When Pope Leo XIII used his 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris to identify St. Thomas as “the chief and master” (AP # 17) of all the scholastic doctors, to recall the ‘exceptional tributes of praise and the most ample testimonials’ previous popes had attributed to his wisdom (AP # 21), and to highlight the ‘singular honour’ the Church's ecumenical councils had bestowed upon St Thomas (AP # 22), it is not surprising that the Thomists who followed in the encyclical's wake took it as their manifesto and point of departure. What does surprise, though, is just how voluminous the subsequent scholarly assessment of Aquinas's use of sources became; Aquinas's use of Aristotle, Plato, St Augustine, Averroes, and Avicenna, just to mention a few sources, was the focus of much attention, and Aristotle's role in particular occasioned much debate.
The French Studium Le Saulchoir, first established at Kain in Belgium in 1904 and later transferred in 1937 to Étoilles near Paris, was a case in point. Initially friars like Ambroise Gardeil OP (1859‐1931), Marie‐Dominique Roland‐Gosselin OP (1883‐1934) and Reginald Garrigou‐Lagrange OP (1877‐1964) held sway. They championed a largely — but in Roland‐Gosselin's case, at least, not exclusively — speculative Thomism and they used Aquinas's Aristotelian epistemology to challenge modern post‐Cartesian philosophy. Following Garrigou‐Lagrange's 1909 assignation to the Angelicum and Roland‐Gosselin's untimely death, however, a younger generation of French Thomists such as Marie‐Dominique Chenu OP (1895‐1990) and Yves Congar OP (1904‐1995) became highly influential at Le Saulchoir. These friars were inspired by Marie‐Joseph Lagrange's OP (1855‐1938) historical‐critical studies of the bible and they wanted to apply a greater historical sensitivity to their study of Aquinas. Their Thomism, though, was less concerned to argue directly with contemporary philosophies, and with regard to Aquinas's sources preferred to focus attention on non‐Aristotelian theological sources that better served theological concerns.
These two approaches, then, in part because they had quite different concerns, ended up taking quite different views of the role of Aristotle in Aquinas's thought: Gardeil and his successors put Aristotle at the heart of Aquinas's thought, Chenu et al did not. The impasse at Le Saulchoir was repeated throughout the Catholic intellectual world and continued unchecked until the eclipse of Thomism at Vatican II (1962‐1965). Now, hopefully with the historical dust settled, Gilles Emery OP and Matthew Levering continue and develop the debate by offering us a series of studies on the role of Aristotle in Aquinas's theology.
The collection offers 10 essays following the order of the Summa Theologiae. Gilles Emery comes first focusing on the role of Aristotle in Aquinas's Trinitarian theology. Serge‐Thomas Bonino's essay examines how Aristotelian philosophy influenced Aquinas's angelology. The third essay, by Raymond Hain, is more overtly philosophical than the others. It examines the influence of Aristotle on Aquinas's account of the soul and moves on to consider the resurrection of the body and the separated soul's existence. Matthew Levering's fourth essay considers how Aquinas uses Aristotle to show that the Mosaic Law was good and reasonable. In the fifth essay Simon Francis Gaine examines how Aquinas used Aristotle to expound his theology of grace. The sixth essay, by Guy Mansini, examines Aquinas's view of charity as friendship with God and argues it satisfies the Aristotelian definition of friendship both strictly and analogously. Christopher Frank's seventh essay considers the role of Aristotle's thought in Aquinas's account of justice. In the eighth essay, Mary Ann Sommers looks at contemplation and actions in Aristotle and Aquinas. Corey Barnes's ninth essay looks at Aquinas's use of Aristotle in the Christology of the Summa Theologiae. The tenth essay, by John Yocum, looks at Aristotle's role in Aquinas's sacramental theology.
So what should we make of the collection? Well, first we should note the essays are all interesting and well written and a Thomist will find them useful. Whether a non‐Thomist will find them helpful will depend I suspect on whether they have an interest in the broader area of theology with which they deal. What the essays do collectively, though, is demonstrate convincingly that Aristotle's philosophy plays a role in Aquinas's theology. Aristotle is used in all the major areas of Aquinas's theology: the Trinity, Christ, the sacraments, grace, and supernatural virtue. Whichever way we might wish precisely to assess the role of Aristotle in Aquinas's thought, we cannot limit that role to the more philosophical areas of Aquinas's thought.
Secondly, it seems to me that Bonino gets it right when he points out that Aquinas did ‘not try to contrast Platonism and Aristotelianism systematically… the doctor communis looks in the history of philosophy for common truths that unify before he looks for the particularities that divide’ (p. 47). Yes, Aquinas avails of Aristotle in certain key areas of his thought. Yes, on balance, Aquinas is probably more Aristotelian than Platonic. But that is not to say Aquinas understood himself as an Aristotelian rather than Platonic thinker or that there are not important Platonic elements in Aquinas's thought as well, as many excellent post‐World War II studies have shown there to be.
Thirdly, the editors make clear the collection is an ‘introductory work’ (p. vii) which follows the Summa Theologiae (p. xiii). That is understandable, but the collection would have been even stronger if it had offered another essay giving us an introduction to the role of Aristotle in the rest of Aquinas's thought. It need not have been particularly detailed but just have given us an overview of where we might go next. What about the sermons for example? That concern notwithstanding, however, this collection is a worthwhile contribution to an important issue in the study of Aquinas.
