Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians

by Thomas Aquinas

Each Volume in the Aquinas Scripture Series will contain an illustration from the rare Vita D. Thomae Aquinatis. Othonis Vaeni ingenio et manu delineata. Antverpiae Aumptibus Othonis Vaeni, 1610.

Hardcover

First published June 1, 1966

About the author

Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar and theologian of Italy and the most influential thinker of the medieval period, combined doctrine of Aristotle and elements of Neoplatonism, a system that Plotinus and his successors developed and based on that of Plato, within a context of Christian thought; his works include the Summa contra gentiles (1259-1264) and the Summa theologiae or theologica (1266-1273).

Saint Albertus Magnus taught Saint Thomas Aquinas.

People ably note this priest, sometimes styled of Aquin or Aquino, as a scholastic. The Roman Catholic tradition honors him as a "doctor of the Church."

Aquinas lived at a critical juncture of western culture when the arrival of the Aristotelian corpus in Latin translation reopened the question of the relation between faith and reason, calling into question the modus vivendi that obtained for centuries. This crisis flared just as people founded universities. Thomas after early studies at Montecassino moved to the University of Naples, where he met members of the new Dominican order. At Naples too, Thomas first extended contact with the new learning. He joined the Dominican order and then went north to study with Albertus Magnus, author of a paraphrase of the Aristotelian corpus. Thomas completed his studies at the University of Paris, formed out the monastic schools on the left bank and the cathedral school at Notre Dame. In two stints as a regent master, Thomas defended the mendicant orders and of greater historical importance countered both the interpretations of Averroës of Aristotle and the Franciscan tendency to reject Greek philosophy. The result, a new modus vivendi between faith and philosophy, survived until the rise of the new physics. The Catholic Church over the centuries regularly and consistently reaffirmed the central importance of work of Thomas for understanding its teachings concerning the Christian revelation, and his close textual commentaries on Aristotle represent a cultural resource, now receiving increased recognition.

Reviews

[Wyatt Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aquinas shows how the Old Law, in its ceremonies could not justify by faith because the sacrifices and activities under the old covenant looked to future grace. So only could faith could justify.

Interestingly, Aquinas specifies the law throughout Galatians as ceremonial laws that of the Old Testament that some attempted to follow in order to gain the status of justification. What amazed me is that this at least corresponds to some emphases in the NPP. It at least starts to gainsay the criticism that medieval theology flattened out law and divested itself of its Jewish character. Not fully, of course.

Aquinas excellently interprets Galatians according to his medieval categories. It strikes me that his views on acquired justice and infused justice could have easily fit into Reformed thinking by being further specified (imputed-infused, sanctification, etc.).

It really is disappointing that later RCC theology took the ideas of infused grace and pointed them like a lance at imputed justice/righteousness. It didn't need to be so.