Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

50 BRIAN V. JOHNSTONE
pal text on the subject, there is only one from Aristotle. 38
According to Russell, St.Thomas makes an innovative move in
invoking the common good as a justification of war, and invoking
an Aristotelean doctrine of politics to justify the ruler’s
authority to wage war. 39 However, as the recent research on St.
Thomas’s teaching on peace and war by Gerhard Beestermöller
shows, his teaching on just war must be read as a systematic,
theological ethic of peace. 40 The more specific context, in the
Summa, 41 of the treatment of peace and force is the section on
the vices opposed to charity, and more particularly the vices
opposed to the effect of charity, which is peace. 42 St. Thomas
presents peace first of all as an interior effect of charity. But he
does not restrict it to interior morality, interior peace is meaningless
without its “opus” or work, which we might translate
“peace-making.” War is treated as a sin against peace in its opus
or work. Since St. Thomas drew on the thought of Aristotle, his
final views on the origin and status of political authority diverge
from those of Augustine. 43 However, he retains Augustine’s argument
that the use of the sword is justified, provided it is used in
due subjection to authority and law, in the case of a private person,
or from zeal for justice, in the case of a public official, who
acts quasi ex autoritate dei. 44
St. Thomas develops Aristotle’s thinking in two ways. First,
he draws on the biblical doctrine of God the creator so as to
widen his analysis of the good human life, from the limited polis,
to the quasi-political community of all human creatures under
the universal authority of the creator. Secondly, he adopts
Aristotle’s political notion of philia (amicitia) as his model for
the caritas which is the foundation of the community of the
38 S. Th. II-II, q. 40, a. 2; Politics, I, (1252b3).
39 S. Th. II-II, q. 40, a. 1. ad 2. FREDERICK H. RUSSELL, The Just War in the
Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975) 261.
40
GERHARD BEESTERMÖLLER, Thomas von Aquin und der gerechte Krieg
(Cologne: J-P. Bachem, 1990) 31.
41 Other texts relevant to the question are: S. Th. II-II, q. 64, art 3; S. Th.
II-II, q. 83, art 8; Scriptum super Sententias, lib. 3, dist. 30.
42 S. Th. II-II, q. 39, intro. and q. 40.
43
MARCUS, Saeculum, 224.
44 S. Th. II-II, q. 40, a. 1, ad 1.