The Summa Halensis

Sources and Context

Lydia Schumacher

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783110685107
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Critique littéraire ancienne et classique

Begründet von Michael Schmaus †, Werner Dettloff † und Richard Heinzmann
Fortgeführt unter Mitwirkung von Ulrich Horst

Herausgegeben von Isabelle Mandrella und Martin ThurnerDas Grabmann-Institut ist eine im deutschsprachigen Raum einzigartige Einrichtung zur Erforschung und Lehre der Theologiegeschichte. Es wurde 1953 von Michael Schmaus als Institut zur Erforschung der mittelalterlichen Theologie und Philosophie gegründet, das die Forschungen und die Tradition des Vorgängers von Schmaus auf dem Münchener Lehrstuhl für Dogmatik, Martin Grabmann, fortführen soll. In der Reihe "Veröffentlichungen des Grabmann-Instituts" werden Editionen und Studien publiziert, die entweder am Grabmann-Institut selbst entstanden sind oder einen wertvollen Beitrag zu dessen Forschungsschwerpunkten beinhalten. Das Schwergewicht der Publikationsreihe liegt auf der mittelalterlichen Theologie und Philosophie, wobei sich der zeitliche Bogen aber von der ausgehenden Antike bis in die Neuzeit spannt. Das historische Interesse verbindet sich mit dem systematischen Blickwinkel. In den Bänden werden Themen aus allen systematischen Bereichen der mittelalterlichen Theologie und Philosophie behandelt sowie herausragende und bisher weniger bekannte Theologen mit ihren Werken und ihrem Einfluss vorgestellt. Gebührende Berücksichtigung finden auch die Gebiete Mystik und Spiritualität, die wesentlich zur mittelalterlichen Theologie und Philosophie gehören.

Zum Martin-Grabmann-Forschungsinstitut für Mittelalterliche Theologie und Philosophie.

Part 1: The Sources of Early Franciscan Thought

Biblical Exegesis in the Summa Halensis

Aaron Gies

Abstract

This essay analyzes the theory, structures, procedures and methods of biblical exegesis employed in the Summa Halensis. Like Peter Lombard’s Sentences, whose form it adapts, the Summa is pervaded by biblical material, but it innovates by placing this material in an explicit theoretical relation to the human reflection surrounding it. After briefly examining the theory of interpretation contained in the Summa’s first question, the essay surveys exegetical structures, procedures and methods. A final section compares a biblical question on John 3:23 – 4 from the Summa with contemporary John lectures by contributors Alexander of Hales and John of La Rochelle. Like those lectures, the Summa is fundamentally an exposition of ‘theology’s doctrine’, which takes its rise from Scripture, but its professional literary context and mode of exposition differ.

My task in this paper is to consider the Summa Halensis as an exercise in interpreting the Scriptures. But what are the Scriptures, so far as the Summa is concerned? What is their source, their extent, their subject, their method, their purpose? How are they to be distinguished from other writings, and particularly from other forms of theological reflection? Finally, how are they to be used in a dogmatic exercise like the Summa? These are the questions that immediately occur to one attempting to problematize the Summa as an exegetical exercise. But they are not precisely the questions the Summists set themselves to answer in the introductory question, ‘On the teaching of theology’ (De doctrina theologiae). Their concern is for the body of teaching, or rather revelation, ‘from God, about God and leading to God’, which has Christ, the Incarnate Word at its core, the Scriptures as its mantle, conciliar, liturgical and patristic interpretation as its crust, and the shifting inquiries and disputations of the moderns as its surface and atmosphere.¹

There was, in fact, no firm separation between the teaching of theology (doctrina theologiae) and the teaching of Sacred Scripture (doctrina sacrae scripturae) for the early Franciscans.² For this reason, those terms and several others are used interchangeably in the question, ‘On the teaching of theology’. However, the aims of a Summa and the disputations which make it up remain quite different than the aims of biblical commentary. The Summa attempts to take the teaching of Scripture and develop a systematic, comprehensive view of doctrine. The result incorporates a large amount of biblical exegesis. The Summa both passively appropriates the results of biblical interpretation from other sources and, to a lesser degree, actively parses the biblical text to assess its dogmatic import. This is very different from the exercise of the biblical lecture, where the master brings a variety of resources to bear for the purpose of interpreting the biblical book in hand line by line. At the end of this paper, I will demonstrate this difference by means of an exemplary comparison of the Summa to exegesis from the same period.

