Thomas+Aquinas

= = =Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)=

Aquinas was an industrious, brilliant, and gentle Dominican monk born of the noble class. He valued human reason more than any other human quality. After examining the doctrines of Averroes, Maimonides, and Aristotle, he wrote his summation of theological knowledge entitled //Summa Theologica.// He made a perceptible difference between philosophy and theology, revelation and reason, but no contradiction is made between the two. He states that both are wealths of knowledge and the same God made them both. Reason comes from what is visible, and revelation is based upon God and is therefore superior to reason. Revelation is the only way to attain the full knowledge of God and the Trinity.

Thomas Aquinas maintained seven sacraments:
 * 1) Baptism
 * 2) Confirmation
 * 3) The Lord's Supper
 * 4) Penance
 * 5) Extreme Unction
 * 6) Marriage
 * 7) Ordination



When he became of age to choose his state of life, [|St. Thomas] renounced the things of this world and resolved to enter the Order of [|St. Dominic] in spite of the opposition of his family. In 1243, at the age of seventeen, he joined the [|Dominicans] of Naples. Some members of his [|family] resorted to all manner of means over a two year period to break his constancy. They even went so far as to send an impure [|woman] to tempt him. But all their efforts were in vain and [|St. Thomas] persevered in his vocation. As a reward for his fidelity, [|God] conferred upon him the gift of perfect chastity, which has merited for him the title of the "Angelic Doctor". After making his profession at Naples, he studied at[|Cologne] under the celebrated St. Albert the Great. Here he was nicknamed the "dumb ox" because of his silent ways and huge size, but he was really a brilliant student. At the age of twenty-two, he was appointed to teach in the same city. At the same time, he also began to publish his first works. After four years he was sent to Paris. The saint was then a priest. At the age of thirty-one, he received his doctorate. At [|Paris] he was honored with the friendship of the King, St. Louis, with whom he frequently dined. In 1261, [|Urban IV] called him to [|Rome] where he was appointed to teach, but he positively declined to accept any ecclesiastical dignity. [|St. Thomas] not only wrote (his writings filled twenty hefty tomes characterized by brilliance of thought and lucidity of language), but he preached often and with greatest fruit. [|Clement IV] offered him the archbishopric of [|Naples]which he also refused. He left the great monument of his learning, the "Summa Theologica", unfinished, for on his way to the second Council of Lyons, ordered there by Gregory X, he fell sick and died at the Cistercian monastery of Fossa Nuova in 1274. St. Thomas was one of the greatest and most influential theologians of all time. He was canonized in 1323 and declared [|Doctor] of the Church by Pope Pius V.

And the above was not copied-and-pasted at all (but, as per-usual, made up in the dark recesses of a certain young man's bountiful imagination).

=Sources=

//Thomas Aquinas//

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