Ecclesiology of Thomas Aquinas in the Light of St. Paul's Tradition
Abstract
In the times of Thomas Aquinas the great debate was going on about the nature of the Church and therefore he did not write any ecclesiological treatise. Like other scholastics, Aquinas undertook the questions concerning the Church in the context of Christology and pneumatology since as the Body of Christ, the Church is the work of the Saviour and the Holy Spirit and this process occurs permanently. St. Paul’s metaphor of the Church as “the Body of Christ” developed by another author in the Letter to the Ephesians and the Letter to the Corinthians acquires a form of a comprehensive ecclesiological synthesis in Aquinas’ commentaries which encompass the genesis, nature, structure and mission of the
Ecclesia. In a skilful and creative manner, Thomas makes use of the achievements of patristic theology, especially of the works of St. Augustine, alluding to medieval canonistics which was engaged in the conflict between the papacy and the empire. However, he extracts the Christological-pneumatological aspect of this unique community (especially in Expositio in Symbolum), emphasising the divine genesis of the Church and Her eschatic orientation to God (reditus creaturae rationalis ad Deum).
Keywords:
Thomas Aquinas, ecclesiology, St. PaulReferences
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
