The Thomist 84 (2020): 1-50

SCHOLASTIC ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
GREGORY M. REICHBERG
Peace Research Institute Oslo
Oslo, Norway

R

ELIGIOUS FREEDOM is increasingly a topic of debate
within academic and political circles. Two important
historical works on this theme appeared in 2019.1 Twice
in the last two years, the U.S. State Department has organized a
Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, and in June 2020
President Trump issued an executive order “On Advancing
International Religious Freedom.” Within the Catholic orbit, a
debate has been ongoing as to whether the Declaration on
Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae) of the Second Vatican
Council is consistent with earlier papal and conciliar pronouncements on the topic.2 And the International Theological
Commission has recently issued a document that updates
Dignitatis Humanae in light of political, social, and theological
developments of the last fifty years.3

1
Robert Louis Wilken, Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of
Religious Freedom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019); Noel D. Johnson and
Mark Koyama, Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
2
See Martin Rhonheimer, “Benedict XVI’s ‘Hermeneutic of Reform’ and Religious
Freedom,” Nova et vetera (Eng. ed.) 9 (2011): 1029-54; Thomas Pink, “The Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae: A Reply to Martin Rhonheimer, Nova et vetera (Eng.
ed.) 11 (2013): 79-123.
3
Religious Freedom for the Good of All: A Theological Approach to Contemporary
Challenges, International Theological Commission (Vatican City, 2019). Text available
in French and Italian at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_
documents/rc_cti_index-doc-pubbl_en.html.

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

Many of these discussions refer in one way or another to the
seminal influence of St. Thomas Aquinas. His emphatic statement in the Summa theologiae (STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8) that
“under no condition may unbelievers be compelled to the faith”
appears to provide a solid foundation for religious freedom.
And insofar as the assent of faith is encompassed within his
wider teaching on conscience, this too would seem to support a
robust affirmation of religious freedom. From his assertion that
the dictates of one’s conscience should always be adhered to,
even when they objectively err,4 it is natural to infer that
adhesion to religious truths should never be compelled, nor
should anyone be forced to abandon a religious conviction that
others deem patently false.
Other statements by Aquinas reveal a countervailing
tendency to restrict the application of religious freedom within
a narrow band. For instance, the prohibition against compelling
others to the faith (quoted above) applies solely to persons who
are raised outside of the Christian community. Those who
become members of the community through baptism are not
allowed to leave even should they wish to do so—a position
Aquinas likewise affirms in question 10, article 8 of the Secunda
secundae.
The same dichotomy—affirmations of religious freedom on
the one hand, tight restrictions on the other—can readily be
found in the writings of Aquinas’s Scholastic disciples. Both
Cajetan and Vitoria, for instance, deny that Christianity can
rightly be spread by dint of war; forcible conversion they
unequivocally rule out. “We would sin very gravely should we
seek to spread the faith of Christ in such a way,”5 Cajetan
writes, and in a similar vein Suarez says, “However probably
and sufficiently the [Christian] faith may have been announced
to the barbarians and rejected by them, this is still no reason to

4

See De Verit., q. 17, a. 4; STh I-II, q. 19, a. 5, and Quodl. III, q. 12, aa. 1-2.
Cajetan, commentary to STh II-II, q. 66, a. 8; translation in G. Reichberg and H.
Syse, Religion, War, and Ethics: A Sourcebook of Textual Traditions (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2014), 95.
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3

declare war on them and despoil them of their goods.”6 The
latter likewise emphasizes that someone’s refusal to accept revealed truths—withholding assent to the supernatural teaching
of God—does not justify a forcible response of the part of
Christians.7 Examples could readily be multiplied by reference
to other authors. Nonetheless, in line with Aquinas and indeed
the wider Latin tradition that stems from St. Augustine,
medieval and early modern Scholastics were highly selective in
their appeals to religious freedom: affirming some of its
modalities and denying others.
In what follows, I begin with a survey of Aquinas’s thought
on religious freedom and then consider how Vitoria and Suarez
approach this topic. The last two stand apart from other
Scholastics insofar as they engage in systematic reflection on the
varying situations in which individuals or even whole
communities can be subject to religious coercion (in contrast to
others—Duns Scotus8 or Durandus of St. Porçain,9 for
instance—who restrict their inquiry to special cases such as
forcible child baptism) or be considered immune to it. Vitoria
and Suarez think that such coercion is permitted by appeal to
sound moral and theological principles: they likewise seek to
demarcate the zone where coercion can not legitimately intrude.
They recognize, however, that the boundaries of licit religious
coercion are not entirely set within Catholic teaching, and
therefore they take care to situate their own viewpoints within
the broader spectrum of theological positions on this topic. In
this way they provide good access to the status quaestionis on
religious freedom within early-modern Scholasticism.
Understanding how these Scholastics conceptualize religious
coercion, its raison d’être and scope can provide valuable
background for today’s discussions about the theological
6
Vitoria, De Indis, q. 2, a. 4; translation in Francisco de Vitoria, Political Writings,
ed. A. Pagden and J. Lawrance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 271.
7
Suarez, De Fide, 18.4.2-7.
8
Ioannes Duns Scotus, Ordinatio IV, d. 4, p. 4, q. 3 (Opera omnia 11 [ed.
B. Hechich et al. (Vatican: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 2008)], 274-77).
9
Durandus de Sancto Porcano, Commentarium in libros Sententiarum IV, d. 4, q. 6,
300va-301rb (Paris, 1571).

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

foundations of religious freedom. Whether these thinkers were
progenitors of religious freedom as it is often conceptualized
today—a right to noninterference in religious belief, affiliation,
and practice—or opponents of it, has been assessed in various,
even contrasting ways. After reviewing these assessments
(section 1), in sections 2-4 I examine the respective positions
taken by Aquinas, Vitoria, and Suarez on freedom (i) to embrace
faith, (ii) to remain in the faith, and (iii) to use force in aiding
coreligionists who suffer from persecution or other restraints on
their religious practice. In the conclusion, I briefly consider
whether Aquinas’s strong affirmation of the inherent freedom
of belief can be detached from elements in his teaching that
would undercut this affirmation in our contemporary context.
I. ASSESSMENTS OF SUPPORT FROM AQUINAS, VITORIA, AND
SUAREZ FOR THE MODERN NOTION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
On the affirmative side, Robert Wilken cites Aquinas and
Vitoria’s confrère Las Casas as having played a crucial role in
transmitting to modernity the early Christian emphasis
(originating largely with Tertullian) on the voluntariness of faith
and the inviolability of conscience.10 Wilken accords prominence to Aquinas’s formula “to believe depends on the will”11
and quotes Las Casas to the effect that the native Americans
“are free to accept or refuse baptism on the basis of their
‘natural right of freedom [naturale ius libertatis]’.” Vitoria’s
similar statements in De Indiis12 would have served equally well
in this connection.
On the opposite, negative side of the spectrum, Mary Keys
expresses consternation over “the undeniable excesses of
Aquinas’s position on the political repression of heresy.”13
10

Wilken, Liberty in the Things of God, 38-39 (on Aquinas) and 42-44 (on Vitoria).
It appears as an epigram to the second chapter of his book (Wilken, Liberty in the
Things of God, 24).
12
Summed up in q. 2, a. 4, “Fourth unjust title [for war], that they [the Indians]
refuse to accept the faith of Christ” (Vitoria, Political Writings, 265).
13
Mary M. Keys, Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 227.
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Suggesting that these “uncharacteristically immoderate articulations by Aquinas” might spring from an “insufficiently
checked indignation against those who would use their intellectual and social preeminence to assault common goods,” she
concludes that the “harsh nature” of Aquinas’s teaching on the
punishment due for “breached faith commitments” is inconsistent with the overall tenor of his moral/political theory and
must be rejected by those who would appeal to him today.14
Martin Rhonheimer likewise deems Aquinas’s assertion of the
inherent freedom of faith as regrettably tarred by the
“traditional” medieval assumption that “the Church has the
right to use coercion to protect Catholics from apostasy, with
the help of legal-punitive state measures.”15 For this reason, he
concludes that religious freedom as Aquinas and his successors
understood it (a viewpoint assumed into the teaching of
nineteenth-century popes) is ultimately incompatible with
contemporary articulations of a right to religious freedom, as
expressed most notably in Dignitatis Humanae.
Melvin Endy mounts a similar criticism against Vitoria.
Countering his reputation as a full-throated proponent of
religious freedom, Endy maintains that despite Vitoria’s opposition to the forcible conversion of unbelievers, the founder of
the School of Salamanca nonetheless supported “a robust view
of papal authority for war when necessary for the defense of the
church against heretics, schismatics, and pagans.”16 Proffering
much the same judgment against Suarez, Endy explains how for
him “the most important and easily justifiable Christian use of
war was for the defense of Christianity against its enemies and
completion of its mandate to spread throughout the world.”17
On a related matter—the imposition of capital punishment on
heretics—Charles Journet took strong issue with Suarez’s
14

Ibid., 227.
Rhonheimer, “Benedict XVI and Religious Freedom,” 1035.
16
Melvin Endy, “Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suárez on Religious Authority
and Cause for Justified War: The Centrality of Religious War in the Christian Just War
Tradition,” Journal of Religious Ethics 46 (2018): 289-331, quoting from the abstract
on 289.
17
Ibid., 293.
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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

position that this penalty is to be carried out under the primary
initiative of the Church, as thus endowed with a divine mandate
(even though the execution itself would be performed by civil
authorities).18 On similar grounds, Arthur Vermeersch questioned whether Suarezian political theology should be deemed
an authentic development in the Catholic tradition.19 On the
opposite side of the coin, Thomas Pink maintains that Suarez
gave canonical formulation to the Catholic doctrine of religious
freedom20—a formulation that Dignitatis Humanae did not
negate, and which is still applicable today.21 On Pink’s reading,
the Church continues to assert its coercive power over its
recalcitrant members, although the modalities of its exercise will
vary from time to time.22
What accounts for these contrasting assessments?23 Several
factors come into play. First and most obviously, the label
“religious freedom” can refer to different liberties.24 Those like
Wilken who assign a formative role to the Scholastics in the
elaboration of our modern right to religious freedom are most
focused on change of religion: no one should be compelled to
adopt a new faith, to enter a religion. Insofar as this embrace
requires inward freedom, the act must be held immune from
external interference. Those like Keys and Rhonheimer who
emphasize a discontinuity of the modern right with the
narrower outlook of the Scholastics focus, by contrast, on the
18
Journet (Church of the Word Incarnate, vol. 1, The Apostolic Hierarchy, trans. A.
H. C. Downes [New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955 (original French edition, 1941)], 253
n. 2) cites Suarez, De Fide, 23.1.2; see Gregory M. Reichberg, “Journet and the
Impossibility of Christian Holy War,” Nova et vetera (Eng. ed.) 16 (2018): 511-41, at
527 n. 51.
19
A. Vermeersch, La Tolérance (Paris: Beauchesne, 1912), 71-74.
20
Pink, “Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” 85.
21
Ibid., 106-14.
22
Ibid., 116-18.
23
A similar review of contrasting assessments of Aquinas’s thought, but with a focus
on toleration rather than religious freedom, may be found in Manfred Svensson, “A
Defensible Conception of Tolerance in Aquinas?” The Thomist 75 (2011): 291-308.
24
In what follows I draw on the typology that appears in Paul M. Taylor, Freedom
of Religion: UN and European Human Rights Law and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 2005).

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7

freedom to leave a religion—with the moderns claiming that
this choice must be inviolate, while the Scholastics hold the
opposite. Some, furthermore, argue that religious freedom
implies a unitary forum internum, such that a distinction between change and maintenance of religion is incompatible with
the modern right. In this perspective, Keys warns that Aquinas’s
sharp distinction between these two modes of religious freedom
(affirming the freedom to enter the Christian religion and
denying the freedom to leave Christianity) risks invalidating in
the eyes of modern readers his wider social and political
thought. Because he advocated “political punitive aid in enforcing ecclesial faith commitments,”25 Aquinas can appear “to
justify our contemporary suspicion . . . that virtue and common
good theories in the political and legal spheres must ultimately
be religious theories paving the way to severe theoreticalpolitical problems.”26
Alongside these controversies on the forum internum,
another factor that accounts for assertions of incompatibility
between modern and Scholastic conceptions of religious
freedom is the high priority that the latter placed on defending
individuals or communities whose religious liberties were compromised by the aggressive action of others. Because staying
within the Christian faith tradition was thought to be of
fundamental importance, and hence an obligation, any action by
others to dissuade from that obligation, or worse, to prevent or
impede its fulfillment, was deemed a serious violation of
religious rights and could rightly be countered by forcible
action, including, if necessary, resort to war. In this way,
defense of others whose religious freedoms were denied was
itself placed within the category of religious freedom, a freedom
that, importantly, applied unilaterally to Christians.27 Because

25

Keys, Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good, 229.
Ibid., 226-27. For a recent expression of this suspicion (directed principally
against Evangelical Christians), see Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside
the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (London: Bloomsbury, 2019).
27
As we shall see below, an exception was made for other monotheistic religions
when the worship of God was denied by pagan rulers.
26

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

Christianity was taken to be the “true” (i.e., most complete)28
religion, holders of temporal authority were authorized by the
Church to use armed force against those who would suppress its
practice and the effort of missionaries to communicate the
Christian message to outsiders. Violations, if sufficiently egregious, were deemed a casus belli and defense of true religion
became an integral aspect of just-war theory. This was the chief
ground that Aquinas advanced in favor of crusading action in
the Holy Land.29
Aquinas (as well as Vitoria and Suarez) assigned broad scope
to the forcible protection of coreligionists. It could entail
punitive action against members of other religions who
proselytized Christians, engaged in speech critical of the
Christian message, or worshipped in an overly public way,
thereby inducing Christians to apostasy. Dissident Christians
could likewise be punished on the same defensive rationale,
namely, that they might induce other believers to stray into
heresy.
The Scholastic assertion of a right to defend by force the
interests of Christianity is incompatible with the conception of
religious freedom that is part and parcel of the modern humanrights regime.30 This incompatibility is unsurprising and requires
no lengthy documentation. Open to debate, however, is
whether this Scholastic teaching is detachable from other
28
On Aquinas’s teaching regarding the (incomplete) truth value of non-Christian
religions, see Serge-Thomas Bonino, “‘Toute vérité, quel que soit celui qui la dit, vient
de l’Esprit-Saint’: Autour d’une citation de l’Ambrosiaster dans le corpus thomasien,”
Revue thomiste 106 (2006): 101-47.
29
See STh II-II, q. 188, a. 3, on religious orders that engage in military affairs.
Aquinas affirms that such orders have for their purpose “the defense of divine worship
and the public welfare [defensionem divini cultus et publicae salutis], and moreover for
the protection of the poor and oppressed.” These military tasks are undertaken (ibid.,
ad 3) in the service of God [propter Dei obsequium], as done, for instance, by “those
who fight for the relief of the Holy Land [in subsidium Terrae Sanctae].”
30
This conception of religious freedom is given canonical expression in the U.N.
Declaration of Human Rights, art. 18: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and
freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest
his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”
(https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/).

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teachings (especially the inherent freedom of the act of faith)
that are advanced as providing a positive foundation for the
modern right of religious freedom. Authors such as Endy and
Pink suggest (albeit for different reasons and with contrasting
normative assessments) that these elements are not detachable.31
Other authors, such as Journet and Keys, maintain the opposing
viewpoint.32

31
Against what he terms “the standard account” (which interprets Vitoria and Suarez
as having advanced secularized theories of just war, i.e., grounded in natural law rather
than positive divine revelation), Endy writes that “religious authority for and cause of
war were a prominent part of the thought on war of Vitoria and Suarez, as they had
been in the Christian tradition for centuries before them” (“Francisco de Vitoria and
Francisco Suárez on Religious Authority and Cause for Justified War,” 292 n. 5). The
two authors were, Endy argues, commited to extensive limitations on the religious rights
of pagans who might seek to oppose Christian missionary activity or to establish
jurisdiction over Christians. Although his analysis is largely historical, Endy express in
the article’s conclusion an adverse judgment on this use of force for religious ends (ibid.,
324-26). Pink, for his part, opting for a narrow interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae
(i.e., as not representing an innovation vis-à-vis previous Church teaching on licit
religious coercion) maintains that it is for good reason that a conception of the Church
as “a sovereign and coercive ecclesial authority and jurisdiction, based on baptism and
directed to supernatural ends, far from being abandoned at Vatican II, remains
fundamental to the Church’s doctrinal and canonical self-understanding” (“Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” 119). Pink leaves unaddressed whether the
restrictions that the Church (acting through Christian temporal authorities within the
sphere of Christendom) placed on Jewish, pagan, and gentile religious practices are still
applicable today under the teaching of Vatican II.
32
Journet explains how, during the Middle Ages, alongside the Church’s canonical
power (essential to its spiritual mission and which remains constant over time), it also
exercised, through the popes, a temporal power by which it provided unity to the
political structures of Christendom. By virtue of this temporal power, the popes served
as protectors (tuteurs) of last resort for Christendom, and in this capacity they
authorized the adoption of coercive measures vis-à-vis unbelievers and dissident
Christians who were thought to endanger the Christian character of temporal society
(Church of the Word Incarnate, 328-29). Under today’s conditions, the Church no
longer seeks to exercise this temporal tutelage, and has abandoned the coercive
measures it had previously adopted to pursue that end (ibid., 302-3). Adopting a very
different approach, Keys argues that Aquinas was inconsistent with his own principles
when he endorsed the application of capital punishment and related sanctions against
heretics (Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good, esp. 226-38).

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II. AQUINAS
The locus classicus for Aquinas’s discussion of religious
freedom is question 10, article 8 of the Secunda secundae,
“Whether unbelievers should be compelled to the faith.”33 The
articulus is set within a quaestio on unbelief (infidelitas). After
examining the sinfulness of unbelief (aa. 1 and 3), its seat in the
intellect as moved by the will (a. 2), its impact on wider moral
action (a 4), and its different kinds (aa. 5 and 6), Aquinas
considers whether unbelievers can be induced to abandon their
wrongful state of mind. On the one hand (a. 7), believers could
debate with them, not so much to persuade them about the
inherent truth of faith (an impossible task as faith transcends
reason), as to refute misconceptions about the faith, thereby
removing obstacles that impede unbelievers’ reception of faith
through grace. On the other hand, believers could use threats
and even outright force to compel unbelievers to relinquish
their denials and false beliefs about God. In a famous canon
(“the Church must compel the wicked to the good”),34 Gratian
reproduces a passage from Augustine’s Epistle 185 to Boniface,
where the holy bishop explains (referring to St. Paul’s
conversion on the road to Damascus, when Saul was forced to
the ground and blinded by a bright light) how coercion can
beneficially put unbelievers on the path to faith. Given the
canon’s prominence and its basis in Holy Scripture (Acts 9:7),
Aquinas (who cites the relevant passage from Augustine in ad 3
of the present articulus) needs to weigh the allegedly positive
role that force might have in leading us to faith. In this
connection, he could not fail to recognize that other authoritative passages from Church Fathers (Augustine included) and
synods would seem to prohibit coercion in matters of faith.
To sort out the apparent contradiction of authoritative
sources on this issue, Aquinas arranges the prohibitive
33
The article’s title was affixed by an early editor of the Summa theologiae, based on
Aquinas’s statement, “Videtur quod infideles nullo modo compellendi sint ad fidem,”
which introduces the opening objections.
34
Decretum, p. 2, causa 23, q. 6, can. 1 (English trans. in G. Reichberg, H. Syse, and
E. Begby, The Ethics of War [Oxford: Blackwell, 2006], 121-22).

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statements in the opening series of objections, while the
statements approving such coercion he places in the parallel
replies to objections. In so doing, he does not seem to be
presuming in favor of one position or the other, as both are
energetically affirmed in the responsio (albeit by reference to
two different sorts of unbelievers: those external to Christianity,
i.e., Jews and pagans, and those drawn from within its ranks,
i.e., apostates and heretics). That said, the prominent sed contra
slot is reserved for a statement that approves of religious
coercion, perhaps because Aquinas could find a scriptural
passage that (according to the standard exegesis of his day)
directly affirms this position (Luke 14:23, the story of the
wedding feast when the master said “compel them to come in”),
while no scriptural passage could be found that unambiguously
supports the opposing prohibition. Indeed, the two scriptural
verses that appear as objections to the thesis that coercion to the
faith is justified are less than straightforward. Objection 1 cites
the parable of the tares (Matt 13:28) to indicate how
compulsion should be avoided in view of its undesirable sideeffects. Objection 4 cites Ezekiel 18:23, “I do not want the
death of the sinner,” to illustrate how one particularly egregious
form of religious coercion—capital punishment—should be
ruled out.
Against this background, particularly the dearth of scriptural
verses affirming religious freedom, it is striking that Aquinas
begins his responsio with a very strong statement in favor of
such freedom, not on grounds of the lesser evil (avoidance of
side-effect harm), but because he deems deliberate action to
impede this freedom as wrong in itself, as though it would
involve the violation of a right:35 “under no condition may
[unbelievers] be compelled to the faith, so that they might
believe [in what the faith teaches]—because [the act of]

35
The word “right” (ius) is not specifically used in this context, but later in the
Secunda secundae (q. 40, a. 1), Aquinas does speak of ius in the sense of a right one can
claim in the event of its violation.

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

believing pertains to the will.”36 His antecedent statement makes
clear that this freedom applies solely to individuals who are
faced with a choice to embrace a faith not yet possessed (entry
into a religion).37 These unbelievers ad extra (external to Christianity) he equates with Jews and gentiles. Other unbelievers,
those who had once received the faith but wished to reject it
(what above I termed “departure from a religion”), to his mind
enjoy no right to religious freedom. They can legitimately be
coerced. These unbelievers ad intra (internal to Christianity) he
equates with heretics and apostates.38 This contrast between the
two sorts of unbelief, internal and external to Christianity, is
neatly summed up a few questions later (STh II-II, q. 12, a. 2):
The Church does not have a mandate to punish unbelief [ad Ecclesiam non
pertinent punire infidelitatem] in those who have never received the faith,
according to the saying of the Apostle (1 Cor. 5:12: “What is it for me to
judge them that are without?”). A sentence of punishment can however be
passed on the unbelief of those who have received the faith.

On what theological grounds does Aquinas base this twofold
claim, the one favoring religious freedom, the other rejecting it?
The first ground he cites in objection 3, “there are many things
one can do unwillingly, but to believe [in God] happens only
when one so wills”; it is taken from Augustine’s exposition on
John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father, who sent
me, draws him [nisi pater traxerit eum].” The second appears in
Aquinas’s reply to the same objection and is taken from a gloss
(“making a vow is a matter of will, keeping it is a matter of

36

STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8: “Infidelium . . . nullo modo sunt ad fidem compellendi, ut
ipsi credant: quia credere voluntatis est.”
37
As noted above, “entry into a religion” is the term used in contemporary legal
discussions on religious freedom, where no religion is singled out; all are in principle
covered. When Aquinas, by contrast, speaks of an entitlement not to be compelled “into
the faith,” he is referring specifically to the Christian faith. Whether it would be wrong
to compel someone into adherence to another religious “law” (as he puts it) is not
directly considered, although his comment about Islam in ScG I, c. 6 (see below) would
seem to rule this out also.
38
STh II-II, q. 10, a. 5 distinguishes the different categories of unbelievers.

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necessity,” i.e., an obligation) on psalm 76, verse 11: “Make
vows to the Lord and keep them.”39
Aquinas reaffirms these two claims in his responsio: the first
by the phrase “under no condition,” whereby religious freedom
is affirmed; and the second (whereby religious freedom is
denied) in a sentence that explains how among those unbelievers who once received the faith, but later renounced it,
force can rightly be applied to compel their adherence to the
commitment previously made. Within this responsio a third
claim is also advanced, namely, that the faithful are entitled to
use force (even to the point of waging war) against unbelievers
ad extra, when the latter, by their words or actions, oppose the
Christian faith. In this instance, Aquinas affirms one mode of
religious freedom (a right to defend coreligionists who are
under attack) while denying another mode (a right to counter
Christianity in words or to proselytize on behalf of another
religion).
A) Belief Requires “libertas”
In Tractate 26 on the Gospel of John, Augustine interprets
“no one comes to me unless the Father draws him” as affirming
that belief in God entails voluntariness: “to believe is indeed not
possible,” Augustine writes, “unless one does so willingly
[credere vero non potest nisi volens].”40 Acknowledging that a
man could be taken to a church unwillingly, dragged to the altar
and made to partake of a sacrament against his will, he denies
that one could receive Christ’s teaching in faith without being
inclined to do so by an uninhibited motion of his heart. If belief
were a motion of the body, it could indeed be subject to external violence, and thus “men might be made to believe against
39
STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8, ad 3: “Vovere est voluntatis, reddere autem est necessitates.”
The Leonine version of the Summa theologiae (8:89) attributes this to the Glossa
Lombardi; the verse is numbered 75:12 in the Vulgate (“vovete et reddite Domino Deo
vestro”) and corresponds to 76:11 in modern Bible translations.
40
Cited in STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8, obj. 3; see Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of
John, in Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers of the Church, vol. 7, ed. P. Schaff (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eeerdmans, 1956), 168.

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their will.”41 Eager to emphasize the voluntariness of belief,
Augustine explains how if it is truly by an inclination of the
heart that we draw near to Christ, then assent to his word in
faith must also exclude any internal pressure, even as effected in
us by God himself. The inclination to believe must arise freely
through love, when we are “drawn to Christ by delighting in his
truth, his righteousness, his everlasting life and all that he is.”42
Aquinas’s reference to Augustine in objection 3 therefore sets
a high standard for the voluntariness of faith. The full obiectio
reads as follows:
Moreover, St. Augustine says that “although many things can be done by us
unwillingly, to believe [God]43 happens only when one so wills.” But the will
cannot be forced. It seems then that unbelievers should not be compelled to
the faith.44

In his contemporaneous exposition on John,45 Aquinas discusses
at greater length why faith requires a high standard of voluntariness. Commenting, apropos of verse 6:44, that “no one
believes unless he wills to do so [credere autem nullus potest nisi
volens],” he adds that to be drawn by the Father in this fashion,
namely, through one’s own will, cannot result from violence
(violentiam); it is not the sort of act that can be forced

41
Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura, based on lectures given 1270-72, around the
same time as Aquinas was writing the Summa’s quaestiones on faith.
42
Tractate 26 (Homilies on the Gospel of John, 169).
43
In STh II-II, q. 2, a. 2 Aquinas explains how the infinitive credere (to believe) can
signify our faith in God in three different manners: credere Deo (to believe God as
revealer of divine truth), credere Deum (to believe what God has revealed about
himself), and credere in Deum (to trust in God’s truth as our last end). He explains that
the first sense, credere Deo, is most formal to faith, as it is on this account that
everything else pertaining to faith is believed, hence this is what is primarily signified
when he speaks of credere in q. 10, a. 8, although the other two senses are involved as
well, particularly the third, by which the will is motivated to seek out divine truth and
to move the intellect in this direction.
44
STh II-II, q. 10, a. 7, obj. 3: “Praeterea, Augustinus dicit quod cetera potest homo
nolens, ‘credere non nisi volens.’ Sed voluntas cogi non potest, Ergo videtur quod
infideles non sint ad fidem cogenti.”
45
Super Evangelium Ioannem S. Ioannis Lectura, ed. P. Raphaelis Cai (Rome:
Marietti, 1951).

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

15

(cogitur).46 He thereby excludes from the assent of faith not
only the application of brute force, but also the conditional
violence of coercion, when by threats of harm one person
induces another to choose a course of action that he or she
would otherwise avoid. Or to put the same point positively,
faith involves not only freedom of choice (libero arbitrium), but
freedom of desire (libertas)47 as well.
Aquinas explains48 how constraint (violentia or coactio) can
be imposed in two different ways. In one way, a person’s ability
to choose is entirely removed; one becomes the passive
recipient of action that originates wholly from an external
agent. This he terms violentum simpliciter, “being forced
unqualifiedly.” In another way, a person’s ability to choose is
adversely affected, but not removed, as when someone selects
an undesirable course of action in order to avoid an evil that is
perceived as even greater; this Aquinas terms violentum
secundum quid, a topic he had discussed under the heading of
the “mixed voluntary.”49 Medieval canon lawyers similarly drew
a contrast between “absolute” and “conditional” constraint

46

Super Ioan. 6:44 (Marietti ed., 176 [no. 935]).
Aquinas speaks of libertate credere in STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8, apropos of unbelievers
ad extra who have been captured by Christians in war. These unbelievers retain their
liberty to believe, despite their jurisdiction under Christian rule. In STh II-II, q. 88, a. 4,
obj. 1 and ad 1, he discusses libertas in relation to vows and alludes to the difference
between choice and liberty. For elaboration on these two modalities of freedom, see
Jacques Maritain, “The Thomist Idea of Freedom,” chap. 5 of Scholasticism and Politics
(New York: MacMillan, 1940), 118-43.
48
Aquinas draws a contrast between the two modalities of violence, simplicter and
secundum quid, in STh I-II, q. 6, a. 5, ad 3 (referring to natural versus unnatural animal
motion) and in III Nic. Ethic., lect. 1 (Sententia Libri Ethicorum [Leonine ed., 47:119,
ll. 80-85]), with reference to the free action of human beings.
49
This is the term Aquinas employs in III Nic. Ethic., lect. 1, apropos of Aristotle’s
famous example (Nic. Ethic. 3.1.1110a1-4) of sailors who throw their cargo overboard
to prevent their ship from capsizing in a storm. Aristotle comments that an action of this
kind (he also mentions the case of someone who commits a base deed at the command
of a tyrant in order to save his parents from grave harm) is of mixed nature insofar as it
comprises elements that are both involuntary and voluntary. He concludes, however,
that it is more voluntary than involuntary.
47

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

(coactio).50 In contemporary philosophical discussions the first
is ordinarily termed “compulsion,” while the second is named
“coercion.” 51
The assent of faith, itself an act of the intellect, results from a
motion of the will52 oriented toward divine truth as one’s
supreme good.53 Affection for this highest truth is the
motivating reason for the assent of faith. If this assent were to
occur for a motive other than love of God, the underlying
rationale for faith would be missing, and the resulting act would
not qualify as theological faith. Thus, I read Aquinas as asserting
that theological faith requires voluntariness in the strong sense
of the term:54 In choosing to believe God my heart must be
directed to the reason motivating faith—divine truth as source
of my beatitude—for its own sake.55 Should my heart be
50
Kenneth Pennington (“Gratian and the Jews,” Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 31
[2014]: 111-24) cites Huguccio’s use of this distinction in connection with forced
baptism. Tying someone down and pouring water over him (while saying the requisite
words) would count as coactio absoluta; by contrast, threatening to beat someone unless
he is baptized would be coactio conditionalis (ibid., 118).
51
The contrast between “compulsion” and “coercion” is standard in contemporary
treatments of freedom; see David A. Hoekema, Rights and Wrongs: Coercion,
Punishment, and the State (Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 1986), 18-41.
The contrast was originally drawn by Aristotle in Nic. Ethic. 3.1.1110a1-18. Should a
man be carried by the wind in a direction he did not want to go, he would suffer
compulsion; should he perform an action through fear of a greater evil, he would suffer
coercion. Aquinas discusses compulsion under the heading of “violentum simpliciter”
which, he notes, causes involuntariness (STh I-II, q. 6, a. 5), while coercion he considers
under the concept of “violentum secundum quid” or “mixed voluntary” (action done
out of fear), as in STh I-II, q. 6, a. 6, where he explains how fear lessens voluntariness
but nonetheless leaves it intact (simpliciter voluntarium est). The two modes of influence
on the will are compared in ibid., ad 1.
52
STh II-II, q. 4, a. 2, ad 1: “actu fidei, qui dicitur [by Augustine] consistere in
credentium voluntate inquantum ex imperio voluntatis intellectus credibilibus assentit.”
53
In De Verit., q. 14, a. 2, ad 10 (Leonine ed., 22:444, ll. 396-401), Aquinas writes
that “the beginning of faith . . . is in the affections, insofar as the will determines the
intellect to assent to matters of faith. But this willing consists neither in an act of charity
nor of hope, but a kind of desire for the promised good [quidam appetitus boni
repromissi].”
54
The difference between these two senses of “voluntariness [voluntarium]”, strong
and weak, is elucidated in STh I-II, q. 6, a. 6, ad 1.
55
Cajetan sums this up well when he explains (in STh II-II, q. 17, a. 5, no. 8) how in
theological hope (although his comment obtains as well for the love that impels

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

17

directed for some other reason, say to evade a penalty or to
secure a temporal benefit, God’s truth will be assented to not as
an end, but for the sake of something else, and thereby will be
loved only as a means.56 The condition sine qua non for
theological faith will be absent.57 On this reasoning, coercion is
antithetical to the very nature of faith. Its employment to
motivate others into adopting the faith must consequently be
ruled out.58 In this respect, Aquinas supports a strong doctrine
of religious freedom, one that affirms the inherent liberty of the
embrace of faith. “No one can be led to the faith by violence [ad
credendum vim inferre]; it is only willingly [volentes], not
despite ourselves [inviti], that we are saved,” he affirms, citing
the canon De Iudaeis from the Fourth Council of Toledo
(633).59
B) Compelling a Return to Faith or Preventing Departure
As I have already noted, the contrary position is highlighted
in the sed contra of article 8, with reference to Luke 14:23:
theological faith) “I will God to be mine [as perfecting me by his beatitude], but not for
me [volo Deum mihi, non propter me],” i.e., as subordinated to myself as a means to an
end.
56
Aquinas mentions (STh II-II, q. 5, a. 2) the fallen angels as giving an assent to the
divine truth (thus a modality of faith) that does not rise to the level of theological faith.
Their assent to this truth is motivated by love of themselves, namely, to overcome a lack
of knowledge. But as soon as they assent to this truth, they reject it as incompatible with
their self-love, which establishes their own being as absolute. The fallen angels thus live
in a condition of inner contradiction, assenting to a truth they detest.
57
For an analysis of Aquinas’s understanding of the will’s role in the assent of faith,
see Michel Labourdette, O.P., Cours de théologie morale, vol. 2, Morale spéciale (Paris:
Éditions parole et silence, 2012), 136-40.
58
Coercion can take two different forms: threatening some harm unless compliance
is given or withholding a benefit under the same rationale (see Alan Werthheimer,
Coercion [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988], 202-17). As an example of the
latter, consider the case of a Jewish girl who was fleeing the Nazis in wartime Lemberg.
Arriving at a convent, the nuns promised her refuge under condition that she undergo
baptism, which she did, reluctantly (recounted in Philippe Sands, East West Street
[London: W&N, 2016], 104).
59
STh III, q. 68, a. 10, s.c. Another line from the same canon appears in STh II-II,
q. 10, a 8, obj. 2.

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

It is written “Go out on the highways and hedges; and compel them to come
in.” Now people enter the house of God, i.e., the Holy Church, by faith.
Therefore, some ought to be compelled to the faith.60

As becomes apparent in the replies, only those people who have
abandoned the faith are the intended referent of the parable
(apostate baptized Jews are mentioned in ad 2 and heretics in ad
3). It is they who are forced back into the Church or are
prevented from leaving. Based on what seemed the
unquestionable authority of Scripture, numerous medieval legal
rulings asserted that recalcitrant Christians could rightly be
coerced to remain in the faith they had sought to leave or
forced back to the faith they had abandoned.61 Canon lawyers
considered this teaching definitive and it was impossible for
Aquinas to ignore it. Prima facie, however, it runs counter to his
settled view that the assent of faith must remain free of
coercion. To show how these two assertions, (i) “under no
condition may unbelievers [infideles] be compelled to the faith”
and (ii) “some [aliqui] ought to be compelled to the faith” are
not contradictory, he offers the following explanation:
There are those who at some time have accepted the faith, and professed it,
such as heretics and all apostates. These unbelievers should be made to
undergo even bodily compulsion, that they may fulfill what they have
promised, and hold what they at one time received.62

Key to this brief explanation is the notion of promise. Aquinas’s
supposition is that becoming a Christian entails an irrevocable
commitment to remain in the faith. Apostates and heretics have
reneged on this promise to God. Due to this voluntary fault
(renunciation of the faith commitment), an act that was

60
STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8: “Sed contra est quod dicitur Luc. XIV: ‘Exi in vias et saepes
et compelle intrare, ut impleatur domus mea.’ Sed homines in domum Dei, idest in
Ecclesiam, intrant per fidem. Ergo aliqui sunt compellendi ad fidem.”
61
For discussion of some canonical texts (especially with reference to relapsed
Jewish converts), see Pennington, “Gratian and the Jews.”
62
STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8: “Alii vero sunt infideles qui quandoque fidem susceperunt et
eam profitentur: sicut haeretici vel quicumque apostatae. Et tales sunt etiam corporaliter
compellendi ut impleant quod promiserunt et teneat quod semel susceperunt.”

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

19

originally free (assent to God in faith) may now be induced
through coercion, including threats of physical harm. Aquinas
leaves the explanation at that; nowhere else to my knowledge
does he return to this precise issue, so it is up to us to
reconstruct the steps in his reasoning.
A clue lies in the distinction between “acceptance” of the
faith and its “profession.” The first involves an interior act of
the mind (the topic of STh II-II, q. 2, “De actu interiori fidei”)
that is not scrutable to the outward eye; a promise made at this
level would not be known to others and its violation could not
be made subject to external penalties. Profession, however,
involves the communication of one’ thought, including promises
made, by means of gestures, words, and other outward signs.
This topic Aquinas discusses in question 3 of the Secunda
secundae, “De exteriori actu fidei,” where he calls the act in
question confessio; it consists, he says, “in giving outward
expression to the things we hold inwardly in faith.”63 At this
juncture, he makes no mention of any promise made in faith.
However, in a subsequent discussion of vows (“De voto,” in
STh II-II, q. 88, a. 2, ad 1), we find him establishing a connection between faith in God, the promise (promissio) that
accompanies it, and its outward profession. The setting for this
linkage is baptism, for it is then, he says, that those receiving the
sacrament (or parents on behalf of their children) make a vow
(i.e., a promise to God)64 to renounce the devil’s pomps and
maintain faith in Christ (“fidem Christi servare”).65 Significantly, for our purposes, in the corresponding objection
Aquinas reverts again to Psalm 76:11 (“Make vows to the Lord
God and keep them”),66 which he had earlier referenced (STh IIII, q. 10, a. 8, ad 3) to explain why heretics, having abandoned
their promise to God, can rightly be coerced back to the faith
(“compellendi ut fidem teneant”). Reading these two passages

63
STh II-II, q. 3, a. 1: “Conceptus interior eorum quae sunt fidei est proprie fidei
actus, ita etiam et exterior confession.”
64
STh II-II, q. 88, a. 1.
65
STh II-II, q. 88, a. 2, ad 1.
66
STh II-II, q. 88, a. 2, obj. 1: “Vovete et reddite Domino Deo vestro.”

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

together, we can infer that the precise object of the said
constraint is the outward profession of faith that is incumbent
on us by virtue of our baptism.67 Aquinas alludes to this linkage
in his treatment of apostasy in question 12 of the Secunda
secundae. Defining “apostasy” as the act whereby a person
withdraws from the faith, he adds (in a. 1, ad 2), that the
withdrawal in question covers not only what is “believed in the
heart” (“credulitas cordis”), but “the external words and deeds
by which we bear witness to this inward profession of faith.” In
article 2, he explains that it is within the competency of the
Church “to pass a sentence of punishment on the unbelief of
those who have received the faith.” He thereby implies that a
failure to fulfill the obligations incumbent on one’s faith, or
engagement in external acts directly contrary to those obligations,68 is what the Church thus punishes.
At baptism we receive an indelible character that makes us
permanent members of Christ’s Church.69 Vowing ourselves to
permanent fidelity, and publicly declaring such (baptism being
an external, public act), we are expected to renew this commitment by similarly public acts. Should we refuse to do so, the
Church would be entitled to enforce, by the administration of
coercive penalties, compliance with commitments we had
expressed in our baptismal vow. It is not the internal faith act
that would be coerced; rather, the precise target of this coercive
action would be faith’s expression (the “confessio” or
“protestatio fidei”) in external acts, acts that would presumably
(Aquinas does not provide the details) include submitting
67
STh III, q. 66, a. 1, “Baptism is a kind of proclamation of faith [quaedam fidei
proclamatio]; thus it is said to be the ‘sacrament of faith’ [fidei sacramentum].”
68
In STh II-II, q. 12, a. 1, obj. 2, Aquinas mentions (i) having oneself circumcised or
(ii) worshiping (adoraret) at the tomb of Mohammad, as acts contrary to the external
profession of faith.
69
STh III, q. 66, a. 9: “Baptism imprints a character that is indelible [baptismus
imprimit characterem, qui est indelebilis]”; see also q. 63, a. 5. Aquinas had earlier
asserted the indelibility of the baptismal character in, e.g., IV Sent., d. 4, q. 1, a. 3, q. 4.
That baptism confers membership in the Church is expressed, e.g., in STh III, q. 69, a. 4
“baptism has for effect to incorporate the baptized to Christ as his members”
(“incorporation in Christ” is equivalent for Aquinas to membership in the Church qua
“mystical body of Christ” [STh III, q. 8, a. 3]).

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

21

oneself to the sacrament of penance, presenting one’s children
for baptism, and so forth. On this reasoning, there is no direct
contradiction in asserting that external unbelievers should never
be coerced to the faith while at the same time affirming this may
justifiably be done to internal unbelievers—because the first
assertion bears on the interior faith act and the second on its
outward profession and the promise expressed therein.70
C) Can a Coerced Baptism Be Valid?
Aquinas contrasts two effects of baptism:71 the character and
grace (the “ultimate effect”). “Rectified faith” (recta fides, faith
informed by charity) is the condition sine qua non for reception
of the latter, while the former can be given even should such
faith be missing. What we receive by way of grace must be free
from all coercion;72 this is the conclusion Aquinas draws from
his meditation (via Augustine) on John 6:44. The same does not
necessarily hold for the baptismal character. Whether it could
be received into a subject who was coerced into accepting
baptism (either from fear of some penalty or the prospect of a
temporal reward) is not a question Aquinas directly addresses.
Even apropos the special case of children baptized against the
will of their parents—a practice he expressly opposes because it
constitutes a violation of parental natural right73—he does not
say whether the baptismal character would be conferred in such
a circumstance, for example, should someone baptize a Jewish

70
In Aquinas’s day, there was an abundant literature on compelled conversion, a
topic that was commonly taken up by the canon lawyers in connection with baptism; see
Jennifer Hart Weed, “Aquinas on the Forced Conversion of Jews: Belief, Will, and
Toleration,” in Kristine T. Utterback and Merrall L. Price, eds., Jews in Medieval
Christendom (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 129-46.
71
STh III, q. 68, a. 8.
72
See Jennifer Hart Weed, “Faith, Salvation, and the Sacraments in Aquinas: A
Puzzle concerning Forced Baptisms,” Philosophy, Culture and Traditions 10 (2014):
95-110.
73
STh II-II, q. 10, a. 12; and III, q. 68, a. 10; see Matthew A. Tapie, “Spiritualis
uterus: The Question of Forced Baptism and Thomas Aquinas’s Defense of Jewish
Parental Rights,” Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 35 (2018): 289-329.

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

child who was in danger of imminent death.74 Given this
silence, it is difficult to determine how Aquinas assesses the
sacramental effect of a coerced baptism.
On the one hand, the weight of his doctrine—as presented
above—would suggest that God would never infuse the
baptismal character into the soul of someone who was coerced
into receiving the sacrament, because in such a circumstance the
condition sine qua non of grace-given theological faith would be
absent.75 Indeed, in discussing the intention that is requite on
the part of individuals undergoing baptism (STh III, q. 68, a. 7),
Aquinas says that they must intend what the Church itself
intends in conferring baptism, namely, spiritual regeneration (a
“new life” in Christ). Someone lacking that intention, as would
appear to be the case should one’s acceptance of baptism be
coerced, could not be said to have received the sacrament with a
necessary condition; thus the baptism would not be valid and
the character would not be imprinted on the recipient’s soul.
Consequently, such a person could not be bound to observe the
obligations resulting from a baptismal vow that was not validly
made.

74
Aquinas makes clear, however, that even when there is a high risk of death it
would be wrong to baptize a child against the will of his or her parents (STh III, q. 68,
a. 1, ad 1). It was subsequently maintained (e.g., during the Mortara affair) that despite
the questionable liceity of such a baptism, if the proper form was followed and the one
baptizing had the correct intent, the baptism would be valid, i.e., a character would be
conferred (a footnote to a French translation of the Summa [Somme Théologique (Paris:
Cerf, 1986), 4:511 n. 6] traces this position to Benedict XIV [1747]). While in these
discussions appeal is made to his principles, Aquinas does not himself pronounce on this
issue; thus, caution must be shown in making such an inference. Based on the same
principles, but read with a different order of priority, the opposing conclusion might
very well obtain. See Matthew Tapie, “The ‘Mortara Affair’ and the Question of
Thomas Aquinas’s Teaching against Forced Baptism,” Studies in Christian-Jewish
Relations 14 (2019): 1-18.
75
Jennifer Hart Weed argues for this interpretation; see especially her conclusion
(“Aquinas on the Forced Conversion of Jews,” 145): “It is reasonable to conclude that
Aquinas does not believe that forced converts should be compelled to keep to their
conversion, since he would view forced conversions as something other than an actual
conversion. A forced convert cannot be expected to retain the faith he or she does not
have.”

