A Short History of Thomism by Romanus Cessario, O.P. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS A Short History ofThomism. By ROMANUS CESSARIO, 0.P. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005. Pp. 106. $19.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8132-1386-x. In this fine little book, which features a foreword by Ralph Mclnerny, Romanus Cessario traces the history of Thomism from the end of the thirteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, adding a few comments in the brief concluding chapter about the last few decades. His aim is duly circumscribed: While the present study purports only to fulfill a provisional objective, it nonetheless provides a sketch of the history of Thomism that will be useful until that day when some scholar with the required time and resources undertakes to research and write the multi-volume history of Thomism that this important school of thought both merits and requires. Perhaps this modest effort to draw together the many diverse strands of a complicated history into a single narrative might even prompt the undertaking of such a full-length study. (33-34) Even though the recent past does not figure prominently in Cessario's account, another of the book's salutary effects is that it provokes the reader-at least it provoked me-to reflect on post-Vatican II Thomism and on the future of Thomism, over which some of us may have at least a bit of influence. I will return to this point below. Cessario begins by sketching St. Thomas's scholarly career and describing the Angelic Doctor's aspiration to fashion a unified and systematic articulation of Christian wisdom that "does not emerge from" but rather "embraces each of the subordinate and ancillary disciplines within its transcendental unity" (9). He notes that St. Thomas would find the contemporary fragmentation oftheological inquiry "very odd" and "would be repelled by the cacophony of competing truth claims advanced by point-of-view theologians claiming hegemonic expertise in one or another theological discipline" (ibid.). Interestingly, this fragmentation has recently been on display in the academic reviews, even the sympathetic ones, of Joseph Ratzinger's Jesus ofNazareth (Doubleday, 2007). Reviewers strain to classify this remarkable work, which combines, in the manner of the Summa 147 148 BOOK REVIEWS Theologiae, scriptural exegesis, rabbinic and patristic commentaries on various parts of Scripture, insight into Jewish, Greek, and Roman history and culture, the history of Catholic doctrine, metaphysics, moral theory, philosophical anthropology, and the fruits of thousands of hours of mental and contemplative prayer. "After all," they protest in effect, "no one can be an up-to-date expert in all the relevant sub-disciplines, and so this must be some sort of 'popular' or 'catechetical' tract rather than a serious work of theology." Something has surely gone amiss when the very idea of an integrated theoretical and practical wisdom baffles many of the 'scientific' theologians of our day. And, mutatis mutandis, the same sort of fragmentation and loss of direction afflict philosophy, too, as a contemporary academic discipline. In fact, to my mind one ofthe most destructive effects of academic fragmentation among Catholic thinkers is the sharp dichotomy many presuppose between being a philosopher and being a theologian and between the academic disciplines of philosophy and systematic theology. In short, we need St. Thomas now more than ever, both for his teaching and for his method. Cessario spends the rest of chapter 1 setting the stage for the catalogue of historically important Thomists that fills chapters 2 and 3. This stage-setting involves three separate tasks. The first is to indicate how he will be using the term 'Thomist' in his catalogue. Saint Thomas is such an important figure in Western thought, and especially in the thought of the Catholic Church, that after his time nearly all major Catholic thinkers-and many others as well (Leibniz, to name but one)-have felt the need to come to terms with him. Inevitably, most of them either depart from St. Thomas in ways deemed by some to be important or extend his system in ways deemed by some to be unfaithful to his intentions. The variations are seemingly endless, so much so that some have even suggested that there is no such thing as a...