Mary Free of the Fomes and of Actual Sin, and Her Fullness of Grace (ST III q.27 a.3–5)

Orientation #

The class picks up in the middle of the objections of q. 27, a. 3 (whether the fomes was wholly removed by the sanctification in the womb), then reads aa. 4 and 5 entire; there is a break announced mid-way (“2:30 now”). Nothing is said about the next class. The previous class treated the opening articles of q. 27 on Mary’s sanctification in the womb and its relation to the 1854 definition of the Immaculate Conception.

The class, in order #

1. Objections of a. 3 against total removal of the fomes (“virtue is made perfect in infirmity”) #

Three objections that the fomes was not wholly removed:

1. The punishment of original sin is death and the other bodily punishments; Mary was subject to these; so the fomes was not wholly removed.
2. 2 Cor 12: “virtue is made perfect in infirmity” — the infirmity of the fomes, according to which Paul suffered the stimulus of the flesh (he prayed God to remove it; God refused, to keep him from pride). Nothing pertaining to perfection of virtue should be subtracted from Mary.
3. Damascene: the Holy Spirit came over her purging her before the conception of the Son — which can only mean purgation from the fomes, since (Augustine, De natura et gratia) she did no sin.

2. Sed contra, and Berquist’s refrain (“You are all beautiful, my friend”) #

Sed contra: Song of Songs 4:7, “You are all beautiful, my friend, and there is no stain in you”; the fomes pertains to a stain, at least of the flesh. Berquist breaks in: “Oh Thomas, you saw it there. Why didn’t you apply it to the?” — i.e. to original sin itself. He wonders aloud what Brun says on the Song of Songs.

3. The four opinions, and why two of them contradict themselves (“is to lay down opposites”) #

Opinions reported: (a) the fomes wholly taken away at sanctification; (b) it remains as causing difficulty for the good but is removed as to proneness to evil; (c) removed as to the corruption of the person but remaining as to the corruption of nature, as cause of transmitting original sin to offspring; (d) it remained in essence but bound, and was wholly taken away at the conception of the Son of God.

Thomas’s tools: the fomes is nothing but a habitual disordered desire of the sense appetite (actual concupiscence is the motion of sin); it is called disordered as repugnant to reason — Berquist corrects his own slip (“repugnant to the flesh. I mean, to reason”) and recalls the flesh warring against the spirit. Since inclining to evil or causing difficulty in the good belongs to the very notion of the fomes, opinion (b) “is to lay down opposites.” Berquist’s parallel: could you give a man a difficulty in knowing the truth but no proneness to be mistaken? Against (c): Augustine (De nuptiis et concupiscentia), libido is what transmits original sin to offspring, and libido implies disordered desire not wholly subject to reason; so if the corruption of the person is wholly removed, the corruption of nature cannot remain.

4. Why not total removal at the first sanctification (“without whose power no one is freed”) #

The total-removal view would mean grace so disposed the powers of her soul that the lower powers never moved without the judgment of reason — as in Christ, and as in Adam before sin through original justice; the grace of sanctification would have in her the strength of original justice. Thomas’s objection: though it seems to honour the Virgin Mother, it takes something from the dignity of Christ, without whose power no one is freed from the first damnation. Some before the Incarnation were freed in spirit through faith in Christ, in view of his merits; but liberation according to the flesh ought not come about before his Incarnation, in which the immunity from damnation first appears — as no one attained immortality of flesh before the risen flesh of Christ.

Conclusion: the fomes remained according to essence but bound — not by an act of her reason (she had no use of free will yet in the womb; that was a special privilege of Christ), but by the abundant grace received and by divine providence prohibiting all disordered movement of her sensuality. Afterwards, at the very conception of Christ’s flesh, the subtraction of the fomes flowed back from the offspring to the mother. Signified by Ezekiel 43: the glory of the God of Israel entering by the Oriental way (the Virgin), and the earth (her flesh) shining from his majesty. Berquist notes the term lex fomitis, the law of the flesh or of the members, which Thomas uses in the treatise on law.

Student exchange: did Mary die? Some Greeks deny it; Pius (inferred: Pius XII in the definition of the Assumption) circumvented the question by saying “at the end of her earthly course,” not “at her death”; the argument is from her immunity from sin. Berquist: it always seemed more reasonable that she die if Christ died — “maybe a sweet death”; hence the Greek dormition; we are all called to fall asleep in the Lord. (“Marley was dead.”)

