[1] This road is described in detail by O. Cuntz in _Jahreshefte des
Osterr. Arch. Inst._ v. (1902), Beiblatt, pp. 139 seq.
AQUILLIUS, MANIUS, Roman general, consul in 101 B.C. He successfully put
down a revolt of the slaves under Athenion in Sicily. After his return,
being accused of extortion, he was acquitted on account of his military
services, although there was little doubt of his guilt. In 88 he acted
as legate against Mithradates the Great, by whom he was defeated and
taken prisoner. Mithradates treated him with great cruelty, and is said
to have put him to death by pouring molten gold down his throat.
Diodorus Siculus xxxvi. 3; Appian, _Mithrid_. ii. 17. 21; Vell.
Paterculus ii. 18; Cicero, _Verres_, iii. 54, _De Officiis_, ii. 14,
_Tusc_. v. 5.
AQUINAS, THOMAS [THOMAS OF AQUIN or AQUINO], (c. 1227-1274), scholastic
philosopher, known as _Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Universalis_, was of
noble descent, and nearly allied to several of the royal houses of
Europe. He was born in 1225 or 1227, at Roccasecca, the castle of his
father Landulf, count of Aquino, in the territories of Naples. Having
received his elementary education at the monastery of Monte Cassino, he
studied for six years at the university of Naples, leaving it in his
sixteenth year. While there he probably came under the influence of the
Dominicans, who were doing their utmost to enlist within their ranks the
ablest young scholars of the age, for in spite of the opposition of his
family, which was overcome only by the intervention of Pope Innocent
IV., he assumed the habit of St Dominic in his seventeenth year.
His superiors, seeing his great aptitude for theological study, sent him
to the Dominican school in Cologne, where Albertus Magnus was lecturing
on philosophy and theology. In 1245 Albertus was called to Paris, and
there Aquinas followed him, and remained with him for three years, at
the end of which he graduated as bachelor of theology. In 1248 he
returned to Cologne with Albertus, and was appointed second lecturer and
_magister studentium_. This year may be taken as the beginning of his
literary activity and public life. Before he left Paris he had thrown
himself with ardour into the controversy raging between the university
and the Friar-Preachers respecting the liberty of teaching, resisting
both by speeches and pamphlets the authorities of the university; and
when the dispute was referred to the pope, the youthful Aquinas was
chosen to defend his order, which he did with such success as to
overcome the arguments of Guillaume de St Amour, the champion of the
university, and one of the most celebrated men of the day. In 1257,
along with his friend Bonaventura, he was created doctor of theology,
and began to give courses of lectures upon this subject in Paris, and
also in Rome and other towns in Italy. From this time onwards his life
was one of incessant toil; he was continually engaged in the active
service of his order, was frequently travelling upon long and tedious
journeys, and was constantly consulted on affairs of state by the
reigning pontiff.
In 1263 we find him at the chapter of the Dominican order held in
London. In 1268 he was lecturing now in Rome and now in Bologna, all the
while engaged in the public business of the church. In 1271 he was again
in Paris, lecturing to the students, managing the affairs of the church
and consulted by the king, Louis VIII., his kinsman, on affairs of
state. In 1272 the commands of the chief of his order and the request of
King Charles brought him back to the professor's chair at Naples. All
this time he was preaching every day, writing homilies, disputations,
lectures, and finding time to work hard at his great work the _Summa
Theologiae_. Such rewards as the church could bestow had been offered to
him. He refused the archbishopric of Naples and the abbacy of Monte
Cassino. In January 1274 he was summoned by Pope Gregory X. to attend
the council convened at Lyons, to investigate and if possible settle the
differences between the Greek and Latin churches. Though suffering from
illness, he at once set out on the journey; finding his strength failing
on the way, he was carried to the Cistercian monastery of Fossa Nuova,
in the diocese of Terracina, where, after a lingering illness of seven
weeks, he died on the 7th of March 1274, Dante (_Purg_. xx. 69) asserts
that he was poisoned by order of Charles of Anjou. Villani (ix. 218)
quotes the belief, and the _Anonimo Fiorentino_ describes the crime and
its motive. But Muratori, reproducing the account given by one of
Thomas's friends, gives no hint of foul play. Aquinas was canonized in
1323 by Pope John XXII., and in 1567 Pius V. ranked the festival of St
Thomas with those of the four great Latin fathers, Ambrose, Augustine,
Jerome and Gregory. No theologian save Augustine has had an equal
influence on the theological thought and language of the Western Church,
a fact which was strongly emphasized by Leo XIII. (q.v.) in his
_Encyclical_ of August 4, 1879, which directed the clergy to take the
teachings of Aquinas as the basis of their theological position. In 1880
he was declared patron of all Roman Catholic educational establishments.
