¹ Catherine of Siena. The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena, trans. Algar Thorold. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/catherine/dialog.ii.html (accessed 5/5/2010).

² A similar point is made by R.R. Reno in his review essay of Fergus Kerr's Twentieth Century Catholic Theologians- From Neoscholasticism to Nuptial Mysticism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), “Theology after the Revolution,”First Things (May 2007).

³ Many others could be added here such as, Aidan, Nichols, Discovering Aquinas – An Introduction to his Life, Work, and Influence (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2002)Google Scholar; Healy, Nicholas M., Thomas Aquinas: Theologian of the Christian Life (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2003)Google Scholar; and Robert, Barron, Thomas Aquinas, Spiritual Master (New York: Crossroad, 1996)Google Scholar.

⁴ For a short and helpful historical overview of the three main sources of thought regarding wisdom that influence St Thomas (namely the Greek philosophical tradition of Plato and Aristotle, the sapiential sources of the Old Testament, and the Christian tradition beginning with St Paul, through St Augustine and the Fathers, and culminating in the early scholastics) see, Conley, Kieran, O.S.B. A Theology of Wisdom – A Study of St. Thomas (Dubuque, Iowa: The Priory Press, 1963), pp. 1–22. For an interesting comparison between the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament and St. Thomas's understanding of wisdom see, Boadt, Lawrence, “Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Biblical Wisdom Tradition,”The Thomist, Vol. 45 (1985): pp. 575–611CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ St. Thomas Aquinas, Expositio libri Boetii De ebdomadibus, Prologue, as cited and translated by Jean-Pierre, Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 1: The Person and his Work, trans. Royal, Robert (Washington: CUA, 2005), p. 69Google Scholar.

⁶ On the three fold dimension of wisdom see the discussion by Matthew Levering in Scripture and Metaphysics – Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 28–34Google Scholar. Also, Boadt, Lawrence, “Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Biblical Wisdom Tradition,” pp. 595–96.

⁷ Leaving aside the debate as to the exact meaning of this term, we will use it in the broadest sense as equating to theology. Although, Torrell's point should be conceded: “Sacra doctrina incorporates all forms of Christian teaching at all levels. Theology is therefore not identical with sacra doctrina, but is rather its scientifically developed form.” Jean-Pierre, Torrell OP, “St. Thomas Aquinas: Theologian and Mystic”, Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol.4, No. 1 (2006), p. 3Google Scholar. For discussion on the meaning of sacra doctrina for Thomas see A., Weisheipl, James OP, “The Meaning of Sacra Doctrina in Summa Theolgiae I, q.1,”The Thomist 38 (1974)Google Scholar and the overview in Jean-Pierre, Torrell. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 2: Spiritual Master, trans. Royal, Robert (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003), pp. 1–4Google Scholar.

⁸ St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q.1, a.6.

⁹ St. Thomas Aquinas, ST, I-II, q.57,a.2. For an excellent overview of Aristotle's understanding of knowledge of God as wisdom see, White, Thomas Joseph OP, Wisdom in the Face of Modernity – A Study in Thomistic Natural Theology, (Florida: Sapientia Press, 2010), pp. 33–64Google Scholar.

¹⁰ St. Thomas Aquinas. ST, I, q.1, a.6, resp.

¹¹ “For the Thomist, theological wisdom is the perfection of the knowledge of God as he has revealed himself, and the knowledge of creatures as they are related to God so known.” Nave, La, Gregory, F., “God, Creation, and the Possibility of Philosophical Wisdom: The Perspectives of Bonaventure and Aquinas,”Theological Studies, 69 (2008), p. 832Google Scholar.

¹² Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, p. 31. In making this point Levering draws on the important essay by Brian Shanley O.P. whose thesis is that sacra doctrina, according to St Thomas, involves the encounter of the person with God resulting in a sharing in God's own life. “In the intersubjective experience of faith, the horizon of the believer is completely transformed (both cognitively and affectively) so that the world takes on a new presentational dimension in the light of God revealing.” Brian, Shanley OP, “Sacra Doctrina and the Theology of Disclosure”, The Thomist 61 (1997): p. 175Google Scholar.

¹³ St. Thomas Aquinas. ST, I, q.1, a.6.

¹⁴ St. Thomas Aquinas. ST, II-II, q. 45, a. 2.

¹⁵ St. Thomas Aquinas. ST, II-II, q. 45, a. 2.

¹⁶ St. Thomas Aquinas. ST, II-II, q. 45, a. 2.

¹⁷ This neat summary is found in Journet, Charles, Introduction á la Théologie (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1945), p. 9Google Scholar.

¹⁸ St.Aquinas, Thomas, Super Ioan: Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, trans. by Weisheipl, James A. with Larcher, F. R., vol. 1 (Albany, NY: Magi Books: 1980) 5, lect.4, n.771Google Scholar.

