faith was perfect from the beginning and did not increase as time
went on.

Obj. 3: Further, the operation of grace proceeds in orderly fashion
no less than the operation of nature. Now nature always makes a
beginning with perfect things, as Boethius states (De Consol. iii).
Therefore it seems that the operation of grace also began with
perfect things, so that those who were the first to deliver the
faith, knew it most perfectly.

Obj. 4: Further, just as the faith of Christ was delivered to us
through the apostles, so too, in the Old Testament, the knowledge of
faith was delivered by the early fathers to those who came later,
according to Deut. 32:7: "Ask thy father, and he will declare to
thee." Now the apostles were most fully instructed about the
mysteries, for "they received them more fully than others, even as
they received them earlier," as a gloss says on Rom. 8:23: "Ourselves
also who have the first fruits of the Spirit." Therefore it seems
that knowledge of matters of faith has not increased as time went on.

_On the contrary,_ Gregory says (Hom. xvi in Ezech.) that "the
knowledge of the holy fathers increased as time went on . . . and the
nearer they were to Our Savior's coming, the more fully did they
receive the mysteries of salvation."

_I answer that,_ The articles of faith stand in the same relation to
the doctrine of faith, as self-evident principles to a teaching based
on natural reason. Among these principles there is a certain order,
so that some are contained implicitly in others; thus all principles
are reduced, as to their first principle, to this one: "The same