Part 11

From the first, the Dominicans seem to have had a kind of fore-knowledge of the great combat that would have to be waged in the arena of human reason. From the first, with prudence, forethought, and wise economy, they prepared a system for turning the abilities of their members to the fullest account. With them no intellect was lost. Power was recognised, trained, and put in motion. Those who were less gifted, were set to less intellectual employments: those who had great powers were fitted to become lights of the world and ornaments of the Order. With such an intellectual capital as our saint possessed, he might fairly have been set to work in the active ministrations of his Order. But, fortunately, his superiors were men who looked into the future, and knew how a present sacrifice would be repaid. Thus, instead of looking on S. Thomas's education as finished, they considered it as only just begun. Who was to be his master to ripen his active mind?

This question John of Germany, 4th General of the Dominicans, must have asked himself. At last he set out with S. Thomas on foot, from Rome to Paris, and from Paris to Cologne, where Albertus Magnus then was. It is related that as they descried the beauty of Paris in the distance, the general turned to Thomas and said, "What would you give to be king of that city?" "I would rather have S. Chrysostom's treatise on S. Matthew," replied the young man, "than be king of the whole of France."

S. Thomas met his match in Albertus Magnus. Nothing is a greater blessing for a master-mind than to come in contact with another master-mind, more highly educated, and with a more matured experience than itself. Albert was born of noble family at Lavingen, in Suabia, (1193 A.D.) Some say that, like S. Isidore, he was dull as a boy. At Padua, where he was studying medicine and mathematics, he was drawn by Brother Jordan's eloquence to join the Dominicans. He was sent to Bologna, then the second centre of the intellectual world. Next he began to teach. As a lecturer he was unrivalled: all classes thronged into the hall of this extraordinary man. The logic, ethics, and physics of Aristotle, and portions of Holy Writ, were the subject matter of his lectures. After settling at Cologne, he was summoned to Paris in 1228, to put the studies on a footing to meet the requirements of the age. Then he returned to Cologne. It was at this period that he first met S. Thomas, who became his favourite disciple, and to whom, in private, he opened the stores of his capacious mind.

The companions of S. Thomas in Albert's school, were men filled with the impression that to exert the reasoning faculties in debating scholastic questions, was one of the principal ends of all philosophy. It is not extraordinary that such men as these, when they saw young Aquino so silent, should imagine that nothing occupied his thoughts; especially when they perceived that he was equally reserved in school. They soon came to the conclusion that he was a naturally obtuse lad. What is more strange is this,--that Albert at first held him to be deficient. He was called by master and pupils, "the great dumb Sicilian ox." Once, when studying in his cell, he heard a voice crying to him, "Brother Thomas, here! quick, look at this flying ox!" When S. Thomas went to the window, he was received with shouts of derision. In explanation he said incisively: "I did not believe an ox could fly, nor did I, till now, believe that a religious could tell a lie."

A companion one day offered to assist him in his lesson. S. Thomas assented; presently his friend came to a hard passage, which was beyond his depth, the saint took the book from him, and explained the passage with great clearness. Albert had selected a difficult question from the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite; this the scholars passed to S. Thomas; he took it to his cell; and first stating all the objections that could be made against it, he then answered them. A brother picked up this paper, and carried it to Albert. His master ordered him to defend a thesis the next day before the whole school. Thomas spoke with such clearness, established his thesis with such dialectical skill, saw so far into the difficulties of the case, and handled the whole subject in so masterly a manner, that Albert exclaimed, "Thou seemest to me not to be defending the case, but to be deciding it." "Master," he replied, "I know not how to treat the question otherwise." Albert, to test him further, started objections, but Thomas solved every difficulty so successfully, that Albert cried out, "We call this youth 'Dumb Ox,' but the day will come when the whole world will resound with his bellowing."

In 1245, it was determined by the Dominican Chapter that Albert should leave Cologne for Paris, and that Thomas should finish his three years under him there.

The one absorbing science of the middle ages was theology. Learning, in all its branches, pointed to the study of religion as the great terminus of the human mind, and the one right road from heaven to earth. The liberal arts were but a careful and laborious preparation for philosophy or logic; logic, in turn, was only valuable inasmuch as it was an instrument for the ordering, defending, and proving the great truths of revelation. The great object of life was to know God. Jacques de Vitry beautifully says, "All science ought to be referred to the knowledge of Christ." It may be laid down roughly that the Scriptures, Peter Lombard's Book of Sentences, and Aristotle, were the three great bases on which the active intellect of the 13th century rested in its development and analysis of truth.

The students of the Paris University may be divided into three classes: those who lived in seminaries, those who lived in monasteries, and those who lived as best they could. Some were destitute, living on charity, or in _hospitia_; others were rich and lordly, great spendthrifts and swaggerers, studying out of mere curiosity, or pure conceit.

