§ 120. SIN AND GRACE. 755
the head of the Christian virtues, faith, hope, and love, as in Bonaventura's treatment.1 Thomas Aquinas discusses it under the head of the atonement and in special chapters entitled "the division of grace,"2 by which he means the distinction between prevenient, or preparatory, and cooperant grace, — gratia gratis data, or the grace which is given freely, and the gratis gratum faciens, or the grace which makes righteous.
Justification, says Thomas, is an infusion of grace.3 Four things are required for the justification of the sinner: the infusion of grace, the movement of the freewill to God in faith, the act of the freewill against sin, and the remission of sins. As a person, turning his back upon one place and receding from it, reaches another place, so in justification the will made free at once hates sin and turns itself to God.
Setting aside the distinction between justification and sanctification, there seems to be complete religious accord between Thomas Aquinas, the prince of the Schoolmen, and our Protestant view of redeeming grace as being from begin ning to end the gracious act of God in view of the death of Christ. His theory of the sacraments, it is true, seems to modify this position. But this is an appearance rather than a reality. For the sacraments have their efficacious virtue by reason of God's prior and gracious enactment attaching efficacy to them.
FAITH. — In its definition of faith, the mediaeval theology came far short of the definition given by the Reformers. The Schoolmen4 begin their discussion with the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews 11 : 1, that faith is the substance of things hoped for, and define faith as the grace by which things which are not seen are believed. And they scarcely
1 Peltier's ed., IV. 474 sqq.
2 De divisione gratice. Summa, Migne, II. 927-960.
3 Tola justificatio impii consistit in infusione gratice . . . justif. fit, deo movente hominem ad justitiam. Summa, II. 113, 3, 7, Migne, II. 946. 952.
4 Hugo of St. Victor, De sacr. I. 10, 9, Migne, 176. 341 sqq. ; P. Lombardus, Sent., III. 23, 24, Migne, pp. 295 sqq. ; Bonavent., In Sent., III. 23, 24, Peltier's ed., IV. 475 sqq. ; Th. Aquinas, IV. 1-5, Migne, IV. 12 sqq. •, Alb. Magnus, In Sent., III. 23, 24, Borgnet's ed., XXVIII. 408 sqq.
756 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
get beyond this definition. Although several of Paul's statements in the Epistle to the Romans are quoted by Thomas Aquinas, neither he nor the other Schoolmen rise to the idea that it is upon the basis of faith that a man is justified. Faith is a virtue, not a justifying principle, and is treated at the side of hope and love. These are called the " theological virtues " because they relate immediately to God and are founded ultimately upon the testimony of His Word alone. Christian faith works by love and is not a grace unless it be conjoined with love. The devils have intellectual faith without love, for they believe and tremble.
Faith manifests itself in three ways, in believing God, trust ing God, and believing in God.1 To believe God is to believe that He is. To trust God is to accept what He says as true. These two kinds of faith the devils have. To believe in God is to love God in believing, to go to Him believing, to be devoted to Him in believing, and to be incorporated with His members. This knowledge of faith is more certain than other knowledge because it is based upon God's Word and is enlightened by the light which proceeds from the Word.
The Schoolmen insist that without faith it is impossible to please God, and preachers, like Honorius of Autun, declared that as a fish cannot live without water, so no one can be saved without faith.2 And yet Thomas Aquinas scarcely gets beyond the definition that faith is an assent of the intel lect, assensus intellectual However, love and faith, he says, are so closely conjoined that love may be called a form of faith, a mode of its expression,4 and without love faith is dead. A sufficient faith in Christ demands four things, said the Lombard : assent to his nativity, his death, his resurrection, and his coming again for judgment.5 Thomas requires an explicit acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity even by the Old Testament saints, for the Trinity was revealed in the be-
1 Aliud credere deo, aliud credere deum, aliud credere in deum. P. Lomb., III. 23, 4. 2 SpeCf eccies., Migne, 172. 823.
3 Summa, IV. 4, 2, Migne, IV. 14, quoting 1 Cor. 13 : 12.
* Charitas dicitur forma fidei, etc., IV. 4, 3. Such faith which is without love is called fides informis. 8P. Lomb., III. 25, 3, Migne, p. 300.