The meaning of passions and emotions: Augustine and Thomas Aquinas

Abstract

This article presents a critical bibliographical review of the central characteristics of the medieval doctrine of passions of Augustine and Aquinas. Philosophers of the Middle Ages viewed emotions from a Christian perspective, in addition to physical and ethical bodily speculations derived from ancient Greek philosophy. Just as in Hellenic texts that preceded them, the term “emotions” was not used in classical Latin doctrine, nor in the Bible. The main words used by Augustine and Aquinas derive from passiones and affectiones animae. For Christian theological language, passions are degenerate and conflicting states of human beings as the result of Adam and Eve’s punishment due to their disobedience to God, i.e., fruits of the original sin. In this sense, Aquinas describes 11 species of passions – six of the concupiscible appetite and five of the irascible appetite – defined as movements of the sensitive appetite originating from the lower parts of the soul, accompanied by bodily or organic changes, which correspond, respectively, to the decline of the soul, and the disobedience of the “fallen” body.