A paz no pensamento de Santo Tomás de Aquino: análise do De Pace, na Suma de Teologia (IIa IIae, Q. 29)

Abstract

The paper approaches the ideas of Saint Thomas Aquinas about peace on Summa Theologiae. Being a “fruit of the righteous” (Is 9, 6; Ps 85, 11), peace was always studied/approached in the treatise on justice. St Thomas innovated, adding his study to the treatise on the virtues, the charity. This study shows the background of the approach on peace in the Sacred Scripture, on Church Fathers and above all on Saint Augustin, and on some aspects of medieval religious sociology, like on the Edict of Milan (313) and the Peace of God (Pax Dei). From the moral theology perspective, Saint Thomas resonated with Aristotle’s ethical philosophy, and with his teacher/master Saint Albert the Great. Peace is not a consequence of war. In Thomistic anthropology peace is the state in which the human being is created; violence is part of human history due to sin. Por isso Santo Tomás estuda a guerra, antípoda da paz, como pecado contra a paz. Therefore, St Thomas studies the war, peace’s opposite, as a sin against peace. Charity is perfected by the gift of wisdom and peace, on the other hand, in the moral dynamism of the person and the community, is presented as the charity benefit, an evangelical bliss