Who was Saint Thomas Aquinas?

Though he speaks with great respect of the holy scriptures, he strangely contends for an alliance between philosophy and Christianity, reason and faith. He denounces the sophistry of the fashionable learning of his time, and complains that the original languages of the Old and New Testament were neglected; that children got the knowledge of scripture, not from the Bible itself, but from versified abridgements; that lectures on the "Sentences" were preferred to lectures on scripture. In this way he exposed the ignorance, the superstition, and the idleness of the religious orders, and so brought down upon himself the charge of heresy and the censures of the church, though he lived and died a strict Roman Catholic, probably about the year 1292. His last work was a compendium of theology.

Thomas Aquinas, the "angelic doctor," was the most renowned of the schoolmen in the thirteenth century, and the truest type of a theologian. He was descended from an illustrious family, and born in the neighbourhood of Naples about the year 1225. He entered very young into the Dominican order, greatly against the will of his nearest relations, and studied at Cologne and Paris. In 1257 he was professor of theology in Paris; but died at the early age of fifty and was canonized by the pope. When his collected writings were published at Rome, in the year 1570, they extended to seventeen folio volumes.

The ecclesiastical doctors of our own day tell us — for we are wholly unacquainted with the writings of such authors — that among the best known of his works are, the "Sum of Theology," a commentary on the four Gospels, and on other books of the Old and New Testament; an elaborate commentary on the "Sentences" of Peter Lombard, the great textbook of the schools; his expositions of Aristotle; and a treatise in favour of the Catholic faith, and against the Greek church. But notwithstanding the greatness of his learning and the number of his books, it is to be feared that he was a stranger to the saving doctrine of justification by faith alone, without the deeds of the law; though, when on his death-bed, he showed great signs of piety, similar to that of Augustine. So that we may hope he belonged to the saved remnant of the schoolmen in those days. We rejoice in the conviction that there will be a saved remnant in heaven from all classes — emperors, kings, popes, and philosophers, which will manifest the sovereignty and the power of the grace of God in all ages, and to all classes of men. The riches and the glory of the grace will be to His praise for ever.

Bonaventura, a native of Tuscany, entered into the order of the Franciscans in the year 1243 at the age of twenty-one. He completed his studies at Paris, and with such success, as to acquire the title of the "seraphic doctor." He died in 1274, as cardinal-bishop of Albano. His works were less voluminous than his contemporary, Thomas Aquinas, and less intellectual, but more devotional. "His works," it is said, "surpass in usefulness all those of his age, in regard to the spirit of the love of God and christian devotion which speaks in him, that he is profound without being prolix, subtle without being curious, eloquent without vanity, ardent without inflation; his devotion is instructive, and his doctrine inspires devotion." On being asked, when dying, from what books he had derived his learning, he answered by pointing to the crucifix, and he was in the habit of referring to the scriptures rather than to St. Francis, the founder of his order. But we must wait a little longer before we find the all-important doctrine of justification through simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ taught by the learned. Bonaventura as a theologian represents the mystics. He might have been the author of the "Imitation of Christ," said to be written about this time by Thomas a Kempis. But never was book so misnamed. It begins with self, and ends with self. The internal emotions of the soul absorb the mystic. It is monastic Christianity. The love of Christ is purely unselfish: He laid down His life to save His enemies. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." And faith can say, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me." (Rom. 5; Gal. 2)

Duns Scotus was a doctor of great celebrity; but his birthplace and early life are enveloped in obscurity. Dean Waddington says, without question, "This doctor died in the year 1308. He was a native of Dunse, in Scotland, and a Franciscan." He was a dialectician and styled the "subtle doctor." He boldly ventured to impugn some of the positions of the great St. Thomas, which gave rise to a controversy between the Dominicans and the Franciscans that lasted hundreds of years, engaged the attention of popes and councils, as it even still divides the schools of the Latins. The principal points of theological difference between these great doctors were, "the nature of divine co-operation, and the measure of divine grace necessary to a man's salvation," with what is called the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. The Dominicans maintained that the holy virgin was not exempt from the taint of original sin; the Franciscans supported the immaculate conception.*

