October 6, 1273

Summa Theologiae

Thomas Aquinas stops work on the Summa theologiae

The most prolific theologian of his age reportedly put down his writing tools and never resumed the Summa. What he had written, he reportedly said, seemed like straw.

Saint Nicholas's Day, not October

The traditional date for this event is 6 December 1273, the feast of Saint Nicholas — not 6 October, as the listing has it. On that day Thomas Aquinas reportedly underwent an extraordinary alteration while celebrating Mass in Naples.

Canonization testimony attributed to Bartholomew of Capua, a legally trained contemporary, says that after the Mass Aquinas ceased his regular writing and dictation and put aside his writing instruments.

Straw

When his companion and secretary Reginald of Piperno pressed him to continue, Aquinas reportedly answered that he could not, because what he had written seemed slight — like straw — compared with what had been revealed to him.

That line is reported speech transmitted by others, not a surviving sentence in Aquinas's hand. The whole episode reaches us through canonization testimony and hagiographic biographies recorded decades later.

Stopped at Question 90

The Summa halts in the middle of its treatment of penance, at Part III, Question 90, and was still unfinished at Aquinas's death. By then it ran to 512 questions and 2,669 articles.

The familiar ending was supplied afterwards: a posthumous Supplement assembled largely from his earlier commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences, not newly completed work. Tradition reads the Naples episode as mystical revelation; modern writers have also proposed stroke, illness or exhaustion, and none of these can be proved.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 8 sources 2 audit passes Traditional date

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Traditional date. Conventionally dated here; the research places it at 1273-12-06.

What the sources leave uncertain

The listed date, 6 October, is wrong. The traditional date is 6 December 1273, the feast of Saint Nicholas.
The event is known through canonization testimony and hagiographic biographies recorded decades later, not through a diary or a statement written by Aquinas that day.
A mystical experience is the traditional interpretation. Modern writers have also proposed stroke, illness or exhaustion, none of which can be proved.
“He never wrote another word” is too absolute: one modern reconstruction argues that he may have produced a short exposition for the monks of Monte Cassino about two months later. What is secure is that he did not resume the Summa.