Thomas Aquinas as a Commentator
Philosophy and Theology in Aquinas’s Commentaries on Aristotle, on the Peter Lombard, and on
Pseudo-Dionysius
Thomas Aquinas wrote many commentaries, and it is safe to say that the literary genre of the
commentary was the most frequently practiced by the Dominican Master. He commented on the
Bible, on Aristotle, on Boethius, on Pseudo-Dionysius, and, of course, on Peter Lombard’s Sentences.
In Aquinas’s time it was customary among theologians to comment on the Sentences. The
commentaries on important biblical texts may also have been written in order to fulfill his teaching
duties. It is unclear, why Aquinas wrote commentaries on philosophical texts – we do know that he
was not asked to do so, because he was not a magister artium. Father Gauthier suggested that
Aquinas’s commentaries on Aristotle were meant to nourish Aquinas’s own theological inquiry.
Aquinas never deemed himself a philosopher, Gauthier claimed, but merely as a theologian. Many
scholars, including some of the contributors to this volume, have challenged this view. The question,
however, remains open, because the textual evidence does not unequivocally support either
interpretation.
Furthermore, when reading Aquinas’s commentaries, one might wonder whether Aquinas is
endorsing the view he attributes to the author of the text he is commenting upon, or whether his
intention is merely exegetical. In this case too, the textual evidence does not offer a univocal
solution. The study of a commentary is further complicated, because this literary genre seems to
conceal the real intentions of the commentator, instead of make them explicit – or at least this is
what a contemporary reader is accustomed to expect, when reading a commentary. One is no longer
looking for a commentator’s opinion, when one reads, say, Oxford commentaries on Aristotle. One
rather expects to better understand the text commented upon, and if a commentator’s notes
happen to be discussed or criticized, they are judged on the basis of the commentator’s ability (or
inability) to render the author’s mind. Despite this habit, it has become increasingly acknowledged
among scholars that the literary genre of the commentary was one of the privileged genres to do
original philosophy and to do original theology in the Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. In order
to detect the original doctrines that are scattered in Late Antique and in medieval commentaries,
some preliminary methodological considerations need to be made.
The study of a commentary as such may be carried out according to two perspectives1: a) one may
investigate the cultural institutions involved in the production of that commentary, the readership
for which it was designed, and the context in which it was written, and may ask why the author
decided to begin such a commentary, in order to understand the request it was taken to answer. A
commentary may be written in order to defend a traditional way of interpreting a given text or in
order to criticize its contemporary understanding. Further, it could be written in the context of a
philosophical school or of a medieval university. In these cases the philosophical orientation of the
school or a faculty in which the commentary was conceived of and composed may have influenced
the author. In sum, on the one hand scholars may deal with the external context in which the
commentary was written; on the other hand, b) it is possible to examine a commentary’s formal
structure, its relationship with the text commented upon, its literary form (which may be lemmatic,
1
These guidelines for the study of commentaries have been clearly outlined by G. W. Most in his
Vorwort to Commentaries – Kommentare, hrsg. von G. W. Most, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1999, pp. vii-viii.
per quaestiones, etc.)2, and its sources. If one is faced with a commentary on a philosophical text,
one may consider also the philosophical problems surrounding either the text commented upon or
the commentary itself. In other words, one may examine the inner structure of a commentary.
Both of the abovementioned approaches are useful in detecting the original contribution of a
commentator. And both approaches have been practiced by the contributors to this volume.
This issue of Divus Thomas is devoted to Thomas Aquinas’s commentaries. Katja Krause focuses on
Aquinas’s commentary on the Sentences, Gioacchino Curiello concentrates on the commentary on
pseudo-Dionysius’s De Divinis Nominibus, while Fabrizio Amerini, Jörn Müller, and Paul Hellmeier OP
have contributed papers on Aquinas’s commentaries on Aristotle’s works: Fabrizio Amerini on the
commentary on De Interpretatione, Jörn Müller on the commentary on the Ethics, and father
Hellmaier on De Anima. I contribute a paper on Aquinas’ commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics: I
do not dwell on the philosophical claims made by Aquinas, but I rather present some preliminary
remarks for the study of the text.
