Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas
Order of Preachers Doctor of the Church proclaimed on April 11, 1567 by Saint Pius V Angelic Doctor
Born	Tommaso d'Aquino 1225 Roccasecca, Kingdom of Sicily
Died	March 7, 1274 (aged 48–49) Fossanova Abbey, Papal States
Venerated in	Catholic Church, Anglican Communion, Lutheranism
Canonized	July 18, 1323, Avignon by Pope John XXII
Major shrine	Convent of the Jacobins of Toulouse
Feast	January 28 Novus Ordo March 7 Vetus Ordo
Attributes	Dominican habit, book, sun on the chest, church under the arm
Patronage	All Catholic educational institutions

Thomas Aquinas (in Italian, Tommaso d'Aquino; Roccasecca, Italy, 1224/1225 – Fossanova Abbey, March 7, 1274), a Catholic friar, theologian and philosopher belonging to the Order of Preachers, is considered the principal representative of Scholastic teaching and one of the greatest figures of systematic theology. In matters of metaphysics, his work represents one of the most cited sources of the 13th century, besides being the point of reference for the Thomist and Neo-Thomist schools of thought. The Catholic Church names him Angelic Doctor, Common Doctor and Doctor of Humanity and considers his work fundamental for the study of philosophy and theology. He was the principal classical defender of natural theology.

He was popular for his acceptance of and commentaries on the works of Aristotle, pointing out where they were compatible with the Catholic faith. He was likewise influenced by the Platonism of Augustine of Hippo, and by the Aristotelianism of Averroes and Maimonides, whom he took as authorities. His best-known works are the Summa theologiae, a compendium of Catholic doctrine in which he treats 495 questions divided into articles (this is where his five ways are found), and the Summa contra gentiles, a compendium of philosophical apologetics for the Catholic faith, consisting of 410 chapters grouped into four books, written at the request of Raymond of Penyafort.

To Thomas is owed a recovery and reinterpretation of metaphysics and a monumental work of theology, as well as a theory of law that would later be widely consulted. Canonized in 1323, he was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1567 and patron saint of Catholic universities and centers of study in 1880. His feast is celebrated on January 28. The English philosopher Anthony Kenny considers Thomas to be "one of the greatest philosophers of the Western world".

Biography

Youth

Temptation of Saint Thomas (1632) by Diego Velázquez.

Thomas Aquinas was born in 1224 or 1225 in the castle of Roccasecca, near Aquino, into a large and noble family of Germanic blood. His father, Landolfo, himself a descendant of the Counts of Aquino, was related to the Emperor Frederick II. His mother, Theodora, was the daughter of the Counts of Teate and Chieti. He was the youngest of nine siblings. Before he was born, it is said that a holy hermit named Bonus shared with his mother the prediction that her son would become a Dominican and attain sanctity.

At the age of five, Thomas received his first schooling at the Abbey of Monte Cassino, of which an uncle of his was abbot. His biographers William of Tocco, Bernard Gui and Peter Calo highlight his singular and early devotion, noting how, from infancy, he clung tightly to a papyrus on which the Hail Mary was written. He then began his studies of grammar, morals, music and religion, until in 1239 the Emperor Frederick II decreed the expulsion of the monks. The young Thomas then continued his education at the University of Naples, where the study of the liberal arts, the educational curriculum of the time, brought him into contact with the principles of Aristotelian logic. In 1244, at the age of nineteen, Thomas decided to join the newly founded Dominican Order thanks to the friendship he had formed with the Master General John of Wildeshausen, to whose austere and intellectual life he had felt drawn since having met them earlier in a convent in Naples.

The decision displeased his family, who had planned for him to succeed his uncle at the head of the Abbey of Monte Cassino. Having learned that Thomas was heading to Rome to begin his novitiate studies, his brothers abducted him and held him for more than a year in the family castles of Monte San Giovanni and Roccasecca, in an attempt to prevent him from taking the Dominican habit and to force him to renounce his new aspiration. He spent this period of trial tutoring his sisters and communicating with members of the Dominican Order. His relatives grew desperate to dissuade Thomas, who remained determined to join the Dominicans. At one point, two of his brothers resorted to hiring a prostitute to seduce him. According to legend, Thomas drove her away wielding a fire iron, and two angels appeared to him while he slept and strengthened his resolve to remain celibate. Seeing that all her attempts to dissuade Thomas had failed, Theodora sought to save the family's dignity by having Thomas escape through the window during the night.

He managed to flee the castle, moving to Paris to get away from his family. The Aquinate surprised the friars when they saw that he had devoted himself to reading and memorizing the Bible and the Sentences of Peter Lombard; he had even commented on a section of the Sophistical Refutations of Aristotle, which were the reference texts for studies at the time.

University training

The University of Paris was ideal for the young Thomas's aspirations, because of its marked inclination toward the Trivium (already traditional in Paris) and because of its schools of theology. His most outstanding teachers were Alexander of Hales and Albertus Magnus, both receptive to Aristotelian doctrine (especially the latter). Among his fellow students was Bonaventure of Fidanza, with whom he maintained a singular friendship, though also a certain intellectual controversy. Before Thomas finished his studies, Albertus Magnus, surprised by the understanding of his Neapolitan pupil, assigned him a Scholastic disputation, and to his teacher's very powerful arguments the pupil responded with perfect distinction, undoing the discourse of his teacher and future Doctor of the Church, who said to the assembly:

You call him the Dumb Ox, but I assure you that this Ox will give such bellows with his learning that they will resound throughout the whole world

— Barbado Viejo, F. Introducción General in Tomás de Aquino Suma teológica Tomo I. BAC 1947, p.12

Albertus Magnus, sure of the novice's potential, took him along to Cologne, to teach him and to study in depth the works of Aristotle, which both would later defend. At that time Thomas was ordained a priest. Thomas would return to Paris in 1252 to continue his studies, but would encounter strong opposition to the Mendicant orders, led by the secular professors, who sought to abandon the University in protest against the imprisonment of delinquent students. But the ultimate object of their anger was the mendicant masters: their singular poverty, perseverance and habit of study filled their classes with students (see the case of Albertus Magnus) and exposed the seculars.

