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Boethius and Aquinas
Boethius and Aquinas
RALPH McINERNY

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY

OF AMERICA PRESS
Washington, D. C.
 Copyright © 1990, 2012
The Catholic University of America Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum

requirements of American National Standards for Information
Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Libary Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1984.
∞

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McInerny, Ralph, 1929–2010.
Boethius and Aquinas / Ralph McInerny.
p. cm.
Originally published: 1990.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8132-2110-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Boethius, d. 524—Influence. 2. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint,
1225?–1274. 3. Philosophy, Medieval. I. Title.
B659.Z7M35 2012
189—dc23
2012034489
FOR JOSEPH BOBIK
Princeps Thomistarum
 Contents

Preface ix

Introduction: Two Italian Scholars I

PART ONE
The Art of the Commentary
1. Commenting on Aristotle 33
2. Altissimum negotium: Universals 6I
PART TWO
De trinitate
3· Thomas Comments on Boethius 97
4· Tres speculativae partes I2I
5· Metaphysics and Existence 14 8
PART THREE
De hebdomadibus
6. Survey of Interpretations I6I
7· The Exposition of St. Thomas I99
8. More on the Good 23 2

Epilogue: Sine Thoma Boethius Mutus Esset 249

Appendix: Chronologies of Boethius and St. Thomas 255

Bibliography 259
Index 26 5

vii
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 Preface

This book deals with the relation between St. Thomas Aquinas
and Boethius. That "the last of the Romans and the first of the
Scholastics" should have influenced Thomas has nothing distinc-
tive about it: the same can be said of the vast majority of medie-
val masters. But there is more in the case of Thomas.
It is the rare theologian who does not invoke Boethius's defi-
nition of person and eternity, thereby exhibiting acquaintance,
however secondhand, with the Consolation of Philosophy and
the theological tractates. Thomas's affinity with Boethius is man-
ifold. For one thing, unlike other theologians, he commented on
works of Aristotle, among them On Interpretation, in the course
of which he cites Boethius's comments, often to take exception
to them. Nonetheless, his own massive effort in commenting on
Aristotle owes much to techniques Boethius had passed on to
the Latin West. More important, Thomas commented on two of
Boethius's theological tractates, De trinitate (incomplete) and
De hebdomadibus. It is with these that this book is chiefly con-
cerned.
When in 1879 Leo XIII issued Aeterni Patris, thereby giving
papal impetus to the modern revival of interest in St. Thomas
Aquinas, the Holy Father saw Thomas not only for himself but
as a lieutenant of Christian philosophy. Thomas was not re-
garded as a lonely figure, without antecedents and without epi-
gones, but as a man of massive intellect and holiness in whom a
multifaceted centuries-long cultural tradition achieved an im-
pressive unity and from whom that perennial philosophy has
been passed on. Thomas Aquinas might be the preeminent Doc-
tor of the Church, but there were many doctors before him and
there have been many since. Despite these assumptions of Ae-

IX
x Preface
terni Patris, subsequent study of Thomas tended to stress what
was peculiar to his teaching rather than what he shared with
others in the tradition in which he moved.
Indeed, in terms of modern prejudice, it was essential to point
out how varied was the thought of men who nonetheless moved
within the same tradition. The assumption that the Christian
faith dictated a totally homogeneous interpretation of itself is
not borne out by any close study of the medieval masters. If such
diversity obtains when believers reflect on the truths of faith, it
is scarcely surprising that interpretations of secular sources of
knowledge should differ, sometimes dramatically. At times-the
times in which Thomas lived-there was hostility among believ-
ers toward secular knowledge, and it was necessary to recon-
sider hasty judgments that had been made about the relation
between the thought of Aristotle and articles of Christian faith.
It is not too much to say that Thomas's intense and extensive
commenting on the works of Aristotle saved the day for the view
that, at bottom, reason and faith are complementary and that
the speculations of pagans are a precious source for seeing what
the world looks like to those for whom Revelation is a closed
book. The condemnations of 1272 and 1277 are ample indica-
tion of the strength of the opposing party.
One of the ironies of the contemporary Thomistic school is
that, despite Thomas's heroic efforts to save Aristotle, a chasm
has been opened between the thought of Thomas and its Aris-
totelian sources. Indeed, it is not too much to say that there
is an anti-Aristotelian animus in many presentations of the
thought of Thomas. The same kind of isolation of Thomas from
his sources can be found in most recent work on the relation
between Thomas and Boethius.
Largely because of assertions made by Pierre Duhem, it has
become commonplace to say that what Thomas finds in the text
of Boethius is not there. Soon such eminent Thomists as Roland-
Gosselin were agreeing that what Thomas took the Boethian
text to mean could not be its meaning. Just as many doctrines
Thomas found in Aristotle were said by Thomists not to be
 Preface Xl

