THOMAS AQUINAS’ INTERPRETATION OF THE EUDAIMONIST TRADITION, ACCORDING TO AN UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT OF HENRIQUE CLÁUDIO DE LIMA VAZ

Abstract

This paper aims to present Henrique Cláudio de Lima Vaz’s original exegesis, concerning Saint Thomas’ position that articulates the concept of beatitude and the destination of the spirit, according to the specific nature of his “scientific personality”. Lima Vaz describes it as a mix of interest in all the main currents of ideas prevailing in the thirteenth century, not only Aristotle’s ambiguous relationship between Platonism and empiricism, but also Neopla­tonism, Arabian influences, and the biblical tradition that provided St Thomas with a new leaven, allowing him to extend the Aristotelian phenomenology of beatitude in a completely natural movement, converging towards the top and narrowing as it progresses, in order to reach an apex in which the Universe becomes an intelligible synthesis in the human spirit that, in turn, finds its Principle, its own intimate and transcendent Good.