De Deo Research Articles

Haydn's Jews (review)

Reviewed by: Haydn's Jews Jonathan Sturm Haydn's Jews, by Caryl Clarke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 244 pp. $99.00. Prior to the twentieth century, the intersection of Jews and classical music brings to mind Wagner (for his antisemitism), the Mendelssohn family, Mahler, and perhaps Halevy's early Grand Opera La Juive. Dr. Caryl Clarke (whose prior publication has established her a place in Haydn studies) has recently published a new book that takes this intersection back a century, maintaining there was a persistent perception in Haydn's day that Jewishness was a designation of "Otherness." Cultural exoticism—think alla Turca—in [End Page 166] Haydn's time included the resident Other (the Jew) as well as the non-resident Other (peoples from Turkey and farther East). While her book's title suggests a focused topic relating the resident Other's stage portrayal and reception, she weaves a multitude of tangents into her research and writing. At times these are intriguing; at times they seem self-indulgent, straining the reader's stamina to remember her main topic. The Introduction, an important component of this book, sets the stage and provides a relevant overview. This said, I recommend reading the Introduction and concluding Apologia as a unit. The reader who embarks upon the central chapters having read her opening questions and her conclusions together will likely fare better in the detail of her supporting arguments. In the Introduction, Dr. Clark raises some intriguing questions and contends that Haydn was most likely familiar "with the lexicon of Jewish theatrical representation and that he exploited the comic potential of this well-known stage stereotype in two works dating from the 1750s and 1760s," referring to his (now lost) apprentice-era opera Der krumme Teufel, and his early Esterháza opera Lo speziale. Her desire "to uncover possible dialogues and interconnectivities within and between Gentile and Jewish communities," while acknowledging that many of her arguments "rest primarily on circumstantial evidence," leaves us excited to discover that ethnic conflict and stereotype—now accepted as integral to certain music in the nineteenth century—may be proven or disproven to have been an issue a century earlier. Clark builds her case for the intersection of Jew and (Catholic) Austrian at multiple levels, beginning in Chapter One with cultural context, or the ways Jews were represented on stage prior to and during Haydn's early life. What eventually comes to light is that music most likely made the stage stereotype of the Jew—represented sometimes as Fool (Bernardon), sometimes as syphilitic, limping devil—more intense by accentuating the visual and vocal codes already present in the plays of the day. Chapter Two initiates a detailed discussion of the Jewish ghetto in Eisenstadt, postulating that Haydn may well have acquired considerable familiarity with its space and population as he walked to work and to the apothecary for medicines to treat his chronic gastritis. Clark then discusses his Missa brevis St. Joannis de Deo, composed particularly for the Barmherzige Brüder, who ran a hospital and almshouse on the periphery of Eisenstadt. Catholic church history intersects Jewish locale, and Clark postulates that, in a Missa brevis, the telescoping of text (singing multiple lines of the Creed polyphonically at once) and omission of certain liturgical lines of the full Mass (most notably the lines stating Jesus is the Son of God) may point to these Masses being used as "conversion Masses" for Jews [End Page 167] in attendance who were not quite "ready" for the full Christian doctrine. Issues of speculation arise here, all of which may be moot, however, since the Mass is not an operatic stage work, and thus is really not on point. A discussion of early operas at the newly built Esterháza in the 1760s sets the context for a discussion of Haydn's opera Lo Speziale (The Apothecary) in Chapter Three, in which the main focus is upon the elements of ethnic coding found in both libretto and score that make a case for the lead character, Sempronio, being a pejorative caricature of the local Jewish pharmacist. This is the crux of her book, and she marshals a variety of points to support...

El Tratado teológico de la Creación: de ayer a hoy

The aim of exposition is drawing the evolution from the classic Treaty of the Creation to the present approach. The analysis is carried out into three parts. In the first one it is considered the manual De Deo Creante et Elevante, a clear example of the dogmatic method, in which the Teaching was the starting point of the thelogical thinking. Moreover, the defended perspective is more or less the philosophical analysis of the creation with the consequente oversight of the salvific dimention. In the second part, they study the aspects which have made posible the renewal of the Treaty (the new theological methodology, the christcentrism, and the convinction that the vocation of the mankind is the divine). In that way, it start the configuration of the Theological Anthropology which joins the Christian study of the creation as a salvific gesture with the mankind as a singular creature. In the third moment it is reviewed the most spread postcouncil teaching. El Tratado Teologico de la Creacion: de ayer a hoy

The Livingness of God; or, the Place of Substance and Dynamism in a Theology of the Divine Perfections

AbstractTheological reflection on the divine character is serviceable to the extent that it prevents the livingness of the triune God – and so the subject matter of theology – from disappearing behind rigorous consideration of the perfections themselves. The topic of God's livingness, in other words, informs the locus de Deo as a whole. The present article begins with a biblical‐dogmatic proposal for the form and content of this livingness: God's life in and for the world, it is proposed, is at every point rooted in the life which God has from himself as Father, Son and Spirit. Two clarifications are subsequently offered. An appeal to the livingness of God should be distinguished both from an abstract rejection of ‘substance’ language and from a conceptualization of reality under a general theory of the forward advancement of the world process.

