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The life and times of the most important theological work of medieval Christendom
Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae holds a unique place in Western religion and philosophy. Written between 1266 and 1273, it was conceived by Aquinas as an instructional guide for teachers and novices and a compendium of all the approved teachings of the Catholic Church. It synthesizes an astonishing range of scholarship, covering hundreds of topics and containing more than a million and a half words―and was still unfinished at the time of Aquinas’s death. Bernard McGinn, one of today’s most acclaimed scholars of medieval Christianity, traces the remarkable life of this iconic work, examining Aquinas’s reasons for writing it, its subject matter, and the novel way he organized it. McGinn looks at the influence of Aquinas’s masterpiece on such giants of medieval Christendom as Meister Eckhart, its ridicule during the Enlightenment, the role of the Summa in the post–Vatican II church, and the book’s enduring relevance today.
Read Online Thomas Aquinas Summa theologiae A Biography Lives of Great Religious Books Bernard McGinn Daren Magee 9780691191799 Books
"My favorite scholar is the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and polymath Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University, the Jesuit university in St. Louis, Missouri (USA). As part of his Jesuit training in philosophy and theology, he was trained in Thomism, as were all other Jesuits of his generation worldwide – and as were all other Catholics of his generation who were educated in Catholic colleges and universities and seminaries worldwide. The great impetus for studying the thought of the prolific Italian Dominican theologian St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) came from the Jesuit-educated Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879). However, at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) the predominance of Aquinas’s thought was ratcheted down a wee bit.
Ong, for one, was pleased by the official down-sizing of the predominance of Aquinas’s thought. Ong characterizes his own thought as phenomenological and personalist in cast. In other words, Ong in his own way made his own turn to the subject – that is, to being subject-oriented, but not simply subjective. But the turn to the subject was not popular with the predominant interpretation of Thomism at the time – certainly not with all the professors of philosophy at Saint Louis University who had been trained by the influential lay French Thomist Etienne Gilson (1884-1978) at the University of Toronto.
Now, Bernard McGinn’s short book Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2014) can deepen our understanding of the influence of Aquinas’s masterwork over the centuries. The Spaniard St. Dominic Guzman (c.1174-1221) was the founder of the Dominican order (also known as the Order of Preachers) that young Aquinas joined. Like the Franciscans founded by the Italian St. Francis of Assisi (c.1181-1226), the Dominicans were a mendicant order. At the time, the two mendicant orders were a novelty in the medieval Catholic world.
According to McGinn, “From 1245 to 1248 the young friar [Thomas Aquinas] studied in Paris at the Dominican convent of St. Jacques†(page 21). He probably studied under the German Dominican theologian and polymath Albert the Great (c.1200-1280). In any event, Aquinas served “as Albert’s assistant between 1248 and 1252†(page 21). McGinn says, “The quiet, prayerful, brilliant young friar [Thomas Aquinas] began to teach at Paris in 1252 as a ‘Sentence Bachelor’ responsible for teaching and writing on the four Books of Sentences [by Peter Lombard]†(page 23).
McGinn says, “The most successful textbook [in theology] was produced about 1140 by Peter Lombard [1100-1160], a Paris master and later bishop of the city. Titled The Book of Sentences (Libri sententiarum), it consisted of four books of theological passages culled from the Fathers with discussions and explanations, arranged according to the Augustinian model (found in On Christian Teaching) of the difference between things and signs and between use and enjoyment. . . . By the 1220s the Lombard’s Sentences had become the dominant theological textbook – a position it maintained for almost three hundred years†(pages 14-15).
McGinn says, “Thomas remained teaching in Paris from 1252 to 1259†(page 24). McGinn says, “During the period 1256 to 1259 Thomas taught at Paris as one of the two Regent Masters of the Dominicans†(page 27). McGinn says, “During the 1260s Thomas made contact with the new and improved translations of many of Aristotle’s works by his fellow Dominican, William of Moerbeke [1215-1286], who had spent time in Greece and learned the language well†(page 29). McGinn reports that Aquinas and his secretaries began work on his Summa theologiae in the autumn of 1266 (page 44). McGinn says, “In 1268 Thomas was called back to Paris to assume one of the two Dominican chairs in theology†(page 31). McGinn says, “Thomas died [in the Cistercian monastery of Fossanova south of Rome] on the morning of March 7, 1274†(page 39). At the time of his death, his Summa theologiae was not yet complete.
