This book is one of the essential studies of St. Thomas's life and thought. It is especially valuable because it preserves some of the profound insights of two other Thomists whose books have either never been translated into English (Grabmann) or are, alas, out-of-print (Chenu). Pieper's treatment of St. Thomas's (and Aristotle's) use of language is absolutely essential reading for beginning students of Aquinas who have not read the more thorough treatments (by Chenu and Blanche - now largely forgotten) upon which it is based. Pieper also captures better than most biographers the importance of Thomas's decision to embrace both of the apparently opposed movements of his day, the back-to-the-Bible movement of the mendicant orders and, the modern, scientific movement of Aristotelianism.

There are a few points on which I think Pieper is wrong, most importantly on the question of Thomas's "Aristotelianism." In his justifiable attempt to show that Thomas is not an unqualified Aristotelian, Pieper goes too far the other direction and leaves the reader with the impression that Thomas was a defender of Plato. Especially troubling is Pieper's citation of passages from Thomas's Commentaries on Aristotle's De Anima and Metaphysics, which he, Pieper, claims defend Plato against Aristotle's criticisms: I cannot figure out how Pieper could construe the cited passages in such a way. Also, Pieper's criticism of the Inquistion, the Dominican order's role in it, and Thomas's defense of it seems surprisingly naive coming from an author steeped in the history of the Church. But these are relatively minor flaws in an otherwise worthy study of St. Thomas.

My rating of other books on St. Thomas: (1) Josef Pieper, The Silence of St. Thomas. ***** One of the very best books on St. Thomas Aquinas; see my ... review. (2) G.K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas: the Dumb Ox. ***** A justly acclaimed popular account of the life and work of St. Thomas; a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience for student and general reader alike. (3) Marie-Dominique Chenu O.P., Toward Understanding St. Thomas. ***** THE indispensible work for every serious student; sadly, out-of-print. (4) Ralph McInerny, St. Thomas Aquinas. **** A scholarly introduction to Thomas's philosophical thought, which emphasizes Aquinas's indebteness to Aristotle and Boethius. (5) Jean-Pierre Torrell O.P., St. Thomas Aquinas: the Person and his Work. **** Currently the standard scholarly biography.

This is a very difficult book that will help you to understand St Thomas philosophy. It turns very slow, sometimes.

I have read this book twice and gained valuable information both times. After Chesterton's "Saint Thomas Aquinas," this is by far the best introduction to Thomas Aquinas. I highly recommend it.

Yet, whatever I could say about this book, Pieper himself already has said it in the preface, where he outlined the purpose and goal of his book. So, I'll let you read Pieper instead of me:

"This book is closer to the spoken than to the written language. It is based on a series of university lectures given before collective student bodies. Its purpose and scope are precisely what the title suggests: to serve as a guide and introduction. It is intended neither as a detailed biography of Thomas nor as a systematic and comprehensive interpretation of his doctrines. Not is it meant to be an original contribution to the historical study of medieval philosophy. Everyone acquainted with the field will see at once to what degree my account is based, far beyond the specific quotation, on the works of Marie-Dominique Chenu, Etienne Gilson, Fernand van Steenberghen, and others.

"The purpose of these lectures is to sketch, against the background of his times and his life, a portrait of Thomas Aquinas as he truly concerns philosophical-minded persons today, not merely as a historical personage but as a thinker who has something to say to our own era. I earnestly hope that the speculative attitude which was Thomas' most salient trait as Christianity's "universal teacher" will emerge clearly and sharply from my exposition. It is to this end alone, I repeat, that I present the following chapters, and it is this aspect for which I accept full responsibility."

I was reviewing the section on the Sacraments in this book, specifically, the parts on the Holy Eucharist, and noticed that the 'form' (the words of consecration) of this Sacrament is exactly ICEL's MIS-translation of the Canon of the Latin Novus Ordo, and a MIS-translation of the Canon of the ancient Roman Mass. I had to ask "What did St. Thomas really say?" I went to several older translations of his work (the Summa Theologica) and this book completely mis-states what St. Thomas wrote. This is important for many reasons, but one of them is that these words of consecration have been part of internal Church contention in recent years when the new Sacraments were issued in 1970. This book should be avoided, but there are others that are more faithful translations, such as "A Tour of the Summa" by Glenn.

