St.

Thomas Aquinas Biography

Italian Dominican theologian St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the most influential
medieval thinkers of Scholasticism and the father of the Thomistic school of
theology.

Synopsis
Philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas was born circa 1225 in
Roccasecca, Italy. Combining the theological principles of faith with the
philosophical principles of reason, he ranked among the most influential thinkers
of medieval Scholasticism. An authority of the Roman Catholic Church and a
prolific writer, Aquinas died on March 7, 1274, at the Cistercian monastery of
Fossanova, near Terracina, Latium, Papal States, Italy.

Early Life
The son of Landulph, count of Aquino, St. Thomas Aquinas was born circa 1225 in
Roccasecca, Italy, near Aquino, Terra di Lavoro, in the Kingdom of Sicily.
Thomas had eight siblings, and was the youngest child. His mother, Theodora, was
countess of Teano. Though Thomas's family members were descendants of
Emperors Frederick I and Henry VI, they were considered to be of lower nobility.

Before St. Thomas Aquinas was born, a holy hermit shared a prediction with his
mother, foretelling that her son would enter the Order of Friars Preachers, become
a great learner and achieve unequaled sanctity.

Following the tradition of the period, St. Thomas Aquinas was sent to the Abbey of
Monte Cassino to train among Benedictine monks when he was just 5 years old. In
Wisdom 8:19, St. Thomas Aquinas is described as "a witty child" who "had
received a good soul." At Monte Cassino, the quizzical young boy repeatedly
posed the question, "What is God?" to his benefactors.

St. Thomas Aquinas remained at the monastery until he was 13 years old, when the
political climate forced him to return to Naples.
Education
St. Thomas Aquinas spent the next five years completing his primary education at
a Benedictine house in Naples. During those years, he studied Aristotle's work,
which would later become a major launching point for St. Thomas Aquinas's own
exploration of philosophy. At the Benedictine house, which was closely affiliated
with the University of Naples, Thomas also developed an interest in more
contemporary monastic orders. He was particularly drawn to those that emphasized
a life of spiritual service, in contrast with the more traditional views and sheltered
lifestyle he'd observed at the Abbey of Monte Cassino.

Circa 1239, St. Thomas Aquinas began attending the University of Naples. In
1243, he secretly joined an order of Dominican monks, receiving the habit in 1244.
When his family found out, they felt so betrayed that he had turned his back on the
principles to which they subscribed that they decided to kidnap him. Thomas's
family held him captive for an entire year, imprisoned in the fortress of San
Giovanni at Rocca Secca. During this time, they attempted to deprogram Thomas
of his new beliefs. Thomas held fast to the ideas he had learned at university,
however, and went back to the Dominican order following his release in 1245.

From 1245 to 1252, St. Thomas Aquinas continued to pursue his studies with the
Dominicans in Naples, Paris and Cologne. He was ordained in Cologne, Germany,
in 1250, and went on to teach theology at the University of Paris. Under the
tutelage of St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas subsequently earned his
doctorate in theology. Consistent with the holy hermit's prediction, Thomas proved
an exemplary scholar, though, ironically, his modesty sometimes led his classmates
to misperceive him as dim-witted. After reading Thomas's thesis and thinking it
brilliant, his professor, St. Albert the Great, proclaimed in Thomas's defense, "We
call this young man a dumb ox, but his bellowing in doctrine will one day resound
throughout the world!"

Theology and Philosophy

After completing his education, St. Thomas Aquinas devoted himself to a life of
traveling, writing, teaching, public speaking and preaching. Religious institutions
and universities alike yearned to benefit from the wisdom of "The Christian
Apostle."

At the forefront of medieval thought was a struggle to reconcile the relationship

between theology (faith) and philosophy (reason). People were at odds as to how to
unite the knowledge they obtained through revelation with the information they
observed naturally using their mind and their senses. Based on Averroes's "theory
of the double truth," the two types of knowledge were in direct opposition to each
other. St. Thomas Aquinas's revolutionary views rejected Averroes's theory,
asserting that "both kinds of knowledge ultimately come from God" and were
therefore compatible. Not only were they compatible, according to Thomas's
ideology, they could work in collaboration: He believed that revelation could guide
reason and prevent it from making mistakes, while reason could clarify and
demystify faith. St. Thomas Aquinas's work goes on to discuss faith and reason's
roles in both perceiving and proving the existence of God.

St. Thomas Aquinas believed that the existence of God could be proven in five
ways, mainly by: 1) observing movement in the world as proof of God, the
"Immovable Mover"; 2) observing cause and effect and identifying God as the
cause of everything; 3) concluding that the impermanent nature of beings proves
the existence of a necessary being, God, who originates only from within himself;
4) noticing varying levels of human perfection and determining that a supreme,
perfect being must therefore exist; and 5) knowing that natural beings could not
have intelligence without it being granted to them it by God. Subsequent to
defending people's ability to naturally perceive proof of God, Thomas also tackled
the challenge of protecting God's image as an all-powerful being.

St. Thomas Aquinas also uniquely addressed appropriate social behavior toward
God. In so doing, he gave his ideas a contemporary—some would say timeless—
everyday context. Thomas believed that the laws of the state were, in fact, a natural
product of human nature, and were crucial to social welfare. By abiding by the
social laws of the state, people could earn eternal salvation of their souls in the
afterlife, he purported. St. Thomas Aquinas identified three types of laws: natural,
positive and eternal. According to his treatise, natural law prompts man to act in
accordance with achieving his goals and governs man's sense of right and wrong;
positive law is the law of the state, or government, and should always be a
manifestation of natural law; and eternal law, in the case of rational beings,
depends on reason and is put into action through free will, which also works
toward the accomplishment of man's spiritual goals.

Combining traditional principles of theology with modern philosophic thought, St.

Thomas Aquinas's treatises touched upon the questions and struggles of medieval
intellectuals, church authorities and everyday people alike. Perhaps this is precisely
what marked them as unrivaled in their philosophical influence at the time, and
explains why they would continue to serve as a building block for contemporary
thought—garnering responses from theologians, philosophers, critics and believers
—thereafter.

Major Works
A prolific writer, St. Thomas Aquinas penned close to 60 known works ranging in
length from short to tome-like. Handwritten copies of his works were distributed to
libraries across Europe. His philosophical and theological writings spanned a wide
spectrum of topics, including commentaries on the Bible and discussions of
Aristotle's writings on natural philosophy.

While teaching at Cologne in the early 1250s, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote a lengthy
commentary on scholastic theologian Peter Lombard's Four Books of Sentences,
called Scriptum super libros Sententiarium, or Commentary on the Sentences.
During that period, he also wrote De ente et essentia, or On Being and Essence, for
the Dominican monks in Paris.

In 1256, while serving as regent master in theology at the University of Paris,

Aquinas wrote Impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem, or Against Those Who
Assail the Worship of God and Religion, a treatise defending mendicant orders that
William of Saint-Amour had criticized.

Written from 1265 to 1274, St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica is largely

philosophical in nature and was followed by Summa Contra Gentiles, which, while
still philosophical, comes across to many critics as apologetic of the beliefs he
expressed in his earlier works.

St. Thomas Aquinas is also known for writing commentaries examining the
principles of natural philosophy espoused in Aristotle's writings: On the
Heavens, Meteorology, On Generation and Corruption, On the Soul,Nicomachean
Ethics and Metaphysics, among others.