Nevertheless, McGinn says, “The Summa is a massive work, containing over a million and a half words divided into three large parts containing 512 topics (questiones) and no fewer than 2,668 articles (articuli) dealing with particular issues†(page 2). McGinn quotes the Canadian Jesuit philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan: “‘Besides being a theologian and a philosopher St. Thomas was a man of his time meeting the challenge of his time. What he was concerned to do may be considered as a theological or philosophical synthesis but, if considered more concretely, it turns out to be a mighty contribution towards the medieval cultural synthesis’†(quoted on page 7). Now, in my estimate, Lonergan’s philosophical masterwork Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1957) represents a mighty contribution towards the postmodern synthesis that we in Western culture today need – and Ong’s body of work also represents a mighty contribution towards the postmodern synthesis that we need.
Now, because Ong was a Jesuit, we should note that the Basque Spaniard St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) was the founder of the Jesuit order (known formally as the Society of Jesus) and the author/compiler of the famous Spiritual Exercises. He was not himself a professional theologian, as McGinn notes (page 154). Nevertheless, “Ignatius’s preference for the theology of Thomas Aquinas was evident (see his Constitutions of the Jesuit Order 4.14.1), but it was not until 1593 that the Jesuit General Chapter adopted Thomas as their official theologian†(page 154).
The famous prayer known as the Suscipe appears in the standardized numbered subsection 234 of the Spiritual Exercises. It starts, “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my will – all that I have and now possess, You, Lord, have given all that to me. I now give it back to you, O Lord. All of it is yours†(translated by George E. Ganss, S.J., in The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius [St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992, page 95]).
We should note the movement expressed in this famous prayer. McGinn says, “For Thomas, as for most ancient and medieval thinkers, circular movement was the highest form of motion†(page 5). “For Thomas, there is a cycle of wisdom, a circular process of emanation and return to God†(page 5). McGinn quotes Aquinas as saying, “‘An effect is most perfect when it returns to its source. Hence the circle among figures and circular motion among all forms of movement are the most perfect’†(quoted on page 5).
No doubt this sense of the circle and circular motion is connected with what the Swiss psychiatrist and psychological theorist C. G. Jung, M.D. (1875-1961) refers to as mandala symbols. For further discussion of this pattern of return, see Mircea Eliade’s book The Myth of the Eternal Return, translated from the French by Willard R. Trask (Pantheon Books, 1954; orig. French ed., 1949).
Now, McGinn recounts a famous disagreement between the Dominicans and the Jesuits regarding how to interpret Aquinas’s thought. McGinn says, “During this time [from the 1580s until 1611], the Dominicans and Jesuits entered into theological combat, debates that often involved differing interpretations of Thomas†(page 156). “In 1598 [Pope] Clement VIII mandated silence on both groups†(page 157). “[I]n 1607 Pope Paul issued an injunction ordering both parties to stop calling each other heretics†(page 157).
Now, one of Ong’s early articles about Aquinas’s thought is “The Province of Rhetoric and Poetic†in the Jesuit-sponsored journal the Modern Schoolman (Saint Louis University), volume 19, number 2 (January 1942): pages 24-27; reprinted in An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry (Hampton Press, 2002, pages 175-183).
Ong turns his attention to a hymn by Aquinas in his article “Wit and Mystery: A Revaluation in Medieval Latin Hymnody: in the journal Speculum (Medieval Academy of America), volume 22, number 8 (July 1947): pages 310-334; reprinted in Ong’s book The Barbarian Within: And Other Fugitive Essays and Studies (Macmillan, 1962, pages 88-130); reprinted in volume four of Ong’s Faith and Contexts (Scholars Press, 1999, pages 1-44).
In Ong’s first book Frontiers in American Catholicism: Essays on Ideology and Culture (Macmillan, 1957), we find his critique, in passing, of certain tendencies among contemporary Thomists.
In 1957 Ong reviewed the American Jesuit literary scholar William T. Noon’s book Joyce and Aquinas in the journal the New Scholasticism, volume 31, number 4 (October 1957): pages 553-555. The Irish novelist James Joyce (1882-1941) was educated by the Jesuits, and in his novel Ulysses (1922) the semi-autobiographical character Stephen Daedalus reflects at times using Thomistic terminology.
In Ong’s massively researched book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (Harvard University Press, 1958), we find numerous passages about Thomas Aquinas (pages 54, 57, 62, 73-74, 101, 111, 113, 125, 132, 134, 143, 145, 147, 149, 150, 157, 162, 179, 180, 198-199, 222, 243, 268, and 281), Albert the Great (pages 56, 62, 101, 113, 134, 145-146, 153, 227, and 281-282), and Peter Lombard (pages 58, 146, 157, and 315).
In his all-important book about the French logician and educational reformer and Protestant martyr Peter Ramus (1515-1572), Ong famously works with the visual-aural contrast that he acknowledges (on page 338, note 54) that he borrowed from the lay French Catholic philosopher Louis Lavelle (1883-1951).
