receive more attention than the scattered patristic references accorded it. Not that Aquinas ever wrote a separate treatise on biblical inspiration. He lived in an age when the Bible was still considered within the total context of the prophetic mission exercised by the people of God.
Prophecy, in Aquinas’ thought, is a broad analogous term embracing all the charismatic graces related to supernatural knowledge .
The wide diversity does not render prophecy equivocal. The same general purpose and structure can be found in all of its instances. The purpose of prophecy, dictated by its very nature as a charismatic grace, is to contribute to the good of the ecclesial community, to aid men in their return to God.
The structure of prophecy always contains two relationships or moments. The first is the prophetic gift, the encounter of the prophet with God and his saving truth; a man-to-God relationship which issues in revelation.
The other essential relationship in prophecy has to do with the use of the gift in prophetic communication. This is required by the very nature of the gift which is meant for the benefit of other men and not for the personal sanctification of the prophet. In the first relationship man receives passively from God; the “donum. prophetiae” is immediately caused by God. But in the prophet-to-men communication God’s causality is not immediate:
The use of any prophecy is within the power of the prophet. . . Hence, one could prevent himself from using prophecy; the proper disposition is a necessary requirement for the correct use of prophecy since the use of prophecy proceeds from the created power of the prophet. Therefore, a determinate disposition is also pre-required.
This does not destroy the instrumental nature of prophetic or biblical communication; it puts this theory in the perspective Aquinas understood it in.
Inspiration, a direct action of God, belongs to the prophetic encounter; it may reveal to the prophet what he is to communicate (the “acceptio rerum” of Aquinas), yet its essential element is the communication (by means of the “lumen propheticum”) of a divine certitude that the prophet’s judgment is true. But how he transmits his message, which literary forms and words he uses, is normally governed by God in an indirect or mediated manner.
Thus the emphasis is shifted from isolated individuals to God’s control of the whole process in which the Bible was formed. The pre-required dispositions were arranged for within the scope of this special Providence; hence Aquinas clearly indicates that the personal traits of the prophets in no way depreciate the message they convey, instead, this message proceeds in harmony with such dispositions.”
The exegetical presuppositions of the Angelic Doctor were able to incorporate the vivid awareness of the biblical personalities, distinctive of St. Jerome, within a theological analysis that accentuated their importance while preserving the divine initiative. At the same stroke it utilized the sense of sacred history which St. Augustine had bequeathed the Middle Ages.
Progress in knowledge occurs... also on the part of the learner; so a master, who has perfect knowledge of an art, does not deliver it all at once to his student from the very outset, for be could not grasp it, instead, he condescends to the student’s capacity and instructs him little by little. In such a way did men make progress in the knowledge of faith as time went on.
St. Thomas was aware of a certain growth or development in the revelation of supernatural mysteries
Any reflections on the Bible’s inerrancy must take this development into account. Truth in God undergoes no change, but man’s apprehension of the truth does. Scripture presents this growth in faith under the guiding hand of God and the presentation would be false if it did not also display the imperfections inherent in any growth. St. Thomas points out that in prophecy, no matter how profound it is, there is never question of leaving time to enter eternity but somehow of grasping eternity in time—the distinction is important.
Prophecy is a type of knowledge impressed on the prophet’s intellect from a divine revelation, this happens after the manner of education. Now the truth of knowledge is the same in both the student and the teacher since the student’s knowledge is a likeness of the teacher’s knowledge, just as in natural matters the form of what is generated is a certain likeness of the form of the generator.
It is not surprising that for Aquinas Sacred Scripture and Sacred Teaching were equivalent.
The Senses of Scripture
The second area in which St. Thomas rethought the traditional presuppositions of exegesis was the complex one of the scriptural senses. He could hardly have failed to recognize Platonic undertones in the patristic praise for the spiritual senses. Not that the Fathers dispensed with the literal sense—quite the contrary. Clement of Alexandria and Origen initiated a cycle of liberal and scientific studies to provide the Christian interpreter with an accurate grasp of the text and its historical meaning. Origen himself learnt Hebrew and undertook the first textual criticism of the Old Testament’s Greek translations.
Yet none of the Fathers who were to influence medieval exegesis
Beyond these apologetic and pastoral motivations, however, there existed a Platonic atmosphere in Christian thinking which disposed commentators to regard the biblical text as merely the necessary shell or veil that had to be pierced in order to get at the inner, nobler, spiritual message. Influenced by Philonic methods, Origen used his axiom, that nothing in the Bible is unworthy of God, to explain away obvious sins, such as Lot’s incest, as allegories. “Everything in Scripture is a mystery” since “everything in Scripture has a spiritual meaning, but not all of it has a literal meaning.”
St. Augustine furnished the groundwork for the proper relation between the literal and spiritual senses by distinguishing between signs and things. Conventional signs, such as words, refer to things; and in the case of Scripture these things themselves can be used by God to signify some further reality.
For when what is said figuratively is taken as if it were said literally, it is understood in a carnal manner. And nothing is more fittingly called the death of the soul than when that in it which raises it above the brutes, the intelligence namely, is put in subjection to the flesh by adhering to the letter... Now it is surely a miserable slavery of the soul to take signs for things and to be unable to lift the eye of the mind above what is corporeal and created, that it may drink in eternal light.
The presuppositions come out clearly in Augustine’s definition of metaphor or figurative passages:
Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative.
Since the end of Scripture is the love and knowledge of God, if an interpretation contributes to this end, while failing to grasp the meaning intended by the sacred author, it is similar to reaching the desired goal by a detour instead of by the route intended. When a Christian is securely in possession of the reality he may even dispense with the Scriptures; the signs have served their purpose for him.
The Augustinian assertion of the superiority of the spiritual senses was hardly questioned by medieval allegorists who seemed more interested in detours than in the intended route. Even Hugh of St. Victor, who chided them for claiming superior spiritual knowledge when they were ignorant of what the letter meant, did not doubt for a moment the superiority of spiritual exegesis.
This shift in psychological presuppositions was bound to make itself felt in exegetical principles. Greater stress was placed on the role of the imagination or phantasm in prophecy; even in the highest forms of prophetic encounter the phantasm has its role to play.
1) The literal or historical sense: That intended by the sacred author, the realities he signified through the words of Scripture. Since God not only can adapt words to convey meaning but also, by his providence, transmit meaning in the very events of life, the realities narrated in the Bible can in turn signify a further spiritual reality. Hence the spiritual senses:
2) The allegorical or typical sense: The realities of the Old Testament signify those of the New, Christ and his Church.
3) The moral or tropological sense: The events of Christ’s life, and those who prefigured him, signify what Christians should do, how they should live.
4) The anagogical or eschatological sense: The New Testament realies signify those of the kingdom that is to come.
An Aristotelian Begrifflichkeit sets these senses of Scripture in a new perspective. The Origenist and Augustinian view of physical and historical events, along with man’s knowledge of them, as symbolic put the stress on the allegorical-anagogical meaning as revealing the Ultimate: God and Christ in glory. Christian interpretation must not remain on the level of literature and history; these are symbols whose transcendent finality must be unfolded.
This “incarnation” of the spiritual senses was further promoted by recognizing metaphor as a literal sense. Since words, whether spoken or written, refer to things only by means of the mental conceptions of the one uttering or writing them, the exegete must interpret the literal meaning of the metaphorical text in accordance with what the author meant it to convey and not at its face value.
When Scripture speaks of the arm of God, the literal sense is not that he has a physical limb, but that he has what it signifies, namely, effective power.
By far, the greatest service which St. Thomas performed in regard to exegetical presuppositions was to assert plainly the sufficiency of the literal meaning. The literal is the only sense on which theological arguments can be based; St. Augustine and others had counseled that arguments must be adduced from “plain testimonies” but never would they have dreamt of identifying these exclusively with the literal sense.
Consequently Holy Scripture sets up no confusion, since all meanings are based on one, namely, the literal sense. From this alone can arguments be drawn, and not, as St. Augustine mentions in his letter to Vincent the Donatist, from whatever is said according to allegory. Nor is anything lost from Sacred Scripture on this account, for nothing that is necessary to faith is contained under the spiritual sense which is not openly conveyed by the literal sense elsewhere.
As he points out, this does not lessen the spiritual value of the Bible, it simply locates that value within the ambit of the literal meaning.
The exegetical presuppositions of St. Thomas provided the elements needed for the theoretical justification of a Christian exegete applying himself wholeheartedly to the interpretation of the literal sense. He could do this without fearing an Origenist censure that he was denying biblical inspiration. For only when the things which the author intended to signify through words were known could the further question be determined of what further realities God was signifying through those things. The distinction between the prophetic encounter and its communication assured the believing exegete that the Bible’s origin was both truly divine and really human. The Book was an object of both faith and scientific study. The affirmation of the sufficiency of the literal sense would allow him to appreciate the spiritual riches and salvific power of the inspired text itself. Finally, the identification of the literal meaning of the text and the intention of its authors fully warranted a study of the factors which shaped and influenced their mentality—their languages, cultures and historical contexts.
The elements for a theoretical justification of historical biblical studies, however, must not be confused with the studies themselves. St. Thomas’ thirteenth century unawareness of history as we know it today meant that he could not grasp the implications of his own presuppositions. This is evident, for example, in his adoption of the Origenist-Augustinian notion that the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets—the elite whose duty it was to lead the people—had an explicit faith in the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and Christ. Since the mass of the people were not ready for this, their faith was implicit in their acceptance of the Old Law in which these mysteries were prefigured.
This demonstrates that St. Thomas’ exegetical presuppositions were in continuity with the old as well as open to the new. They were not delivered in the clear-cut, settled once and for all categories which theological manuals associate with Thomist thought. He was grappling with problems the impications of which are not yet fully comprehended today. One wonders whether the crises in Catholic interpretation of die Bible during the sixteenth and seventeenth, or the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, would have been so acute had theologians and exegetes assimilated, let alone advanced, the presuppositional positions of Aquinas.
