5 . Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas , 39.
1. Guillaume de Tocco, Ystoria sancti Thome de Aquino de Guillaume de Tocco (1323) 34.10, ed. Claire le Brun-Gouanvic (hereafter, Ystoria) (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1996), 162. See also G.K. Chesterton’s discussion of the story in Saint Thomas Aquinas: “The Dumb Ox” (New York: Image Books, 1956), 109–111.
2. See Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Theologians and Saints,” in Explorations in Theology, vol. 1, The Word Made Flesh, trans. A.V. Littledale with Alexander Dru (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 181–210.
3. For an acclaimed, scholarly biography that gives special attention to the spiritual dimensions of Saint Thomas’ life and work, see the two-volume study of Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans. Robert Royal, vol. 1, The Person and His Work and vol. 2, Spiritual Master (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996–2003).
4. Josef Pieper, Guide to Thomas Aquinas, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: New American Library, 1964), 108.
5. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 39.
66. For a critical study that affirms the veracity of the prostitute narrative, see James A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas D’Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), 30–33.
7. Guillaume de Tocco, Ystoria 13.60. See also Weisheipl, Friar Thomas D’Aquino, 26.
8. Jean-Pierre Torrell makes this point in Saint Thomas Aquinas, 2:vii.
9. Cf. Thomas Weinandy, Daniel Keating, and John Yocum, preface to Aquinas on Scripture: An Introduction to His Biblical Commentaries (New York: T&T Clark, 2005), esp. ix.
10. For a fuller, critical discussion of this view of the purpose of the Summa contra Gentiles, see Brian Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 9.
11. Torrell estimates that, on average, during his second appointment in Paris, St. Thomas composed nearly three and a half pages per day (Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:240).
12. Guillaume de Tocco, Ystoria 18.85. See also Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:242.
13. See, for instance, Weisheipl, Friar Thomas D’Aquino, 235–236.
14. Guillaume de Tocco, Ystoria 43.15.
15. “Prayer and the help of God had been of greater service to him in the search for truth than his natural intelligence and habit of study.” Bernard Gui, The Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas 15, in The Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Biographical Documents, ed. and trans. Kenelm Foster (London: Longmans & Green, 1959), 37. For a study of the place of prayer in the life and work of St. Thomas, see Paul Murray, Aquinas at Prayer: The Bible, Mysticism, and Poetry (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).
16. Bartholomew of Capua, From the First Canonisation Enquiry 79, in The Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Biographical Documents, 109.
17. See, for example, Edmund Colledge, “The Legend of Thomas Aquinas,” in St. Thomas Aquinas 1274–1974, vol. 1, Commemorative Studies (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974), 26.
18. For just a couple of examples of this recent emphasis on the Christocentrism of Thomas Aquinas, see Fergus Kerr, “Christ in the Summa Theologiae,” in After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002), 162–180; Roger Nutt, “From Within the Mediation of Christ: The Place of Christ in the Christian Moral and Sacramental Life According to St. Thomas Aquinas,” Nova et Vetera 5, no. 4 (Fall 2007): 817–841.
19. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1.3.
20. For a recent study that highlights the theme of deification in the Summa theologiae, see Daria Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace: Deification According to St. Thomas Aquinas (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia, 2015).