Saint Thomas and the Gentiles (Aquinas Lecture 2) PDF
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Saint Thomas and the Gentiles Aquinas title: Lecture ; 1938 author: Adler, Mortimer J. publisher: Marquette University Press isbn10 | asin: 087462102X print isbn13: 9780874621020 ebook isbn13: 9780585306254 language: English Thomas,--Aquinas, Saint,--1225?-1274, subject Learning and scholarship, Wisdom. publication date: 1988 lcc: B765.T54M23 1988eb ddc: 922.245 Thomas,--Aquinas, Saint,--1225?-1274, subject: Learning and scholarship, Wisdom. Page i St. Thomas and the Gentiles Page ii PERMISSU SUPERIORUM Page iii The Aquinas Lecture, 1938 Saint Thomas and the Gentiles Under the Auspices of the Aristotelian Society of Marquette University by Mortimer J. Adler FIFTH PRINTING MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY PRESS MILWAUKEE 1948 Page iv COPYRIGHT, 1938 BY THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY OF MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY First Printing March, 1938 Second Printing June, 1938 Third Printing August, 1943 Fourth Printing October 1948 Fifth Printing June, 1988 PRINTED AT THE MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY PRESS MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN Page v Prefatory The Aristotelian Society of Marquette University each year invites a scholar to deliver a lecture in honor of St. Thomas Aquinas. Customarily delivered on the Sunday nearest March 7th, the feast day of the Society's patron saint, these lectures are called the Aquinas Lectures. This year the Aristotelian Society has the pleasure of recording the lecture of Dr. Mortimer J. Adler, associate professor of the philosophy of law in the University of Chicago since 1930. Dr. Adler was instructor in psychology in Columbia University, from 1923 to 1929, assistant director of the People's Institute, New York City during 1928 and 1929, and has been visiting lecturer at St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland since 1937. As Page vi a member of the Thomistic Institute of America and of many other learned societies he has forcefully defended the cause of Thomistic philosophy. Among his publications are Dialetic (New York, 1927), Crime, Law and Social Science, in collaboration with Prof. Jerome Michael (New York, 1933), Art and Prudence (New York, 1937), and What Man Has Made of Man (New York, 1937). To this list the Aristotelian Society has the honor of adding St. Thomas and the Gentiles. Page 1 I. In the sixty years which have elapsed since the encyclical Aeterni Patris, the study and teaching of the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas have been pursued with increasing vigor. In works of exposition and commentary, in polemical tracts against adversaries, in countless panegyrics which have rivalled each other to reach the summit of praise, and even in attempts, necessarily fewer in number, to supplement or extend the doctrine itself, ample evidence has been given of the vitality of a philosophy which dared to be called perennial. It would be pleasant for us to celebrate the name and work of St. Thomas by rejoicing in these manifestations. We could do no more than repeat, of course, what has already been often repeated by voices more eloquent than ours and speaking from a fuller vision than Page 2 we have attained. If I depart from this procedure, it is not from a wish to avoid reiteration, for that necessarily occurs when the members of a community express to each other their common sentiments and devotions. It is rather because I cannot help thinking of the larger company of men who have heard the clearest voices, but have not heeded. If they have read St. Thomas or what has been written in his tradition, they have not discovered why it is that we rejoice. On the contrary, the praises which might arise here would not re-echo in other corridors of learning. We would be deaf if we did not hear a reverberation of a different sort, an answering cry of dissidence, almost vituperation. Let us forego, then, the pleasure of congratulating ourselves on this anniversary of the teacher to whom we hold all men should be disciples, to ask the unpleasant question whether our discipleship has been at fault. I would first be sure that you are acquainted with the facts which cause me to invite you to join in this course of self-exami-
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