Despite the book's title, strictly speaking, Thomas Aquinas never wrote a catechism. What he did do was give a series of sermons in 1273, which have since come to be known under the following titles:

Explanation of the Apostles' Creed

Explanation of the Lord's Prayer

Explanation of the Hail Mary

Explanation of the Ten Commandments

The Articles of Faith and the Heresies Against Each

These works have been collected together in "The Aquinas Catechism", but have also been available elsewhere individually and in different combinations ("The Three Greatest Prayers", for example, includes the first three listed works, and "God's Greatest Gifts" contains the last two).

These works differ from more typical works of Thomas in two important ways:

First, Thomas left us with no authoritative written form of them - what we have is a summary of what was said taken by a member of the audience. While that summary was likely quite faithful (the sermons were a major event ; it was recorded by a contemporary that "almost the whole population of Naples went to hear his sermons every day."), the notes should not be assumed to have been word-for-word accurate. Another factor to be taken into account with regard to accuracy is the fact that the sermons were given in the native Neapolitan dialect, whereas the written form passed down is in Latin - so this book is a double-translation (Neapolitan to Latin to English). Finally, the general medieval scribal practice of adding "clarifications" to texts they were copying further distances us from the original sermons. These factors do not mean that what we have is suspect, but it does mean that close textual analysis can only be done with great caution.

Second, the audience for these works was a general lay audience, who would not have been able to understand the specialized philosophical and theological vocabulary that Thomas generally used. As a result, these works were and are in ordinary language - no special training or preparation is required to be able to understand them. Time has not reduced their accessibility - there is nothing here that should intimidate a modern reader (there are some references to "matter" and "form" in the presentation of the sacraments, but readers do not need to understand the full Aristotelian meaning of these terms to understand Thomas's teaching).

That said, the works retain perhaps the most prominent characteristic of all of Thomas's writing, a careful and systematic thoroughness expressed through a strong structural presentation. Topics are broken down, then broken down again, and again, as needed, and each sub-sub-topic is carefully examined and clearly explained.

While Thomas always wrote clearly, he seldom did so without use of a technical vocabulary which acts as a barrier to many readers. One of the nice things about these works is that Thomas here is much more approachable, but he still is going into some pretty tough subjects. Here, for example, is part of his description of the Incarnation:

"In the first place, without doubt, nothing is more like the Word of God than the unvoiced word which is conceived in man's heart. Now, the word conceived in the heart is unknown to all except the one who conceives it; it is first known to others when he gives utterance to it. Thus, the Word of God while yet in the bosom of the Father was known to the Father alone; but when he was clothed with flesh as a word is clothed with the voice, then He was first made manifest and known."

With regard to the subject matter of these works, the subjects of the first four are easily guessed from their titles. For each, Thomas gives a careful, line-by-line reading and commentary. The last work in the collection is different from the others in two ways: first, its subject matter is not easily guessed from the title and it is not a commentary on a text - it is an explanation of the sacraments: what they consist of, and what they are for. Although the title given to this collection, "The Aquinas Catechism", is in one sense misleading, in another it is not. The range of topics covered and the method of presentation do in fact correspond with what a catechism should be. If one compares it, for example, with the recently published "Catechism of the Catholic Church", the equivalencies are immediately obvious - there is no major section of that new work that has no corresponding section in "The Aquinas Catechism" collection.

Finally, with regard to the supporting material, the editorial presence is mostly visible in how the text was formatted - the hierarchical structure implicit in the works is made explicit through use of numbers, paragraph breaks, and carefully applied highlighting. There is also a brief forward by Ralph MacInerny, a pair of outlines of the works (a brief one in the table of contents, and a detailed one in an appendix), references for all quotations, scriptural and others, and a two page biography of Thomas. There is no index, but one isn't really needed - the work is so well-structured that it is trivially easy to find almost any point of interest.

This is a lovely book, edited for the modern reader, of some of the last sermons of Thomas Aquinas. It is not designed for the theologian (who has the Summa), or for the reasearcher in midaeval sermons (for it is edited and supplemented to be clear to moderns), but for the layman who wants a clear outline of the faith, from the Apostle's Creed (what do we believe?) to the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary(how should we respond?) to the Ten Commandments (how should we live?) to a short section on the Sacraments (How does the Church nourish us?). The kindness and holiness of Thomas shines through the book. Buy it, read it, share it.

I don't know much about St. Thomas, so I don't know if Robert Barron has adequately summarized him. But I like what he has to say. It's good stuff, and very worthwhile reading. It puts the (allegedly) dry theology of St. Thomas in a very practical and helpful light. (Again, if it's all true. Fr. Barron doesn't cite St. Thomas enough to give me confidence that his interpretation is accurate.)

