Over at The Hermeneutic of Continuity — best “inside Catholic joke” blog name ever, by the way — Father Tim Finigan links to a very unusual Twitter account: @summatheologiae.
The account’s author, whose project is described as “tweeting one article a day for your amusement and edification,” has quite a job on his hands. So far, there are 71 tweets. And he’s made his way “all the way” up to Article 5 in Question 1. I think. The Summa’s numbering always throws me off a bit.
At this rate, he’ll probably complete the project in early 2619. (OK, fine. I exaggerate. Slightly. Father F. says that the 2,669 articles in The Summa should take just over 7 years to Tweet.)
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Still, as Father points out, this is “not at all as daft as it might sound. Even following a summary of the Summa in this way would be very beneficial; and as the fellow says, it should prompt you to look up the original.”
It’s that last part that seems particularly important. The account’s 260 followers are certainly receiving the Summa in a radically different form than the original — a sort of Catholic Theology 101, Cliff Notes Version. But the work being Cliff Noted is already incredibly dense, and amazingly condensed. A summary of something that seems almost like a summary in its own right runs the risk of losing the original’s meaning altogether.
As a spur to further study, though, it seems fantastic.