In a monastery at Naples, near the cathedral of St Januarius, is still
shown a cell in which he is said to have lived.
The writings of Thomas are of great importance for philosophy as well as
for theology, for by nature and education he is the spirit of
scholasticism incarnate. The principles on which his system rested were
these. He held that there were two sources of knowledge--the mysteries
of Christian faith and the truths of human reason. The distinction
between these two was made emphatic by Aquinas, who is at pains,
especially in his treatise _Contra Gentiles_, to make it plain that each
is a distinct fountain of knowledge, but that revelation is the more
important of the two. Revelation is a source of knowledge, rather than
the manifestation in the world of a divine life, and its chief
characteristic is that it presents men with mysteries, which are to be
believed even when they cannot be understood. Revelation is not
Scripture alone, for Scripture taken by itself does not correspond
exactly with his description; nor is it church tradition alone, for
church tradition must so far rest on Scripture. Revelation is a divine
source of knowledge, of which Scripture and church tradition are the
channels; and he who would rightly understand theology must familiarize
himself with Scripture, the teachings of the fathers, and the decisions
of councils, in such a way as to be able to make part of himself, as it
were, those channels along which this divine knowledge flowed. Aquinas's
conception of reason is in some way parallel with his conception of
revelation. Reason is in his idea not the individual reason, but the
fountain of natural truth, whose chief channels are the various systems
of heathen philosophy, and more especially the thoughts of Plato and the
methods of Aristotle. Reason and revelation are separate sources of
knowledge; and man can put himself in possession of each, because he can
bring himself into relation to the church on the one hand, and the
system of philosophy, or more strictly Aristotle, on the other. The
conception will be made clearer when it is remembered that Aquinas,
taught by the mysterious author of the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius,
who so marvellously influenced medieval writers, sometimes spoke of a
natural revelation, or of reason as a source of truths in themselves
mysterious, and was always accustomed to say that reason as well as
revelation contained two kinds of knowledge. The first kind lay quite
beyond the power of man to receive it, the second was within man's
reach. In reason, as in revelation, man can only attain to the lower
kind of knowledge; there is a higher kind which we may not hope to
reach.