James Collins (1917-1985; Ph.D. in philosophy, Catholic University of America, 1944) in philosophy at Saint Louis University published a perceptive review of Ong’s book in the Jesuit-sponsored magazine America, volume 101 (April 4, 1959): pages 37-39. At an earlier time, Collins published the survey article “Louis Lavelle: On Human Participation†in the journal The Philosophical Review, volume 56, number 2 (March 1947): pages 156-181).
Now, in 1959 Ong reviewed the influential lay French Thomist Jacques Maritain’s book The Degrees of Knowledge in the Saturday Review, volume 42, number 34 (August 22, 1959): page 26. McGinn discusses Maritain (pages 186, 193-195, 199, 202, and 206).
In 1961 Ong reviewed the American Jesuit Thomist George P. Klubertanz’s book St. Thomas Aquinas on Analogy: A Textual Analysis and Systematic Synthesis in the Jesuit-sponsored magazine America, volume 104 (January 28, 1961): pages 574-575. Klubertanz, a Gilson-trained Thomist, taught philosophy at Saint Louis University.
In 1965 Ong reviewed Pope John XXIII’s posthumously published book Journal of a Soul in the Saturday Review, volume 47 (April 10, 1965): page 14. Pope John XXIII (1881-1963) had called the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
In 1968 Saint Louis University celebrated the sesquicentennial of its founding in 1818. As part of the sesquicentennial celebration Ong edited the book Knowledge and the Future of Man: An International Symposium (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968). The famous German Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner (1904-1984) contributed the essay “Christianity and the New Earth†(pages 255-268).
As part of the sesquicentennial celebration, Saint Louis University hosted a conference on Theology in the City of Man, October 15-17, 1968. The papers presented at the conference were published in the journal Cross Currents, volume 19 (Fall 1969). Ong’s paper was “Communications Media and the State of Theology†(pages 462-480); reprinted in volume one of Ong’s Faith and Contexts (Scholars Press, 1992, pages 154-174.
The famous Canadian Jesuit philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984) presented the paper “Theology and Man’s Future†(pages 452-461). McGinn discusses both Karl Rahner (pages 204-205) and Bernard Lonergan (pages 7, 67, 137, and 202-205).
The famous American Baptist theologian Harvey Cox of the Harvard Divinity School presented the paper “Non-Theistic Commitment†at the sesquicentennial conference (pages 400-408). In 1969 Cox published the book Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy (Harvard University Press). In it he discusses what he refers to as theology of culture. He says, “With the death of Paul Tillich [1886-1965] the most brilliant practitioner of the theology of culture departed from the scene. No single figure has appeared to claim his place as the principal theological interpreter of such cultural forms as painting, music, architecture, and dance. . . . Only Walter Ong makes much of an attempt to pull the whole range of cultural artifacts into a single inclusive theological interpretation†(page 166).
Cox refers (on page 196) to the three books that Ong published in the 1960s: (1) The Barbarian Within: And Other Fugitive Essays and Studies (Macmillan, 1962), (2) In the Human Grain: Further Explorations of Contemporary Culture (Macmillan, 1967), and (3) The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for cultural and Religious History (Yale University Press, 1967), the expanded version of Ong’s 1964 Terry Lectures at Yale University. Subsequently, Ong published a lot of material about our cultural and religious history. However, it strikes me that Ong’s entire body of work stands, in effect, as prolegomena for what Cox refers to as “a single inclusive theological interpretation†that might be referred to as theology of culture.
In 1968-1969 Ong was the Willett Visiting Professor in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. For years McGinn taught at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is currently professor emeritus.
In 1970 Ong presented a paper at the First International Lonergan Congress held at St. Leo’s College in St. Leo, Florida, in March. Ong’s paper was published as “‘I See What You Say’: Sense Analogues for Intellect†in the journal Human Inquiries: Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, volume 10, numbers 1-3 (1970): pages 22-42; reprinted, revised, in Ong’s book Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (Cornell University Press, 1977, pages 121-144); the revised version is also reprinted in volume three of Ong’s Faith and Contexts (Scholars Press, 1995, pages 91-111).
In 1971 the American ex-Jesuit George Riemer published a book of interviews with noteworthy Jesuits, including one with Ong: The New Jesuits (Little, Brown; Ong interview, pages 147-186); Riemer’s interview with Ong is reprinted in An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry (Hampton Press, 2002, pages 79-109), from which I quote the following passage:
“I hit Saint Louis University when St. Louis Thomism rose to its first crest, quite vigorously historical and structurally sensitive in the hands of the good teachers. What I learned studying philosophy at Saint Louis University made my work on Ramism possible and has given me a permanent edge over many colleagues around the world. The advantage of the kind of philosophical training we were given was that if you got it, if you studied it, you knew the central intellectual tradition of all Western culture.