If Fr. Barron's perspective on St. Thomas is correct, this volume could serve to ameliorate the concerns of many Protestants about Catholicism, since the vision of God and man that this doctor of the church (St. Thomas, not Barron) sets forth seems to smooth the thorny path to reconciliation.

Having said that, I have one major criticism. Fr. Barron has fallen into the unfortunate modern idea of alternating between masculine and feminine pronouns -- even in reference to God. Reading this volume is not unlike having a sharp stick leap out of the page and poke you in the eye every other paragraph or so. It's horribly annoying, completely unneccessary, and mars and otherwise interesting and useful book.

Shame on you, Fr. Barron.

In this helpful little book, Barron saves Thomas from the dry treatments his theology often receives in the secondary literature. To be sure, Barron is less interested in interpreting Thomas as a historical figure, and more concerned to show the relevance of Thomas for Christians today. In fact, Barron may often go too far in taking Thomas out of his medieval context. For example, Barron emphasizes the centrality of Christ for Thomas's theology (something rarely argued). While this is in a sense true, more textual argument is required to establish this point for scholars who are accustomed to seeing Thomas as more interested in philosophy than Christian theology. Barron may too quickly make Thomas a dialogue-partner with 20th century theology. All this said, the book remains a joy to read and a helpful introduction to Thomas for those teaching undergraduates or seminary students. After all, Thomas's dry writing is meant to do nothing less than lead the reader into the wonder at the center of the Christian life, which is most profoundly revealed in Christ. I must personally thank Barron for helping me remember this as I wade through Thomas's often less-than-exciting texts.

The great achievement of Robert Barron's little book on the Angelic Doctor is that he points the reader to the spiritual quest that lies at the heart of Aquinas' seemingly arid intellectual inquiry.

For too long, the scholastics in general and Aquinas in particular have been accused of overintellectualizing about the mysteries of faith. An overemphasis on reason is presented as squelching our embrace of the mysteries of faith. On the contrary, as Barron argues, the scholastic effort to find theological precision was an effort to clear away the stumbling blocks to faith that our false notions of God can present. Whether we mean to or not, we do have concrete ideas about the mystery of God. To the extent that our ideas are mistaken, our faith can never lead us to the heart of the True Mystery we seek. Aquinas' project was to clear away the dead-ends our unexamined reason produces for us, so that we can find our way to the abyss of God.

Barron has the great gift of making Aquinas' theology come alive for the lay reader. For anyone seeking the great adventure of coming to know God better both through reason and faith, I recommend this book most highly.

I enjoyed this work. In particular, Wippel's discussion of the three meanings of participation as found in Thomas' "Commentary on the Hebdomads of Boethius" is something which is not brought out often enough in discussions of metaphysics.

I was, however, somewhat perplexed by Wippel's insistence on delaying so long the question of God's existence. This would have made some sense if the demonstration of God's existence somehow depended upon the "logical" participation that all created beings have in "esse," namely the "esse commune" of creatures. But since that is not the case, and we could equally prove the existence of God from one creature rather than all creatures in common, why spend so much time avoiding the issue of God's existence? And since creatures have their "to be" (esse) only by analogy with God's, and this is most certainly an analogy of attribution, not the internal analogy of proper proportion between "esse" and "essentia" in creatures, does not the very "logical" community of creaturely "esse" depend upon the existence of God as the ground of that community? Perhaps I am risking misunderstanding by saying this, but it strikes me as a somewhat Heideggerian move, rather than a Thomistic one. It raises Heidegger's "Sein" to a philosophic preeminence rather than ground "Sein" by analogy in God's transcendance. There is the real risk that God will indeed simply become the Highest Being (ens), rather than "Ipsum Esse Subsistens." Surely, this is not Wippel's intention, but by putting this forward in such an order, he seems to adopt a doctrine of analogy at variance with Thomas'. Perhaps this order of exposition is one of the things the previous reviewer objected to. Gilson maintained a theological order of exposition beginning with God and descending to creatures, the very pattern of the Summa. Perhaps the order can be inverted in a purely philosophical mode, but not lightly so, nor without investigating and defending explicitly the repercussions for a doctrine of participation and analogy. Certainly, in any exposition real relations and communities must precede logical ones, and I do not see that one can posit a real community of beings when the Prime Analogate is missing.

To sum up then, this is a valuable book, but I have some reservations about the order of exposition.

Wippel has written a monster of a text on Aquinas. This text deals with anything and everything metaphysic in Thomistic thinking on the subject. The reason I gave it four stars and not five was for certain disagreements that I had with certain positions Wippel took as apposed to my Gilsonian influence of Thomism (i.e. the faith and reason issue and to what extent can philosophy be 'Christian' and the role philosophy plays alongside of or with theology).

