Summa Theologiae I, Q.1 aa.9–10 and the Prologue to Q.2: Metaphor in Scripture, the Four Senses, and the Plan of the Summa

Orientation #

He opens: “I think we’re up to the third reply to the third objection in Article Nine.” No reference to next time; the class ends at a break before “the next” question. He refers back to “that thing we saw in the second book of Wisdom” (the two causes of difficulty in knowing) (prev. lecture). Verified sources place the first twenty minutes between q.1 a.8 and a.10 (probably), then a.10, the q.2 prologue, and SCG I ch. 9; a handout “Friar Laurence on Stumbling” p. 8 and DHB Vol III p. 1052 are listed as found in the audio but the transcript does not show them being read. The previous class covered q.1 aa.7–9, the next begins the Prima Pars proper with q.2 aa.1–2.

The class, in order #

1. Article 9, reply 3: why Scripture uses lowly bodies (“The Lord is a rock”) #

Point: it is more suitable that divine things be figured by vile bodies than noble ones. Objection 3: the more sublime creatures are more like God, so figures should be taken from them; yet Scripture says “the Lord is a rock.” Reply (Dionysius), three reasons:

1. The soul is freed from error: it is manifest such things are not said properly of God, which could be doubted with noble bodies. Example: Anaxagoras got in trouble for saying the sun is a stone on fire (“we know it’s the god Apollo”); nobody would think the rock is Apollo, but maybe the sun is. Especially protects those unable to think of anything more noble than bodies; aside: the mother of a philosophical associate, a good Catholic, could not grasp that the divine nature has no body.
2. More suited to our knowledge of God in this life, where He is more known by what He is not; likenesses from things most distant from God give a true estimate that He is above what we can say or think. Fr. Boulay’s remark: in that sense symbolic theology is higher than other theology.
3. Divine things are more hidden from the unworthy (a reason already given in another objection). Added from the Sentences: every part of man should be subject to God; if the legs genuflect, how much more the imagination, which is next to reason and will and a great cause of deception. The metaphors bring the imagination into subjection.

2. Poet’s metaphor vs. Scripture’s metaphor (“Homer taught all the Greeks”) #

Point: both use metaphor because of difficulty in knowing, but for opposite difficulties.

• Difficulty can be in the things themselves or in the weakness of our mind (prev. lecture, "second book of Wisdom") [ed.: likely Aristotle, Metaphysics II (inferred)]. For the poet the difficulty is in the thing: human affairs are not really understandable. For God the difficulty is in us: He is too understandable for us.
• Aristotle, Poetics: Homer taught that the unity of a play is not being about one man but one course of action with beginning, middle and end, where nothing can be taken out. Your life or mine as it really is is a jumble without connection; the plot gives an order and understandability more than life has. So metaphors “raise up” the thing.
• Secular music likewise tries to represent what cannot be said in words; Romeo (Romeo and Juliet): “let music express our joy.” God too cannot be said in words, but for the different reason. Why Thomas has this article though the Summa does not proceed metaphorically: partly to guard us against thinking the argumentative part gets us as far as we might think; also because some objections about God come from taking metaphors properly/literally.

3. Article 10 opened: senses, objections, sed contra (“sense of the letter”) #

Point: whether Scripture has under one letter many senses—historical, allegorical, tropological (better: moral), anagogic. Translation warning: not “literal sense,” because in English that excludes metaphor, whereas Thomas puts metaphor under sensus literalis. “The Lord is my rock”: sense of the letter is not that He is a rock but that He is our support, as a husband calling his wife “honey” means she is sweet. So he says “sense of the letter.” First sense = historical/letter; the other three = spiritual senses.

• Obj. 1: multiplicity of senses in one scripture breeds confusion and deception and removes firmness of argument (fallacies are assigned to it); Scripture should show truth without fallacy—so they should not be on the list at all.
• Obj. 2: Augustine (On the Usefulness of Believing) divides the Old Testament fourfold: history, etiology, analogy, allegory—a different list. Aside on aetia/etiology and etymology (“origins”; Partridge’s Origins recommended for a personal library).
• Obj. 3: the parabolical sense is left out—a “sin of omission.” He notes obj. 1 differs in kind from 2 and 3.
• Sed contra: Gregory the Great, Moralia XX: Scripture transcends all sciences by its way of speaking, since one speech narrates a deed and brings forth a mystery. Aside: Thomas quotes the Moralia constantly in the Secunda Secundae (four species of pride, seven capital sins); “mystical sense” he takes to mean the spiritual sense.

4. Body: God accommodates things, not only words (“the author of sacred Scripture is God”) #

Point: “that’s where we gotta begin” — “this is a key point.”

1. In all sciences vocal sounds signify things (as man can arrange).
2. God, whose providence extends to all things, can make the things themselves signify further—this is proper (better “private,” exclusive) to this science. Aside on translating proprium (bonum proprium = private good vs. common good).
3. Hence order: the first signifying (words → things) is the historical sense / sense of the letter; the second (things → other things) is the spiritual sense, founded on and presupposing the letter. “First implies order.” Figurative speech (Thomas on St Paul, defending Paul’s irony as not lying): the meaning of the words is not the meaning of the speaker, but there is a connection. Irony vs. metaphor: metaphor’s connection is likeness, irony’s is opposition.