ST. THOMAS AND EXEGETICAL TECHNIQUES
Samuel Johnson once defined true genius as “a mind of large general powers, accidently determined to some particular direction.” None doubt that Thomas’ laid in theoretical directions. He was not a pioneer forging new literary conventions or discovering unknown hermeneutical techniques. He picked up whatever tools were available and hurried on to his speculation.
Not that his labors in the field of exegetical presuppositions were left at the lecture room door when he began to comment on Scripture. Reading his lectures “against a background of modern exegesis, one naturally finds the medieval element in them startling; approaching them from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, one is more startled by their modernity.”
One is then justified in considering the commentaries of St. Thomas on St. John, and especially on St. Paul, as the maturest fruit and the most perfect realization of medieval scholastic exegesis.
Texts, References and Lectures
The founding of the Dominican house of studies at Paris in 1231 put new life into the scriptural exegesis of the University. Led by Hugh St. Cher, who was instrumental in having the young Brother Thomas come to Paris for his baccalaureate studies, the friars of St. Jacques became famous for their cooperative efforts in producing biblical concordances, correctories and commentaries.
No matter how fully its deficiencies were recognized, the Vulgate, as edited by Alcuin in 800, remained the quasi-official text for all the lectures at the University. Alcuin had no consistent policy in his divisions of the Text, and wide divergencies existed up to and including the twelfth century in the matter of citations. Stephen Langton seems to have worked out the present system of chapters near the end of Iiis teaching career. They were not long in becoming standard and, with a few precisions possibly due to Hugh St. Cher, remain in use today. Partitioning chapters into verses was not introduced until the sixteenth century. This accounts for St. Thomas’ custom of referring to passages by naming the book and chapter and then at least a few words of the text he had in mind.
Since Aquinas distinguished between authenticity and canonicity, he had no qualms on including the deuterocanonical books within the canon. Their authority was not derived from whoever wrote them but “from their acceptance by the Church.”
Those who wrote the Scriptural canon, such as the Evangelists, Apostles and others like them, so firmly asserted the truth that they left nothing to be doubted. Thus it states: “And we know that his testimony is true,” (Jn 21:24) and “If anyone preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.” (Gal. 1:9). The reason for this is that only the canonical Scriptures are normative for faith. Whereas others who write about the truth do so in such a way that they do not want to be believed unless what they affirm is true.
This does not imply that St. Thomas advocated sola scriptura; he could not abstract the Book from its living environment within ecclesial tradition. The generations of Christians stretching from Apostolic times down to their own were not viewed by the medieval mind as separating them from the integral Christian message but far more as uniting them to it. The Church Fathers were the incomparable guides in this positive task of assimilating Christ and his meaning. They never could be rejected in an authentically Christian hermeneutic.
The many glosses facilitated recourse to them; to each passage of a given book the glosses would attach an excerpt from one or more of the Fathers which explained or exemplified the text. Two glosses became standard textbooks in medieval exegesis: the Glossa Ordinaria which most probably originated with Anselm of Laon and his school, and the Magna Glossatura of Peter Lombard on the Psalms and letters of St. Paul. During the twelfth century the Masters of the Sacred Page not only had to comment on the biblical text but also to read, and interpret, if necessary, many of its patristic glosses. The task was formidable and by Thomas’ time it devolved on those contending for their baccalaureate to construe the text and its glosses. This left the master free to undertake the commentary proper.
Aquinas was not content with second-hand patristic sources, he often went back to the original works if they were available. When Urban IV requested him to compose a gloss on the four gospels, with particular attention to the Greek Fathers, St. Thomas included many quotations previously not given in the glosses; be even had translations of some Greek works made into Latin. When the Expositio Continua—or the Catena Aurea as it was popularly known—had been completed, it represented over twenty-two Latin Fathers and fifty-seven Greek Fathers. Critical scholars of the caliber of Erasmus had nothing but praise for it.
Concordances and dictionaries were essential to thirteenth century reference works. St. Thomas probably had at his disposal some of the better known topical concordances, such as those of Rabanus Maurus or Thomas Gallus with their lists of subjects and the relevant scriptural passages. For verbal concordances he could check Hugh of St. Cher’s, or the Concordantia Sancti Jacobi and Concordantiae Majores, both the work of his confreres at St. Jacques. He might also refer to dictionaries, such as Alan of Lille’s Dictinctiones Dictionum Theologicalium, in which the words are illustrated by the literal and spiritual meanings they have in the Bible.
In philology and textual criticism St. Thomas was not the equal of some of his contemporaries. He has been reproached for not learning Greek and Hebrew when he certainly had the opportunity to do so at Paris or Naples. But by his time specialization in these areas had already begun. Besides, his biographies leave the impression that Brother Thomas’ schedule was a tight one during his years as a student and professor—a fact corroborated by the enormous volume of his writing. The little Greek he knew, and the less Hebrew, was gleaned almost entirely from patristic references and the correctoria. These latter, e.g., that of Hugh of St. Cher and the Dominicans of St. Jacques, offered variant readings and emendations to the Alcuin Vulgate text used at Paris. St. Thomas relied on these for his textual criticism, not on a direct study of the manuscripts.
References to pagan authors are also found in St. Thomas’ lectures on Scripture, though he was more hesitant in this practice than his contemporaries. Cicero, Ovid, Seneca, Plato, Democritus, the Stoics and others are interspersed in the commentaries. The one recurrent figure is, of course, Aristotle; his appearances nearly double all the rest put together. Aquinas was in the best Augustinian tradition when he affirmed that... the doctor of holy Scripture accepts the witness of truth no matter where he finds it.”
Hence Augustine remarks in the second book of De Doctrina Christiana that if whatever the philosophers have stated is in harmony with our faith, not only should it not be mistrusted, it should be taken from them as though they were not its rightful owners and appropriated for our own use.
St. Thomas wished to demonstrate that Aristotle was as much a witness and an unrightful owner as Plato.
Equipped with his text and reference material, the master was ready for his expositions. Aquinas must have lectured on Scripture anywhere from one to four times a week during the scholastic year.
Each book was preceded by a prologue or introduction in which the authorship, subject matter and purpose of the writing was discussed with the aid of a scriptural quotation in which these were all supposed to be at least figuratively contained. From Guerric of St. Quentin Thomas adopted the custom of occasionally doing this within the framework of the four causes, formal and material, final and efficient. At other times he borrowed the introductory procedure of the grammarians and speaks of the matter, intention, and utility of the book. When he alluded to the author as the efficient cause, it is interesting to note that he never bothered to qualify the statement by adding “instrumental.”
Next came the commentaries proper with their divisions of the text, explanations, questions and replies. The familiar austerity and no-nonsense quality of Scholastic Latin is heightened in many of the lectures that have been preserved. St. Thomas’ commentaries fall into two groups. The first are expositiones, they were written by Aquinas himself or dictated outside of classes. In this category belong his commentaries on Isaias, Job, Jeremias, and Lamentations, the letter to the Romans, the first five chapters of St. John’s Gospel and the first seven on 1 Corinthians. The second group are termed lecturae, they are transcriptions or reportationes of the actual lectures he gave. With the exception of his very first commentary, that on St. Matthew, all the other lecturae were taken down by St. Thomas’ intimate companion and friend, Reginald of Piperno. Here belong his commentaries on St. John and the Pauline letters, possibly also those on the Psalms. That his lecturae on Romans and 1 Corinthians (1-10) are missing suggest that he may have used the reportationes in composing his expositions.
The system of transcribing lectures was practiced throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. No pretence at style was made; quotations were usually abruptly recorded without introduction and the references were normally left for the master to fill in later. University statutes required that a master correct the reports personally before they were published. The Official Catalogue of St. Thomas’ writings mentions that he corrected and approved of Reginald’s transcription of his lectures on St. John, and the catalogues of Tolomeo of Lucca (perhaps the earliest catalogue of his writings) and Bernard Gui state that Thomas also corrected the transcriptions of his lectures on St. Paul’s epistles.
Characteristics of St. Thomas’ Exegesis
In the field of spiritual exegesis Thomas Aquinas exhibits a marked restraint when compared to interpreters such as Richard of St. Victor or Stephen Langton, and, to a less extent, in comparison with Hugh of St. Cher or St. Bonaventure. Conformable to custom, he differentiated plainly between the literal and spiritual when he was going to offer more than a literal exegesis of the text. Normally, these two were designated as “literal” and “mystical” respectively—although it may be closer to his mind to translate his mystice by “symbolically.” He was careful not to skip over the things which the words of Scripture immediately designate, the spiritual can only be constructed on a sound knowledge of the literal sense. Yet he had no guides as to when these things were actually used by God to signify some further reality. A result was that he he frequently followed patristic sources and saw spiritual meanings in minor events.
For example, the fig tree under which Nathaniel slept (Jn. 1:48) may be symbolically understood with St. Augustine as sin, or with St. Gregory as the Old Covenant. Our Lord’s words in John (11:7) “Let us go into Judea again,” symbolically proclaim the final conversion of the Jews. The gold, frankincense and myrrh of the Magi symbolize three different aspects of faith, deeds, and contemplation respectively.
When reading St. Thomas’ literal exegesis, especially of the Old Testament books, one must keep in mind his acceptance of Origen’s and Augustine’s teaching on the prophets and elders of Israel having an explicit faith in Christian mysteries. In his commentaries, Aquinas at least twice reproaches Theodore of Mopsuestia for supposedly denying that any Old Testament texts could refer literally to Christ or the Church:
Another [error] was that of Theodore who claimed that nothing brought forward in the Old Testament is literally applicable to Christ but only accommodated to him... Hence, “That it might be fulfilled” would have to be interpreted as though the evangelist had said “That it might be accommodated.”
