Philosophy & Theology 13, 2 213 Poverty as Malum Simpliciter: A Reading of Aquinas’s Summa contra gentiles 3.133 John D. Jones Marquette University Abstract This article provides critical analysis of Aquinas’s designation of poverty as unqualifiedly evil. This paper provides an analysis of two different meanings of poverty: (a) in relation to things or to the external conditions in which people live and (b) in relation to an action in which people engage or are thwarted. Next, the paper discusses the sense in which poverty is an evil—and particularly, an unqualified evil—in relation to both of these meanings of poverty. Since Aquinas claims that poverty is an unqualified evil so far as it prevents people from attaining the ends of sustaining themselves and assisting others, the final section of the paper discusses possible interpretations of these ends, suggesting that each end can be taken in a narrow, minimalist or subsistence sense and a broader, more holistic or contextualized sense. Over the course of his life, St. Thomas Aquinas composed several major discussions about poverty which focused almost exclusively on poverty in relation to religious life. 1 However, the discussion of 1. The principal discussions are found in Contra impugnantes Dei religionem et cultum (CID) 6, Contra pestiferam doctrinam retrahentium homines a religionis ingressu 15-17, De perfectione spiritualis vitae 7; Summa contra gentiles (SCG) 3.131-135, and Summa theologiae (ST) II-II.188.7. For general discussions about Aquinas’s teachings on poverty see (Horst 1992)and (van den Eijnden 1994). Neither author treats the problem of poverty as unqualifiedly evil. An initial version of this paper was read at the 33 rd International Congress of Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, MI) in