Philosopher and theologian...
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Philosopher and theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas was born circa 1225 in Roccasecca, Italy. Combining the theological principles of faith with the philosophical principles of reason, he ranked among the most influential thinkers of medieval scholasticism. The primary theologian of the Roman Catholic church and a prolific writer, Aquinas died on March 7, 1274, at the Cistercian monastery of Fossanova in Italy. Shortly after his death, Saint Thomas Aquinas' theological and philosophical writings rose to great public acclaim and reinforced a strong following among the Dominicans universities and seminaries. His main treatise, the multi-volume Summa Theologica, remains to this day the leading theology textbook for the Roman Catholic church. The influence of Saint Thomas Aquinas' writing has been so great, in fact, that an estimated 6,000 commentaries on his work exist to date. Aquinas in article 4 of the Summa notes that pride is the father of vain ambition and that it gradually wraps the soul around envy. Aquinas wrote that "the capital sins are so closely connected that one comes from another. The first offshoot of pride is vainglory, and this, by eating away at the afflicted soul, soon becomes envy. When the mind craves that prestige of an empty name then it also repines for fear lest someone else should be accorded it."
Application: Envy becomes the search and the snatching of what someone else may be entitled to. Realizing we go from pride to envy, we can then comprehend that, unlike the first-century Christians, we are unable to "hold all things in common."
Application: Envy becomes the search and the snatching of what someone else may be entitled to. Realizing we go from pride to envy, we can then comprehend that, unlike the first-century Christians, we are unable to "hold all things in common."