• Metaphor: “honey”/“sweet” = “O thou pleasant one,” because the sweet is pleasant (a kid who dislikes candy has something wrong with him).
• Irony: to a student found drunk under the table, “what a fine example of an Assumption College student”; at a Bond movie, someone says “nice guy” when the villain electrocutes a man in the tub; “Gee, you’re nice.” Sense of the letter is the opposite of the words. Error to avoid: making the sense of the letter what “rock” means—then Scripture would be founded on something false. Division rule: four senses, but first letter vs. spiritual (two), then spiritual into three; the mind “can’t understand the distinction of the four” at once—every division into two or three. Same with Gregory’s four kinds of pride: three, one subdivided.

5. The three spiritual senses named (“the old law is a figure”) #

• “The Apostle” = Paul by antonomasia (Peter and Paul the “princes of the apostles,” feast June 29, the Constantinople delegate).
• Hebrews: old law a figure of the new (David/the psalm a figure of Christ) → allegorical sense.
• Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy: the new law a figure of future glory → anagogical (ana = up, as anatomy = cut up; “leading up”).
• Things done in the head, Christ, are signs of what we ought to do → moral sense.

6. More than one sense of the letter (“I am the way, the truth, and the life”) #

Point: since the sense of the letter is what the author intends, and God comprehends all at once, it is not unfitting (Augustine, Confessions XII) that one letter have many senses of the letter—the view of both Augustine and Thomas, visible in Church documents.

• “I am the way, the truth, and the life”: popes read it of Christ’s three offices (way = king/commandments, truth = prophet/teacher, life = priest), nearly the faith–hope–charity division of Christian doctrine; but in context, answering “where are you going and how get there,” Christ is end as God (truth, life) and road as man—a different sense of the same words.
• Psalm 62 (“O God, you are my God, whom I seek… like the earth parched”): the banquet may signify heaven or the Eucharist (Thomas’s communion prayers: O sacrum convivium calls the Eucharist a sacred banquet, then refers to heaven); or Eucharist as the letter and heaven as spiritual sense, a foretaste.
• Augustine at the end of the Confessions: any orthodox sense that fits the thing can be a sense; you may see what I don’t, both senses of the letter.
• Thomas on Isaiah: Scripture called fire and water metaphorically (the same thing can’t be hot and cold); water fits any container, so Scripture fits my situation and yours.
• Psalms: Thomas sometimes gives two interpretations, even one good, one bad (Psalm 17). Back to obj. 1: is this confusion? Cousin Don was scandalized reading the Golden Chain [ed.: Catena aurea] at Fathers differing on one passage—but that is richness, not confusion; psalms he knows by heart keep yielding new meanings. Caution: don’t cling to “my sense” because it’s mine; truth is common; Augustine on the devil who “spoke from himself” when he lied.

7. Replies to the three objections; a student’s question (“does not make equivocation”) #

• Ad 1: the multiplicity does not make equivocation or another species of multiplicity, since senses are multiplied not because one sound signifies many things but because the things signified are signs of other things. All senses are founded on one, the letter, from which alone argument is drawn—not from allegory (Augustine, epistle against Vincent the Donatist). Nothing lost: whatever is necessary for faith under a spiritual sense is treated manifestly elsewhere by the letter (as with metaphor said openly in another place). He notes the reply concerns letter vs. spiritual, not the plurality of letter-senses.
• Ad 2: history, etiology, analogy are subdivisions of the sense of the letter: history = something simply proposed; etiology = cause assigned (Christ on why Moses permitted repudiating wives: hardness of heart, “otherwise they’d kill them”); analogy = one Scripture shown not repugnant to another (Augustine’s Harmony of the Gospels). Augustine’s “allegory” = all three spiritual senses, as Hugh of St Victor (Sentences III) puts anagogical under allegorical, giving three: historical, allegorical, tropological. Reasonable, since old-law-signifying and end-signifying are alike, the moral sense different. Aside: he was christened Hugo Duane, confirmation name Victor.
• Ad 3: the parabolical sense is under the sense of the letter, for words signify something properly and something figuratively; the sense of the letter is not the figure but what is figured. “Arm of God”: not a bodily member but His power of operating; thus nothing false in the sense of the letter. If the metaphor became the meaning of the word it would cease to be a metaphor: “you pig, you ate the whole pie”—glutton is the speaker’s meaning, not the meaning of “pig,” and “pig” expresses the annoyance.
• Student: two true interpretations, both perhaps different from what Paul had in mind—how does this fall under God’s authorship? Answer: God is the chief author; a prophet need not know all meanings of God’s word (Isaiah, John spoke prophecy without knowing it); these still fall under the sense of the letter.

8. Prologue to question 2: plan of the Summa vs. Contra Gentiles (“beginning of things”) #

Point: sacred doctrine treats God in Himself, as beginning (maker, mover) and as end, especially of the rational creature.

