Articles
“Morning Knowledge”: How Aquinas Hears the Gospel of John
Kevin Hart
Issue 4
Volume 2
pp. 949 - 985
https://doi.org/10.65172/ECulvxgyaYM1Nk6Y
Abstract
In his commentary on the Gospel of John, Aquinas attends with admirable closeness to manifestation and, indeed, to what we would today call divine phenomenality. Kevin Hart argues it is possible to read Aquinas’s commentary as offering a robust, if not complete, idea of what phenomenological theology might be. Such a theology does not originate entirely in Aquinas’s theology, however; it is already present in the Gospel itself. In reading Aquinas today, we hear a phenomenological theology that seems to come from his commentary but that actually comes from the Gospel, and we can hear it only because of the elaboration of phenomenology in philosophy.
Citations
John Scotus Eriugena, The Voice of the Eagle: The Heart of Celtic Christianity, trans. Christopher Bamford (Lindisfarne Books, 2001).
Vox spiritualis aquilae in PL 122:284–96.
The Homilies on the Gospel of John 40.
Bonaventure, Commentary on the Gospel of John 10.11, 16.25 (sic).
Origen, Commentary on the Gospel According to John, 2 vols., trans. Ronald E. Heine (The Catholic University of America Press, 2001).
Commentarius in Evangelium S. Ioannis 10.11, 16.25.2 (with regard to speculatio).
Randall B. Smith, Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the Scholastic Culture of Medieval Paris: Preaching, Prologues, and Biblical Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2021), chap. 8.
Aquinas, An Explication of the “On the Hebdomads” of Boethius, trans. Janice L. Schultz and Edward A. Synan, Latin-English en face ed (The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 5.
Dorion Cairns, Conversations with Husserl and Fink, ed. Richard M. Zaner (Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), 39.
Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John 2.66.
Michel Henry, Words of Christ, trans. Christina M. Gschwandtner (Eerdmans, 2012).
Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on the Gospel of John 166.
Joseph Bobik, Aquinas on Matter and Form and the Elements: A Translation and Interpretation of the “De Principiis Naturae” and the “De Mixtione Elementorum” of St. Thomas Aquinas (University of Notre Dame Press, 1998).
Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1.5.
Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John 104.
Aquinas, Commentary on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans 636, ed. Fabian R. Larcher (Aquinas Institute, 2012).
Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John 149.
Hart, Maurice Blanchot on Poetry and Narrative (Bloomsbury, 2023), chap. 1.
Ryan Coyne, Heidegger’s Confessions: The Remains of St. Augustine in “Being and Time” and Beyond (University of Chicago Press, 2016).
Richard of St. Victor, The Mystical Ark.
Albert the Great, Opera Omnia, vol. 24, Enarrationes in Ioannem, Prologus 1, ed. Adolphe Borgnet (Vives, 1890–99).
John as Interpreted by Early Christian and Medieval Commentators, trans. and ed. Bryan A. Stewart and Michael A. Thomas (Eerdmans, 2018).
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 2 vols., trans. Fabian R. Larcher, ed. Aquinas Institute (Aquinas Institute, 2013), Prologue, 1.
The Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to John (Chrysostom, 2007), 233.
Bonaventure, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 145n19–20.
Augustine, “Letter 147,” in Letters 100–155, The Works of Saint Augustine 2/2, trans. Roland Teske, ed. Boniface Ramsey (New City Press, 2002).
Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John 3.17.
Latin text in CSEL, vol. 44, ed. A. Goldbacher (G. Freytag, 1904).
Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John 1.19, Sermones de vetere testament (1–50).
Aquinas, Catena Aurea on John.
John Chrysostom, The Homilies on the Gospel of St. John, ed. Paul A. Boer (CreateSpace, 2012), 27.
Aquinas, Commentary on Isaiah, trans. Louis St. Hilaire (Aquinas Institute, 2021), ch. 6, lecture 1.
Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 2 vols., trans. David R. Maxwell, ed. Joel C. Elowsky (InterVarsity Press, 2013).
Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on the Gospel of John, trans. Marco Conti, ed. Joel C. Elowsky (InterVarsity Press, 2010) (PG 66; but a complete version exists only in Syriac).
John of Damascus, Writings, trans. Frederic H. Chase Jr. (The Catholic University of America Press, 1958), 359.
Kevin Hart, Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation (University of Chicago Press, 2023), chap. 1.
Robert Grosseteste, On Light, trans. Clare C. Riedl (Marquette University Press, 1942).
Bonaventure, Commentarius 8.25
Hart, Kierkegaard and Phenomenology (Cambridge University Press, 2025), ch. 3.
Husserl, Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Hackett, 2014), §58.
Husserl, “The Amsterdam Lectures,” Psychological and Transcendental Phenomenology and the Confrontation with Heidegger (1927–1931), trans. and ed. Thomas Sheehan and Richard E. Palmer (Kluwer Academic, 1997), 247.
Ferdinand Ulrich, Homo Abyssus: The Drama of the Question of Being, trans. D. C. Schindler (Humanum Academic, 2018), 152.
Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, vol. 2, Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution, trans. Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer (Kluwer Academic, 1989), §§2–5.
Daniel O. Dahlstrom, “Heidegger’s Method: Philosophical Concepts as Formal Indications,” The Review of Metaphysics 47, no. 4 (1994): 775–95.
