Finally, Opera, the fine web browser, is free and without ads. It sports an RSS-aggregator, and remains among the fastest browsers out there. Very small footprint, and tidy. Firefox still rocks
You can find out more about it here.
Lay those bricks, Jörgen!What happens when you’re a serious student of Aquinas — and of all Catholic theology, for that matter — and you’ve got waaaaayyyyyyyyyyy too many books? You have to build an addition to your house…with your own hands!
Thanks, Jörgen Vijgen, for making my day.
Okus 1.2: a Greek reading programWow.
I recently learned of this program, made by Projects 225. It’s called Okus, and it is
a new computer application, Okus, which is available for studying ancient Greek texts. Okus incorporates new methods for reading ancient Greek, including color-coordination of words based on tense or case, fast point-click morphology parsing, and dictionary-entry browsing.
I downloaded the program, and found out that it has the ability to show Greek texts of classical works, in a color-highlighted way. You click on a particular Greek word in the text (say, from Aristotle), and a panel on the right of the screen gives you the definition of the work, and the declention or conjugation of the term as it is found in the text. The program currently contains many works of Aristotle (not all, alas, but it has the Metaphysics, the Nicomachean Ethics, the Poetics, Politics, and Rhetoric), and a ton of the dialogues of Plato. It contains Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey) and Hesiod. Importantly for the Thomist, it contains the Greek New Testament and the Septuagint. This is a perfect tool for someone whose Greek is terrible (like me!).
A demonstration version of this program is available for download at http://www.p225.com. At this time Okus is only available on Microsoft Windows (XP and 2000).
I was reading this morning through a number of articles on Wikipedia, one of my favorite on-line resources for general knowledge. In response to a student’s query I started on an article on “kabbalah” and ended up (two hours later!) reading through a very useful article on Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed. It contained a link to a 1904 publication that used the 1881 English translation of M. Friedlander. You can simply download the work in PDF format by clicking here. A nice resource to have.
When God starts creating 36-hour days, I fully intend to sit down and read through the whole Guide. Right after I read all of Aristotle, Augustine, Dionysius, Ambrose, Pope St Gregory…….
The Department of Theology, Providence College (Providence, RI [Rhode Island, USA]), is now advertising a position at the Assistant Professor (tenure track) level, to commence in the fall, 2006. Here is the description:
Doctoral degree with a concentration in moral theology is required. Successful candidate must be competent in Thomistic moral theology. Teaching duties include an interdisciplinary Development of Western Civilization Program. Submit cv, graduate transcripts, three letters of recommendation and a written response to the College Mission statement (available from our website) by November 30, 2005. Send materials to: Moral Theology Search Committee, Department of Theology, Providence College, Providence, RI 02918. Materials received after this date will be reviewed at the Committee’s discretion. Providence College is a Roman Catholic four-year liberal arts institution conducted under the auspices of the Dominican Friars. The College encourages applications from women and persons of color. AA/EOE
The ad mentions a mission statement but doesn’t tell you precisely where to find it (
). I think that I found it here. This is a wonderful place, with wonderful, decent people. If you’re in the market for a position of this sort, don’t hesitate to contact them.
Ugh. I hate being wrong.
A while back, in the first newsletter, I said that:
All the articles in the neat little collection of Leonard Boyle’s articles on Aquinas (Facing History: A Different Thomas Aquinas [Louvain-la-Neuve: FIDEM, 2000]) are in English…save one. The last article is in French, “Saint Thomas d’Aquin et le troisième millenaire,” (pp. 141-159). This is all a tad odd, since the original talk upon which this text was based was given in English in Chicago in 1999. You can, however, see a transcription of the talk in English, and indeed listen to the talk (in RealAudio or QuickTime format) by clicking here.
Thanks to Michael Sherwin, OP, we now know of a full publication of the talk. He explains:
You probably already know about this, but a published version of the talk in English exists. Leonard gave the talk again as one of the Aquinas Lectures at Maynooth. McEvoy published a collection of these talks. Here is the reference: Leonard Boyle, "St. Thomas Aquinas and the third millennium" in Thomas Aquinas: Approaches to Truth: the Aquinas Lectures at Maynooth, 1996-2001, edited by James McEvoy and Michael Dunne (Four Courts Press, 2002), 38-52.
