Faciendi plures libros nullus est finis (Eccl. 12:12)

Of the making of books there might be no end but of the making of dictionaries there sometimes seems to be no proper beginning. I complained to my distinguished doktormutter that there is no proper Latin dictionary for specialists in Medieval philosophy or theology. Her only response was to smile wryly and agree; she pointed out that if I made that claim to an academic conference filled medieval Latin specialists, they would laugh ruefully and welcome me to the club.

There are many general dictionaries that range from useful to excellent. The Oxford Latin Dictionary is very good for what it is, which is a classical dictionary that resolutely excludes everything after 200 AD, thus everything that could possibly be Medieval. Lewis and Short’s A Latin Dictionary is a development of an English translation of a German dictionary, and is rather dated at this stage. However, it has a chronological range that nothing else does, and remains the most useful general text of its kind. There was a brave effort that sprang from the OLD, to fill the post-classical lacuna, Souter’s Glossary of later Latin to 600 A.D. which doesn’t quite hit the mark.

There are also a range of medieval Latin dictionaries that are functional and helpful. Among these we might include Blaise and Neiermeyer. Both are useful generally but philosophically do not have all that much to offer. There are also some philosophical or scholastic dictionaries that are useful but often a bit too specifically Thomistic. One might think of Wuellner’s Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy or Lalande’s Vocabulaire. Not that there’s anything wrong with being Thomistic but there is more to medieval, especially early medieval philosophy than Aquinas. And I say that as an admirer of McInerney’s Thomism of the Strict Observance, even if I cannot claim to be an adherent stricto sensu.

We are thus thrown back on sources like the Vocabulaire Latin Philosophique Médieval or the encyclopaedic Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. One might legitimately feel a certain envy of the scholar of Roman Law with his ready access to Berger’s Dictionary.

This is not all bad, of course. The way to master a dead language is to read and understand it. Dictionaries will only take you part of the way, they are rather like Wittgenstein’s ladder in that way. I found when parsing an 11th Century Latin commentary on one of Boethius’ Opuscula Sacra that the author used the verb “habundo”. This proved, the usual shift in Medieval Latin spelling to be the classical verb “abundo” which means to abound, to be plentiful. The commentator remarked that species, in an Aristotelian taxonomy, abounds over genus. This is obviously false, on any defensible reading of being abundant; genus is a broader and more numerous category, and will have by definition more members than any of its species. It is only when we turn the word over in our minds, and consider what as acute an observer as Gilbert of Poitiers might mean by it that it becomes clear. It refers not to how many instances there are of something but to how fully it exists, and how rich its existence is at an ontological level. So this process of discovery, slow and painstaking as it is, cannot be short-circuited by recourse to a handy single volume or even a bulky, and awkward one. I wonder if, despite the inconvenience, we might not be the better for it?

Some links about Persona

For those who tuned in to my brief guest spot on the Aquinas Institute Ireland lecture, hosted by Fr Conor McDonagh OP, the links which I promised are set out below:

New Catholic Encyclopedia on Person in Philosophy and Person in Theology These two articles are good general surveys of the concept of person/persona in philosophy and Catholic theology. Bear in mind that the concept of person in its original theatrical sense and its later legal sense don’t give us the actual use we have of it now, in English and the Romance languages especially. That usage is due to the philosophical groundwork needed to make sense of the theological demands of Trinitarian theology on the one hand and Christology on the other, in the Latin West.

Geddes’ original article from the classic Catholic Encyclopedia (1912) The Catholic Encyclopedia is a classic of its kind but please be careful using it. Some of the material is very good but it is more than a century old. My own print copy is a joy, not least for the colour illustrations! However, scholarship has moved on a great deal since then – there is no longer an emperor in Vienna nor is there a Tsar to placate with episcopal appointments etc.etc.

Boethius’ Opuscula Sacra (Be aware: A tough read, older translation!) There is a more modern edition of Boethius in Latin and English in the Loeb Classical Library series. It has Stephen Tester’s revisions of the Latin text and his updates to the translation also. For the Greek-Latin transition from Hypostasis to Persona, the work to read is the de Duabus Naturis also known as the Contra Eutychen. The first three or four chapters are the ones to concentrate on but be aware that Boethius was a bi-lingual high level scholar of Aristotle who was keen to preserve Greek learning in a time of gradual social & political collapse. (He ended his days in Ravenna rather than Rome, executed for treason by a Visigothic king.) So it’s difficult to read, even if you already know your Aristotle. NB If you have read the Consolation of Philosophy and find it out of kilter with the explicitly Christian works we are referring to here, don’t worry, so does everyone else! The Anecdoton Holderi, an contemporaneous reference to Boethius, makes it clear that he was the author of both the Theological Tractates and the Consolation.

St Thomas (An even tougher read! – 2 texts, 3 links) For St Thomas himself, we have three texts but only two in the original Latin. Translating St Thomas’ Summa Theologiae is deceptively easy at first sight but actually quite difficult once you get into it. The Blackfriars edition, translated by the Fathers of the English-speaking Dominican provinces and published from 1965-75 approximately has very good essays and commentaries in my experience but the translation is uneven, and often a bit problematic. The popular approach at the time was dynamic equivalence, which held that you translate the idea rather than the words in a slavishly literal way. Sometimes that works, but for philosophy, often it does not. So I have chosen an older more literal translation, by the “English Dominican Fathers” or more accurately Fr Laurence Shapcote OP, who did the work while running a mission station in South Africa. The second version of the Ia Q29 text is a translation by Professor Alfred J. Freddoso of Notre Dame. This is an entirely fresh translation by an eminent scholar, and if you can’t compare a translation to the original Latin, having a second version is always good to bring to light what you might otherwise miss. Lastly, there is a text from the Disputed Questions on the Power of God – these are edited and spruced up records of the formal public debates that were a periodical feature of medieval university life. In this case, Question 9 article 1 is the most relevant text.

Lastly, as a general reference when reading St Thomas, Bernard Wuellner’s Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy is always of use. It is also available in print, which I personally find more comfortable to read. Finally, Deferrari and Barry’s magisterial Lexicon of St Thomas Aquinas will shed light on his terminology where other scholars fear to tread! This last book has been in print until recently but its publishers Loreto Publications seem to have discontinued it, sadly.