From the Head to the Feet: The Word Made Flesh and the Plan of the Tertia Pars

Orientation #

He says the class is passing “from the head to the feet”: last year’s course (the Trinity, “if you followed the course last year”) contemplated Christ’s divinity, and now the humanity of Christ in the Tertia Pars begins. Next time, as he says at the break, “To the first, therefore”: the objections of q. 1 a. 1. The next class works through the objections and replies of the first two articles of Tertia Pars q. 1.

The class, in order #

1. The two angels at the tomb (“one at the head and one at the feet”) #

Point: John 20 gives the emblem for the transition of the course. The angel at the head where Jesus’s body lay and the one at the feet represent divinity and humanity; Gregory the Great (in the Catena Aurea and in Thomas’s commentary on John) says the angel sits at the head when “In the beginning was the Word” is preached, at the feet when “the Word was made flesh” is said. Having invoked the angel of the divinity, the course now goes to the angel of the humanity.

2. Antonomasia and synecdoche (“both are concerned with whole and part”) #

Point: the two Johannine verses Gregory juxtaposes use the two figures of speech he always treats together.

• Distinction: antonomasia vs. synecdoche. Both concern whole and part; antonomasia is universal whole and part, synecdoche composed whole and part. From logic: the composed whole is put together from its parts but not said of them; the universal whole is said of its parts but not put together from them.
• Plato’s Symposium (without the “horrible names”): the common name “lover” given to the romantic lover; “poet” (Greek: maker) given to what we call the poet; “Bible” is just the Greek for book. So antonomasia is the name said of many given to one that stands out.
• “In the beginning was the Word” (thought): the thought by antonomasia, in four steps recalled from earlier: (1) it is the only thought God has; (2) a thought is better for being about a better thing, and this is the only thought that fully expresses what God is; (3) it is the only subsistent thought, a person; (4) this thought is God.
• “The Word was made flesh”: the name of a composing part (flesh) given to the whole. Heretics (Arius, Apollinaris) took it properly, not figuratively, and made the Word substitute for the soul, as if he took flesh and no human soul. Scriptural parallels: “all flesh has come to be”; men called “souls”. De Koninck: “Saint Peter pray for us” gives the name of the composed whole to what is only a part, the soul; between death and resurrection “my soul will be, but I won’t be”, yet God understands the figure.

3. The rule of two and three (“two is not enough… but three is enough”) #

Point: a recurring pattern he flags as worth noting: often two are not enough, three are.

• Aristotle, Physics (“Natural Hearing”) I: change is between contraries, then a third thing besides the contraries is needed, and he stops there because three are enough.
• Dei Verbum (end of ch. 2): scripture, tradition, magisterium; none can stand without the others.
• Three theological virtues: faith, hope, charity, all needed. Thomas’s prayer before Mass and the middle quatrain of the Adoro Te Devote ask for all three; so does the childhood prayer before the crucifix.
• Music of the Mass, symmetry of five parts (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus/Benedictus, Agnus Dei): the two extremes ask mercy (hope), Gloria and Sanctus praise (love, as in Augustine’s amare in laudibus, laudare in amore: if we love, we praise Mozart, Shakespeare, Thomas), and the Credo in the middle is faith.

4. Three orders of sacred doctrine (“what are the three that Thomas uses in the two Summas”) #

Point: sacred doctrine can be ordered three ways: the Bible’s own order (fundamental); the order of faith, hope, charity; and the order God-in-himself / God as maker / God as end.

• Augustine’s Enchiridion (“in the hand”, a manual), written for an educated layman, divides all Christian doctrine by faith (the Creed), hope (the Our Father), charity (the two commandments of love and the Ten). The Catechism of the Catholic Church has four parts only because sanctification/sacraments is expanded. Thomas follows Augustine in the catechetical instructions at Naples and in the Compendium of Theology written for Reginald. This division suits children and every Christian.
• But not the two Summas. Their three: God in himself, God as maker (beginning), God as end.
• Apocalypse: “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (1:8), “the first and the last” (2:8, to Smyrna), “the beginning and the end” (21:6; Greek ho protos kai ho eschatos, hē archē kai to telos), and at the culmination all three together with “my reward is with me” (the “verse thirteen” of the last chapter; 22:13 inferred). Question: properly or figuratively? Alpha and Omega is figurative (he is not letters); “beginning and end”, since there are many beginnings (the beginning of this table), is said by antonomasia: he is the first beginning, the beginning and end of all things, “good of all goods” as Augustine says.