Calvin's theologisches "Leitmotiv" „cognitio dei et nostri“ in der "Institutio" von 1536

CALVIN’S THEOLOGICAL LEITMOTIF „COGNITIO DEI ET NOSTRI“ IN THE INSTITUTES OF 1536The first sentence and fundamental notion of Calvin’s 1536 Institutes „cognitio Dei et nostri“ has, except for Gerhard Ebeling, not been a key feature investigation. Ebeling though, being Lutheran himself, interpreted this sentence in a Lutheran way. However, the summa sacrae doctrinae of which Calvin speaks in this context is a well defined doctrinal structure. Calvin thinks in gradual terms: The part De Deo includes statements about God in general and the part on cognitio nostri includes statements about man and God in particular. Calvin teaches a process of acknowledgement and knowledge: Creation, Fall of man, Law and Gospel follow one another; the Law also incorporates salvation. Calvin thinks in a pastoral way; knowledge of God and of ourselves (i.e. not self-knowledge nor knowledge of man) functions always in an alternating dynamic manner: God — we — God etc. This means that Calvin reflects on God and man in terms of a relationship, in which man is always addressed personally.

Haydn's Conversion Masses

Among the “multiple audiences” for Haydn's Masses were nonbelievers and catechumens: that is, congregants in the process of converting to Catholicism. The clue to this interpretation is Haydn's omission of a crucial article of faith in the Credo settings of four masses. In three settings, the textual omission relates to the conversionary experiences of the patron saint in whose name the mass is offered: St. John of God, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Martin of Tours. A detailed examination of the circumstances surrounding the composition of the Missa St. Joannis de Deo (ca. 1775), a missa brevis honoring the patron saint of the Barmherzige Brüder (Brothers Hospitalers), suggests that Haydn was sensitive to the needs of both the clergy and the congregants to whom they ministered. Haydn's use of brevior practices disguises the textual omission by declaiming different lines of text simultaneously. The resulting polytextuality produces the aural equivalent of Mauscheln, a term associated with the muddle or mixture of language, dialects and accent associated with Yiddish or Jew-speak. In accommodating the needs of transitioning believers, Haydn demonstrates his understanding of the important role played by conversionary ministry in the history of the church.

The Daimones of C. S. Lewis

The eldila of C. S. Lewis's science fiction trilogy hold a unique position in the author's cosmology. Lewis derived these spirits, angels or daimones chiefly from Apuleius’ De Deo Socratis, although the authorial voice cites medieval sources. He, moreover, acknowledged their existence in the material universe. His willingness to accept a pagan divinity results from his understanding of Graeco-Roman myth as a distorted revelation of truth and his own spiritual and intellectual relationship with Apuleius over many years.

Apuleius' Florida : A Commentary (review)

Reviewed by: Apuleius' Florida: A Commentary Gerald Sandy Benjamin Todd Lee . Apuleius' Florida: A Commentary. Texte und Kommentare, 25. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005. Pp. xi, 215. $118.00. ISBN 3-11-017771-4. Apuleius was one of the earliest classical Latin authors to appear in print (1469), occupying fifth place in a chronological listing of editiones principes. His Golden Ass was the subject of one of the earliest Renaissance commentaries on a classical Latin author, that of Filippo Beroaldo (1500). There are now modern commentaries on all the non-philosophical parts of the Apuleian corpus: the so-called "Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius" on the Golden Ass and Vincent Hunink's commentaries on the Apology (1997) and the Florida (2001); on the heels of the last of these follows the book under review. Commentaries themselves have lately attracted attention.1 These recently published volumes trace the genesis and evolution of commentaries on classical, biblical, and scientific works from classical antiquity to the present. What all commentaries have in common is that the author or the work that is the subject of the commentary is an authority (Most 1999: 8). For Beroaldo, Apuleius was a stylistic and moral authority (Beroaldo 1500: 1 and 280). Lee has chosen to focus "above all on Apuleius' artistic and aesthetic use of the Latin language" (vii). He sees the Florida as "the clearest view . . . of the linguistic effects he [i.e., Apuleius] prefers," although this opinion is not consistent with his view expressed on the previous page that occasion dictates style (18–19). The introduction (1–35) does a very good job of treating the components of the traditional accessus ad auctores: the life and times of the author and the nature of the work. Lee favors the title Florida as indicative of the process of excerption rather than of the properties (florid) of the excerpts. The section of the introduction on "The text of the Florida" (30–35) is especially helpful. He has examined the principal manuscripts and is able, therefore, periodically to explain the cause of various troublesome readings. He provides a lucid account of the division of the Florida into four books in the manuscript tradition, a division that is suppressed by modern editors because it does not conform to the separate fragments. He notes that the four-book division is retained in sixteenth-century Florentine editions of the Apuleian corpus; to his list of these editions should be added Quae in toto opere continentur: L. Apuleii . . . Metamorphoseon, sive de Asino aureo libri XI. Floridorum libri IIII. De deo Socratis libellus. Apologiae libri II. Trismegisti dialogus. De Mundo sive de cosmigrophia liber I. Omnes . . . diligentissime recogniti ac castigati [a Bernardo Philomathes, Pisano] (Florentiae: per haeredes Philippi Iuntae [Filippo Giunto, 1522]). The introductory section on Floridian intertexts (26–30) effectively deals with the complexity of the issue. [End Page 309] In the commentary itself each fragment is headed by an introductory "Notes on Fragment . . . ," where Lee outlines the critical issues and positions the fragment in the appropriate literary and rhetorical traditions. On fragment 2, for example, Lee highlights themes derived from Middle Platonism and underscores Apuleius' linking of rhetoric and philosophy. "Notes on Fragment 10" lucidly places the short fragment in the context of Middle Platonist physics. Very few deficiencies detract from the value of Lee's commentary. The note on Florida 5.2 (funerepus) should probably include a reference to Filippo Beroaldo's Annotationes Centum (1488) 74, Nos pro "funere plus" emendavimus "funepeus"; and to Politian's Lamia (1492), where the phrase funerepus periclitatur shows that he had read the Florida (the recto of the third unnumbered folio). Lee has ignored or disregarded a few items of relevant scholarship.2 There are a few infelicities of language, including: "e.g. . . . etc." (13), "center around" (13), "due to" for "because of" (68), "alternate" for "alternative" (64) and the frequent use of "cf." for "see." I noticed only a few typographical errors: "if" for "of" (18), "mih" for "mihi" (145). Gerald Sandy University of British Columbia Footnotes 1. A. Buck and O. Herding, eds., Der Kommentator in der Renaissance, Kommission für Humanismusforschung 1 (Bonn-Badgodesberg 1975); W. Geerlings and C. Schulze, eds...

