Book Series Studies and Texts, vol. 152

Thomas Aquinas

Lectura romana in primum Sententiarum Petri Lombardi

Leonard E. Boyle, John Boyle (eds)

  • Pages: 222 p.
  • Size:155 x 230 mm
  • Language(s):Latin, English
  • Publication Year:2006

  • € 65,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
  • ISBN: 978-0-88844-152-2
  • Hardback
  • Available


Summary

This edition makes available for the first time a previously lost work of Thomas Aquinas.

Ptolomeo of Lucca, the friend, confessor, and biographer of Aquinas, uniquely reported that Thomas, while in Rome, has written a second commentary on Book I of Peter Lombard's Liber sententiarum. The Lectura romana is that commentary. It is a reportatio of Aquinas's lectures on Peter Lombard given in Rome in 1265-66. An entirely new commentary, the Lectura romana contains a prologue, ninety-seven articles covering distinctions 1-17 and 23, and three short notes on distinctions 3 and 24. These lectures cover the nature of sacra doctrina, the names and attributes of God, the Trinity, and charity.

The Roman Province of the Order of Preachers has established a new studium at Rome in which Thomas would teach his fellow Dominicans beginning their theological education. The Lectura romana constituted only part of his teaching in this new studium. In this work, we have the only surviving reportatio of Thomas's teaching other than biblical commentaries. Because it can be precisely dated to 1265-66, it is also particularly promising for understanding the development of Aquinas's thought on a number of central theological topics. Written with the trim precision of the Summa theologiae, the Lectura romana contains questions, arguments, and examples not found elsewhere in the works of Aquinas.

The Lectura romana survives in the margins and guard folia of a thirteenth-century manuscript of the Parisian Scriptum now in Lincoln College, Oxford.