5. The plan of the Summa Contra Gentiles (“crisscrosses… those three, with another distinction”) #

Point: the SCG uses the same three but crosses them with the distinction between what natural reason can discover and what only faith knows (diagrammed; cf. handout “The Matter and Order of Wisdom” p. 11).

• Book I: God in himself (that he is, his substance, operation). Book II: God as maker, with the things made so far as the theologian treats them, especially rational creatures. Book III: God as end, in three parts: God the end of all things and specially of us and angels; providence in general directing all to himself; special providence over man (matched passage: SCG III ch. 17). These three restrict themselves to what reason can find, as Aristotle and to some extent Plato found, with reasons a mere philosopher could follow, plus Scripture.
• Book IV does the same three things by faith only: the Trinity (God in himself; contrast the Prima Pars, where the Trinity follows directly on God in himself); the Incarnation as a making, “one hell of a making”, the greatest thing he made, with the sacraments attached as tools Christ uses (Eucharist, baptism); and man’s last end, resurrection (“eschatology”). So the three are gone through twice.
• Aside on knowing by reason as well as faith: the Fathers see providence in the Jews’ non-conversion; their hostility makes them witnesses to the authenticity of the Old Testament books, else pagans could say Christians wrote them. Likewise today: “you’re only against abortion/homosexuality because you’re Catholic”; but Plato’s Laws proposes a law against homosexuality as against nature. Vatican I: God’s existence knowable by reason; it is Aristotle or Plato arriving without faith that shows a thing can be so known.
• Probable reason for the crisscross: the Dominican General wanted help in Spain with intelligent Jews and Mohammedans; things known by faith alone cannot be proved to the unbeliever but objections of impossibility can be answered; the rest can be argued.
• Analogy: some things only the eye knows, some only touch, but both know the shape of this glass; so with faith and reason (Trinity, Incarnation, some last things are faith’s alone).

6. The plan of the Summa Theologiae (“Oh, I bet that’s those three parts… Oh, no”) #

Point: the three parts of the ST are not the three of God/maker/end, but they are based on them.

• Prologue of I q. 2: the chief intention is knowledge of God not only in himself but as principium and end of things, especially rational creatures. Hence: first God (Prima Pars); second the motion of the rational creature to God; third Christ, who as man is the via, the road, to God, from “I am the way, the truth and the life”: as God he is truth and life, as man the road.
• The whole Prima Pars contains all three (God in himself with the Trinity, God as maker, God as end in general); the second and third parts expand the third member, God as end of rational creatures in a special way, with the virtues as means and God-made-man as the way. A student sums up: all three are in the first part, then he expands on the third. Yes.
• Correspondence: the Secunda Pars answers to the third part of SCG III (special providence over man); the Tertia Pars to SCG IV’s Incarnation. Moral theology must go greatly into detail, “following Aristotle” [a further name is unclear in the recording].
• “Both of these are correct”: the Incarnation under Maker in SCG (the “miracle of miracles”, every other miracle for its sake) and under End in ST; something different is emphasised.

7. Three central questions about Trinity and Incarnation (“Why did God become a man”) #

Point: each mystery raises the same three questions, but the third differs in kind.

• Trinity: (1) are there three persons? yes; (2) how, since God is altogether simple? God is not put together from them, each person is God and differs only relatively to the others; (3) why three, no more, no fewer? distinguished by relations of origin, and only two processions in God, by reason (the Word) and by will (the Holy Spirit, breath, love).
• Incarnation: (1) did God become man? SCG shows it at length from Scripture; (2) how could he, since becoming means change and God cannot change (a sphere that becomes a cube is no longer a sphere)? to be understood; (3) why? Unlike “why three persons” (God is the end, no purpose beyond him), this asks an end or purpose. Laughable answers: he was curious what being a man is like, or not satisfied with being God, wanted to be all he could be. The Creed’s answer: for us men and for our salvation.

8. Was it necessary? The word “necessary” (“is it necessary to understand the word necessary”) #

Point: asking whether the Incarnation was necessary for redemption forces a distinction of senses of “necessary”.

