Christian Schools and Scholars / or, Sketches of Education from the Christian Era to the Council of Trent

by Augusta Theodosia Drane

It appeared as though he were conscious of his approaching end, for which God was preparing him by astonishing revelations. Often he was rapt in ecstasies at the altar, concerning which, when questioned, he could only answer, “So great are the things that have been revealed to me, that all I have hitherto taught and written seems to me as nothing.” Yet he was able, before his death, to complete the third part of the Summa, which he left in the state in which we still possess it, and besides this to compose several other lesser treatises. On his deathbed, as is well known, his humility yielded to the entreaties of the religious who surrounded him, and he consented to explain to them the Canticle of canticles. His dying words, as they are reported by the Bollandists, are precious as the last instruction of the greatest of Christian scholars. When he beheld the Sacred Host in the hands of the priest who was about to administer to him the last sacraments, he made his profession of faith according to the accustomed form. Then he added, “I have written much, and have often disputed on the mysteries of Thy law, O my God! Thou knowest I have desired to teach nothing save what I have learnt from Thee. If what I have written be true, accept it as a homage to Thine Infinite Majesty; if it be false, pardon my ignorance. I consecrate all I have ever done to Thee, and submit all to the infallible judgment of Thy Holy Roman Church, in whose obedience I am about to depart this life.”

It will be seen that the career of St. Thomas was exclusively that of a scholastic professor, and the anecdotes left us by his biographers prove with what a hearty and genuine earnestness he devoted himself to the cause of sacred learning. His prodigious powers of mind were accompanied with a childlike simplicity of character, which has been recognised by every writer of his life, and which, no less than the purity of his doctrine, won him the title of the Angelic Doctor. In the schools he was known as the sweetest and most charitable, as well as the most learned, of masters; no harsh word was ever heard to pass his lips, and the youngest of his scholars could reckon on commanding his whole attention. He had no thoughts apart from his religions duties and his books; and the splendours of the courts of France and Naples, in both of which he was received with such distinguished honour, had no power to dazzle him. Seated at the table of St. Louis, he was absorbed in a convincing argument against the Manicheans, and became wholly forgetful of the royal presence; and at Naples his student-like absence of mind was not less conspicuous. When the cardinal legate and the Archbishop of Capua came to visit him, he descended into the cloister to receive them; but on the way, revolving in his mind the solution of a theological difficulty, became so absorbed in his subject that by the time he reached the cloister he had forgotten all about the business and the visitors that had called him thither, and stood like one in a dream. The archbishop, who had formerly been his pupil, persuaded the cardinal to leave him alone till he should have recovered himself, and assured him that these reveries were perfectly well understood by those familiar with his habits.

F. Daniel d’Agusta once pressed him to say what he considered the greatest grace he had ever received from God, sanctifying grace, of course, excepted. He replied, after a few moments’ reflection, “I think, that of having understood whatever I have read.” St. Antoninus says, in his life, that no doubt was ever proposed to him that he did not solve, and that he remembered everything he had once heard, so that his mind was like a huge library. He often wrote, dictating at the same time on other subjects to three or four secretaries. Erveo Britto, one of these secretaries, declared that on one occasion the saint becoming weary, closed his eyes and appeared to have fallen asleep, but that in this state he nevertheless continued to dictate as before.

There are few saints, in fact, of whose daily life and habits we know more than St. Thomas. He is familiar to us as one of ourselves. We seem to see him enjoying his ordinary recreation of walking up and down the cloister of his convent, occasionally dragged off by his brethren to take a breath of fresh air in the garden, but sure in such cases to be found before long in some remote corner, absorbed in cogitation. Or we behold him contentedly following a lay brother through the markets of Bologna, who, ignorant of the rank of the new guest in the convent, had summoned him to be his companion on the quest, and charged him with the bag, which he carried all day on his shoulder, with undisturbed good-humour. His clothes were always the poorest in the whole convent, and his love of poverty was so great, that we are told that he wrote his “Summa against the Gentiles” on old letters and other scraps of paper. He ate but once in the day, and his total indifference to comfort or convenience, seemed to indicate that he had been heard, in what is said to have been his daily prayer for detachment: Da mihi, Domine, cor nobile, quod nulla deorsum trahat terrena affectio. And with these homely anecdotes are mingled others which exhibit him to us in ecstasy before his crucifix, preparing himself for his daily celebration of Mass by penance, confession, and meditation, and making his thanksgiving by humbly serving another, feeding his devotion by acts of charity, and binding himself by a law never to admit into his soul a single thought that should not be directed to God.[201]

