Abstract

Chesterton Introduces Aquinas

The article presents information on "Saint Thomas Aquinas," by G.K. Chesterton. At the beginning and repeatedly in the course of this short book, prepared "for those who have hardly even heard of St. Thomas Aquinas," Chesterton protests that so great a subject can scarcely be touched in such brief scope. Consequently, in good Chestertonian fashion, he writes a book which covers everything else as well as Aquinas. Chesterton's subject is rather more the present time than the thirteenth century, and yet it would be difficult to think of a source from which a reader who has little knowledge of medieval thought and no sympathy for it could learn to appreciate more quickly the significance of such major movements of that time as the reintroduction of the Aristotelian writings into Europe.