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Commentary on John 198:21Thomas AquinasThe Latin Vulgate that Thomas used had this threefold division of the text of Isaiah (6:1): Vidi Dominum sedentem super solium excelsum et elevatum, et plena erat domus a makestate eius, et ea quae sub ipso erant replebant templum. In the commentary we have translated this literally as, “I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the whole house was full of his majesty, and the things that were under him filled the temple,” as required by the exposition of Thomas. Moreover, it is clear from Thomas’ running gloss, which he gave in class some time between 1248 and 1252 as a young cursor biblicus at Cologne under St. Albert the Great, that this was the actual reading of his personal Bible. (See Expositio super Isaiam ad Litteram, in Opera Omnia, ed. Leon. 28 [Rome 19741, 6:1, lines 96-103). What is more, St. Albert the Great himself used this full text from Isaiah (6:1), as above, and adapted it for his own purposes for the Prologue to his Commentary on the Second Book of the Sentences (ed. Borgnet 27:1-3), which he wrote when he was already a Master in Sacred Theology at Paris toward the end of 1245 or the beginning of 1246. (See my Friar Thomas dAquino, Garden City: Doubleday, 1974, p. 45). He too needed all three parts of the text to show the division of Book Two into three parts or three “Treatises.”TREATISE ON THE CARDINAL VIRTUES · Question 73 1:8Thomas AquinasObjection 1: It would seem that backbiting is not as defined by some [*Albert the Great, Sum. Theol. II, cxvii.], "the blackening of another's good name by words uttered in secret." For "secretly" and "openly" are circumstances that do not constitute the species of a sin, because it is accidental to a sin that it be known by many or by few. Now that which does not constitute the species of a sin, does not belong to its essence, and should not be included in its definition. Therefore it does not belong to the essence of backbiting that it should be done by secret words.TREATISE ON THE INCARNATION · Question 12 1:22Thomas AquinasBut as regards the habit of knowledge, it is plain that His habit of infused knowledge did not increase, since from the beginning He had perfect infused knowledge of all things; and still less could His beatific knowledge increase; while in the FP, Q[14], A[15], we have already said that His Divine knowledge could not increase. Therefore, if in the soul of Christ there was no habit of acquired knowledge, beyond the habit of infused knowledge, as appears to some [*Blessed Albert the Great, Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure], and sometime appeared to me (Sent. iii, D, xiv), no knowledge in Christ increased in essence, but merely by experience, i.e. by comparing the infused intelligible species with phantasms. And in this way they maintain that Christ's knowledge grew in experience, e.g. by comparing the infused intelligible species with what He received through the senses for the first time. But because it seems unfitting that any natural intelligible action should be wanting to Christ, and because to extract intelligible species from phantasms is a natural action of man's active intellect, it seems becoming to place even this action in Christ. And it follows from this that in the soul of Christ there was a habit of knowledge which could increase by this abstraction of species; inasmuch as the active intellect, after abstracting the first intelligible species from phantasms, could abstract others, and others again.TREATISE ON THE INCARNATION · Question 26 2:7Thomas AquinasThe question is answered thus: St. Thomas as a Doctor of the Church and in matters which were not then "de fide," is a witness to the expression of the faith of his time. Hence his line of argument coincides with, because it follows, that of St. Bernard, Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure. It was not likely that St. Thomas would differ from the great masters of his time, who failed to understand that the grace of redemption might at the same time be one of preservation and prevention. Nor is it likely that St. Thomas had any reliable information about the movement* in progress at that time towards a belief in the Immaculate Conception. [*Principally in England, where, owing to the influence of St. Anselm (1109), the doctrine was maintained by Eadmer (1137). Nicolas of St. Albans (1175), Osbert of Clare (1170), Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (1253), William of Ware (1300), who was the master of Duns Scotus (1308)]. No doubt he knew something of it, but the names of its promoters would have weighed little with him as against those of Bernard, Albert, Peter, Alexander, and Bonaventure. And it must not be forgotten that among those who upheld the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, not a few ascribed the privilege as being absolute and not one of preservation and Redemption. Hence it is that St. Thomas insists on two things: (1) that the Mother of God was redeemed, and (2) that the grace of her sanctification was a grace of preservation. And, be it remarked in conclusion, these two points, so much insisted on by St. Thomas, are at the very basis of the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.TREATISE ON THE RESURRECTION · Question 76 1:24Thomas AquinasI answer that, Cause and effect must needs in some way be united together, since mover and moved, maker and made, are simultaneous (Phys. vii, 2). Now Christ rising again is the univocal cause of our resurrection: wherefore at the resurrection of bodies, it behooves Christ to work the resurrection at the giving of some common bodily sign. According to some this sign will be literally Christ's voice commanding the resurrection, even as He commanded the sea and the storm ceased ( Mat. 8:26 ). Others say that this sign will be nothing else than the manifest appearance of the Son of God in the world, according to the words of Mat. 24:27 : "As lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth even into the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." These rely on the authority of Gregory [*Moral. xxxi, as quoted by St. Albert the Great, Sentent. iv, D, 42, A[4]] who says that "the sound of the trumpet is nothing else but the Son appearing to the world as judge." According to this, the visible presence of the Son of God is called His voice, because as soon as He appears all nature will obey His command in restoring human bodies: hence He is described as coming "with commandment" ( 1 Thess. 4:15 ). In this way His appearing, in so far as it has the force of a command, is called His voice: which voice, whatever it be, is sometimes called a cry [* Mt 25:6 ], as of a crier summoning to judgment; sometimes the sound of a trumpet [* 1 Cor. 15:52 ; 1 Thess. 4:15 ], either on account of its distinctness, as stated in the text (Sent. iv, D, 43), or as being in keeping with the use of the trumpet in the Old Testament: for by the trumpet they were summoned to the council, stirred to the battle, and called to the feast; and those who rise again will be summoned to the council of judgment, to the battle in which "the world shall fight . . . against the unwise" ( Wis. 5:21 ), and to the feast of everlasting solemnity.TREATISE ON THE SACRAMENTS · Question 75 4:16Thomas AquinasReply to Objection 1: Some [*Cf. Albert the Great, Sent. iv, D, 11; St. Bonaventure, Sent., iv, D, 11] do not grant simply that there is a mid-time between every two instants. For they say that this is true of two instants referring to the same movement, but not if they refer to different things. Hence between the instant that marks the close of rest, and another which marks the beginning of movement, there is no mid-time. But in this they are mistaken, because the unity of time and of instant, or even their plurality, is not taken according to movements of any sort, but according to the first movement of the heavens, which is the measure of all movement and rest.