"The doctor of Catholic truth must not only teach the most advanced, but also instruct the beginners, according to these words of the Apostle (1 Cor 3, 1-2):" As to little children in Christ, is milk I gave you to drink, not solid food. "Our intention is therefore, in this book, to expose the Christian religion in the most appropriate way to the formation of beginners (...) we will try, confident in the divine power, to present the sacred doctrine, briefly and clearly, and as much as the material allows. "

    - Thomas Aquinas, Theological Summa, Prologue

    Thomas Aquinas has spent more than ten years working in the Summa Theologica. The readers are impressed not by the immense mass it represents (about two million words, that is to say almost three times in volume the size of the Bible, Old and New Testament combined), but by the intellectual density of each article.

    Thomas Aquinas (1224 - 1274) is a religious of the Dominican order, famous for his theological and philosophical work. Considered one of the principal masters of scholastic philosophy and Catholic theology, he was canonized in 1323, then proclaimed Doctor of the Church by Pius V in 1567.