The aim of this issue is to contribute to a better understanding of Aquinas’s thought. In order to do
so, we decided to look at Aquinas as a commentator. The commentaries constitute a section of
Aquinas’s vast production that has not received much attention by scholars in the past. In recent
years, however, we have been witnessing a growing interest in Aquinas’s commentaries and are
hoping to make a valuable addition to this stream of studies. I thank the contributors for their
excellent papers and trust that this special issue will shed a new light on Aquinas’s fascinating
thought.
Luca Gili
luca.gili@hiw.kuleuven.be
New York, January 1, 2015
Abstracts
1.
Katja Krause, Remodelling Ultimate Human Happiness: Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary
on the Sentences and its Sources
Aquinas presents his earliest conception of human happiness in his commentary on Peter Lombard’s
Sentences, bk. IV d. 49 q. 1. In holding that happiness can only be possessed in relation to God in the
afterlife, he decidedly follows the Latin tradition, including Peter Lombard. But he radically remodels
the structure and content of heavenly happiness. Not only does he commence his treatment with the
philosophical question of “wherein happiness is to be sought” (a. 1), but also grounds it in the
The literary forms of the texts which presented Aristotle’s philosophy in the Latin West to medieval
readers is the object of the paper by O. Weijers, The Literary Forms of the Reception of Aristotle:
Between Exposition and Philosophical Treatise, in L. Honnefelder, R. Wood, M. Dreyer, M.-A. Aris,
Albertus Magnus und die Anfänge der Aristoteles-Rezeption im lateinischen Mittelalter, Münster,
Aschendorff Verlag (Subsidia Albertina I), 2005, pp. 555-584; cf. also O. Weijers, Les genres
littéraires à la Faculté des arts, in Revue de science philosophique et théologique, 82/4, 1998, pp.
631-641.
2
perfective operation of the soul alone and links it to God as its external obtainable good. His reasons
for this fundamental deviation from the Latin tradition do, however, not lie in his adherence to
Aristotle as contemporary scholarship suggests. Rather, as it is shown, Aquinas develops his theory of
happiness against the backdrop of a complex range of sources, including Aristotle, the Greek
Christian Commentators on Aristotle’s Ethics, Avicenna, Averroes, the Parisian Masters of Arts, and
Albert the Great. The main purpose of his “intellectualist” account of heavenly happiness – a superior
reconciliation of the truth of reason with the truth of revelation – can only be appreciated if this
range of sources is taken into consideration.
L’Aquinate presenta la sua prima concezione della felicità umana nel suo commento alle Sentenze di
Pietro Lombardo (libro IV, d. 49, q. 1). Dicendo che la felicità ci può essere solo nell’incontro faccia a
faccia con Dio dopo la morte, Tommaso si schiera decisamente con la tradizione latina e con Pietro
lombardo. Tuttavia, Tommaso cambia la struttura e il contenuto della felicità ultraterrena. Egli non
inizia soltanto la sua indagine ponendosi la domanda filosofica “dove si debba cercare la felicità”(art.
1), ma fonda la felicità nella perfetta operazione dell’anima e collega Dio all’anima come il bene
esterno attingibile da quest’ultima. Le ragioni che hanno indotto Tommaso a deviare dalla tradizione
latina risiedono, a mio giudizio, non nella sua adesione ad Aristotele, come gli studiosi più recenti
sostengono. All’autore pare piuttosto che l’Aquinate sviluppi la sua teoria della felicità sullo sfondo di
una complessa serie di fonti, da Aristotele ai commentatori greci cristiani dell’Etica aristotelica, da
Avicenna e Averroè ai Maestri delle Arti di Parigi, ad Alberto magno. L’obiettivo principale della
concezione ‘intellettualista’ della felicità celeste (tesi che concilia la verità della ragione con la veristà
della rivelazione) può essere apprezzato solo se questa complessa rete di fonti è tenuta in
considerazione.
2. Gioacchino Curiello, La conoscibilità di Dio nel Commento ai Nomi Divini
L’articolo si divide in due parti. Nella prima si discute il contesto storico che fa da sfondo alla stesura
del commento tommasiano. L’autore suggerisce che il commento sia databile al periodo romano
(1265-1267/8), cioè agli stessi anni in cui Tommaso scriveva Summa Theol. Ia, qu. 12, questione
dedicata ai nomi divini. La seconda parte del saggio si concentra sulla conoscibilità di Dio, quale
emerge dal commento allo pseudo-Dionigi. Dopo essersi soffermato sui limiti della conoscenza
umana di Dio, l’autore analizza via remotionis ed eminentiae e la via causalitatis per conoscere Dio.