The high point of that confrontation, which came to threaten the lives of the mendicants, came when the doctor William of Saint-Amour published his treatises, Book of the Antichrist and his Ministers and On the Dangers of the Last Times. In October 1256, a few months after Saint-Amour's second pamphlet, Thomas wrote Against Those Who Impugn the Worship of God, and Pope Alexander IV, that same month, would excommunicate Saint-Amour, forbidding him to teach and to receive the sacraments. As a result of his response to Saint-Amour, the young Neapolitan would enjoy papal confidence in theological matters, and he was assigned the review of the Introductory Book to the Eternal Gospel, of Joachimite influence.

University teaching

Detail of Thomas Aquinas in the Valle Romita Polyptych by Gentile da Fabriano.

After that outstanding performance he was granted the doctorate at the exceptional age of 31, and so in 1256 he served as master of Theology at the University of Paris. There he wrote several short works of great metaphysical depth, such as De ente et essentia and his first Summa or compendium of knowledge: the Scriptum super Sententias. In addition, he held the post of personal counselor to King Louis IX of France.

In June 1259, Thomas was called to Valenciennes, together with Albertus Magnus and Peter of Tarentaise (the future Pope Innocent V), to organize the studies of the Order, taking advantage of the fact that he had to travel to his native Italy. For a period of ten years he taught in Naples, Orvieto, Rome and Viterbo. During this time, Thomas finished the Summa contra gentiles, which would be the Order's guide to apologetics in Spain, commissioned the translation of numerous works of Aristotle from his learned friend William of Moerbeke, in order to avoid certain errors of interpretation committed by the Arabs, and began writing the Summa Theologiae. It should be noted that Pope Urban IV named him his personal counselor, and commissioned from him the Catena aurea (Commentary on the four Gospels), the proper Office and Mass of Corpus Christi and the review of the book On Faith in the Most Holy Trinity, attributed to Bishop Nicholas of Durazzo.

The Aquinate was sent back to Paris because of the great opposition that had risen against his person and doctrine. This period, being the last, is the Aquinate's most mature and fruitful, since he would confront three branches of thought: the Augustinian idealists, headed by John Peckham; the anti-mendicant seculars, led by Gerard of Abbeville; and finally the Averroists, whose visible figure was Siger of Brabant. Thomas had already publicly embraced numerous Aristotelian ideas and completed the Expositions of the most important works of Aristotle, of the Gospel of John and of the Letters of Paul the apostle. He also wrote his famous disputed questions on ethics and some short works in response to John Peckham and Nicholas of Lisieux, while finishing the second part of the Summa Theologiae.

But his great struggle came against the Averroists: Siger of Brabant, the leading figure of the Faculty of Arts, had stated in his classes (not in his works, on logic and physics, such as the Sophisma and his commentary on Aristotle's Physics) that man had no spiritual nature, so that reason could contradict faith without either ceasing to be true. Thomas, undisputed leader of the Faculty of Theology, responded that same year with his De unitate intellectus contra averroistas, ending that short work with this declaration:

Here is our refutation of the error. It is based not on documents of faith but on reason, and on the assertions of the philosophers. If, then, there is anyone who, proudly puffed up in his supposed science, wishes to challenge what is written, let him not do so in a corner or before children, but let him answer publicly if he dares. He will find me facing him, and not only my wretched self, but many others who study the truth. We will do battle with his errors or cure his ignorance

— GK Chesterton Santo Tomás de Aquino. Espasa-Calpe 1941, p.84

After this singular challenge it is said—since it is not recorded among his biographers—that the two confronted each other publicly, and it would not be far-fetched, since Thomas had disputed with, for example, Peckham before the university; but what is historically valid is that Thomas emerged widely victorious after the publication of the short work, since, first, Siger retracted many points in his De anima intellectiva, and second, the Bishop of Paris, Étienne Tempier, within a few months condemned as many as thirteen essential propositions of Averroism, which provoked a great strike in the Faculty of Arts.

Return and death

Statue of Saint Thomas Aquinas, located in Santiago de Chile.

Once his work in France was finished, he was entrusted with founding a new provincial chapter in Naples. Before that, Thomas visited his family and his friends, Cardinal Annibaldo degli Annibaldi and the Abbot of Monte Cassino, Bernard Ayglier.

In Naples it should be noted that he was received like a King, as well as the extensive correspondence he maintained, answering questions from Bernard Ayglier himself among many others. However, as soon as he began the third part of the Summa Theologiae he had a singular mystical experience (he had had them before; it is well documented) after which it became impossible for him to write:

Such things have been revealed to me that what I have written seems like straw to me.

— Forment 2005, p. 21

Nevertheless, he accepted the invitation of Pope Gregory X to attend the Second Council of Lyon. However, he fell suddenly ill and had to be taken in at Fossanova Abbey. Thomas died making a vigorous profession of faith on March 7, 1274, near Terracina. Later, on January 28, 1369, his mortal remains were transferred to Toulouse, the date on which the Catholic Church celebrates him.

The importance and political weight of Thomas Aquinas were of such magnitude that doubts still exist about the cause of his death. Indeed, there has been writing about a possible poisoning on the orders of the King of Sicily, Charles of Anjou, according to an assertion made by Dante Alighieri in the Purgatorio of the Divine Comedy, an epic written between 1304 and 1321.

After his death, some of Thomas Aquinas's theses, confused with those of the Averroists, were included in a list of 219 theses condemned by the Bishop of Paris, Étienne Tempier, at the University of Paris in 1277. Despite this, after several prophecies and miracles documented by numerous testimonies, Thomas Aquinas was canonized almost 50 years after his death, on January 18, 1323. The condemnations of 1277 were immediately lifted insofar as they concerned Thomas Aquinas on February 14, 1325.

Thomas Aquinas is one of the most profound, systematic and prolific intellectuals in History.

