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Aquinas escaped from his father's castle to Paris and Cologne where he studied philosophy and theology under the tutelage of Albertus Magnus (1200-1280), the great Scholastic philosopher and theologian (known as "Doctor Universlis" and "Albert the Great" because of his immense knowledge), himself a Dominican who was largely responsible for transmitting Greek and Islamic philosophy, especially in the natural sciences, to the philosophers of the Middle Ages. ...in 1245, Aquinas became a lecturer and then a regent master (full professor) at Paris; in subsequent years he served under the Popes at Orvieto, Rome, and Vitergo in Italy, and continued teaching in Paris and Naples.
Aristotle's main works had been lost to the non-Arabic world until the early part of the thirteenth century. Conservative Christian theologians feared their return to the philosophical scene, especially after the Islamic philosophers had put their own spins and interpretations on them through their commentaries; they saw them as a pagan and infidel threat to their Christian dogma. Aquinas took the opposite approach. He saw Aristotle not just as the greatest of all philosophers - he even called him The Philosopher - but as an opportunity to put Christian doctrine on a solid intellectual foundation through Aristotle's metaphysics, cosmology and epistemology provided that an account of the soul could be given that preserved individual human egos as surviving, personalities intact, as separately existing entities beyond the grave.
