GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. – Supernatural habits that perfect the infused virtues and render our faculties more readily and easily disposed to obey the divine motions.
I. SCRIPTURAL TESTIMONY
The revealed doctrine on the gifts of the Holy Spirit is contained principally in the classic text of Is. 11:2, which the Fathers often commented upon, saying that it applies first to the Messiah and then, by participation, to all the just, to whom the Saviour promised to send the Holy Spirit.“And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness.” The Hebrew text does not mention the gift of piety; but the Septuagint and the Vulgate do, and after the 3rd century the tradition affirms that the gifts are seven. Moreover, in the Hebrew text, Is. 11:3, the fear of God is mentioned a second time, and in the Old Testament the terms “fear of God” and “piety” have roughly the same meaning. The distinction will become clearer in the New Testament, particularly when St. Paul says (Rom. 8:15): “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba (Father). The same Spirit gives testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God,” and we must have for Him a filial piety.
In Wis. 7:7-30, we also read: “I wished, and understanding was given me: and I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me. I preferred her before sceptres and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison of her. I loved her above health and beauty, and chose to have her instead of light: for her light cannot be quenched. All good things came to me together with her, and innumerable riches through her hands. And I rejoiced in all these: for this wisdom went before me, and I knew not that she was the mother of them all. Which I have learned without guile, and communicate without envy, and her riches I hide not. For she is an infinite treasure to men: which they that use, become the friends of God, being commended for the gifts of discipline.” It is observed that this is the first of the gifts of the Holy Spirit cited in Is. 11:2, and that it is promised to a certain extent to all the just.
This revelation of the Old Testament acquires its true meaning in the light of the words of the Saviour, when He promises to send the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn. 14:26): “But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.” St. John adds (1 Jn. 2:20): “But you have the unction from the Holy One, and you know all things.”
Moreover, there are in Holy Scripture communal texts cited as relating to each gift in particular, for example Lk. 24:45, concerning the disciples of Emmaus: “Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures”; Ps. 110:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding to all that do it”; Ps. 21:8: “I will give thee understanding, and I will instruct thee: I will guide thee with my eye”; Ps. 118:97: “O how have I loved thy law, O Lord! It is my meditation all the day. Through thy commandments I have had understanding above my enemies: for thy testimonies are my meditation for ever. I have had understanding above ancients, because I have sought thy commandments”; Prov. 9:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is prudence”; in Jn. 8:12, Jesus says: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
II. TRADITION
The Fathers often commented on the Scriptural texts cited and, beginning with the 3rd century, generally teach that the seven gifts are in all the just, who are the temple of the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul affirms (1 Cor. 2:16-17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; cf. A. Gardeil, Dons du St Esprit, in DThC, IV, II, cols. 1728-81).In 382 Pope Damasus speaks of the sevenfold Spirit, which rested upon the Messiah and enumerated the seven gifts (cf. Denz. U, 83). This doctrine is explained especially by St. Augustine in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, *De Sermone Domini in monte*, I, I, ch. 14; *De doctrina christiana*, I, II, ch. 7; Sermon 347. He emphasizes the correspondence of the ascending gradation of the Beatitudes with the descending enumeration of the gifts according to Is. 11:2. Thus fear represents the first degree of spiritual ascent, and wisdom its crowning. Contemplation, according to St. Augustine, is a supernatural wisdom. It proceeds from living faith illumined by a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit that gives the enjoyment of God (cf. St. Augustine, *De Trinitate*, III-XIV, and F. Cayré, *La contemplation augustine*, Paris 1927, ch. 2 and 3). Recently Fr. J. De Blic (*Pour l'histoire de la théologie des dons avant st Thoma*, in *Revue d'ascétique et de mystique*, 22 (1946), pp. 117-79) has noted, in opposition to Gardeil, the scarcity of testimonies from the Greek and Latin Fathers on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as if this diminished the consistency of Scholastic and Thomistic speculation in particular. It would be useful to revisit the texts examined, with the erudition displayed by De Blic, and to conduct further positive research. However, even on the basis of few data from Revelation, in a period of particular maturity of thought, it is possible to construct a speculative system. See the pertinent observations of I. Costois, in *Vita cristiana*, 16 (1947), pp. 622-27.
According to the Council of Trent (Denz-U, 799): “The efficient cause of justification is the merciful God, who freely washes and sanctifies (1 Cor. 6:11), marking and anointing [us] with the Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance” (Eph. 1:12 ff.). The Catechism of the Council of Trent (Part 1, ch. 9, § 3) clarifies this point by enumerating the seven gifts from Is. 11:2, and adding: “These gifts are for us like a divine fountain from which we draw the living knowledge of the precepts of the Christian life, by which we may know whether the Holy Spirit dwells in us.” For St. Paul has indeed said (Rom. 8:16): “The Spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God.” He attests this through the filial love that He inspires in us and through which He makes Himself in some way felt by us (cf. St. Thomas, *In Ep. ad Rom.*, 8:16). One of the most beautiful testimonies of Tradition on the seven gifts is given by the liturgy of Pentecost.
Finally, Leo XIII in his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, *Divinum illud munus*, 9 May 1897, towards the end, says that “the just man, who lives by grace and acts through virtue as through new faculties, absolutely needs the seven gifts. Through these gifts the spirit of man is elevated and is able to obey more easily and readily the inspirations and impulses of the Holy Spirit.”
