St. Thomas Aquinas
Today is the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas according to the Traditional Catholic calendar. St. Thomas is the Angelic Doctor of the Catholic Church and still, after 2,000 years, he remains the greatest mind in Christendom.
St. Thomas thrived in the 13th century, which was a time of religious confusion. With Islam on the doorstep in Spain and Asia minor, and the recent east-west split, Christendom was in a state of confusion. No one knew where to turn until a brilliant mind emerged from central Italy.
Taking the best of Greek philosophy, the wisdom of the Church Fathers and sacred scripture, St. Thomas compiled works that became the standard works of Catholic theology and philosophy. His work was the object of study of all seminarians from about the time of his death until the 1960’s.
A few years ago, I met a traditional seminarian who is now a priest. He was in his fifth year and proceeded to tell me about how they study. They study St. Thomas excessively in the original Latin and use his teachings as the basis for their theology and philosophy.
In 1879, the recently elected Pope Leo XIII issued an encyclical entitled Aeterni Patris. In this encyclical Leo states:
Moreover, the Angelic Doctor pushed his philosophic inquiry into the reasons and principles of things, which because they are most comprehensive and contain in their bosom, so to say, the seeds of almost infinite truths, were to be unfolded in good time by later masters and with a goodly yield. And as he also used this philosophic method in the refutation of error, he won this title to distinction for himself: that, single-handed, he victoriously combated the errors of former times, and supplied invincible arms to put those to rout which might in after-times spring up.
To put it straight, St. Thomas was the first person to fully codify Christian philosophy and theology. He did this in the Summa Theologica, the Summa Contra Gentiles and other works. This is the reason that he was the primary focus of priestly formation from the 1300’s to the 1960’s. Until the Catholic Church realizes his importance, it won’t return to the glory days.
A question that someone may ask is: Why did it take so long to fully codify the Christian faith? A fair question and the answer is simply God helping us understand His will over time. In the same way that Noah knew more than Adam, Abraham knew more than Noah, Moses knew more than Abraham and Elijah knew more than Moses. It takes time to learn more about God and St. Thomas shows us that it took 1200 years after Christ until we get the greatest Christian mind. I will elaborate more on this in a future post as it is important.
Lastly, Thomas is unique in that when someone refers to his first name we know who he’s talking about. Even when secular philosophers use the name Thomas, it goes without saying which Thomas they’re talking about. Very few people can be recognized by their first name and Thomas, being the philosophical giant that he is, has earned that right.
St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!
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