Shortly after his death, St. Thomas Aquinas's theological and philosophical
writings rose to great public acclaim and reinforced a strong following among the
Dominicans. Universities, seminaries and colleges came to replace
Lombard's Four Books of Sentences with Summa Theologica as the leading
theology textbook. The influence of St. Thomas Aquinas's writing has been so
great, in fact, that an estimated 6,000 commentaries on his work exist to date.

Later Life and Death

In June 1272, St. Thomas Aquinas agreed to go to Naples and start a theological
studies program for the Dominican house neighboring the university. While he was
still writing prolifically, his works began to suffer in quality.

During the Feast of St. Nicolas in 1273, St. Thomas Aquinas had a mystical vision
that made writing seem unimportant to him. At mass, he reportedly heard a voice
coming from a crucifix that said, "Thou hast written well of me, Thomas; what
reward wilt thou have?" to which St. Thomas Aquinas replied, "None other than
thyself, Lord."

When St. Thomas Aquinas's confessor, Father Reginald of Piperno, urged him to
keep writing, he replied, "I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me
that all I have written now appears to be of little value." St. Thomas Aquinas never
wrote again.

In January 1274, St. Thomas Aquinas embarked on a trip to Lyon, France, on foot
to serve on the Second Council, but never made it there. Along the way, he fell ill
at the Cistercian monastery of Fossanova, Italy. The monks wanted St. Thomas
Aquinas to stay at the castle, but, sensing that his death was near, Thomas
preferred to remain at the monastery, saying, "If the Lord wishes to take me away,
it is better that I be found in a religious house than in the dwelling of a layperson."

On his deathbed, St. Thomas Aquinas uttered his last words to the Cistercian
monks who had so graciously attended him: "This is my rest forever and ever:
Here will I dwell for I have chosen it." (Psalm 131:14) Often called "The Universal
Teacher," St. Thomas Aquinas died at the monastery of Fossanova on March 7,
1274. He was canonized by Pope John XXII in 1323.
Thomas Aquinas (1225—1274)

Saint Thomas Aquinas was a Catholic Priest in the Dominican Order and one of
the most important Medieval philosophers and theologians. He was immensely
influenced by scholasticism and Aristotle and known for his synthesis of the two
aforementioned traditions. Although he wrote many works of philosophy and
theology throughout his life, his most influential work is the Summa
Theologica which consists of three parts.
The first part is on God. In it, he gives five proofs for God's existence as well as an
explication of His attributes. He argues for the actuality and incorporeality of God
as the unmoved mover and describes how God moves through His thinking and
willing.

The second part is on Ethics. Thomas argues for a variation of the Aristotelian
Virtue Ethics. However, unlike Aristotle, he argues for a connection between the
virtuous man and God by explaining how the virtuous act is one towards the
blessedness of the Beatific Vision (beata visio).
The last part of the Summa is on Christ and was unfinished when Thomas died. In
it, he shows how Christ not only offers salvation, but represents and protects
humanity on Earth and in Heaven. This part also briefly discusses the sacraments
and eschatology. The Summa remains the most influential of Thomas’s works and
is mostly what will be discussed in this overview of his philosophy.

1. Life

The birth-year of Thomas Aquinas is commonly given as 1227, but he was

probably born early in 1225 at his father's castle of Roccasecea (75 m. e.s.e. of
Rome) in Neapolitan territory. He died at the monastery of Fossanova, one mile
from Sonnino (64 m. s.e. of Rome), Mar. 7, 1274. His father was Count Landulf of
an old high-born south Italian family, and his mother was Countess Theodora of
Theate, of noble Norman descent. In his fifth year he was sent for his early
education to the monastery of Monte Cassino, where his father's brother Sinibald
was abbot. Later he studied in Naples. By about 1243 he determined to enter the
Dominican order; but on the way to Rome he was seized by his brothers and
brought back to his parents at the castle of S. Giovanni, where he was held a
captive for a year or two and besieged with prayers, threats, and even sensual
temptation to make him relinquish his purpose. Finally the family yielded and the
order sent Thomas to Cologne to study under Albertus Magnus, where he arrived
probably toward the end of 1244. He accompanied Albertus to Paris in 1245,
remained there with his teacher, continuing his studies for three years, and
followed Albertus at the latter's return to Cologne in 1248. For several years longer
he remained with the famous philosopher of scholasticism, presumably teaching.
This long association of Thomas with the great polyhistor was the most important
influence in his development; it made him a comprehensive scholar and won him
permanently for the Aristotelian method. Around 1252 Thomas went to Paris for
the master's degree, which he found some difficulty in attaining owing to attacks,
at that time on the mendicant orders. Ultimately, however, he received the degree
and entered ceremoniously upon his office of teaching in 1257; he taught in Paris
for several years and there wrote certain of his works and began others. 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
residence in Rome. In 1269-71 he was again active in Paris. In 1272 the provincial
chapter at Florence empowered him to found a new studium generale at any place
he should choose, and he selected Naples. Early in 1274 the pope directed him to
attend the Council of Lyons and he undertook the journey, although he was far
from well. On the way he stopped at the castle of a niece and became seriously ill.
He wished to end his days in a monastery and not being able to reach a house of
the Dominicans he was carried to the Cistercian Fossanova. There he died and his
remains were preserved.

2. Writings

The writings of Thomas may be classified as: (1) exegetical, homiletical, and
liturgical; (2) dogmatic, apologetic, and ethical; and (3) philosophical. Among the
genuine works of the first class were: Commentaries on Job (1261-65); on Psalms,
according to some a reportatum, or report of speeches furnished by his companion
Raynaldus; on Isaiah; the Catena aurea, which is a running commentary on the
four Gospels, constructed on numerous citations from the Fathers; probably a
Commentary on Canticles, and on Jeremiah; and wholly or partly reportata, on
John, on Matthew, and on the epistles of Paul; including, according to one
authority, Hebrews i.-x. Thomas prepared for Urban IV: Officium de corpore
Christi (1264); and the following works may be either genuine
or reportata: Expositio angelicce salutationis; Tractatus de decem
praeceptis; Orationis dominico expositio; Sermones pro dominicis diebus et pro
sanctorum solemnitatibus; Sermones de angelis, and Sermones de quadragesima.
Of his sermons only manipulated copies are extant. In the second division were: In
quatitor sententiarum libros, of his first Paris sojourn; Questiones disputatce,
written at Paris and Rome; Questiones quodlibetales duodecini; Summa catholicce
fidei contra gentiles (1261-C,4); andthe Summa theologica. To the dogmatic works
belong also certain commentaries, as follows: Expositio in librum beati Dionysii
de divinis nominibits; Expositiones primoe et secundce; In Boethii libros de
hebdomadibus; and Proeclare quoestiones super librum Boethii de trinitate. A
large number ofopuscitla also belonged to this group. Of philosophical writings
there are cataloged thirteen commentaries on Aristotle, besides numerous
philosophical opuscula of which fourteen are classed as genuine.

