Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/803

AQUILEJA. Gradisca, situate! on the Laguiiadi Grailo, which connects it with the Adriatic, about twenty-five miles west-northwest of Trieste (Map: Austria, C 4). Tliis once llourishing seaport has dwindled to an insignificant fishinji-place of less than a thousand inhabitants, with little to remind one of its former prosperity and importance but its ancient cathedral and the remains of the Patri- arch's Palace. It ofl'ers, however, a rich field to antiquarians. Colonized by the Romans in B.C. 182. it became in time the second city of Italy, and in a.d. 108 was so strongly fortified by JIarcns Aurelius as to be considered the first bulwark of the Empire on the north. In the reign of Hadrian, its population was between 300,000 and .500,000. It was the meeting-place of the -Emilian Wny and the roads leading to central and southeastern Europe, and one of the principal naval ports. Here the Emperor Jlaxi- minus perished (238), and in the vicinity Con- stantine II. lost his life in a battle against his brother Constans (340). Wlien tlie town was destroyed by Attila (452), it had 100,000 inhab- itants. It never recovered, although between 556 and 1750 it was the seat of a patriarchate. In 1800 it was acquired by Austria. Consult: Bartoli, Le Antichita d'Aquileja (Venice, 1739) ; Zahn, AnstrUi Friulana (Vi- enna, 1877) ; Meyer, Die Si)iiJluitg des Putri- urchuta AqiiUeja (Berlin, 1808).

AQUI'NAS,, or (c.l226-1274). One of the most influential of the scholastic theologians, who bears the honorable titles and epithets of Doctor Coiiiinuiiis ("Uni- versal Doctor," Fourteenth Century) ; Doctor Angelicus ("Angelical Doctor," Sixteenth Cen- tury) ; Princeps Hcholasticorum ("Prince of Scholastics") : Doctor Ecclesiw ("Doctor of the Church," 1567) ; "Patron of all Catholic ScJiools" (1880). He was of tlie family of the counts of Aquino, in the Kingdom of Najjles, and was born in the castle of Rocco Secca, directly north of Aquino, about fifty miles northwest of Naiiles, about 1220. He received the rudiments of his education from the Benedictine monks at Monte Cassino, which was only a few miles away, and completed his studies at the University of Naples. A strong inclination to philosophical speculation and theological study determined the young nolilcman, against the will of his family, to enter (1243) the Order of Dominicans. In order to frustrate the attempts of his friends, especially his niotlier, to force him to give up his monastic life and enter the world, his order sent him to Rome, and thence to Paris. On his way thither his brothers overtook him at Aequa- pendente, and by force brought him to the castle of Saint John, near Aquino, and there he was closely guarded for a year, and every effort was made to break his resolution to re- main a monk. But at length his mother came to his release, and he went, in the company of the General of the Dominicans, to Paris and thence to Cologne, about 1245, where he stud- ied under Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus). At Cologne he pursued his studies in such si- lence that his companions gave him the name of the "Dumb 0.." But Albert, his master, is reported to have predicted, "that this ox would one day fill the world with his bellowing." He accompanied him to Paris in 1245 and liack to Cologne in 1248, W'hen Albert was commissioned by his Order, the Dominican, to establish a theo- logical school there. In it Aquinas taught himself until in 1251 (or 1252) he was sent to Paris to teach in the Dominican monasterv of Saint Jacques. He had taken the usual degrees, but the highest, the doctorate, was not conferred upon him till 1257, by the University of Paris, because of the tight between it and the 'Mendicant Orders. He defended his Order in his Contra Iminii/nanfcs Dp Cult urn ct lifiUriionem. He was already a distinguished scholar and teacher. He continued to lecture with great applause in Paris, till Urban IV., in 1201, called him to Italy to teach philosophy in Rome, Bologna, Pisa, and other places. Finally he came to reside in the convent at Naples (1272-74), where he declined the offer of the dignity of archbishop, in order to devote himself entirely to study and lecturing. It was while there that the following incident is said to have occurred. One day Christ appeared' to him and said: "You have written ablv about me. What reward would you like to have'?" He said: "Lord, nothing, excejjt thyself." Being sum- moned by Gregory N. to attend the general council at Lyons, he was taken ill on the way in the castle of his niece at Ceccano. Realizin'o- that it was his last illness, he was at his own request transferred to the neighboring Cistercian monastery of Fossaniiova, so that he mio-ht die in a religious house. He lingered there a month and died on JIarch 7, 1274. Aceordino- to a report, he %as poisoned at the instiua'^ tion of Charles I. of Sicily, who dreaded the e^vi- (lence that Aquinas would give of him at Lyons Dante held this opinion (Piiryatory, xx "68) but It IS probably not true. His relics were tought for, and his right arm is now in Saint Jacques, Paris, other parts in Salerno and Naples, and the rest of his body in Rome He was canonized July 18, 1323.

Even during his life Aquinas enjoyed the highest consideration in the Church. His voice carried decisive weight with it. A general chapter ot Dominicans in Paris made it obIi<Tatorv on the members of the Order, under pain of punishment, to defend his doctrines. Like most of the other scholastic theologians, he had no know edge of Greek or Hebrew, and was almost equally ignorant of history; but his writings display a great expenditure of diligence and dialectic art, set off with the irresistible eloquence of zeal. His chief works are: .1 Commentary on the Four Books of Sentences of Peter Lombard, the l^umnia Theolorjiw, Qua-siloncs Disputatce et Quodlibetales, and Opuscuhi Theoloqica. He gave a new and systematic foundation to the doctrine of the Church's treasury of works of supererogation, to that of withholding the cup from the laity in the communion, and to that of transubstantiation. He also treated Christian morals according to an arrangement of his own, and with a comprehensiveness that procured him the title of the "Father of Moral Philosophy." The definiteness. clearness, and coni|)letenes3 of his method of handling the theology of the Church, gave his works a superiority over the text-books' of the earlier writers on systematic theology. His Summa Theolof/iw is the" first attempt at"a complete theological system, but he died ere he couhl complete it. In his philosophical writings, the ablest of which is his ,Summa de Veritate Catholiew Fidei contra Gentiles, he throws new light upon the most abstract tniths. The circumstance of Aquinas being a Dominican, and