"Friar Giacomo di Viterbo, Archbishop of Naples, often said to me that he believed, in accordance with the Faith and the Holy Spirit, that our Savior had sent, as doctor of truth to illuminate the world and the universal Church, first the apostle Paul, then Augustine, and finally in these latest days Friar Thomas, whom, he believed, no one would succeed till the end of the world." (Testimony of Bartolommeo di Capua at the hearing of the case for the canonization of Saint Thomas, August 8, 1319.)
~Quoted by Jacques Maritain in St. Thomas Aquinas, Chap. 1─The Saint.
***
"He was the flower and the glory of the world."
For younger readers, see Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Angel of the Schools, by Raïssa Maritain at Sophia Institute Press, or read online at the Jacques Maritain Center.
 |
Virgin and Child with Sts Dominic and Thomas Aquinas,
by Fra Angelico.
Detached fresco transferred to canvas, c. 1445;
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia.
|
