The Leonine Commission was composed of
Dominicans, while the
Franciscans were entrusted with the task of publishing the complete works of
St. Bonaventure, a friend of Aquinas. Between 1888 and 1930 the Leonine Commission published the eight volumes of the
Summa Theologiae and the three volumes of the
Summa contra Gentiles. After a period of apparent inactivity, but of fruitful silent research, the Commission became active again in 1952, under the impetus of the General Chapter of the Dominican Order (Washington, 1949) and the Master of the Order,
Emmanuel Suarez. Under the presidency of
Antoine Dondaine (1952) and
Pierre-Marie de Contensonfr (1964), the Leonine Commission was given a new impetus that resulted in the publication of more than twenty folio volumes at close intervals. This was followed by commentaries on
Job (1965) and on
Isaiah (H.-F. Dondaine and L. Reid, 1974). This highly significant choice emphasized the quality of Thomas Aquinas's Magister in sacra pagina, in which he commented on the Bible throughout his life as a teacher (in addition to Job and Isaiah,
Jeremiah, the
Lamentations and the
Psalms for the Old Testament, and, for the New,
Matthew and
John, all of
Saint Paul and, in another way, the four Gospels in the form of an enormous collection of
Patristic quotations in the
Golden Chain). While these works consisted of ordinary questions discussed privately by the teacher with his bachelor and his disciples, the
quodlibeta gave rise to a public dispute that was held twice a year (in
Advent and
Lent), in front of the whole university gathered for the occasion. The two volumes of the
Quodlibeta were published in 1996 by
R.-A. Gauthier. Some thirty shorter works, known as
Opuscula, were published in four volumes between 1967 and 1979 by H.-F. Dondaine. Some are quite long, such as the
Compendium Theologiae; others, more modest, are no less famous and important, such as
De unitate intellectus,
De aeternitate mundi or
Contra errores Graecorum. Reflecting the issues debated at the time, they are a valuable testimony to discover the importance of Aquinas in the philosophical and theological reality of his time. We have another testimony in the form of commentaries on the works of
Aristotle, which was then making its definitive entry into the West. Most of these editions are due to the tireless work of R.-A. Gauthier: the
Sententia libri Ethicorum (2 vols., in 1969), the
Tabula libri Ethicorum (1971), the
Sententia libri De anima, librorumque de sensu et De memoria (2 vols., in 1984), the
Expositio libri Peryermenias and the
Expositio libri Posteriorum [Analyticorum] (2 vols., in 1989); however, the
Sentencia libri Politicorum was published by H.-F. Dondaine and L.-J. Bataillon (1971). As for the commentaries by
Boethius, the Leonine Edition published in 1992 the
Super Boetium De Trinitale (P.-M. Gils) and the
Expositio libri De Ebdomadibus (Louis Jacques Bataillon and C. Grassi). Important works such as the
Scriptum super Libros Quattuor Sententiarum by
Peter Lombard, the commentaries on
Physics, on
Metaphysics and many other works by Aristotle, the Commentaries on Saint John, on Saint Matthew, on Saint Paul, on
The Divine Names by
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, the
Golden Chain, as of 2002 they were still being edited and will no doubt continue to be for a long time. Compared to normal printed editions, which are often very deficient, they offer above all the guarantee of access to Thomas's true text. For example, before the arrival of the Leonine Edition of
De veritate, the text of current editions contained no less than ten thousand more or less seriously erroneous variants compared to the original. To neglect this not only means misunderstanding the true text; it means ignoring the author's intention and his very thought. A second interest offered by these volumes lies in the preface (more or less long depending on their importance) that precedes each of the published texts, in which the researchers explained and justified their work of restitution of the original text. In these introductions, a multitude of indications of textual criticism are also presented (showing the way Thomas worked); dates and places of composition; the influence of contemporaries (
Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure,
Albert the Great...); the most remote sources, Arabic, Greek and Latin, patristic or simply philosophical, that Thomas used and the way in which he adapted them to integrate them into his synthesis. Thus Aquinas was an author dedicated to a path of constant growth, always concerned with adding to an already considerable body of documentation, who didn't hesitate to correct himself and change his previous opinions. These prefaces, which are monuments of erudition, have been supplemented by more specialized studies - such as that of P.-M. Gilson
S. Thomas écrivain, which, through the study of the saint's autographs, sheds new light on his person - and have considerably renewed the knowledge we had of Thomas Aquinas and his work. ==Bibliography==