The Aquinas Institute has released Aquinas's sermon Ecce Rex Tuus in a fresh translation from the Leonine text. The announcement contains the English text in an easily sharable format, but readers can also find the Latin text in a parallel column and critical footnotes in the English at the Aquinas Institute's online text reader.
In addition to publishing hardbound, bilingual editions of Aquinas's works, the Aquinas Institute makes all of its publications available online for free at aquinas.cc. While texts of Aquinas have been available online in Latin here or in English there in various ways, the Aquinas Institute text viewer is worth exploring.
Did you know that Aquinas mentions Ambrose 278 times in the Summa? Or that his commentary on the Letter to the Hebrews is a particularly rich source for angelology? It only takes a few keystrokes to pull up what you need. At aquinas.cc, you can:
The text viewer was originally created for Aquinas Institute translators and editors, so it has more robust features than your average text viewer. Check out the tutorial video below for details.
A link at Ed Feser's blog today alerted me to an exciting new initiative. Cluny Media, which I'm learning about for the first time, is launching a new book series entitled "The Thomist Tradition." According to the series page at Cluny Media's website, the series "conveys a dual conviction":
1. The thought of St. Thomas Aquinas contains an incomparable fullness of wisdom.
2. The writings of the Thomists who followed him play a necessary role in mediating his wisdom to subsequent generations.
This is great! The series editor is the estimable Cajetan Cuddy, OP. Here's a list of currently available and forthcoming titles:
T.C. O'Brien, Metaphysics and the Existence of God (now available)
Joseph Clifford Fenton, The Concept of Sacred Theology (Christmas 2017)
Thomas U. Mullaney and Walter R. Farrell, Natural Law and Human Freedom: Thomistic Investigations (July 2018)
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Eucharist (a new translation of De Eucharistia) (Christmas 2018)
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Theological Virtues (a new translation of De Virtutibus Theologicis) (Christmas 2018)
I encourage you to check this out for yourself. I wish Fr. Cajetan's project every success!
(by Jeremy Holmes of The Aquinas Institute)
This past July, the Albertus Magnus Center Summer Program spent two weeks reading the Aquinas Institute’s latest volume, Book IV, Distinctions 1-13 of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Not many students have had the opportunity to read Aquinas’s Commentary at length. We asked AMCSS Vice-President Christopher Owens to tell us how it went.
First, tell us a bit about the Albertus Magnus Program.
The Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies promotes renewal in sacred theology according to the mind and method of the great scholastics, and particularly the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. We achieve this primarily through our annual summer program held in Norcia, Italy in cooperation with the Benedictine monastery there.
During the two-week program we follow a seminar method, looking to the great masters as our teachers. In addition, we have daily lectures by the tutors, the Fathers of the monastery, and other guest lecturers. The program culminates in a scholastic disputation and magisterial response, which allows for a synthesis of the materials learned and an application to contemporary questions, engaging theological questions of our own time and so contributing to the common good of the life of the Church.
Why was St. Thomas’s Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard chosen for this year’s program?
Over the last three summers we worked through several of Aquinas’s commentaries on the Pauline epistles, and before that we undertook systematic readings of various parts of the Summa. We wanted to change things up a bit this year. We have been friends with the faculty of the Aquinas Institute for a decade or more, and have been looking forward to the publication of the Sentences Commentary since the inception of the project. We were especially excited about the possibility of making a systematic study of the Commentary for the first time in English with recourse to the Latin text.
Did many attendees have previous experience with the Commentary on the Sentences?
We were privileged to have present the Aquinas Institute’s own Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, whose translations of selections of the Commentary on Love and Charity was published by CUA Press, and I have worked on medieval commentaries on the Sentences. We also had two doctoral students who are engaged in some exciting research on medieval theology. This was a great benefit to the seminar, but lack of experience was in no way an impediment for those who had never studied the Sentences commentarial tradition. Indeed, it was refreshing for me to hear of discoveries in the text from those who had never been exposed to the method.
Inevitably, people compare St. Thomas’s earlier Commentary with his later masterwork, the Summa theologiae. Did points of comparison come up in class? Does the Commentary have any unique advantages?
