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St. Thomas Aquinas in Historical Perspective: The Modern Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Marcia L. Colish
Affiliation:
Professor of history in Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.

Extract

Witnessing as it did the seven hundredth anniversary of the death of St. Thomas Aquinas, the year 1974 was marked by multiple conferences and publications dedicated to his life, his thought and his place in medieval intellectual history. The recently completed septicentennial also provides a useful vantage point from which to examine the current historiographical assessment of St. Thomas' influence in modern intellectual history. Aquinas scholars devoted little systematic attention to this topic in 1974, a fact which, in itself, reflects a striking and persistent imbalance within the field of Aquinas studies. It is a commonplace to state that St. Thomas enjoyed an authority in the period since the thirteenth century far exceeding any he achieved in his own day. Yet, a consideration of the historiography of Thomas' place in modern thought reveals the fact that the Angelic Doctor's substantial post-medieval reputation has not generally been matched by an equally plentiful measure of historical understanding. For two generations, historians of the Middle Ages have made great strides toward the systematic recovery of the historical Thomas Aquinas. But the task of uncovering the historical significance of his thought within the changing contexts of post-medieval culture still awaits its Grabmanns and Chenus.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1975

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References

1. The term “neo-Thomism” will be used to denote express revivals of Thomas' thought. The term “Thomism” will be used to denote the influence of Thomas in a more general sense, and will also be used simply as an adjective referring to Thomas' thought. The one term does not necessarily imply greater or lesser fidelity to the mind of Thomas than the other.

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4. Ibid., ¶20, p. 45.

5. Ibid., ¶21, pp. 45–46.

6. Ibid., ¶22, p. 46.

7. Ibid., ¶23, p. 46; p. 54 n. 37.

8. Ibid., ¶24, pp. 46–47.

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33. Paradiso, 10. It may be noted that the conception of the Divine Comedy as the Summa theologiae set to music has been laid to rest. For the view of Dante as a Thomist, see in particular Mandonnet, P., Dante le théologien: Introduction à l'intelligence de la vie, des oeuvres et de l'art de Dante (Paris, 1935), pp. 10. 130131, 137141, 153157, 255281; 263278Google Scholar; Wicksteed, Philip H., Dante & Aquinas (London, 1913)Google Scholar. For the rebuttal, see Curtius, Ernst Robert, “Dante und das lateinische Mittelalter,” Domanische Forschungen 57 Heft 23Google Scholar (1943): 171; European Literature and the Latin Midde Ages, trans. Willard Trask (New York, 1953), pp. 372, 595Google Scholar; Gilson, Etienne, Dante the Philosopher, trans. Moore, David (New York, 1949), p. 307Google Scholar; Sargent, Daniel, “Dante and Thomism,” The Thomist 5 (1943): 256264CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sayers, Dorothy L., Further Papers on Dante (New York, 1957), pp. 3843Google Scholar; Stewart, H. L., “Dante and the Schoolmen,” Journal of the History of Ideas 10 (1949): 357373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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62. Leo's own statements on this point can be found in Aeterni Patris, ¶2, pp. 28–29; Rerun Novarum (1891), ¶14, pp. 3233, 4849, 212.Google Scholar See also Perrier, , Revival of Scholastic Philosophy, pp. 813Google Scholar; Schmandt, Raymond H., “The Life and Work of Leo XIII,” in Leo XIII and the Modern World, ed. Gargan, Edward T. (New York, 1961), p. 37Google Scholar; Weisheipl, , “Revival of Thomism,” New Themes, p. 177.Google Scholar

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66. Apart from Aeterni Patris, evidence of this fact can also be found in the encyclicals Inscrutabili (1878) ¶2, p. 5Google Scholar; Immortale Dei (1885), ¶21–23, pp. 278279, 280, 171172.Google Scholar Also noted by Gargan, , Leo XIII, p. 3.Google ScholarWallace, , Leo XIII, p. 215Google Scholar, even suggests that Leo may have been reacting against a Luther centennial currently being staged by the Protestant world.

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68. Foucher, Louis, La philosophie catholique en France an XIXe siècle avant la renaissance thomiste et dans son rapport avec elle (1800–1880) (Paris, 1955).Google Scholar A well-known popular summa of Romantic Catholic support for Leo's policy in English is Walsh, James J., The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries, 5th ed. (New York, 1924,Google Scholar [first publ. 1907]), pp. 270 ff., although the author's Anglo-Saxon sensibilities lead him to associate the Middle Ages with the “origins of modern democracy” rather than with the consolations of monarchism. Further details on this movement as it affected historiography are supplied by Ferguson, , Renaissance in Historical Thought, pp. 338339,Google Scholar although he sees it as a consequence of the Leonine revival and does not explore the possibility that it may have helped to produce a climate of opinion favoring that revival.

