Hylomorphic Relics: Form of Corporeity in the Matter of Saintly Veneration
Medieval Controversy between Aquinas and Bonaventure over Unity of Form
Introduction:
Inquiring into the medieval cult of relics, I was aware of a controversy over the veneration of relics as well as a diversity of reasons provided for the veneration of relics. Choosing to focus my research of the philosophical thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, contemporaries in different veins of the Augustinian tradition of Aristotle’s philosophy, I wondered how both were able to derive a theology that permitted the veneration of relics, corporeal remains of what had once been the vivified bodies of saints. Pointing out first the differences in Aquinas and Bonaventure’s thought on the composition of the human person (body and soul, equated with matter and form) through Aquinas’ condemnation in 1277 at Oxford. Rejecting the Augustinian matter/form theory with which Bonaventure agrees, Aquinas’ objection to famosissimum binarium Augustinianum, the plurality of forms in one soul, in particular indicates a different justification for the veneration of relics than that of Bonaventure. Transitioning from the Oxford condemnation to contrasting the two saints’ justifications of the veneration of relics, I will distinguish the elements of Aquinas’ thought for which he was thought unable to argue for the veneration of saints’ relics. Pointing out Aquinas’ distinctions between heavenly and spiritual bodies as rooted in the hypostatic union of natures in Christ, I will discuss how Aquinas’ veneration of relics is rooted in the Eucharist, which remains today as the living relic in Catholic thought. Concluding with a consideration of the applicability of Aquinas’ unity of form over Bonaventure’s multiplicity of substantial form to today’s thought, I will propose how the Protestant consideration of the Catholic practice of venerating saints’ relics still clings to a more Augustinian philosophy of relics.
Problem of Relics and Relating to the Saints:
The history of venerating Christian relics appears to be very controversial, from those who claim that the tradition of relics, physical remnants of things or persons which had been deemed holy or vessels of holiness, stems from ancient ancestor worship, to early Christian worship in the catacomb tombs of martyrs.[1] A fracturing point for Christians from the time of the reformation on, relics have stirred controversy between Catholics and other baptized believers. In his autobiography, Pilgrimage from Rome, ex-priest Bart Brewer now head of Mission to Catholics International posits that a “dogma that has bothered Catholics for centuries is the veneration of relics and the claims that they have magical powers. Even Martin Luther wondered how there could be twenty-six apostles buried in Germany, when there were only twelve in the entire Bible!”[2]
The direction of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments 2001 “Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Guidelines and Principles” [3] addressed the issue of venerating saint’s relics communicates the current, popular belief that relics of saints[4] to contain the same sanctity as these heroic persons now residing in Heaven. While there is no explicit discussion of power implicit in these relics, the Catechism recognizes relics as “sacramentals,”[5] which through extraneous to official liturgy of the Church, are:
These expressions of piety extend the liturgical life of the Church, but do not replace it. They “should be so drawn up that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, are in some way derived from it and lead the people to it, since in fact the liturgy by its very nature is far superior to any of them.”(179)[6]
Seeing saint’s relics as a symbol of “the communion with the Sacrifice of Christ of the entire Church,” drawing a connection between the martyr’s blood in sacrifice for the gospel with the placing of their remains under the altar on which Christ is offered in symbolic sacrifice of Eucharist,[7] the Church postulates its belief in the unity of heavenly and earthly body’s of God’s people. This doctrine of communion of the saints has two meanings, ‘communion in holy things (sancta)” and “among holy persons (sancti)’[8] This relation between those who are physically dead, yet spiritually alive with God in Heaven and capable of interceding for those on earth is closely tied to the philosophical consideration of the composition of the human person as body and soul.