Fr. Torrell reports that St. Thomas would have been less than 30 years old when he was writing this first Commentary, while the Tertia Pars of the Summa would have been much later — indeed, when Thomas died, he left his treatise on the sacraments in the Summa unfinished. There is a great benefit to looking at the whole of Thomas’s career in order to try and discern a development in the thought of Thomas from his youth to his maturity. This historical approach can yield great insight—for example, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-LaGrange’s defense of Thomas’s belief in the Immaculate Conception depends upon not only reading the Summa, but his Sentences commentary, and other works.
However, we made a decision early on that such an attempt would be futile for the seminar: we simply never would have gotten through the work. Although there were occasional references to the Summa during our seminar study, on the whole what we found is that the text, and particularly the methodology of the text, stands as worthy of engagement on its own. Since our goal is not only to know what Thomas thinks about a particular issue, but more importantly what the truth of the matter is, Thomas’s methodology in interrogating the question opens up the subject for the reader to see the many facets of the issue under dispute, and allows the student to arrive at his own insights. Indeed, the Sentences Commentary uniquely opens up to the reader the breadth and depth that a particular question may have, since rather than a standard three objections, as one might find in the Summa, there will at times be as many as a dozen or more objections and counter-objections put forward in one question.
The unfamiliar format can be intimidating to a newcomer, but the Aquinas Institute edition is a great aid. The page headings make it easy to find the various distinctions, questions, articles, and quaestiunculae. The text itself is beautifully printed with a minimal amount of mark-up, but enough to help make the edition truly usable as a bi-lingual research tool. The quality of the binding is wonderful, and this is particularly important with such a large text. The text is footnoted both with critical remarks about the text or translation and also cross-references for further research.
Did your impression or imagination of St. Thomas change through your immersion in his early work?
In so many ways, yes! But here, I will constrain myself to two observations. First, perhaps the most unfortunate characterization of scholasticism by some mid-20th century theologians is that it is devoid of the vitality of the Spirit which is present, for instance, in the Patristic era. Reading Thomas’s Commentary, one cannot help but see that this characterization is manifestly false. My experience of reading the Commentary was that I found in the text to be an intensely personal search for Christ and his truth, one which enlivened my own heart and mind through following in the footsteps of Aquinas.
Second, even in schools today where St. Thomas’s Summa is considered an authority in the classroom, it can sometimes be taught not theologically, but rather as if it were the Catechism (albeit a much more detailed catechism). But to do this, I think, is to miss the point of the scholastic endeavor entirely! In reading the Sentences Commentary, the learner is put back in touch with the fact that this text is theology: it is faith seeking understanding; it is one theologian entering into dialectic with other theological opinions of his day, and trying to work out what is the truth. In this, we are reminded that theology as a sacred science is first of all about divinization, for it is the science of God and the Saints. Thus, here below, theology is about working out our faith, personally and ecclesially. The Commentary on the Sentences offers to the reader a most excellent guide to this process, both in providing some answers, but perhaps more importantly in providing a model for the right way to ask questions.
How would you envision the Commentary being used in a university classroom? In large sections on its own, as in the St. Albert the Great Program, or in smaller selections in connection with the Summa, or in some other way?
This is certainly a difficult question! As far as I am aware, in those faculties where specialized studies are offered in the theology of Thomas Aquinas, the Sentences commentary plays an ancillary role in the Thomistic curriculum. But this is not the fault of the faculty: up to now, there has not been a widely available edition for student use, even for those students who have facility with Latin. Thus, the new Aquinas Institute editions create opportunities to explore the rich theology contained in these rarely used texts. I hope that we will see elective courses dedicated to the study of the Commentary cropping up all over the place now that there is a quality edition available. In addition, these new editions could be used as a foundation for graduate studies in sacramental theology for a class on medieval thought; or else, portions of the text would be highly beneficial in support of a greater understanding of the Eastern and Western disputes over the sacraments.
Another consideration, one which might challenge a paradigm, is that we might rediscover the practice embodied in Aquinas’s Commentary. While the commentary tradition is all but absent from today’s theological curriculum, commentating on the Sentences of the Lombard was considered the foundation of high scholastic education, and it offers a unique way to compare the thought of different theologians: they all start from the same text, and then have points of convergence and divergence. A widespread re-discovery of this methodology might offer a challenge to the way theological disputation is undertaken in the 21st century. It might even provide a vehicle for resolving contemporary disputes, which too often suffer from a vastly disparate set of sources and methods in coming to opposed conclusions.
