ABSTRACT
Thomas Aquinas’s teaching, unlike St. Augustine’s, was formed at the end of the Middle Ages, at the doorsteps of the Renaissance. Universities were on the rise. Students asked questions about the conflicts between the arguments of ‘reason’ and the Scriptures. The purpose of Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae was, among others, to prove that fides (faith) and intellect are not necessarily in conflict. Thomas Aquinas’s vision of leisure and vita contemplativa was heavily influenced by Aristotle. Although active life precedes contemplative life in time, contemplative life supersedes it ‘in merit and reason’. Aquinas sought a compromise between contemplation and active life; he disagreed with the Stoics, to whom all pleasures were evil, but did not accept the Epicurean position – that pleasure is good in itself – either. Unlike St. Augustine, Aquinas was not content with the role of a pilgrim protecting personal integrity within a corrupt world. He felt being part of the world, which he intended to reform and perfect. Both labour and leisure, and reason and faith were part of it, and leisure did not need to hinder the act of reason.
