AQUI'NAS, THOMAS, or THOMAS OF AQUINO, one of the most influential of the scholastic theologians, was of the family of the counts of Aquino, in the kingdom of Naples, and was b. in the castle of Rocca Seem in 1224. He received the rudiments of his education from the Benedictine monks at Monte-Casino, and completed his studies at the university of Naples. A strong inclination to philosophical speculation determined the young nobleman, against the will of his family, to enter (1243) the order of Dominicans. In order to frustrate the attempts of his friends to remove him from the convent, he was sent away from Naples, with the view of going to France; but his brothers took him by force from his conductors, and carried him to the paternal castle. Here lie was guarded as a prisoner for twoyears, when, by the help of the Dominicans, he contrived to escape, and went through France to the Dominican convent at Cologne, in order to enjoy the instructions of the famous Albertus Magnus (q.v.). According to another account, he owed his release froth confinement to the interference of the em peror and the pope. At Cologne he pursued his studies in such silence, that his corn panions gave him the name of the "dumb ox." But Albert, his master, is reported to have predicted, " that this ox would one day fill the world with his bellowing." Thor. oughly imbued with the scholastic, dialectic, and Aristotelian philosophy, he came forward, after a few years, as a public teacher in Paris. His masterly application of this philosophy to the systematizing of theology, soon procured him a distinguished reputation. It was not, hoWever, till 1257 that A. obtained the degree of doctor, as the university of the Sorbonne was hostile to the mendicant monks. He vindicated his order in his work, Contra Impugnantes Dei Cultum et Religionern ; and, in a disputation in presence of the pope, procured the condemnation of the books of his adversaries. He continued the lecture with great applause in Paris, till IV., in 1261, called him to Italy to teach philosophy in Rome, Bologna, and Pisa. Finally he came to reside in the convent at Naples, where he declined the offer of the dignity of archbishop, in order to devote himself entirely to study and lecturing. Being summoned by Gregory X. to attend the general council at Lyon, lie was surprised by death on the way, 1274, at Fossanuova, in Naples. According to a report, he was poisoned at the instigation of Charles I. of Sicily, who dreaded the evidence that A. would give of him at Lyon.
Even during his life A. enjoyed the highest consideration in the church. His voice carried decisive weight with it; and his scholars called him the " universal," the " an gelic doctor," and the "second Augustine." A general chapter of Dominicans in Paris
made it obligatory on the members of the order, under pain of punishment, to defend his doctrines. It was chiefly the narratives of miracles said to have been wrought by A. that induced John XXII., in 1323, to give him a place among the saints. His remains were deposited in the convent of his order at Toulouse. Like most of the other scho lastic theologians, he had no knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, and was almost equally ignorant of history; but his writings display a great expenditure of diligence and dia. hectic art, set off with the irresistible eloquence of zeal. His chief works are—a Com mentary on the Four Books of Sentences of Peter Lombard, the Summa Theologiep, Ours tiones Disputatm et Quodlibetales, and Opuscula Theologica. He gave a new and scientific foundation to the doctrine of the church's treasury of works of supererogation, to that of withholding the cup from the laity in the communion, and to transubstantiation. lie also treated Christian morals according to an arrangement of his own, and with a com prehensiveness that procured him the title of the "father of moral philosophy." The definiteness, clearness, and completeness of his method of handling the theology of the church, gave his works a superiority over the text-books of the earlier writers on sys tematic theology. His Summa Theologies is the first attempt at a complete theological system. Accordingly, Pius V., to whom we owe the publication of the completest col lection of A.'s worl0 (18 vols., Rome, 1570; a noWct•but less trustworthy ed., 23 vols., Paris, 1630-41), ranks him with the greatest teachers of the church. In his philo sophical writings, the ablest of which is his Summa Fitlei Catholiece contra Gentiles, he throws new light over the most abstract truths. The circumstances of A. being a Do minican, and boasted of by his order as their great ornament, excited the jealousy of the Franciscans against him. In the beginning of the 14th c., Duns Scotus (q.v.), a Fran ciscan, came forward as the declared opponent of the doctrines of A., and founded the philosophico-theological school of the Scotists, to whom the Thomists, mostly Domini cans, stood opposed. The Thomists leaned in philosophy to nominalism (q.v.), although. they held the abstract form to be the essence of things; they followed the doctrines of Augustine as to grace, and disputed the immaculate conception of the Virgin. The Scotists, again, inclined to realism (q.v.), and to the views of the Sernipelagians, and upheld the immaculate conception.