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An Aquinas Reader: Selections from the Writings of Thomas Aquinas
This new edition of An Aquinas Reader contains in one closely knit volume representative selections that reflect every aspect of Aquinas’s philosophy. Divided into three section – Reality, God, and Man – this anthology offers an unrivaled perspective of the full scope and rich variety of Aquinas’s thought. It provides the general reader with an overall survey of one of the most outstanding thinks or all time and reveals the major influence he has had on many of the world’s greatest thinkers. This revised third edition of Clark’s perennial still has all of the exceptional qualities that made An Aquinas Reader a classic, but contains a new introduction, improved format, and an updated bibliography.
492 pages, Paperback
First published March 31, 1972
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118 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Aquinas
2,546 books1,135 followersPhilosophy 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 7, 2022
I liked what I could understand in this book, but honestly, I probably didn't understand most of it. I felt like I was getting hogtied mentally with lots of logical leaps that went beyond the knowable. My knowable, at least. Maybe when I grow up a little more, I'll get it. For now, I live with much of life as a mystery. Guess that's what faith really means.
July 28, 2014
Anyone new to Aquinas will find Mary T. Clark's An Aquinas Reader an excellent place to start. After a very helpful general "Introduction" to Aquinas, his times, and his place in intellectual and religious thought, there's a chronology of Aquinas's life and a series of charts of "Intellectual Influences". The book is then divided into five thematic selections from Aquinas's writings under the headings of "Reality", "God and the World", "Man", "Man as Moral", and "Man as Religious" followed by a lengthy "Bibliography".
The highlights of An Aquinas Reader (eclipsing at times even Aquinas's writing itself) are Clark's five introductions to the sections. These run anywhere from eight to thirteen pages and are extraordinary in their economy and clarity. Rarely does one get to read summation and commentary as good as what you'll find in these fifty-odd pages.
One example:
"Thomistic ethics may use Aristotelian terminology, but the new wine in the old bottles is the spirit of love. Because the Christ of the scriptures declared that all the laws of morality could be summed up in the love of God and of neighbor, it is truer to speak of Thomistic ethics as scriptural rather than as Aristotelian. And while much Christian mysticism did follow the Neoplatonic tendency of returning the multiplicity to unity by a detachment often descending to rejection of this world, the mystical life for Thomas was characterized by the contemplation that matures from a Christian moral life. This is the injection of unity into multiplicity. Such oneness is given by charity, the form of all the Christian virtues. Man's multiple life concerns, life problems, and life activities are unified by love. This response to God in and through the concrete events of the everyday is Biblical contemplation, not Greek. The man, moreover, who responds to incarnate values is not a Stoic sage but a very human one whose passions energize the love he offers God and man." (317)
When one considers how difficult reading Aquinas can be, Clark's achievement in An Aquinas Reader cannot be overstated. Here is a volume that will help you to access the brilliance of Aquinas framed and elucidated by someone who thoroughly understands the material and is able to relate it with style and grace.
The highlights of An Aquinas Reader (eclipsing at times even Aquinas's writing itself) are Clark's five introductions to the sections. These run anywhere from eight to thirteen pages and are extraordinary in their economy and clarity. Rarely does one get to read summation and commentary as good as what you'll find in these fifty-odd pages.
One example:
"Thomistic ethics may use Aristotelian terminology, but the new wine in the old bottles is the spirit of love. Because the Christ of the scriptures declared that all the laws of morality could be summed up in the love of God and of neighbor, it is truer to speak of Thomistic ethics as scriptural rather than as Aristotelian. And while much Christian mysticism did follow the Neoplatonic tendency of returning the multiplicity to unity by a detachment often descending to rejection of this world, the mystical life for Thomas was characterized by the contemplation that matures from a Christian moral life. This is the injection of unity into multiplicity. Such oneness is given by charity, the form of all the Christian virtues. Man's multiple life concerns, life problems, and life activities are unified by love. This response to God in and through the concrete events of the everyday is Biblical contemplation, not Greek. The man, moreover, who responds to incarnate values is not a Stoic sage but a very human one whose passions energize the love he offers God and man." (317)
When one considers how difficult reading Aquinas can be, Clark's achievement in An Aquinas Reader cannot be overstated. Here is a volume that will help you to access the brilliance of Aquinas framed and elucidated by someone who thoroughly understands the material and is able to relate it with style and grace.
Want to read
December 14, 2009Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Bibliography.
March 8, 2010
Largely unhelpful, only providing Aquinas in snippets without much context. Its hard enough to follow Aquinas' arguments IN context, much less out of context. Nonetheless, the book holds some value due to Mary T. Clark's introductions and explanatory notes for various sections.
September 11, 2013
Not an easy read. Only made it to page 200 out of 550. Doubt I will come back for more.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews