Reading Hebrews with St. Thomas Aquinas
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Overview
This collection of scholarly essays engages historical, theological, and exegetical dimensions of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. These studies belong to an approach that is known as “Biblical Thomism,” which pursues the retrieval of Aquinas’s biblical commentaries as well as his patristic sources as part of a constructive response to the Second Vatican Council’s emphasis on Scripture as being the soul of sacred theology.
- Engages historical, theological, and exegetical dimensions of Aquinas’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews
- Belongs to an approach that is known as “Biblical Thomism”
- Explores the Second Vatican Council’s emphasis on Scripture as being the soul of sacred theology
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Angelology in the Lectura ad Hebraeos of St. Thomas Aquinas
- 2 The Argument of the Letter to the Hebrews and the Grace of Christ as He Is Head of the Church according to St. Thomas Aquinas
- 3 Christ’s Role as Priest in Aquinas’s Commentary on Hebrews and the Summa theologiae
- 4 Christ as Son in Aquinas’s Hebrews Commentary
- 5 Biblical Thomism and the Novus Sensus: Thomas, Cajetan, and Jesus’s Unbloody Bloody Sacrifice
- 6 Was Jesus a Person of Faith? Aquinas and Some Modern Interpreters on Hebrews 12:2
- 7 Augustine and Aquinas on the City of God as the Church
- 8 The Relationship between the Old and the New Testaments in Aquinas’s Super Hebraeos Lectura as a Hermeneutical Key
- 9 The Use of Psalms in Aquinas’s Commentary on Hebrews
- 10 The Mercy of Christ and the Works of Mercy in the Commentary on Hebrews
- 11 Christ, the “Splendor of the Father’s Glory” in Aquinas’s Commentary on Hebrews
- 12 Philosophy in St. Thomas’s Commentary on Hebrews
- Select Bibliography
- Index
For much of Christian history the Letter to the Hebrews was among the most deeply mined texts in all of Scripture, a central source of doctrine on Christ’s divinity and humanity, his eternal priesthood, his sacrifice and that of his people, the communion of saints, and much else. Over the last two centuries historical criticism has largely neglected the letter, unable to determine its author and baffled by what it says. Taking its lead from one of the tradition’s great commentators on Hebrews, this welcome volume points us once again to the riches of this singular text of Sacred Scripture.
—Bruce D. Marshall, Southern Methodist University
Like his medieval and scholastic contemporaries, for Thomas Aquinas the biblical text stands at the heart of his theological project. Visible across his theological works, this methodological commitment is displayed with particular clarity in Aquinas’s commentaries on the Sacred Page itself, a practice which he maintained across his career. Written during the period in which Aquinas was composing his Summa theologiae, the Commentary on Hebrews provides important insights into Aquinas’s mature theological perspective. The essays found in this volume cover a range of important topics that include both speculative aspects of Aquinas’s theology and his hermeneutical approach to different genres of biblical literature. Readers of this volume will find a rich and engaging collection of scholarly essays that showcase the biblical dimension of Aquinas’s approach to the science of sacra doctrina.
—Fr. Reginald Lynch, O.P., Dominican House of Studies
Reading Hebrews with St. Thomas Aquinas offers both milk and solid food, things for parvuli and things for magistri. There are many models here of a theologically disciplined way into what may be an alien and remote text. The editors are to be congratulated for having conspired to make a greater whole than the sum of the parts they have assembled.
—Guy Mansini, O.S.B., Ave Maria University