Thomas Aquinas

"Beware of the person of one book."Thomas Aquinas

Born into Italian nobility, Thomas Aquinas first rejected his course of study at the University of Naples to follow the "Blackfriars " or "Hounds of God ", who had attempted to revolutionize religious faith in the High Middle ages. This revolution was also influenced by St. Dominic and the Albigensians who were considered to be heretical by the Catholic Church of the 13th Century.

Aquinas had been later seized by his family and brought back to San Giovanni. His family had kept him locked up and insisted that he renounce these "heretical leanings" before the Pope finally stepped in and gave special permission that he go ahead with his studies.

Thomas Aquinas great literary work was Summa Theologica which is now studied worldwide and, after which, the church offered to make him Archbishop of Naples and Abbot of Monte Cassino. Aquinas rejected both of these offers and later reported a mystical experience wherein he is noted to have said;

"I cannot go on . . . All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed."

Many years later the great poet Dante Alighieri retold the words of Thomas Aquinas in the fourth sphere of Paradise where he was quoted to having said;

"I was a lamb and of the holy flock that Dominic leads out along the way where fattening is good, unless they stray.

Beside me on the right is one who was my brother and my master, Albert of cologne, and I am Thomas of Aquinas."

Today, "St. Thomas Aquinas "is considered to be one of the greatest theologians who ever lived and many institutions are named after him.

References

Aquinas, Thomas, (2010), Summa Theologica, Coyote Canyon Press
Aquinas, Thomas, (1999), Thomas Aquinas: Selected Writings, Penguin Classics