a. The Summa Part I: God

The greatest work of Thomas was the Summa, and it is the fullest presentation of

his views. He worked on it from the time of Clement IV (after 1265) until the end
of his life. When he died he had reached question ninety of part III, on the subject
of penance. What was lacking was afterward added from the fourth book of his
commentary on the "Sentences" of Peter Lombard as a supplementum, which is not
found in manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The Summa consists of three parts. Part I treats of God, who is the "first cause,
himself uncaused" (primum movens immobile) and as such existent only in act
(actu), that is pure actuality without potentiality and, therefore, without
corporeality. His essence is actus purus et perfectus. This follows from the fivefold
proof for the existence of God; namely, there must be a first mover himself
unmoved, a first cause in the chain of causes, an absolutely necessary being, an
absolutely perfect being, and a rational designer. In this connection the thoughts of
the unity, infinity, unchangeableness, and goodness of the highest being are
deduced. The spiritual being of God is further defined as thinking and willing. His
knowledge is absolutely perfect since he knows himself and all things as appointed
by him. Since every knowing being strives after the thing known as end, will is
implied in knowing. Inasmuch as God knows himself as the perfect good, he wills
himself as end. But in that everything is willed by God, everything is brought by
the divine will to himself in the relation of means to end. Therein God wills good
to every being which exists, that is he loves it; and, therefore, love is the
fundamental relation of God to the world. If the divine love be thought of simply
as act of will, it exists for every creature in like measure: but if the good assured by
love to the individual be thought of, it exists for different beings in various
degrees. In so far as the loving God gives to every being what it needs in relation
practical reason, affording the idea of the moral law of nature, so important in
medieval ethics.

b. The Summa Part II: Ethics

The first part of the Summa is summed up in the thought that God governs the
world as the universal first cause. God sways the intellect in that he gives the
power to know aid impresses the species intelligibileson the mind; and he ways the
will in that he holds the good before it as aim, and creates the virtus volendi. To
will is nothing else than a certain inclination toward the object of the volition
which is the universal good. God works all in all, but so that things also themselves
exert their proper efficiency. Here the Areopagitic ideas of the graduated effects of
created things play their part in Thomas's thought. The second part of
the Summa (consisting of two parts, namely, prima secundae and secundae,
secunda) follows this complex of ideas. Its theme is man's striving after the highest
end, which is the blessedness of the visio beata. Here Thomas develops his system
of ethics, which has its root in Aristotle. In a chain of acts of will man strives for
the highest end. They are free acts in so far as man has in himself the knowledge of
their end and therein the principle of action. In that the will wills the end, it wills
also the appropriate means, chooses freely and completes the consensus. Whether
the act be good or evil depends on the end. The "human reason" pronounces
judgment concerning the character of the end, it is, therefore, the law for action.
Human acts, however, are meritorious in so far as they promote the purpose of God
and his honor. By repeating a good action man acquires a moral habit or a quality
which enables him to do the good gladly and easily. This is true, however, only of
the intellectual and moral virtues, which Thomas treats after the mariner of
Aristotle; the theological virtues are imparted by God to man as a "disposition"
from which the acts here proceed, but while they strengthen, they do not form it.
The "disposition" of evil is the opposite alternative. An act becomes evil through
deviation from the reason and the divine moral law. Therefore, sin involves two
factors: its substance or matter is lust; in form, however, it is deviation from the
divine law. Sin has its origin in the will, which decides, against the reason, for a
changeable good. Since, however, the will also moves the other powers of man, sin
has its seat in these too. By choosing such a lower good as end, the will is misled
by self-love, so that this works as cause in every sin. God is not the cause of sin,
since, on the contrary, he draws all things to himself. But from another side God is
the cause of all things, so he is efficacious also in sin as *-ctio but not as ens. The
devil is not directly the cause of sin, but he incites by working on the imagination
and the sensuous impulse of man, as men or things may also do. Sin is original.
Adam's first sin passes upon himself and all the succeeding race; because he is the
head of the human race and "by virtue of procreation human nature is transmitted
and along with nature its infection." The powers of generation are, therefore,
designated especially as "infected."
In every work of God both justice and mercy are united, and his justice always
presupposes his mercy since he owes no one anything and gives more bountifully
than is due. As God rules in the world, the "plan of the order of things" preexists in
him; i.e., his providence and the exercise of it in his government are what condition
as cause everything which comes to pass in the world. Hence follows
predestination: from eternity, some are destined to eternal life; while others "he
permits some to fall short of that end." Reprobation, however, is more than mere
foreknowledge; it is the "will of permitting anyone to fall into sin and incur the
penalty of condemnation for sin." The effect of predestination is grace. Since God
is the first cause of everything, he is the cause of even the free acts of men through
predestination. Determinism is deeply grounded in the system of Thomas; things
with their source of becoming in God are ordered from eternity as means for the
realization of his end in himself. On moral grounds Thomas advocates freedom
energetically; but, with his premises, he can have in mind only the psychological
form of self-motivation. Nothing in the world is accidental or free, although it may
appear so in reference to the proximate cause. From this point of view miracles
become necessary in themselves and are to be considered merely as inexplicable to
man. From the point of view of the first cause all is unchangeable; although from
the limited point of view of the secondary cause miracles may be spoken of. In his
doctrine of the Trinity, Thomas starts from the Augustinian system. Since God has
only the functions of thinking and willing, only twoprocessiones can be asserted
from the Father. However, these establish definite relations of the persons of the
Trinity to each other. The relations must be conceived as real and not as merely
ideal; for, as with creatures relations arise through certain accidents, since in God
there is no accident but all is substance, it follows that "the relation really existing
in God is the same as the essence according to the thing." From another side,
however, the relations as real must be really distinguished one from another.
Therefore, three persons are to be affirmed in God. Man stands opposite to God; he
consists of soul and body. The "intellectual soul" consists of intellect and will.
Furthermore the soul is the absolutely indivisible form of man; it is immaterial
substance, but not one and the same in all men (as the Averrhoists assumed). The
soul's power of knowing has two sides; a passive (the intellectus possibilis) and an
active (theintellectus agens). It is the capacity to form concepts and to abstract the
mind's images (species) from the objects perceived by sense. However, since the
abstractions of the intellect from individual things is a universal, the mind knows
the universal primarily and directly, and knows the singular only indirectly by
virtue of a certain reflection. As certain principles are immanent in the mind for its
speculative activity, so also a "special disposition of works," or
the synderesis (rudiment of conscience), is inborn in the scholastics. Held to
creationism, they therefore taught that the souls are created by God. Two things
according to Thomas constituted man's righteousness in paradise-the justitia
originalis or the harmony of all man's powers before they were blighted by desire,
and the possession of the gratia gratum faciens(the continuous indwelling power
of good). Both are lost through original sin, which in form is the "loss of original
righteousness." The consequence of this loss is the disorder and maiming of man's
nature, which shows itself in "ignorance, malice, moral weakness, and especially
in concupiscentia, which is the material principle of original sin." The course of
thought here is as follows: when the first man transgressed the order of his nature
appointed by nature and grace, he, and with him the human race, lost this order.
This negative state is the essence of original sin. From it follow an impairment and
perversion of human nature in which thenceforth lower aims rule contrary to nature
and release the lower element in man. Since sin is contrary to the divine order, it is
guilt, and subject to punishment. Guilt and punishment correspond to each other;
and since the "apostasy from the invariable good which is infinite," fulfilled by
man, is unending, it merits everlasting punishment.