Aquinas and Unity of Form in Oxford Condemnation:
To understand the Medieval devotion to the cult of saintly relics, one must understand the medievals’ perspective of the world: a Hellenist distinction of soul and body between lunar and sublunary worlds: “The world below the moon was a world of corruption and decay, necessarily inferior to the world of the heavens, thought to be beyond time and change, incorruptible.”[9] Medieval scholastics considered death to be the means of crossing the “fault line”[10] between corrupting corporeal material (the body) and the spiritual realm pure light.[11] According to Christian thought, this separation between soul and body was only temporary until resurrection, though “the dead body joined in the instability and opacity of the sublunary world while the soul enjoyed the unmovable clarity of the remainder of the universe.”[12] It was in this world that saints “bridged the gap between divine perfection and human imperfection.”[13] The unusual grace of saints, begun with the belief that martyrs of the faith found consolation for their earthly wounds immediately in the bosom of their Savior in Heaven, made them windows to the spiritual grace of God for other humans before and after death.[14] Living and dead saints were considered to “simultaneously present in heaven and on earth.”[15] Because of the holiness of the person, normal phenomena of death (separation of the soul and body) was nullified, and a saint’s “soul in heaven was in contact with the body on earth, and communicated the heavenly power (virtus) of the soul to the body.”[16]
The Medieval veneration of relics during the 13th century when St. Thomas Aquinas was writing and teaching was based on the Augustinian hylomorphic composition of the soul.[17] Representing this Augustinian hylomorphism, St. Bonaventure’s relation of form and matter diverges from that of Aquinas; though both theologically conclude that form and matter relate in such a way as to permit the veneration of saintly relics. According to Daniel Callus’ investigation of Aquinas’ divergence from “Augustinian” theory of the composition of form and matter in the human person, Augustinians in 1277 claimed that: (1) matter and form were identified with potentiality and actuality; (2) there was a sort of actuality in prime matter, a disposition due to rationes seminales to be independently; and (3) “the substantial form confers only one determinate perfection.”[18] The focus of this discussion is the point of contention from which these three principles are merely premises to the hylomorphic composition of the human being (though Augustinians claimed all created beings were composed thus). It is for rejecting this “binarium famosissimum, the twofold pillar on which the whole structure of the Augustinian school was supposed to stand,”[19] that Aquinas was condemned in 1270.
Yet what does binarium famosissimum imply in the hylomorphic composition of human beings? Before this question can be asked, we must discuss the origin of hylomorphic being, the root in which both Aquinas and Bonaventure (postulating Augustinian theory) understood being to be. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the term “hylomorphic” indicating the composition of created being is based on the central doctrine of Aristotelian natural philosophy: a “metaphysical view according to which every natural body consists of two intrinsic principles, one potential, namely, primarily matter, and one actual, namely substantial form.”[20] Upon this basis Aquinas and the Augustinians agreed, along with the implications that matter and form could not exist or act independently. Having established the commonality of material and formal composition of created beings, what is the binarium famosissimum in regard to this hylomorphic composition of being with which Aquinas took issue? Binarium famosissimum is the “theory known as “plurality of forms” is not just the theory that there are typically many forms in a material substance.”[21] While Aquinas would have agreed with the notion of many accidental forms in material substances, binarium famosissimum suggests the “plurality of substantial forms in a given material substance.”[22]
Instead of accepting this view of multiple substantial forms in one individual, Aquinas proposed a distinction between compositions of corporeal and spiritual beings. Criticizing the perspective of the Augustinians, Aquinas posited three tenets from which he stated that a plurality of substantial forms could not be derived in human beings: (1) matter and form should not be equated with potentiality and actuality, as matter was only found in those things which would decay; (2) prime matter is complete potentiality, without any actual substance of its own; and (3) one substantial form acts upon prime matter to produce a being.[23] Rejecting the idea of rationes seminales, Aquinas claimed that no material body could exist without the determination of a substantial form, but that Angels and human souls were purely spiritual.[24] If one substantial form then gives all determinations and perfections of matter so that it is no way incomplete or imperfect, to posit that a human being can have more than one substantial form goes against metaphysical principles. Though his theory most directly affected the understanding of spiritual things, soul and angels, Aquinas’ “thesis of oneness of substantial form”[25] affected the understanding of human being which is both material and immaterial especially in regards to the subjects of death and immortality.
Denying “hylomorphic composition in spiritual substances and of plurality of forms” was strongly opposed by traditional Augustinians such as Bonaventure, reaching its height while Aquinas was regent in Paris, between 1269-72.[26] In Archbishop John Pecham’s letters of January 1, 1285 ad June 1, 1285, he notes the differences between Aquinas and Bonaventure regarding these theories of unity and plurality of form as representative of their Orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans.[27] Accusing the Dominicans of “forsaking the Saints and following heathen philosophers” by “pursuing a new and very dangerous course,” Pecham accused Aquinas’ theory of the unity of form to be against St. Augustine’s teaching, thus against the Church.[28] Callus liberates Aquinas from this accusation through interrogating the accusation through two questions: (1) the origin of plurality theology and (2) whether Augustine raised and solved the problems of pluralism.[29] Vindicating Aquinas from these accusations of heresy, Callus claims that Augustinians merely appropriated St. Augustine’s assent to the pluralist position, while his “authority was unanimously claimed by the supporters of the unity thesis,”[30] which was acclaimed even among some Franciscan theologians. Callus admits that Aquinas did innovate, but only in the angle at which he approached the metaphysical problem.
