Catena Aurea – The Gospel Of Saint Luke (Part 2B) By Saint Thomas Aquinas OP

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The Catena Aurea (Golden Chain) presents the commentaries of the greatest theologians (e.g. St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, etc.) of the Church as if they were having a discussion on each verse of the Bible. St. Thomas Aquinas put this work together from sermons and commentaries on the Gospels composed by over eighty early Church Fathers, providing their insights into each passage. The work shows his intimate acquaintance with the Early Fathers. The work was commissioned by Pope Urban IV, so that everyone could understand the established meaning of the Gospels from the teaching of the early Fathers.
The Gospel according to Luke (Greek: Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Λουκᾶν, romanized: Euangélion katà Loukân[1]), also called the Gospel of Luke, or simply Luke, tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.[2] Together with the Acts of the Apostles, it makes up a two-volume work which scholars call Luke–Acts;[3] together they account for 27.5% of the New Testament.
The combined work divides the history of first-century Christianity into three stages, with the gospel making up the first two of these – the arrival among men of Jesus the Messiah, from his birth to the beginning of his earthly mission in the meeting with John the Baptist followed by his earthly ministry, Passion, death, and resurrection (concluding the gospel story per se). Most modern scholars agree that the main sources used for Luke were (a) the Gospel of Mark, (b) a hypothetical sayings collection called the Q source, and (c) material found in no other gospels, often referred to as the L (for Luke) source.[5]

The author is anonymous;[6] the traditional view that it was Luke the Evangelist, the companion of Paul, is still occasionally put forward, but the scholarly consensus emphasises the many contradictions between Acts and the authentic Pauline letters.[7][8] The most probable date for its composition is around AD 80–110, and there is evidence that it was still being revised well into the 2nd century.[9]
Thomas Aquinas (/əˈkwaɪnəs/; Italian: Tommaso d’Aquino, lit. ’Thomas of Aquino’; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian[10][11] Dominican friar, philosopher, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church. An immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, he is also known within the latter as the Doctor Angelicus, the Doctor Communis, and the Doctor Universalis.[a] The name Aquinas identifies his ancestral origins in the county of Aquino in present-day Lazio, Italy. Among other things, he was a prominent proponent of natural theology and the father of a school of thought (encompassing both theology and philosophy) known as Thomism. He argued that God is the source of both the light of natural reason and the light of faith.[12] His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory.

Unlike many currents in the Catholic Church of the time,[13] Thomas embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle—whom he called “the Philosopher”—and attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity.[14]

His best-known works are the Disputed Questions on Truth (1256–1259), the Summa contra Gentiles (1259–1265), and the unfinished but massively influential Summa Theologica, or Summa Theologiae (1265–1274). His commentaries on Scripture and on Aristotle also form an important part of his body of work. Furthermore, Thomas is distinguished for his eucharistic hymns, which form a part of the church’s liturgy.[15] The Catholic Church honors Thomas Aquinas as a saint and regards him as the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood, and indeed the highest expression of both natural reason and speculative theology. In modern times, under papal directives, the study of his works was long used as a core of the required program of study for those seeking ordination as priests or deacons, as well as for those in religious formation and for other students of the sacred disciplines (philosophy, Catholic theology, church history, liturgy, and canon law).[16]

Thomas Aquinas is considered one of the Catholic Church’s greatest theologians and philosophers. Pope Benedict XV declared: “This (Dominican) Order … acquired new luster when the Church declared the teaching of Thomas to be her own and that Doctor, honored with the special praises of the Pontiffs, the master and patron of Catholic schools.”[17] The English philosopher Anthony Kenny considers Thomas to be “one of the dozen greatest philosophers of the western world”.[18]