John of S. Alban had founded a _hospitium_ for pilgrims, with a chapel dedicated to S. James; this he handed over to the Dominicans, which gift the University confirmed on condition that mass was said for its living and dead members twice a year. Thus the Dominicans came in contact with the University. From the first they attended the theological schools of the Church of Paris. S. Louis built them a convent, and at his death left them a part of the library he had collected at the Sainte Chapelle. Novices were taught Latin and logic; and disputations echoed in the cloister. Meditation was made to counterbalance the excitement of study.

The lectures were given in large halls. In the middle stood the chair of the master, with another seat below, and in front of him a stool for the bachelor who was going through his training. If there was not room on the benches, the students sat on the straw which covered the floor. The teaching was principally done by question and answer, by exposition, repetition, and disputation. No book was used, the teacher might have the text before him, and sometimes the students took notes in shorthand, which they wrote out at their leisure.

Nothing has been handed down, of any moment, regarding the studies of S. Thomas at Paris during this period. Albert was at the height of his reputation. His lecture-hall was so crowded, that he was forced to lecture in a square, near Notre Dame, known as the Place Maubert.

The same year in which S. Thomas finished his studies (1248), a general chapter of Dominicans was held at Paris. Here it was ruled that four new schools should be started on the model of that at Paris. Bologna for Lombardy; Montpellier for Provence; Oxford for England; Cologne for Germany. Albert was to take the chair at Cologne, re-arrange the studies, and be regent; whilst Thomas, who was not twenty-three, was to be second professor, and "Magister Studentium." Albert's old reputation attracted crowds. Thomas was not long before he also acquired a brilliant reputation.

His distinctions, even compared with those of Albert, were so new, his arguments so ingenious, that all were dazzled at his great ability. It was at Cologne that he first gave evidence as a teacher, of that depth, balance, and expansion, which, in after life, made him the weightiest of authorities on the most momentous of religious questions. In his treatment of the Scripture and of the Sentences, he had ample opportunity for displaying his many-sided gifts.

Nor did he confine himself to teaching in the schools. He preached and wrote. His first pieces were "De Ente et Essentia," and "De Principiis Naturæ." These two works contain the germ of a future system, and were remarkable productions for a youth of twenty-two.

The saint's practice in teaching, and the accuracy he acquired by writing, from an early age, were of great assistance to him in developing his powers. He possessed, moreover, a gift--most valuable at all times--calmness and self-possession, which was the result, partly of education, greatly of character; partly of breadth of mind, and chiefly of grace. Under the most trying provocation he was never known to lose his self-control.

His humility and sweetness came out strikingly when arguing in the schools. Though his opponent, in the heat of disputation, might forget himself, Thomas never did.

Once, when a young student arrogantly defended a thesis of which he knew the saint did not approve, he was suffered to proceed in silence. But the next day, when he continued his argument with still greater arrogance, the saint with infinite sweetness, but crushing power, put a few questions, made a few distinctions, and upset the student with such ease, first on one point, then on another, that the whole school was in an uproar of admiration. Both the youth and his fellows were taught a lesson which they did not easily forget. Again, while he was preaching at S. James's, an official of the University walked up the church, and beckoned the saint to stop, and then read out an offensive document, drawn up by the secular party, in opposition to the Friars' Preachers. When the congregation had somewhat recovered from their surprise, S. Thomas proceeded with his sermon with undisturbed composure.

Conrad De Guessia, his intimate friend, declared him to be: "A man of holy life and honest conversation, peaceful, sober, humble, quiet, devout, contemplative, and chaste; so mortified that he cared not what he ate or what he put on. Every day he celebrated with great devotion, or heard, one or two masses; and except in times proper for repose, he was occupied in reading, writing, praying or preaching."

"His science, says Rainald, was not acquired by natural talent, but by the revelation and the infusion of the Holy Ghost, for he never set himself to write without having first prayed and wept. When he was in doubt, he had recourse to prayer, and with tears he returned, instructed and enlightened in his uncertainty."

It was about this time that S. Thomas was ordained priest. It is mortifying that no certain information can be procured regarding the time at which it took place. All his biographers lay stress on his great devotion while celebrating. He was frequently rapt in spirit whilst at mass, when the tears would spring to his eyes, and flow copiously. After mass, he prepared his lectures, and then went to the schools. Next, he wrote or dictated to several scribes; then he dined, returned to his cell, and occupied himself with Divine things till time for rest; after which he wrote again, and thus ordered his life in the service of his Master.

The duty of preaching also fell upon him. A man so filled with the Spirit of God would, almost of necessity, manifest the passion which ruled supreme. His reputation even at this period was great enough to draw a large congregation into the Dominican Church.

