Franciscan Studies

BOOK REVIEWS Thomas-Lexikon. (Second edition). By Dr. Ludwig Schuetz. (Paderborn, 1895). Reprinted New York: Musurgia Publishers, 1949. Pp. x-889. $20. A Lexicon of St. Thomas Aquinas. By Roy J. Deferred, Sr. M.I. Barry, C.D.P. and I. McCuiness, O.P. Fascicle I (A-C); Fase. H (D-H). Washington, DnC: Catholic University of America Press, 1948-1949. Pp. x-495. $12.50 per fascicle; $62.50 for complete set of five fascicles. Students of St. Thomas's philosophy and theology will welcome the appearance of these two valuable Lexicons. The second and enlarged edition, of the Thomas-Lexicon of the late Dr. Ludwig Schuetz, printed in Paderborn , Germany, 1895 has been well known to students of medieval thought. Long out of print, Dr. Schuetz's work was especially useful not only as a dictionary of Thomistic terms and their German equivalent, but also as a collection of the more important loci where Aquinas s teaching on a particular subject could be found. The method used by Dr. Schuetz was, where possible, to let St. Thomas define a philosophical term in his own words. The present edition is simply a photo-offset reprint of the German 1895 edition without alteration. As the work of Dr. Schuetz was compiled before the critical studies of Mandonnet and Grabmann were completed, we are not surprised to find quotations or references to some ten minor works that are no longer included in the canon of authentic works of Aquinas,to say nothing of those additional works accepted i>y Grabmann and rejected by Mandonnet. However, as every serious student of Aquinas can be reasonably expected to know which works ascribed to the saint are dubious or spurious, this reprint of Dr. Schuetz's monumental work will still be a practical acquisition to any philosophical or theological library. Whereas the Thomas-Lexikon is primarily a dictionary of philosophical terms, the Lexicon of St. Thomas of Aquinas is of more general philological interest and hence will be useful not only to budding Thomistic philosophers or theologians but to students of Medieval Latin in general. This was to be expected in view of the fact that the Lexicon was prepared by two specialists in the field of Greek and Latin, Dr. Deferrari and Sr. M. Inviolate Barry, C.D.P. with only the technical collaboration of Father Ignatius McGuiness, O.P. Hence we find in the Lexicon not only philosophical but also other terms. As the authors tell us in their "Foreword*, "It includes all the words of the Summa Theologica and such other words from the remaining works as seem in the judgment of the authors to be of great importance .* (Fase. I, viii) In an attempt to discover what norm the authors used in selecting "passages from his other works", the reviewer cursorily compared the Lexicon with Schuetz's Thomas-Lexikon, to which the authors express their indebtedness, and has come to the conclusion that Dr. Deferrari and Sr. Inviolate have done little more than add the quotations and references of Dr. Schuetz's work to their own collection from the Summa; for only those words of the Lexicon which can be found also in the ThomasLexikon include references to or words from works other than the Summa. Hence from a philological viewpoint the present work might be more appropriately titled a "Lexicon of the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas*, although from the philosopher's viewpoint, it has all the value of Schuetz's Lexikon. — 457 ----- 458BOOK REVIEWS This heavy dependence on Schuetz's work for all references outside those of the Summa explains perhaps the strange fact that so many of the dubious or spurious works listed by Schuetz were also incorporated apparently in the list of Thomas's works used by the authors of the Lexicon. Not that the inclusion of references to these other works might not have an independent value, particularly to one interested in the genesis of philosophical thought, but it is somewhat puzzling to find them in the present work, especially since the Lexicon makes no pretense of completeness in its rather limited selections from works other than the Summa. To say nothing of the works...