Annotatio CCXL

”Whither the spirit was to go, thither they went, and returned not when they walked.” — Ezekiel 1:12

(the body of this annotation begins on folio 608; the catchword “GRE—” points to Gregory) #### “Whither the spirit was to go, thither they went, and returned not when they walked.” — Ezekiel 1:12

Gregory, in homily 5 on Ezekiel, so interprets this passage that he seems to assert that charity once had cannot be lost.¹ For he says: “They returned not when they walked: because the elect indeed so go to good things, that they return not to the perpetrating of evils.” And, after many things, expounding that, “A splendor of fire running about in the midst of the animals,”² he says: “The running-about and the mobility can be understood thus. For in the hearts of the saints, according to certain virtues, [charity] always remains; but according to certain [others], it comes as one about to withdraw, and, about to come [again], withdraws. For in faith, hope, and charity, and the other good things — without which the heavenly country cannot be attained, such as humility, chastity, justice, and mercy — it deserts not the hearts of the perfect. But in the virtue of prophecy, in the eloquence of doctrine, in the exhibition of miracles, it is sometimes present to its elect, sometimes withdraws itself. In these virtues, therefore, without which life is by no means attained, the Holy Spirit remains in the hearts of his elect — whence rightly it is called stable; but in these, through which sanctity is demonstrated, it is sometimes mercifully present, sometimes mercifully withdraws.”

Likewise, in homily 11 on Matthew chapter 13: “Strong,” he says, “is love as death:³ because, namely, as death destroys the body, so charity — for [the sake of] eternal life — slays the love of corporeal things; for whom it has perfectly absorbed, it renders as it were insensible to earthly, outward desires.” Again, in homily 30 on chapter 14 of John, he says: “Never is the love of God idle: for it works great things, if it be great; but if it has refused to work, it is not love.”

In this opinion it is believed that Augustine also was, in treatise 3 on the first epistle of John — where, explaining that [saying] from chapter 2 of the same epistle, “The unction which we have received from him, let it abide in us,”⁴ etc., he says: “The invisible Unction is the Holy Spirit; the invisible unction is charity — which, in whomsoever it shall be, will be like that root which cannot dry up under a burning Sun. For everything which is rooted is nourished by the heat of the Sun, and dries not.” And, in the eighth treatise on the same epistle: “It is rooted,” he says, “[this] charity: be secure, nothing evil can proceed.” That opinion also — “The charity which could be deserted was never true” — Gratian cites, [in the treatise] On Penance, distinction 2, from a certain epistle of Augustine to Julianus the count, which is now not found among his epistles. To this sense looks what, from the commentaries of Ambrose on the sixth chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians, the same Gratian alleges: “Feigned is the charity which deserts in adversity”; or, as it is read in Ambrose himself: “Simulated is the charity in those who, in [time of] necessity, desert [their] brethren.” To the same [point] pertains what Bede, in the exposition of the first epistle of John, chapter 1, gathered from the Rhapsodies of Gregory in these words: “It must be noted that the Holy Spirit always remained in the Lord; but in holy men, as long as they bear the mortal body, partly it remains forever, partly, about to return, it withdraws. For it remains with them, that they may insist upon good acts, love voluntary poverty, embrace cleanness of heart and the tranquillity of peace, fear not to suffer persecution, insist upon almsgivings, prayers, fastings, and the other fruits of the Spirit. But it withdraws for a time, lest they should always have the faculty of healing the sick, of raising the dead, or even of prophesying. It abides always, that they may be able to have the virtues, and that they themselves may live marvelously; it comes at [set] times, that they may also shine forth to others, through the signs of miracles, [showing] of what sort they are within.”

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Peter Lombard, in the third book of the Sentences, distinction 31, writes that there were certain persons who, having taken from these opinions an occasion of erring, affirmed that Charity can neither be had by those who are to be damned, nor, when once had, be lost by those who are to be saved. St. Thomas, in the second [part of the] question 24, article 11, paving a way to the understanding of these passages, says that charity, which here on earth can be had, comes into consideration in three ways:⁵ either in its own essence, or as it proceeds from its author, or as it is received by the recipient. If we inspect it according to the two former modes of contemplating, then, according to the proposed opinions of the Fathers, it must be pronounced that Charity is altogether unlosable [inamissible] — both because God himself, the author of Charity, offers to no one an occasion of losing Charity, and because Charity itself, indefectible by its own nature, cannot destroy itself. But if we regard Charity on the part of the recipients, whose disposition is various and always mutable, there is no doubt that Charity, on account of the free and unstable will of men, can easily be lost.⁶