From Augustine to Aquinas’s Synthesis of the Tradition of Discretio with the Aristotelian Teaching on Prudence

Abstract

As in Catherine discretion and prudence are synonyms, this chapter discusses the reflection by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas on the virtue of prudence. This treatment is important to elucidate further Catherine’s concept of discretion and show the spiritual affinity between Catherine and Aquinas. It is also indicative of the fact that the inspiring principles of Aquinas’s doctrine may have reached Catherine through the Dominican environment with which she was familiar in Siena.