About the rule of the princes

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De regno ad regem Cypri (German: About the royal rule to the King of Cyprus) is the best-known political work of Thomas Aquinas . In German, the title About the rule of the princes (Latin: De regimine principum ) is common; this is the title of the non-critical edition. The dating is uncertain and controversial; dates between 1265 and 1273 are given (see below). The work is dedicated to a king of Cyprus, whose name is not mentioned. Apparently what is meant is the king of the crusader state on Cyprus Hugo II or Hugo III. The literary genre of the prince mirror is to be assigned to the rule of the princes .

The script is not to be confused with De regimine principum from the pen of Aegidius Romanus .

construction

The complete work consists of four books, with only the first and the first four chapters of the second book by Thomas Aquinas himself. One of his pupils, Tholomäus von Lucca , continued the text some forty years later, with neither spiritual rank nor original concept of the work being retained. The original Thomas text is therefore a fragment .

content

With regard to the history of its political ideas, the script, which is also known as opusculum (Latin: "little work") due to its brevity , is based heavily on Aristotle's concept of the state . Thomas Aquinas, however, goes beyond the Aristotelian philosophy of the state by providing a Christian synthesis . The theological motif of the work is clearly recognizable according to the intellectual orientation of its author, in contrast to Aristotle. Jean-Pierre Torrell points out that De regno is a problematic source (Thomas Aquinas, among other things, no longer looked through his text fragment) and quotes Hyacinthe-Françoise Dondaine, the editor of the critical edition: “This opusculum is unfinished, perhaps even an accident ... it presents itself to us under somewhat difficult conditions; these require that one refer carefully and cautiously to the text as an expression of the thinking of its author. "

The writing shows a contradiction inherent in the text: On the one hand, the princely rule is declared as the unification of the social body and the completion of the common good. Elsewhere, however, the princely rule is considered to be the most unjust and the most remote from the common good, insofar as the prince is only an individual. This contradiction would like to point to an incomplete amalgamation of Christian monarchy theory and Greco-Roman theory of republicanism.

Dating

Torrell emphasizes the great uncertainty in the dating of De regno : “Until future investigations shed more light on these questions, nothing else but to establish a great uncertainty with the editor of Leonina (succeeding Grabmann).” Eschmann put the terminus ante quem to 1265; Torrell chooses 1267 as the year of origin, following Mandonnet. Flüeler points out that Thomas Aquinas quotes from the last books of Aristotle's politics , which he only got to know in 1271; he therefore advocates a period between 1271 and December 1273.

literature

  • S. Thomae de Aquino De regno ad regem Cypri, ed. by Hyacinthe-Françoise Dondaine. Editio Leonina, Volume XLII, Rome 1979, pp. 447-471.
  • Thomas Aquinas: About the rule of the princes. Trans. V. Friedrich Schreyvogl . Epilogue v. Ulrich Matz. Reclam, Stuttgart 2008. (This translation was first published in 1971 and is not based on the critical edition of Leonina, which appeared in 1979.)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harald Dickerhof: The contribution of Tolomeo von Lucca to "De regimine principum". Monarchia Christi and City-State. In: Festschrift for Eduard Hlawitschka on his 65th birthday, Kallmünz 1993, pp. 383–402
  2. ↑ Ulrich Matz: Afterword. In: Thomas von Aquin: The rule of the princes. Reclam, Stuttgart 2008. p. 78.
  3. ↑ Jean-Pierre Torrell: Magister Thomas, Freiburg im Breisgau 1995, p. 187 with a translation from the preface to the critical edition: S. Thomae de Aquino De regno ad regem Cypri, Editio Leonina, Volume XLII, Rome 1979, p. 442.
  4. ^ Jean-Pierre Torrell: Magister Thomas, Freiburg im Breisgau 1995, p. 186.
  5. ↑ there .
  6. ↑ Christoph Flüeler: Reception and Interpretation of the Aristotelian Politica in the Late Middle Ages, Part 1, Amsterdam 1992, p. 28.