Works

Main article: Bibliography of Thomas Aquinas

The written work of Thomas Aquinas is immense: bearing in mind that he died at forty-nine and considering that at the same time he would travel some 10,000 kilometers on foot, it is understandable that some describe his output as an unequaled feat. Josef Pieper remarked:

Super Physicam Aristotelis, 1595

One can hardly believe everything he wrote in his last years in Paris

— Josef Pieper Doce lecciones sobre tomismo Ed. Rialp 1948, p. 27

His longest works, and those generally considered the most important and systematic, are his three theological syntheses or Summas: the Summa Theologiae, the Summa contra Gentiles and his Scriptum super Sententias. Although his main interest and subject matter is always theological, his work equally includes commentaries on philosophical, polemical or liturgical works. He is especially known for being one of the principal introducers of the philosophy of Aristotle into the Scholastic current of the 13th century, and because his work represents a synthesis between Christian thought and the critical spirit of Aristotelian thought. Throughout history, spurious works have been attributed to him which, over time, have ceased to be considered his. His works are thus divided into:

• Three theological syntheses, or summas.
  • Summa Theologiae
  • Summa Contra Gentiles
• Nine treatises in the form of academic disputations.
• Twelve quodlibetal disputations.
• Nine exegeses on the Holy Scriptures.
• A collection of glosses of the Church Fathers on the Gospels known as the Catena aurea.
• Eleven expositions on the works of Aristotle
  • De principiis natuae: I and II (commentaries on considerations about nature based on Books I and II of Aristotle's Physics.
  • Sententia libro Politicorum (commentary on the Politics)
  • Sententia sobre Metaphysicam (commentary on the Metaphysics)
  • Sententia super Meteora (commentary on the Meteorology)
  • Sententia super Phisicam (commentary on the Physics)
  • Sententia super Peri hermenias (commentary on On Interpretation)
  • Sententia sobre libri Ethicorum (commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics)
  • Sententia super De Anima (commentary on De Anima)
  • Sententia de Daelo et mundo (commentary De Caelo et Mundo)
  • Sententia super libros De generatione et corruptiones.
• Two expositions of works by Boethius.
• Two expositions of works by Proclus.
• Five polemical works.
• Five expert opinions, or responsa.
• Fifteen letters on theology, philosophy or political subjects.
• One liturgical text.
• Two famous prayers.
• Approximately 85 sermons.
• Eight treatises on theology.

Thought

Faith and reason

The thought of Thomas Aquinas starts from the superiority of the truths of theology over rational truths, because of the sublimity of its source and of its object of study: God. Although he points out that reason is very limited in knowing God, this does not prevent showing that philosophy is a way of attaining true knowledge. First, because it does not contradict theology, as he says:

What is naturally innate in reason is so true that there is no possibility of thinking it false. And still less is it licit to believe false what we possess by faith, since it has been confirmed by God. Therefore, since only the false is contrary to the true, as their very definitions clearly prove, there is no possibility that rational principles are contrary to the truth of the faith

— Tomás de Aquino 2007, p. 53

Second, because it is man's natural tool for knowing the world, and the Aquinate, as has been seen, considers it impossible to think of reason as false because of how connatural it is. Nevertheless, Thomas points out that if a real and not merely apparent contradiction were reached between a conclusion of faith and a rational one, the erroneous one is that of reason, since God is infallible. An example of apparent contradiction is found in the question of the Trinity:

Thomas, by reason, states that "God is simple", and, by faith, that He is "triune", but to be triune (not triple) one must be one, that is, simple, so that faith and reason do not contradict each other; rather, the grace of faith presupposes (accepts) and elevates (perfects) nature, rational nature in this case.

Ontology

Super libros de generatione et corruptione

Thomas, as the greatest exponent of the figure of Aristotle, takes being as the starting point of his scheme of thought. The Aquinate begins his science with the being (ens), which is defined as that which is being. There he introduces his innovative distinction between essence and existence. Since we can inwardly actualize the essence of an object (its shape, its limits) regardless of whether it exists, whether it has its own reality, its own content, one must conclude that the two are different principles. Thomas associates essence, being limitation, with Aristotelian potency, and existence, being perfection, with act; in this independence of existence with respect to essence lies the question of the contingency of objects and of all metaphysics in general. Along these lines, Thomas refers to God, who is fully subsistent and non-contingent; therefore His existence lies in His essence, and He is defined as proper and absolute being, Being, as will be seen later.

The next innovation lies in the inherent properties of being, or transcendentals, which are three:

Unity: A being, by the principle of non-contradiction, is a simple reality, that is, non-contradictory. This links with what Aristotle said:

Being and the One are the same thing

— Aristotle Metafísica. Alianza Editorial, 2011, p.112

Truth: It is said here that every being is intelligible, that any being is capable of being thought. Truth would thus be the property of knowability of being, something affirmed by Augustine of Hippo and reinforced by Thomas in his famous definition:

Conformity of the intellect with its principle, things

— Tomás de Aquino. Suma Teológica Tomo I. BAC, 1947, pg. 639

Goodness: Since evil, being mere corruption, does not exist as such, as a being, there is no being that is "evil"; thus every being is good, desirable by the will.

Thomas's ontology is therefore not a metaphysics of essences and categories, as had been the case in earlier times, but of something even deeper: of being itself, which entails a more real, optimistic and exact point of view.

Knowledge

Thomas Aquinas's theory of knowledge is a recovery of the one defended by Aristotle. For both, the intellect takes the generic and substantial form of external objects (perceived through individuals, fully recognized by the intentionality of the knower) and abstracts it, giving rise to the species or universal in act. Herein lies the cognitive difference between man and animal, since the universal is an indispensable element for all science, which only man can attain.

Thomas's novelty on this subject lies in his answer to the problem of universals. This problem, first mentioned by Porphyry in his Isagoge, analyzes the mode of being of the universal. Since this question is of capital anthropological importance (as seen above), the great intellectual figures of the Middle Ages, such as Augustine of Hippo, Scotus Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard or Siger of Brabant, directly or indirectly took a position in the controversy. Thomas adopted the position called moderate realism and gave the following solution, highlighting three real states of the universal:

• Ante rem (Prior to the thing): In the mind of God, as its Creator, as the archetype of the beings of material reality.
• In re (In the thing): As the structure that shapes the species of a singular object. It is mixed with matter, so that, as such, in the sensory aspect it is potential and imperceptible.
• Post Rem (Subsequent to the thing): As logical concepts, abstracted from real material beings and, necessarily by what was said above, immaterial.

Existence of God

In his work the Summa Theologiae, Thomas holds that the existence of God is demonstrable, besides responding to objections to His existence such as the problem of evil.

