The word “grace” is the central subject of three great theological controversies: (1) that of the nature of human depravity and regeneration (see [Pelagius]), (2) that of the relation between grace and free-will (see [Calvin, John], and [Arminius, Jacobus]), (3) that of the “means of grace” between Catholics and Protestants, i.e. whether the efficacy of the sacraments as channels of the Divine grace is ex opere operato or dependent on the faith of the recipient.
In the third general sense, of thanks for favours bestowed, “grace” survives as the name for the thanksgiving before or after meals. The word was originally used in the plural, and “to do, give, render, yield graces” was said, in the general sense of the French rendre grâces or Latin gratias agere, of any giving thanks. The close, and finally exclusive, association of the phrase “to say grace” with thanksgiving at meals was possibly due to the formula “Gratias Deo agamus” (“let us give thanks to God”) with which the ceremony began in monastic refectories. The custom of saying grace, which obtained in pre-Christian times among the Jews, Greeks and Romans, and was adopted universally by Christian peoples, is probably less widespread in private houses than it used to be. It is, however, still maintained at public dinners and also in schools, colleges and institutions generally. Such graces are generally in Latin and of great antiquity: they are sometimes short, e.g. “Laus Deo,” “Benedictus benedicat,” and sometimes, as at the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, of considerable length. In some countries grace has sunk to a polite formula; in Germany, e.g. it is usual before and after meals to bow to one’s neighbours and say “Gesegnete Malzeit!” (May your meal be blessed), a phrase often reduced in practice to “Malzeit” simply.
GRACES, THE, (Gr. Χάριτες, Lat. Gratiae), in Greek mythology, the personification of grace and charm, both in nature and in moral action. The transition from a single goddess, Charis, to a number or group of Charites, is marked in Homer. In the Iliad one Charis is the wife of Hephaestus, another the promised wife of Sleep, while the plural Charites often occurs. The Charites are usually described as three in number—Aglaia (brightness), Euphrosyne (joyfulness), Thalia (bloom)—daughters of Zeus and Hera (or Eurynome, daughter of Oceanus), or of Helios and Aegle; in Sparta, however, only two were known, Cleta (noise) and Phaënna (light), as at Athens Auxo (increase) and Hegemone (queen). They are the friends of the Muses, with whom they live on Mount Olympus, and the companions of Aphrodite, of Peitho, the goddess of persuasion, and of Hermes, the god of eloquence, to each of whom charm is an indispensable adjunct. The need of their assistance to the artist is indicated by the union of Hephaestus and Charis. The most ancient seat of their cult was Orchomenus in Boeotia, where their oldest images, in the form of stones fallen from heaven, were set up in their temple. Their worship was said to have been instituted by Eteocles, whose three daughters fell into a well while dancing in their honour. At Orchomenus nightly dances took place, and the festival Charitesia, accompanied by musical contests, was celebrated; in Paros their worship was celebrated without music or garlands, since it was there that Minos, while sacrificing to the Charites, received the news of the death of his son Androgeus; at Messene they were revered together with the Eumenides; at Athens, their rites, kept secret from the profane, were held at the entrance to the Acropolis. It was by Auxo, Hegemone and Agraulos, the daughter of Cecrops, that young Athenians, on first receiving their spear and shield, took the oath to defend their country. In works of art the Charites were represented in early times as beautiful maidens of slender form, hand in hand or embracing one another and wearing drapery; later, the conception predominated of three naked figures gracefully intertwined. Their attributes were the myrtle, the rose and musical instruments. In Rome the Graces were never the objects of special religious reverence, but were described and represented by poets and artists in accordance with Greek models.
See F. H. Krause, Musen, Gratien, Horen, und Nymphen (1871), and the articles by Stoll and Furtwängler in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie, and by S. Gsell in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités, with the bibliography.
GRACIÁN Y MORALES, BALTASAR (1601-1658), Spanish prose writer, was born at Calatayud (Aragon) on the 8th of January 1601. Little is known of his personal history except that on May 14, 1619, he entered the Society of Jesus, and that ultimately he became rector of the Jesuit college at Tarazona, where he died on the 6th of December, 1658. His principal works are El Héroe (1630), which describes in apophthegmatic phrases the qualities of the ideal man; the Arte de ingenio, tratado de la Agudeza (1642), republished six years afterwards under the title of Agudeza, y arte de ingenio (1648), a system of rhetoric in which the principles of conceptismo as opposed to culteranismo are inculcated; El Discreto (1645), a delineation of the typical courtier; El Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia (1647), a system of rules for the conduct of life; and El Criticón (1651-1653-1657), an ingenious philosophical allegory of human existence. The only publication which bears Gracián’s name is El Comulgatorio (1655); his more important books were issued under the pseudonym of Lorenzo Gracián (possibly a brother of the writer) or under the anagram of Gracian de Marlones. Gracián was punished for publishing without his superior’s permission El Criticón (in which Defoe is alleged to have found the germ of Robinson Crusoe); but no objection was taken to its substance. He has been excessively praised by Schopenhauer, whose appreciation of the author induced him to translate the Oráculo manual, and he has been unduly depreciated by Ticknor and others. He is an acute thinker and observer, misled by his systematic misanthropy and by his fantastic literary theories.
See Karl Borinski, Baltasar Gracián und die Hoflitteratur in Deutschland (Halle, 1894); Benedetto Croce, I Trattatisti italiani del “concettismo” e Baltasar Gracián (Napoli, 1899); Narciso José Liñán y Heredia, Baltasar Gracián (Madrid, 1902). Schopenhauer and Joseph Jacobs have respectively translated the Oráculo manual into German and English.
GRACKLE (Lat. Gracculus or Graculus), a word much used in ornithology, generally in a vague sense, though restricted to members of the families Sturnidae belonging to the Old World and Icteridae belonging to the New. Of the former those to which it has been most commonly applied are the species known as mynas, mainas, and minors of India and the adjacent countries, and especially the Gracula religiosa of Linnaeus, who, according to Jerdon and others, was probably led to confer this epithet upon it by confounding it with the Sturnus or Acridotheres tristis,[1] which is regarded by the Hindus as sacred to Ram Deo, one of their deities, while the true Gracula religiosa does not seem to be anywhere held in veneration. This last is about 10 in. in length, clothed in a plumage of glossy black, with purple and green reflections, and a conspicuous patch of white on the quill-feathers of the wings. The bill is orange and the legs yellow, but the bird’s most characteristic feature is afforded by the curious wattles of bright yellow, which, beginning behind the eyes, run backwards in form of a lappet on each side, and then return in a narrow stripe to the top of the head. Beneath each eye also is a bare patch of the same colour. This species is common in southern India, and is represented farther to the north, in Ceylon, Burma, and some of the Malay Islands by cognate forms. They are all frugivorous, and, being easily tamed and learning to pronounce words very distinctly, are favourite cage-birds.[2]