Against this Thomas maintains that some passages have Christ alone as their literal meaning, e.g., Isaiah (7:14) and Psalms (21:2)—to deprive them of this unique reference would be heretical. Most references to Christ, however, relate directly to some Old Testament personage who is a figure of Christ, e.g., Solomon in Psalm (71:8).
Occasions in which the literal sense had only a Christian mystery as its focal point were comparatively rare for the Angelic Doctor. He dismissed the notion, for instance, that the Old Covenant’s ceremonial precepts were in large measure unintelligible except as allegories of New Covenant mysteries. On the contrary, they generally have literal, historical reasons which the Jewish people could appreciate.
His insistence on the intention of the human author helped him to resolve, or bypass, discrepancies among the synoptics and St. John. “John himself preserved the historical sequence of events” finds a resonance in contemporary assertions on the fourth gospel’s historicity. Following St. Augustine, he recognized that Matthew preferred to recapitulate events.
Aquinas was aware of the need for extreme pliability in the exegete; definitive solutions were few and far between. Thus he frequently will give more than one interpretation of it passage—his use of “either... or” to introduce them indicates that it is not a question of his opting for a multiplicity of literal senses in these situations. He presented them and would sometimes add that this one or that seemed better to him; at other times he left it up to his students to decide. Father Lagrange, O.P., who knew from experience how inflexIble some exegetes could be, remarked on Aquinas” broadmindedness in exegesis.
The literary context must be accounted for in any interpretation. Both St. Augustine and Richard of St. Victor had counseled this. In his Prologue to the Psalms, Aquinas enumerates some of the literary forms in the Bible: narration, admonition, commands, exhortation, prayer, praise, proverb and parable. Thus Matthew’s gospel was intended for the Jews and conforms to their manner of speaking. John does not offer an exact repetition of our Lord’s words but strives to bring out their deeper significance.
The dialectical cast of St. Thomas’ interpretation of the literal sense runs through every page. Syllogisms are disclosed in St. Paul and the correct sequence of thoughts is commended in St. John.
Finally, the dominant note in his exegesis is its theological import. The schoolmen could not study the Word of God passively. Unequipped with the requisite philological and historical knowledge, they questioned the sacred text with the conceptions available to them. Exposition merges with disputation as theological objections are proposed and answered within the commentary. To interpret the book of Job literally is to engage in a living dialogue with it concerning the problems of evil and predestination, of providence and retribution. The Bible was not an historical curiosity to be approached like an antiquated museum piece. The reported vision Aquinas had of Sts. Peter and Paul coming to aid him in interpreting a particular text demonstrates the vivid reality this Book and its authors had for him and his companions.
A danger existed in St. Thomas’ tendency to develop the literal sense rather than explain it. This was the price he had to pay in his efforts to demonstrate in his day that the speculative and scientific theology he was fathering owed its very existence and vitality to the Bible. As Father Chenu, O.P., has pointed out:
We are confronted with the fact that St. Thomas, a master in theology, took as the matter of his official course the text itself of Scripture, the Old and New Testaments... This is of major significance. Undoubtedly in the history of Thomism the Summa Theologica has monopolized all the attention... But it is precisely here that a grave problem arises, and the first condition for understanding and solving it is not to forget that the Summa is planted in the soil of the Scriptures, not merely by some species of devotion which gives its rational systematization a pious aspect, but because of the very law of its genesis. The university education of the thirteenth century will produce disputations and Summae only within the framework of Scriptural teaching. This is an apt pedagogical expression of the law of theology: It cannot become a science except in communion with the Word of God, which is listened to first of all for itself alone. A tree cut from its roots dies, even though it remains standing.
Despite the limitations of his time, St. Thomas succeeded more than many a later theologian in revealing the profound unity which fuses sacred doctrine with sacred Scripture.
THE LECTURES ON EPHESIANS
The Masters of the Sacred Page in thirteenth century Paris inherited from their predecessors a deep devotion to St. Paul. Thomas Aquinas made no secret of it. His commentaries on the Pauline letters practically double those on any other sacred author. He apparently intended to go over the letters a second time, converting the transcribed lecturae into expositions—some even hold that his redactions of Romans and 1 Corinthians were the result of an uncompleted second series of public lectures on Paul.
Everyone agrees in situating the first series of lectures on St. Paul within Thomas’ first teaching assignments in Italy, 1259 to 1268. Mandonnet and most other scholars prefer the earlier part of this period, from 1259 to 1265, as the most likely time of the lectures. This would mean that the majority of them were given while Thomas was teaching at the court of Urban IV in Orvieto, 1261 to 1264.
In attempting to establish the ordo doctrinae
When St. Thomas’ more systematic works, such as the Summa Theologiae, are studied in isolation from the scriptural matrix they were meant to supplement, misunderstandings are inevitable. He is accused of forgetting the essentially Christian character of salvation, grace, and charity.
In the opinion of men of the finest judgment, the commentaries that St. Thomas wrote on the books of the Old and of the New Testament, and especially on the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle, reflect such authority, such a keen insight and such diligence that they can be counted among his greatest theological works, and are considered in the nature of a biblical complement to these works, one to be held in the highest esteem. And thus if anyone should neglect them, he cannot be said to enjoy a clear and thoroughgoing acquaintance with the knowledge of the Angelic Doctor.
In developing the main theme of his lectures on Ephesians, the unity of the faithful in Christ, Aquinas continually pointed out the central position of Christ in salvation-history. The whole of Chapter One pivots around the blessings which men have received in Christ. Through him we are chosen, predestined, and adopted as God’s children, worthy to partake of eternal beatitude and bodily resurrection (Lect. 1). The Father loves us because he sees his own Son in us; only Christ can justify and save us (Lect. 2). The life-giving mystery revealed through the Apostles is the advent of God in Christ and the recapitulation of everything in Him (Lect. 3). The acceptance of this mystery in faith is dependent on Christ (Lect. 5).. As Christ is the model and form of our justice, so his exultation sets the pattern for mankind’s resurrection (Lect. 7). In this exultation Christ exercises a supreme fullness of power over the entire universe (Lect. 8).
This sets the stage for Chapter Two in which St. Thomas comments on the effects of Christ’s power. The slavery to sin in which Jew and pagan were plunged (Lect. 1) was destroyed by God’s unique mercy, justifying us in Christ (Lect. 2). Only Christ can accomplish this salvation (Lect. 3). The alienation between Jew and pagan (Lect. 4) was completely annihilated by the overpowering unification of mankind effected by the God-man (Lect. 5). Now all the races of men have access by Christ, in the Spirit, to the Father (ibid.). A new community of men is formed whose foundation is Christ (Lect. 6).
In the lectures on Chapter Three the special role of the Apostles in disseminating knowledge of this mystery is dis cussed. The blessings outlined in Chapters One and Two are reiterated in the context of this apostolic mission. Christ is Lord of history (Lect. 3), and the essence of our faith consists in affirming his true divinity and humanity (Lect. 5) The moral exhortations and precepts of Chapters Four to Six are to assist the Ephesians in preserving the ecclesial unity Christ has established and strengthened by his gifts. St Thomas certainly cannot be accused of failing to impress on his students the profoundly Christological nature of mankind’s return to God. If later Thomists are justly reprimanded for this, it is only insofar as they have failed to sink the roots of their theology as deeply into the Word of God as their master did.
The lectures on Ephesians exhibit all the characteristics of Thomas’ exegesis. The Prologue considers the four causes of the letter while allegorizing on a verse from Psalm 74. Parallel passages from other parts of Scripture are generously sprinkled throughout the commentary. Since it is a transcription or reportatio by Reginald, these quotations are often jotted down without any introductory phrase linking them to the previous thought. Yet the connection is not difficult to perceive in the majority of cases since they merely substantiate or illustrate what preceded.
Aquinas’ typically thirteenth century interest in the theological import of the biblical text is evident on every page. Though few in number, similarities to the twelfth century biblical-moral school of exegesis can also be detected.
Dialectical procedures are well represented. Objections and answers regarding the Apostle’s thought are frequent, and in Chapter Five we are told how Paul demonstrated one of his minor (Lect. 3) and major premises (Lect. 5). The general lines of St. Thomas’ divisions of the letter to the Ephesians are excellent; they compare well with those given by modem exegetes.
The following is an outline of the main sections and their more prominent subdivisions as given by St. Thomas. The reader may find it helpful if he gets lost in the course of a lecture.
Chapter and
VerseLecture No.
