It's always been fashionable to dislike St Thomas Aquinas, but never possible to get away from him. In their Oedipal rage, young philosophers furiously tear off his mantle – some jettisoning the Faith, others God, and still others reason itself. Yet, long after there are positivists and Marxists and absurdists, there will still be Thomists.
Still, we may forget that the great Dominican friar was just that: a mendicant, a preacher. Though not quite the Dumb Ox his classmates thought him to be, Thomas was a man of simple faith who loved Truth for her own sake, not because – and even despite – any fame it brought him. In his biography of Aquinas, GK Chesterton recounts how “the Blessed Virgin appeared to him, comforting him with the welcome news that he would never be a bishop.”
