Readers of Thomas Aquinas have long noted his interest in "wisdom." It is a term and theme that threads its way through the full range of his corpus, and it stands not only as a recurring area of focus but as an animating principle of his labors. In both its content and form, Aquinas's teaching is profoundly sapiential, yet the contours and underlying unity of its sapiential character—and its integral relation to his Christology—remain underexamined.
Christ the Wisdom of God in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas provides an in-depth account of this sapiential teaching, addressing its sources and methods and surfacing its presence across the entirety of his theological enterprise. For Aquinas, wisdom concerns the contemplation of divine things and the ordering of all else in that light. It is an intellectual perfection both speculative and practical, regarding God and what God has wisely ordained, and directing all that falls to its care to the attainment of God. Such wisdom is an essential characteristic of Christian life and theology, the contemplative ordering of which are themselves in imitation of the triune God, who enjoys perfect contemplation of himself and orders all things in their procession from him as origin and their return to him as end, accomplishing this through Christ, the incarnate Word.
This collection of original essays is offered in honor of Joseph Wawrykow, Professor Emeritus of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, who throughout his career has foregrounded attentiveness to wisdom and to the Christ-centered order God has established and revealed as a signature emphasis of Aquinas's teaching.
Editors’ Preface pg. ix
1. The Predestination of Christ and Wisdom: Joseph Wawrykow pg. 1
Part I: Sapiential Sources and Methods
2. Biblical Wisdom: Michael S. Hahn pg. 59
3. Philosophical Wisdom in Thomas Aquinas: Corey Barnes pg. 119
4. Early Christian Wisdom: Patristic Sources for Christ the Wisdom of God in Thomas Aquinas: Andrew Hofer, O.P. pg. 139
5. Two Scholastic Roads Diverged in a Parisian Woodcut: Non-Thomistic Scholastic Accounts of the Sapiential Nature of Theology: Boyd Taylor Coolman pg. 163
6. Medieval Dominicans, Islamic Sources, and Wisdom: Rita George-Tvrtković pg. 207
7. Wisdom, Order, and the Task of the Teacher in Saint Thomas Aquinas: John F. Boyle pg.227
8. Contemplata aliis tradere: Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas’s Account of the Relationship of the Contemplative and Active Lives Thomas Hibbs pg. 239
Part II: Sapiential Theology
9. Theology as Sapiential in Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus: Franklin T. Harkins pg. 275
10. Aquinas, Scripture, and Wisdom: Thomas Ryan pg. 303
11. Contemplation, Wisdom, and Trinity: Rik Van Nieuwenhove pg. 325
12. De insipientibus et sapientibus: Creation, Providence, and Wisdom: Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt pg. 343
13. Law and Grace Shawn Colberg 363
14. The Beauty of Temperance: Temperance, Honorableness, and Spiritual Beauty: Jean Porter pg. 393
15. Sapiential Spirituality: Aquinas on the Wisdom of the Children of God: Daria Spezzano pg. 415
16. The Living Water of Wisdom: Christ’s Saving Teaching and the Holy Spirit: Dominic Legge, O.P. pg. 433
17. The Gifts of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s Created Wisdom: A Developmental Account: Joshua H. Lim pg. 451
18. “From His Fullness We Have All Received”: The Beatitude of Jesus from Bethlehem to Calvary: Bruce D. Marshall pg. 491
19. Prophetic Wisdom in Aquinas: Andrew V. Rosato pg. 537
20. Wisdom’s Rivers: Thomas Aquinas’s Sapiential Christology: Joy A. Schroeder pg. 563
21. Wisdom and the Sacraments: Reginald Lynch, O.P. pg. 579
22. Divine Wisdom and Bodily Resurrection in Thomas Aquinas’s Early Eschatology: Aaron Canty pg. 603
23. Wisdom Motifs in the Early Iconography of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Dianne Phillips pg. 625
Select Bibliography pg. 655
Index pg. 661
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Submit RequestAbout the Authors
Boyd Taylor Coolman is Professor of Theology at Boston College. He holds a PhD in theology from the University of Notre Dame, directed by Joseph Wawrykow. Coolman is the author of Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus (Oxford University Press), The Theology of Hugh of St. Victor: An Interpretation (Cambridge University Press), and Knowing God by Experience: The Spiritual Senses in the Theology of William of Auxerre (Catholic University of America Press). He has published articles in such scholarly journals as The Thomist, Franciscan Studies, Angelicum, The New Ressourcement, Theological Studies, Traditio, and Modern Theology, and has also contributed entries to various Oxford Handbooks.
Daria Spezzano is Professor and Chair of Theology at Providence College. She holds a PhD in theology from the University of Notre Dame, directed by Joseph Wawrykow. Spezzano is the author of The Glory of God's Grace: Deification According to St. Thomas Aquinas (Sapientia Press). She has published articles in The Thomist, The New Ressourcement, Nova et Vetera, Cistercian Studies, Journal of Moral Theology, and Antiphon, and has contributed chapters to several edited volumes, including Thomas Aquinas, Biblical Theologian (Emmaus Academic), Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology (Sapientia Press), Thomas Aquinas as Spiritual Teacher (Sapientia Press), and Reading Hebrews with St. Thomas Aquinas (Emmaus Academic).
