|
Sponsored Links
Saint Thomas Aquinas, O.P. (also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino; c. 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Catholic priest in the Dominican Order, a philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition,[1] known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Universalis and Doctor Communis. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of the Thomistic school of philosophy and theology. Aquinas is held in the Catholic Church to be the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood (Code of Canon Law, Can. 252, §3). The works for which he is best-known are the Summa Theologica and the Summa Contra Gentiles. One of the 33 Doctors of the Church, he is considered by many Catholics to be the Catholic Church's greatest theologian and philosopher. Consequently, many institutions of learning have been named after him. Aquinas was born c. 1225 at his father Count Landulph's castle of Roccasecca in the Kingdom of Sicily, in the present-day Regione Lazio. Through his mother, Theodora Countess of Theate, Aquinas was related to the Hohenstaufen dynasty of Holy Roman emperors.[2] Landulf's brother Sinibald was abbot of the original Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino. The family intended for Aquinas to follow his uncle into that position. This would have been a normal career path for a younger son of southern Italian nobility.[2] At the age of five, Aquinas began his early education at a monastery. When he was 16, he went to the University of Naples, where he studied for six years. Aquinas had come under the influence of the Dominicans, who wished to enlist the ablest young scholars of the age. The Dominicans and the Franciscans represented a revolutionary challenge to the well-established clerical systems of Medieval Europe.[2]
|
Thomas Aquinas Subcategories
Thomas Aquinas Articles
|
|
