of faith. It is surely a consolation that these ages of a faith
which moved mountains, or at least essayed to remove the Turk, were
minded to express their beliefs in the coat of mail of human reason! The
giants of those days, who in the sphere of literature were rediscovering
verse and inventing rhyme, and who in every sphere of knowledge were
bringing forth the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, were not so
blinded by the white light of vision as to disown the Greeks. They made
the _Ethics_ of Aristotle the four-square walls of the city of God; they
expressed the mysteries of the Undivided Three in terms of the
Syllogism. Thus they refused to cut themselves off from the aristocracy
of human genius. They laid hands--but not violent hands--on the heritage
of the ages. No philosophers have ever equalled their bold and
lowly-minded profession of faith in the solidarity of human reason. For
this cause S. Thomas, who is their spokesman, has now become an absolute
necessity of thought. Unless the great Dumb Ox is given a hearing, our
mysticism will fill, not the churches, but the asylums and the little
self-authorized Bethels where every man is his own precursor and
messiah.

That S. Thomas is to be accepted as a master of mysticism may be judged
from the following facts in the life of a mystic of the mystics, S. John
of the Cross:

"It has been recorded that during his studies he particularly relished
psychology; this is amply borne out by his writings. S. John was not
what one could term a scholar. He was, however, intimately acquainted
with the _Summa_ of S. Thomas Aquinas, as almost every page of his works
proves.... He does not seem to have ever applied himself to the study of
the Fathers.... As has already been stated, the whole work (_The Ascent
of Mount Carmel_) is based upon the view S. Thomas Aquinas takes of the
essence and operations of the senses and of the faculties of the soul,
and upon his treatise on the virtues."[1]

S. Thomas hardly needs an imprimatur after six centuries of full trust.
But in the hard matters of mysticism, which he has treated as a scholar
should, it is reassuring to know that he has the approval, not only of
the scholars, but of the mystics.

VINCENT McNABB, O.P.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

QUESTION LXXXI
OF THE VIRTUE OF RELIGION

QUESTION LXXXII
OF DEVOTION

QUESTION LXXXIII
OF PRAYER

SUPPLEMENT--QUESTION LXXII
OF THE PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS WHO ARE IN HEAVEN

QUE