Summa III q.7 a.7–9: Christ's Freely Given Graces, Prophecy, and the Fullness of His Grace

Orientation #

He recalls the division of question 7 given earlier: the first eight articles on Christ’s grace, nine to twelve on its “quantity”; the first six on sanctifying grace with its virtues and gifts, seven and eight on gratia gratis data. He refers back to the articles on faith, hope and fear (“as has been said above”), which the context block confirms were last time (prev. lecture), and looks ahead to the next article, whether fullness of grace is proper to Christ, and later to the questions on Christ’s knowledge and power. The next class treats whether fullness of grace is exclusive to Christ and whether his grace is infinite.

The class, in order #

1. Division of question 7 (“the division of all these articles”) #

After the prayer and an anecdote (Pius X, as bishop of Mantua, gave poor students a copy of the Summa “just to have anything to read”), he lays out the plan: aa. 1-8 on the grace of Christ, aa. 9-12 on “if you can use the word, the quantity” of it; within the first eight, aa. 1-6 on sanctifying grace and its virtues and gifts, aa. 7-8 on gratia gratis data, a distinction made in the Secunda but “a common distinction”; a. 8 on one particular gratuitous grace.

2. Article 7, objections and sed contra (“in Christ there was not grace gratis data”) #

Three objections that Christ lacked the gratuitous graces, followed by Augustine’s authority.

1. One who has something in fullness does not have it by partaking (“take a part”); Christ is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14); but the gratuitous graces are partakings given in a divided, particular way to diverse persons (1 Cor 12).
2. What is owed is not given gratis; it was owed to the man Christ to abound in the word of wisdom and knowledge and to be powerful in working, since he is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor).
3. These graces are ordered to the utility of the faithful (1 Cor 12, “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit unto utility”); a habit one does not use is no use (“hidden wisdom and unseen treasure”, Ecclesiasticus 20); we do not read that Christ used them all, especially tongues. “So you’re all convinced, huh?” – Thomas convinces you of the opposite before he convinces you of the truth. Sed contra: Augustine, Epistle to Dardanus: as all the senses are in the head, so all the graces are in Christ. Aside: grace, then knowledge, then power is the order of the questions on Christ now under way.

3. Article 7, body: Christ the first and chief teacher (“the first and the chief teacher is Christ”) #

The point: gratuitous graces exist for manifesting the faith and spiritual teaching; a teacher must have what makes his teaching manifest, else it is useless; Christ is the first and chief teacher of the faith (Hebrews 2, the teaching “enunciated by the Lord” and confirmed by God with signs and prodigies); so he has all these graces most excellently, “by antonomasia, he is the teacher.” Digression on Thomas’s division of the Gospel of Matthew, which shows how much Thomas stresses Christ as teacher: coming into the world, going through the world (teaching), leaving it; within the middle part, preparation by baptism and temptation (“a proven spokesman”), the Sermon on the Mount (chh. 5-7) as culmination, two chapters of miracles confirming it, choosing and sending the twelve, refuting John’s confused disciples and the Pharisees, chh. 13-16 the power of his teaching, chh. 17-20 the end and final goal of his teaching, beginning with the transfiguration.

4. Article 7, replies (“in both graces Christ had fullness”) #

• Ad 1: the distinction between the two graces. Sanctifying grace (gratia gratum faciens) is ordered to meritorious acts, interior and exterior; gratuitous grace is ordered to exterior acts that manifest the faith, e.g. miracles. Christ had fullness in both because his soul was united to his divinity and so had full efficacy for all these acts; other saints are moved by God as separated instruments, not united, and receive efficacy for these or those acts in a divided way. So Paul’s division of graces holds of the saints, not of Christ.
• Ad 2: Christ is the power and wisdom of God as eternal Son, and as such it does not belong to him to have grace at all, “even sanctifying grace”: by grace we become “partakers of the divine nature” (Peter), and God need not partake of what he is; as Son he is giver of grace. Grace belongs to him according to his human nature. “All this business about the grace of Christ presupposes a distinction between his divine nature and his human nature.”
• Ad 3 (why did he not speak all languages, as, say, John Paul II could?): tongues were given to the apostles because they were sent to all nations (end of Matthew); Christ chose to preach in person only to the Jews (“I am not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”, Matthew 15; “minister of circumcision”, Romans 15); so he did not need many languages. Yet knowledge of all tongues was not lacking to him, since even the hidden things of hearts were not hidden from him, and words are signs of thoughts. A habit unused when there is no opportunity is not useless. Aside: phones going off at daily Mass, after communion.