THE GREETING
1:1-2
1
THE NARRATIVE: meant to fortify the Ephesians in good:
I. By reason of Christ and his blessings
a. The blessings offered to all men
1:3-7
1-2
b. The unique gifts given the Apostles
1:8-12
3-4
c. The blessings bestowed on the Ephesians
1. Paul’s affection for them has grown
1:15-16a
6
2. He prays that they be blessed even more
1:16b-19a
6
d. Christ, the form and exemplar of all blessings:
1. Especially in his Resurrection and Exaltation
1:19b-21
7
2. In which he has power over the universe and the Church
1:22-23
8
By reason of the Ephesians own past experience
a. Their sinful state and unmerited justification and salvation in Christ
2:1-10
1-3
b. Their Gentile condition and Christ’s goodness
2:11-13
4
1. In making them, with the Jews, one New Man in himself
2:14-18
5
2. Now both share in God’s blessings
2:19-22
6
III.By reason of Paul’s solicitude for them and the special graces he has received
a. The dignity of his mission because of
1. His knowledge of divine mysteries
3:3-6
1
2. His part in carrying these mysteries into effect and their astonishing outcome
3:7-12
2-3
b. Paul’s trials and his prayer that they remain strong in faith and love
3:13-17
4
c. If they do, a knowledge of divine mysteries will be granted to them also
3:18-20
5
d. A Thanksgiving to God for giving us Christ and the Church
3:21
5
AN EXHORTATION: urging them on to higher goods, especially unity
I. An admonition to preserve ecclesial unity
a. The admonition itself
4:1-4
1
b. The form of this ecclesial unity:
1. That which is common to every member
4:5-6
2
2. What is particular to each individual:
a) The source of these different gifts
4:7-11
3-4
b) The fruit of this diversity, Christ’s body
4:12-16
4-5
How they are to remain in Christian unity
a. General norms for everyone:
1. Christ’s teaching is contrary to pagan sins
4:17-21
6-7
2. The conditions for knowing Christ’s doctrine
4:22-24
7
b. General precepts applicable to everyone:
1. Avoid spiritual sins and follow Christ’s exampel
4:25-5:2
4:8-5:1
2. Avoid carnal sins; Paul speaks of their punishment and warns against them
5:3-14
2-5
3. Exhortation to newness of life and thanksgiving
5:15-21
6-7
c. Particular precepts for different groups
1. For husbands and wives, the mystery of Christ and the Church
5:22-33
8-10
2. For children and parents
6:1-4
1
3. For slaves and their masters
6:5-9
2
THE CONCLUSION: indicating by whose power these precepts will be fulfilled:
I. Trust in God, he will provide spiritual armour for the struggles Christians must undergo
6:10-17
3-4
II. A final prayer, farewells and doxology
6:18-24
5
St.,Thomas once symbolized his attitude before the mysteries of God’s Word in an allegory on Jacob and the angel. It reveals the paradox of Aquinas, the theologian’s insatiable curiosity before mystery and the mystic’s profound reverence before the Infinite. Here we glimpse the restless spirit hidden beneath the unattractive and arid cadences of a school man’s language and methods:
The whole night they wrestled, muscles straining, neither yielding; but at daybreak the angel disappeared, apparently leaving the field clear to his adversary. But Jacob then felt a violent pain in his thigh. He was left wounded and limping. It is thus that the theologian grapples with the mystery when God brings him face to face with it. He is taut, like a bent bow, grappling with human language; he struggles like a wrestler; he even seems to win the mastery. But then he feels a weakness, a weakness at once painful and consoling, for to be thus defeated is in fact the proof that his combat was divine.
The commentary on Ephesians is one record of such an encounter, with its inevitable shortcomings and its hard-won achievements.
* * * * * *
No critical edition of St. Thomas Aquinas’ scriptural commentaries has yet been undertaken. The present translation is based on the Parma edition of his complete works.
St. Thomas himself censured word for word translations,
Technical Latin words are given in either notes or brackets whenever it seemed advisable to depart from the accustomed way of rendering them in English. At times, the ponderous and repetitive introductory phrases are shortened, for instance, “Concerning which it must be known that. . .,” might read “Note that this. . .” Throughout the work my objective has been to produce as accurate and readable a translation as circumstances and ability permit.
The notes provide the references in the pagan, patristic and medieval authors whom St. Thomas quotes or alludes to in his commentary. In them I have also explained, however briefly and inadequately, some points in Aquinas’ teaching which he happens to illustrate or presuppose in the course of a lecture. These range from cosmology and psychology to metaphysics and speculative theology. Further developments of an insight have also been indicated, or how the results of his inquiry compare with those of more recent studies.
In conclusion, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Fathers Charles English, O.C.S.O., and Emmanuel Rodriguez, O.C.S.O., and Brother John Kohlreiser, O.C.S.O., for assisting me with the reference material. I am especially indebted to Father Pierre Conway, O.P., and Mr. Thomas A. Gallagher for their helpful suggestions and encouragement.
Matthew L. Lamb, O.C.S.O.
Abbreviations
A.C.W. Ancient Christian Writers, edit. J. Quasten and J. C. Plumpe. Westminster, Md.
A.E.R. American Ecclesiastical Review. Washington, D. C.
A.N.F. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Buffalo and New York.
C.B.Q. Catholic Biblical Quarterly. Washington, D. C.
De Ver. Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate, by Thomas Aquinas. Translated by J. V. Mc Glynn, S.J. Chicago, 1953.
D.T.C. Dictionnaire de théologie catholique. Paris.
F.C. The Fathers of the Church. New York.
Meta. In Duodecim Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Expositio, by Thomas Aquinas. Translated by J. P. Rowan, Chicago, 1961.
N.P.N.F. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. by P. Schaff. Buffalo and New York.
P.G. Patrologia Graeca. Paris.
P.L. Patrologia Latina. Paris.
R.S.R. Revue des sciences religieuses. Strasbourg and Paris.
R.T.A.M. Recherches de thgologie ancienne et médiévale. Louvain.
S.C. Sources chrétiennes, ed. by H. de Lubac and J. Daniélou. Paris.
S.C.G. Summa Contra Gentiles seu de Veritate Catholicae Fidei, by Thomas Aquinas. New York.
S.D.B. Supplément au dictionnaire de la Bible, ed. L. Pirot. Paris.
S.T. Summa Theologiae, by Thomas Aquinas. New York.
Suppl. Supplementum Tertiae Partis Summae Theologiae, by Thomas Aquinas; extracts from his earlier Scriptum in IV Libros Sententiarum.
T.D.N.T. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. by G. Kittel and G. W. Bromiley. Michigan and London.
T.S. Theological Studies. Baltimore.
Notes
Cf. Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 2nd revised edition (New York: Philosophical Library, 1952), pp. xv, 41, 263, 292-94, 300 ff., where she stresses the novelty of Aquinas’ position. Against her analysis, Henry de Lubac, S.J., endeavors to demonstrate St. Thomas’ traditionalism, cf. Exégèse médiévale, les quatre sens de l’Ecriture, 2e partie, t. II (Paris: Aubier, 1964), pp. 272-W2.
Return 1A similar distinction between exegetical presuppositions and techniques has been made on the philosophical level by Bernard Lonergan, S.J., in Insight, A Study of Human Understanding, 2nd edition (New York: Philosophical Library, 1958), pp. 577-79.
Return 1For an accurate and profound methodological explanation of meaning and expression, cf. Lonergan’s Insight, pp. 357-59, 549-94. Alonso Schokel’s The Inspired Word (N.Y.: Herder, 1965), pp. 134-72, 255-79 shows how modern literary and linguistic studies can deepen our appreciation of the Bible.
Return 1For a fuller treatment of these processes in theological and dogmatic development, cf. B. Lonergan, De Deo Trino (Rome: Gregorian, 1964), vol. I, pp. 5-112, vol. II, pp. 7-61.
Return 1For the technical significance of Begrifllichkeit in R. Bultmann, cf. A. Malet, La Pensée de Rudolf Bultmann (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1963), pp. 277 ff. Also S. Ogden, Christ without Myth (London: Collins, 1962), pp. 65-66. For its use here, cf. F. Crowe, “Method in Theology,” T.S. 23 (1962), pp. 637-42.
Return 1On Origen, cf. H. de Lubac, Histoire et Esprit (Paris: Aubier, 1950), pp. 92-194, 278-94; J. Daniélou, Origen (N.Y.: Sheed and Ward, 1955), pp. 73-98; H. Crouzel, Origène et la “connaissance mystique” (Paris: Desclee, 1961), pp. 47-84. On St. Augustine, cf. H.-I. Marrou, S. Augustin et la fin de la culture antique (Paris: Boccard, 1958–4th ed.), pp. 302-27, 357-85. Concerning the vast influence of Origen on western exegesis, cf. Smalley, op. cit. pp. 14-20. Y. Congar has described briefly the main differences between the Augustinian and Thomist positions, cf. his “Théologie,” D.T.C. 15a, col. 386-88; and La foi et la théologie (Tournai: Desclée, 1962), pp. 230-33, 246-48.
Return 1Smalley, op. cit., p. xv; she is referring to the thirteenth century biblical scholar. The platonism of the Origenist-Augustinian approach can be traced through the early Middle Ages up to the time of the twelfth century Paris masters, cf. R. McNally, S.J., The Bible in the Early Middle Ages (Md.: Newman, 1959), pp. 53-61, and Smalley, op. cit., p. 262; also C. Spicq, O.P., “Histoire de l’interpretation au moyen Age en occident,” S.D.B. IV, pp. 609-615.
Return 1Cf. Athenagoras’ Presbeia peri ton christianon, 7 and 9 (P.G. 6, 904 and 908); he is followed by Pseudo-Justin’s Cohort. ad Graecos, 8 (P.G. 6, 257) and Hippolytus of Rome, Peri tou Antichristou, 2, (P.G. 10, 728). St. Thomas was to utilize the concept of instrumentality in his analysis, giving it greater precision.
Return 1Cf. de Lubac, Histoire et esprit, pp. 296 ff.
Return 1Cf. Smalley, op. cit., pp. 21-22, and St. Jerome’s Epist. 70, 7 (P.L. 22, 627). St. Augustine also uses this expression, De Cons. Evang., I, 25-54 (P.L. 34, 1070).
Return 1In Psalm. 90, 2; 149, 5 (P.L. 37, 1159, 1952). In his Confess.,12, 31 Augustine sees God’s action as allowing the author to perceive all the truths which can be drawn from his words. But in the De Doct. Christ., 3, 27 it is the Holy Spirit who makes provision for these meanings even if the human author may not know them—“forsitan vidit et certe Dei Spiritus.” De Lubac’s statement in his Exégèse médiévale, 2-2, p. 285 note 1, needs modification.
Return 1Moralia in Job, praef. I, 2 (P.L. 75, 517).
