This site is undertaking a long-term project: translating and presenting, in full, the Cursus Theologicus of the Salmanticenses — one of the great monuments of post-Tridentine Catholic theology, and a work that has never been translated into English in its entirety.
WHAT IS THE CURSUS THEOLOGICUS?
The Salmanticenses were the Discalced Carmelite friars of the College of San Elías in Salamanca, Spain. Beginning in 1631, the community undertook a collective theological project of extraordinary ambition: a complete, rigorously argued commentary on the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas, working through nearly every question he raises with the full apparatus of scholastic disputation. The work was not the product of one author but of a succession of friars across nearly a century — Antonio de la Madre de Dios, Domingo de Santa Teresa, and Juan de la Anunciación chief among them — each continuing where his predecessor left off. The result, completed in stages between 1631 and 1712, fills twelve original tomi (later reorganized into twenty volumes in the standard 19th-century Paris-Rome edition). It is written entirely in formal scholastic Latin and is structured, as St. Thomas’ own Summa is, into Tractatus (treatises), each subdivided into Disputationes (disputations), and further into individual quaestiones and puncta. The Cursus is widely regarded — by historians of theology and by the Thomistic tradition itself — as one of the most exact and philosophically serious commentaries on St. Thomas Aquinas ever produced, prized particularly for its precision in speculative theology: the nature of God, the Trinity, grace, the Incarnation, and the sacraments. It is companioned by a separate, related work, the Cursus Theologiae Moralis, which the same school of friars produced afterward to treat moral and pastoral questions the speculative Cursus had deliberately set aside. Despite its stature, the Cursus Theologicus has remained almost entirely inaccessible to English readers. Only a single treatise has ever appeared in English translation (Catholic University of America Press, 2019). The rest exists only in Latin.
THE PROJECT
This series works through the Cursus Theologicus in order — Tractatus by Tractatus, Disputatio by Disputatio — translating the Latin text directly and presenting it alongside historical and theological context. It is a long undertaking, likely to run for years, but the goal is straightforward: to make this work legible, for the first time, to people who do not read scholastic Latin.
New episodes are posted as they’re completed.
Latin source (Forgotten Books, public domain): https://forgottenbooks.com/en/books/C…
This work will be translated using AI, proofread by humans, and uploaded here for your perusal.
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