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

23

On the other hand, based on the Toledan canon De Iudaeis,
medieval canon lawyers generally held that a coerced baptism
could be valid, such that the recipient would be considered a
Christian and held accountable for the attendant obligations.
We thus read in Gratian’s Decretum that
Jews are not to be forced into the faith [ad fidem cogendi]; although even if
they accept it unwillingly [quam tamen si inuiti susceperint], they must be
forced to retain it [cogendi sunt retinere]. Whence in the Fourth Toledan
Council it was enacted: Just as Jews are not forced into the faith [ad fidem
cogendi], so too once converted, they are not permitted to withdraw.76

Continued profession of faith could thus be forced on recalcitrant Christians by the relevant authorities. Taken at face
value, this canon seems contradictory, insofar as it both denies
and affirms the validity of coerced conversion (although this
inconsistency is somewhat concealed by the use of two different
terms, cogendi and inuiti). However, contradiction would
formally be obviated if cogendi is understood as referring to
compulsion and inuiti to coercion. The sense would then be
that anyone physically forced into baptism, such that his free
will was entirely removed, would be compelled, and in this case
the baptism would be invalid and no obligations would flow
from it. By contrast, someone induced to baptism by fear of a
temporal penalty (or prospect of a reward) would not thereby
lose his capacity for free choice, although his liberty would be
reduced. Such a baptism would be valid and the requisite
obligations would obtain. This was how some canon lawyers
interpreted this passage.77 Undoubtedly aware of this legal
determination on the validity of coerced (in contrast to

76
Decretum, p. I, d. 45, can. 5 “De Iudaeis”; English trans. in Robert Chazan,
Church, State, and Jew in the Middle Ages (West Orange, N.J.: Behrman House, 1980),
20-21 (cited in Weed, “Aquinas on the Forced Conversion of Jews,” 129-30).
77
Huguccio, for instance, emphasizes that a baptism carried out under coercion will
be valid, because it does not entirely exclude the free will of the one baptized: “If I say
[to someone] I will beat, rob, kill, or injure you, unless you are baptized, he can be
forced to hold the faith . . . because [a] coerced choice is a choice and makes consent”
(cited in Pennington, “Gratian and the Jews,” 118).

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

physically compelled) baptism,78 Aquinas would have had to
take it into account; he generally recognized that Church
practice, including influential legal rulings, provide a framework
for theological inquiry and set boundaries on what can be
theologically affirmed.
As we have seen, Aquinas rejects the supposition that
embrace of the Christian faith is compatible with coercion,
insofar as he deems not just free will, but libertas also, essential
to the act of faith. In his eyes, would this implication obtain for
the reception of baptism as well? Jennifer Hart Weed maintains
that it does. As evidence, she notes how Aquinas, when
referring to De Iudaeis (in STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8, ad 2), omits
inclusion of the phrase “quam . . . si inuiti susceperint” (“even if
they accept it unwillingly”) and instead retains the general point
that Jews who at one time had embraced the faith would be
bound to keep it.79 Nonetheless, to my mind, this omission does
not entirely settle the question at hand: in this passage of the
Summa Aquinas is explaining the inner act of theological faith;
baptism he addresses later in the Tertia pars. At the relevant
juncture (STh III, q. 68, aa. 8-9), we find him opening a space
between the condition needed for valid reception of the
sacrament (which would imply an imprint of the baptismal
character) and the prerequisite for donation of salvific grace via
baptism. As to the first, receiving the sacrament with the intent
of procuring spiritual renovation would be sufficient; for the
second, formed faith (recta fides) is required. Could the first be
compatible with some measure of fear- (or reward-)induced
pressure, while the second obviously would not? If one adopts a
minimal reading of “intending what the Church intends in
78

Inter alia, Aquinas’s confrère Raymond of Peñafort re-affirms the position of
Huguccio (ibid., 119).
79
Weed, “Aquinas on the Forced Conversion of Jews,” 143-45. Weed confuses
matters when she supposes that for Aquinas acts done from fear are involuntary, with
the implication that a conversion induced by fear would likewise be involuntary. As I
have indicated above, Aquinas situates coercion (actions chosen from fear, i.e., to avoid
future harm) within the category of the mixed-voluntary. Thus, when he argues that
embrace of the faith cannot be coerced, the basis would have to be something other than
the simple involuntariness (elimination of free choice); hence he focuses on the lack of
libertas as the key condition that would preclude authentic conversion.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

25

baptizing,” on a par with the way Aquinas describes the
intention needed for administering the sacrament (in extremis
even an unbaptized person could validly perform the baptismal
rite [STh III, q. 67, a. 5]), then its reception would not be
wholly incompatible with coercion, and the sacrament would be
validly (but perhaps not licitly) conferred.
During Aquinas’s second Parisian regency, King Louis IX of
France “ordered the attendance of Jews at evangelistic sermons
preached by Pablo Christiani, a Dominican and former Jew.”80
Had some conversions followed, it would not be correct to say
they happened wholly without coercion. It is difficult to parse
Aquinas’s settled view on this matter of coerced (versus
compelled) baptism. I read him as fundamentally opposing such
a practice (in its different forms), as it is incompatible with the
view he had formed of theological faith. But inversely, he could
not overtly reject the Church practice (reflected in the position
of mainstream canon lawyers) that allowed for the validity of
coerced baptisms. This, I conjecture, led him to introduce (in
STh III, q. 68, aa. 8-9) the distinction between reception of the
character, on the one hand, and reception of salvific grace, on
the other, so as to create a small (albeit reluctant) opening for
the prevailing practice, which enjoyed the support of ecclesial
law.
Finally, and apropos of forced evangelizing (e.g., compulsory
attendance at sermons), Aquinas does show some reserve
toward Augustine’s view that such coercion can have a salutary
effect on unbelievers by breaking down barriers that impede the
interior assent of faith.81 For Augustine, it is not that fear itself
will elicit in us divine belief (based on John 6:24, Augustine
admits this is impossible). Rather, under the fear of threatened
harm, our dispositions for error are eroded so that subsequently
we become able—presuming God’s light is offered—“to hold

80
Ibid., 130, drawing from the account given by Robert Chazan, Daggers of Faith
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 44-45.
81
See R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 133-53.

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

willingly what one formerly denied.”82 Aquinas alludes to this
conception (in STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8, ad 3, citing Augustine’s
Letter 185 to Boniface):83 “They [the Donatists] should
remember that Christ at first compelled Paul and afterwards
taught him.” But he makes no reference to this supposedly
beneficial impact of fear in the corresponding responsio.
Instead, returning to this issue later in the same quaestio, he
cautions against this procedure as employed not only against
pagans but against heretics as well. It is better, he suggests, to let
them perform their rites, “so that [left unmolested] they might
gradually be converted to the faith.”84 Later, speaking about
schismatics, he similarly comments that “coercive penalties of
the secular arm [coercionem branchi saecularis]” should be
employed against them only as a last resort, after other, less
repressive measures (excommunication is mentioned) have been
tried but failed.85
D) Freedom to Defend Christians Whose Faith Is under Attack
Thus far, I have examined how Aquinas conceptualizes the
freedom unbelievers ad extra enjoy in entering the Christian
faith and the freedom denied unbelievers ad intra who wish to
depart from it. The responsio to article 8 alludes, in addition, to
a third mode of freedom, namely, an entitlement—possessed by
Christians—to defend the practice of their faith against
unbelievers who would actively oppose it. Aquinas presents this
entitlement immediately after the first sentence of the responsio,
where he affirms that coercing external unbelievers into the
faith is wholly impermissible. Having said this, he proceeds to
explain how these same unbelievers may nonetheless

82

Letter 93 to Vincentius (St. Augustine, Letters, vol. 2, trans. W. Parsons
[Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1953], 72).
83
St. Augustine, Letters, vol. 4, trans. W. Parsons (Washington, D.C. The Catholic
University of America Press, 1955), 161.
84
STh II-II, q. 10, a. 11.
85
STh II-II, q. 39, a. 4, ad 3.

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27

be compelled by the faithful, if it be possible to do so, that they do not impede
[impediant] the faith by their blasphemies [blasphemiis], evil persuasions
[malis persuasionibus], or open persecutions [apertis persecutionibus]. It is for
this reason that Christ’s faithful often wage war on unbelievers [contra
infideles bellum movent], not indeed for the purpose of forcing them to
believe [ad credendum cogant], because even if they were to conquer them and
take them prisoner, their liberty to believe [libertate . . . credere] would
remain, if that is what they desire; rather [such war is waged] in order to
constrain them from impeding the faith of Christ [eos compellent ne fidem
Christi impediant].86

This passage includes an affirmation and a denial. Aquinas
affirms that Christians are entitled to wage war against external
unbelievers87 for three reasons: (i) to repel physical attacks that
they direct against Christians, (ii) to curtail derogatory speech
about Christianity, and (iii) to counter attempts at getting
Christians to abandon their faith and adopt a new one. He
underscores how this justified warfare against unbelievers is
defensive in character. He consequently denies that its purpose
is to convert pagans to Christianity. As evidence that such
warfare is not animated by proselytizing zeal, he notes that
unbelievers will be allowed to retain their religious practices
(“freedom of belief”) in the event they are taken captive. He
underscores, nonetheless, that this warfare has a religious
purpose: to prevent unbelievers from actively undermining
adherence to and promulgation of the Christian religion. Aat
this juncture no mention is made of just war (bellum iustum) to

86

STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8.
From the context of this paragraph, it is manifest that the warfare in question was
to be waged against pagans and other unbelievers (Muslims in particular). Warfare
against heretics is not mentioned in this connection, despite the armed conflict against
Albigensians that was underway in southern France several decades prior (1209-29).
This lack of mention (Aquinas would have been aware of the conflict due to the
involvment of St. Dominic and other members of his order) is probably attributable to
the special meaning Aquinas attached to the term “bellum”: a military campaign waged
by one independent prince against another. As he would have considered the
Albigensians to be a subordinate political community under a Christian king (Phillip II
of France), he would not call the military offensive against them “bellum”; rather it
would be described as the enforcement of order against a sedition (see Reichberg,
Aquinas on War and Peace, 32-33).
87

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

defend the civil polity from attack.88 Although Muslim rulers
are not here named, the passage appears to be directed against
them; it was a widespread conviction among Latin Christians
that these rulers were aggressively seeking to expand the scope
of their faith community, especially in the Levant, by
compelling vulnerable Christians to embrace Islam.89
One author has objected to the “almost unlimited permission
to fight infidels”90 that is implied by the conception of defensive
warfare that Aquinas outlines in the passage above. Indeed,
beyond asserting that Christians can come to the aid of their
brethren who suffer from the armed onslaught of unbelievers,
he also makes provision for warfare against unbelievers who
blaspheme against Christianity or proselytize on behalf of their
own religious law. Regarding the first, in a related quodlibetal
question91 he cites the story of Jesus and Beelzebul (“blasphemy
against the Spirit will not be forgiven” [Matt 12:22-32]) to
explain that although Jesus did not resist injury to his humanity
(Matt 5:39), he refused to tolerate verbal or symbolic offenses
directed against his divinity—with the implication that gospel
teaching allows and even requires Christians to counter, by
arms if necessary, speech deemed injurious to God’s
transcendence. Regarding proselytization on behalf of another
religion, Aquinas cautions that unbelievers should be prohibited
from regular interaction with uneducated Christian folk
(simplices, whose faith he describes as “feeble” [infirmi in fide])
precisely to guard against such an eventuality. Close friendship
between unbelievers and these simplices was thought by Aquinas
88

This is the express topic of STh II-II, q. 40, a. 1.
In ScG I, c. 6, Aquinas evinces concern over the practice of forced conversion,
leading him to state ironically that Mohammad had sought confirmation that he was
sent by God, not by means of miracles as Jesus had done, but by the “power of his arms
[in armorum potentia],” and thus, through violence, had “compelled adherence to his
law [violentia in suam legem coegit].”
90
Kurt Villads Jensen, “War against Muslims according to Benedict of Alignano,
OFM,” Archivum Franciscanum 89 (1996): 181-95, at 187 (describing Aquinas’s
position in STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8). For a similar argument in even stronger terms, see
Thomaž Mastnak, Crusading Peace: Christendom, the Muslim World, and Western
Political Order (Berkely: University of California Press, 2002), 212-16.
91
Quodl. XII, q. 13, a. 1 (Leonine ed., 25:393, ll. 46-64).
89

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29

to be especially dangerous, as the latter might easily succumb to
the false teachings of the former (STh II-II, q. 10, a. 9).92
Judged from the perspective of contemporary human rights
law, Aquinas’s endorsement of restrictions on the speech of
non-Christians and the corresponding liberty of Christians to
counter—even to the point of using armed force—perceived
violations of these restrictions cannot but seem excessive.93 A
related flaw would be the unilateral character of the penalties
involved: Christians (presumably persons in authority, though
Aquinas does not elaborate) were entitled to repress the blasphemies and proselytizing of their non-Christian counterparts,
but the reverse would not hold. For instance, should an
unbeliever acquire dominium or other authority over Christians, he would not be entitled to proselytize them or to repress
their speech in the event he deemed it blasphemous vis-à-vis his
religious law. Indeed, it was to prevent proselytization on behalf
of alien faiths that the medieval Church forbade unbelievers to
acquire authority over the Christian faithful.94 Even when the
dominium of unbelievers over the Christian faithful was preexisting of long date, and thus allowable by natural right, it
could still be overturned by Church decree if the faith of
Christians was thought to be at risk. Aquinas’s rationale is this:
“dominium [dominium] and authority [praelatio] are of human
92
Commenting on 1 Cor 5:12-13 (“For what is it to me to judge them that are
without? Do you not judge them that are within?”), Aquinas explains that the Church
has no spiritual authority (spiritualem potestatem) over unbelievers who live wholly
outside its jurisdiction (qui sunt omnino extra); such power pertains solely to those who
have submitted to the faith. Indirectly however (indirecte tamen), the Church has power
over external unbelievers insofar as, by reason of their fault (propter eorum culpam,
presumably this is a reference to their sin of unbelief), the faithful are prohibited from
having relations (communicant) with them (Super primam Epistolam ad Corinthios
lectura, in Super Epistolas S. Pauli lectura, vol. 1, ed. R. Cai, 8th ed. [Turin and Rome:
Marietti, 1953]).
93
See Taylor, Freedom of Religion, 82-102, on challenges to blasphemy restrictions;
ibid., 102-14 cover the rejection of restrictions on proselytizing.
94
STh II-II, q. 10, a. 10: Establishing for the first time (“de novo instituenda”) an
authority of unbelievers over the faithful “should by no means be permitted [nullo modo
permitti debet], since it would provoke scandal and endanger the faith. . . . Moreover,
unbelievers hold the faith in contempt.”

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

right [ex iure humano], while the distinction between believers
and unbelievers [fidelium et infidelium] is of divine right [ex
iure divino].”95 Should a conflict emerge between these two
orders of law, divine right must take precedence. On this basis,
vis-à-vis unbelievers residing in Christian polities, there would
be a strong presumption against letting them exercise authority
over the faithful. Decrees canceling such authority would be the
norm. De jure, in areas lying outside the temporal jurisdiction of
the Church, such decrees could still be issued but given the
scandal that would likely result (and presumably the difficulty in
exercising such a right), Aquinas concedes this should rarely be
done. 96
III. VITORIA
Francisco de Victoria’s most-cited treatment of religious
coercion is undoubtedly his De Indiis (“On the American
Indians”) which he prepared for the academic year 1537-38
(but did not deliver until early 1539). Written apropos of
question 10, article 12 of the Secunda secundae (“whether the
children of Jews and other unbelievers are to be baptized
against the wishes of their parents”), it is this relectio that
mainly accounts for Vitoria’s reputation as a staunch advocate
for freedom of religion. Hypothetically, he speculates, should it
95
Ibid. The same point is repeated in STh II-II, q. 12, a. 2, where Aquinas adds that
as dominium is a human right pertaining to the ius gentium it will not automatically be
annulled by divine right. This does not however preclude that restrictions might be
placed on the exercise of dominium, by reason of its subordination to divine right (for
instance, if an unbelieving prince were to endanger the faith of his subjects).
96
In STh II-II, q. 10, a. 10, Aquinas distinguishes unbelievers who are “subject to the
temporal jurisdiction of the Church and its members” (temporali subiectione
subiiciuntur Ecclesiae et membris) from unbelievers who live outside of this jurisdiction
(qui temporaliter Ecclesiae vel eius membris non subiacent). In this passage, Aquinas
defines what jurists of the period termed “Christianitas” (Christendom), namely, a
geographic sphere in which Christian law and customs prevail. This sphere was linked
to but not simply identical with the Ecclesia. See Jean Ropp, L’idée de chrétienté dans la
pensée pontificale des Origines à Innocent III (Paris: Presses Modernes, 1939), 127: “In
the strict sense, Christendom is the temporal society of Christians (in contrast to the
Church, spiritual society of Christians) insofar as they pursue a temporal end, as
members of temporal society.”

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31

be demonstrated that the Christian faith had adequately been
proposed to the native Americans, and they manifested
obstinacy (mortal sin) in rejecting it, even then, on this ground
alone, there would be no just cause to use force against them. In
support, Vitoria repeats Aquinas’s assertion that “belief is a
matter of the will.” Aristotle’s point that fear diminishes
voluntariness is further advanced to explain how coercion (not
just compulsion) is incompatible with faith: “To come to the
mysteries and sacraments of Christ merely out of servile fear
would be sacrilege.” “War,” he adds for emphasis, “is no
argument for the Christian faith,” for, should it be waged for
this purpose, the infidels would be moved not “to believe, but
only to pretend that they believe and accept the Christian
faith.” This, he concludes, “would be monstrous and sacrilegious.”97 “Difference of religion cannot be a cause of war” is
how Vitoria famously sums up this line of argumentation in his
companion relectio on the law of war (De iure belli).98
If we turn, however, to Vitoria’s earlier lectures on this
question of the Summa, delivered in the academic year 153435,99 a somewhat different picture emerges. Commenting on
article 8, “Whether unbelievers should be compelled to the
97
These citations from De Indiis are taken from Vitoria’s discussion of the fourth
unjust title ”that they refuse to believe the faith of Christ, although they have been told
about it and insistently pressed to believe it,” and its sixth conclusion “that, however
probably and sufficiently the faith may have been announced to the barbarians and then
rejected by them, this is still no reason to declare war on them and despoil them of their
goods” (Relectio de Indis, ed. L. Pereña and J. M. Perez Prendes [Madrid: Consejo
superior de investigaciones cientificas, 1967], 65-67, no. 20); Political Writings, 271-72,
§ 39.
98
“Causa iusti belli non est diversitas religionis” (Relectio de iure belli o paz
dinamica, ed. Pereña et al. [Madrid: Consejo superior de investigaciones cientificas,
1981], 122, no. 1; Political Writings, 302, §10; “What are the permissible reasons and
causes of a just war?”).
99
There exist several reportata of these lectures; I cite here from the version retained
in Vincente Beltrán de Heredia, ed., Los manuscritos del maestro fray Francisco de
Vitoria (Madrid: Biblioteca de tomistas espanoles, 1928), 196; English translation
(occasionally emended) in Political Writings, appendix B, “Lecture on the Evangelization
of Unbelievers,” 341). In subsequent references, the pagination is given first according
to the Latin text as established by Beltrán de Heredia and afterwards according to the
translation of Pagden and Lawrence.

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faith,” Vitoria does not limit himself to the special case of Jews
and gentiles (including Muslims) in Africa, America, or other
remote places far from Christendom; he also examines the
problem of forcible conversion of unbelievers residing on
Christian lands.
Vitoria opens his investigation with the proposition,
inherited from Church teaching, that Jews and gentiles may not
be coerced into the faith. He begins by observing that the New
Testament offers little direct guidance on this question:
By what law is it prohibited to forcibly convert unbelievers [quo iure sit
prohibitum compellere infideles ad fidem]? . . . I conclude that it is prohibited
by divine law. [But] a doubt arises as to where the prohibition may be found.
Not in Scripture, because if it were there St. Thomas would have cited it
among his authorities, being a most careful researcher in this respect. I reply
that this is not stated clearly in the authoritative sources . . . although there are
some passages from which this prohibition may perhaps be inferred
[elicitor].100

In the absence of an unequivocal scriptural statement prohibiting forced conversion, Vitoria asks whether this practice
should be ruled out principally by reason of its negative
consequences, chiefly the social unrest and dissimulation it
would provoke. But as arguments based solely on side-effect
harms are rarely decisive, he proceeds to list some plausible
counterarguments justifying such coercion. Scotus’s discussion
of forcible child baptism is cited in this connection, as it
provides Vitoria with a well-known foil for the elucidation of
his own position.101 Referring to Sisebut (king of the Visigoths
from 612 until his death), popularly regarded as “a most pious
prince,” who had ordered the conversion of the Jews under
threat of the lash, Scotus maintains that despite the Toledan
100
Vitoria does not indicate what passages he has in mind. Suarez later suggested
that a norm of religious freedom could be inferred from Luke 9:54-55 (see below).
Vitoria fails to mention 1 Cor 5:12 (“For what is it to me to judge them that are
without”), which Aquinas had earlier cited as indicating that Jews and Gentiles should
be immune from coercion in matters of belief.
101
Vitoria observes that among the arguments for and against the practice of forcible
child baptism, Scotus considered those in favor “the more probable [probabilius]”
(lecture on STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8 [197/342]).

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33

council’s subsequent revocation of the king’s decree, it should
not thereby be inferred that all use of force to compel
conversion is inherently wrong. The prohibition of De Iudaeis
was framed, he suggests, in view of the negative consequences
that ordinarily issue from attempts at compelling conversion. If
a way could be found to eliminate these side-effect harms, say
by introducing precautionary measures, then the manifest good
of bringing someone to the faith, thereby saving him from
spiritual suicide, would justify an imposition of moderate force
to that end. A doctor does no harm in compelling a patient to
take medicine for his own good; ignorant of its beneficial effect,
the patient might not want the medicine at first, in this sense his
reception of it is involuntary, but because he more fundamentally desires health, ultimately his reception of the medicine
must be counted as voluntary. In matters of faith, the prince has
a function parallel to that of a physician.102 Like the pious king
Sisebut, Christian princes have authority to enact laws for the
common good even with respect to religious observances
(materia religionis). Thus, Scotus concludes, Christian princes
may licitly compel acceptance of the faith, provided one can
foresee that feigned conversions and similar wrongs do not
result. Far from being wrong, the practice would then be licit
and even desirable.103
Having presented Scotus’s position, Vitoria advances his own
determination on the liceity of religious coercion. He begins by
distinguishing unbelievers who live in a Christian commonwealth and are subjects of its prince, from unbelievers who live
outside of its boundaries.104 Fear and threats, Vitoria argues,
may not be used against unbelievers residing on their own lands,
as an application of the said coercion will be illicit in the
absence of any proper jurisdiction. A Christian king would have
no more authority to compel these unbelievers to religious

102

Lecture on STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8 (197/342-43).
Ibid.
104
Ibid. (197/344).
103

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

observance than a private citizen would have over his own
compatriots.105
To the claim that refusal to accept the Christian faith, itself a
mortal sin, is necessarily opposed to natural law, Vitoria replies
that while this is de jure true, it nonetheless does not follow that
a Christian prince, or even the pope, would be entitled to
punish such a violation.106 Only those sins against nature that
directly cause harm to innocent human beings (e.g.,
cannibalism, or euthanasia of the old and senile) may be
sanctioned by whomsoever is able; but disbelief in the Christian
message is not of this sort. In and of itself this disbelief causes
injury solely to the unbeliever (and to those who are an
extension of himself, namely, his offspring).107 To the claim that
God used force in converting St. Paul (casting him to the
ground and blinding him), and therefore we Christians should
likewise do this to pagan unbelievers for their own good,
Vitoria responds: “it is not licit for us to do all that God is
permitted to do, because we are not masters of humankind as
Christ is. . . . He could have left this power to the Church but
he did not.” At any event, Vitoria affirms that the antecedent is
false; it was not intimidation (terroribus) that made Paul believe
but divine inspiration (inspiratione divina), something we are
powerless to effect in another.108 Finally, to the contention that
unbelievers “blaspheme continually” (i.e., in professing a
religious law that is incompatible with Christianity), and hence
even unbelievers who live abroad must be compelled to
abandon religious practices that contradict the Christian faith,
Vitoria explains that forcible measures are justifiable as defense
only when the said blasphemies cause us actual harm, for
example, “if they [infidel blasphemers] were to send us a letter
full of injuries.” “But,” he continues, “if they keep their
blasphemies to themselves, we cannot use this alone as grounds
for declaring war against them.”109 In sum, the prohibition
105

Ibid.
Ibid. (199/346).
107
Ibid. (199/347).
108
Ibid. (201/350).
109
Ibid. (201/349-50).
106

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35

against using force to compel conversion holds unqualifiedly
vis-à-vis unbelievers who live on their own lands outside of
Christian jurisdiction. At the limit, Vitoria acknowledges that
their idols may in principle be destroyed, but the chief object of
this cannot be to make them convert.110
By contrast, regarding those unbelievers who reside within
the confines of Christendom (for instance Muslims remaining in
Spain after the Reconquista, or Jews before their expulsion),
Vitoria shows how the received teaching on permissible
religious coercion is considerably more relaxed. This, he
indicates, was the context for Scotus’s discussion of the forcible
baptism of children. Vitoria’s argument is oriented around two
main claims.
First, he denies that it is inherently wrong (intrinsice malum)
for princes to coerce unbelievers who are their own subjects.
Unlike perjuring an oath, which is always prohibited, bringing
pressure to bear on unbelievers so they are induced to accept
the faith “is not so evil that it cannot sometimes be a good
deed.”111 In other words, “it is not by definition so evil as to
involve an inevitable breach of charity towards God or one’s
neighbor.”112 The accretion of new members to the Church
clearly serves God’s interest, and likewise this is beneficial to
the neighbor, who is given access to the sacraments and a
pathway to eternal life. In sum, “to compel these unbelievers to
the faith is itself licit, or at the very least is not illicit”113—hence
the burden of proof rests with those who would maintain
otherwise. In this respect Vitoria agrees with Scotus. Vitoria
thereby argues that various forms of indirect coercion (indirecte
compelli infideles) will, in principle, be justifiable, such as the
110
Ibid. (200/347). After the pagans have heard Christian preaching, it would not be
inherently wrong (“de se non est malum”) to destroy their idols; no injury is thereby
done to them or to God (“non est contra honorem Dei nec contra bonum proximi”) for
the good reason that these idols are false representations of the divinity. Vitoria does,
however, caution against doing this on prudential grounds, and he shows even more
reticence vis-à-vis the destruction of pagan temples.
111
Ibid. (197/344).
112
Ibid. (197-98/344).
113
Ibid. (198/344).

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imposition of “taxes and levies by which [as a beneficial sideeffect] they may be encouraged to become converts to the
faith.”114 Forcible exile is likewise mentioned, if Saracens for
instance “pose a probable threat of subverting the faithful . . .
[for in this case] even if [the king] knows that it may induce
them to be converted to the faith, they are not thereby forced to
convert,” 115 as they remain free to opt for exile.
Second, Vitoria argues that even if indirect coercion in
matters of faith is not evil per se, it nonetheless can be expected
to generate negative side-effects. He has in mind here the sort
of preparatory coercion that had been discussed approvingly by
Augustine. On this understanding, coercion can indirectly foster
belief by removing earthly attachments (for instance attachment
to one’s social group) that, left in place, might disincentivize the
embrace of faith. Following Aquinas, Vitoria seems to think that
the imposition of these and similar coercive strategies, even by
legitimate rulers over their own subjects, will usually backfire.
The negative consequences will ordinarily outweigh the positive
benefits. Feigned conversions will result, and even worse, hearts
will be hardened against the Christian faith. This happens not
inevitably, but all too often does.116 For Vitoria, these “undesirable consequences (inconvenientia) . . . are confirmed by
experience . . . [as] Saracens never become Christians.”117
It is at this juncture that Vitoria disagrees with Scotus. The
latter (like Augustine before him) seemed more sanguine that
114

Ibid. (200/348).
Ibid. Indirect coercion is taken up by Vitoria in the form of a dubia. His main
point here is to argue that such coercion will be permissible only when the hardship in
question is imposed for a reason other than to induce conversion (i.e., rectification or
prevention of some wrong apart from unbelief), and the person administering the
hardship has proper jurisdiction to do so (thus such coercion cannot be directed against
unbelievers who live outside of Christendom). In other words, the conversion, if it
happens, will flow as the beneficial outcome of an act that proximately aimed at
something else.
116
On the special mode of evil represented by the foreseeable negative consequences
that predictably flow from what we have done, see STh I-II, q. 20, a. 5. These negative
side-effects (eventus sequens) represent a circumstance that can render morally bad an
otherwise good or indifferent act (STh I-II, q. 18, a. 10).
117
Lecture on STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8 (198/344).
115

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37

the negative consequences of coercive stratagems in favor of
faith could be avoided, so that the positive impacts would
predominate. Taking his lead from Aquinas, Vitoria views this
prospect as both uncertain and unlikely, and believes that there
is a presumption against it: “The rule which Scotus sets up
against St. Thomas is, if you like, the exception to St. Thomas’
rule,”118 and as confirmation Vitoria notes how Church practice
from its earliest days militates in favor of the viewpoint
endorsed by Aquinas. This notwithstanding, Vitoria is willing to
concede that should an effective method be found to circumvent the said inconvenientia, “it will be licit” to adopt these
coercive stratagems, “as Scotus says.”119 In the last analysis,
then, Vitoria offers only a pragmatic, not a principled, argument
against their usage. Here we do not encounter an unalienable
right to religious freedom, as it is usually understood today.
It remains to be explained why Vitoria thinks unbelievers
within Christendom can allowably be made targets of religious
coercion in a way that unbelievers on the outside cannot. Why
should this distinction be relevant to the matter at hand? The
main reason, which Vitoria shares with his theological
contemporaries and virtually all medieval thinkers before them,
is that civil society should not be conceptualized as existing in
an order apart from faith. Temporal authority might be of a
different kind than spiritual authority, princes should be
differentiated from bishops, the emperor from the pope, but
where Christians live together they form one body, a body that
maintains its essential unity amid the diversity of functions:
The civil and spiritual commonweaths [respublicae] cannot be made into two
bodies, but only one. . . . In a single body everything is connected and
subordinated to one another, the less noble parts existing for the more noble.
So too in the Christian commonwealth, all offices, purposes, and powers are
subordinated and interconnected. . . . Temporal things exist for spiritual ones,
and depend on them.120

118

Ibid. (198/345).
Ibid.
120
“On the Power of the Church,” relectio delivered in 1532; translation in Political
Writings, 91.
119

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On this picture, when Christians form a majority in a land they
constitute a Christian nation, and such a nation must be
organized with a shared faith at its core. To contest this faith, or
not to participate in it publicly, imperils the unity of the social
body. Unbelievers represent an ever-present danger to that
unity; thus, whenever feasible, measures should be adopted to
draw them into the faith, under the premise that it is a
condition sine qua non of civic unity.121 It is for this reason,
Vitoria concludes, that
Christian princes may compel their own subjects not only in civil matters
[materia civili], but also in religious [materia religionis] ones; in these matters
the commonwealth [respublica] holds authority over its own subjects by
natural right, and the prince has the same authority over his subjects, be they
pagans or not.122

On this account, opposition to Christianity would constitute a
sin, not only against theological faith and charity, but also
against the unity of temporal polity and the obligations of
natural justice we bear in its regard. When Christian faith is
considered integral to the temporal order, opposition to it is
tantamount to sedition.
IV. SUAREZ
Writing at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
Francisco Suarez123 adopted Aquinas’s tripartite distinction
121
In Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom, Johnson and
Koyama explain how belief in a necessary connection between shared faith and civic
unity was pervasive in premodern cultures. It can be found equally among Catholics,
Protestants, and Muslims. Thus, the view to which Vitoria gives voice in the passage just
quoted is far from distinctive to him or to Scholastic theology more generally. It was an
assumption that few would overtly question before the nineteenth century and in some
places remains influential even today.
122
Lecture on STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8 (198/343).
123
Suarez deals with issues relating to religion, coercion, and war in his disputations
(1621) on the theological virtues of faith (disp.18, “On means for the conversion of
unbelievers”) and charity (disp. 13 “On war”); in Suarez, Selections from Three Works
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1944), vol. 1, Latin text, vol, 2, English translation by
Gwladys L. Williams, 467/739-795, and 797-825/799-865 (translation occasionally

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

39

(discussed above) between (i) unbelievers raised in families that
had never received the Christian faith but showed it no
hostility, (ii) unbelievers who sought to impede Christian belief
and practice, and (iii) Christian apostates and heretics. Suarez
endeavors to explain how force can be applied for religious
ends, most narrowly in relation to unbelievers in the first
category, with considerably broader scope vis-à-vis unbelievers
in the second, and with widest impunity vis-à-vis those in the
third. This last category is relatively unproblematic for Suarez
because he views it along the lines of Aquinas as reducible to
enforcement of the moral and legal obligation to keep one’s
baptismal promises and the membership in Christ’s Church this
is thought to entail. If an entire community abandons this
commitment, as Catholics judged had happened in the early
days of the Reformation, it could become the target of justified
war.124
Regarding unbelievers who live outside the confines of
Christendom, no force should be used to compel them into the
faith.125 This restriction holds even if these infidels have been
adequately exposed, through missionary preaching, to the tenets
of Christianity. Nor, for that matter, should they be forced to
give Christianity a hearing, for example by being compelled to
attend sessions in which missionaries would instruct them in the
basics of the faith. Against some theologians (John Major
[1469-1550] is cited) who had argued that as Jesus said “teach
ye all nations” (Matt 28:19), the Church is entitled to back up
this precept by force, Suarez maintains that the Church has
emended). In what follows the textual divisions are numbered according to the
disputation, section, and paragraph, followed by the respective page numbers of Suarez,
1944.
124
See Defense of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith III, c. 23 (Selections from Three
Works [333-40/685-702]), where Suarez advances theoretical and scriptural
justifications for the papacy’s use of coercive force to depose heretical and apostate
kings.
125
As scriptural support, Suarez (Disp. 18.2.2 [473/750]) cites Luke 9:54-55, where
it is recounted how, after the Samaritans refused to receive Jesus, his disciples proposed
he command fire from heaven to sanction this refusal, an initiative that Jesus firmly
rejected: “You know not of what Spirit you are,” and the Evangelist narrates how Jesus
had the disciples peacefully withdraw.

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

jurisdiction solely over those who have already accepted (by
their own free volition or that of their parents) the faith, and by
this manner alone can they become its subjects. The unbaptized
living on their own lands may thus ignore the preaching of
missionaries without incurring any penalty. Even should they
lend an ear to gospel preaching, but subsequently refuse to heed
its message, their hardness of heart, while counted a sin (and a
grave one at that) should nonetheless not fall under civil
sanction.126
By the same token, infidels living in their own polities can
not justifiably be forced to give up their religious rituals, even if
these are manifestly idolatrous.127 Likewise against John Major
who had argued that “offense to God” would warrant the
suppression of pagan rites,128 Suarez asserts that such
jurisdiction is lacking on the part of Christian rulers. The one
exception would be a situation in which the rites in question
would involve manifest harm done to innocent members of the
pagan community, as for instance the practice of human
sacrifice. This can be stopped by Christian outsiders, not
because it is opposed to true religion, but solely on grounds of
justice.129 Under such an eventuality, “it is allowable to use force
in order that [those carrying out such rites] may be prevented
from sacrificing infants to their gods.”130 Enunciating an early
version of what today is called “humanitarian intervention,”
Suarez affirms that engaging in such a just war is not only
“permissible in the order of charity,” but is a “positive duty”
(preceptum est) for those princes able to carry it out.131
126
“God has not given men the power of punishing all the evil deeds of mankind;
since he has reserved some of these deeds for his own tribunal. . . . And among these
sins which God has reserved for his own judgment, is the sin of unbelief, in those who
have not professed the faith through baptism” (Disp. 18.3.12 [480/766]).
127
Disp. 18.4.3 (481/769).
128
Disp. 18.4.2 (481/768).
129
Disp. 18.4.4 (482/770-71).
130
Ibid.
131
Ibid. Suarez returns to this theme in Disputatio 13 (Selections from Three Works,
807-9/823-27), where (§6) he explains that war cannot rightly be waged on the basis of
a revealed truth; only violations of justice that are accessible to reason (thus in principle
knowable to Christians and non-Christians alike) may justify resort to armed force, in

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

41

Unbelievers living outside of Christendom are immune from
religious interference, provided they refrain from impeding the
religious activities of Christians who reside in their midst.
Should infidel rulers prohibit Christian missionary activity, for
instance, this could justify armed intervention by Christian
princes, themselves acting under the behest of the pope, the
spiritual leader of Christendom.132 Similarly, if an infidel ruler
actively seeks to dissuade Christians living in his polity from
adhering to their beliefs (“dragging them into error or
compelling them to desert their faith”), or prevents them from
practicing their rituals, a Christian ruler is entitled to intervene
(have “just ground for war”) on their behalf.133 Suarez does not,
however, believe that this rationale for armed intervention is
equally available to infidel rulers who wish to protect their
coreligionists from similar restrictions in foreign lands. To cite
his example, a Turkish emir would not have a right to wage war
against a pagan ruler who refused to let his subjects convert to
Islam. Suarez explains himself thus: “to prevent the acceptance
of the law of Christ does indeed involve grievous injustice and
harm, whereas there is no injury at all in prohibiting the
acceptance of another [religious] law.”134 The harm in question
is directed at a vital function of the Catholic Church, namely, to
spread the gospel message through the whole world.135 Suarez
the interests of protecting the innocent (iusta defensio innocentum), for instance. Thus
(§7) even non-Christian princes (principi non fidelis) may have title to wage just war
(iustus titulus belli) in aide of a foreign people who wish to practice monotheism but are
forcibly impeded from doing so by their own ruler.
132
As preaching the gospel is a primary function of the Church (Disp. 18.1.7
[471/746]), the defense of this right, including by coercion and war, falls within the
jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff alone, insofar as it is his duty to defend the universal
rights of the Church (universalia iura Ecclesiae defendere). While the actual fighting
must be undertaken by lay soldiers (for ecclesiastical persons can have no direct part in
killing or the shedding of blood), Suarez makes clear that the first initiative for such
warfare lies with the pope (ibid. [471/747]).
133
Disp. 18.4.4 (482/770).
134
Disp. 13.5.7 (809/826-27).
135
In this connection (Disp. 13.1.6 [470/745]) Suarez cites John 21:17 “feed my
sheep.” On the linkage between missionary activity and just war, see Endy, “Francisco
de Vitoria and Francisco Suarez on Religious Authority and Cause for Justified War.”

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

takes as a given that the Church is a supernatural society
directly mandated by God; for this reason, the Church is
uniquely entitled—indeed “has a right [habet ius]”—to receive
the armed protection of Christian princes.136 This is a religious
prerogative not possessed by other communities of believers and
their leaders. In this respect Suarez articulates a Christian
exceptionalism.
Regarding unbelievers who dwell within Christian polities,
Suarez thinks that some measure of religious coercion will be
apposite.137 He takes care to explain that this intrusion must be
justified on political rather than religious grounds, for, as we
have seen, neither the popes and bishops, nor by extension
Christian princes, have any spiritual jurisdiction over
unbelievers. Whatever jurisdiction the former might have over
the latter must be grounded in something other than the
unbelievers’ condition of unbelief. This jurisdiction Suarez
locates in the special role of Christian princes, who have among
their chief tasks the maintenance of peace and security within
their kingdoms. Such peace and security will be maintained only
when virtue is fostered within the populace. But this in turn
requires that due homage be paid to God, as recognition of
God’s rulership over humanity is the chief source of virtue. On
this basis Suarez argues that in every human polity that is well
governed, care must be taken to enable the subjects to choose
the true religion and the worship of God.138 This task is not
inherently spiritual; rather, it proceeds from the temporal
power of princes and as such is directed to a natural (not
136
Disp. 18.1.4 (469/743). Against the expansive claims made by John Major, Suarez
(Disp. 18.1.8 [471-72/747]) places some restrictions on the Church’s right of selfdefense. For instance, before any harm has been done to preachers, it is not permitted
for soldiers to be sent out with them as a precautionary (preueniendo) or preventive (per
anticipatam) measure. Nor do Christian princes have just title to occupy the kingdom of
a gentile prince (principis gentilis) in order that the gospel may there be preached there
with greater ease or security.
137
In this respect, he argues (Disp. 18.2.2 [473/750-51]) against those theologians
(Valentia and Salmerón are cited) who deny that coercion can ever justifiably be
directed against pagan or gentile unbelievers, even when they are subjects of Christian
princes.
138
Disp. 18.2.4 (474/752-53).

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43

supernatural) end: “preserving the peace of the polity, natural
justice, and the goodness appropriate to it.”139
Having postulated this principle, Suarez deduces four
implications.
First, although unbelievers living in a Christian polity can
never directly be compelled to adopt the Christian faith, they
can nonetheless be forced (cogere) to give this faith a hearing.140
Attending instructional sessions taught by Christian preachers
can be made mandatory, with civil penalties imposed for
refusal.
Second, although no one can directly be forced to embrace
the faith upon hearing it adequately presented, as members of a
civil polity (membra reipublicae civilis) that is governed by a
Christian prince, unbelievers may justifiably be subjected to
indirect forms of coercion (coactione indirecta). Coercion is
indirect when a burden or penalty is imposed for one reason,
but with the awareness that a beneficial side-effect will likely
follow.141 Suarez notes, for instance, that a Christian prince has
the authority to expel unbelievers from his kingdom if their
presence is deemed dangerous to the faithful (similarly,
unbelievers conquered in a just war and whose lands are
annexed may rightly be punished by exile).142 By the same
token, burdens such as proportionately higher taxes can be
levied against resident unbelievers.143 In either case, the burden
or penalty could rightly be waived should the unbeliever agree
to convert. While hoping for this beneficial outcome, the prince
is not entitled to impose the said burden solely in view of it; to
be justifiable the burden must be imposed for a reason other
than promotion of the unbeliever’s conversion. In Suarez’s eyes,
139

Disp. 18.3.7 (479/763).
Disp. 18.2.3 (473/751).
141
A definition of indirect coercion is given in Disp. 18.3.8 (479/764): “Coercion is
indirect when a right [assignment of a burden] or punishment that is imposed under one
particular title or on account of a given offense is secondarily directed by the one
exercising [the right or inflicting the punishment] to the end of inducing another to
exercise some act of the will . . . which is itself virtuous.”
142
Disp. 18.3.9 (479-80/764-65).
143
See ibid. (479/764).
140

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

this indirect coercion will be warranted only when the one
exercising the coercion (i.e., the prince) has jurisdiction to
impose the said burden, the burden is applied within the bounds
of justice (not to excess), and precautions are taken so that
feigned conversions do not result.144
Third, when it is a matter no longer of internal belief, but of
external religious practice, Suarez maintains that various
restrictions can justifiably be imposed on unbelievers living
within a Christian polity. The prince can legitimately outlaw
pagan rites, especially when they involve the public worship of
idols. Suarez cites in this connection the practice of illustrious
rulers such as the emperors Constantine and Theodosius, who
ordered the closure or destruction of pagan temples.145 Suarez
adds that only princes are entitled to exercise such coercion;
private individuals lack the proper jurisdiction.146
Fourth, Suarez explains how a special status must be
accorded to the rites of Jews and Muslims. Even though these
rites are contrary to the Christian faith, they should nonetheless
be allowed within a Christian commonwealth due to their
monotheistic orientation, which is in keeping with the moral
content of the natural law.147 Given this foundation in natural
law, Jewish and Muslim rites cannot be assessed as inherently
wrongful (in contrast to the idolatry of pagans), and Christian
princes have no legitimate authority to exclude these rites from
the commonwealth. Any such attempt would amount to
impermissible direct coercion. But because these rites are
inconsistent with fundamental Christian doctrine (for instance,
Jewish rituals that signify a messiah who is still to come),148 in a
144
Ibid. (479-80/764-65). Suarez admits that Christian princes lack jurisdiction to
impose such burdens or penalties upon unbelievers living outside of Christendom;
however, it is within the purview of these princes to withhold gratuitous benefits from
them, with an eye toward drawing them to the faith (the said benefits would be
conferred should they convert). This would constitute a form of indirect coercion; it
would be “permissible, because no jurisdiction or superior power is required to deprive
any one of such benefits (Disp. 18.3.11 [480/765]).
145
Disp. 18.4.6 (482/771).
146
Disp. 18.4.8 (483/774).
147
Disp. 18.4.10 (484/775).
148
Ibid.

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45

Christian polity restrictions ought to be placed on them. Suarez
mentions how no new synagogues (or mosques, presumably) are
to be built, none should be located in close proximity to
Christian churches, any such edifices that have been converted
to churches should not be restored to their previous use (and if
an injustice has occurred the loss must be made good in some
other way), and that major celebrations such as the Passover
feast must be held in private, so as not to diminish the honor of
the Christian religion. And “Jews may be required to wear an
outward sign so that they are externally distinguished from the
Christian faithful.”149
CONCLUSION
In the preceding pages I have sought to show how Aquinas’s
strong affirmation of religious freedom—with respect to the
inner act of believing, where libertas is unconditionally
required—was limited to a narrow band of application.
Individuals who wished to depart from the Christian faith (after
having previously embraced it) were prohibited from doing so.
Those who chose to remain outside of that faith—pagans, Jews,
and Muslims—could adhere to their own religious practices
solely if they observed a set of restrictions. Christians enjoyed a
correspondingly wide freedom in opposing perceived violations,
especially vis-à-vis those unbelievers who lived within the
boundaries of Christendom. Vitoria and Suarez outlined these
restrictions in abundant detail and were not shy in explaining
the forcible measures that Christian rulers could undertake
against transgressions.
Aquinas’s contemporary disciples accordingly face a
quandary. If we seek support in his teaching for a right of
religious freedom—along the lines of Dignitatis Humanae—we
can either downplay the aspects of his teaching that cut against
it or offer some account of how the affirmation of this right can
be detached from the restrictions he placed on it. Thomas Pink
provides an example of the former approach. Arguing for the
149

Disp. 18.4.11 (484-85/776).

