Thomas Aquinas

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was was born into a family of the south Italian nobility. The youngest Son of Count Landuff, a Nobleman of Lombardic descent, his mother was Countess Theadora of Theate. Thomas' family were related to the Emperors Henry VI and Frederick II, in addition to the King of France.
A fat, slow, pious boy, Thomas was placed by his parents in the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino, where his uncle was the Abbot. Early in his life Thomas was noted as being diligent and devoted to prayer.
As a teenager Thomas decided to enter the Dominican order. His mother and father determined that it was an improper way for an upper class member of an Italian family to behave, and opposed him. They had set their heart on Thomas becoming a Benedictine abbot.
Between 1239 and 1244 Thomas attended University of Naples. Diligent in study, Thomas was often heard to ask such profound questions as "What is God?" It was at Naples that he came under the influence of the Dominican preacher John of St. Julian. Impressed by the Dominican, he joined that order whilst still an Undergraduate.
Between 1245 and 1252 Thomas was a pupil of Albertus Magnus,(Albert the Great) at Paris and Cologne (a fellow Dominican ,and one of the most learned men of his time-he needed to be with a name like that). Heavy but well proportioned with a large head, bearded, receding hairline, and one huge eye dwarfed his other, Thomas was nicknamed at Paris University by fellow Students, "The Dumb Ox", due to his lofty bulk and slowness. Despite this Albertus predicted that "this Ox will one day fill the world with his bellowing." In 1256 Aquinas was awarded a doctorate in theology. He spent the rest of his life teaching in Paris and in Italy.
In his lifetime Thomas produced an enormous literary output with about 80 works are ascribed to him. The Bible, Augustine, Aristotle, Plato and the "sentences" of Peter Lombard were among his influences. At first, Thomas wrote his works with his own hand. His writing suggests someone left-handed, writing in great haste in the Latin shorthand of the time. Thomas's hand has been dubbed the litera inintelligibilis, unreadable writing. No wonder that with time he was assigned secretaries to take dictation. In his later years , at times he was dictating to several different scribes on several different subjects at the same time. His two most important works are the Summa Contra Gentiles and the Summa Theological. Summa Contra Gentiles was written at the request of an obviously persuasive Ramon de Penatuerle to convert the Spanish Muslims, this three volume masterpiece reconciled reason with revelation. Summa Theological. Aquinas' epic, unfinished work which strove to account for all phenomena logically. Basically a compendium of all human knowledge in relation to religion, written for novices, it is still accepted as the final authoritative exposition of the Catholic doctrine.
In 1273 Aquinas had a mystical experience that convinced him to stop writing. All he had written seemed like straw compared to what he had seen during that experience. Or so he said.
Thomas' books were banned, burnt and not widely read for three centuries but became influential leading up to the renaissance and became the embodiment of the world view taught in Universities for the following three centuries.

Thomas Aquinas was a gifted preacher in a Neapolitan dialect who preached the Word of God. He argued that Scripture alone was the basis of all theology and his sermons were full of solid instruction, scriptural illustrations and quotes. A great admirer of Mary, he once wrote, "As sailors are guided to port by a star, so are Christians guided to Heaven by Mary." However he opposed the Immaculate Conception, the belief that Christ's Mother was, by a special act of grace preserved free from sin. The Dominican scholar introduced the word "limbo" as a place for the souls of those who weren't Christians, but didn't deserve to go to hell went. Those in limbo he argued include unbaptised infants and the prophets of the Old Testament. He was instrumental in developing the doctrine of transubstantiation, by which the communion bread and wine upon consecration, became the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. The Angelic Doctor defended the practice of veneration of saint's relics during a time when some regarded it as mere superstition. Aquinas argued that the bodies of the saints are vessels of the Holy Spirit. He taught that man was a sinner and needed Christ's saving grace which comes to man exclusively through the seven sacraments which are, baptism, confirmation, the Lord's Supper, confession, anointing of the sick, marriage and ordination. To sum up, Thomas Aquinas is recognized as the greatest scholastic theologian of the Middle Ages and the influence he has exercised on Roman Catholic thought and doctrine is enormous.
His system of Philosophy called Thomism is still active in France, Philosophers such as Jacques Maritian and Etienne Gilson still operate within its framework.