Chap. 2: The Life of Aquinas
CHAP. 2: THE LIFE OF AQUINAS
THE TRADITIONAL BIOGRAPHIES OF AQUINAS are greatly embellished. Stories about his unusual birth, temptation, and even levitation were part of thirteenth-century legend.1 Beneath the mass of mythological material it is difficult to determine what is true. James Weisheipl frankly confesses that "most of the legends of his early childhood narrated by William of Tocco and Bernard of Gui have been considered nothing more than ordinary family anecdotes."2 Factual material, however, can be derived from his writings, teaching career, official records of the groups with which he was associated, his biography (by Bernard of Gui), and the Bull of Canonization.
Early Years (1224?—1238)
There is no extant birth record of Aquinas. The date must be inferred from the alleged age he was when he entered the Dominican Order or began to teach at the university. Others use Aquinas's age at death (either forty-eight or forty-nine3). Estimates of his birth date range from A.D. 1221 to 1227. Many place Aquinas's birth at 1224 or 1225. Chenu says that "Saint Thomas was born near Aquino, in southern Italy, in the fortified castle of Roccasecca, either at the end of 1224 or at the beginning of 1225.4 Pasnau agrees, saying, Aquinas was born in 1225 (or thereabout) . . .” (Pasnau, The Philosophy of Aquinas, 2).
Aquinas's father came from Aquino, Italy, a town north of Monte Casino half-way between Rome and Naples. He was called "Count Landulf" of Aquino, but was probably more of a knight than a noble.5 The title of count ended in 1137, a century before his time. Landulf and his brother Ronald II were apparently aspiring young adventurers who seized the castle of Roccasecca by force and stole the title of nobility with the aid of Emperor Frederick II. They were probably feudal lords.6
Aquinas's father died around 1244.7 His mother, Theodora, survived her husband by about ten years.8 Some say she was a countess or sister of the emperor, a noble Norman. But she may be confused with the countess who married Aquinas's great-great-grandfather (also named Thomas). The story may be a French fabrication designed to get Norman blood in the family.
The estimated number of Aquinas's brothers and sisters ranges between six and fourteen, but many of these alleged siblings are probably other relatives. Foster claims there were twelve children. Pasnau claims there were at least none (ibid.). Scandone concludes there were seven sons—Aimo, James, Adenulf, Philip, Landulf, Reginald, and Thomas—and five daughters—Marotta (Martha), Mary, Theodora, Adelasia, and an unnamed daughter who died in infancy.9 Pelster, however, believes the number of sons was four, holding that James, Adenulf, and Philip were sons of a second cousin of Landulf, Thomas, count of Acerra.10 He also subtracts Adelasia, who he believes is a niece, not a sister.11
Aquinas did have a brother Aimo, who defected to Emperor Frederick II and was exiled. Another brother, Ronald, sided with the pope. This was considered an act of treason by Frederick, and led to Ronald's execution. The story that Aquinas was told that the soul of his brother Landulf was in purgatory is probably legendary. His sister Marotta (Martha) was an abbess. Some scholars believe Theodora, Mary, and Adelasia were not actual siblings of Aquinas. There is another story (perhaps legendary) about an unnamed sister who was killed by lightning.
If Aquinas was eighteen when he entered the Dominicans or Order of Preachers (O.P.), then his date of birth would have been around 1224 or 1225. Some claim that he was a child prodigy and was inducted early. If so, then the Dominicans apparently had to break the rules to get him in sooner. Likewise, some claim that the age requirement for Masters was thirty-five, but here again Aquinas may have been sneaked in early. Foster believes that "Thomas tried to excuse himself on the grounds of insufficient age and learning; he was now in fact, about thirty years old."12 Assuming Aquinas was eighteen years old when he joined the Dominicans, then he was born around A.D. 1224 (or 1225). At any rate the year of his birth was undoubtedly between 1221 and 1225.
Others use the alleged age at which Aquinas died to determine the date of his birth. Since we do know that he died in 1274, if his age at death could be fixed, this would be determinative of the date of his birth. There is, however, disagreement at this point too. The earliest source (William of Tocco) states that Aquinas "was in the forty-ninth year of his Life" when he died.13 This would mean that he was forty-eight, not yet having reached his forty-ninth birthday. This would place his birth in 1225/26. Bernard of Gui, on the other hand, writing after he had read Tocco, claims Aquinas died "in the completion of his forty-ninth year," that is, when he was still forty-nine.14 This would place his birth in 1224/25, a widely accepted date.
