Saint Thomas Aquinas, Vol. 1. The Person and His Work - Hardcover

Torrell, Jean-Pierre

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Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813208521 ISBN 13: 9780813208527

Publisher: Catholic Univ of Amer Pr, 1996

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First published in 1993 as Initiation saint Thomas d'Aquin: Sa personne et son oeuvre, this volume offers a thorough introduction to the life and works of Thomas Aquinas as well as a sustained reflection on the spiritual aspects of his life and teaching. For many readers, this English translation may well take the place of James Weisheipl's study, Friar Thomas D'Aquino. Broader in scope than Weisheipl, with greater emphasis on Thomas's personality and spirituality, this work also takes advantage of the research into Aquinas's life and times that has occurred in the twenty years since Weisheipl's book first appeared. Jean-Pierre Torrell reviews, clarifies, and frequently modifies previous scholarly conclusions on Aquinas's life and works. He presents the person of Thomas Aquinas in his complete familial, social, and intellectual context, summarizes the known events and circumstances of Aquinas's life, discusses the contents of his works, and provides a catalog of those works in an appendix. The last months of Aquinas's life and his death receive a fresh review based on careful examination of many witnesses about the events, about his relations with his family, and about his personal holiness. Thomas's daring originality is brought out clearly in the final two chapters, which describe the controversies in the years immediately after his death, the condemnations and rehabilitation of a few of his positions, and the process leading to canonization. This volume is the first of two on Thomas Aquinas to be written by Torrell. The second, which explores further the spiritual aspects of Aquinas's teaching, is completed in French and awaits translation into English.

On the French edition: "[A] magnificent achievement. . . . It will be an indispensable tool for every student of Thomas Aquinas."--The Thomist

"Torrell's book is the crown of recent research into Aquinas. Coming in the 1990s, it shows how greatly the 20th century has expanded the knowledge of Aquinas's thought and medieval milieu. . . . With painstaking scholarship [Torrell] offers his own opinions on hundreds of technical problems of biography, chronology, and of the context and purpose for all the writings. He devotes more time to Aquinas's theology and to Aquinas's life in the midst of a religious world than did Weisheipl. . . . It is clear that this book is the result of decades of careful reading and annotation; . . . it is the work of a scholar who is interested in meticulous discussions over chronology but also in the human side of Aquinas's years of intense labor."--Theological Studies

Jean-Pierre Torrell is a Dominican priest of the Toulouse province. He earned a doctorate in theology from the Facults dominicaines du Saulchoir in 1961, and later a second doctorate, in philosophy, from the Universit de Montral. From 1973 to 1981, while teaching at the Gregorian University in Rome, Father Torrell was a member of the Leonine Commission, where he contributed to research on and the editing of Aquinas's works. In 1981 he assumed the post of professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Fribourg.