¹ O'Connor, Flannery, “The Catholic Novelist Today,” Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 172Google Scholar.

² Reinhard Huetter succintly represents a venerable tradition in maintaining that it is indeed necessary: “No supernatural faith, no lumen fidei; no lumen fidei, no analogy of faith; no analogy of faith, no theological study of the sacred page; no theological study of the sacred page, no sacra doctrina” (Dust Bound for Heaven [(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012], 345)Google Scholar.

³ “Pagan,” as I use it here, simply means anyone who is neither a Christian, a Jew, nor a Christian heretic.

⁴ Unless otherwise noted, in‐line citations are from the Summa Theologiae (Textum Leoninum Romae 1895; ed. Roberto Busa SJ;http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth3045.html; Accessed 5/18/2015), given by Part, Question, Article, and Sub‐heading.

⁵ For discussion, cf. Marshall, Bruce, “Quod Scit Una Vetula: Aquinas on the Nature of Theology,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas (eds. Nieuwenhove, Rik van and Wawrykow, Joseph; Sound Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 7‐11Google Scholar.

⁶ Cf. Ryan, Fainché, Formation in Holiness: Thomas Aquinas on Sacra doctrina (Dudley, MA:Peters‐Leuven, 2007), 116Google Scholar.

⁷ Cf. White, Thomas Joseph O.P., Wisdom in the Face of Modernity: A Study in Thomistic Natural Theology (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia, 2009), 41Google Scholar.

⁸ The best kind of life, Aquinas maintains, is one spent in contemplation of “intelligibilia,” the highest truths, the chief of which is the LORD, though he recognizes that “secundum quid, et in casu, magis est eligenda vita activa, propter necessitatem praesentis vitae” (II‐II.182.1.c.).

⁹ “Fides principaliter est de his quae videnda speramus in patria … ideo per se ad fidem pertinent illa quae directe nos ordinant ad vitam aeternam, sicut sunt tres personae, omnipotentia Dei, mysterium incarnationis Christi…Quaedam vero proponuntur in sacra Scriptura ut credenda non quasi principaliter intenta [sicut quod Abraham habuit duos filios] … quae narrantur in sacra Scriptura in ordine ad manifestationem divinae maiestatis vel incarnationis Christi” (II‐II.1.6.ad 1).

¹⁰ We have here a complement to Aquinas's argument for the need for revelation as a sure guide to the knowledge even of the praeambula fidei (I.1.1.c.); just as reason requires the hermeneutical focus of revelation, so too revelation requires the hermeneutical focus of authoritative church teaching, on pain of its salvific purposes being frustrated altogether.

¹¹ For his defense of various aspects of the Eucharistic liturgy along these lines, cf. ST III.73.4.sc., III.75.2.c., and III.83.5.sc. For further discussion, see Berger, David, Aquinas and the Liturgy (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press)Google Scholar.

¹² Esp. in his On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine (Rambler, July 1859; http://www.newmanreader.org/works/rambler/consulting.html; Accessed 5/18/2015).

¹³ Ryan insists that Aquinas's use of the “non solum..sed” formulation, both in his quotation from Dionysius and in his own voice in this paragraph, indicates that “the two routes to the wisdom that pertains to sacra doctrina seem to be inextricably intertwined” (Formation in Holiness, 126), i.e., they have distinct senses, but an identical reference. While grammatically possible, this interpretation flies in the face of Aquinas's use of this distinction here, which is to demonstrate that there are paradigmatically different modes of judging in accord with wisdom: just as “someone instructed in moral science, can judge about virtuous acts, even if he should not have virtue,” so too someone instructed in divine science can judge about the LORD and his creatures even apart from a connatural knowledge of the LORD, if he subjects his judgment to the “principia [quae] ex revelatione habeantur” (I.1.6.ad 3).

¹⁴ cf. Pinsent, , “Gifts and Fruits,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas (eds. Davies, Brian & Stump, Eleanor; New York: Oxford University, 2012), 475‐490Google Scholar, here 477.

¹⁵ Ulrich Horst argues that, while there was precedent for this teaching already in patristic theology (e.g., Ambrose's De Spiritu Sancto), Aquinas's treatment is heavily indebted to Lombard's (who first divided the discussion of the doctrine into the Gifts’ relation to the virtues, presence in Christ, and permanence in heaven), as it was subsequently developed by William of Auxerre, Philipp the Chancellor, Albert the Great, and Bonaventure, among others (Die Gaben des Heiligen Geistes nach Thomas von Aquin (Berlin: Akademie, 2001), 24‐40Google Scholar).

¹⁶ Horst refers to the Gifts as “die Krönung der Tugendkonzeption des Aquinaten,” the unifying head without which his “Moraltheologie” remains only “ein Torso” (Die Gaben des Heiligen Geistes, 19).

¹⁷ Reginald Garrigou‐Lagrange, O.P., The Theological Virtues, Vol. 1: On Faith (trans. Thomas a Kempis Reilly, O.P.; St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1965), 368.

¹⁸ Cf. Horst, Die Gaben des Heiligen Geistes, 84.

¹⁹ Cf. ibid., 20.

²⁰ The one who judges divina per modum inclinationis in a sense conforms to the patristic sense of the term “theology,” which, insists J.L. Illanes, “es más un modo de vida que un conocimiento; o un conocimiento transformado en vida hasta hacer de la existencia entera una ‘mística teología’” (“La Sabiduría Teologica,” in Veritas et Sapientia [eds. Juan J. Rodriguez Rosado & Pedro Rodriguez Garcia; Pamplona: Edicionies Universidad de Navarra, S.A., 1975], 196).

²¹ For the one who judges per modum cognitionis, “zu seinen Kennzeichen ist das Suchen zu rechnen, in das, soll das Nachdenken zu einem Resultat führen, Zeit und Bemühungen investiert werden müssen. Anders verhält es sich mit dem, der eben den habitus castitatis hat [cf. II‐II.45.2.c. for this example]. Er urteilt aufgrund einer Verwandschaft mit dem zur Keuschheit Gehörenden” (Horst, Die Gaben des Heiligen Geistes, 132).

²² Pascal, Blaise, Pensées, in Oeuvres Complètes (Lafuma, Louis (ed.), Paris: Éditions duSeuil, 1963) §424Google Scholar.

²³ Broadly speaking, an intellectual virtue is only analogically a virtue, since Aquinas follows Augustine in defining virtue as “bona qualitas mentis, qua recte vivitur, qua nullus male utitur,” and, in the case of infused virtues, “quam Deus in nobis sine nobis operatur” (I‐II.55.4, cf. De Lib. Arb. 2.19). The intellectual virtues, however, are so‐called “inquantum faciunt facultatem bonae operationis, quae est consideratio veri (hoc enim est bonum opus intellectus), non tamen dicuntur virtutes secundo modo, quasi facientes bene uti potentia seu habitu” (I‐II.57.1.c.). Someone who has the intellectual virtue of “scientia speculativa” is thereby equipped “speculari verum in his quorum habet scientiam; sed quod utatur scientia habita, hoc est movente voluntate” (Ibid.). The intellectual virtues are “imperfect” in that they do not automatically render their possessors flourishing, praiseworthy human beings, but only skillful practitioners of their art. Garrigou‐Lagrange comments, “In a partial degree, intellectual virtues may develop good health in a man, or turn him into a good artist, or refine his skill as a good mechanic. In spite of all this, the man may persist as a well‐known pervert. It is quite the contrary with virtues simply and properly so styled. Prudence and justice, for example, make the man simply good” (The Theological Virtues, xii).

²⁴ “The Intellectual Virtues,” 330.

²⁵ “Although those things which are beyond man's knowledge may not be sought for by man through his reason, nevertheless, once they are revealed by God, they must be accepted by faith” (I.1.1.ad 1; cf. also I.1.8.c.).

²⁶ Faith is also a virtue of the will, which is transformed by grace so as to press the intellect to submit to revelation (I‐II.113.3‐4). Cf. Joseph Bobik: “Faith resides both in the intellect and in the will, but immediately and properly in the intellect, since truth is the object of faith, and truth is the object of the intellect. Faith resides in the intellect as assenting to truth, in the will as commanding the intellect to its assent” (Veritas Divina: Aquinas on Divine Truth (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 2001), 51Google Scholar).

²⁷ The gifts of understanding and knowledge seems to be a simple corollary of insisting that belief in the articles of faith as divinely‐revealed is a gift of grace. Since belief is not merely assent, but rather “cum assensione cogitare” (II‐II.2.1), it includes at least a modest degree of apprehension (I can neither believe nor disbelieve Carroll's, “‘Twas brillig, and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe”). Thus, if the faith in the Gospel to which the Spirit moves us is truly to be ours, it must be exercised in and through a faculty of understanding somehow adequate to its contents. The Holy Spirit guarantees, Aquinas takes it, that all believers will be able to impose sufficient sense upon the articles of faith to be able to hold them as true.

