Anatomy of Transcendence

Peter A. Kwasniewski holds a PhD in Philosophy from the Catholic University of America, with a specialization in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. After teaching at the International Theological Institute in Austria, he joined the founding team of Wyoming Catholic College, where he taught theology, philosophy, music, and art history and directed the choirs until 2018. Today, Kwasniewski is a full-time writer and lecturer known especially for his work in the areas of liturgy and music. His writings have been translated into over twenty languages and his sacred music compositions have been performed around the world. He writes essays and commentary regularly at his Substack, "Tradition and Sanity."

"'Nothing was made for something less noble than itself.' St. Thomas repeats this maxim, characteristic of the medieval and Christian worldview, throughout his works. For him, the philosopher and theologian par excellence, man is made for what is above. We are meant to rise, to be caught up in the immensity of God. Kwasniewski guides the reader through a meticulous, textually based, historically contextualized, and theologically nuanced study of the themes of excess and rapture in St. Thomas. Throughout, Kwasniewski evidences his mastery of St. Thomas's corpus and draws on major figures from the Thomistic tradition. Anatomy of Transcendence makes a real contribution to the study of Thomistic spiritual and mystical theology."—Dylan Schrader, Veterum Sapientia Institute"Aquinas has a reputation for a bloodlessly intellectual approach to theology and the Christian life. The reputation is unjust, but understandable given the topics and aspects of Aquinas's work that most of his commentators focus on. Peter Kwasniewski's fascinating book does us a real service in drawing attention to the more mystical and affective aspects of St. Thomas's thought."—Edward Feser, Pasadena City College"In Anatomy of Transcendence, Peter Kwasniewski has written an in-depth study of Thomas Aquinas's theology of rapture, spiritual transport, and excessus mentis, providing a worthy companion volume to his previous work, The Ecstasy of Love in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas. Anatomy of Transcendence studies the texts of Aquinas on the sober drunkenness of rapture, which include Aquinas's interpretation of St. Paul's mystical transport spoken of in 2 Corinthians 12; St. Thomas's own mystical experience on the feast of St. Nicholas in 1273, in light of which his work of theology seemed to him like straw; and the 'bright-eyed inebriation' of the beatific vision itself."—Lawrence Feingold, Kenrick-Glennon Seminary"For those who think of Thomas Aquinas only as a dry scholastic author whose concerns are far from the 'mystical' theology one finds in the works of writers like Bonaventure and Julian of Norwich, Peter Kwasniewski's examination of Thomas's reflections on the excessus by which man is carried 'out of himself ' by grace and 'into' the one in whose image he is created will come as a welcome surprise. It is always appreciated when a scholar takes up topics in Thomas's corpus that have not yet garnered the attention they deserve. Thanks are due to Kwasniewski for daring to go where too few have tread."—Randall B. Smith, University of St. Thomas"Kwasniewski's Anatomy of Transcendence transcends expectations. In the thought of St. Thomas, ecstasy is more Platonic than you expected. Biblical heroes (Adam, Moses, Paul, Jesus) were more mystical than you imagined. God made our intellect a much warmer and more erotic faculty than you supposed. But all of this is just the beginning. In a surprising finale, Kwasniewski also reveals the inherent links between St. Thomas's thoughts on ecstasy and his lived experience of it. The witnessed supernatural phenomena that marked the end of St. Thomas's life and his reactions to them, particularly his words about all the 'straw' he had written about God throughout his life, are finally put in their proper place and given their definitive meaning in the dialogue of love between Christ and the ecstatic saint: 'You have written well of me, Thomas. What would you have?' St. Thomas's response, as this book shows, is the essence of the whole thought and life of the Church's greatest theologian and biblical scholar: 'Only thyself, Lord.'"—Nathan Schmiedicke, Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary

• Acknowledgments xiAbbreviations xiiiChronological Table xvPreface xixChapter One Modalities of Excess 1Chapter Two Excessus Mentis in Scripture 75Chapter Three Raptus ad Divina: The Experienceof St. Paul 107Chapter Four Healthy Madness, SoberDrunkenness 193Chapter Five Intellectualism and theBeatific Vision 213Chapter Six Iconographic Incompletenessand Golden Straw 229Bibliography 265Index of Proper Names 279Index of Citations of St. Thomas 283Index of Holy Scripture 291