Gifts Compared with the Virtues; Beatitudes as Acts and Their Rewards in This Life (ST I-II Q.68 a.8; Q.69 a.1-2)

Orientation #

He finishes question 68 with article 8 (after reading Augustine’s warning that he is “neither an angel nor a prophet nor an apostle”), then says “now we can go to the Beatitudes,” reading the prologue and the first two articles of question 69. He does not name the next class. In a. 1 ad 1 he refers back to “the last article” (a. 8) for the gifts being more eminent than the cardinal virtues.

The class, in order #

1. Objections: should the virtues be preferred to the gifts? (“virtue is potior donis Spiritus Sancti”) #

The three objections of q. 68 a. 8 argue for the virtues, and he flags in advance that Thomas will partly agree.

• Obj. 1: Augustine, De Trinitate XV: nothing more excellent than charity; it alone divides the sons of the kingdom from the sons of perdition; other gifts profit nothing without it; charity is a virtue. — “As you see, Thomas will agree with that. Thank God.”
• Obj. 2: what is naturally before is more potent; Gregory, Moralia II: the Holy Spirit first forms in the mind the four cardinal virtues, then “tempers” it by the gifts, each against a defect: wisdom against stupidity, understanding against dullness, counsel against precipitation, fortitude against fear, science against ignorance, piety against hardness, fear against pride.
• Obj. 3: no one uses the virtues badly (Augustine), but the gifts can be used badly, Gregory, Moralia I: we pray lest wisdom elevate us into pride; lest understanding “run too subtly” and go astray; lest counsel, multiplying itself, be confounded; lest fortitude make us over-confident and precipitous; lest science, which knows and does not love, inflate; lest piety, inclining us to rectitude outside, twist us inside; lest fear, when more than trepidation, fall into “the pit of desperation.”
  • Anecdote for counsel confounded: a friend who could think of all kinds of things to do but had no judgment which to do; “Brother Mark could judge which one to do.”
• Sed contra: the gifts are given to aid the virtues against defects (the Gregory text of obj. 2), so they perfect what the virtues cannot.

2. Corpus: the gifts between theological and other virtues (“the same comparison of the gifts to theological virtues”) #

Thomas answers by a distinction and a proportion, “looking before and after” the gifts.

1. Virtues are of three genera: theological (by which the mind is joined to God), intellectual (reason itself perfected), moral (the desiring powers perfected to obey reason).
2. The gifts dispose all the powers of the soul to be subject to divine motion, divine inspiration.
3. Hence gifts : theological virtues :: moral virtues : intellectual virtues — the theological virtues unite man to the Holy Spirit who moves; the intellectual virtues perfect reason which moves the moral virtues.
4. So as the intellectual virtues are preferred to the moral and rule them, the theological virtues are preferred to the gifts and rule them (Gregory, Moralia I: the seven sons do not arrive at the denarius, the perfection, except in faith, hope and charity).
5. Compared with intellectual and moral virtues the gifts are preferred: the gifts perfect the powers in relation to the Holy Spirit moving, the virtues perfect reason or the other powers in order to reason; “what’s better, to be perfected to be moved by the Holy Spirit than by reason?”
6. Reason: for a higher mover the mobile must be disposed by a greater perfection. Conclusion: the gifts are more perfect than the intellectual and moral virtues.

3. Replies: two ways of “before” (“something is before another in two ways”) #

• Ad 1: conceded; charity is a theological virtue, more potent than the gifts.
• Ad 2: before in the order of perfection and dignity (love of God before love of neighbour) — thus the gifts are before the intellectual and moral virtues but after the theological; vs. before in the order of generation or disposition (love of neighbour precedes love of God “as regards the act” — “that’s interesting”) — thus moral and intellectual virtues precede the gifts, since a man who has himself well about his own reason is disposed to have himself well in order to God. His gloss: like disposing the matter to receive the form; the form is higher, but the matter must first be suitably disposed.
  • Student: is this the fourth sense of before, then the first? He: generation is the first sense, “better” is the fourth.
  • Aside: Thomas looks before and after — “no doubt where Shakespeare got his notion”; it belongs to the wise man to order things, the culmination of Scripture’s wise men and Aristotle; Thomas always quoting Paul, quae a Deo sunt ordinata sunt.
• Ad 3: wisdom, understanding and the rest, as informed by charity (which does nothing wrong), are gifts, and so used by no one badly; but one is aided by the other gifts lest one recede from the perfection of charity — this is what Gregory intends. “Gregory means what Thomas says he means, Augustine means what Thomas says he means, and Aristotle means what Thomas says.”