Return 1This is evident from the fact that all the currents which were to make up the Bible are discussed under prophecy. The Legal stream is represented in Moses who was the greatest of prophets since, among other reasons, he proclaimed the Law to the people in the name of God, cf. De Ver. 12, 14; S.T. II-II, 174, 4. The prophetic stream is obviously mentioned; following St. Jerome, St. Thomas includes Judges, Ruth and Kings in the prophetic books, cf. De Com. et Part. S. Scrip. The Sapiential stream, termed the “hagiographa,” makes up the rest of the Old Testament and is clearly included within his analogically conceived notion of the prophetic mission; those who wrote these books were aided by the “lumen divinum” which is the formally unifying factor in all prophecy, cf. De Ver. 12, 12 ad 10; S.T. II-II, 174, 2 ad 3; 171, 3 ad 3. The writings of the New Testament trace their origin to the truly prophetic experience of the Apostles, cf. De Ver. 12, 14 ad 5; S.T. II-II, 173, 2c; In Matt. 10, n.2, v.20; In loan. 18, Lect. 4, n.2; In Rom. 12, Lect. 2. Thus the canonical Scriptures are sometimes attributed to “the Apostles and Prophets,” cf. In 1 Tim. 6, Lect. 1; S.T. 1, 1, 8 ad 2.
Return 1Charismatic graces are the gratiae gratis datae discussed in S.T. I-II 111, 4-5. St. Thomas’ final position is to include all of these related to knowledge within his analogical conception of prophecy, cf. Prologue to II-II, 171. The unifying factor in the analogous reality is the “lumen divinum” or “lumen propheticum,” S.T. II-II, 171, 3 ad 3, which can vary in degree, De Ver. 12, 13; S.T. 174, 3; it can also penetrate to almost every level of reality, S.T. II-II, 171, 3. The expression “lumen” must be understood within the context of Aquinas’ use of it in his analysis of man’s natural intellectual consciousness, cf. B. Lonergan, S.J., “The Concept of Verbum in the Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas,” T.S., vol. 8 (1947), pp. 64-73. By it the prophet is enabled to judge events and issues in a supernatural manner. (S.T. II-II, 173, 2). The “lumen fidei,” in its turn, enables men to assent voluntarily to the truths enunciated by the prophets (ibid., 171, 3 ad 2; 5c; D.V. 12, 2 sed con.; In Boet. de Trin. 3, 1 ad 4). These two “lumina” are forms of the “lumen gratiae” (S.T. I-II, 109, 1c) but they differ in that the prophetic light is directed toward a supernatural judgment itself while the light of faith prepares the mind to assent to what God reveals through the prophets (D.V. 12, 1 ad 4 bis). On the importance of correctly understanding Aquinas’ concept of lumen cf. Frederick Crowe, S.J., De Verbo Dei cum Hominibus Communicato (Toronto: Regis College, mimeographed, 1963),pp. 83-99.
Return 1The analogical concept of prophecy is differentiated according to content into four general categories. One class, termed most properly prophetic in S.T. II-II, 171, 3, deals with future events which the prophet knows with divine assistance, cf. De Ver. 12, 2c, ad 1, ad 4; 3c; 10c; 11; S.C.G. III, 154; In Hebr. 6, Lect. 4; In Rom. 3, Lect. 1; 12, Lect. 2; S.T. II-II, 171, 3, 6 ad 2; 172, 1c; 174, 1c ad 1. A second category of prophecy occurs when the existence of supernatural mysteries is made known to a prophet; in S.C.G. III, 154, this was designated as “sapientia” but by the time of his writing the prologue to S.T. 11-11, 171, St. Thomas had reverted to his position in De Ver. 12, 2c and In Rom. 12, Lect. 2 where he incorporates this within an analogical notion of prophecy, cf. also S.T. 171, 3c and 174, 3c; In I Cor. 14, Lect. 1; for this prophecy in action cf. S.T. II-II, 174, 6; De Ver. 12, 14 ad 1. The third class has to do with a supernaturally acquired knowledge of the existence of what is otherwise knowable by natural means. It is prophetic because these natural objects are seen “in lumine divino,” i.e., in reference to God and his plans, cf. De Ver. 12, 13; S.T. 11-11, 174, 3c. Finally, a scarcely recognized fourth category, not yet noticed when he was composing De Ver. 12, deals with the interpretation and propagation of the truths revealed in the other forms of prophecy. In S.C.G. III, 154 and In I Cor. 12, Lect. 2, St. Thomas saw the need of men supernaturally equipped to interpret what others had written; it was termed “interpretatio sermonis.” In commenting on I Cor. 14 he deepened his understanding of this grace, regarding it as a real type of prophecy, cf. In I Cor. 14, Lects. 1, 2, 3, 5; also In Rom. 12, Lect. 2. He grasped the broad dimensions prophecy had for St. Paul: “Someone is also termed a prophet solely by the fact that he proclaims the prophetic words in the Church, or expounds or chants them there.” In I Cor. 14, Lect. 1; also ibid., 11, Lect. 2; 14, Lect. 6; In Tit. 1, Lect. 3. Cf. note 18 below for further remarks.
Return 1The difference between charismatic graces and sanctifying grace is that the latter concerns man’s personal relations or union with God, whereas the former enable him to cooperate with other men in bringing them to God, cf. S.T. 1-11, 111, 1. Thus the “utilitas Ecclesiae” is the motive force in prophecy, cf. De Ver. 12, 2, 3 ad 11 & 15; 5c; 13c; In I Cor. 14, passim; In Rom. 12, Lect. 2; S.T. 11-11, 171, Ic. P. Benoit, O.P., in his Prophecy and Inspiration (New York: Desclée, 1961) pp. 103-111 tries to distinguish between the prophet and the sacred authors by saying that in the former the speculative judgment predominates and in the latter the practical judgment. This can find no support in St. Thomas who conceived of Prophecy—taken analogously—as directed toward assisting men in their total response to God in faith and morality, cf. S.T. II-II, 173, 2c; 174, 6c (note how be says “prophetica revelatio” is concerned with both faith and morals). It is possible to trace this dual aspect of supernatural knowledge, its speculative and practical qualities, from its origin in God’s knowledge though prophecy and Scripture to theology, cf. S.T. I, 14, 16; I, 4c; 1, 3c. For the practical judgments involved in writing a book, cf. notes 17 to 23 below.
Return 1This is one of the key distinctions in Aquinas’ analysis; he terms the first aspect or moment the prophetic “donum” and the seeond its “usus.” It runs throughout all of his analysis, cf. De Ver. 12, 2c; 3 ad 15; 4c, ad 1 & 3; 5c, ad 3; 9c; 12 ad 4; 13c; In I Cor. 14, 1 ff.; S.C.G. III, 154; S.T. II-II, 171, 1c; 172, 3 ad 1; 4 ad 4; 173, 3c, ad 4; 4c; 174, 2 ad 3; 3 ad 3; 4c. A revelation is always involved in the encounter in which the “donum” consists, ibid., 171, 1 ad 4. Benoit, op. cit., pp. 109-11 departs front Aquinas by seeking to distinguish sharply between revelation and inspiration. For the Angelic Doctor revelation, like prophecy, was analogous. Benoit, on the other hand, is influenced by today’s tendency to think of passive revelation in the cut and dried terms of the manuals; we tend to regard a truth as either clearly and explicitly revealed or not revealed at all. But for St. Thomas man’s knowledge of the faith grows, truths are revealed slowly over a period of time (cf. notes 26 and 27 below). The Bible communicates this organic development of salvation-history to men up to its definitive apex in the revelation of the Word Incarnate himself. The whole of the Bible must be approached with faith; this does not mean that every sentence is a definable dogma.
Much of the Scriptures deal with otherwise, naturally knowable subjects, such as Israel’s history, but as Aquinas points out (S.T. I, 1, 7) these are related in the light of God’s plans for salvation-history. To initially perceive and judge this to be true required some type of revelation, and to assent to it requires faith. If biblical inspiration did not terminate in this analogous revelation why is it necessary to even posit a supernatural action in the formation of the Bible? Why must we approach all of Scripture with faith if only portions of it contain passive revelation and most of it does not? Benoit seems to overlook the fact that between the natural and the supernatural no medium area exists in which to fit a knowledge whether speculative or practical which is neither one nor the other. Nor is there a truly supernatural knowledge which is not also to some degree a revelation, at least in that it views and expresses some fact—otherwise knowable to reason perhaps—within the light of salvation-history.
Return 1At first, St. Thomas did not connect the “interpretatio sermonis” (mentioned as the fourth class of prophecy in note 15 above) with the prophetic mission. But in In I Cor. 14, Lect. 6 he began to understand this as an “usus prophetiae” and in S.T. II-II, 173, 2c and 176, 2 ad 4 be speaks of the corresponding “donum prophetiae.” The prologue to II-II, 171 indicates in what this “donum” consists. It is the charismatic gift of faith which “grants a certain supereminent certitude of faith by which a man is fit to instruct others in what pertains to the faith.” S.T. I-II, 111, 4 ad 2. Benoit chose to develop Aquinas’ concept of instrumentality in applying his analysis of prophecy to the sacred writers. I think St. Thomas’ more frequently repeated insight into the difference between “donum” and “usus,” with their analogous nature, might prove more fruitful.