5. Replies of a. 3 — death, occasion, and the twofold purgation (“occasion is an accidental cause”) #

1. Death and the like do not of themselves incline to sin; Christ assumed these defects of body but not the fomes. So in Mary, conformed to her Son, the fomes was first bound, then removed, but she was not freed from death and the other penalties — Berquist: she got tired on the trip down to Egypt; Thomas seems to think of her as undergoing death.
2. The infirmity of the flesh belonging to the fomes is in holy men an occasion of perfect virtue, not a cause without which perfection cannot be had. Asked what “occasion” means, Berquist: an occasion is an accidental cause. Example: if someone is tormenting me, that is an occasion of patience, but tormenting as such does not cause patience — most people get impatient when annoyed.
3. The Holy Spirit made a twofold purgation in her: one preparing for the conception of Christ, not from any impurity of guilt or fomes, but collecting her mind into greater unity and drawing it from multitude — as the angels are said to be purged though no impurity is in them (Dionysius); the other through the conception of Christ, and in this sense he purged her wholly from the fomes.

6. a. 4, objections: venial sin, the sword of doubt, and vainglory (“all these arguments are occasions for error”) #

Whether she was preserved from every actual sin. Objections:

1. The fomes remained; the motion of the fomes even when it goes before reason is a venial sin, though most light (Augustine, De Trinitate).
2. Luke 2, “a sword shall pierce your soul”: Augustine [ed.: Berquist notes it is really Ambrosiaster, Questions on the New and Old Testament] says she doubted in a certain stupor at the Lord’s death; doubt about faith is a sin.
3. Chrysostom on Matthew (“your mother and your brothers stand outside seeking you”): manifestly from vainglory; and on John 2 (“they have no wine”): she wished to make herself more brilliant through her Son, they underwent something human — as his brethren said, manifest yourself to the world. “They did not have about him the opinion they should have.”

Berquist’s comment: “Now, all these arguments are occasions for error.”

7. a. 4, body: no actual sin at all (“he so prepares and disposes that… they are found suitable”) #

Sed contra: Augustine, De natura et gratia, about the holy Virgin Mary, “on account of the honour of Christ, when sin is in question, I wish there to be no question whatever”; to her more grace was bestowed for conquering sin on every side, that she might merit to conceive him who is known to have had no sin.

Argument: (1) Those God chooses for something he prepares and disposes to be found suitable — 2 Cor, “he made us suitable ministers of the new testament”; (2) Mary was divinely chosen to be Mother of God — “you have found grace before God, behold, you shall conceive”; (3) she would not have been a suitable mother of God had she ever sinned. Berquist interjects at (2): “and that’s why she was immaculately conceived… So no original sin either, Thomas. Your very words condemn your position here.”

Three confirmations: the honour of parents redounds to the son (Prov 17, the glory of sons is their fathers), so the mother’s ignominy would redound to him; she had singular affinity to Christ, who took flesh from her — “what agreement of Christ with Belial?”; and the Son of God, the Wisdom of God, dwelt in her, in soul and womb — Wisdom 1:4, “into an evil soul wisdom will not enter, nor dwell in a body subject to sins.” Therefore she committed no actual sin, mortal or venial, that Song of Songs 4:7 might be fulfilled — again Berquist: “Why didn’t you see it? I don’t know, Thomas.”

Aside: St. Alphonsus argues from this sort of consideration.

8. a. 4, replies: bound fomes, kinds of doubt, Chrysostom’s excess (“the doubt of admiration and of discussion”) #

1. The bound fomes did not break out in disordered motion running ahead of reason; the grace of sanctification worked toward this but was not by itself sufficient — otherwise she would have had no motion of sensuality at all, and so would not have had the fomes, against what was said. Hence divine providence completed it, permitting no disordered motion. Student: since the fomes is a consequence of original sin, if she had no original sin…? [Berquist leaves the question hanging.]
2. Origen and others expound Simeon’s sword of her sorrow in the Passion; Ambrose takes the sword to signify prudence, she not being ignorant of the heavenly mystery (for the word of God is more acute than a two-edged sword); some take it as doubt — not the doubt of lack of faith but the doubt of admiration and of discussion (dubitatio admirationis et discussionis). Basil, Epistle to Optimus: standing at the cross, after Gabriel’s testimony, the ineffable knowledge of the divine conception and the showing of miracles, she fluctuated, seeing him undergo abject things and considering his marvellous ones. Student exchange: the liturgy at the Annunciation says fear and doubt filled her mind, then “how can this be, since I know not man.” Berquist distinguishes her doubt from Zechariah’s, who was punished: Zechariah doubted whether it could take place (given age); she did not doubt that it would, but wondered how — and her case was above the power of nature, his was not.
3. Chrysostom “goes to excess” — the class settles on “he went too far.” His words can be expounded of the Lord correcting in her not a disordered motion of vainglory in herself, but what could be thought by others. Discussion of which commentary: the wedding of Cana is Chrysostom on John, though both Matthew and John are cited.