5. Article 8, objections and sed contra (“it seems that in Christ there was not prophecy”) #

1. Prophecy implies obscure, imperfect knowledge (Numbers 12: to a prophet “through sleep or in a vision”); Christ had full knowledge, more than Moses, who saw God “clearly and not through enigmas”.
2. As faith is of things not seen and hope of things not yet had, prophecy is of things not present but at a distance (prophecy “as it were seeing or speaking at a distance”, a word he finds strange); Christ had neither faith nor hope, since he had the clear vision from conception; so neither prophecy.
3. Prophecy is of a lower order than the angel: Moses, supreme among prophets, spoke with an angel in solitude; Christ was not less than the angels in the knowledge of the soul but only in the suffering of the body (Hebrews 2:9, going back to a Psalm). Sed contra: Deuteronomy 18:15, “I will raise up a prophet for you from your brothers” (salvation from the Jews); and Matthew 13, “a prophet is not without honor except in his own country”, Christ calling himself a prophet after rejection in his hometown (“we know his father the carpenter and his mother, one of us”). Asides: a pun he saw, “even Moses was a basket case”; Augustine and Thomas both hold that Moses among the ancients and Paul among the moderns (carried to the third heaven) saw God as he is, face to face, in a passing way; the Church has never officially decided it, but it shows the eminence of the two men.

6. Article 8, body: prophet as one who sees at a distance (“a prophet is said to be quasi procul fans”) #

Prophet as “quasi procul fans”, knowing and announcing what is distant from the senses of men (Augustine, book 16 against Faustus). One is not a prophet merely from knowing and announcing what is distant from others but not from oneself; shown in place and in time:

• Place: one in Gaul announcing to others in Gaul what is being done in Syria is prophetic (Eliseus to Giezi, telling how the man came down from the chariot and met him); one in Syria announcing what is there is not.
• Time: Isaiah foretelling that Cyrus would rebuild the temple (Isaiah 44) is prophetic; Esdras writing it in the time it was done is not. So if God, angels or the blessed know and announce what is distant from our knowledge, this is not prophecy, since they do not attain our status: “God is not a prophet.” But Christ before the passion reached our status, being not only comprehensor but also viator, his body not yet glorified; hence it was prophetic that he knew and announced what was distant from the knowledge of others on the way. He calls this “kind of a subtle way” of allowing prophecy in Christ: in the condition of his passible body he is with us. Aside: Augustine, impressed by Faustus the Manichaean, found on meeting him that he did not know the liberal arts, the lower things Augustine could judge, and so doubted whether he knew the higher.

7. Article 8, replies (“not only a comprehensor but also on the way”) #

• Ad 1: the Numbers text does not put enigmatic knowledge into the definition of prophecy; it compares other prophets (dreams, visions) with Moses, who saw God clearly and is still called a prophet (Deuteronomy: no greater prophet in Israel). Further, though Christ’s understanding had full and open knowledge, he also had in his imagination likenesses in which he could look upon divine things, as viator and not only comprehensor. So he shares even the less perfect forms, as the lesser prophets received revelations in imagination; this anticipates the later treatment of Christ’s knowledge, where Thomas gives, besides several supernatural kinds, a knowledge that comes with experience, “like us in all things but sin”.
• Ad 2: faith is of things not seen by the believer (Hebrews: “the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of what is not seen”); hope of things not had by the one hoping, primarily the vision of God; both contrary to their own definitions in one who has the beatific vision. Prophecy is of things distant from the common sense of men with whom the prophet lives and communicates in the state of being on the road; so faith and hope are repugnant to Christ’s beatitude, but prophecy is not.
• Ad 3: the angel, a comprehensor (Paul “running to comprehend”; the little ones’ angels “always see the face of my Father”), is above a prophet who is a pure wayfarer, but not above Christ, at once wayfarer by his body and comprehensor. Asides: Francis de Sales (feast this Saturday) says Christ favoured the parable, which works through the imagination; Thomas’s saying that to raise an objection without solving it is to dig a hole for someone to fall into.

8. Article 9, objections and sed contra (“it seems that there is not in Christ a fullness of grace”) #

Introducing aa. 9-12 on fullness: first whether there is fullness, then whether it is proper (private) to Christ, “Hail Mary, full of grace” notwithstanding.

1. From grace derive the virtues (Secunda): as understanding and will proceed from the soul, so from grace in the soul’s essence proceed faith in the understanding, hope and charity in the will; but Christ lacked faith and hope, so he lacked the effects, hence the fullness, of grace.
2. Grace is divided into operating and cooperating; operating grace justifies the impious; no place in Christ, never subject to sin.
3. James 1:17, “every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (a text he loves, as of the light of the mind: natural reason, faith, glory); what comes down is had in a particular way, not fully; so no creature, not even Christ’s soul, has fullness. Sed contra: John 1, “we saw him full of grace and truth”, more authoritative than an Augustine text.

9. Article 9, body: two fullnesses (“fully had, which is had wholly and perfectly”) #

Fully = wholly and perfectly; Aristotle in the third book of Natural Hearing (the Physics) says whole and perfect mean almost the same, and in the fifth book of Wisdom (the Metaphysics), among the names of the properties of being (its perfection or defect), takes up “perfect” first and later “whole”, as Thomas divides the text. Two ways of wholeness: (a) by intensity, as one fully has whiteness who has it as much as it is apt to be had; (b) by virtue or power, as one fully has life who has it to all its operations, so man has life fully over brute and plant, which lack understanding and willing. (He asks what the English uses for virtus here.) Christ has both:

• Intensity, two reasons: (i) nearness to the cause of grace, since the nearer the recipient to the inflowing cause the more it receives, as the closer to the fire the more warmth; no rational creature could be nearer God than to be joined to him in one person, so Christ’s soul receives the greatest inflow; (ii) comparison to the effect, since his grace was to be poured over into others, so he must have the greatest, as fire, cause of heat in all hot things, is hottest.
• Power: grace was given him as universal beginning of all who have grace, and the power of the first beginning of a genus extends to all its effects, as the sun, universal cause of generation in plants, extends to everything that comes under generation (“the sun will be coming down here” before the plants grow again); so his grace extends to all effects of grace, the virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the rest. He ties the second fullness to John’s “of his fullness we have all received”.