For example, today the complex origin of the biblical books is well known; they were not, for the most part, composed by single authors, as was formerly held, but by various traditions. Cf. J. McKenzie, S.J., “The Social Character of Inspiration,” C.B.Q. vol. 24 (1962) pp. 115-24. Utilizing St. Thomas’ fourth category of prophecy we can claim that the men who perpetuated the Old and early New Testament traditions had a deeper bond uniting them to the messages than the ordinary people. The latter accepted it as coming from God through the virtue of faith. This may also have been the personal response of the men who perpetuated the traditions, but their social responsibility required more. Those who originated the various prophetic, legal, sapiential, and New Testament traditions usually experienced the deep prophetic encounter and consequent active revelation needed to grasp and affirm supernatural mysteries. But these were perpetuated, and applied to changing times, by disciples in whom the prophetic “donum” was normally the charismatic grace of faith. Since this “gratia gratis data” clearly consists in a “prophetica revelatio” (cf. II-II, 171, prol.) there can be no doubt that the communication, whether oral or written (cf. II-II, 174, 6 obj. 2), flowing from it is really inspired in the sense in which “biblical inspiration” is used today.
Return 1For the differentiation of prophecy according to the manner of its experience, cf. De Ver. 12, 7, 12, 13; In I Cor. 14, 1; S.T. II-II, 173, 2, 3; 174, 2-4. Also Benoit, op. cit., p. 37. As Benoit himself admits, his distinction between prophecy and inspiration on the basis of “lumen et species” and “lumen solum” cannot be supported by St. Thomas who expressly states concerning this “lumen”: “from the reception of which someone is constituted a prophet.” (De Ver. 12, 1c; also S.T. 171, 3 ad 3; 173, 2c). The “lumen propheticum” is a passing impression on the prophet’s mind (11-11, 171, 2); yet St. Thomas does speak of an “habilitas” resulting from its reception (ibid., ad 2), indicating that there is a variation in degree. This “habilitas” must especially be remembered when discussing the prophetic “donum” operative in the charismatic gift of faith mentioned in note 18 above.
Return 1De Ver. 12, 4c; S.T. II-II, 174, 3 ad 3; 173, 3 ad 4. For further references, cf. those given in note 17 above. This contrasts with the “donum”: “The gift of prophecy, which exists beyond the capacity of man, is given by God and not through the power of some created cause,” ibid. It seems to me that Benoit’s theory of inspiration, op. cit., pp. 88-132, would profit from this distinction between “donum” and “usus.” Fixing attention on the communication or “usus,” and this precisely under the form of writing, he conceives of inspiration as some sort of created “supernatural impulse” flowing from God to the sacred author, taking “the form of an immediate physical motion.” (op. cit., p. 120). This manner of explaining the divine action has already been shown as not that of St. Thomas, cf. B. Lonergan, “St. Thomas’ Theory of Operation,” T.S. vol. 3 (1942), pp. 375-401, and his “St. Thomas’ thought on Gratia Operans,” ibid., pp. 533-78. As a result, Benoit’s idea of the author’s instrumentality is much stricter than that of Aquinas. Cf. notes 21 to 23 below.
Return 1That inspiration, for St. Thomas, pertains to the “donum” is evident from S.T. II-II, 171, 1 ad 4; also cf. Benoit, op. cit., pp. 68-69. So in De Comm. et Part. S. Scrip. he can distinguish the prophets, who often spoke in God’s name, and the hagiographers who: “inspired by the Holy Spirit [the donum] spoke, not on the part of the Lord, but as it were from themselves [usus].” Note that I say God’s “governance” was not immediate. His providence immediately extends to every detail in salvation-history ordering each to its end, but the carrying into effect—the “gubematio”—of these plans is mediated by secondary causes, cf. S.C.G. III, 76, 77, 83, 94; S.T. I, 22, 3; 103, 6. Of course the “what” which the donum imparts shares in the latter’s analogical character as briefly sketched in note 15 above. Even the most “natural” books of the Old Testament deal with their material in the light of Yahweh and his plans for his people; e.g. Numbers treating of the communal organization of the people centered about God’s abode, the ark and tabernacle, and the need to submit to their God-given leaders; or Proverbs seeking to implement “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” with down-to-earth practical advice. Note also that the deficiency mentioned in S.T. II-II, 173, 4 deals with the quid, the “what” imparted by the donum. Inspiration will effect the usus by means of the donum which can modify, profoundly or slightly, the recipients mental and imaginative “species”cf. references given in note 19 above. Should any dispositions be positively contrary to the communication of the message, God, as Universal Cause, can alter them when imparting the donum, cf. De Ver. 12, 4 ad 1, ad 2 and 6; S.T. I, 105, 1, 3-4; II-II, 172, 3 ad 1. But normally these dispositions are impartial from the viewpoint of what is to be communicated, cf. ibid., and the following note.
Return 1This was Thomas’ insight expressed in S.T. II-II, 172, 3c. To appreciate its implications one must read the writings of Lonergan referred to in note 20 above; for a contemporary statement of the same basic idea, cf. his Insight, p. 664. It discloses the major weakness in Benoit’s theory of inspiration (which he is trying to remedy) and those of others. They are worked out within the framework of either a Bañez or a Molina who both agreed in the presupposition that God controls all events because he controls each. For Benoit the whole Bible is inspired because the Almighty controlled every single writer and literary piece. St. Thomas’ concept of instrumentality, as Lonergan has demonstrated, affirms that God controls each event because he controls all. Applied to Scripture this means that each and every part of it is authored by God because he originated (cf. “Deus origo eius est” of De Comm. et Part. S. Scrip.) the whole process of the Bible’s formation. Thus he could state: “Furthermore, God also at the moment of his creation can create a subject that he might dispose the soul in its very creation for prophecy, and would grant it the prophetic grace.” S.T. II-II, 172, 3c. The difference between the instrumentality operative in the composing of the Scriptures and the Universal Instrumentality discussed by Lonergan, T.S. 1942, pp. 391-95, is that the Providence guiding the genesis of the Bible is an essential element in the special Providence concerned with salvation-history; cf. S.C.G. III, 111-113. Note the affinity this has with K. Rahner’s thesis: God’s willing of the Scriptures as a constitutive element in his willing of the Church, cf. his Inspiration in the Bible (N.Y.: Herder & Herder, 1961). For valid criticisms and modifications of Rahner’s Theory, cf. Y. Congar, O.P., Sainte Eglise (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1963), pp. 187-200; and especially F. Crowe, op. cit., pp. 85 and 90. B. Benoit is also broadening his conception of inspiration, cf. “Les Analogies de l’inspiration,” Sacra Pagina, Vol. I (Paris: Lecoffre, 1959), pp. 86-99. This is even more pronounced in his most recent article “Révélation et inspiration,” in the Revue biblique, Vol. 72 (1963), pp. 321-370, where he knits revelation and inspiration more closely together than in his previous works. Failing to grasp the importance of Aquinas’ distinction between donum and usus (pp. 325-336), he ends by defining revelation and inspiration in terms which approach those two aspects of the prophetic mission (pp. 367-368).
Return 1De Ver. 12, 4 ad 1; also S.T. II-II, 172, 3 ad 1. This is emphasized in 171, 6c where divine veracity is predicated of both prophetic knowledge and communication.
Return 1De Doct. Christ. 3, 6-9; McNally, op. cit., pp. 44-46; Smalley, op. cit., p. 24.
Return 1“... for faith supposes natural knowledge in the same way grace does nature, and as perfection presupposes what can be perfected.” S.T. I, 2, 2 ad 1. Growth is indispensable to human knowledge, ibid., 85, 1c; for some passages where Aquinas speaks of the development of supernatural knowledge, cf. I-II, 98, 3 ad 2; 99, 6c; 101, 2 ad 1; II-II, 1, 7c, ad 2; In Matt. 3, n.l.
Return 1S.T. II-II, 1, 7 ad 2. In De Ver. 14, 11c, St. Thomas quotes St. Gregory in support of this view; “With the passing of time the growth in divine knowledge has increased.” Hom. 16 in Ezech. The Old Testament leaders have a more explicit knowledge of the mysteries of faith since they are to instruct the people, S.T. II-II, 2, 6. Father de Lubac is not quite correct in saying that Aquinas’ analysis of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments is linked with the passing from literal meanings to spiritual ones, cf. Exégèse médiévale, 2-2, p. 287. In II Cor. 3, Lect. 2 is not at all concerned with the senses of Scripture; what St. Thomas is affirming is that the Old Law was primarily a written law whereas the New Law is primarily a law of the Spirit; the fact that it is written down in the New Testament scriptures is only a secondary aspect of it, cf. S.T. I-II, 106, 1; nor do the senses of Scripture enter into the lengthy comparison of the Old and New Laws in ibid., 107, 1-4.
Return 1Cf. S.T. II-II, 174, 6; De Ver. 12, 14 ad 1; In I Cor. 14, Lect. 2.
Return 1De Ver. 12, 6; S.T. II-II, 173, 1. On the imperfection inherent in man’s growth in faith, cf. ibid., I, 7 ad 3.
Return 1S.T. II-II, 171, 6c; also 172, 6 ad 2; De Ver. 12, 10 ad 7 & 11. It is interesting to compare scriptural revelation and the theories on teaching proposed in De Ver. 11, 1. Some maintain that in education everything depends on the teacher; in biblical perspectives these would be the fundamentalists who consider the human authors as no more than the puppets of God. Others maintain that education consists in the student recalling what he already knew, the teacher only appears to cause the knowledge; these would be the rationalists for whom revelation is dependent entirely on human genius—if there is a God he is not needed. Finally, Aquinas holds that education is a process in which the teacher actualizes the potentialities of the students as regards knowledge and virtue, both God and man are essential to the Bible.
Return 1Cf. S.T. I, 1, where “sacra doctrina” and “sacra scriptura” are often interchangeable, cf. G. Van Ackeren, SacraDoctrina, The Subject of the First Question of the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas (Rome: 1952).
Return 1De Ver. 11, 1 ad 6.
Return 1Cf. Daniélou, Origen, pp. 14 ff., 133-38; also H. de Lubac’s introduction to Origène: homélies sur la Genèse, S.C. VII, pp. 5-55.
