Commentary on
Expositio in librum Boetii De hebdomadibus, lecture 2
(Quotations from the writings of
C. Fabro, P. Ruffinengo and D. Bradshaw)
In his commentary on
Boethius’s De hebdomadibus Aquinas uses the expression actus
essendi twice, in lecture 2: “Sicut possumus dicere de eo quod
currit sive de currente quod currat inquantum subiicitur cursui et participat
ipsum, ita possumus dicere quod ens sive id quod est sit inquantum participat
actum essendi. (…) Sed id quod est, accepta essendi forma, scilicet
suscipiendo ipsum actum essendi, est, atque consistit, idest in seipso
subsistit; non enim ens dicitur proprie et per se nisi de substantia cuius est
subsistere.”
Since the publication of Cornelio Fabro’s works on participation (in 1939 and 1960), the In librum Boetii De hebdomadibus expositio has received considerable attention. Thus, before offering my own commentary on the context surrounding the text where Aquinas explicitly employs the expression actus essendi in his In De hebdomadibus, I shall first review some of the comments that have been offered by other authors in the relatively recent period since Fabro’s books.
For more on Boethius, see Claudio Moreschini, A Christian in Toga: Boethius: Interpreter
of Antiquity and Christian Theologian (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht,
2014), 74-76; Christophe Erismann, “The Medieval Fortunes of the Opuscula Sacra,” in The Cambridge Companion to Boethius, ed. John Marenbon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 155-177; John Marenbon, Boethius, (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003), 90; and Ralph McInerny, Boethius and Aquinas, (Washington,
D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 161-253.
Since the publication of Cornelio Fabro’s works on participation (in 1939 and 1960), the In librum Boetii De hebdomadibus expositio has received considerable attention. Thus, before offering my own commentary on the context surrounding the text where Aquinas explicitly employs the expression actus essendi in his In De hebdomadibus, I shall first review some of the comments that have been offered by other authors in the relatively recent period since Fabro’s books.
E. Cornelio Fabro, Pier P.
Ruffinengo and David Bradshaw
In his Partecipazione e Causalità, Cornelio Fabro directs attention to the fact
that in order to explain the axiom diversum
est esse et id quod est, Aquinas introduces a number of terms which were
not present in the De hebdomadibus of
Boethius, such as ens, currens, currere, and actus essendi.
According to Fabro, the expression essendi
forma—which was crafted by Boethius with refined expertise, Fabro remarks—became
for Aquinas the ipse actus
essendi. Fabro considers that by the time
Aquinas composed the commentary on Boethius’s De hebdomadibus the teachings presented in the commentary were well
established doctrines in Aquinas’s mind.
Footnote: See Cornelio
Fabro, Partecipazione e Causalità, (Torino:
Società Editrice Internazionale, 1960), 204-205: “Nel
suo commento San Tommaso riporta l’esse all’ens, ciò ch’è assente
nel troppo conciso testo boeziano. (…) [Nel]l’esempio indicativo che segue, assente
in Boezio e frequente in San Tommaso, della distinzione fra currere e currens:
currere indica l’atto indeterminato, currens il soggetto (particolare)
in atto… (…) [C]iò che Boezio rende con raffinata perizia con essendi forma
diventa per San Tommaso l’ipse actus essendi.” See also C. Fabro, La Nozione Metafisica di Partecipazione,
(Torino : Società Editrice Internazionale, 1950),
Introduzione, in fine: “Il Commento a
Boezio suppone una dottrina ormai stabilita.”
To be noted also is the fact that
although Aquinas sometimes goes so far as to use the expression natura essendi, he clearly opted for not
using the Boethian expression forma
essendi. Only once in his writings, in the context of commenting on the
text from Boethius, does Aquinas use the expression essendi forma. This fact is not reported by Fabro, and, to the best
of my knowledge, other scholars who have also written on the subject of
Aquinas’s interpretation of the Boethian forma
essendi have overlooked this fact as well.
Under the guidance of Cornelio
Fabro, Pier Ruffinengo has carefully studied the issue of the shift from forma essendi to actus essendi which Aquinas explicitly made in his commentary on
Boethius’s De hebdomadibus.
Ruffinengo suggests that the originality of Aquinas consists in having shifted
from the understanding of esse as forma of the Neoplatonic thinkers to the
understanding of esse as actus. The actus essendi of Aquinas is not another forma; rather, it is actus
formae. Ruffinengo’s observation is in line with what is generally
recognized to be the distinctive contribution of Aquinas to the philosophy of
being, namely, the discovery that in subsisting extramental things all acts are
in reality potency with respect to the metaphysical principle of actus
essendi instantiated by the
subsisting thing. Aquinas understands the metaphysical principle of actus essendi to be the actualitas omnium actuum and the perfectio
omnium perfectionum.
Footnote: See Pier
P. Ruffinengo, “L’ipsum esse non e ancora l’actus essendi di San
Tommaso,” Aquinas: Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia 38 (1995):
631-635: “Ed è pure un fatto che Boezio intende Dio come Esse, per quanto nel senso di Forma
Essendi (De Trinitate, II,
18-20). Ora sta proprio qui la novità di Tommaso, di intendere cioè Dio non
come Forma Essendi, ma come Ipse Actus Essendi subsistens. (…) Però
quello che io ho inteso sottolineare al termine del E Dio per Tommaso
è Ipsum Esse, nel senso di Ipse Actus Essendi subsistens. Insomma:
l’ipsum esse dei neoplatonici non è
ancora l’actus essendi di S. Tommaso d’Aquino.” See also, P. Ruffinengo, “Giustificazione critica dell’actus essendi e problema del
fondamento,” in Quaderni di Velia, no. 3: Veritatem in Caritate, ed.
Giuseppe M. Pizzuti (Potenza :
Edizioni Ermes, 1991), 223-242; P. Ruffinengo, Le cose, il pensiero, l’Essere: Fodazione critica della metafisica,
(Genova: Marietti, 1988), 140-149; P. Ruffinengo, Ontonòesis: Introduzione alla metafisica, (Genova: Marietti, 2002),
62-95; P. Ruffinengo, Essere oltre
l'essente: Ricerca storico-teoretica, (Ancona: Il lavoro editoriale Casa
Editrice, 2013); and P. Ruffinengo, “Differenza Ontologica e Actus Essendi: con
San Tommaso oltre Heidegger,” Divus
Thomas 116, no. 2 (2013): 171-209.
In this regard, David Bradshaw
comments that it is remarkable that without any knowledge of the Neoplatonic
antecedents of the Boethian axioms (Plotinus, Porphyry, the Anonymous
Commentary on the Parmenides, and
Marius Victorinus), Aquinas was able to find in the De hebdomadibus an inspiration for his own conception of the
metaphysical principle of actus essendi.
Footnote: See David
Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West, (Cambridge : Cambridge
University