Having stated Aquinas’ position on the plurality of forms in rejection, rather stating that the soul is the one substantial form of the body, in opposition to the Augustinian perspective held by Bonaventure of multiple substantial forms per individual, though not against the perspective of St. Augustine himself (as was claimed in Aquinas’ condemnation at Oxford[31]. Focusing on this theme of unity of form as it relates to human nature, I will proceed to explicate Aquinas’ theology on relics as found in the Summa Theological reflecting this notion of unity of form in contrast to the proof for relic veneration from Bonaventure’s Augustinian perspective of multiple substantial forms in one being.
Bonaventure’s Plurality of Form in Relation to Relic Theology (Augustinianism)
St. Bonaventure’s philosophical Augustinianism claims an anthropology of “body-soul dualism that the soul is dominant over the body and independent of the body, and that the will is superior to the intellect.”[32] While Bonaventure denied that matter itself had any existence without form, he did interpret “the intellect and will as functions of the soul that are identical with the soul, not as separate powers.”[33] Holding that the soul separated from the body was not a complete human being, Bonaventure wrote that God did not create death, but that it was the cause of “the human will falling away from rectitude and justice.”[34] Seeing death as the falling apart of two sorts of matters,[35] incorporeal and corporeal matter, Bonaventure explains the immortality of the soul through its retention of substance.[36] Pertaining to the discussion of relics, the consideration of spiritual matter leads Bonaventure to conclude that “when the rational soul is separated from the body at death, it cannot be properly called ‘man.’”[37] With the philosophy of plurality of substantial forms, Bonaventure does not believe that the soul as form of the body can be directly connected to the body. Instead, Cullen infers that the mediating form of corporeity unites soul (spiritual matter) and body (corporeal matter) “because matter is never a pure potency.”[38] With such a perspective of human composition of “matter is disposed to form by seminal reasons, and the form must have an aptitude for the matter.”[39] According to Cullen, Bonaventure introduces two seminal reasons which are present in the material essences of soul and body which predispose them to be united as a human being: (1) unitability, the rationes seminales in the spiritual matter which predisposes it to unity to body and (2) complexion, the preconditioned tendency of corporeal matter which allows it be united to a soul.[40]
In fact, it is only when spiritual and physical matter is united in body and soul that the human being achieves true happiness and completion. Bonaventure claims that death is a violent disruption of the harmony which God intended, for “there is no spiritual fulfillment apart from material reality, either temporally or eternally.”[41] Yet the since the rift between physical and spiritual was torn by the fall, the holiness exuded by the life of a saint offers a healing grace to those other needy souls; a phenomena disintegrating the normal relation between incorporeal and physical matter at the point of death. Noting the interrelated origins of Bonaventure’s Eucharistic theology (which some authors have called the true relic), and consideration for the veneration relics, it is appropriate to make an analogy from Bonaventure’s discussion of Christ’s death (corporeal and spiritual matter of the Eucharist) and body to that of His consideration of saintly men’s bodies as relics. Having discussed Bonaventure’s philosophical understanding of death, his reasoning for veneration of relics seems to be that of a “’real presence of the saints in their relics and graves,’” which is comparable to the real presence of Christ in the elements of the Eucharist.[42] Thus like the Eucharist, the holiness of the saintly person insured that God would not submit that person to corruption,[43] based off of Bonaventure’s horror at “decay—mutability (moral and physical)—and a conviction that there is in the blood the profit of redemption remains immutable God.”[44] It seems from Bonaventure’s commentary on the Sentences that “divine power could have permitted relics of foreskin and blood to survive on earth” since “blood is part of the truth of human nature, which is informed by soul and hypostatically assumed by the Word.”[45] Bonaventure’s remarks about blood relics, Bynum comments, refer not so much to the resurrection of every particle of the physical body, but communicate bodily resurrection as a sure fact because of Christ’s blood.
Bodily death in all its hideousness is not only the punishment for sin; it is also, in a certain sense, the terrible symbol of the deformity that is sin. Death is the final ugliness. The body’s beauty is destroyed. It decomposes, rots, falls apart. In fact, when no longer informed by the spiritual soul, it is not really a body at all, but only a loose amalgam of dissipating elements. Here is the tragedy, the tearfulness of things, lamented by the entire world’s great art: the lovely beloved in the grip of the worms.[46]
This bodily death and corruption is horrible, but worse than the fact of decomposition is the reminder it proffers that the soul and body are divided from one another, and separated from God.[47] Bonaventure’s Eucharistic theology seems to have been deeply influenced by and influencing of his consideration of relics, derived from the belief that death, in separation the soul (incorporeal matter) from the body (corporeal matter) was a corruption of man as he was created to be by God. For Bonaventure, the bodily matter of a human person has been ruined by the fall by corruption leading to this separation between corporeal and incorporeal matter of death.