Who is eligible to participate in one of your two-week summer programs?
While our program is academic in nature and pitched at a graduate level, many participants come for a time of retreat and relaxation, and sometimes vocational discernment: Br. Augustine, OSB (the brewmaster at the monastery) was a participant in our first summer program, and we regularly have priests who join us for their two-week vacation from parish life. Monastic chant, the majestic Sibilline mountain range, and traditional Umbrian cuisine create an ideal setting for contemplation of higher truths. We have hosted doctors, businessmen, school teachers, attorneys, and even retirees, with attendees from Chile, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Italy, England, and the United States. Although we are non-accredited, we have usually been able to make arrangements for a student’s home university to offer some sort of credit for their participation in the program.
What’s up next for the St. Albert the Great Program?
This past year was the first year that we held the program near the new monastery on the mountain outside of Norcia. The agriturismo where we stayed was a great hit, and the nightly five-course meals were incredible! Just as we published last year’s proceedings, so we intend to publish the proceedings from this past summer’s program, hopefully in time for Christmas. Plans are underway for next summer’s program on Divine Providence and Human Suffering, using the Aquinas Institute’s edition of Thomas’s Commentary on the Literal Sense of Job as our primary text. We have confirmed that the dates for next year’s program will be during the last two weeks of June. We will be launching details about the program, as well as opening the application process, on this coming St. Albert’s Day (Nov. 15th). We hope to fill the agriturismo, so please do spread the word, and get in touch if you’d like to help us out in some way.
How can people find out more?
Please, feel free to visit our website or else drop me an email!
For those interested in John of St. Thomas's Cursus theologicus, I happen to have a precious volume of the set that was published in the 1940s. While I love this author and admire the beautiful book, I've never used it -- indeed, most of the pages are still uncut -- and I don't foresee needing it. There's bound to be a scholar out there who would make better use of it.
Description: Joannis a Sancto Thoma Cursus Theologicus. Tomus IV, fasciculi I-III. Desclee et Socii: Parisiis-Tornaci-Romae. MCMXLVI (date on cover). Opera et studio monachorum quorumdam solesmensium O.S.B. editus, in quo quid contineatur versa pagella indicabit. 1953 (date on title page). With a prefatory letter by Cardinal Pacelli. Contains xii + ca. 500 pages, namely, the Tractatus de Angelis: qu. 50 to qu. 74. Paginated as p. 441 to p. 935. Binding in good condition; some wrinkles and tears on the cover. Inside in very good+ condition. $200 or best offer.
Please contact me at professorkwasniewski (at) gmail.com.
Some photos:
Undoubtedly readers of this site are well aware that The Aquinas Institute has undertaken the project of publishing a bilingual Opera Omnia of the Angelic Doctor in approximately 60 hardcover volumes. The progress has been impressive so far: the Summa Theologiae; the Pauline Commentaries; the Matthew and John Commentaries; the Job Commentary. All of these, due to their quality and comparatively low cost, have now become standard go-to editions for teachers, students, theologians, philosophers, and general readers.
After years of work under an NEH grant, The Aquinas Institute is happy to announce that the edition of Book IV of St. Thomas's Scriptum super Sententiarum is starting to be available in print, with volume 1, distinctions 1-13, just released. I had the privilege of teaching the Albert the Great Summer Program in Norcia this past July, on baptism and the Eucharist, using a preliminary copy of this volume. It was a fantastic experience getting into the youthful Aquinas's wrestling with some of the major questions of his day. Once again, as with my own collection of parts of the Scriptum on love and charity, I found that reading the Scriptum on sacraments, although it does not present the definitive position of the saint, nevertheless enriched and enhanced my understanding not only of the realities themselves but also of Aquinas's own process of thinking and maturation.
Also worth of note is that the Latin text that will be used for all the Aquinas Institute volumes of the Scriptum, derived initially from the semi-critical Mandonnet-Moos volumes, has been corrected against the not-yet-released critical edition of the Leonine Commission, with whom the Aquinas Institute is collaborating. That feature will make these volumes the best Latin editions as well as the only English editions.
Please note, as well, that there is a massive sale on Aquinas Institute books during the month of October only -- e.g., the Summa theologiae set is 50% off ($180 for 8 hardcover volumes, instead of the usual $360). Visit the website for more details.
