aquinas.cc APIaquinas.cc ↗
Search and retrieve parallel Latin/English text from Thomas Aquinas's works via 4 endpoints. Access articles by reference, search all works, and extract statements.
No input parameters required.
curl -X GET 'https://api.parse.bot/scraper/5e7a1012-085b-4971-a63a-3ac66e69f9e5/list_works' \ -H 'X-API-Key: $PARSE_API_KEY'
List all available works in the Aquinas library with their internal work IDs (wid) and work codes. Returns a mapping of work codes to numeric IDs that can be used with other endpoints.
No input parameters required.
{
"type": "object",
"fields": {
"works": "object mapping work codes (e.g. 'ST.I', 'ST.III') to their numeric work IDs"
},
"sample": {
"data": {
"works": {
"SCG1": 11,
"ST.I": 15,
"ST.III": 21
}
},
"status": "success"
}
}About the aquinas.cc API
The aquinas.cc API provides 4 endpoints for accessing bilingual Latin/English text from the collected works of Thomas Aquinas. You can retrieve cell-level parallel translations for specific article references using get_article, search the full library by term using search, extract matching passages with get_statements, or enumerate all available works via list_works. Response fields include cell IDs, Latin source text, and English translations.
Works and Search Coverage
The list_works endpoint returns a mapping of work codes — such as ST.I, ST.III, and SCG1 — to their numeric work IDs (wid). These IDs are the shared keys used across all other endpoints. The search endpoint accepts a query string (Latin or English) and an optional mode parameter (exact, any, all, or regex) and returns an array of objects each containing a wid and a hit_count, telling you how many times the term appears in each work.
Article Retrieval
The get_article endpoint takes a work code (e.g. ST.I) and a ref string specifying a precise article reference such as ST.I.Q2.A2. It returns a cells array where each element carries a cell_id integer, a latin string, and an english string. This cell-level granularity maps individual segments of Aquinas's text to their translations side by side.
Statement Extraction
The get_statements endpoint accepts a Latin query term and returns up to 20 matching passages drawn from the top 5 works by hit count. Each item in the statements array includes a work_id, cell_id, latin passage, and english translation. This makes it straightforward to pull contextual bilingual excerpts for a given concept without needing to retrieve entire articles first.
Data Scope and Format
All text data is bilingual: every cell-level result from get_article and get_statements pairs a Latin string with its English counterpart. Work codes follow a consistent naming convention (e.g. ST.I for Summa Theologiae Part I, SCG1 for Summa Contra Gentiles Book 1), and the numeric wid values returned by list_works align with the work_id fields in search and statement results.
- Build a concordance tool that maps a Latin theological term to every passage in the Aquinas library using
get_statements. - Display parallel Latin/English text for a specific Summa Theologiae article in a reading app using
get_articlewith a ref likeST.I.Q2.A2. - Compare occurrence frequency of a term across all works by querying
searchand sorting byhit_count. - Auto-link citations in academic writing software by resolving Aquinas article references to bilingual text via
get_article. - Populate a flashcard system with Latin philosophical terms and their contextual English translations from
get_statements. - Index all available Aquinas works and their IDs for a library catalog using
list_works. - Support regex-based search across the corpus for morphological variants of a Latin root using
searchwithmode=regex.
| Tier | Price | Credits/month | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 100 | 5 req/min |
| Hobby | $30/mo | 1,000 | 20 req/min |
| Developer | $100/mo | 5,000 | 250 req/min |
One credit = one API call regardless of which marketplace API you call. Exceeding the rate limit returns a 429 response. Authenticate with the X-API-Key header.
Does aquinas.cc have an official developer API?+
What does `get_article` return, and how granular is the text?+
cells array where each element represents a discrete text segment with a cell_id integer, a latin string, and an english string. Cells correspond to individual propositions or sentence-level units within the article, not entire questions or responses as a single block.Does `get_statements` search English text as well as Latin?+
get_statements endpoint searches Latin text only. The search endpoint does accept both Latin and English queries. If you need statement-level extraction driven by an English query, you can fork this API on Parse and revise it to route English queries through a combined search-then-fetch flow.Is pagination supported for search or statement results?+
search returns one result object per work (with a hit count, not individual matches), and get_statements is capped at 20 results from the top 5 works by hit count. Neither endpoint currently exposes a page or offset parameter. You can fork this API on Parse and revise it to add pagination support over the full result set.Are works beyond the Summa Theologiae and Summa Contra Gentiles available?+
list_works, which lists all work codes and their numeric IDs. The actual coverage depends on what aquinas.cc has digitized and paired with translations. Works not present in that mapping cannot be queried via get_article or get_statements.