St. Thomas Aquinas: A brief history, January 2002

St. Thomas Aquinas: A brief history

By Joel O’Kane
BAAJ II

St. Thomas Aquinas “He will enter the Order of Friars Preachers, and so great will be his learning and sanctity that in his day no one will be found to equal him.”

According to legend, these are the words of a lowly hermit to St. Thomas Aquinas’s mother, shortly before the Catholic saint’s birth in 1225. Aquinas, born to a count and countess in Roccasecca, Italy, would go on to achieve a state of religious learning so profound that no one could match his religious and intellectual abilities.

At age five, the young St. Thomas was introduced to the Benedictine monks of Monte Cassino for training. While receiving instruction there, St. Thomas was noted for his diligence and prayer, and even his advanced questions, such as “What is God?”

In 1236 the Abbot of Monte Cassino, knowing that this small boy deserved better instruction than his community could provide, sent him to the University of Naples where in a matter of months St. Thomas reportedly began to surpass his professors in knowledge and understanding.

After he had received the habit of the Order of St. Dominic around 1243, his mother, Countess of Teano, having barely seen her child after he was sent to Monte Cassino, conspired to kidnap St. Thomas and tempt him to leave the religious life and return to his family. While St. Thomas was under the Countess’s control at the fortress of San Giovanni, she sent an impure woman to tempt him to abandon his religious celibacy, but St. Thomas drove the temptress out of his cell with a brand from the fire.

While he was in captivity for over a year, St. Thomas’s sister provided the young scholar with copies of the Holy Scriptures, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, and the Sentences of Peter Lombard. When he was released, the Dominicans rejoiced at the intellectual progress St. Thomas had made while imprisoned.

Despite his family’s protests, St. Thomas continued to pursue membership in the Dominican Order, finally becoming a member of the Order of Friars Preachers. The Order sent him to study with St. Albert the Great in Cologne and at the University of Paris.

Italy Despite his imposing large build, St. Thomas remained devotedly humble. His peers at the University of Paris referred to him as the “dumb ox,” because of his size and meek humbleness to present his knowledge in front of others. However, after a brilliant defence of a difficult thesis in class, his teacher exclaimed, “We call this young man a dumb ox, but his bellowing in doctrine will one day resound throughout the world.”

By 1250, St. Thomas had been ordained to the priesthood and was now preaching to packed crowds in churches in Germany, France, and Italy. People came from miles around to hear his brilliant interpretations of scripture. In 1257, St. Thomas, coincidentally in the same year as the other great theologian St. Bonaventure, received his doctorate in Theology from the University of Paris.

As his fame grew, his life became increasingly hectic. He was simultaneously praying, preaching, teaching, writing, and journeying … while also writing his famous book the Summa Theologica. He was in tremendous demand: people flocked to hear his sermons, the Pope demanded his presence in Rome, and Paris claimed the “dumb ox” as its own.

However, his busy life soon caught up with him. By 1273, St. Thomas was experiencing regular religious ecstasies and visions. After the Eucharist in a Naples Church, he was reported to have been contacted by Jesus himself. Three of the brethren reported hearing a booming heavenly voice resound, “Thou has written well of me, Thomas; what reward wilt thou have?” St. Thomas replied, “None other than thyself, Lord.”

Soon after, St. Thomas ceased his work on the Summa Theologica, citing the impossibilities of ever truly interpreting the word of God. In 1274, Pope Gregory X called for a general council of the Church at Lyons and St. Thomas, while en route, fell ill near Terracina and was taken in by local Cistercian monks. He died on March 7 of that year at the age of 49.

After his death, his body was given to the Dominican Church at Toulouse, where a shrine was erected. However, it was later destroyed during the French Revolution. As a precaution, his body was later moved to the Church of St. Sernin in Toulouse with his left arm sent to the Cathedral of Naples and his right arm to the Dominican Church of S. Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome.

St. Thomas was canonized by Pope John XXII on July 18, 1323, and was proclaimed Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius V in 1567, becoming the patron saint of all Catholic universities and students worldwide. St. Thomas’ feast day is celebrated internationally on January 28.