c. The Summa Part III: Christ

The way which leads to God is Christ: and Christ is the theme of part III. It can not
be asserted that the incarnation was absolutely necessary, "since God in his
omnipotent power could have repaired human nature in many other ways": but it
was the most suitable way both for the purpose of instruction and of satisfaction.
The unio between the logos and the human nature is a "relation" between the
divine and the human nature which comes about by both natures being brought
together in the one person of the logos. An incarnation can be spoken of only in the
sense that the human nature began to be in the eternal hypostasis of the divine
nature. So Christ is unum since his human nature lacks the hypostasis. The person
of the logos, accordingly, has assumed the impersonal human nature, and in such
way that the assumption of the soul became the means for the assumption of the
body. This union with the human soul is the gratia unionis which leads to the
impartation of the gratia habitualis from the logos to the human nature. Thereby
all human potentialities are made perfect in Jesus. Besides the perfections given by
the vision of God, which Jesus enjoyed from the beginning, he receives all others
by the gratia habitualis. In so far, however, as it is the limited human nature which
receives these perfections, they are finite. This holds both of the knowledge and the
will of Christ. The logos impresses the species intelligibiles of all created things on
the soul, but the intellectus agens transforms them gradually into the impressions
of sense. On another side, the soul of Christ works miracles only as instrument of
the logos, since omnipotence in no way appertains to this human soul in itself.
Furthermore, Christ's human nature partook of imperfections, on the one side to
make his true humanity evident, on another side because he would bear the general
consequences of sin for humanity. Christ experienced suffering, but blessedness
reigned in his soul, which, however, did not extend to his body. Concerning
redemption, Thomas teaches that Christ is to be regarded as redeemer after his
human nature but in such way that the human nature produces divine effects as
organ of divinity. The one side of the work of redemption consists herein, that
Christ as head of humanity imparts perfection and virtue to his members. He is the
teacher and example of humanity; his whole life and suffering as well as his work
after he is exalted serve this end.
This is the first course of thought. Then follows a second complex of thoughts
which has the idea of satisfaction as its center. To be sure, God as the highest being
could forgive sins without satisfaction; but because his justice and mercy could be
best revealed through satisfaction he chose this way. As little, however, as
satisfaction is necessary in itself, so little does it offer an equivalent, in a correct
sense, for guilt; it is rather a "super-abundant satisfaction," since on account of the
divine subject in Christ in a certain sense his suffering and activity are infinite.
With this thought the strict logical deduction of Anselm's theory is given up.
Christ's suffering bore personal character in that it proceeded out of love and
obedience. It was an offering brought to God, which as personal act had the
character of merit. Thereby Christ "merited" salvation for men. As Christ still
influences men, so does he still work in their behalf continually in heaven through
the intercession (interpellatio). In this way Christ as head of humanity effects the
forgiveness of their sins, their reconciliation with God, their immunity from
punishment, deliverance from the devil, and the opening of heaven's gate. But
inasmuch as all these benefits are already offered through the inner operation of the
love of Christ, Thomas has combined the theories of Anselm and Abelard by
joining the one to the other.

3. The Sacraments

The doctrine of the sacraments follows the Christology; for the sacraments "have
efficacy from the incarnate Word himself." The sacraments are signs which not
only signify sanctification, but also effect it. That they bring spiritual gifts in
sensuous form, moreover, is inevitable because of the sensuous nature of man.
The res sensibles are the matter, the words of institution are the form of
the sacranieits. Contrary to the Franciscan view that the sacraments are mere
symbol, whose efficacy God accompanies with a directly following creative act in
the soul, Thomas holds it not unfit to say with Hugo of St. Victor that "a sacrament
contains grace," or to teach of the sacraments that they "cause grace." Thomas
attempts to remove the difficulty of a sensuous thing producing a creative effect by
a distinction between the causa principalis et instrumentalism. God as the principal
cause works through the sensuous thing as the means ordained by him for his end.
"Just as instrumental power is acquired by the instrument from this, that it is
moved by the principal agent, so also the sacrament obtains spiritual power from
the benediction of Christ and the application of the minister to the use of the
sacrament. There is spiritual power in the sacraments in so far as they have been
ordained by God for a spiritual effect." This spiritual power remains in the
sensuous thing until it has attained its purpose. Thomas distinguished the gratia
sacramentalis from the gratia virtutum et donorum in that the former in general
perfects the essence and the powers of the soul, and the latter in particular brings to
pass necessary spiritual effects for the Christian life. Although, later this distinction
was ignored.
In a single statement the effect of the sacraments is to infuse justifying grace into
men. Christ's humanity was the instrument for the operation of his divinity; the
sacraments are the instruments through which this operation of Christ's humanity
passes over to men. Christ's humanity served his divinity as instrumentum
conjuncture, like the hand; the sacraments are instruments separate, like a staff; the
former can use the latter, as the hand can use a staff.
Of Thomas' eschatology, according to the commentary on the "Sentences," only a
brief account can here be given. Everlasting blessedness consists for Thomas in the
vision of God; and this vision consists not in an abstraction or in a mental image
supernaturally produced, but the divine substance itself is beheld. In such a
manner, God himself becomes immediately the form of the beholding intellect;
that is, God is the object of the vision and at the same time causes the vision. The
perfection of the blessed also demands that the body be restored to the soul as
something to be made perfect by it. Since blessedness consist in operation, it is
made more perfect in that the soul has a definite opcralio with the body. Although,
the peculiar act of blessedness (that is, the vision of God) has nothing to do with
the body.
Saint Thomas Aquinas
ITALIAN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN AND PHILOSOPHER