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

applicability today of “the underlying doctrinal basis for the
Church’s previous use of the coercive services of the state”150 as
had been theorized by Suarez, Pink focuses on measures of
“soft” coercion (excommunication, removal from office,
restrictions on movement, etc.).151 By the same token he
downplays the harsher measures, including capital punishment
of heretics, forced exile, the placement of restrictions on public
worship by Judaism and other “practitioners of false
religions,”152 the punishment of “disrespect shown by nonChristians for Christ,”153 and war for the protection of missionaries, all measures that, as we have seen, were actively promoted
by Suarez for the defense of faith.154 Pink mentions (some of)
these measures in passing as though they were regrettable
exceptions of a benign policy to “protect the public space of the
Christian religion.”155 He speaks as though these measures were
only contingently related to Suarez’s theory of Church-directed
coercion but offers no explanation as to why this might be so.
Mary Keys takes the opposite tack in arguing that Aquinas’s
acceptance of coercive measures—against heretics and others
who deviate from the true path of faith—was inconsistent with
his wider teaching and should have been rejected by him. She
attributes this failure not so much to a lack of objective
resources, as to an uncharacteristic lack of intellectual humility.
Aquinas’s understanding of the special epistemic status of faith
should have enabled him to realize that given the subjective
uncertainty of faith as assent to supernatural mysteries
transcending the capacity of the human mind, “it would be most
incongruous to employ human law and authority in punishing
lapses of faith.”156 Instead, he gave way to an “unchecked
spiritedness” that led him “to endorse in unusually immoderate
150

Pink, “Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” 82.
Ibid., 94.
152
Ibid., 104.
153
Ibid., 94.
154
Pink does not mention war to defend against or punish unbelief in “Interpretation
of Dignitatis Humanae.”
155
Ibid., 104.
156
Keys, Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good, 236.
151

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47

terms an unjust and unwise ecclesial-political policy.”157
However, rather than follow this conclusion, it would be more
accurate to say that given the epistemic status of theological
faith—objectively most certain as it is directly rooted in God’s
self-revelation, but subjectively uncertain, because no created
mind can naturally know (thus have direct evidence of)
supernatural truths158—Aquinas was led to endorse coercive
measures as a means to protect the ordinary faithful from the
vulnerabilities attendant upon this epistemic condition. On this
reasoning, contact with unbelievers could easily foment doubt
on matters of belief: thus the precaution of quarantining these
unbelievers, and when necessary purging them from the society
of Christian believers. Had Aquinas lived in an age such as ours,
when education (including religious instruction) is vastly more
accessible than in previous periods, he might have entertained
alternative routes toward protecting faith from the corrosive
impact of ambient error.
Instead of speculating about the subjective dimensions of
Aquinas’s thought on coercion, Charles Journet proposed a
structural explanation for the restrictions that Aquinas (and by
extension his Scholastic followers) had placed on his otherwise
strong affirmation of religious freedom. In an address given at
Vatican II in the closing debates on Dignitatis Humanae,159
Journet explained how, from the time of Constantine and for
many centuries forward, Church leaders reverted to the “secular
arm” in order to assure religious conformity. Heavy means of
coercion, including war, were utilized to this end. This was
done under the rationale that shared faith is inherent to the
157

Ibid., 234.
The contrast between the objective and subjective certitude of faith is drawn by
Aquinas in STh II-II, q. 4, a. 8 (cited in Keys, Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the
Common Good, 236); earlier (q. 1, a. 5) Aquinas explains that faith provides access to
supernatural truths for which evidence (agnitio), whether immediate or inferential, is
unavailable to us, due to the natural limitations of our created minds (q. 2, a. 3).
159
The Latin text, “Declaratio de libertate religiosa,” was originally published in
Acta Conc. Vatican II, vol. 4.1 (Vatican City, 1976), and has been reedited, along with a
French version, in Charles Journet and Jacques Maritain, Correspondance, vol. 6, 19651973 (Saint-Maurice, Switzerland: Éditions Saint-Augustin, 2008), 73-76.
158

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

unity of the temporal order, whenever Christians live together
in organized political communities. Deviation in matters of faith
is an existential threat to civic peace and has to be suppressed
accordingly, or the dissolution of temporal society will
inevitably result. This linkage between shared faith and civic
order was an unquestioned assumption throughout the medieval
period and beyond. It was only in late modernity that Catholic
theology started to conceptualize other possible foundations for
civic order, and with them new ways of bringing faith to bear in
the temporal order. Faith is still required for the right direction
of society, but on this new conception it is no longer deemed a
prerequisite for unity in the civic sphere, nor a fortiori a
condition for full membership in the temporal polity. Freed of
its constitutive political role, faith no longer requires the
support of coercive means as supplied by the state. Christians
must still oppose error in matters of faith and morals, but
henceforth they must do so by persuasion, using “arms of light,”
not “arms of war.”160
Space constraints do not allow for further elaboration on
Journet’s account of the limitations that were placed on
religious freedom within the context of “sacral Christendom,”
or his explanation as to why these limitations can be shed today
without endangering the “subordination of temporal to spiritual
affairs,” under the guidance of the Church.161 This is a
promising line of analysis that merits closer examination.162
Finally, if we assess Aquinas’s endorsement of special
restrictions on unbelievers by reference to the law applicable in
his own day, it will appear in a much more moderate light. His

160

“Declaratio de libertate religiosa,” in Correspondance, 74.
“Sacral Christendom” was a term Journet borrowed from Maritain to describe
the political structuring of the temporal sphere in premodern Christian societies. For
further details, see Journet, Church of the Word Incarnate, 241-62; Reichberg, “Journet
on the Impossibility of Christian Holy War,” 531-36.
162
Including the sometimes vociferous objections (to my mind unfounded) that have
been raised against it, inter alia by Julio Meinvielle (De Lamennais à Maritain: Du
mythe du progrès et l’utopie de la “nouvelle chrétienté” [Paris: Éditions Dominique
Martin Morin, 2001 [original Spanish edition, 1945], and Thomas Pink (“Jacques
Maritain and the Problem of Church and State,” The Thomist 79 [2015]: 1-42).
161

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49

writing on this topic closely reflects the teaching of Pope
Innocent IV (1243-54), who had sought to undercut the view,
later defended by his student Henry of Susa (better known by
the nickname “Hostiensis,” who lived 1200-1271), that the
exercise of dominium flows from the Christian faith in such a
way that unbelievers possess no entitlement to self-rule or
ownership of land. On the Hostinian account, a Christian
prince is thus entitled to wage war against unbelievers, not
because of any specific wrong they have committed, but simply
to counter their condition of unbelief. By contrast,
acknowledging that “infidels should not be forced to accept the
faith, since everyone’s free will is to be respected,” Innocent
argued that by natural right “dominium and jurisdiction is
permitted to infidels,” hence Christians are prohibited from
waging war on them except in instances where unbelievers have
unjustly done prior harm to Christians. Only under
circumstances of “extreme necessity” can these infidel rulers be
lawfully removed from their dominium over Christians; short of
“extreme danger to Christians” or “great offense” done by these
unbelievers, “the pope ought to put up with them insofar as he
can.” Alongside physical attacks on Christian faithful, the
offenses in question would include refusal to admit preachers of
the gospel or other actions that might otherwise impede the
practice and expression of the faith. Innocent nonetheless
denied that a condition of positive reciprocity with Muslims
should hold: the pope, he wrote, should not be willing to
“accept those who want to preach the law of Mohammad . . .
for they are in error and we follow the path of truth.”163
Writing as a theologian, Aquinas did not take it as his task to
frame laws relevant to the Church’s exercise of jurisdiction over
(and on behalf of) the faithful. In this domain he sought merely
to select the most reliable sources (hence his preference for

163
These citations from Innocent IV are taken from his text “On Vows” (Quod super
his, in Decretals, III, 34, 8; English trans. in Reichberg et al., Ethics of War, 153-55).
Aquinas does not cite from Quod super his in STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8; he does however
reference a related decretal, Ad abolendam, in the subsequent q. 12, a. 2, s.c.

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Innocent IV over Hostiensis)164 and to explore the theological
implications. It would be an anachronism to expect otherwise of
him, as though—on matters such as punishment of heresy or
restrictions on non-Christians—he could operate wholly outside
the legal framework of his day. By the same token, were he
writing today, he would surely amend the social and political
aspects of his theology to fit the new expectations of our age
and the underlying legal codes, civil and ecclesial, that have
accordingly emerged.165

164
See Reichberg, Thomas Aquinas on War and Peace, 27-33. For the relevant
comments by Hostiensis on the perpetual enmity and resulting warfare between
Christians and unbelievers, see “On Truce and Peace” (from Summa aurea, Decretals,
bk. 1, tit. 34), trans. in Reichberg et al., Ethics of War, 161-68. On the contrasting
positions of Innocent and Hostiensis—and their antecedents—see James Muldoon,
Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979),
5-18.
165
Avery Cardinal Dulles wisely observed that “doctrine of a social or political
character does not follow exactly the same course of development as pure dogma. It is
not simply spun out of the original deposit of faith, but emerges with a certain
irregularity according to the vicissitudes of history. . . . [T]he social teaching of the
magisterium is under continual revision insofar as the unchanging principles of the
gospel need to be upheld in varying social situations. The fundamental principles are
constant, but the judgments and adaptations are new” (“Religious Freedom: Innovation
and Development,” First Things, December 2001 [accessed online at
www.firstthings.com/article/2001/12/religious-freedom-innovation-and-development]).

The Thomist 84 (2020): 51-102

HUMBERT OF ROMANS ON THE PAPACY
BEFORE LYONS II (1274):
A STUDY IN COMPARISON WITH THOMAS AQUINAS
AND POPE GREGORY X’S EXTRACTIONES
ANDREW HOFER, O.P.
Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception
Washington, D.C.

T

HOMAS AQUINAS’S understanding of papal power has
been the subject of close theological scrutiny. It has often
been compared to the thought of other Scholastics of the
thirteenth century and to medieval canonists. It has been
studied in the contexts of the mendicant controversies and
efforts at reunion with the East, and evoked in questions about
the papacy’s role in the faith, sacraments, and the unity of the
Church. In studies of developments in ecclesiology, Thomas
often draws attention for his articulations of the papal
preservation from error when canonizing saints and the pope’s
plenitudo potestatis. Special attention has been given to
Thomas’s influence on subsequent theological and doctrinal
formulations regarding the papacy’s jurisdiction vis-à-vis local
bishops and state governments, as well as on papal teaching
authority over the universal Church.1
1

See esp. Donald S. Prudlo, Certain Saints: Canonization and the Origins of Papal
Infallibility in the Medieval Church (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2015), 12230; Matthew Levering, Christ and the Catholic Priesthood: Ecclesial Hierarchy and the
Pattern of the Trinity (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2010), 205-24; Jürgen Miethke, De
potestate papae: Die päpstliche Amtskompetenz im Widerstreit der politischen Theorie
von Thomas Aquin bis Wilhelm von Ockham, Spätmittelalter und Reformation Neue
Reihe 16 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000); Christopher Ryan, “The Theology of Papal
Primacy in Thomas Aquinas,” in The Religious Roles of the Papacy: Ideals and Realities,
1150-1300, ed. Christopher Ryan, Papers in Medieval Studies 8 (Toronto: Pontifical
51

52

ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

By contrast, there has been little study in ecclesiology of
Humbert of Romans, the fifth Master (1254-63) of the Order of
Preachers to which Thomas belonged. Humbert’s views on the
papacy are known better by historians specializing in the
thirteenth century than by theologians today.2 Humbert wrote a
consilium in preparation for the Second Council of Lyons

Institute of Medieval Studies, 1989), 193-228; Karlfried Froehlich, “Saint Peter, Papal
Primacy and the Exegetical Tradition, 1150-1300,” in Ryan, ed., The Religious Roles of
the Papacy, 3-44; George Sabra, Thomas Aquinas’ Vision of the Church: Fundamentals
of an Ecumenical Ecclesiology, Tübinger Theologische Studien 27 (Mainz: MatthiasGrünewald-Verlag, 1987); Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P., “La place du pape dans l’Église
selon saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue thomiste 86 (1986): 392-422; Gregory Rocca,
O.P., “St. Thomas Aquinas on Papal Authority,” Angelicum 62 (1985): 472-84; Charles
Abraham Zuckerman, “Dominican Theories of the Papal Primacy 1250-1320,” (Ph.D.
diss. Cornell University, 1971), 26-92; Charles Zuckerman, “Aquinas’ Conception of
the Papal Primacy in Ecclesiastical Government,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et
littéraire du moyen âge 40 (1973): 97-134; and Walter Ullmann, The Medieval Papacy:
St. Thomas and Beyond (London: Aquin Press, 1960). Scholars after the 1960s
commonly respond to the classic study of Yves Congar, O.P., “Aspects ecclésiologiques
de la querelle entre mendiants et séculiers dans la seconde moitié du XIIIe siècle et le
début du XIVe,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 36 (1961):
35-151, and work by Ulrich Horst, O.P., such as his “Das Wesen der ‘potestas clavium’
nach Thomas von Aquin,” Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift 11 (1960): 191-201. For
examples of further work by Congar and Horst on Thomas and the papacy, see Yves
Congar, O.P., “St. Thomas and the Infallibility of the Papal Magisterium,” The Thomist
38 (1974): 81-105; and Ulrich Horst, O.P., The Dominicans and the Pope: Papal
Teaching in the Medieval and Early Modern Thomist Tradition, trans. James D. Mixson
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006).
2
For an overview, see Edward Tracy Brett, Humbert of Romans: His Life and Views
of Thirteenth-Century Society, Studies and Texts 67 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Medieval Studies, 1984). Unfortunately, Brett does not alert readers to some significant
differences between Humbert’s Opus tripartitum and the Extractiones, discussed below.
For pertinent secondary literature and the manuscripts extant of Humbert’s writings, see
Thomas Kaeppeli, O.P., Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum medii aevi, vol. 2 (Rome:
Santa Sabina, 1975), 283-95 (s.v. Humbertus de Romanis). For a brief overview
(translated into French) of Humbert, see Simon Tugwell, O.P., “Humbert de Romans,”
Mémoire Dominicaine: Histoire, documents, et vie dominicaine 2 (1993): 21-32. For an
impressively detailed treatment of select writings, see Tugwell’s Humberti de Romanis
Legendae Sancti Dominici, Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica,
vol. 30 (Rome: Institutum Historicum Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, 2008). For
Tugwell on the Opus tripartitum, see ibid., 407-22.

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53

(1274),3 which he offered probably at the personal request of
Pope Gregory X, as Simon Tugwell argues, rather than as a
response to one of two general letters preparing for the
council.4 Of all extant reports that prepare for the council,
Humbert’s Opus (or Opusculum) tripartitum is by far the most
thorough.5 As its name suggests, it is divided into three parts to
meet the three needs of the Church that would be discussed at
3
No manuscript of the Opus tripartitum is extant. See Kaeppeli, Scriptores ordinis
praedicatorum medii aevi, 2, no. 2015. The text was printed in the Concilia omnia tam
generalia, quam particularia, 2 in 1551 in Cologne (967-1003). This was reprinted as
Appendix ad fasciculum rerum expetendarum et fugiendarum sive tomus secundus, ed.
Edward Brown (London: Richard Chiswell, 1690), 185-228, which I am using. Given
the text’s importance, it is unfortunate that the Opus was last published in 1690 and no
translation in any vernacular is published.
4
Tugwell, Humberti de Romanis Legendae Sancti Dominici, 407-9. On this point,
Tugwell cites his agreement with Karl Michel, Das Opus tripartitum des Humbertus de
Romanis O.P. (Graz: Verlagsbuchhandlung Styria, 1926), 17-32. Tugwell, following
Michel, argues that neither Gregory’s Salvator noster (Gregory X Reg. no. 160 [March
31, 1272]) nor his Dudum super generalis (Gregory X Reg. no. 220 [March 11, 1273])
would be an adequate explanation for Humbert’s work. See Gregory’s letters in Les
registres de Grégoire X (1272-1276), ed. Jean Guiraud (Paris: Thorin et Fils, 1892).
Michel’s hypothesis on the dating, which arose from his doctoral work at the University
of Fribourg, was criticized by, among others, Fritz Heintke, Humbert von Romans, der
fünfte Ordensmeister der Dominikaner (Berlin: Dr. Emil Ebering, 1933), 118; and in the
book review of F. Callaey in Revue d’histoire ecclesiastique 18 (1922): 367-68.
5
For a study of Humbert’s Opus that follows brief overviews of the Relatio of
Bruno, bishop of Olmutz and the highly interesting Collectio de scandalis ecclesiae by
Franciscan Gilbert of Tournai, see Burkhard Roberg, Das Zweite Konzil von Lyon
(1274) (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1990), 106-26. Roberg introduces the text as
the most comprehensive and substantially meaningful proposal in preparation for Lyons
II (ibid., 106). According to a more recent book, “It could be argued that Humbert’s
treatise was perhaps the most influential of those submitted in shaping the agenda of the
Second Council of Lyons” (Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in
Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187-1291, ed. Jessalynn Bird, Edward
Peters, and James M. Powell [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013],
456). For the reports as they pertain to the concern of the crusade, with the foci of
Gilbert of Tournai’s Collectio de scandalis ecclesiae, Bruno of Olmutz’s memoir,
William of Tripoli’s De statu saracenorum, and especially Humbert of Romans, see
Palmer A. Throop, Criticism of the Crusade: A Study of Public Opinion and Crusade
Propaganda (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets and Zeitlinger, 1940). For a very brief
consideration of the reports of Gilbert of Tournai, William of Tripoli, and Humbert of
Romans, see Brett Edward Whalen, Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in
the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 195-98.

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

Lyons: crusade, union with Greeks, and reform in the Church.6
Especially remarkable is the Secunda pars, the most comprehensive extant medieval analysis of the schism written by
either a Latin or a Greek. Composed in a clear Scholastic style,
the consilium addresses political, theological, social, psychological, linguistic, and philosophical matters that are required in
order for reunion to become a reality. Humbert is, as Burkhard
Roberg says, an independent thinker.7 Humbert writes this plan
under the aspect of advising the pope on what he should do and
why he should do it in light of the ad hoc needs of the Church.
While scholarship has given attention to Humbert’s proposal
(although its effort for Christian unity is still not as well known
as it deserves), no study has been devoted per se to his understanding of the pope as laid out in this treatise.8
The following study compares Humbert’s view of the pope
with that of Thomas. While there is no evidence that Humbert
borrowed from Thomas’s teaching on the papacy, studies of the
two together can be mutually illuminative—especially for an
audience much more familiar with Thomas’s teachings on the
Church.9 While Humbert does not rival Thomas in genius, he
6
For studies on Lyons II, see especially Roberg, Das Zweite Konzil von Lyon; and
the over thousand-page conference collection 1274: Année charnière mutations et
continuités, Colloques Internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
558 (Paris: Éditions du centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1977).
7
Burkhard Roberg, Die Union zwischen der griechischen und der lateinischen Kirche
auf dem II. Konzil von Lyon (1274), Bonner Historische Forschungen, vol. 24 (Bonn:
Ludwig Röhrscheid, 1964), 91.
8
For an application of Humbert’s work to efforts for Christian unity in the early
twentieth century, see H.-J. Omez, “À propos de l’unité chrétienne de l’Orient et de
l’Occident: Un opuscule du Bx. Humbert de Romans (1273),” Les documents de la vie
intellectuelle 1 (1929): 196-211. Claude Carozzi comments that the entire treatise was
composed to affirm the sovereign authority of the pope, placed at the summit of a
strongly unified Church. See Carozzi, “Humbert de Romans et l’Histoire” in 1274:
Année charnière mutations et continuités, 849-62, at 850.
9
For a very brief comparison to show the profile of each in his Dominican context,
see Karl Brunner, “Theorie als Praxis, Praxis als Theorie: Humbert von Romans und
Thomas von Aquin,” in Bettelorden in Mitteleuropa: Geschichte, Kunst, Spiritualität (St.
Pölten, Austria: Diözesanarchiv, 2008), 656-62. Brunner observes that Humbert is
known outside the Order only by a circle of specialists (656), and concentrates on
sketching the importance of the work of each great Dominican in his cultural setting.

HUMBERT OF ROMANS ON THE PAPACY

55

offers additional practical insight and frank criticism for
understanding the papacy, not found in Thomas.10 The two
friars wrote in different genres and contexts, with different
literary emphases and perspectives: Humbert, as a highly
respected retired head of the Dominicans and prolific writer for
his Order; and Thomas, as a renowned master of the sacred
page with several scattered treatments of the papacy in
academic disputes. Some scholars, such as Leonard Boyle and
Paul Murray, have shown how Thomas was likely influenced by
Humbert in his own writing.11 While Humbert’s proposal for
Brunner concludes that cultural history and theology do not stand in conflict with one
another (662).
10
Thomas, as well as Bonaventure, steered clear of criticizing the papacy and
promoted the papacy’s authority in various ways, such as extolling the inerrancy of
canonizing saints. In his Certain Saints, Donald Prudlo writes that Bonaventure “was the
first church thinker to make an implicit argument in favor of infallibility in
canonization” (126). Prudlo argues against Brian Tierney’s inadequate attention to
canonizations and his focus on the Franciscan poverty disputes as the locus for the
medieval articulations of papal infallibility. For Tierney on Bonaventure, see Brian
Tierney, Origins of Papal Infallibility, 1150-1350: A Study on the Concepts of
Infallibility, Sovereignty and Tradition in the Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 82-92.
Thomas gave further theological reasoning for inerrancy in canonization. For Thomas,
as Prudlo summarizes, “the pope is unable to err in canonization for three reasons:
(1) he makes a thorough investigation into holiness of life, (2) this is confirmed by the
testimony of miracles, and (3) the Holy Spirit leads him (for Thomas, the clincher)”
(128). See Quodl. IX, q. 8. Not mentioned by Prudlo in this analysis, Thomas’s use in
this question of Caiaphas as someone evil, but prophesying as high priest (John 11:51),
might suggest that a pope could be evil but still speak the truth needed for his office.
Thomas does not explicitly address, however, the possibility of an evil pope or of a
pope needing correction. Explaining the lack of papal criticism by Thomas (and
Bonaventure) in terms of mendicant reliance on the papacy does not sufficiently address
mendicant criticism of the papacy that can be found in someone of Humbert’s stature,
writing at the same time as Thomas.
11
Leonard E. Boyle, O.P. “The Setting of the Summa theologiae of Saint Thomas,”
reprint from 1982 in Facing History: A Different Thomas Aquinas (Turnhout: Brepols,
2000), 65-91, at 78-82; Paul Murray, O.P., “Four Prayers: The Influence of Humbert of
Romans,” in Aquinas at Prayer: The Bible, Mysticism and Poetry (London: Bloomsbury,
2013), 31-79. Murray comments, “Should it prove to be the case that Aquinas did, in
fact, allow himself to be influenced by Blessed Humbert in the composition of the
prayers under consideration, then what we have, in the four Dominican prayers before
us, are documents of the rarest kind: prayers not merely composed with considerable
artistry and care by the Angelic Doctor, but work actually based on an earlier

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

Pope Gregory X seems to have been composed too late
(March/April–December 1272) to have influenced Thomas’s
writing on the papacy,12 it can illuminate what Thomas wrote,
and did not write, on the papacy. Examining Humbert’s text
against the backdrop of Thomas’s theology can also shed some
light on Humbert’s own distinctiveness. Certainly, neither is
sufficient to explain the other. Yet, putting Humbert alongside
Thomas—two of the most influential friars in the thirteenth
century—can provide an interesting angle on the papacy.13
In addition, this study considers the heavy hand of an editor
who developed Extractiones that, inter alia, altered those
formulations of Humbert that seemed to be offensive against
the prerogatives of the pope.14 Tugwell has shown that the
Dominican text, an Epistola composed by one of the Order’s greatest leaders and saints,
St. Thomas’s older contemporary, Blessed Humbert of Romans” (79).
12
For this date of Humbert’s composition, see Tugwell, Humberti de Romanis
Legendae Sancti Dominici, 422. Thomas famously stopped writing his Summa after his
experience on December 6, 1273, and we do not know if he ever read what Humbert
submitted to Pope Gregory. Thomas was obeying the papal summons to go to Lyons for
the council when he died on March 7, 1274.
13
Thomas and Bonaventure are most commonly paired as points of reference for
commonality and difference in Scholastic study. But it should be recalled that Bonaventure was not only a master of the sacred page, but was also Franciscan minister
general (1257-74) whose counterpart in the Order of Preachers as master was, for a
time, Humbert of Romans.
14
That text is found in J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima
collectio (Florence: 1759-98), 24:109-32. It is reprinted from the 1733 Veterum
scriptorum et monumentorum historicum by Martène and Durand. These Extractiones
have usually been numbered among the products of Bernard Gui, the famous
Dominican historian and inquisitor at the beginning of the fourteenth century. See s.v.
Bernardus Guidonis, in Kaeppeli, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum medii aevi, vol. 1
(Rome: Santa Sabina, 1970), no. 211. Other examples of continuing this acceptance of
Gui as responsible for the Extractiones include Brett, Humbert of Romans, 176 n. 3;
Roberg, Das zweite Konzil von Lyon, 107; and William Hinnebusch, O.P., The History
of the Dominican Order; vol. 2: Intellectual and Cultural Life to 1500 (New York: Alba
House, 1973), 328. José Sánchez Vaquero notes that many modern authors are ignorant
of Humbert’s complete text, as found in Brown’s 1690 edition. See José Sánchez
Vaquero, “Causas y remedios del Cisma griego según los Latinos, antes de la Unión de
Lyon,” Salmanticensis 2.2 (1955): 350-401, at 351-52 n. 2. One recent example of a
scholar not seeing the substantive difference, at times, between the Opus and its
Extractiones, is Brett Whalen’s distinction of “excerpts” and “additional passages” in the
1690 edition by Brown. Whalen uses the “excerpts.” See Whalen, Dominion of God,

HUMBERT OF ROMANS ON THE PAPACY

57

person likely responsible for writing the Extractiones is none
other than Pope Gregory X himself.15 After reviewing select
discrepancies between the Opus and the Extractiones, circumstances of Gregory X involving Humbert around the time of
Lyons II, and the manuscript tradition, Tugwell concludes:
All told, it seems to me that there is a strong case for believing that the Opus
tripartitum was written in response to a personal request from Gregory X,
that Gregory held Humbert in high esteem, and that the Extractiones are his
own working notes on the Opus.16

Tugwell’s persuasive case makes Humbert’s treatise of even
greater value for scholars than was previously recognized, and
Gregory’s authorship is accepted in this present study. Andrea
Riedl’s helpful study on the Secunda pars of the Opus as a
conciliar peace plan, although it cites Tugwell’s scholarship on
Pope Gregory’s request for Humbert’s work, does not explore
his proposal that Gregory is responsible for the Extractiones.17
Ludovico Gatto’s older study of Gregory’s pontificate, although
it cites Humbert’s authentic text, does not even cite its highly

300 n. 66. For his more recent overview of the medieval papacy, see Brett Edward
Whalen, The Medieval Papacy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
15
Tugwell, Humberti de Romanis Legendae Sancti Dominici, 407-22. Tugwell writes
about the Extractiones: “Their true nature has not been appreciated; scholars have
surprisingly failed to observe the kinship between the Extractiones and the kind of notes
we ourselves make on what we read when we are already looking ahead to something
we are due to write or some talk we must give” (410).
16
Ibid., 420.
17
Andrea Riedl, “Humbert von Romans und sein ‘konziliarer Friedensplan’ für das
Zweite Konzil von Lyon (1274),” Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum 48 (2016/2017):
175-91. Riedl underscores Pope Gregory X’s desire for pax et unio (peace and union),
as evidenced in his letters to Emperor Michael VIII (October 24, 1272) and the Greek
Patriarch Joseph I (November 1, 1272) (ibid., 180; cf. 190). In linking the Secunda pars
with Pope Gregory’s wish for peace and union, Riedl could have more explicitly shown
Humbert’s use of pax. For example, in chapter 17 of the Secunda pars, Humbert writes:
of solemn nuncios who “would have spoken about peace” (“locuti fuissent de pace”
[Brown, ed., 220]); of spies concerned “about impediments to peace and about the
powerful opportunities for peace” (“de impedimentis pacis, et de valentibus ad pacem”
[ibid., 221]); and of Latins who scandalize Greeks, who in turn “remove themselves
from peace” (“elongant se a pace” [ibid.]).

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

original Secunda pars.18 Gatto evinces no awareness of the
possibility that Gregory is responsible for the Extractiones, and
the Extractiones can supplement our sources for Gregory’s
pontificate. An investigation of the bearing Gregory’s authorship has on understanding Humbert’s particular contribution
regarding the papacy, and so how Humbert’s thinking differs in
significant ways at times from Gregory’s, can continue the work
that Tugwell has pioneered.
With Thomas and Gregory’s Extractiones as primary
reference points, and with additional sources adduced for historical context, we find that Humbert’s thoughts on the papacy
offer a perspective that deserves consideration.19 Humbert distinctively elaborates on the contemporary problems identified
by Gregory X for the council’s agenda. He interprets history,
including the events recorded in the sacred Scriptures, to
understand how the Church came to be in its contemporary
situation. In advising the pope, Humbert, in fact, warns him
that God will punish him if he should be negligent. This call,
while not unique in the thirteenth century, contrasts with a
contemporary attitude about the pope’s actions: “There is no
one who dares to say to him: why do you do this?”20 Humbert
dares to inform, motivate, and, at times, admonish the pope

18
Ludovico Gatto, Il pontificato di Gregorio X (1271 - 1276) (Rome: Istituto Storico
Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1959).
19
There are other possible ways of setting Humbert’s Opus in context, such as giving
a detailed comparison with the papal theory found in the influential canonist Hostiensis,
as Henry of Segusio was known after becoming cardinal bishop of Ostia. An extensive
comparison with Hostiensis would be beyond the scope of this limited project.
20
Aegidius de Fuscarariis, Ordo iudiciarius, ed. Ludwig Wahrmund (Innsbruck,
1916), 260: “nemo est, qui audeat dicere: cur ita facis” (in Kenneth Pennington, Pope
and Bishops: The Papal Monarchy in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries [Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984], 74). Aegidius started teaching in Bologna in
1252 and died in 1289. Cf. Constant Van de Wiel, History of Canon Law (Louvain:
Peeters Press, 1990), 123. Earlier than Aegidius, we have the witness of Laurentius
Hispanus (ca. 1215), writing on Innocent III’s decretal Quanto personam: “And there is
no one in the world who would say to him, ‘Why do you do this?’” (in Kenneth
Pennington, The Prince and the Law, 1200-1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western
Legal Tradition [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993], 47).
Variations of this question were common in the thirteenth century.

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59

concerning his unique responsibility of watching over the
Church.
I. THE PAPACY IN THE PRIMA PARS OF THE OPUS TRIPARTITUM
Humbert begins his Opus by casting it as a document concerning the responsibilities of the pope as shepherd. Chapter 1
is introduced with the words, “It is shown that it pertains to the
pope to watch over the Christian people diligently.”21
Humbert’s work falls within a tradition of advising a leader on
how to rule through a speculum principum (a mirror of princes,
known also by the German term Fürstenspiegel).22 Thomas
composed such works, broadly speaking, for the King of Cyprus
(the unfinished De regno) and, more particularly, for Margaret,
Countess of Flanders (concerning ruling over Jews).23 Bernard
of Clairvaux, at the request of Eugene III, offered the most
famous medieval counsel to the pope on how to rule;
similarities (but not direct quotations) can be detected in

21
“Ostenditur quod summi Pontificis sit vigilare diligenter super populum
Christianum” (Opus Tri. 1.1 [Brown, ed., 185]).
22
Riedl rightly situates Humbert’s work within this genre of the Fürstenspiegel. See
Riedl, “Humbert von Romans,” 177. Karl Michel emphasizes that the work is a
“Reformschrift,” which is not false. The focus is certainly on letting the pope see the
need for action. See Michel’s Das Opus tripartitum, passim. For documentation from
one prominent churchman and writer five years after the First Council of Lyons (1245),
more in the style of Reformschrift than Fürstenspiegel, see Servus Gieben, O.F.M. Cap.,
“Robert Grosseteste at the Papal Curia, Lyons 1250. Editions of the Documents,”
Collectanea Franciscana 41 (1971): 340-93. These have been summarized in an
appendix in W. A. Pantin, “Grossteste’s Relations with the Papacy and the Crown,” in
Robert Grosseteste, Scholar and Bishop: Essays in Commemoration of the Seventh
Centenary of his Death, ed. D. A. Callus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), 178-215
(with appendix at 209-15). Humbert does not show any dependence on Grosseteste.
23
Leonard Boyle argues convincingly that the letter known as being addressed to the
duchess of Brabant has Margaret of Flanders as its recipient. See Leonard E. Boyle,
O.P., “Thomas Aquinas and the Duchess of Brabant” (repr., Facing History, 107-21).
For texts by Thomas that address the pope, see his prologue to the Catena on Matthew
and Contra errores graecorum, both written for Pope Urban IV, but they do not advise
him on how to rule.

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

Humbert’s counsel.24 Humbert twice cites Bernard’s work to
Pope Eugene III in his sermon notes when preaching to the
Roman curia.25 Humbert’s fellow relator of the Church’s
condition before Lyons II, Gilbert of Tournai, explicitly reminds Gregory of Bernard’s De consideratione at the beginning
of his Collectio de scandalis ecclesiae.26 It must be kept in mind
that Gregory X called for a council to treat matters of a crusade
to recapture the Holy Land, union with the Greeks, and reform
in the Church.27 Rather than addressing the responsibilities of
the council, Humbert speaks of the pope’s own duties.28 His
work offers a papal-centric view of the Church, situating the
most pressing needs of the Church in terms of the responsibilities of the pope as a mirror for him to see.
24
See his De consideratione ad Eugenium papam tertiam libri quinque, in S. Bernardi
opera, ed. J. Leclercq et H.M. Rochais, vol. 3 (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1963),
393-493; English translation: Five Books on Consideration: Advice to a Pope, trans.
John D. Anderson and Elizabeth T. Kennan (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications,
1976). Humbert’s debt to Bernard has been observed by Palmer A. Throop in his
Criticism of the Crusade: A Study of Public Opinion and Crusade Propaganda
(Amsterdam: N.V. Swets and Zeitlinger, 1940), 172, 180-81. Throop’s chapter 6 is
dedicated to Humbert’s Opus and his earlier work of the De praedicatione crucis in
reporting anti-crusade sentiment (see 147-83); chapter 7 analyzes Humbert’s advice on
arousing zeal for a perpetual crusade (see 184-213).
25
De eruditione praedicatorum, book 1, sermon 85, TT 3verso, p. 498, col. B,
sections C and D in Maxima bibliotheca veterum patrum et antiquorum scriptorum
ecclesiasticorum, vol. 25 (Lyons, 1677).
26
See Autbertus Stroick, O.F.M., ed., “Collectio de scandalis ecclesiae: Nova editio,”
Archivum franciscanum historicum 24 (1931): 33-62. For an example of Gilbert’s
criticisms, which cover even farmers, sailors, servants, and last of all beguines, he writes
of four areas where prelates lack: life (in terms of morals), knowledge, teaching, and
diligence. Palmer Throop calls the Collectio the “most caustic of the memoirs submitted
to Gregory X” (Throop, Criticism of the Crusade, 69).
27
For Gregory’s pontificate and the crusades, see Philip B. Baldwin, Pope Gregory X
and the Crusades, Studies in the Medieval History of Religion, vol. 41 (Woodbridge,
U.K.: Boydell Press, 2014). Baldwin’s book does not take into account the Extractiones
of Humbert’s Opus and Tugwell’s thesis that Gregory himself is responsible for that
revision.
28
Given the development of questions concerning distinctions between papal
authority and conciliar authority, this point is worth noting. Baldwin’s Pope Gregory X
and the Crusades (see, e.g., 1-12) argues that too much emphasis has been placed on
Lyons II (1274) as the turning point in crusading theory; rather, one should specifically
look at the pontificate of Gregory X, who was elected in September 1271.

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61

When Humbert gives his notes for preaching at councils,
however, he has a very different approach. This comes as the
first model of one hundred situations in book 2 that follow his
one hundred audiences in book 1 of his De eruditione
praedicatorum.29 He writes only once of the “Roman church”—
referring to the legates of the Roman church—but never directly
of the pope (who often did not attend councils in person). As a
preacher, Humbert communicates based on the need at hand
for a particular audience, and his audience in the Opus is
Gregory X. In De eruditione praedicatorum, he writes for fellow
preachers. In the notes for preaching at a council, he cites
several nonscriptural sources, in addition to numerous scriptural
verses. For example, after Gratian’s Decretum, he cites the
eleventh-century lexicographer Papias concerning the etymology of concilium, drawing upon the word cilium, an
eyelash, to emphasize that all at a council are to have the
observation and intention of the heart toward unity in the
things of God, based on the example of the primitive Church.
He also cites the Gloss, the philosopher Diogenes, St. Benedict,
St. Isidore of Seville, and St. Bernard. Unfortunately, for those
interested in what texts Humbert was drawing from in writing
the Opus, he does not cite nonscriptural sources as frequently
there. Also of special note from the model for preaching at
councils, he says that councils have a threefold basis of
celebration: God, the Old Testament, and the primitive Church.
God is said to have the angels in his presence for a council, as in
Isaiah 6. In the Old Testament, there is the witness of Numbers
16, which Humbert understands as the basis of a synagogue, a
kind of council. He then says that in the primitive Church there
were many councils to treat many matters. He writes of three in
the Acts of the Apostles: Acts 1 under Peter for the election of
an apostle, Acts 15 under James for the cessation of laws, and
Acts 20 under Paul about the rule of the Church. We will see

29
For his model on councils, see De eruditione predicatorum, book 2, sermon model
1, 506B-508A (The printer’s bottom page signature for further identifications is off, but
it is within the V series of quires.)

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

similar interest in councils, but in the context of a direct focus
on the pope, in the Secunda pars of the Opus.
In this first chapter of the Prima pars, Humbert offers three
cases in particular where the shepherd must be extra careful:
when the flock is many, when the flock is in danger, and when
there will be a great reward. Humbert says that all three
conditions pertain to the pope’s responsibilities, for he has care
over the entire Christian people, with many dangers from
enemies and demons, “and for this, he has a great reward,
which he expects in heaven, namely the rule over all the
earth.”30 What does Humbert mean by this rule over all the
earth? The reference to what is expected in heaven means that it
may very well be an allusion to the eschatological apostolic
authority of Matthew 19:28. Humbert’s ambiguity is resolved
in the Extractiones. Gregory X says that the pope has “a great
reward, not only eternal, but also temporal, because he is the
lord of all.”31 Clearly for the Extractiones, there are two things,
the eternal and the temporal, and the pope rules as dominus
universorum.32 For Thomas, Dominus universorum is a divine
title, given to Christ’s human nature, and nowhere applied to
the pope.33 However, Thomas considers the pope to be the apex
of both spiritual and temporal powers, and temporal rulers are
subject to him.34 For certain legal theorists, the emperor was
dominus mundi.35

30

“Et pro quo magnam habet mercedem, propter eam quam in coelo expectat,
videlicet totius mundi dominium” (Opus tri. 1.1 [Brown, ed., 185]).
31
“quia habet maximam mercedem, non solum aeternam, sed etiam temporalem,
quia Dominus universorum est” (Extr. 1.1 [Mansi, ed., 24:110]).
32
For an older survey of the contemporary canonist tradition on papal claims over
the political order, see John A. Watt, The Theory of Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth
Century: The Contribution of the Canonists (New York: Fordham University Press,
1965). For the developments concerning papal power vis-à-vis that of bishops, see
especially Pennington, Pope and Bishops.
33
See ScG III, c. 119; STh I-II, q. 94, a. 5, ad 2; In Hebr. 1, lect. 1.
34
See II Sent., d. 44, exp. text.; and De regno ad regem Cypri 1.15.
35
Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (d. 1190) was said to have asked if he was the
dominus mundi, and various legal theories followed. See chap. 1, “The Emperor is Lord
of the World,” in Pennington, The Prince and the Law, 8-37. For a more recent, far-

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63

Humbert gives two other arguments in the first chapter for
Pope Gregory’s special attention. First, he paraphrases Christ’s
words to Simon Peter in the garden. Showing that Jesus
addressed Peter alone while the other apostles were also
sleeping, Humbert has Jesus ask, “‘Simon, are you sleeping’
(Mark 14:37), to whom I have committed all my sheep?”36
Humbert then recalls that the pope took the name of Gregory,
meaning “watchful” in Greek, the same name as Gregory the
Great, who was “justly called Gregory, because he kept
watch.”37 Thus, Humbert advises his pope to be true to the
name that he chose, and imitate Gregory I.38
Humbert sees the Church of his time experiencing the same
threefold disaster that befell Israel in the Old Testament,
revelaing both his sense of history and his openness to scriptural
allegory. Like Israel’s many enemies—including the Canaanites,
Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Philistines—the Saracens
are now fighting against the Church. Also, just as there was
division between Israel and Judah during the time of Rehoboam, Greeks and Latins have a grave division among
themselves. Humbert says that the Greeks and Latins “are
contesting in the womb of the Church, just as formerly Esau
and Jacob were in their mother Rebecca” (an image repeated in

ranging discussion of the title, see Pier Giuseppe Monateri, Dominus Mundi: Political
Sublime and the World Order (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2018).
36
“Simon, dormis, tu videlicet, cui commisi omnes oves meas?” (Opus tri. 1.1
[Brown, ed., 185]).
37
“juste dictus est Gregorius, quia vigilavit” (Opus tri. 1.1 [Brown, ed., 185).
38
Humbert closes chapter 1 by saying that every prelate is to keep watch over the
flock, but especially the pope, and how much more so when the pope is named Gregory.
Lest we think that what Humbert says is something of only historical, and not of
continuing theological interest, consider the following. In conclusion to a study on the
papacy, a leading Catholic ecumenist and ecclesiologist after the Second Vatican
Council wrote: “The bishop of Rome is the sentinel who ‘watches’ over the people of
God, which is his true function; but he often prefers to act as if he were the only one in
charge, instead of alerting the bishops as authentic pastors in the Church of God” (J. M.
R. Tillard, O.P., The Bishop of Rome [Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1983],
193). For several reasons, including his Book of Pastoral Rule, Gregory I was the most
authoritative holy exemplar, after St. Peter, for the medieval popes. For Bernard’s
invocations of Gregory I to Eugene III, see De consideratione 1.12 and 3.4.

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

Opus tri. 2.11 and 14).39 He furthermore recalls Luke 11:17,
that every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste—a
verse of terrible consequence when applied to the Church; this
is omitted in the Extractiones.40 Finally, regarding moral
reform, Humbert continues with the example of the division
between Israel and Judah. He writes, “Likewise, that part which
adhered more to the Lord, namely Judah, exposed itself to
greater crimes. For the adversary Israel justified her life in
comparison to Judah in her prevarications.”41 The implication is
clear: Judah represents the Latins, who, although not in schism,
sin more than the Greeks do in morals.
Following this, Humbert affirms, “it pertains to the supreme
pastor according to his power to apply the remedies against
these three misfortunes.”42 His favorite image for the pope
continues to be the shepherd. The third chapter is taken up
wholly with pastoral applications from the prophet Ezekiel.
Ezekiel 34 first describes wicked shepherds and then describes
the Lord as a good shepherd; it was featured in Augustine’s
influential sermo 46, “On Pastors.” Casting the papacy within
this framework, Humbert continues a prophetic tradition of
showing the extremes available to the pope—acts of wickedness
or acts of divinity—in the three matters of crusade, union, and
reform. Such a contrast finds no place in the Extractiones,
39
“qui scilicet in ventre Ecclesiae intus colliduntur, sicut olim Esau et Jacob in ventre
matris Rebeccae” (Opus tri. 1.2 [Brown, ed., 186]). The Extractiones omit this image
here. This example of Esau and Jacob from Humbert is given by Orazio Condorelli to
illustrate the thought at the time of the Latin and the Greek as twins within “Mother
Church.” See Orazio Condorelli, Unum corpus, diversa capita: Modelli di organizzazione
e cura pastorale per una “varietas ecclesiarum” (secoli XI-XV), Collana I Libri di Erice 29
(Rome: Il Cigno Edizioni, 2002), 85 n. 31. Condorelli refers to Alberigo,
“L’oecuménisme au Moyen Age,” 1274: Année charnière mutations et continuités, 31939, at 326. Alberigo gives the wry comment that Humbert uses this image without
flattery. See also Alberigo’s helpful corresponding note at 338 n. 39.
40
The biblical context is, of course, Jesus’ application of the adage to Satan’s
kingdom.
41
“Item pars illa quae magis adhaesit Domino, scilicet Juda, majoribus se sceleribus
exposuit. Justificavit enim animam suam adversatrix Israel comparatione praevaricatricis
Juda” (Opus tri. 1.2 [Brown, ed., 185]).
42
“quod ad summum Pontificem pertinet contra haec tria incommoda pro posse suo
apponere remedia” (Opus tri. 1.3 [Brown, ed., 185]).

