The History of the Church through 100 Masterpieces

The Triumph οf Scholasticism

The History of the Church 114 The Triumph οf Scholasticism The life of Thomas Aquinas gives the lie to the myth that the intellectual corpus of classical antiquity was ignored by the Middle Ages and only rediscovered in the Renaissance. Born close to Naples in 1225, Thomas was educated by the local Dominicans, who initiated him not only in theology, but also in the sciences and philosophy of the ancient Greeks, as well as the works of Islamic philosophers Avicenna and Averroes, both very much influenced by Aristotle. Eventually entering the Dominican order, despite his family’s opposition, the young Thomas studied at the universities of Paris and Cologne before becoming a professor of scholastics. His immense scholarly output is entirely directed toward the reconciliation of faith and reason, of Holy Scriptures to the philosophy of Aristotle. Thechurch, which had been more inclined toward Platonism until that point, would now be able to integrate and accompany the development of the secular sciences. This did not come without controversy . Thomas was accused several times, notably at the instigation of the Franciscans who rejected this “divinization” of reason, to which he retorted, “If we resolve questions of faith solely by way of Authority, we certainly will have the truth, but in an empty head!”* ThomasAquinas died in 1274, was canonized in 1323, and declared a doctor of the church in 1567. Flemish Illumination from the Breviary of Queen Isabel of Castile, 1497 Saint Thomas Aquinas British Library, London * “So it is necessary to rest one’s case on reasons which seek out the roots of the truth and which enable people to see how what one proposes is true. Unless one does this, if the master’s response is based purely on authorities, the listener will know that things are so, but he will have achieved neither knowledge nor understanding and will go away with an empty head.”—Trans. ...