ABSTRACT
Any interpretation of Thomas is controversial, including the one that the author presents here, and best presented with such alternative readings in mind. This chapter is introductory; it provides some of the background for the more detailed consideration of Thomas's texts that follows. It begins with a biographical sketch. It offers a brief account of the history of Thomism. It is customary to divide the history of the interpretation of Thomas's texts into three phases. During the first phase, which terminates around 1450, the task of the early followers of Thomas, most of whom were Dominicans, was to come to grips with the complexity of his thought and the attacks against it. The relocation of nature into a sphere separates from super-mature was but a short step from pure naturalism. Ironically, however, the very enthusiasm of such studies led to the break-up of the Neo-Scholastic consensus as to how to interpret Thomas.