Wippel's text is very well written. Certain parts are hard to follow and some of the content is quite dense, but not so dense that a little 'mental elbow' strength would not help.

As the title suggests, the text is a treatise on the metaphysics of Aquinas. Thus, the issues of existence, esse (being), a being (ens), substance, matter, form, etc. are all present an accounted for. Wippel discusses in great detail the one and many issue, substance/accidents composition, prime matter, finite being, uncreated being, God's existence, naturally the five ways of Aquinas, predication (analogy, quidditative knowledge, etc.), essence/esse, and so much more. This text is 630 pages of nothing but Thomistic metaphysics.

Those of you who have learned Aquinas metaphysics through Gilson (which is where I got my introduction to Thomistic metaphysics) then this book will cajole you to reexamine some of what you may have learned in the past. Wippel is in strong disagreement with some of Gilson's assertions and Wippel tells his reader when he disagrees, states his case of disagreement and then offers argumentation for a different view.

I was introduced to this book this semester at Marquette University in a class I am currently taking on Aquinas. The text has been quite helpful, difficult to read at times but a good solid reference tool which I know I will use for years to come in studies of Aquinas. If you are seriously interested in Thomistic metaphysics then you will not want to be without this text.

The excerpts of Thomas Aquinas' "Summa Theologica" are well-presented in this book. Aquinas blends together his Christian faith and ancient philosophy, especially Aristotle, to examine questions about law, human nature, faith, politics, and ethics. I read this for a class on political philosophy and found it particularly interesting, a bridge between the ancients (Aristotle, Plato, Sophocles) and the more modern philosophers (Machiavellie, Locke, Hobbes).

It is also a hard read. The structure of each section is rigid: Aquinas poses a question, gives three objections to his answer, quotes other sources to support his answer (be it Greek philosophers, early Christians like Augustine, or the Bible) and then explains his answer and refutes the objections. To read it straight through is tedious, but to read several sections and consider Aquinas' whole thoughts on subjects can be very interesting, especially in the study of philosophy or theology.

For a student of theology or philosophy, I think Aquinas is important to read and understand, even if from another version of his writings. This book does a good job in presenting Aquinas. Aquinas and his beliefs are more interesting than the reading itself, but it's worth a look if you are interested in studying faith and theology or philosophy. As a light read, though, this is not the book.

To my knowledge only a threesome authors-philosophers (Sartre, Nietzsche and Macchiavelli) would have been able as well to tell "useful" words on this combination of topics Aquinas chose.

The author - few are more original than Thomas - looks back on, examines some of the most basic, important questions that interest humanity (human nature and ethics, politics and law..) and explores them in the light of Christian faith, as well as ancient philosophy. Of the "ancients" he looks in particular close to Aristotle, whom's version the Bible was of till then. So one could say that he was sort of a predecessor for the great humanists...
Aquinas tries to restore the autonomy of nature and reason, in full harmony with (Christian) faith. The result of his work is genial, both what concerns the scholastic ànd "thomistic" style as well as for the special way of exploring and investigation through which he succeeds to "restore in faith".

Everyone who wants to read Aquinas should know that the author writes in a very specific, difficult way. It looks from time to time he opposes to himself, but after studying his readings one can only conclude that this is REAL top-of-the-shelf literature (for those esp. who like theology, philosophy, politics,...).

"Commentary on Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians" is a collection of lectures on Galatians by St. Thomas Aquinas during his tenure as a professor the University of Paris, as recorded by a student. The book consists of six chapters, each with 5-9 lectures. Each lecture begins with a few lines from the Epistle. He then mentions a few points about the quoted lines, frequently doing this twice in the lecture.

The subjects of the Epistle include the questions of the relative importance of faith and works and the question of the role of the Jewish Law in Salvation after the Resurrection of Christ. I found that St. Thomas' explanations opened my mind to some meanings within the Epistle that I had not previously seen. For these insights alone this book is very worthwhile.

This book is a straight forward introduction to aquinian phylosophy. I was first introduced to it reading the autobiography of Pope Paul. Where it was refered to frequently. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the subject but doesn't want to get bogged down with a lot of details. Snt Thomas's phylosophy is Aristotal's concept of natural law from a Christian perspective.

this book is pretty cool. dont take my word for it. buy it. hehe. good readin.