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65

which admits only a line from the description of the Lord as the
good shepherd.43 Humbert writes:
The Lord speaking through Ezekiel to the evil shepherds and complaining
loudly about them says: “my flocks have been given over to pillage” and this
pertains to the first matter; “you did not bring back the lost” and this pertains
to the second matter; and “you did not heal the sick” and this pertains to the
third. Contrarily, about the one who is the good shepherd, the Lord says in
the same place: “The fat and strong I will protect,”44 namely, from the wolf,
and this pertains to the first; and again, “The lost I will bring back,” and this
pertains to the second. Again, “the weak I will strengthen,” and this pertains
to the third. Therefore, it is clear from the aforesaid, that it pertains to the
supreme pastor to apply the remedies against the enemies of the Church on
the outside, and against the internal dispersion so as to reunite the Church,
and against the infirmities of vices which proliferate in clinging to the sheep.45

Here Humbert shows the two ways open to Gregory, following
the Lord’s command to be a good shepherd or being like the
evil shepherds.
In his model for preaching on the Church’s solemn
deposition of secular magnates, Humbert gives an a fortiori
argument about how a king may be deposed by a pope. His
premise concerns the deposition of a pope. He writes, “The
pope, who is over all, can be deposed on occasion by the
Church, whose totality subsists in him. Therefore, how much
more strongly can any king be deposed by a pope under whom

43

Ezek 34:16 in Extr. 1.3 (Mansi, ed., 24:110).
Humbert understands this verse as referring to protection, as indicated by the
context “from the wolf,” rather than a condemnation from the Lord as shepherd, “But
the fat and strong I will destroy.”
45
“Hinc est, quod Dominus per Ezechielem loquens malis pastoribus, et de illis
conquerens, dicit: Facti sunt greges mei in rapinam, et hoc quoad primum: et iterum,
Quod abjectum est non reduxistis, et hoc quoad secundum: et iterum, Quod aegrotum
non sanastis, et hoc quoad tertium. Econtrario vero de se, qui est bonus pastor, dicit
ibidem: Quod pingue et forte custodiam, scilicet a lupis, et hoc quoad primum: et
iterum Quod abjectum fuerat reducam et hoc quoad secundum: et iterum, Quod
infirmum fuerat consolidabo, et hoc quoad tertium. Patet ergo ex praedictis, quod ad
summum pastorem pertinet apponere remedia contra hostes Ecclesiae forinsecos, et
contra dispersionem intrinsecam readunandam, et contra vitiorum infirmitates quae
abundant in ovibus sibi adhaerentibus” (Opus tri. 1.3 [Brown, ed., 186]).
44

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

are all people.”46 This phenomenon of the pope having the
Church within him, and yet being subject to the Church in a
particular judicial case, can be seen within the theory of the
king’s “two bodies.”47 One body is private, physical, susceptible
to error, and under the law; the other is public, immortal,
inerrant, and above the law. Papal theory can be seen, in part,
within that medieval political theology, and Humbert’s writing
displays this common tension.48
In his study on the papacy in medieval sermons, Jacques Guy
Bougerol misleadingly gives a unique place to Humbert: “If one
finds in the sermons of Innocent III certain formulas that
became standard, no one after him, except Humbert of
Romans, would dare to say what we read in the sermon for his
consecration.”49 Bougerol quotes from Innocent’s consecration
sermon about the necessity of the pope’s having faith, lest he be
judged by the Church: “For the one who does not believe, is
already judged.”50 He then gives a more explicit statement from

46
“Praeterea, Papa, qui est super omnes potest deponi ab Ecclesia, quae tota subest,
super omnes potest deponi ab Ecclesia, quae tota subest, ei, in casu, ergo multo forties
quicumque Rex deponi potest a Papa cui omnes subsunt.” Taken from De eruditione
predicatorum, Book 2, sermon model 70. The printer’s pagination is faulty in the
edition I am consulting. The quotation appears on p. 550, but that follows p. 559. The
page’s signature is ZZ 5 verso, with quotation found in column A, section C. See
Maxima bibliotheca veterum patrum et antiquorum scriptorum ecclesiasticorum, vol. 25.
Cf. Jacques Guy Bougerol, O.F.M., “La papauté dans les sermons médiévaux français et
italiens,” in Ryan, ed., Religious Roles of the Papacy, 247-75, at 254 n. 25.
47
See Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political
Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957 [repr. 1981]).
48
For Kantorowicz on the corpus ecclesiae mysticum, with the basis of theologies of
Christ’s body in the Eucharist and in the Church, see The King’s Two Bodies, 194-206.
Kenneth Pennington takes Kantorowicz’s thesis to begin his magisterial consideration of
the papal monarchy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. See Pennington, Pope and
Bishops, 1. Pennington summarizes the perspectives of the canonists of the period on the
papacy: “On the one hand, they placed the pope firmly at the apex of Christian society.
. . . No one but God could judge him in most matters, and no one could question his
judgments, except in matters of faith. On the other hand, the canonists stopped short of
granting the pope unbridled authority” (190).
49
Bougerol, “La papauté dans les sermons médiévaux français et italiens,” 271.
50
Bougerol (ibid., 271 n. 85) cites Innocent III, Serm. 2 in consecr. Pont. (PL
217:656): “In tantum enim fides mihi necessaria est, ut cum de caeteris peccatis solum

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an anniversary sermon, in which Innocent says that on account
of spiritual fornication (i.e., doctrinal infidelity) the Roman
church can dismiss the Roman pontiff.51 Innocent did not think
that God would ever abandon the pope, given Jesus’ prayer, “I
have prayed for you, Peter” (Luke 22:32).52 But the question of
a pope who falls into heresy was a lively canonical question.
Some decades before Innocent, Gratian’s Decretum says that a
pope is to be judged by no one, except if he be found deviating
from the faith (Dist. 40, c. 6).53 Humbert repeats what is
commonly said by canonists. In the Opus, he certainly does not
threaten a deposition against Gregory X, whom he wants to
support and motivate. Thomas, by contrast, never entertains the
possibility of a heretical pope, nor suggests that a pope may be
deposed. But this does not mean that Thomas is silent on
limitations to papal power. He speaks, at times, of what the
pope cannot do. For example, Thomas writes: “The pope cannot make a professed religious to be not a religious, although
certain canonists ignorantly say the contrary.”54
After his general introduction in the Opus, Humbert
dedicates the remaining of the Prima pars to the crusade. He
peccatum quod in fide committitur possem ab Ecclesia iudicari. Nam qui non credit, iam
iudicatus est.”
51
Bougerol (“La papauté dans les sermons médiévaux français et italiens,” 271 n. 86)
cites Innocent III, In consecr. Pont. Max. (PL 217:664D-665A): “Propter causam vero
fornicationis Ecclesia Romana posset dimittere Romanum pontificem. Fornicationem
non dico carnalem, sed spiritualem: quia non est carnale, sed spirituale coniugium, id
est, proper infidelitatis errorem.”
52
Bougerol (“La papauté dans les sermons médiévaux français et italiens,” 271 n. 87)
cites Innocent III, Serm. 4 in consecr. Pont. (PL 217:670A-671A).
53
Cf. Brian Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory: The Contributions of the
Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1955 [repr. 1968]), 56-67; and Christian D. Washburn, “Three
Sixteenth-Century Thomist Solutions to the Problem of a Heretical Pope: Cajetan,
Cano, and Bellarmine,” The Thomist 83 (2019): 547-88, esp. 548-52. Like the 1917
Code of Canon Law, the 1983 Code of Canon Law retains the principle that the first
see is judged by no one and does not mention the exceptional case of a pope deviating
from the faith (can. 1404).
54
STh II-II, q. 88, a. 11: “Papa non potest facere quod ille qui est professus
religionem non sit religiosus, licet quidam juristiae ignoranter contrarium dicant.” Cf.
Rocca, “St. Thomas Aquinas on Papal Authority,” 480-81.

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

speaks of the crusade primarily as a war between the Church
and her enemies, just as Israel was harassed by seven races of
enemies in the Old Testament. For Humbert, the Saracens are
the only enemies of the Church of his time. The previous six—
the Jews, the idolaters, the philosophers, the heretics, emperors,
and barbarians—no longer pose a threat. Only the pessimi
Saraceni remain. He describes Mohammed as “their seducer
who gave them the law especially to destroy Christianity. For he
said that he was the Prophet from God to expound and correct
the law of Christians and the law of Jews.”55
After many lengthy arguments, Humbert dedicates chapters
22 to 24 to the pope’s role in the crusade. He says that there is
no greater task in the Church than the task of the faith
(negotium fidei). He then quotes Christ’s words to Peter, “that
your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:32), a text of great
importance for medieval articulations of the Church’s
indefectibility. Humbert will maintain (in the second part) that
those gospel words pertain to the pope when it comes to
healing the schism. Here, he applies this passage to the crusade:
The Church’s task against the Saracens is the greatest task of the faith, because
the Saracens intend to drive the worship of the Christian faith out of the
world. Therefore, since formerly many councils and great gatherings occurred
to declare one or a few articles of faith, how much more important for the
supreme pontiff to do this and other things for this task, which is not of one
or of a few articles of the faith, but of the entire Christian faith?56

55
“seductor eorum Mahumetus dedit legem specialiter ad destruendam
Christianitatem. Dixit enim quod missus erat Propheta a Deo ad expondendum et
corrigendum legem Christianorum et legem Judaeorum” (Opus tri. 1.4 [Brown, ed.,
187]).
56
“Negotium autem quod habet Ecclesia contra Saracenos est maximum fidei
negotium: quia Saraceni cultum fidei Christianae intendunt fugare de mundo. Cum ergo
olim concilia multa et magna congregata fuerint pro uno, vel etiam paucis fidei articulis
declarandis: quanto magis summus Pontifex haec et alia debet facere pro hoc negotio,
quod non est unius vel paucorum articulorum, sed totius fidei Christianae?” (Opus tri.
1.22 [Brown, ed., 202]). In Brown’s edition, an editor writes various marginalia that
give his opinion. Alongside this passage, he writes, “ridicule maxime” (extremely
ridiculous).

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While scholars have mined this and other texts of Humbert for
arguments in favor of the crusades, as well as evidence of
resistance to the movement in the West, our present point is
that Humbert sets this as the priority of the pope. Indeed, it fits
Gregory X’s agenda for his papacy and what Lyons II would
decree. For Gregory, the crusade was certainly the most
important reason for the council. He dedicated his pontificate
to it, memorably captured by his application of the psalm verse
“If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand wither” (Ps
135:7).57 Roberg rightly sums up Gregory’s council as fundamentally a crusade council—not even a real first attempt at
healing the division between New and Old Rome.58 By comparison, Thomas speaks comparatively little of the crusade, yet
he does make it a matter of faith in the Secunda secundae (STh
II-II, q. 10, a. 8).59 Even though Thomas does not think that one
may force another to believe, he says that Christ’s faithful often
wage war against infidels in order to prevent them from
hindering the faith of Christ.60
Palmer Throop finds that Gregory X, “it seems, followed the
excellent advice offered by Humbert of Romans” about a
crusade, in various respects.61 For example, Gregory arrived
seven months early in Lyons and asked in a letter for all
archbishops, each with a suffragan, to meet him before the
council. Throop notes: “They were asked to bring their counsel
57
For the story of this psalm verse guiding Gregory’s pontificate, see Baldwin, Pope
Gregory X and the Crusades, 39.
58
Roberg, Das zweite Konzil von Lyons, 3.
59
For Thomas’s development of a theology of indulgences in the context of the
crusades, see Romanus Cessario, O.P., “St. Thomas Aquinas on Satisfaction,
Indulgences, and Crusades,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 2 (1992): 74-96.
60
See STh II-II q. 10, a. 8. After mentioning popular beliefs of the thirteenth century,
including taking up arms in a crusade against Muslims, David Burrell writes, “Aquinas
may have shared these sentiments, for all we know.” See David B. Burrell, C.S.C.,
“Thomas Aquinas and Islam,” Modern Theology 20 (2004): 71-89, at 71. We know that
Thomas shared the sentiments—although certainly not to the extent of many others,
including Humbert of Romans, a leader in crusader propaganda at the time. For
Thomas’s treatment of (mostly) Muslim objections to the Catholic faith, see his De
rationibus fidei contra saracenos, graecos, et armenos ad cantorem antiochenum.
61
Throop, Criticism of the Crusade, 214.

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

‘especially for means of aiding the Holy Land’. The healing of
the Greek schism and the reform of the clergy, the two other
questions to be considered, were not mentioned.”62 Even
though the Secunda pars of the Opus may have greater interest
to theologians today, the Prima pars deals with Gregory’s
greatest priority.
II. THE PAPACY IN THE SECUNDA PARS OF THE OPUS TRIPARTITUM
Humbert dedicates the Secunda pars of his treatise to dealing
with the schism of the Greeks. He divides this part into
nineteen chapters and fills the first nine chapters with
arguments concerning the Church’s unity, subdivided into three
topics of three chapters each. In Scholastic fashion, the first
chapter of each topic proposes an argument; the second offers
objections; the third responds to the objections. The text
provides us with a fascinating window onto a theory of medieval Christian unity that has not been sufficiently studied. It can
be studied in comparison with Thomas, whose doctrinal
approach does not take into account the multifaceted
dimensions identified by Humbert as necessary for Christian
unity.63 The omissions and changes of the Extractiones, on the
other hand, provide at times a provocative counterpoint to
Humbert’s work.
Humbert begins with an explanation of the necessity of
building a treatment of the schism on the basis of the Church’s
unity: “In order to understand more fully these things that are
useful to know concerning the schism of the Greeks, it must
62

Ibid., 215, noting Registres de Grégoire X, App. I, no. 662, p. 292.
For example, Brett calls chapters 1-9 “a rather traditional apologia for papal
supremacy” and a “rather stereotyped but nonetheless vital case for papal supremacy.”
See his Humbert of Romans, 187. Holstein’s study is unreliable as he bases his Opus
work on the Extractiones. See Hans Wolter, S.J., and Henri Holstein, S.J., Lyon I et
Lyon II, Histoire des conciles oecuméniques 7 (Paris: Éditions de l’orante, 1966),
151-58. From her perspective of Byzantine history, Joan Hussey does note that
Humbert discussed “the practical and historical as well as the dogmatic reasons for this
[papal] primacy which was unusual as the Latins usually kept to the argument from
apostolicity and Christ’s commission to St. Peter” (The Orthodox Church in the
Byzantine Empire [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986], 234).
63

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first be noted that the Church of Christ both is and must be
only one.”64 He immediately supports his assertion with five
authorities. The first is Scripture, as Humbert wants his argument to be grounded in biblical authority. He calls upon the
Old Testament and the New Testament for their support in
Song of Songs 6:8, “One is my dove, my perfect one,” and the
singularity of Church in Matthew 16:18, “Upon this rock I will
build my Church.” Second, he cites the authority of the holy
commentators of Scripture. For this, he gives Augustine’s
comment on 2 Corinthians 11:2—“I have promised you to one
man, as a chaste virgin presented to Christ”—that all are one
virgin, meaning that all are the singular, virginal Church.
Humbert evokes the Nicene Creed for his next authority, but
quotes it as saying “I believe in one holy Church.”65 His fourth
authority is “through reason,” namely, from monogamous
relationships. Since Christ is husband of the Church, it would
be utterly inappropriate for him to be bigamous or trigamous in
having as many wives as Churches. Therefore, according to this
tradition that Humbert follows, every bishop has only one
Church, for Paul calls a bishop in 1 Timothy 3:2, “a husband of
one wife.” For the fifth reason, Humbert compares the unity of
Jews with the still greater unity needed among Christians.
Humbert dedicates the next two chapters to objections to the
oneness of the Church and responses to those objections, which
can here be noted together. The objections are largely based on
three points: Scripture, such as Psalms 25 and 88 and
Revelation 1:4; the common usage of speaking of Churches in
the plural (e.g., the French and English Churches); and
64

“Ad intelligendam plenius de eis quae scire expedit circa schisma Graecorum,
notandum est primo, quod Ecclesia Christi et est, et esse debet unica” (Opus tri. 2.1
[Brown, ed., 207]).
65
The Extractiones offer another formulation, not specifically citing the Nicene
Creed, but closer to it than is Humbert’s text: “Item in symbolo fidei: Unam sanctam
ecclesiam catholicam” (Extr. 2.1 [Mansi, ed., 24:120]). Fluidity in the understanding of
creedal descriptions of the Church in the thirteenth century is an interesting topic. See,
for another example, Thomas’s Collationes in symbolum apostolorum. Thomas
comments on the Apostles’ Creed, but identifies the four conditiones as one, holy,
catholic, and strong (fortis) or firm (firma).

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

historical development, differentiating the primitive Church
from the modern Church. He concludes the objections by
referring to the claim that if the people are many, there is not
only one person. In response, he draws a distinction, allowing
for both diversity and unity but with a stronger emphasis on
oneness. He says that the Church is “many in the particular, but
only one in the universal.”66 He then shows that all correct uses
of the word “Church” in the plural denote the particular, which
does not deny that the universal Church is one. Humbert
develops here a mereological view of the Church; he
differentiates between wholes and parts, offering the examples
of a human being and a number. No part of a human being is a
human being, but the parts of numbers are also numbers.
Humbert writes, “Just as twelve is a number, so its many parts
are also numbers. The Church is likewise such a case. For there
are many parts in the universal Church, of which any one is a
Church.”67 Humbert’s explicit preference for the number model
rather than the human model for the Church will be balanced
later by the anthropological imagery of head and body.
Thomas differs somewhat from Humbert in his explanation
of the Church’s unity. In his Collationes in symbolum
apostolorum,68 Thomas compares the Church to one human,
who has one body and one soul, and says that the Catholic
Church too has one body and different members. His point here
is not about headship.69 Rather, he links this article with the
previous article in the Creed by stating that the Holy Spirit
vivifies this body. Therefore, the first unity emphasized is an
anthropological unity that gives priority to the Holy Spirit who

66

“plures in particulari, sed unica in universali” (Opus tri. 2.3 [Brown, ed., 208]).
“Sicut enim duodenarius, est numerus, ita multae partes eius sunt numerus, et tale
quid est Ecclesia. In Ecclesia enim universali sunt multae partes, quarum quaelibet est
Ecclesia” (Opus tri. 2.3 [Brown, ed., 209).
68
Text and English translation found in Nicholas Ayo, C.S.C., The SermonConferences of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Apostles’ Creed (Notre Dame, Ind.: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1988).
69
Indeed, Thomas speaks of Peter’s unique role under the fourth conditio, but he
calls Peter the uertex Ecclesiae, not caput Ecclesiae. Interestingly, Thomas speaks of
Peter’s Church in this description, but does not explicitly mention the pope.
67

HUMBERT OF ROMANS ON THE PAPACY

73

gives life, like the one soul of the one body. When studying the
first conditio of the Church, unity, he, like Humbert, draws
upon Song of Songs 6:8. It must be said that the three
theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity dominate
Thomas’s presentation here. But before labeling his treatment as
an exclusively “spiritual ecclesiology,” one must realize that he
draws out organizational/visible consequences.70 For example,
under the virtue of faith, Thomas says, “Moreover, note that no
one ought to contemn being thrown out of this Church, because
this is the only Church in which people are saved, just as no one
could be saved outside the ark of Noah.”71
Returning to Humbert’s Opus, we find that chapters 4-6
offer arguments concerning how the universal Church must
have one man as the supreme pontiff. This will prepare the way
for the discussion of chapters 7-9, which says that the supreme
pontiff is the Roman pontiff. Only the most pertinent
arguments will be analyzed here.
Humbert quotes Romans 12:5 about how all are members as
one body in Christ, and draws a conclusion about headship.
Only something monstrous has more than one head.72
Therefore, the universal Church must have one supreme
pontiff, just as particular Churches of dioceses have single
bishops, and bishops must be under one archbishop, and many
archbishops are under a patriarch. Humbert concludes,

70

Congar emphasizes that Thomas’s originality in teachings on the Church is to have
recognized not only union with God over all the visible means but also the community
of the society, for the two are joined as sacrament and its spiritual fruit. See Yves
Congar, O.P., “Orientations de Bonaventure et surtout de Thomas d’Aquin dans leur
vision de l’Église et celle de l’État,” in 1274: Année charnière mutations et continuités,
691-711 at 703.
71
“Nota autem quod nullus debet contemnere abici ab ista Ecclesia, quia non est nisi
una Ecclesia in qua homines saluantur, sicut nec extra arcam Noe nullus potuit saluari”
(Sermon-Conferences, 126; my translation).
72
Cf. Lateran IV, can. 9. See Norman Tanner, S.J., Decrees of the Ecumenical
Councils, vol. 1: Nicaea I–Lateran V (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press,
1990), 239. For discussion of this canon about the unity of each local Church, and of
only one bishop in a city, while considering a diversity of rites celebrated in that
locality, see Condorelli, Unum corpus, diversa capita, esp. 7-45.

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

“Therefore, by the same reason all patriarchs must be under one
supreme man who is the only holy pope over the others.”73
Humbert considers the objections concerning angels and the
Church triumphant. Although it is true that the celestial
hierarchies do not have a single head other than God, the
Church militant is different. Those who are still in the army
have need of a leader. When they are victorious, they will not
need one. Similarly, prelates are given because of the infirmity
of the flock, so as to drive people from evil and lead them to the
good.
Some of the most interesting objections concern Peter. Paul
held an apostolic office directly from God, and he was not
under Peter. Why cannot a patriarch similarly not be under the
successor of Peter? Apostles did many things without referring
to the authority of Peter. It seems that their successors should
be heads by themselves, like their predecessors, and not have
recourse to Peter’s successor. Moreover, the keys of the
kingdom given to Peter concerned binding and loosing, a power
given to all the apostles in John 20:23.
Humbert answers these objections with historical argumentation (which is simply absent from Thomas) on the powers of
the papacy. He reasons on the basis of what could be called the
development of doctrine. While Thomas does have an
understanding of development in the explicatio fidei, he does
not apply this to the increasing authority of the pope in history
as Humbert does.74 Humbert first recognizes a special character
for the time of the apostles themselves. Christ and the Holy
Spirit sent them, a notable emphasis on the two Trinitarian

73

“ergo eadem ratione omnes patriarchae debent subesse uni summo super se
s[anctae] papae unico” (Opus tri. 2.4 [Brown, ed., 209]).
74
Cf. appendix 9, “Doctrinal Development,” in Summa Theologiae, vol. 1: 1a 1, ed.
Thomas Gilby, O.P. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 102-23. For a sense of Thomas’s
attention to history that is broader and deeper than many suppose, see Jean-Pierre
Torrell, O.P., “Saint Thomas et l’histoire: État de la question et pistes de recherches,”
Revue thomiste 105 (2005): 355-409. Matthew Ramage’s translation of this article will
appear in a volume of Torrell’s essays forthcoming from The Catholic University of
America Press. Torrell’s study of Thomas does not mention the historical growth of the
papacy.

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75

persons sent who now send the apostles. Moreover, the Spirit
was sent to them for many purposes and it was by his authority
that they spoke and worked. Humbert continues:
Then, it was not necessary that they have recourse to Peter, nor was this
possible at that time, because of the places in which they were dispersed, the
distances, and the necessity of urgently preaching and converting the world.
And so it was also for their successors by the authority of the Church in a later
time, until it was the time by that same authority and by the ordination of the
Holy Spirit that subjection and obedience to the successor of Peter was
ordained in this way—just as the form of many sacraments and confession
must be performed in the modern way, and many other things which were not
given from the beginning, but afterwards it is believed to have been ordained
through the Holy Spirit and through the Fathers.75

This passage should be read in tandem with Humbert’s final
statement rebutting arguments against the one head who
succeeds Peter. After the apostles, Humbert writes,
through the councils and the common ordaining of the Church, and with the
authority of the Holy Spirit (as it is believed), it was ordained that the
universal power over the entire Church should rest on the successor of Peter,
with the strongest reasons and greatest benefit for souls, and with the
Christian faith requiring this.76

75
“Unde non oportebat quod recurrerent ad Petrum: nec etiam erat hoc possibile
tunc temporis, propter locorum in quibus erant dispersi, distantias, et necessitatem
instandi praedicationi et conversioni mundi. Et sic etiam fuit in eorum successoribus
authoritate Ecclesiae tempore aliquanto, quousque fuit tempus quod authoritate eadem,
et Spiritus Sancti ordinatione ordinaretur de huiusmodi subjectione et obedientia ad
successorem Petri, sicut et de forma multorum sacramentorum et confessione modo
moderno facienda, et aliis multis non fuit a principio traditum, quod post per Spiritum
Sanctum per partes creditur ordinatum” (Opus tri. 2.6 [Brown, ed., 211]).
76
“postquam per concilia et per ordinationem communem Ecclesiae, et authoritate
Spiritus Sancti (ut creditur) ordinatum est, quod apud Petri sucessorem resideat
universalis potestas super totam Ecclesiam rationibus fortissimis, et utilitate animarum
maxima, et fide Christiana, hoc exigentibus” (ibid.). One should note how Humbert
repeatedly refers to the Holy Spirit in his argumentation about the development of the
practice of papal authority. Thomas emphasizes the Holy Spirit more for the pope’s role
in the Church’s life of grace, the sacraments, and faith. For one study on Thomas, see
John Mahoney, S.J. “‘The Church of the Holy Spirit’ in Aquinas,” Heythrop Journal 15
(1974): 18-36.

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

This reply to the objections concerning Peter is reduced in the
Extractiones to read: “the apostles and their immediate
successors did many things by a special privilege which would
not be licit now for others.”77 Claude Carozzi, who lists the
historical accounts that Humbert cites in two works other than
the Opus tripartitum, finds that none of them would give
Humbert the idea of institutional development, which we see
here in the Opus. For Carozzi, this emphasis on development is
the most original aspect of Humbert’s conception of history.78
For another point of contrast, we can consider how Thomas
tre ats in the Summa contra gentiles of “the episcopal power and
that therein one is the highest.”79 He locates this discussion
within a treatment of the sacraments, and how the episcopal
power offers the chief direction of the faithful. Now just as a
specific congregation of one Church is headed by one bishop,
“so in the entire Christian people it is required that there be one
head of the whole Church.”80 Humbert, as we have seen, gives
other comparisons between that of bishop/local Church and
pope/universal Church, namely, archbishop/bishops and
patriarch/archbishops. Since these two intermediate examples
demonstrate very different canonical and theological sets of
relationships, one should not presume that Thomas, Humbert’s
contemporary, intends to make the universal Church a diocese
of the bishop of Rome. In fact, Thomas does something similar
to Humbert when, in introducing chapter 26 of his Contra
errores graecorum, he says, “Also it is clear that he [the Roman
77
“multa fecerunt apostoli et immediati successores de privilegio speciali, quae modo
aliis non licerent” (Extr. 2.6 [Mansi, ed., 24:123]).
78
Carozzi, “Humbert de Romans et l’histoire,” 859. Carozzi lists from Humbert’s
De praedicatione crucis: Cassiodorus, Historia tripartita; Bede, Historia anglorum;
Gregory of Tours, Historia francorum, De speculo ecclesiae augustini (?); Gregory the
Great, Dialogues, Gesta caroli in hispania, and Historia antiochena; Jacques de Vitry,
Historia transmarina, Liber Calisti papae, Vitae patrum, and legends of saints. Humbert,
in his preface to Gerard de Frachet’s Vitae fratrum, mentions Eusebius, Ecclesiastical
History; the Book of Barlaam and Josaphat, attributed to John Damascene; Cassian,
Conferences; Gregory the Great, Dialogues; and martyrologies.
79
ScG IV, c. 76.
80
“ita in toto populo Christiano requiritur quod unus sit totius Ecclesiae caput”
(ibid.).

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77

pontiff] is the prelate for other patriarchs.”81 Thomas is adamant about the unity needed in the Church for matters of faith.
In the Summa theologiae (STh II-II, q. 1, a. 10), the pope is
named as the one who has authority to draw up a symbol of the
faith; in the Summa contra gentiles (ScG IV, c. 76), Thomas
states that a diversity of pronouncements on faith would divide
the Church. Therefore, one must be at the head of the Church
to pronounce in matters of faith.
Thomas also gives a number of other reasons for the
primacy. For example, government by one is the best form of
government. Also, since the Church triumphant is the exemplar
of the Church militant, the Church on earth must have one
leader, for the Church triumphant has God as its one leader.
Likewise, the gospel continues the prophecy of Hosea 1:11 in
the words, “There shall be one fold and one shepherd” (John
10:16). Thomas counters the argument that Christ himself is
sufficient for the unity of headship by first considering the
sacramental theology of ministry. Christ perfects all the
sacraments, as he is the true priest, but he also chooses ministers
to dispense the sacraments to the faithful. Similarly, Christ
chose Peter to serve in his place on earth, and that power flows
to others in the Church. In fact, Thomas and Humbert both
interpret Matthew 28:20 to be a promise for the continuous
succession of ministerial power in the Church: “Behold I am
with you all days even to the consummation of the world.”
Turning back to Humbert, we see that chapters 7-9 give
arguments, objections, and replies concerning whether the
supreme pontiff must be the Roman pontiff. Not surprisingly,
Humbert refers back to Peter again. He adduces a number of
scriptural texts, including John 1:42, Matthew 16:18-19, John
21:17, and Luke 22:32. Humbert’s connection with Thomas’s
unusual interpretation of Luke 22:32 should be noted. Ulrich
Horst comments:

81
“Patet etiam quod ipse aliis patriarchis praelatus existat” (Contra Graec. II, c. 37).
Thomas continues with quotations that he believes are from Cyril and Chrysostom,
besides Luke 22:32.

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

Thomas takes Christ’s prayer (Luke 22:32) to have been directed at Peter, and
thereby diverges sharply from the interpretation that influential canonists had
given the passage. Huguccio [the most important late twelfth-century
canonist], for example, said that Christ had prayed for Peter in figura
ecclesiae. More commonly, this had been interpreted as a prayer addressed
through Peter to all Christ’s followers for final perseverance in the faith.82

Humbert, who is writing about Peter in order to consider the
pope’s authority, says “it is noted [in Christ’s prayer for Peter]
that it was proper to him [Peter] to care for the universal faith,
since it is said, your [faith].”83
In these chapters, Humbert also refers to Peter’s first
position in the lists of the apostles and his special role in Acts,
such as at the election of Matthias (Acts 1:15-22) and in making
speeches including the first at the council in Jerusalem.
However, Humbert goes significantly beyond these Petrine
arguments for the Roman pontiff’s headship in the Church. He
provides arguments drawn from geography, relations with the
emperor, conciliar acts, the martyrdoms of early popes, the lack
of any comparable claim by another see, and the good of the
Church. The following analyzes a few important points
concerning the pope as head.
Humbert writes,
Many necessities require that recourse to the supreme pontiff from all
Christendom be frequently sought. Therefore it is beneficial for him to be in
such a place to which recourse can be easily sought both from the East, where
for some time there was the greatest concentration of Christians, and from the
West.84

He observes, “It is not, moreover, just any ordinary place, but a
common and more accessible place from all others, as is evident

82

Horst, Dominicans and the Pope, 20.
“In quo notatur, quod ipsius erat proprie curare de fide universali, dum dicitur,
tua” (Opus tri. 2.7 [Brown, ed., 211]).
84
“Iterum necessitates multae requirunt, quod ab omni Christianitate frequenter
recurratur ad summum pontificem: et ideo expedit eum esse in tali loco, ad quem
facilius recurri possit tam ab Orientalibus, apud quos fuit aliquando maxima
Christianitas, quam ab Occidentalibus” (ibid.).
83

HUMBERT OF ROMANS ON THE PAPACY

79

through a map of the world.”85 Humbert was not above finding
a providential reason in geography even for the location of
Rome.
Perhaps the most provocative argument for the headship of
the pope comes when Humbert discusses the pope’s relationship
with the emperor. Humbert thinks it beneficial that the spiritual
lord of the whole should be where the temporal lord of the
world is, so that by cooperation the world is more beneficially
governed. This is a strange statement given the conflict of
interest between the spiritual and temporal rulers before the
peace of Constantine, as well as Constantine’s move of the
imperial capital to Constantinople. The infamous forgery
known as Constantine’s Donation cites his move of the capital
to the East to coincide with his gift to Pope Sylvester and his
successors. Humbert states: “Thus Constantine highly raised the
Roman Church and ordained that all Churches should be under
the Roman Church.”86 The Extractiones modify this by stating:
“Constantine, at God’s nod, ordained that all Churches should
be under the Roman Church; just as David ordained that all
priests should be under the high priest.”87 Gregory X writes
more guardedly considering the political implications of
Constantine’s Donation.88 Neither Humbert’s nor Gregory’s
formulation is identical with the thought of Innocent IV, who
died in 1254, which was repeated by many papal theorists. They
interpreted the Donation of Constantine not as a donation, but
as a restitution of what the papacy had previously by right.89 In

85
“Non est autem aliquis locus solennis, magis ad hoc communis et magis accessibilis
ab omnibus istis, sicut patet per mappam mundi” (ibid.).
86
“Unde Constantinus summe Romanam Ecclesiam sublimavit, et ordinavit quod
Ecclesiae omnes subessent Ecclesiae Romanae” (Opus tri. 2.7 [Brown, ed., 212]).
87
“Constantinus ordinavit Dei nutu, quod omnes ecclesiae subessent Romanae; sicut
David, quod omnes sacerdotes subessent summo sacerdoti” (Extr. 2.7 [Mansi, ed.,
24:123]).
88
The Donation of Constantine is studied today more for its claims for papal
authority in secular matters in the city of Rome, Italy, and throughout the West than for
its claims for papal authority over all the Churches of the world.
89
For abundant references, see William D. McCready, “Papal plenitudo potestatis
and the Source of Temporal Authority in Late Medieval Papal Hierocratic Theory,”

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

other words, whereas Gregory X removes Humbert’s emphasis
on Constantine’s act of highly raising the Roman Church,
Innocent IV had circumvented the concern regarding imperial
authority over the Roman Church by making the so-called
Donation simply a return to what was originally the case.
Humbert offers a distinctive treatment of the development of
the plenitudo potestatis.90 He recognizes that when James made
the judgment at the Jerusalem council, “the supremacy of Peter
over the other apostles and his plenitudo potestatis over all
Churches had not yet been fully ordained.”91 Moreover, when

Speculum 48 (1973): 654-74, at 655 n. 7. McCready credits Domenico Maffei, La
Donazione di Constantino nei giuristi medievali (Milan: Giuffè, 1964).
90
The meaning and use of the term plenitudo potestatis has a long and varied
history. It was first used by Pope Leo I in reference to himself when writing to his legate
Anastatius of Thessalonica, who, in contradistinction to Leo’s plenitudo potestatis, had
only “in partem . . . sollicitudinis” (Leo the Great, Ep. 14.1 [PL 54:671B]; translation in
St. Leo the Great: Letters, trans. Edmund Hunt, C.S.C., Fathers of the Church 34 [New
York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1957], 58-67, at 61). For two studies on the
evolution of this Leonine formulation, see Jean Rivière, “In partem sollicitudinis:
Évolution d’une formule pontificale,” Revue des sciences religiouses 5 (1925): 210-31;
and Robert Benson, “Plenitudo potestatis: Evolution of a Formula from Gregory IV to
Gratian,” Studia Gratiana 14 (1967): 193-207. For the formula’s appearances in the
thirteenth century, see Yves Congar, “Papes et canonistes, théoriciens du pouvoir
pontifical comme ‘plenitudo potestatis,’ in idem, L’Église de saint Augustin à l’époque
moderne (Paris: Cerf, 1970), 252-63; Watt, Theory of Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth
Century, esp. 75-79; and Pennington, Pope and Bishops, 13-74. See also Plenitude of
Power: The Doctrines and Exercise of Authority in the Middle Ages: Essays in Memory of
Robert Louis Benson, ed. Robert C. Figueira (New York: Routledge, 2016) reprinted
from 2006 publication by Ashgate. See also the helpful analysis in Paul McPartlan, A
Service of Love: Papal Primacy, the Eucharist and Church Unity (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2013), 29-35. It should be noted that Leo says in
this same letter (Ep. 14.11), “For even among the blessed Apostles, alike in honor, there
was a certain distinction in power (quaedam distinctio potestatis).” For an overview of
Leo’s pontificate, see Susan Wessel, Leo the Great and the Spiritual Rebuilding of a
Universal Rome, Vigiliae Christianae Supplements (Leiden: Brill, 2008). For Wessel’s
summary of Leo’s relationship with Constantinople, see Susan Wessel, “Religious
Doctrine and Ecclesiastical Change in Leo the Great,” in The Cambridge Companion to
the Age of Attila, ed. Michael Mass (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015),
327-43, at 339-41.
91
“quando Jacobus tulit sententiam supradictam, nondum erat ordinatum plene de
praecellentia Petri super alios Apostolos, et de plenitudine potestatis eius super omnes

HUMBERT OF ROMANS ON THE PAPACY

81

Peter moved from Antioch to Rome he carried that portion
(pars) given to him by the Lord over the earth. “Therefore,”
Humbert concludes,
the one succeeding him in Antioch while Peter was still alive did not have the
plenitudo potestatis, nor his successors. By in fact dying in Rome, Peter did
not bear in another age the power over the earth given to him alone, and so it
has successively remained in his successors for the benefit of the whole
world.92

Furthermore, Humbert expounds upon Peter’s succession in describing the difference between spiritual and bodily succession.
Whereas bodily succession from a certain predecessor
diminishes from generation to generation, spiritual succession
does not suffer such diminishment, because it is from divine
ordering:
Therefore the spiritual successor, as long as he has the power, has it from God
and not from a human, unlike bodily succession. Since by the same reason of
the spiritual successor having the same power as was in his predecessor for the
benefit of the Church, so such a successor must always have that same
power.93

Humbert’s treatment of the plenitudo potestatis shows some
important historical nuance lacking in some contemporary
theological treatments, such as that of Thomas.
In the Secunda pars, Humbert provides a notable objection
from conciliar history to the Roman pontiff being the head of

Ecclesias” (Opus tri. 2.9 [Brown, ed., 213]). The Extractiones read, “nondum erat
determinatum de praeminentia Petri” (Extr. 2.9 [Mansi, ed., 24:124]).
92
“Ad quartum dicendum est, quod quando Petrus transit de Antiochia Romam,
transtulit secum illam partem quae sibi erat data a Domino super terram: et ideo
succedens ei in Antiochia adhuc ipso vivente, non habuit huiusmodi plenitudinem
potestatis nec successores eius. Romae vero moriens, non portavit in alio seculo
huiusmodi potestatem sibi solum super terram datam: et ideo remansit in successoribus
suis successive propter utilitatem totius mundi” (Opus tri. 2.9 [Brown, ed., 213]).
93
“Quia ergo successor spiritualis quod habet potestatis, habet a Deo, et non ab
homine, et econtrario est in successione carnali, cum fit eadem ratio habendi eandem
potestatem in successore spirituali quae fuit in antecessore suo, utilitas scilicet Ecclesiae
eadem, debet talis successor semper habere potestatem eandem” (ibid.).

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

the Church. Paraphrasing Gregory the Great without
acknowledgement, Humbert says that the first four general
councils were received as the four Gospels.94 Humbert then lists
them to show their Greek origins—Nicaea, Constantinople,
Ephesus, and Chalcedon. Moreover, Humbert properly names
by placement the fifth through seventh councils (Constantinople
II, Constantinople III, and Nicaea II), and says that they were
also held of great authority. This suggests a strong awareness of
not only the first four councils, but of the first seven councils as
being privileged councils of special authority—something
missing even from Thomas’s deeply learned account of the
ancient councils.95 But why were they held in the East?
Humbert counters arguments that detract from papal authority.
He says that the first councils were celebrated in the East for a
number of reasons. The throne of the emperors was in the East.
Most Christians were in the East where there was greater peace.
Humbert even alludes to chance, and finishes with a statement
that there were many other reasons. However, these councils
were “never without the authority of the supreme pontiff, who
always sent someone in his place, as the histories record. Thus,
94
See Gregory I, Registrum epistularum 1.24 (to John of Constantinople, Eulogius of
Alexandria, Gregory of Antioch, John of Jerusalem, and Anastasius, ex-patriarch of
Antioch, February 591). Translated in The Letters of Gregory the Great, vol. 1, trans.
John R. C. Martyn, Medieval Sources in Translation 40 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Medieval Studies, 2004), 135-46, at 146.
95
Humbert complains later, concerning knowledge in the Church, that the records
of the ancient councils and even subsequent ones can scarcely be found (Opus tri. 3.10
[Brown, ed., 227]). For Thomas’s remarkable use of the councils, see Martin Morard,
“Thomas d’Aquin lecteur des conciles,” Archivum franciscanum historicum 98 (2005):
211-365. Thomas has only one explicit mention of Nicaea II (787), which he rightly
calls the seventh synod, but he never makes reference to that council for its primary
purpose of icon veneration. See his Quodlibet IX, q. 7, a. 2, arg. 2 with analysis in
Morard, “Thomas d’Aquin lecteur des conciles,” 317. For a brilliant comparison of
Aquinas and Nicaea II, see John Sehorn, “Worshiping the Incarnate God: Thomas
Aquinas on latria and the Icon of Christ,” in Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers
(Ave Maria, Fla.: Sapientia Press, 2019), 221-43. Humbert shows evidence, absent in
Thomas, that the first seven have a collective significance. The Catholic Church
numbers as the eighth ecumenical council the Council of Constantinople IV (869-70),
which deposed Photius as Patriarch of Constantinople, but this is not recognized by the
Eastern Orthodox.

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this attests to the supreme authority and excellence of the
Roman pontiff.”96 According to Humbert, the conciliar history
points to the prerogatives of Rome. He says, “Not only
Constantine, but also different councils of the fathers ordained
that the Roman Church be the head of all Churches, and they
issued many laws on this matter.”97
At the beginning of chapter 10, Humbert indicates a break in
his work: “Having noted these things in approaching the proper
subject, it must be seen why the Greeks, rather than the Latins,
are called schismatics.”98 He provides the most perceptive,
sensitive, and comprehensive Latin analysis of the Greek-Latin
schism in this era—especially as he demands that the pope take
the initiative to heal the schism.99 His understanding of the
papacy is expressed, in part, through his awareness of the
dismal state of Latin-Greek relations.
It comes as no surprise that Humbert’s treatment of the
Church’s unity under the pope provides him with the argument

96
“Nec umquam sine authoritate summi Pontificis, qui aliquem loco sui mittebat
semper, ut dicunt historiae. Quod summae attestatur authoritati et excellentiae Romani
Pontificis” (Opus tri. 2.9 [Brown, ed., 213]).
97
“Praeterea non solum Constantinus, sed et diversa concilia patrum ordinaverunt,
quod Ecclesia Romana esset caput omnium Ecclesiarum, et jura multa super hoc
emanaverunt” (Opus tri. 2.7 [Brown, ed., 212]). The Extractiones simply state, “De hac
etiam subjectione extant multa concilia patrum” (Extr. 2.7 [Mansi, ed., 24:123]).
98
“His praenotatis, ad materiam propriam accedendo, videndum est, quare Graeci,
dicuntur schismatici potius quam Latini” (Opus tri. 2.10 [Brown, ed., 214]).
99
Congar notes the similarity between Humbert’s analysis of how and when the
schism occurred and the views of many twentieth-century scholars (Yves Congar, O.P.,
After Nine Hundred Years [New York: Fordham University Press, 1959], 93 n. 1).
Roberg writes that Humbert put the problem of the schism on a new foundation and his
call that the papacy should take the initiative is a sign of a new perspective on the
schism (Roberg, Das zweite Konzil von Lyon, 119). See a similar attitude by renowned
Yale historian Deno Geanakoplos, Byzantine East and Latin West: Two Worlds of
Christendom in Middle Ages and Renaissance (Oxford: Blackwell, 1966), 3. Also, see
Charles Mark Elliott, “The Schism and Its Elimination in Humbert of Roman’s [sic]
Opusculum tripartitum,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 34 (1989): 71-83. Elliott
summarizes that Humbert’s “comments on the schism, and his proposals to end it, are
particularly unique when one considers the manner in which they are presented. The
acute sensitivity he displays toward the negative effects of the Latin occupation and previous East/West relations is quite rare for his time, as has been often noted” (ibid., 83).

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

that the Greeks, rather than the Latins, are schismatic. Taking
his definition from Isidore, that a schism is named from a
splitting, Humbert finds that the Greeks are guilty of this in
three ways:100 they are disruptive; they rebel against their head;
and they wish to create another as their own head, their
patriarch. This definition differs from Thomas’s classic treatment of the meaning of schism by adding this third aspect of
creating another head.101 Humbert notes the Greek argument
that schismatics are those who separate themselves from the
ancient ways of the Church. He finds that this is not sufficient.
If it were, then all Christians would be called schismatics,
because they removed many observances of the Jews and
Gentiles. Yes, the Greeks are fathers to the Latins in giving
many goods to them of old, but the Greeks should not be
considered fathers of the prelates. Humbert sets down a
principle that could very well be read in terms of subsequent
debates concerning magisterium and tradition (between present
Church authority and the Church authority of the past): It is
departure from obedience to a prelate that makes a schismatic,
not departure from the one conferring a gift. Humbert himself
then clearly labels the Greeks “schismatics,” but refuses to call
them “heretics.” Thomas does the same. The Extractiones,
however, which usually abridge with modifications, have this
significant addition very unlike Humbert’s authentic voice:
A seventh argument may be added in that the Greeks, who were once
schismatics, have gradually fallen through the successive ages into different
errors and heresies to which they obstinately cling. And so in modern times
they must not only be considered schismatics, but also manifest heretics. They
are nurtured and stained very greatly in these errors and heresies by them
whom they call their “calogeri” [monks: from the Greek meaning “good old

100
Isidore of Seville, s.v. “De haeresi et schismate,” Etymologiae 8.3 in Isidori
hispalensis episcopi Etymologarum sive originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols.
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911), 1:306-7; translated in The Etymologies of Isidore of
Seville, translated, with introduction and notes, by Stephen A. Barney, et al. (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), 174.
101
Cf. STh II-II, q. 39, a. 1, which falls within Thomas’s treatment of the
consequences of charity.

