The Political Thought of Thomas Aquinas

386 Pages·1963·56.535 MB·English

by  Thomas Gilby

THE POLITICAL THOUGHT
OL THOMAS AQUINAS
By the same author
POETIC EXPERIENCE
AN INTRODUCTION TO THOMIST AESTHETICS
MORALS AND MARRIAGE
THE CATHOLIC BACKGROUND TO SEX
BARBARA CELARENT
A DESCRIPTION OF SCHOLASTIC DIALECTIC
PHOENIX AND TURTLE
THE UNITY OF KNOWING AND BEING
ST THOMAS AQUINAS
PHILOSOPHICAL TEXTS
BRITAIN AT ARMS
A SCRAPBOOK OF MILITARY HISTORY
BETWEEN COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY
A PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY OF THfi STATE
ST THOMAS AQUINAS
THEOLOGICAL TEXTS
UP THE GREEN RIVER
A NOVEL
THE POLITICAL THOUGHT
OF THOMAS AQUINAS
Thomas ^Gilby
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
Library of Congress Catalog Number 58-5539
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, CHICAGO 37
Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd., London W.i, England.
The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada
Copyright in the International Copyright Union. Published 1958
Second Impression 1963
Printed in Great Britain
TO
HARRY WALSTON
Attendendum est quod aliter sumunt politicum vel
civile apud Philosophum et aliter apud Juristas.
Commentary, V Ethics, lect. 12
vi
J*
CONTENTS
viii
SYNOPSIS
xiv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
xiv
ABBREVIATIONS
INTRODUCTION XV
THE INFLUENCES AT WORK 2
PART ONE.
Chapter I.
THEOLOGIANS 5
1. The Bible as Mundane Guide 10
2. The Theology of Natural Law 16
Chapter
II. JURISTS 23
1. Canonists 31
2. Civilians 48
Chapter III. 55
LANDED MEN AND WANDERERS
1. The Social Scene 55
2. The Order of Preachers 66
Chapter IV. 73
PHILOSOPHERS
1. The New Naturalism 75
2. Aristode from the Arabic and Greek 78
PART TWO. THE DEVELOPMENT IN ST THOMAS 90
Chapter V.
THE ADVANCE FROM THE THEOLOGIANS 107
1. Law in Nature 111
2. The Concept of Law 124
3. Types of Law 136
4. The Jus Gentium, 142
5. Dominion a Natural Condition 146
Chapter VI. A 159
DRAFT FOR THE JURISTS
1. Law-Making as Art 162
2. The Limits to Legalism 175
3. Legality and Politics 187
4. Legal Supremacy 191
• •
Vll
yiii THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF THOMAS AQUINAS
Chapter VII. CITIZENSHIP AND ECCENTRICITY 203
1. Justice, within the Official Community 208
2. Private and Public 214
3. Individual and Social Justice 219
4. Politics and Morals 227
5. Personal and Common Good 237
6. The Corporate Group 251
7. State Personality 256
8. A Note on Terminology 261
Chapter VIII. THE RECEPTION OF ARISTOTLE 265
1. The Commentaries on the Ethics and Politics 267
2. The Brief Neo-PIellenism 271
3. Political Method 279
4. The Polity 284
5. Political Equity 299
CONCLUSION. THE POLITICAL DISCOUP.SE 312
1. The Plistorical Effect 313
2. The Three Social Phases 316
3. Summary 328
INDEX 333
SYNOPSIS
INTRODUCTION
Rise of the. European State from feudalism—Frederick II and
the Regnum St Thomas’s background His four new principles:
— —
1, Political authority based on nature, not convention; 2, Not de-
rived from ecclesiastical authority; 3, Limited to the maintenance
of external justice; 4, Exercised as art, not expansion of ethics—
Political science subsumed in a wider philosophical and theological
doctrine.
PART ONE
THE INFLUENCES AT WORK
Augustinian theology—Roman Law—Medieval culture—Aristo-
telean philosophy.
CONTENTS IX
Chapter I. THEOLOGIANS
St Isidore’s Etymologies—Greek and Latin Fathers—St Augustine
-—Identification of Christian philosophy and theology—Influence
