Randall B. Smith

Randall B. Smith is a professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, and was the CEC's Myser Visiting Research Fellow when he began writing Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide. We chat about the preaching style of the 13th Century, and what it can teach us today.

• Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide — Preaching was immensely important in the medieval Church, and Thomas Aquinas expended much time and effort preaching. Today, however, Aquinas's sermons remain relatively unstudied and underappreciated. This is largely because their sermo modernus style, typical of the thirteenth century, can appear odd and inaccessible to the modern reader. In Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas, Randall Smith guides the reader through Aquinas's sermons, explaining their form and content. In the process, one comes to appreciate the sermons in their rhetorical brilliance, beauty, and profound spiritual depth while simultaneously being initiated into a fascinating world of thought concerning Scripture, language, and the human mind. The book also includes analytical outlines for all of Aquinas's extant sermons.
• Theme Music: "I dunno" by Grapes — I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque