ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some paths that connect Aquinas’s ideas to the civil economy tradition. Aquinas’s thought is first compared to Franciscan ideas, represented by John Duns Scotus. The focus is then turned to the interpretations of Aquinas’s social and economic ideas that were suggested by the counter-reformation theologians, who mostly viewed Aquinas as hostile to commerce and in favour of a hierarchical, feudal society based on agriculture. Finally, there is a path along which Aquinas’s economic teachings resemble the interpretations made in Chapter 2 and those later adopted by civil economists. This path originates the period of civic humanism, in the first half of the fifteenth century, but also the manual of confessions elaborated by Dominican theologians.
