Christ's Fullness of Habitual Grace

Thesis V: Besides the substantial sanctity resulting from the “grace of union,” the human soul of our Lord also possessed an accidental holiness which, though not actually infinite, was by far the most perfect created in the present economy.

This proposition is theologically certain. By accidental or created holiness (as opposed to substantial holiness) we mean, in the first place, the state of sanctifying grace.¹ Being a creature, Christ’s soul was incapable of actually infinite sanctity; yet by virtue of the Hypostatic Union it was endowed with a superabundance of grace greater than could be given to any other creature in the present order.

Theologians differ on the exact certainty of this thesis. Suarez holds it an article of faith, or at least fidei proximum — morally certain to be divinely revealed; Vásquez, Petavius, and De Lugo regard it merely as a theologically certain conclusion.² All agree that the moral necessity of Christ’s superabundant grace flows not from some separate positive decree of God, nor from the merits of Christ’s human soul, but from the Hypostatic Union itself. Christ’s soul, by its personal union with the Logos, received the greatest measure of grace God can bestow on any creature under the present economy. Though ultimately traceable to the “grace of union,” and therefore supernatural, this plenitude of grace was nonetheless connatural to Christ — a moral requirement of what He is.

The Scriptural Argument

The Scriptural case rests mainly on John 1:14 sqq.: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us … full of grace and truth… And of his fulness we all have received, and grace for grace.”

The Word Incarnate is here described as “full of grace” in exactly the same sense in which we are said to receive from His fullness “grace for grace” — there is no qualitative difference between the Giver’s grace and the grace received; the two are entirely homogeneous. Since the grace we receive from our Redeemer is primarily sanctifying grace, Christ’s soul must have possessed this same grace, and in such abundance that all the redeemed, individually and together (including the Blessed Virgin, so singularly endowed herself), can draw on it without ever exhausting it. It will not do to read John 1:14 as referring merely to the gratia unionis (substantial sanctification) — the grace of union is not homogeneous with the grace of the justified, and so cannot be the immediate source from which the justified draw. Whenever Scripture speaks of a “fullness of grace,” it means created grace, while it describes the “grace of union” itself, which yields substantial holiness, differently — as “the fullness of the Godhead”: “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporeally” (Colossians 2:9).

Scripture likewise describes Christ, as man, as “anointed with Divinity” (the grace of union) and “with the Holy Ghost” (sanctifying grace) — the second anointing presupposing the first. Isaiah, of the coming Messias: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse … and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom and understanding…” (Isaiah 11:1 sqq.); and elsewhere, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me” (Isaiah 61:1 sqq.); and Acts 10:38, “How God anointed him with the Holy Ghost, and with power.” Whenever Scripture says of an ordinary mortal that “he was anointed with the Holy Ghost” or “the Holy Ghost rests upon him,” it means that person received supernatural graces, chiefly sanctifying grace, both for its own sake and as the ground of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost.³ Since Scripture uses these same terms of our Savior,⁴ Christ’s soul cannot be conceived as lacking sanctifying grace — He possessed, in other words, created or accidental holiness in addition to substantial holiness.

The Patristic Argument

Among the many Patristic texts theologians cite for this thesis, only those drawing a clear line between created holiness and the “grace of union” — and expressly attributing both to Christ’s soul — are genuinely probative.

St. Cyril of Alexandria: “Christ sanctifies Himself, since as God He is holy by nature, but according to His humanity He is sanctified together with us, in that … He does not hesitate to call us His brethren.”⁵ St. Chrysostom asserts both the existence and the superabundance of sanctifying grace in Christ: “The full measure of grace has been poured out over that Temple [Christ]. For He does not dispense grace by measure. We have received of His fullness, but that Temple has received the complete measure of grace. This is what Isaiah meant when he said, ‘[The Spirit of the Lord] shall rest upon him.’ In Him is all grace; in men, only a small measure, a drop of that grace.”⁶ St. Augustine expounds the same texts beautifully: “The Lord Jesus Christ Himself not only gave the Holy Spirit as God, but also received it as man, and is therefore said to be full of grace and of the Holy Spirit. And in the Acts of the Apostles it is written even more plainly of Him: ‘Because God anointed him with the Holy Spirit’ — certainly not with visible oil, but with the gift of grace, signified by the visible ointment with which the Church anoints the baptized.”⁷

St. Thomas Aquinas: “It is necessary to posit habitual grace in Christ for three reasons: first, on account of the union of His soul to the Word of God … second, on account of the nobility of that soul … third, on account of Christ’s own relation to the human race. For Christ, insofar as He is man, is mediator of God and men, as it is said in 1 Timothy 2; and therefore it was fitting that He should have grace overflowing into others as well, according to John 1:16: ‘Of his fulness we have all received, and grace for grace.’”⁸ Of these three reasons, the first — grounded in the Hypostatic Union — is the most important: “From the very union of human nature to God in unity of Person, it follows that Christ’s soul was filled, above all others, with the habitual gifts of grace; and so habitual grace in Christ is not a disposition toward the union, but rather an effect of the union.”⁹

Notes