Sermon-Conferences of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Apostles' Creed

209 Pages·2016·5.57 MB·English

by  Thomas Aquinas

THE SERMON-CONFERENCES
OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
ON THE APOSTLES' CREED
Translated from the Leonine Edition
and edited and introduced by
NICHOLAS AyO, C.S.C.
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Sermon-Conferences of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Apostles' Creed
Edited by Ayo, Nicholas R.
Copyright©1988 by Ayo, Nicholas R.
ISBN: 1-59752-027-6
Publication date 112512005
Previously published by University of Notre Dame Press, 1988
Translated from the Leonine Edition and Edited and Introduced by Nicholas Ayo, C.S.C.
This book is dedicated to my sister
ALIDA .ANN AyO MACOR
whose own book encouraged me to begin my own
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
I. I Believe in One God, and So Forth 17
II. I Believe in One God 27
m. The Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth,
of All Things Visible and Invisible 35
IV. And in Jesus Christ, His Only Son Our Lord 45
V. Who Is Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the
Virgin Mary 55
VI. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was Crucified, Was
Dead, and Was Buried 65
VII. He Descended into Hell 77
Vill. On the Third Day He Rose from the Dead 87
IX. He Ascended into Heaven, and Sits at the Right
Hand of God the Father Almighty 95
x. From Where He Will Come to Judge the Living
and the Dead 103
XI. I Believe in the Holy Spirit 113
XII. The Holy Catholic Church 123
XIII. ' Communion of Saints, Forgiveness of Sins 133
XIV. The Resurrection of the Flesh 143
XV. Eternal Life. Amen. 151
Notes to the Latin 161
Notes to the English Translation 163
Appendix I: Divisions of the Apostles' Creed 169
Appendix II: Versions of the Apostles' Creed 187
vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank the many people who made this
work possible. I am grateful to my family, especially my ninety-four
year-old mother, who still encourages her children, as well as to my
religious family, the Congregation of Holy Cross. In particular, I would
thank the Leonine Commission and Father Louis J. Bataillon, O.P. for
their indispensable assistance. The Notre Dame Press and John Eh
mann and Ann Rice deserve special mention, along with the generous
and unknown reader of my typescript. The Wilbur Foundation and
Russell Kirk assisted me with a grant. Walter Nicgorski and Philip
Sloan of the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre
Dame gave me every assistance. Juliette LaChapelle and Suzanne Lutz
helped me with editing the text. Cheryl A. Reed, Nila V. Gerhold,
and Nancy A. Kegler in the stenopool gave many hours to preparing
the text. I would thank so many people who befriended me: Dave
Burrell, C.s.c. and Bill Dohar, C.S.c., Mary Catherine Rowland and
Macrina Wiederkehr, o.S.B. To all of them, and to many others un
mentioned, I am grateful for the composition of this work.
ix