Aquinas was born in the castle his father had seized at Roccasecca, which according to Walz, is still standing and easily discernible by its Gothic architecture.15 He was probably not born in a little house in the lower wall, as some claim. This is probably a later legendary attempt to reflect the humble birth of Christ. Actually, this is an unlikely place for an aspiring count to have his son born. At age five Aquinas was inducted into the abbey at Monte Cassino and instructed by the Benedictines there. Bartholomew of Capua later testified to this under oath. Aquinas makes a possible allusion to this in Questiones de quodlibet when asked whether it is right to induct a five-year-old into a religious order.
Aquinas's father wanted him to be an abbot as soon as possible. He was received into oblature by his uncle Landulf Simboldo. It was later discovered that a gift was given at this time to the Benedictines, apparently a customary way of gaining entrance into the order. According to the Rules of St. Benedict, parents of the oblate could give a gift to the monastery. Rule 59 reads: "If . . . they should wish to give an alms to the monastery for their own gain, let them make such a gift as suiteth them, and, if they will, reserve the fruits thereof for themselves."16 Such a gift from Aquinas's parents is recorded and dated May 3, 1231.
Little is known about life at the abbey, or whether this was a positive or negative influence on the young Aquinas. While there he was probably tutored in science, arts, letters, and morals. The traditional education in the Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music) and Trivium (logic, grammar, rhetoric) occurred later. Earlier forms of these subjects, however, may have been taught to Aquinas. According to Walz, reading and writing were taught, along with moral and religious principles. "Reading was practiced in the liturgical books, and so in the Sacred Scriptures themselves."17
The education of Aquinas was cut short when the monastery was stormed by his relatives. Their efforts were supported by Frederick II in one of his many excommunications by the pope. Some say Aquinas was twelve at the time, but he was probably fourteen or fifteen, since he was considered a "young genius."
University Studies at Naples (1239—1244)
The university at Naples, Italy, was established in 1224 by Frederick II as the first state university.18 It was operated in competition with the pope's universities in Paris and Bologna. The clergy were thrown out the same year Aquinas entered (1239). He matriculated in spite of the fact that the pope threatened excommunication to any who attended Frederick's universities. In response, Emperor Frederick II threatened imprisonment to any who went to papal universities.
The pope had also condemned the "reading" of Aristotle, although there is some confusion over whether this referred merely to official public "reading" (i.e., teaching) or to any private reading. "Reading" in the thirteenth-century university, however, was understood in the technical sense of "teaching." A teacher, for example, "read" his text.19 Frederick II, on the contrary, commanded the study of Aristotle. Since Arabian philosophers were experts in Aristotelian philosophy, he brought them in to teach it. Hence, the university was an Avicennian and Averroistic hotbed.
Aquinas had three Aristotelian teachers at the university: Master Martini (Pietro Martin), Peter of Ireland (Petrus de Hibernia), and Erasmus Mundus (not to be confused with the Erasmus of Luther's day). It was here at the university that the first signs of his genius emerged. Foster claims that "even as he made such swift progress through grammar, logic and natural science, God had begun to inspire him with the idea of wholly renouncing the world by entering the Order of the Preaching Friars."20 His grasp of the material was such that he coached other students in their studies. Aquinas joined the Order of Preachers around 1243 or 1244—in spite of the violent opposition of his parents.21
The reasons given by historians as to why Aquinas joined the Dominicans vary. Martin Grabmann maintains that he liked the color of the habit—a doubtful hypothesis on the face of it for a young genius. Others claim Aquinas was attracted by the "new spirit of the age." This is more plausible in view of his subsequent life, especially if "the spirit of the age" includes the intellectual challenge of the times. Pierre Mandonnet sums up the reason for the founding of the Order of Preachers, which probably appealed to Aquinas:
[It] was very closely bound up with the general needs that were making themselves felt in the Christian world at the start of the XIIIth century. Having brought religious life to a new stage of development, the Church of Rome decided to make use of it in order to solve some of the urgent problems with which she was confronted. . . . [It needed] a Church militia that was both well-lettered and actually in contact with the social life of the times.22
It is not certain how old Aquinas was at this point. The Constitution of Dominicans demanded eighteen as a minimum age for enlistees. If Aquinas was only eighteen, then his birth would have been around 1224 (or 1225).
