***not on elaborating a theology for the contemplation of scholarly minds.***
Scholarly minds not, but Romans is rather elaborate.
Being from the cosmopolitian Tarsus, he would be well aquainted with the Greeks.
***But there is much in Greek thought nevertheless that helped great minds such as Augustine and later Aquinas penetrate theological mysteries which might otherwise have been even more inaccessible than they now are.***
Though I agree in some part, I believe it is the Holy Spirit that illuminates minds and truth. He can do so without the aid of the Philosophers. No NT writer made any major use of them. (And let's not forget, most of them were buggerers of young boys).
***--but Greek thought allows us to penetrate their mysteries more deeply.***
I think the one who penetrates the mysteries of God is the submitted believer who faithfully studies the Word of God and who is helped and aided by the Holy Spirit.
All that being said, you have to admit that Paul ws rather dismissive of philosophers and philosophy in the previousley cited passage.
Here's a passage from Seneca, Nero's tutor (Nero later ordered him to commit suicide), a stoic philosopher and a contemporary of Paul. He is writing to a young Roman:
"God is near you, he is with you, he is within you. This is what I mean, Lucullus--a holy spirit indwells within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian. As we treat this spirit, so are we treated by it. Indeed, no man can be good without the help of God. He it is that gives noble and upright counsel. In each good man 'a god doth dwell, but what god know we not.'"
This was Epistle XLI. Doesn't it strike you in some ways as rather remarkably similar to what any Christian might think--except for the final line? And you'd be right. Much of what was later common Christian thought and morality was derived from stoicism. Seneca opposed slavery, he warned young men against gladiator shows and other spectacles, he condemned abortion and contraception. There was a lot that Christians learned from the stoics.