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Editorial
The Editors

This year, 1974, the seventh centenary of the death of Thomas Aquinas is being celebrated by various scholarly and religious events. Several congresses will discuss the enormous importance of Thomas's philosophical and theological ideas and their impact on western civilization and religious history. The editors of SIDIC, in consecrating an issue of the periodical to this centenary, hope to illustrate an aspect of Thomas's work which is unknown to most people and which, even in the academic celebrations, is not being extensively dealt with: the encounter between Jewish and Christian thought. In fact Thomas Aquinas, the architect of what was in many senses a new and revolutionary philosophical and theological system, was in close contact with Jewish scholarship and Jewish tradition. We should say, not only with Jewish but also with Arabic learning, through which the great philosophical works of Aristotle and other authors of Greek antiquity were brought to the knowledge of medieval Christian scholars. A great openness to others and a continuous interchange of ideas characterized the scientific world of that time. It was that Golden Age which, primarily in Spain but also in Italy, produced architectural and literary works of permanent value and beauty. The history and the legacy of that period show that a very fruitful coexistence of Jews, Christians and Muslims is possible.
This issue of SIDIC attempts to give same impression of the influence Maimonides had on Thomas Aquinas's work and consequently on Christian religious history. At the same time it gives an introduction to Mai,monides, his life and his role in Jewish tradition.
A real dialogue did not exist between Thomas and Maimonides, between Christians and Jews, but Thomas knew the writings of Maimonides and used them for his own philosophical and theological reflections. Often he quotes « the Rabbi » or « Rabbi Moses ». Conversely, the works of Thomas had an influence on Jewish tradition, as has been demonstrated, for example, by professor Sermoneta of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Although it is clear that, when one uses the philosophical ideas of a famous scholar one does not for that reason share his religious conceptions and tradition, in this case we see a real exchange between two traditions based on faith in the same revelation. We hope that the history of that exchange may contribute to creating the climate in which a really fruitful dialogue between Jews and Christians can develop.