Although they looked to more contemporary Summae such as those of Praepositinus, William of Auxerre and William of Auvergne to shape their approach to theological topics, the basic literary structure adopted by the Summists came from Peter Lombard’s Four Books of the Sentences. Happily, the historian of medieval exegesis Gilbert Dahan, in 2008, published an article entitled ‘Le Livre des Sentences et l’exégèse biblique’.³ I have therefore adapted Professeur Dahan’s model to this new, closely-related context. This article will analyze the Summa as an exegetical exercise, attending to its use of the theory, structures, procedures and methods of biblical exegesis. Like the Sentences, it is pervaded by biblical material, but it innovates by placing this material in an explicit theoretical relation to the non-biblical reflection surrounding it.

Scripture as Source: Parameters and Distinctions

The Bible is the fundamental written source of all Christian theological reflection, and therefore the most important source for the Summa. Although Jerome’s Vulgate was the standard way of referring to Sacred Scripture for the Summists, they also make occasional reference to other versions: the Hebrew, Syriac and Septuagint Greek versions of the Old Testament, the Greek New Testament and the Old Latin versions of each.⁴

The text and canon of Scripture assumed by the Summa appears to be that of the Paris Vulgate.⁵ These bibles, produced especially in Paris, but also in Oxford and Cambridge from about 1230, were among the first to employ the system of chapter numbers devised in the late 12^th century and associated with the name of Stephen Langton.⁶ Since there is no critical edition of the Paris Bible, its use in the Summa is inferred from two typological considerations: canon and chapter numbers. This canon contained the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments included in the English Bible, along with eight deuterocanonical books: the parabolic books of Tobit and Judith, the wisdom books of The Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus (without the Prayer of Solomon at the end), the prophetic book of Baruch and three books of historiography: the third book of the Ezra-Nehemiah cycle, called 2 Ezra, and the first two books of the Maccabees.⁷

The overall biblical citation pattern of the Summa was also shaped by liturgical use. This explains the preeminence of Matthew among the other Gospels in the Summa, since Matthew predominated among the Gospel readings for Mass, and would have been most fully committed to memory. It also helps to explain the large proportion of references to Genesis and to the Psalms, although this is obviously balanced by their doctrinal importance. Books less frequently cited by the Summa I-III, such as Esther or Numbers, or altogether omitted, as are Jonah, Zephaniah, and 3 John, also occur infrequently in the liturgy.

The liturgy not only helped to determine what biblical texts are cited, but formed part of the authoritative tradition of secondary sources.⁸ Central parts of the liturgy, the Creeds (Apostolic and Athanasian) and the Canon of the Mass in particular, were so important that they are themselves the subjects of exegesis within the Summa.⁹ The fact that the Summa Halensis, like other works of medieval systematic theology, was composed by people living a life arranged around formal communal prayer cannot be overemphasized.

But while prayer was fundamental to the Franciscan vocation, the primary professional task of the university theology master was to lecture on Sacred Scripture. Those lectures, particularly those by the Summa’s known authors and redactors, are therefore fundamental for assessing its exegesis. We will therefore refer to the John Postils of John of La Rochelle and Alexander of Hales in order to draw some comparisons between the early Franciscan systematic and exegetical contexts.¹⁰

The set text for biblical lectures would not have been a one-volume Bible, but a volume of the book being lectured, accompanied by its traditional prolog(ues) and glossed throughout. The teaching of Scripture using glossed books accounts for the ubiquity of the Glossa ordinaria and Glossa Lombardi in the Summa Halensis.¹¹ The Glosses codified an exegetical tradition based on a relatively small number of patristic commentaries for each book (for example, Augustine on Genesis, the Psalms and John, Jerome on Matthew, Gregory on Job), whose interpretations of the primary text were memorized, highly valued and only set aside with great reluctance. In assessing the Summa’s interpretation of a biblical passage, therefore, a scholar’s first reference must be to these Glosses, even if they are not explicitly cited.

All of this material as found in the Summa, whether biblical, liturgical or exegetical, has been transferred from its original context for the purposes of disputation. The literature of theological argument, as found in disputed questions, lectures on the Sentences and earlier Summae, forms the primary urtext of the Summa Halensis. Therefore, as we now comment on sections of Question 1 which seem to bear directly on biblical exegesis, their limitations as a global assessment of the Summa’s approach must be borne in mind.

Hermeneutical Reflection in the Summa Halensis

Until the emergence of university theology faculties at the end of the 12^th century, Latin biblical hermeneutics seem to have been mostly the pro...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• A Guide to Citing the Summa Halensis
• The Summa Halensis: Sources and Context Introduction
• Part 1: The Sources of Early Franciscan Thought
• Part 2: The Historical and Intellectual Context
• Author Biographies
• Index