Aquinas, Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans §116.
Nicholas Love, The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, translated from Pseudo-Bonaventure’s highly influential Meditationes Vitae Christi in the first decade of the fifteenth century.
Nicholas Love, The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ: A Reading Text, ed. Michael G. Sargent (University of Exeter Press, 2004), 10.
Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John 29.6, “Ut credatis in eum, non, ut crediatis ei.”
On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893–1917), trans. John Barnet Brough (Kluwer Academic, 1991), 121.
Hart, Kingdoms of God (Indiana University Press, 2014), chap. 6.
Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John, 2 vols., trans. Edmund Hill, ed. and intro. Allan D. Fitzgerald, The Works of Saint Augustine 3/12 and 3/13 (New City Press, 2009).
Sancti Aurelii Augustini In Ioannis evangelium tractatus CXXIV, ed. R. Willems, CCSL 36 (1954).
Sermons, The Works of Saint Augustine, 3/4 (94A–147A) on the New Testament, trans. and notes Edmund Hill, ed. John E. Rotelle (New City Press, 1992), 117–47A; Latin text in Sermones de vetere testament (1–50), ed. C. Lambot, CCSL 41 (1961).
Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons for the Autumn Season, trans. Irene Edmonds, rev. Mark Scott (Cistercian, 2016), 101, 104; Latin text in Opera, 8 vols. (Cistercienses, 1957–), vol. 5, “Dominca in Kalendis Novembris,” 304, and “Semo Secundus,” 307.
Augustine, Agreement Among the Evangelists 1.5.8, in New Testament I and II, trans. Kim Paffenroth, Roland J. Teske, and Michael Campbell, ed. Boniface Ramsey, The Works of Saint Augustine 1/15 and 1/16 (New City Press, 2014).
Mary Carruthers, “The Concept of Ductus, Or Journeying through a Work of Art,” in Rhetoric Beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, ed. Mary Carruthers (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 190–213.
Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel 2.2.14, trans. Theodosia Tomkinson, intro. Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna (Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1990).
Opera Omnia di Sant’Agostino, 10.1, intro. Pío de Luis (Nuova Biblioteca Agostiniana, 1996).
Catena Aurea, prologue to Matthew.
Summa theologiae 3.36 and 3.55.1.
Summa contra Gentiles 1.3.
Homilies on the Gospel of John 32.8, vetere testament (1–50).
Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John 14.7.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (Sheed and Ward, 1975), 378–87.
Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Basil Blackwell, 1973), §7C.
Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky (Stanford University Press, 2002), §13.
Martin Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle: Initiation into Phenomenological Research, trans. Richard Rojcewicz (Indiana University Press, 2001), 141.
Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” trans. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Indiana University Press, 1997), Preliminary Consideration.
Bonaventure’s Commentarius.
Nicholas of Cusa, De dato patris luminum 110, in Jasper Hopkins, Nicholas of Cusa’s Metaphysic of Contraction (Arthur J. Manning, 1983).
A. J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Scolar Press, 1988), 64.
Methodius, “Oration Concerning Simeon and Anna on the Day that They Met in the Temple” 5, in The Writings of Methodius, Alexander of Lycopolis, Peter of Alexander, and Several Fragments (T&T Clark, 1869), ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson
Athanasius, “The Trisagion Wrongly Explained by Arians. Its True Significance,” in “On Luke x. 22 (In Illud Omnia &c)” §6, Select Writings and Letters, ed. Archibald Robertson, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Second Series. Gen. ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (1891; repr. Eerdmans, 1980)
Gregory Nazianzus, “Second Oration on Easter,” Select Orations, trans. Martha Vinson (The Catholic University of America Press, 2017).
Mark J. Clark, “The Biblical Gloss, the Search for Peter Lombard’s Glossed Bible, and the School of Paris,” Medieval Studies 76 (2014), 1–57.
David M. Foley, Peter Comestor’s Lectures on the Glossed Gospel of John: A Study with a Critical Edition and Translation (The Catholic University of America Press, 2024), esp. chap. 2.
Peter Comestor: Lectures on the “Glossa ordinaria,” edited from Troyes, Médiathèque du Grand Troyes, MS 1024, ed. David M. Foley and Simon Whedbee (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2021).
“Vestiges of Peter Lombard’s Lost Glosses on the Gospels? The Prologues to Peter Comestor’s Glosa super euangelia glosata,” forthcoming in Medieval Studies.
Bonaventure, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Prooemium 1, trans. Robert J. Karris (Franciscan Institute, 2007).
Commentarius in Evangelium S. Ioannis, Prooemium 1 in Omnia Opera, ed. Quaracchi (Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1893), vol. 6, 237–530.
Meister Eckhart, The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, trans. and intro. Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn (Paulist, 1981), 122.
Exposito Sancti Evangelii Secundum Iohannem, in Die Lateinischen Werke, dritter band, ed. Karl Christ and Joseph Koch (W. Kohlhammer, 1994), 3.
Robert Wilken, ed. and trans., Isaiah: Interpreted by Early Christian and Medieval Commentators, with Angela Russell Christman and Michael J. Hollerich (Eerdmans, 2007).
Contact us at [email protected] or (866) 928-1237
Word on Fire © 2026 - All Rights Reserved
Word on Fire Catholic Ministries is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit ministry.