Author Description

St. Thomas Aquinas' Catena Aurea is the masterpiece anthology of Patristic commentary on the Gospels and includes the work of over eighty Church Fathers. The text of this edition has been digitally reset to faithfully reproduce that of the 1841 edition of Catena Aurea as published by John Henry Parker, Oxford; and J. G. F. and J. Rivington, London 1841. This edition is bound in leather, has 2,832 pages and each volume is 6" x 8.25" Imagine a round-table discussion of the Gospels among the supreme theologians of the Church. The Catena Aurea is very close! St. Thomas Aquinas compiled this opus from sermons and commentaries on the Gospels written by the early Church Fathers, arranging their thoughts in such a way that they form a continuous commentary on each Gospel. For each of the four Gospel writers, the Catena Aurea starts by indicating the verses to be analyzed, then taking each verse phrase-by-phrase, provides the early Fathers insights into the passage. St. Thomas Aquinas' Catena Aurea is a masterpiece anthology of Patristic commentary on the Gospels it includes the work of over eighty Church Fathers. St. Thomas Aquinas work demonstrates intimate acquaintance with the Church Fathers and is an excellent complement to the more recent attempts to understand the inner meaning of the Sacred Scriptures. For each of the four Gospel writers, the Catena Aurea starts by indicating the verses to be analyzed, then phrase-by-phrase, provides the early Fathers insights into the passage. The unchanging rule of the Church is that no one [is] to interpret the Sacred Scripture... contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers (Vatican I). Just as in our own day there has been renewed interest in the Church Fathers, so in the 13th century, when the Catena Aurea was compiled, the western church was undergoing a similar revival of interest in the ancient patristic authors and the works of many Eastern Fathers were translated from Greek to Latin for the first ti