¹⁹ St. Thomas Aquinas, ST, I, q.1, a.1.

²⁰ St. Thomas Aquinas, ST, I, q.1, a.1.

²¹ St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences, Prologue.

²² Levering, Matthew. Scripture and Metaphysics – Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology, p. 4.

²³ St. Thomas Aquinas. Commentary on St John, 15, lect.4, n. 2016.

²⁴ St. Thomas Aquinas. Commentary on St John, 6, lect. 5. n. 946.

²⁵ Sherwin, Michael, OP, “Christ the Teacher in St. Thomas's Commentary on the Gospel of John,” in Dauphinais, Michael and Levering, Matthew (eds) Reading John with St. Thomas (Washington: Catholic University of America, 2005), p. 175Google Scholar.

²⁶ This distinction and what follows comes from the insightful essay by Jean-Pierre Torrell, OP, “St. Thomas Aquinas: Theologian and Mystic”, pp. 11,12.

²⁷ St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences, III, d. 35.

²⁸ Torrell, “St. Thomas Aquinas: Theologian and Mystic”, p. 11.

²⁹ Torrell, “St. Thomas Aquinas: Theologian and Mystic”, p. 11. The distinction here is similar to the distinction we have already looked at between infused, connatural wisdom and theological wisdom. It is a distinction that St. Thomas repeats throughout his writings.

³⁰ See Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas – Person and Work, p. 157, and Pinckears, Servais OP, “Recherche de la signification véritable du terme speculative,”Nouvelle revue theologique, 81 (1959): pp. 673–85Google Scholar.

³¹ St. Thomas Aquinas, ST, I, q. 1, a. 4.

³² St. Thomas Aquinas, ST, I, q. 1, a. 4.

³³ Williams, A. N., “Mystical Theology Redux: The Pattern of Aquinas’Summa Theologiae,”Modern Theology 13:1 January (1997), p. 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁴ See, inter alia, Pieper, Joseph. The Silence of St. Thomas – Three Essays, trans. Murray, John S.J. and O’Connor, Daniel (Indiana: St Augustine's Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Torrell, Jean-Pierre. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 2: Spiritual Master, trans. Royal, Robert (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003)Google Scholar; A., Kwasniewski Peter, “Golden Straw: St. Thomas and the Ecstatic Practice of Theology,”Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2004): 61–90Google Scholar.; Williams, A.N. “Mystical Theology Redux: the Pattern of Aquinas’Summa Theologiae,”Modern Theology 13:1 (Janurary, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robert, Barron. Thomas Aquinas, Spiritual Master (New York: Crossroad, 1996)Google Scholar. This renewal in thinking about St Thomas as a mystical theologian arguably began with the historical studies of Marie-Dominique Chenu, OP. See for example, Introduction a l’étude de S. Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Vrin, 1950Google Scholar) and Aquinas and his Role in Theology, trans. Philibert, Paul OP, (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

³⁵ This point is well made by Robert Barron: “Thomas (in his theology) is decidedly not trying to capture or define the divine; on the contrary, he is attempting to show us precisely how to avoid the temptation of such definition. He is demonstrating how the soul can be liberated in the act of surrendering to the God who reveals himself as an unsurpassable and ecstatic power in Jesus Christ. Thus, the simple God is the God who cannot be understood or controlled; the good God is the one who captivates us and draws us out of ourselves; the God who is present to the world is the divine power that will not leave us alone, that insinuates itself into our blood and bones; the eternal God is the one who invites us into the ecstasy of being beyond time; the immutable God is the rock upon which we can build our lives; the God of knowledge and love is the spirit who searches us and knows us, who seeks us and who will never abandon us. It is this all-embracing, all-captivating., all-entrancing, all-surrounding power that Thomas Aquinas seeks to celebrate.”Spiritual Master, p. 108.

³⁶ Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas – Person and Work, p. 157.

³⁷ Joseph, Pieper. Guide to Thomas Aquinas, trans. Richard, and Winston, Clara (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), p. 159Google Scholar.

³⁸ For the best and most recent account of Thomas's last days and this specific episode see Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas – Person and Work, pp. 283–289.

³⁹ Joseph Pieper. The Silence of St. Thomas, p. 38.

⁴⁰ For example 1 John 3:2: “Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” And 2 Corinthians 3:18: “We all who with unveiled faces reflect as in a mirror in glory of the Lord, we are transformed into his likeness, from glory to glory, as by the Lord who is Spirit.”

