NOTES
I
Although it is not the point of this essay to be historical, it goes without saying that this sketch of St. Thomas claims to be verifiable on historical evidence—not only on questions of detail but also concerning the total appreciation. It would seem incongruous, however, to burden this short introductory presentation with a wealth of citations and references. Informed readers will easily notice how heavily the author is indebted, particularly in the realm of historical facts, to the research of Denifle, Ehrle, Grabmann, Mandonnet, Seppelt, and others. I should add that historians vary in their interpretations of certain biographical details (as, f.i., the exact date of St. Thomas’s sojourn in Cologne). I refer for this to the works of Angelus Walz, O.P.
1 Ernst Kantorowicz, Kaiser Friedrich vol. I, (Berlin, 1927), pp. 124ff.
2 This refusal of St. Thomas, which some may consider as customary among that first generation of mendicants, was in no way customary, but rather rested on an entirely personal decision. We know that Albertus Magnus became Bishop of Regensburg in 1260. And one of St. Thomas’s confrères, who had taught with him at Paris, Peter of Tarentaise, was made a cardinal and ultimately pope (Innocent V).
3 O. Tallgren, Les Poésies de Rinaldo Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsingfors, vol. VI (1917), pp. 174-303.
4 I have discussed this relation more thoroughly in my book, Fortitude and (Pantheon Books, New York, 1955), pp. 62ff.
5 Commentaria in cap. 13, lect. 2.
6 Commentaria in Metaphysicam lib. II, lect. 1.
7 Commentaria in Dionysii De Divinis cap. 4, lect. 4.
8 Summa I, 2 prologue.
9 De duobus praeceptis caritatis et decem legis
10 “Our natural knowledge begins from sense. Hence our natural knowledge can go as far as it can be led by sensible things.” Summa I, 12, 12. “Although through Revelation we can become capable of knowing things which we otherwise would not know, we do not know them in any other way than through the senses.” Commentaria in librum Boethii De 6, 3.
11 “It is clear that man is not just a soul, but something composed of body and soul.” Summa I, 75, 4.
12 Summa II, II, 9, 4.
13 “All creatures are nothing but the real expression and reproduction of the types contained in the concept of the divine Word. For which reason all things are said to have been made by Him. It was fitting, therefore, that the Word should be united to a creature, namely human nature.” Summa Contra IV, 42.
14 Cap. 1, lect. 5.
15 I, II, 38, 5.
16 Quaestiones Disputatae de 2, 2.
17 Commentaria in Evangelium S. cap. 1, lect. 7.
18 Among the errors of Averroism condemned by the Bishop of Paris in the year 1277 were the following: “There is no higher way of life than to keep oneself free for philosophy.” It seems to be a direct reply when Thomas writes in the Summa Contra Gentiles (III, 130): “The highest perfection of human life is that man’s mind be occupied with God.”
19 Commentaria in Epistolam S. Pauli Apostoli ad cap. 2 lect. 1.
20 Summa I, II, 113, 9 ad 2.
21 Siger de Brabantia, Quaestiones de anima 7.
22 Commentaria in Aristotelis De Caelo et I, 22.
23 So in the Encyclical Studiorum Decem of June 29, 1923. We quote: “May the instruction of Canon Law be held sacred by all: ‘Professors are obliged to form their philosophical and theological studies and the teaching of these subjects according to the method, the teaching and the basic principles of the Doctor Angelicus; and further, they are to revere the same.’ Each one should observe this law in such a way that he is able to call St. Thomas his master.” “Can anything express more clearly the high opinion of the Church for this Doctor, than the fact that the Tridentine Fathers determined that during all of their sessions only two books should be reverently placed before them on the altar, namely, the Holy Scriptures and the Summa the other hand, the Encyclical warns against a pedantic and unfruitful canonization of St. Thomas, which would be contradictory to his own spirit: “Individuals shall not require more from each other than the Church, the Teaching Mistress and Mother of all, requires from all. In such questions, in which among esteemed Catholic authors different opinions confront each other with equal right, no one shall be hindered from following the view which seems to him to contain more truth.”
24 Summa Contra II, 3.
25 Compare the concept of reason presented in J. Pieper, Fortitude and pp. 57ff.
26 I, 3, prologue.
27 Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia 7, 5, ad 14.