In the last chapter we have seen something of the ravages caused by that pagan philosophy which had gradually established itself in the schools, and without some knowledge of which it is impossible to appreciate the work accomplished by St. Thomas. The university professors of the thirteenth century regarded Aristotle much as the masters of Carthage had done, of whom St. Augustine says that they spoke of the Categories of that philosopher with their cheek bursting with pride, as of something altogether divine. To displace a system which had obtained so firm a hold of the European mind, would probably have been a hopeless enterprise, and St. Thomas therefore achieved his triumph in another way. He humbled the proud Agar, Reason, under the hand of her mistress, Faith, and presented the truths of Revelation in the language of philosophy. In the five volumes which he devoted to his Commentaries on Aristotle he purged the text of the pagan philosopher from everything opposed to the truths of Christianity, and in his Summa of Theology he used the Aristotelian system of reasoning to combine those truths in one vast and harmonious whole.[202] Far from depreciating the office of the understanding, he vindicated its rights, by proving how close an alliance existed between Faith and Reason, and drove from the field the pantheistic dreams of Averrhoes by defining the nature and powers of the individual intellect.

The Arabian philosopher had attempted to explain the existence of universal ideas as found alike in all minds, by the hypothesis that mankind had but one common intellect, and that their ideas were therefore the creation not of many intellects, but of one. His view was embraced by many of the schoolmen, and carried to its extremest consequences, so that it was not uncommon to hear it asserted that after death all souls were merged in one, and thus that all distinction of rewards and punishments would be impossible.

“St. Thomas fought the new sceptical school with their own weapons; with the Conceptualists he admitted the axiom that the mind is the creator of its own objects:[203] by its own powers it forms its ideas of external things; yet its ideas are no false representations of the external world, for the matter of these ideas has been furnished from without by the senses.[204] There was, therefore, no necessity for imagining such a oneness of intellect as Averrhoes held, in order to give objective certainty to human knowledge. The intellect of each man has its own powers, and is the image of the Everlasting Wisdom; and its ideas are shadows of the archetypal ideas of the Divine mind, according to which the world was created. Limited as are its powers, by looking on itself it can form a notion of God, which, though feeble and inadequate, is capable of being developed by the Church on earth, and more perfectly still in heaven. The Pantheism of Averrhoes was nothing but the perversion of a great truth. There is, indeed, one Light ‘which lighteneth every man who cometh into the world,’ but the intellect of each man is a substantive thing with its own powers and operations. Moreover, Averrhoes had removed the intellect utterly out of the control of the conscience; according to him and his disciples the doctrines of faith and the conclusions of reason were the direct contradictory to each other; nevertheless, both might exist together in the mind without the necessity of coming to any conclusion. In other words, they believed in nothing whatever; and truth was a mere matter of words. St. Thomas, therefore, set himself to place faith and reason in right relations to each other. The intellect, he said, was a sacred gift of God, and could never be really contrary to the truth.[205] In its own sphere it was perfect, but the field of faith was a vast system lying beyond the sphere of the intellect. It was out of the jurisdiction of the reason which could pronounce nothing on the matter. Yet though powerless as an organ for the discovery of the faith, it may serve as an expression of the doctrines of revelation. Faith no more excludes reason than grace excludes nature,[206] and Divine truths when received into the human mind, must take the shape of human ideas and human words. Therefore it was that St. Thomas conceived it possible that the great truths of revelation might be expressed in terms of reason, and that the faith might be systematised and presented as one vast whole. And to effect this he chose the terms of Aristotle’s philosophy, as the most scientific classification of the ideas of the human mind.”[207]

