Saint Thomas Aquinas

Gerald Vann’s Saint Thomas Aquinas (originally published in 1940) is not a traditional biography but an interpretive study aimed at correcting a widespread misunderstanding of Aquinas’s thought. Writing sixty years after the Thomist revival initiated by Pope Leo XIII, Vann observed that Thomism was still largely ignored or misunderstood in secular circles . Critics often dismissed it as overly rational, reductive, and dry—an approach that seemed to diminish rather than illuminate the fullness of truth . Vann argues that this perception is "tragically false". The book presents an alternative vision: Aquinas as a profoundly holistic and mystical thinker. Vann shows how Aquinas’s speculative theology and his mysticism were "of a piece"—inseparable dimensions of a unified synthesis . He highlights less-emphasized influences on Aquinas, including Pseudo-Dionysius, Greek patristic sources, and Eastern Christian traditions, arguing that Aquinas belongs to both Latin and Eastern Christianity. Vann is also critical of later "Thomists" who, in his view, betrayed Aquinas’s legacy by emphasizing rationalism and system-building while neglecting the contemplative, intuitive, and affective dimensions of his thought . The Church historian Philip Hughes called it "quite the best summary yet written in English of what makes St. Thomas the greatest of Catholic thinkers".