But while reason and revelation are two distinct sources of truths, the
truths are not contradictory; for in the last resort they rest on _one_
absolute truth--they come from the one source of knowledge, God, the
Absolute One. Hence arises the compatibility of philosophy and theology
which was the fundamental axiom of scholasticism, and the possibility of
a Summa Theologiae, which is a Summa Philosophiae as well. All the many
writings of Thomas are preparatory to his great work the _Summa
Theologiae_, and show us the progress of his mind training for this his
life work. In the _Summa Catholicae Fidei contra Gentiles_ he shows how
a Christian theology is the sum and crown of all science. This work is
in its design apologetic, and is meant to bring within the range of
Christian thought all that is of value in Mahommedan science. He
carefully establishes the necessity of revelation as a source of
knowledge, not merely because it aids us in comprehending in a somewhat
better way the truths already furnished by reason, as some of the
Arabian philosophers and Maimonides had acknowledged, but because it is
the absolute source of our knowledge of the mysteries of the Christian
faith; and then he lays down the relations to be observed between reason
and revelation, between philosophy and theology. This work, _Contra
Gentiles_, may be taken as an elaborate exposition of the method of
Aquinas. That method, however, implied a careful study and comprehension
of the results which accrued to man from reason and revelation, and a
thorough grasp of all that had been done by man in relation to those two
sources of human knowledge; and so, in his preliminary writings, Thomas
proceeds to master the two provinces. The results of revelation he found
in the Holy Scriptures and in the writings of the fathers and the great
theologians of the church; and his method was to proceed backwards. He
began with Peter of Lombardy (who had reduced to theological order, in
his famous book on the _Sentences_, the various authoritative statements
of the church upon doctrine) in his _In Quatuor Sententiarum P. Lombardi
libros_. Then came his deliverances upon undecided points in theology,
in his _XII. Quodlibeta Disputata_, and his _Quaestiones Disputatae_.
His _Catena Aurea_ next appeared, which, under the form of a commentary
on the Gospels, was really an exhaustive summary of the theological
teaching of the greatest of the church fathers. This side of his
preparation was finished by a close study of Scripture, the results of
which are contained in his commentaries, _In omnes Epistolas Dim
Apostoli Expositio_, his _Super Isaiam et Jeremiam_, and his _In
Psalmos_. Turning now to the other side, we have evidence, not only from
tradition but from his writings, that he was acquainted with Plato and
the mystical Platonists; but he had the sagacity to perceive that
Aristotle was _the_ great representative of philosophy, and that his
writings contained the best results and method which the natural reason
had as yet attained to. Accordingly Aquinas prepared himself on this
side by commentaries on Aristotle's _De Interpretatione_, on his
_Posterior Analytics_, on the _Metaphysics_, the _Physics_, the _De
Anima_, and on Aristotle's other psychological and physical writings,
each commentary having for its aim to lay hold of the material and grasp
the method contained and employed in each treatise. Fortified by this
exhaustive preparation, Aquinas began his _Summa Theologiae_, which he
intended to be the sum of all known learning, arranged according to the
best method, and subordinate to the dictates of the church. Practically
it came to be the theological dicta of the church, explained according
to the philosophy of Aristotle and his Arabian commentators. The _Summa_
is divided into three great parts, which shortly may be said to treat of
God, Man and the God-Man. The first and the second parts are wholly the
work of Aquinas, but of the third part only the first ninety quaestiones
are his; the rest of it was finished in accordance with his designs. The
first book, after a short introduction upon the nature of theology as
understood by Aquinas, proceeds in 119 questions to discuss the nature,
attributes and relations of God; and this is not done as in a modern
work on theology, but the questions raised in the physics of Aristotle
find a place alongside of the statements of Scripture, while all
subjects in any way related to the central theme are brought into the
discourse. The second part is divided into two, which are quoted as
_Prima Secundae_ and _Secunda Secundae_. This second part has often been
described as ethic, but this is scarcely true. The subject is man,
treated as Aristotle does, according to his [Greek: telos], and so
Aquinas discusses all the ethical, psychological and theological
questions which arise; but any theological discussion upon man must be
mainly ethical, and so a great proportion of the first part, and almost
the whole of the second, has to do with ethical questions. In his
ethical discussions (a full account of which is given under ETHICS)
Aquinas distinguishes theological from natural virtues and vices; the
theological virtues are faith, hope and charity; the natural, justice,
prudence and the like. The theological virtues are founded on faith, in
opposition to the natural, which are founded on reason; and as faith
with Aquinas is always belief in a proposition, not trust in a personal
Saviour, conformably with his idea that revelation is a new knowledge
rather than a new life, the relation of unbelief to virtue is very
strictly and narrowly laid down and enforced. The third part of the
_Summa_ is also divided into two parts, but by accident rather than by
design. Aquinas died ere he had finished his great work, and what has
been added to complete the scheme is appended as a _Supplementum Tertiae
Partis_. In this third part Aquinas discusses the person, office and
work of Christ, and had begun to discuss the sacraments, when death put
an end to his labours.
