REVIEWS

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Christs Fulllment of Torah and Temple. Salvation according to Thomas Aquinas. By M atthew L evering . Pp. viii 254. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002. isbn 0 268 02272 0 and 02273 9. Hardback $44; paper $24.
Readers of the Summa Theologiae often conclude that Thomas Aquinass decision to leave Christology to the tertia pars betrays a conception of Christianity which is more determined by natural theology than by the biblical narratives of salvation. Putting this positively, those who regard him as a great philosopher, rather than a particularly original and interesting theologian, happily lay emphasis, not only on the putative natural theology in the prima pars but also on the appeal to natural law in his exposition of Christian ethics in the prima secundae. This perception of Aquinas, which never had much currency outside the English-speaking world, has been eroded by recent work, particularly by North American scholars. Nevertheless, few would regard Aquinass Christology as having much of interest to oVer in a eld dominated by the likes of Barth, Moltmann, and Pannenberg, and, on the Roman Catholic side, Rahner and Balthasar. Fewer still would expect Aquinas to have anything to contribute to JewishChristian dialogue. While familiar to readers of French scholarship, the fact that Aquinas worked out his most characteristic positions with regard to creation, human freedom, the divine nature, and so on, on the strength of a critical reading of Moses Maimonides (not to mention Muslim theologians), has only recently been recognized by English-speaking students, particularly through the publications of David Burrell. In this remarkable book by Matthew Levering, we are shown, not only how thoroughly biblical Aquinass theology is, but, in particular, how crucial his reading of what we Christians call the Old Testament is for his understanding of salvation. His notion of natural law, it turns out, cannot be separated from his account of grace, a contention which undermines the picture of him as primarily a philosopher. Moreover, much more interestingly, his understanding of salvation has signicance for challenges facing us today about the relationship of Christianity and Judaism. Born in 1971, Matthew Levering is currently teaching at Ave Maria College, Ypsilanti, Michigan. His book began as a dissertation at Boston College, Massachusetts, where it was directed

REVIEWS 734 by Stephen F. Brown, the distinguished medievalist. As the generous list of acknowledgements, as well as the 30 pages of bibliography indicate, Levering belongs to the new wave of North American scholars who read Aquinas primarily as the magister in sacra pagina, the expositor of Scripture, which his contemporaries of course took him to be. Among his mentors, Levering pays homage to Matthew L. Lamb and Romanus Cessario, OP. He also thanks David Burrell, Stanley Hauerwas, and Thomas Hibbs, who seem to have been the examiners of the dissertation, for their advice as he revised it for publication. In the nal stages, he beneted from the comments and criticisms of an anonymous reader for the University of Notre Dame Press, as well as those of Gilles Emery, OP, one of the nest of the new generation of French students of Aquinas. These names locate Levering on the map of Thomistic studies today. The excellent bibliography conrms the existence of the growing body of interpretation on which Levering draws. The absence of certain other eminent names in the bibliography indicates how divided, and indeed incommensurable, current approaches are to reading Aquinass work. From the historical point of view, the importance of the Old Testament for early medieval theology has long been recognized. In particular, we have known, at least since M. D. Chenu pointed it out in a seminal article as long ago as 1961, that Aquinass position developed. In his commentary on Peter Lombards Sentences, his rst major exposition of Christian doctrine, completed in 1256, he pays little attention to the Mosaic Law. In the Summa Theologiae, on the other hand, in the late 1260s, he considers the Mosaic Law at great length. As Beryl Smalley suggested, this change of perspective no doubt took place under the inuence of the Summa Fratris Alexandri, the work of a group of Franciscan theologians, including Alexander of Hales, completed around 1260. God moves us to good, Aquinas says, in the Summa Theologiae (III, 90), as instructing us by law and helping us by grace. Questions 90 to 108 are dedicated to the former: the concept of law (90 to 93), natural law (94), human law (95 to 97), the Old Law (98 to 105), and then the New Law, lex evangelii (106 to 108), sliding into the questions on grace. Clearly, in the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas pays far more attention to the Mosaic Law than to natural law. The rst part of Leverings book, then, as the title suggests, explores how Aquinas understands Christs fullling of the LawTorah. Levering proceeds, in chapter 1, by oVering a