Incarceration by His Family (c. 1244)
After this Aquinas was incarcerated by his family for a period of one to three years. Foster believes it was for two years.23 The exact reason for the incarceration is not clear, but it seems to be tied to political struggles in which his family was often involved on the side of the emperor against the pope. Here again Foster seems to embellish the event, declaring that Aquinas's brothers found Thomas with four friars of the Order, resting from the fatigues of the journey by the wayside spring; and immediately—behaving like enemies rather than brothers—seized him and carried him off by force. But they first tried to make him take off his religious habit, ordering him to do so at first, and then, since he would not obey, attempting to tear it from him violently; but he put up such a resistance that, for fear of wounding him, they had to let him continue to wear it.24
Fanciful stories, stemming from the accounts of William of Tocco and Bernard of Gui, of Aquinas's family-forced temptation by a beautiful young seductress are interesting but probably legendary. Father Angelus Walz is no doubt correct in agreeing with Mandonnet, "who sees in the account of Tocco and Gui of the girdle of chastity not a material reality but rather the expression of an inner meaning."25 The temptress is described as a "lovely but shameless girl, a very viper in human form [who] was admitted to the room where Thomas was sitting alone, to corrupt his innocence with wanton words and touches." In response, "springing toward the fire that burned in his room, Thomas seized a burning log from it and drove out the temptress, the bearer of lust's fire"26—a beautiful but fanciful description at best. Aquinas, like other monks, did take a vow of chastity, a vow arising no doubt out of deep religious motivation. Some believe, however, that he had a basic fear of women.
Just why his family held him captive is not clear. There is no reason to believe his family was vicious. It was probably simply a further stage in the political struggles in which his family was involved. Apparently, in one of their many "ins and outs" with the pope, this was an "out." At any rate, they apparently wanted to rescue Aquinas from the Order of Preachers, just as they had seized him earlier from the Benedictines. His eventual release came when his uncle Ronald was caught plotting against Frederick II. This was apparently an attempt to regain the pope's favor.
In short, the Aquinas family seemed to move with the political winds, as they blew back and forth between the pope and the emperor. Thomas was apparently a pawn in their political games on at least two occasions.
Further Studies at Paris and Cologne (1245—1248)
The Christian university of the thirteenth century has been called "the oven in which the intellectual bread of the Latin world was baked."27 A letter dated February 4, 1254, from the University of Paris to the church is a rich source of information about the university:
It was God's own right hand that planted in Paris this venerable Studium, a fountain of wisdom, divided into four faculties: theology, law, medicine, and philosophy (the last divided into three parts: rational, natural, and moral), which like the four rivers of paradise directed the four quarters of the world, water and enrich the whole earth, so that inestimable advantage both spiritual and temporal is brought to Christendom.28
Beginning sometime around 1245 Aquinas began studying under Albert the Great in the Convent of St. James in the University of Paris. It is said that Albert incited him to study and to silence. Aquinas was "a quiet boy with an unusually mature bearing; saying little, but already thinking much; rather silent and serious and, seemingly, much given to prayer."29 It is probably from this meditative silence that he obtained the nickname "dumb ox." Albert's prophetic retort to the title was: "We call this lad a 'dumb ox,' but I tell you that the whole world is going to hear his roar."30 Aquinas went to Cologne with Albert and helped start a school for the Dominicans (1248—1252). Here he held the position of bachelor lecturer, a minor young teacher. It was here also, according to the Bull of Canonization, that he was ordained to the priesthood.
Frederick II died on December 13, 1250, and the pope took his empire.31 The Aquinas family was understandably working hard for the pope. About this time it is alleged that Aquinas was offered Monte Casino Abbey. But this is unlikely, since it was Benedictine and he was a Dominican.
Returning to Paris to Teach at the University (1252—1259)
From this point details about Aquinas's life are more clear, since they are directly connected to his abundantly documented teaching and writing career. Around 1252 Aquinas returned to the University of Paris. When Aquinas entered, the secular-religious fight was in full swing. As scholars have noted, "the University, at this time, was the scene of a bitter struggle, due precisely to the rivalries between the seculars and religious."32 The seculars (priests belonging to no religious order) were jealous of the mendicants (priests belonging to religious orders). The seculars may have been envious of the success of the religious orders. Or, more likely, they may have felt that the mendicants were instruments of the pope.33 In a letter of Alexander IV, written on June 17, 1256, we read:
The aforesaid masters and students have had no care, as we well know, to preserve that concord which the thorns of discord have assailed. They have opposed in the most unworthy manner those who desired to attend the lectures, disputations, and sermons of the friars, and in particular those who wished to be present at the inaugural lecture of our beloved son Fr. Thomas d'Aquino.34
A fight broke out over the chair of John of St. Giles, who left the seculars for the Dominican Order. The Dominicans then claimed his chair. The seculars insisted that the defection of the teacher was from his chair, not with it. The mendicants proceeded to drive out seculars, and the police were called in to still the riot. Pope Alexander IV restored the seculars' academic privileges around 1255. But the resulting tension was so great that by the next year King Louis had to provide a military guard to protect the Dominicans. Chenu notes that Aquinas was "at the heart of the controversy, which almost turned into an open battle."35
Aquinas himself was one source of the tension. University law said teachers had to be thirty years of age. Aquinas was well under age, so he was disliked. The Dominicans, on the other hand, wanted their most articulate spokesman at the university, and they were apparently willing to bend the rules to make this possible.
