Thomas Aquinas and The Greek Translator

My new historical mystery/detective novel, The Medieval Adventures of Thomas Aquinas, has the 13th century theologian/philosopher solving crimes and mysteries.

Thomas is assigned to the town of Orvieto as a Convetual Lector. Also residing in Orvieto is Pope Urban IV who has fled Rome for political reasons. One day Thomas is ordered to appear before the Pope.

In an attempt to reunite the Eastern and Western churches, Pope Urban assigns Thomas to use a Greek book and write an argument -- Contra errores Graecorum -- proving the errors of the Greeks.

To write his argument, Thomas must first translate the Greek book, but he is not sufficiently fluent in Greek. Miraculously a Greek has just arrived in Orvieto with an envoy mission to the Pope. The Greek, having read some of Thomas's writings has stopped by to meet Thomas to say how much he admires his writing.

The Greek is a translator, and Thomas sees the man's arrival as extremely fortuitous. He asks the man to read the Greek book and assess it. Almost immediately Thomas is called away and leaves the Greek translator reading in his cell.

Thomas returns to his room to find the Greek translator murdered.












Stephen Gaspar's books can be found on Amazon