Peace in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas

"Meinert's scholarship is sound, and has commanded the wide scope of Thomas’s writings, both in terms of their quantity and their differentiation (both philosophical and theological). In fact, the comprehensivity of the citation is the highest that I have recently seen. He has looked through an impressive range of secondary sources, too. Meinert knows and cites commentators, printed secondary sources, and primary sources (including Greek)."

~Mark Johnson, Marquette University

"John M. Meinert's Peace in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas is a wonderful and much-needed contribution to the scholarly literature. Elegantly and accessibly written, the volume surveys Aquinas's many and varied treatments of this crucial theme and highlights the principal sources of Aquinas's reflections on peace. Meinert offers readers several lenses through which to view peace as Aquinas understands it: philosophical, theological, ethical, and sacramental. The book is a tour-de-force which will provide students of Aquinas's works and scholars of peace with food for thought for years to come."

~Mary Keys, author of Pride, Politics, and Humility In Augustine's City of God

"It is astonishing that we have not yet had a study of Thomas Aquinas’s thought on peace. It is less astonishing when one realizes that Aquinas’s thought on peace is scattered throughout his writings, usually grafted onto a separate theme, and so must be excavated and interpreted. We can be immensely grateful, then, that John Meinert has done the careful exegetical work of retrieving, interpreting, and explaining peace in Aquinas. Meinert does not simply offer us a catalog, though, but rather a masterful synthesis, one that he has meticulously woven into theological, philosophical, and political themes. He shows how peace not only illuminates life in Christ and the Eucharist but also shapes the meaning of punishment, war, and peacemaking in the political order. Thanks to Meinert, we now have a definitive work on this subject, at once a go-to guide in which any aspect of Aquinas on peace can be referenced but also a beautiful and coherent reflection that will change the way that readers think about the Christian faith and living it in the world."

~Daniel Philpott, University of Notre Dame

"In this, the first book length treatment on Aquinas on peace, Meinert painstakingly and systematically pieces together Thomas' multiple dispersed insights on the nature of peace. By lucidly espousing Aquinas' rich and complex thinking on peace Meinert retrieves the role played by peace in Aquinas' philosophy, ethics, theology and in his understanding of sacramental life."

~Daniel Schwartz, Hebrew University of Jerusalem