From The Sadness of Christ:
Wherefore as the apostle spake of the wisdom of God, so may I of holy writ (wherein God hath
laid up and hidden great heaps of his wisdom) right well cry out and say: ‘O the depth of the marvellous
high wisdom and knowledge of God! How far be the judgements of God above the capacity of man’s
wit, and how unsearchable be his ways!’236 And yet for all this do there in every corner nowadays still
start up amongst us, as it were swarms of wasps or hornets which of a certain pride call themselves, as
St. Jerome termeth them, autodidactons, that is to wit, of themselves learned without any man’s
teaching, and boast likewise that without the commentaries of the old doctors they have found all those
points open, plain, and easy, which all the ancient fathers, men of as excellent wit and no less learning
than they, and over that all given to continual study, and touching the spirit of God (whereof they as
much babble as they little have) as far beyond them as they passed them in godly living, confessed to be
right hard and cumbrous. But now these newfound divines, that are thus suddenly sprung up of nought,
which would so fain seem to know all things, besides that they vary from all those good godly men in
the understanding of scripture, agree not within themselves, neither in the principal points of Christ’s
religion, and nevertheless every one of them bold bearing folk in hand that they have spied out the truth,
as they put other of like sort to rebuke and shame, so by other do they take shame themselves. And as
they altogether labour to destroy and overthrow the whole Catholic faith, so are they all the whole rabble
of them brought to confusion themselves, whose wretched and foolish enterprises, God that dwelleth in
heaven loud laugheth to scorn, whom I most humbly beseech, that he so laugh them not to scorn as he
laugh at their eternal damnation, but inspire into their hearts his wholesome grace of repentance, whereby though they,
like unthrifty prodigal children, have strayed too long, alas, abroad, they may yet at length return from whence they came unto their mother the Church afresh, to the
intent we and they together agreeing in one true faith of Christ, and knit in mutual love and charity, may
as his true members attain unto the glory of our captain and head, which whosoever hopeth to have out
of this body, the Church, and without the right faith, doth with a vain hope lewdly deceive himself.
While awaiting his likely execution, Saint Thomas never stopped thinking about the current heresies that were rending The Church, and that the men doing this work would ultimately be reconciled to the Church.
