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