Like Aquinas's own masterpiece, the Summa Theologiae, this invaluable introduction to Aquinas’ sermons is written for ‘beginners’. In the case of the Summa, it has been much debated who these beginners could have been, given that the work itself is of such depth and complexity. Despite the theories of some scholars, it is normally held that the readership Aquinas had in mind was not one of complete beginners who needed to be introduced to the basic facts of Christianity, nor even students setting out in the academic study of the content of scripture for the first time, but was comprised of those who, equipped with significant study of the Sacred Page, were now to encounter its teaching for the first time in a more systematic order rather than according to the order of the individual texts. Likewise, the beginners at whom Smith's unashamedly technical volume is directed are likely to be already somewhat familiar with the teachings of Aquinas himself, but to have not yet had the opportunity to study this doctrine as it is expressed in his more homiletic output. From one point of view, such a need may be something of a surprise, given that Aquinas was a Dominican, a member of the Order of Friars Preachers. However, it is true that Aquinas has normally been viewed in recent times less as a pulpit preacher and more as a taciturn academic and classroom teacher.

Aquinas’ image in contemporary scholarship has nonetheless undergone something of a transformation in recent years. From being perceived as the official representative of Roman Catholic thought in the first half of the twentieth century, the effective collapse of interest in his work in seminary teaching after the Second Vatican Council left him rather out of the theological picture until the last few decades, when there has again been a growth of interest in his singular and enduring contribution. After Vatican II, there was certainly some philosophical engagement with his insights, but by and large he was still associated exclusively with certain positions in the philosophy of religion and metaphysics. The fruit of twentieth-century historical research into the medieval theologian, however, has helped give a more rounded picture of the Dominican friar as one who worked fundamentally as a biblical scholar. Aquinas’ scriptural commentary has recently won much deserved attention, with works like his Commentary on John's Gospel now being perceived as on a par with the Summa and other systematic works for a proper grasp of his overall thought.

A further rounding out of this picture of Aquinas as a biblically based theologian is now set to emerge in the twenty-first century from a more thorough study of his sermons. In 2014 the Dominican Order's Leonine Commission, which is in process of editing the complete works of Aquinas, published a critical edition of the sermons by L. J. Bataillon OP, and the same year there appeared a French translation of the sermons by Aquinas’ leading biographer, J.-P. Torrell OP. In English there was already a translation by M.-R. Hoogland CP, and his and Smith's work are excellent companion volumes to one other for anyone who now wishes to explore the riches of Aquinas’ preaching.

The main purpose of the book, which is executed methodically and precisely, is to provide the tools needed for one to appreciate the genre in which Aquinas’ preaching falls, and so recognise Aquinas’ own artistry as a preacher. While useful analytic outlines of the sermons can be found in the appendices, as well as indications of their relation to the Dominican lectionary, Smith helpfully introduces Aquinas’ style in his first chapter with an examination of one particular sermon. Through this concrete example the reader can become acquainted with the salient features of one important way the construction of sermons had been developing in the thirteenth century. The remaining chapters provide considerable detail on how preachers were trained in this sermo modernus, and how such preaching proceeds through different stages, thema, prothema, divisio and dilatatio. Especially illuminating is Smith's explanation of how a biblical text is used as the starting-point for the theological themes that unfold in the sermon, and how preaching is thus related to the use of memory and recollection. While Aquinas’ method is hardly one that would be favoured by any scriptural preacher today, the reader is left is no doubt that it was in its own way thoroughly biblical and that Aquinas was in full command of his art.