This week in Christian history: Thomas Aquinas dies, 40 martyrs of Sebaste

Thomas Aquinas dies – March 7, 1274

This week marks the anniversary of when Saint Thomas Aquinas, an influential Medieval Christian thinker and writer, died at a Cistercian monastery in what is now Italy.

While traveling to Lyon, France, to serve on a major church council, Aquinas fell ill and died. He had reportedly told people shortly before his death that he wanted to be inside the local monastery rather than the castle because if “the Lord wishes to take me away, it is better that I be found in a religious house than in the dwelling of a layperson.”

A preacher, intellectual and apologist who was college-educated, Aquinas is most remembered for his writings, which included his famous philosophical opus Summa Theologica.

“Shortly after his death, Saint Thomas Aquinas' theological and philosophical writings rose to great public acclaim and reinforced a strong following among the Dominicans,” noted Biography.com.

“Universities, seminaries and colleges came to replace Lombard's Four Books of Sentences with Summa Theologica as the leading theology textbook. 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.”