10. Article 9, replies (“faith and hope name effects of grace”) #

• Ad 1, the objection “my grace is more powerful, it produces faith and hope”: like saying my mind has more ability than Christ’s because I can be mistaken, which is a defect of ability. Faith and hope name effects of grace with a defect on the side of the receiver (things not seen, not had); Christ, author and source of grace, need not have the defects, but whatever is perfection in faith and hope is in him more perfectly, as fire has not the defective ways of having heat but all that belongs to heat’s perfection. His own example: he knows some things only with probability; Christ understands probable arguments but is not in a state of semi-doubt, so that is not an ability he has and Christ lacks.
• Ad 2: operating grace per se makes one just; making one just from being impious happens on the part of a subject in whom sin is found; Christ’s soul was justified by operating grace, made just and holy from conception, not made just from being a sinner. His new analogy: Socrates teaching Meno’s slave boy to double a square (by the diagonal; doubling the side gives four times the square) removes his mistake, but had the boy said “I don’t know”, he would have learned without ever having been mistaken; removing error is not essential to teaching, though usual, as removing sin is not essential to operating grace.
• Ad 3 (the footnote: “some codices add this response”): fullness of grace is attributed to Christ’s soul according to the capacity of the creature, not in comparison to the infinite fullness of the divine goodness; sanctifying grace even in Christ’s soul is a partaking of the divine nature and cannot equal it. Close: next time whether fullness is private to Christ; what of lex orandi, lex credendi and Mary “full of grace”, and Garrigou-Lagrange’s article on the grace of Mary (name unclear in recording; he says “I think it’s Garrigou”).

His words #

• gratia gratis data: grace gratuitously given, ordered to the manifestation of faith and the usefulness of others’ teaching, as against sanctifying grace (“grace making one acceptable”), ordered to meritorious acts
• partaking: “take a part, have a part of it”
• by antonomasia: Christ is “the teacher”
• separated tools: other saints as instruments moved by God, against Christ’s soul united to divinity
• quasi procul fans: prophet as “seeing or speaking at a distance”
• comprehensor: “one who got a hold of the thing”, enjoying the beatific vision; viator / wayfarer: “on the way”, body not glorified
• operating grace: that by which the impious is justified, per se making one just
• fully: had wholly and perfectly; by intensity vs by virtue or power [ed.: virtus]
• Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics]; the book of Wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics]
• codices: manuscripts adding the reply to the third in a. 9

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 7, a. 7 (objections, sed contra, body, three replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 7, a. 8 (whole article)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 7, a. 9 (whole article, including the codex-added ad 3)

Mentioned

• John 1:14 (“full of grace and truth”); 1 Cor 12; 1 Cor (power and wisdom of God); Ecclesiasticus 20; Hebrews 2; Hebrews 2:9; Matthew 15; Matthew 13; Matthew (end, all nations); Romans 15; Numbers 12; Deuteronomy 18:15; Isaiah 44; James 1:17; 2 Peter (partakers of the divine nature, inferred); Hebrews (definition of faith)
• Augustine, Epistle to Dardanus; Augustine, Contra Faustum XVI
• Aristotle, Physics III and Metaphysics V (whole and perfect)
• Thomas’s commentary on Matthew (division of the Gospel); Summa Theologiae, Secunda Pars on grace and the virtues, operating and cooperating grace, Moses among the prophets
• Plato, Meno (slave boy, doubling the square) (inferred)
• Francis de Sales on parables; an article on the grace of Mary (Garrigou-Lagrange, uncertain)

His questions #

• Why didn’t Christ go around speaking all these different languages? He was sent to one people of one language; still he knew all tongues, since hearts were not hidden from him, and an unused habit is not useless.
• Is God a prophet? No: God, angels and the blessed do not attain our status on the way.
• Isn’t prophecy like faith and hope, about things not present? No: faith and hope are defined by what the subject lacks; prophecy by distance from the common sense of men with whom the prophet lives on the road.
• What about the angel being above the prophet? The angel as comprehensor is above a pure wayfarer, not above Christ, who is both.
• Is my grace more powerful than Christ’s, since mine produces faith and hope? No, as being able to be mistaken is a defect of ability, not a greater ability.
• Is it essential to teaching someone to double a square that you remove him from being mistaken? No; likewise removing sin is not essential to operating grace, which per se makes just.
• Is fullness of grace private to Christ, given “Hail Mary, full of grace”? Left open, for next time.