Treatise on Law - The Complete Text (9781587318801)
This is a new English translation of St. Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Law, found in Questions 90-108 of the First Part of the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae. In fact, it is the only free-standing English translation of the entire Treatise, which includes both a general account of law (Questions 90-92) and also specific treatments of what St. Thomas identifies as the five kinds of law: the eternal law (Question 93), the natural law (Question 94), human law (Questions 95-97), the Old Law (Questions 98-105), and the New Law (Questions 106-108). All other extant editions of Treatise on Law stop with the human law, and are thus approximately one-third the size of the full Treatise. St. Thomas's account of law is firmly embedded within a general moral theory that begins with a rich conception of human flourishing, i.e., the good for human beings (Questions 1-5). This good consists, first and foremost, in our ultimate and intimate union with the Persons of the Blessed Trinity -...