²⁸ Possession of this gift accounts for the impossibility of anything false coming under faith (II‐II.1.3.c.) – though, of course, stipulating this surely only means that discovering that something apparently believed on faith was false would indicate that it had not in fact been true faith doing the believing, but only faith's simulacrum.

²⁹ Expositio in Symbolum Apostolorum (ed. Roberto Busa; Turin, 1954; http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/csv.html; 5/18/2015), proemium. Cf. Marshall, “Quod Scit,” 1‐3.

³⁰ Garrigou‐Lagrange contrasts them thus: “The gift of knowledge differs from human science [in that] it is not discursive; it is direct and simple, being by origin a participation of knowledge that is divine…The gift of knowledge is not to be confused with acquired theology or the competence of men, however degreed…Acquired theology is a thoroughly discursive science – not so the infused gift of knowledge” (394). Cf. also Horst: “Die Einsicht, wie sie hier verstanden werden soll, meint die ‘Vorzuglichkeit einer Erkenntnis, die in das Innere eindringt’ – und zwar auf nichtdiskursive Weise. Ihr eignet deshalb Spontaneität, da sie auf langwierige Reflexionen, wie sie zum Geschäft der Theologie gehören, nicht angewiesen ist” (Die Gaben des Heiligen Geistes, 113). And as Steven Pinsent observes, “The Gift of Knowledge enables a ‘participated likeness’ of God's knowledge, knowledge that is absolute and simple rather than discursive, as for the homonymous intellectual virtue” (Pinsent, “Gifts and Fruits,” 478).

³¹ In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas devotes little effort to offering reasons in defense of believers’ assent to Scripture as verbum Dei. In the Summa contra Gentiles (whose very title indicates an apologetic, extra muros orientation), however, he lists such reasons at some length. “Sapientia divina,” he argues, “ad confirmandum ea quae naturalem cognitionem excedunt, opera visibiliter ostendit quae totius naturae superant facultatem; videlicet in mirabili curatione languorum, mortuorum suscitatione, caelestium corporum mirabili immutatione; et, quod est mirabilius, humanarum mentium inspiratione” (I.6.1). Cf. Niederbacher, Bruno S.J., “The Relation of Faith to Reason,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas (eds. Davies, Brian & Stump, Eleanor; New York: Oxford University, 2012), 337‐347, here 342Google Scholar.

³² Aquinas, Thomas, “Prayer Before Study,” The Aquinas Prayer Book: The Prayers and Hymns of St. Thomas Aquinas (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute, 2000), 43Google Scholar.

³³ This does not mean, for Aquinas, that all Christians are candidates for receiving such grace – the gratuitous graces related to ecclesiastical teaching (and the “gift of words” which is necessary for their functioning) are particularly suited for “prelates,” and are absolutely denied to women (II‐II.177.2.c., citing 1 Tim 2:10‐11).

³⁴ This is not to dismiss out of hand the importance that contemplation, and indeed direct inspiration, might have had for Aquinas's intellectual labors; but it is surely uncontroversial to observe that well‐honed natural gifts played a much greater role in his writing and teaching than in that of Peter as he is depicted in the Gospels and in Acts.

³⁵ The Theological Virtues, 395.

³⁶ John Henry Newman, Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1^st ed. 1870; http://www.newmanreader.org/works/grammar/#titlepage; Accessed 5/18/2015), 14.

³⁷ Ibid., 10, 34.

³⁸ Ibid., 9.

³⁹ Ibid., 20.

⁴⁰ Ibid., 34.

⁴¹ Ibid. 121.

⁴² The possibility of practicing sacra doctrina “from the outside,” as propositions apprehended notionally, does not, of course, mean that Aquinas sees no connection between this speculative science and sanctity (for which, vide supra). And yet empirically, many practice sacred doctrine in such a way as to divorce its “speculative” and “contemplative” dimensions. On its face, this is no more surprising, in a fallen world, than the fact that my ability to leap onto my kitchen table tells me nothing about whether I ought to do so when the Dean is over for dinner: our capacity for an act and that act's propriety simply do not map neatly onto one another.

⁴³ For a more extensive application of the use/mention distinction to Christian theology, cf. my “Saying and Praying: Christian Holiness and the Practice of Theology,” Pro Ecclesia Summer 2015, Vol. XX1V No. 3, p. 289‐307.