Opera Omnia
Translation into Polish and printed edition of the Complete Works of Thomas Aquinas
Published volumes:
15: Summa Theologiae, I, q. 1–26
16: Summa Theologiae, I, q. 27-46
17: Summa Theologiae, I, q. 47-74
32: Minor Issues Discussed
34: Quodlibetale Issues
41: Explanation of the “Ethics”. Books I-V
42: Explanation of the “Ethics”. Books VI-X. Table for the “Ethics”
43: Explanation of the “Politics”
64: Exposition of the Letters of St. Paul: Letter to the Romans
67: Exposition of the Letters of St. Paul: Letters to the Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, Philemon
68: Exposition of the Letters of St. Paul: Letter to the Hebrews
The Opera Omnia of St. Thomas Aquinas project aims to publish about one hundred works by Aquinas whose authenticity has been confirmed (the project does not include the publication of translations of works for which there is a reasonable doubt as to their authorship). The work has been planned as a translation, editing and publishing process lasting several years.
For many centuries, the texts of St. Thomas Aquinas were read in the Latin original. The gradual abandonment of Latin meant that Thomas’s works became in practice inaccessible even to many educated readers, which gave rise to the need for translations into modern languages. Due to the scale of the work, this task was undertaken mainly by monks, most often Dominicans, supported financially and scientifically by lay collaborators and foundations established for this purpose (e.g. Deutsche Thomas Ausgabe in Germany). In the 20th century, French, English, German and Italian translations were published.
When it comes to translations of St. Thomas’s works into Polish, the situation is as follows. Many important texts remain untranslated at all. This applies to, among others, the first of Thomas’s theological syntheses, the Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, most of the commentaries on Aristotle’s writings (including the key ones – on the Metaphysics and on the Ethics), the Questions Discussed on Evil, and the biblical commentaries on the Book of Job and the Book of Psalms. Some of St. Thomas’s other writings, and especially the most famous one, the Summa Theologiae, do exist in Polish translation, but they require a new translation due to the archaic language and other shortcomings of earlier works.