Kidnapped and Imprisoned
Chapter Four
Kidnapped and Imprisoned
“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
—Thomas Aquinas
When Aquinas’s mother Theodora learned that she would not be able to see her son, she sought a higher authority—Pope Innocent IV. The Dominicans, fearing papal interference, quickly decided to send Aquinas off to Paris so that he could avoid the reach of the pope. He left for Paris in the company of four of his fellow monks from the monastery, traveling through backroads in the hope of giving the papacy the slip.
In this secretive entourage, Aquinas made it all the way to Tuscany before they were finally intercepted. His group was surrounded by a band of armed men, and Aquinas was promptly taken into their custody. He was then whisked away to his parents’ estate at Roccasecca. It is said that his teary-eyed mother was the first to greet him. Past biographers have reflected over whether these tears were remorse for the state in which her son had been returned to her, or over her sadness to know that he was firmly fixed against what she had planned for his life. At any rate, no matter how much she tried to assuage Aquinas’s ire at being accosted, or attempted to reason with him over the direction he should take in life, Aquinas refused to listen.
Shockingly enough, after finding that her son would not hear her out, Theodora decided to put him under a kind of house arrest by having him locked up in a tower of the family castle. Here, Aquinas would remain for the better part of a year as his mother and other relatives continued their petitions to make him change his mind. They insisted that Aquinas should not demean himself by becoming what amounted to an intellectual beggar living with a bunch of poverty-stricken monks.
Whatever argument that was brought to Aquinas as to why he should cease and desist, he was always able to turn it on its head and argue right back that they should not be so basely interfering with what God had ordained for him to do. If they thought that kidnapping him and locking him up in a tower could dissuade him, they were most certainly mistaken. The more they sought to pull him back from the Dominicans, the more it pushed him further into their embrace.
With the family growing desperate and fearing the growing spectacle of what their neighbors might think to find that they had imprisoned one of their own members, Aquinas’s brothers Landulf and Ronald were next in line to try to dissuade him. Unlike Theodora’s, their efforts amounted to more or less harassment, even on one occasion physically ripping off his monkish robe and forcing him to put on the civilian attire they had brought up to the tower. Their efforts grew much more devious even than this, and when they realized that their pious brother was too dedicated to God to listen to their arguments, they plotted to make him a little less pious.
Landulf and Ronald reportedly thought that if they could make their brother step out of his world of faith and prayer and into one of sinful indulgence, they would be able to make him forget all about his monkish fantasy. It was with this in mind that they concocted a scheme to lock their brother up with a prostitute. As bizarre as it may sound, they acquired the services of a beautiful young woman, who was apparently well-versed in the things of the flesh. The brothers shut her in Aquinas’s room in the tower, locking the two up together.
Aquinas would later recall that he was indeed attracted to the woman but, knowing exactly what his brothers were up to and what the loss of his chastity might mean for his monkish vows, he cast out his lust and aggressively pushed the woman away. According to Aquinas’s later recollection, he took a “burning brand out of the fire” and “chased the temptress from his presence.” It is said that after he wielded the flaming brand at the woman, Aquinas took it and made the sign of the cross on the wall before falling upon his knees and thanking God for allowing him to prevail against temptation. After praying in this fashion, it is said that Aquinas fell into a deep sleep. According to legend, he then witnessed two angels.
The angels allegedly wrapped a cord around his waist and told him, “We come to thee from God to give thee the grace of everlasting virginity.” This was apparently not an easy designation to be given, because Aquinas would later recollect that as soon as the angels had tied the cord around his waist, he screamed out loud in pain. The sound caused the men standing watch outside his room to check on him to make sure that he was alright. Aquinas told them that he was fine and went back to his blissful sleep.
It was claimed that the cord was indeed real, and Aquinas would carry an approximation of it for the rest of his life, later attesting that “many miracles were worked by it.” At any rate, it is said that as word of the imprisonment of Thomas Aquinas grew, none other than the pope himself warned the family to set him free at once. And so, Aquinas was freed from his bonds and allowed to return to the life of chastity and austerity that he had chosen.