If evil exists, God exists. For evil would not exist once the order of the good, of which evil is the privation, were removed. But this order would not exist if God did not exist

— Summa contra Gentiles - Part III - Question 71

God would permit some kind of evil to exist if some good were drawn from it. Despite Thomas's great optimism about the knowability of God, he was not willing to accept just any way of demonstrating the existence of God. His Aristotelian realism provoked numerous clashes with the Augustinians, and, among other questions, over the much-debated ontological argument; it is little short of impressive to see that Thomas, in defense of the truth, is capable of denying one of the doctrinal pillars of a Doctor of the Church whom he, as a devout believer, considers almost infallible.

Thomas, well ahead of the future empiricist expositions (Hume and Kant), gives two simple and easily understood reasons for denying the conclusion of the argument. One lies in the self-evidence of the idea of God:

That God exists is certainly self-evident in itself, because He is His own being, but with respect to us, God is not self-evident. That the whole is greater than its parts is, in itself, absolutely self-evident. But it is not so for one who does not conceive the whole. And so it happens with our intellect

— Tomás de Aquino 2007, p. 60

The other lies in the existence of the idea of God:

And from the fact that we conceive intellectually the meaning of the term "God" it does not follow that God is existent, but only conceived in the intellect. And consequently, the most perfect being that can be thought need not exist outside the intellect

— Tomás de Aquino 2007, p. 60

Here Thomas distinguishes between "thinking of something as existing" and "thinking of something already existing", pointing out that the existence Anselm demands is necessity, a merely intellectual ought-to-be, not an existential one.

Five Ways

Main articles: Five Ways (Aquinas), Cosmological argument, and Teleological argument

Triumph of Saint Thomas Aquinas by Benozzo Gozzoli.

The demonstration of the existence of God, offered in a synthetic formulation through the so-called "Five Ways", is a brief point in Thomas's great body of work. Nevertheless, his exposition is so complete and systematic that it has overshadowed Plato, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo or Anselm of Canterbury and has become the model of classical philosophy on this point. The Thomist Ways are an a posteriori demonstration of the existence of God:

• The First Way is deduced from the motion of objects. Thomas explains, through the distinction between act and potency, that one and the same being cannot move and be moved at the same moment; therefore everything that moves does so by virtue of another. A series of movers thus begins, and this series cannot be carried to infinity, because there would be no first mover, nor a second (that is, there would be no communication of motion); therefore there must be an Unmoved First Mover, which is identified with God, the principle of all things.
• The Second Way is deduced from efficient cause (for every sensible object is limited by form, hence it is not eternal but caused). A series of causes analogous to the movers therefore begins, ending in an Uncaused Cause, identified with God, creator of all things.
• The Third Way is deduced from the possible. We find that things can exist or not, that they can be thought of as non-existent and are therefore contingent. It is impossible for things subject to the possibility of not existing to have been existing eternally, for at some point they would have to not exist. Therefore there must be a Necessary Being, which is identified with God, in whom essence and existence are one reality.
• The Fourth Way is deduced from the hierarchy of values of things. We find that things are more or less good, noble or true. And this "more or less" is said insofar as it approaches the maximum, and (since the lower degrees have their cause in something generically more perfect) the maximum must be the cause of everything belonging to that genus. The cause of goodness and truthfulness is identified with God, the maximally good Being.
• The Fifth Way is deduced from the ordering of things. Thomas recalls how natural bodies, always or often, act purposefully toward what is best, many even without knowledge. He went so far as to say, faithful to Aristotle, that each being, as caused, must have a given order, both by reason of its form (essence) and of its existence, and, going back through the series of final causes, this is only possible if there is a supremely intelligent Being, who is God.

These ways do not demonstrate the existence of the Christian God, but Thomas believes it is possible to infer it after reflecting on the nature of these conclusions. In addition, the arguments in the Summa Theologica are not complete, since some premises are suppressed. The most complete presentation of Aquinas's argument of the unmoved mover is found in the Summa contra Gentiles, with 32 paragraphs. Likewise, Thomas defended, with great success, against John Peckham the possibility that the world was caused and eternal at the same time, that is, with a terminus of being but not of physical motion, demonstrating his closeness to classical Greek thought:

For the complete cause and its effect are simultaneous. But God never lacks any complement. Therefore His effect can always be given, given God, and thus it is not necessary that He precede His effect in duration.

— "Sobre la eternidad del mundo" (in español).

Thus God is understood as first mover, first cause, necessary being, perfect being and final end. Many of the numerous criticisms of this proposal by Thomas are due to three phenomena:

• Imprecise reading

He has been criticized for not explaining the solution to the infinite series, nor the contingency of bodies, or for using the principle of sufficient reason, and badly, but none of these claims is true; as can be seen, these criticisms come from an imprecise reading of his writings.

• Not admitting some premises

A notable case in this respect is that of the scientist and intellectual Richard Dawkins, who pointed out, among others, three impossible aspects of the Five Ways:

1. That causality would have to apply equally to God, since He is supposedly an object of study (and of cause), so that He would not be such (citing Immanuel Kant).
2. That negative values too, such as "stench", would equally need a maximum, so that God would not be such.
3. Finally, that God's omnipotence would make Him aware of His future and able to deny Himself, and therefore He would not be such (Richard Dawkins sets out in other works the multiple logical contradictions of God, such as those concerning omniscience, absolute goodness, timelessness or His origin).

The premises that Dawkins does not admit are:

1. That causality must necessarily stop at an uncaused point, also called God. As Dawkins makes clear, this premise assumes a priori that God is uncaused, becoming a fallacy of begging the question.
2. That stench is a corruption of goodness (a true value) insofar as it is olfactory.
3. Finally, that God has no future; there is no terminus whatsoever in Him, for He is absolutely immutable and unmoving. Dawkins replies that if God is immutable and timeless, it is impossible to understand that He changes His mind, as is attested in the Bible.

• Terminological error

Arthur Schopenhauer criticized that necessity was an effect of a principle. That definition, well known to Thomas, applies to logical analytics, and is therefore incomplete. Thomas refers to necessity as such of existence, which is contained in the divine nature. It has also been objected that this God need not be the Christian God, but could be the One of Plotinus or the Uncaused Cause of Aristotle. To this it must be said that the God of the Five Ways is being by essence, pure and proper act, as is read in Exodus, chapter 3, verse 14: "I am who is"

Thomas argued that God is what is called the foundation of what is; therefore the proposition "God exists" is necessarily true, because in it the subject and the predicate are the same.

