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Why Didn't Jesus Write a Book?
Aquinas on the Teaching of Christ
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
In Summa Theologiae III.42.4 Aquinas asks whether or not Christ should have committed his teaching to writing, and in this article I offer an in-depth analysis of his answer. I begin with a point-by-point account of III.41.4, noting that Aquinas's concerns are with salvation-history rather than with questions of the practicalities of preaching and theologizing or with problems of hermeneutics. Drawing on other parts of the Summa, I then examine the three principal reasons why, according to Aquinas, Jesus should not have committed his teaching to writing – his excellence as a teacher, the excellence of his teaching, and the requirement that his teaching should be disseminated in an orderly manner. Observing that for Aquinas ‘Christ's action is our instruction’, I show how his actio operates as both mystery and teaching to implant the New Law within human hearts. Jeremiah 31:31–33 and Hebrews 8:8,10 are key texts for Aquinas, who believes that the promise that the New Law would be written on hearts could never have been fulfilled had Christ committed his teaching to writing.
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- Copyright © The author 2008. Journal compilation © The Dominican Council/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
References
1 Levering, Matthew, Christ's Fulfillment of Torah and Temple: Salvation according to Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), p. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 See Hays, Richard B., The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman's, 2002)Google Scholar.
3 III.42.4 obj 1. All references are to the Summa Theologiae unless otherwise specified. I have used, with appropriate adaptations, the translation by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1920–25).
4 III.42.4 obj 2.
5 III.42.4 obj 3.
6 III.42.4 ad 1.
7 III.42.4 ad 2.
8 III.42.4 ad 3.
9 III.42.4.
10 III.41.1 ad 2.
11 Aquinas's ‘Wisdom christology’ has been highlighted in Wawrykow, Joseph P., ‘Wisdom in the Christology of Thomas Aquinas’, in Emery, Kent Jr., and Wawrykow, Joseph P., ed., Christ Among the Medieval Dominicans (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), pp. 175–196Google Scholar. On the idea that the New Testament authors see Jesus as incarnate Wisdom, see Witherington, Ben III, Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000)Google Scholar.
12 I-II.106.1 sed contra.
13 I-II.106.1.
14 See the excellent discussion in Keating, Daniel A., ‘Justification, Sanctification and Divinization in Thomas Aquinas’, in Weinandy, Thomas, Keating, Daniel and Yocum, John, ed., Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction (London: T. & T. Clark, 2004), pp. 139–158Google Scholar (pp. 148–151).
15 Davies, Brian O.P., The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 261Google Scholar.
16 I-II.98.1. The Holy Spirit fills our hearts with charity in order to fit us for eternal happiness.
17 I-II.107.1 ad 2. See Dauphinais, Michael, ‘Loving the Lord Your God: The imago Dei in Saint Thomas Aquinas’, The Thomist 63 (1999), pp. 241–267CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Dauphinais points out that, for Aquinas, the New Law enables us to do God's will out of love rather than out of fear.
18 Torrell, Jean-Pierre O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 2, Spiritual Master, trans. Royal, Robert (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2003), pp. 200–206Google Scholar. Torrell offers a brilliant analysis of Aquinas's treatment of these themes in his Pauline commentaries.
19 I-II.106.2.
20 I-II.106.3.
21 I-II.106.4.
22 Matthew Levering, Christ's Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, pp. 93–94; 120.
23 I-II.112.1.
24 I-II.112.1 ad 1.
25 I-II.112.1 ad 2.
26 III.49.1 ad 4.
27 III.49.1 ad 5. It would not be inaccurate to translate intellectus and affectus as ‘mind’ and ‘heart’.
28 Nichols, Aidan O.P., Discovering Aquinas: An Introduction to his Life, Works and Influence (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2002), p. 125Google Scholar.
29 III.62.6.
30 On this aspect of ‘divinization’, see Williams, A.N., The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the pneumatological dimension of Aquinas's sacramental theology, see Walsh, Liam G. O.P., ‘Sacraments’ in Nieuwenhove, Rik Van and Wawrykow, Joseph, ed., The Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), pp. 326–364 (p. 331)Google Scholar.