INTRODUCTION
LENT OF 1273
Not much is known about Thomas Aquinas as a preacher, nor
do we have many of his authentic sermons. The "Collationes Credo
in Deum,"l which might be translated sermon-conferences on the
creed, are classified both by Eschmann2 and Weisheip}3 as sermons.
Previously they had been classified as theological opuscula, largely
because they were gathered in the volumes of that designation. What
is known of these sermons, rather longish and patterned more on the
thirty-minute retreat conference of our own day than on the Sunday
homily?
We know that Thomas was ordained to the priesthood in 1250
and that his vocation as sermon-writer and preacher probably began
at that time. Eschmann thinks that "St. Thomas preached assiduously,
as may be expected from a Friar Preacher and, more especially still,
a mediaeval Master of Theology whose statutory obligations included
preaching just as attendance at University sermons was obligatory
for the students" (pp. 425-26). Weisheipl writes:
Little can be said at this time about Thomas's preaching
career during his first Parisian Regency [1250-59]. One of the
serious obligations of masters was to preach sacred doctrine. Uni
versity sermons were always in Latin, and they were listed in
the university calendar. Even bachelors had to preach a speci
fied number of times before they could incept in theology. There
were, of course, other types of sermons. Some were preached in
the vernacular for the faithful, such as during Lent or other times
when a series of vernacular sermons was called for. Very often
a vernacular sermon or series was organized first in Latin, with
the particular points to be preached and the biblical examples
to be used in illustration included. Many of these sermon notes
have survived in Latin, but the vernacular texts seem to be lost.
(p.128)
Thomas gave just such a series of sermons in the Lent of 1273,4 about
1
2 Introduction
a year before he died. This Lenten cycle almost surely included his
conferences on the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer, some twenty
six sermons, or twenty-eight if the two sermons on the Hail Mary
are here included. They were preached daily by Thomas in the parish
church of San Domenico Maggiore, in Naples, probably in the late
afternoon. Witnesses at the canonization proceeding for Thomas in
1323 recall that these sermons were well attended and well received
by many people, both students and ordinary faithful. Thomas preached
in the Neapolitan vernacular dialect that was his mother tongue. His
sermon-conferences were recorded by Reginald of Piperno, his long
time secretary and companion, who presumably translated them into
Latin, very likely after the death of Thomas.
Several commentators think the Lenten series of 1273 also in
cludes the thirty-one conferences on the 'len Commandments. Accord
ingly, it is argued that the series began on Septuagesima Sunday, Feb
ruary 2, and continued to Wednesday of Holy Week, April 6.5 Almost
sixty conferences in one Lent, however, would have been a heavy
schedule for one preacher. Moreover, the evidence that the confer
ences on the 'len Commandments were taken down by Peter d~dria
instead of Reginald, has led to speculation that these conferences
were probably given in a Lent some short time before, and plausibly
in Rome.6
The circumstances in Thomas Aquinas's life at the time of this
Lenten cycle of sermons were as follows. He was forty-eight years of
age, and still vigorous in the pursuit of his writings. Regent of The
ology at the University of Naples, he was also appointed Preacher
General by the Dominican Priory of San Domenico in Naples, where
many years before he had taken the religious habit. Naples at this time
was under Angevin rule and was known as the Kingdom of Naples;
it was part of the Roman province of the Dominican Order. In this
office, which he held from 1260 until his death in 1274, Thomas was
responsible for arranging and overseeing all of the preaching by
the Dominican Order of Preachers in that entire geographical area
throughout the church year. In 1273, Thomas himself undertook to
deliver in the vernacular the Lenten series for that year. In their to
tality, the Thomistic Lenten conferences comprise an adult cate
chism with exposition of the 'len Commandments, the Apostles'
Creed, the Our Father, and the Hail Mary.
Some months after delivering these sermon-conferences. Thomas
ceased all activity of writing and preaching. On December 6, 1273,
Thomas told Reginald that he could write no more. This event has
been variously interpreted as a mystical experience of surpassing in-
Introduction 3
tensity that made superfluous further theological endeavors, or as a
physiological and psychological breakdown of some sort that para
lyzed his initiatives, or as some combination of the spiritual and the
medical. In fact, Thomas did no more, and he died the following spring,
March 7, 1274, at Fossanuova, while en route as a peritus for the four
teenth ecumenical council to be held in Lyons. These sermon
conferences on the Apostles' Creed, therefore, remain among the very
last compositions of Thomas Aquinas. Collins calls them "his last
words." Lent of 1273 was indeed his last Eastertide in this world.
SCRIBES AND REDACTORS
We have seen above that Thomas gave the "Collationes Credo
in Deum" in the vemacular, using a sermon format, in a parish church
of Naples, in the Lent of 1273. It is reasonably assumed that his
secretary-companion, Reginald of Piperno, took down Thomas's words
as they were spoken and subsequently translated the vernacular into
Latin, very likely after the death of Thomas in 1274. Sorgia cites sev
eral manuscripts which claim in an addendum that the Latin text was
a translation of the vernacular and that the text was not written down
by Thomas himself (p. 6). A secretarial recording of an oral presenta
tion was common practice, and such a reportatio of Thomas would
seem to account for what has come down to us in manuscript. It is,
of course, possible that Thomas had made brief sermon-notes for him
self, and delivered the sermons in the vernacular, using these notes
all the while. In that case, Reginald may have had both some notes
and the fuller vernacular transcript that he himself took down.
We know that Reginald was a faithful and devoted secretary, who
kept the manuscripts of Aquinas in good order and diligently promoted
them. From 1259 until the death of Thomas, Reginald was at his side.
He was Thomas's socius continuous, or full-time companion, charged
to meet the secretarial needs of the theolOgian, the valet needs of the
man, and the sacramental needs of the monk and priest. Reginald was
himself a lector theologiae and a fellow Dominican priest of the
Roman Province. He was assisted at times by Peter d'Andria, to whom
the reportatio of the sermon-series on the 'len Commandments has
been attributed.7
Reginald died in 1290, leaving the entire collection of Thomas's
works in comprehensive order, well prepared for the compiling of the
Canonization Catalog in 1323 by Bartholomew of Capua. In that offi
cial canonical listing of Aquinas's Omnia Opera, the "Collationes