Aquinas died a year short of fifty (in 1274), and the vast Summa Theologiae would seem an adequate lifework for anybody short of Superman status. However, he wrote much besides, including the Summa contra Gentiles, and during his earlier years had been involved in many controversies; he also wrote sermons and prologues. Those who still think of Aquinas as merely a great medieval theologian ignore his links with Aristotle and Plato, his enormous knowledge and his powerful logic; he is one of the great philosophers of the West, and he lived and wrote in one of the great European centuries. The translations are plain in style and almost always easy to follow.