9. a. 5, objections to the fullness of grace (“God does not make anything in vain”) #

1. Fullness of grace and truth seems a privilege of Christ (John 1:14) and proper to him.
2. Nothing can be added to what is full and perfect; but she received additions later, at the conception (“the Holy Spirit will come over you”) and at her assumption into glory.
3. God makes nothing in vain (De caelo et mundo I); graces she never used would be in vain — she did not teach (an act of wisdom) nor work miracles (an act of a gratia gratis data).

Sed contra: the angel’s “Ave gratia plena”; Jerome’s sermon on the Assumption: rightly “full of grace,” because to others grace is given in parts, but into Mary the whole fullness of grace was poured at once. Aside on the Hail Mary: the angel said “Hail, full of grace”; the Church added “Mary,” and the second part (“Holy Mary, Mother of God”) is likewise the Church’s addition.

10. a. 5, body: nearness to the principle (“the more something approaches the beginning”) #

(1) The more something approaches the beginning in any genus, the more it partakes of that beginning’s effect — Dionysius, Caelestis Hierarchia c. 4: the angels nearer God partake more of the divine goodnesses than men. (2) Christ is the beginning of grace, authoritatively according to his divinity, instrumentally according to his humanity — John 1:17, “grace and truth was made through Jesus Christ.” (3) Mary was nearest to Christ according to his humanity, since he took human nature from her. Therefore she obtained before all others the greater fullness of grace.

11. a. 5, replies: threefold perfection of grace (“first a dispositive one”) #

1. Grace is given to each according to that to which he is chosen. Christ as man was predestined to be the Son of God in power, so it was proper to him to have such fullness as redounds to all (John 1:16, “of his fullness we have all received”). Mary obtained such fullness as to be nearest the Author of grace, receiving in herself him who is full of every grace and, in bringing him forth, in a way giving rise to grace for all. Berquist: not equal to Christ’s, but “almost like the mediatrix of grace” — she has that fullness such that it can be derived from her to all; it sounds like what he says in the Palm Sunday sermon [unclear in recording: “the Palmier sermon”] on the Blessed Mary.
2. Analogy from natural things: first the perfection of disposition (matter disposed for form); second the perfection of the form, which is more powerful (the heat from the form of fire is more perfect than the heat disposing for it); third the perfection of the end (fire most perfectly has its qualities when it reaches its own place). So in Mary: dispositive perfection at her sanctification; the perfection from the presence of the Son of God in her womb; the perfection of the end in glory. Each later is more potent — shown in the order of deliverance from evil (preserved from original sin; wholly cleansed from the fomes; freed from all misery) and in the order of good (grace inclining to good; grace confirming in good; grace perfecting in the enjoyment of every good). Berquist: “That’s a beautiful little text, isn’t it?” — and it would make a whole sermon for the feast of the Assumption.
3. She most excellently received the gift of wisdom, the grace of the virtues, and prophecy, but not all their uses as Christ had — only as suited her condition. She had the use of wisdom in contemplating (Luke 2: “Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart”), but not in teaching, which does not befit the female sex — Berquist: “there might be some people in the modern world who object to that, but I quite agree with St. Thomas”; a student adds Paul, “I do not permit a woman to teach,” another that Paul specifies “in church.” Miracles did not befit her in her lifetime, since that was the time for confirming Christ’s teaching by miracles, belonging to Christ and to his disciples, the baiuli [bearers] of his doctrine — whence John the Baptist did no sign, that all might look to Christ. But she had the use of prophecy, in the Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Berquist: proclaiming him, as a prophet does) and “all generations will call me blessed.”

