Thomas Aquinas died in 1274 with the Summa theologiae unfinished. His Dominican brothers were defending him within a generation, and by the sixteenth century the Summa had begun to replace Lombard's Sentences in the Dominican and Spanish schools. Commenting on it became the way theology was done.
The Thomist school is that commentary, kept going. Capreolus defended Thomas against Scotus and the nominalists. Cajetan and Silvestri wrote the classic commentaries, which the Leonine edition, commissioned by Leo XIII, prints beside Thomas's text. The masters of Salamanca carried them into the arguments over grace and freedom; John of St Thomas and the Carmelites of Salamanca built them into complete courses; Billuart fitted them to the eighteenth-century classroom. After Leo XIII's revival they reached the twentieth century, and they have not stopped.
The line of the school
11 authors, 34 works in the library →- 1225–1274
Thomas AquinasThe master. The two Summae are what the school reads, and argues over.Dominican · Latin, English - c. 1380–1444John CapreolusPrinceps Thomistarum. His Defensiones answered Scotus, Aureoli and the nominalists, article by article.Dominican · not yet in the library
- 1469–1534
Tommaso de Vio CajetanThe first complete commentary on the Summa, printed beside it in the Leonine edition.Dominican · Latin, English, Spanish - 1474–1528Francesco SilvestriThe classic commentary on the Summa contra Gentiles.Dominican · Latin, English, Spanish
- 1509–1560
Melchor CanoDe locis theologicis: where theology finds its arguments.Dominican · Latin, English - 1528–1604Domingo BáñezCommentaries on the Summa, and the Thomist voice on grace in the de auxiliis controversy.Dominican · Latin, English, Spanish
- c. 1550–1635Diego ÁlvarezDe auxiliis: twelve books on grace and free choice, Rome 1610.Dominican · Latin, English
- 1589–1644
John of St ThomasThomas set out as a complete course of philosophy, and a theological course on the Summa.Dominican · Latin, English, Spanish - 1631–1712The SalmanticensesThe Discalced Carmelites of Salamanca: a Cursus theologicus written across generations.Carmelite · Latin, English
- 1685–1757
Charles René BilluartThomas fitted to the schools of his day, and the Summa summae that condenses it.Dominican · Latin, English - 1871–1942Benedictus MerkelbachSumma theologiae moralis: Thomist moral theology for the modern seminary.Dominican · Latin, English
- 1873–1932Francisco Marín-SolaHow dogma develops, argued from Thomist principles.Dominican · English, Spanish
- todayThe next reader of ThomasThe line continues with whoever reads, translates or corrects these texts now.Read, translate or correct a text of the school →