• Aristotle’s lost dialogue on philosophy (Cicero: dialogues even better than Plato’s): either you ought to philosophize or not; to show you ought not, you must philosophize. Bohm vs. Maurice Pryce [ASR “Price”]: “my philosophy is to avoid philosophy; I know it’s a trap.” A Moscow minister of education to an American professor who required no philosophy: “no philosophy is a bad philosophy.” His simpler version: is it necessary to understand “necessary”? To deny it you must understand it.
• Aristotle’s two senses of necessity from an end: that without which a thing cannot be, and that without which it cannot be well. Thomas, like Augustine before him, argues God could have redeemed us another way but none more suitable, giving eight or ten reasons (to be seen).

9. Reading the prologue of the Tertia Pars (“he shows the road of truth for us in himself”) #

Point: the Tertia Pars puts the Incarnation under God as our end.

• Read and translated: our Saviour Jesus Christ, saving his people from their sins (Matthew’s opening), showed in himself the via of truth by which we can arrive, rising, at the beatitude of immortal life; so, to complete the whole theological business, after the last end of human life and the virtues and vices (the Secunda Pars: end, then faith hope charity, prudence justice fortitude temperance, and attached virtues), consideration of the Saviour himself and his benefits follows.
• Subdivision into three: the Saviour himself; the sacraments; the end of immortal life reached through him. Thomas finished the first and was in the sacraments when “God called him home”; the rest filled in from the Sentences, roughly in his order. Same order as SCG IV (Word made flesh, sacraments, final state), but there under Maker, here under End.
• Comparison with Aristotle’s Ethics: end in Book I, virtues Books II–VI; Aristotle treats happiness before and again after the virtues (only after seeing the virtues differ can he say precisely which activity: the more divine happiness contemplating God, the more human “being Winston Churchill”); Thomas, able to receive Aristotle’s result, puts the whole treatment of happiness before the virtues.
• Thomas divides always into three and two: aside on two visitors at his house comparing Thomas’s two divisions of the ten categories, each eight divisions, every one into two or three. The first of the three here subdivides into two: the mystery of the Incarnation as God for our salvation was made man (the fact), and what through him was done and suffered (a summary of the Gospel life).

10. Question 1 and the six articles (“Don’t be too quick to judge this matter”) #

Point: the first member divides into suitability of the Incarnation, the mode of union, and what follows the union; q. 1 asks six things.

• Aside (from a question last night): why Mary says “I am the Immaculate Conception” and not “immaculately conceived”, since we say “just”, not “justice”, “healthy”, not “health”. His line of solution: a famous article [author unclear in recording] holds Mary’s grace is of the hypostatic order; as in the Hail Holy Queen (“our life, our sweetness”, not “living one”), the abstract marks universal causality (life is that by which every living thing lives): aqueduct (St Bernard), Mediatrix; the Immaculate Conception goes with her predestination to be Mother of God, and given to John as mother she is mother of all. Alphonsus wrote a whole volume on that prayer.
• a. 1, whether suitable for God to become flesh: note we say “incarnate” not “humanize”, following John’s synecdoche. Would a reasonable man like Aristotle find it likely? Rhetoric’s two arguments, example and enthymeme, the latter from likelihood or signs [ASR “science”]; that God become man seems not likely, let alone probable. Faith’s demand to believe hard things: John 6 on the Eucharist, people turn away, Peter’s “where will we go”; end of Matthew, at the ascension “some doubted”; today even people in the pews doubt the real presence. Humility is necessary for belief: Thomas on the Pauline epistles, pride deceives in two ways, overestimating one’s ability (judging beyond capacity, as heretics and modern scholars) and not submitting to wiser minds; teachableness reads the wiser carefully, frequently, reverently. Humility removes an impediment; it does not ensure belief. Why God requires it: believing before knowing is natural in every science (he believed the Pythagorean theorem before proving it from Euclid; college students could not prove it), and the more so the harder the science: mathematics is named from the learner (mathēma, mathētēs, discipulus), sacred doctrine from the teacher.
• a. 2, whether necessary for the reparation of the human race: “perhaps the most interesting article”. Necessity of three persons is absolute, like two being half of four; necessity of the Incarnation is from the end, in Aristotle’s two senses: food to live (cannot be at all); a horse for a long journey, a boat to cross water (cannot be well). Aristotle treats “necessary” in the fifth book of Wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics V].
• a. 3, whether God would have become flesh had there been no sin: Scripture always speaks in terms of sin, so Thomas inclines to no; St Albert held the other as more pious. Aside: Albert “at the crossroads of logic” on the categories, hesitating between the way Cajetan takes and the way of the Greek commentators.
• a. 4, whether chiefly to take away original rather than actual sin: the newspapers are evidence, if of anything, of originale peccatum; something seriously wrong with the race; original sin infects all but the Virgin and Christ, a common evil, so expect Thomas to say original.
• a. 5 and 6, more particular: whether suitably from the beginning of the world (“why wait all this time?”), and whether it should have been deferred to the end of the world, “no problem for me”.
• Closing contrast: SCG begins from the scriptural texts against the heretics, then answers objections of impossibility, then suitability; the ST begins with suitability. Break at “To the first, therefore”.