Here are some photos to whet the appetite. The remaining volumes of Book IV of the Scriptum super Sententiarum (for a total of four) will be appearing over the course of the next months. The Aquinas Institute is well under way with Books II and III, with a new NEH grant.
Fran O'Rourke has sent us the following information on the upcoming Symposium Thomisticum in Athens, Greece.
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The third Symposium Thomisticum will take place in Athens, Greece, 7-9 June 2018, kindly co-hosted by the University of Athens and Athens Academy.
Details are available at www.ucd.ie/philosophy/symposiumthomisticum
The theme of the Symposium is Aquinas and the Greeks.
Speakers will include: Therese Cory, Lambros Coulobaritsis, John A Demetracopoulos, John Dillon, Gregory Doolan, Kevin Flannery, Lloyd Gerson, Athanasia Glycofrydi-Leontsini, John Haldane, Yannis Kalogerakos, Thomas Leinkauf, Eleni Leontsini, Patrick Masterson, Evanghelos Moutsopoulos, Siobhan Nash-Marshall, Turner Nevitt, Fran O'Rourke, Eric D Perl, Eleni Procopiou, Andrea Robiglio, Carlos Steel, Georgios Steiris, Richard Taylor, Rudi te Velde, David Twetten, Kevin White, John Wippel, Markus Woerner, John Zizoulas.
Papers are invited for a number of supplementary parallel sessions. The overall number of participants will be limited to sixty; priority will be given to those presenting papers. In order to avoid overlap of topics, initial proposals should be sent by email to Fran O'Rourke (orourke@ucd.ie).
The deadline for abstracts is 1 December, and for completed papers 1 May 2018. Papers will be circulated in advance; summaries will be presented at the symposium: papers will be discussed rather than read.
Participation fee will be EUR125, to include refreshments and the conference banquet.
Participants will be responsible for their own accommodation.
Inquiries to Fran O'Rourke, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University College Dublin (orourke@ucd.ie).
From the Thomas Institute at the Tilburg School of Catholic Theology (the Netherlands) comes a Call for Papers for an International Conference entitled: “Initiation and Mystagogy in Thomas Aquinas: Theological, Philosophical, Liturgical, and Pedagogical Perspectives” to be held December 13-15, 2018 in Utrecht (the Netherlands). Keynote speakers include Bernard Blankenhorn O.P., Matthew Levering and Daria Spezzano. Those interested in presenting a paper should submit an abstract (including a title, a summary of their proposed paper, and their institutional affiliation) to J.I.M.Vijgen@uvt.nl by March 1st, 2018. Notification of acceptance will be given by April 15, 2018. For further information please check the website of the Thomas Institute, http://www.thomasinstituut.org/nws.php?nws_id=164, or download the PDF
Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide. Randall B. Smith. Renewal Within Tradition. Matthew Levering, ed. Steubenville, Ohio: Emmaus Academic, 2016. xxxiv + 342 pages. $44.95. Hardcover. ISBN 9781941447970
Thanks to recent publications of the sermons of St. Thomas Aquinas, Randall B. Smith has delivered on a magnificent contribution to help build a bridge across a once-yawning chasm in Thomistic scholarship with his Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide. Such a text has been necessary for quite some time; so this text represents something of a historical marker in an already eventful period of Thomistic biblical theology. Thomas’s biblical theology is a much-underappreciated facet of his theology, but the increasing availability of his commentaries are bringing his biblical theology more to the fore. Smith's text will further illustrate Thomas’s mode of exegesis within the context of preaching the faith.
The collection of Thomas’s sermons is quite small compared with his other writings—Smith outlines 20 authentic sermons in the first appendix (21 sermons are listed, but Smith argues that sermon 10 is to be judged inauthentic). By comparison, many of the Fathers, such as Augustine, Jerome, Caesarius of Arles, Leo the Great, and others, left scores or even hundreds of sermons. I imagine that Thomas would have done the same had he lived beyond his fiftieth birthday.
Another aspect to consider when purchasing this text is that one should have the English translation of the homilies (Thomas Aquinas: The Academic Sermons, tr. Mark-Robin Hoogland, C.P., FOTC: Medieval Continuation 11, CUA Press, 2010). alongside Smith’s Beginner’s Guide. The author emphasizes the necessity of having both books (cf. xxxiv). For serious academics, the Dominican L.J. Bataillon has recently produced a critical edition of the sermons, vol. 44.1 in the Opera Omnia (Rome: Commissio Leonina, 2014). For those interested, the Dominican J.-P. Torrell also published a French translation of the sermons (Cerf, 2014).
