On Prayer and The Contemplative Life | Page 9

that because the opening
"objections" seem to uphold one point of view S. Thomas is therefore
going to hold the precise opposite. A good example of this will be
found in the Article: Ought we to pray to God alone?
In the Treatises here 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 century. Few works of
Mystical Theology exercised a greater influence on the writers of the
Middle Ages.[30] A word must also be said about the Gloss to which S.
Thomas so often refers, and which he quotes as an authority. The term
"Gloss" was applied to the brief running commentaries on the Bible
which were in vogue in the Middle Ages. These brief paraphrases were
also known as Postillæ, and they were frequently written in between

the lines of the text of the Bible, whence the name Interlinear Gloss; or
in the margins, whence the name Marginal Gloss. The Glossa
Ordinaria, as it is called, is the best known of these commentaries. It is
usually attributed to Walafrid Strabo, a monk of the Abbey of S. Gall,
who died in 849; but it is probable that Strabo took down his
Commentary from the lips of Rabanus Maurus, a monk of the Abbey of
Fulda, and afterwards its abbot. Rabanus was a most prolific writer, and
has left Commentaries on nearly all the Books of the Bible. Even when
Abbot he reserved to himself the Chair of Scripture;[31] he had had the
great advantage of living for a time in Palestine. Another Biblical
scholar to whom the Glossa Ordinaria of S. Thomas's time apparently
owed much, was Hugo à S. Caro, the Dominican Provincial in France,
and afterwards Cardinal-Priest of S. Sabina. It was under his direction
that the first Concordance of the Bible was formed, in which task he is
said to have had the assistance of five hundred Friars.[32] He owes his
title of Glossator to his well-known Postillæ, or Brief Commentaries on
the whole Bible. The Glossa Interlinearis is due to Anselm, a Canon of
Laudun, who died in 1117. Another famous Glossator was Nicolas de
Lyra, a Franciscan who died in 1340--some sixty-six years, that is,
subsequent to S. Thomas. Lastly, we should mention Peter the
Lombard, commonly known as The Master of the Sentences, from his
four books of Sentences, in which he presented the