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Home , Boethius, Reginald of Piperno

Four

ST. AND

1. Life of St. Thomas The introduction of in the world was not facile or peaceful. The on which the ancient and the new thinking had to confront them- selves were the conception of a autonomous in its own processes: a , unmoved motor, wholly by itself (aseity) in its natural egoism; a reality of things, not of spirits; a divine action resembling the work of the human artificer; the surreptitious dualism between pure act and first matter; and a universal necessity controlled not by the free but by chance. Human be- ings and their no longer are the center of reflection; Aristotelian natural- ism is. Averroism has already consolidated its polemic on the contrast be- tween reason and , a rational universal and a living individuality, of the world and creation, death and the immortality of the , and between the necessary laws of things and providence. An orientation of Christian thought in a Platonic sense seemed highly justifiable. In the Sermones, had declared that was essen- tially concerned with the things above, while Aristotle was mostly interested with the things below (Ille enim principaliter aspiciebat ad superiora, hic vero principaliter ad inferiora). Thomas of York declared that the Platonic position was totally consonant with the thought of Augustine (vide igitur posi- tionem Platonis per omnia consonam sententiae Augustini) and that Augustine had indicated the way to go. What dominated in were the desire for the divine and the need of escaping from this world. These im- pulses turned into the denial of the finite that Christianity could not indis- criminately accept because Christianity was born for the redemption of the finite. Medieval thought had already acquired and modified Platonism accord- ing to its own exigencies. Etienne Gilson said, “In order to explain Thomism we must admit the rational value, or its appearance, of the idea of nature. The historian faces a pure philosophical decision.” The expression intends to point out an original orientation intended for the valuing of experience. Is it possi- ble to conciliate with the God of Israel, with the God of love and of which will speak, the idea of one or more natures, self- sufficient and capable of causing? “God,” answered Aquinas, “is capable of producing all the natural effects, but other causes are not superfluous. Their 58 HISTORY OF existence is not due to a defect in power but from an excess of goodness. Be- cause of his goodness, God wished to communicate to things its own similar- ity in such way that they not only exist but are also capable of causing at their own turn.” The efficacy of the secondary causes, cooperators with God (dei sumus adiutores), established the value of the concept of nature, and in turn established the value of the . In this kind of , is revealed. This understanding of nature points to God, and physics points to : “All nature is intended for the knowledge of God as its ultimate goal and, for this reason, is known as divine science” (tota ordinatur ad Dei cognitionem sicut ad ultimum finem; unde et scientia divina nominatur). Thomism, in this sense, in its effort to continue the absorption of the Aristote- lianism that had already been initiated earlier in the field of physics and meta- physics, aimed also at finding the answers to the demands of Christian thought. Thomas Aquinas was probably born between one of the last months of 1225 or one of the first months of 1226 at Roccasecca, near Aquino, not far from Monte Cassino. In Monte Cassino he received the first rudiments of education and then moved to where, according to his biographer Wil- liam of Tocco, his teachers were Martin of Dacia for , and Peter of Ire- land for physics. Between 1243 and 1244, Thomas joined the Order of the Dominicans. In 1245, he was a student in Paris under Albert the Great, whom he followed to Cologne in 1248. By 1252, he was back in Paris where he re- mained until 1259 in the midst of the contrasts created by the maneuverings of William of Saint-Amour, who was trying to exclude the regular Dominicans and from teaching. After his troubled first period of teaching in Paris (1256–1259), Thomas taught for ten years (1259–1268) at the Studium Curiae, moving from Anagni to Orvieto, to Viterbo. In this way, he came in touch with William of Moer- becke and established his friendship with . After a new teaching period in Paris (1269–1272), he returned to teach in Naples, . He became ill on his way to the General Council of Lyons and died at Fossa- nuova on 7 March 1274. Thomas had completed a gigantic work, though he was only forty-nine years old. His writings include quaestiones disputatae (Disputed Questions, 1256–1272), quaestiones quodlibetales (1256–1271), commentaries on Aristotle, , Pseudo-Dionysius, De Causis (On the Causes), contra Gentiles (1261–1264), and De substantiis separatis (1272–1273). In 1266, he began the that remained incom- plete at his death but was enriched with the Supplementum of Reginald of Piperno. The De regimine principum (1265–1266) ended with the fourth chapter of the second book and received a conclusion written by Tholomeus of Lucca. Thomas produced also a series of short works: De ente et essentia (On Being and , 1256), the De aeternitate mundi contra murmurantes (On the Eternity of the World against Murmurers), and De unitate intellectus (On the Unity of the Intellect, 1270).