Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide

Book excerpt: Preaching was immensely important in the medieval Church, and Thomas Aquinas expended much time and effort preaching. Today, however, Aquinas’s sermons remain relatively unstudied and underappreciated. This is largely because their sermo modernus style, typical of the thirteenth century, can appear odd and inaccessible to the modern reader. In Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas, Randall Smith guides the reader through Aquinas’s sermons, explaining their form and content. In the process, one comes to appreciate the sermons in their rhetorical brilliance, beauty, and profound spiritual depth while simultaneously being initiated into a fascinating world of thought concerning Scripture, language, and the human mind. The book also includes analytical outlines for all of Aquinas’s extant sermons. Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide is an indispensable volume for those interested in the thought of Aquinas, in the intellectual and spiritual milieu in which he worked, and in the manifold ways of preaching the Gospel message.