Jean-Pierre TORRELL, O.P. Saint Thomas Aquinas. Vol. 1: The Person and His Work. Third Edition. Trans. by Matthew K. Minerd and Robert Royal, (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023). pp. 499. ISBN 978-0-8132-3560-8. Reviewed by Pablo Munoz ITURRIETA, Catholic University of Chiapas, Mexico.

Medievalists and specialists in Thomistic and medieval philosophy and theology in the English-speaking world will be overjoyed to hear that The Catholic University of America Press has published a revised, expanded and updated Third Edition of a work that probably is the definitive masterpiece on the life and work of Thomas Aquinas. The first edition was originally published in French in 1993 and translated into English in 1996. This third edition, published in French in 2015, has been expanded by the author to consider the progress of research in the twenty-five years since the first publication of the book.

An update of the original work is more than justified if we take into account that since the year 2000, more than 200 books devoted to the work of Thomas Aquinas have been published. Two of these are of special mention. In 2006, Adriano Oliva published a book on Aquinas (Les débuts de l’enseignement de Thomas d’Aquin et la conception de la sacra doctrina) which according to Torrell introduced a turning point in our knowledge of St. Thomas’s life and work, and therefore led the author to consider a third edition of his book to “revise many of our previous positions” (p. 1). Then, in 2012, Pasquale Porro published his Thomas Aquinas: A Historical and Philosophical Profile, an important book in the eyes of Torrell given that in this latest edition he introduced more than 12 citations of Porro’s work. Thus, this third edition of Torrell’s Saint Thomas Aquinas is an update of the previous two editions, with a new disposition of chapters, sections entirely rewritten or modified, with the new content within the body of the text, unlike the second edition where it was found as an Appendix, and a new catalogue of Thomas Aquinas’ works as up to date as possible. The new edition has kept the same format, which allows us to compare the extent of the expansion: 439 pages in the revised Second Edition versus 500 pages in this Third Edition of the book.

In this book's first of two volumes, Jean-Pierre Torrell masterfully takes up the strenuous task of presenting the life and work of Thomas Aquinas in his complete family, social and intellectual context, as well as the spiritual dimension of his life. Torrell follows Aquinas throughout his intellectual apostolate, as well as through his many travels across Europe, giving us an accurate picture of Aquinas’ works in their true context. This book is therefore not only the best introduction to the work of Aquinas for those that are new to his thought, but also it provides for academics and specialists in Thomistic philosophy and theology what is probably the best and most rigorous scholarly account of Thomas’s life and work.