Thomist Spotlight | Josef Pieper (1904-1997)

Philosopher of Virtue | Josef Pieper (1904-1997): " Click above for the original article. Once in a while I'll highlight mentionable thomists.

Josef Pieper was born on May 4th, 1904, in the small Westphalian village of Elte, Germany. At that time not even a local train connected the isolated spot in the middle of the heath with other towns of Westphalia; whoever wanted to reach the next station had to cross a river in a small ferry-boat. Pieper's father was the only teacher at the only school of this village. Josef Pieper went to the Gymnasium Paulinum in Münster, one of the oldest German schools, which has existed for more than eleven hundred years. His son took up that tradition as a pupil of that old institution, the buildings of which, however, were completely destroyed during World War II. A teacher at the Gymnasium Paulinum, a priest, convinced Pieper to read the works of Thomas Aquinas. 'At that time,' Pieper wrote, 'I was foolishly fond of Kierkegaard, whom we used to devour, my friends and I, naturally without quite understanding him; and it was this paternal friend and teacher, who directed me – with a sort of violent, ironical, and humorous intensity – to St. Thomas' Commentary to the Prologue of St. John's Gospel. Being a youngster of eighteen, I set about reading this work and, in fact, finished it, of course, again without understanding"

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