Centering his theological reflections on an idyllic conception of man in Eden, perfect unity between body and soul, Bonaventure locates the cause of fragmented body and soul in the fault of a human free will: sin caused human corporeality to focus on itself, and thus the body, complexified by multiple forms is in a state of decay till holiness in resurrection.[48] Equating the separation of body and soul as a consequence of the fall,[49] Bonaventure writes that “’abandoning the soul’s true good for the sake of material satisfaction, the soul became separated against its will from the body, through the body’s death.”’[50] Thus it is only in resurrection or perfection of this divided condition by grace that humans are reunited to seek the good of relationship with God. Since the soul is immortal due to spiritual matter, Bonaventure’s philosophical theology proposes that the relics of saints be venerated because their incorporeal and physical matters have remained united through the grace of heaven, though they appear to be dead. From such lines of thought, that death has no conquered the saints, whose souls remain in communion of real presence with their bodies, some saints’ bodies were believed to be whole and uncorrupted as signs of the immortality that would be imparted to those through imitation of their holiness. Thus veneration of relics was a reminder of the future uniting of corporeal and incorporeal matter when Christ returned to earth as judge with the saints. Even while recognizing this connection of saints’ souls and bodies, Bonaventure maintains that “The soul cannot be fully blessed without the body, because she has a naturally implanted inclination to be reunited with the body.” Resurrection being the ultimate end of man’s body, it was either destined for eternal life (testified to by the holiness of the saints) or eternal death (which Bonaventure viewed as the separation of matter,” a death far more terrible, infinitely uglier: eternal death, the punishment for persisting irrevocably in the grossness of sin.[51]).[52] The immortality of the bodily is memorialized in both relic veneration and Eucharist for Bonaventure, though both only make present temporarily what has yet to be eternally solidified in resurrection. Having presented St. Bonaventure’s reasoning for veneration of relics, I will contrast this perspective with that of Aquinas in the composition of corporeal and spiritual being.
Aquinas’ Unity of Form Hylomorphicism and Relic Theology (Innovation?)
“And so St Bonaventure, like St Thomas, believes that there is incompleteness about the happiness of the saints in heaven before the resurrection of the body.”[53] But to Aquinas, the nature of this separation is more profound, since soul and matter are two parts of one composite being, not two united composite elements: the soul is the one substantial form of the body, and all other qualities which Bonaventure terms “form” are considered accidents. However, Aquinas was critiqued by Augustinians:
The reason why traditionalists objected to Thomas’ theory that in any substance there was only one substantial form was theological in character. If the soul of Christ, they thought, was the one substantial form of the body of Christ, and if there was no ‘form corporeity,’ it would follow that between Christ’s death and his resurrection; his body was not his body at all. In addition, they considered that, on Thomas’ theory, the veneration of the relics and bodies of saints could not be justified. Thomas has a different opinion, but his critics thought that his rejection of the traditional doctrine of ‘form corporeity’ was a perilous novelty.[54]
Judging that Aquinas’ consideration of the hylomorphic composition of man differed from Bonaventure’s traditional Augustinianism, he was forced to prove that the veneration of relics was possible through postulating a hylomorphism where the human soul was the one substantial form of the body. Aquinas’ rebuttal to the accusation of innovation included a response to both the possibility of adoring Christ’s body in the Eucharist as well as the saint’s bodies as vehicles of holiness, further indicating the connection between these physical vessels of grace as noted in Bonaventure.
