Book Review: Saint Thomas Aquinas by G.K. Chesterton

[Updated] Amongst the multitude of books required for my phlosophy class at Franciscan U., I am also trying to keep up some sort of "recreational" reading, whether history, biography, or spirituality. Usually, anything from G.K. Chesterton is all that & more.
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This volume is really the flip side of his biography of St. Francis of Assisi, both masterpieces of what Christianity in its true catholic-as-in-universal fullness is about, a fullness that became quite apparent in the 13th century when 2 supernovas exploded at the same time, bringing light that shines in the darkness even today.

Chesterton's approach to biography begins with the (unstated) notion that if someone is worth writing a biography about they must have changed history; rather, not just changed it, but started a revolution. His biographies are not "& then he did this & then he did that," but rather an exploration of what the nature of the revolution was & how this person was instrumental in accomplishing it; what milleu was it that brought him forth & whose course was changed by him; what were the movements & reactions from that time until now. He roughs out the major time, place, & circumstances of the life by contrasting him with others figures within the same milleu, those who prompted or provoked the emerging greatness of the figure & those who assisted or accosted him. Taking this overarching view of the larger movements of human history followed by a comparison of those who factored into the turning piont of that history, along with pondering the uniqueness of the individual too, provides a very effective format for arriving at what makes great men great.

The biography of St. Thomas begins by comparing & contrasting him with St. Francis, his rough contemporary, & finds that they are very much complimentary in their differences - like salt & pepper shakers, or couplets in a rhyme. Both found their unique way to follow Christ Jesus & in the process unfolded a new bloom from within the flower of Christianity that made Catholicism more Catholic as in "universal" & the Incarnation more in the flesh. They were, as we might say, the right thing at the right time, but also for all time. St. Dominic, St. Bonaventure, St. Albert the Great, & many others find their place in the story. Here's an excerpt [para. breaks mine]:

"The Thomist movement in metaphysics, like the Franciscan movement in morals & manners, was an enlargement & a liberation, it was emphatically a growth of Christian theology from within; it was emphatically NOT a shrinking of Christian theology under heathen or even human influences.

"The Franciscan was free to be a friar, instead of being bound to be a monk. But he was more of a Christian, more of a Catholic, & even more of an ascetic. So the Thomist was free to be an Aristotelian, instead of being bound to be an Augustinian. But he was even more of theologian; more of an orthodox theologian; more of a dogmatist, in having recovered through Aristotle the most defiant of all dogmas, the wedding of God with Man & therefore with Matter.
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"Nobody can understand the greatness of the 13th century, who does not realise that it was the great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder & freer that what we call the Renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered by a dead thing... Whatever may be said of the Gothic & the Gospel according to St. Thomas, they were not a Relapse. It was a new thrust like the titanic thrust of Gothic engineering; & its strength was in a God who makes all things new."
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H.E. Rating: 5 aspergillum shakes