Enough — yes, we say enough — of the scholastic doctors and the philosophical divines for our present purpose. To wade through a number, and select a few as genuine specimens, is dry and wearisome work. But they form a certain link in the chain of events between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries which has its importance; and the reader will see what is meant by the general term of "the schoolmen" at that period of our history. One salutary lesson we may at least learn from the examples before us, and that is, the utter darkness and perplexity of the mind, however great the learning and study, when the word of God, in its divine simplicity, is not known and believed. One single text, "The just shall live by faith," when used of God in the hands of Luther, was sufficient to clear away the darkness of the middle ages, while the seventeen volumes folio of Thomas Aquinas, and all the other folios of all the great schoolmen, only deepened the gloom of ignorance and perplexity as to the knowledge of God and the way of salvation. The greatest development of the natural powers of the human mind leads no guilty sinner to the cross of Christ — to the precious blood which alone cleanseth from all sin. The enemy of souls, taking advantage of the growing celebrity of the Aristotelian philosophy, seduced the best of the doctors to believe that the most important work they could be engaged in, was the reconciling of the teaching of Christ with the decrees of the Greek philosopher, lest the scholars should think more highly of the latter than the former. Such was the miserable work of the best of the schoolmen at that time; but no doubt many of simpler minds, who were not blinded by the subtleties of logic, found the way of truth and salvation amidst the darkness, though much perplexed and bewildered.

He has been accounted the most learned man in theology since Augustine, and has been described as the setter forth of what is called natural theology.

But if the priests ruled the people, the pope ruled the priests. All were subject to him; and the more so, as, during this century, the dogma of the pope's infallibility was brought prominently to the front. Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican, assuming the truth of the writings of one Gratian, a Benedictine of the previous century, added thereto a mass of spurious and traditional matter which was still floating about, and from this patchwork of error and superstition evolved the dangerous doctrine, that "Christ is fully and completely with every pope in sacrament and authority." His work, the "Summa Theologiae," contains various other canon or ecclesiastical laws, and is still a theological text book of the Romish church.

The two rival orders the Dominicans and Franciscans, not contented with embroiling all Europe in discord, and angry strife, began soon after the decease of their respective founders, to contend with each other for precedence. And although the pontiffs of this and the following centuries used various means to compose and terminate these unseemly disputes, their attempts were fruitless; for these two great orders continued for many a long year to cherish this keen rivalry, and to hurl at each other the most bitter recriminations. They fought hard for the mastery in all the seats of learning in Christendom, but the most noted contest was that of the Dominicans with the university of Paris. Another prominent point of great controversy which long raged, was the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. It was the favorite doctrine of the Franciscans, and was always violently assailed by the Dominicans. The famous Thomas Aquinas argued in favour of the Dominican view of the question, and Duns Scotus, the Dialectician, taking up the Franciscan view of the doctrine, entered the arena of debate, which has continued to this day; for although the present pope Pius IX. has pronounced the dogma of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, the Dominican fraternity are unwilling to admit it. However it has now become an article of faith in the Romish church.

I feel it neither needful nor profitable to pursue the long dreary journey through the mediaeval desert, though even then souls were not wanting, like our own Bede and St. Thomas Aquinas, with a long interval between, who adhered to the substantial truth in the apostle's words as against the more prevalent superstition which had overgrown them.

N*. Most painful, I admit; but you are altogether wrong in your statement. We will speak of the Fathers by-and-by. It does tend to degrade Christ. All spiritual apprehension is lost in this doctrine, and the Roman doctors, not liking to retain that in their knowledge, as the heathen of old the truth of the Godhead, have been allowed of God to fall into these degrading thoughts, and worship with divine worship that which a mouse can eat: and though the divinity is there with the soul, body and blood, it is all inert, and cannot hinder the mouse's eating it, nor move nor give a sign of life, and what ought to have been a symbol of Christ's dying love, and dealt with, in so using it, as being such. But they have carnalised and degraded everything in their sacramental system. But I was not thinking or speaking of the Reformers. I cannot say how they used it against the Roman Catholics, save as Bellarmine charges them and Berengarius with doing so. I speak of the most celebrated doctors and popes of the Romish church who discussed these questions elaborately: Peter Lombard, whose influence was supreme in theological schools, Innocent III, Alexander of Hales, and Thomas Aquinas who rivalled Lombard in his influence.