Die Rede vom verborgenen Gott. Eine Untersuchung zu Nikolaus von Kues mit einem Blick auf Martin Luther

Der ca. 1445 von Nikolaus von Kues verfasste Dialog »De Deo abscondito« widmet sich der erkenntnistheoretischen Frage, ob Gott und was von ihm erkannt werden kann. Damit führt der Kusaner seine Überlegungen insbesondere aus seinem Hauptwerk »De docta ignorantia« fort. Wie dort, so kommt er auch in diesem Dialog zu dem Schluss, Gott als derjenige, der alle Gegensätze in sich vereinige, könne weder via positionis noch via negationis erkannt und beschrieben werden. Vielmehr sei Gott vor aller sagbaren Wahrheit und mehr noch: vor allem Gedanken, der über ihn gedacht werden könne. Darin übertrifft der Kusaner den Anselm'schen Gottesbeweis. Gerade in der Nichterkennbarkeit (und damit der Nichtbeweisbarkeit) erweise sich die Existenz Gottes und liege der Grund, ihn anzubeten. Das Wesen Gottes bleibt für den Menschen in der absconditas. Die Frage, ob die Rede vom verborgenen Gott bei Nikolaus von Kues auf Luther gewirkt habe, lässt sich historisch nicht eindeutig klären, dürfte aber eher unwahrscheinlich sein. Theologisch liegt jedenfalls keine Beeinflussung vor, da Luthers Rede vom deus absconditus kein erkenntnistheoretisches Problem lösen will, sondern in den Kontext des Willens Gottes im Gegenüber zum menschlichen Willen gehört und damit eine soteriologische Frage, von der Offenbarung in Christus aus gedacht, beantwortet.

Kryptochristianismen' in spätantiker paganer Hymnik?

It is highly probable that Latin and Greek religious hymns written in hexameters between the early 4th and the early 6th centuries under a more or less evident influence of theological concepts of neoplatonic origin, contain anti-christian polemics expressed indirectly, that ist to say by alluding to Christian terminology. In doing so, the poets make use of exactly the same apologetical method Christian authors had adopted in the period prior to 313 in order to make their own works acceptable also for pagan readers. To prove the existence of so called 'Cryptochristianisms' (a term created by Jacques Fontaine some thirty years ago) in the pagan hymns of the Late Antiquity, three pieces have been analysed, two of them written in Latin (Hymn to Sol, Anthologia Latina 385 Shackleton Bailey, and Tiberianus, poem 4, the 'Versus Platonis de deo') and one in Greek by the famous neoplatonic philosopher, Proclus (hymn 4).

Paradise Lost and the Concept of Creation

On his visit to Eden, Raphael informs Adam and Eve that the universe was not created ex nihilo but rather de deo: everything was fashioned from out of the singular substance of God. This consubstantial connection to God proves universally ennobling by conferring upon each existent a divine origin and a divine composition. Milton's materialist monism, however, prevents him from participating in orthodox ideas of God that differentiate deity from all else on the basis of a divine ousia unique to him. Unable to locate God's divinity in a material difference, Milton sets God off from every other existent on the basis of creation. God is God because he alone created everything. In short, the ability to give life operates in Paradise Lost as the primary identifier of the one and only God. Everything in the epic hinges on acts of authorship because authorship is the ground of divinity.

