Note On The Text
NOTE ON THE TEXT
This edition presents the ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas on politics, justice, and social problems as set forth in The Summa Theologica, and on forms of government as set forth in De Regimine Principum.
Selections from The Summa Theologica have been taken from the translation of the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, published by Burns, Oates and Washbourne, Ltd., London, Publishers to the Holy See. Where a passage has been newly translated by the editor, it appears in brackets, and the version of the Dominican Fathers is given below in a footnote. In instances where the Douay and Vulgate versions of a biblical passage differ, as indicated by the Dominican Fathers, this distinction has been preserved. Explanatory notes on the text, contributed by the editor, appear both in bracketed footnotes and in the Appendix. The editor has also supplied a glossary of unusual terms and familiar words used in a limited sense.
Selections from De Regimine Principum, with accompanying notes, have been taken from the Phelan-Eschmann translation, published under the title On Kingship, To the King of Cyprus, and are here reprinted by permission of the publisher, the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, Canada.
For the reader’s convenience, the editors of the “Hafner Library of Classics” have removed references to source material other than passages included in this volume from the text to the Appendix and have supplied a list of abbreviated titles of works cited. Punctuation and spelling have been revised in accordance with present-day American usage.