"For if things, diverse among themselves, coincide in something, there must necessarily be some cause of such coincidence, since diverse things do not coincide with one another of themselves. Therefore, when something common is found among diverse things, this something must necessarily have some cause. [...] Therefore, there must necessarily be a principle of being by which things have being, even the most diverse, whether they are invisible and spiritual or visible and corporeal."

— Suma teológica, Parte I, Cuestión 65, Artículo 1

Essence of God

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1650), by Murillo. Oil on canvas. 96x68 cm.

Thomas, as has been seen, made clear that (because of His immensity) we cannot contemplate God as such, and pointed out that the best way to know God would be through His direct Revelation: the Bible, especially the New Testament, Apostolic Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church.

However, from a strictly philosophical point of view, God would have to be known not through these sources but in the way natural reason is ordered: taking sensible things (the effects) and abstracting to their principles (the cause) or ends. Once that process is carried out, what they have in common and what they do not is established, that is, the two Ways of Knowledge of God:

Negative way

The Aquinate states in his Summa contra gentiles that in God there is no composition, violence, corporeality or potency of any kind, not because He lacks these traits and thus seems incomplete, but because He is above every limit or possibility.

In this way, by eliminating "negative" predicates we obtain a more exact image of God, who is, by opposition, simple, perfect, natural, incorporeal and pure act.

Affirmative way

This consists in predicating the qualities of all those attributes of goodness, truthfulness and other "positive" values, since God is the cause of everything good on earth, and therefore, as stated in the Fourth Way, He is pure Goodness, Truth, etc.

This way of relating subjects to one another by their resemblance, the fruit of the proportionality of certain predicates, is what Thomas calls analogy. Although it is a tool defined and used as such for the first time by Aristotle, it was only an aspect of sophistry without internal analysis, which Thomas would take up. He distinguished two kinds of analogy:

• Of proportionality

It occurs in a set of objects with different natures because of their different entity. It is "horizontal" in form and, depending on the attribute, may be proper or metaphorical.

• Of attribution

It occurs from an active "first analogate" or a passive "analogate", so it is "vertical" in form.

Thomas's novelty lies not only in this distinction but in using this logical nexus in an existential field and adding to it the concept of "eminence" (God possesses the attribute in a supreme way, so that He is absolutely identified with it). Aquinas's metaphysics is also Platonic, using the Platonic concept of participation. Saint Thomas, who cites Saint Augustine regarding the Divine Ideas, teaches that there is a plurality of Ideas in the divine Spirit (Summa Theol., 1, 15, 2), rejecting Plato's opinion that the Ideas are "outside" the divine Mind as exemplary causes (Summa Theol., 1, 15, 1 ad 1). He explains that he does not mean that there is in God a plurality of accidental species, but that God, knowing His Essence perfectly as He does, knows that it is imitable (or participable) by a plurality of creatures.

Soul and body

Main articles: Active intellect and Passive intellect

Saint Thomas accepted the Aristotelian hylomorphic doctrine. He defined prime matter as pure potentiality and substantial form as the first act of a physical body, which determines the body's essence. Thomas Aquinas defends the unicity of the substantial form, whereby there is only one substantial form, which directly informs matter. In man, the single substantial form (the rational soul) is what confers on man both his corporeality (by informing prime matter) and his vegetative, sensory and intellectual operations. Thomas affirmed that angels are not composed of matter and form, but are purely immaterial.

Aquinas's philosophical teaching on the entity and relationship of soul and body is gathered, to a large extent, in the answer he gives to Averroism and its Theory of the unity of the intellect or understanding:

As a fruit of the Neoplatonic exegesis of the Aristotelian texts by Alexander of Aphrodisias, as well as of Arabic theocentrist extremism, the Arab philosopher Averroes, developing the opinion of the true precursor, Avicenna, held that the agent intellect, the actualizer of the universal, was Allah, and that the human race assimilated that universal and made science with it in the possible intellect (which was one and the same for all), so that no soul had, as an individual, anything incorporeal; thus, none was immortal. Averroes indicated that the relationship between understanding and the human soul occurred through the imagination, understood as a faculty of sensory knowledge proper to the animal. To this, that philosopher added, as Thomas has recorded for us, that this was the opinion of Aristotle, for he said that the intellect was impassible, unmixed and separate

To understand Thomas's singular energy in responding to this opinion, one would have to notice two aspects of it.

• They betrayed and confused the legacy of Aristotle, causing the Aquinate to be the object of unnecessary criticism (from Bonaventure of Fidanza, for example)

• It denied, through true elements, every possible relationship of man with God, which would give rise to the Theory of double truth, in which faith was despised and the person of Jesus Christ was confused, presenting it as a double subject, divine and human, as theological modernism and liberation theology do today.

Given these points, the Aquinate's energy in responding to Siger can be understood, but he does not do so from feeling and sophistry but, as will be seen, from common sense and simplicity:

The individual is a man because he understands by means of his possible intellect. If this man has an imagination different from that one, but not another possible intellect but an identical one, it would follow that they are two animals and a single man, which is evidently impossible; therefore there is not a single possible intellect

— Tomás de Aquino 2007, p. 528

The phantasms or images, which are understood in potency, are diverse; what gives the species must be one, for the species is one and corresponds to the one; therefore man does not receive the species from the phantasms

— Tomás de Aquino 2007, p. 529

If the possible intellect is something of the human soul and is multiplied according to individuals, as has already been shown, by equal proportion so will the agent intellect be, and not one for all

— Tomás de Aquino 2007, p. 554

In the same way, he would object that Aristotle's opinion was not such, since he stated in writing that the intellect is a generic power of the soul by which it opines and understands, so that its being separate and unmixed is taken with respect to the other powers of the individual.

From Thomas's assent to the intellectualism of the soul, he will affirm, since it is the recipient of the universal, that it is immaterial and incorruptible. With respect to the body, Thomas criticized Plato for rejecting it and for affirming the union of the two as accidental, and so he defended the substantial unity of both and their identity as a single subject.

For the Aquinate, pain is a passion of the soul, sadness being an inner pain whose object is one's own evil. The remedies Thomas gives for sadness are pleasurable activities of the body (such as bathing, sleep or weeping) or of the spirit (such as the contemplation of truth), and also seeking the company and compassion of friends.