REVIEWS 735 response to the Jewish scholar Michael Wyschogrods objection, in a paper published in 1987, to the eVect that Aquinass division of the Law into moral, ceremonial, and judicial, fails to respect the integrity of Torah as understood by Jews. They see in all three aspects an expression of the one will of God. Against this, Levering contends, Aquinas sees the Law as the principal exterior expression of Gods will for human beings; the Holy Spirit is the interior expression and empowerment to full Gods will; and thus, so Levering insists, Aquinas loses nothing of the Law but on the contrary sees it brought to completion in Christ. Far from regarding the people of the Law as deprived of grace, Aquinas, believing that the grace of the New Lawthe Holy Spiritanticipated the state of the New Law, sees Jewish observance as a means of grace through implicit faith in the Christ to come: The Patriarchs, by observing the sacraments of the Law, were brought towards Christ through the same faith and love by which we are still brought towards him (Summa Theologiae III, 8.3 ad 3m). In chapter 2 Levering spells out some of the consequences that Aquinas draws from the fact that Jesus, as incarnate Wisdom of God, acts out that Wisdom in his life, particularly in his observance of Torah. In chapter 3 Levering turns to Christs threefold oYce as priest, prophet, and king, consummated on Calvary, as another way of highlighting how Aquinas sees Christs fullling of Torah. As Levering admits (see p. 178, n. 73), Aquinas refers to this threefold oYce only twice in the tertia pars as we have it: perhaps, one may suggest, if he had lived to consider the destiny of immortal life to which we come through [Christ] by rising (III prologue) he might have returned to this classical theme and made more of it. As things stand, it hardly seems an eVective principle in Aquinass Christology. On the other hand, as Levering ingeniously contends, we can reread Aquinass division of the Law into ceremonial (priestly), judicial (kingly), and moral (prophetic)which, in detail, as Levering works through the text, is not as speculative, even arbitrary, a proposal, as this summary may make it seem. In the second part of his book Levering considers Christs fullment of the Temple. His Jewish dialogue partner and inspiration here is Jon D. Levenson, who, in Sinai and Zion, published in 1985, relates Torah and Temple via the cosmic mountain theme proposed by Mircea Eliade, which results in an account of Gods presence, no longer dependent on any physical Temple, but envisaged, rather, as the place of

REVIEWS 736 holiness eVected by observance of Torah in such a way that the faithful are already the Temple of the Lord. For Levenson the theology of Gods name is crucial; but then, as Levering notes, for Aquinas too, Gods name dwelt in Israels Temple; the Temple was the place where the holy sacricial liturgy, which God had instructed Israel to perform, manifested Gods name (p. 95). The consummation of this liturgy, for Aquinas, is, of course, eschatological. Yet, as Levering reminds us, Aquinas sees this worship in three stages (Summa Theologiae III, 103. 3): the Law as a state of faith and hope as regards what is to come and the means of its advent, in each case yet to be realized; the Gospel as the state in which faith and hope as regards what is to come remains unrealized but the means are already present or past (the sacraments and the passion of Christ, respectively); and, thirdly, the state of the blessed, in which both end and means are possessed as present. In other words, Aquinass presentation of Christ as fullling Torah and Temple works against the supersessionism so deeply entrenched in Christian tradition. Far from setting aside the Law and the Temple as now redundant, Aquinas sees both as basic to the Christian economy of salvation. Far from consigning Judaism to the dustbin of history, Aquinas nds it necessary to construe his understanding of the signicance of Christ in terms of fullment of the Law and the Temple. Instead of dismissing the Jewish inheritance as superseded, and thus null and void, with the implicit endorsement of ghettoization (and worse), Aquinas nds it natural to include the paradigms of Torah and Temple in his account of Christ. Appropriation, it may be objected, might be as demeaning as supersession. On the other hand, Aquinass inclusivity with regard to Christianitys Jewish inheritance is easy enough to parallel with his well-known hospitality towards the philosophi of the ancient world. If anything, commentators sometimes suspect the generosity with which Aquinas seems to feel free to incorporate their wisdom. Sometimes, indeed, they fear that he concedes too much to pagan philosophy. No one is likely to conclude from Leverings book that Aquinas was ever in danger of conceding too much to the Jewish inheritance of Christianity. Nevertheless, no one can study this thoroughly documented and original reading of Aquinas without having to agree that his Christology is dependent on Old Testament models in a hitherto disregarded mannerwhich means, then, that the classical theologian of the Western Church has something much more positive

REVIEWS 737 than we might have expected to contribute to those who are engaged in JewishChristian dialogue. Fergus Kerr, OP

Olivi and the Interpretation of Matthew in the High Middle Ages. By Kevin Madigan. Pp. xvi 224. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003. isbn 0 268 03175 9 and 03716 7. Hardback $47.50; paper $27.50.
As a rule, Franciscan biblical commentary did not noticeably reect Franciscan ideals. It was straightforward academic course material. So why did the ecclesiastical authorities set up an inquiry and ultimately condemn Olivi? On the face of it Petrus Olivi wrote exegesis in no unusual way. Most of his commentaries are the routine stuV of the times, borrowed views of authorities. Kevin Madigan looks at the evidence that Olivi had been inuenced by Joachim of Fiore, whose prophecies were condemned by the same Fourth Lateran Council as had approved the work of the mendicant orders. Olivi found in Matthew detailed prophecies of the coming of the Franciscan Order, understood as the New Spiritual Men. The ecclesiastical authorities were particularly alarmed by Olivis remarks on the carnal Church. Olivi could be suspected of aligning himself with the extremes of unacceptable Franciscan opinion in the poverty debate and with the Joachite heresy. The university world of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was competitive, and Olivi was not the only academic to be accused of heresy and to have his opinions censured. The rst chapters of this study cover the background: Matthew commentaries at Laon and Paris c.11401240; the Joachite Gospel (the Tractatus super quatuor evangelia); Franciscan Apocalyptic, 12401300; the attacks on the Franciscan order 12501325. The author can then set Olivis gospel commentaries in their context and examine the Matthew commentary and what it has to say on the New Evangelical Order, and the relationship between the commentary and Franciscan persecution. The nal chapters deal with papal condemnation and its consequences and the purging of the Gospel of this slant in interpretation. The pope appointed a cardinal to conduct an inquiry. He made a list of propositions from Olivis work which he regarded as doubtful. He handed them to a theologian