Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest, theologian, and philosopher. He is considered one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Catholic theology and Western philosophy. He is the father of a school of thought (encompassing both theology and philosophy) known as Thomism.
A proponent of natural theology, Thomas argued that God is the source of the light of natural reason and the light of faith. He embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle and sought to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity. Among his best-known ideas include his Five Ways for proving the existence of God, his virtue ethics, and his sacramental theology. In addition to its vast influence on Catholic thought, his philosophy has influenced modern virtue ethics, aesthetics, and cognitive theory.
Thomas's best-known work is the unfinished Summa Theologica, or Summa Theologiae (1265–1274), which is a comprehensive guide to the theology of the Catholic Church. His body of work also includes the Disputed Questions on Truth (1256–1259), the Summa contra Gentiles (1259–1265), and numerous commentaries on Christian Scripture and on Aristotle. He is also known for his Eucharistic hymns, which form a part of the Church's liturgy. In 1323, nearly 50 years after his death, Thomas was canonized as a saint by Pope John XXII.
Thomas has been described as "the most influential thinker of the medieval period"Wippel, John F. (1995) 2nd ed., "Aquinas, Saint Thomas", The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. p. 36. and is generally considered to be one of the Catholic Church's greatest theologians and philosophers. As one of the 38 Doctors of the Church, he is known by multiple titles, including Doctor Angelicus ("Angelic Doctor"), Doctor Communis ("Universal Doctor"), and Doctor Humanitatis ("Doctor of Humanity").
Biography
Early life (1225–1244) Thomas Aquinas was most likely born in the family castle of Roccasecca, near Aquino, controlled at that time by the Kingdom of Sicily (in present-day Lazio, Italy), . He was born to the most powerful branch of the d'Aquino family, and his father, Landulf VI of Aquino, Lord of Roccasecca, was a miles in the service of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and a man of means.Norman Geisler, Thomas Aquinas: An Evangelical Appraisal, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003, p. 26. Thomas's mother, Theodora Galluccio, Countess of Teano, belonged to the Rossi branch of the Neapolitan Caracciolo family. Thomas' father was of Lombard descent, while his mother was of Norman origin.The Lombard origin of Landulf explains Aquinas' devotion to Saint Michel Archangel. Cf. Father Battista Mondin, O.P., Il sistema filosofico di Tommaso d'Aquino. Per una lettura attuale della filosofia tomista, Editrice Massimo, Milan February 1985, 1st edition, ISBN 88-7030-462-0, p. 16 (in Italian)
Landulf's brother Sinibald was abbot of Monte Cassino, the oldest Benedictine monastery. Thomas was the youngest of nine children. While his brothers all pursued military careers, the family intended for him to follow his uncle into the abbacy; this would have been a normal career path for a younger son of Southern Italian nobility.
At the age of five, Thomas began his early education at Monte Cassino. After the military conflict between Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX spilt into the abbey in early 1239, Landulf and Theodora had Thomas enrolled at the studium generale in Naples (known today as the University of Naples Federico II). There, his teacher in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music was Petrus de Ibernia. According to his biographer Guglielmo Tocco,Tocco's biography mention Master Peter of Ireland and Master Martin, who has been subsequently identified with Martin of Dacia. Cf. Martin of Dacia was his teacher of grammar and logic. It was at this university that Thomas was presumably introduced to Aristotle, Averroes and Maimonides, all of whom would influence his theological philosophy. Peter of Ireland was teaching the recently translated works of Aristotle as commented on by the Andalusian philosopher Averroes. During his study at Naples, Thomas also came under the influence of John of St. Julian, a Dominican preacher in Naples, who was part of the active effort by the Dominican Order to recruit devout followers.
At the age of nineteen, Thomas resolved to join the Dominican Order. His change of heart, however, did not please his family.Collison, Diane, and Kathryn Plant. Fifty Major Philosophers. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2006. In an attempt to prevent Theodora's interference in Thomas's choice, the Dominicans arranged to move Thomas to Rome, and from Rome, to Paris. However, while on his journey to Rome, per Theodora's instructions, his brothers seized him as he was drinking from a spring and brought him back to his parents at the castle of Monte San Giovanni Campano.
Thomas was held prisoner for almost one year in the family castles at Monte San Giovanni and Roccasecca in an attempt to prevent him from assuming the Dominican habit and to push him into renouncing his new aspiration. Political concerns prevented the Pope from ordering Thomas's release, which had the effect of extending Thomas's detention. Thomas passed this time of trial tutoring his sisters and communicating with members of the Dominican Order.