• SCG: books I–III correspond exactly (God in Himself; God as principium and what He made; God as end, providence in general and for the rational creature); fundamental division there is what is known by reason and faith (I–III) vs. by faith alone (IV, subdivided the same way: Trinity, Incarnation, last end).
• Summa Theologiae is less neat: Part I = God (essence, distinction of persons, procession of creatures—i.e. God in Himself and as principium pushed together); Part II = motion of the rational creature to God; Part III = Christ as man, the via to God, with the sacraments—so II and III both fall under God as end. Disproportion (“bloated,” “distorted”) because moral theology descends to detail: in his five-volume edition the Secunda Secundae is nearly as big as Ia and Ia–IIae together. The Summa has more moral than dogmatic theology; not so the SCG, which stays more speculative. Msgr Dionne: the Summa gives common principles; for the confessional go to St Alphonsus de Liguori.
• Student: doesn’t SCG III treat man’s supernatural end and ethics? Yes, but not in this detail.

9. Existence, substance, operation: the way up and down (“The way up and the way down”) #

Point: before the Trinity, Part I has three parts—q.2 existence of God, qq.3–13 (esp. 3–11) His substance (what He is, or is not), q.14 onward His operation (understanding, willing); q.14’s prologue speaks of “divine substance,” and operation must be understood before the Trinity. Why three if they are one in God? Heraclitus: the way up and the way down are the same, only directed oppositely. Image: God the centre of a circle, radii the procession of creatures, many points on the circumference—what is one in God is many in creatures. In creatures existence, substance and operation differ (a cat’s existence is not what a cat is; what it is is not what it does). We know God going up, from creatures, so the multiplicity of creatures is found in our knowledge of God, not affirmed of Him; we shall learn His existence, substance and operation are the same. Seeing Him face to face, we have one name. Reverse of God: God knows the composed simply, the many in a unitary way; we know the simple through the many. Break before beginning q.2.

His words #

• sense of the letter: his rendering of sensus literalis, includes metaphor [ed.: literal sense]
• historical sense: another name for the sense of the letter
• spiritual senses: allegorical, moral (he prefers to “tropological”), anagogical; “mystical sense” taken as the same
• private: his rendering of proprium (as in bonum proprium vs. common good) [ed.: proper]
• vocal sounds: his rendering of voces [ed.: words]
• etiology / aetia: cause, beginning; cf. “etymology” = origins
• antonomasia: “the Apostle” for Paul
• anagogicus: “leading up,” ana as in anatomy
• figurative speech: meaning of the speaker differs from meaning of the words but is connected—by likeness (metaphor) or opposition (irony)
• principium: God as beginning, maker, mover
• via: Christ as man, the road to God
• substance of God: qq.3–13, what He is (or is not); operation: q.14 on

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q.1, a.9 ad 3
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q.1, a.10 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q.2, prologue
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q.14, prologue (opening line)
• Psalm 62, opening verses (from memory)

Mentioned

• Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, division of books I–IV (verified source: SCG I, ch. 9)
• Thomas, Commentary on the Sentences (reasons for metaphor); Commentaries on St Paul (figurative speech, Paul’s irony); Commentary on Isaiah (Scripture as water and fire); Commentary on the Psalms (Psalm 17); Communion prayers (O sacrum convivium)
• Dionysius (on lowly bodies); Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
• Augustine, On the Usefulness of Believing; Confessions XII and end; Harmony of the Four Gospels; epistle against Vincent the Donatist
• Gregory the Great, Moralia XX
• Hugh of St Victor, Sentences III
• Hebrews (old law a figure of the new); John 14 “I am the way…” (inferred locus); Gospel on Moses and repudiation of wives
• Aristotle, Poetics (Homer and unity of plot); “second book of Wisdom” (two causes of difficulty)
• Heraclitus, “the way up and the way down”
• Anaxagoras on the sun; Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (music and joy); Partridge, Origins; the Golden Chain; St Alphonsus de Liguori
• Verified sources not visible in transcript: handout “Friar Laurence on Stumbling” p. 8; DHB Vol III, The School of Aristotle, p. 1052

His questions #

• How should you translate literalis? “Sense of the letter,” to avoid English “literal” excluding metaphor.
• When Scripture says the Lord is my rock, what is the sense of the letter? Not that He is a rock, but that He is my support.
• Why does Thomas have this article, when the Summa does not proceed metaphorically? To guard against overrating the argumentative part, and because objections arise from taking metaphors properly.
• Doesn’t this multiplicity of senses leave you confused? No: it is the richness of the Word of God; and the senses are multiplied by things signifying, not one word meaning many things.
• Two people, two different true interpretations—how does that fall under God’s authorship? God is chief author; the prophet need not know all meanings; both are senses of the letter.
• What about God as maker, in the Summa’s three parts? Pushed into the first part, as the procession of creatures.
• Why three parts—existence, substance, operation—if they are all the same in God? Because we know God going up from creatures; the multiplicity is in our knowing, not in Him.