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76. Ibid., pp. 301–308.

77. Declaration on Christian Education, ch. 10, Documents, p. 648.

78. Decree on Priestly Formation, ch. 5, art. 15, Documents, p. 450.

79. Ibid., art. 16, Documents, p. 452.

80. Ibid., pp. 451–52.

81. Clarke, W. Norris, “The Future of Thomism,” New Themes, pp. 191193.Google Scholar

82. Used as the epigraph for the essay of Mascall, E. L., “Guide-Lines from St. Thomas for Theology Today,” St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274–1974, 2:489.Google Scholar

83. A sampler of easily accessible positions at all points along the spectrum might include the following: as an exponent of the hard-shell, business-as-usual neo-Thomists, who see no imperatives for change articulated by Vatican II, see the Master General of the Dominican Order, Fernandez, Aniceto, “Il pensiero di S. Tommaso nell'epoca post-concillare,” Sapienza 19 (1956): 385398Google Scholar [widely reprinted in translation, for esample Revue thomiste 16 (1966): 177189Google Scholar] Ralph M. McInerny, Thomism in an Age of Renewal, while willing to concede that neo-Thomism should no longer be taught via stultifying manuals, also reads Vatican II as a reiteration of official neo-Thomism and is impatient with the view that it should be accommodated either to the historical Thomas or to modern thought: for him neo-Thomism is basically correct and satisfying as is: the new is not to be confused with the true; and in any event there is no maestro di color che sanno nowadays and it is tiresome to try to focus on a moving target. Closer to the middle of the spectrum is Steenberghen, Fernand Van, Le retour à saint Thomas a-t-il un sens aujoura'hui? (Montréal, 1967),Google Scholar who notes gaps and weaknesses in both neo-Thomism and in Thomas' thought itself but who concludes that neo-Tbomism should be retained as the Catholic philosophy. Speaking for the group urging neo-Thomists to get back to the historical Thomas, Pegis, Anton C., The Middle Ages and Philosophy: Some Reflections on the Ambivalence of Modern Scholasticism (Chicago, 1963)Google Scholar. notes the disjunction between the modern neo-Thomists' conception of their own work and the historical conception of medieval thought on which it was originally based, from DeWulf's picture of a monolithic medieval mind identical with Thomism through the inroads of the pluralistic picture of medieval thought contributed by Mandonnet to the recovery of the philosophia ancilla theologiae perspective in the work of Gilson. Pegis' historiographical overview is useful so far as it goes, but it neglects the fact that pluralism in medieval thought had been discovered as early as Hauréau's, B.Histoire de la philosophic scolastique, 2 vols. in 3 (Paris 18721880),Google Scholar and that the Christian philosophy-cum-pluralism perspective had been discovered as early as Picavet's, F.Esquisse d'une histoire générale et comparée des philosophies médiévales (Paris, 1905).Google Scholar He also omits the reassessment of Thomas' place in medieval thought brought about by the more positive re-evaluations of fourteenth-century scholasticism in the 1950s and 1960s. As far as the future of Catholic philosophy goes, Pegis argues that once purged of neo-Thomist accretions, Thomas' thought will serve as a perfectly satisfactory basis for Catholic thought in the twentieth century. At the more liberal end of the spectrum, Clarke, W. N., “The Future of Thomism,” New Themes, pp. 187207,Google Scholar urges that those aspects of Thomas' thought which are still valid, of which he provides a very short list, be salvaged and synthesized with modern ideas. The Anglican neo-Thomist, Mascall, E. L., “Guide-Lines,” St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274–1974, 2:489501,Google Scholar opts for the spirit of Thomas rather than the letter, arguing that those contemporary theologians who have grasped Thomas' spirit the best are the ones who eschew the literal sense of his teachings the most whole-heartedly. An outstanding representative of the most dégagé wing of the liberal group is Danielou, Jean, “Le pluralisme de la pensée,” Sapienza 19 (1966): 1123,Google Scholar who points to the diversities that have always existed in Catholic thought, even among neo-Thomisms, who depreciates the utility of any version of Thomism as the best vehicle for the Catholic faith in the twentieth century, and who dismisses the need for any one official Catholic philosophy.