My bad, Fr. Michael; I didn’t know about the talk!. It really is a wonderful talk. And if you read carefully, you’ll even see some Dominicans disagreeing with each other about some important matters in the Order’s history (Hint: The papal bull, Cum qui recipit prophetam).
I’m wrong twice! James Ginther points out:
Boyle’s talk was also printed in the last festschrift (Omnia Disce, ed. A. Duggan, J. Greatrex, and B. Bolton; Ashgate, 2005).
You can read his full comment in the comments on this news item.
Aquinas on Scripture: A Critical Introduction to his CommentariesThe folks at T & T Clark have come out with another useful book on Aquinas, this time one devoted to his reading and commenting on sacred scripture. The book is entitled Aquinas on Scripture: A Critical Introduction to his Commentaries. Here’s the blurb:
This book evaluates all the biblical commentaries of St Thomas Aquinas for the modern age with each commentary examined by an expert, specialist scholar in that field. Each chapter focuses on the two or three major themes of its particular commentary and also relates the themes of the commentaries to Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles and especially to his Summa Theologica.
The purpose of this volume is not only to evaluate Aquinas’ commentaries, but also, in so doing, to demonstrate that Aquinas is primarily a biblical theologian, a consideration that has come more and more to the fore in recent studies. No other book systematically addresses this important issue for Aquinas, biblical studies and theology.
Here’s the line-up of articles in the book, their authors, and affiliations:
The hardback copy of the book is absurdly priced at $105.00 USD, making the paperback appear reasonable at $29.95.
A service of the Thomas Institut in Cologne, the Averroes Database aims to "provide scholars working on Averroes (MuÎammad Ibn Rušd, 1126-1198) with resources, supplying bibliographical information on Averroes’s works and the modern scholarly literature on Averroes." This includes bibliography, a complete survey of Averroes’s works, and, soon, a page on Averroes’s medieval translators.
If you are looking to learn, just to learn, swing by the website of Professor Peter King at the University of Toronto. King’s website is loaded with a variety of fascinating articles, ranging from articles on Scotus (and editions of Scotus) to articles on Hobbes and the Beatles, and translations of medieval philosophical texts. More than that, almost all of these articles can be downloaded in PDF format, as King has produced the PDF files of his publications (even though they are found in journals and in books) through Emacs, TeX, and pdfTeX (ouch!).
I love it when others make learning easy for me…
Thomist moral theologians lament all the time that some of the deeply religious features of Aquinas’s doctrine are left out in the cold when discussions of his moral teaching take place, and that is surely true of his treatment of the gifts of the holy spirit.
While putzing around the Dominican Central web site, and looking up the page devoted to Benedict Ashley, OP, I came across this handy article on Thomas’s teaching regarding the gifts of the holy spirit. Perhaps you’ll find it interesting and helpful.
This is soooo cool. When we took our paleography courses in Toronto one of the libraries to which constant reference was made was the famed library of St. Gall, in Switzerland. Now there is word that the same library is working on putting many of their precious manuscripts on-line. Currently, about 20 are viewable, via a well put-together site (existing in German, French, English, and Italian). The site boasts:
Click here to get a peek. You can read the Rule of St. Benedict in a splendid 9th century hand, or even a Bible from around 760 a.d.! A splendid site.
The Third Annual Midwestern Conference in Medieval Philosophy will be held on Sept. 16-17 at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (all sessions will be held in the Conference Center in the basement of Raynor Library). Here are the papers to be given:
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16
8-9 am. Coffee, tea, & bagels in the Commons Room in the Philosophy Department, Coughlin Hall
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17
Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and the Midwest Seminar in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy with support from the College of Arts and Sciences.
More information can be found on the web site of Dr Richard C. Taylor, by clicking here.
Under the direction of the Sacra Doctrina Project
