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The Defective Male: What Aquinas Really Said

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Michael Nolan
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In his Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas discusses the biblical account of Creation and deals at length with the production of the body and soul of the First Man and the First Woman. The soul of each, being immaterial, was created by God. But whereas the human body is normally produced by parents from the substance of their own bodies, God himself produced both the body of Adam and the body of Eve. He produced the body of Adam from earth, the body of Eve from the body of Adam. The matter used may have been different, but Adam and Eve were equally God’s own handiwork and Eve was not a child of (and hence not a dependent of) Adam.

He asks himself why God followed this (asexual) method of production and replies that it was to show that reproduction is a relatively peripheral activity in the life of the human being. The specific goal of human existence is to understand. He uses the word homo: the activities of mind are the central work of the human being qua human being, of woman therefore as of man.

In accordance with medieval practice, he states objections to his own position and seeks to refute them. Perhaps God should not have made woman at the beginning of the world? The suggestion by a theologian that God should not have done something he actually did is obviously academic. But Aquinas was an academic, and academics of all centuries find that the discussion of highly theoretical issues assists them to clarify their understanding of the real world.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 75 , Issue 880 , March 1994 , pp. 156 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Summa Theologiae 1 qu. 90, ar. 2.

2 Summa Theologiae 1 qu 92, ar 2.

3 Summa Theologiae 1 qu 92, ar 4.

4 Summa Theologiae 1 qu 92, ar 2 & 3. In view of the “spare rib” jibe, it is interesting to note the significance Aquinas sees in the fact that God made the body of Eve from the body of Adam: the man should have a primacy of honour, and he should love his wife the more and cling to her more closely because she was of his own flesh. Eve was made from Adam's side rather than his head or his feet because woman should not dominate man or be his servant, but should live side by side with him in an alliance (socialis coniunctio).

5 Summa Theologiae 1, qu 92, ar 2, ad 3.

6 Summa Theologiae 1, qu 92, ar 2.

7 For an account of Aristotle's embryology see J. Needham, A History of Embryology, 2nd ed., Cambridge, University Press, 1959.

8 “It is plain then that there is no necessity for any substance to pass from the male”. De Generatione Animalium, Bk 1, c 21, 729b1. It may be noted that this feature of Aristotle's biology was availed of by Aquinas in his account of the conception of Christ. Cf. In Sententias, Bk 3, ds 3, qu 5, ar 1.

9 Aristotle does indeed talk of the male element as active and the female as passive, but only in the sense in which an enzyme is active and the process it facilitates is passive. “The action of the male in setting the female's secretion in the uterus is similar to that of rennet upon milk.”De Generatione Animalium, Bk 2, c 4, 739b2. Cf. Job, 10, 10: “Hast thou not poured me out as milk and curdled me like cheese?”.

10 Cf. Barrow, M. V., A Brief History of Teratology to the Early 20th Century, Teratology, 1971, 4: 119���130Google Scholar. Pp. 119–122 have interesting comments on Aristotle.

11 De Generatione Animalium, Bk 2, c 3, 737a27.

12 Cf. Aristoteles Latinus, XVII 2. De Generatione Animalium, Edited by H. J. Drossaart. Desclée de Brouwer :Bruges‐Paris, 1966. William translated this from the Greek in or before 1260 and it would have been available to Aquinas when he wrote his Summa Theologiae. Cf. De Generatione Animalium, translated by Peck, A. L.. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1990, p.xxiGoogle Scholar.

13 Cf. A. L Peck, o.c., p. 174, note a.

14 Cf. Liddell and Scott's Greek‐English Lexicon s.v.

15 Cf. Metaphysica, Bk Z, c 10, 1034a30: “Natural generation is like artificial production: the seed operates as do things that work by art; it contains the form potentially, and its source is something which has the same name, in a sense, as the offspring. But only in a sense, because we cannot expect all instances to have exactly the same name, as in the production of human being for a woman is produced from a man. Unless of course the offspring is a freak — which is why the sire of a mule is not a mule.” Translated by J. Warrington. London: Dent 1956.

16 Animalium, Bk 3, c 8.

17 In Sententias, Bk 2, ds 20, qu 2, ar 1, ra 1; In Sententias, Bk 4, ds 44, qu 1, ra 3c; Summa Theologiae 1, qu 92, ar 2, ra 1; Summa Theologiae 1, qu 99, ar 2, ra 2; De Veritate, qu 5, ar 5, ra 9.

