The book *Thomas Aquinas: Commentary on the Pauline Epistles (1 and 2 Corinthians)* has been published

The School of Theology the University of Navarra has published the book *Thomas Aquinas: Commentary on the Pauline Epistles II*. This is the second Issue—of the four planned by EUNSA—of a new Spanish translation Spanish St. Thomas Aquinas’s commentaries on the Pauline epistles. The translation of the commentaries on the First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians was carried out by researchers from theSchool and is being published to mark the triple jubilee year of St. Thomas Aquinas. As Professor Josep-Ignasi Saranyana notes in the presentation, although a previous translation had already been published in Mexico, this new translation includes introductions and theological notes to clarify the most difficult points.

The publisher this second Issue Professor José Ramón Villar, and the commentary on 1 Corinthians was translated by Professors Félix María Arocena, Pablo Blanco, and Gregorio Guitián; and the commentary on 2 Corinthians was translated by Professors Carmen-José Alejos, Juan Alonso, Félix María Arocena, Juan Luis Bastero, Pablo Blanco, Santiago Casas, Pablo Edo, Gregorio Guitián, Fermín Labarga, Juan Ignacio Ruiz Aldaz, and José Ramón Villar. In addition, Professor Emeritus Saranyana has carried out the final review of the work and has written valuable introductions to the commentaries. 

A work in 2008

The first of the three books,*Tomás de Aquino, graduate .: Commentary on the Pauline Epistles I (Romans and Galatians)*, was published in late 2024. It was Professor José Ramón Villar, who passed away in April 2021, who conceived the project, designed it, organized it, and reviewed most of the work its inception in 2008, when he was Dean the School of Theology the University of Navarra.

In accordance with Professor Villar’s wishes, the translations aim to offer “a text that is easy to read, using language that is as elegant as possible, and that prioritizes clarity over literalness without compromising it. In addition, some historical and theological notes have been added to help readers understand the points where some guidance or clarification was deemed necessary,” explains Gregorio Guitián, Dean the School of Theology, who has coordinated the work Professor Villar left unfinished.

As Professor Saranyana points out, the annotated edition of the Epistles to the Corinthians presents a particular challenge due to “the length of the commentary and the breadth of the topics covered,” compounded by the complexity of the text’s transmission, which has been preserved through class notes, notes corrected by Aquinas himself, and materials supplemented by his disciples. The lectures, likely delivered between 1270 and 1272, date from a period of intense intellectual activity for Aquinas, during which he expressed his views on issues then under debate.
It also highlights that these commentaries reflect the breadth of St. Thomas’s interests, with references to the Aristotelian tradition, to the biblical text in Greek and Latin, and to various fields of knowledge, along with the presence, in some passages, of contributions from students that do not always align with his own thinking.