Compendium theologicae veritatis

Penflourish initial Q at the beginning of Book V on the Virtues and Grace
MS Ff.1.12, f. 89r
Hugh Ripelin of Strasbourg, Compendium theologicae veritatis
France or England, ca 1300

Aside from the works of St Thomas Aquinas, the most extensively read Dominican work of theology was the Compendium theologicae veritatis which survives in hundreds of manuscripts. This is a simplified version of a theological Summa compared with the profundity of that of St Thomas and in some ways resembles an advanced catechism text. Its author was Hugh Ripelin of Strasbourg, prior of the Dominican convent at Strasbourg from 1261 to 1268, who probably studied at the university of Paris in the second quarter of the century after entering the order at their convent in Zurich. The text is divided in to seven books: I The Nature of God; II The Creation; III On Sin; IV The Incarnation; V On Grace, the Virtues, the Beatitudes and the Ten Commandments; VI The Sacraments; VII The Last Things. The Compendium was translated into French in the fifteenth century and this is an indication that its level of theological writing was appropriate for reading by the laity. The French translator ascribes the Latin text to Albertus Magnus and this misattribution continued even into the twentieth century. This probably led to claims that Hugh Ripelin studied under Albertus Magnus but there is no evidence that was the case.

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