18 Following the translation of Michael Scot from the Arabic. Cf. Aristoteles, De Animalibus XVI. Ed. A. Van Oppenraay.

19 Cf. De Malo, qu 3, ar 5: “Causa alicuius potest aliquid dici dupliciter: uno modo directe, alio modo indirecte. Indirecte quidem, sicut cum aliquod agens causat aliquam dispositionem ad aliquem effcctum, dicitur esse occasionaliter et indirecte causa iUius effectus; sicut si dicatur quod ille qui seccat ligna est causa combustionis ipsorum.”

20 Summa Theologiae 1 qu 92, ar 1, ag 1.

21 Summa Theologiae 1, qu 99, ar 2, ra 2.

22 Ibid.

23 Cf. De Generatione Animalium, Bk 4, c 2,767a10.

24 Cf. Ferguson, M. W. J and Joanen, T.. “Temperature‐dependent sex determination in Alligator mississippiensis”. Journal of Zoology (London), 1983, 200, pp. 143–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 De Veritate qu 5, ar 9, ra 9.

26 Summa Theologiae 1, qu 92, ar 1, ra 1. The Latin reads: “Dicendum quod per respectum ad naturam particularem femina est aliquid deficiens, et occasionatum: quia virtus activa quae est in semine mans intendit producere sibi simile perfectum secundum masculmum sexum: sed quod femina generaretur, hoc est propter virtutis activae debilitatem, vel propter aliquam materiae indisposilionem, vel etiam propter aliquam transmutationem ab extrinseco, pula a ventis australibus qui sum humidi… sed per comparationem ad naturam universalem femina non est aliquid occasionatum, sed est de intentione naturae ad opus generationis ordinata: intentio autem naturae universalis dependet a Deo, qui est universalis auctor naturae, et ideo, instituendo naturam non solum marcm sed etiam feminam produxit.”

27 Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk 3, c 94. The Latin reads: “Ad aliud igitur tendit intentio particularis agentis, et universalis: nam particulare agens tendit ad bonum partis absolute, et facit earn quanto meliorem potest; universale autem agens tendit ad bonum totius. Sicut patet quod generatio feminae est praeler intentionem naturae particularis, idest, huius virtutis quae est in hoc semine, quae ad hoc tendit quod perficiat conceptum quanto magis potest: est autem de intentione naturae universalis, idest, virtutis universalis agentis ad generationem inferiorum, quod femina generetur.”

28 Translated by the Dominican Fathers, London, Bums Oates, 1920.

29 Ethica Nicomachea, Bk 8, c 12, 1 162a20.

30 Summa Theologiae 1, qu 92, ar 2.

31 Summa Theologiae 1, qu 99, ar 2, ag 1.

32 Summa Theologiae 1, qu 99, ar 2, ra 1.

33 In Sententias, Bk 4, ds 44, qu 1, ar 3c.

34 Ibid, ag3.

35 Ibid, ra 3.

36 Cf. De Generatione Animalium, Bk 5, c 8, 789b3. Because of the widespread belief that Aristotle substituted final causes for efficient causes, it is worthwhile quoting the passage in full: “Democritus however omitted to mention the Final Cause, and so all the things which Nature employs he refers to necessity. It is of course true that they are determined by necessity, but at the same time they are for the sake of some purpose, some Final Cause, and for the sake of that which is better in each case. And so there is nothing to prevent the teeth being formed and being shed in the way he says; but it is not on that account that it happens, but on account of the Final Cause, the End; those other factors are causes qua causing movement, qua instruments, and qua material, since in fact it is probable that Nature makes the majority of her instruments by means of pneuma used as an instrument … But to allege that the causes are of the necessary type is on a par with supposing that when water has been drawn off a dropsical patient the reason for which it has been drawn off is the lancet, and not the patient's health, for the sake of which the lancet made the incision.” (Translated by A. L. Peck, o.c.)

37 De Generation Animalium, Bk 2, c 1, 734b4. Cf. Bk 2, c 5, 741 G9.

38 De Generalione Animalium, Bk 2, c 1, 73 1b5 8.

39 A. L. Peck, o.c, p.xliii, cites nine instances where Aristotle does this: 642a31, 663b6; 663b7; 738a33; 739b8; 743a36.755a22, 776a15, 776b9.

40 Cf. Note 12.

41 De Partibus Animalium, Bk 1, c 5, 645a20.

42 In Sententias, Bk 4, ds 26, qu 1, ar 3.

A correction has been issued for this article:

St Bonaventure: A Correction

Michael Nolan