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men”]. Moreover, the aforesaid errors have been noted and collected
elsewhere.102

Humbert expounds upon the schism later in a way that
continues to shed light on his understanding of the pope and
the Roman Church. For example, he writes that schismatics
who enter the ecclesiastical dignities are thieves and robbers,
because “they do not enter through the gate, i.e. through the
ordination of the Roman church.”103 Here, we see an emphasis
on the necessity of Rome for proper access to clerical offices, as
102
Extr. 2.11 (Mansi, ed., 24:126): “Septima potest addi quia Graeci quondam
schismatici, successivis temporibus paulatim prolapsi sunt in diversos errores et haereses,
quibus pertinaciter inhearent. Itaque modernis temporibus non tantum schismatici sunt
censendi, sed etiam haeretici manifesti: in quibus erroribus et haeresibus nutriuntur et
imbuuntur maxime per illos, quos vocant suos calogeros. Praedicti autem errores alibi
notati sunt et collecti.” Humbert says that the Greeks can be compared to heretics in
Opus tri. 2.11, and that they might become heretics in Opus tri. 2.13—because they are,
in fact, not heretics but Christians just as the Latins are, as Humbert writes in Opus tri.
2.15. Scholars reliant upon the text of the Extractiones in Mansi fail to see this
important distinction. Roberg notes that it is found only in the Extractiones. See
Roberg, Die Union zwischen der griechischen und der lateinischen Kirche, 90 n. 7. But
the eminent twentieth-century Jesuit historian of medieval attempts for Christian unity,
Joseph Gill, thought Humbert considered the Greeks to be heretics. See his Byzantium
and the Papacy, 1198-1400 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1979),
124. Tugwell insightfully comments that the errors and heresies collected elsewhere may
be the letter to Gregory, probably in 1273, of the Franciscan Jerome of Ascoli,
Gregory’s envoy to Emperor Michael VIII. See Tugwell, Humberti de Romanis Legendae
Sancti Dominici, 415, noting the edition in Roberg, Die Union zwischen der griechischen
und der lateinischen Kirche, 229-31. My own reading agrees with Tugwell’s. The first
error Jerome cites is the reported Greek understanding that the pope and all Latins were
automatically excommunicated for inserting the filioque into the creed, against the
Council of Nicaea, because the pope cannot do this without the four Eastern patriarchs.
After mention of the pope, Jerome continues that Greeks do not consider fornication to
be a mortal sin, nor do they believe in purgatory, and they think that the souls of the
holy ones and of baptized children are not in heaven until the day of judgment. After
this Jerome repeats the error of the Greeks concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit
from the Son, and emphasizes that they do not generally believe the ecclesiastical
sacraments of the Latins have any efficacy. The sacramental differences, Jerome
describes, are extensive and cover all seven sacraments, including that the Greeks do not
have confirmation or extreme unction.
103
“non intrant per ostium, scilicet per ordinationem Ecclesiae Romanae” (Opus tri.
2.13 [Brown, ed., 217]).

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

it is only the Roman church’s ordination which is the door. This
is reminiscent of Thomas’s sacramental concern in the Summa
contra gentiles (ScG IV, c. 76).
In his introduction, Humbert compares the Greek schism to
the separation of the ten tribes of Israel during the time of
Rehoboam. In chapter 11, he quotes Rehoboam’s threat to the
children of Israel: “My father beat you with whips, but I shall
strike you with scorpions” (1 Kgs 12:11; 2 Chron 10:11). He
situates this in terms of Latin oppression against the Greeks,
including the injustices committed by the papacy. He writes,
“The Roman Church exercises itself over its subjects in many
ways that people often think are grave, for example, some of
the exactions, the sending of legates and many nuncios, many
statutes and penalties for transgressors.”104 Moreover, he refers
back to these as the “oppressions of the Roman Church.”105
Rehoboam thus serves as a figure of an unjust pope. Humbert
further likens the Greeks with the people of Jeroboam during
Rehoboam’s reign, as they too were led by their ruler in a
political schism. Humbert returns to the example of the sin of
the leader: “That fault was not only on the part of the people,
but also on Rehoboam’s part.”106 Indeed, this incident from
Rehoboam’s reign is Humbert’s favorite biblical scene in this
treatise.107 Continuing this biblical theme, he says, “Schismatics
104
“Item Ecclesia Romana in suis subditis multa exercet, quae homines reputant
multum gravia, sicut sunt exactiones aliquae, missio legatorum et nunciorum multorum,
statuta multa et poenae in transgressoribus” (Opus tri. 2.11 [Brown, ed., 215]). The
Extractiones offer similar criticism in Extr. 2.11 (Mansi, ed., 24:125).
105
“gravamina Ecclesiae Romanae” (Opus tri. 2.11 [Brown, ed., 215]).
106
“Et ista culpa non solum fuit ex parte populi, sed etiam ex parte Roboam” (Opus
tri. 2.14 [Brown, ed., 218]).
107
Humbert is certainly not unique in adducing the precedent of ten tribes falling
away from the house of David for the schism. Yet, it can be said that his attention to
Rehoboam’s blame has a special significance. As two points of contrast, consider the
following from Thomas and Bonaventure. Thomas uses the Old Testament precedent of
the ten tribes that left the rule of David, but does not consider the fault of Rehoboam, in
STh II-II, q. 39, a. 2. Bonaventure mentions the story in his Collations on the
Hexaëmeron, delivered in 1273, a year before he died at Lyons II. For Bonaventure, just
as the ten tribes fell from the House of David, so did these Churches [the Greeks] fall
and break away from Peter, to whom the Lord said, “I will give you the keys of the
kingdom” (Matt 16:19). Bonaventure then says that they succumbed to the wolves. See

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devise plans against the Roman Church so that they might turn
people from loyalty to her, just as Jeroboam made idols of bull
calves to turn the people from Jerusalem.”108
Humbert knows that the Roman Church favored the
“Roman emperor” against the “emperor of the Greeks” after
Charlemagne’s crowning (Christmas Day 800).109 Humbert
mentions conflicts in the West: “Just as today many nations
readily rebel against the Church, if their king were to do
this.”110 Indeed, a few lines later Humbert mentions the division
between the pro-papal Guelphs and the pro-imperial
Ghibellines (who quarrel simply because of the custom handed
down by their ancestors). Humbert says the dispute about the
Empire is greater than all other things.111 Yet, he also gives an
example of a Greek emperor who favored Rome over the claims
of Constantinople’s patriarch. He posits that
it is read in the chronicles that the Church of Constantinople made itself be
called the first of all Churches, since the throne of the Empire was at that
Hex. 16.28. Again, according to this passage from Bonaventure, the Greeks saw that the
Church of Rome was exalted, as was David, and they fell into the heresy of Eutyches
during the time of Emperor Heraclius, whom Bonaventure reckons as the last emperor
in the East.
108
“Item schismatici adinveniunt adinventiones contra Romanam Ecclesiam, ut
avertant homines ab eius devotione, sicut Jeroboam fecit vitulos, ut averteret populum
ab Hierusalem” (Opus tri. 2.13 [Brown, ed., 218]).
109
Alberigo notes that one of the most realistic aspects of the Opus concerns the
Empire, as one of the major causes of the schism was the crowning of Charlemagne
(Opus tri. 2.11; cf. Opus tri. 2.18). See Alberigo, “L’oecuménisme au Moyen Age,” 339
n. 50.
110
“Sicut et hodie multae nationes de facili rebellarent eidem Ecclesiae, si Rex suus
hoc faceret” (Opus tri. 2.11 [Brown, ed., 215]).
111
Although Humbert identifies many causes for the schism, he lays the greatest
blame on disputes concerning the Empire. Placing the schism in 1054, whose
excommunications Humbert never mentions, is a postmedieval historical reconstruction
of what happened that year. Humbert names the filioque as one of several causes that
disposed the Greeks to a schism. Brett’s summary with its “Finally, when the Latins
added to the Creed the statement concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the
Son, without obtaining the consent of the Eastern part of the Church . . .” may make
the filioque seem more definitive for the schism than it is in Humbert’s analysis. See
Brett, Humbert of Romans, 188. For Humbert’s treatment of the filioque, see Opus tri.
2.11 (Brown, ed., 215); cf. Opus tri. 2.18 (Brown, ed., 222).

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place. But during the reign of Pope Boniface, it was ordained by Emperor
Phocas that the Roman Church should be the head of all Churches.”112

This statement is considerably nuanced in the Extractiones,
which read: “But during the reign of Pope Boniface, it was
ordained by Emperor Phocas that the Roman Church, just as it
was, should also be called head of all [Churches].”113 The
ambiguity in Humbert’s expression is clarified to show that the
emperor simply recognized the previous authority of the Roman
Church.
Chapter 12 is completely devoted to summarizing a work by
the twelfth-century Pisan Leo Tuscus concerning “the causes of
the schism with the pope.”114 All twelve causes from Tuscus
mention the pope or the Roman Church in historical conflicts
with the Greeks. Humbert gives no comparable summary of any
other text within his Opus; here we see him as a “compilator.”115 Humbert’s use of Leo Tuscus can be compared with
112
“Unde legitur in Chronicis, quod Constantinopolitana Ecclesia faciebat se vocari
primam omnium Ecclesiarum, cum apud locum illum sedes imperii. Sed per Phocam
Imperatorem, procurante Bonifacio Papa, ordinatum est, quod Romana Ecclesia esset
caput omnium Ecclesiarum” (Opus tri. 2.11 [Brown, ed., 216]).
113
“sed per Phocam imperatorem, procurante Bonifacio Papa, ordinatum fuit, quod
Romana ecclesia, sicut erat, sic et diceretur Caput omnium” (Extr. 2.11 [Mansi, ed.,
24:125]).
114
Leo Tuscus deserves more study for historians to have a better understanding of
twelfth-century relations between Constantinople and the West. This Pisan and his
brother Hugo are the subject of Antoine Dondaine, O.P., “Hughes Éthérien et Léon
Toscan,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen age 27 (1952): 67-134,
which includes short edited selections of texts. Humbert’s brief resume of Leo’s causes
for the schism is derived from the second part of Leo’s De haeresibus et
praevaricationibus graecorum, preserved in a manuscript in Seville. Dondaine edits a
portion from Colombina 5.1.24, fol. 87va-88rb. Calling the summary most interesting,
he comments that one would not guess its value from what was given by Humbert
(117). The brothers Leo and Hugh served in the imperial court of Manuel I Komnenos.
See Paul Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143-1180 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993), 90-94.
115
Humbert commonly omits apocryphal material and more obvious points when
compiling information that others may not have in their libraries. See Simon Tugwell,
O.P., “Humbert of Romans, ‘Compilator,’” in Lector et compilator: Vincent de
Beauvais, frère prêcheur, un intellectual et son milieu au XIIIe siècle (Grâne, France:
Editions Créaphis, 1997), 47-76, at 55.

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Thomas’s use of a libellus that purported to be quotations from
Greek Fathers on matters concerning the filioque, papal
primacy, the matter of Eucharistic bread, and purgatory.116
While this infamous libellus has been proven to be mostly
forgeries of theological positions, Leo Tuscus’s document
records historical actions with greater (albeit not complete)
accuracy. It should be noted that Humbert and Thomas
borrowed collections that aimed to situate their contemporary
circumstances within the precedents of ancient authority. It so
happens that Humbert’s source has much greater worth.
Moreover, given its importance for Humbert’s own thinking,
attention should be given to particular characteristics of the
incidents concerning papal authority in its history with the East.
The twelve reasons stretch from the dispute between Flavian
and Paulinus over the see of Antioch following the death of
Meletius in 381 through the conflict between Pope Alexander
III (1159-81) and Emperor Manuel Komnenos (1143-80),
during Tuscus’s own time. The infamous incident of 1054 is not
mentioned among the twelve reasons. Because of space limitations, only three reasons are analyzed (briefly) here for their
contribution concerning the papacy. The first is quoted in full.
Third, under Emperor Marcian, Pope Leo wrote the bishop of Constantinople, that he should cease from attacking the pontiff whom he was said to
be attacking. Since this admonishment accomplished nothing, the Constantinopolitan pontiffs have not ceased from that time to contend for equality
with the Roman pontiffs.117

While this description is rather vague, the text alludes to the
controversy over the twenty-eighth canon of the Council of

116
For H. F. Dondaine’s preface and the critical edition of the Contra errores
graecorum, see Sancti Thomae de Aquino opera omnia 40 (Rome: Santa Sabina, 1969), A
1-105; the edition of the libellus Liber de fide Trinitatis follows at A 107-51.
117
“Tertia ex hoc quod sub Martiano Imperatore scripsit Leo Papa praesuli sedis
Constantinopolitanae, quod cessaret ab invasione Pontificii quod invadere dicebatur.
Huiusmodi autem monitione nihil proficiente, extunc non cessaverunt Pontifices
Constantinopolitani de pari contendere cum Pontificibus Romanis” (Opus tri. 2.12
[Brown, ed., 216]).

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

Chalcedon (451).118 Pope Leo the Great was furious over this
addition to the council. For example, he wrote a letter to
Emperor Marcian protesting this violation of the Nicene
Council’s canons that safeguarded the traditional order of the
sees.119 Moreover, Leo also wrote Patriarch Anatolius of
Constantinople, reprimanding him for his presumption against
Alexandria, the see of Peter’s disciple Mark, and Antioch,
Peter’s first see.120 This canon indeed continued to trouble relations between East and West in understanding the authorities of
the major sees of Christianity.
The fourth and fifth causes in the list both deal with the
Acacian Schism. This breach occurred between Rome and
Constantinople between 484 and 519 and touched upon the
doctrine of Chalcedon and policies toward non-Chalcedonians
in the Empire. Humbert’s list includes the mutual excommunications between the papacy and Acacius, bishop of Constantinople. He furthermore speaks of Emperor Anastasius’s
subsequent support of the dead Acacius’s position and his
refusal to meet with Roman legates. These incidents certainly
form a chapter in the Christological controversy of the age; they
also pertain very much to the role of the papacy in the
Church.121
Moving on in the Opus, we find that chapter 16 is entitled,
“That this care most greatly falls upon the supreme pontiff, that

118

See text and brief bibliography on this issue in Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical
Councils, 1.75-76 and 99-100.
119
See Leo’s Ep. 104, to Marcian Augustus (PL 54.991A-997B), trans. in Hunt,
Letters, 177-82.
120
See Leo’s Ep. 106, to Anatolius (PL 54.1001A-1009B), trans. Hunt, Letters,
182-88.
121
The name of Pope Anastasius II, whose papacy (496-98) was sometimes regarded
in the Middle Ages as a betrayal of the Church, does not appear here. As an example of
this pope’s reputation, Gratian’s Decretum, D. 19 c. 9 has “Anastasius, reproved by
God, was smitten by divine command.” See translation and context in Gratian, The
Treatise on Laws (Decretum DD. 1 - 20) with the Ordinary Gloss, trans. Augustine
Thompson, O.P. (The Treatise on Laws), and James Gordley (Ordinary Gloss), intro.
Katherine Christensen, Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law, vol. 2
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 83.

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is the Roman pontiff.”122 Humbert gives a list of papal titles,
frequently citing scriptural references for support, and applies
each one to the pope’s duties toward the Greeks.123 As vicar of
Christ, the pope is in the place of Christ on earth and so it
greatly pertains to him to do the things Christ did. Humbert
then urges something that did not occur until 2001, during the
pontificate of John Paul II: the pope should go to Greece.
Humbert writes,
Christ himself descended from heaven for this: so that he would make both
(namely the Jews and Gentiles) one and there would be one flock from these
and from those. Therefore, his vicar must not decline to descend into Greece,
if it should be necessary and if there should be hope that by doing this the
Greeks and Latins could unite.124

As father, the pope ought to care for both the devoted son and
the rebellious son, as was the father of the prodigal son (Luke
15:11-32).125 Gregory seems to have been influenced by
Humbert’s proposal here. As Tugwell points out, Humbert’s
invocation of the image of the pope as the father of the prodigal
son who goes out is not abbreviated, but elaborated upon in the
Extractiones. Gregory also wrote to Emperor Michael VIII
Palaeologus in precisely the language of a father welcoming
back the prodigal son, even invoking the Platonic phrase “regio
dissimilitudinis” used in Augustine’s Confessions to expound the
waywardness of the prodigal son.126 Following protocol, the
122

“Quod haec cura maxime incumbat Pontifici summo, scilicet Romano” (Opus tri.
2.16 [Brown, ed., 219]).
123
Which titles are not used is also significant. For example, Humbert does not use
the title of “teacher,” which will be used in the Council of Florence’s Laetentur Caeli
(July 6, 1439): “the head of the whole church and the father and teacher of all
Christians” (Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 1.*528).
124
“Ipse autem Christus ad hoc descendit de coelo, ut faceret utraque (scilicet
Judaeos et Gentiles) unum, et unum ovile de his et de illis. Et ideo non deberet renuere
vicarius eius, si esset necesse, descendere etiam in Graeciam, si spes esset, quod per hoc
posset Graecos et Latinos unire” (Opus tri. 2.16 [Brown, ed., 219-20]).
125
For Humbert’s use of the language of “father” for the pope in his sermons, see
Bougerol, “La papauté dans les sermons médiévaux français et italiens,” 253-55.
126
Tugwell, Humberti de Romanis Legendae Sancti Dominici, 414. Tugwell cites
A. L. Tautu, ed., Acta Urbani IV, Clementis IV, Gregorii X, Pont. Comm. Ad redigendum

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

Emperor, for his part, acknowledged Gregory in correspondence as “the most holy and blessed lord Pope, supreme
pontiff of older Rome and of the universal Church, successor of
the apostolic see, his most reverend father.”127 Yet it was also
common for the pope, in communicating with bishops, to
invoke the image of brothers. For example, Thomas, commenting on the Apostle Paul’s naming of Timothy as “a
brother” in the faith, cites Matthew 23:8, “you are all
brothers,” and concludes, “And this is why the pope calls all
bishops brothers.”128
Also in chapter 16, Humbert calls the pope a shepherd, and
says that he ought to be like that good shepherd who left the
ninety-nine to care for the one that strayed (Luke 15:4-7). As
the bridegroom of the universal church, he ought to suffer and
care for the bride in whose womb the Greek and the Latin are
fighting, like Jacob and Esau in the womb of Rebecca (Gen
25:22-23). As the common judge,129 he must be like Moses who
cared for the disputing Hebrews (Exod 2:11-15) in settling the
contention between the Greek and Latin. As captain of the ship,
he must induce the people to live in “one body and one spirit,
just as you are called in one hope of your vocation” (Eph
4:4).130
codicem iuris canonici orientalis, Fontes III.v.1 (Vatican City, 1953), 138. Cf. Luke
15:11-32; Plato, Politicus 273d; Plotinus, Ennead 1.8.13; Augustine, Confessions
7.10.16.
127
“Sanctissimo et beatissimo domino pape veteris Rome ac universalis ecclesiae
summo pontifici, et sedis apostolice successori, reverendissimo patri suo.” See the
examples of Emperor Michael’s letters Multa sunt and Qualiter et quantum to Gregory
X, given as nos. 313 and 314 in Les Registres de Grégoire X, 119-123, from 1273, but
not dated.
128
In II Cor. 1, lect. 1. Of course this was the common practice, which Gregory X
continued.
129
“Iudex communis” (Opus tri. 2.16 [Brown, ed., 220]). Cf. “Iudex ordinarius,” a
technical term for a judge of first instance, with authority that is by his own right rather
than by delegation, associated with plenitudo potestatis. See Watt, Theory of Papal
Monarchy in the Thirteenth Century, 92-105.
130
Papal titles can help us think about what is, and is not, said of the pope’s identity
and authority. As a point of comparison, consider the titles given in Bernard’s De
consideratione 4.23: one of the bishops (not their lord), brother of those who love God
and companion of those who fear him, model of justice, mirror of holiness, exemplar of

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Humbert concludes this section by saying that the task is so
great that no one else has the power to accomplish it. Without
the pope, whatever would be done about these matters would
be entirely futile. Thus, Humbert ends this section with a divine
threat:
Therefore he would have much to fear, if he were negligent about this lest
God demand particularly that evil from him. For the necessity falls upon him
to exemplify Christ who says, “I am the good shepherd,” (John 10:11, 14)
and afterwards, “I have other sheep, and it is necessary for me to lead them,
so that there may be one flock” (John 10:16).131

This remarkable passage, therefore, illustrates not only the
papal titles, but also the responsibilities that, if not fulfilled, will
render the pope subject to God’s justice against him. Gregory’s
Extractiones omit the divine threat, and no threat upon the
pope can be found in Thomas.
Chapter 17 gives a remarkably detailed to-do list of ten items
for the pope in the healing of the schism. Gregory’s Extractiones give very brief summaries, and combine one and two
(which are related) for a sequence of nine. The following is a
summary of what Humbert says must be done, with occasional
points of comparison with Thomas noted.
(1) Knowledge of the Greek language. Studying Greek is of
great importance. But even in the Roman curia can there

piety, preacher of truth, defender of faith, teacher of the nations, leader of Christians,
friend of the Bridegroom, an attendant of the bride, director of the clergy, shepherd of
the people, instructor of the foolish, refuge of the oppressed, advocate of the poor,
hope of the unfortunate, protector of orphans, judge of widows, eye of the blind,
tongue of the mute, support of the aged, avenger of crimes, terror of evil men, glory of
the good, staff of the powerful, hammer of tyrants, father of kings, moderator of laws,
dispenser of canons, salt of the earth, light of the world, priest of the Most High, vicar
of Christ, anointed of the Lord, and god of Pharaoh. To take one contrast with
Humbert, Bernard sees the pope as friend of the Bridegroom and not bridegroom of the
universal Church.
131
“Propter hoc igitur potest sibi multum timere, si circa hoc fuerit negligens, ne
Deus requirat ab eo specialiter malum istud. Incumbit enim ei necessitas ad exemplum
Christi, qui dicit: Ego sum pastor bonus. Et post: Alias oves habeo, et illas oportet me
adducere, et fiet unum ovile” (Opus tri. 2.16 [Brown, ed., 220]).

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

scarcely be found someone who can translate what the Greeks
send. Are the translators reliable? Humbert has his doubts.132
(2) Latins should have an abundance of Greek books (and not
concentrate on bodily weapons). Humbert gives a list of genres
of Greek books in need: theological books, commentaries,
books of their councils, statutes, ecclesiastical offices, and
histories. Just as Latins argue from the Old Testament with the
Jews, so they should do so from Greek books with Greek
Christians.133 Humbert bemoans how much care is taken
regarding philosophy and law, but not about what pertains to
salvation and the good of souls. Invoking 2 Corinthians 10:4,
that our weapons are not bodily, but the power of God,
Humbert complains that the Latin weapons are bodily.134 Latins
do not care about the spiritual weapons regarding Saracen, Jew,
or Greek.
(3) Frequent sending of nuncios. Humbert wants the Roman
Church to send out virtuous and prudent men more frequently,
just as the Lord sent great prophets to Israel. Humbert realizes
that some complain that the nuncios would not be safe due to
the pride of the Greeks. He thinks that the Greeks still have
reverence for the Roman Church, even if they do not obey in all
matters. Perhaps their pride could be broken by Latin
humility.135 Besides, just as a doctor or orator should not give

132
Although Thomas never learned Greek, he personally ordered translations of
Greek texts for his Catena, as he announces in the preface to the Catena on Mark.
Moreover, Thomas gives an important principle of translation in his Contra Graec. I,
prol. Robert Grosseteste knew Greek and translated texts, but his documentation of
1250 (mentioned in n. 22 above) does not complain about the inadequacy of Greek
knowledge in the West. He has other concerns. For an overview of his translation work,
see Kathryn D. Hill, “Robert Grosseteste and His Work of Greek Translation,” Studies
in Church History 13 (1976): 213-22.
133
See ScG I, c. 2. Thomas lays down the principle that one argues from common
ground with an interlocutor, including the example of arguing from the Old Testament
with the Jews.
134
For a beautiful exposition of 2 Cor 10:4, see In II Cor. 10, lect. 1. Thomas writes
about how such spiritual weapons are used for the rebellious, the conversion of
unbelievers, and the correction of sinners.
135
Thomas says that humility expels pride in STh II-II, q. 161, a. 5, ad 2.

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95

up his duty on account of some contingency, so too should
emissaries of the Church work at the job given to them.
(4) Send spies. These spies, under the appearance of carrying
out other business (e.g., that of soldiers, merchants, or
religious), could carry back reports about impediments to peace
and opportunities for peace, moving freely among the
Greeks.136
(5) Show reverence to Greek nuncios. The Greeks love
ceremonial honor, and Latin respect for their nuncios could
dispose them to better things.137
(6) Have wise Greeks stay with Latins. Greek experts whose
loyalty is not in doubt could greatly assist Latins by living with
them.138
(7) Stop scandalizing Greeks. Latins who have gone to live in
Greek lands have done terrible things to provoke the Greeks to
hate Latins even more.139
(8) Show charitable service to Greek magnates. If the Latin
kings and even the pope would give the service of gifts to the
Greeks, this would mollify the situation and prepare for
friendship.140
(9) Translate Latin doctors into Greek. Just as Greek books
should be translated into Latin, so some of the writings of the
Latin doctors should be translated into Greek. This reciprocity
would assist much in discussions about the truth.141
(10) Remove Latin distrust of the Greek. Before he says that
there are many other things that should be diligently investigated, Humbert advises the tearing down of distrust that many

136
While Thomas is famous for his absolute prohibition against lying, he does leave
some room for spying, because we are not bound to declare our purpose or meaning to
others. See STh II-II, q. 40, a. 3. But see also STh II-II, q. 111, on dissimulation and
hypocrisy.
137
For Thomas on the virtue of observance, see STh II-II, q. 102.
138
For Thomas on counsel within the parts of prudence, see STh II-II, q. 48, a. 1.
139
For Thomas on the sin of scandal, see STh II-II, q. 43.
140
For Thomas on performing acts to prepare for friendship, see his treatment of
affability in STh II-II, q. 114, but against flattery in STh II-II, q. 115.
141
For Thomas’s emphasis that Constantinople II (553) claims to follow Latin
doctors, with Greek doctors, in everything, see ScG IV, c. 24.

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

Latins have about the return of the Greeks. The alternative is to
abandon hope forever.142
Humbert identifies three matters of concern and gives
various remedies: the Empire of Constantinople, faith
(especially on account of the Greek accusation of Latin heresy
over the filioque), and obedience to the pope. We see again the
eminent practicality of the Empire for Christian unity,
something missing from Thomas’s emphasis in the Contra
errores graecorum and elsewhere in his writings. Humbert’s last
remedy deserves to be quoted in full:143
It must be noted that it does not seem that the Roman Church ought to plunge
itself into requiring a fullness of obedience from the Greeks, as long as their
patriarch would be confirmed by the authority of the Roman Church, and the
Church of the Greeks would receive the legates of the Roman Church with
honor.144

The mention of a plenitudo obedientiae, and a caution against
requiring it, is highly interesting, and Humbert’s contribution
deserves to be better known in discussions on the papal
plenitudo potestatis.145 The idea bears some resemblance to
Hostiensis’s application of the potestas absoluta, in tandem with
the potestas ordinata (a distinction learned from thirteenthcentury theologians regarding God) or with the power to
142

For Thomas on despair, see STh II-II, q. 20.
For discussion of Humbert’s treatment of the difference of liturgical rites in Opus
tri. 2.19, see Georgij Avvakumov, Die Entstehung des Unionsgedankens: Die lateinische
Theologie des Hochmittelalters in der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Ritus der Ostkirche
(Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002), 297.
144
“quod non videtur, quod Ecclesia Romana profundare se deberet in requirendo
plenitudinem obedientiae a Graecis, dummodo eorum patriarcha authoritate Ecclesiae
Romanae confirmaretur, et Ecclesia Graecorum legatos Ecclesiae Romanae reciperet
cum honore” (Opus tri. 2.19 [Brown, ed., 223]). Deno Geanakoplos seems to mislead in
writing that Humbert “even maintained that the pope should not at once [original
emphasis] insist on complete obedience.” See his “Bonaventura, the Two Mendicant
Orders and the Greeks at the Council of Lyons (1274),” in idem, Constantinople and
the West (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press,1989), 208. Presumably, the
same condition of Rome not pressing full obedience from the Greeks would continue
after the desired union.
145
I have found only rare occurrences of the phrase “plenitudo ob(o)edientiae” in
early and medieval Christian texts, and none that fits this case.
143

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dispense, to the pope.146 For Humbert, an invocation of the
plenitudo obedientiae provides a pastoral balance to the
plenitudo potestatis with an admonition not to press the Eastern
Church into a full obedience to Rome.
Only two things are asked in this accommodation. First,
Humbert wishes for papal confirmation of Constantinople’s
patriarch, which differs considerably from papal appointment.
After the Fourth Crusade usurped the patriarchal throne of
Constantinople, Innocent III had exercised an authority of
appointing and confirming Thomas Morosini as patriarch of
Constantinople, as well as demanding an oath to Morosini and
himself from Greek prelates who wished to continue to serve in
their stations.147 For Humbert, on the contrary, the papacy
should abandon its domination of the patriarchate of Constantinople and be satisfied with a confirmation of the Greek
appointment.148 Second, he desires that the Greeks receive
Roman legates with honor, as this would considerably improve
diplomatic relations and be within the best tradition of
protocol.149 Gregory’s Extractiones keep this emphasis on not
146
For an excellent overview of Hostiensis on papal absolute power, including the
power to dispense, see Pennington, The Prince and the Law, 48-75.
147
An all-Venetian chapter of Constantinople elected Thomas Morosini as patriarch.
Invalidating the chapter’s action as uncanonical, Innocent himself appointed and
confirmed Morosini. Reg. VII, Let. 203 (PL 215:516).
148
Even a confirmation of the patriarch of Constantinople by the bishop of Rome
would have been contrary to the customs of the Byzantine Church. However, one might
be tempted to speculate “what if” since the emperor held the prerogative in the process
of patriarchal election. The emperor always had much from which to benefit in an
amicable relationship with Rome in the later Middle Ages. See Joseph Gill, S.J., “Eleven
Emperors of Byzantium Seek Union with the Church of Rome,” in Church Union: Rome
and Byzantium (1204-1453) (London: Variorum, 1979), 72-84.
149
Cf. the overview of the early developments of papal legates by Kriston R. Rennie,
The Foundations of Medieval Papal Legations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
For the development from the apocrisarius to legatus ad causam, see ibid., 55-64. The
honorable reception of papal legates should not be taken for granted. The most severe
disrespect shown to a Roman legate within one hundred years of Humbert's writing
occurred during the Latin massacre of 1182 in Constantinople. Both the Latin
archbishop William of Tyre and the Greek archbishop Eustathios of Thessaloniki
condemned the killing of the papal legate John whom the frenzied citizens of
Constantinople decapitated, fastening his severed head “to the tail of a filthy dog as an

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

requiring a plenitudo obedientiae, but singing the filioque three
times at the June 29 Mass during the Second Council of Lyons,
with the three Greek representatives joining in the singing,
hardly implements Humbert’s advice.150
Humbert closes this second part by invoking the role of the
papacy in salvation.151 Thomas more famously writes: “It is
necessary for salvation to be under the Roman pontiff.”152 Both
men were outstanding members of a religious order founded for
preaching the gospel and the salvation of souls. Both considered
the papacy to be required for this saving mission. Humbert
himself had made union with the Greeks a priority for the
Dominican Order near the beginning of his service as Master of
the Order of Preachers. In 1255, the year after he was elected
master, Humbert wrote to his confreres in an encyclical:
Not the least of my heart’s desires is that through the ministry of our order
schismatic Christians should be recalled to ecclesiastical unity, and the name
of Jesus Christ be taken to the faithless Jews, to the Saracens—so long
deceived by their pseudo-prophet—to the pagan idolaters, barbarians, and all
peoples so that we are his witnesses to bring salvation to all peoples to the
ends of the earth.153

The Secunda pars expresses Humbert’s abiding zeal for his
order’s mission for ecclesiastical unity.

insult to the church.” William of Tyre's Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, vol. 2, trans. E. A.
Babcock and A.C. Krey (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 464-65; and
Eustathios of Thessaloniki: The Capture of Thessaloniki, trans. John R. Melville Jones
(Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1988), 35.
150
Mansi, ed., 24:129. For a description of the Mass of Saints Peter and Paul during
the council, see Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204-1571), vol. 1, The
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society,
1976 [repr. 1991]), 114-15. The Greeks sang the filioque five times at the council, all
told. See ibid., 115 n. 42.
151
Humbert’s last sentence in the Secunda pars reads: “May the Author of salvation
inspire those discussing this matter, which benefits the salvation of souls” (Opus tri.
2.19 [Brown, ed., 223]). This is omitted in the Extractiones.
152
Contra Graec. I, c. 38.
153
Excerpt translated in C. H. Lawrence, The Friars: The Impact of the Early
Mendicant Movement on Western Society (London: Longman, 1994), 202.

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III. THE PAPACY IN THE TERTIA PARS OF THE OPUS TRIPARTITUM
Humbert’s treatment of moral reform in the third part is the
shortest of the three in the Opus, comprising only six pages in
Brown’s printed text. However, he is here at his most vociferous.154 After beginning with abuses in divine worship,
Humbert turns his attention to the Roman Church. He attacks
the three-year vacancy before Pope Gregory X’s election in
which the cardinals did not distinguish themselves. That
vacancy lasted from November 29, 1268, to the election on
September 1, 1271, and it took Gregory several more months to
be crowned, since he was in Acre on crusade. That vacancy
occurred, not coincidentally, at roughly the same time as the
second mendicant controversy, during which Thomas was
defending mendicant life against the attacks of Gerard of
Abbeville. Without the existence of a pope, the mendicants
suffered greatly. Humbert complains:
Because no one dares to open his mouth in the Roman Church,155 how greatly
fitting it would be so that the lord pope himself and the lord cardinals attend
diligently to correct matters in the Roman Church, and these things would
begin by them so that the correction of others, which highly pertains to them,
would have greater efficacy. For behold what damnable and disastrous thing
has sounded through the whole world (as if one should be silent about them)
during the vacancy of the papacy, which occurred in our days, and about the
great treasury of the pope, which the cardinals are said to have consumed by
their mouth, during their dissension (I know not with what conscience), since
lower colleges are not said to have the power of this sort in the goods of
ordinaries during the vacancies in the Churches. It seems that it would be very
profitable to consider the aforesaid vacancy and to apply a remedy.156

154

Roberg says of Humbert’s Tertia pars that all these prescriptions are in view of
ecclesia semper reformanda (Das zweite Konzil von Lyon, 112). Gregory himself uses
reformatio language in his call for the council, but nowhere does Humbert or Gregory,
to my knowledge, give the phrase ecclesia semper reformanda.
155
See above, n. 20.
156
“Quia nemo inferior audit ponere os in Ecclesiam Romanam, tanto magis deceret
ut ipse dominus Papa et domini Cardinales attenderent corrigenda in Ecclesia Romana,
et inciperent ab illis, ut correctio aliorum quae ad eos summe pertinet, majorem haberet
efficaciam. Ecce enim quantum damnum et quantum scandalum emanavit per totum
mundum, ut de aliis taceatur, in tantis vacationibus papatus, quae contigerunt in diebus

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

The comment that “no one dares to open his mouth” includes
the cardinals, not just the pope. The Extractiones omit that
observation, but still communicate the need for change.157 Of
course criticism against the cardinals was not rare in the
thirteenth century—even though one cannot find it in Thomas’s
writings. In his 1250 memorandum for the papal curia,
Grosseteste says that the cause, font, and origin of the evil
afflicting the Church is this curia.158
Lyons II would go on to produce lengthy, detailed legislation
about the election of a new pope in its decree Zelus fidei. In
response to just such criticism against cardinals eating the papal
treasury, the council in 1274 stated that after three days of a
conclave with no shepherd elected, the cardinals are to be given
only one dish at dinner and supper for five days. “If these days
also pass without the election of a pope, henceforth only bread,
wine and water are to be served to the cardinals until they do
provide a pope. While the election is in process, the cardinals
are to receive nothing from the papal treasury.”159
Humbert himself was perhaps present at the Council of
Lyons, but we cannot know for sure.160 Certainly, he does not
place much trust in prelates, including those who would attend
the council. The last statement in his text displays his ardent
nostris, et de thesauro magno Papae, quem dicuntur Cardinales consumpsisse pro ore
suo, durante dissensione, nescio cum qua conscientia, cum inferiora collegia non
dicuntur habere huiusmodi potestatem in bonis ordinariorum vacantibus Ecclesiis.
Videtur, quod multum expediret, quod contra supradictam vacationem excogitaretur et
apponeretur remedium” (Opus tri. 3.2 [Brown, ed., 224]).
157
Mansi, ed., 24:132.
158
Grosseteste, Memorandum 10 (Gieben, “Robert Grosseteste at the Papal Curia,
Lyons, 1250,” 355).
159
“Quibus provisione non facta decursis, extunc tantummodo panis, vinum et aqua
ministrentur eisdem, donec eadem provisio subsequatur. Provisionis quoque huiusmodi
pendente negotio, dicti cardinales nihil de camera papae recipient” (trans. in Tanner,
Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 1.*315).
160
See Louis Carolus-Barré, “Essay de reconstitution d’une liste nominative des Pères
du IIe Concile de Lyon,” 1274: Année charnière mutations et continuités, 393-423, at
417, calling his presence very likely. Tugwell thinks that Humbert’s presence in the
Dominican priory of Lyons in 1274 is quite probable but not definite, let alone that he
was present at the council meeting in that city. See Tugwell, Humberti de Romanis
Legendae Sancti Dominici, 420 nn. 50-51.

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desire for the pope’s action, in spite of and not along with the
many other prelates in the Church. In biting criticism, Humbert
concludes:
Oh what a cause for sorrow that there are so many prelates! They are
lukewarm about the things of God, even set against nearly every good. There
does not seem another way to proceed, since the pope can proceed about
these matters without them, when he has a treatise regarding them. But before
the council or after, he ought to proceed in these matters without them, and
especially about the things pertaining to morals.161

The Extractiones temper the tone.162 Whether before the
council or after, the pope ought to perform the tasks of the
good shepherd, watching over the flock. This overwhelming
focus on the pope is not rare in the thirteenth century. Zelus
fidei itself is written from the perspective of the pope.
CONCLUSION
Humbert offers a broad range of arguments for papal
authority, primarily understood as a pastoral role. The pope is
the shepherd who must keep watch over the flock. For
Humbert, this means that the pope should direct crusades
against Muslims to fulfill Luke 22:32, that the faith of Peter
(and his Church) would not fail. The pope must preserve the
faith in a war against Islam, which Humbert considered to be
founded to destroy Christianity. As shepherd, the pope must do
everything in his power to heal the schism with the Greeks, or
he will have much to fear from God. Humbert suggests that
Rehoboam is a figure for the pope, demanding too much from
the Greeks who go into schism. Furthermore, the pope must be
concerned about reforming his own curia, as the cardinals who

161

“Quia plurimi praelati proh dolor! Sunt tepidi circa ea quae Dei sunt, imo etiam
contrarii fere omni bono, non videtur modo aliquo expedire, quod de illis quae Papa
potest sine eis expedire, cum eis habeat tractatum: sed ante concilium vel post, illa
expediat sine ipsis, et maxime de pertinentibus ad mores” (Opus tri. 3.12 [Brown, ed.,
228]).
162
Mansi, ed., 24:132.

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

surrounded the pope were infamous for their corruption. In this
matter of moral reform and in all other aspects of importance,
the responsibility is particularly that of the pope. The pope
should always strive to imitate Christ the Good Shepherd, even
laying down his life for his sheep.
Thomas may offer a more balanced theological treatment,
but he attends less to history in this area, and displays a more
cautious reserve about any criticism of the papacy. Humbert’s
arguments from historical development and his criticisms,
indeed, were too much for the editor of the Extractiones—none
other than Pope Gregory X, if Simon Tugwell’s sagacious
insight is true. Humbert incorporates developments concerning
Peter’s own lifetime, the various decisions of the emperors, conciliar acts, the particular needs of the Church in different lands
and times, and historical incidents of conflict. By studying
Humbert alongside Thomas, a pragmatic master of the Dominican order next to a speculative Dominican Scholastic genius, as
well as within the context of Pope Gregory’s reception of
Humbert’s work in the Extractiones, theologians and historians
can better understand the complexity of arguments concerning
the papal office on the eve of the Second Council of Lyons, and
so contribute, in some very small part, to a better understanding
of the papacy both in its historical development and in its
exercise today.163

163
I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for The Thomist, as well as David L.
Eastman, Adrian Gratwick, Sibylle Hanemann, Norbert Keliher, O.P., Ruth Macrides,
Paul Magdalino, Thomas Prügl, Ulf Scharrer, Bruce Williams, O.P., several librarians,
and others who have assisted me; I am responsible for my errors and infelicities. I
dedicate this article to the memory of Ruth Macrides, one of the leading Byzantinists of
the English-speaking world, who first encouraged my studies of Humbert of Romans.
May she rest in peace.

The Thomist 84 (2020): 103-25

USING MODELS FOR THE HYPOSTATIC UNION:
LESSONS FROM AQUINAS AND SCOTUS1
MICHAEL GORMAN
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

A

T THE HEART of Christianity is belief in the hypostatic
union: The second person of the Trinity, the Son or the
Word, took a human nature to himself in such a way that
divinity and humanity are united in one person or hypostasis, that
hypostasis being none other than the second person himself. To
say this is one thing, to understand it is another, and the theology
of the hypostatic union is the attempt to understand it. There is
an important sense, of course, in which this cannot be done: the
hypostatic union, like other theological mysteries, is beyond
human comprehension. On the other hand, even if it cannot fully
be grasped, it can be understood to a certain degree.
When trying to understand the hypostatic union, or to explain
it to others, theologians often compare it to something else. That
they do this is obvious enough, but what is perhaps less obvious
is what is really going on when they do it, and what should be
going on. One might think at first that a comparison is a mere
decoration, a way to liven up our otherwise boring scientific
accounts, but there may be more at stake than that. Consider, for
example, how Richard Cross assesses Aquinas’s use, as a model
for the hypostatic union, of the union of a concrete part and the
whole to which it belongs. On Cross’s understanding, Aquinas
thinks that whole and part make a good model because concrete
parts do not contribute any esse, any existence, to the wholes to
1

I am grateful to the Editor and to an anonymous referee for comments on this article.
I am also grateful for the assistance of Matthew Advent.
103

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MICHAEL GORMAN

which they belong, even as the assumed human nature does not
contribute any esse to Christ.2 But the reason concrete parts
contribute no esse, says Cross, is that they belong to the essence
of their wholes. Therefore, use of this model leads to the view
that Christ’s assumed humanity belongs to his divine essence,
which is another way of saying that use of this model leads to
Monophysitism, a view condemned by the Council of Chalcedon
in 451. Now of course Cross knows that Aquinas is against
Monophysitism, so his view in the end seems to be that Aquinas
lands not in heresy but in inconsistency.3 I think Cross’s criticism
of Aquinas grows out of a misunderstanding of how Aquinas uses
models, and out of a misunderstanding of how models ought to
be used.
As the reader may have noticed, I slid, over the course of the
preceding paragraph, from the language of “comparison” to the
language of “model.” Although I do not have any sharp distinction in mind, I think it is probably more natural to say “comparison” or “similitude” when something loose and undeveloped
is at issue. For example, if someone casually says that the Word
took on human nature the way you or I might put on a coat, and
then quickly moves on to another topic, it would seem pretentious to call this a “model.” But if someone makes a
comparison and then discusses it at some length, highlighting
various aspects and using it to bring out important points, then
the comparison is, we might say, no mere comparison, but a
model.
In this article, I look at some writings of Thomas Aquinas and
also at some writings of John Duns Scotus, focusing on two
comparisons that seem sophisticated enough to merit the title
“model” and that are, at any rate, labelled as such in the
literature: the whole-part model, and the subject-accident model.
Speaking in a somewhat historical mode, I try to make clear how
Aquinas and Scotus deal with the two models just mentioned. I

2
Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation: Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 52.
3
Ibid., 57-58, 60.

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105

then switch into a more systematic register and discuss how
models ought to be used in discussions of theological topics.
I. NARROWING THE FOCUS
Aquinas compares the hypostatic union to quite a number of
things. Sometimes he is explicit, and other times less so. The
following is an incomplete list, drawn mostly from the Summa
theologiae. Aquinas compares the hypostatic union to
● the union of soul and body;4
● the union between a human being and a garment he is wearing;5
● the union between a human being and his sensitive powers;6
● the union between the soul and the resurrected body;7
● the relationship between God and those who are sons of God by grace;8
● the union of several accidental natures in some creature;9
● the union of the members of a body to the body; 10 relatedly, he compares
the assumed nature to a member of a body;11
● the union between an accident and a subject, such as Socrates and his
wisdom.12

Scotus, by contrast, seems to be less inclined to use comparisons.
In his writings on the hypostatic union, I find only one. Scotus
compares the relationship between the assumed human nature
and the Word to the relation between an accident and its subject,
and in fact he says, “The only union similar to the union of a

4

STh III, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2 (Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P.
M. edita, tt. 4-12 [Rome, 1882-]).
5
STh III, q. 2, a. 6, ad 1.
6
STh III, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2.; STh III q. 2, a. 5, ad 1; see also ScG IV, c. 49 (Sancti Thomae
de Aquino Opera omnis iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita, t. 13-15 [Rome: Typis Riccardi
Garroni, 1918, 1926]).
7
STh III, q. 2, a. 6, ad 2.
8
STh III, q. 3, a. 1, ad 1.
9
STh III, q. 3, a. 1, ad 2.
10
STh III, q. 2, a. 3, ad 2.
11
STh III, q. 2, a. 2, ad 3.
12
STh III, q. 2, a. 2; see also De Unione, a. 1, in Thomas Von Aquin: Quaestio Disputata
De unione Verbi incarnati, ed. W. Senner, B. Bartocci, and K. Obenauer (Stuttgart:
Frommann-Holzboog, 2011).