Free will

Main article: Free will

On heresies

Thomas Aquinas belonged to the Dominican Order, which began as an order dedicated to the conversion of the Albigensians and other heterodox factions, at first by peaceful means; later the Albigensians were dealt with through the Albigensian Crusade. In the Summa theologiae, he wrote:

With regard to heretics two aspects must be considered: one, on their side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their side there is indeed sin, by which they deserved not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be excluded from the world by death. In fact, it is much more serious to corrupt the faith, the life of the soul, than to counterfeit money, by which temporal life is sustained. Therefore, if counterfeiters of money, or other kinds of evildoers, are justly handed over straightaway to death by secular princes, with all the more reason heretics convicted of heresy could not only be excommunicated, but also handed over with all justice to the death penalty.

— Suma teológica, Parte II, Cuestión 11, Artículo 3

If someone, after abjuring the error, were caught relapsing into the heresy he had abjured, Thomas's suggestion specifically requires that the heretics be handed over to secular judgment.

The Church, by the Lord's institution, extends her charity to all; not only to friends, but also to enemies and persecutors, in accordance with the words of Saint Matthew: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you (Mt 5:44). Now, it belongs to charity not only to will, but also to procure the good of one's neighbor. But there is a twofold good. There is, first, the spiritual good, which is the salvation of the soul, and toward which charity is principally directed. Anyone must will this good for others out of charity. Therefore, from this point of view, the Church admits to penance heretics who return, even if they are relapsed, for in this way she incorporates them into the way of salvation. [...] But when, having been admitted, they relapse, it is a sign of their inconstancy in the faith; therefore, if they return, they are received to penance, but not to the extent of avoiding the sentence of death.

— Suma teológica, Parte II, Cuestión 11, Artículo 4

As for the Jews, Thomas argues in favor of tolerating their persons and their religious rites.

Natural law

Thomas Aquinas had one of the best-developed ethical systems, dealing with subjects such as axiology, the passions, theory of virtue, normative ethics, applied ethics, law and grace. For Thomas, law is a rational command whose purpose must be the preservation and promotion of the common good of a particular community. He distinguishes four types of law:

1. Eternal law, which is the order God imposes on the entire universe;
2. human law, which consists of all the rules approved by human legal systems;
3. divine law, which is all the divine commandments and can only be known through revelation;
4. and finally natural law, which is a set of basic moral principles rooted in nature that can be known through reason.

Saint Thomas Aquinas by Pedro Berruguete and Justus of Ghent.

Aquinas's ethical and moral theory is based on this last principle, which he took from Stoic thought. Like Aristotle, for Aquinas every being acts for an end and the human being has a final end. Man's final end is the good of his species, his fullness-perfection, attaining happiness, which is imperfect. To obtain it, one must respond to one's nature, to one's human form, and the human being understands God, the Supreme Good; it is by the dictate of his intellect that he arrives at the good (of which God gives the reason) of things. Since every being has a form, with its limits and measures, according to those laws of nature, man attains his good, his virtue. This would be called natural law, which consists of necessary truths reflected by God. Thus all human beings desire contemplative union with God, and only human happiness in heaven is perfect.

Like John Stuart Mill, Thomas pointed out that the good leads to actions that are pleasurable, a necessary characteristic of happiness. He also distinguished between intellectual pleasure, which is good per se; and bodily pleasure, which is natural, and some of which may be bad, but not per se. For example, sexual pleasure is natural and good within marriage. Even a venial sin that is not inconsistent with reason is not necessarily bad:

But moral malice does not follow from this, just as sleep, in which the use of reason is bound, is not morally bad if one has given oneself to it in accordance with reason, because it also belongs to reason itself that its use should sometimes be interrupted. We say, however, that this binding of reason by pleasure in the conjugal act, although it does not imply moral malice, because it is neither mortal nor venial sin, nevertheless proceeds from a certain moral malice, that is, from the sin of our first father, for this did not occur in the state of innocence, as is clear from what has already been said.

— Suma teológica, Parte I-II, Cuestión 34, Artículo 1

Nevertheless, Thomas considers some sins naturally evil and never licit, such as lying. Thomas distinguishes three types of lies: the helpful, the jocose and the malicious. Helpful and jocose lies are venial sins, while the malicious lie is a mortal sin. Following Aristotle and Saint Augustine, the Aquinate declares that:

But one must not use a disordered and illicit means to prevent harm and faults of others; just as it is not licit to steal in order to give alms (except in case of necessity, in which all things are common). [...] One may, nevertheless, prudently conceal the truth with a certain dissimulation [...]

— Suma teológica, Parte II-II, Cuestión 110, Artículo 3

Aquinas's ethics was criticized by John Duns Scotus. He maintained that many of the so-called immutable moral truths that Aquinas points out are contingent and depend on the will of God; therefore reason and revelation do not coincide as much as Thomas believed. William of Ockham also rejected Aquinas's natural law as an ethical basis, maintaining that it depends entirely on divine command. Immanuel Kant, in his work the Critique of Practical Reason, criticized Aquinas's conception of the good as the basis of ethics, asserting duty as the moral basis and that the moral law is given from within the individual himself.

Politics

The Aquinate's political vision is an extension of his moral philosophy with regard to responsibility and authority in a community. Thomas tries to explain human law, which varies depending on circumstances, on the basis of natural law. Unlike some political philosophers, Thomas holds that human authority is the logical consequence of the natural end of the human being as a rational and social animal. Consequently, positive law, if it is contrary to natural law, is unjust, for it attacks the good of man. In this way, natural law expresses man's freedom and demands a rational ordering of his conduct. This explains why, for Thomas Aquinas, the worst form of government is tyranny. Thomas Aquinas takes up the Aristotelian virtues, whose realization lies in the golden mean. This is corroborated, deepened and transcended by Christian revelation. According to it, the summary of ethics is love of neighbor, which is to will the good of every man. Saint Thomas's cardinal virtues are prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. The theological virtues: divine light, hope and charity.

Thomas thinks that a just government is one governed by the common good, the best form of government being a limited monarchy mixed between aristocracy and democracy, described both in the Bible and in Aristotle's Politics. For the Angelic Doctor, monarchy was not contrary to republicanism.

