Aquinas’ Science of Sacra Doctrina as a Platonic Technê

Abstract

Aquinas’s characterization of Sacra Doctrina has received sustained engagement addressing its relation to contemporary conceptions of theology and Aristotelian conceptions of science. More recently, attention has been paid to Aquinas’s neo-Platonist influences, and the way they lead him to subvert purely Aristotelian categories. I therefore combine these themes by introducing the first study of whether sacra doctrina counts as a technê in Plato’s sense. After examining how Platonic technê relate to their ergon. epistasthai, gignôskein, and epistêmê and examining sacra doctrina’s relationship to each of these Platonic categories, I suggest that Sacra Doctrina is an unqualified Platonic technê.