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nature to a person of another nature is the union of accident to
subject.”13
As I have already mentioned, I shall focus on two of these
comparisons or models: the subject-accident model and the
whole-part model. I have three reasons for this. The first is rooted
in the fact that some comparisons seem to be closer to the thing
that they are comparisons for, and others less close. It might seem
obvious that the ones that are closer are better, but perhaps the
issue is more complicated. In an interesting remark, PseudoDionysius says that there is an advantage to comparing God to
things that God cannot possibly be like: we are less likely to be
thrown off by such comparisons.14 To use some of PseudoDionysius’s own examples, someone might fall into thinking that
God is a gleaming man, but no one would think that God has
hooves. It is easy enough to see how this point would apply in
the case of the incarnation. No one will think that the relation
between the assumed human nature and the Word of God is just
like the relationship between a garment and a human wearer. But
it would not be altogether crazy for someone to think that the
relationship between the assumed human nature and the Word is
just like that between a part and a whole or just like that between
an accident and a subject. In short, the models under discussion
in this article are of the sort that can easily be misunderstood and
misused; that makes them particularly suitable for attention.
Second, as can be seen from the lists given above, some
comparisons or models for the incarnation involve perceptible
realities: for example, the assumed nature being likened to a
garment. Aquinas discusses the use of sensible images in theology
in the very first question of the Summa theologiae (a. 9). He says
13
“Ideo non invenitur aliqua unio similis unioni nature ad personam alterius nature
nisi unio accidentis ad subjectum” (Lectura III, d. 1, q. 1, §20 [B. Ioannis Duns Scoti Opera
Omnia, ed. Barnaba Hechich et al., vol. 20 (Vatican City, 2003)]); see also Reportatio III,
d. 1, q. 1, §9 (Joannis Duns Scoti Opera Omnia, ed. Vivès [Paris, 1894], vol. 23). Echoing
his language here, I will call this model the “subject-accident” model rather than what it
is usually called in the literature, namely, the “substance-accident” model.
14
The Celestial Hierarchy 2, in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. Colm
Luibheid (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1987). Aquinas picks up on this remark in STh I,
q. 1, a. 9.

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that it is fitting for Scripture to use sensible or perceptible images
to present theological mysteries because such a mode of
presentation is appropriate for the target audience: humans, who
learn through their senses. The accident-subject model and the
part-whole model, however, are not exactly sensible models: the
relation between accident and subject, and the relation between
part and whole, are, it would seem, available more to thought
than to sensation. Models like these, then, represent an additional
kind of aid for those who would aspire to an understanding
(however limited) of divine mysteries. If theology sometimes
gives sensible models for what is beyond the senses, at other times
it gives rational models for what is beyond reason. Our two
models, then, exemplify a rarified version of a general phenomenon, a version that merits special attention.
A third reason for focusing on these two models is that they
have been central in the recent literature, where there has been a
tendency to associate Aquinas with the whole-part model and
Scotus with the subject-accident model.15 As we shall see,
Aquinas’s and Scotus’s attitudes towards these models are considerably more complicated than that suggests.
In what follows, then, I focus only on these two models. But
first I must address a point that might seem to make that focus
inadvisable. In at least two places, Aquinas says that the best
model is the union of soul and body.16 When he discusses the
hypostatic union in the Summa theologiae, however, he does not
seem to give this model much more importance than any other.17
If my goal were to give a complete analysis of Aquinas on
Christological models, I would obviously have to spend time on
this model, but since my goal instead is to compare Aquinas and
Scotus, and to draw some broader lessons, the body-soul model
can be safely set aside.

15

Above all, I have in mind Cross, Metaphysics of the Hypostatic Union; and Marilyn
McCord Adams, “The Metaphysics of the Incarnation in Some Fourteenth-Century
Franciscans,” in Essays Honoring Allan B. Wolter, ed. William A. Frank and Girard J.
Etzkorn (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute, 1985), 21-57.
16
ScG IV, c. 41; De Unione, a. 1.
17
See for example STh III, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2.

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II. SOME HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Before discussion of how the models play out in Aquinas and
Scotus, a few words about their historical provenance are in
order. As Cross points out, the whole-part model finds medieval
antecedents in the Christological analyses of Peter Abelard and
his followers. Cross also suggests that the “graft” model of the
incarnation, according to which the human nature’s being joined
to the Word is likened to a branch of one tree being grafted on
to another, can be seen as a version of the whole-part model.18
Later, in some thirteenth-century theologians who flourished
before Aquinas, we find discussion of the question of whether
Christ should be thought of as a whole with parts, and also
discussion of the related question of whether Christ is a
hypostasis composita, a composite hypostasis. As Walter Principe
tells the story in his classic four-part study, William of Auxerre
was open to the language of parts and wholes with respect to
Christ, while not using the expression hypostasis composita. By
contrast, Alexander of Hales, Hugh of Saint-Cher, and Philip the
Chancellor, while comfortable with the language of hypostasis
composita, are quite wary of the language of parts and wholes—
as is Aquinas himself, as we will see presently.19 As chronicled by
Corey Barnes, discussion of the issue continued throughout the
thirteenth century, often coming to focus on the relationship
18
See Cross, Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 60-61. Lydia Schumacher is not
convinced of this association of the graft model with the whole-part model; see her Early
Franciscan Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 200-201. For discussion of
Abelard’s Christology, see Lauge Olaf Nielsen, Theology and Philosophy in the Twelfth
Century (Lieden: Brill, 1982), 214-20; Anna Marmodoro and Jonathan Hill, “Peter
Abelard’s Metaphysics of the Incarnation,” Philosophy and Theology 22 (2010): 27-48. It
is worth observing that Marmodoro and Hill, by their own admission (ibid., 43 n. 12),
use the language of parts rather freely—more freely, it seems, than Abelard does himself.
19
See Walter H. Principe, William of Auxerre’s Theology of the Hypostatic Union
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1963), 87-93; Alexander of Hales’
Theology of the Hypostatic Union (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
1967), 126-33; Hugh of Saint-Cher’s Theology of the Hypostatic Union (Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1970), 73-78; Philip the Chancellor’s Theology
of the Hypostatic Union (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1975),
97-105.

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between composition and Christ’s esse (a relationship I will
downplay in my presentation of Aquinas below).20
There are antecedents for the use of the subject-accident
model as well. Whatever he meant by doing so, William of
Auxerre takes on the language of accidents in a surprisingly
strong way, even saying that the assumed humanity “degenerates” into an accident—a way of thinking from which both
Aquinas and Scotus wish to distance themselves. By contrast, the
other authors studied by Principe are significantly more
circumspect.21 Also more cautious were the explorations of this
model that arose in the Franciscan tradition; this model seems to
have taken on special importance among the Franciscans,
perhaps through its prominence in the Summa halensis.22
Given the ultimate focus of this article—using Aquinas and
Scotus to shed light on how models ought to be used—further
discussion of the historical background would lead us afield. That
said, I will briefly return to the question of historical context
later, because, at least in the case of Scotus, it does provide a
possible explanation for something that might otherwise be
puzzling.
III. AQUINAS, SCOTUS, AND THE WHOLE-PART MODEL
Let us begin with what Aquinas says about the whole-part
model. The idea, roughly, is that Christ is like a whole, and the
assumed nature is like one of his parts, making the case of Christ
and his assumed nature similar to that of Socrates and one of his
hands. As mentioned already, Cross presents this as being tied to
the question of whether there is in Christ more than one
existence, more than one esse;23 Marilyn McCord Adams does so
20
See Corey L. Barnes, “Christological Composition in Thirteenth-Century Debates,”
The Thomist 75 (2011): 173-205.
21
See Principe, William of Auxerre’s Theology of the Hypostatic Union, 93-100;
Alexander of Hales’ Theology of the Hypostatic Union, 99-102; Hugh of Saint-Cher’s
Theology of the Hypostatic Union, 100-103; Philip the Chancellor’s Theology of the
Hypostatic Union, 93.
22
See Schumacher, Early Franciscan Theology, chap. 9, esp. pp. 190-91, 197-99.
23
Cross, Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 51-60.

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MICHAEL GORMAN

as well.24 Indeed, when Adams says that Scotus does not accept
this model, the reason she gives is precisely that Scotus has a more
general disagreement with Aquinas on the question of esse.25
The part-whole model in Aquinas is not always tied to the
(famously disputed) question of how many esse there are in
Christ. Even when this model is related to questions of existence,
and even to the existence of Christ, it is still not always the case
that the model turns on how many existences there are in
Christ.26 Prescinding for the moment from this question, then,
24
Adams, “The Metaphysics of the Incarnation in Some Fourteenth-Century
Franciscans,” 26-28.
25
Ibid., 29-30.
26
Consider, for example, the following two texts: “As Damascene says, ‘The Word of
God did not assume human nature in general, but in an atom,’ that is, in an individual;
otherwise it would have to fall to every human being to be the Word of God, as it fell to
Christ. Nevertheless, it should be known that not just any individual in the genus of
substance, even in a rational nature, has the character of a person, but only what exists
through itself—not what exists in something other and more perfect. Whence Socrates’s
hand, although it is an individual, is nevertheless not a person, because it does not exist
through itself, but in some more perfect thing, namely, in its whole. And this can also be
shown from the fact that a person is said to be an individual substance; for a hand is not
a complete substance, but a part of a substance. Therefore, although a human nature is an
individual in the genus of substance, still, because it does not exist separately through
itself, but in some more perfect thing, namely, in the person of the Word of God, it
follows that it does not have its own personhood” (“Ad tertium dicendum quod Dei
Verbum non assumpsit naturam humanam in universali, sed in atomo, idest in individuo,
sicut Damascenus dicit, alioquin oporteret quod cuilibet homini conveniret esse Dei
Verbum, sicut convenit Christo. Sciendum est tamen quod non quodlibet individuum in
genere substantiae, etiam in rationali natura, habet rationem personae, sed solum illud
quod per se existit, non autem illud quod existit in alio perfectiori. Unde manus Socratis,
quamvis sit quoddam individuum, non est tamen persona, quia non per se existit, sed in
quodam perfectiori, scilicet in suo toto. Et hoc etiam potest significari in hoc quod
persona dicitur substantia individua, non enim manus est substantia completa, sed pars
substantiae. Licet igitur humana natura sit individuum quoddam in genere substantiae,
quia tamen non per se separatim existit, sed in quodam perfectiori, scilicet in persona Dei
Verbi, consequens est quod non habeat personalitatem propriam” [STh III, q. 2, a. 2,
ad 3]); “To the second objection it must be said that ‘hypostasis’ signifies a particular
substance not in just any way, but as it exists in what makes it complete. But insofar as it
comes into union with something more complete, it is not called a hypostasis, as in the
case of a hand or a foot. And in a similar way, the human nature in Christ, although it is
a particular substance, nevertheless comes into union with something complete, namely,
with the whole Christ as he is God and man, and for that reason it cannot be called a

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we may make the general observation that on the most basic level,
the model works as follows: in both the case of Socrates’s hand
and the case of Christ’s assumed humanity, we have something
that is less than some whole. There is more to Socrates than his
hand, and likewise there is more to Christ than his human nature.
On this basis, one might think that the relation of whole and
part is not a mere model, but in fact an altogether sober
description: the complete Christ, God and man, is a whole of
which the assumed human nature is a part. But Aquinas would
not want to put it this way.27 This does not mean that it is wrong
to discuss the whole-part model in connection with Aquinas.
Even if he is reluctant to use the Latin word pars in this context,
the word “part” in contemporary English does not seem
particularly problematic.28 And even if it is, the point can be put
without the language of parts, by speaking, for example, of
“constituents”: Just as Socrates’s hand is one of his constituents,
we might say, so too Christ’s human nature is one of his
hypostasis or supposit; instead, that complete thing to which it comes is called a hypostasis
or supposit” (“Ad secundum dicendum quod hypostasis significat substantiam
particularem non quocumque modo, sed prout est in suo complemento. Secundum vero
quod venit in unionem alicuius magis completi, non dicitur hypostasis, sicut manus aut
pes. Et similiter humana natura in Christo, quamvis sit substantia particularis, quia tamen
venit in unionem cuiusdam completi, scilicet totius Christi prout est Deus et homo, non
potest dici hypostasis vel suppositum, sed illud completum ad quod concurrit, dicitur esse
hypostasis vel suppositum” [STh III, q. 2, a. 3, ad 2]).
27
See III Sent. d. 6, q. 2, a. 3, ad 4 (Scriptum super libros Sententiarum magistri Petri
Lombardi, ed. M. F. Moos [Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1956]); and STh III, q. 2, a. 4, obj. 2
and ad 2. For a reading of that text from the third book of the Sentences commentary that
I no longer find entirely convincing, see my Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic
Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 43-44; see also Bernard Bro, “La
notion métaphysique de tout et son application au problème théologique de l’union
hypostatique,” Revue thomiste 67 (1967): part 1 (29-62), part 2 (561-83); Revue thomiste
68 (1968): part 1 (181-97), part 2 (357-80), esp. (1968): 194-96. Pawl and Spencer’s
remark that the notion of part and whole applies only analogously here is helpful, even if
much else in their understanding of Aquinas’s Christology has problems (in my view); see
Timothy Pawl and Mark K. Spencer, “Christologically Inspired, Empirically Motivated
Hylomorphism,” Res philosophica 93 (2016): 137-160, at 149.
28
Indeed, Aquinas himself can be flexible on the point, as when he says (III Sent., d. 6,
q. 3, a. 2, ad 3), of Christ’s human nature, that although it is not a part properly speaking,
it has a certain similarity with a part (“quamvis non proprie possit dici pars, tamen aliquid
habet de ratione partis”).

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MICHAEL GORMAN

constituents. The upshot is that the whole-part model retains
importance even if “part” is not the best word in a Thomistic
context.
The model offers two further points of similarity with the
incarnation. First, both the hand and the human nature belong,
in some sense, to the genus of substance. Second, despite this,
neither of them is a free-standing substance, that is, neither is a
subsisting hypostasis or person.
The second point, that neither is a subsisting hypostasis, seems
clear enough. But the first point, that hand and humanity belong
to the genus of substance, needs explanation and indeed
qualification. For Aquinas, both the hand and the humanity are
principles in virtue of which substances exist, and this makes
them similar to accidents. However, accidents are principles in
virtue of which substances have a relatively superficial sort of
existence, whereas the existence that substances have in virtue of
substantial natures (like humanity) or integral parts (like hands)
is not superficial at all. That is why they belong to the genus of
substance. But they are not themselves substances in the proper
sense: they do not exist per se. For that reason, they belong to
the genus of substance only per reductionem.29
Should we say that the relationship between Socrates and his
hand is exactly like the relationship between Christ and his
humanity? No. Even though both the hand and the humanity
belong to the genus of substance, there is a very important
difference between them. Christ’s human nature does not ground
a human person, but it is the sort of principle that could do so.
That makes it very different from Socrates’s hand, which not only
does not ground a human person, but also cannot ground a
human person. This is closely related to the following. There is
nothing unusual going on when Socrates’s hand is joined to him;
on the contrary, there is something unusual going on when it is
not. By contrast, there is nothing unusual going on when a human
29
For a good recent discussion of how Aquinas allows for certain nonsubstances to be
called “subsistent” in a loose way, see Kendall A. Fisher, “Operation and Actuality in St.
Thomas Aquinas’s Argument for the Subsistence of the Rational Soul,” The Thomist 83
(2019): 185-211, at 190-94. For the language of per reductionem, see Q. D. De Anima,
q. 1, a. 1; De Verit., q. 27, a. 1, ad 8; De ente et essentia, c. 6.

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nature is not hypostatically joined to a divine person, but there is
most definitely something unusual going on when a human
nature is so joined.
In sum, even if “part” is not the right word to use here, there
is a similarity between the hand-Socrates relation and the
humanity-Christ relation, inasmuch as each is a case of a relation
that holds between a constituent and the larger composite that it
helps to constitute. Further, in both cases, the constituents
belong—by reduction—to the genus of substance. At the same
time, however, there is an important difference between the
cases. In only one of them is the constituent the sort of thing that
could have grounded an independent person.
Of course, as noted already, Aquinas also uses the part-whole
model when discussing the number of Christ’s esse; in particular,
he does so in passages where he is arguing that Christ has only
one esse. The number-of-esse question is far more complicated
than is usually realized, and settling it here is entirely out of the
question.30 Setting as much of it aside as possible, we may say the
following. When Aquinas says that Christ only has one esse, his
main concern is to say that Christ has only one subsistence, one
existence-as-an-independent-hypostasis. If that is right, then
when he says that the relation of Socrates’s hand to Socrates is
like the relation of Christ’s humanity to Christ, and when he
explains the similarity in terms of the fact that neither constituent
contributes esse to its respective whole, he need not mean
anything more than the following: neither the hand nor the
humanity serves as a principle in virtue of which Christ is a
subsisting person. Aquinas need not mean that the hand-Socrates
relation and the humanity-Christ relation are alike in every
respect; in particular, he need not mean that just as the hand is
joined to Socrates in a union of nature, so too is the humanity
joined to Christ in a union of nature. The question of union in
nature might in fact be a way in which the model is unlike the
thing it is a model for. Cross’s thought that using this model is
flirting with Monophysitism makes sense only on the assumption
30

I discuss it at length in Gorman, Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic Union,
chap. 5.

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MICHAEL GORMAN

that Aquinas thinks the model and the modeled are very much
the same, and perhaps even exactly the same. But that is a very
large assumption.
It is also a false assumption. For Aquinas, one should expect
that a model is not only like the thing it is a model for, but also
unlike it. Therefore, one should expect a model and what it
models to share only some characteristics, and not all.31 One
might object that this is cheating, that one cannot use a model
and then, when a point of dissimilarity arises, say something like
“Oh, but I don’t mean it that way.” Such an objection is
reminiscent of the bon mot one sometimes hears, that an
argument is not like a bus you can get off of any time you want:
unlike a bus, an argument must be taken all the way to the end.
That is clever and true but, unfortunately for the objector, it is
irrelevant, because a model is not an argument. A model is a
model, and it is in the nature of a model that it will be partly like
the thing it models, and partly unlike it. In fact, Aquinas says, if
a model is not at least somewhat different from the thing it is a
model for, it would not be a model at all.32
To conclude this discussion of Aquinas and the part-whole
model: even when Aquinas uses the model to discuss the number
of Christ’s esse, there is no good reason to pin on him the view
that the reason why the assumed nature contributes no esse is
31
Although Aquinas is speaking of a different model, the passages that I have italicized
in the following seem relevant: “In each of us, a double unity is constituted from body
and soul: unity of nature and unity of person. A unity of nature is constituted insofar as
soul is united to body, formally perfecting it, so that one nature might come to be from
two, as from act and potency, or matter and form. And in this respect the similitude should
not be attended to, because the divine nature cannot be the form of a body, as was proved
in the First Part. But a unity of person is constituted from them insofar as there is one
person subsisting in flesh and soul. And in this respect the similitude should be attended
to, for one Christ subsists in divine and human nature” (“Ad secundum dicendum quod
ex anima et corpore constituitur in unoquoque nostrum duplex unitas, naturae, et
personae. Naturae quidem, secundum quod anima unitur corpori, formaliter perficiens
ipsum, ut ex duabus fiat una natura, sicut ex actu et potentia, vel materia et forma. Et
quantum ad hoc non attenditur similitudo, quia natura divina non potest esse corporis
forma, ut in primo probatum est. Unitas vero personae constituitur ex eis inquantum est
unus aliquis subsistens in carne et anima. Et quantum ad hoc attenditur similitudo, unus
enim Christus subsistit in divina natura et humana” [STh III, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2]).
32
STh III, q. 2, a. 6, ad 1, where he is quoting John of Damascus; see n. 51 below.

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that, like the hand, it is one in nature with what it is joined to.
The idea that a part is one in nature with the whole can be, and
of course needs to be, counted as one of the ways in which the
model is dissimilar to the modeled. To saddle Aquinas with
Monophysitism on the basis of the fact that he uses the wholepart model is to misunderstand how models work.33
Turning to Scotus, it is correct to say that he does not use the
whole-part model for the hypostatic union; indeed, as we saw
above, he says that the subject-accident model is the only good
one. But it is questionable whether Scotus should have said that.
I see no reason why he could not, in principle, also use the wholepart model. Insofar as the model is not tied up with the question
of Christ’s esse, its point is only that the assumed humanity is like
a hand insofar as it is a constituent that is less than the whole.
Scotus could agree to that, as long as we do not literally say (as
Aquinas too would not literally say) that the assumed nature is a
part rather than a nature.34
But what about the times when Aquinas uses the model in
conjunction with the discussion of Christ’s esse? Does that not
show that the model is tied to a non-Scotistic understanding of
esse? Adams, for example, thinks that there is a problem in
principle with Scotus using the model, because for Aquinas all the
constituents of a substance share in one esse, whereas for Scotus
each constituent has its own esse.35 But Aquinas, and therefore
“his” model, is more flexible than this picture might suggest. He
would certainly agree that all the substantial constituents of a
substance share in the same subsistence, but he is not entirely

33
Cross does allow that the model is “only” a model, but he follows up by saying that
“the less the natures are seen as parts, the less Aquinas is able to give an obviously coherent
account of the hypostatic union” (Cross, Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 55 n. 17).
Unfortunately, he does not explain how close a model needs to be, nor why closeness is
needed in the first place. As will become clear, models help not by being close, but by
giving us an organized way to think about what the modeled reality is and is not like.
Closeness and distance are equally illuminating.
34
For discussion of Scotus on this, see my “On a Thomistic Worry about Scotus’s
Doctrine of the Esse Christi,” Antonianum 84 (2009): 719-33, at 725.
35
Adams, “Metaphysics of the Incarnation in Some Fourteenth-Century Franciscans,”
29.

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resistant to saying that constituents have their own existence in
some secondary sense of that word.36
To say, as I have done, that there is no reason in principle for
Scotus to avoid this model is not to say that his doing so is
inexplicable. As noted above, Schumacher’s account of the earlier
Franciscan tradition puts emphasis on the centrality of the
subject-accident model in that tradition; this would make it
unsurprising for Scotus to have a kind of partiality to that model,
and a corresponding lack of interest in developing the whole-part
model.37
IV. SCOTUS, AQUINAS, AND THE SUBJECT-ACCIDENT MODEL
The basic idea of the accident-subject model is that the
relation between the Word and the assumed human nature is akin
to the relation between the subject of an accident and that
accident. Adams and Cross treat this as Scotus’s favorite model,
and since, as we have already seen, Scotus himself endorses this
model very strongly, it makes sense to let Scotus speak first this
time. Scotus discusses this model in no fewer than four places:
the Reportatio Parisiensis, the Ordinatio, the Lectura, and
Quodlibet 19.38 There are small differences between these texts:
but while these differences are not without interest, they are not
important here. What is important instead is the following
composite sketch. Scotus says that in the case of an accident and
its subject there are two elements: a causal relation, according to
which the subject is the cause of the accident; and a dependence
relation, according to which the accident depends on the subject.
These two happen together (Lectura: concurrunt), but they are
36

See Gorman, Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic Union, 18-19, 102-8.
Schumacher suggests (Early Franciscan Theology, 210-11) that the model is
especially consistent with the Franciscan emphasis on God’s gratuitous and unmerited
love that sustains all creatures in every respect. This I find a bit under-argued—after all,
Aquinas believes in all-encompassing divine activity too (see STh I, q. 105, a. 5).
38
Quodl. 19, esp. §§12-13, §23 (Joannis Duns Scoti Opera Omnia, ed. Vivès [Paris,
1895], vol. 26); Reportatio III, d. 1, q. 1, §9; Ordinatio III, d. 1, part 1, q. 1, §§14-15 (B.
Ioannis Duns Scoti Opera Omnia, ed. Barnaba Hechich, et al., vol. 9 [Vatican City,
2006]); Lectura III, d. 1, q. 1, §§21-22.
37

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still different from one another. What is more, the dependence
relation is prior to, or more fundamental than, the causal relation, which means that, at least in theory, the dependence
relation could exist without the causal relation. This is in fact
what we have in the case of the hypostatic union: the assumed
human nature depends on the Word, but the hypostatic union is
not a causal relation. It is not a relation of material causality,
because a divine person cannot possibly be the material cause of
anything,39 and it is not a relation of efficient causality, because
the efficient cause of the assumed nature is not the Word alone
but the three divine persons acting as creator.40 So, does Scotus
think that the accident-subject relation is a good model for the
hypostatic union? It depends on what that question means. If it
means, “Does he think that the two unions are similar in one way
and dissimilar in another?”, then yes. But it is equally clear that
he would reject any suggestion that that the two are alike in every
way.41
Aquinas, who allegedly rejects this model, does not discuss it
very much, and most of what he says is in his Sentences
commentary (although see n. 12). There are two important
respects in which, for Aquinas, the hypostatic union is not like
the union of accident and subject. First, God cannot have
accidents, so he cannot be related to the assumed nature in the
39
Reportatio III, d. 1, q. 1, §9; Lectura III, d. 1, q. 1, §21; Ordinatio III, d. 1, p. 1,
q. 1, §15; Quodl. 19, §§12-13.
40
See Quodl. 19, §2; Ordinatio III, d. 1, part 1, q. 1, §14; Reportatio III, d. 1, q. 1,
§9; see also Lectura III, d. 1, q. 1, §22, although Scotus does not make the Trinitarian
point there.
41
Cross and Adams say both that Scotus deploys the subject-accident model and that
he still sees a difference between subject-accident union and the hypostatic union. In this
way, they see the way in which, for Scotus, the model is both similar and dissimilar to the
hypostatic union. See Cross, Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 124-28; Adams,
“Metaphysics of the Incarnation in Some Fourteenth-Century Franciscans,” 30, 32-35.
Vos says that Scotus uses the “accident model” but also that Scotus “distances himself”
from it. On the assumption that not distancing oneself from that model would mean
holding that the hypostatic union is exactly like the subject-accident relation, this is right;
however, if one thinks that using a model is consistent with thinking that there is a
difference between the model and the modeled, then there is no reason to worry about
any possible need for “distancing.” See Antoine Vos, The Theology of John Duns Scotus
(Boston: Brill, 2018), 117.

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MICHAEL GORMAN

way that a subject is related to an accident. Second, a human
nature is a substantial nature, not an accidental nature, so the
assumed nature cannot be related to God in the way that an
accident is related to a subject. Even so, it would not be right to
say that Aquinas rejects this model altogether. At least in the
Sentences commentary, he says that the assumed nature is similar
to an accident, and it is safe to infer that he would agree, on that
basis, that the relation between the Word and that assumed
nature is similar to (but not altogether the same as) the relation
between a subject and such an accident.
Aquinas mentions three points of similarity.42 First, the
assumed nature, like an accident, is posterior to the establishment
or constitution of that to which it belongs. Just as Socrates’s
wisdom, or any other accident of his, is posterior to his very
existence, so the Word’s being human is posterior to his very
existence. As Aquinas puts it, accidents, and the assumed humanity, come after the relevant hypostases have their “complete
existence” (esse completum).43 Second, beyond this general
similarity of the hypostatic union to any subject-accident relation,
there is a more specific similarity to the accidental category of
habitus: unlike in the usual case of an accident, where the
accident is something inhering in the subject, in the case of
habitus we have what amounts to a substantial being (like a

42
“Ad primum ergo dicendum, quod humana natura in Christo habet aliquam
similitudinem cum accidente, et praecipue cum habitu, quantum ad tria. Primo, quia
advenit personae divinae post esse completum, sicut habitus, et omnia alia accidentia.
Secundo, quia est in se substantia, et advenit alteri, sicut vestis homini. Tertio, quia
melioratur ex unione ad Verbum, et non mutat Verbum; sicut vestis formatur secundum
formam vestientis, et non mutat vestientem. Unde antiqui dixerunt, quod vergit in
accidens; et quidam propter hoc addiderunt, quod degenerat in accidens: quod tamen
non ita proprie dicitur; quia natura humana in Christo non degenerat, immo magis
nobilitatur” (III Sent., d. 6, q. 3, a. 2, ad 1). See also: “Ad quintum dicendum, quod
humana natura habet similitudinem cum accidente in Christo, inquantum advenit divinae
naturae post esse completum” (III Sent., d. 7, q. 2, a. 1, ad 5); “Ad quintum dicendum,
quod in aliis suppositis quae sunt supposita tantum unius naturae, sequitur quod si
incipiunt esse in aliqua specie, incipiunt esse simpliciter; sed non est ita in proposito; unde
quantum ad hoc similitudinem habet humana natura in Christo cum accidente” (III Sent.,
d. 12, q. 1, a. 1, ad 5).
43
III Sent., d. 6, q. 3, a. 2, ad 1; d. 7, q. 2, a. 1, ad 5.

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garment) that is related to the subject. Think of Socrates wearing
his chiton: this wearing-a-chiton accident comes from a relation
between Socrates and the chiton. And third, the similarity goes a
bit further: the chiton is modified, and elevated, by being taken
on by Socrates, even as the human nature is modified and
elevated by being taken on by Christ.
Of course, the human nature is not just like a chiton, because
the chiton is something along the lines of a free-standing
substance,44 whereas the human nature is not—it belongs to the
category of substance only per reductionem, as noted earlier.
Another difference between the human nature and the chiton is
that although Christ, in virtue of the incarnation, does not come
to subsist, he does come to have a nature in virtue of which
something could subsist. By contrast, when Socrates puts on his
chiton, he thereby neither comes to subsist nor even to have a
nature in virtue of which something could subsist. Nothing can
subsist in virtue of wearing clothing; in this crucial sense, clothes
do not make the man.
So Aquinas, like Scotus, thinks that the union between
accident and subject is like the hypostatic union in some ways but
not in others. They do not mention all the same points of
similarity and difference, but there seems to be no reason to
believe they could not agree on them all.
Scotus mentions two dissimilarities: that the hypostatic union
does not involve an actualization of a potency in the Word, and
that the assumed nature is not efficiently caused only by the
person to which it is joined. Aquinas, it is clear, would accept
both of these.45 He himself mentions two points of dissimilarity:
that the hypostatic union does not involve an actualization of
anything in the Word, and that the human nature is not an

44
I am hedging on whether the chiton is really a substance because of the doubt,
common enough among Thomists, as to whether an artifact is a substance or is instead a
tight unity of smaller substances.
45
For divine impassibility, see ScG I, c. 16; STh I, q. 3. For the thought that it is all
three persons together that bring about the hypostatic union, see STh III, q. 3, a. 4.

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MICHAEL GORMAN

accidental type of nature. Scotus would accept both of these
points.46
With respect to similarities, Scotus mentions one: the assumed
nature depends on the Word. I am not aware of Aquinas’s using
this language when talking about the accident model, but I think
he would agree with the content: for example, he holds that the
human nature, once assumed into a unity of person with the Son,
cannot be removed from that union,47 and he clearly thinks that
the assumed nature is the junior partner in the union. Those seem
sufficient for dependence. Aquinas mentions a number of points
of similarity, discussed above, of which two are worth repeating
here: first, the assumed nature and accidents are both posterior
to the complete being of that to which they belong; second, the
union of assumed nature to Word is, like the case of a garment
to a man, a case in which something substantial is joined to a preexisting substance. Scotus mentions neither of these points when
talking about the accident model, but things we have seen already
make it clear that he would accept them.
In sum, Aquinas and Scotus agree that the subject-accident
model has some similarity to the case of the hypostatic union, and
that there is some dissimilarity involved. Their lists of similarities
and differences overlap, and in no case are the items on their lists
incompatible.
Schumacher cautions against overstating the opposition between the two models. On her account, each one makes sense in
its own metaphysical setting: for example, the Franciscan
thinkers gave more ontological weight to accidents, in a way that
allowed them to depict the assumed human nature as (like) an
accident, whereas Aquinas downplayed the ontological status of
accidents in a way that made the accident model more
objectionable to him. “[P]roponents of the two different models
who detect heretical tendencies in the work of their opponents
only do so as a result of misinterpreting them. When each of the
two accounts is assessed within its own frame of reference, both
46
As for the first, he says it himself in this very context. As for the second, see Gorman,
“On a Thomistic Worry about Scotus’s Doctrine of the Esse Christi,” 729-33.
47
See Gorman, Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic Union, 81-83.

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emerge as equally valid, albeit distinct, ways of defending the
subsistence theory, or Lombard’s second opinion.”48
I very much agree that it is problematic to interpret or assess
a theological proposal without due attention to its presuppositions, even if I am not persuaded by Schumacher’s account of the
presuppositions at play in these particular developments.49
However, I do not think the real problem has to do with
contrasting presuppositions. On my view, what makes the two
models seem more opposed than they really are is not inattention
to the metaphysics behind them, but a failure to understand their
status as models. Neither Scotus nor Aquinas thinks the assumed
nature is literally an accident, and neither thinks it is literally a
part, and the root cause of this is that neither thinks the
hypostatic union is literally the same as any other union. Rather
than seeing Scotus as the theologian who adopts the subjectaccident model and Aquinas as the theologian who adopts the
whole-part model, it is better to see each thinker as able to
endorse each model, at least in principle, where endorsement
means acknowledgement of both similarities and differences
between model and modeled. For these purposes, Aquinas and
Scotus diverge only in details, in ways that are likely to be matters
more of happenstance—of what points they happened to have
made in the writings that we happen to have—than of
philosophical or theological principle. And indeed, there is
something to be said for making use of both models. The accident
model directs our attention to the fact that the assumed human
nature does not give rise to a new person. This model helps us to
focus on the unity of Christ’s person. Meanwhile, the whole-part
model, at least insofar as it mentions parts that come from the
genus of substance, directs our attention to the fact that Christ’s
becoming human is an event on the level of the substantial, not
on the level of the accidental. This model helps us to focus on the
48

Schumacher, Early Franciscan Theology, 65-67, 191-93, 206, with the quotation at

210.
49
In particular, I am unconvinced by her account of Aquinas’s ontology of substance
and accident (ibid., 67, 192-93). I set out what I take to be a more accurate (if still quite
streamlined) account of such matters in my Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic
Union, chap. 1.

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MICHAEL GORMAN

full integrity of Christ’s humanity. The first model helps us to
avoid Nestorianism, and the second helps us to avoid
Monophysitism.50
V. LESSONS ON THE USE OF MODELS
For the rest of this article, I want to switch from the historical
mode to what theologians call (somewhat oddly) the systematic
mode, that is, the speculative mode. I want to make claims not
about how certain historical figures have used theological
models, but about how theological models ought to be used. I
will, to be sure, build on what we find in Scotus and Aquinas,
because I find their approach very helpful.
Models cannot give us the content of a theological doctrine.
Indeed, the content of a doctrine has to be known before one can
judge how to use a model correctly. This is precisely because a
model is only partly similar to what it is a model of. It is hard to
do better than to quote a remark about theological models from
John of Damascus. In a discussion of the incarnation, after using
some very nonobvious models that involve cutting a sunlit tree
with an axe and pouring water on flaming steel, he says:
[O]ne must not take the models [paradeigmata] too absolutely and strictly:
indeed, in the models, one must consider both what is the same and what is
altered—otherwise it would not be a model. For, if they were the same in all
respects, they would be identities, and not models, and all the more so in dealing
with divine matters.51

50
Focusing on Bernard of Trilia and Giles of Rome, Barnes makes clear that the
different models can be compatible; see Corey L. Barnes, “Thomas Aquinas’s
Chalcedonian Christology and its Influence on Later Scholastics,” The Thomist 78 (2014):
189-217, esp. 204-6. For a similar attitude toward these models, focused on Aquinas in
particular, see Bro, “La notion métaphysique de tout et son application au problème
théologique de l’union hypostatique” (1968), pt. 1; and Marie-Vincent Leroy, “L’union
selon l’hypostase d’après saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue thomiste 74 (1974): 205-43, at
218-26.
51
John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 3.26 (in Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 9, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace [Peabody,
Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994], 71; translation slightly modified). As noted earlier,
Aquinas quotes the passage at STh III, q. 2, a. 6, ad 1. For discussion of the Platonic

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The incarnation is unique. Something exactly like it would just
be the incarnation all over again, and not a model for it. For this
reason, the idea of fully assimilating the incarnation to anything
else is a nonstarter. If someone uses a certain model for a
theological mystery, but his full account of that mystery ends up
deviating from that model, this is no reason for saying that his
account has failed. In fact, it is a necessary condition of his
account’s having succeeded.
There are, on the other hand, things that one can do with a
model. First, one can use it to make a doctrine clearer as one
works through the comparisons and the contrasts.52 For example,
comparing the hypostatic union to a created reality such as the
union of subject and accident requires thinking through the ways
in which they are similar and the ways in which they are different.
With an organized set of questions to ask, one can more easily
arrive at a clearer, sharper, less vague understanding of the
mystery one is trying to understand. Pace Aquinas’s remark that
there are aspects of a model to which one should not pay
attention,53 the points of dissimilarity are not just noise that we
need to filter out, in order to get to the signal of similarity. It is
all signal: the way in which the hypostatic union is like the union
of subject and accident is signal, and so too is the way in which it
is not. The dissimilarities shed light just as much as the similarities
do, because thinking through the dissimilarities is also a way of
understanding.
A further use of models is not in theological reflection proper,
but in teaching. A teacher may be supposed to understand the
doctrine in question (keeping in mind that no one ever
comprehends the doctrine), while the student, just because he is a
student, can be assumed not to understand it well, or even at all.
In a situation like this, the teacher can use a model to bring the
background, see Cristina Ionescu, “The Language of Images and Paradigms in Plato’s
Sophist and Statesman,” forthcoming in Ancient Philosophy 40 (2020).
52
This procedure might count as an example of what the medievals called “declarative
theology”; see Stephen F. Brown, “Declarative and Deductive Theology in the Early
Fourteenth Century,” in Was ist Philosophie im Mittelalter?, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 26,
ed. Jan A. Aertsen and Andreas Speer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), 648-55.
53
See the italicized language in n. 31 above.

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MICHAEL GORMAN

student closer to where he needs to be. The teacher might say,
“Socrates can acquire a sunburn while remaining the person he
was before, right? Well, the Son of God can acquire humanity
while remaining the person he was before. It’s a little bit like
that.” If the student understands what it means to acquire a
sunburn, then the teacher will have gotten him to engage in a
mental operation somewhat similar to the one he would have to
engage in to understand the incarnation. Now when using a
model in this way, the main focus is on the similarities; it takes a
prudent teacher to know when also talking about the
dissimilarities will be helpful—when such talk will be more
signal, and when it will just be noise that confuses the student. It
requires a judgment call based above all on the student’s level of
understanding. Giving students more can be a way of giving them
less. More light makes things more visible, but only to a point.
On the other hand, if one does not mention the dissimilarities,
one might be setting a time-bomb; the student may later draw
inferences the teacher did not want him to draw.
For one last point, a small one perhaps, I want to say that
similarities can play the following role in theological thinking:
they can serve as pro-examples that demonstrate the possibility
of satisfying a certain necessary condition of a theological
mystery’s being true. For example, the incarnation is true only if
it is possible for something to be joined to a pre-existing person
in a unity of person, while not being joined to that person in a
unity of nature. That is a necessary condition of the mystery’s
being true. If we can find, outside the theology of the incarnation,
an example of this happening, then we will have shown that one
necessary condition has been satisfied. In fact, it is easy: a color,
or a bit of knowledge, can be added to a person in a unity of
person, without being added to him in a unity of nature. So
pointing to a case of a subject-accident union shows that one
necessary condition of the hypostatic union’s being true can, in
fact, be satisfied. For another example, a necessary condition of
the incarnation’s being true is that it is possible for something
from the genus of substance to be joined to a person in a unity of
person. It is easy to find an example: a kidney or a hand can be
added to someone in a unity of person. Again, to see this is to see

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that a necessary condition can be satisfied. It is to see that the
theological mystery is possible at least in some respect, and that
it is not wholly dissimilar to things we are already familiar with.
Of course, to show that a necessary condition of something’s
being true can be satisfied is not to show that that something is
true—after all, a necessary condition is only a necessary
condition, and not a sufficient condition. And the ways in which
these models show conditions that are not sufficient are precisely
the ways in which these models are dissimilar from the thing of
which they are models. So this use of models does not get us very
far. But it is better than nowhere, and in theology, “not very far”
is, generally speaking, as far as one can get.
I have discussed how Aquinas and Scotus use models in their
discussions of the hypostatic union, and I have indicated how we
ought to do so. Much of what I have said could be applied,
mutatis mutandis, to other theological mysteries. John of
Damascus may be allowed the last word: models are models, not
identities.

The Thomist 84 (2020): 127-51

THE CHRISTOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF THE BEATIFIC
VISION: HANS BOERSMA’S SEEING GOD1
MICHAEL ROOT
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

W

E LIVE TODAY in a universe vastly larger than that
imagined by our ancient and medieval forebears in its
spatial and temporal reach, but oddly shrunken in its
metaphysical complexity. Not only have angels and incorruptible
heavenly bodies disappeared from the functional ontology of
Western society, but also more mundane realities have often
ceased to play more than an ornamental role in secular thought:
essences, transcendental truths, ends (whether natural or supernatural). For many, what you see is what you get, and all you will
ever get.
Such views inevitably creep into Christian attitudes. Our
horizon narrows; our faith too often focuses on our present life.
That the nature and purpose of our present life might be
determined by an end, a goal or telos, beyond the limits of this
life becomes a thought that crosses the mind now and then, but
too often fails to take root. The faith becomes constrained within
Charles Taylor’s “immanent frame.”2 Heaven, resurrection,
eternal union with God and the saints are not denied, but they
fade from significance.
1

Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition. By Hans Boersma. Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2018. Pp. xx + 467. $55.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-8028-7604-1.
I thank Joshua Benson and especially Bruce Marshall for their help in writing this essay.
2
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
2007), 539-93.
127

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MICHAEL ROOT

Hans Boersma will have none of this in Seeing God. The loss
of a sense of a telos inherent within things is a fundamental
impoverishment of modern thought (20-22). The Christian life,
in particular, is determined by the end set before us; our “identity
lies in the future; we are what we become” (20). Boersma is not
afraid to name that end; it is “seeing God,” the beatific vision.
On the first page of the book, he asks why we should believe that
“seeing God is the purpose of our life” (1), and he then lays out
an argument affirming that belief. This affirmation must be
applauded, even if some aspects of his conclusions are
problematic.3
I
The structure of the book is straightforward. An extended
Introduction and opening chapter lay out why the beatific vision
is important, tendencies in modern culture and theology that
have undercut the significance of the beatific vision, and the
background metaphysical commitments that Boersma believes
are needed for a vigorous reassertion of the vision’s centrality.
The bulk of the book is a consideration of, as the subtitle
promises, “the beatific vision in Christian tradition,” beginning
with Plotinus and running chronologically as far as recent Dutch
Reformed theologians, with major attention given along the way
to Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Gregory
Palamas, Dante, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards. The
chapter on Edwards and the concluding chapter of the book lay
out Boersma’s own proposal for understanding the vision.
The historical survey is selective rather than comprehensive.
The most significant chapters focus on figures and texts
apparently chosen and interpreted with an eye toward Boersma’s
larger argument about the nature of the vision. Some gaps in
coverage are inevitable. The third of the book’s four parts is
entitled “Beatific Vision in Protestant Theology,” but the figures
3
For a recent, far-reaching exploration of the orientation of human and, above all,
Christian life to beatitude and the beatific vision, see Reinhard Hütter, Bound for
Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2019).

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129

discussed are all Reformed; Lutherans and other non-Reformed
Protestants make no appearance. More significantly, the Western
Scholastic tradition of debate and teaching on the beatific vision,
conflicted between 1235 and 1335 and then largely unified on
doctrinal questions with variation on theological details, is
represented only by Thomas Aquinas. The other medieval and
Catholic figures considered (Bonaventure, Dante, Nicholas of
Cusa, John of the Cross) are each treated only in relation to
devotional or poetic texts. The theological consideration of such
texts is certainly praiseworthy, but neglect of the explicit
theological discussion of the topic is not. This tilt away from the
Scholastic discussion distorts Boersma’s presentation. The views
of individual authors are misrepresented4 and Aquinas’s significance for the Western tradition is both underestimated (his view
on basic questions is not so much his alone, but the consensus of
Catholic theology, embodied in doctrine)5 and overestimated (his
4
This problem is particularly acute in relation to Bonaventure. To claim, as Boersma
does (363), that Bonaventure is to be counted among those for whom Christ is “the central
object of the beatific vision” on the basis of the Itinerarium alone not only begs the
question whether the closing sections of the Itinerarium are about the heavenly beatific
vision, but also ignores what Bonaventure says elsewhere. In his earlier Commentary on
the Sentences (II Sent., d. 23, q. 2, a. 3), Bonaventure says that God is seen immediate et
in sua substantia (Quaracchi ed., 2:545a) and labels the denial of the immediate vision of
God haeretica et reprobata (Quaracchi ed., 2:543b). In his later Breviloquium (7.7),
Bonaventure affirms that the heavenly vision of God will be nude et sine velamine
(Quaracchi ed., 5:289a). His understanding of beatitude is complex and at points at odds
with that of Aquinas, but his use of the terms haeretica and reprobata show that he is fully
in accord with the 1241 decision by the bishop and university masters of Paris that the
beatific vision is of God in his essence. On Bonaventure’s views on the vision, see Christian
Trottmann, La vision béatifique: Des disputes scolastiques à sa définition par Benoît XII
(Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1995), 197-208. On specific aspects of Bonaventure’s
understanding, see the series of discussions on individual topics in Nikolaus Wicki, Die
Lehre von der himmlischen Seligkeit in der mittelalterlichen Scholastik von Petrus
Lombardus bis Thomas von Aquin (Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitätsverlag, 1954).
5
A view of the beatific vision along the lines affirmed by Aquinas is also common
among the Lutheran Scholastics, e.g., Johann Gerhard (Loci theologici, locus 31, ch. 3,
§34); Johann Wilhelm Baier (Compendium theologiae positivae, I, ch. 6, §3); Johann
Andreas Quenstedt and David Hollaz (both quoted in Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal

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MICHAEL ROOT

detailed views are not the only option available in line with the
basic commitments he shares with other Scholastics).
Boersma’s historical discussions lay bare what he thinks are
significant problems in the way the vision is often discussed,
paving the way for his solution. The problems and the solutions
develop together as the book moves forward. Foundational for
the argument is a “sacramental ontology” which
closely links nature and the supernatural, earthly and heavenly realities, reason
and faith, Old Testament Scriptures and gospel truth. In each of these doublets,
the former participates in the latter, and the latter is really (or sacramentally)
present within the former. (10)

The creature’s relation to God is real, but mediated through the
sacramental nature of all things, a sacramental nature not
imposed on things, but of their very being. The climax and telos
of this sacramental ontology is Christ, the incarnate Lord, the one
in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col
1:19).
Boersma’s fundamental complaint about the Western
tradition for which Aquinas stands as a rather isolated paradigm
is that this fundamental sacramental and Christological structure
seems to disappear when we come to the telos of all things in the
beatific vision. Mediation is replaced by immediacy; seeing God
“face to face” (1 Cor 13:12) is taken to mean seeing God “as he
is” (1 John 3:2), the divine essence itself. In this life we see God
most clearly as incarnate in the created humanity of Christ, but
for Aquinas and those who follow him no created reality, not
even Christ’s humanity, can convey what God is, which
Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3d ed., trans. Charles A. Hay and Henry E.
Jacobs [Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961], 661). Reformed Scholastics
were apparently less uniform on the question. Besides the English-language Reformed
discussed by Boersma, who tended toward a view of Christ as the object of the vision,
Francis Turretin of Geneva contended that Scripture does not reveal whether we will see
the divine essence or only the divine glory, but that the latter is more probable (Institutio
theologiae elencticae, locus 20, q. 8, §14). Heinrich Heppe’s summary of the Reformed
Scholastics notes in passing various views held on the beatific vision (Heinrich Heppe,
Reformed Dogmatics: Set Out and Illustrated from the Sources, trans. G. T. Thomson
[Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1978], 695, 707).

