Theology

Sermons of Thomas Aquinas

Taught by Ryan Hurd
Difficulty: Intermediate
Crosslist: None
Runs 7/1 – 8/24/24
$225.00 – $399.00

 

This course serves as a reflective reading of a couple dozen sermons by Thomas. Although students will carefully read his sermon series on the Paternoster, in class we will work through his “academic sermons” (a series of twenty sermons delivered at university) and also his pair of inaugural lecture sermons wherein we find Thomas arguing that the catholic theologian is first and foremost a magister sacrae paginae: master of holy Scripture.

This class will be held 10am-12:30pm ET on Saturdays.

Deadline to register: Friday, June 22nd

 

 

ENROLLMENT OPTIONS

Auditing ($225):

participate in readings and live class sessions, but no graded assignments and no course credit

Full course (Full-Time Discount) ($275):

for-credit courses (at least four per term) toward our Certificate or M.Litt in Classical Protestantism

Full course ($399):

individual classes on a for-credit basis; you can later apply them toward a Certificate or Degree

 

ENROLL NOW

Description

This Theology course will be taught by Ryan Hurd, and will run from July 1st through August 24th. The syllabus is available here.

This course serves as a reflective reading of a couple dozen sermons by Thomas. Although students will carefully read his sermon series on the Paternoster, in class we will work through his “academic sermons” (a series of twenty sermons delivered at university) and also his pair of inaugural lecture sermons wherein we find Thomas arguing that the catholic theologian is first and foremost a magister sacrae paginae: master of holy Scripture.

Medieval masters, aiming to be magistri sacrae paginae, disciplined themselves in three functions: lectio, reading holy Scripture; disputatio, explaining holy Scripture; and praedicatio, preaching holy Scripture. As a foremost master especially at Paris and of the newly minted Order of Preachers, Thomas’s task as a theologian included careful preparation and delivery of sermons; in these academic sermons, he was also preaching to future preachers and in the presence of current ones. Thomas, although not known today as a preacher, was and strove to be an eminent one. Through studying Thomas’s sermons, we will attempt to understand this aspect of Thomas and garner fresh insights to this task of theology: preaching.

Ryan Hurd is a systematic theologian whose area of expertise is doctrine of God, specifically the Trinity. His primary training is in the high medievals and early modern scholastics as well as the 20th century ressourcement movement. He has written a number of articles and regularly does translations of early modern theology sources; but his primary project is writing a systematics of the Trinity. He is currently a doctoral student at Theologische Universiteit Kampen.

 

Details

Online only, runs 8 weeks, meeting 2.5 hr./wk. via Zoom. Students will also have the option to participate in class discussion on the Davenant Common Room Discord server. Register to reserve your spot and schedule will be set after a poll of participating students; if the class time does not fit your schedule, you will be eligible for a full refund.

This is a graduate-level course. Although a BA is not a necessary pre-requisite for this course, students should come prepared to do graduate-level work.