Page:Summa Theologica (2nd rev. ed.) - Volume 1.djvu/19

 much of the teaching of the Gentiles for the defence of Christian wisdom, and for the destruction of superstition, he used these things as weapons taken from the enemy, and with wondrous power hurled them back. Both Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa approve and praise this manner of teaching in Basil the Great. So also Jerome greatly commends the same thing in Quadratus, a disciple of the Apostles; in Aristides, in Justin, in Irenæus, and in very many others. Augustine also says: 'Do we not see how Cyprian, that doctor of great sweetness and that martyr of great blessedness, was laden with gold and silver and raiment when he went forth from Egypt? Was it not so with Lactantius, with Victorinus, Optatus, and Hilary? Not to speak of the living, was it not so with countless Greeks?' If, then, natural reason produced so rich a crop of learning as this before it was fertilized by the power and working of Christ, much more abundant will be its harvests now, when the grace of the Saviour renews and increases the inborn powers of the mind of man. Is there, indeed, anyone who does not see that a plain and easy road is opened to the Faith by philosophy such as this?

The usefulness, however, which springs from such a way of studying philosophy is not confined within these limits; for in truth severe reproof is given, in the words of the wisdom of God, to the foolishness of those men who, 'by these good things that are seen, could not understand Him that is; neither, by attending to the works, have acknowledged (Him) who was the workman.'

In the first place, then, this great and glorious fruit is gathered from human reason—namely, that it demonstrates the existence of God: 'By the greatness of the beauty and of the creature the Creator of them may be seen, so as to be known thereby.' In the next place, reason shows that God, in a way belonging only to Himself, excels by the sum of all perfections—that is, by an infinite wisdom, from which nothing can be hidden; and also by a supreme justice which no