Saint Thomas Aquinas, also called Aquinas, Italian San Tommaso

d’Aquino, byname Doctor Angelicus (Latin: “Angelic Doctor”) (born1224/25,
Roccasecca, near Aquino, Terra di Lavoro, Kingdom of Sicily [Italy]—died March 7,
1274, Fossanova, near Terracina, Latium, Papal States; canonized July 18, 1323; feast
day January 28, formerly March 7) ItalianDominican theologian, the foremost
medieval Scholastic. He developed his own conclusions from Aristotelian premises,
notably in the metaphysics of personality, creation, and Providence. As
a theologian he was responsible in his two masterpieces, the Summa theologiae and
the Summa contra gentiles, for the classical systematization of Latin theology; and as
a poet he wrote some of the most gravely beautiful eucharistic hymns in the
church’sliturgy. His doctrinal system and the explanations and developments made by
his followers are known as Thomism. Although many modern Roman Catholic
theologians do not find St. Thomas altogether congenial, he is nevertheless recognized
by the Roman Catholic Church as its foremost Western philosopher and theologian.
EARLY YEARS
Thomas was born to parents who were in possession of a modest feudal domain on a
boundary constantly disputed by the emperor and the pope. His father was of
Lombard origin; his mother was of the later invading Norman strain. His people were
distinguished in the service of Emperor Frederick II during the civil strife in
southern Italy between the papal and imperial forces. Thomas was placed in the
monastery of Monte Cassino near his home as an oblate (i.e., offered as a prospective
monk) when he was still a young boy; his family doubtless hoped that he would
someday become abbot to their advantage. In 1239, after nine years in this sanctuary
of spiritual and cultural life, young Thomas was forced to return to his family when
the emperor expelled the monks because they were too obedient to the pope. He was
then sent to the University of Naples, recently founded by the emperor, where he first
encountered the scientific and philosophical works that were being translated from the
Greek and the Arabic. In this setting Thomas decided to join the Friars Preachers,
or Dominicans, a new religious order founded 30 years earlier, which departed from
the traditional paternalistic form of government for monks to the more democratic
form of the mendicant friars (i.e., religious orders whose corporate as well as personal
poverty made it necessary for them to beg alms) and from the monastic life
of prayer and manual labour to a more active life of preaching and teaching. By this
move he took a liberating step beyond the feudal world into which he was born and
the monastic spirituality in which he was reared. A dramatic episode marked the full
significance of his decision. His parents had him abducted on the road to Paris, where
his shrewd superiors had immediately assigned him so that he would be out of the
reach of his family but also so that he could pursue his studies in the most prestigious
and turbulent university of the time.
Studies in Paris
Thomas held out stubbornly against his family despite a year of captivity. He was
finally liberated and in the autumn of 1245 went to Paris to the convent of Saint-
Jacques, the great university centre of the Dominicans; there he studied
under Albertus Magnus, a tremendous scholar with a wide range of intellectual
interests.
Escape from the feudal world, rapid commitment to the University of Paris, and
religious vocation to one of the new mendicant orders all meant a great deal in a
world in which faith in the traditional institutional and conceptual structure was
being attacked. The encounter between the gospel and the culture of his time
formed the nerve centre of Thomas’s position and directed its development.
Normally, his work is presented as the integration into Christian thought of the
recently discovered Aristotelian philosophy, in competition with the integration of
Platonic thought effected by the Fathers of the Church during the first 12 centuries
of the Christian Era. This view is essentially correct; more radically, however, it
should also be asserted that Thomas’s work accomplished an evangelical
awakening to the need for a cultural and spiritual renewal not only in the lives of
individual men but also throughout the church. Thomas must be understood in his
context as a mendicant religious, influenced both by the evangelism of St. Francis
of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, and by the devotion to scholarship of St.
Dominic, founder of the Dominican order.
When Thomas Aquinas arrived at the University of Paris, the influx of Arabian-
Aristotelian science was arousing a sharp reaction among believers; and several
times the church authorities tried to block the naturalism and rationalism that were
emanating from this philosophy and, according to many ecclesiastics, seducing the
younger generations. Thomas did not fear these new ideas, but, like his master
Albertus Magnus (andRoger Bacon, also lecturing at Paris), he studied the works
of Aristotle and eventually lectured publicly on them.
For the first time in history, Christian believers and theologians were confronted
with the rigorous demands of scientific rationalism. At the same time, technical
progress was requiring men to move from the rudimentary economy of an agrarian
society to an urban society with production organized in trade guilds, with
a market economy, and with a profound feeling of community. New generations of
men and women, including clerics, were reacting against the traditional notion of
contempt for the world and were striving for mastery over the forces of nature
through the use of their reason. The structure of Aristotle’s philosophy emphasized
the primacy of the intelligence. Technology itself became a means of access to
truth; mechanical arts were powers for humanizing the cosmos. Thus, the dispute
over the reality of universals—i.e., the question about the relation between general
words such as “red” and particulars such as “this red object”—which had
dominated early Scholastic philosophy, was left behind; and a coherent
metaphysics of knowledge and of the world was being developed.
During the summer of 1248, Aquinas left Paris with Albertus, who was to assume
direction of the new faculty established by the Dominicans at the convent in
Cologne. He remained there until 1252, when he returned to Paris to prepare for
the degree of master of theology. After taking his bachelor’s degree, he received
the licentia docendi (“license to teach”) at the beginning of 1256 and shortly
afterward finished the training necessary for the title and privileges of master.
Thus, in the year 1256 he began teaching theology in one of the two Dominican
schools incorporated in the University of Paris.
YEARS AT THE PAPAL CURIA AND RETURN TO PARIS
CONNECT WITH BRITANNICA

In 1259 Thomas was appointed theological adviser and lecturer to the papal Curia,
then the centre of Western humanism. He returned to Italy, where he spent two
years at Anagni at the end of the reign of Alexander IV and four years
at Orvieto with Urban IV. From 1265 to 1267 he taught at the convent of Santa
Sabina in Rome and then, at the request of Clement IV, went to the papal Curia in
Viterbo. Suddenly, in November 1268, he was sent to Paris, where he became
involved in a sharp doctrinal polemic that had just been triggered off.

The works of Averroës, the outstanding representative of Arabic philosophy in

Spain, who was known as the great commentator and interpreter of Aristotle,
were just becoming known to the Parisian masters. There seems to be no
doubt about the Islamic faith of the Cordovan philosopher; nevertheless, he
asserted that the structure of religious knowledge was entirely heterogeneous
to rational knowledge: two truths—one of faith, the other of reason—can, in
the final analysis, be contradictory. This dualism was denied by Muslim
orthodoxy and was still less acceptable to Christians. With the appearance
of Siger of Brabant, however, and from 1266 on, the quality of
Averroës’s exegesis and the wholly rational bent of his thought began to
attract disciples in the faculty of arts at the University of Paris. Thomas
Aquinas rose in protest against his colleagues; nevertheless, the parties
retained a mutual esteem. As soon as he returned from Italy, Thomas began
to dispute with Siger, who, he claimed, was compromising not only orthodoxy
but also the Christian interpretation of Aristotle. Aquinas found himself
wedged in between the Augustinian tradition of thought, now more emphatic
than ever in its criticism of Aristotle, and the Averroists. Radical Averroism
was condemned in 1270, but at the same time Thomas, who sanctioned the
autonomy of reason under faith, was discredited.

In the course of this dispute, the very method of theology was called into
question. According to Aquinas, reason is able to operate within faith and yet
according to its own laws. The mystery of God is expressed and incarnate in
human language; it is thus able to become the object of an active, conscious,
and organized elaboration in which the rules and structures of rational activity
are integrated in the light of faith. In the Aristotelian sense of the word, then
(although not in the modern sense), theology is a “science”; it is knowledge
that is rationally derived from propositions that are accepted as certain
because they are revealed by God. The theologian accepts authority and faith
as his starting point and then proceeds to conclusions using reason; the
philosopher, on the other hand, relies solely on the natural light of reason.
Thomas was the first to view theology expressly in this way or at least to
present it systematically, and in doing so he raised a storm of opposition in
various quarters. Even today this opposition endures, especially among
religious enthusiasts for whom reason remains an intruder in the realm of
mystical communion, contemplation, and the sudden ecstasy of evangelical
fervour.

The literary form of Aquinas’s works must be appreciated in the context of his
methodology. He organized his teaching in the form of “questions,” in which
critical research is presented by pro and con arguments, according to the
pedagogical system then in use in the universities. Forms varied from simple
commentaries on official texts to written accounts of the public disputations,
which were significant events in medieval university life. Thomas’s works are
divided into three categories: 1) commentaries on such works as the Old and
New Testaments, the Sentences of Peter Lombard (the official manual of
theology in the universities), and the writings of Aristotle; 2) disputed
questions, accounts of his teaching as a master in the disputations; 3)
twosummae or personal syntheses, the Summa contra gentiles and
the Summa theologiae, which were presented as integral introductions for the
use of beginners. Numerous opuscula (“little works”), which have great
interest because of the particular circumstances that provoked them, must
also be noted.

The logic of Aquinas’s position regarding faith and reason required that the
fundamental consistency of the realities of nature be recognized.
A physis(“nature”) has necessary laws; recognition of this fact permits the
construction of a science according to a logos (“rational structure”). Thomas
thus avoided the temptation to sacralize the forces of nature through a naïve
recourse to the miraculous or the Providence of God. For him, a whole
“supernatural” world that cast its shadow over things and men, in
Romanesque art as in social customs, had blurred men’s imaginations.
Nature, discovered in its profane reality, should assume its proper religious
value and lead to God by more rational ways, yet not simply as a shadow of
the supernatural. This understanding is exemplified in the way that Francis of
Assisi admired the birds, the plants, and the Sun.

