The Essential Aquinas: Writings on Philosophy, Religion, and Society

248 Pages·2002·0.71 MB·English

by  John Y. Hood

THE ESSENTIAL AQUINAS
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T HE E S S E N T I AL
AQUINAS
Writings on
Philosophy, Religion, and Society
John Y. B. Hood
PPAEGER Westport, Connecticut
London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The essential Aquinas : writings on philosophy, religion, and society / Thomas Aquinas;
[edited by John Y. B. Hood]
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-275-97818-4 (alk. paper)
I. Theology, Doctrinal. 2. Philosophy, Medieval. I. Hood, John Y B., 1962-
II. Title.
BX1749.T324 2002
230' .2—dc21 2002068610
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2002 by John Y B. Hood
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002068610
ISBN: 0-275-97818-4
First published in 2002
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America
©-
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
For SONYA, JOHN, and THOMAS
Dominus vos benedicat
et ab omni malo defendat
et ad vitam perducat aeternam.
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CONTENTS
Introduction ix
Chronology
XV
I METAPHYSICS 1
II NATURAL PHILOSOPHY 28
III HUMAN NATURE 59
IV ETHICS AND LAW 91
V THE CATHOLIC FAITH 135
VI THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 165
VII ART AND BEAUTY 182
^III THE MEDIEVAL SOCIAL ORDER 191
Suggestions for Further Reading 225
Index 227
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INTRODUCTION
Had he been born a hundred years earlier, Thomas Aquinas (1224/5-1274) would
have had a conventional career. As the youngest son of southern Italian nobility, he
would have had little choice but to accede to his family's wishes and take the
Benedictine habit at the ancient monastery of Monte Cassino. Given his talents and
connections, in time he would have risen to the abbacy, gained renown as a scholar
and religious reformer, and—not incidentally—been in a position to deliver politi
cal and material as well as spiritual benefits to the Aquino family.
But the thirteenth century was different. Horizons were broader, choices more
plentiful. A young man on the make no longer had to risk life and limb as an ap
prentice knight or enter the faintly disreputable world of commerce; he could go to
Bologna, study law, and make a career in one of the burgeoning secular or ecclesi
astical bureaucracies. Similarly, those with more ethereal ambitions were not limited
to traditional Benedictinism or its more ascetic offshoot, the Cistercians; they could
follow St. Francis's example and choose Lady Poverty and the literal imitation of
Christ, or they could opt for the life of the mind in St. Dominic's Order of Preach
ers. For Thomas, a born intellectual if there ever was one, the choice was obvious:
He joined the Dominicans.
Naturally, the ancien regime did not go silent into the night. Throughout the
thirteenth century there were protests, some of them violent, against the "perils of
the new age." As evidenced by their explosive growth, the Franciscans and Domini
cans met a felt need for an urban apostolate and new forms of spirituality, but they
also trod some toes. For Thomas, opposition began with his family. When the
Aquinos heard that their talented progeny had joined the Dominicans—a decision
analogous to an American teenager opting in 1968 to drop out of school and move
to Haight-Ashbury—they took drastic action. Thomas's brother, Reginaldo, waylaid
him on his way to Paris and dispatched him to the family castle to rethink his deci
sion. Only after a year's confinement, climaxed by an assault on his virtue by a
nubile prostitute (Aquinas, like one of the Desert Fathers of old, drove the woman
from the room with a burning brand, then scorched the sign of the cross onto his
door), was he allowed to go his way.