12. Digression: knowing when to stop (“the supreme gift of the artist”) #

Prompted by a painting of the Assumption in the room — Murillo is proposed, then the one in Venice, identified as Raphael [ed.: the Titian Assunta in Venice is likelier; the transcript says Raphael]. Berquist has used it in his piece on the person of Shakespeare. From Sherlock Holmes, The Norwood Builder: the forger “lacked the supreme gift of the artist, knowing when to stop.” So Mozart always reaches the goal and never overshoots — the end of Don Giovanni, “the opera of operas,” comes down marvellously; against Beethoven’s symphonies going “boom, boom, boom” at the end. A student cites a Vivaldi piece that stops too soon (Greg Zabielski: “All right, Vivaldi, put an end to it”), and another notes that modern music does not stop but fades away.

His words #

• fomes — habitual disordered desire of the sense appetite, disordered as repugnant to reason; also called the lex fomitis, the law of the flesh or of the members. [ed.: “tinder,” the fomes of sin]
• actual concupiscence — the motion of sin, as against the habitual fomes.
• corruption of the person / corruption of nature — the fomes as impelling this man to evil vs. as cause of transmitting original sin to offspring.
• bound (ligatus) — the fomes remaining in essence but restrained, here by abundant grace and divine providence, not by an act of her reason.
• occasion — Thomas’s word for an accidental cause.
• doubt of admiration and of discussion (dubitatio admirationis et discussionis) — not doubt of unfaith.
• goes to excess / “he went too far” — the class’s rendering of Thomas’s verdict on Chrysostom.
• gratia gratis data — grace of which miracles are an act.
• baiuli — bearers, carriers (as Christ went forth baiulans his cross); the disciples as bearers of his doctrine.
• dispositive / formal / final perfection of grace — sanctification, conception of Christ, glory.

Texts #

Read in class

• Summa Theologiae III, q. 27, a. 3 (objections from mid-obj. 1 through the replies)
• Summa Theologiae III, q. 27, a. 4, entire
• Summa Theologiae III, q. 27, a. 5, entire
• Quoted within: 2 Cor 12; Song of Songs 4:7 (twice); Ezekiel 43; Luke 2 (Simeon’s sword; “kept all these words”); John 1:14, 16, 17; John 2 (“they have no wine”); Wisdom 1:4; Proverbs 17; Magnificat.

Mentioned

• Augustine, De natura et gratia; De nuptiis et concupiscentia; De Trinitate; the Questions on the New and Old Testament (Berquist: Ambrosiaster)
• Damascene; Dionysius, Caelestis Hierarchia c. 4; Basil, Epistle to Optimus; Ambrose; Origen; Jerome, Sermon on the Assumption; Chrysostom on Matthew and on John
• Aristotle, De caelo et mundo I
• Thomas, treatise on law (for lex fomitis); a sermon on the Blessed Virgin [unclear in recording]
• Pius’s definition of the Assumption, “at the end of her earthly course” (inferred: Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus)
• Conan Doyle, The Norwood Builder

His questions #

• Was the fomes wholly taken away from Mary at her sanctification in the womb? No: it remained in essence but bound, and was wholly removed only at the conception of Christ’s flesh.
• Can you hold that the fomes remains but does not incline to evil? No — that is to lay down opposites; as if a man had difficulty knowing truth with no proneness to error.
• Why couldn’t she be wholly freed at the first sanctification, as Adam was in original justice? Because freedom according to the flesh ought not precede the Incarnation, in which immunity from damnation first appears.
• Did Mary die? Left open by the definition (“the end of her earthly course”); Berquist thinks it more reasonable that she died, and Thomas seems to suppose it.
• Does people annoying you cause patience? No — it is an occasion, an accidental cause; most people get impatient.
• Was she preserved from every actual sin? Yes, simply: no actual sin, mortal or venial.
• What was the “sword” that pierced her soul? Sorrow (Origen), prudence (Ambrose), or doubt — but only the doubt of admiration and discussion (Basil).
• How does Mary’s doubt differ from Zechariah’s? He doubted whether it could happen; she asked only how, and her case was above the power of nature.
• Did she receive the fullness of grace at her sanctification? Yes, as nearest the Author of grace — but in a threefold perfection: dispositive, then at Christ’s conception, then in glory.
• If God makes nothing in vain, why grace she never used for teaching or miracles? She had all the uses suited to her condition — wisdom in contemplating, prophecy in the Magnificat; teaching and miracles did not befit her.