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t e n The Concept of “Life” in the Commentary on St. John Carlo Leget The concept of “life” is without any doubt a key word in both Aquinas’s theology and the Gospel of St. John. This can easily be shown as regards both statistics and content.1 In this essay I will address two questions. The first question is how Thomas deals with this concept in his Commentary on St. John. In answering this question I will refer to other works of Aquinas where he deals with the concept of “life” and show how these interrelate. The second question concerns the way Aquinas’s exegesis relates to doing theology at the threshold of the third millennium. This question is about hermeneutics, about the relationship between exegesis and systematic theology, and about the role of tradition in contemporary theology. THE CONCEPT OF “LIFE” IN AQUINAS’S COMMENTARY ON ST. JOHN Introduction Since the fourth Gospel focuses on the divinity of the incarnate Word and the concept of “life” is a keyword in this Gospel, it seems  1. As regards the Gospel of John, George R. Beasley-Murray says: “In the teaching of Jesus, as in the writings contemporary with the New Testament, the supreme blessing of the Kingdom of God is ‘life.’ .l.l. It is of no small significance that the term ‘life,’ or ‘eternal life,’ occurs many more times in the Fourth Gospel than in any of the first three Gospels. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the key term of Jesus for salvation appropriated is the key term of the Gospel of John.” (G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Gospel of Life: Theology in the Fourth Gospel [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 11], 2). For the theology of Thomas Aquinas cf. my Living with God: Thomas Aquinas on the Relation between Life on Earth and “Life” after Death (Louvain: Peeters, 1). = likely that the word “life” offers a special opportunity for communicating the mysteries of God. As a matter of fact, it does indeed, and grasping this special appropriateness, one should begin by noticing that “life” is a name of God. But “life” is also a word that indicates our mode of being. The task of the theologian consists in exploring the various uses and meanings of the word and its ramifications. There are a few places in the Commentary on St. John where Thomas offers short sketches of different aspects of the concept of “life.” In two places, he refers to the various grades of life. Explaining John 1:, “And that life was the light of men,” Thomas connects the grades of life with grades of knowledge: For some things live, but do so without light, because they have no knowledge; for example plants. Hence their life is not light. Other things both live and know, but their knowledge, since it is on the sense level, is concerned only with individual and material things, as is the case with the brutes. So they have both life and a certain light. But they do not have the light of men, who live, and know, not only truths, but also the very nature of truth itself. Such are the rational creatures, to whom not only this or that are made manifest, but truth itself, which can be manifested and is manifestive to all. (Ioan. 1, lect. , n. )2 Commenting on chapter , Thomas distinguishes four grades of life: plants, animals that only sense, perfect animals that move, and those who understand (Ioan. , lect. , n. 1). Thomas’s discourse on the grades of life in the Commentary on St. John is in line with several of his other works.3 It is connected with three meanings of the word “life,” all of which can be traced back to Aristotle, that can be found in his works. In a first meaning of the word, “life” refers to the existence of a being that possesses the ability to move itself in a certain manner. In this first meaning “life” is a substantial predicate, referring to the being of the subject, as is re- flected in Aristotle’s definition vivere viventibus esse est.4 Thomas sees this basic dimension reflected in the order of prologue to the Gospel: We find a fitting order in the above. For in the natural order of things, existence (esse) is first; and the Evangelist implies this in his first statement, “In the beginning was the Word.” Secondly...

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