“But you didn’t really know that was what it was unless you knew a lot of things outside philosophy too. So you had something that was a wonderful tremendous asset, provided you could open it up. That’s just what many people then failed to do. Others succeeded†(page 98).
In my estimate, both Ong and Lonergan succeeded in opening up the “wonderful tremendous asset†they had from their Jesuit training in Thomism. However, as Ong says “many people then failed to†open up the Thomism they had studied – perhaps because they did not “get it,†as Ong puts it – they did not understand it.
In the 1970s Ong published two big books with Cornell University Press: (1) Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture (1971) and (2) Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (1977).
In the 1980s Ong published three short books: (1) Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness (Cornell University Press, 1981), the published version of Ong’s 1979 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University; (2) Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (Methuen, 1982), Ong’s most widely translated book; and (3) Hopkins, the Self, and God (University of Toronto Press, 1986), the published version of Ong’s 1981 Alexander Lectures at the University of Toronto.
In Ong’s 1986 book about the Victorian Jesuit poet and classicist Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), we find him discussing the thought of Thomas Aquinas (pages 91, 93-95, 107, and 132), the Scot Franciscan theologian John Duns Scotus (c.1266-1308; pages 96, 106-112, and 133), and the German Jesuit theologian Joseph Kleutgen (1811-1883; pages 94-97, 124, and 131-132). Hopkins was extremely enthusiastic about Duns Scotus’s thought. McGinn also discusses Duns Scotus (pages 110 and 127-130) and Kleutgen (pages 167, 169, and 171-173).
In the 1990s the four volumes of Ong’s Faith and Contexts (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992a, 1992b, 1995, and 1999) were published. In 2002 An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry (Hampton Press) was published. Late in 2017, Ong’s incomplete book was published posthumously as Language as Hermeneutic: A Primer on the Word and Digitization (Cornell University Press).
Ong died in August 2003. In 2004 the University of Chicago Press reissues his 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason in a paperback edition with a new foreword by Adrian Johns of the University of Chicago. The late Thomas M. Walsh (1943-2009) of Saint Louis University published an annotated bibliography of Ong’s 400 or so publications in the book Language, Culture, and Identity: The Legacy of Walter J. Ong, S.J. (Hampton Press, 2011, pages 185-245)."
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Thomas Aquinas Summa theologiae A Biography Lives of Great Religious Books Bernard McGinn Daren Magee 9780691191799 Books Reviews :
Thomas Aquinas Summa theologiae A Biography Lives of Great Religious Books Bernard McGinn Daren Magee 9780691191799 Books Reviews
- My favorite scholar is the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and polymath Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University, the Jesuit university in St. Louis, Missouri (USA). As part of his Jesuit training in philosophy and theology, he was trained in Thomism, as were all other Jesuits of his generation worldwide – and as were all other Catholics of his generation who were educated in Catholic colleges and universities and seminaries worldwide. The great impetus for studying the thought of the prolific Italian Dominican theologian St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) came from the Jesuit-educated Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879). However, at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) the predominance of Aquinas’s thought was ratcheted down a wee bit.
Ong, for one, was pleased by the official down-sizing of the predominance of Aquinas’s thought. Ong characterizes his own thought as phenomenological and personalist in cast. In other words, Ong in his own way made his own turn to the subject – that is, to being subject-oriented, but not simply subjective. But the turn to the subject was not popular with the predominant interpretation of Thomism at the time – certainly not with all the professors of philosophy at Saint Louis University who had been trained by the influential lay French Thomist Etienne Gilson (1884-1978) at the University of Toronto.
Now, Bernard McGinn’s short book Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2014) can deepen our understanding of the influence of Aquinas’s masterwork over the centuries. The Spaniard St. Dominic Guzman (c.1174-1221) was the founder of the Dominican order (also known as the Order of Preachers) that young Aquinas joined. Like the Franciscans founded by the Italian St. Francis of Assisi (c.1181-1226), the Dominicans were a mendicant order. At the time, the two mendicant orders were a novelty in the medieval Catholic world.
According to McGinn, “From 1245 to 1248 the young friar [Thomas Aquinas] studied in Paris at the Dominican convent of St. Jacques†(page 21). He probably studied under the German Dominican theologian and polymath Albert the Great (c.1200-1280). In any event, Aquinas served “as Albert’s assistant between 1248 and 1252†(page 21). McGinn says, “The quiet, prayerful, brilliant young friar [Thomas Aquinas] began to teach at Paris in 1252 as a ‘Sentence Bachelor’ responsible for teaching and writing on the four Books of Sentences [by Peter Lombard]†(page 23).
