02.Foreword

FOREWORD This short tract, De rationibus fidei contra Saracenos, Graecos et Armenos ad Cantorem Antiochenum, was written by St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1276) at Orvieto, Italy, in 1264. It follows right on the heels of his longer Summa contra gentiles, completed that same year. We do not know who the Cantor of Antioch was, except that he must have been in charge of music in the cathedral. Perhaps his bishop, the Dominican Christian Elias, referred him to Thomas Aquinas. The questions the Cantor asks must have been the subject of lively discussions in a city where Latin Christians mixed with Eastern Christians and Muslims. The latter work, written at the request of St. Raymond of Peňafort to help Dominicans preaching to Muslims and Jews in Spain and North Africa, concentrated on how Christian doctrine could be presented to people who do not accept the authority of the Bible. It said little about Islam directly, since Thomas

Aquinas admitted that he knew very little about it (Book I, ch. 2). He therefore concentrated on explaining the Catholic Faith. The present work takes up Muslim objections never mentioned in the Contra gentiles. Thomas’ answers use material already discussed in greater detail in that work. The originality of the present work is its concise brevity and its focus on the essential points where the Catholic Faith differs from and transcends

Islam. In this work Thomas shows a good grasp of what these differences are: first of all, the Trinity and how God shares his life with us in the Incarnation, then the crucifixion of Jesus and the whole question of human force and power in religion. The objection to the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is not a standard Muslim objection, but I have heard it. The final one, on determination, was much discussed in Muslim theology and philosophy; its theoretical and practical implications are greater than most Muslims or Christians realize, but it is very summarily treated here. This work is from the Middle Ages and does not reflect all the nuances of current Catholic teaching regarding Islam. An instance of this is the use of the term "unbelievers" which Thomas uses of Muslims. The Church today calls them believers, although they do not believe in all that Christians believe. In this translation, from the Marietti 1954 edition of the Opus-cula theologica, I have given priority to clear plain English rather than literal fidelity. Yet I could not but retain some philosophical vocabulary, such as "substance", "accident", "hypostasis" and "predication".