Family members became desperate to dissuade Thomas, who remained determined to join the Dominicans. At one point, two of his brothers resorted to hiring a prostitute to seduce him, presumably because sexual temptation might dissuade him from a life of celibacy. According to the official records for his canonization, Thomas drove her away wielding a burning log—with which he inscribed a cross onto the wall—and fell into a mystical ecstasy; two angels appeared to him as he slept and said, "Behold, we gird thee by the command of God with the girdle of chastity, which henceforth will never be imperilled. What human strength can not obtain, is now bestowed upon thee as a celestial gift." For the rest of his life, Thomas wore a girdle representing perfect chastity. Upon his death it was given to the ancient monastery of Vercelli in Piedmont, and is now at Chieri, near Turin.
By 1244, seeing that all her attempts to dissuade Thomas had failed, Theodora sought to save the family's dignity, arranging for Thomas to escape at night through a window. In her mind, a secret escape from detention was less damaging than an open surrender to the Dominicans. Thomas was sent first to Naples and then to Rome to meet Johannes von Wildeshausen, the Master General of the Dominican Order.
Paris, Cologne, Albert Magnus, and first Paris regency (1245–1259)
In 1245, Thomas was sent to study at the Faculty of the Arts at the University of Paris, where he most likely met Dominican scholar Albertus Magnus, then the holder of the Chair of Theology at the College of St. James in Paris. When Albertus was sent by his superiors to teach at the new studium generale at Cologne, in 1248, Thomas followed him, declining Pope Innocent IV's offer to appoint him abbot of Monte Cassino as a Dominican. Albertus then appointed the reluctant Thomas magister studentium. Because Thomas was quiet and did not speak much, some of his fellow students thought he was slow. But Albertus prophetically exclaimed: "You call him the dumb ox [bos mutus], but in his teaching he will one day produce such a bellowing that it will be heard throughout the world".
Thomas taught in Cologne as an apprentice professor, instructing students on the books of the Old Testament and writing Expositio super Isaiam ad litteram (Literal Commentary on Isaiah), Postilla super Ieremiam (Commentary on Jeremiah), and Postilla super Threnos (Commentary on Lamentations). In 1252, he returned to Paris to study for a master's degree in theology. He lectured on the Bible as an apprentice professor, and upon becoming a baccalaureus Sententiarum (bachelor of the Sentences) he devoted his final three years of study to commenting on Peter Lombard's Sentences. In the first of his four theological syntheses, Thomas composed a massive commentary on the Sentences entitled Scriptum super libros Sententiarium (Commentary on the Sentences). In addition to his master's writings, he wrote De ente et essentia (On Being and Essence) for his fellow Dominicans in Paris.
In 1255, along with Saint Bonaventure, he was involved in the dispute between secular masters and masters of the mendicant orders, with the former contesting the right to teach at the University of Paris. In defence of the mendicants, St Thomas wrote the pamphlet Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem (Against those who challenged religious life and divine worship).
In early 1256, Thomas was appointed by direct intervention of Pope Alexander IV as regent master in theology at Paris and one of his first works upon assuming this office was Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem (Against Those Who Assail the Worship of God and Religion), a defense of the mendicant orders, which had come under attack by William of Saint-Amour. During his tenure from 1256 to 1259, Thomas wrote numerous works, including: Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate (Disputed Questions on Truth), a collection of twenty-nine disputed questions on aspects of faith and the human condition prepared for the public university debates he presided over during Lent and Advent; Quaestiones quodlibetales (Quodlibetal Questions), a collection of his responses to questions de quodlibet posed to him by the academic audience; and both Expositio super librum Boethii De trinitate (Commentary on Boethius's De trinitate) and Expositio super librum Boethii De hebdomadibus (Commentary on Boethius's De hebdomadibus), commentaries on the works of 6th-century Roman philosopher Boethius. By the end of his regency, Thomas was working on one of his most famous works, Summa contra Gentiles.
From 1252 to 1257, Thomas lived and worked with Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, of whom he became a fraternal friend. Both of them were teaching theology at the University of Paris. They disagreed about the role of faith and theology in relation to natural reason.According to Bonaventure, theology begins where philosophy ends in mystery and can go no further. According to Thomas, faith and theology grow together in a faith-reason hermeneutic circle in which philosophy uses all the other sciences to place itself at the service of theology. Bonaventure jokingly accused Thomas of having contaminated the pure wine of faith with the water of reason, and Thomas replied that even in the miracle of the Wedding at Cana the water was transformed into wine. Cf. Thomas d'Aquin, in Encyclopædia Universalis, vol. XVI, 1981, . LCCN at The Library of Congress at Washington, n. 68-59350.
During this period, Thomas wrote the De ente et essentia and the Scriptum super sententias, his first summa. Together with Saint Bonaventure, he was also personal advisor to Saint Louis IX of France. According to Angelus Walzde, O.P., it was during this period that Thomas met the future Pope Clement IV, who was also an advisor to the king and French, like Pope Urban IV.Angelus_Walz, S. Thomas d'Aquin (edited by Paul Novarina), Paris 1932, p. 135. As quoted in
Naples, Orvieto, Rome (1259–1268)