The language in which at this period sermons were preached was the vernacular. Even when written in Latin, and this was generally the case, they were delivered to the people in the vernacular.

The biographers of S. Thomas speak of the simplicity of his sermons. Once, in a discourse on the Passion, during Lent, he so vividly brought home to the congregation the sufferings of the cross, and drew so touching a picture of the compassion, mercy, and love of Christ, that his words were interrupted by the passionate crying of the people. On Easter Day, his sermon on the Resurrection filled the congregation with such jubilant triumph that they could scarcely be restrained from giving public expression to their feelings.

In manner he was gentle, calm, self-possessed. Tocco says that preaching at Naples on the text, "Hail, Mary!" he was seen to keep his eyes closed in the pulpit, and his head in a position as if he were looking into heaven: he tells us also that the people reverenced his word as if it came from the mouth of God.

In the two hundred and twenty-five skeleton sermons which he has left, he divides his subject into three or four grand divisions, which are again sub-divided into three or four sections.

After four years at Cologne our saint received orders to take his degree at Paris, (1248.) The Dominicans wished to place their most promising subjects there, that the Order might maintain its credit. Albert and Cardinal Hugh of S. Charo were instrumental in his removal: the former saw that the saint possessed all the needed qualifications for a professorship; a work requiring something more than learning--tact and temper.

Thomas, when he heard of it, was much concerned. His distaste for honour and position made him wish to be left alone. Nevertheless, in obedience to authority, he set out to beg his way to Paris. He passed through Brabant and Flanders, and preached before the Duchess Margaret. The learned men of Paris had heard of his successes at Cologne, and he was received by them with marks of unusual distinction.

The Dominican professors of theology at this time were Hugh of Metz and Elias Brunetus. It was as teacher in the school of Elias that the saint began to expound Holy Writ, and the writings of Peter Lombard. His influence over young men far surpassed that of any other master. They were conscious that his teaching had something about it of another world; and the feeling crept over all, and finally mastered them, that he spoke as one "having authority." The opinions he then formed, he committed to writing, and held them and defended them with little change in his maturer years. From his youth he had dedicated himself to Wisdom as his spouse. Only one thing he asked for--that was wisdom. Rainald said, "One thing I know of him, that it was not human talent, but _prayer_, which was the secret of his great success. This was his daily prayer: 'Grant me, I beseech Thee, O merciful God, prudently to study, rightly to understand, and perfectly to fulfil that which is pleasing to Thee, to the praise and glory of Thy Name.'" When a child, if conversation did not turn on God, or on matters which tended to edification, the Angelical Doctor would go away; he used to wonder how men, especially religious men, could talk of anything but God or holy things. He wept for the sins of others, as if they had been his own.

Though ever dwelling in the unseen kingdom, he was keenly alive to the tendency of the intellectual world around him. His saintliness, and his great ability, seem to have pointed him out as destined to sway the philosophical and theological tendencies of an age in which the human mind was in a condition of flux. The corroding rationalism of the school of Abelard, and the dissolving mysticism of the East, had to be faced, and to be withstood. Thomas fixed himself, therefore, on the immoveable basis of authority, and grounded his teaching on the monastic methods of the "Sentences." Doubtless the surprise caused by his distinctions, and the admiration created by his novelty in argument, proceeded in great measure from his vivid apprehension of the work he had to do, of the enemy he was contending with, and of the powers by which alone that enemy could be overthrown. He followed Albert, but his teaching was more incisive, more definite, more strictly to the point.

Many of his disciples became distinguished men. S. Thomas assisted others beside his own pupils. Sovereigns, cardinals, bishops, superiors of orders, and professors, wrote to him for advice, and for solutions of their difficulties. The Opusculum on the difference between the Divine and human word; and the somewhat larger treatise, on the nature of the intellectual word, are full of close reasoning; and state principles which are fundamental regarding the method of human knowledge.

One of the most important of his treatises is that addressed "ad Fratrem Rainaldum," on the nature of the Angels. It was begun during his bachelorship, but he never got beyond the 30th chapter. It shows his grasp of some of the cardinal questions of the day, and how masterfully he dealt with errors of the most promising minds in the Paris schools.

But whilst thus engaged upon the Scriptures and the Lombard, S. Thomas was frequently in the pulpit, and he regularly delivered lectures to crowded halls. His versatility, his power of abstraction, his astonishing memory, his zealous husbanding of time, carried him with ease through works which would have broken the spirit of any ordinary man. He possessed that marvellous gift which Origen and Cæsar are said to have had, of being able to dictate to three or even four scribes on different and difficult subjects at the same time, and that, too, without losing the thread of each argument.

