In this volume Roland Teske offers a translation of four articles (35, 36, 42, and 45) from Henry of Ghent's Summa Quaestionum Ordinariarum, with notes and Teske's own introduction. Henry produced fifteen quodlibets (university disputations) as well as the Summa, a vast and systematic project comprising seventy-five articles, which stands, along with Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, as one of the monumental works of medieval Scholasticism. Teske's translation is based on the modern critical edition of Henry's Opera Omnia (a project that is still ongoing), published in Series 2 of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy by the Leuven University Press. Teske's translation of articles 35 (“On the Potency of God in General”) and 36 (“On the Intellective Potency of God”) is based on volume 28 of the Opera Omnia, while the translation of articles 42 (“On the Perfection of God”) and 45 (“On the Will of God”) is based on volume 29. Teske's book is the only available English translation of these texts, in which Henry deals with fundamental philosophical and theological issues. This fact alone makes Teske's work a welcome addition to scholarship in medieval thought in general and in particular to the study of Henry of Ghent (d. 1293), the most influential theologian in Europe between Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) and John Duns Scotus (d. 1308). His translation makes these texts accessible to a more general audience, and can be useful to introduce college and graduate students to these topics in Henry of Ghent.

Each one of Henry's articles is composed of questions, and each question consists of arguments for and against, and Henry's own solution. Teske's introduction is brief and limits itself to summarizing some of the main points that Henry makes in his solutions to the questions, “but without delving into Henry's sources or the arguments pro and con and the replies to them, which are often meatier than Henry's resolution of the question” (7). Teske also situates the translated articles within the overall plan of the Summa by indicating in a general way the sequence of topics of the Summa and the places occupied by the articles in this sequence. However, very little is done in the introduction to connect the content of the articles with the rest of Henry's work so as to give the reader a clearer perspective of the importance of the translated texts within Henry's thought. For example, in the eighth and final question of article 35, Henry connects the concepts of potency and relation in God (13). It is well known by scholars that relation is one of the fundamental topics in Henry of Ghent, so perhaps more could have been said to connect the content of this question with other relevant sections of Henry's corpus, such as article 32, question 5, and article 55, question 6. Something similar may be said about the crucial topics of intellect and will, found in articles 36 and 45, respectively. Nevertheless, the notes in the translation section that reference other places in Henry's work make up for some of the lack in this respect. The introduction is also not without editorial mistakes.

More serious are the errors found in the translation itself. On page 28, a quotation from the “Commentator” (Averroes) reads: “the first mover in which there is in no potency.” Instead, it should read “the first mover in which there is no potency.” On page 29, at the beginning of article 35, question 2, the literally translated “there is not passive potency in God” would be more naturally translated as “there is no passive potency in God.”

Similar errors are found on pages 53 and 55 and in other places in the rest of the volume that cannot be expounded on in a short review. Suffice it to say that the translation could have benefited from further revisions of the text, since even minor typographical errors can detract from the sense of the text, and thereby from conveying the thought of Henry of Ghent to those who cannot access the Latin edition. The volume is still to be commended for rendering these important texts in English for the first time. Henry's Latin can be wordy, convoluted, and downright confusing at times, and Teske's effort deserves recognition.