Aquinas the Preacher?

Ever think about Aquinas as Preacher? In the Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth charges Aquinas and the whole Catholic tradition with privileging the Sacraments to the neglect of the preached word. However, Barth's charge may be the result of a limited reading of Aquinas. While Aquinas has no special treatise confined to the topic of preaching, Aquinas scholars are discovering a theology of preaching and of the preached word nestled in the Summa Theologiae and other works.

Recent scholarship points to a section of the Summa in which Aquinas meditates on "Christ’s Doctrine” (Third part q. 42). What Aquinas looks at when he asks questions about "Christ's Doctrine" is Jesus's teaching style as described in the Gospels. They say this is an unexplored aspect of how Aquinas’s liturgical and religious context influences his theology. Aquinas was a member, after all, of an "Order of Preachers." Avery Dulles also wrote a small article tracing out Aquinas's "theology of worship" from various places in the Summa, and made a special note on preaching in Aquinas. CUA Press just published this text, a collection of Aquinas's academic sermons. We already have translations of many of Aquinas's sermons and commentaries on biblical books like John's Gospel and Hebrews.

There is a lot of interesting material emerging to help scholars put together what "Aquinas the Preacher" might be like, and what groups like Baptists can learn from him.