This is a well written scholarly book dealing with a narrow subject. While not denying Aquinas a natural law position, he convincingly shows that the traditional emphasis on Aquinas' natural law position is misplaced, and that a careful reading of Aquinas demonstrates that prudence ought to be given a more central position in Aquinas' thought. Given the genre, the author manages to do this without being tedious.

I like this book. Chesterton, in his enjoyable style, gives a brief overview of the life of St. Thomas. The book is by no means exhaustive, nor is it meant to be. Chesterton recounts particular incidents in Thomas' life that are quite noteworthy, and he even contrasts Aquinas with St. Francis of Assisi, which is among the more humorous parts of the book. Chesterton talks about Thomas' philosophy and the errors of his time he was combatting. He mentions St. Thomas' childhood and his father's unwillingness to let him become a Dominican monk, for example. Numerous tidbits are packed into this little book, and it makes great supplemental reading for anyone who wishes to know more about the Angelic Doctor. Some people say this is "the best book ever written about St. Thomas." I disagree with that. It is a nice book, a relaxing book to read. It gives information about St. Thomas that is non-essential but nevertheless nice to have. However, due to its conciseness and rather informal arrangement of its contents, I would not say that this is absolute "must-read" or even "the best book ever written" about Aquinas.

This is my first experience with Chesterton's work, and I now plan to read his work on St. Francis as well. It is easy to see how this book could change someone's life. I am a non-Catholic and probably even a non-Christian, but for those who are able to listen closely to a voice of faith, Chesterton is a powerful advocate.

There are several considerable weaknesses to the book. The most irritating is its smug dismissveness toward Islam, Buddhism, even Calvinism, all of which get packaged together under the bulky catch-all phrase "Oriental pessimism." Islam in particular is insulted with the description "a simple creed for simple men." But every vice has its bright side, and I admit that it was refreshing to read an author who bluntly states an opinion about ultimate truths without the contemporary p.c. blandness which refuses to make decisions of any kind about ultimate truths.

Another weakness is that the book tends to ramble. There presumably isn't enough information about Aquinas to make a typical linear biography possible, but at times Chesterton jumps around so much into historical digressions that the reader loses focus. Also, many of his analogies are rather dated, and some stand desperately in need of explanatory footnotes for the non-British reader.

However, the strengths of the book are numerous. I must confess to having viewed Aquinas previously as a bit of a bone-dry pedant, a powerful and important intellect but still basically a dull company man. I have read numerous brief sketches of Aquinas' life, but Chesterton's is the first to shatter my preconceptions about the Angelic Doctor. He accomplishes this the way every good biographer knows-- return the well-known fossilized data of your subject's life to their initial _dramatic_ form. From young Thomas' controversial decision to become a mendicant friar, to his status as the laughing-stock of fellow students for his beer-barrel physique and silent demeanor, to the recognition of his intelligence by the sparkling mentor Albertus Magnus, on up to the amusing scene at St. Louis' dinner and the final strife with Siger of Brabant, I felt that Chesterotn's material was worthy of Hollywood (which, of course, would botch it horribly).

Read this book if you have any interest in philosophy whatsoever. For practicing Catholics I imagine it would speak even more to the heart than it did for me, which was already a great deal.

Reading Chesterton is a little like learning a foreign language - persistence is the key. At first he's difficult to understand, but for the reader that continues, eventually the light goes on and everything makes sense.

It's amazing that Chesterton was able to pack so much into so little of a book. This brilliant introduction to Aquinas should be required reading on all college campuses.

Chesterton admits that the book is a biography. His hope is that it will introduce readers to Aquinas' philosophy and therefore lead them into his theology. The theology, Chesterton also admits, is the one thing that he has left out of the book.

Instead, Chesterton spends a great deal of time comparing Aquinas to St. Francis of Assisi - a comparison which at first might seem quite odd. In classic Chesterton style, he demonstrates that the two friars were perhaps more similar than they were different.

Each generation, Chesterton writes, is converted by the saint who contradicts it most. Therefore, argues Chesterton, the 20th century is clutching at Thomism because it has neglected reason.

"...as the eighteenth century thought itself the age of reason, and the nineteenth century thought itself the age of common sense, the twentieth century cannot as yet even manage to think itself anything but the age of uncommon nonsense," writes G.K.

I was particularly intrigued by Chesterton's introduction of Martin Luther late in the book and his argument that the quarrel between the Augustinians and the Dominicans led, in part, to the Protestant Reformation.

The brilliance of this book is both its simplicity and the Chestertonian gems discovered within. Modern readers, familiar with Pope John Paul II's "Theology of the Body", will note the connections between Aquinas' Incarnational theology, Chesterton's common sense, and the work of John Paul II.