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transcends any creaturely image. The beatific vision lifts us above
all such created images to the immediate intuition of God. What
then is Christ’s role in this vision? Is Christ simply the means, the
path to this vision, the one who merits this gift for us, but not an
essential feature of the vision itself? Does Christ’s mediatorial
role end when sin and its agents are all overcome and Christ
“delivers the kingdom to God the Father” (1 Cor 15:24)? With
the exception of John Calvin (271-73), few went so far to as to
affirm a simple end to Christ’s mediatorial role, but for Boersma
the “Christological deficit” which he identifies in Aquinas (159)
is already the decisive mistake.
Aquinas’s various discussions of the beatific vision in the
Summa theologiae6 (most importantly I, q. 12; I-II, q. 3, a. 8;
II-II, q. 175; III, q. 10) have been skillfully defended against
Boersma’s criticisms by Simon Francis Gaine.7 The Scholastic
method of the quaestio focused on the question posed and did
not seek a comprehensive discussion of the general topic touched
upon. The structure of the Summa, Gaine argues, deliberately
avoided introducing the Christological framework into the first
two parts unless necessary to the precise point being addressed in
a specific article. That the plan of the Summa included
eschatology within the Christological part III indicates the
likelihood that the role of Christ in the vision of the blessed
6
Texts of Aquinas are cited from http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html.
Various translation have been consulted for the English given here, but often altered to
bring them closer to the Latin. In the case of the Commentary on John, Marietti numbers
have been added, though they are not present in the Corpus Thomisticum text.
7
See the give-and-take between Gaine and Boersma in the journal TheoLogica (Simon
Francis Gaine, “The Beatific Vision and the Heavenly Mediation of Christ,”
TheoLogica 2, no. 2 [2018]: 116-28; Hans Boersma, “Thomas Aquinas on the Beatific
Vision: A Christological Deficit,” TheoLogica 2, no. 2 [2018]: 129-47; Simon Francis
Gaine, “Thomas Aquinas, the Beatific Vision and the Role of Christ: A Reply to Hans
Boersma,” TheoLogica 2, no. 2 [2018]: 148-67). Gaine had discussed these issues earlier
in his “Thomas Aquinas and John Owen on the Beatific Vision: A Reply to Suzanne
McDonald,” New Blackfriars 97 (2016): 432-46. While Gaine’s response does not
entirely eliminate the problem Boersma identifies, it is a model of reasoned, objective,
and charitable analysis and disputation.

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would have been addressed if Aquinas had lived to complete his
master work, just as a similar “Christological deficit” one might
find in the discussions of grace in the Prima secundae (STh I-II,
qq. 109-14), is made up for in the grounding of grace in Christ
in the Tertia pars (STh III, q. 8).8
Boersma’s critique and Gaine’s response, however, focus too
narrowly on the Summa theologiae. Aquinas discusses the beatific
vision, sometimes at length, in other works: the Scriptum, De
veritate, some Quodlibetal Questions, the Summa contra gentiles,
the Commentary on John, and part II of the Compendium.9 In
these works, the same Christological deficit that Boersma
identifies in the Summa theologiae can be found. Again, at times
the quaestio being addressed can account for the absence of any
reference to Christ.10 In the Summa contra gentiles, book III,
chapters 51-63, the beatific vision is discussed in the context of
God’s providential ordering of all things to their end and does
not reappear as a separate topic in the eschatology of book IV. In
general, Aquinas’s discussions of the beatific vision throughout
his career tend to be concerned with showing why the vision is
the only adequate ultimate end for human beings and solving the
obvious epistemological problem of how a created mind can see
the essence of God. Placing the vision in a Christological context
does not arise as an issue to be addressed. The resources Gaine
notes for a more adequately Christological understanding are
present in Aquinas’s thought, but he nowhere develops them.
Boersma is correct, I believe, that there is at least a “Christo-

8
Gaine makes this argument in detail in “Role of Christ,” 151-58; and more briefly
in “Heavenly Mediation,” 125-26; and in “Aquinas and Owen,” 434-35.
9
IV Sent., d. 49, a. 2; De Verit., q. 8, aa. 1-4; q. 10, a. 11; q. 13; q. 18, a. 1; q. 20,
a. 2; Quodl. I, q. 1, a. 1; VII, q. 1, a. 1; IX, q. 9, a. 2; X, q. 8, a. 1; ScG III, cc. 47, 49-63;
Super Ioan., c. 1, lect. 11 (§§210-14); Comp. Theol., II, c. 9.
10
For example, the discussion in question 8 of De veritate deals with the beatific vision
of the angels. In general, discussions in Paris leading up to the condemnation of 1241,
mentioned below, concerned whether any created intellect, angelic or human, could know
the essence of God. The question was thus one of a highly general epistemology. On this
context, see H.-F. Dondaine, “L’Objet et le ‘medium’ de la vision béatifique chez les
théologiens du XIIIe siécle,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 19
(1952): 60-130.

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logical deficit” in the way Aquinas presents the beatific vision in
his various treatments of the topic.
This Christological deficit is a problem not simply in Aquinas.
Christ plays little obvious role in the beatific vision as presented
in two of the most important discussions of the topic in the
following generation, those of Henry of Ghent and John Duns
Scotus,11 nor in the later discussion by Francisco Suárez.12 Karl
Rahner could thus complain in the mid-twentieth century:
Let us take a look at an average theological treatise on the Last Things, on
eternal happiness. Does such a treatise mention even a single word about the
Lord become man? Is not rather everything swallowed up by the visio beatifica,
the beatific vision, the direct relationship to the very essence of God which is
indeed determined historically by a past event—namely the event of Christ—
but which is not now mediated by Jesus Christ?13

What is Boersma’s solution to this Christological deficit? The
key, he claims, lies in the sacramental ontology he outlines early
in the book.14 Created things exist only as they participate in God
and, to the eye of faith, witness to their source. God presents
himself to us sacramentally through all things, but especially in
the Church’s sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist.15 God’s
11

See John Duns Scotus, Ordinatio IV, d. 49; and Henry of Ghent, Quodlibeta II, 7;
III, 1; IV, 8-9; VII, 4-6; XII, 5-6; XIII, 1; XIV, 4; XV, 9. On the latter, see Richard Cross,
“Scholastic Debaters on Beatific Union with God: Henry of Ghent (c.1217-1293) and His
Interlocutors,” Traditio (forthcoming). In both cases, Gaine’s general point about
Scholastic method holds: their discussions of the beatific vision are directed at specific,
often technical questions about the nature of the beatific vision for which its relation to
Christ does not arise.
12
Francisco Suárez, “De ultimo fine hominis,” in Opera Omnia, v. 4, ed. M. Andrë
(Paris: Vives, 1856), 1-156.
13
Karl Rahner, “The Eternal Significance of the Humanity of Jesus for Our
Relationship with God,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 3, trans. Karl H. Kruger and
Boniface Kruger (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1967), 37f.
14
He refers the reader to his own fuller discussion of such an approach to reality in
Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2011).
15
“Christ’s sacramental presence in the Eucharist was, we might say, an intensification
of this sacrmental presence in the world” (Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 26).

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presence to humanity is always sacramental or theophanic,
through created realities. This truth applies to the beatific vision:
A sacramental understanding of the beatific vision acknowledges that everything
we see with the eyes of the body today is a theophany of God in Jesus Christ,
and that everything we will ever see with the eyes of the soul is also a theophany
of God in Jesus Christ. (384)

The created reality in which we will see God is Christ’s humanity:
“in the hereafter we will see Christ’s divinity in and through his
humanity in the beatific vision” (134).
At times (e.g., 51), Boersma presents a binary, either-or
opposition: either a vision of the divine essence or a vision of
God in Christ.16 At other times, however, he describes the beatific
vision as a true seeing of the divine essence in the humanity of
Christ in a way not now possible. Thus, although the sacramental
ontology is itself not transcended in the beatific vision, the
movement toward beatitude is a “journey from sacrament
(sacramentum) to reality (res)” (388). There is no need, he says,
to avoid speaking of “seeing the divine essence” (419), if we are
clear that the divine essence is seen in and through the humanity
of Christ. Nevertheless, the eschatological vision is not to be seen
as different in kind from the vision of God in this life. Such a thisworldly vision of God’s essence is not, as it was for the Scholastics
and Augustine,17 only a matter of the special moments of rapture
of such men as Moses and Paul. “If God’s essence is his character
of love, then to see him in and through various creaturely modes
is truly to see him—his being or oujsiva” (391). Old Testament
theophanies were sacramental appearances of God “as he really
is” (419). When in the Gospel of John, Philip asks Jesus to “show
us the Father” (14:8), Jesus replies that “he who has seen me has
seen the Father” (14:9). This interchange is “the key to

16
For example, in his 2018 response to Gaine, Boersma entitles a section of his essay
“Deficit 2: The Object of the Beatific Vision—Divine Essence or Christ” (Boersma,
“Aquinas on Beatific Vision,” 136).
17
Augustine, Letter 147, 13.31-32; Aquinas, IV Sent., d. 49, q. 2, a. 7, ad 4 and 5;
STh I, q. 12, a. 11, ad. 2; II-II, q. 175, a. 3.

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understanding the beatific vision” (411).18 The beatific vision will
differ from Philip’s seeing the earthly Jesus not in what is shown,
but in the one who sees. We can surmise that “the souls of the
blessed are so changed that they are rendered capable of seeing
God in Christ in a way that they could not during their earthly
existence” (418). Boersma is reticent to say much about the
nature of such a transformation, connecting it, without giving
details, to eschatological deification and unity with Christ (419).
Perhaps the eyes of the “spiritual bodies” of the resurrection will
be able to see God, so that the beatific vision will be both spiritual
and physical (422-24). Yet however the seer changes, what is seen
remains unchanged. We will see God presented in the humanity
of Christ.
The binary choice “divine essence or Christ” is misleading,
however, in a more fundamental way. The affirmation that we
will see the divine essence immediately need not exclude that in
the Kingdom we will also enjoy a much clearer vision of God
manifested in the humanity of Christ (and, to a lessser degree, in
all created things).19 If the beatific vision is understood as the
immediate vision of the divine essence, then such a vision of God
manifested in Christ might not itself be the beatific vision, but it
would certainly be an aspect of the full joy of beatitude. One
might say that even if it is not of the essence of beatitude, it is a
necessary concomitant of beatitude and completes beatitude.20

18
Boersma’s insistence that we already see God “as he really is” (1 Jn 3:2) raises
complex questions about the relation between God’s eternal and immutable being and,
not only what we can see in the incarnate Christ, but the entire economy of creation,
redemption, and glorification. Does Boersma’s argument imply an identity simpliciter
between “God as he is,” that is, God’s essence, and “God incarnate in Christ,” so that the
incarnation becomes itself constitutive of God’s essence? Does Boersma’s proposal imply
an understanding of the Trinity close to that which Bruce McCormack derives, rightly or
wrongly, from Karl Barth (see, e.g., Bruce L. McCormack, Orthodox and Modern: Studies
in the Theology of Karl Barth [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2008], 183-200)?
19
Quodl. VIII, q. 9, a. 2.
20
Aquinas asserts something like such a necessary concomitance in the relation of the
will’s delight to the intellect’s vision of God: “This delight, which belongs to the will,

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The choice then is better described as between “a vision of the
divine essence in the humanity of Christ, which is the beatific
vision” (Boersma) and “an immediate vision of the divine essence,
which is the beatific vision, and also a vision of God manifest in
all things, but above all in the humanity of Christ” (Aquinas).21
II
This book is thus an argument for a particular proposal about
the nature of the beatific vision as a vision of God in and through
the humanity of Christ. Is the argument adequate? Should
Boersma’s conclusions be affirmed? In this essay, the more
precise question will be: Should the Catholic theologian affirm
his proposal?
An immediate problem arises for the Catholic theologian.
What Boersma is proposing seems to be exactly what is
condemned by the papal constitution Benedictus Deus of 1336.22
The catalyzing event for this constitution was the debate during
the 1330s over whether the beatific vision is enjoyed already by
separated souls in heaven or is only enjoyed after the general
resurrection, when souls are again joined to bodies. The
constitution is the culmination, however, of over a century of at
times intense theological debate over the object and nature of the
vision.23 Already in 1241, the bishop of Paris, William of
formally [formaliter] completes beatitude. Thus vision is the origin of our ultimate
beatitude, but enjoyment [fruitione] is its completion” (Quodl. VIII, q. 9, a. 1).
21
If the nature of the issue is thus clarified, Boersma’s recruitment of Nicholas of Cusa
to his side of debate (363) becomes less convincing. Cusa in De visione Dei does say much
about communion with Christ in Paradise, but he also says: “Just as every man is united
to you, Jesus, by the human nature common to himself and to you, so every man need
also be united to you in one spirit, so that in this way he can . . . approach unto God the
Father, who is in Paradise. Therefore, to see God the Father and you who are Jesus, his
Son, is to be present in Paradise and in everlasting glory” (c. 21, sect. 92). This passage
sounds far more like the alternative to Boersma presented below than like Boersma’s
limitation of the vision to the humanity of Christ.
22
Heinrich Denzinger and Peter Hünermann, eds., Enchiridion symbolorum
definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, 43rd ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 2012), para. 1000-1002. I have altered the English translation to bring it closer to
the Latin.
23
This debate is comprehensively surveyed in Trottmann, La vision béatifique.

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Auvergne, in union with the theological masters of the University
of Paris, had condemned the teaching that “the divine essence in
itself will be seen neither by man nor angel.”24 The issue in the
debate leading up to the 1241 condemnation was whether the
immediate object of the vision is a created reality or the divine
essence itself. The condemnation is presumably the background
of Aquinas’s assertion that those who deny that God can be seen
“through his essence” (per essentiam) by a created intellect,
angelic or human, are not just wrong, but “heretical,”25 not a term
Aquinas uses lightly. Benedictus Deus amplifies the earlier
Parisian statement. In the beatific vision, the blessed see the
divine essence “immediately manifesting itself to them, plainly,
clearly, and openly” (immediate se nude, clare et aperte eis
ostendente). This vision has “no mediating creature in the sense
of an object seen” (nulla mediate creatura in ratione obiecti visi).
What is excluded is a particular kind of mediation, mediation by
means of some created reality which is itself the object of vision
and in which God is then seen. A discontinuity is posited between
earthly and beatific vision: now we see only mediately, through
created images (“in a glass darkly”); then we will see God
immediately, without any created reality in the role of a
mediating object (“face to face”). What is ruled out certainly
seems to be just what Boersma affirms, that the beatific vision is
not immediate, but is mediated in ratione obiecti visi by a created
reality, the humanity of Christ.
Benedictus Deus cannot be easily dismissed by the Catholic
theologian. The constitution opens: “By this constitution to
remain in force forever, we define by apostolic authority” (Hac
in perpetuum valitura Constitutione auctoritate apostolica
24
“Quod divina essentia in se nec ab homine nec ab angelo videbitur.” The text is
given in Heinrich Denifle and Emil Chatelaine, eds., Chartularium universitatis
parisiensis, vol. 1 (Paris: Delalain Frères, 1889), no. 128. The history leading up to this
condemnation is described in Trottmann, La vision béatifique, 115-86; and in Dondaine,
“L’Objet et le ‘medium’.”
25
De Verit., q. 8, a. 1; Super Ioan., c. 1, lect. 11 (§212). Similar language from
Bonaventure is noted above.

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diffinimus). The intent of Benedict XII in issuing it was clearly to
settle a disputed question permanently, definitively, and by
apostolic authority, and it has been received accordingly. The
conditions for such a teaching to qualify as infallible would seem
to be met and have been judged so in recent studies by Klaus
Schatz,26 Francis Sullivan,27 and Avery Dulles.28 Whether or not
it falls into that category, Benedictus Deus certainly carries high
authority and would seem to make Boersma’s proposal not an
option a Catholic theologian can accept.
An appeal to the magisterium cannot, of course, settle a
discussion that crosses confessional borders. In addition, it is the
duty of the theologian not only to indicate that a certain
affirmation is Catholic teaching, but also, as far as possible, to
explain why it is Catholic teaching so that the teaching is not just
accepted, but understood. An argument must be given.
Boersma’s proposal is meant to solve a difficulty, a
Christological deficit at least in the way the beatific vision has
been presented in much of the Western tradition. What he does
not do is to consider alternative solutions—and there is, in fact,
an alternative. Boersma’s proposal is to insert the phrase “in
Christ” into the sentence “we will see God.” The phrase can be
inserted, however, at two different places. The revised sentence
can read “We will see God-in-Christ,” so that the object of the
vision is Christ (Boersma’s proposal). Or, the sentence can read
“We-in-Christ will see God,” so that the subject of the vision is
Christologically determined (an alternative Boersma does not
consider). This second option, I will argue, is conceptually
coherent, consistent with and in fact implicit within much of the
tradition, and preferable in decisive respects to Boersma’s

26
Klaus Schatz, “Welche bisherigen päpstlichen Lehrentscheidungen sind ‘ex
cathedra’? Historische und theologische Überlegungen,” in Dogmengeschichte und
katholische Theologie, ed. Werner Löser, Karl Lehmann, and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann
(Würzburg: Echter, 1985), 404-22.
27
Francis A. Sullivan, Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the
Magisterium (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2003), 84-86.
28
Avery Dulles, Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith (Naples, Fla.:
Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2007), 71.

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proposal. For the Catholic, it also has the not inconsiderable
advantage of being consistent with magisterial teaching.
Fortunately, much of the work of elaborating such an
alternative proposal has already been done by Simon Francis
Gaine, both in his exchanges with Boersma and Suzanne
McDonald referred to above and in his study of Christ’s own
beatific vision.29 For the sake of simplicity and efficiency, I will
draw extensively on Gaine’s work. Following Gaine, my
discussion will thus look to Aquinas for guidance, but I have less
interest than Gaine in arguing about what Aquinas would or
could have said (though I think Gaine is correct in his estimate of
what is implicit in Aquinas). My interest is more simply in arguing
for an understanding of the vision that is more theologically
adequate than that offered by Boersma. While this understanding
will be presented along lines close to those of Aquinas, I do not
think the position is in any restrictive sense “Thomist.” In fact, I
think a full expansion of this alternative would significantly profit
from an examination and appropriation of elements of the
Franciscan tradition on beatitude, with its more balanced
integration of will and intellect, and of visio, caritas, and fruitio.30
29
Simon Francis Gaine, Did the Saviour See the Father? Christ, Salvation, and the
Vision of God (London: T & T Clark, 2015). Gaine’s suggestions are by no means
unprecedented. As Boersma himself notes, Edwards, at least at times, spoke similarly
(373). A particularly detailed version of a “we-in-Christ” understanding of the vision,
with close attention also given to the role of the Holy Spirit, is elaborated in G.-J.
Waffelaert, “Disquisitio dogmatica de unione justorum cum Deo tum in hac vita tum in
vita aeternum beata,” Collationes brugensis 16 (1911): 161-79, 241-55, 313-20. A brief
English summary of Waffelaert’s presentation is in Francis A. P. Solá and Joseph F. Sagüés,
Sacrae Theologiae Summa: IVB: On Holy Orders and Matrimony, On the Last Things,
trans. Kenneth Baker (n.p.: Keep the Faith, 2016), 329.
30
On Bonaventure, see references above in note 4. For the Franciscan tradition on the
vision after Bonaventure through Duns Scotus, see Christian Trottmann, “La vision
béatifique dans la second école franciscaine: de Matthieu d’Aquasparata à Duns Scot,”
Collectanea franciscana 64 (1994): 127-80. Michael Waddell suggests that as the self
becomes more deiform in beatitude and thus more conformed to the divine simplicity in
which will and intellect are identical, we should expect will and intellect to become more
integrated in the beatified (see Michael M. Waddell, “Aquinas on the Light of Glory,”
Tópicos. Revista de Filosofía 41 [2011]: 126). Boersma (195) makes a similar suggestion.

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Here only a brief sketch can be offered of such an alternative.
Decisive is a basic assertion about beatitude: beatitude is centered
on our unity with and participation in God through our unity
with and participation in Christ, our brother and God incarnate.
In his brief Collationes on the Creed, originally delivered in the
vernacular for a less exclusively academic audience, Aquinas
makes the central point: “In eternal life, the first thing is that in
it man is intimately conjoined to God” (in vita eterna primum est
quod in ea homo intime Deo conjungitur).31 What role do Christ
and the beatific vision play in the promised conjoining to God?
A path to an answer lies in the doctrine of grace. Beatitude is,
after all, the supreme gift of grace, a radically free gift fitting to
our nature, but far beyond human capacities without supernatural elevation.32 Grace is a particularly useful entry point for
our specific topic since, as noted above, here Aquinas’s initial
discussion of grace in the Summa theologiae can also be thought
to suffer a certain Christological deficit. The detailed discussion
of grace in an anthropological context in questions 109-14 of the
Prima secundae, like that of the beatific vision in parts I and II of
the Summa, has remarkably little to say about the connection
between grace and Christ. The connection is asserted, but not
elaborated.33 Unlike the beatific vision, however, grace is then
discussed in a Christological context in part III, in two questions
addressing Christ’s grace as an individual (q. 7) and his grace as

31
Collationes in Symbolum Apostolorum, a. 12. As Nicholas Ayo notes in the
Introduction to his English translation of the Collationes that, while they may not give us
the ipssisima verba of Aquinas, they give us his general point (Thomas Aquinas, The
Sermon-Conferences of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Apostles’ Creed, trans. Nicholas Ayo
[Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988], 5).
32
Eternal life is also merited, but merit is itself “an effect of cooperative grace”
(STh I-II, q.114, pro.).
33
References to Christ in the treatise on grace are of the sort Gaine describes in
relation to the beatific vision; Christ enters the discussion when a particular problem
requires such a reference, e.g., in q. 109, a. 7 (Can we rise from sin without grace? No,
for in that case, Christ would have died in vain.); q. 113, a. 4, ad 3 (What article of faith
is required for justification? Faith that God justifies man through Christ.); q. 114, a. 6
(Can someone merit first grace for another condignly? No, with the exception of Christ.).

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head of the Church (q. 8).34 In addition, the Christological
character of grace is developed in Aquinas’s Commentary on the
Gospel of John, especially in relation to the decisive verse: “And
from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace” (John
1:16).35
In the example of Christ, Aquinas draws a distinction among
the grace of union (by which the Word takes on human nature,
effecting the incarnation), personal grace (by which Christ’s
humanity is perfected and elevated), and capital grace or grace of
headship (by which grace flows from Christ to others as from
head to members).36 Aquinas develops this topic in strict
accordance with the Chalcedonian tradition as it evolved from
Nicea through the Monothelite controversy and the Third
Council of Constantinople: the single divine person has both a
human and a divine nature, unconfused and unseparated. The
divine person acts though both natures in their distinct modes of
operation. The human intellect and will of Christ thus function
in genuinely human ways. As human, they needed the perfection
and elevation of grace both on account of Christ’s own relation
to God and on account of Christ’s relation to the human race (ad
genus humanum) as mediator from whom grace overflows to
others (q. 7, a. 1; Aquinas cites John 1:16). This personal,
habitual grace is given to Christ “without measure,” in all the
fullness possible for a human nature (q. 7, a. 9; see also Super
Ioan., c. 3, lect. 6 [§544]). Christ receives the fullness of grace
34
Aquinas had developed the central principles of this discussion earlier, in De Verit.,
q. 29. References to the discussion of Christ’s grace in the Tertia pars will be given in the
text parenthetically by question and article.
35
References to this commentary will be given parenthetically in the text. The
translation is generally dependent on Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of
John: Chapters 1-5, trans. Fabian Larcher and James A. Weisheipl (Washington, D.C.:
The Catholic University of America Press, 2010), but sometimes changed to bring it closer
to the Latin.
36
These three graces are one in essence, but distinct in their rationes (STh III, q. 8,
a. 5, ad 3). The grace of union is discussed in STh III, q. 2, a. 10; Christ’s personal grace
in q. 7; and the grace of headship in q. 8. The same distinctions are drawn in Super Ioan.,
c. 1, lect. 8 (§§188-90).

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precisely so that such grace might overflow from him to others:
“For the soul of Christ received grace in this way [i.e., in its
fullness] so that it might in some way be poured out from Christ’s
soul into others” (Sic enim recipiebat anima Christi gratiam ut ex
ea quodammodo transfunderetur in alios [q. 7, a. 9]). Grace is
bestowed on Christ as on a universal principal (tamquam cuidam
universali principio) for all who receive grace (ibid.).37 Christ is
the “originative fountain” (fontalem originem) of every spiritual
grace (Super Ioan., c. 1, lect. 10 [§200]).
Christ is thus not a merely extrinsic efficient or meritorious
cause of the grace received by others. Our grace is a participation
in his perfect grace: “we participate through him in some portion
of his fullness; and this according to the measure which God
grants to each. ‘Grace has been given to each of us according to
the degree to which Christ gives it’ (Eph. 4:7)” (ibid. [§202]).
That our grace is a participation in his is emphasized by Aquinas
in his assertion that the personal grace that sanctifies Christ and
the grace that sanctifies the members of his ecclesial Body are
identical: “with respect to its essence, the personal grace,
whereby the soul of Christ is justified, is the same as his grace
whereby he is head of the Church and justifies others” (q. 8, a. 5).
The connection between grace and the beatific vision lies in
the lumen gloriae, the light of glory which makes the beatific
vision possible. How can a created intellect see God “as he is”?
The problem is both theological and philosophical. Theologically, how can the infinite gap between creator and creature
be bridged? Philosophically, on Aristotelian terms, what image or
similitude in the mind, by which the mind knows, could be
remotely adequate to the divine essence?38 Aquinas’s solution to
both sides of the problem is the same: union with God, the “first
37
Gaine, “Heavenly Mediation,” 122-23, discusses Aquinas’s “principle of the
maximum,” whereby imperfect realizations of some reality participate in its complete
realization in the perfect.
38
As Dondaine makes clear (Dondaine, “L’Objet et le ‘medium’,” 92-99) part of the
ferment in relation to the beatific vision in the first half of the thirteenth century was
related to the specific difficulties presented for a conception of the vision by the role
played in an Aristotelian epistemology by a similitude in the mind, a similitude which can
only be a created reality, with all the attendant limitations.

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thing” in understanding eternal life. Most prominently in
Aquinas’s discussions, God’s essence can only be known though
the divine essence itself, which is the way God knows himself.39
The divine essence must itself function as the form or intelligible
species of the knowledge of God in the beatific vision. The vision
is thus a creaturely participation in the divine self-knowledge, the
union of the intellect in act with God.40
The lumen gloriae is central to this union. Beatitude itself must
be an operation, an act (STh I-II, q. 3, a. 2). The beatific vision,
the act of seeing God as he is through the divine essence itself, is
the act at the core of beatitude (STh I-II, q. 3, a. 8). To perform
such an act, “it is necessary that some supernatural disposition be
added to the intellect in order that it might be elevated to such
sublimity.” This supernatural disposition is an illumination of the
intellect by the light of glory (Aquinas cites Rev 21:23 on the
New Jerusalem: “The glory of the Lord is its light” [Vulg.:
“claritas Dei illuminavit eam”), which comes by divine grace (STh
I, q. 12, a. 5). This light functions as a habit by which the intellect
is made capable (fiat potens) of seeing God (STh I, q. 12, a. 5,
ad 1). Since the act is one of participation in God, the disposition
needed for such an act of the intellect is an elevated conformity
of the intellect to God. Thus, by the light of glory, the blessed

39
On this aspect of Aquinas’s understanding of the beatific vision, see especially
Hütter, Bound for Beatitude, 397-409.
40
That the intelligible species or form of our knowledge of God in the beatific vision
is the essence of God himself is stressed by Aquinas from the Scriptum through the
Compendium. In the Scriptum (IV Sent., d. 49, q. 2, a. 1), he is clear that he is
appropriating ideas of Averroës and Alexander of Aphrodisias on the knowledge of
separated substances and applying them to the vision of God (although Aquinas is
noncommittal on whether he accepts their view as explaining how we can know separated
substances) The reference to Averroës and Alexander disappears from Aquinas’s later
discussions of the beatific vision and he prefaces his discussion of the vision in the Summa
contra gentiles III with a vigorous rejection of their positions on the knowledge of
separated substances (cc. 42-43).

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MICHAEL ROOT

“are made deiform, that is, like to God” (efficiuntur deiformes,
idest Deo similes [STh I, q. 12, a. 5]).41
Like all grace, the light of glory comes through Christ. As
noted, Aquinas identifies the light of glory with the glory of the
Lord which illumines the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:23). That verse
continues: “and its lamp is the Lamb,” that is, Christ. “The vision
of the divine essence is granted to all the blessed according to a
participation in the light shed upon them from the fountain of
the Word of God,” that is, the divine person of Christ, to which
his human nature is joined (STh III, q. 10, a. 4). Christ mediates
this light to the blessed. Though the blessed in heaven are not
dependent on any further expiation of their sins by Christ (since
they are beyond all sinning), “they will need [indigebunt]
consummation through Christ Himself, on whom their glory
depends, as is written: ‘the glory of God has illumined it,” i.e.,
the city of the saints, ‘and the Lamb is its lamp’” (STh III, q. 22,
a. 5, ad 1).
As noted, grace—and thus the light of glory—is mediated to
the saints as a participation in Christ’s fullness of grace.42 As
Gaine puts it: “One cannot see God without being ‘in Christ,’
actually related to him as member to Head, and ever in
dependence on him for that light under which the Blessed Trinity
is seen.”43 In his study of Christ’s beatific vision, he is more
forceful:
The members of Christ’s Body in heaven enjoy the beatific vision by way of
sharing derivatively in Christ’s own vision of the Father, which is again present

41

On deiformity as central to the light of glory, see Daria Spezzano, The Glory of
God’s Grace: Deification according to St. Thomas Aquinas (Ave Maria, Fla.: Sapientia
Press of Ave Maria University, 2015), 37.
42
The participatory dependence of the blessed on Christ does not imply that there is
not a genuine act on the part of the blessed, an act of vision that is theirs. A Catholic
understanding of grace insists on this. Christ’s all-sufficient merit does not eliminate our
merit, but is the basis of our merit in which our deeds participate (Council of Trent,
Decree on Justification, chap. 16, in Denzinger and Hünermann, eds., Enchiridion, para.
1546).
43
Gaine, “Aquinas and Owen,” 639.

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145

in his humanity. It is as though the saints were to see the Father with Christ’s
own eyes through their union with him.44

It is helpful here to think of the agents of the beatific vision not
as an aggregate of individual blessed saints, but as the totus
Christus, the heavenly city, internally structured by the difference
and dependence distinguishing and linking the head and members. So Gaine adds: “United to Christ in heaven, the saints gaze
on the Father as one Son.”45
According to such an understanding, the beatific vision is most
definitely mediated by Christ. There is no beatific vision of the
saints apart from their union with Christ and his vision of the
Father.46 There is here no obvious Christological deficit. The
object of the vision is not Christ, however, functioning in ratione
obiecti visi in the sense rejected by Benedictus Deus. The object is
the divine essence, God as he is. Christ does mediate the vision,
however, in another sense. In the Scriptum, Aquinas distinguishes
three sorts of possible mediation (medium) of the beatific vision:
mediation by which (quo), that is, through the form in the mind
by which one identifies the known; mediation in which (in quo),
that is, by an object in which what is know is seen; and mediation
under which (sub quo), as light is the medium under which things
are seen. The first two forms of mediation are excluded from the
beatific vision: God will be seen face to face, not through some
other object, and not through a finite form in the mind. The third
form of mediation, the light elevating our mind, however, is a
medium that does not “fall between the knower and the known”
(non cadit inter cognoscentem et rem cognitam [IV Sent., d. 49,
q. 2, a. 1, ad 15]). Aquinas regularly returns to this threefold
44

Gaine, Did the Saviour See the Father?, 87.
Ibid.
46
Space does not allow taking up the difficult question of the relation of Christ to the
beatific vision of the angels, a topic on which there has been significant disagreement in
the tradition. On these questions, see Serge-Thomas Bonino, Angels and Demons: A
Catholic Introduction, trans. Michael J. Miller (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2016), 187-91, 221-30.
45

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MICHAEL ROOT

distinction in his discussions of the vision.47 There is a sense in
which the beatific vision is mediated by the light of glory, but not
in a way that hinders the immediacy of the vision. When it is
remembered that the light of glory received by the saints is a
participation in the light of glory enjoyed by Christ in his human
nature, a strong sense of Christological mediation of the vision is
evident. The contention between this understanding of the vision
and that of Boersma is not over whether Christ mediates the
vision, but in what sense Christ mediates the vision.
One can then find in the Catholic tradition as exemplified by
Aquinas an understanding of the beatific vision that is not
Christologically deficient, but that does not abandon the promise
that we will see God immediately, face to face, “as he is” in the
sense of seeing the divine essence. We will see God in our unity
with Christ and his vision of the Father. As was said at the outset
of this sketch, beatitude is, above all, unity with God through
union with Christ. The sketch simply explores how such unity
might work in the case of the beatific vision.
III
We thus have two alternative models for understanding the
beatific vision, both of which stress the role of Christ. One,
Boersma’s proposal, stresses Christ in his humanity as the
immediate object of the beatific vision, in whom we will see God.
For brevity’s sake, I will call this the object understanding or
model. The other, implicit in, but not sufficiently elaborated by,
the Catholic tradition, stresses our unity with Christ, with whom
we will see God. For brevity’s sake, I will call this the unity
understanding or model.48

47
Quodl. VII, q. 1, a. 1; De Verit., q. 18, a. 1, ad 1; STh I, q. 12, a. 5, ad 2. In the
latter case, Aquinas only contrasts mediation in quo and sub quo, the issue at stake in the
discussion with Boersma.
48
At isolated points in Seeing God, esp. 411-13, however, Boersma seems to approach
something like a unity understanding. For example, he says: “We see God himself—the
divine essence—when we indwell the incarnate tabernacle of God through union and
communion with Jesus” (411). He does not follow up these suggestions, however.

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147

Is one understanding preferable to the other? Are there any
relatively neutral grounds on which one might argue for one
proposal rather than the other? I would briefly note three such
grounds which indicate the significant advantages of the unity
understanding.
First, the unity understanding is closer to the language of the
New Testament. Boersma himself cites Jesus in John 14:6: “I am
the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through me,” noting that “it would seem from this that
the Father is the destination, while Jesus is the means through
which one arrives at it” (409). As Gaine notes, the early Church
followed this line of reasoning: “Scripture and the Fathers tend
to speak primarily of the Father as the object of the beatific
vision, even if not to the exclusion of Son and Spirit.”49 For the
unity understanding, if we see the divine essence in any of the
Trinitarian persons, it will be in the Father, in unity with Jesus’
vision of the one he addressed as Father.50
Second, important problems arise for the object understanding precisely in relation to what is claimed as its strength,
Christology. These problems relate both to Christ himself and to
our relation to Christ. If the immediate object of our beatific
vision will be the humanity of Christ, in whom we will see God,
then does Christ, in his human mode of knowing, enjoy the
beatific vision?51 The question is not whether he had the beatific
vision during his earthly life, but whether he has the beatific
vision in his heavenly glory, the site of our beatific vision. If he
has a vision similar to ours, it could only be a kind of selfknowledge, a sense of God within his own humanity. Such selfknowledge as substitute for vision has been posited by some for
49
Gaine, Did the Saviour See the Father?, 83. Earlier in the book (28-30), Gaine
discusses the general New Testament orientation to the Father.
50
This assertion will necessarily involve a sense of appropriation to the person of the
Father, but, as Gaine notes (ibid., 90-91), such appropriation should not be seen as an
empty form of words.
51
Gaine raises this question in relation to John Owen, to whom Boersma appeals
(Gaine, “Aquinas and Owen,” 446).

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MICHAEL ROOT

Jesus during his earthly life,52 but to say that the glorified Christ
knows his Father by knowing himself seems to suggest that Christ
in his human mode of knowing is oddly external to God and even
to the knowledge of God presumably possessed by himself in his
own divine mode of knowing.
If Christ has a beatific vision essentially unlike ours, then our
relation to Christ becomes overly external. He will see God
directly, but we will not. Even if his vision is like ours, it will be
a form of self-knowledge and thus, even if it has the same object
as our vision, will be dissimilar in the way it is known. To a
degree, I know myself by observation, but more fundamentally, I
possess a certain immediate self-presence. My knowledge of
myself is structurally different from the knowledge others may
have of me. Other persons (e.g., my wife) may know me in many
ways better than I know myself, but they do not know me in the
way I know myself. Boersma stresses that our vision of God in
Christ is linked to unity with Christ (413), but, on his understanding, our vision and his cannot but be different. Communion
with Christ and his vision is more fundamental for the unity
understanding than it can be for the object understanding.
Third, the object understanding suffers from what one might
call a deification deficit. Boersma wishes to affirm the concept of
deification (e.g., 393f.), but the object model limits that
affirmation. The unity model understands the beatific vision as a
participation in God’s self-knowledge. We will know God
through the divine essence, as God knows himself. It will thus be
true that “then I shall know even as also I am known” (1 Cor
13:12 [KJV]).53 Our vision of God will in a sense not be external
to God, but internal. As Matthew Levering puts it: “The blessed
will share in God’s own Trinitarian communion not as onlookers,
but as real participants, caught up into God’s life rather than
being observers who watch God moment to moment.”54 Herein
52

Karl Rahner, “Dogmatic Reflections on the Knowledge and Self-Consciousness of
Christ,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 5, trans. K.-H. Kruger (Baltimore: Helicon
Press, 1966), 193-215.
53
On this point, see Gaine, Did the Saviour See the Father?, 95.
54
Matthew Levering, Jesus and the Demise of Death: Resurrection, Afterlife, and the
Fate of the Christian (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2012), 113.

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149

lies the crucial implication of deification for the intellect, as
Aquinas makes clear in his explanation of the effect of the light
of glory as the deiformity of our intellect, as noted above. This
creaturely participation in the divine self-knowledge is precisely
what the object understanding of the vision cannot affirm. As our
vision remains to a degree external to Christ for the object
understanding, even more does that vision remain external to
God.
These are at least relatively neutral grounds on which one
might argue the advantages of one or the other of the two
understandings of the vision under discussion. Beneath them,
however, lies a basic question regarding the eschatological
promise that is the object of our hope. Is anything less than
something like the immediate vision of God, mediated by no
created reality as object, a plausible fulfillment of the promise
that we will see God “as he is,” “face to face,” a fulfillment that
will form the telos of human existence in which we finally can
rest? I think not, but that judgment is more a function of a general
sense of God, humanity, and the gospel than of specific
arguments.
One final point should be made, however, which might cast
some light on the wider issues. Boersma brings to his study of the
beatific vision a set of commitments that shape his elaboration of
and preference for the object understanding. In earlier works, he
has argued for a strong continuity of nature and grace, drawing
on the work of Henri de Lubac and his colleagues within the
nouvelle théologie.55 In Seeing God, this understanding of nature
and grace shows up in sacramental ontology, in which the world
is naturally sacramental, and in an emphasis on an essential
continuity between how we experience and grasp God now and
how we will experience and grasp God eternally (e.g., 376, 378,
389, 420). For Boersma, the unity model sketched above,
however, depicts the beatific vision as transcending rather than
55
Boersma, Heavenly Participation; Hans Boersma, Nouvelle théologie and
Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

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MICHAEL ROOT

exemplifying the sacramental mediation of God (e.g., 165), is
bound up with nature-grace distinctions which have led to the
impoverished world of modern secularism (e.g., 21, 98, 280),
and portrays the beatific vision, beholding God through God, as
discontinuous with our present experience of God (e.g., 133,
164).
There is not space here to explore the complicated question
of how to understand nature, grace, and their continuities and
discontinuities. The question can be asked, however, whether
Boersma’s strong continuity between nature and grace requires
that both grace and nature be compromised. On the one hand,
grace cannot elevate humanity to participation in God’s selfknowledge, for such an elevation lifts us beyond the mediated,
sacramental character of our knowledge of God in this life.
Nature, on the other hand, must correspondingly be lifted up to
make even the limited vision described possible. Drawing on
Jonathan Edwards, Boersma affirms, tentatively to be sure, an
“immaterialist or idealist metaphysics,” similar to that of
Berkeley, in which no material substance undergirds appearances.
The only substance, properly speaking, is God; his perceiving
gaze gives what he sees a sort of participation in his being, but no
substance of its own (355, 399-401). Materiality is simply
appearance, sustained only by minds. Our risen bodies then will
have no matter which must be “spiritualized.” They only need
their essentially spiritual nature to be developed. When that
occurs, we can think of seeing God not only with the intellect,
but with the eyes of the risen body (425).56 The sense in which
the integrity of nature is here preserved is, I would think, a
genuine question. Has Boersma’s version of a nature-grace
continuity become a Procrustean bed, requiring that the faith be
truncated at top and bottom?
***

56
Boersma seems to entertain seriously, though not explicitly affirm, Gregory of
Nyssa’s affirmation that even sexual differentiation will disappear from risen bodies
(425-28).

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151

Hans Boersma focuses theology on a topic that has been
neglected in recent years, our eschatological destiny as the most
intimate communion with God, and does so in an informed and
thoughtful manner. Along the way, he rightly challenges the
limits of the modern secular outlook, and lays bare a genuine
problem in the tradition, a tendency to carry forward the
discussion of the beatific vision with little attention to Christ as
central to the vision. One may still judge, however, as I do, that
in constructing his solution Boersma takes a significantly wrong
turn, a turn with deleterious theological effects, and one which
the Catholic theologian cannot affirm. Fortunately, there are in
the tradition at the center of his criticism the resources for an
alternative that addresses his problem in what I believe is a more
fruitful manner. Boersma’s study is a powerful spur to a more
careful analysis of the end for which we hope, but not the answer
to the important question he asks.

