Inês Bolinhas: The Patristic Sources of the Inaugural Lecture of Saint Thomas Aquinas

It is widely known that the thought of Aquinas has a great debt to Patristics; nevertheless, this debt isn’t always highlighted. Our paper stresses out this very debt in one of Thomas early writings: his Inaugural Lecture as Magister in Sacra Pagina. In 1256, when the young baccalaurius had not yet completed his period of commenting the Liber Quattuor Sententiarium, of Peter Lombard, the chancellor of the University of Paris ordered him to present his Principium,as a master in theology. The Dominican friar chose as motto the verse of the Psalm 104 (103:13) «Rigans montes de superioribus». This verse is, indeed, the very title of Aquinas' lesson.The text is short; it is about four pages long. However, we do find in it some of the main features that Thomas will develop in his later works. The exegesis has a clear Neoplatonist frame: the Dominican Master quotes Dionysius (the Pseudo-Areopagite) and Saint Augustine in order to show that, in the world that God created, all perfections – whether spiritual or corporeal – are communicated through intermediaries, which have their place assigned in the ontological hierarchy. Being spiritual wisdom a perfection itself, Aquinas proceeds showing how God communicates this gift to humans. The discourse is divided in four parts: the magnificence of the spiritual doctrine; the dignity of its doctors; the conditions required to the listeners; the proper order when one communicates. Thomas’ interpretation is grounded in various biblical passages, but also in John of Damascus and in Gregory the Great.