of virtue that perfects a
power, we may distinguish a double fruit: one, belonging to the same
power; the other, the last of all as it were, belonging to the will.
In this way we must conclude that the fruit which properly responds to
the gift of understanding is faith, i.e. the certitude of faith; while
the fruit that responds to it last of all is joy, which belongs to the
will.

Reply Obj. 1: Understanding is the fruit of faith, taken as a virtue.
But we are not taking faith in this sense here, but for a kind of
certitude of faith, to which man attains by the gift of understanding.

Reply Obj. 2: Faith cannot altogether precede understanding, for it
would be impossible to assent by believing what is proposed to be
believed, without understanding it in some way. However, the
perfection of understanding follows the virtue of faith: which
perfection of understanding is itself followed by a kind of certainty
of faith.

Reply Obj. 3: The fruit of practical knowledge cannot consist in that
very knowledge, since knowledge of that kind is known not for its own
sake, but for the sake of something else. On the other hand,
speculative knowledge has its fruit in its very self, which fruit is
the certitude about the thing known. Hence the gift of counsel, which
belongs only to practical knowledge, has no corresponding fruit of
its own: while the gifts of wisdom, understanding and knowledge,
which can belongs also to speculative knowledge, have but one
corresponding fruit, which is certainly denoted by the name of faith.
The reason why there are several fruits pertaining to the appetitive
faculty, is because, as already stated, the character of end, which
the word fruit implies, pertains to the appetitive rather than to the
intellective part.
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QUESTION 9

OF THE GIFT OF KNOWLEDGE
(In Four Articles)

We must now consider the gift of knowledge, under which head there are
four points of inquiry:

(1) Whether knowledge is a gift?

(2) Whether it is about Divine things?

(3) Whether it is speculative or practical?

(4) Which beatitude responds to it?
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FIRST ARTICLE [II-II, Q. 9, Art. 1]

Whether Knowledge Is a Gift?

Objection 1: It would seem that knowledge is not a gift. For the
gifts of the Holy Ghost surpass the natural faculty. But knowledge
implies an effect of natural reason: for the Philosopher says
(Poster. i, 2) that a "demonstration is a syllogism which prod