Boethius and Aquinas

Preface

Preface This book deals with the relation between St. Thomas Aquinas and Boethius. That "the last of the Romans and the first of the Scholastics" should have influenced Thomas has nothing distinctive about it: the same can be said of the vast majority of medieval masters. But there is more in the case of Thomas. It is the rare theologian who does not invoke Boethius's definition of person and eternity, thereby exhibiting acquaintance, however secondhand, with the Consolation of Philosophy and the theological tractates. Thomas's affinity with Boethius is manifold . For one thing, unlike other theologians, he commented on works of Aristotle, among them On Interpretation, in the course of which he cites Boethius's comments, often to take exception to them. Nonetheless, his own massive effort in commenting on Aristotle owes much to techniques Boethius had passed on to the Latin West. More important, Thomas commented on two of Boethius's theological tractates, De trinitate (incomplete) and De hebdomadibus. It is with these that this book is chiefly concerned . When in 1879 Leo XIII issued Aeterni Patris, thereby giving papal impetus to the modern revival of interest in St. Thomas Aquinas, the Holy Father saw Thomas not only for himself but as a lieutenant of Christian philosophy. Thomas was not regarded as a lonely figure, without antecedents and without epigones , but as a man of massive intellect and holiness in whom a multifaceted centuries-long cultural tradition achieved an impressive unity and from whom that perennial philosophy has been passed on. Thomas Aquinas might be the preeminent Doctor of the Church, but there were many doctors before him and there have been many since. Despite these assumptions of AeIX x Preface terni Patris, subsequent study of Thomas tended to stress what was peculiar to his teaching rather than what he shared with others in the tradition in which he moved. Indeed, in terms of modern prejudice, it was essential to point out how varied was the thought of men who nonetheless moved within the same tradition. The assumption that the Christian faith dictated a totally homogeneous interpretation of itself is not borne out by any close study of the medieval masters. If such diversity obtains when believers reflect on the truths of faith, it is scarcely surprising that interpretations of secular sources of knowledge should differ, sometimes dramatically. At times-the times in which Thomas lived-there was hostility among believers toward secular knowledge, and it was necessary to reconsider hasty judgments that had been made about the relation between the thought of Aristotle and articles of Christian faith. It is not too much to say that Thomas's intense and extensive commenting on the works of Aristotle saved the day for the view that, at bottom, reason and faith are complementary and that the speculations of pagans are a precious source for seeing what the world looks like to those for whom Revelation is a closed book. The condemnations of 1272 and 1277 are ample indication of the strength of the opposing party. One of the ironies of the contemporary Thomistic school is that, despite Thomas's heroic efforts to save Aristotle, a chasm has been opened between the thought of Thomas and its Aristotelian sources. Indeed, it is not too much to say that there is an anti-Aristotelian animus in many presentations of the thought of Thomas. The same kind of isolation of Thomas from his sources can be found in most recent work on the relation between Thomas and Boethius. Largely because of assertions made by Pierre Duhem, it has become commonplace to say that what Thomas finds in the text of Boethius is not there. Soon such eminent Thomists as RolandGosselin were agreeing that what Thomas took the Boethian text to mean could not be its meaning. Just as many doctrines Thomas found in Aristotle were said by Thomists not to be Preface Xl there, so too with Boethius. The Aristotelian claim is of course far more difficult to deal with than the Boethian. In this book, the focus is on what texts of Boethius mean and what Thomas took them to mean. I hope at least to open up the question and cast doubt on what has become received opinion. To a great extent , the dispute turns on the meaning of Diversum est esse et id quod est, the principal axiom in De hebdomadibus. Thomists have for so long...