This passage from Thomas of Cantimpré is at variance on a number of points with the accounts usually given of Aquinas’ life. For instance, it makes him join the Dominicans at Bologna, not at Naples, and represents the pope as siding with his family in their efforts to keep Aquinas out of the Dominican Order instead of delivering Aquinas from the persecution of his family. But Thomas of Cantimpré apparently penned his passage during Aquinas’ lifetime and it is probably a half century nearer the events than the Lives of Aquinas written in the early fourteenth century and upon which most modern accounts are based. At the same time it must be admitted that Cantimpré seems to write in a loose and exaggerated manner which does not command much confidence. But I suspect that he is the ultimate source of most of the later accounts covering the same ground.
Ptolemy of Lucca on his early life.
Ptolemy of Lucca, who may be regarded as an independent witness in view of his personal friendship with Aquinas, states that Thomas was of noble origin and descended from great counts of the kingdom of Apulia, that his family were faithful to the pope against the emperor Frederick II, and that Thomas was educated as a boy in the monastery of Monte Cassino. When he joined the Dominicans at sixteen, his relations kidnapped him, but he escaped to Rome and from there went off to Cologne to become Albert’s pupil. At the age of twenty-five he came to Paris where before his thirtieth year he lectured on the Sentences and received his degree in theology. Before receiving the degree he had written a commentary on the Sentences and a treatise against William of St. Amour. As William of St. Amour was not condemned by the pope until October, 1256, and as the friars were not admitted to the doctorate in theology at Paris until 1257 or 1258, Ptolemy’s statements would indicate that Thomas was not born until 1227.
Date and place of his studies with Albert.
On the other hand, the assertions of both Cantimpré and Ptolemy of Lucca that Aquinas studied with Albert at Cologne before Albert was called to Paris, do not fit in any too well with the usual dating of Albert’s Paris residence as from 1245 to 1248, when he is again supposed to have returned to Cologne. Consequently Peter of Prussia in his fifteenth century life of Albertus Magnus held that Aquinas spent two periods of study with Albert at Cologne, one before and the other after Albert’s teaching at Paris.[1973] Similarly von Hertling[1974] gives 1245-1252 as the duration of Aquinas’ studies with Albert, after which he returned to Paris alone.
His closing years.
Only sixteen or seventeen years of life remained to Aquinas after he received his degree in theology. Ptolemy of Lucca states that he remained in Paris for only three years after receiving the degree, when he returned to Italy, where during the pontificates of Urban IV (1261-1264) and Clement IV (1265-1268) he resided at Viterbo, Orvieto, and Rome, and was offered but declined the archbishopric of Naples. During these same years Ptolemy places most of his chief works. In 1268 or 1269 he returned to Paris, but died in Italy in 1274.
His success as a theologian.
Aquinas rapidly attained great success as a teacher and authority as a theologian during his lifetime and seems still to be regarded as the greatest and most authoritative of the orthodox medieval theologians. This success was probably due to the fact that he did just a little better than anyone else what a great many had been and were trying to do, and that was to combine all previous Christian thinking into one systematic and consistent and moderate whole. Aquinas was probably not the most brilliant or original mind of his generation, but probably his teaching and writing were clearer to a greater number of students, and seemed sounder to a greater number of the thinkers of the time than the lectures or books of any other contemporary. He put matters clearly, concisely, moderately, and convincingly; and struck the golden mean as it were. We can see how he may have profited immensely by the work of predecessors like William of Auvergne and Albertus Magnus, and yet how his works would tend to supplant theirs. Moreover, the task at which he had been working was not one which admitted of infinite improvement. It was largely a problem of combining, classifying, reconciling, and presenting the views of previous generations and periods, and when this was once well done, there was no need of doing it again. The attitude therefore of Aquinas toward magic and witchcraft, astrology and divination, and other occult arts and sciences, and also toward natural science is quite important for us to note, since he summed up previous Christian thought so satisfactorily, since he was both the most popular and the most moderate teacher of his own time, and since his opinions upon these subjects remained for centuries acceptable and authoritative to the Roman Catholic Church.[1975] At the same time for these very reasons we must not expect to find him putting forward any new and unusual views upon these points.
His commentaries on Aristotle.