The Summa in (Our) Libraries
The Summa in (Our) Libraries
Over many centuries, under many regimes of Christian power, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae has suffered the misfortunate of becoming an enforced text. Its authority has depended in many cases on misinterpretation. From the beginning, its structural innovations were undone by excerpting and rewriting. With Tridentine Thomism, its fortunes were tied to centralized notions about Roman Catholic orthodoxy. Later still, with neo-Thomism, Thomas’s book was conscripted by a variety of modern disciplines for projects very different from Thomas’s own. Faced with this motley history of reception, a contemporary may be tempted to ask whether the Summa has succeeded or failed. It is more useful to ask whether and how its structure might still work as moral teaching.
Keywords: neo-Thomism, Summa theologiae, Thomas Aquinas, Tridentine Thomism
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