In the third part of the Summa Theologica in the twenty-fifth question, Aquinas addresses the theological nature of this absence of this form corporeity by discussing “The adoration of Christ.” Arguing philosophically that “per se unity of a substance can only be preserved if one substantial form is united directly with prime matter, which is pure potentiality, so that all of a substance’s actuality is received by this substantial form.”[55] Augustinian plurality of form, by which form corporeity is necessary to unite body and soul, seemed to make unity only “per accidens” possible.[56] Arguing also that there was no such composition of matter and form in spiritual beings, Aquinas opposed the possibility of adoring Christ’s humanity as separate from His divinity.[57] Pointing to Christ as the example for why there can only be one substantial form in a body, Aquinas raises the issue of hypostatic union between Christ’s divine and human natures: If these indicate “that there are several persons or hypostases in Christ, it would follow that there would be, absolutely speaking, several adorations. And this is what is condemned in the Councils.”[58]
Since Christ must have one substantial form to receive a unified adoration, Aquinas turns to answer the objection of Augustinian traditionalists in the sixth article of this question:
It is clear from this that he who has certain affection for anyone, venerates whatever of his is left after his death, not only his body and the parts thereof, but even external things, such as his clothes, and such like. Now it is manifest that we should show honor to the saints of God, as being members of Christ, the children and friends of God, and our intercessors. Wherefore in memory of them we ought to honor any relics of theirs in a fitting manner: principally their bodies, which were temples, and organs of the Holy Ghost dwelling and operating in them, and are destined to be likened to the body of Christ by the glory of the Resurrection. Hence God Himself fittingly honors such relics by working miracles at their presence.[59]
Referring to the first article of this question in which Aquinas discussed adoration to Christ as man and God through a subsistent hypostasis, Aquinas recognizes that “honor is given to a subsistent thing in its entirety.”[60] Thus when the part of a saint’s body or item associated with a saint is venerated, it is not the part of the saint, or the item itself, but, as the saint is a member of Christ’s body; all of Christ’s substantial form (grace) is venerated.[61] While Aquinas demonstrates that his consideration of the hylomorphic composition of the body does not negate the veneration of relics, he rejects the Augustinian notion of plurality of substantial forms in one subject as detracting from the value of the Eucharist, the truest relic, thereby inhibiting the veneration of saints’ relics because of a belief in the form of corporeity.
Aquinas objects to the doctrine of the form of corporeity because unlike Bonaventure and other Augustinians, he postulates a composite difference between spiritual and physical bodies: “the heavenly body is without contrariety, whereas the elemental bodies have contrariety in their nature. And as generation and corruption are from contraries, it follows that, whereas the elements are corruptible, the heavenly bodies are incorruptible”[62] According to Aquinas, if the form of corporeity did exist in physical bodies, it “would inhere in matter immutably and so far all bodies would be incorruptible.”[63] The death of these physical bodies would allow for under a pluralistic hylomorphic theory of human composition would infer that “corruption would then be merely accidental through the disappearance of successive forms—that is to say, it would be corruption, not pure and simple, but partial, since a being in act would subsist under the transient form.”[64] Understanding the corporality of bodies to be due to elemental state of corporeal being, Aquinas claims that no form can exist in corruptible bodies under the conditions of generation and corruption which our bodies are subject too, concluding that “matter of corruptible and incorruptible bodies is not the same. For matter, as it is in itself, is in potentiality to form.”[65]
Aquinas argues that the form of an incorruptible (spiritual) body must differ from that of a corruptible (material) body because they have different potential ends: while the material body has the potential to corrupt, the spiritual body does not, thus they are composed of different matter towards those ends.[66] While confessing that all bodies have a form of corporeity, Aquinas clarifies that this does not mean spiritual and material bodies are composed in the same matter though “they are all included in the one notion of corporeity.”[67] Both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies have matter in so much as they have potentiality towards their form, though heavenly bodies have potentiality only towards their specific forms, which allows that for to perfect “this matter in such a way that there remains in it no potentiality with respect to being, but only to place.”[68] Since Aquinas distinguishes different limits to the potentiality of spiritual and physical beings, the form of corporeality differs:
In the same way, while the term ‘body,’ insofar as it is the genus of all bodies, signified the substantial form of all bodies, referred to by the term of ‘corporeity’ in the first sense, the same term in the sense in which is it the genus of quantity signified an accidental form of the same bodies, namely, their corporeity in the second sense, that is, their dimension extending them into space. But neither is the first, nor the second sense of the term ‘body’ distinguished by Aquinas that is relevant to the claim that a human being, or indeed, and living being, is composed of body and soul.[69]
To summarize, Aquinas distinguishes a necessary difference between the form of corporeity between heavenly and earthly bodies by noting that both contained potentiality towards their respective forms, but that “the matter of the celestial bodies is different from that of the elemental, because the matter of the celestial is not in potentiality to an elemental form.”[70] It is this difference in Aquinas’ consideration of the corporeity of earthly and celestial beings from the Augustinian consideration of corporeity as that capacity for potentiality with regard to one substantial form that allows Aquinas to justify the hypostatic union of Christ’s incarnation as well as advocate the veneration of saints’ relics in relation to the whole body of Christ and not merely bits of human body parts.