His words #

• antonomasia: the name said of many given to one that stands out; universal whole and part.
• synecdoche: name of a part for the whole or whole for part; composed whole and part.
• composed whole: put together from its parts, not said of them; universal whole: said of its parts, not put together from them.
• Word: “thought”; the thought by antonomasia.
• Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics].
• rule of two and three: two often not enough, three enough.
• Enchiridion: “in the hand”, a manual.
• ho protos kai ho eschatos; hē archē kai to telos: the first and the last; the beginning and the end.
• principium: beginning, maker.
• via: road, way (Christ as man).
• crisscross: crossing God/maker/end with known-by-reason / by-faith-only.
• necessary (from an end): that without which a thing cannot be; that without which it cannot be well.
• enthymeme: rhetorical argument from likelihood or signs [ASR uncertain].
• mathēma / mathētēs / discipulus: mathematics named from the learner; sacra doctrina named from the teacher.
• fifth book of Wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics V].
• originale peccatum: original sin.
• hypostatic order: said of Mary’s grace (an article he cites, author unclear).

Texts #

Read in class

• John 20:11-12 (Mary at the tomb, two angels); Gregory the Great in the Catena Aurea on it.
• Apocalypse 1:8; 2:8; 21:6; the last verse “thirteen” (22:13 inferred).
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I q. 2, prologue.
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae III, prologue; q. 1, division and titles of the six articles (verified match, 17 min).
• Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, plan of books I–IV; III ch. 17 (verified match, 10 min).
• Handout “The Matter and Order of Wisdom”, p. 11 (read from, 10 min).
• Matthew 28 end (“some doubted”) and Matthew’s opening; John 1:1, 1:14; John 6.

Mentioned

• Thomas, commentary on John; commentary on the Psalms/Pauline epistles (pride as cause of deception); catechetical instructions at Naples; Compendium of Theology; Sentences (supplement).
• Aristotle, Physics I; Ethics I–VI; Rhetoric; fragment of the lost dialogue on philosophy (Cicero on it).
• Plato, Symposium; Laws.
• Augustine, Enchiridion; “amare in laudibus, laudare in amore”; “good of all goods”.
• Dei Verbum, end of ch. 2; Vatican I; Catechism of the Catholic Church.
• Adoro Te Devote; Hail Holy Queen (Alphonsus’s volume; Bernard’s “aqueduct”).
• De Koninck on “Saint Peter pray for us”; Cajetan and the Greek commentators on the categories; Albert.
• printed volume DHB Vol. III, The School of Aristotle, p. 460 (verified source; not named in transcript).

His questions #

• What do the two angels at the head and feet represent? Divinity and humanity (Gregory: “In the beginning was the Word” / “the Word was made flesh”).
• What do antonomasia and synecdoche have in common? Both concern whole and part: universal whole vs. composed whole.
• What are the three that Thomas uses in the two Summas? God in himself, God as beginning/maker, God as end.
• When he says “I am the Alpha and the Omega… the beginning and the end”, is he speaking properly or figuratively? Alpha and Omega figuratively; beginning and end by antonomasia, being the first beginning and end of all.
• The Summa Theologiae has three parts: are they those three? No; all three are in the Prima Pars, the second and third parts expand God as end of rational creatures.
• In the two Summas, under which heading is the Incarnation? Under Maker in SCG, under End in ST; both correct.
• Why did God become a man? Not curiosity or dissatisfaction (laughable); for us men and our salvation.
• Is it necessary to understand the word “necessary”? Yes; even to deny it you must understand it.
• If there had not been sin, would God have become flesh? Thomas inclines to no, following Scripture; Albert thought otherwise.
• Is it likely that God would become man? Seems not likely; hence humility is needed to believe (left for the articles).