The Ethics of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Two Courses by Ignatius Theodore Eschmann, O.P. (review)

332 BOOK REVIEWS are a number of quite orthodox, centrist, and mainline theological voices that are worth hearing, supporting, and even expanding on. While Royal legitimately notes where the theological minefields are located, he most often remains content to indicate danger rather than the contribution which (especially Catholic) theology can make to developing a theology that is ecologically aware. Gratefully, (admittedly) tentative first steps have been taken on a number of thoroughly orthodox Catholic fronts to face the issue of how Catholic theology responds today to the environmental crisis theologically, spiritually, and pastorally. A greater appreciation of these approaches might have helped to fill out the book's subtitle by at least noting the very significant usefulness of these voices in today's environmental debates. That the religious voice is scarcely heard among environmentalists is to our collective chagrin. Royal is on target when he notes this absence. He misfires when he ignores insightful and reasonable challenges that Catholicism can and should offer to the whole field of environmental studies and environmental science today. The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. KEVINW. IRWIN The Ethics of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Two Courses. By IGNATIUS THEODORE ESCHMANN, 0.P. Edited by EDWARD A. SYNAN Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1997. Pp xxx + 242. $49.50. ISBN 088844 -720-5. In the era after World War II many students came from Canada and the United States to Toronto to take courses at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, leading to a licentiate in mediaeval studies and/or an M.A. or Ph.D. in Philosophy granted by the University of Toronto. Most of these students took an introductory course on the life and writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas in the fall semester and "The Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas" in the spring semester. These courses were taught by the Reverend Ignatius (for Ignatius of Antioch) Theodore Eschmann, O.P., who had come to the institute in 1942 and remained as a professor of philosophy until his death in 1968. While recognized as a leading authority on the works of Aquinas as well as his moral philosophy and theology, Eschmann's writings were not copious. Now some years after his death Msgr. Edward A. Synan has edited for publication the BOOK REVIEWS 333 lectures Eschmann wrote for his ethics courses. Synan himself, a professor and former president of the institute, died in 1997, the year of publication. This work includes a short, interesting biography of Eschmann. He was born in Diisseldorf, Germany, in 1898; he received a classical education at the Royal Prussian Hohenzollern-Gymnasium in Diisseldorf, graduating in 1916; from there he went into the German army in which he served as a machine-gunner until the end of the war. It is of interest to students of the revival of Thomism that Etienne Gilson, Eschmann's colleague as founder and director of the institute, served in the French army as a machine-gun officer until taken prisoner at the battle of Verdun in 1916. Eschmann's "A Catalogue of St. Thomas's Works" is an appendix to Laurence K. Shook's translation of the fifth edition of Gilson'sLe Thomisme. This catalogue was also an appendix to James A. Weisheipl, O.P., Friar Thomas D'Aquino. Eschmann entered the Cologne province of the Dominicans after the war and was sent to Rome for his philosophical and theological training in the 1920s and early 1930s at the Angelicum. He began his writing here, mainly reviews, usually in the language of whatever book he was reviewing. In 1936 he returned to what had become the National Socialist Germany of Hitler; an early assignment was to preach and explain from the pulpit the 1937 Mit Brennender Sorge letter of Pius XI, written under the direction of Eugenio Pacelli, Vatican secretary of state and the future Pius XU. For this he was imprisoned by the civil authorities of Cologne for a year, during which time he suffered some brutality. After his release he was able to get to Canada where he was part of the project of the Dominicans under Fr. Louis-Marie Regis, O.P., to edit and publish what came to be known...