The inclusion of Aristotle’s Physics in university programs was not, therefore,

just a matter of academic curiosity. Naturalism, however, as opposed to a
sacral vision of the world, was penetrating all realms: spirituality, social
customs, and political conduct. About 1270, Jean de Meun, a French poet of
the new cities and Thomas’s neighbour in the Rue Saint-Jacques in Paris,
gave expression in his Roman de la Rose to the coarsest realism, not only in
examining the physical universe but also in describing and judging the laws of
procreation. Innumerable manuscripts of the Roman poet Ovid’s Ars
amatoria (Art of Love) were in circulation; André le Chapelain, in his De Deo
amoris (On the God of Love) adapted a more refined version for the public.
Courtly love in its more seductive forms became a more prevalent element in
the culture of the 13th century.

At the same time, Roman law was undergoing a revival at the University of

Bologna; this involved a rigorous analysis of the natural law and provided the
jurists of Frederick II with a weapon against ecclesiastical theocracy. The
traditional presentations of the role and duties of princes, in which biblical
symbolism was used to outline beautiful pious images, were replaced by
treatises that described experimental and rational attempts at government.
Thomas had composed such a treatise—De regimine principum (On the
Government of Princes)—for the king of Cyprus in 1266. In the administration
of justice, juridical investigations and procedures replaced fanatical recourse
to ordeals and to judgments of God.

In the face of this movement, there was a fear on the part of many that the
authentic values of nature would not be properly distinguished from the
disorderly inclinations of mind and heart. Theologians of a traditional bent
firmly resisted any form of a determinist philosophy which, they believed,
would atrophy liberty, dissolve personal responsibility, destroy faith in
Providence, and deny the notion of a gratuitous act of creation. Imbued with
Augustine’s doctrines, they asserted the necessity and power of grace for a
nature torn asunder by sin. The optimism of the new theology concerning the
religious value of nature scandalized them.

Although he was an Aristotelian, Thomas Aquinas was certain that he could

defend himself against a heterodox interpretation of “the Philosopher,” as
Aristotle was known. Thomas held that human liberty could be defended as a
rational thesis while admitting that determinations are found in nature. In his
theology of Providence, he taught a continuous creation, in which the
dependence of the created on the creative wisdom guarantees the reality of
the order of nature. God moves sovereignly all that he creates; but the
supreme government that he exercises over the universe is conformed to the
laws of a creative Providence that wills each being to act according to its
proper nature. This autonomy finds its highest realization in the rational
creature: man is literally self-moving in his intellectual, volitional, and physical
existence. Man’s freedom, far from being destroyed by his relationship to God,
finds its foundation in this very relationship. “To take something away from the
perfection of the creature is to abstract from the perfection of the creative
power itself.” This metaphysical axiom, which is also a mystical principle, is
the key to St. Thomas’s spirituality.

Alternative Titles: Aquinas, Doctor Angelicus, San Tommaso D’Aquino

Saint Thomas Aquinas

ITALIAN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN AND PHILOSOPHER

ALSO KNOWN AS

 Aquinas
 Doctor Angelicus
 San Tommaso D’Aquino

BORN

1224 or 1225

Roccasecca

DIED
 March 7, 1274

Fossanova

SIMILAR PEOPLE

 Godfrey of Saint-Victor
 Theodulf Of Orléans
 Saint Hilary of Poitiers
 George Santayana
 N.F.S. Grundtvig
 Theodore Beza
 Saint John of Damascus
 Saint Ambrose
 Saint Augustine
 Saint Albertus Magnus
Saint Thomas Aquinas, also called Aquinas, Italian San Tommaso
d’Aquino, byname Doctor Angelicus (Latin: “Angelic Doctor”) (born1224/25,
Roccasecca, near Aquino, Terra di Lavoro, Kingdom of Sicily [Italy]—died March 7,
1274, Fossanova, near Terracina, Latium, Papal States; canonized July 18, 1323; feast
day January 28, formerly March 7) ItalianDominican theologian, the foremost
medieval Scholastic. He developed his own conclusions from Aristotelian premises,
notably in the metaphysics of personality, creation, and Providence. As
a theologian he was responsible in his two masterpieces, the Summa theologiae and
the Summa contra gentiles, for the classical systematization of Latin theology; and as
a poet he wrote some of the most gravely beautiful eucharistic hymns in the
church’sliturgy. His doctrinal system and the explanations and developments made by
his followers are known as Thomism. Although many modern Roman Catholic
theologians do not find St. Thomas altogether congenial, he is nevertheless recognized
by the Roman Catholic Church as its foremost Western philosopher and theologian.
EARLY YEARS
Thomas was born to parents who were in possession of a modest feudal domain on a
boundary constantly disputed by the emperor and the pope. His father was of
Lombard origin; his mother was of the later invading Norman strain. His people were
distinguished in the service of Emperor Frederick II during the civil strife in
southern Italy between the papal and imperial forces. Thomas was placed in the
monastery of Monte Cassino near his home as an oblate (i.e., offered as a prospective
monk) when he was still a young boy; his family doubtless hoped that he would
someday become abbot to their advantage. In 1239, after nine years in this sanctuary
of spiritual and cultural life, young Thomas was forced to return to his family when
the emperor expelled the monks because they were too obedient to the pope. He was
 then sent to the University of Naples, recently founded by the emperor, where he first
encountered the scientific and philosophical works that were being translated from the
Greek and the Arabic. In this setting Thomas decided to join the Friars Preachers,
or Dominicans, a new religious order founded 30 years earlier, which departed from
the traditional paternalistic form of government for monks to the more democratic
form of the mendicant friars (i.e., religious orders whose corporate as well as personal
poverty made it necessary for them to beg alms) and from the monastic life
of prayer and manual labour to a more active life of preaching and teaching. By this
move he took a liberating step beyond the feudal world into which he was born and
the monastic spirituality in which he was reared. A dramatic episode marked the full
significance of his decision. His parents had him abducted on the road to Paris, where
his shrewd superiors had immediately assigned him so that he would be out of the
reach of his family but also so that he could pursue his studies in the most prestigious
and turbulent university of the time.
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Thomas held out stubbornly against his family despite a year of captivity. He was
finally liberated and in the autumn of 1245 went to Paris to the convent of Saint-
Jacques, the great university centre of the Dominicans; there he studied
 under Albertus Magnus, a tremendous scholar with a wide range of intellectual
interests.
Escape from the feudal world, rapid commitment to the University of Paris, and
religious vocation to one of the new mendicant orders all meant a great deal in a world
in which faith in the traditional institutional and conceptual structure was being
attacked. The encounter between the gospel and the culture of his time formed the
nerve centre of Thomas’s position and directed its development. Normally, his work is
presented as the integration into Christian thought of the recently discovered
Aristotelian philosophy, in competition with the integration of Platonic thought
effected by the Fathers of the Church during the first 12 centuries of the Christian Era.
This view is essentially correct; more radically, however, it should also be asserted
that Thomas’s work accomplished an evangelical awakening to the need for a cultural
and spiritual renewal not only in the lives of individual men but also throughout the
church. Thomas must be understood in his context as a mendicant religious,
influenced both by the evangelism of St. Francis of Assisi, founder of
the Franciscan order, and by the devotion to scholarship of St. Dominic, founder of
the Dominican order.