READING THE BIBLE IN "SAWLES WARDE" AND "ANCRENE WISSE"

IIn the introduction to Ancrene Wisse, its author draws attention to the structure of his work: 'Nv mine leouc sustren, [MS hoc ich todeale on eahte destinctiuns, bet 3C cleopieð dalen' (fol. 4^sup r^/p. 6: 'Now, my dear sisters, I divide this book into eight distinctions, which you call parts').5 J. A. W. Bennett noted that 'destinctiuns' is borrowed here from a scholastic milieu (and translated for the benefit of the anchoresses).6 The Latin word distinctio ('division, distinction') had a range of meanings including a punctuation mark, section of a book, and drawing a distinction, hence also distinguishing different meanings of a word.7 Distinctio thus describes both a way of organizing information, and a technique for analysing it. Collections of distinctiones - often alphabetical compendia distinguishing the exegetical meanings of scriptural words - were popular in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries.8 The Ancrene Wisse author uses 'destinctiuns' in his introduction to mean 'sections of a book', but later he uses the exegetical method associated with distinctio collections, reflecting their widespread application in reading and citing scriptural texts.9Although distinctiones as a genre became well known in the late twelfth century, the use of similar techniques was not new. An early forerunner of distincio collections is the fragmentary Clavis once attributed to the second-century saint Melito of Sardis. This was commented on and extended by Carolingian writers including Hrabanus Maurus, and by twelfth-century scholars such as Peter the Chanter. The Clavis matches excerpts from the Bible with scriptural, patristic, and later comments, indicating their exegetical significance. The first chapter, for example, headed 'De Deo', starts with general references and then addresses different aspects of God, such as 'Alac Domini, protectio divina. psalmo: In umbra alarum tuarum spcrabo [Psalm lvi.2|.'10 The layers of accreted material in the Clavis are indicative of a wider process of commentary exemplified by Isidore of Seville's encyclopaedic Etymologiae (early seventh century) and Dcfcnsor of Liguge's Liber scintillarum (c.700).11 The Liber scintillarum, for example, provided a list of lemmata for a given topic, drawn from Scripture and the Fathers for use in sermons or excgetical work. Such compendia both complemented and catalogued the patristic exegetical tradition, and formed a basis for the more systematic productions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, though patristic writers had themselves developed similar techniques, as for example Gregory the Great in his Moralia in Iob and Homiliae super Evangelia.12Despite the growth of reference works, however, direct reading and meditating on Scripture and commentaries (the lectio divina) remained central to biblical engagement in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Sophisticated memorial techniques enabled writers to combine references and allude to biblical texts with great freedom, and without the weight of excgetical apparatus, in the knowledge that their audience was equally well versed.13 This deep engagement with Scripture is integral to the process of meditative reading, or rumiatio, which has far-reaching implications for the style and structure of medieval religious writing.14 his classic account of monastic devotional culture, for example, Jean Leclercq defends Bernard of Clairvaux from the charge that his Sermons super Cantica canticorum are too loose in structure by placing them in the context of the monastic collectio, whose informal quality allowed the speaker to travel through the Scriptures as one word, phrase, or image suggested another. Bernard's Sermones use 'hook-words' to trigger this movement and link his ideas together in verbal chains, or catenae.15 Leclercq draws a distinction between these habits of mind, which he calls 'monastic', and an analytical, codified approach which he defines as 'scholastic'. This is to overplay the differences: the 'monastic' Cistercians themselves established a college in Paris, the centre of scholastic activity,16 and in practice most scholars and preachers no doubt combined memorial recollection and ruminatio with written aids to reading and preaching. …

Apuleius: rhetorical works

These rhetorical texts by Apuleius, second-century Latin writer and author of the famous novel Metamorphoses or Golden Ass, have not been translated into English since 1909. They are some of the very few Latin speeches surviving from their century, and constitute important evidence for Latin and Roman North African social and intellectual culture in the second century AD. They are the work of a talented writer who is being increasingly viewed as the major literary artist of his time in Latin. The Apologia, Apuleius' self-defence against a charge of magic delivered in North Africa in AD 158-9, has been well described as 'a masterpiece of the Second Sophistic'. It is a brilliant lively and colourful piece and is the only full Latin oration preserved from the second century AD, and provides important evidence for contemporary North African life. The Florida ('flowery pieces') is a collection of excerpts deriving from an earlier anthology of Apuleian speeches, most apparently delivered at Carthage in the 160s AD. As a whole, these passages offer a unique view of the rhetorical practice of a performing intellectual in Latin in the second century AD. They also give important information on civic life in Carthage through their treatment of proconsuls and the local senate. The De Deo Socratis, probably also from the 160s, is an oration in the form of a popular philosophical lecture on the 'god' of Socrates, the inner voice which, according to Plato, advised him;. This is the only surviving sophistic declamation in Latin. The material is treated brilliantly by Apuleius, being much ornamented with poetic quotation and rhetorical and stylistic pyrotechnics.

Theistic metaphysics and biblical exegesis: Francis Turretin on the concept of God

In this article I argue that the integration of biblical exegesis and metaphysical argumentation in Turretin's doctrine of God is due to his views in epistemology and semantics. Anyone reading Turretin's Locus de Deo will recognize that it is not limited to scriptural exegesis and exploration of biblical concepts. The biblical orientation is, of course, prominent, but in addition he combines it with logic and metaphysics. I argue that by adhering to an instrumental view of reason, and an analogical or partially univocal theory of theistic reference, he is able to construct a concept of God which draws first and foremost on the Christian canon and in addition on logic and metaphysics.