BOOK REVIEWS
Understanding the Diaconate: Historical, Theological, and Sociological Foundations. By W. SHAWN MCKNIGHT. Foreword by DAVID W. FAGERBERG.
Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018.
Pp. xviii + 309. $29.95 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8132-3035-1.
W. Shawn McKnight, bishop of the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri, has
written what should by all rights become the comprehensive treatment of the
diaconate with which all future discussions must wrestle. Combining scriptural
exegesis, historical inquiry, dogmatic exposition, sociological theory, and
theological reflection, McKnight has provided a kind of summa of the diaconate
that draws together most of the relevant theological engagements with the
diaconate since its renewal in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Even if
one disagrees with McKnight’s approach to the topic, his framing of the
question of the nature of the diaconate cannot be ignored or dismissed.
The book is divided into four sections. Part 1 examines the theological
foundations of the diaconate, focusing on the biblical sources as well as the
teachings of Vatican II. In examining the biblical material, McKnight’s perspective is shaped by the work of the Australian exegete John N. Collins, who
has argued at considerable length and in great detail that the Greek term
diakonia does not, as has been claimed since the early twentieth century, imply
humble or menial service, but is instead a term implying a rather exalted status
as an emissary of some noble person. As McKnight puts it, not a “waiter” but a
“go-between” (7). He argues that it is, moreover, a Christological term (to
engage in diakonia is to emulate Christ’s obedience as the emissary of the
Father), a pneumatological term (diakonia is one of the Spirit’s gifts), and an
ecclesiological term (the work of diakonia, as the Letter to the Ephesians notes,
is for “the building up of the body of Christ”). In looking at the actual office of
deacon in the New Testament (primarily 1 Timothy), McKnight acknowledges
that “the scriptures raise more questions than answers” (26), apart from
suggesting a close but subordinate relationship to the episkopos.
Looking at Vatican II, McKnight focuses primarily on Lumen Gentium,
which called for the restoration of the diaconate as an office permanently
exercised, and in particular its statement, drawn from the early Christian text
known as The Apostolic Tradition, that deacons are ordained “not to the
priesthood but to the ministry” (LG 29). He shows how Lumen Gentium
153

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establishes ordination to the diaconate as a genuine participation in the
sacrament of order that is, at the same time, nonpriestly in character. He also
shows how this teaching is affirmed by Pope Benedict XVI's October 26, 2009
motu proprio amending the Code of Canon Law. The Church's law now clearly
distinguishes between episcopal and presbyteral ordination on the one hand,
which empowers the recipient to act in persona Christi Capitis, and diaconal
ordination on the other, which confers sacramental character for diakonia. McKnight also compares the teaching on the diaconate in Lumen
Gentium with that found in Ad Gentes, suggesting that one can only truly
understand the diaconate if one attends to both documents. The latter not only
focuses, as might be expected, less on the intraecclesial and more on the
extraecclesial ministry of the deacon, but also reflects, as Lumen Gentium does
not, Karl Rahner’s view that ordination to the diaconate is a confirmation and
sacramentalization of a diaconal charism that is already present and being
exercised, “though in an anonymous way” (57, citing Rahner’s “The Theology
for the Restoration of the Diaconate”). Finally, McKnight looks at Paul VI’s
1972 apostolic letter Ad Pascendum, one of a series of documents restoring the
diaconate as a permanent office, and in particular his description of the
diaconate as an “intermediate order” (medius ordo) between the hierarchy and
the people of God.
McKnight sees in this notion of the diaconate as a medius ordo an echo of
Collins’s understanding of diakonia as service as an emissary or go-between, and
he explores this further in part 2. This section focuses less explicitly on the
diaconate, but rather develops the notion of “social mediation” and shows how
it functions in the Church. Drawing on a variety of social theorists, McKnight
defines a social intermediary as “an institution in which roles have been
entrusted (and therefore knowledge, power, and authority to perform these
roles) to facilitate the distribution of power, authority, and resources
throughout the social body” (86). He sees the deacon as a social intermediary
in both relating the laity to the bishop and in relating the Church as a whole to
those outside the Church to whom the Church ministers. This notion of social
mediation is central to McKnight’s proposal for how the office of deacon is to
be understood and exercised; it is the missing piece that unites the scriptural
understanding of diakonos as go-between, the teaching of the Church as
articulated at Vatican II, and the actual exercise of diaconal ministry in history,
particularly in what he calls the “Golden Age” of the diaconate in the preNicene Church (111).
It is this history to which McKnight turns in part 3. The story he tells is a
familiar one to those who study the diaconate: a flowering of the diaconate in
the early Church, when “deacons collegially served the church as a whole with
presbyters and bishops” (143). This collegiality is what distinguishes the early
Golden Age from the gradual post-Nicene decline of the diaconate. This decline
resulted from a complex of factors, but chief among them was simply the
growth in size of the Church after Constantine, which led to an increasing

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delegation of episcopal duties (such as liturgical presidency and pastoral rule)
to presbyters, and the consequent subordination and eventual eclipse of the
diaconate. The Council of Nicaea itself was the “formal turning point of the
diaconate from development into decline” (147) with its decree that “deacons
must remain within their own limits, knowing that they are the ministers of the
bishop and subordinate to the presbyters” (canon 18). As diaconal identity was
obscured, the diaconate eventually degenerated into an almost wholly liturgical
role and a final step in the cursus honorum by which one ascended to the exalted
height of priesthood. This is underscored by Scholastic theology, which
understood the sacrament of order as rooted in the power to consecrate the
Eucharist, making the sacramentality of diaconal ordination questionable in
some minds. A vestige of the diaconate held on in the form of the medieval
archdeacon, an office that was increasingly exercised by presbyters and became
something like a sub-bishop: rather than mediating between the hierarchy and
the laity, archdeacons came to mediate between the bishop and his presbyters.
Though there remained some notable deacons after the Golden Age, such as
Alcuin of York and Francis of Assisi, these were mere vestiges of a once robust
office.
Part 4 offers McKnight’s proposals for reinvigorating the diaconate today.
He begins by an analysis of the deacon’s role in the liturgy, viewed through the
concept of communitas derived from the anthropologist Victor Turner, which
McKnight describes as “society experienced or perceived as a relatively
undifferentiated communion of equal individuals,” comparing it to “the breaks
between sessions at a professional conference when participants get to know
each other” (183). McKnight argues that, though the Mass is highly structured,
one sees in the specifically diaconal roles—proclaiming the gospel, leading the
intercessions, inviting the exchange of the sign of peace—structure meeting
anti-structure, which allows people to find in the liturgy not simply a
hierarchical pageant but an experience of communitas. Having grounded the
diaconate as medius ordo in the liturgy, McKnight goes on to discuss practical
suggestions for reconceiving the diaconate. Here he shows himself to have a
thorough knowledge of the structures of the Church and to have thought deeply
about how the deacon relates to those structures. So, for example, McKnight
argues that, while numerous positions in a diocesan chancery might be open to
a deacon, only some of them might be appropriate: “the more an office entails
decisionmaking authority, the more problematic it is for the intermediate
character of diaconal ministry” (214). He notes in particular that though a
deacon can, canonically speaking, fulfill the role of clerical-judge in tribunal
procedures, this places him over and against the people of God as a ruler rather
than standing between them and the authorities of the Church, presenting their
concerns to those authorities. McKnight sees deacons as more appropriately
exercising their ministry in parish settings or, perhaps even more appropriately,
in institutional setting such as prisons, hospitals, and charitable endeavors,
where they mediate not only between laity and hierarchy, but between the

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world and the Church. This is a particularly interesting proposal, though
perhaps not as novel as McKnight presents it. In recent years a number of
dioceses (including my own, Baltimore) have given newly ordained deacons
both a parochial and an institutional assignment, with some having their
institutional assignment be primary. Of course, this simply serves as evidence
that McKnight is correct, or at least not alone, in thinking that deacons need to
be recentered in the space between the Church and the needs of the world.
There are a number of specific points on which I might take issue with
McKnight’s approach or conclusions. For example, I am very suspicious of
“Golden Age” historiography. Certainly ressourcement is an indispensable part
of theological reflection, but there seems something arbitrary about drawing the
line at the pre-Nicene Church. Historians of the early Church are more inclined
these days to downplay the importance of the “Constantinian shift,” noting that
in significant ways the fundamental character of church life did not dramatically
change for many decades after Constantine. At its worst, such a historiographical approach runs the risk of becoming question-begging: the pre-Nicene
age is a Golden Age because the diaconate in that era possessed certain features
that we judge to be exemplary, and we judge them to be exemplary because they
were present in the pre-Nicene Church, which was a Golden Age. Such an
approach also can lead to such things as a too-easy dismissal of medieval views
of the diaconate, and the sacrament of order in general, simply by labeling them
“Scholastic.” Are there not Scholastic concepts, such as Thomas Aquinas’s subtle
account of sacramental character, that might offer salutary resources not found
in the Golden Age?
Similarly, despite his very insightful chapter on the deacon’s liturgical role,
and the way in which he grounds the diaconate as medius ordo in that role,
there is to my mind an excessive worry about deacons being merely liturgical
functionaries. First, in my experience (which, admittedly, is only my experience), it is a rare Latin Rite deacon who only serves by fulfilling a liturgical
function; almost all are involved to some degree in catechetical and formational
work as well as the work of charity. Second, should we think of the deacon’s
liturgical role as merely liturgical? Is serving the people of God in their worship
of God merely anything? Though an exclusively liturgical role for the deacon,
as found in some of the Eastern Churches, might seem truncated by contemporary Latin Rite standards, might this simply say more about the rationalistic
and pragmatic bent of modern Western thinking than it does about the nature
of the diaconate? At the very least, attention to the diaconate in the Churches
of the East would have given greater richness and complexity to McKnight’s
overall discussion.
More broadly, I am not fully convinced by the central place that McKnight
gives to the idea of the diaconate as a medius ordo. While I think this notion
picks out a significant aspect of the diaconate, oftentimes McKnight treats it as
the key that unlocks the whole of the diaconate. This can lead to the kind of a
priori judgments I have mentioned previously: the pre-Nicene Church

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represents the Golden Age because it is there that we see the diaconate
functioning as medius ordo; Scholastic theology is inadequate because there is
no recognition of the diaconate as medius ordo; the liturgical role of the deacon
is important because it shows us the nature of the diaconate as medius ordo;
roles for which a deacon is canonically eligible are nevertheless inappropriate if
they do not conform to the diaconate as medius ordo. While McKnight clearly
offers us a genuine insight into the diaconate, we might be better served by a
more a posteriori approach that looks at what deacons have done throughout
history and are doing now in ministry, seeking to derive from that the nature of
the diaconate. (It is worth noting that McKnight engages many social theorists,
but few sociologists examining the contemporary diaconate.) Even if one ends
up agreeing with many of McKnight’s judgments, as I am inclined to do, a more
empirical, less theory-driven approach might lead to more tentative
conclusions, which could be a good thing when dealing with a still-emerging
phenomenon such as the contemporary diaconate.
FREDERICK C. BAUERSCHMIDT
Loyola University Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland

A Theology of the Christian Bible: Revelation, Inspiration, Canon. By DENIS
FARKASFALVY, O. CIST. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2018. Pp. xii + 239. $34.95 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-81323029-0.
Denis Farkasfalvy, Hungarian Cistercian, displaced from the monastery of
Zirc and longtime abbot of Our Lady of Dallas, mathematician, expert on
Bernard of Clairvaux, translator of the Psalms and member of the Pontifical
Biblical Commission for more than a decade (2002-13), was already in ill health
when he died of Covid-19 on May 20, 2020. His passing interrupted work on
one final, monumental project on the Gospel of Matthew. It is the theology of
sacred Scripture, however, where his legacy is most assured. This final book,
with the all-embracing, yet targeted subtitle, “Revelation, Inspiration, Canon,”
caps a lifetime of reflection and personal engagement around these central
theological themes. Out of this engagement comes Farkasfalvy’s considerable
frustration over a standing ecclesial inability to enunciate the correct doctrine
on these matters, as he sees it. This weariness blurs in these pages with a more
systematic and detached account, and the book wavers among being a primer,
a history of the conciliar era, and a kind of personal theological memoire.

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While the dustjacket blurbs are true to form (“remarkable work,” “epochal,”
“crowning achievement,” “brilliantly luminous”), Richard Ounsworth has
captured another quite valid response in his entertaining and appreciative, yet
sharp review in New Blackfriars. “This book is simultaneously excellent and
rather frustrating, fascinating and puzzling, even at times infuriating, but
nevertheless a must-read for anyone seeking to engage with the Bible as sacred
scripture.” Farkasfalvy’s deep personal investment in his theme, and his equally
deep disappointment at its travesty in modern Catholic thought, “seems to have
caused him to lose the thread of his argument through large parts of the book.”
“The structure of the book is opaque, the titles of the chapters offering very
little clue as to where the argument is going.” In the end, the book is “very clear
about what Farkasfalvy thinks is the wrong understanding of biblical inspiration,
far less about what he thought was right.” The complaints are not without
warrant.
What Ounsworth fails to observe in all this is that this book is, in fact, in
many ways a more tangled version of and sequel to Farkasfalvy’s earlier,
somewhat more disciplined effort, Inspiration and Interpretation: A Theological
Introduction to Sacred Scripture (CUA Press, 2010). The present text is,
accordingly, perhaps best read as a supplement to that initial work, almost in
the form of a family of essays: a circular thinker’s imperfectly polished
(practically) posthumous manuscript. The keys ideas and major insights, in any
case, are very much the same in both these works. The fundamental error
remains a misunderstanding of the double authorship of the sacred text,
illuminated by Rahner’s Urheber/Verfasser distinction. God is not a literary
author, we are repeatedly told. His action in the generation of the Scriptures is
not to be plotted on the same level as the human veri auctores, for, if it were,
every error and deficiency in the text would be charged to God’s account. The
result would be either the collapse of the divine meaning of the Scriptures, or
else a willful blindness to the genuine problems (both of which responses are
today championed in various quarters).
Neo-Scholasticism, notably in the persons of Augustine Bea and Pierre
Benoit, does not fare at all well in this account. Briefly, the model of inspiration
advanced by these figures, which became at the time of the Second Vatican
Council the doctrina communis—a view based on instrumental causality, joined
to the Summa’s treatise of prophecy, and applied not only to prophets but to
all scriptural authors or “hagiographers”—is, for Farkasfalvy, in large measure
responsible for our present woes. “We must here repeat: Rahner’s succinct
critique of the Neo-Thomistic concept of dual authorship is philosophically
correct” (50). The abbot goes on to add, however, that “it may not apply so
obviously to St. Thomas’ texts” (51). It also does not apply to the patristic
sources that Bea erroneously marshalled in favor of a divine literary author.
This much is clear in both volumes (however unclear it often also is in both).
What emerges with new perspicuity, or at least what attains a new prominence
in this new rendition, are two things above all.

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First, the Christological character and telos of the unified Christian Bible,
rooted in God’s divine work as originator (Urheber) of the text, is intoned and
explored with more sustained attention. Inspiration and Interpretation ended
with the remark that the “‘incarnational model’ still needs thorough probing
and research.” This refers to an analogy between the Schriftwerdung and
Menschwerdung, endorsed in Dei Verbum and by Benedict XVI in Verbum
Domini, by which a different Christological paradigm for the divine and human
in the Scriptures is sought. A Theology of the Christian Bible appears to be
Farkasfalvy’s concentrated attempt to advance this perspective. Several chapters
are nominally devoted to the theme (“Inspiration and Incarnation,” “Pursuing
the Analogy,” “Inspiration and Truth in the Context of Divine Condescension,”
“Christ, the Ultimate Meaning of the Christian Bible”).
What emerges is another way of saying what Rahner said is wrong, that is, a
Christological spin on the error that Rahner saw. The two great heresies of
Nestorianism and Monophysitism, specifically, map onto two coordinate
hermeneutical misunderstandings, two extremes that in a certain way meet: “the
danger of collapsing scripture into a one-layer reality: either by identifying it
with the literal meaning, identified with the human author’s historically
verifiable intent (the Nestorian option) or with the spiritual meaning that
transmits divine meaning without true human mediation (the Monophysite
approach)” (70).
The second point where Farkasfalvy’s Theology of the Christian Bible takes
a notable step forward is in the high significance given to the canon as an
integral part of the theology of inspiration. Again, this is present already in the
earlier work, but here its role becomes more evident and expansive. Briefly, the
outlook is this: God’s origination of the Bible is not terminated with the
energizing of individual literary authors and scribal communities in the
production of individual books. The Christian Bible is rather the result of a
divine and human process, binding up revelation through inspiration and
passing all the way to the creation of the unified canon. It is for this reason that
Brevard Childs’s vision of canon criticism is for Farkasfalvy of special interest.
Contrary to many false presentations, Childs’s proposal is not simply a
synchronic interest in the final form, but rather a diachronic interest in the
whole historical trail from composition to stabilization to inclusion in the
canon. In this regard, the historical account of actual canon formation up to
Irenaeus is very similar in this text and in Inspiration and Interpretation. The
basic data here have not essentially changed; nor has Farkasfalvy adjusted his
clever theory on, for example, the accord between Anicetus and Polycarp in 151
that sealed the tetraform Gospel. Still, chapters nine and ten of the present book
are worth highlighting, if merely for their effort to show how inspiration and
canon are interiorly bound together.
In the final analysis, this robust canonical turn in the framing of the issue
might be the most lasting dimension of Farkasfalvy’s theology of inspiration.
Inspiration is not strictly reducible to the problem of providence, but it does

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essentially belong on this same high order of salvation-historical reflection.
Resolutely viewing God as Urheber, that is as Originator of the Bible (avoiding
all danger of equivocation on the word “author”), does indeed give the whole
tractate a new and very different spin. In a way, Farkasfalvy plots what has
become a stray apologetic topos back within the great nexus mysteriorum.
Just here, however, in the divine governance implicated in the whole affair,
it becomes hard to sort out precisely why instrumental causality should be so
categorically misplaced. Distaste for Benoit’s prurient gaze on the psychological
mechanics of hagiographers’ inspired authorial judgment certainly plays a part.
This is simply too narrow a field of theological vision and bound up with an
outdated model of propositional revelation. It also privileges a constricted view
of the complex social processes at work in ancient authorship. To follow
Farkasfalvy, we must broaden the horizon and think about a Trinitarian selfmanifestation culminating in Christ, even if Dei Verbum itself failed to assert
this breakthrough with thoroughgoing consistency—notably in application to
DV 11 and the theme of Scripture’s truthfulness. It is this foreign neo-Scholastic
body in the text of Dei Verbum that Farkasfalvy repeatedly points to as a major
stumbling stone. Completing the work begun at the Council therefore means
running this text through a grammatical grinder and reading the result with eyes
illumined by nouvelle théologie. In Farkasfalvy’s version, the answer to a lot of
old and lingering questions accordingly becomes: try asking that again.
Inerrancy, in a special way, as an outsized effect of inspiration is a bugbear stuck
in a cul-de-sac. Here he is certainly correct. Although neo-Thomistic attempts
to come at the issue were still operating with another model of revelation,
however, the real theological problem is not Scholastic conceptions such as
instrumental causality. Nor is pulling back the focus to take in the whole
salvation historical panorama adequate for the conceptual fine tuning that must
inevitably come.
In its own proper scriptural form, the problem of inerrancy is a species of
the problem of evil—or if we prefer to stay within the Christological frame, it
resembles the problem of suffering. How close can we let the revelatory gesture
of divine condescension (synkatabasis) come to touching human error? How
can we guard God from such a taint? The analogy of the incarnation obviously
has its strengths, but it has it weaknesses as well, the most obvious of which is
that in the case of Scripture the human instrument is imperfect in a way it is not
in Christ. Of course, part of the question is what the real organon in question
is: is it the prophets and apostles, in their living encounters with God’s selfdisclosure, or is it the resulting written text in its sacral (ultimately liturgical,
not just canonical) mediation—or is it both in ways still waiting to be properly
distinguished? We are free, in any case, to probe the written biblical corpus with
an impunity hardly allowed to the apostle Thomas; and this gives us a positive
body of theological data from which speculative dogmatics must start, not
terminate its reflections. Meanwhile, the question for the doubting doctors of
the law is not whether they can find this or that in the Scriptures that seems to

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be broken, but whether they can somehow discern in such gashes and bruises
the faith-filling wonder of glorified scars. Origen (together with Irenaeus) earns
a prominent place in Farkasfalvy’s theological construction of the Christian
Bible. Perhaps the Alexandrian’s agile allegorical leaps at what he called
scripture’s adynata, “impossibilities,” are in Farkasfalvy’s vision an essential
exegetical instinct to recover. Adynaton was, after all, an ancient rhetorical
technique. In the synkatabasis of the divine Logos—synkatabasis being a
rhetorical, not just a patristic theological term—might God have stooped so low
as to speak his own rhetorically intentional “impossibilities” through the veri
auctores’ very unintentional errors? With him all things are possible.
ANTHONY GIAMBRONE, O.P.
École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem
Jerusalem, Israel

God and Creation in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth. By TYLER
R. WITTMAN. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xiv +
315. ISBN: 978-1-108-47067-4 (cloth).
Wittman’s guiding question is the following: “Does it suffice to articulate
God’s perfection as set forth in God’s works, or must we confess something
about God’s perfection as logically antecedent to and possibly obtaining without
those acts that ground created reality?” (12). Both Aquinas and Barth, he argues,
hold that “questions about God’s relation to creation are bound up with
questions about divine act and being” (15). Yet, Aquinas and Barth disagree
about how to formulate God’s perfection. Wittman summarizes their different
approaches: “Aquinas maintains that God’s external acts correspond to God’s
internal being, whereas Barth maintains that God’s external acts correspond to
God’s internal acts” (16).
The first section of the book focuses upon Aquinas’s theological account of
God’s being and activity. Wittman argues that Aquinas’s five ways for
demonstrating the existence of God belong to the properly theological project
of reckoning with “the things that have been made” and determining how God
has therein clearly manifested “his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power
and deity” (Rom 1:20). Wittman reminds us that “pure act” is not a definition
of God: the human mind cannot comprehend infinite actuality. At all times,
Aquinas is keenly aware that to speak of the “causality” of infinite actuality is
to speak analogously: God cannot be placed under any genus, including that of
“cause.” Wittman emphasizes that divine “simplicity” is a negative doctrine

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whose purpose is to ensure that we do not reduce God to a thing among other
things.
According to Aquinas, God is efficient cause of finite actuality and also
exemplar cause of finite actuality, in the sense that creatures are finite
similitudes of divine actuality. God is also final cause of finite actuality. God’s
goodness means that he creates all things so that they are ordered to share, in
diverse modes and to differing degrees, in his goodness. Humans are ordered,
by grace but in a manner that takes up and fulfills human nature, to share in the
goodness of God’s own beatitude.
Given that goodness is self-diffusive, would not perfect goodness be
compelled to create or compelled to become incarnate? Wittman answers that
the self-diffusion involved here has to do not with efficient causality but with
final causality. Considered in himself, God’s infinite goodness “is his own end”
and does not need any further diffusion in order to be perfectly fulfilled (64).
As a result, God is perfectly Lord in his acts. He is impeded by nothing,
depends upon nothing, and stands to gain nothing. This does not mean that he
is “unmoved” in the sense of not caring about anything but himself. On the
contrary, it means that in his creative (and redemptive) acts, the infinitely
blessed and perfect God works, and he works with utmost mercy and love rather
than neediness or frustration. Whereas creatures simply are existing modes of
relation (or dependency) upon God, God has no “real relation” with creation—
which simply means that God is not in a relation of dependency, because God’s
beatitude is the source of creation, not the fruit of creation. The fact that God
has no neediness is what enables him to be perfectly immanent and freely active
in creation.
Given that God creates in infinite wisdom and love, what does this mean for
our apprehension of God’s “intellect” and “will”? Continuing his survey of
Aquinas, Wittman notes that we know that God has these perfections (see Eph
1:11), but we are speaking analogously rather than univocally. Abstracting the
reality signified from any finite mode of signification, Aquinas delves into the
reality of divine will. On the one hand, there is no “free will” in God willing
himself: this must be “necessary,” because God cannot fail to love his own
goodness. But there is “free will” with regard to anything that is not God.
Admittedly, anything that God freely wills to do, he nontemporally (eternally)
wills to do—and in this sense creation is necessary because God eternally wills
it. But creation is not necessary in the strict sense that God had to will it.
Furthermore, Aquinas points out that this discourse cannot be taken univocally:
God is not part of our finite order of necessity versus contingency.
Wittman observes that Aquinas does not stop at the level of pure actuality,
but rather sees creation as a Trinitarian action. Wittman cautions against certain
kinds of overblown usages of the psychological analogy: “the psychological
model does not suggest that the Son and Spirit proceed from the divine intellect
and will, respectively. Rather the analogy to the intellectual procession of an
interior word and the volitional procession of love in rational creatures provides

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a means for disclosing the rationality of the procession of the Son and Spirit,
after the analogy of the Word and Love” (94). Once this is grasped, we can
perceive that the Son’s generation as Word is the exemplary pattern of the
divine speaking of creatures into being. Likewise, the spiration of the Spirit as
Love grounds the divine love by which he bestows gifts (including the gift of
being) upon creatures and wills to unite them to himself. In love, God mercifully
communicates a share in his goodness; and this work is primarily attributed to
the Spirit, as we find in Scripture as well.
Turning to Barth, Wittman says that his key principle is “the irreducible
correlation between God and his self-determination” to be God for us in Christ
(135). In everything, God is faithful to his “electing self-determination” (141).
We can say nothing about God that abstracts from what we know in Christ of
this electing self-determination, which ultimately is the Trinitarian event
constitutive of the divine being, God’s “decision . . . to be God” in the way that
he has chosen and no other—namely freely to be God for us (149). Thus, for
example, God’s goodness just is Jesus Christ, God’s eternal decision in our
favor. There is no “being” or ontological “actuality” behind God’s free “act.”
In insisting upon this point, Barth has Aquinas in view, but perhaps even
more his concern is with the nineteenth-century liberal Protestant Albrecht
Ritschl. Barth emphasizes that everything depends upon God’s free selfdetermination to be for us. God is therefore absolutely Lord over his perfections, so as freely to be what he determines to be in Christ; yet, at the same
time, Barth equally wants to insist that “God’s inner life” makes this love
intelligible rather than merely arbitrary (162). The key, however, is that what
we know about God we know only on the basis of Christ.
Barth rejects (as “semi-nominalism”) the notion that the divine attributes are
diverse in our understanding but simple in God. He fears that otherwise we
undermine the import of God’s diverse acts, as though the diversity we perceive
has no real basis in God. Fundamentally, he is concerned to affirm that all that
we find in Christ reveals God’s own dynamic inner life: his love, his freedom,
his holiness, his obedience, and so on. God is “simple” because he is never selfcontradictory and because he is utterly unique, as we see in Christ.
Barth adjusts the Protestant Scholastic view of the “decree of election” and
the “covenant of redemption,” so that in each case Christ is the agent as well as
the content (205). Nothing can be antecedent in God to his self-determination
to be for us in Christ; and this self-determination must be a real event in God’s
inner life, “a real, irrevocable turning and movement in God’s essence itself”
(213). What we see in Christ corresponds to God’s inner life, including God’s
constancy in being for us both in creation and in redemption. Thus there is no
purely intra-Trinitarian life or event that excludes Christ.
A difficult issue for Barth is how the grace and mercy embodied by Christ
are enacted in the Trinitarian life: does the Father have mercy on Christ, or give
grace to the Spirit? Ultimately, Barth reduces them to God’s love. Wittman
suggests that here we can perceive a telling incoherence in Barth’s insistence

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that all God’s acts in Christ can be correlated with acts within the inner life of
God (232-33). If God could have done otherwise than he has done in Christ,
furthermore, it follows that God’s self-determination in Christ cannot be the
ground beyond which nothing further can be said. Rather, “God’s internal act
of self-determination must itself be an act self-consistent with God’s essence and
perfections” (239). Wittman suggests that Barth might have done better to
follow the Protestant Scholastics who affirmed God’s ontological perfection
while holding that, in accord with his nature even if freely, “God posits himself
in a genuine relation to creation through his self-determination” (247).
In his conclusion, Wittman notes (indebted to Kenneth Schmitz’s critique of
Hegel) that actuality can either be conceived as the principle of all things,
inexhaustible plenitude, or as “the totality or result of being and its selfrealization” (261). When actuality is conceived in the latter way, no wonder
that God’s “nature” is conceived as Barth (as well as contemporary theologians
such as Robert Jenson) conceives it. Wittman favors Aquinas’s understanding of
God as “a radical principle of plenitude that subsists prior to and apart from
any determination or movement toward creatures” (266). In his “plenitude,”
God is self-subsistent; as principle, God acts toward creatures out of his
plenitude, which is his beatitude and perfection. Wittman explains, “Aquinas’s
construal of theology’s principal material object understands God’s actuality as
plenitude, while the formal orientation of his inquiry understands God’s
actuality as principle” (268). Otherwise put, in the order of knowing, theology
reflects upon God on the basis of his creative and redemptive works, but this
inquiry exposes truths about God that enable “the thought of God absolutely
and thus without creation according to the order of being” (268). By contrast,
Barth has no room for the latter, although at points (as in his reflections on
whether God had to create) it comes in anyway.
In light of Exodus 3—God’s self-revelation to Moses—Wittman denies that
“Scripture only speaks to God’s being by witnessing to God’s eternal acts” (27677). Of course, no divine name can be understood outside of, or in sharp
separation from, the economy of salvation. But a focus simply on the historical
drama (God as the “totality” of his actions) would miss what Christ is actually
revealing about his divine plenitude. Wittman points us toward a deeper
contemplation of the divine names as the solution to the historicism of “strictly
correlationalist inquiry into divine being and activity” (280). Directing attention
to Exodus 3:14, Wittman urges that we first hear God’s proclamation of his
name as “I am who I am” (plenitude) and only secondly God’s proclamation of
his works: “Say this to the sons of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you’” (principle).
In this way we are prepared for Jesus’ revelation in John 8:58 that he himself is
plenitude and principle.
Wittman’s book is a major step forward. It enables us to perceive more fully
how Aquinas’s apophatic caution, analogous discourse, and metaphysical
distinctions do not move us away from the biblical revelation of God or from
the God revealed in Jesus Christ. On the contrary, Aquinas’s approach enables

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us to appreciate this God not only as “principle” of creation and redemption,
but also as plenitude, as perfection and beatitude in himself. Furthermore, the
charity with which Wittman engages Barth, and Wittman’s attention to the
Reformed Scholastics, should instruct contemporary Thomistic dogmatics.
MATTHEW LEVERING
Mundelein Seminary
Mundelein, Illinois

Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution. By DANIEL W. HOUCK.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. ix + 284. $99.99,
£75.00 (hardback). ISBN: 978-1-108-49369-7.
This book opens and closes with Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles—
specifically, his account of Tess giving birth to an illegitimate son, Sorrow,
whose death as an infant was doubly traumatic for her. There was the sorrow
of death itself, but that sorrow was amplified by Tess’s fear that, having not
been baptized by a priest, and because of the illegitimacy of his birth, Sorrow
would be condemned to a tortuous hell. This opens up an account of different
readings of original sin. A reader would be mistaken, however, to suppose that
storytelling or literary images of original sin are integral to this book. Instead,
Houck tries to navigate an in-depth conversation with very different potential
audiences, from evangelical Protestants to traditional Roman Catholics and
Thomist scholars. He also engages with evolutionary theory and other
objections to classical accounts of original sin and the Fall.
As the title suggests, Thomas Aquinas is Houck’s main and consistent classic
source, though, coming from an evangelical starting point, he also pays close
attention to scriptural interpretation, specifically St. Paul’s account of sin in
Romans. Not only does he engage in an in-depth analysis of Thomistic sources,
but he also, to a degree, adopts Aquinas’s method, tracing carefully all the
possible objections to his argument and one by one trying to convince the reader
of the cogency of his own specific position. The argument in a nutshell is the
following. First, Houck argues for a retrieval of aspects of a Thomistic account
of original sin and the Fall, moving from a Thomistic notion of original justice
to the idea of original sin as a deprivation of supernatural grace, a position
which he names “New Thomism.” Second, he argues that this is compatible
with both traditional theological views of human origins and the Fall and with
those theological positions which seek to accommodate accounts of evolution.
Against the backdrop of Sorrow’s plight, Houck raises all the possible
objections to the idea of original sin as inherited guilt: (a) its lack of explicit

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foundation in a correct exegesis of Romans 5:12; (b) alternative classic views,
such as that of Gregory of Nyssa, who believed the kingdom of heaven was the
natural end of humanity; (c) that original sin is pernicious; or even (d) that it
does not make sense within modern culture informed by the sciences,
particularly the evolutionary sciences. Houck argues that such objections do not
really grapple sufficiently with the complexity of the origin of the idea of
original sin, debates about the historicity of the Fall, and how it can still be
construed in a way that makes sense, even for those who are prepared to accept
evolutionary ideas. For Houck, a denial of original sin obscures the universal
need of redemption, and affirming original sin without an account of the Fall
seems to compromise the belief that creation is fundamentally good. He
compares his modified Thomistic approach on original sin, which stresses the
lack of sanctifying grace, with alternative modified views of original sin, such as
that it is a disposition to sin, or that it means being born into a sinful condition,
or that it is personal sin.
The first chapter delves into an Augustinian approach to original sin,
drawing on both primary sources and medieval debates. The second chapter is
particularly significant, as it shows a development in Thomistic thought on
original sin, from an earlier position which distinguishes between the role of the
human will in the state of original justice and the work of supernatural grace,
to later writings where Aquinas implies that the formal cause of original justice
is sanctifying grace. Houck argues that Aquinas’s mature view suggests that the
disposition to original justice could not have been sexually transmitted, since by
definition sanctifying grace is supernatural. The third chapter develops the
consequences of such an idea further by exploring Aquinas’s engagement with
Augustine’s concept of the corruption of nature by the Fall. For Aquinas this
corruption is a loss of original justice, but not the loss of an orientation to God.
In chapter 4 Houck deals with the Thomistic idea of the guilt of an infant by
analogy, in so far as an infant fails to receive sanctifying grace. He rejects the
Thomistic view, arguing that the infant suffers the effect of original sin, but
without any increase in guilt. This position differs from Schleiermacher’s
understanding of sin as a context into which an individual is born, since Houck
still puts emphasis on the voluntary nature of Adam’s sin. Chapter 5 tackles
arguments against a historical Fall from Kant to Barth, Schleiermacher, and
Schoonenberg.
Chapter 6 covers evolutionary objections to the Fall and original sin. First is
the presupposition of gradual evolution, which would automatically challenge
any possible notion that a single act of the will could distort subsequent human
nature. A second objection relates to the idea that evolutionary history implies
a predisposition to sin, which is incompatible with an ordering to an original
righteousness. A third objection relates to evidence from genetic and other
material sciences showing that the human population could not possibly have
come from a single pair anywhere in prehistory. Chapter 7 develops the most
constructive aspect of the book: a retrieval of the idea of sin as a lack of right

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relationship with God, rather than the inheritance of personal guilt or
corruption. Rejecting Aquinas’s theory of the inherited nature of sin as logically
incompatible with the notion of original justice, Houck argues that the New
Thomistic approach is compatible with theories that either accept or deny the
historicity of the Fall.
Overall, this book is a lively contribution to current debates on evolution
and the Fall and a significant retrieval of a neglected aspect of Thomism,
modified in the light of contemporary concerns. Time and time again Houck
presses his point home, exploring all the potential objections and counter
arguments in a quest for analytical and logical consistency. At times the prose is
very dense and hard to digest, most likely the result of its origin as a doctoral
thesis. Nonetheless, the scholarship represented here is strong, and while not
all readers will be fully convinced by the arguments presented, they are certainly
worth taking seriously. The book is written for theologians or possibly
philosophers, rather than scientists; evolutionary theory is largely confined to a
single chapter out of the eight. Given Houck’s intention to reach more
conservative Protestant audiences, evangelical scholars may be disappointed by
his relative lack of attention to biblical exegesis, though he states, towards the
close of his volume, that this will be developed in future work.
There are also some misleading comments concerning the evolutionary
literature, such as that evolutionary pressure has selected for selfishness (4). It
is more accurate to refer to conservation of genes, in spite of the public
impression of evolution and nature “red in tooth and claw,” bent on selfinterest. An evolutionary account includes such tendencies, but it also includes
an equally strong emphasis on cooperation and altruism. Further, there is
relatively little attempt to envisage how early humanity might have experienced
original righteousness or the supernatural gift of grace, even if, as Houck points
out, this would not necessarily be confined to a single individual. Any proposal
that humanity was in some sense prepared to receive divine grace is not
discussed, though he does touch on a Thomistic idea of a natural disposition to
God. The distinction between nature and creation does not really concern the
author, since it is the nature/grace distinction that is his concern. This relation
between nature and grace is also integral to his anxiety that his proposal might
be rejected by those who envisage him as proposing a two-tiered nature-grace
understanding of human nature. While he largely avoids a dualistic view, an
evolutionary approach would, in general, take rather more account of a natural
disposition to grace than one finds here, with the emphasis on a supernatural
gift that is presumably (at least in infants or those who do not yet acknowledge
monotheism) unconsciously mediated through Christ. The point is that there
are complex biological as well as cultural aspects to evolution that are also
integral to an evolutionary account.
Having made an argument for a retrieval of a modified Thomistic position,
Houck is correct to position his view within the theological spectrum of
possibilities as one that is, at least in many respects, easier than many to render

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intelligible in the view of modern science. He offers a fresh perspective on this
topic that deserves to be widely read and discussed.
CELIA DEANE-DRUMMOND
Campion Hall, University of Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom

Thomistic Existentialism and Cosmological Reasoning. By JOHN F. X. KNASAS.
Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2019.
Pp. 327. $65.00 (hardback). ISBN: 978-0-8132-3185-3.
This study offers an interpretation of Aquinas’s philosophical contribution
to demonstrations of God’s existence by reviewing the argument of De ente et
essentia and its significance as a version of a cosmological argument. Its larger
agenda is to defend Thomistic “realism” and specifically a distinctive “existentialist” approach to Thomism. Its targets of criticism therefore include other
Thomists as well as early modern and analytic thinkers.
The first half of the book (part 1: “Aquinas’s De ente Reasoning and the
Cosmological Argument”) argues that Aquinas’s understanding of existence as
actus essendi allows for a version of a cosmological argument that is immune to
Kant’s critique of Leibniz’s “remarkably shallow” (3) understanding of existence. The first chapter reviews Leibniz’s cosmological reasoning and Kant’s
critique thereof, and prepares the way for considering existence not as a
“determinate property” (granting some insight to Kant) but as an “act or
perfection of a thing” (as in Aquinas). Chapter 2 reviews the De ente proof,
focusing on the notion of esse and giving particular attention to how esse is
grasped by the second operation of the intellect. Chapter 3 reviews neo-Thomist
interpretations of the De ente proof, engaging Gilson and Maurer, Wippel and
MacDonald, Dewan and Calahan. Chapter 4 continues to highlight the
importance of actus essendi by engaging “Analytic Thomist” treatments of De
ente (including those offered by Peter Geach, Brian Davies, and Anthony
Kenny). Chapter 5 considers some non-Thomist objections to De ente’s cosmological reasoning (including those from Kant and analytic philosophers and
ending with Heideggerian objections to “ontotheology”).
The second half of the book (part 2: “The De ente Reasoning and Aquinas’s
Proofs for God”) argues that Aquinas’s use of this notion of actus essendi in the
De ente argument sheds light on what his cosmological arguments—any
arguments from existing effects to God as their cause, including all the viae one
finds in the Summae and elsewhere—are meant to demonstrate. Chapter 6,
“Aquinas’s Metaphysics and Our Knowledge of God’s Existence,” is primarily

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concerned with arguing that natural philosophy cannot prove the existence of
God, advancing the interpretation in the rest of part 2 that the other less
explicitly metaphysical viae are still examples of “De Ente reasoning in different
guises” (173). Chapter 7, “A More Robust Version of the De Ente Reasoning,”
continues the argument that the reasoning of De ente, insofar as it explicitly
draws on the proper object of metaphysics (ens inquantum ens), must be
integrated into any proofs for the existence of God. This is followed by three
chapters interpreting the more commonly discussed other proofs in light of De
ente reasoning: on viae in the Summa contra gentiles (chap. 8); in the Summa
theologiae and the Compendium theologiae (chap. 9); and “other possible viae”
in the commentary on the Sentences (I Sent., d. 3; II Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 1), De
potentia (q. 3, a. 5), the prologue to the John commentary, and chapter 15 of
the first part of the Summa contra gentiles (chap. 10). Rounding out the second
half of the book, chapter 11 (“Questions and Replies”), responds to some
questions raised by Knasas’s interpretation: Why would Aquinas “camouflage”
metaphysical principles in other versions of a cosmological argument? Why
does Aquinas ask about the distinction of essence and existence in God after
formulating other versions? And are less explicitly metaphysical cosmological
proofs still only comprehensible to metaphysically advanced philosophers?
As Knasas reminds us throughout the volume, and in a short concluding
chapter, one of the goals of his interpretation is to display and defend a
philosophical approach named in the first half of his title: Existential Thomism
or “Thomistic Existentialism,” characterized by its particular emphasis on being
as actus essendi, an act that is distinct from that which it actualizes, the substance
which in itself is “existence neutral.” Critique of “analytic” approaches, as too
inclined to reduce being to the “fact of existence” without attending to its active
cause, is a recurring theme, and this also explains why Kant’s objection is
dialectically significant for the book.
Knasas is surely right to focus on the philosophical insight of esse as act,
which is both more than the fact of existing, and the cause of that fact; it is not
this focus alone but the “existential Thomist” articulation of it that makes it
important for Knasas to establish that physics is not able to conclude to God’s
existence, that cognition of being deserves phenomenological attention in terms
of “sense realism,” and that all cosmological argument is somehow a disguised
version of the De ente reasoning. In defense of these views Knasas relies on a
characterization of esse that not only analytic philosophers, but also some
historically minded philosophers, would find impressionistic and even
misleading. In language that is at once his most enthusiastic but also his least
Thomistic, Knasas describes esse as the “core” around which a thing “revolves”
(36, as well as the front book jacket illustration supplied by the author); he
describes esse as distinct from the thing, “both accidental and essential,” and
even compares it to the hole of a donut. Esse, he says, is like an accident, but
unlike other accidents it is prior to the subject it actualizes; the radical priority
of esse places it “in the thing.”

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On the one hand, Knasas seems to read Aquinas’s history of the advance of
metaphysics in question 44, article 2 of the Prima pars as more than an account
of intellectual ascent to more actual and universal causes, as if it points to
“being” as the most hidden inner element in the constitution of physical things.
On the other hand, Knasas seems aware that he is adopting a language quite
distant from Aquinas, to express what he regards and embraces as a matter of
deep “paradox.” As a result, his idiosyncratic attempt to evoke the actus essendi
as some mysteriously intimate “core” leaves one wondering why Aquinas would
say, at the beginning of De ente et essentia, that being is more familiar to us,
because composite, and thus the starting point for us to learn about the more
simple and difficult to understand essence.
The “existential” perspective also gives the book an epistemological emphasis that might not otherwise seem essential in a study of Aquinas’s
metaphysics and cosmological reasoning. Knasas finds it crucial to articulate
what it means that esse is grasped by the second act of intellect. This in turn is
part of a general defense of “sense realism” (a priority going back to Gilson)
against early modern assumptions about necessary a posteriori knowledge,
which might be considered Knasas’s real priority: articulating a “phenomenology” of sensible objects.
In this way, much of the book seems haunted by Descartes. More so than
Aquinas (in any of his proofs for the existence of God), Knasas is particularly
concerned to address the general question of how we know whether things other
than God—especially sensible objects—exist. That we know something (usually
a physical thing) exists is crucial to any cosmological argument; how we know
that would seem to have become a preoccupation only after Aquinas. This seems
particularly out of place in an interpretation of De ente reasoning, which on the
face of it does not seem to depend in any way on knowledge of sensible objects:
the argument appears in the chapter on immaterial beings, and Aquinas
famously mentions a potentially sensible being (the phoenix) that we don’t
know exists. In principle, the proof would seem to work even after Cartesian
doubt leaves one only with the solipsistic awareness of one’s own existence as a
thinking thing.
With its preoccupations and interlocutors, the book seems primarily
intended for those invested in disputes within Thomism over the past eighty
years. One could consider the volume a personal homage to Knasas’s teacher
Joseph Owens, with whom Knasas sides in particular interpretive differences
with Gilson, Maurer, Wippel, Dewan, and others. A reader new to Thomism
would probably get lost, and for help specifically understanding the De ente
demonstration of esse subsistens (and Aquinas’s cosmological argumentation in
general) would want more direct discussion of some basic metaphysical topics
mostly neglected here: causality (efficient and formal causality and how they
are related; per se vs. per accidens and particular vs. universal); act and potency;
definition (nominal and real); participation and modes of being. Even what

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Aquinas means by essences gets very little attention (as does the related, very
relevant epistemological question of how we know essences).
Also notably underdeveloped is the topic of creaturely esse’s real distinction
from essentia. Most regard this distinction as the key to the De ente argument
for God’s existence but Knasas (again following Owens) holds that the
distinction is merely conceptual in the proof, not established as real until after
God’s existence is demonstrated (84-85). Even so, it is not clear what Knasas
thinks a real distinction is. He describes a thing’s “existence neutrality” as being
like coffee that can be either hot or cold, which suggests that the test for a real
distinction is actual separability, or “independence in reality,” that is, one being
able to exist without the other. That seems to be Knasas’s standard for a real
distinction in his characterization of matter’s relation to form (81). On
Aquinas’s account, in any actual case, matter and form are not in fact separable:
matter gets its being from the form which actualizes it, and the form only has
its being in the matter it actualizes. Likewise Knasas says rationality and
animality are only conceptually distinct because they “merge” in an individual
human being, but are still not “the same” in reality (83). Aquinas holds by
contrast (by the doctrine of the unicity of substantial form) that “animal” and
“rational” in fact do signify the same one reality in (viz., the substantial form
of) the individual human being.
A related idiosyncrasy is that Knasas mostly avoids speaking of a distinction
(real or conceptual) between being and essence. He tends instead to discuss a
distinction between esse and “the thing,” the individual or subject or substance
(81-85). A footnote (50 n. 34, responding to a particular objection by Kenny)
makes clear that he understands this “individual” to be identical with the
“individual essence” (a position also taken by Owens). Talk of individual
essences is defensible (and “not using the language of Saint Thomas” is a
hallmark of existentialism even confessed by Gilson in the second edition of
Being and Some Philosophers), but this is another case of distractingly nonThomistic language, and in the context of the De ente reasoning it is an
especially confusing imprecision. If this is Aquinas’s most metaphysical version
of a cosmological argument, one would expect more attention to what Aquinas
thinks an essence (as common nature) is, how we can cognize it (as opposed to
the sensible individual), and why we should think it is really distinct from being
in at least some existing creatures.
One would also need help understanding how this leads to the realization
that, if there is anything in which being and essence are not distinct, there can
only be one such being; and finally, how this leads us to know that such a unique
being must exist if anything else exists. Again, while Aquinas typically starts
with sensibles, the immediate context of the De ente argument is the essences
of immaterial beings, which (if they exist) must still exhibit a composition of
(because there would still be a distinction between) their being and essence.
Aquinas arrives at an act/potency relationship of being/essence by analogy with
form/matter, with a notoriously surprising reversal of essence from the active

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to the passive role. At stake are metaphysical principles of substantial wholes. It
is not the separability or independence of being and essence, then—nor a
“thing” having “neutrality” with respect to the attribute or accident or inner
core of being—that makes it possible to conclude to a simple self-subsistent esse
from the fact that it must be the source of all those other things in which essence
and existence are really distinct.
Overall the book can be commended for drawing attention to the crucial
notion of actus essendi, but despite its reverence for the De ente’s “cosmological
reasoning” it does not explain the relationship between being and essence and
is not likely to help new philosophers appreciate how the notion of being as act
can lead us to ascend to grasp the existence of a first, universal cause, a simple
unqualifiedly actual substance who is the source of the being of creatures.
Instead, by employing creative metaphysical interpretation in defense of “sense
realism,” Knasas carries the torch for existential Thomism—especially in its
epistemological focus—with ardent zeal. In its range of engagement and
forcefulness of argument, the book is a manifesto. Will it be remembered as a
melancholy swan song, or prove to re-energize the “existential” school? Or—
something in between—will it invite further dialectical development of modern
Thomism? In any case, this volume is a profound expression of an imaginative
hermeneutic, and a testament to the vitality of Thomistic scholars contending
with each other in response to the challenges of modern philosophy.
JOSHUA P. HOCHSCHILD
Mount St. Mary’s University
Emmitsburg, Maryland