McGinn says, “The most successful textbook [in theology] was produced about 1140 by Peter Lombard [1100-1160], a Paris master and later bishop of the city. Titled The Book of Sentences (Libri sententiarum), it consisted of four books of theological passages culled from the Fathers with discussions and explanations, arranged according to the Augustinian model (found in On Christian Teaching) of the difference between things and signs and between use and enjoyment. . . . By the 1220s the Lombard’s Sentences had become the dominant theological textbook – a position it maintained for almost three hundred years†(pages 14-15).
McGinn says, “Thomas remained teaching in Paris from 1252 to 1259†(page 24). McGinn says, “During the period 1256 to 1259 Thomas taught at Paris as one of the two Regent Masters of the Dominicans†(page 27). McGinn says, “During the 1260s Thomas made contact with the new and improved translations of many of Aristotle’s works by his fellow Dominican, William of Moerbeke [1215-1286], who had spent time in Greece and learned the language well†(page 29). McGinn reports that Aquinas and his secretaries began work on his Summa theologiae in the autumn of 1266 (page 44). McGinn says, “In 1268 Thomas was called back to Paris to assume one of the two Dominican chairs in theology†(page 31). McGinn says, “Thomas died [in the Cistercian monastery of Fossanova south of Rome] on the morning of March 7, 1274†(page 39). At the time of his death, his Summa theologiae was not yet complete.
Nevertheless, McGinn says, “The Summa is a massive work, containing over a million and a half words divided into three large parts containing 512 topics (questiones) and no fewer than 2,668 articles (articuli) dealing with particular issues†(page 2). McGinn quotes the Canadian Jesuit philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan “‘Besides being a theologian and a philosopher St. Thomas was a man of his time meeting the challenge of his time. What he was concerned to do may be considered as a theological or philosophical synthesis but, if considered more concretely, it turns out to be a mighty contribution towards the medieval cultural synthesis’†(quoted on page 7). Now, in my estimate, Lonergan’s philosophical masterwork Insight A Study of Human Understanding (1957) represents a mighty contribution towards the postmodern synthesis that we in Western culture today need – and Ong’s body of work also represents a mighty contribution towards the postmodern synthesis that we need.
Now, because Ong was a Jesuit, we should note that the Basque Spaniard St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) was the founder of the Jesuit order (known formally as the Society of Jesus) and the author/compiler of the famous Spiritual Exercises. He was not himself a professional theologian, as McGinn notes (page 154). Nevertheless, “Ignatius’s preference for the theology of Thomas Aquinas was evident (see his Constitutions of the Jesuit Order 4.14.1), but it was not until 1593 that the Jesuit General Chapter adopted Thomas as their official theologian†(page 154).
The famous prayer known as the Suscipe appears in the standardized numbered subsection 234 of the Spiritual Exercises. It starts, “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my will – all that I have and now possess, You, Lord, have given all that to me. I now give it back to you, O Lord. All of it is yours†(translated by George E. Ganss, S.J., in The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius [St. Louis Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992, page 95]).
We should note the movement expressed in this famous prayer. McGinn says, “For Thomas, as for most ancient and medieval thinkers, circular movement was the highest form of motion†(page 5). “For Thomas, there is a cycle of wisdom, a circular process of emanation and return to God†(page 5). McGinn quotes Aquinas as saying, “‘An effect is most perfect when it returns to its source. Hence the circle among figures and circular motion among all forms of movement are the most perfect’†(quoted on page 5).
No doubt this sense of the circle and circular motion is connected with what the Swiss psychiatrist and psychological theorist C. G. Jung, M.D. (1875-1961) refers to as mandala symbols. For further discussion of this pattern of return, see Mircea Eliade’s book The Myth of the Eternal Return, translated from the French by Willard R. Trask (Pantheon Books, 1954; orig. French ed., 1949).
Now, McGinn recounts a famous disagreement between the Dominicans and the Jesuits regarding how to interpret Aquinas’s thought. McGinn says, “During this time [from the 1580s until 1611], the Dominicans and Jesuits entered into theological combat, debates that often involved differing interpretations of Thomas†(page 156). “In 1598 [Pope] Clement VIII mandated silence on both groups†(page 157). “[I]n 1607 Pope Paul issued an injunction ordering both parties to stop calling each other heretics†(page 157).