Between 1252 and 1256 Aquinas lectured on the Bible and the Sentences of Peter Lombard, a widely used textbook of theological propositions. In 1256 he received his licentia to teach. Subsequently, the pope appointed him to a chair at the university. His principium (inaugural lecture), taken from Baruch 4:1,36 was boycotted, but in August 1257, Pope Alexander IV forced the university to accept both Aquinas and a young Franciscan teacher named St. Bonaventure. By 1259 another papal decree was necessary to restore order at the university.
Return to Italy (1259—1268)
For the next decade Aquinas taught at several papal curiae in Italy. From 1259 to 1261 he served at the School of Anagni under Pope Alexander IV. Later he taught at the papal curia of Orvieto under Pope Urban IV (1261—1264) and the School of Viterbo under Pope Clement IV (1267/68). It is here that Aquinas met William Moerbeke, who was making fresh translations of Aristotle from the Greek on which Aquinas was later to base his famous commentaries. Christian writers prior to this point had depended on an Aristotle mediated to them through the skewed Platonic eyes of Arabian commentators. The influence of medieval Platonic thought was lessening.
Final Return to Paris to Teach (1268—1272)
The old religious-secular controversy broke out again and Aquinas was called back to Paris. The fight was so hot that the usually calm Aquinas wrote an uncharacteristically heated booklet entitled Contra pestiferam (Against the Plague-Bearers). Some of Aquinas's students even stood up in his class and read St. Amour's pamphlet against him.
The other controversy at the time was that of the Averroists (unorthodox Aristotelians). Averroes (1126—1198), the great Muslim philosopher, was called "the commentator" in Aquinas's writings. Averroes denied that man had either a passive or active intellect, claiming both were universal. This, of course, was contrary to the traditional Christian belief that each individual had a distinct mind, rather than being part of some pantheistic universal Mind.
Averroes was highly rationalistic, claiming nothing is to be believed but what is self-evident or reducible to it. In addition, he held that creation and matter were eternal, contradicting the Christian teaching that creation had a beginning. The Latin Averroists of the time, including Siger of Brabant and Boetius of Dacia, even went so far as to separate faith and philosophy. They espoused a "double truth" view, holding simultaneously to contradictory truths—one from reason and the other from revelation. They also claimed that creation is eternal, the soul is mortal, there is one universal Intellect for all people, and there are no miracles. It is this heretical tide of Plotinian thought that history credits Aquinas with stemming.
Despite the intense controversy in which Aquinas engaged the unorthodox Averroists, at his death they wrote to the Preachers a most warm letter in which they begged to have his last writings as well as the honor of preserving his remains at Paris, calling him "so good a cleric, so kind a father, so outstanding a doctor."37
Return to Italy and Death (1272—1274)
It is not certain why Aquinas returned to Naples. It is possible that the Dominicans were bribed to get him out of France. The brother of the king of France did give gold at this time to the Dominicans. On the other hand, Aquinas may have simply been called back to resume duties at a papal school.
