Who is St. Thomas Aquinas?

Question

In my class we are studying the medieval ages. My teacher gave us an assignment where we have to write down all the different vocabulary words on flash cards and there definitions. So one of the vocabulary words is Thomas Aquinas. I looked in the dictionary and everything but I can't find out who he is. Can you describe who he is?

Answer 1

St. Thomas Aquinas was best known in the Catholic Church for being a monk in the Dominican order and writing Summa Theologica. I believe he established unversities when the world was going through the Dark Ages. When you think of him just think education.

Answer 2

You look in the dictionary for WORD definitions. You should look for articles on people in an Encyclopedia.

St. Thomas Aquinas Philosopher, theologian, doctor of the Church (Angelicus Doctor), patron of Catholic universities, colleges, and schools. Born at Rocca Secca in the Kingdom of Naples, 1225 or 1227; died at Fossa Nuova, 7 March, 1274. Diligent in study, he was thus early noted as being meditative and devoted to prayer, and his preceptor was surprised at hearing the child ask frequently: "What is God?" In due time he was ordered to prepare himself to obtain the degree of Doctor in Theology from the University of Paris.

From this time St. Thomas's life may be summed up in a few words: praying, preaching, teaching, writing, journeying. Men were more anxious to hear him than they had been to hear Albert, whom St. Thomas surpassed in accuracy, lucidity, brevity, and power of exposition, if not in universality of knowledge. Paris claimed him as her own; the popes wished to have him near them; the studia of the order were eager to enjoy the benefit of his teaching; hence we find him successively at Anagni, Rome, Bologna, Orvieto, Viterbo, Perugia, in Paris again, and finally in Naples, always teaching and writing, living on earth with one passion, an ardent zeal for the explanation and defence of Christian truth. So devoted was he to his sacred task that with tears he begged to be excused from accepting the Archbishopric of Naples, to which he was appointed by Clement IV in 1265.

It is not surprising to read in the biographies of St. Thomas that he was frequently abstracted and in ecstasy. Towards the end of his life the ecstasies became more frequent. On one occasion, at Naples in 1273, after he had completed his treatise on the Eucharist, three of the brethren saw him lifted in ecstasy, and they heard a voice proceeding from the crucifix on the altar, saying "Thou hast written well of me, Thomas; what reward wilt thou have?" Thomas replied, "None other than Thyself, Lord"

Although St. Thomas lived less than fifty years, he composed more than sixty works, some of them brief, some very lengthy.

Amongst the works wherein St. Thomas's own mind and method are shown, the following deserve special mention:

(1) "Quaestiones disputatae" (Disputed Questions) -- These were more complete treatises on subjects that had not been fully elucidated in the lecture halls, or concerning which the professor's opinion had been sought. They are very valuable, because in them the author, free from limitations as to time or space, freely expresses his mind and gives all arguments for or against the opinions adopted. These treatises, containing the questions "De potentia", "De malo", "De spirit. creaturis", "De anima", "De unione Verbi Incarnati", "De virt. in communi", "De caritate", "De corr. fraterna", "De spe", "De virt. cardinal.", "De veritate", were often reprinted, e.g. recently by the Association of St. Paul (2 vols., Paris and Fribourg, Switzerland, 1883).

(2) "Quodlibeta" (may be rendered "Various Subjects", or "Free Discussions") -- They present questions or arguments proposed and answers given in or outside the lecture halls, chiefly in the more formal Scholastic exercises, termed circuli, conclusiones, or determinationes, which were held once or twice a year.

(3) "De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas" -- This opusculum refuted a very dangerous and widespread error, viz., that there was but one soul for all men, a theory which did away with individual liberty and responsibility. (See AVERROES)

(4) "Commentaria in Libros Sententiarum" (mentioned above) -- This with the following work are the immediate forerunners of the "Summa theologica".

(5) "Summa de veritate catholicae fidei contra gentiles" (Treatise on the Truth of the Catholic Faith, against Unbelievers) -- This work, written at Rome, 1261-64, was composed at the request of St. Raymond of Pennafort, who desired to have a philosophical exposition and defence of the Christian Faith, to be used against the Jews and Moors in Spain. It is a perfect model of patient and sound apologetics, showing that no demonstrated truth (science) is opposed to revealed truth (faith). The best recent editions are those of Rome, 1878 (by Uccelli), of Paris and Fribourg, Switzerland, 1882, and of Rome, 1894. It has been translated into many languages. It is divided into four books: I. Of God as He is in Himself; II. Of God the Origin of Creatures; III. Of God the End of Creatures; IV. Of God in His Revelation. It is worthy of remark that the Fathers of the Vatican Council, treating the necessity of revelation (Constitution "Dei Filius", c. 2), employed almost the very words used by St. Thomas in treating that subject in this work (I, cc. iv, V), and in the "Summa theologica" (I:1:1).

(6) Three works written by order of Urban IV --

The "Opusculum contra errores Graecorum" refuted the errors of the Greeks on doctrines in dispute between