Smith outlines those sermons deemed authentic very thoroughly in the first appendix. This is a valuable piece of the book in its own right, considering that this section comprises nearly a third of the volume (229–325). Perhaps before taking on the main body of text, this might even be the first place a more novice reader could start because it gives such a helpful overview of all the authentic sermons. This first appendix also has the effect of reinforcing the evidence presented in the main text of the rhetorical mastery of Thomas. The second appendix is also quite useful to the reader in that it pinpoints in a more condensed way the place in the liturgical cycle wherein Thomas would have given this sermon and whether each sermon contained a collatio, which was a part of the sermon given in the evening at university.
In the main body of the text, Smith begins with a specific sermon and then proceeds to unpack the intricacies of Thomas’s genre of preaching. The first chapter he devotes to giving an in-depth exposition of Thomas’s sermon 5, Ecce Rex Tuus (Thomas’s sermons, like church documents, have come to be titled by the first few Latin words.) Smith shows how Thomas uses the Old Testament scriptures in ways that might seem odd to contemporary commentators but which flow naturally from his Christocentric understanding of the Bible. In the second chapter, he takes up the specific sermon genre in which Thomas was schooled, the sermo modernus, that is, “the modern sermon” (a genre often prejudiced as a not-so-modern sermon). In this sermon style, the preacher begins with a Biblical thema, a verse often taken from the liturgical readings and upon which the sermon is based. This is easily illustrated by thumbing through the appendix. Thomas often joins the thema to a prothema, a different Scriptural verse which the preacher will connect with the thema. The preacher then goes back to the thema and divides its parts (divisio) before expanding upon them (dilatatio). Chapter three Smith devotes to the divisio and four to various methods of expansion in the dilatatio. But this text is not merely a text of medieval ecclesiastical rhetoric; it is thoroughly theological and conveys the blessedness it must have been to have heard this great preacher. It sets Aquinas before the reader as a true master of preaching, whose facility with the Sacred Page leaves little doubt as to why he has become the example for theologians to this day. As one can see, in addition to its theological and historical value, this text could also be used very well in college rhetoric classes or in homiletics classes in seminaries. Thomas, as Smith shows, employs the liturgical reading of the day in a way that leads to dogmatic exposition and exhortation of the faithful. And against a number of criticisms, Smith defends Thomas’s use of the sermo modernus, which, upon Smith’s examination proves to be a very effective mode of sermon preparation.
My biggest difficulty with this text is in its title, which I find somewhat misleading. In my opinion, such an academic tour de force should not be called a “beginner’s guide.” “Beginner’s guide” says more about the reader than it does about the text. The book is an introduction and then some: full of academic-level prose, rigorous research, lengthy footnotes, plenty of Latin, occasional Greek, and other features that restrict the intended audience of such a text to Thomistic scholars and graduate students (all of whom, of course, should have a copy of Smith’s book). In no sense does that take away from the text, but novices and younger students of theology may find themselves in over their heads. The table of contents is very thorough, which is most appreciated and nearly makes up for the regrettable absence of an index, which would be welcome should there be future editions. Leaving those criticisms aside, the cover is very attractive, the text is masterfully written, and it seems well edited with few noticeable errors. The spectrum of research into the sermons of Aquinas has been relatively small up until the past decade. This book opens the door to those sermons and clarifies their style for future scholars. In doing so, Smith ensures that scholars will take up those sermons and get to work. For my part, I hope to see more from this author on this topic.
Reviewed by Kevin M. Clarke, adjunct professor of theology, Ave Maria University.
Aquinas's Opera omnia are now available in an App for Android devices in an app (CTh It) published by Andrzej Nakonieczny OP. The aim of the application is to provide students, scholars a tool for basic research on works of St. Thomas Aquinas, available offline (e. g. during seminars, lectures). This application is a part of the CORPUS THOMISTICUM PROJECT.
Free download:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=anynet.sqlite.cth.latine
For more information about this app:
The web page for John F. Boyle at the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, Minnesota) has links to many of John's most noted articles. Time to stock up on some scholarship.
Read MoreUnder the direction of the Sacra Doctrina Project
