PROSPECTS for the evangelization of China appear to have improved with the Chinese translation of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica by Taiwanese priest-scholars.
The development was announced by UST Rector Fr. Rolando V. de la Rosa, OP in his homily during the High Mass at the UST Santisimo Rosario Parish Church last January 27 to celebrate the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, the patron of UST and declared by the Universal Church as the patron of all Catholic schools.
According to De la Rosa, the embassy of Chinese-Taipei has donated the 19-volume translation series to UST. The books will be placed at the Heritage Section of the Miguel de Benavides Library (Central Library) and at the UST Ecclesiastical Faculties Library.
According to De la Rosa, several Chinese priests collaborated in the translation project, which took 30 years to finish.
He said he had thought that the translators had grown old when the project was finished, but pointed out the translators still looked very young in their photograph when they presented the translation work recently to Pope Benedict XVI. The photograph was shown by the Chinese-Taipeh ambassador who had called on him to present the translation work, the Rector said.
De la Rosa said the fact that the translators still looked robust and young even after laboring for several years should show that they had a fullness of faith and happiness in the sense explained by Aquinas – “sufficient, superabundant and contagious.”
Considering that the work of the Taiwanese was an expression of their faith, the Father Rector questioned why the Filipinos do not have their own translation of the Summa Theologica.
Monumental translation project
According to Agenzia Fides, a Vatican-based news agency, the Chinese translation of the theological masterpiece by Aquinas was published after 30 years in 19 volumes with 613 themes and 3,093 chapters, with a total of 6,500,000 Chinese characters. Unfortunately, Fr. Joseph Chou, director of the project, died before the work was introduced to the public.
The Summa Theologica, the major philosophical work of UST patron St. Thomas Aquinas, synthesizes faith and reason.
Among the famous highlights of the Summa are the Quinquae Viae (Five Ways), non-theological proofs of the existence of God, the elements of a just war, the cultivation of virtues, the teachings on prophecy which became a justification in biblical scholarship for the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, and analogy of being, the teaching that God could be known through his creations although ideal attributes such as good and just can be predicated of God neither univocally nor equivocally, but analogically.
In the Philippines, a Filipino translation of the “Angelic Doctor” is Ang Etika ni Sto. Tomas de Aquino, which features some parts of the works of Aquinas that was directly translated from Latin to Filipino. It was written by Ateneo de Manila professor Tomas Rosario, Jr. and was first published in 2003 by the UST Publishing House.
Other notable works of St. Thomas are the Summa Contra Gentiles, De Malo (On Evil), and the Disputes on Truth.
For this year’s celebration, the Triduum (three days of prayers and Masses) was held, said Richard Pascoguin of the Office of Campus Ministry.
“UST students must not just be nominal Thomasians, who don’t know who they are emulating,” Pazcoguin said, explaining that students must learn and live the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas.
