TASTGCEP · “Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae Ia IIae translated by Demetrius Cydones and Bessarion’s incomplete Compendium of the translation – A Critical Editio Princeps”

“Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae Ia IIae translated by Demetrius Cydones and Bessarion’s incomplete Compendium of the translation – A Critical Editio Princeps”

During the 14th century, the Catholic Church made its presence felt in the Byzantine ecclesiastical and religious fields with the Orders of Friars, especially Dominicans, whose purpose was the dissemination of Catholicism. This would be achieved mainly by disseminating the views of one of the most prominent Dominican thinkers, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). Thus, Scholasticism was introduced in Byzantium through the translation of at least 16 works of Thomas Aquinas and other Western theologians. Nevertheless, there are vast unexplored fields in Byzantine Thomism, because of the lack of edited texts. This desideratum is addressed by the “Thomas de Aquino Byzantinus” project, held by the University of Patras and Royal Holloway of London, to which the TASTGCEP project is contributing by exploring how Thomas’ moral philosophy, as expounded in the Summa Theologiae Ia IIae, was introduced in Byzantium. This text addresses several issues that the Byzantines were debating on in the 14th and 15th c. Thanks to Demetrios Cydones’ translation of the ST Ia IIae, the Byzantine intellectual world could read and employ Thomas’ ideas. To name just an example, Cardinal Bessarion conducted a Compendium, which contains a selection of passages from the first seven quaestiones of Cydones’ translation. Through the implementation of the critical editions (editio princeps) of these two unedited texts, that are going to be made available to scholars, the TASTGCEP project had the general objective to contribute to the research on the relations between the Catholic and Orthodox theological and intellectual traditions, as well as the interactions between Latins and Greeks in the framework of a better understanding of European history. Specifically, the critical edition of Cydones’ translation aims at helping scholars to identify undeclared Thomistic passages in the Byzantine writings of this era. Moreover, valuable conclusions have been drawn on Cydones’ modus interpretandi (e. g. ad litteram or ad sensum). On the other hand, the critical edition of Bessarion's Compendium has addressed specific questions, such as the reasons why this text was produced but left uncomplete, its contents, its use and its position in the manuscript tradition of Cydones’ Translation of ST Ia IIae.

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