31 N.T. Wright distinguishes between those historical Jesus specialists on the “Wredebahn” who present Jesus predominantly as a teacher of timeless truths, and those on the “Schweitzerbahn” who emphasise his eschatological actions. Wright, N.T., Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996)Google Scholar. See also Armitage, Mark, ‘Broken on the Wheel of History: A Pentecostal Perspective on Summa Theologiae 3a, q48’, New Blackfriars 82 (2001), pp. 561–570CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 III.40.1 ad 3. Actio Christi fuit nostra instructio. On the significance of this expression and its variants for Aquinas, see Schenck, Richard O.P., ‘Omnis Christi actio nostra instructio: The Deeds and Sayings of Jesus as Revelation in the View of Thomas Aquinas’, in Elders, L., ed., La Doctrine de la révélation divine de saint Thomas d'Aquin, Studi Tomistici 37 (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1990), pp. 104–131Google Scholar.
33 In Ioannem XIII, 15, lect. 3, n, 1781: plus movent exempla quam verba, quoted by Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 2, pp. 116–120. Torrell remarks that ‘Christ represents the exact model of Christian life’.
34 See Michael J. Dodds, O.P., ‘The Mysteries of the Life of Christ’, in Aquinas on Doctrine, pp. 91–115 (p. 92).
35 III.1.2. Leo the Great, Sermon 21.2. On the twin themes of the imitatio Christi and of Christ as the summum exemplar perfectionis in Aquinas, see Paul Gondreau, ‘The Humanity of Christ, the Incarnate Word’ in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, pp. 252–276 (pp. 260–262). As exemplar, Christ teaches us what it is to be perfectly human.
36 The life, death and resurrection of Christ are ‘sanctification’ and ‘revelation’. See Carlo Leget, ‘Eschatology’ in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, pp. 365–385 (p. 372).
37 See Wawrykow, Joseph P., The SCM Press A-Z of Thomas Aquinas (London: SCM Press, 2005), p. 100Google Scholar.
38 III.1.1 sed contra.
39 See also SCG IV.54.3 –‘we see that since the incarnation of Christ humans have been instructed more evidently and surely in the knowledge of God’.
40 III.1.2.
41 Paul Gondreau, ‘The Humanity of Christ, the Incarnate Word’, pp. 258–260.
42 III.37.1.
43 On the idea that every act of Jesus is a saving mystery, see Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 2, pp. 131–135.
44 III.40.1. These three tasks relate to the Old Testament functions of, respectively, prophet, priest and king (Matthew Levering, Christ's Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, pp. 41–42; p. 108, n 64).
45 III.40.1 ad 1.
46 III.40.1 ad 2.
47 The idea that Thomas attributes to Jesus all the characteristics of a Dominican preacher is explored in Ulrich Horst, O.P., ‘Christ, Exemplar Ordinis Fratrum Praedicantium, According to Saint Thomas Aquinas’, in Christ Among the Medieval Dominicans, pp. 256–270.
48 III.41; 3.43; 3.45.
49 III.48. For an excellent study of Aquinas's soteriology centred round the notion of ‘satisfaction’, see Cessario, Romanus O.P., The Godly Image: Christ and Salvation in Catholic Theology from Anselm to Aquinas (Petersham, MA: St. Bede's Publications, 1990)Google Scholar.
50 III.46.1.
51 III.50.1.
52 III.52.1.
53 III.53.1.
54 III.56. See Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 2, pp. 132–134.
55 III.57.6.
56 In Hebraeos XII, lect. 1, n. 667.
57 Matthew Levering, Christ's Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, p. 50.
58 I-II.98.1.
59 I-II.98.4 ad 1.
60 I-II.98.6.
61 III.36.2.
62 III.55.1.
63 III.42.1.
64 On the relationship of the thought of Aquinas to that of Denys, see O'Rourke, Fran, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
65 III.42.1 ad 2.
66 III.60.3.
67 III.60.4.
68 See John P. Yocum, ‘Sacraments in Aquinas’ in Aquinas on Doctrine, pp. 159–181 (p. 164).
69 III.61.2.
70 III.61.3.
71 III.61.4.
72 III.61.4 ad 1.
73 III.8.1.
74 III.8.2.
75 III.8.6,7.
76 III.8.5; III.7.1.
77 III.7.5,7.
78 III.7.7.
79 III.42.4 ad 1.
80 III.8.1 ad 1.