I apologize for taking so long to post another one of these. Here is Nicholas of Cusa (a.k.a. Cusano, a.k.a. Nikolaus von Kues) (1401–1464) on the primacy of intelligent people from De Concordantia Catholica. (This was quoted in Paul Sigmund’s Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought, Harvard University Press, 1963, p. 132).
Almighty God has fixed a certain natural servitude for the stupid and ignorant in accordance with which they readily trust the more intelligent, so that they may be directed by their assistance.
I’m not sure that Nicholas was right on this point, but it’s a sentiment that has been held to various degrees by quite a few other very intelligent people going back to the ancients.
A Philosopher's Take 
Charles Lominec
December 11, 2014
I think the trend is reversed in the modern era, whereas the “ignorant and stupid” tend to use god as a reason to ignore and refute the more intelligent.
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