A group consisting primarily of students, faculty and staff of Saint Louis University joined the philosophy club in celebrating the feast day of Saint Thomas Aquinas on Friday, in the ninth annual Summa-thon, an event that is entirely unique to SLU.

Each of the event’s 200 participants read a single article from Aquinas’ voluminous “Summa Theologiae,” the work for which the “angelic doctor” of the Catholic Church is best known.

The “summary of theology” is subdivided, within each of its three sections, into questions and articles. The work consists of 2,652 questions, which include over 10,000 objections. Participants only read the articles, which begin “Respondeo,” that answer each question, which begin with “Utrum,” or “whether.”

As the name suggests, the “Summa” deals with nearly every philosophical question imaginable, from the famous proofs for God’s existence, to the problem of evil, the afterlife, and the pursuit of happiness. Aquinas, the most significant philosopher from the medieval period and one of the greatest thinkers in history, set out to write the work as a sort of textbook for theological instruction in the university.

“We spent almost the entire day on justice,” said Gregory Beabout, Ph.D., a professor of philosophy and the faculty advisor of SLU’s philosophy club. Even after reading from this segment of the “Summa” for eight hours, there is still “plenty more to say” on the subject, Beabout said.

The Summa-thon picked up where it left off at the end of last year’s marathon reading, with Aquinas’ discussion of the virtues of faith, hope, love and prudence.

After his treatment of prudence, Aquinas discusses the vices of negligence, craftiness, guile and covetousness.

This is “how he [Aquinas] transitions to justice,” Beabout said of the vices that will always befall humankind.

Some participants noted that the material reflected the events that made the front page of last week’s issue of The University News, illustrating that Aquinas’ work is just as pertinent today as it was in the 13th century.

“What Thomas is talking about…is not just the modern legal system,” said junior Dave Sailer. The “Summa” addresses the “ultimate questions of justice that relate to the nature of man. These questions are timeless,” he said.

It will be five more years until the end of the “Summa” is reached, and most of the readings for next year’s Summa-thon will also deal with justice, Sailer said.

Sailer is a philosophy club member who, along with Brian Carl, philosophy club president, and fellow club member Kathleen Brennan, served as a proctor for the event: one of the three students read a question from the “Summa,” to which a participant read Aquinas’ answer.

Participants can choose to read the “Summa” in any language. Latin, Spanish, French and Italian, in addition to English, are commonly heard at the event.

This year, Jesuit scholastic Joe Laramie presented his answer in the form of a chant, which “was very well received,” Beabout said.

John Brown, another Jesuit scholastic, read from the “Summa” with the deep, southern drawl of an English dialect native to his home state of Louisiana.

Another participant, philosophy graduate student Faith Glavey, performed an interpretive dance to express Aquinas’ answer to the question of whether it is lawful to kill sinners. Aquinas says that it is lawful for the state, but not for individuals, to impose the death penalty upon a transgressor.

A group of Dominican priests read from the “Summa” while clad in the traditional robes that Aquinas, who was himself a Dominican, would have worn.

While participants consist mostly of SLU students and professors, who come from a variety of graduate and undergraduate disciplines, the Summa-thon draws readers from Washington University and the city of St. Louis at large. SLU alumni, who were participants in the very first Summa-thon, returned for the event this year. Father Tom Keller, a priest from the archdiocese, also participated.

The Summa-thon is organized by the student members of the philosophy club, who circulate sign-up sheets in the weeks prior to Jan. 28. They also arrange for T-shirts and refreshments to be available at the event, which takes place in Room 142 of the Humanities Building.

The Summa-thon, which last 9 p.m. to 5 p.m., is open to the public.