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When Thomas Aquinas arrived at the University of Paris, the influx of Arabian-
Aristotelian science was arousing a sharp reaction among believers; and several times
the church authorities tried to block the naturalism and rationalism that were
emanating from this philosophy and, according to many ecclesiastics, seducing the
younger generations. Thomas did not fear these new ideas, but, like his master
 Albertus Magnus (andRoger Bacon, also lecturing at Paris), he studied the works
of Aristotle and eventually lectured publicly on them.
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For the first time in history, Christian believers and theologians were confronted with
the rigorous demands of scientific rationalism. At the same time, technical progress
was requiring men to move from the rudimentary economy of an agrarian society to
an urban society with production organized in trade guilds, with a market economy,
and with a profound feeling of community. New generations of men and women,
including clerics, were reacting against the traditional notion of contempt for the
world and were striving for mastery over the forces of nature through the use of
their reason. The structure of Aristotle’s philosophy emphasized the primacy of the
intelligence. Technology itself became a means of access to truth; mechanical arts
were powers for humanizing the cosmos. Thus, the dispute over the reality of
universals—i.e., the question about the relation between general words such as “red”
and particulars such as “this red object”—which had dominated
early Scholastic philosophy, was left behind; and a coherent metaphysics of
knowledge and of the world was being developed.
During the summer of 1248, Aquinas left Paris with Albertus, who was to assume
direction of the new faculty established by the Dominicans at the convent in Cologne.
He remained there until 1252, when he returned to Paris to prepare for the degree of
master of theology. After taking his bachelor’s degree, he received the licentia
docendi (“license to teach”) at the beginning of 1256 and shortly afterward finished
the training necessary for the title and privileges of master. Thus, in the year 1256 he
began teaching theology in one of the two Dominican schools incorporated in the
University of Paris.
YEARS AT THE PAPAL CURIA AND RETURN TO PARIS
CONNECT WITH BRITANNICA

In 1259 Thomas was appointed theological adviser and lecturer to the papal Curia,
then the centre of Western humanism. He returned to Italy, where he spent two
years at Anagni at the end of the reign of Alexander IV and four years
at Orvieto with Urban IV. From 1265 to 1267 he taught at the convent of Santa
Sabina in Rome and then, at the request of Clement IV, went to the papal Curia in
Viterbo. Suddenly, in November 1268, he was sent to Paris, where he became
involved in a sharp doctrinal polemic that had just been triggered off.

St. Thomas Aquinas, painting attributed to Sandro Botticelli, 15th century.

The Granger Collection, New York

The works of Averroës, the outstanding representative of Arabic philosophy in

Spain, who was known as the great commentator and interpreter of Aristotle, were
just becoming known to the Parisian masters. There seems to be no doubt about the
Islamic faith of the Cordovan philosopher; nevertheless, he asserted that the
structure of religious knowledge was entirely heterogeneous to rational knowledge:
two truths—one of faith, the other of reason—can, in the final analysis, be
contradictory. This dualism was denied by Muslim orthodoxy and was still less
acceptable to Christians. With the appearance of Siger of Brabant, however, and
from 1266 on, the quality of Averroës’s exegesis and the wholly rational bent of
his thought began to attract disciples in the faculty of arts at the University of
Paris. Thomas Aquinas rose in protest against his colleagues; nevertheless, the
parties retained a mutual esteem. As soon as he returned from Italy, Thomas began
to dispute with Siger, who, he claimed, was compromising not only orthodoxy but
also the Christian interpretation of Aristotle. Aquinas found himself wedged in
between the Augustinian tradition of thought, now more emphatic than ever in its
criticism of Aristotle, and the Averroists. Radical Averroism was condemned in
1270, but at the same time Thomas, who sanctioned the autonomy of reason under
faith, was discredited.

In the course of this dispute, the very method of theology was called into question.
According to Aquinas, reason is able to operate within faith and yet according to
its own laws. The mystery of God is expressed and incarnate in human language; it
is thus able to become the object of an active, conscious, and organized elaboration
in which the rules and structures of rational activity are integrated in the light of
faith. In the Aristotelian sense of the word, then (although not in the modern
sense), theology is a “science”; it is knowledge that is rationally derived from
propositions that are accepted as certain because they are revealed by God. The
theologian accepts authority and faith as his starting point and then proceeds to
conclusions using reason; the philosopher, on the other hand, relies solely on the
natural light of reason. Thomas was the first to view theology expressly in this way
or at least to present it systematically, and in doing so he raised a storm of
opposition in various quarters. Even today this opposition endures, especially
among religious enthusiasts for whom reason remains an intruder in the realm of
mystical communion, contemplation, and the sudden ecstasy of evangelical
fervour.

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  Great Famine
 Massachusetts Bay Colony
The literary form of Aquinas’s works must be appreciated in the context of his
methodology. He organized his teaching in the form of “questions,” in which
critical research is presented by pro and con arguments, according to the
pedagogical system then in use in the universities. Forms varied from simple
commentaries on official texts to written accounts of the public disputations, which
were significant events in medieval university life. Thomas’s works are divided
into three categories: 1) commentaries on such works as the Old and New
Testaments, the Sentences of Peter Lombard (the official manual of theology in the
universities), and the writings of Aristotle; 2) disputed questions, accounts of his
teaching as a master in the disputations; 3) twosummae or personal syntheses,
the Summa contra gentiles and the Summa theologiae, which were presented as
integral introductions for the use of beginners. Numerous opuscula (“little works”),
which have great interest because of the particular circumstances that provoked
them, must also be noted.
The logic of Aquinas’s position regarding faith and reason required that the
fundamental consistency of the realities of nature be recognized.
A physis(“nature”) has necessary laws; recognition of this fact permits the
construction of a science according to a logos (“rational structure”). Thomas thus
avoided the temptation to sacralize the forces of nature through a naïve recourse to
the miraculous or the Providence of God. For him, a whole “supernatural” world
that cast its shadow over things and men, in Romanesque art as in social customs,
had blurred men’s imaginations. Nature, discovered in its profane reality, should
assume its proper religious value and lead to God by more rational ways, yet not
simply as a shadow of the supernatural. This understanding is exemplified in the
way that Francis of Assisi admired the birds, the plants, and the Sun.
The inclusion of Aristotle’s Physics in university programs was not, therefore, just
a matter of academic curiosity. Naturalism, however, as opposed to a sacral vision
of the world, was penetrating all realms: spirituality, social customs, and political
conduct. About 1270, Jean de Meun, a French poet of the new cities and Thomas’s
neighbour in the Rue Saint-Jacques in Paris, gave expression in his Roman de la
Rose to the coarsest realism, not only in examining the physical universe but also
in describing and judging the laws of procreation. Innumerable manuscripts of the
Roman poet Ovid’s Ars amatoria (Art of Love) were in circulation; André le
Chapelain, in his De Deo amoris (On the God of Love) adapted a more refined
version for the public. Courtly love in its more seductive forms became a more
prevalent element in the culture of the 13th century.
At the same time, Roman law was undergoing a revival at the University of
Bologna; this involved a rigorous analysis of the natural law and provided the
jurists of Frederick II with a weapon against ecclesiastical theocracy. The
traditional presentations of the role and duties of princes, in which biblical
symbolism was used to outline beautiful pious images, were replaced by treatises
that described experimental and rational attempts at government. Thomas had
composed such a treatise—De regimine principum (On the Government of
Princes)—for the king of Cyprus in 1266. In the administration of justice, juridical
investigations and procedures replaced fanatical recourse to ordeals and to
judgments of God.
In the face of this movement, there was a fear on the part of many that the
authentic values of nature would not be properly distinguished from the disorderly
inclinations of mind and heart. Theologians of a traditional bent firmly resisted any
form of a determinist philosophy which, they believed, would atrophy liberty,
dissolve personal responsibility, destroy faith in Providence, and deny the notion of
a gratuitous act of creation. Imbued with Augustine’s doctrines, they asserted the
necessity and power of grace for a nature torn asunder by sin. The optimism of the
new theology concerning the religious value of nature scandalized them.
Although he was an Aristotelian, Thomas Aquinas was certain that he could defend
himself against a heterodox interpretation of “the Philosopher,” as Aristotle was
known. Thomas held that human liberty could be defended as a rational thesis
while admitting that determinations are found in nature. In his theology of
Providence, he taught a continuous creation, in which the dependence of the
created on the creative wisdom guarantees the reality of the order of nature. God
moves sovereignly all that he creates; but the supreme government that he
exercises over the universe is conformed to the laws of a creative Providence that
wills each being to act according to its proper nature. This autonomy finds its
highest realization in the rational creature: man is literally self-moving in his
intellectual, volitional, and physical existence. Man’s freedom, far from being
destroyed by his relationship to God, finds its foundation in this very relationship.
“To take something away from the perfection of the creature is to abstract from the
perfection of the creative power itself.” This metaphysical axiom, which is also a
mystical principle, is the key to St. Thomas’s spirituality.
LAST YEARS AT NAPLES

