Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Vitae Fontes Praecipuae ed. by Angelico Ferrua, O. P.

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 605 philosophical choice made by P. Ricoeur is fundamentally different from the one made by K. W. Bolle. Professor Bolle has chosen humor to explain the myth. Professor Ricoeur has taken the seriousness of the quest for truth as his guideline. Having been a student of Professor Ricoeur myself, the reading of Professor Bolle's book has had a disturbing influence on our vision of the problem of myth. We find the disturbance, however, very promising and strangely enough profoundly liberating. The book The Freedom of Man in Myth has itself a capacity of making free! Georgetown University Washington, D. C. WILFRIED VER EECKE Sancti Thomae Aq1tinatis Vitae Fontes Praecipuae. Edited by ANGELICO FERRUA, 0. P., with an introduction by ANTOINE DoNDAINE, 0. P. Alba: Edizioni Domenicane, 1968. Pp. 411. L.2.500. The present volume makes conveniently accessible the chief sources for the life of Thomas Aquinas. Such a volume has long been needed, since the earlier edition of D. Priimmer and M. H. Laurent (Toulouse, s. d.), whose texts this volume reproduces, has long been out print and is not found on the shelves of most libraries. The texts are not critical but will satisfy all but the professional historian until a critical text can be produced. As the title indicates, this volume does not present the full dossier of early documents for the life of Thomas; nevertheless, it publishes the two major primary sources that have value: the Historia beati Thomae de Aquino of William of Tocco, and the Processus canonizationis sancti Thomae Aquinatis, Neapoli. It also includes one other major work, the Legenda sancti Thomae Aquinatis of Bernard Gui, which adds nothing to Tocco's work except better organization and a finer style. Concluding the volume are four short selections concerning Thomas: a) from the Historia Ecclesiastica Nova and b) the Annales of Ptolomey of Lucca, c) from the Vitae Fmtrum of Gerard of Frachet, and d) from the Bonum Universale of Thomas of Cantimpre. Of these only Ptolomey's passages, coming from an eyewitness who was a historian, have historical value. These early sources are preceded by the text of Pius V's bull: Mirabilis Deus, declaring Thomas a doctor of the Church, 1567. The editor introduces each selection with a short biographico-historical study, numbers the paragraphs of all the selections consecutively, and provides several indices and a select bibliography. The sources omitted are the Life of Thomas (1340) by Peter Calo (a reworking of Tocco) and the canonization process at 606 BOOK REVIEWS Fossanova (13~1), which dealt solely with posthumous miracles of Thomas. The documents here published have not only a hagiographical interest (the major pieces were produced in connection with the canonization of Thomas, 1323) but also record many passages of great human quality. The Historia of Tocco and the Naples Process have independent value and complement each other, despite a few contradictions in minor details, e. g., the venue of a cure. The canonization process took place in Naples in September, 1319, forty-five years after the death of Thomas. Despite this distance in time, the depositions have an exceptional value by reason of the quality and character of the forty-two lay and clerical witnesses. Some of them were men eminent in their professions: the Abbot of Fossanova; William of Tocco, Dominican prior of Benevento; John of Naples, master of theology at Paris; John di Blasio, judge and friend of the Queen of Sicily; John of Gaeta, doctor of laws; Bartholomew, logethete and protonotary of the kingdom of Sicily. Furthermore, seventeen of the witnesses had either lived with Thomas or heard him preach or teach. Judge John di Blasio had known him for ten years and conversed with him frequently during half that time. The Dominican Conrad of Suessa had known him at Rome and Orvieto. The remaining witnesses relate information they had received from people who had been close to Thomas. Bartholomew of Capua got the substance of his testimony from John of St. Julien, the prior who gave Thomas the habit and was captured with him by the brothers of Thomas when he joined the Dominicans. Reginald of Piperno, the friend and faithful assistant of...