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Introduction 9
world of rational speculative scholastic theology is a far cry from
the emotional outpourings of the Bernardine tradition.
The parallelism between symbolic and literal can take one by
surprise. The Summa theologica Supplement raises this objection:
Sacraments have ecacy from the passion of Christ. But a person
does not become conformed to the passion through marriage, which
is accompanied by delight. Theansweristhatmarriageisconformed
to the passion not through pain but through the love which
Christ showed the Church by su·ering to unite her to himself as
his bride.
State of research
Aquinas is one writer among many powerful minds who created a
tradition of rationally analysing marriage symbolism. This tradition
has been well studied, above all in a little-known but (for our
Thought and Works (Oxford, 1974), 362. In his view the compilation ‘was, no doubt,
the work of Thomas’s earliest editors working under the direction of Reginald of
Piperno’. These passages are taken from Aquinas’s commentary on the Sentences
of Peter Lombard at dist. 26, qu. 2, arts. 1–3 (see the concordance of Supplement
and commentary in SanctiThomaeAquinatis...operaomnia, vol. xii, p. xxv, and
S. Tommaso d’Aquino: Commento alle Sentenze di Pietro Lombardo e testo integrale
di Pietro Lombardo. Libro quarto. Distinzioni 24–42. L’Ordine, il Matrimonio, trans.
and ed. by ‘Redazione delle Edizioni Studio Domenicano’ (Bologna, 2001), 196–
206. For Aquinas on marriage as a symbol of the union of Christ and the Church
see R. J. Lawrence, The Sacramental Interpretation of Ephesians 5: 32 from Peter
Lombard to the Council of Trent (The Catholic University of America Studies in
Sacred Theology, Second Series, 145; Washington, 1963), 67–72. The whole of this
work is relevant for the theological background it provides to the social history
which is the main focus of this book. For another scholastic theologian’s marriage
symbolism see Pierre de Tarantaise, commenting on Peter Lombard, Sentences,
4, dist. 26, qu. 3: ‘Coniunctio exterius apparens per signa aliqua est sacramentum
tantum: coniunctio animorum interior sacramentum et res: e·ectus gratiae quae ibi
confertur, res non sacramentum: res inquantum primo significata, res vero significata
secundario coniunctio Christi et Ecclesiae’ (Innocentii Quinti Pontificis Maximi ...
In IV. librum Sententiarum commentaria, iv (Toulouse, 1651), 287).
Cf. Summa theologica, 3. 62. 5 for the theology presupposed.
Supplementum, 42. 1, obj. 3.
Ibid., ‘ad tertium’ (objection and response are taken from Aquinas’s commentary
on the Sentences of Peter Lombard: see Commento alle Sentenze di Pietro
Lombardo . . ., trans. and ed. ‘Redazione delle Edizioni Studio Domenicano’, dist. 26,
qu. 2, a. 1, pp. 196, 198). Cf. Pierre de Tarantaise: ‘Ad 4 de Passione. Resp. Christus
est passus a}ictionem carnis ex charitate spirituali quam habebat ad Ecclesiam.
Quoad primum, matrimonium non significabat passum, sed quoad secundum’ (Innocentii
Quinti . . . commentaria, iv. 287). For the similar thinking in Ricardus de
Mediavilla see T. Rinc‹on, El matrimonio, misterio y signo: siglos IX al XIII (Pamplona,
1971), 319–20.