In the Library
Summa Theologica
Thomas Aquinas, 1274
- Form
- Form Philosophy
- Reading time
- Reading time 36 hours
- Translated by
- Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province
- Chapters
- Chapters 7
- Length
- Length 499k words
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About the book
A Dominican friar in Paris poses a question, considers the strongest objections to his answer, and only then proceeds to argue. Thomas Aquinas worked at this theological encyclopedia from 1265 until 1274, when a vision in December stopped him cold and he refused to write another word, calling everything he had produced so much straw. The Summa moves through three thousand articles on God, creation, the moral life, and the person of Christ, each article structured as a small dialectic of objection and reply. Aristotle is folded into Christian doctrine; Augustine, Maimonides, and Avicenna are read with the same careful charity. The work is unfinished, and yet for seven centuries it has set the syllabus for what Catholic philosophy means.