Born to a fairly wealthy Italian family sometime around 1225 in Roccasecca, near Naples, the Dominican priest and friar Tommaso d’Aquino died in early 1274. In other words, he probably didn’t live to celebrate his 50th birthday.
In 1323, though, less than 50 years after his death, Pope John XXII declared him a saint. Around the same time, he began to be widely known as the “Doctor Communis” or “Common Doctor” — “doctor” in Latin means “teacher” — meaning that his teachings are universal, relevant to everybody and in every situation. By the 15th century, he was also being called the “Angelic Doctor” or “Doctor Angelicus,” a title that is still often applied to him. In 1567, he was officially declared a “Doctor of the Church,” only the fifth figure so recognized in Roman Catholicism.
Why? During his relatively brief life, St. Thomas Aquinas, as he is known in English, wrote voluminously. He created commentaries on scripture and the writings of Aristotle, who was just being rediscovered in the Latin west. He composed devotional works and hymns. He penned original and influential discussions of such topics as political theory and ethics. His most important works are the multivolume “Summa contra Gentiles” (also known as the “Book on the truth of the Catholic faith against the errors of the unbelievers”) and, even more significantly, the massive but never completed “Summa Theologica,” which runs well over 1,100 pages in one respected English translation.
Thomas’ immense learning is on full display in the two “Summas,” which cite extensively from sources that range from the Judeo-Christian Bible to the pagan Greek and Latin philosophers Plato, Aristotle and Cicero; from earlier Christian thinkers such as St. Augustine of Hippo, Dionysius the Areopagite, St. John of Damascus, John Scotus Eriugena, Boethius, and St. Anselm; from the illustrious Jewish philosopher and rabbi Moses Maimonides; and from the Muslim philosophers Avicenna, Averroes and al-Ghazali.
During the process leading to Thomas’ canonization as a saint, the devil’s advocate, the official who was formally charged with arguing against sainthood (as a way of uncovering any hidden character flaws or problems with the evidence) objected that no miracles had been attributed to him. To this objection, one of the cardinals present is said to have answered, “Tot miraculis, quot articulis”: There are as many miracles (in his life) as there are articles (in his “Summa”).
In modern times, intensive study of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas was long at the core of the required course of seminary study for those seeking ordination as priests, and he has generally been considered the greatest of all Catholic theologians and philosophers. The English philosopher Anthony Kenny, a religious agnostic, considers Thomas to be “one of the dozen greatest philosophers of the western world.”
At the end of his life, though, Thomas’ own opinion of his writing seems to have been far less positive.
One day, on Dec. 6, 1273, while he was celebrating Mass in the chapel of Saint Nicholas at the Dominican monastery in Naples, he paused for a very long time — so long that the congregation became nervous. Finally, he resumed his liturgical functions and completed the service.
But a great change had come over Thomas. From that moment, although he had been a legendarily prolific author, he never again wrote or dictated anything. When his companion or “socius,” Reginald of Piperno, complained that a great deal of work remained before them, Thomas replied, “I can do no more.” Still, the other man insisted. He had been serving as the great philosopher and theologian’s scribe, and he knew that the “Summa Theologica” remained unfinished. “Reginald,” Thomas finally answered, “I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw to me” (mihi videtur ut palea).”
He died roughly four months later.
It seems apparent that Thomas, a good, sincere and devout man, had experienced some kind of profound revelation while ministering at that Neapolitan altar. And what he had just seen, in his own judgment, trumped everything that he had ever written.
“Could you gaze into heaven five minutes,” the Prophet Joseph Smith famously said, “you would know more than you would by reading all that was ever written on the subject.”
We close with two memorable quotations from St. Thomas: “To one who has faith,” he declared, “no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” Moreover, he observed, “The things that we love tell us what we are.”
Daniel Peterson founded the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, chairs The Interpreter Foundation and blogs on Patheos. William Hamblin is the author of several books on premodern history. They speak only for themselves.