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1. By the substantial grace of personal union with the Word, the
humanity of Christ is sanctified, with a sanctity that is innate,
substantial, and uncreated. By the grace of union Jesus is united to
God personally and substantially, by that grace He is Son of God,
the well-beloved of the Father, by that grace He is constituted as
the substantial principle [786] of acts, not merely supernatural
but theandrical, and by that grace He is sinless and impeccable.
2. Nevertheless it is highly appropriate that the soul of the Savior
should have, as consequence of the hypostatic union, the plenitude
also of created grace, of sanctifying grace, with all the infused
virtues and with all the gifts of the Holy Ghost, that thus his
supernatural and meritorious acts be connatural. This connaturalness
requires that also the proximate principles of these acts, His
intellect and will, be of the same supernatural order as are the acts
themselves. [787] .
3. This habitual and sanctifying grace, being a consequence of the
hypostatic union, was, from the first moment of His conception, so
perfect that it could not be augmented. By His successive deeds,
says the Second Council of Constantinople, [788] Christ
Himself was not made better.
This initial plentitude of grace expanded at once into the light of
glory and beatific vision. [789] It is highly appropriate that
He who came to lead humanity to its last end should have perfect
knowledge of that end. [790] Were it otherwise, did He have
from His divinity only faith illumined by the gifts of the Holy
Ghost, then, on receiving later the light of glory, He would,
contrary to the Council just cited, have Himself become better.
This expansion of sanctifying grace into the vision of God was
paralleled by a corresponding expansion of zeal for God's glory and
man's salvation, a zeal which led the Savior, at His entrance into
the world, to offer Himself as a perfect holocaust for us. The same
plenitude of grace is the source, on the one hand, of a supreme
beatitude, which did not leave Him even on the cross, and, on the
other hand, of the greatest suffering and humiliations, arising from
His zeal to repair all offenses against God and to save mankind.
This identity of source serves in some manner to explain the mysterious
harmony, in Christ crucified, between supreme beatitude and supreme
suffering, physical, moral, and spiritual.
4. The priesthood of Christ, which gives to His sacrifice an
infinite value, on what does it rest? It presupposes, not merely the
fullness of created grace, but also the grace of union. The priestly
acts of Christ draw their theandric and infinite value from His divine
personality. Some Thomists, it is true, say that Christ's
priesthood is constituted by His created grace, by His grace of
headship, [791] which of course presupposes the grace of union.
But the majority, more numerous as time goes on, hold that Christ's
priesthood rests directly on the uncreated grace of union itself. That
union it is which makes Jesus the "Anointed one of the Lord."
That union gives Him His primordial anointing, His substantial
holiness. [792] .
Further, the grace of union is also the reason why we owe to
Christ's humanity the homage of adoration. [793] It is
likewise the reason why Christ sits at the right hand of God, as
universal king of all creatures, as judge of the living and the dead.
[794] This is the view which dominates the encyclical on Christ
as King. [795] Jesus is universal judge and universal king,
not only as God, but also as man, and that above all by His grace of
union which makes Him God-man.
This uncreated grace of union, then, is the reason why Christ, as
man, since He possesses substantial holiness, is to be adored with
the adoration due to God alone. And primarily by this same grace He
is first priest, capable of priestly acts which are theandric,
secondly universal king and judge.
Here appears the necessity of contemplating our Savior from three
points of view: first according to His divine nature, by which He
creates and predestines; secondly, according to His human nature, by
which He speaks, reasons, and suffers; thirdly, according to His
unity of person with the Word, by which His acts are theandric and
have a value infinitely meritorious and satisfactory.
Christ was predestinated. In what sense? St. Thomas and his
school, in opposition to Scotus, teach that Jesus as man was
predestined, first to divine filiation, secondly and consequently, to
the highest degree of glory, which is given to Him because He is
God's Son, by nature, not by adoption. [796] They teach,
further, that Christ's own gratuitous predestination is the cause of
our predestination and that Jesus merited for the elect all the effects
of predestination, all the graces which they receive, including the
grace of final perseverance. [797] .
5. Christ's meritorious and satisfactory acts have an intrinsic
value which is infinite. On this important question, which touches
the very essence of the mystery of Redemption, Thomists and Scotists
are divided. St. Thomas and his school, as we saw above, by
insisting on the one existence of Christ, emphasize, much more than
Scotus does, the intimacy of the two natures in Jesus,—which gives
to His acts, meritorious and satisfactory, an intrinsically infinite
value. Thomists insist on the substantial principle of these acts,
which is the Word made flesh, the divine suppositum, the divine
person of the Son of God.
Hence, whereas Scotists assign to Christ's acts a value that is
only extrinsically infinite, that is, only so far as God accepts
those acts, Thomists, on the contrary, and with them many other
theologians, hold that the value of these acts is intrinsically
infinite by reason of the divine person of the Word, which is their
substantial and personal principle. That which acts, merits,
satisfies, is not, speaking properly, the humanity of Jesus, but
rather the person of the Word, which acts by His assumed humanity.
But that person, having an infinite elevation, communicates that
elevation to all His acts. He that properly satisfies for an
offense, says St. Thomas, [798] must give to the one
offended something for which his love is at least as great as is his
hatred for the offense. But Christ, by suffering in charity and
obedience, offered God something for which His love is greater than
is His hatred for all offenses committed by the human race. As
offense grows with the dignity of the person offended, so honor and
satisfaction grow with the dignity of the person who makes amends.
[799] .
This thesis, admitted by theologians generally, is in accord with the
teaching of Clement VI: [800] One little drop of Christ's
blood, by His union with the Word, would have sufficed to redeem the
whole human race. It is to men an infinite treasure... by reason of
Christ's infinite merits.
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