Near the end of his life Aquinas stopped his scholarly pursuits. After December 6, 1273, he wrote no more, leaving even his great Summa theologiae unfinished. According to Bartholomew, who was closer to the incident than others, Aquinas expressed the reason for not writing to Reginald as follows: "I cannot; all that I have written seems like straw."38 It is assumed by some that Aquinas had a mystical experience, in view of which everything else paled into insignificance. James Weisheipl, although not ruling out a mystical experience, points out that Aquinas apparently had a "physical breakdown resulting in a mental disturbance, anxiety, and a change in emotional values wherein the Summa and the Aristotelian commentaries no longer seemed important."39
We do know that Aquinas engaged in a physically exhausting daily schedule, which may have contributed to his breakdown." Weisheipl notes that Aquinas adhered to a "strict regimen." He arose early in the morning and attended two services at the chapel. After this, he immediately began his teaching. After descending from the [professorial] chair, he set himself to write or dictate to his many secretaries until the time for dinner. After dinner he went to his cell to pray until siesta time, after which he resumed his writing and dictating. After working late at night, he spent considerable time praying in the chapel of St. Nicholas before the brethren arose for Matins [prayers]; when the bell for Matins sounded, he quickly returned to his cell and appeared to have risen with the rest. After Matins he seems to have gone to bed.41
Aquinas died on March 4, 1274, at Fossanova on the way to the Council of Lyons. Speculation ranges widely on why he was attending the council. Some say to be condemned; others say to be commended. Some of Aristotle's philosophy, which Aquinas utilized in expressing the Christian faith, was condemned in 1277 by the bishop of Paris.42 But Aquinas was canonized in 1326, and shortly after the Protestant Reformation he was made a Doctor of the Church (1567). In 1879 he was proclaimed a Father of the Church in the papal proclamation Aeterni patris. In 1880 he was made the patron of schools in the Catholic Church. Up until the time of Vatican II, his philosophy dominated Catholic schools. Although his influence has been somewhat diminished within Catholic circles, it is presently increasing particularly among evangelical Protestants.
Biographies of Thomas Aquinas
Bourke, Vernon. Aquinas's Search for Wisdom. Bruce, 1965.
Chenu, Marie-Dominique. Toward Understanding St. Thomas. Henry Regnery, 1964. Chesterton, G. K. St. Thomas Aquinas. Hodder and Stoughton, 1933, 1947.
Foster, Kenelm. The Life of St. Thomas Aquinas: Biographical Documents. Helicon, 1959.
D'Arcy, Martin. Thomas Aquinas. Little, Brown, 1930.
Gilson, Etienne. The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. Random House, 1956.
Grabmann, Martin. The Interior Life of St. Thomas Aquinas. Bruce, 1951.
Kenny, Anthony and Jan Pinborg, “Medieval Philosophical Literature,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. Norman Kretzmann et al. Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Kretzmann, Norman and Eleonore Stump, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas. Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Maritain, Jacques. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angel of the Schools. Sheed and Ward, 1933.
McInerny, Ralph. St. Thomas Aquinas. University of Notre Dame Press, 1982.
Mclnerny, Ralph. St. Thomas Aquinas. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982.
______________. A First Glance at St. Thomas Aquinas: A Handbook for Peeping Thomists. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990.
Pegis, Anton. Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas. New York: Modern Library, 1965.
Pieper, Joseph. Guide to Thomas Aquinas. Pantheon, 1962.
Pasnau, Robert and Christopher Shields. The Philosophy of Aquinas. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004.
Stump, Eleonore. Aquinas (Arguments of Philosophers). London: Routledge, 2003.
Torrell, Jean-Pierre. St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and His Work, trans. Robert Royal. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1996.
Walz, Angelus. Saint Thomas Aquinas: A Biographical Study. Newman, 1951. Weisheipl, James. Friar Thomas D'Aquino: His Life, Thought and Works. Doubleday, 1983.
The Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas wrote some ninety works.43 Many of these works are multivolume sets. There are also several works of uncertain authenticity attributed to him." The Latin-English edition of the Summa theologiae, for example, is approximately sixty volumes. Likewise, De veritate and Summa contra Gentiles are multivolume sets. Aquinas's works represent the whole gamut of theological, philosophical, biblical, and ethical topics. The most famous and mature work is the Summa theologiae, one of the most massive and systematic theologies ever produced. The Summa contra Gentiles is more easily read because it is less technical and dialectical. One of the most widely published small works, On Being and Essence, provides the essence of his philosophy. His most popular theological work is his Compendium of Theology, and by far the most widely acclaimed work on Scripture is his Catena aurea (Golden Chain) of quotations from the fathers on the four Gospels.
Aquinas's life was a model of spiritual commitment and intellectual rigor. As Pasnau noted, “the fruit of this marvelous dedication and abstraction is the more than eight million words that Aquinas left us.” This included “over eight million words.” He “wrote more than eight times as much as Aristotle. . . . At the height of his productivity, Aquinas was writing an astonishing four thousand words a day” (Pasnau, Ibid., 1) By any standard, his writings are a massive achievement of the human mind, especially for someone who died before he was fifty years of age. The fact that many of his works are translated into most of the major languages of the world and are still studied and followed extensively today, by both Catholics and non-Catholics, is ample testimony to their enduring value. He was one of the greatest Christian thinkers of all time. So whether one agrees with all he taught, it is obvious that old Aquinas has not been forgotten.