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Luciana Cuppo Csaki
Societas internationalis pro Vivario
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.geocities.com/athens/aegean/9891/
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"e anche la ragione il vede alquanto,
che non concederebbe che i motori
sanza sua perfezion fosser cotanto (Par.29.43-45)
Was Dante really repeating "a scholastic commonplace" on "Jerome's
error" on the creation of angels? I am not so sure. First, the opinions
of the scholastics seem not to have been totally monolithic: St. Thomas
Aquinas, citing specifically Jerome (Summa I.Q.61 art.3) pointed out
that the Fathers' opinions are divided: Jerome followed the Greek
Fathers, while the Latins, as Otfried Lieberknecht showed us, thought
differently. Thomas also added that, although the opinion that angels
were created at the same time as corporeal creatures is more probable
(translation of the Dominicans of the English Province), the other is
not erroneous. It would be interesting to know if Dante was aware of
this passage, and if he deliberately disregarded the Summa.
Second, Dante rejects Jerome's opinion not because the scholastics
said so, but on the authority of the inspired writers (li scrittor dello
Spirito Santo) and of his own reasoning: a mover with nothing to move
did not make much sense, to Dante's thinking (verse 43-45).
Luciana Cuppo Csaki
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