there, so too with Boethius. The Aristotelian claim is of course

far more difficult to deal with than the Boethian. In this book,
the focus is on what texts of Boethius mean and what Thomas
took them to mean. I hope at least to open up the question and
cast doubt on what has become received opinion. To a great ex-
tent, the dispute turns on the meaning of Diversum est esse et id
quod est, the principal axiom in De hebdomadibus. Thomists
have for so long been saying that the recognition of a real dis-
tinction between esse and essence not only characterizes the
thought of Thomas, but that it is his achievement (no earlier
thinker recognizing it) that they are bound to have trouble with
passages in which Thomas attributes recognition of this distinc-
tion to others. That is what he does in his exposition of De heb-
domadibus of Boethius.
Duhem maintained that the Boethian claim is to be taken to
mean that there is diversity of essence and individual. The pas-
sage in which he argues this does not hold up under scrutiny. Of
late, Boethian scholars of a Neoplatonic orientation have stoutly
maintained that Boethius could not possibly have meant what
Duhem takes him to mean. Thus, opening up the question en-
tails a new look at Boethius as well as a new look at Thomas.
The minimal claim of this study is that the denial that Boethius
meant what Thomas takes him to mean must confront almost
insuperable difficulties. It is simply no longer possible to put for-
ward the Duhem view as if it were all but self-evident.
How important a part does Boethius play in the Thomis-
tic synthesis? It would be absurd to suggest that he looms as
large as Aristotle or Augustine or even the Pseudo-Dionysius.
But whenever Thomas discusses a question on which Boethius
wrote, he invariably gives his fellow Italian's views pride of
place. For example, any discussion of divine and created good-
ness will feature the argument of De hebdomadibus. Those who
regard the real distinction of esse and essence as the clef de voute
of Thomas's thought will correspondingly magnify Boethius's
role, since Boethius is a major source of what Thomas has to say
on that subject.
XlI Preface
In order to make the points made in this study, it was neces-
sary to touch on matters of far broader concern, for example,
the nature and purpose of a Thomistic commentary. What is it
that Thomas intends to do when he writes a commentary? His
two commentaries on Boethius are of different literary form,
that on De hebdomadibus an exposition of the text, line by line,
word by word. That on De trinitate includes both an exposition
of the text and questions and articles devoted to matters raised
by the text. In short, it is like Thomas's commentary on the Sen-
tences of Peter Lombard. Pere Gauthier has made the somewhat
surprising suggestion that Thomas's Sententiae super Ethicum
are an exposition to which the second part of the Summa theo-
logiae corresponds as questions on the text. It is less improbable
to suggest that ST, la, qq. 5-6 and Q. D. de veritate, q. 2I com-
plement the exposition of the De hebdomadibus as the second
part of the De trinitate commentary complements the first part.
This volume has been a long time emerging from well over a
decade of research aimed at writing "a book about Boethius," a
project I had the temerity to announce in an article devoted to
Boethius and Saint Thomas which appeared in the I974 com-
memorative volume of Rivista di filosofia Neo- Scolastica. Orig-
inally I thought of presenting the thought of Boethius in all its
scope to English readers, by which I mean of course readers of
English. J. K. Sikes's book on Abelard and Gilson's on Augustine
and Scotus suggested models of what I might do. A chapter on
Boethius in Volume 2 of the History of Western Philosophy I
undertook with my late colleague A. Robert Caponigri was the
first fruits of my labors. The work I wrote on Thomas for the
Twayne series on world authors dwelt on the role Boethius had
played in the formation of Thomas's thought. And various pa-
pers, notably several read at the spring gatherings of medieval-
ists in Kalamazoo at Western Michigan University, formed if
only in my own mind pieces of the larger thing.
By I974, I had made enough progress to permit me to refer in
a footnote to a "work in progress, devoted to the thought of
Boethius in its full scope." However, that same year appeared
 Preface Xlll

the imposing two volumes of Luca Obertello's Severino Boezio.