Conclusion:
Having introduced the difference between Bonaventure’s Augustinian perspective of the hylomorphic composition of being and Aquinas’, differences for which Aquinas was condemned at Oxford in 1277 (famosissimum binarium, the plurality of substantial forms in one body differing over the specific issue of the form of corporeity), seem the bases from which Augustinian thinkers argued against the valid possibility of venerating saints’ relics in Aquinas’ thought. While both thinkers view death, the separation of human soul and body, as violation of the created composite God intended, both draw different conclusions as to why the composition of spiritual and physical beings creates a link between the relics of saints and their positions of grace in heaven, both interrelated to positions on the transubstantiation of the Eucharist. As Callus points out:
The Thomist innovations, in so far as they are intimately connected with the problems under discussion, resolves themselves ultimately of the true notion of prime matter and substantial form. With the reception of Aristotelian learning and hylomorphic theory was commonly recognized by all schools as a doctrine whereby becoming might be accounted for and the composition of created beings explained. The conflict turned, not so much on the doctrine itself, but rather on the way in which the theory was interpreted. [71]
Predicated on the Eucharistic resurrection of Christ, Bonaventure and Aquinas agree that earthly bodies are subject to corruption, but that saints in heaven have a special relationship to their bodies because corruption no longer binds them. The distinctions between Bonaventure and Aquinas concerning the veneration of saints’ relics evidence themselves through Aquinas’ postulation of unity of substantial form in being. Arguing from the hypostatic union that if Christ’s two natures were considered two forms they would require different sorts of venerations, Aquinas pointed to such practice as heretical in order to distinguish a difference between spiritual and earthly bodies. Rejecting the Augustinian unity of matter, Aquinas claimed that both heavenly and earthly bodies share form of corporeity only in the sense that both have potential towards their forms.
The implications of plurality or unity of substantial form as debated in Aquinas’ condemnation at Oxford in 1277 seem to continue to impact Protestant and Catholic quibbling over the veneration of saints’ relics even today. Having been raised in a Protestant home, I am able to reflect back and see both how we considered the adoration of the Eucharist as well as the veneration of Saints’ relics as foreign as alien to the Body of Christ as we mystically understood Him. The Calvinisitic/Bapstist Protestant perspective I was raised with strikes me as very Platonic in the sense of Augustinianism; in fact St. Augustine was one of the few people whose anthropology and theology I was regularly exposed to. Aquinas, however, writes in a different conception of grace and the human person. As Aquinas’ reasoning is commonly accepted in the Catholic Church, to a Catholic considering the veneration of relics of the Holy Eucharist to be other to Christ is absurd. While the basis of plurality of forms influencing the teaching I received as a child allowed for human nature to contain both good and evil in it as well as emphasized that adoration of relics and Eucharist was idolatry, other to Christ. Perhaps the root of this consideration was not an internal philosophy of multiple substantial forms, but a projection of such onto Catholicism. However, embracing Aquinas, the Catholic position resonates with the thought of Aquinas, that the essence of grace in the relics of the saints, demonstrated through the Holy Eucharist is Christ Himself. Further consideration of this medieval debate on the hylomorphic composition of being might shed more insight into the distinctions between Catholic and Protestant Christianity—and perhaps they will reveal insights that one or the other of these groups bases their opinion of the other on misconceptions like unto the Augustinians’ misreading of Aquinas as opposed to the teachings of St. Augustine and the Church.
Bibliography:
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Second and Revised Edition, 1920. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Online Edition Copyright © 2008 by Kevin Knight. Nihil Obstat. F. Innocentius Apap, O.P., S.T.M., Censor. Theol.. Imprimatur. Edus. Canonicus Surmont, Vicarius Generalis. Westmonasterii. APPROBATIO ORDINIS. Nihil Obstat. F. Raphael Moss, O.P., S.T.L. and F. Leo Moore, O.P., S.T.L. Imprimatur. F. Beda Jarrett, O.P., S.T.L., A.M., Prior Provincialis Angliæ. 12 May 2009. <http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4025.htm#article6>.
Angenendt, Arnold. “Relics and their veneration in the Middle Ages.” The Invention of Saintliness. Editted by Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group: London and New York, 2002.
“Binarium Famosissimum.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Jun 16, 2008. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online. 21 May 2009. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/binarium/>.
Binski, Paul. Medieval death: Ritual and Representation. Cornell University Press: Ithaca, 1996
Bynum, Caroline Walker. Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia , 2006.
Callus, Daniel. “The Condemnation of St. Thomas as Oxford,” No. 5 of The Aquinas Society of London Aquinas Papers. The Newman Bookshop: Westminster and Maryland, 1946.
Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy. Continuum International Publishing Group: London, 2003.
—. Medieval Philosophy. Courier Dover Publications: New York, 2001
Craig, Edward and Routledge (Firm), Ed. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor & Francis: New York, 1998.