Lombard, after insisting at length that the unworthiness of the priest did not invalidate the consecration of the sacrament, adds, "That indeed it may be soundly said that the body of Christ is not taken by brute animals, though it may seem so. What, therefore, does the mouse take, or what does it eat, God knows." Pope Innocent 3 is more precise (de sacro altaris mysterio, c. 4, 2), "If it is sought what is eaten by the mouse when the sacrament is devoured, or what is consumed when the sacrament is burned, it is answered that as the substance of bread is miraculously converted when the Lord's body begins to be under the sacrament, so in a certain miraculous manner it returns, when itself (that is, the body) ceases to be there. Not that substance of bread returns which passed into flesh, but that in its place something is miraculously created, although its accidents may be thus devoured as well as eaten." Alexander of Hales, it seems, taught otherwise. Bonaventura, a more spiritually-minded man, a mystic, holds that however this opinion may be sustained, it can yet never be so sustained that pious ears should not have a horror in hearing that the body of Christ should be in the belly of a mouse, or in a sewer. No wonder. Yet the famous Thomas Aquinas supported this view, because the other derogates from the truth of the sacrament; and his authority prevailed. Now these are the highest authorities of that age: Lombard was some 400 years before the Reformation; Innocent, 300; Thomas Aquinas 50 or 60 years after Innocent. His statement will be found in Part 3 of his Summa, quaest. 80, Art. 3. His doctrine is that, as long as the species or form of bread and wine remains, the body of Christ is there, whether it be sinner or animal that has taken it. As to the subtleties as to species and accidents and substance, as to which we may read folio pages, I leave them. They only shew, when faith and spiritual perception are gone, the degradation to which the holiest things are reduced. Thomas Aquinas, and so Bellarmine, excuses what the more pious mystic Bonaventura says, and justly, cannot but give horror to a Christian mind, such as a mouse eating Christ, by comparing it to Christ's voluntary humiliation in going to the cross. Can any one go lower? This was not the Reformation, Mr. D., but the full bloom of Roman orthodoxy and learning.

Pope Innocent III. is more precise, "If it is sought what is eaten by the mouse when the, sacrament is burned, it is answered that the substance of bread is miraculously converted when the Lord's body begins to be under the sacrament, so in a certain miraculous manner it returns, when itself (that is, the body) ceases to be there. Not that the substance of bread returns which passed into flesh, but that in its place something is miraculously created, although its accidents may be thus devoured as well as eaten." Bonaventure, a more spiritually-minded man, a mystic, holds that, however this opinion may be sustained, it can never be so sustained that pious ears should not have a horror in hearing that the body of Christ should be in the belly of a mouse, or in a sewer. No wonder! Yet the famous Thomas Aquinas supports this view, because the other derogates from the truth of the sacrament; and his authority prevailed.

N*. I entirely sympathise with you. I have referred to it that we may know what transubstantiation means, and Mr. D. may see whether what I have said as to its being based on the scholastic or Aristotelian distinction of substance and accidents be well founded or not. Any one who will take the unedifying trouble of reading Thomas Aquinas' Summa, Part 3, quaest. 74 to 80, will soon see whether it be so or not. It may be seen in other writers, but here you have it in its fullest development, and we have seen it laid down in the Catechism of the Council of Trent. I do not enter into the endless arguments of these reasoners, such as Thomas Aquinas and Bellarmine, as to how the change takes place. What is not cannot be changed into what is, neither can, according to their metaphysics, one substance be changed into another. They arrive at its being simply divine power, it being impossible that such a change can take place according to the nature of things. Secondly, they have endless discussions how Christ's body is in heaven and the same body in thousands of places on earth. This is settled partly by divine power, and partly by this doctrine of substance and accidents, that Christ is there not materially and in extended magnitude, but His substance, and so in every particle a whole Christ if the species of bread and wine remains.