In my humble opinion, your Grace is the greatest theological logician since the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas. And as for beauty and lucidity of writing, it ranks easily with "De Civitate Deo" of St. Augustine of Hippo, and "De Imitatione Christi" of St. Thomas à Kempis.

I was most especially impressed by your reasoning on the mystical levitation of the soul, in which you show clearly that the closer a human soul approaches the perfection of God, the greater the attraction between that soul and the Spirit of God.

Surely it must be clear to anyone that the more saintly a man becomes, the greater his love for God, and the greater God's love for His servant; and yet, you have put it so clearly and concisely, with such beautifully worded theological reasoning, that it becomes infinitely more clear. It is almost as though one could, in some mystical way, measure the distance between an individual soul and the Holy Presence of God by the measure of the mutual love and attraction between that soul and the Blessed Trinity.

Your masterful analysis of the relative worthiness of those who have come to the Kingdom of Heaven on the Day of Judgment is almost awe-inspiring in its beauty. Even those souls which have been cleansed as white as snow by the forgiving Grace of God differ, one from another, and your comparison between those souls and a ray of pure white light striking a prism of clearest crystal is magnificent.

The Church has always held that those whose entire lives have been lived in holy purity and in the Grace of God would hold a higher place in Heaven than those whose lives have been sinful, even though God, in His graciousness, has forgiven them their sins. But no one had shown how this might be so. Your analogy, showing how the white light of the sun may be graded into the colours of the rainbow, ranging from red to violet, illustrates wonderfully how Our Lord will grade His chosen servants on the Last Day, when the sinful souls of the damned are cast into Darkness.

There are other instances, almost too numerous to mention, which show your immense theological understanding and deep thought. So thought-provoking are they that I would not dare to comment on them until I have re-read and studied them carefully, for fear I should show my own shallowness of mind.

It is my belief that your "Principia Theologica" will be read, honored, and loved by Christians for many centuries to come.

I shall, of course, write to 

 Prev. P 17/18 next