4. Digression: three orders of sacred doctrine (“How many distinctions are there in orders of sacred doctrine”) #

He asks the class how many divisions of sacred doctrine there are; Thomas says three, one into two and two into three.

• First, the Bible: Old and New Testament, divided on John’s “the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” OT on the basis of law: law of the king (Pentateuch, and the prophets urging its fulfilment) and law of the Father (sapiential books). NT on the basis of grace: the four Gospels its origin, Paul its nature, Acts, canonical epistles and Apocalypse its effect on the Church — origin, progress, final stage. Aside: “almost adopted” in Dei Verbum without naming Thomas.
• Student proposes speculative and practical — rejected: “I don’t accept that… ‘speculative’ as English, that’s not good.”
• Second: Augustine’s Enchiridion on faith, hope and charity, written for an educated layman wanting a summary: faith takes up the creed, hope the Our Father (and maybe the Hail Mary), charity the two commandments of love and the Ten Commandments — the basis of the old catechisms; Thomas follows it in the catechetical instructions, “the Naples catechism.”
• Third: the Summa: God in himself, God as beginning, God as end. “Dogmatic and moral theology is not as good as this one.”
• The four Gospels divided as three against one: the first three relative to the fourth are more the human nature of Christ, the fourth the divine. The Summa’s order is the reverse: divinity (Trinity) before the humanity of Christ. “I am the way, the truth and the life” gives the humanity first (Christ as man is the via, Greek hodos, road), which Thomas quotes at the head of the third part. Paul VI: the Church is based on the faith of Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” — the three synoptics divided by the three anointed, king, prophet, priest, then “the Son of the living God” for John. John’s prologue (“In the beginning was the Word… the Word was made flesh”) already anticipates the Summa’s order: Trinity presupposed to the Incarnation.

5. q. 69 prologue and a. 1 objections (“whether the beatitudes are distinguished from the gifts”) #

Four things to ask: whether the beatitudes are distinguished from gifts and virtues; whether their rewards pertain to this life; their number; the suitability of the rewards. “He never bores me.”

• Obj. 1: Augustine, On the Sermon of the Lord on the Mount, attributes the beatitudes of Matthew 5 to the gifts; Ambrose on Luke attributes them to the four cardinal virtues. His question: are these two great minds just connecting them or identifying them?
• Obj. 2: the human will has only a twofold rule, reason and the eternal law; virtues perfect man in order to reason, gifts in order to the eternal law of the Holy Spirit; so nothing else pertains to the rectitude of the will. “This is confusing me” — the business of the teacher is to confuse the students; if the student did not know he was confused he would not know his mind had been clarified.
• Obj. 3: mildness, justice, mercy are enumerated, and these are virtues. “Uncle, I give up. Stop twisting my arm, Thomas.”
• Sed contra: some beatitudes are neither virtues nor gifts — paupertas, luctus (weeping, mourning), peace.

6. Corpus and replies: beatitudes as acts, not habits (“as acts are distinguished from habits”) #

1. Beatitude is the last end of human life.
2. One is said to have the end already on account of hope of obtaining it — Aristotle, Ethics I, boys called blessed on account of hope; Romans 8, “by hope we are made safe.”
3. Hope of the end arises from being suitably moved toward and approaching it, through some action.
4. One is moved to beatitude through the operations of the virtues, and especially the doings of the gifts if we speak of eternal beatitude, to which reason does not suffice but the Holy Spirit inducit, leads into. Conclusion: beatitudes are distinguished from virtues and gifts not as distinct habits but as acts from habits. “I didn’t see that, Thomas. That’s amazing. Beatitudes are all acts” — though “they don’t all sound like acts.”

• Ad 1: Augustine and Ambrose attribute beatitudes to gifts and virtues as acts to habits — a connection, not identity. Since gifts are more eminent than cardinal virtues (last article), Ambrose, expounding the beatitudes proposed to the crowd, attributes them to cardinal virtues; Augustine, expounding those proposed to the disciples on the mountain, “as more perfect,” to the gifts. “That’s beautiful” — the difference of Matthew and Luke: on the plain to the crowd, on the mountain a smaller group of disciples.
• Ad 2: the argument proves only that there are no other habits rectifying human life.
• Ad 3: mildness is taken for the act of mildness, as we say of someone doing what is just “that’s justice”; Hopkins, “the just man justices.” Though these seem virtues they are attributed to gifts, because the gifts perfect man about everything the virtues do.
• Asides: how far we are from the simple perfection of God, needing all these virtues and gifts to reach far less; little Sophia asked whether God is simple or put together said “simple” — “wisdom has spoken”; Washington Irving’s Mountjoy with his sister Sophia and Julia.

