Sabine Baring-Gould - The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16) - March

It was the custom for the students, after the professor had delivered his lecture, to present themselves at a stated time, and deliver what they had heard before their companions in the schools. When it came to S. Thomas's turn, he repeated the lectures with greater depth of thought, and greater lucidity of method, than the learned professor himself was able to command.

A youth, who was a more brilliant expositor of truth than its professors, would surely, during his stay in the gay centre of Southern Italy, have observed with interest the various phases of the period in which he lived; he must have felt, too, that an organized power alone could meet the world. He saw what an immense power monasticism had been in the age which was passing away. But he also perceived that the world had changed. The efforts of the solitaries and contemplatives had not been able to direct its course. Citeaux and Clairvaux had done a work indeed, but it was not the work of directing the stream of human thought. They had not perceptibly affected the world. The old methods seemed to have dropped out of use. Discovery, and travel, and enterprise excited the imagination of the men of that age; they loved activity better than meditation. They congregated in towns, and the teaching of the monastery gave way to the excitement and uproar of university life.

What then? Thomas would ask himself, is the instrument, or the organization adapted to oppose the powers of the world?

The Order of S. Francis, and that of S. Dominic, were created by the Church for resisting the mighty pressure. The former, in its characteristics of poverty and love, the latter, in its specialities of eloquence and learning, were designed to manifest the perfection of Christianity in a world full of the pomp of riches and the maddening influences of pantheistic mysticism. These two Orders had chairs at Naples. Probably young Aquino was struck by the devotedness and ability of the Dominican professors. The special scope of the Order, its love for learning, its active ministrations to humanity, while still retaining the self-restraint of solitaries, and the humility of monks, must have struck a new chord, or an old chord in a new fashion, in the heart of the saint. Anyhow, he soon became intimate with the Fathers of the Order, and especially with his dear friend, John à Sancto Facundo.

In the end, S. Thomas, who was then either sixteen or seventeen years old, petitioned for the habit of S. Dominic. The fathers determined to put his perseverance to the proof. They required him to make the demand in public. On the day appointed, from a very early hour, the church was flooded by a great crowd, amongst which might be observed persons of the highest distinction in the city. The religious of the house ranged themselves in the choir. Thomas advanced into the midst of these two clouds of witnesses, and received from the Superior, Fra Tomaso d'Agni di Lentino, the badges of penance and subjection. When S. Thomas entered the order, John of Germany was general (1239-1254), and a constellation of famous men shone with a steady light from the Corona Fratrum. In Germany there was Albertus Magnus. Hugh of S. Caro edified all France by his sanctity; and Peter of Verona, and John of Vicenza, were its ornaments in Italy.

It may be imagined that Theodora was not pleased when she heard of the ceremony from the lamentations of some of her vassals, who had seen the young count dressed up as a Dominican friar. She forthwith hastened to Naples with a large retinue. No sooner did the Dominicans learn that she was on her way, than they hurried the boy off, – some say at his own request – with several companions, to Rome, by a different route from that usually followed by travellers.

Theodora speedily followed him to Rome. In vain she tried to obtain a sight of him by entreaties the most imploring, and by threats the most indignant. She then bewailed her hard lot amongst the Roman nobility, and denounced to the pope the rapacity of the friars, who had robbed her of her boy.

The Dominicans, dreading her influence in the city, sent S. Thomas to Paris. Theodora, hearing of his departure, sent off a courier to his two brothers, who were ravaging Lombardy with a band of Frederick's soldiers, beseeching them to secure the fugitive. They set guards to watch the passes through which the Dominicans could escape. As the friars lay resting under a tree, near Acquapendente, they were surrounded by armed men, and Thomas found himself a prisoner in the hands of his brothers. The two young soldiers behaved with great brutality to the saint, and forcing him on horseback, they carried him to San Giovanni.

His mother made use of every argument she could invent to turn him from his purpose; she brought into play all the passions of her nature, her tears, her entreaties, her threats, her love; but without effect. Perceiving that he remained unmoveable, she threw him into prison, and set guards to watch outside. His sisters seconded their mother; they alone were allowed to wait on him, and they practised all their arts to turn him from his vocation. But in the end, his calm deportment, his resignation and tenderness, won them over. They put him in a position to communicate with the brethren. The saint procured a Bible, the Book of the "Sentences," and some of the works of Aristotle, and learned them by heart. Thus it was that he prepared himself for his mighty labours in the future.

His brothers persevered in their attempts to force him from religion. They were furious when they found that, far from being changed himself, Thomas had converted both his sisters. They forbade the girls to approach him; and bursting in upon him, insulted him with brutal jests, and ended by tearing his habit, piece by piece, from off his back. Then Brother John of S. Giuliano brought another habit for him from Naples, which he had concealed beneath his own. This made his brothers more enraged than before. They formed the infamous expedient of hiring a prostitute, and shutting her up in the cell with Thomas. While waiting the issue, a fearful shriek proceeding from the prison, summoned the two brothers; they arrived in time to see the girl rushing away in an agony of terror, and the young man chasing her with a blazing brand, which he had plucked out of the fire. Even the brutality of the young soldiers was overcome by this; and from that day forth, they ceased their persecutions.

Before his death, the saint told his familiar friend, Rainald, that no sooner had the girl been driven out, than he made a cross with the charred brand upon the wall, and casting himself upon his knees before it, made a vow of chastity for life. Whilst thus praying, he fell into a calm sleep, and was vouchsafed a vision. He saw angels descending from the clouds, who bound his loins with the girdle of continence, and armed him for life as the warrior of Heaven. This girdle is said to have been given after his death to the Dominicans of Vercelli, who refused to part with it at the command of a pope.

Still his relations kept him in confinement, some say for two years, and would have detained him longer, had it not been for the influence of the Dominicans with the pope. The holy father was roused. He not only brought the case before the emperor, but he ordered him to set the prisoner free, and threatened to visit the perpetrators of the outrage with condign punishment. Frederick, having latterly been humiliated by the Viterbesi , and having, in consequence, been abandoned by some of his supporters, was not sorry for an opportunity of gratifying the pontiff. Orders were at once sent to Landolf and Rainald to set the captive free. Still these stubborn soldiers with their haughty mother would take no active steps to give Thomas his liberty. However, his sisters informed John of S. Giuliano of the position of affairs, and he at once hurried to the castle accompanied by one or two companions. And finally, the girls let their brother down, through the window, like another S. Paul, into the hands of his delighted brethren below, who at once hurried him off to Naples.