Meditationes philosophicae de Deo, Mundo, Homine, and Meditationes, Theses, Dubia philosophico-theologica (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 311 centrality of antiabstractionism to his program. However, it appears that Muehlmann's stated goal of showing that Berkeley's idealism is well grounded (l 9) has not been met. The second half of the book focuses on a second puzzle: "How does Berkeley manage to convince himself that this astonishing thesis [idealism] can rest tensionless, or at least without contradiction, side by side with common-sense realism?" (3). Here, one might object that Muehlmann has overemphasized Berkeley's commitment to the dictates of common sense. Most of Berkeley's claims about the commonsensical nature of his philosophy are essentially comparative: his system is more commonsensical than materialism because it is not subject to a similar collapse into scepticism. Many of Berkeley's efforts to reconcile his system with the "plain man's view" appear simply to be damage control. However, Muehlmann provides a useful inventory of the resources Berkeley provides for accommodating realism and, when he finds them wanting, supplies an ingenious Berkeley-esque account of the nature of bodies and our perception of them, designed to secure realism. According to this account, bodies are constitutedby objective laws of nature, and our awareness of bodies is notional. Muehlmann argues that for this account to be workable, notions must be acts of the mind, distinct from their objects but intrinsically directed towards them, a conclusion that he suggests is incompatible with Berkeley's nominalism. The focus of the book is intentionally narrow, surveying only Berkeley's ontological views in the early (pre-i 714) works, and its treatments of Berkeley's attack on mechanism and his views on causation are disappointingly brief. However, Muehlmann mines Berkeley's philosophical notebooks to good effect, and packs his chapters with provocative theses, metaphysical analyses, and significant criticism of other commentators (sometimes to the point that the reader may temporarily lose sight of the central thread). Lls^ DowNInG University of Pennsylvania Theodor Ludwig Lau. MeditationesphilosophicaedeDeo,Mundo, Homine, and Meditationes, Theses, Dubia philosophico-theologica. Philosophische Clandestina der deutschen Aufkllirung. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 199~. Pp. 378. Cloth, DM 245. Had Theodor Ludwig Lau published his Meditationes de Deo, Mundo, Homine (1717) a century earlier, he probablywould have suffered the same fate as Giordano Bruno or Giulio Cesare Vanini. But the righteous citizens of Frankfurt am Main contented themselves with execrating, confiscating, and burning Lau's little treatise and with banishing its author. In his introduction, Lau himself had foreseen the risks, yet proceeded to publish a scathing socio-political critique even as he sought employment with the new Elector of the Palatinate. Moreover, he afterwards submitted a somewhat disingenuous appeal of his condemnation to the faculty of the University at Halle, only to respond intemperately to their judgment. Two years later he published a second, no 312 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 32:9 APRIL 199 4 less obnoxious, if redundant, treatise, the Meditations, Theses, Dubia philosophicotheologica . Lau's treatises have now been reprinted as the first volume of the series "Philosophische Clandestina der deutschen Aufkl~irung," which will also include the clandestinely circulated works of Friedrich Wilhelm Stosch, Gabriel Wagner, Urban Gottfried Bucher and Johann Georg Wachter. Martin Pott, author of this volume's introduction, regards Lau as perhaps the most important of this group of freethinkers and seeks to rescue him from both contemporary and later misrepresentation, misinterpretation and neglect. Supporting documents include: the retraction exacted from Lau by the Consistory at K6nigsberg in 1728; Christian Thomasius's history of Lau's dealings with the University of Halle, Elender Zustand einesin dieAtheistereyverfallenenGelehrten;and a refutation of Lau's first treatise by the theologian Johann Konrad Arnold. By the standards of clandestine literature, Lau offers few original ideas? His materialist physics, belief in the plurality of worlds, rejection of the biblical account of the Creation and Fall, denial of the priority of Christianity, adoption of a pantheistic and deistic theology, and demands for a "rational" religion--these are all familiar motifs. His theories of religious impostorship and the political uses of religion had already been forcefully expressed and were being widely disseminated via the clandestine classic, The Treatiseof the ThreeImpostors. Lau's originality lies in how he embeds his socio...