7. a. 2 objections: do the rewards pertain to this life? (“rewards which are attributed to the beatitudes”) #

• Obj. 1: some are called blessed on account of hope of reward; the object of hope is future beatitude. “Let’s see, get around that, Thomas.”
• Obj. 2: Luke 6:25 sets down punishments opposed to the beatitudes (“woe to you who are saturated, because you will be hungry; woe to you who laugh now”); these are not in this life, since men are often not punished here (Job 21, they lead their days in good things).
• Obj. 3: the kingdom of heaven, reward of poverty, is celestial beatitude (Augustine, City of God XIX); full satiety only in the future life (Psalm 16, “I will be satisfied when his glory appears”); the vision of God and the manifestation of divine sonship are future (1 John: now we are sons of God, and when he appears we will be like him because we will see him as he is).
  • His gloss: Christ’s definition of eternal life, “that they know you and him whom you have sent” — going in and out, into the divinity and to his carnal nature; God sees himself as he is, so we must be like him, seeing him as he is “through he being joined to our reason as that by which we see him” — that which we see and that by which. “Thomas must have forgot all this? No, he put them in the objections himself.”
• Sed contra, Augustine on the Sermon on the Mount: what can be completed in this life we believe completed in the apostles; but that omni modo, changed into angelic form, promised after this life, cannot be expounded in words. Students disagree whether this means the apostles had the fullness or that it is promised for the future life; he: there will be a distinction Thomas sees that clears the confusion — as Aristotle says, if they had seen this distinction all their ignorance would have been excluded, otherwise we remain in our “stubborn, obstinate arguments.”

8. Corpus: merit vs. inchoatio (“hope of future beatitude is able to be in us on account of two things”) #

The expositors differ: Ambrose (on Luke) all rewards future; Augustine present life (“my goodness”); Chrysostom (footnote: homilies on Matthew) some future, some present — “a full range of ideas.”

• Aside on expositio: not quite “explaining” (to fold out) but “laying out”; Thomas’s expositions of Aristotle or Scripture lay the text out in order; he likes to lay out Shakespeare’s definition of reason. Distinction: hope of future beatitude can be in us (a) by preparation or disposition, by way of merit; (b) by a certain imperfect beginning, inchoatio, of beatitude in holy men even in this life. Example: hope of a tree’s fruitfulness when it is green with leaves vs. when the fruits already begin to appear — grapes, strawberries. So what the beatitudes touch on as merits are preparations for beatitude, perfect (next life) or begun; what is laid down as rewards is either perfect beatitude (future life, Ambrose) or some beginning of beatitude as in perfect men (present life). When someone begins to progress in the acts of virtues and gifts he can hope to reach the perfection of the road, in this life, and of the fatherland.
• Mary and Martha: “she has chosen the best part, and it shall not be taken away from her” — she already has something in this life, not taken away but perfected; Martha loses her pots and pans. He takes this to confirm Chrysostom and the part of truth in Ambrose and Augustine. Teresa of Avila: “I don’t know what more I can have in heaven, our union is already complete.”
• Aside: the three sacraments baptism, Eucharist, confirmation matched to the Trinity (confirmation—Holy Spirit; communion—the Son; baptism—the Father) and to the theological virtues (charity—Holy Spirit, “in our hearts”; faith—the Word; hope—the Father). Aside: the Psalms in three stages — first fifty fighting one’s own sinfulness, second progressing in virtues and good deeds, third resting in God and praising him; a nun: “on Sunday we rest in God.” Aside: a drink of Grand Marnier and amaretto said to taste like blueberries.

