Doctor Angelicus 41

Thomas' works first fifth is constituted of his comments on Petrus Lombardus' Sententiarum Libri IV (Four books of Sentences). The Thomas' comments are somewhat a school work since to make comments on P. Lombarus' work was proposed to all students in theology.

This is why the minimum, in order to understand what Thomas deals with, is to, first, understand what P. Lombardus deals with. Moreover, the Sententiarum Libri IV is considered as a Summa like the Summa of Thomas; writing a Summa was an usual job for theologians of that time.

So, I decided to begin to include, in my Church Latin Helper System database, the Sententiarum Libri IV. The unit 20 will be constituted of the Prologus, written by P. Lombard to his work, followed by distinctions (chapters) 1 to 3 of book 1.

I join to this post the text of this unit 20. This text is not in its final shape; my attention was mainly carried onto the booklet which acompanies the unit 20. I join also this booklet to this post. This booklet is a lexicon adapted to the text of unit 20: all words in colour "purple3" in the unit appear in the booklet. The explanations necessary to read the lexicon are printed at the end of the booklet.

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As long as I did an analytical study of texts, codifying latin grammar to make latin text enter computer files, it was almost not necessary to pay great attention to meanings; having a good experience in logic and structures was enough. Paying attention to meanings, finding equivalences in french or english is, as french people say, "another pair of sleeves" (1). I am not sure that my lexicon does not contain mistranslations; I am sure that there are many imperfections. I used thoroughly the translation into french of P. Lombardus found in

http://magistersententiarum.com/

and this was a great help.

 (1) On trouvera peut-être que ce ton est déplacé; c'est volontairement que j'en use. Il y a trop de gens qui pensent que les mots ont un sens magique par eux-mêmes. Il faut réveiller ces gens. Derrière les mots, il y a une personne qui pense et qui veut traduire ce qu'elle pense à l'aide de son bagage culturel. L'objectif, c'est atteindre cette pensée, la comprendre en tâchant de se mettre à la place et dans l'esprit de l'auteur. Je présume qu'il y a un peu partout des logiciels de traduction automatique très performants donnant des traductions d'excellente qualité. L'ennui, c'est que le texte obtenu, tout joli qu'il est, risque d'être loin de refléter la pensée de l'auteur et en tout cas ne donne aucune certitude à ce sujet.

Affable Calcaire