Trees in the Garden: Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, and the Order of Justice

Abstract

This paper compares and contrasts two images of the garden of justice. Thomas Aquinas considers the Garden of Eden as a paradigm for justice. He theorises that had humankind never left the garden, justice would have prevailed through the acceptance of a political authority; and that it would have relied upon basic inequalities between humans. Two of these inequalities are explored in particular – those of sex and virtue, by examining Catherine of Siena’s image of the garden. Thomas’s postulation that the sexes are unequal results in the idea that women cannot attain virtue in the same ways as men; nor, Thomas thinks, should they enter into the public realm of politics. For Catherine of Siena, not only can women achieve virtue in the same ways that men can, but they should do so in public when this is feasible and necessary. This is because Catherine thinks that virtues cannot develop unless they take place in a space with others (in community, but also with others in positions of authority). Like Thomas, Catherine develops an organic understanding of the way that citizens need each other, so that a community where all virtues are present is possible. While remaining in keeping with Thomas’s basic understanding that to be human is to be social, or political, she goes further to enact in a very practical way a space for women to be engaged in the more public realm of politics.