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16. Aquinas and Christ’s Resurrection: The Influence of the Lectura super Ioannem 20–21 on the Summa theologiae
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s i x t e e n Aquinas and Christ’s Resurrection The Influence of the Lectura super Ioannem 20–21 on the Summa theologiae Pim Valkenberg When I published a revised version of my dissertation on Place and Function of Holy Scripture in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, I realized that the choice of this subject was to a large extent determined by the ecumenical atmosphere of my theological education at the Catholic Theological University of Utrecht, now the home of the Thomas Institute at Utrecht.1 First, therefore, let me make some preliminary remarks on the theological significance of reading John with Aquinas, issuing from my present theological position at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, in which I am involved in interreligious dialogue and the Christian theology of religions. JOHN AND THE OTHERS When I investigated the bibliographical resources on the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas some years ago, I could not find many studies about Aquinas as commentator of Scripture. But the majority of these few studies were concerned with his Commentary on John, and the same holds true for translations of Aquinas’s commentaries or parts thereof. In this respect, Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas pursues an estimable tradition. Let me explain why I find this tradition both appealing and ambiguous. In the first place, both the Gospel according to John and the repor- 1. Wilhelmus G. B. M. Valkenberg, Words of the Living God: Place and Function of Holy Scripture in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Leuven: Peeters, 2000). = tatio2 of Aquinas’s commentary on this Gospel have an outstanding value as theological works. In his well-known prologue, Aquinas elaborates on Isaiah :1, “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted,” saying that John gives us such a contemplative vision of God incarnate, mainly because he pays special attention to the divinity of Christ, while the other authors of the Gospels mainly deal with the mysteries of his humanity (Ioan. prol., n. 10). Aquinas recognizes John as a real theologian, someone who speaks about Christ as God incarnate. Therefore, the real subject of this type of God-talk is not Christ but God the Savior.3 In his Commentary on John, Aquinas is keen on discovering this deep structure of theological meaning in the words of the Apostle, and therefore he constantly refers to terms such as mysterium and signum. Of course, the theological depth of the fourth Gospel has been the main reason for its success in the history of the Church. But this medal has its reverse as well. If the theological depth of St. John’s Gospel is no longer seen as a complement to the other Gospels, as Aquinas sees it, the divinity of Christ will be separated from his humanity, and the theological tradition might become one-sided. It could be argued, for instance, that the Catechism of the Catholic Church stresses in certain parts of its Christology the descending approach of St. John to such an extent that the plurality of apostolic testimonies in the New Testament is in danger.4 Likewise, someone who is acquainted with Aquinas’s Commentary on John is better equipped to see him as a biblical theologian than someone who knows only his Summa contra gentiles and his Summa theologiae. But if one really wants to know Aquinas as a biblical theologian , one should consider at least his commentaries on St. Paul5 or on the Psalms, and preferably his Glossa continua super Evangelia as well. In this respect , one should once again treat John as a witness of Christ among the others . It is interesting to know that Aquinas deals with this issue of “John and the 278 P V 2. A reportatio means that the text has been written down by one of Aquinas’s secretaries or pupils. For some time, Aquinas’s Commentary on the Gospel of St. John has been thought of as an expositio, which would mean that Aquinas would have rewritten this text by his own hand; but this is deemed improbable by J.-P. Torrell in his Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Cerf, 1), at 2. . See the prologue to the third part of his Summa theologiae: “de ipso omnium Salvatore ac beneficiis eius humano generi praestitis nostra consideratio subsequatur.” . See J. Dupuis, S.J., “The Incarnation of the Son of God,” in Commentary on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ed. M. J. Walsh (London: Chapman, 1...