The mind of Europe, which had been fast lapsing into infidelity, found itself at last in possession of a system of Christian philosophy wherein the Aristotelian dialectics were employed to defend the Catholic dogmas. “In the Summa of Theology was presented,” says Ozanam, “a vast synthesis of the moral sciences, in which was unfolded all that could be known of God, of man, and of their mutual relations,—a truly Catholic philosophy.” The value of such a gift, at such a time, was at once apprehended, and so instantaneously was the doctrine of St. Thomas accepted in the schools of his own order, that only four years after his death we find a decree of the general chapter of Milan directing that certain English friars should be severely punished for having departed from his teaching, and having had the temerity to call in question some of his propositions. Before the end of the century decrees were passed[208] expressly requiring all the brethren to adhere to the doctrine which he taught, without allowing the least departure from it, and this even before his canonisation. But it was not his own order alone which thus adopted his teaching, and bore witness to his position as a Doctor of the Church. That very university of Paris, which in 1255 had refused him his Doctor’s cap in 1259, agreed to refer to his sole decision a theological question of deep interest, regarding the Sacramental species which then agitated the schools; and in 1274 addressed a letter to the Chapter-General of the Order, in which it speaks of the consternation into which the schools of the metropolis have been cast by the news of his death. They know not where to find expressions honourable enough by which to designate him; he is the morning star, the luminous sun, the light of the whole Church. They remind the Fathers how vehemently they had desired to have him restored to them, and beg that they may now at least be permitted to have his ashes. Two years after his canonisation, certain students in arts having revived some of the philosophical errors refuted by St. Thomas, Stephen, Bishop of Paris, immediately issued a letter, condemning every article which seemed to affect “the doctrine of that most excellent Doctor, the Blessed Thomas,” whom he calls “the great luminary of the Catholic Church, the precious stone of the priesthood, the flower of Doctors, and the bright mirror of the university of Paris.” The universities of Bologna, Padua, Naples, Toulouse, Salamanca, Alcala, and Louvain, at various times and in various ways formally declared their adhesion to his doctrine, as did also a great number of the religious orders, enumerated by Touron in his life of the saint.[209] And even during the lifetime of the saint, as Echard remarks,[210] the numerous disciples whom he had trained in his school, carried his teaching into the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Bologna, Rome, and Cologne, for so great was the authority which his name enjoyed, that they seldom made use of any other commentaries than those of their master.

The character of St. Thomas is commonly regarded as presenting us with the perfect model of a Christian doctor. The ideal of such a character has been sketched by his own pen in that commentary on St. Matthew’s Gospel, wherein he reminds the reader that it is not enough for the scholar to study the truths of religion, if he does not draw near to God in his life. For God is the source of light, whom if we approach by faith and charity we shall be truly illuminated, and it is by a holy life rather than by subtlety of reasoning that we must seek for a knowledge of the truth. There is a light which men may gain by study, but it suffices not to fill the soul; and there is a light which God pours out on those who sanctify study with prayer, and this is the true wisdom; according to the words of the Wise Man—“I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me.” The perfect Doctor, therefore, he continues, is he whose life, as well as whose doctrine, is light. Three things are necessary to him: stability, that he may never deviate from the truth; clearness, that he may teach without obscurity; and purity of intention, that he may seek God’s glory, and not his own.[211] The life and the writings of St Thomas verified his own words. “The most learned of the saints,” said Cardinal Bessarion, “he was also the holiest among the learned.” He has himself expressed the guiding principle of his scholastic career in a passage which we may be permitted to quote here for the edification of all scholars. It occurs in his Summa against the Gentiles, wherein he attempts to define the office of the true philosopher, and shows that, even according to Aristotle, the only real philosophy is the science of truth. But, if truth is to be held, error must be refuted; hence, the office of the wise man is twofold—to meditate on the divine truths, and to combat all errors opposed to them. “Encouraged, therefore, by the divine goodness to undertake this office, albeit the enterprise is far beyond my powers, my intention is, according to my scanty measure, to manifest the truth professed by the Catholic faith, and to eliminate the contrary errors; for to use the words of St. Hilary, I feel and am persuaded that the chief duty of my life which I owe to God is, in all my words, as in all my thoughts, to speak His praise.”[212]