AQUINAS, TuomAs, or TIDIIIAS OF AQv'INO (e.1220-1274). One of the most influential of the scholastic theologians, who bears the honorable titles and epithets of Doctor Communis ("Uni versal Doctor," Fourteenth Century) ; Doctor Angelicas ("Angelical Doctor," Sixteenth Cen tury); Prim-cps Scholastienrunt ("Prince of Scholastics") : Doctor Ecelesiw ("Doctor of the Church," 1567) ; "Patron of all Catholic Schools" (ISSO). lie was of the family of the counts of Aquino. in the Kingdom of Naples. and was burn in the castle of Roceo Secea, directly north of Aquino, about fifty miles northwest of Naples, about 1220. Be received the rudiments of his education from the Benedictine monks at Monte Cassino, which was only a few miles away, and completed his studies at the University of Naples. A strong inclination to philosophical speculation and theological study 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, especially his mother, to force him to give up his monastic life and enter the world, his order sent him to Bottle, and thence to Paris. On his way thither his brothers overtook him at Acqua pendente, and by force brought him to the castle of Saint. John, near Aquino, and there he was closely guarded for a year. and every effort was to break his resolution to re main a monk. But. at length his mother came to his release, and he went, in the company of the Central of the Dominicans. to Paris and thence to Cologne, about 1245, where he stud ied under Albert the Great (Albertus Magmas). At Cologne he pursued his studies in slid' si knee that his companions 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." lie accompanied him to Paris in 1245 and bark to Cologne in 1248, when Albert was commissioned by his Order, the Dominican, to establish a theo logical school there. In it Aquinas taught himself until in 1251 (or 1252) he was sent to Paris to teach in the Dominican monastery of Saint ,Tacqness lie hail taken the usual degrees, but the highest, the doctorate, was not conferred upon hint till 1257, by the University of Paris, because of the tight between it and the Mendicant Orders. Ile defended his f O.der in his Contra 1 m p nano ntas Dci Callum ct Religionem. lle was already a distinguished seholar and teacher. Ile continued to lecture with great applause in Paris, till Urban IV., in 1201, called him to Italy to teach philosophy in Rome, Bologna, Pisa. and other places. Finally he came to reside in the convent at Naples (1272-74), where he deelined the offer of the dignity of archbishop, in order to devote himself entirely to study and lecturing. It was while there that the following incident is said to have occurred. One day Christ appeared to him and said: "You have written ably about me. What reward would you like to have?" He said: "Lord, nothing, except. thyself." Being sum moned by Gregory X. to attend the general council at Lyons, he was taken ill on the way in the castle of his niece at Ceceano. Realizing
that it was his last illness, he was at his own request transferred to the neighboring Cistercian monastery of Fossanuova, so that he might die in a religious house. He lingered there a month and died on Mareh 7, 1274. According to a report, he was poisoned at the instiga tion of Charles I. of Sicily, who dreaded the evi dence tliat Aquinas would give of him at Lyons. Dante held this opinion (Purgatory, xx. OS), but it is probably not true. Ilis relies were fought for, and his right arm is now in Saint Jacques, Paris, other parts in Salerno and Naples, and the rest of his body in Rome. He was canonized July IS, 1323.
Even during his life Aquinas enjoyed the highest consideration in the Church. His voice carried decisive weight with it.. A general chap ter of Dominicans in Paris made it obligatory on the members of the Order, under pain of punishment, to defend his doctrines. Like most of the other scholastic theologians, he had no knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, and was almost equally ignorant of history: lint his writings dis pray a great expenditure of diligence and dia lectic art, set off with the irresistible eloquence of His chief A Commentary on the Four Books of Sentences of Pelt)• Lombard. the Numma Thcologiw, Qnwstiones Dispulatw et Quoillibctalcs, and Op usenla Theologira. He gave a new and systematic foundation to the doe trine of the Church's treasury of works of super erogation. to that of withholding the cup from the laity in the communion. and to that of tran substantiation. Ile also treated Christian morals areording to an arrangement of his own, and With a comprehensiveness that procured him the title of the "Father of Moral Philosophy." The definiteness, clearness, and completeness his method of handling the theology of the Church, gave his works a superiority over the text-books of the earlier writers on systematic theology. Ills Stemma Thrologim is the first attempt at a complete theological system, Ina he died ere he could complete it. In his philosophical writings, the ablest of which is his ,s'unt»ta de I critate eatholiew Fidei contra Gentiles, he throws new light upon the most abstract truths. The cir cumstance of Aquinas being a Dominican, and boasted of by his Order as their great ornament, excited the jealousy of the Franciscans against him. In the beginning of the Fourteenth Cen tury, Duns Scotus (q.v.), a Franciscan, came forward as the declared opponent of the doc trines of Aquinas, and founded the philosophico theological school of the Sentists, to whom the Thomists, mostly Dominicans, stood opposed. The Thomists leaned in philosophy to nominal ism (q.v.), although they held the abstract form to he the essence of things: they followed the doctrines of Augustine as to grace, and disputed the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin. The Seotists, again, inclined to realism and to the views of the Semipelagians, and up held the immaculate conception.