Theory as Icon

Putting Intellectual Efforts in Their Place

Reginald of Piperno was one of Thomas Aquinas’s closest friends. He was also, at least for a time, Thomas’s secretary: Reginald’s pen, not Thomas’s, first wrote down many of the texts Thomas wrote, including the words of Thomas’s magnum opus, the Summa Theologica.

Thomas was, of course, absurdly prolific. In just two decades of writing, he produced more …