Just war

Main article: Just war

Influences and repercussions

Stained-glass window of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Thurles Cathedral.

Thomas, though a theologian, stood out for having read and studied exhaustively all the reference intellectuals of his time, philosophers included, which is why he was able to achieve such an extensive and consistent synthesis. The materials for his thought are of very diverse origin:

First, from Plato. To him is owed a certain doctrine of participation (not yet fully metaphysical), to explain the relationship between God and creatures, as well as the question of the degrees of perfection. Thomas also knew the Stoics as antecedents of the Thomist idea of natural law.

From Aristotle he takes his main theories, though with the Christian perspective of being, as seen earlier: the concepts of form and matter, act and potency, substance and accidents, and God as the ultimate foundation of the motions of reality (first and fifth Ways). He takes on his entire theory of knowledge and the bases of his anthropology: the formal conception of the soul, its tripartite division, etc. In Ethics and Politics he takes up the Aristotelian concept and classification of virtue and completes his contributions on natural law (the basis of natural right, which, though defended by John Locke and Immanuel Kant, is metaphysical), and he completes these schemes with reference to the eternal law and the theological virtues (foreign to Greek culture itself). Moreover, he accepted Logic in its entirety from his youth.

From Muslim and Jewish thought, besides taking up their commentaries on Aristotle, he stands out for his attention to Avicenna in his distinction (still inexact, because of his essentialism) between essence and existence, and in the formulation of the Third Way. On the other hand, from Maimonides he takes the defense of creation from nothing and his way of understanding the relationship between faith and reason. As for the Christian element, it is essential to recall his unwavering adherence to the Bible, the Decrees of the Councils and the Popes (Gregory the Great stands out for his moral and pastoral treatises). Among the Fathers of the Church, Augustine of Hippo stands out eminently, regarding the relationship of the attributes of God, the idea of creation or the thesis of the immateriality of the soul, the question of the Trinity, among many others (refined by his Aristotelianism).

From other Neoplatonists such as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite he takes the Neoplatonic aspects of their works, such as the concept of participation and the degrees of perfection, in a theological key. From Boethius, his contributions to the Trinitarian and Christological dogmas. Albertus Magnus, lastly, introduced him to the knowledge of Aristotle and initiated him into the question of the transcendentals.

As for his later influence, Thomas played a capital role, never before seen in the Catholic Church, as a reference and model of thought, both in the Inquisition and at the Council of Trent. His thought would be criticized by later Scholastic theologians, such as John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.

In the 15th century his followers were very diverse: the chancellor Jean Gerson, the Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada and Girolamo Savonarola. In the 16th century his doctrine and figure were defended by Pope Pius V (who named him Doctor of the Church) and a good number of distinguished Spaniards, such as the founder of the Society of Jesus, Ignatius of Loyola (who decreed that he be read in Chap. 14, point 4 of the Constitutions), the Mystical Doctor John of the Cross (who constantly uses his principles to explain spiritual mechanisms), Cardinal Thomas Cajetan, Francisco de Vitoria and Domingo de Soto. Later, consolidating the reform against Protestantism in the 17th century, Bishop Francis de Sales, John of St. Thomas, Francisco Suárez and Domingo Báñez stand out.

In the 18th century, despite the powerful rise of rationalism and, as a result of it, empiricism (among Enlightenment thinkers) and ontologism (among Catholics such as Nicolas de Malebranche), the contributions of Cardinal Juan Tomás de Boxadors and the bishops Alphonsus Maria de Liguori and Jacques Bossuet should be mentioned. Thomas Aquinas's account of natural law became Catholic moral teaching and was widely adopted by non-Catholic ethicists before the 19th century. During the Enlightenment, Thomism was viewed in derogatory terms as traditionalism.

In the face of new intellectual currents such as Romantic idealism, vitalist nihilism, the philosophy of consciousness (Henri Bergson) and Phenomenology, as well as an ultra-Catholic fideist branch (Louis Eugène Marie Bautain, Louis de Bonald and the young Félicité Robert de Lamennais), the Catholic Church directly recommended Thomas for a truthful study in accordance with the Catholic faith. According to William Inge, Thomas "is closer to Plotinus than to the real Aristotle". Already in the 19th century, the philosopher Bertrand Russell criticized his philosophy for having little of the true philosophical spirit: "He does not set out, like the Platonic Socrates, to follow wherever the argument may lead him. [...] Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. [...] I cannot, therefore, admit that he deserves to be placed on the same level as the best philosophers of Greece or of modern times". Anthony Kenny criticized Russell for doing the same, since in the book Principia Mathematica he takes hundreds of pages to prove that two and two make four, something he had believed all his life.

Thomas was recommended by the popes Leo XIII (famous for his encyclical Aeterni Patris) and Pius X (his motu proprio Doctoris Angelici stands out), with the support of the cardinals Désiré Félicien-François-Joseph Mercier, Tommaso Zigliara and Zeferino González, at the same time as the great inspirers of Neo-Thomism emerged: Pierre Mandonnet and Ambroise Gardeil. And, finally, in the 20th century there are the popes Pius XI (Studiorum ducem), John Paul II (trained at the Angelicum), the chancellor Étienne Gilson, Josef Pieper, Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Jacques Maritain, Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges and Sebastiaan Tromp. Alasdair MacIntyre states that Thomas Aquinas's synthesis of the thought of Saint Augustine with that of Aristotle is deeper than other modern theories.

In the Church in general, he is the reference of the Councils of Trent and Vatican I (in the constitution Dei Filius), while he is placed as the paradigm of studies in general at Vatican II (he is again named as the authority to be followed in speculative and metaphysical questions) and in the Code of Canon Law (can. 589 and 1366). In fact, today, numerous writings of the Popes constantly return to him.

He appears in the Lutheran Calendar of Saints.

See also

• Medieval science
• Five Ways
• Scholasticism
• Ethics
• Philosophy
• Christian philosophy
• Medieval philosophy
• Genius (person)
• Metaphysics
• Neo-Thomism
• Principle of double effect
• Summa Theologiae
• Theology
• Thomism
• Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas

Bibliography used

• Tomás de Aquino (2007). Laureano Robles Carcedo y Adolfo Robles Sierra (ed.). Suma contra los gentiles (in español). Vol. 1/2. Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos. ISBN 978-84-7914-893-5.

