Such texts could easily be multiplied.
b) Tradition found definite utterance as early as the fourth century.
When Jovinian attempted to revive the Stoic theory of the absolute equality of all virtues and vices, he met with strenuous opposition on the part of St. Jerome, who wrote a special treatise Contra Iovinianum, in which he said: “Each of us receives grace according to the measure of the grace of Christ (Eph. IV, 7); not as if the measure of Christ were unequal, but so much of His grace is infused into us as we are capable of receiving.”[1185] St. Augustine teaches that the just are as unequal as the sinners. “The saints are clad with justice (Job XXIX, 14), some more, some less; and no one on this earth lives without sin, some more, some less: but the best is he who has least.”[1186] But, we are told, life as such is not capable of being increased; how then can there be an increase of spiritual life? St. Thomas answers this objection as follows: “The natural life pertains to the substance of man, and therefore can be neither augmented nor diminished; but in the life of grace man participates accidentaliter, and consequently he can possess it in a larger or smaller degree.”[1187]
c) From what we have said it is easy to understand the distinction which theologians make between justification as gratia prima and justification as gratia secunda. The latter is merely another term for an increase of grace after justification.
α) Such an increase may be effected either ex opere operantis, that is, by good works, or ex opere operato, through the sacraments, and is called justification (iustificatio, δικαίωσις) partly because Sacred Scripture refers to it by that name[1188] and partly because “to become just” (iustum fieri) and “to become more just” (iustiorem fieri) both imply true sanctification.
In this connection the question may be raised whether sanctifying grace is diminished by venial sin. Venial sin does not destroy the state of grace and consequently cannot augment or diminish grace. To assume that it could, would lead to the absurd conclusion that a definite number of venial sins might eventually grow into a mortal sin, or that repeated venial sins gradually diminish grace until finally it disappears. The first-mentioned assumption is impossible because venial differs generically from mortal sin, and a transition from the one to the other would be a μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος. The second assumption would entail the heretical inference that the state of [pg 389] grace can be lost without mortal sin.[1189] No doubt venial sin influences the state of grace unfavorably; but this evil influence must be conceived as indirect—by committing venial sins man weakens his will-power, and temptation eventually grows so strong as to make mortal sin inevitable. “He that contemneth small things, shall fall little by little.”[1190]
β) If we inquire how sanctifying grace increases in the soul, we find that the process must be conceived as a growing intensity analogous to that of light and heat in the physical order.
Gratia prima, as we have seen in a previous chapter, is a supernatural physical quality.[1191] Hence its increase, i.e. gratia secunda, must be an increase of physical quality. Such an increase is called in Scholastic parlance intensio.[1192] In what does this process consist? Certain Thomists[1193] describe it as a maior radicatio in subiecto, while the majority of theologians hold that it is simply an additio gradus ad gradum. This latter explanation is probably the correct one. Sanctifying grace is either capable of gradual increase, or it is not. If it is, there is no reason why God should deny such an increase under certain conditions. If it is not, Luther would have been right in contending that a newly baptized infant enjoys the same measure of holiness as the Blessed Virgin Mary [pg 390] or the human soul of our Divine Lord. It is impossible to imagine how grace could produce a quantitatively higher holiness by simply striking its roots deeper into the soul.[1194]
γ) A question of greater practical importance is this: Is the increase of sanctifying grace accompanied by a corresponding increase of the infused virtues, and vice versa.
Every increase or decrease of sanctifying grace must eo ipso entail a corresponding increase or decrease, respectively, of theological charity. Charity is either identical with grace or it is not.[1195] If it is, an increase of the one implies an increase of the other; if it is not, the one cannot increase without an increase of the other, because they are inseparable and related to each other as nature to faculty, or root to blossom. Moreover, the degree of heavenly glory enjoyed by a soul will be commensurate with the measure of charity which it possessed at death. Now grace and glory bear a proportional relation to each other. Consequently, grace is augmented as charity increases, and vice versa. The same argument applies to the infused moral virtues.