Frigerius says that, as Professor, he elucidated the Sentences with such sublimity of thought that he seemed rather the author of the work than its expositor. Tocco, "that he surpassed all the masters of the University, and by the lucidity of his expositions drew, beyond all others, the intelligences of his disciples towards a love of science." Students from every part of Europe flocked around his chair.

In touching on S. Thomas's commentary on the "Sentences," the influence of Alexander Hales must not be forgotten, but he far eclipsed the Minorite in his proofs of the non-eternity of the world--a question of momentous importance in the Middle Ages, as well as in his discussion of the possibility and fitness of the Incarnation. Thomas carried his teaching on Grace to such perfection that in the Middle Ages it was always received as a standard authority.

If judged by its bulk, this "Commentary" would seem sufficient to have occupied a life. It fills over 1250 pages of the large quarto Parma edition, printed in double columns. It is a monument of ceaseless labour, great skill, and patient thought.

The work of the Lombard is a confusion compared with the lucid style and admirable arrangement of the saint. In place of the crabbed inverted language of Peter, we have the simple, logical, direct use of words, which go straight to the point, and express the complete idea. He has these weighty words on the subject of theology, "Since the end of all philosophy is contained within the end of theology, and is subservient to it, theology ought to command all other sciences, and turn to its use those things which they treat of." He adds, "The more sublime knowledge is, so much greater is its unity, and so much wider the circle of its expansion, whence the Divine intellect, which is the most sublime of all, by the light, which is God Himself, possesses a distinct knowledge of all things." He also shows how the intellect becomes illuminated when led by faith, illustrating the motto of the monastic school, "Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis." And he shows that theology is _deduction_, and philosophy _induction_; and that the basis of theology must be authority, _i.e._, a Revelation.

During the Lent of 1250 or 1253, the city patrol came in collision with a party of students, killed one of them, wounded three others, and carried them off to prison. The secular professors of the University refused to lecture, until the beadles were punished, but the Dominican and Franciscan teachers went on with their lectures. When redress had been granted to the University for the outrage, that body drew up an oath to observe all the laws of the University, which it was intended should be taken by all persons before taking the degree as master. The regulars refused to take it; then the University issued a decree, declaring the friars excluded from its body, and deprived of their chairs. The latter appealed to Rome. The pope commissioned the bishop of Evreux, and Luke, canon of Paris, to re-establish the friars in their chairs, which was done. This pope dying, his successor issued a bull, binding all to stop teaching in case of insult, but re-establishing the friars. The king, returning home, stopped the execution of the papal briefs. The pope issued another bull more stringent than the first. Since 1256, S. Thomas had been lecturing as licentiate. At the same time he was enjoying the friendship of S. Bonaventura, who was lecturing under the Franciscan professor. Both men exhibited, in a striking manner, the fundamental quality of the order to which they respectively belonged. Bonaventura loved to look into the placid, earnest soul of Thomas, as into a deep sea, with its marvellous transparency, and awful stillness; whilst Thomas was roused and brightened by the ardent gushing nature of his friend. S. Thomas was angelical; S. Bonaventura was seraphic--the one, the deep thinker; the other, the tender poet. Thomas was famous in the schools for the keenness of his thought, and for his depth and clearness; Bonaventura for his eloquence and vivacity in exposition; the former was a child of contemplation, the latter of activity. Once S. Thomas asked S. Bonaventura to show him the books out of which he got his sublime thoughts. "There is the book," replied S. Bonaventura, pointing to the crucifix. During this time S. Thomas wrote his "Exposition on the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Angelic Salutation, the Ten Commandments, and the Law of Love." Another work on the "Articles of the Faith and the Sacraments" falls within this period, as well as a commentary on Isaiah.

Meanwhile, William of S. Amour, the celebrated philosopher and doctor of the University, was endeavouring to turn the mendicant Orders out of Paris by getting people to withhold their alms, and by forbidding the members of these Orders to attend the secular lectures.

He also endeavoured to fix the authorship of an heretical work, called "The Everlasting Gospel," on the Franciscans and Dominicans.

But he himself had written a book, called "Perils of the last times." This the king sent by two doctors of theology for the pope's examination. The University sent a deputation to make the Holy Father acquainted with "The Everlasting Gospel." William was leader of this deputation. S. Thomas was sent to defend his order; S. Bonaventura that of S. Francis. S. Thomas, after examining the "Perils," reported to the Dominican chapter that "God had given him grace to discover whatever is false, captious, erroneous, impious in it, and that after the holy See had pronounced judgment on it, the faithful would only notice it to condemn it." In a few days the saint prepared his defence of the order, and his answer to the "Perils." He pleaded before the pope and sacred college with such success as to gain their applause.