Books

• Carroll, William E. (2002). La creación y las ciencias naturales, Actualidad de Santo Tomás de Aquino (in español). Traducción de Óscar Velásquez. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile. ISBN 956-14-0705-1.
• Chalmeta, Gabriel (2002). La justicia política en Tomás de Aquino. Una interpretación del bien común (in español). Pamplona: EUNSA. ISBN 84-313-1988-7.
• Chenu, Marie Dominique (1954). Introduction a l’étude de Saint Thomas d’Aquin (in français). París: Institute d'études médiévales.
• Chesterton, Gilbert Keith (1985). Santo Tomás de Aquino (in español). Madrid: Espasa. ISBN 84-239-0020-7.
• Copleston, Frederick Charles (2007). El pensamiento de Santo Tomás (in español). México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. ISBN 978-968-16-1215-3.
• Derisi, Octavio Nicolás (1945). La doctrina de la inteligencia de Aristóteles a Santo Tomás (in español). Buenos Aires: Cursos de cultura católica.
• Egido Serrano, José (2006). Tomás de Aquino a la luz de su tiempo. Una biografía (in español). Madrid: Encuentro. ISBN 978-84-7490-785-8.
• Fabro, Cornelio; Ocáriz, Fernando; Vansteenskite, Clemens; Livi, Antonio (1990). Tomás de Aquino, también hoy (in español). Salamanca: EUNSA. ISBN 84-313-0678-5.
• Forment, Edualdo (2005). Id a Tomás. Principios fundamentales del pensamiento de Santo Tomás (in español). Pamplona: Fundación Gratis Date. ISBN 9788487903694.
• Forment, Edualdo (2002). Santo Tomás de Aquino. El oficio de sabio (in español). Barcelona: Ariel. ISBN 84-344-5227-8.
• González, Ángel Luis (1979). Ser y participación. Estudio sobre la cuarta vía de Tomás de Aquino (in español). Pamplona: EUNSA. ISBN 84-313-0576-2.
• Haya Segovia, Fernando (1997). El ser personal. De Tomás de Aquino a la metafísica del don (in español). Pamplona: EUNSA. ISBN 84-313-1487-7.
• Haya Segovia, Fernando (1992). Tomás de Aquino ante la crítica. La articulación trascendental de conocimiento y ser (in español). Pamplona: EUNSA. ISBN 84-313-1171-1.
• Hugon, Eduardo (1985). Las veinticuatro tesis tomistas (in español). México: Porrúa. ISBN 84-239-0020-7.
• Lachance, Louis (2001). Humanismo político, Individuo y Estado en Tomás de Aquino (in español). Traducción Jorge Cervantes y Juan Cruz Cruz. Pamplona: EUNSA. ISBN 84-313-1872-4.
• Pieper, Josef (2005). Introducción a Tomás de Aquino (Doce Lecciones) (in español). Madrid: RIALP. ISBN 978-84-321-4174-4.
• Quelopana Flores, Gustavo (2006). El realismo metafísico de Tomás de Aquino (in español). Lima: Instituto de la Paz.
• Reale, Giovanni; Antiseri, Dario (2010). Historia de la Filosofía. Patrística y Escolástica (in español). Vol. 1/2. Barcelona: Herder. ISBN 978-84-254-2658-2.
• de Wohl, Louis (2016). La luz apacible. Novela sobre Santo Tomás de Aquino y su tiempo (in español). Madrid: Ediciones Palabra. ISBN 978-84-9061-410-5.

Articles

• Di Ceglie, Roberto (2016). "Faith, reason, and charity in Thomas Aquinas's thought". International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. doi:10.1007/s11153-015-9513-6. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
• Losada Sierra, Manuel (julio-diciembre 2009). "Origen y desarrollo del iusnaturalismo en Tomas de Aquino". Revista de Relaciones Internaciones, Estrategia y Seguridad (in español) (4). ISSN 1909-3063. Retrieved December 7, 1016. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |access-date= and |date= (help)

External links

• "Aquinas, Thomas". Encyclopædia Britannica.

• Entry Tomás de Aquino in Philosophica: online philosophical encyclopedia
• Thomas Aquinas in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Thomas Aquinas in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Bien Común y Política en la Concepción Filosófica de Santo Tomás de Aquino
• Biography and spiritual portrait of Thomas Aquinas
• Free online Summa Theologiae in 5 volumes in PDF at dominicos.org.
• Summa Theologiae, allows consultation of the text by Part, Question and Article
• Bibliotheca Thomistica IntraText Texts, concordances and frequency lists of the Aquinate's works.
• Luventicus The Five Ways of Saint Thomas
• Corpus Thomisticum Complete works in Latin
• Audience of Pope Benedict XVI on Saint Thomas Aquinas, June 2, 2010
• Audience of Pope Benedict XVI on Saint Thomas Aquinas, June 16, 2010
• Audience of Pope Benedict XVI on Saint Thomas Aquinas, June 23, 2010
• Works of Thomas Aquinas in Somni in the collection of the Duke of Calabria:
  • Aurea expositio sancti Pauli apostoli ad Corinthios, digitized Neapolitan codex of 1491 that transcribes Saint Thomas Aquinas's commentaries on the two epistles of Saint Paul to the Corinthians.
  • Beati Thomae Aquinatis De ente et essentia, digitized Italian codex created between 1477 and 1485 that transcribes the works De ente et essentia, Rescriptum super libro De ente et essentia and De fallaciis.
  • Ad regem Cypri de rege et regno, digitized Italian codex of 1486.
  • Brevis Compilatio theologie edita a fratre Thoma de Aquino, digitized Italian codex from before 1487 that transcribes the work "Compendium theologiae".
  • Prima pars secunde partis Summe Theologie beati Thome de Aquino, digitized Neapolitan codex of 1484 that transcribes the Prima pars secunde partis of the Summa Theologica.
  • Quaestiones disputatae, digitized Neapolitan codex created between 1480 and 1493 that transcribes some of Thomas Aquinas's Quaestiones disputatae: De spiritualibus creaturis, De anima, De unione Verbi and De virtutibus.
  • Thome de Aquino commentum in Marci Evangelium, digitized Neapolitan codex of 1491 that transcribes Saint Thomas Aquinas's commentaries on the Gospel of Saint Mark.