Return 1Smalley, op. cit., pp. 44-46, points out how St. Augustine’s program was realized only over a period of centuries. Yves Congar, O.P., makes the same point when he discusses the three stages theology went through up until the thirteenth century; it was successively under the regime of grammar, then dialectics, and finally metaphysics. D.T.C. 15-A, 359-74.
Return 1The Antiochene School of exegesis had practically no influence on medieval exegesis. Its only well known representative was St. John Chrysostom whose homilies were more pastoral than exegetical in tone, cf. Smalley, op. cit., pp. 14-20.
Return 1Cf. Danié1ou, op. cit., pp. 141-43.
Return 1Cf. De Doct. Christ. 3, 5; also his famous plea in De Gen. ad Litt. I, 18 ff., for not making rash assertions on what the first chapters of Genesis are supposed to literally mean.
Return 1Cf. Collatio 14, 8-11; also O. Chadwick, John Cassian: A Study in Primitive Monasticism (Cambridge: Univ. Press, 1950), pp. 151-53; on the Origenist controversy, pp. 33-36.
Return 1Smalley, op. cit., pp. 31-.35. Referring to St. Gregory’s prophetic gifts Aquinas feels that one can discern “almost all the movements of one’s own heart” in the writings of Gregory, In I Cor. 14, Lect. 5.
Return 1Cf. J. Leclereq, O.S.B., The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture (New York: Fordham, 1961), pp. 31-44.
Return 1Hom. in Gen. 10,1 and De Prin. 4,3,5. Origen scholars have not yet reached agreement on the extent of Philonic influence on Origen’s exegesis, cf. T.S. 24 (1963), pp. 250-63.
Return 1De Prin. 4,1,7. According to J. McKenzie Origen did not clarify the inner connection between the historical and allegorical senses, cf. “A Chapter in the History of Spiritual Exegesis,” T.S. 12 (1951), pp. 276-80.
Return 1De. Doct. Christ. Book 1, 2, 3, 31 and 32. Augustine does not here explicitly relate the use by God of the things Scripture refers to as a means of further signification, but he does in Epist. 102, n.33.
Return 1De Doct. Christ. 3, 5. In book 1, 23 and 26, be states how we are to love our bodies for man is both soul and body, but the body is “beneath” us. For a succinct account of his theory of knowledge, cf. Copleston, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 51-67.
Return 1De Doct. Christ. 3, 10; also cf. ibid., 15.
Return 1Ibid., 1, 39: “And thus a man who is founded on faith, hope and love, keeping a firm grasp on these, cloes not need the Scriptures except for the purpose of instructing others.”
Return 1Hugh increased the dignity of the historical or literal sense by joining it with the allegorical as pertaining to knowledge, but the literal was still considered as the necessary but lowly foundation of the allegorical, cf. Didascalion, VI, 4, 4.
Return 1Cf. Portalié, op. cit., pp. 109-14; Copleston, op. cit., pp. 63-67 where he holds that Augustine’s illumination cannot be equated with Thomas’ affirmation of the dependence of the human mind on the Divine Consciousness or “lumen,” cf. S . T. 1, 84, 5c; 88, 3 ad 1.
Return 1Cf. ibid., 84, 6c; grace does not dispense with this dependence, 12, 13c. For Aquinas the soul is the act of the body, ibid., 76, 1, together body and soul form one unique being, III, 62, 1 ad 2. The only instance when the phantasm is not operative in contemplation is during an ecstatic vision of the Divinity itself, cf. S.T. 1, 12, 11; II-II, 175, 4 & 5; 180, 5.
Return 1De Ver. 12, 12 ad 2; S.T. II-II, 174, 2 ad 4.
Return 1In II Tim. 3, Lect. 3. St. Thomas does not insert Peter Lombard’s qualifying phrase that the holy letters instruct one if they are “spiritually understood,” Collectanea in Epist. Pauli, P.L. 192, col. 378.
Return 1S.T. I, 1, 10; also Quodlibet VII, 6, 2; In Gal. 4, Lect. 7. St. Thomas was principally dependent on St. Augustine and Venerable Bede for his definition. For the organic relationship between these four senses cf. W. J. Burghardt, S.J., “On Early Christian Exegesis,” T.S. 11 (1950), p. 105. P. Grelot, La Bible, Parole de Dieu (Paris: Desclée, 1965), pp. 232-38 overlooks the clear references to “sensus litteralis” as that whereby men signify things by words, cf. Quodlibet VII, 6, 3c. The texts quoted in note 1, p. 233, refer to a different problem, cf. our note 62 below. Nor is Grelot’s opinion supported by Aquinas’ biblical commentaries where the literal sense is what the writer intended.
Return 1Cf. note 6 above; also H. de Lubac’s introduction to Origen’s Homélies sur l’Exode, S.C. 1947, pp. 47-52. “... if history truly mediates, it must not retain us, its entire function on the contrary is to pass away. Entirely, down to its final event, it prepares for something else. The Truth to which it introduces us is no longer of the historical order.” ibid., p. 50. The perspective is different in Aquinas for whom the only sense present in all of Scripture is the literal, cf. Quodlibet VII, 6, 2 ad 5. Since this was the meaning intended by the author, if he intended to signify Christ in metaphorical language then this signification is its literal meaning, ibid. ad 1. He insists that in general the Old Law ceremonial precepts have a “causa litteralis” as well as a figurative reason, S.T. I-II, 102, 2; In Rom. 4, Lect. 2. For a comparison of Aquinas’ exegesis of these precepts with that of his predecessors, cf. Smalley, op. cit., pp. 303-06. Where Thomas does not hesitate to identify a spiritual meaning with the literal sense if intended by the author, the Augustinians and Origen usually affirm the same truth very differently by denying the passage a literal or historical meaning; the human mind can, after all, grasp spiritual realities without corporeal assistance.
Return 1Quodlibet VII, 6, 2 ad 5. Both de Lubac, Exgèse médiévale, 2-2, p. 274, and D. Chenu, O. P., Introduction a l’étude de s. Thomas d’Aquin (Montreal: Etudes médiévales, 1954) p. 218, are of the opinion that the Angelic Doctor made his own what is said in the fifth objection of Quodlibet VII, 6, 2 concerning the “de necessitate sacrae Scripturae” of the four senses. Yet the answer to the objection is in full agreement with its conclusion, when interpreting the Bible one does not have to of necessity find four senses because they are often not there to begin with.
Return 1The fact that particular instances in the ceremonial precepts may only have a “figuralis causa” (S.T. I-II, 102, 2 ad 3) does not mean that they only have a spiritual sense; as intended by the author, the figurative value is the literal meaning—“causa” cannot be interchanged with “sensus.”
Return 1S.T. I, 1, 10 ad 3; also I-II, 102, 2 ad 1; Quodlibet. VII, 6, 2 ad 1. Hugh of St. Victor in his De Scripturis, P.L. 175, 14, and Alexander of Hales in his Summa Theologica, tract. intro., 1, 4 ad 2 had already put metaphor and figure in the literal or historical sense. On spoken or written words as immediately related to mental conceptions, cf. Lonergan, “The Concept of Verbum in the Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas,” T.S. vol. 7 (1946) pp. 350 ff., and the references there given to the Angelic Doctor.
Return 1None of the patristic quotations Father de Lubac brings forward to contest the novelty of this position, in Exgèse médiévale. 2-2, p. 277 do so. They provide the rudiments but lack the stark clarity of Aquinas’ assertion. The De Doct, Christ. 3, 2 deals with punctuation, and the “planissime dictum” of ibid., 2, 6 reveals its ambiguity in the application made of it in Book 3, 26. No matter how “plain” a statement might be it could still be classed as figurative and obscure in virtue of Book 3, 10 and 15.
Return 1Cf. Smalley, op. cit., pp. 243-45, 281-92; also de Lubac, Histoire et esprit, pp. 422 ff.
Return 1S.T. I, 1, 10 ad 1. The writings of the Gospel themselves are to dispose the reader for grace, ibid., I-II, 106, 1 ad 1. Note that I, 1, 10 is in the context of theoretical argumentation in theology as a science. This must be differentiated from other approaches to Scripture, cf. In I Sent. prol., q. 1, art. 5.
Return 1Cf. De Doct. Christ. 3, 9; on Origen cf. J. Guillet, “Les exégèses d’Alexandrie et &Antioch: conflict ou malentendu?” R.S.R. Vol. 34 (1947) pp. 288-89. For St. Thomas, cf. De Ver. 14, 11; S.T. II-II, 2, 6-8. He qualifies it by saying that the Old Testament prophets and patriarchs only knew of the Christian mysteries in vague generalities, I, 57, 5 ad 3; In Eph. 3, Lect. 1.
Return 1Cf. In Isaiam, 7, v.14; also In Eph. 5, Lect. 10; In Psalmis, prol.
Return 1De Pot. 4, 1 where Aquinas puts the brakes on any excesses by his reference to the context—“salva circumstantia litterae.” S.T. I, 1, 10c; II-II, 173, 4.
Return 1Cf. de Lubac, Exgèse médiévale, 2-2, pp. 279-85 for a brief account of the debates on whether or not St. Thomas really held the multiplicity of the literal sense. Smalley, op. cit., pp. 300-01 observes: “The discussion shows either that St. Thomas followed St. Augustine, or that he did not make his meaning clear. In his exegesis he generally avoids long lists of alternative explanations, such as his predecessors were accustomed to give; and this suggests that he preferred only one literal meaning.”
Return 1Smalley, ibid., p. 301; yet she does admit on p. 329 that “The very concentration on Aristotle, which enabled the Dominicans to effect a change in exegetical principles, tended to prevent their new principles bearing fruit.”