9. Replies: spiritual pains and rewards now, all consummated later (“even in this life, they are in a certain way begun”) #

• Ad 1: hope is of future beatitude as last end, but also of the aid of grace as that by which one is led to the end (Psalm 27, “in God I hope and I am aided”) — hope extends to both.
• Ad 2: the evil, though sometimes without temporal pains here, suffer spiritual ones — Augustine, Confessions I: a disordered soul is its own punishment (“you pick up the daily newspaper”; their ignorance of it makes it worse; Bellarmine on the Psalms has something like it); Aristotle, Ethics IX, the soul of the bad contends, draws them this way and that (Shakespeare’s soul fighting itself), concluding that if it is thus miserable to be bad, one must flee badness intensely — “pretty good for the old pagan philosopher.” Conversely the good, without bodily rewards, have spiritual ones even here: Matthew 19, Mark 10, centuplum, a hundredfold “even in this age.”
• Ad 3: all rewards perfectly consummated in the future life but begun here: kingdom of heaven as the beginning of perfect wisdom, the spirit beginning to rule (“the kingdom of heaven is within you”); possession of the land as the affection resting by desire in the stability of a perpetual inheritance; consoled here by the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the consoler; saturated by the food “my food is to do the will of my Father” (at the well — his favourite scene, Christ “so real there”); attaining God’s mercy here; the eye purged by the gift of understanding sees God in a certain way; those who pacify their emotions, coming to the likeness of God, are called sons of God. These will be most perfect in the future life. “I think you’ve done that well.”

His words #

• potior: “more potent,” his rendering throughout for the virtues/gifts comparison.
• preces: prayer (Gregory’s text, obj. 3).
• Moralia: Gregory’s work, cited books I and II.
• “looking before and after”: Thomas ordering the gifts against what is better (theological virtues) and less (intellectual, moral).
• two ways of before: order of perfection and dignity vs. order of generation or disposition.
• three orders of sacred doctrine: Bible (law/grace), Enchiridion (faith, hope, charity), Summa (God in himself, beginning, end).
• via / hodos: Christ as man is the road.
• paupertas, luctus: poverty, mourning/weeping.
• inducit: the Holy Spirit “leads into” eternal beatitude.
• “the just man justices” (Hopkins): act named by the virtue’s name.
• expositio: “laying out,” rather than “expounding” or “explaining.”
• inchoatio: “opening, beginning”; imperfect beginning of beatitude in this life.
• omni modo: “in every way,” the perfection promised after this life (Augustine).
• centuplum: a hundredfold, even in this age.
• Paraclete: the consoler.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q. 68, a. 8 (whole article)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q. 69, prologue; a. 1; a. 2 (whole articles)

Mentioned

• Augustine, De Trinitate XV; On the Sermon of the Lord on the Mount; Enchiridion; City of God XIX; Confessions I
• Gregory, Moralia I and II
• Ambrose, commentary on Luke
• Chrysostom, homilies on Matthew (footnote); Thomas’s work on John (as mentioned)
• Aristotle, Ethics I and IX
• Scripture: John 1 (law by Moses, grace by Christ; prologue); Matthew 5; Luke 6:25; Romans 8; Job 21; Psalm 16; Psalm 27; 1 John 3; Matthew 19, Mark 10; John 4 (the well); Mary and Martha; “I am the way”; Peter’s confession; “kingdom of heaven is within you”
• Dei Verbum (Vatican II); Thomas’s catechetical instructions (“Naples catechism”); Bellarmine on the Psalms; Hopkins; Shakespeare; Washington Irving, Mountjoy; Teresa of Avila

His questions #

• Should the virtues be preferred to the gifts? Yes for the theological virtues, which rule the gifts; no for the intellectual and moral, since a higher mover needs a more perfectly disposed mobile.
• Which sense of “before” makes the moral virtues precede the gifts? Generation or disposition (the first sense), not perfection (the fourth); matter disposed to form.
• How many distinctions or orders of sacred doctrine are there? Three: Bible (law/grace), Enchiridion (faith, hope, charity), Summa (God in himself, beginning, end); speculative/practical rejected.
• Are Augustine and Ambrose identifying the beatitudes with gifts and virtues, or just connecting them? Connecting, as acts to habits; Ambrose for the crowd (cardinal virtues), Augustine for the disciples on the mountain (gifts).
• Why does Thomas put objections he must have “forgotten”? He put them in himself; a distinction (merit vs. inchoatio) resolves them.
• What is Augustine saying in the sed contra — that the apostles had the fullness, or that it is promised for the future? Left open by the students; resolved by Thomas’s distinction between the completed-here and the omni modo perfection.
• What did our Lord say to Martha about Mary? She has chosen the best part and it shall not be taken away — a beginning of beatitude here, perfected hereafter.
• Do the wicked suffer in this life? Yes, spiritual pains: the disordered soul is its own punishment.