Boethian studies would never be the same again. Here was a
massive survey of the Boethian corpus along with the secondary
literature on it accompanied by a full volume of bibliography. I
will not say that my thunder had been stolen, since that would
suggest that I could, then or now, achieve what Obertello had.
But I did feel a bit deflated. My hopes began to revive when I
considered that there are many who do not read Italian. And,
after all, the book I planned was not at all like the one Obertello
had written. And then in 1981 came the publication of Henry
Chadwick's masterful book on Boethius.
Chadwick's book did, so much better than I ever could, what
I had dreamt of doing that it forced a rethinking of my whole
project. I leafed through the chapters I had written on Boethius's
Quadrivial Pursuits and acknowledged that the world would not
be a poorer place if they were never published. But it was not
until 1985, after I resigned as Director of the Medieval Institute,
that I saw my way clear. The book I would write would be
a focused monograph on the relation between Boethius and
Thomas Aquinas.
There are few who can read Thomas's two commentaries on
Boethian works without being impressed by them. Crisp and
clear, they already sound many of the themes of the later and
more mature works and indeed many of his distinctive positions
are found there as impressively put as they ever will be. Re-
garded as conveyors of Thomas's thought, the commentaries are
held in high esteem, but are they good commentaries? That is,
do they enable the reader better to fathom the text on which they
comment?
I have mentioned that the views of Pierre Duhem became reg-
ulative of the discussion and, without having been subjected to
any critical appraisal, were widely accepted. Even by Thomists!
It would of course be possible to embrace the content of the
commentaries while acknowledging that what they say is in the
text is not there, but that this is a curious position for a Thomist
to be in seemed unrecognized. Indeed, Thomists were soon rhap-
XIV Preface
sodizing over the way Thomas could find in texts things that
were not there. Non-Thomists, needless to say, described the dis-
crepancy otherwise.
The thesis of this book is simply stated: Boethius taught what
Thomas said he taught and the Thomistic commentaries on Boe-
thius are without question the best commentaries ever written
on the tractates.
Another aspect of the opposition Thomists have thought to
find between Boethius and Aquinas has to do with the under-
standing of what Thomas himself means by the composition of
esse and essence in created things. This book will not enter fully
into that matter, only sufficiently to show that anyone who
thinks Thomists are of one mind, or explanation, about the "real
distinction" is grievously mistaken. That the diversity between
esse and id quod est is self-evident is one of the great overlooked
claims of De hebdomadibus and of Thomas's commentary on it.
The book I have come to write, then, is a monograph on the
relation between Boethius and his commentator. My thesis I
have stated. I will be content if this book, by subjecting received
opinion to severe scrutiny and criticism, opens up for reexami-
nation the relation between St. Thomas Aquinas and his great
predecessor and mentor Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius.
It is pleasant to note here the cheerful and indispensable help
of Mrs. Alice Osberger, my administrative assistant in the
Medieval Institute and now in the Jacques Maritain Center.
Robert Anderson was of great help to me on earlier versions of
the effort and Brendan Kelly has been of enormous help in get-
ting this final version ready for the press.
Boethius and Aquinas
 INTRODUCTION

Two Italian Scholars

BOETHIUS: THE FIRST ROMAN SCHOLASTIC

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480-524) lived some

seven hundred years before Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). It
may help to notice that almost exactly the same amount of time,
seven centuries, separates us from St. Thomas as separated him
from Boethius. The cultural, intellectual, religious setting of
Boethius differed markedly from that of St. Thomas, accord-
ingly, but both men played crucial roles in making the history of
the West what it has been.
Boethius was a citizen of Rome under an Ostrogoth king as
the Dark Ages closed in on Europe. Thomas was born in the
Kingdom of Sicily, joined a new religious order, and was caught
up in the exciting tumult of the still-new University of Paris. Boe-
thius had a justified sense of living in an age of endings; Thomas
lived when intellectual horizons were expanding with a rapidity
that elicited conflicting reactions. One could continue this litany
of the differences between the two men, but it is their profound
similarities that also strike us.
Both were Catholics with a sense of intellectual mission. Boe-
thius was aware that the kind of education he himself had re-
ceived, as much Greek as Latin, had become all but impossible;
fearful that the glory that was Greece might fade along with the
grandeur that was Rome, he set himself to do something about
it. Thomas Aquinas, confronted by a flood of new literature
translated from the Arabic and Greek that carried disturbing im-
plications for the Christian tradition, found the work that would
fill his days. In lifetimes of forty-four and forty-nine years, re-
spectively, separated by centuries, Boethius and Aquinas ad-

I
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