Trinity and Creation in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas

TRINITY AND CREATION IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS DAVID A. WALKER* St. Francis' Church Nottingham, England Preface IT IS BY NO MEANS fortuitous that, in the Summa Theologiae , St. Thomas's treatise concerning 'the procession of divine persons ' is succeeded immediately by the treatise concerning ' the coming forth of creatures from God '. If both the freedom of the creative act and the full consubstantiality of the divine persons are to be safeguarded, then, for St. Thomas, these two types of ' procession ' must be distinguished at all costs. But although distinct, they are also related in St. Thomas's thought. It is with this fundamental relation that we shall be primarily concerned here. Therefore, the question we shall seek to explore in this study concerns the way in which St. Thomas's doctrine of the Trinity determines, informs and impinges upon his theological understanding of the created order. Creation: The ' One God, and the ' Triune God, St. Thomas's celebrated identification of essence and existence in God has important significance for St. Thomas's doctrine of creation. God, according to St. Thomas, is Creator in virtue of his nature or essence-although, of course, this fact in no way undermines the sovereign freedom and contingency of the creative act. Because it is God's nature simply to be, all being or existence outside God is ultimately traceable back to God as its source *The Rev. Dr. David A. Walker was Team Vicar of St. Francis', Clifton, Nottingham at the time of his death in 1989. This paper was given to The Thomist on his behalf by Dr. Brian Marshall of Westminster College, Oxford. 443 444 DAVID A. WALKER and first cause. Therefore, to speak of God as Creator is to speak of God's essence in operation: " Hence creation is God's action by reason of his existence, which is his very nature ... " 1 The trinitarian significance of this association of creative activity primarily with the divine essence is far reaching. In so far as the divine essence is common to, and identical in, the persons of the Trinity, St. Thomas can maintain that "creative action is not peculiar to any one Person, but is common to the whole Trinity." 2 Creation, therefore, is an act in which the triune God acts as the one God; in which a trinitarian unity of operation corresponds to a trinitarian unity of being. Consequently , the creative act primarily "has to do with the unity of nature, but not with the distinction of persons." 3 However, as we shall subsequently show, this is not St. Thomas's final word on the matter. In the light of this, it is possible to discern in the theology of St. Thomas a fairly clear distinction between truths pertaining to the unity of the divine essence and truths pertaining to the trinity of divine persons. This, indeed, is the basis for the distinction between the ' one God ' (de Deo uno) and the ' triune God' (de Deo trin:o) which operates in his thought. Indeed, this distinction is evident even in the structural arrangement of the Summa Theologiae itself. This distinction is paralleled and determined by the distinction between divine truths accessible to reason and truths accessible to man exclusively through revelation and faith, i.e., between 'natural' and 'revealed' theology. These two distinctions, furthermore, are paralleled by, and culminate in, a third distinction, namely that between nature and grace. But although there is a definite parallel between these three distinctions, it is only an approximate one and must not be construed as if it were an exact correspondence, i.e., as if the truths 1 la, Q.45, a.6. All quotations from the Summa are from Summa Theologiae, Latin text and English translation, Blackfriars edition, gen. ed. Thomas Gilby, 61 vols. (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1964-81). 2 Ibid. s la, Q.32, a.1. THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 445 pertaining to the one God were exhaustively co-extensive with the spheres of reason and nature, or those relating to the triune God with faith and grace. The fact that reason and nature do not exhaust the realm of truth concerning the one God the...

Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo (Hob. XXII:7) "Little Organ Mass" with Michael Haydn's Prolongation of the Gloria

Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo (Hob. XXII:7) "Little Organ Mass" with Michael Haydn's Prolongation of the Gloria

St. Thomas Aquinas’s Theory of the Act of Understanding

ST. THOMAS AQIDNAS'S THEORY OF THE ACT OF UNDERSTANDING N EO-THOMISTS HAVE generally held the interpretation that St. Thomas explained understanding as a vital act in which the intellect moved itself to know another as other. That this interpretation still holds sway is evident from Leslie Dewart's statement that: . . . for St. Thomas, for instance, cognition occurred when one being acted upon another, if the other was a knower-that is, if it had the power to take advantage of this activity upon itself to posit within itself an immanent act the formal nature of which was to render him (intentionally) one with the known, that is one with that which was originally other, to which the knower was united precisely as other.1 From Dewart's statement it is obvious that the interpretation of Aquinas's theory of understanding in terms of vital act is closely associated in the minds of those who hold it with the belief that Aquinas conceived of knowledge as the way for a knower to become another as other. However sound that belief may be, it is certainly questionable that Aquinas ever analyzed understanding as a vital act. Bernard Lonergan showed some time ago that not only did Aquinas never employ the notion of vital act to explain understanding, but he never even used the notion at all. Self-movement in the soul or in any of its potencies was a notion so alien to Aquinas's thought that he precluded it from life in general and in any of its manifestations in either God or man.2 In fact, Lonergan added, in Aquinas's 1 Leslie Dewart, The Foundations of Belief (NewYork: Herder & Herder, 1969), p. 74 (emphasis in the original). • Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Divinarum personarum conceptionem analogicam (Ad 88 THEORY OF THE ACT OF UNDERSTANDING 89 time the advocates of vital act were his adversaries, the so-called Augustinian theologians, and the leading proponent o£ the notion in the years immediately thereafter was Peter John Olivi, a bitter critic of Aquinas.3 Yet, except for the ratification of Lonergan's reinterpretation by a couple of his followers,4 there is little indication that the interpretation of Aquinas's theory of understanding in terms of vital act is any less dominant today than before Lonergan first challenged it. Therefore, I propose to show, first, how necessary the notion of vital act is to the Neo-Thomistic theory of understanding, but how contrary it is to St. Thomas's. Then I shall indicate how Bernard Lonergan's reinterpretation of St. Thomas's theory of understanding led him to deny that Aquinas had ever employed the notion of vital act in it. Finally, I shall present an interpretation of how St. Thomas actually arrived at the notion of act that he used to explain understanding. The cumulative effect of this argument will be to show, I believe, that Aquinas based his theory of understanding upon his own reflections and not upon the postulate of a vital act in the intellect.5 THE NEo-THOMISTIC INTERPRETATION OF ST. THoMAs's THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING IN TERMs oF VITAL AcT In Neo-Thomism the interpretation of St. Thomas's theory of understanding has been virtually indistinguishable from an analysis of understanding itself. Partly this has been because Neo-Thomism originated as a movement from Leo XIII's manusum auditorum. Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University, 1957), pp. 248-52; De Deo Trino. 1: Pars systematica (third revised edition of Divinamm personarU'rn ... Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University, 1964), pp. 268-72. 3 Divinamm personarum, pp. 247-48; De Deo Trino, p. 267. • Frederick Crowe, " Complacency and Concern in the Thought of St. Thomas," Theological Studies, 20 (1959), 14-16; cf. footnote 33; William Stewart, "Abstraction : Conscious or Unconscious? The Ve1·bum Articles," Continuum, 2 (1964), 411. 5 This article is a reworking of part of a dissertation entitled The Meaning of Act in Understanding: A Study of the Thomistic Notion of Vital Act and Thomas Aquinas's Original Teaching, which I defended at the Gregorian University in 1969; an excerpt has been published by the Officium Libri Catholici, Rome. 90 WILLIAM E. MURNION date that Catholic philosophers and...

