Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth (De Veritate)

1. "There is no active life where there is no body," as Gregory says. But there is teaching where there is no body, for even angels, who have no bodies, teach, as has been said. Therefore, it seems that teaching pertains to the contemplative life.

2. Gregory says: "One engages in the active life in order to arrive at the contemplative later." But teaching does not precede contemplation, but follows it. Therefore, teaching does not pertain to the active life.

3. Gregory also says that the active life "sees less while it is engaged in work." But one who teaches must of necessity see more than one who simply contemplates. Therefore, teaching pertains more to the contemplative than to the active life.

4. It is the same perfection which makes each thing perfect in itself and enables it to give others a perfection like its own. Thus it is by reason of one and the same warmth that fire itself is warm and gives warmth to other things. But one's own perfection in meditation on things of God belongs to the contemplative life. Therefore, teaching, which is the communication of this same perfection to another, belongs to the contemplative life.

5. The active life is occupied with temporal things. But teaching is occupied mainly with things eternal, for the teaching of these latter is more excellent and more perfect. Therefore, teaching does not pertain to the active, but to the contemplative life.

To the Contrary:

1'. Gregory says: "The active life consists in giving bread to the hungry, and in teaching the ignorant the word of wisdom."

2'. The works of mercy are part of the active life. But teaching is counted among the spiritual works of mercy. Therefore, it is part of the active life.

REPLY:

The contemplative and the active life are distinguished from each other by their subject matter and that to which they are ordained. For the subject matter of the active life is temporal affairs, with which human acts are concerned. But the intelligible natures of things, on which the one contemplating meditates, are the subject matter of the contemplative life. This diversity of subject matter arises from a diversity of the end to be attained, just as in all other things the requirements of the end to be attained prescribe certain conditions in the subject matter.

For the end toward which the contemplative life, as we are now examining it, is ordained is the consideration of truth, of that truth, I say, which is uncreated, considered in the manner possible to the one contemplating it. We see this truth imperfectly in this life, but perfectly in the life to come. Hence, Gregory says that the contemplative life begins here in order to be made perfect in the life to come. But the end toward which the active life is directed is the activity which is directed to the help of our neighbor.

Moreover, in the act of teaching we find a twofold subject matter, and as an indication of this, two accusatives are used as objects of the verb which expresses the act of teaching. This is so because the subject which one teaches is one kind of subject matter of teaching, and the one to whom the knowledge is communicated is another type of subject of teaching. Accordingly, by reason of the former, teaching pertains to the contemplative life, but by reason of the latter it is part of the active life. But, if we consider the end toward which it is directed, teaching seems to be a part only of the active life, because its last subject matter, in which it reaches the end proposed to it, is a subject with which the active life is concerned. Therefore, although it is in some sense a function of the contemplative life, as is clear from what has been said, it is more properly a work of the active than of the contemplative life.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. There is no active life where there is no body, inasmuch as toil is connected with its exercise, and inasmuch as it relieves the infirmities of our neighbors. It is in this sense that Gregory says: "The active life is laborious because it works in the sweat of its brow; two things which will not be in the future life." Nevertheless, there is still hierarchical activity among the heavenly spirits, as Dionysius says, and the manner of the activity is different from the active life which we now lead in this life. Hence, the teaching which will exist there is far different from the teaching here.

2. As Gregory says: "Just as the good disposal of our life leads us to try to pass from the active life to the contemplative, in like manner the minds of many can usefully turn back from the contemplative to the active life so that the flame which the contemplative life has enkindled in their minds may lead them to live the active life more perfectly." Still, we must bear in mind that the active life precedes the contemplative in regard to those acts which have a subject matter in which the contemplative life has no part at all, but the active life must follow the contemplative in those acts which receive their subject matter from the contemplative life.

3. The insight of the teacher is a source of teaching, but teaching itself consists more in the communication of the things seen than in the vision of them. Hence, the insight of the teacher belongs more to action than to contemplation.

4. This argument proves that the contemplative life is a source of teaching just as heat is the source of the act of warming, and is not itself that activity. For we see that the contemplative life is the source of the active life in so far as it directs it, just as, conversely, the active life disposes for the contemplative.

5. The solution is clear from what has been said, for teaching and the contemplative life have the first type of subject matter in common, as has been said above.*