⁴¹ “We know the glorious God by the mirror of reason, in which there is an image of God. We behold him when we rise from a consideration of ourselves to some knowledge of God, and we are transformed. For since all knowledge involves the knower's being assimilated to the thing known, it is necessary that those who see be in some way transformed into God. If they see perfectly, they are perfectly transformed, as the blessed in heaven by the union of fruition: when he appears we shall be like him (1 John 3:2); but if we see imperfectly, then we are transformed imperfectly, as here by faith: now we see in a mirror dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12).” St Thomas Aquinas, In 2 Cor 3:18, n. 114. As noted by Gilles Emery, this citation by St Thomas is lifted almost verbatim from St Augustine's De Trinitate XV, 8, 14. Emery, Gilles, Trinity, Church and the Human Person (Naples: Sapientia Press, 2007), p. 70Google Scholar.

⁴² Emery, Trinity, Church and the Human Person, p. 71.

⁴³ For an overarching critique of the modern research university and the segregating of knowledge see Alasdair, MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities – a history of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition (London: Continuum, 2009)Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ St. Thomas Aquinas, ST, I, q.1, a.3.

⁴⁵ St. Thomas Aquinas, ST, I, q.1, a.3.

⁴⁶ Pinckaers, Servais O.P., The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. SrNoble, Mary Thomas O.P. (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), p. xxiGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁷ St. Thomas Aquinas, ST, I, q.1, a.7.

⁴⁸ Torrell, “St. Thomas Aquinas: Theologian and Mystic,” p. 5.

⁴⁹ St. Thomas Aquinas, ST, I, q.1, a.7.

⁵⁰ Conrad Pepler summarises this point well: “St. Thomas was not first and foremost an Aristotelian philosopher; he was primarily an expounder of the Scriptures, he studied over them, prayed over them, lived them in the Church and in her liturgy, and thence he expounded the Word of God in the schools.”“The Basis of the Mysticism of St. Thomas,” Aquinas Paper 21 (London: Blackfriars, 1953), p. 10, cited by Kwasniewski Peter A., “Golden Straw: St. Thomas and the Ecstatic Practice of Theology,”Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2004), p. 82.

⁵¹ Torrell. St Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master, pp. 2, 3.

⁵² Louis, Bouyer. The Invisible Father: Approaches to the Mystery of Divinity, trans. Gilbert, Hugh O.S.B. (Petersham, Massachusetts: St Bede's Publications, 1999), p. 255Google Scholar.

⁵³ A point made by Peter Kwasniewski in reference to an essay by Berquist, Marcus, R. “Learning and Discipleship,”The Aquinas Review 6 (1999), pp. 1–51Google Scholar. Kwasniewski Peter A., “Golden Straw: St. Thomas and the Ecstatic Practice of Theology,” p. 71.

⁵⁴ Kwasniewski, “Golden Straw,” p. 71.

⁵⁵ St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on St John, 15, lect.4, n. 2016.

⁵⁶ Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, p. 139. The following passage from Robert Barron sums up Thomas's spiritual approach to theology: “Thomas Aquinas was a mystic, someone whose life was literally ecstatic, caught up with God. Many of his brothers reported that, while saying Mass, Thomas would weep copiously, almost in a literal sense living through the Passion of Christ that he was celebrating and remembering. One of his good friends, Reginald of Piperno, said that Thomas solved his intellectual problems, not so much with thought as with prayer. Wrestling with particularly thorny theological problems, Aquinas would rest his head against the Tabernacle and, with tears, beg for inspiration. A careful and attentive reading of the texts reveal that this mystical passion, this ecstatic response to God, paradoxically suffuses all that Thomas wrote in his admittedly dry and laconic style.” Barron, Robert. Thomas Aquinas, Spiritual Master, p. 24.

⁵⁷ Emery, Gilles, Trinity, Church and the Human Person (Florida: Sapientia Press, 2007), p. 65. For an excellent overview of the connection between holiness and theology from a Thomistic perspective see Ryan, Fainche. “Theology as a Road to Sanctification?”Irish Theological Quarterly 74 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁸ Emery. Trinity, p. 65.

⁵⁹ St. Thomas Aquinas, Sentences, I, Prol. a.3, cited in Torrell, “Aquinas: Theologian and Mystic,” p. 5.

⁶⁰ St. Thomas Aquinas, Sentences, I, Prol. a.3, ad.1.

⁶¹ Torrell, “Aquinas: Theologian and Mystic,” p. 5.

⁶² For a discussion of this lecture and the story surrounding it (including St Thomas being visited by St. Dominic in a dream and providing him with the inspiration of the content of the lecture) see, Torrell, St. Thomas Aquinas: The Person and his Work, pp. 50–53. The translation used is by Simon, Tugwell, Albert and Thomas – Selected Writings (New York: Paulist, 1988), pp. 355–59Google Scholar.

⁶³ St. Thomas Aquinas, Inaugural Lecture, p. 355.

⁶⁴ St. Thomas Aquinas, Inaugural Lecture, p. 355.

⁶⁵ St. Thomas Aquinas, Inaugural Lecture, p. 355.

⁶⁶ St. Thomas Aquinas, Inaugural Lecture, p. 359.