The Process of Human Intellectual Love, Or Spirating A Pondus

THE PROCESS OF HUMAN INTELLECTUAL LOVE, OR SPIRATING A PONDUS IN IDS REFLECTIONS on the procession of love in God Cardinal Billot raises an interesting question about the process of creatures' intellectual love. That question might be stated in this manner: Does a distinct reality exist within the loving will which corresponds analogously to the mental word produced by the intellect in its act of knowing? 1 He is considering human love and knowledge insofar as they offer to us a foundation for our understanding something about the Divine Processions according to knowledge and love. Within human knowledge, of course, our normal mode of knowing consists in producing an immanent term which we call the mental word. This word is an apprehension of or judgment about something. Some reality which does or can have extramental existence is produced intentionally within the intellect as known. Through this mental word we look intellectually at the reality itself to enjoy a vision of it. Let us suppose on the other hand that in our will there is an operation of love? Or rather, on the contrary, must we confess within our will a similar intentional term of the beloved? Does that being which is loved really exist in some intentional way within our appetite? If so, is it really distinct from the operation of love? Or rather, on the conrtary, must we confess that no such term is produced within our act of loving? Cardinal Billot is prepared to concede that such a distinct volitional term does not exist within our love. Although I 1 De Deo Uno et Trino, Ludovico Billot, S. J. (Rome: Gregorian University, 1935), p. 365. Among other and more recent studies on love is The Experience of Love, by Jules Toner (Washington-Cleveland: Corpus Books, 1968). Although this is an interesting analysis of the total experience particularly of " radical love " and contains a remarkable criticism of other works on love, it does not explicitly dwell upon the exact question treated here. 39 40 WILLIAM ROSSNER respect Billot as a fellow Jesuit who loves St. Thomas Aquinas, I should like to disagree, amiably, however, as becomes brothers. Such a concession might seem to reduce our experience of an impulse toward what we love to some kind of myth. It might also appear to render less intelligible our process thought about Divine Love and the second procession according to which the Father and Son are the principle of the Holy Spirit. As favoring his position Billot cites a text of St. Thomas Aquinas: "The will does not have something proceeding from itself in the manner of something produced; but the intellect has in itself something proceeding from it, not only in the manner of operating but also in the manner of something produced." 2 I should prefer rather to say that in normal human speculative knowledge the intellect conceives a concept of something or speaks a mental word through which we know extra-mental reality. This grounds our human supernatural knowledge of the analogy in God where the Father speaks a word which is a generating of the Son who is the second Person of the Holy Trinity. And similarly in human intellectual love the will produces a distinct term which is intentionally the beloved; and this too grounds our knowledge of the procession according to love in God whereby the Father and Son breathe forth the Holy Spirit. I. THE QuESTION OF THE PROCEss OF LovE The problem raised here is interesting to anyone who finds attraction in the subject of love as it is found in creatures or in God. When raised to trinitarian heights it allures not only dogmatic theologians but also philosophers. In God each procession grounds a distinct person. The procession according to knowledge becomes generation of a Son from the Father. The procession according to love, although it grounds the distinct Holy Spirit as proceeding from Father and Son, nevertheless is not itself generation. In other words, within the • De Veritate, q. 4, a.~. ad 7. PROCESS OF HUMAN INTELLECTUAL LOVE 41 divinity, while the procession according to knowledge is itself a generation, the procession according to love is not itself a generation. The...