At Easter time in 1272, Thomas returned to Italy to establish a Dominican house of

studies at the University of Naples. This move was undoubtedly made in answer to
a request made by King Charles of Anjou, who was anxious to revive the
university. After participating in a general chapter, or meeting, of the Dominicans
held in Florence during Pentecost week and having settled some family affairs,
Thomas resumed his university teaching at Naples in October and continued it
until the end of the following year.
Although Thomas’s argument with the Averroists had for years been matched by a
controversy with the Christian masters who followed the traditional Augustinian
conception of man as fallen, this latter dispute now became more pronounced. In a
series of university conferences in 1273,Bonaventure, a Franciscan friar and a
friendly colleague of Thomas at Paris, renewed his criticism of the Aristotelian
current of thought, including the teachings of Thomas. He criticized the thesis that
philosophy is distinct from theology, as well as the notion of a physical nature that
has determined laws; he was especially critical of the theory that the soul is bound
up with the body as the two necessary principles that make up the nature of man
and also reacted strongly to the Aristotelians’ denial of the Platonic-Augustinian
theory of knowledge based upon exemplary Ideas or Forms.
The disagreement was profound. Certainly, all Christian philosophers taught the
distinction between matter and spirit. This distinction, however, could be
intelligently held only if the internal relationship between matter and spirit in
individual human beings was sought. It was in the process of this explanation that
differences of opinion arose—not only intellectual differences between idealist and
realist philosophers but also emotional differences. Some viewed the material
world merely as a physical and biological reality, a stage on which the history of
spiritual persons is acted out, their culture developed, and their salvation or
damnation determined. This stage itself remains detached from the spiritual event,
and the history of nature is only by chance the setting for the spiritual history. The
history of nature follows its own path imperturbably; in this history, man is a
foreigner, playing a brief role only to escape as quickly as possible from the world
into the realm of pure spirit, the realm of God.
Thomas, on the contrary, noted the inclusion of the history of nature in the history
of the spirit and at the same time noted the importance of the history of spirit for
the history of nature. Man is situated ontologically (i.e., by his very existence) at
the juncture of two universes, “like a horizon of the corporeal and of the spiritual.”
In man there is not only a distinction between spirit and nature but there is also an
intrinsic homogeneity of the two. Aristotle furnished Aquinas with the categories
necessary for the expression of this concept: the soul is the “form” of the body. For
Aristotle, form is that which makes a thing to be what it is; form and matter—that
out of which a thing is made—are the two intrinsic causes that constitute every
material thing. For Thomas, then, the body is the matter and the soul is the form of
man. The objection was raised that he was not sufficiently safeguarding the
transcendence of the spirit, the doctrine that the soul survives after the death of the
body.
In January 1274 Thomas Aquinas was personally summoned by Gregory X to the
second Council of Lyons, which was an attempt to repair the schism between the
Latin and Greek churches. On his way he was stricken by illness; he stopped at the
Cistercian abbey of Fossanova, where he died on March 7. In 1277 the masters of
Paris, the highest theological jurisdiction in the church, condemned a series of 219
propositions; 12 of these propositions were theses of Thomas. This was the most
serious condemnation possible in the Middle Ages; its repercussions were felt in
the development of ideas. It produced for several centuries a certain unhealthy
spiritualism that resisted the cosmic and anthropological realism of Aquinas.
ASSESSMENT

The biography of Thomas Aquinas is one of extreme simplicity; it chronicles little

but some modest travel during a career devoted entirely to university life: at Paris,
the Roman Curia, Paris again, and Naples. It would be a mistake, however, to
judge that his life was merely the quiet life of a professional teacher untouched by
the social and political affairs of his day. The drama that went on in his mind and
in his religious life found its causes and produced its effects in the university. In
the young universities all the ingredients of a rapidly developing civilization were
massed together, and to these universities the Christian church had deliberately and
authoritatively committed its doctrine and its spirit. In this environment, Thomas
found the technical conditions for elaborating his work—not only the polemic
occasions for turning it out but also the enveloping and penetrating spiritual milieu
needed for it. It is within the homogeneous contexts supplied by this environment
that it is possible today to discover the historical intelligibility of his work, just as
they supplied the climate for its fruitfulness at the time of its birth.

Thomas Aquinas was canonized a saint in 1323, officially named doctor of the
church in 1567, and proclaimed the protagonist of orthodoxy during the modernist
crisis at the end of the 19th century. This continuous commendation, however,
cannot obliterate the historical difficulties in which he was embroiled in the 13th
century during a radical theological renewal—a renewal that was contested at the
time and yet was brought about by the social, cultural, and religious evolution of
the West. Thomas was at the heart of the doctrinal crisis that confronted
Christendom when the discovery of Greek science, culture, and thought seemed
about to crush it.
Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Story
By universal consent, Thomas Aquinas is the preeminent spokesman of the
Catholic tradition of reason and of divine revelation. He is one of the great teachers
of the medieval Catholic Church, honored with the titles Doctor of the Church and
Angelic Doctor.

At five he was given to the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino in his parents’
hopes that he would choose that way of life and eventually became abbot. In 1239,
he was sent to Naples to complete his studies. It was here that he was first attracted
to Aristotle’s philosophy.

By 1243, Thomas abandoned his family’s plans for him and joined the
Dominicans, much to his mother’s dismay. On her order, Thomas was captured by
his brother and kept at home for over a year.

Once free, he went to Paris and then to Cologne, where he finished his studies with
Albert the Great. He held two professorships at Paris, lived at the court of Pope
Urban IV, directed the Dominican schools at Rome and Viterbo, combated
adversaries of the mendicants, as well as the Averroists, and argued with some
Franciscans about Aristotelianism.

His greatest contribution to the Catholic Church is his writings. The unity,
harmony and continuity of faith and reason, of revealed and natural human
knowledge, pervades his writings. One might expect Thomas, as a man of the
gospel, to be an ardent defender of revealed truth. But he was broad enough, deep
enough, to see the whole natural order as coming from God the Creator, and to see
reason as a divine gift to be highly cherished.

The Summa Theologiae, his last and, unfortunately, uncompleted work, deals with
the whole of Catholic theology. He stopped work on it after celebrating Mass on
December 6, 1273. When asked why he stopped writing, he 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.” He died March 7, 1274.

Reflection
We can look to Thomas Aquinas as a towering example of Catholicism in the
sense of broadness, universality, and inclusiveness. We should be determined anew
to exercise the divine gift of reason in us, our power to know, learn, and
understand. At the same time we should thank God for the gift of his revelation,
especially in Jesus Christ.