2025 was a year of anniversaries. Of course every year is, but few years contain anniversaries as significant: 2025 marks 1700 years since Nicaea (AD 325) and 800 years since the birth of Thomas Aquinas (AD 1225). Our next issue, coming this December, will be a tribute to Nicaea, and this issue includes a symposium honoring the Angelic Doctor.
Ryan Hurd explores the question, “what is a Thomist?” Is one a Thomist by believing what Thomas believed? Or by adopting Thomas’s epistemology? What does it look like to follow in the footsteps of the Dumb Ox? Hurd takes up this question, arguing that a Thomist is someone who learns to think through theological problems as Thomas did. Hurd writes in a highly technical, Latinate prose which can be surprising at first. But if you stop and consider the “typical” English construction of the same sentence, the reasons for his over-precision often become clear. This kind of precision requires additional mental effort from the reader, but leaves less room for confusion on the other side. If you have never read Hurd’s writing before, I hope you will enjoy both the mental exercise itself and also the illumination it produces.
Tim Jacobs offers a historical piece on Thomas, telling the story of how Aristotle was forgotten and rediscovered within the Church’s first millennium. He also reflects on the right relationship of philosophy to theology. The legitimacy of philosophy in its own right and as an aid to theology is highly disputed, even in Davenant’s circles. Jacobs argues that there are benefits to considering theology a science the way the medievals did. Whether or not you agree, I hope Jacobs’ piece will provoke thought and discussion.
Nathan Johnson examines Thomas’s critique of Anselm’s ontological argument and Anselm’s surprising defender–René Descartes. While Descartes did not mention either Anselm or Thomas by name, Johnson demonstrates that Descartes grappled with the theological interplay between the two giants, and postulates that Descartes may have been trying, whether overtly or not, to defend Anselm from Thomas’s devastating critiques.
As it happens, 2025 also marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth on December 16, 1775. In my article, I explore Austen’s vision for becoming virtuous as seen in her novels. Alasdair MacIntyre and others have argued that Jane Austen’s works, while in the form of romantic novels, are much more interested in virtue formation than romance. In this article I ask, how do Jane Austen’s heroines build character despite a faulty childhood moral formation?
In our Books and Arts section, M.W. Sinnett grapples with the idolatrous ultimacy of the market in his review of Harvey Cox’s The Market as God, and Louis Markos reviews Knut Heim’s A Hermeneutic of Imagination. Even if you are not an opera enthusiast, you should not miss Zsanna Mária Bodor’s beautiful reflections on operas and their under-appreciated librettists in her review of Weep, Shudder, Die: On Opera and Poetry.
Our new Poetry Editor, Michael Riggins, has selected excellent poems by Ben Eggerton and Betsy Howard for your enjoyment and contemplation.
We close our issue with a new section dedicated to what we are all about here at Ad Fontes: returning to the sources. Peter Martyr Vermigli is not (yet) a household name, but during the Reformation the works of this lesser known reformer were a trusted source for understanding the Eucharist, predestination, political theory, and much more. Davenant Press will soon re-release all nine volumes of the Peter Martyr Vermigli library, updated from the red paperbacks to beautiful black hardcovers. It’s fitting that we close this issue out in prayer, and so we have given Vermigli the last word with prayers based on Psalm one.
The Ad Fontes editors want to thank you for your patience over the last six months or so, while we reconfigured and recalibrated things behind the scenes. Lord willing, we are back on schedule and the next year of issues will arrive as expected. I hope you enjoy this issue.
Robin Jean Harris
Interim Senior Editor
October 2025