On Aquinas’ “disenchantment” at the end of his life

Abstract

While traveling absent and distracted towards Lyon, to participate in the Ecumenical Council convened by Pope Gregory X, Thomas Aquinas suffered a serious accident that resulted in his death, which occurred on March 7, 1274 in Fossanova. His stupor had begun the previous December 6. Two possible causes of this alteration are pointed out: one natural, produced by total exhaustion after twenty years of excessive work, and another supernatural, which is the central objective of this essay. It is analyzed, tracing the works of Aquinas: if abstract knowledge supposes the limit of human knowledge, if the rapture of St. Paul crossed this limit, and if knowledge of being (esse) is possible, understood in the Aquinas way, that is, transcendentally.