Now, one of Ong’s early articles about Aquinas’s thought is “The Province of Rhetoric and Poetic†in the Jesuit-sponsored journal the Modern Schoolman (Saint Louis University), volume 19, number 2 (January 1942) pages 24-27; reprinted in An Ong Reader Challenges for Further Inquiry (Hampton Press, 2002, pages 175-183).
Ong turns his attention to a hymn by Aquinas in his article “Wit and Mystery A Revaluation in Medieval Latin Hymnody in the journal Speculum (Medieval Academy of America), volume 22, number 8 (July 1947) pages 310-334; reprinted in Ong’s book The Barbarian Within And Other Fugitive Essays and Studies (Macmillan, 1962, pages 88-130); reprinted in volume four of Ong’s Faith and Contexts (Scholars Press, 1999, pages 1-44).
In Ong’s first book Frontiers in American Catholicism Essays on Ideology and Culture (Macmillan, 1957), we find his critique, in passing, of certain tendencies among contemporary Thomists.
In 1957 Ong reviewed the American Jesuit literary scholar William T. Noon’s book Joyce and Aquinas in the journal the New Scholasticism, volume 31, number 4 (October 1957) pages 553-555. The Irish novelist James Joyce (1882-1941) was educated by the Jesuits, and in his novel Ulysses (1922) the semi-autobiographical character Stephen Daedalus reflects at times using Thomistic terminology.
In Ong’s massively researched book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (Harvard University Press, 1958), we find numerous passages about Thomas Aquinas (pages 54, 57, 62, 73-74, 101, 111, 113, 125, 132, 134, 143, 145, 147, 149, 150, 157, 162, 179, 180, 198-199, 222, 243, 268, and 281), Albert the Great (pages 56, 62, 101, 113, 134, 145-146, 153, 227, and 281-282), and Peter Lombard (pages 58, 146, 157, and 315).
In his all-important book about the French logician and educational reformer and Protestant martyr Peter Ramus (1515-1572), Ong famously works with the visual-aural contrast that he acknowledges (on page 338, note 54) that he borrowed from the lay French Catholic philosopher Louis Lavelle (1883-1951).
James Collins (1917-1985; Ph.D. in philosophy, Catholic University of America, 1944) in philosophy at Saint Louis University published a perceptive review of Ong’s book in the Jesuit-sponsored magazine America, volume 101 (April 4, 1959) pages 37-39. At an earlier time, Collins published the survey article “Louis Lavelle On Human Participation†in the journal The Philosophical Review, volume 56, number 2 (March 1947) pages 156-181).
Now, in 1959 Ong reviewed the influential lay French Thomist Jacques Maritain’s book The Degrees of Knowledge in the Saturday Review, volume 42, number 34 (August 22, 1959) page 26. McGinn discusses Maritain (pages 186, 193-195, 199, 202, and 206).
In 1961 Ong reviewed the American Jesuit Thomist George P. Klubertanz’s book St. Thomas Aquinas on Analogy A Textual Analysis and Systematic Synthesis in the Jesuit-sponsored magazine America, volume 104 (January 28, 1961) pages 574-575. Klubertanz, a Gilson-trained Thomist, taught philosophy at Saint Louis University.
In 1965 Ong reviewed Pope John XXIII’s posthumously published book Journal of a Soul in the Saturday Review, volume 47 (April 10, 1965) page 14. Pope John XXIII (1881-1963) had called the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
In 1968 Saint Louis University celebrated the sesquicentennial of its founding in 1818. As part of the sesquicentennial celebration Ong edited the book Knowledge and the Future of Man An International Symposium (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968). The famous German Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner (1904-1984) contributed the essay “Christianity and the New Earth†(pages 255-268).
As part of the sesquicentennial celebration, Saint Louis University hosted a conference on Theology in the City of Man, October 15-17, 1968. The papers presented at the conference were published in the journal Cross Currents, volume 19 (Fall 1969). Ong’s paper was “Communications Media and the State of Theology†(pages 462-480); reprinted in volume one of Ong’s Faith and Contexts (Scholars Press, 1992, pages 154-174.
The famous Canadian Jesuit philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984) presented the paper “Theology and Man’s Future†(pages 452-461). McGinn discusses both Karl Rahner (pages 204-205) and Bernard Lonergan (pages 7, 67, 137, and 202-205).
The famous American Baptist theologian Harvey Cox of the Harvard Divinity School presented the paper “Non-Theistic Commitment†at the sesquicentennial conference (pages 400-408). In 1969 Cox published the book Feast of Fools A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy (Harvard University Press). In it he discusses what he refers to as theology of culture. He says, “With the death of Paul Tillich [1886-1965] the most brilliant practitioner of the theology of culture departed from the scene. No single figure has appeared to claim his place as the principal theological interpreter of such cultural forms as painting, music, architecture, and dance. . . . Only Walter Ong makes much of an attempt to pull the whole range of cultural artifacts into a single inclusive theological interpretation†(page 166).