L’autore osserva che Tommaso si distacca dall’agnosticismo dionisiano (forse perché nel 1241 era
stata condannata la tesi secondo cui è impossibile per i beati vedere l’essenza di Dio).
The paper is divided into two parts. First, the author describes the historical context in which Aquinas
drafted his commentary on pseudo-Dionysius. The author suggests that the commentary may have
been written during Aquinas’s stay in Rome (1265-1267/8), i.e. when Aquinas was writing Summa
Theol. Ia, qu. 12, a question on divine names. The second section of the paper focuses on Aquinas’s
claims concerning one’s capacity of knowing God. After having expounded the limits of the human
capacity of knowing God, the author expounds on the via remotionis and eminentiae, and on the via
causalitatis – the three methods for grasping something of God. The author observes that Aquinas
was not eager to agree with pseudo-Dionysius’s agnosticism – and this may be a consequence of the
1241 condemnation of the thesis, according to which the blessed in heaven do not see God’s
essence.
3. Fabrizio Amerini, Aquinas’s Philosophy of Language in His Commentary on De Interpretatione
This paper focuses on Aquinas’s semantics of terms and propositions, and concentrates on the
Prologue to the commentary and on the commentary on De Interpretatione 4, where Aristotle
discusses truth-bearers. The author maintains that Aquinas borrows many doctrines from Boethius
and Ammonius, even though he occasionally departs from their interpretations. Aquinas seems not
to be concerned with logical questions; his goal is rather to expound closely on Aristotle’s text.
Moreover, the paper underlines that Aquinas attributes great importance to conceptual mediation in
signification. Understanding is what allows the imposition of nouns to signify and also what is
signified by them.
Questo articolo si concentra sulla semantica tommasiana per i termini e per le proposizioni e si
focalizza in particolare sul Prologo al commento e sul commento al quarto capitolo del De
Inetrpretatione, in cui Aristotele discute di portatori di verità. L’autore sostiene che Tommaso adotta
molte tesi di Boezio e di Ammonio, anche se talvolta si distacca dalle loro intepretazioni. L’Aquinate
non sembra molto interessato a questioni logiche. Il suo obiettivo sembra essere piuttosto quello di
spiegare in dettaglio il testo di Aristotele. L’articolo sottolinea inoltre che Tommaso diede grande
imporanza alla mediazione concettuale nella significazione. La nostra comprensione è ciò che
consente la imposizione dei nomi per avere la significazione; e, al tempo stesso, i nomi significano
questa stessa comprensione, ovvero il concetto della cosa compreso dalla nostra mente.
4. Paul D. Hellmeier OP, „TOTE WISSENSCHAFT“? –THOMAS VON AQUIN ALS KOMMENTATOR
VON DE ANIMA I
Nella sua edizione critica del commento di Tommaso al De Anima (1984) padre Gauthier osservava
che il commento di Tommaso era, per larga parte, “scienza morta”. Gauthier ha notoriamente
sostenuto che Tommaso scriveva i propri commenti ad Aristotele per avere dati a sosteno della
propria ricerca teologica; tuttavia, al momento di redigere il commento al De Anima, l’Aquinate
aveva già vergato pagine di psicologia filosofica nella Summa Contra Gentiles. Perché dunque scrivere
un commento? L’autore dimostra che Tommaso ha sempre una conoscenza approfondita del testo
che commenta, anche se offre una interpretazione diversa da quella proposta da molti interpreti
contemporanei di Aristotele. L’autore sottolinea, contra Gauthier, che le analisi dossografiche delle
opinioni dei pensatori che precedettero Aristotele (De Anima I) hanno una profonda rilevanza
filosofica: sono aporie da cui l’indagine (dialettica) sui principi di psicologia deve partire. In altre
parole, questa sezione dossografica non è semplicemente inserita per confutare idee erronee circa
l’anima (come ad esempio il materialismo dei presocratici), al fine di offrire una difesa ‘filosofica’ di
una trattazione ortodossa dell’anima.
