Page:Summa Theologica (2nd rev. ed.) - Volume 1.djvu/21

Rh which Augustine and other Fathers praised, and laboured to attain, and which the Vatican Synod itself decreed to be very fruitful. Such knowledge and understanding are certainly acquired more fully and more easily by those who, to integrity of life and study of the faith, join a mind that has been disciplined by philosophical culture. Specially is this so since the same Vatican Synod teaches that we ought to seek for understanding of holy dogmas of that kind 'both from the analogy of the things which naturally are known, and also from the way in which the mysteries themselves are related to one another, and also to the last end of man.'

Lastly, it pertains to philosophical discipline to guard with religious care all truths that come to us by Divine tradition, and to resist those who dare to attack them. Now, as regards this point, the praise of philosophy is great, in that it is reckoned a bulwark of the faith, and as a strong defence of religion. 'The doctrine of our Saviour,' as Clement of Alexandria bears witness, 'is indeed perfect in itself, and has need of nothing, forasmuch as it is the power and the wisdom of God. But Greek philosophy, though it does not by its approach make the truth more powerful, has yet been called a fit hedge and ditch for the vineyard, because it weakens the arguments of sophists against the truth, and wards off the crafty tricks of those by whom the truth is attacked.'

In fact, as the enemies of the Catholic name borrow their warlike preparations from philosophic method, when they begin their attacks on religion, so the defenders of the science of God borrow many weapons from the stores of philosophy, by which to defend the dogmas of revelation. Again, we must count it no small victory for the Christian Faith, that human reason powerfully and promptly wards off those very weapons of the enemy which have been got together by the skill of the same human reason for purposes of harm. St. Jerome, writing to Magnus, shows how the Apostle of the Gentiles himself adopted this kind of argument. 'Paul, the leader of the Christian army and the unanswered speaker,