Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Conference I: An Introductory Treatment of Grace: according to its Origin, Use, and Fruit

ConfeRenCe I: an InTRoDUCToRy TReaTmenT of gRaCe: aCCoRDIng To ITs oRIgIn, Use, anD fRUIT 1. “We exhort you not to receive the grace of God in vain.”1 “Grace has poured out upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever.”2 The second text refers to our Lord, Jesus Christ. This becomes clear from the verse of the Psalm that immediately precedes it and from the verse that follows it. In the preceding verse of Psalm 44 the following words are written: “Fairer in beauty are you than the children of men and women.”3 The verse that follows says: “Your throne, O God, is from age to age, etc.”4 Therefore, the text is speaking about Christ who is the blessed one in whom all the peoples of the earth are blessed. “In your seed all peoples will be blessed”5 was said to Abraham. And because Christ is the Word through whom all things are blessed, anyone blessed by God the Father is blessed by Christ. Therefore, all things are blessed through Christ. 2. It is said in Qoheleth 10:12: “Words from the mouth of a wise person are grace.” What John 1:17 says is true: “The Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth 1 See 2 Cor 6:1: “Yes, working together with him, we exhort you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” 2 See Ps 44:3b. 3 See Ps 44:3a. 4 See Ps 44:7. See Hebr 1:8: “But of the Son, ‘Your throne, O God, is from age to age….’” 5 See Gen 22:18 and 26:4. Collations on the seven Gifts of the holy spirit 30 have come through Christ.”6 Two things are necessary for salvation; namely, knowledge of truth and practice of virtue . Knowledge of truth can be found through the Law. But the practice of virtue comes about through grace. “Virtue is a good quality of the mind made operative in us by God by means of which one lives rightly, and which no one uses for evil.”7 The Law is related to grace as the power to know is related to the ability to do, and as a tool is related to the power of the one who uses it. It is as though a bird had the power to see the heavens, but did not have strength in its wings. It would not be able to fly and hence could not reach the heights. In a similar way, however much a Jew might glory in the Law, if he is without grace, he is nothing. An artisan who has the tool with which to work but has no strength in his hands can produce nothing of value. O faithless Jew. You have the Law at hand, but unless you have the power to act, it is pointless for you to think about possessing the Law. For no one is saved by means of the Law unless grace is present as well. So it is clear that the grace of God is far more excellent than the Law itself. 6 John 1:17 reads: “The Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.” 7 This definition, ultimately based on Augustine, comes from Peter Lombard. See Book II, d. 27, c. 1 in Sententiae in IV Libris Distinctae , Tom. I, Pars II, Liber I et II. Third edition. Spicilegium Bonaventurianum 4 (Grottaferrata: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1971), 480. Bonaventure’s citation is not exact. For example, Peter Lombard’s text reads Deus solus (“by God alone”). See Book I, c. 8 n. 4 in Saint Augustine, The Retractations. Translated by Mary Inez Bogan. FC 60 (Washington: CUA Press, 1968), 36: “ … And, therefore, no one uses virtue wrongly because the function of virtue is the good use of those things which we can, indeed, use wrongly….” Bonaventure has a detailed discussion of this definition in Book II, d. 27, dubium 3 in his Sentence Commentary in Opera Omnia 2:671-72. GraCe 31 I have spoken to you at another time about the Law of the Decalogue,8 and now I will speak to you about grace. Grace is more necessary for us than the Law. It is that grace which Mother Church and the apostle Paul exhort us to receive and make fruitful. So to begin, we shall ask the Lord...