Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas

Aquinas was both preacher and enquirer. Randall Smith's splendid book takes us closer to understanding the relationship between these two vocations than anyone else has done so far. Aquinas's sermons exemplify a rhetoric structured by arts of memory, so that his listeners' minds were informed by Scripture and their desires focused on Him of whom Scripture speaks." - Alasdair MacIntyre, University of Notre Dame

"Randall Smith has written a book that for a very long time has been an urgent desideratum. The sermons of Thomas Aquinas arguably are the most underappreciated and least read part of his theological oeuvre. They are a veritable treasure, but like every true treasure, in need of unlocking. With this excellent book, Randall Smith has finally provided an interpretive key that allows us to receive the treasure of Thomas's sermons. This well-written book is a piece of rigorous scholarship, a must-read for all students of Aquinas's theology, also for all who love Christ-centered, biblical preaching, and last but not least for those who want to understand how preaching worked in the world of medieval universities and among the Dominican preachers." - Reinhard Hutter, Duke University Divinity School

"St. Thomas is universally known as a theologian, but few people know that he was also a skilled preacher. His sermons represent an integral part of his work, particularly illuminating for a better understanding of his person and his spirituality. In reading them, one discovers the constant concern of a master theologian to extend his theology through a pastoral practice adapted to the most humble settings. Professor Randall Smith has perfectly grasped this intention. His book, aware of and well informed by the most up-to-date scholarship, will help today's reader to penetrate more deeply into this neglected part of the Thomistic corpus." - Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., University of Fribourg, Switzerland