REVIEWS

REVIEWS in this articles: A Companion to Wittgenstein's‘Tractatus'. By Max Black. At the Origins of the Thomistic Notion of Man (The Saint Augustine Lecture, 1962). By Anton C. Pegis. Logique de la Foi. By Henri Bouillard. The Dynamic Element in the Church. By Karl Rahner, S.J. Translated by W. J. O'Hara. Éléments de théologie spirituelle. By Karl Rahner, S.J. De Deo Trino, I: Pars Dogmatica; II: Pars Systematica. By Bernard Lonergan, S.J. The Sources of Acts. By Jacques Dupont. Early Christian Rhetoric. By Amos N. Wilder. Saint Dominic and His Times. By M. H. Vicaire, o.p. Translated by Kathleen Pond. The Totalitarian Threat: the Fruition of Modern Individualism as seen in Hobbes and Rousseau. By Eugene J. Roesch. Miscellanea Taparelli: Raccolta di studi in onore di Luigi Taparelli d'Azeglio, S.I. nel primo centenario dalla morte. A cura della Pontificia Università Gregoriana e della Civiltà Cattolica. Power and Poverty in the Church. By Yves Congar, o.p. Translated by Jennifer Nicholson. Married Love. By Émile‐Joseph De Smedt. Translated by Jennifer Nicholson. The Experience of Marriage. Edited by Michael Novak. The Distress in the Church and the Task of the Religious (Report of the First International Congress of Pro Mundi Vita, Essen, 1963). The Church and Industrial Society, by Gregor Siefer. Religion at Oxford and Cambridge, A History c 1160‐c 1960. By V. H. H. Green. The Preacher's Encyclopedia. Compiled and edited under the supervision of Cardinal Angel Herrera, Bishop of Málaga. English version translated and edited by Mgr David Greenstock. Volume I: Lent and Eastertide. Paul Couturier and Unity in Christ. By Geoffrey Curtis.

Guilt and Value Philosophy

GUILT AND VALUE PHILOSOPHY In a Decree of the Holy Office, August 24th, 1690, Alexander VIII condemned the following propositions under the title "Errores de bonitate actus et de peccato philosophico" Bonitas objectiva consistit in convenientia objecti cum natura rationali: formali vero in conformitate actus cum regula morum. Ad hoc sufficit, ut actus moralis tendat in finem ultimum interpretative. Hunc homo non tenetur amare ñeque in principio ñeque in decursu vitae suae moralis. (Declarata et damnata uti haeretica.) Peccatum philosophicum seu morale est actus humanus disconveniens naturae rationali et rectae rationi; theologicum vero et mortale est transgressio libera divinae legis. Philosophicum, quantumvis grave, in illo, qui Deum vel ignorât vel de Deo actu non cogitât, est grave peccatum, sed non est offensa Dei, ñeque peccatum mortale dissolvens amicitiam Dei, ñeque aeterna poena dignum. (Declarata et damnata uti scandalosa, temeraria, piarum aurium offensiva, et errónea) (Denzinger 1290). This very clear condemnation of the concept of philosophical sin by denying that there is any distinction between it and theological sin still allows the philosopher-theologian to speculate with the aid of revelation on the real hideousness of sin. The real viciousness of sin and wickedness can reveal itself to one who has a penetration of the idea of macula contained in the concept of peccatum. Any ethical system which refuses to recognize the seriousness of human sinfulness is in disconformity with the facts of human psychology and the testimony of human experience. The preoccupation at the present time in the theatre and the cinema as well as in literature with the harshest reality of tragedy forces us to reconsider the problems of philosophy associated with moral evil. In particular, we would like to point out that the value-philosophy of Von Hildebrand explores very profoundly the ugliness of sin and human frailty. We can shed some light upon the nature and quality of the macula implied in every sin by subjecting to a critical analysis whatever reason and faith offer on this point. There is no reason to deny that our moral reaction to wickedness appears to us as a genuinely ethical reaction . It is ridiculous to say that theology has contaminated ethics and moral philosophy with the notion of sin. From the condemnation of Alexander VIII and from our own study of the problem we would be 15·227 228T. A. WASSMER inclined to agree with Professor A. E. Taylor (The Faith of a Moralist, p. 163) that moral philosophy has introduced the notion of sin into theology. Reason corroborates the teaching of faith in the reality of sin. It was Pascal who said that man is more incomprehensible without the mystery of Original Sin than the mystery is incomprehensible to him. Cardinal Newman sets out an argument in much the same terms and although the reasoning is not absolutely conclusive it is not altogether valueless. Therefore we might admit that while reason can offer no sole demonstration of the root explanation for all the contradictions in man and assign to it the name of Original Sin, yet there are distinct characteristics which distinguish our human experience of guilt and wrongdoing from any other experience. Other creatures than man know no wants beyond their assigned limits but man's needs and desires are insatiable and he finds in himself the deepest misery associated with the loftiest pretensions. Shakespeare could say in one of his plays: "I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me." St. Paul so frequently refers to himself as a sinner: "Si dixerimus quoniam peccatum non habemus, ipsi nos seducimus." We are concerned here with the element of macula in sin whether that sin be original or actual; however the conclusions will be more acceptable to the evidence of moral psychology if we restrict ourselves to actual sin. What are the characteristics which sharply demarcate moral guilt from non-guilt? What are the radical explanations for these differences ? Let us concentrate on the stain, the macula in every personal transgression. The notion of macula in personal sin will be more easily discernible than in the original sin with which each...