Abstract

‘The sum of Thy Words is Truth,’ and for us who have to search for that Truth fidelity or loyalty to it when discovered. Easy in theory, difficult in practice : ‘ascetic practices,’ says St. Jerome, ‘for example continence or mortification of the flesh, are of great value; but nothing is so mortifying as knowledge of the truth ‘(On Nahum ii. i, P.L. xxv, 1244); he seems to be thinking of a man’s reactions on coming up against some wholly unexpected truth, something running counter to his preconceived notions. ‘Nothing,’ says St. Augustine, ‘is easier for a person not merely to say but really to think he has discovered the truth ; but how difficult a thing that is ! ‘(De Utilitate credendi, 1). If the Bishop of Hippo could ever have felt annoyed, he who had made the search after truth the passion of his life must have felt indignant when Secundinus the Manichee told him : ‘the truth makes you as angry as philosophy made Hortensius ‘(Ep. ad Augustinum, 3, P.L.xlii, 574).Our Dominican history furnishes us with three great examples, among many others, of this unflinching loyalty to the truth as they saw it, a loyalty which was not obstinacy but conviction based on the triple foundation of reason, faith, and their outcome—humility.

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