The Dumb Ox | Characters & Character Analysis

The Dumb Ox Important People

St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas is the subject of this biographical sketch. He was a Catholic Dominican Friar who lived in the 13th century. He was born into a noble family but decided to give up his social status and wealth to join the Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominicans, who were a new religious movement that practiced extreme poverty and lived off of voluntary donations.

His life was dedicated primarily to philosophy and theology. He is credited with giving the first and decisive theological defense of the Religious orders which practiced extreme poverty, also known as mendicant orders. After this, he dedicated most of his life to introducing the philosophy of Aristotle into Catholic thought. Prior to his time, Platonism, that is, the philosophy of Plato, was the dominant philosophy of the Church. It had, however, grown stale and was leading the Church in a direction contrary to its...
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