SACRAMENTS OF THE INCARNATE WORD - ETD - University of ...

would form the student of sacred doctrine by stepping her through a series of exercises to
a particular end. 44
The first ordo thus stands in the service of the second, the structure or form
facilitating engagement with the subject matter. And Laporte rightly draws attention in
the latter regard to the constancy of Christ as himself the “guide” of the Summa, “the via
veritatis, the teacher par excellence.” 45 After teaching “the Jews of his day,” writes
Laporte, Jesus
entrusts the task of teaching the Gentiles to his apostles (ST III 42, 1 c and ad 2);
he himself teaches in such a way as to imprint his teaching in the hearts of his
hearers rather than on paper (III 42, 4), and he follows a certain order, teaching
his disciples that they in turn might teach others (ibid.), orally and in writing.
Thus we have a process of doctrinal communication beginning with Christ who
teaches orally and empowers his disciples to preach and to write, and so on down
through the ages. 46
I will return to the question of the structure of the Summa more fully in the
conclusion of the present study, to engage the longstanding debate initiated by Chenu’s
suggestion of a Neoplatonic plan of exitus et reditus. 47 For present introductory purposes,
let me state my agreement with Laporte’s emphasis upon the pedagogy of Christ as the
constant presupposition of the Summa’s exhortation to follow him; an exhortation that
itself gratefully participates, as does all theology, in Christ’s initial instruction. 48 “I sent
44 Thomas uses the latter term at, e.g., De veritate 10, 8 ad 10. Cf. ST III 9, 4 ad 1.
45 Laporte, “Christ in Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae,” p. 243.
46 Ibid., p. 244.
47 Chenu, Toward Understanding St. Thomas, pp. 304-06.
48 Thus Laporte, op. cit., p. 244: “There accumulates a body of materials accessible to the
theologian, beginning with Scripture, followed by the articles of faith which summarize the Scriptures,
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