In his critical edition of Aquinas’s commentary on the De Anima (1984), father Gauthier observed
that Thomas’s commentary was mostly ‘dead science’. Gauthier has famously claimed that Aquinas
wrote his commentaries on Aristotle in order to gather useful data for his theological research;
however, when he was writing his commentary on the De anima, Aquinas had already written some
philosophical remarks on the soul in his Summa Contra Gentiles. Why then did Aquinas write a
commentary too? The author shows that Aquinas always grasps Aristotle’s text, even though he
offers a different interpretation from that of many contemporary Aristotle scholars. The author
maintains that the doxographical analyses of the opinions of Aristotle’s predecessors (De Anima I)
have a deep philosophical meaning: these opinions do constitute aporiai from which the dialectical
inquiry into the principles of psychology must start. In other words, this doxographical section has
not been included to refute mistaken conception of the soul (e.g. to refute the Presocratics’
materialism) in order to defend from a philosophical viewpoint an orthodox understanding of the
soul.
5. Jörn Müller, Aquinas’s Comenting strategy in his Sententia Libri Ethicorum. A Case Study
This paper maintains that Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics cannot be reduced to an
attempt at ‘baptizing’ Aristotle, because Aquinas kept the discussion on the philosophical level, and
refrained from any illicit importation of theological tenets into Aristotle’s account. When it comes to
the doctrine of continence and incontinence, Aquinas simply omits to refer to Augustine, even
though the latter had discussed these issues at length. Aquinas does not follow his master Albert the
Great either, because the latter happened to insert some theological considerations in his
paraphrase of the Nichomachean Ethics. In his description of incontinence, Aquinas aims at holding
to Aristotle’s definition of the will: Thomas wants to explain Aristotle with Aristotle. Nevertheless,
the Dominican Master is original in a crucial point: Aquinas introduces the will as a locus of
responsibility for consenting to the passions; passions, in turn, entail the weakness of the will, which
appears to be voluntary in Aquinas’s reconstruction. This particular is absent in Aristotle, even
though Aquinas makes an effort to derive it from Aristotle’s text.
Questo articolo sostiene che il commento di Tommaso all’Etica di Aristotele non può essere
considerato un semplice tentativo di ‘battezzare’ Aristotele, perché l’Aquinate mantenne la
discussione su un livello filosofico, e si astenne da ogni illegittima introduzione di tesi teologiche nel
discorso di Aristotele. Nel caso di continenza e incontinenza, l’Aquinate omette ogni riferimento ad
Agostino, benché quest’ultimo avesse disccusso tali questioni in modo approfondito. L’Aquinate non
segue nemmeno il suo maestro Alberto Magno, poiché questi finì per inserire alcune considerazioni
teologiche nella sua parafrasi dell’Etica Nicomachea. Nella sua descrizione della incontinenza,
l’Aquinate si propone di rimanere fedele alla definizione aristotelica di volontà: Tommaso vuole
spiegare Aristotele con Aristotele. Ciononostante, l’Aquinate è originale in un punto cruciale, perché
ritiene responsabile nel processo che conduce alla akrasia la volontà che non si è opposta alle
passioni; le passioni, a loro volta, conducono alla debolezza della volontà, che risulta quindi essere
volontaria nella ricostruzione del problema offerta da Tommaso. Questo dettaglio è assente in
Aristotele, anche se Tommaso di sforza di derivarlo dal testo aristotelico.
6. Luca Gili, Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics: Prolegomena to the
Study of the Text
This paper shows that the study of Aquinas’ commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics
needs to start from the consideration of the literary genre of the work, and from the
analysis of the divisio textus. Once these considerations have been made it is possible
to appreciate the originality of Aquinas’ doctrine and the philosophical depth of this
text. The paper contains preliminary remarks to the study of Aquinas’ commentary on
the Metaphysics; these remarks are aimed at promoting a new attention to the study of
this text that contains many philosophical riches.
Questo articolo mostra che lo studio del commento di Tommaso alla Metafisica deve iniziare
dall’analisi del genere letterario dell’opera e da una considerazione della sua divisio textus.
Queste considerazioni ci conducono ad apprezzare l’originalità della dottrina tommasiana e
l’acume filosofico che emerge dal testo. Questo articolo contiene osservazioni preliminari
utili allo studio del commento di Tommaso alla Metafisica e tali osservazioni intendono
promuovere una rinnovata attenzione a un testo ricco di profonde analisi filosofiche.