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AQUINAS 218 AQUINAS disca, 22 miles W. N. W. of Trieste, near the Gulf of Venice. Before the fall of the Roman empire it was the great emporium of trade between the north and south of Europe, and was often called the "Second Rome." Caesar Augustus frequently resided here, and several councils of the Church, the first in 381, were held here. In the 6th cen- tury, the title of Patriarch was taken by the bishops of Aquileja, who assumed second rank to the Pope, The town was destroyed by Attila in 452, when the inhabitants numbered 100,000. Pop. 2,000. AQUINAS, THOMAS (ak-wi'nas), or THOMAS OF AQUINO, the prince of scholastic theologians, was of the family of the Counts of Aquino, and was bom THOMAS AQUINAS about 1226, in the castle of Rocca Secca, near Aquino, a small town half-way be- tween Rome and Naples. He received the rudiments of his education from the Benedictine monks of Monte Cassino, and completed his studies at the University of Naples. Against the will of his fam- ily, he entered (1243) the order of Preaching Friars founded by St. Dom- inic. In order to frustrate the attempts of his mother to remove him from the convent, he was sent away from Naples, first to Rome and then to Paris; but his brothers took him by force from his conductors, and carried him to the pa- ternal castle. Here he was guarded as a prisoner for tv/o years, when, by the help of the Dominicans, he contrived to escape, and went through France to the Dominican Convent at Cologne, in order to enjoy the instructions of the famous Albertus Magnus. According to another account, he owed his release from con- finement to the interference of the Em- peror and the Pope. In 1248, being 22 years of age, he was appointed by the general chapter of his order to teach at Cologne, together with his old master. Albert. He now began to publish his first works, commentaries on the ethics and the philosophy of Aristotle. In 1252 he was sent to Paris. It was not, how- ever, till 1257 that Aquinas and his friend St. Bonaventura, the Franciscan, obtained their degrees of doctor, as the University of Paris, under the influence of William de St. Amour, was hostile to the mendicant friars. He vindicated the principles of these orders in an impor- tant work; and, in a disputation in pres- ence of the Pope, procured the condem- nation of the books of his adversaries. He continued to lecture with great ap- plause in Paris, till Urbaji IV., in 1261, called him to Italy to teach in Rome, Bologna, and Pisa. It was at this time he composed most of his great works. Even during his life, Aquinas enjoyed +he highest consideration in the Church. Both Urban IV. and his successor, Clem- ent IV., who were much attached to Aquinas, pressed upon him the highest ecclesiastical dignities in vain. He treated Christian morals according to an arrangement of his own, and with a com- prehensiveness that procured him the title of the "Father of Moral Philos- ophy." The definiteness, clearness, and completeness of his method of handling theology were such that his "Summa Theologiae," which may be said to be the first attempt at a complete theological system, remains to this day substantially the standard authority in the Roman Church. Another important work of Aquinas is his "Summa Contra Gentiles," which deals chiefly with the principles of natural religion. His commentaries on Scripture and devotional treatises also have a high reputation. His influence on the theological thought of succeeding ages was immense. At the Council of Trent, the "Summa" was honored with a place on the table by the side of the Bible. It was at Bologna that he begar this his greatest work, by which his name will always be connected, but which he never lived to complete. While at work in Naples, his health broke down, but Gregory X., who had called a general council to effect the union of the Greek and Latin Churches, summoned Aquinas to defend the papal cause at Lyons, where the council was to meet on May 1, 1274. He set out, though suffering from fever, and was surprised by death on the