Cullen. Christopher M. Bonaventure. Oxford University Press US: New York, 2006.
Davies, Brian. Thomas Aquinas: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives. Oxford University Press US: New York, 2002.
Delio, Ilia. Simply Bonaventure: An Introduction to His Life, Thought, and Writings. New City Press: Newburgh, N.Y., 2001.
Geary, Patrick. Futra Scara: Theft of Relics in the Central Middle Ages. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, 1978.
“hylomorphism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 21 May. 2009 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/279305/hylomorphism>.
Kowalczyk, Stanislaw. “Augustinianism.” PEF – © Copyright by Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu. Accessed 20 May 2009. <http://ptta.pl/pef/haslaen/a/augustinianism.pdf>.
Klepper, Deeana. Department of Religion, Boston University. Course: Fall 2007, RN 307/607/STH TX 817 Medieval Christianity (M, W, F 12:00-1:00 P.M). Guide to Week V: Saints, Relics and Pilgrimage. <http://people.bu.edu/dklepper/RN307/guidev.html>.
McGrath, Alister E., Ed. The Christian Theology Reader. Wiley-Blackwell: Malden, 2006.
Pasnau, Robert. Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: a Philosophical Study of Summa Theologiae 1a, 75-89. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 2002.
Pasnau, Robert and Christopher John Shields, Ed. The Philosophy of Aquinas, Revised Edition. Westview Press: Boulder, CO, 2003
John Saward. “The Fresh Flowers Again. St. Bonaventure and the Aesthetics of Resurrection.” 10 April 2009. Accessed 21 May 2009. < http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/jsaward/fleshflowers.htm.>.
Skirry, Justin. Descartes and the Metaphysics of Human Nature. Continuum International Publishing Group: London, 2005
Wortley, John. “The origins of Christian veneration of body-parts.” Revue de L’Histoire des Religions 223. 2006, Vol. 1., p. 5-28.
[1] Arnold Angenendt. “Relics and their veneration in the Middle Ages.”
Invention of Saintliness. Edited by Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker.
Routledge Studies in Medieval Religion and Culture. Edited by George Ferzoco and Carolyn Muessig. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group: London and New York. 2002. 27-8.
[2] Bartholomew F. Brewer and Alfred W. Furrell. Pilgrimage from Rome. Bob Jones University Press: Tennessee, 1986. 132.
[3] Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. “Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Guidelines and Principles.” Vatican City, December 2001. Accessed online, 15 May 2009. <http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20020513_vers-direttorio_en.html>.
[4] This document considers relics to be: The term ‘”relics of the Saints” principally signifies the bodies – or notable parts of the bodies – of the Saints who, as distinguished members of Christ’s mystical Body and as Temples of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 3, 16; 6, 19; 2 Cor 6, 16)(324) in virtue of their heroic sanctity, now dwell in Heaven, but who once lived on earth. Objects which belonged to the Saints, such as personal objects, clothes and manuscripts are also considered relics, as are objects which have touched their bodies or tombs such as oils, cloths, and images.’ Paragraph no. 236.
[5] According to Catechism # 1677, “Sacramentals are sacred signs instituted by the Church. They prepare men to receive the fruit of the sacraments and sanctify different circumstances of life.” (467)
[6] Catechism of the Catholic Church. Part II, Chapter 4, Article 1, Reference #1675 (New York: Doubleday, 1995). 466.
[7] Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. “Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Guidelines and Principles.” Par. 237.
[8] Catechism of the Catholic Church. #947-8.
[9] Prof. Deeana Klepper. Department of Religion, Boston University. Course: Fall 2007, RN 307/607/STH TX 817 Medieval Christianity (M, W, F 12:00-1:00 P.M). Guide to Week V: Saints, Relics and Pilgrimage. <http://people.bu.edu/dklepper/RN307/guidev.html>.
[10] Term Klepper quotes from scholar Peter Brown.
[11] Klepper’s notes.
[12] Klepper’s notes.
[13] Klepper’s Notes
[14] Angenedt. “Relics and their veneration in the middle ages.” 30.
[15] Klepper’s notes.
[16] Angenedt. “Relics and their veneration in the middle ages.” 30.
[17] Daniel A. Callus, O.P. “The Condemnation of St. Thomas at Oxford.” Aquinas Papers, No. 5. The Aquinas Society of London. The Newman Bookshop: Westminster and Maryland, 1946. 9.
[18] Callus, 10.
[19] Callus, 4.
[20] “hylomorphism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 21 May. 2009 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/279305/hylomorphism>.