Cox refers (on page 196) to the three books that Ong published in the 1960s (1) The Barbarian Within And Other Fugitive Essays and Studies (Macmillan, 1962), (2) In the Human Grain Further Explorations of Contemporary Culture (Macmillan, 1967), and (3) The Presence of the Word Some Prolegomena for cultural and Religious History (Yale University Press, 1967), the expanded version of Ong’s 1964 Terry Lectures at Yale University. Subsequently, Ong published a lot of material about our cultural and religious history. However, it strikes me that Ong’s entire body of work stands, in effect, as prolegomena for what Cox refers to as “a single inclusive theological interpretation†that might be referred to as theology of culture.
In 1968-1969 Ong was the Willett Visiting Professor in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. For years McGinn taught at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is currently professor emeritus.
In 1970 Ong presented a paper at the First International Lonergan Congress held at St. Leo’s College in St. Leo, Florida, in March. Ong’s paper was published as “‘I See What You Say’ Sense Analogues for Intellect†in the journal Human Inquiries Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, volume 10, numbers 1-3 (1970) pages 22-42; reprinted, revised, in Ong’s book Interfaces of the Word Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (Cornell University Press, 1977, pages 121-144); the revised version is also reprinted in volume three of Ong’s Faith and Contexts (Scholars Press, 1995, pages 91-111).
In 1971 the American ex-Jesuit George Riemer published a book of interviews with noteworthy Jesuits, including one with Ong The New Jesuits (Little, Brown; Ong interview, pages 147-186); Riemer’s interview with Ong is reprinted in An Ong Reader Challenges for Further Inquiry (Hampton Press, 2002, pages 79-109), from which I quote the following passage
“I hit Saint Louis University when St. Louis Thomism rose to its first crest, quite vigorously historical and structurally sensitive in the hands of the good teachers. What I learned studying philosophy at Saint Louis University made my work on Ramism possible and has given me a permanent edge over many colleagues around the world. The advantage of the kind of philosophical training we were given was that if you got it, if you studied it, you knew the central intellectual tradition of all Western culture.
“But you didn’t really know that was what it was unless you knew a lot of things outside philosophy too. So you had something that was a wonderful tremendous asset, provided you could open it up. That’s just what many people then failed to do. Others succeeded†(page 98).
In my estimate, both Ong and Lonergan succeeded in opening up the “wonderful tremendous asset†they had from their Jesuit training in Thomism. However, as Ong says “many people then failed to†open up the Thomism they had studied – perhaps because they did not “get it,†as Ong puts it – they did not understand it.
In the 1970s Ong published two big books with Cornell University Press (1) Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture (1971) and (2) Interfaces of the Word Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (1977).
In the 1980s Ong published three short books (1) Fighting for Life Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness (Cornell University Press, 1981), the published version of Ong’s 1979 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University; (2) Orality and Literacy The Technologizing of the Word (Methuen, 1982), Ong’s most widely translated book; and (3) Hopkins, the Self, and God (University of Toronto Press, 1986), the published version of Ong’s 1981 Alexander Lectures at the University of Toronto.
In Ong’s 1986 book about the Victorian Jesuit poet and classicist Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), we find him discussing the thought of Thomas Aquinas (pages 91, 93-95, 107, and 132), the Scot Franciscan theologian John Duns Scotus (c.1266-1308; pages 96, 106-112, and 133), and the German Jesuit theologian Joseph Kleutgen (1811-1883; pages 94-97, 124, and 131-132). Hopkins was extremely enthusiastic about Duns Scotus’s thought. McGinn also discusses Duns Scotus (pages 110 and 127-130) and Kleutgen (pages 167, 169, and 171-173).
In the 1990s the four volumes of Ong’s Faith and Contexts (Atlanta Scholars Press, 1992a, 1992b, 1995, and 1999) were published. In 2002 An Ong Reader Challenges for Further Inquiry (Hampton Press) was published. Late in 2017, Ong’s incomplete book was published posthumously as Language as Hermeneutic A Primer on the Word and Digitization (Cornell University Press).
Ong died in August 2003. In 2004 the University of Chicago Press reissues his 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason in a paperback edition with a new foreword by Adrian Johns of the University of Chicago. The late Thomas M. Walsh (1943-2009) of Saint Louis University published an annotated bibliography of Ong’s 400 or so publications in the book Language, Culture, and Identity The Legacy of Walter J. Ong, S.J. (Hampton Press, 2011, pages 185-245). - Thomas Aquinas's "Summa Theologiae" is regarded as a classic in the history of philosophy and Bernard McGinn's biography of this influential work now has a reputation of its own to contend with.
