From The Sadness of Christ:
Whereby it is evident that it came of God himself that, until that time, those which would so fain
have taken him cast perils where were none at all, and causeless quaked for fear where need was none to
fear. But now as soon as the convenient time was come that by the painful death of one man, all men
should be redeemed to the joyful bliss of the life everlasting, as many as unfeignedly desired it, these
peevish wretched dolts thought that they by their wily wits had wilily wrought that thing which the
providence of almighty God, without whose foreknowledge not so much as a sparrow lighteth on the
ground, had of his great mercy from before all time determined.
Doubtless it was a comfort to Saint Thomas to assume that his persecution was part of a vast divine plan.
