Saint Thomas Aquinas:
The Person and His Work
(Translation of Initiation à Saint Thomas D’Aquin: Sa personne et son oeuvre, 3rd ed. by Jean-Pierre Torrell)
This volume is an update to the classic intellectual biography by the Fr. Jean-Pierre Torrell, OP. For the sake of continuity, foundation of the translation was based on the text of the English-language second edition, translated by Dr. Robert Royal. Throughout, Fr. Torrell has updated the volume in line with the most recent scholarship concerning St. Thomas’s life and works.
The presentation of the life and work of any great thinker is a formidable task, even for a renowned scholar. This is all the more the case when such a historical figure is a saint and mystic, such as Friar Thomas Aquinas. In this volume, Fr. Jean-Pierre Torrell, OP, masterfully takes up the strenuous task of presenting such a biography, providing readers with a detailed, scholarly, and profound account of the thirteenth-century theologian whose works have not ceased to draw the attention of both friend and foe! In this volume, Fr. Torrell, an internationally renowned expert on St. Thomas, speaks to neophytes and experts alike: for those new to Thomas's works, he paints an engaging human portrait of Friar Thomas in his historical context; for specialists, he provides a rigorous scholarly account of contemporary research concerning Thomas's life and work. This new edition of Fr. Torrell's widely-lauded text involved significant revision, expansion, and bibliographical updates in light of the latest scholarship. The Catholic University of America Press is pleased to present such an eminent specialist's mature synthesis concerning Friar Thomas Aquinas.
Endorsements
“Perhaps there is nothing more that one can say about this volume than that there is simply no other book like it. It fills an enormous gap, not just in Aquinas scholarship, but also in the portrait of ‘Friar Thomas’ as it has come down to us.”
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly
“Torrell's biography is lively in its style and scrupulous as history. It is essential reading for any student of St. Thomas.”
Robert Pasnau
University of Colorado Boulder