The "Summa Theologiae" was written by Thomas Aquinas with the intention of providing an instructional guide for moderate theologians as well as a compendium of the theological teachings of the Catholic Church. McGinn tells the story of how this massive piece of history came to be in what he calls "a short book about a long book".
The book begins with an exploration of the world in which Thomas Aquinas lived. The 13th century was a time of great change, from the papal reordering of western medieval Christianity to the rise of the university and scholastic theology. This world shaped Aquinas and McGinn examines his reasons for writing the "Summa". He also takes readers on a tour of the original works and discusses its influence over the last seven centuries. To this day there is extensive religious study of "Summa", and one book for several related essays is Eleonore Stump's Reasoned Faith Essays in Philosophical Theology.
McGinn makes efforts to present this biography in a way that is accessible to all readers and assumes those who have picked it up will share his curiosity in the subject. He is right to assume this, because it is an immensely interesting subject. It is also unlikely that many people will tackle the original work (it's 3,000 pages long!), so this is a great book for both research and reference that is easy to follow and one that clearly demonstrates the author's passion for this topic. - Bernard McGinn is in my view at least, the best scholar on Christian spirituality around at the moment. His studies and translations of the works of Meister Eckhart, and his magisterial series 'History of Western Mysticism' remains unsurpassed in depth and scope, and probably will remain so for at least another generation or so. In this shorter work, McGinn aims to give an overview of the 'Summa Theologica,' the masterpiece of Thomas Aquinas that became the outstanding achievement of the intellect in medieval Christendom, and remains extremely influential even today (Aquinas is cited along with Augustine the most times of any non-Papal writer in the recent Catechism and the most recent CDF document makes abundant reference to Aquinas, as have all the Popes in the last century). An illuminating anecdote around Aquinas's canonisation is useful here - when asked what miracles Aquinas had performed through his intercession, the Pope apparently replied that everything Thomas wrote was a miracle. While perhaps hagiographical in origin, there is a solid element of truth to this story.
Aquinas is a difficult thinker, though his expression in the ST and other works is clear and dry enough. I have read the entire ST and still often refer to it, and have also read some of Thomas's other works. Overall, as Richard McBrien rightly remarked in one article, Thomas is a genuinely 'Catholic' thinker. His theology has a strong balance between faith and reason, nature and grace, prayer and the sacraments, liturgy and theology, devotion and thought, as well as an intellectual rigor attained by very few in the whole history of the church. Quite rightly the Catholic church at least still requires seminarians to carefully study the angelic doctor and become familiar in his thought.
McGinn does a good job of mapping out the ST, which despite its complexity, is also a spiritual journey as well as a didactic work. Thomas follows the Neo-Platonic structure of procession of all things from God as their source in creation and nature, (exitus) and their final return to their final goal through nature and grace. Thomas follows the four-fold structure of Peter Lombard's 'Sentences' with the Triune God coming first, followed by a consideration of the world as God's creation (Part 2), the Incarnation of the Word and the grace of the redeemer (Part 3) and the return of the redeemed creature to God via the church and sacraments (Part 4). Unfortunately, St Thomas died before he was able to complete the fourth part of the Summa and hence compilers attempted to 'complete' his work with extracts from his other works, such as the Commentary on Sentences. In this, Aquinas along with Bonaventure, Eriugena, Augustine, Origen, Pseudo-Dionysius, Meister Eckhart and the Cappadocian Fathers conceived of the world as a great 'river' of sorts emanating from the free will of a loving God, and returns to him in an overarching symphony of movement that reflects (but does not exhaust) the dynamic and fecund nature of God himself. Part of the challenge of the ST is not to just take a snippet here and there to settle some controversial issue, or use it to compile a 'manual' of some kind to purport to give answers to every question (the problem Rahner noted with Neo-Scholastic uses of St Thomas). Fortunately, the more modern readings more accurately place Aquinas and the ST in better context and also with better coherence with Christian fundamental theology about God, the Trinity, the Incarnation, Christ, Salvation, the Sacraments, the Liturgy, prayer, and so on. To try and not understand Thomas as a whole is to not understand him at all, a point I wish more contemporary apologists would take into account. The lack of intellectual rigor I see in many pointless and trivial debates in so-called 'discussion forums' often involves people misquoting or misusing Thomas's ideas to develop a one-dimensional fundamentalist travesty of his thought.
This work by McGinn adds to the library of useful Thomistic studies and will hopefully help make the Angelic Doctor better known to the wider public.
