Patron Saint of Philosophers

Saint Thomas Aquinas is invoked as patron of philosophers. Thomas was born about 1225 at the family castle of Roccasecca, near Aquino in the Kingdom of Sicily, the youngest son of Landulf of Aquino and Theodora of Theate. From age five he was an oblate at the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino, and from 1239 he studied at the imperial University of Naples, where he encountered the works of Aristotle in their newly available Latin translations.About 1244 he entered the Order of Preachers in Naples. Sources: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris.html.

Saint Justin Martyr is invoked as patron of philosophers. Saint Justin was born about 100 at Flavia Neapolis (the Roman name of biblical Shechem, modern Nablus) in Samaria, of pagan Greek parents. As a young man he passed through Stoic, Aristotelian, Pythagorean, and Platonic schools in turn, dissatisfied with each. Sources: https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20070321.html.

Saint Albert the Great is invoked as patron of philosophers. Albert was born around 1200 at Lauingen on the Danube into a family of the Swabian lower nobility. While studying liberal arts at Padua he encountered the new Order of Preachers founded by Saint Dominic and entered it in 1223. Sources: https://www.usccb.org/resources/2026cal.pdf.

Saint Catherine of Alexandria is invoked as patron of philosophers. Catherine of Alexandria was traditionally venerated as a noblewoman of fourth-century Alexandria, martyred in the persecution of the Emperor Maximinus II (or possibly Maxentius) around 305-313. Her legendary Acts, which circulated widely in the East from at least the seventh century, present her as a learned Christian virgin who, when summoned by the emperor to defend her faith in public disputation, confounded fifty pagan philosophers, who were converted and executed; condemned to be broken on a spiked wheel, she was delivered when the wheel itself shattered; and was finally beheaded.The historical core of her cult is uncertain - she is not mentioned in the most ancient martyrologies - but her veneration was firmly established by the ninth century and exploded in the Latin West after the discovery of relics venerated as hers at the great monastery of Mount Sinai (now Saint Catherine's Monastery), an attribution that gave the monastery and the surrounding mountain her name. Sources: https://www.usccb.org/resources/2026cal.pdf.