Saint Thomas Aquinas

Saint Thomas Aquinas [Thomas of Aquin, or Aquino] (c. 1225 - 7 March 1274) was an Italian Catholic philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Universalis. He is the most famous classical proponent of natural theology. He gave birth to the Thomistic school of philosophy, which was long the primary philosophical approach of the Catholic Church. He is considered by the Catholic Church to be its greatest theologian and one of the thirty-three Doctors of the Church. There have been many institutions of learning named after him.

Biography

Early years

The life of Thomas Aquinas offers many interesting insights into the world of the High Middle Ages. He was born into a family of the south Italian nobility and was through his mother, Countess Theadora of Theate, related to the Hohenstaufen dynasty of Holy Roman emperors.

He was probably born early in 1225 at his father Count Landulf's castle of Roccasecca in the kingdom of Naples (which is today in the Province of Frosinone, belonging to the Regione Lazio). Landulf's brother, Sinibald, was abbot of the original Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino, and the family intended Thomas to follow his uncle into that position; this would have been a normal career-path for a younger son of the nobility.

In his fifth year he was sent for his early education to the monastery. However, after studying for six years at the University of Naples, he left it in his sixteenth year. While there he probably came under the influence of the Dominicans, who were doing their utmost to enlist within their ranks the ablest young scholars of the age, representing along with the Franciscan order a revolutionary challenge to the well-established clerical systems of early medieval Europe.

This change of heart did not please the family; on the way to Rome, Thomas was seized by his brothers and brought back to his parents at the castle of San Giovanni, where he was held a captive for a year or two to make him relinquish his purpose.

According to his earliest biographers, the family even brought a prostitute to tempt him, but he drove her away (allegedly by reaching into the fire and chasing her out of the room with a firebrand, then slamming the door and using the firebrand to mark a cross on the door). Finally, the opposition of his family was overcome by the intervention of Pope Innocent IV, and Thomas assumed the habit of St Dominic in his seventeenth year.

His superiors, seeing his great aptitude for theological study, sent him to the Dominican school in Cologne, where Albertus Magnus was lecturing on philosophy and theology; he arrived probably in late 1244. He accompanied Albertus to the University of Paris in 1245, and remained there with his teacher for three years, at the end of which he graduated as bachelor of theology. In 1248 he returned to Cologne with Albertus, and was appointed second lecturer and magister studentium. This year may be taken as the beginning of his literary activity and public life. Before he left Paris he had thrown himself with ardour into the controversy raging between the university and the Friar-Preachers respecting the liberty of teaching, resisting both by speeches and pamphlets the authorities of the university; and when the dispute was referred to the pope, the youthful Aquinas was chosen to defend his order, which he did with such success as to overcome the arguments of Guillaume de St Amour, the champion of the university, and one of the most celebrated men of the day.

For several years longer Thomas remained with the famous philosopher of scholasticism, presumably teaching. This long association of Thomas with the great philosopher theologian was the most important influence in his development; it made him a comprehensive scholar and won him permanently for the Aristotelian method.

Career

In 1252 Aquinas went to Paris for his master's degree, but met with some difficulty owing to attacks on the mendicant orders by the professoriate of the University. Ultimately, however, he received the degree and entered upon his office of teaching in 1256, when, along with his friend Bonaventura, he was created doctor of theology, and began to give courses of lectures upon this subject in Paris, and also in Rome and other towns in Italy. From this time onwards his life was one of incessant toil; he was continually engaged in the active service of his order, was frequently travelling upon long and tedious journeys, and was constantly consulted on affairs of state by the reigning pontiff.

In 1259 he was present at an important chapter of his order at Valenciennes. At the solicitation of Pope Urban IV (therefore not before the latter part of 1261), he took up his residence in Rome. In 1263 we find him at the chapter of the Dominican order held in London. In 1268 he was lecturing now in Rome and Bologna, all the while engaged in the public business of the church.

During 1269 to 1271 he was again active in Paris, lecturing to the students, managing the affairs of the church and consulted by the king, Louis VIII, his kinsman, on affairs of state. In 1272 the provincial chapter at Florence empowered him to found a new studium generale at such place as he should choose, and the commands of the chief of his order and the request of King Charles brought him back to the professor's chair at Naples.

All this time he was preaching every day, writing homilies, disputations, lectures, and finding time to work hard at his great work the Summa Theologiae. Such rewards as the church could bestow had been offered to him. He refused the archbishopric of Naples and the abbacy of Monte Cassino.

Aquinas had a mystical experience while celebrating Mass on 6 December 1273, after which he stopped writing, leaving his great work, the Summa Theologiae, unfinished. When asked why he had stopped writing, Aquinas replied, "I cannot go on...All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me." Other mystical experiences reported include a voice telling him from a cross that he had written well and monks finding him levitating. The 20th century Roman Catholic writer/convert G. K. Chesterton describes these and other stories in his work on Aquinas, The Dumb Ox, a title based on early impressions that Aquinas was not proficient in speech. These impressions were refuted by Albertus Magnus, who declared, "You call him a Dumb Ox; I tell you the Dumb Ox will bellow so loud his bellowing will fill the world."

St. Thomas Aquinas, by Fra AngelicoContemporaries