The Mediaeval Mind (Volume 2 of 2) / A History of the Development of Thought and Emotion in the Middle Ages

by Henry Osborn Taylor

As to res, one must bear in mind, as Augustine says, that some things are to be enjoyed (fruendum), as from love we cleave to them for their own sake; and others are to be used (utendum) as a means; and still others to be both enjoyed and used.

“Those which are to be enjoyed make us blessed (beatos); those which are to be used, aid us striving for blessedness.... We ourselves are the things which are both to be enjoyed and used, and also the angels and the saints.... The things which are to be enjoyed are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and so the Trinity is summa res.”

So the Lombard’s first two Books consider res in the descending order of their excellence; the third considers the Incarnation, which, if not itself a sacrament, and the chief and sum of all sacraments, is the source of those of the New Law, considered in the fourth Book. The scheme is single and orderly; the difficulty will be in actually arranging the various topics within it. Endeavouring to do so, the Lombard in Book I. puts together the doctrine of the Trinity, the three Persons composing it, and their attributes and qualities. Book II. considers in order, the Angels, and very briefly, the work of the Six Days down to the creation of man; then the Christian doctrina as to man is presented: his creation and its reasons; the creation of his anima; the creation of woman; the condition of man and woman before the Fall; their sin; next free-will and grace. Book III. treats of the Incarnation, in all the aspects in which it may be known, and of the nature of Christ, His saving merit, and the grace which was in Him; also of the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, the seven gifts of the Spirit, and the existence of them all in Christ. Book IV. considers the Sacraments of the New Law: Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, ordination to holy orders, marriage. It concludes with setting forth the Resurrection and the Last Judgment.

The first chapters of Genesis were the ultimate source of the Lombard’s actual arrangement. And the Summa will follow the same order of treatment. One may perceive how naturally the adoption of this order came to Christian theologians by glancing over Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram.[445] This Commentary was partially constructive, and not simply exegetical; and afforded a cadre, or frame, of topical ordering, which could readily be filled out with the contents of the Sentences or even of the Summa: God, in His unity and trinity, the Creation, man especially, his fall, the Incarnation as the saving means of his restoration, and then the Sacraments, and the final Judgment unto heaven and hell. One may say that this was the natural and proper order of presenting the contents of the Christian sacra doctrina.

So the great Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas adopts the same order which the Lombard had followed. The Pars prima begins with defining sacra doctrina.[446] It then proceeds to consider God—whether He exists; then treats of His simplicitas and perfectio; next of His attributes; His bonitas, infinitas, immutabilitas, aeternitas, unitas; then of our knowledge of Him; then of His knowledge, and therein of truth and falsity; thereupon are considered the divine will, love, justice, and pity; the divine providence and predestination; the divine power and beatitude.

All this pertains to the unitas of the divine essence; and now Thomas passes on to the Trinitas personarum, or the more distinctive portions of Christian theology. He treats of the processio and relationes of the divinae Personae, and then of themselves—Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and then of their essential relationship and properties. Next he discusses the missio of the divine Persons, and the relations between God and His Creation. First comes the consideration of the principle of creation, the processio creaturarum a Deo, and of the nature of created things, with some discussion of evil, whether it be a thing.

Among created beings, Thomas treats first of angels, and at great length; then of the physical creation, in its order—the work of the six days, but with no great detail. Then man, created of spiritual and corporeal substance—his complex nature is to be analysed and fathomed to its depths. Thomas discusses the union of the anima ad corpus; then the powers of the anima, in generali and in speciali—the intellectual faculties, the appetites, the will and its freedom of choice; how the anima knows—the full Aristotelian theory of cognition is given. Next, more specifically as to the creation of the soul and body of the first man, and the nature of the image and similitude of God within him; then as to man’s condition and faculties while in a state of innocence; also as to Paradise.

This closes the treatment of the creatio et distinctio rerum; and Thomas passes to their gubernatio, and the problem of how God conserves and moves the corporeal and spiritual; then concerning the action of one creature on another, and how the angels are ranged in hierarchies, and although purely spiritual beings, minister to men and guard them; then concerning the action of corporeal things, concerning fate, and the action of men upon men.

Here ends Pars prima. The first section of the second part (Prima secundae) begins. In a short Prologue Thomas says:

“Because man is made in the image of God, that is, free in his thought and will, and able to act through himself (per se potestativum), after what has been said concerning the Exemplar, God, and everything proceeding from the divine power according to His will, it remains for us to consider His image, to wit, man, in so far as he is the source or cause (principium) of his own works, having free-will and power over them.”