of the social doctrines of the Stoics—Contrast of innocence and
convention—Religious acceptance of State not founded on righteous-
ness,
1. The Bible as Mundane Guide.—The world of allegory and
twelfth-century humanism—John of Salisbury—Beginnings of
natural philosophy and study of social institutions—Parisian Sum-
mists—Commentaries on the Sapiential Books—Vincent of Beau-
vais.
2. The Theology of Natural Law.—Natural right and the Greeks—
and the Romans—Early Schoolmen—-Nature as opposed to arti-
ficial, rational, supernatural—Impression of Eternal Law on the
human mind—Scientific classification of laws not yet achieved.
Chapter II. JURISTS
Medieval legal temper—Wariness of theologians about legal
studies—Bologna—Recovery of Justinian’s Law—Government—
The Gloss of Accursius.
1. Canonists.—Line of lawyer Popes—St Raymund of Penna-
fort—Internal and external forum—Mixture of law and theology—
The Canonical Movement as a political cause—Aloofness of theo-
logians and friars—John of Paris—Humane effect of Canonists—
Contract and the free society—Representative government—Office
and person—Paternal and political association.
2. Civilians.—The Four Doctors—Glossators—Post-Glossators—
Legal Scholasticism—Italian and French schools—Paris and
Orleans—The Equity Wing—Placentinus—The power of the
Princeps—The right of the Populus.
Chapter III. LANDED MEN AND WANDERERS
1. The Social Scene.—Growth of trade—Town life—Personifica-
tion of official power—Professionalism—Custom and Statute—
Law—Aristocratic reaction to monarchy—Pilgrims—Non-classical
influences.
2. The Order of Preachers.—Vagrants—Friars—Dominicans—
Manichees—Spirituals.
X
THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF THOMAS AQUINAS
Chapter IV. PHILOSOPHERS
Neo-Platonic and Stoic sources of Christian philosophy.
1. The New Naturalism.—Growth of natural sciences—The
humanism of Chartres—Gradual discovery of Aristotle—Logic—
Natural and metaphysical philosophy—Moral and political philo-
sophy—Hostility of traditional divines.
2. Aristotle from the Arabic and Greek.—Arabic and Jewish com-
mentators—Avicenna—Averroes—Translation from the Greek by
Robert Grosseteste and William of Moerbeke—Latin Averroism—
The Double Truth theory—The two worlds—The two cities—
Germs of secularism.
PART TWO
THE DEVELOPMENT IN ST THOMAS
Movement from Imperium to Polis—Decline in the political power
of Emperor and Pope—The Nation-State—Teaching career of St
Thomas—His position between Augustinianism and Averroism—
The function of Reason—Values in the material wrorld—Humana
civilitas—Pre-Thomist and Post-Thomist Dominicans.
Chapter V. THE ADVANCE FROM THE THEOLOGIANS
Contrast of Greek and Latin concepts of community—of author-
ity—Moral requirements for the possession and exercise of power—
Legal positivism.
1. Law in Nature.—The idea of law wider than that of ‘positive
legality’—Basis of rationalism—Political law' independent of sin—
New respect for material Nature—Interdependence of sciences—
Morality and economics—Biological springs of lawr—Jus according
to philosophers and lawyers—Justice a condition of all virtue.
2. The Concept of Law.—Gradual development of the definition—
The Ordinance of Reason and the Lex Regia—The commonwealth
and the ultimate common good—Sovereign authority and the
people—Promulgation and the canonical insistence on scientia.
3. Types of Law.—Seven classes considered—Eternal Law—
Natural Law, primary and secondary precepts—The Gospel Law—
The Lex Fomitis—Positive Divine Law and the Mosaic Lawr—
Positive Human Law.