III. THEOLOGY OF THE GIFTS
A brief summary is given here of the clarifications regarding this doctrine from St. Thomas, substantially approved by Leo XIII in the cited encyclical. In the *Summa Theologiae*, I-II, q. 68, he emphasizes three points in particular: a) that the gifts are “habits” specifically distinct from the virtues; b) that they are necessary for salvation; c) that they are connected to charity and increase with II. a) The gifts are specifically distinct from the virtues because they induce us to follow not the direction of right reason illumined by faith, but that of the Holy Spirit. They are permanent qualities, infused “habits,” which render man readily obedient to the Holy Spirit, as sails put a boat in a condition to follow the push of a favourable wind, greatly facilitating the work of the rowers. But for beginners the seven gifts, like sails still furled, are hindered by venial sins, little noticed but frequent.The virtues, even the infused virtues, operate according to a human mode that results from the human rule. The gifts enable us to act according to a mode that is supernatural, which results from the divine rule or from the special inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For example, infused prudence derives from discursive deliberation, and in this it differs from the gift of counsel, which enables us to receive a special inspiration of a supra-discursive order, for example, to answer an indiscreet question without any falsehood, while preserving a secret. Thus, whereas faith simply adheres to revealed truths “propter auctoritatem Dei revelantis,” the gift of understanding enables us to penetrate them, and that of wisdom enables us to savor them. Thus the gifts are specifically distinct from the virtues.
b) They are necessary for salvation, because the human mode of the purely infused virtues leaves us in a state of inferiority with respect to our supernatural end, which we must know in a more vivid, penetrating, experiential, and savory manner, and toward which we must strive with greater ardor (Sum. Theol., 1-2a, 2a, q. 68, a. 2). The gifts remedy our ignorance, the sluggishness of the mind, and the hardness of heart. That of knowledge shows us the emptiness of earthly things, that of fear preserves us from presumption, that of counsel perfects our prudence, that of piety the virtue of religion, that of fortitude the virtue of fortitude, that of understanding the virtue of faith, and that of wisdom the virtue of charity.
c) Finally, the seven gifts are connected with charity, according to the saying of St. Paul in Rom. 5:5: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us,” and which does not remain in us passively. Therefore it does not descend upon us without its seven gifts, which accompany charity and which, consequently, are lost, like it, with mortal sin. They thus belong to the spiritual organism of sanctifying grace, which for this reason is called “the grace of the virtues and the gifts” (cf. Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 62, a. 2), and which is distinct from the gratis data graces, such as prophecy or the gift of tongues.
And just as all the infused virtues grow together, like the five fingers of the hand, the same must be said of the seven gifts. Thus it never happens that a Christian has a high degree of charity without having, in a proportionate degree, the gifts of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge; but since these gifts are at the same time speculative and practical, in some saints they appear chiefly in a contemplative form, and in others in a more directly practical form, suited to action, and like a light that does not shine forth but is diffused, illuminating all things.
The special inspiration received through the gifts is an “operating grace” (Sum. Theol., 1-2a, 2a, q. 3, a. 2) that varies according to the specific character of each of the seven gifts. In the case of the gift of wisdom, it gives the enjoyment of divine things (by making use of the connaturality founded on charity); for that of understanding, it gives the penetration of the mysteries of faith, of the greatness of God, and of our own misery; for the gift of knowledge, it reveals to us the emptiness of earthly things when considered in themselves, or their wonderful symbolism when regarded in relation to God as rays of the sun of justice; for the gift of counsel, this operating grace indicates the way to be followed here and now. As for the gift of wisdom, the highest of all, it is clear that it directs all the others from above, at least in a latent manner, just as charity inspires all the virtues.
Some theologians, such as Scaramelli in the 18th century, have supposed that each gift is related both to ordinary acts and to extraordinary acts. This conception was already found previously in St. Thomas (Questio unica de virtutibus cardinalibus, a. 4), because the same habitus cannot essentially be related to acts that are specifically distinct, of which one is not related to the other, and the unity of the habitus would not be preserved; whereas if there are acts that are specifically distinct, there must be habitus that are specifically distinct.
But the truth is that the supernatural mode of each gift is first latent and later becomes manifest and frequent. When these two conditions are realized, they characterize the mystical life, which is nothing other than the eminent exercise of the infused virtues and the gifts that accompany them. Thus infused or mystical contemplation derives from faith vivified by charity and illumined by the gifts of understanding and wisdom; in short, it derives from living faith that has become penetrating and a source of enjoyment, and it is a quasi-experiential knowledge of the revealed mysteries and of the Holy Spirit present in us, which also makes itself felt in us. That is to say, the infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith does not derive from the gratis data graces, such as prophecy, but from “the grace of the virtues and the gifts.” It is thus on the normal path to holiness. This is above all what St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, Tauler, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa, and their disciples—such as Filippo della S. Maria, Giuseppe dello Spirito Santo, and John of St. Thomas—have taught.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the influence of Scaramelli’s thought led to the abandonment of this doctrine. In modern times it has been entirely adopted and accepted by many contemporary theologians (Ariatore, Saudreau, Lamballe, Joret, Garde, De la Taille, Peeters, Maréchal, Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Cayré). But in practice, when guiding souls at the moment when they should normally pass from simplified meditation to contemplation, one must avoid haste and previously ascertain the existence in these souls of the three signs indicated by St. John of the Cross in The Dark Night (bk. I, ch. 9): “1) not to find sensible consolation either in