John of St. Thomas Question

[The_Exodus]

Does anyone know where I can get any of John of St. Thomas’ works in English, particularly his commentary on the Summa? I can’t seem to find them anywhere, but on Ite ad Thomam, but even there I am unsure about if the works offered are in English. Thanks.

 

[mdgspencer]

The only English translation of his works, to my knowledge, is “The Gifts of the Holy Ghost,” which draws heavily on St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa. Everything else remains untranslated from Latin into English.
This is not in print, but it can be bought as a used book from amazon.com or the standard sources for out-of-print books like abe.com.

 

[The_Exodus]

Thank you for the reply. I must say, however, I find that to be extremely unfortunate.

Does this go as well for Cajetan’s commentary in the Leonine edition? I hear it’s highly praised, but have been unable to find a copy.

 

[awatkins69]

Yeah, that’s pretty much it for John of St. Thomas. It’s really a shame because he was probably one of the greatest Thomists of all time, and his philosophy was extremely advanced. Mostly everyone except Bonaventure, Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, and Suarez are untranslated. Excluding Saint Thomas, even with them the majority of their stuff is untranslated.

It’s very unfortunate this lack of care and translation of scholastic philosophy. Anyways, I recommend learning Latin. I know that’s not a casual recommendation, but it’s sort of essential if you really want to get into medieval philosophy. There’s a whole universe of scholasticism other than Saint Thomas; it’s just stuck in Latin! Besides, Latin is the language of the Roman Rite, the Vatican City, as well as of all the papal encyclicals, the early Latin Fathers, and Saint Jerome’s classic Biblia Vulgata.

If you do get into Latin, make sure you bookmark this site. It’s a text of John of St. Thomas.