Guide to Thomas Aquinas
New York: Pantheon, 1962. First edition. Octavo, original brick red cloth, original dust jacket. Book fine, dust jacket with minor wear along front fold and two small chips to the upper margin of the front panel. Item #786
'A PORTRAIT OF THOMAS AQUINAS AS HE TRULY CONCERNS PHILOSOPHICAL-MINDED PERSONS TODAY"
First edition in English of Josef Pieper's "lively little book" on Thomas Aquinas—Christianity's "universal teacher."
One of the most celebrated works on the Angelic Doctor, "Guide to Thomas Aquinas belongs with Chesterton, Chenu, and Gilson's introductions—all monuments to the twentieth-century Thomistic revival" (Robert Royal). Guide to Thomas Aquinas is based on Pieper's university lectures, bringing to life Thomas' "powers of assimilation and the gifts of true teaching." The twelve sections are preceded by a brief Preface: "the purpose of these lectures is to sketch, against the background of his times and his life, a portrait of Thomas Aquinas as he truly concerns philosophical-minded persons today." Pieper rediscovers the Platonic basis of Thomas' thought, providing a remedy to "the dreariness of Thomas interpretation" weighing down much of contemporary Thomist studies. "A panoramic, yet scholarly and well-documented introduction to the life and works of St. Thomas, in which St. Thomas is seen as having solved conflicts of thirteenth-century ideologies not unlike the present-day cleavage between science and religion" (George McLean). Translated from the German by Richard and Clara Winston. Approbations. Robert Royal, A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century. McLean, An Annotated Bibliography of Philosophy in Catholic Thought: 1900-1964, 302.
Price: $150.00