[21] “Binarium Famosissimum.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Jun 16, 2008. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online. 21 May 2009. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/binarium/>.
[22] “Binarium Famosissimum.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
[23] Callus, 10.
[24] Callus, 10.
[25] Callus, 11.
[26] Callus, 11.
[27] Callus, 20.
[28] Callus, 20.
[29] Callus, 21.
[30] Callus, 22.
[31] The condemnation in 1277 was issued by the Bishop of Paris Stephen Tempier, and the
Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Kilwardy, condemned some theses of Thomas Aquinas. Yet, as Kowalczyk notes, “At the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century, Aristotelianism and Thomism gained more and more recognition in the Church, and so the victory of Augustinianism in its current version after the condemnation of Thomism was short-lived.” (Stanislaw Kowalczyk. “Augustinianism.”)
[32] Stanislaw Kowalczyk. “Augustinianism.” PEF – © Copyright by Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu. Accessed 20 May 2009. <http://ptta.pl/pef/haslaen/a/augustinianism.pdf>.
[33] Stanislaw Kowalczyk. “Augustinianism.”
[34] John Saward. “The Fresh Flowers Again. St. Bonaventure and the Aesthetics of Resurrection.” 10 April 2009. Accessed 21 May 2009. < http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/jsaward/fleshflowers.htm.>.
[35] Bonaventure believes in a variation of Aristotelian thought known as “universal hylomorphism,” which infers that not only corporeal beings are composed of form and matter, but that there are two kinds of composites, corporeal and spiritual. (Christopher M. Cullen. Bonaventure. Oxford University Press US, 2006. 45).
[36] Cullen, 53.
[37] Ibid., 53.
[38] Cullen, 53.
[39] Ibid., 53.
[40] Ibid., 54.
[41] Ilia Delio. Simply Bonaventure: Simply Bonaventure: An Introduction to His Life, Thought, and Writings. New City Press, 2001. 70.
[42] Angenedt. “Relics and their veneration in the middle ages.” 30.
[43] Based off of Psalm 51.10 in the thought of St. Augustine and Bonaventure, this passage from the psalms cited in Carolyn Walker Bynum’s Wonderful Blook, pg. 117, was used as a proof text that neither a saint’s physical or spiritual matter would face corruption because of their holy state.
[44] Bynum, pg. 117.
[45] Bynum, 101
[46] John Saward. “The Fresh Flowers Again. St. Bonaventure and the Aesthetics of Resurrection.” 10 April 2009. Accessed 21 May 2009. < http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/jsaward/fleshflowers.htm.>.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Delio, 75.
[49] Delio, 77.
[50] Delio, 78.
[51] John Saward. “The Fresh Flowers Again. St. Bonaventure and the Aesthetics of Resurrection.” 10 April 2009. Accessed 21 May 2009. < http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/jsaward/fleshflowers.htm.>.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Ibid.
[54] Copleston. Medieval Philosophy. 99.
[55] Justin Kirry. Descartes and the metaphysics of human nature. 16.
[56] Ibid., 16.
[57] Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica. Third Part ,Question 25, Article 1, “I answer that…” Second and Revised Edition, 1920. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Online Edition Copyright © 2008 by Kevin Knight. Nihil Obstat. F. Innocentius Apap, O.P., S.T.M., Censor. Theol.. Imprimatur. Edus. Canonicus Surmont, Vicarius Generalis. Westmonasterii. APPROBATIO ORDINIS. Nihil Obstat. F. Raphael Moss, O.P., S.T.L. and F. Leo Moore, O.P., S.T.L. Imprimatur. F. Beda Jarrett, O.P., S.T.L., A.M., Prior Provincialis Angliæ. 12 May 2009. <http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4025.htm#article6>.
[58] Ibid., “I answer that…”
[59] Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica. Third Part ,Question 25, Article 6, Objection 3.
[60] Ibid., Third Part ,Question 25, Article 1, “I answer that…”
[61] Ibid.
[62] Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica. First Part ,Question 66, Article 2, “I answer that…” <http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1066.htm>.
[63] Ibid.
[64] Ibid.
[65] Ibid.
[66] Ibid.
[67] Ibid., “Reply to Objection 4.”
[68] Ibid., “I answer that…”
[69] Brian Davies Thomas Aquinas: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives. 261
[70] Ibid., “Reply to Objection 4.”
[71] Infromation derived from Daniel A. Callus, O.P’s “The Condemonation of St. Thomas as Oxford,” No. 5 of The Aquinas Society of London Aquinas Papers. The Newman Bookshop: Westminster and Maryland, 1946.
