re presented the argument, though clear and precise,
is hardly what we should call subtle, and this for the simple reason
that the subject-matter does not call for subtle treatment. But what
cannot fail to strike the most cursory reader is the tone of submission
to authority and to the teachings of the Fathers which characterizes
every page: "_Summe veneratus est sacros Doctores_," says Cajetan,
"_ideo intellectum omnium quodammodo sortitus est_."[27] And the natural
corollary of this is the complete self-effacement of the Saint. The
first person is conspicuous by its absence all through the _Summa_,
though the reader of the following pages will find one exception to this
rule.

And the more we study these Articles of S. Thomas the more we marvel;
the thought is so concentrated and yet so limpid in its expression, that
as we read it it seems as though no one could ever have thought
otherwise. But read it, and then try to reformulate the line of argument
which you have been following with such ease--and your mind halts, your
tongue stammers! It is one thing to understand the thought when
expressed, quite another to think such thoughts and express them. Hence
the declaration made by Pope John XXII. when the question of the holy
Doctor's canonization was brought forward: "Such teaching," he
exclaimed, "could only have been due to miracle!" And on the following
day in the Consistory: "He has brought greater light to the Church than
all other Doctors; by one year's study of his writings a man may make
greater profit than if he spend his whole life studying the writings of
others!"[28]

The reader will sometimes feel inclined to smile at the quaint
etymologies which occur now and again. But he must remember that these
are given by the Saint for what they are worth. It was not a
philological age, and S. Thomas made use of the _Book of Etymologies_
drawn up in the seventh century by S. Isidore of Seville.

Besides the writings of S. Augustine, two Patristic works are cited with
considerable frequency by S. Thomas in these pages: the _Opus
Imperfectum_ of S. Chrysostom on S. Matthew's Gospel, and the works of
Denis the Areopagite. The former is almost certainly not the work of S.
Chrysostom, but rather of an Arian writer towards the close of the sixth
century.[29] The writer known as Denis the Areopagite, owing to his
being traditionally identified with S. Paul's convert at Athens,
probably wrote about the close of the fifth