Book Review: Friar Thomas D'Aquino by James A. Weisheipl, O.P.

Friar Thomas D'Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works by James A. Weisheipl, O.P.

The life of Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274) was relatively short for an academic, even one who was born eight hundred years ago. In spite of that, he was relatively prolific, writing several major theological and philosophical works and scores of minor works and commentaries. He has had a lasting impact on Catholic thought and is considered one of, if not the, greatest minds of the Church.

His family was from Italian nobility. As one of the younger sons of Ludulf and Theodora, they planned for him to serve the church, probably as an abbot for a monastery. Thomas grew up showing great intellectual aptitude. At one point, he studied with the (at the time) new order called the Dominicans. The Dominicans were mendicants, meaning they begged for the money they needed, and their primary vocation was teaching. Thomas found them very appealing and planned to join the Order of Preachers, their official name. The family was not enthusiastic about a son being part of an upstart and impoverished order. The famous story of Thomas being kidnapped by his older brothers and being locked in a room with a prostitute in order to dissuade him from such a vocation is given more detail and more realism in this book. Weisheipl does an excellent job tracing the history and sorting through old and scant information to review Thomas's life.

Information about Thomas's academic career (teaching twice at the University of Paris with stints in Naples, Rome, and Cologne before, in between, and after) is richly detailed. The writings of Aristotle were rediscovered in the West, causing new ideas and new controversies to rise up. Some took Aristotle as an equal and separate source of truth that sometimes conflicts with the truth of the Christian religion. Thomas worked tirelessly to integrate Aristotle into Catholic theology, showing where Aristotle is wrong and where right. He also had to deal with another controversy. The mendicant orders (Dominicans and Franciscans) were on the rise. The new orders were under authority not of the local bishops but of their orders' superiors. This created a sort of territorial battle over spiritual matters and over donations given to local churches, which sometimes went to the orders and sometimes to the dioceses. Students and other locals rioted in the streets of Paris, requiring soldiers to restore order. Aquinas dealt with a lot of practical issues along with the more theoretical challenges.

The book does delve deeply into the controversies and into the theology of Thomas. These parts are more or less interesting depending on your taste and training. The theology definitely assumes some familiarity with scholastic thought and arguments (though Weisheipl does provide brief explanations). The technical language can be hard to follow. Weisheipl references Latin terms but sticks to English for his explanations. Learning Latin is not a prerequisite for reading this book!

Thomas's death and canonization are also covered, including the period of time when he was still a controversial figure, with the pro-Aristotle and anti-Aristotle crowds objecting to his writings and his being recognized as a saint.

The book contains a comprehensive list of Thomas's works, a bibliography of lots of secondary sources, an index, footnotes, and corrections to the tex. The book is a very scholarly work.

A quick side note on the title: Thomas Aquinas's last name isn't Aquinas. Like most people back then, he didn't have a last name and was named after the area he came from, Aquino in Italy. Thus the title of this book.

Recommended, though it will be a lot easier for the scholastically-trained to read the theological analyses.