Return 1Cf. Y. Congar, “Le sens de l’économie salutaire dans la théol. de s. Thomas,” in Festgabe Lortz (1957) pp. 91-96.
Return 1C. Spicq, “Saint Thomas exégète,” D.T.C., 15-A, col. 695.
Return 1Cf. Smalley, op. cit., pp. 270-72; Hugh of St. Cher’s Postilla or commentaries on the whole Bible were most likely a cooperative undertaking.
Return 1De Comm. et Part. S. Scrip. in Opuscula Theologica, Vol. I (Rome: Marietti, 1954), pp. 435-39.
Return 1In loan. 21, Lect. 6; also In I Tim. 6, Lect. 1; S.T. 1, 1, 8 ad 2; yet these norms needed interpretation, ibid., II-II, 1, 9 ad 1; 10 ad 1.
Return 1Cf. de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale, 2-2, p. 453; the Vander edition of 1703 gives the letter to J. Jonas as Epist. 435, Tom. III-B, p. 458 E. On Erasmus’ respect for Thomas Aquinas cf. de Lubac, ibid., pp. 432-33.
Return 1Spicq, D.T.C., 15-A, col. 710 and his Esquisse dune histoire de l’exégèse latine, pp. 165-172.
Return 1In I Cor. 1, Lect. 3; also In Tit. 1, Lect. 3. This enthusiasm for the Philosopher did not prevent him from remarking: “For no philosopher possessed such great wisdom that by it men could be withdrawn from error” In loan. 6, Lect. 5.
Return 1Cf. P. Glorieux, “Essai sur les commentaires scripturaires de S. Thomas et leur chronologie,” R.T.A.M. Vol. 17 (1950) pp. 261-64.
Return 1Cf. Congar, la Foi et la théologie (Paris: 1962) pp. 242-43; J. R. Sheets, S.J., “The Scriptural Dimension of St. Thomas,” A.E.R., Vol. 144 (1961) pp. 172-73.
Return 1P. Mandonnet, O.P., Des Ecrits authentiques de s. Thomas d’Aquin, 2nd ed. (Fribourg: 1910) pp. 63 and 69 for Tolomeo and Gui’s catalogues. The Official Catalogue (ibid., p. 31), as well as that of Harley (p. 46) and Gui (p. 69), list the commentary on the Psalms as reportationes of Reginald, but Glorieux, op. cit., p. 250 believes they were composed by St. Thomas himself. The fact of these transcriptions should not militate against their acceptance as genuine works of Aquinas since A. Dondaine, O.P., has demonstrated that a group of secretaries was responsible for copying down St. Thomas’ dictation on “his own writings” and publishing them, cf. Secrétaires de Saint Thomas (Rome: S. Sabina, 1956).
Return 1Cf. In Joan. 1, Lect. 16, n. 4; 11, Lect. 2, n. 2; In Matt. 2, n. 3.
Return 1In Joan. 6, Lect. 1, n. 5; Lect. 4, ns. 5-7.
Return 1Cf. X. Leon-Dufour, S.J., “le Mystère du pain de vie,” R.S.R. Vol. 46 (1958) pp. 481-523. For a brief description of John’s “twofold meaning” cf. R. Brown, S.S., The Gospel of St. John (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1960) pp. 12-13.
Return 1In Matt. 1, n. 5; also In Psalmis, prol. Theodore of Mopsuestia did claim that a few passages of the Old Testament were literally applicable to Christ; scholars are now in doubt as to whether the propositions condemned at the Second Council of Constantinople truly embody Theodore’s Christology. This disparaging reference to Theodore must not be taken as an implicit approval of Origen. In S.T. I, 51, 1 ad 1 he is mentioned by Thomas as “deceived on many issues since he followed the opinions of the ancient philosophers.”
Return 1Prologue 6 his Comm. on the Psalms, this comes from St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei 17, 8.
Return 1S.T. I-II, 102, 2; cf. note 52 above.
Return 1John’s historicity, In Joan. 12, Lect. 1, n. 3; 19, Lect. 3, n. 4; on insignificance of minor divergencies, In Joan. 18, Lect. 4, n. 5. On Matthew’s tendency to recapitulate events, In loan. 2, Lect. 2, n. 1.
Return 1Cf. In Rom. 3, Lect. 1 and 2; 5, Lect. 4; In Gal. 4, Lect. 4; In Eph. 1, Lect. 2; In I Tim. 2, Lect. 1; on John Chrysostom, In loan. 6, Lect. 3, n. 8.
Return 1Saint Paul, Epitre aux Romains (Paris, 1916) p. ix.
Return 1St. Augustine, De Gen. ad Litt. P.L. 34, col. 262; Richard of St. Victor, P.L. 196, col. 265; on St. Matthew, In Matt. 1, n. 2; on St. John’s use of our Lord’s words, In Joan. 3, Lect. 1, n. 2 and Spicq’s comment, D.T.C., 15-A, col. 731.
Return 1Cf. Smalley, op. cit., pp. 197-200. On God’s condescension to man in his revelation, cf. S.T. I-II, 98, 3 ad 2; 1, 68, 3; 67, 4.
Return 1E.g., In Rom. 8, Lect. 1; In Eph. 5, Lect. 3 and 5; In loan. 1, Lect. 1, n. 3; Lect. 3, n. 1.
Return 1Cf. Spicq, D.T.C., 15-A, col. 716.
Return 1Bernard Gui’s Legenda, S. Thomae, c. 16. Translated by K. Foster, O.P., in his The Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Baltimore: Helicon, 1959) pp. 38-39; also p. 57 and notes.
Return 1Chenu, Introduction, p. 199; also Sheets, op. cit., pp. 154-57.
Return 1Mandonnet, “Chronologie des écrits scripturaires de s. Thomas d’Aquin,” Rev. Thomiste, Vol. 33 (1928) pp. 222-45; M. Grabmann, Die Werke des H1. Thomas von Aquin (Munster: 1949) pp. 269-71; Glorieux, op. cit., pp. 254-258.
Return 1Prologus to his lectures on St. Paul.
Return 1Glorieux, op. cit., p. 257; Grabmann, op. cit., pp. 269-70.
Return 1P. Synave, O.P., “les Commentaires scripturaires de s. Thomas d’Aquin,” Vie Spirituelle, Vol. 43 (1923) pp. 464-.66.
Return 1On the difficulties involved in establishing how many lectures Aquinas gave during a week, cf. Glorieux, op. cit., pp. 262-64. Most probably the order followed was that of the Vulgate; the prologue to the Pauline corpus suggests this order except that Hebrews is placed first. Yet in the prologue to his lectures on Hebrews he places it last.
Return 1The “ordo doctrinae vel disciplinae” is the synthetic movement in teaching which begins with the fundamental concepts of the subject to be taught and proceeds to show bow they are interrelated with all of the subject’s elements. This presupposes the analytic movement of the “via inventionis” which gradually discovers the various elements in the subject. Cf. Chenu, Introduction, pp. 258 ff.; Lonergan, Divinarum, Personarum, Conceptio Analogica, (Rome: Gregorianum 1957) pp. 20-28.
Return 1St. Thomas took the opinion on the origin of Hebrews from the Glossa Ordinaria, P.L. 114, col. 643, or more likely from the Lombard’s Magna Glossatura, P.L. 192, col. 399. It was Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite and Jerome whom he invokes as his authorities in this matter.
Return 1Prologus to the Pauline Corpus just before his commentary on Romans.
Return 1Cf. Chenu, Introduction, p. 269; also Sheets, op. cit., pp. 158-70 where he develops the scriptural dimension in St. Thomas’ thought on grace.
Return 1From an address to the Faculty and Students of the Roman Athenaeum Angelicum. on January 14, 1958; an English translation in The Pope Speaks, Vol. 5, no. 1 (Summer 1958) pp. 91-95—quotation from p. 93. Not least among the benefits is a keener appreciation of the historical context of St. Thomas’ work.
Return 1Peter Comestor, Peter Cantor and Stephen Langton, all Masters of the Sacred Page in Paris during the twelfth century, are usually referred to as constituting the biblical-moral school of exegesis. In their commentaries they would frequently refer to local customs, etc. They would also stress the moral or tropological sense of Scripture; especially Langton who was interested in ecclesiastical reform. Cf. Smalley, op. cit., pp. 240-45.
Return 1Compare with A. Wikenhauser, New Testament Introduction (N.Y.: Herder & Herder, 1958), pp. 422-23; and P. Benoit, l’Epitre aux Ephésians (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1949) pp. 79-80.
Return 1Each verse is fitted, willy-nilly, into the overall scheme of the letter; thus a complete diagram of the divisions given by R. Cai, O.P., in his edition of St. Thomas’ commentaries on (Rome: Marietti, 1953) runs from page 507 to 514.
Return 1Quoted by D. Chenu in his is Theology a Science? (New York: Hawthorn, 1959), p. 47. Neither the French original nor the English translation gives the reference and I have not been able to locate it.
Return 1Parmae Editio, t. XIII, A.D. 1862, Typis P. Fisccadori. The editor of this edition was Father Giovanni M. Allodi who, except for the Summa Theologica, simply reprinted the Piana text, modifying its spelling and expanding its frequent abbreviations. The Parma could thus be termed a “corrected reprint” of the Piana.
Return 1s. Thomae Aquinatis Super Epistolas S. Pauli Lectura, 8th ed. (Rome: Marietti, 1953) 2 vols. Father Cai offers a corrected reprint of the Editio Piana of 1570, taking into account the Editio Antuerpiense of 1592. In the notes this will be referred to as the Piana-Cai edition.
Return 1Contra Errores Graecorum, proem, no. 1030 in Opuscula Theologica, Vol. 1 (Rome: Marietti, 1954) pp. 315-16.
Return 1