Thomas Aquinas

Project presentation

Importance and relevance of the scientific content

The translation into Romanian and the investigation of by Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica represents a cultural act with multiple dimensions, which implies: a) the explanation of the fundamental concepts of the medieval culture and, generally, of the Western philosophy and of Christian theology for the benefit of the Romanian theology, but also for Romanian philosophy and for Classical philology; b) a critical evaluation, a renewal and a professional effort of Romanian’s philosophical terminology, which historical outline was decisive influenced by the German classic philosophy and by French modern philosophy, but not by the philosophical terminology of the Scholastics, though it is a basic fundament of Contemporary and Modern philosophical terms.

For the Romanian culture, Summa Theologica represents a work of which translation and research must be considered a major cultural urgency: 1) the elucidation in the Romanian philosophy of the main problems concerning the Scholastics that will certainly supply the Romanian thinking by presenting some clear and available studies in the environment of the philosophical dialogue within the Romanian universities; 2) the development of a Romanian research which was inexistent until now, of the great medieval cultural synchronies, in their true dimension that concerns the development by comparison under some aspects of multiple themes regarding the Eastern theology and of those disputed in the Christian medieval Western; 3) the outline of the Romanian philosophical terminology through a conceptual refinement, so that, by constructing a lexical foundation of Summa Theologica’s terms, the passing from the ancient philosophical terms to those of the philosophical modernity become understandable within the Romanian language; 4) the achievement of a competitive translation in an international respect by the innovation of the critical edition, by identifying some new philosophical Greek and Arabian sources regarding the composition of the famous treatise, that are missing from the actual editions made from a one clerical source and the development of a profound dialogue between these sources and those strictly theological; 5) the coaching of a professional translation from a philological point of view and with a considerable novelty element on the international horizon: this aspect may be accomplished by including in the critical notes of an unknown manuscript for the actual editors from the Leonine Commission of Thomas Aquinas’s works; the manuscript exists at the Bruckenthal Library from Sibiu and it was written at the end of the 13th century, being one of the most interesting and the most important Latin Transylvanian manuscripts of a Scholastic origin, copied, probably, in Italy and arrived in Transylvania during the 15^th century, emerging thus from the international circulation for a few centuries, but ready to be rendered to the editions of the Aquinas works; 6) the over fulfilled of the incipient stages that consisted in translation drafts in Romanian language of some small fragments (under 10%) from Summa Theologica; 7) it is the intention of the general relevance of the purposed project to establish a dialogue between the philologists, philosophers, historians and theologians, brought up together by the stately Aquinas’s work under the sign of a convergence of the theoretical sources of the modernity of the four large specialties named.

By now, the Romanian language disposed of a very few translations, books, studies and articles important for the medieval philosophical domain, and that, in a very large manner are made exactly by the members of the team implied in this project.

Author books:

1. Baumgarten, Alexander, Principiul cerului. Eternitatea lumii si unitatea intelectului in filosofia secolului al XIII-lea, Dacia Publishing House, Cluj , 2002, 217 p.;

2. Baumgarten, Alexander, Intermediaritate si Ev Mediu. Studii de filosofie medievala, Viata Crestina Publishing House, Cluj, 2002, 180 p.;

3. Baumgarten, Alexander, Sfantul Anselm si conceptul ierarhiei, Preface by Anton Adamut, Polirom Publishing House, the Seminar. Filosofie Collection, Iasi, 2003, 200 p.;

4. Baumgarten, Alexander, Scoala ragazului. Studii de filosofie antica si medievala, Galaxia Gutenberg Publishing House, Targu Lapus, 2006, 170 p.;

5. Chindea, Gabriel, Le probleme de la transcendance chez Aristote et Plotin, A.N.R.T., Lille, 2007 (ISBN: 978-2-7295-6617-3).

6. Muraru, Adrian, Libertate si liber arbitru la Origen, Ed. Universitatii Al.I.Cuza Iasi, 2006

Translations from Latin and Greek:

1. Baumgarten, Alexander, Despre eternitatea lumii (Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, John Filopon, Alkindi, Avicennes, Avencebrol, Averroes, Algazel, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Siger from Brabant, Boetius din Dacia, Henri from Gand) impreuna cu cele 219 teze ale lui Siger din Brabant si Boetius din Dacia si ale altora, condamnate in anul 1277 de episcopul Etienne Tempier al Parisului la sfatul doctorilor in Sfanta Scriptura, medieval philosophical anthology, bilingual edition, translation, notes, chronological table and Postfata – Iri Publishing House, Bucharest, 1999, 319 p.;

2. Baumgarten, Alexander, Despre unitatea intelectului (Aristotle, Alexandru din Afrodisia, Plotinus, Themistius, Averroes, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Siger din Brabant), medieval philosophical anthology, bilingual edition, translation, notes, chronological table and Postfata –Iri Publishing House, Bucharest, 2000, 372 p.;

3. Baumgarten, Alexander, Aristotel, Politica, bilingual edition, translation and commentaries, with a study by Vasile Musca, Iri Publishing House, Bucharest, 2001, 522 p.;

4. Baumgarten, Alexander, Pseudo-Aristotel, Liber de causis, bilingual edition, translation, notes and commentaries, Univers Enciclopedic Publishing House, Bucharest, 2002, 199 p.;

5. Baumgarten, Alexander, Chindea, Gabriel s.a., Plotin, Enneade, I-VI, 3 volumes, bilingual edition, Iri Publishing House, Bucharest, 2000-2007;

6. Baumgarten, Alexander, William Ockham, Despre universalii (Summa logicae, I, 14-19 and Comentariul la Isagoga lui Porfir), bilingual edition, translatin and a research study by Simona Vucu, Polirom Publishing House, 2004;

7. Baumgarten, Alexander, Aristotel, Despre suflet, bilingual edition, translation and commentaries, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2005, 412 p.

8. Muraru, Adrian, Origen, Omilii, comentarii si adnotari la Geneza, Polirom Publishing House, Iasi, 2006

9. Muraru, Adrian, Origen, Omilii si adnotari la Exod, Polirom Publishing House, Iasi, 2006

10. Muraru, Adrian, Origen, Omilii si adnotari la Levitic, Polirom Publishing House, Iasi, 2006

11. Bereschi, Andrei, Alfarabi, Despre intelect si inteligibil, translation from Latin, notes and study, Dacia Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, 2002, 110 p.

12. Bereschi, Andrei, Thomas Aquinas, Despre guvernamant, Polirom Publishing House, Iasi, 2005, 310 p., translation from Latin, notes and study.