A TOUR OF THE SUMMA PAUL J. GLENN — A Catholic Classic! — Over 600 Articles, includes Active Linked Endnotes — Includes an Active Index, Table of Contents and Layered NCX Navigation — Includes Illustrations by Gustave Dore Publisher: Available in Paperback: ISBN-13: 978-1-78379-483-6 The Summa Theologica is considered by the Catholic Church to be the most important of the many works with which the towering St. Thomas Aquinas enriched the world. But many lack the inclination or opportunity to spend years of sustained effort to study it.A Tour of the Summa was written especially for those persons. It is a journey through the greatest work of a Doctor of the Church, rendering St. Thomas’ arguments in a shortened yet rigorously faithful form. Msgr. Paul J. Glenn brings a lifetime of teaching and writing experience to this, his masterwork. PUBLISHER: CATHOLIC WAY PUBLISHING

This concise book tells the story of the most important theological work of the Middle Ages, the vast Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, which holds a unique place in Western religion and philosophy. Written between 1266 and 1273, the Summa was conceived by Aquinas as an instructional guide for teachers and novices and a compendium of all the approved teachings of the Catholic Church. It synthesizes an astonishing range of scholarship, covering hundreds of topics and containing more than a million and a half words--and was still unfinished at the time of Aquinas's death. Here, Bernard McGinn, one of today's most acclaimed scholars of medieval Christianity, vividly describes the world that shaped Aquinas, then turns to the Dominican friar's life and career, examining Aquinas's reasons for writing his masterpiece, its subject matter, and the novel way he organized it. McGinn gives readers a brief tour of the Summa itself, and then discusses its reception over the past seven hundred years. He looks at the influence of the Summa on such giants of medieval Christendom as Meister Eckhart, its ridicule during the Enlightenment, the rise and fall of Neothomism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the role of the Summa in the post-Vatican II church, and the book's enduring relevance today.

Inspector Cockrill’s dull vacation is jolted by a Mediterranean murderDIVFrom the moment he steps on the plane, Inspector Cockrill loathes his fellow travelers. They are typical tour group bores: the dullards of England whom he had hoped to escape by going to Italy. He gives up on the trip immediately, burying his nose in a mystery novel to ensure that no one tries to become his friend. But not long after the group makes landfall at the craggy isle of San Juan el Pirata, a murder demands his attention./divDIV /divDIVThe body of a woman is found laid out carefully on her bed, blood pooled around her and fingers wrapped around the dagger that took her life. The corrupt local police force, impatient to find a killer, names Cockrill chief suspect. To escape the Italian hangman, the detective must find out who would go on vacation to kill a stranger./divDIV/div

Chesterton's customary wit and engaging storytelling provide a brief but vivid profile. He focuses on the saint's life, rather than on theology, to illustrate Thomas's relevance to modern readers.

Aquinas (1224-74) lived at a time when the Christian West was opening up to a wealth of Greek and Islamic philosophical speculation. An embodiment of the thirteenth-century ideal of a unified interpretation of reality (in which philosophy and theology work together in harmony), Aquinas was remarkable for the way in which he used and developed this legacy of ancient thought—an achievement which led his contemporaries to regard him as an advanced thinker. Father Copleston's lucid and stimulating book examines this extraordinary man—whose influence is perhaps greater today than in his own lifetime—and his trought, relating his ideas wherever possible to problems as they are discussed today.