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Home , Henology

JAN A. AERTSEN

ONTOLOGY AND HENOLOGY IN MEDIEVAL (THOMAS AQUINAS, MASTER ECKHART AND BERTHOLD OF MOOSBURG)

1. Introduction

" of or philosophy of the One?" With this question commences an article by J. Trouillard, well-known for his studies of Neo­ .l But the writer himself immediately wonders if the question he has raised is not purely academic. Even experienced philosophers, so he says, regard the option with skepticism. Does a philosophy of the One still have philosophical relevance and is the question not in effect passe? Trouillard mentions no names, but I should not be surprised if by "experienced philo­ sophers" he had in mind especially E. Gilson, the great expert on .2 One of Gilson's most important works is Being and Some Philosophers, in which he presents a problem-historical survey of the question of being) In the first chapter ("Being and the One") Gilson traces the development in Greek philosophy that results in the metaphysics of the One in and , a doctrine for which he introduces the term "henology."4 Over against Neo­ platonic metaphysics he sets the "metaphysics of being," more precisely: the "Christian" metaphysics of being. He elucidates this opposition by pointing to the famous 4th proposition of the Liber de causis: Prima rerum creatarum est esse. Gilson comments: This is straight : the first principle is the One, and being comes next as the first of its creatures. Now this is, though self-consistent, yet absolutely inconsistent with the mental universe of Christian thinkers, in which being cannot be the first of all creatures for the good reason that it has to be the Creator Himself, namely, God.5

I J. Trouillard, 'Un et etre', Les etudes philosophiques 15 (1960), 185- 196. 2 Cf. the reference to a "thomiste existentiel" on p. 186. 3 Toronto, 21952. The English version is based on, but not identical with the French original L' ~tre et l' essence, Paris 1948. 4 The term is introduced in L' ~tre et l' essence, 42. Cf. E.A. Wyller, 'Henologie', in: Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie III, Dannstadt 1974, col. 1059. W. Beierwaltes, Denken des Einen. Studien zur neuplatonischen Philosophie und ihrer Wirkungsgeschichte, Frankfurt am Main 1985, 11. 5 Being and Some Philosophers, 30- 31. AND HENOLOGY 121

Gilson's conclusion is: "One cannot think, at one and the same time, as a Neoplatonist and as a Christian." This thesis is provocative. His statement seems more doctrinal than historical in character, that is, seems primarily inspired by Gilson's own systematic concerns. For he has a very defmite view of what "the mental universe of Christian thinkers" is, a view he has summed up in the expression: "metaphysics of Exodus." Constitutive for Christian thought is the passage of Exodus 3, 14, where the Lord says: "I am who I am." "If the Christian God is first, and if He is Being, then Being is first, and no can posit anything above Being."6 Yet Gilson presents his statement about the incompatibility of a meta­ physics of being with a henology as a historical thesis. He sees his view con­ firmed as it were e contrario by the thought of Master Eckhart, for this shows the paradox to which the connection of Neoplatonism with Christian thought can lead. In his first Parisian question Eckhart says, referring to the fourth proposition of the Book of causes, that as soon as we come to being, we come to a creature. Since being belongs to creatures, it cannot be in God, except as in its cause. Thus in God, there is no being, but puritas essendi, a formula which, according to Gilson, obviously means not the purity of being, but the purity from being- an interpretation to which we shall return. In Gilson's view it is paradoxical to define Him Who is as a God in Whom no trace of being can be found. This paradox arises from Eckhart's connection with the henological tradition. No wonder then that the text on which Eckhart would never tire of preaching or of writing is Deuteronomy 6, 4: "Listen Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Gilson concludes: "In his whole commentary on these words two lines seem to me more precious than all the rest: 'Deus est unus: God is one; this is confirmed by the fact that Proclus, too, and the Liber de causis frequently call God the One or Unity. "'7 For Gilson the choice between a "metaphysics of Being" and a "philo­ sophy of the One" has been philosophically and historically settled. Since Gilson's book, however, a certain shift in the discussion seems to have occurred.s Two factors, I believe, are responsible for this. A first factor has been that we have witnessed in the last decades a revival of Neoplatonic studies. Thus the thought of Proclus has been made accessible by translations of the Elementatio theologica and the monographs of W. Beierwaltes and J. Trouillard.9 In the la~ter we find an explicit justification of the henological

6Ibid., 30. 7 Ibid., 38- 39. The exposition on Eckhart is absent in the French version. 8 Cf W. Hankey, 'Aquinas' First Principle: Being or Unity?', Dionysius 4 (1980), 135 - 139. 9 Proclus, The Elements ofTheology, A revised Text with Translation, Introduction and Commentary by E.R. Dodds, Oxford, 21963; French translation by J. Trouillard, Paris 1965; W. Beierwaltes, Proklos. Grundzuge seiner Metaphysik, Frankfurt am Main 1965, 21979; J. Trouillard, L'un et I' dme selon Proclos, Paris 1972; J. Trouillard, La mystagogie de Proclos, Paris 1982.