The purely philosophical theories of Aquinas are explained in the
article SCHOLASTICISM. In connexion with the problem of universals, he
held that the diversity of individuals depends on the quantitative
division of matter (_materia signata_), and in this way he attracted the
criticism of the Scotists, who pointed out that this very matter is
individual and determinate, and, therefore, itself requires explanation.
In general, Aquinas maintained in different senses the real existence of
universals _ante rem_, _in re_ and _post rem_.
The best modern edition of the works of Aquinas is that prepared at
the expense of Leo XIII. (Rome, 1882-1903). The Abbe Migne published a
very useful edition of the _Summa Theologiae_, in four 8vo vols., as
an appendix to his _Patrologiae Cursus Completus_; English editions,
J. Rickaby (London, 1872), J.M. Ashley (London, 1888). See _Acta
Sanct_., vii. Martii; A. Touron, _La Vie de St Thomas d'Aquin, avec un
expose de sa doctrine et de ses ouvrages_ (Paris, 1737); Karl Werner,
_Der Heilige Thomas van Aquino_ (1858); and R.B. Vaughan, _St Thomas
of Aquin, his Life and Labours_ (London, 1872): other lives by P.
Cavanagh (London, 1890); E. Desmousseaux de Giure (Paris, 1888); M.
Didot (Louvain, 1894). For the philosophy of Aquinas, see Albert
Stockl, _Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters_, ii.; B.
Haureau, _De la philosophie scolastique_, vol. ii.; J. Frohschammer,
_Die Philos. d. Th. van A_. (Leipzig, 1889); K. Prantl, _Geschichte d.
Logik_, vol. iii.; C.M. Schneider, _Natur, Vernunft, Gott_
(Regensburg, 1883), _Das Wissen Gottes nach d. Lehre des Th. v. A_. (4
vols. Regensburg, 1884-1886), _Die socialistische Staatsidee
beleuchtet durch Th. v. A_. (Paderborn, 1894); A. Harnack, _Hist, of
Dogma_ (trans. Wm. Gilchrist, London, 1899); Ueberweg's _History of
Philosophy_, vol. i. See also H.C. O'Neill, _New Things and Old in St
Thomas Aquinas_ (1909), with biography. (T. M. L.; J. M. M.)
AQUINO, a town and episcopal see of Campania, Italy, in the province of
Caserta; it is 56 m. N.W. by rail from the town of Caserta, and 7-1/2 m.
N.W. of Cassino. Pop. (1901) 2672. The modern town, close to the
ancient, is unimportant, though the canons of the cathedral have the
privilege of wearing the mitre and _cappa magna_ at great festivals. It
is close to the site of the ancient Aquinum, a _municipium_ in the time
of Cicero, and made a colony by the Triumviri, the birthplace of Juvenal
and of the emperor Pescennius Niger. The Via Latina traversed it; one of
the gates through which it passed, now called Porta S. Lorenzo, is still
well preserved, and there are remains within the walls (portions of
which, built of large blocks of limestone, still remain) of two (so
called) temples, a basilica and an amphitheatre (see R. Delbruck in
_Rom. Mitteilungen_, 1903, p. 143). Outside, on the south is a
well-preserved triumphal arch with composite capitals, and close to it
the 11th-century basilica of S. Maria Libera, a handsome building in the
Romanesque style, but now roofless. Several Roman inscriptions are built
into it, and many others that have been found indicate the ancient
importance of the place, which, though it does not appear in early
history, is vouched for by Cicero and Strabo.[1] A colony was planted
here by the Triumviri. St Thomas Aquinas was born in the castle of
Roccasecca, 5 m. N.