c. About the Gifts

70. About the gifts I say that in that passage [Isaiah 11.2-3] the four cardinal virtues are numbered: Prudence through ‘the spirit of counsel’, for prudence is properly a habit of counsel, for it is properly a habit of right practical syllogizing, and thus to syllogize is to counsel. Hence the habit whereby one is good at counseling is the habit of prudence. Fortitude is expressed among the gifts by its own name. Fear is a species of temperance, for fear is altogether the same habit as humility, although named by a different name, as is plain from Augustine on Matthew 5.3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” [On the Sermon on the Mount I ch.4 n.11], and for this reason does Scripture frequently commend fear, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” etc. [Psalm 110.10, Proverbs 1.7, 9.10]. Nothing other than humility is the beginning of the virtues - there being something corresponding to it in the intellect. And, in the issue at hand, what is called ‘blessed’ must always be understood as to species or merit, as it is often elsewhere in Scripture, “Blessed is he who understands the needy and poor” and “Blessed is he who suffers temptation” and the like others [Psalm 40.1 James 1.12, Psalm 1.1, 33.9, 39.5, Ecclesiastes 14.1, Matthew 24.46, Revelation 1.3]. These passages do not mean to say that one is happy because one has a habit, which habit is blessedness, but because through the habit one merits blessedness. When piety is placed among the gifts, this is what our Savior calls ‘mercy’, and thus it is a species of justice [n.66].

71. Therefore express among the gifts are the four cardinal virtues and two of the infused virtues, which are named by their proper names:

For prudence is also called counsel [n.66], and fortitude is called by its own name, and the two others are not named under the idea of their intermediate species (which are numbered in the sevenfold list [nn.52-53]), but under certain of their species, namely temperance is named under fear and justice under charity.

72. The two infused virtues numbered there are charity, under the ‘Spirit of wisdom’ - for generally when wisdom is commended in Scripture (as in “Blessed the man who dwells in wisdom” [Ecclesiastes 14.22] and the like), wisdom is taken there for charity and is there charity. For wisdom [sapientia] is the habit whereby the object that is in itself ‘flavorful’ [sapidum] ‘tastes’ [sapit] to him who has it; that is, by which the good in itself pleases me, and is what in itself I want for myself. Through the other two gifts, namely intellect and science, is expressed infused faith, not that these two are ways of stating two habits (as wisdom states charity and fear states humility), but they are ways of stating one habit, as it is perfect or imperfect. And each can be given separately, or the first to be sure without the second though not conversely. Intellect can be taken for imperfect faith, which is knowledge of the first principles, and science for perfect faith, which is explicit knowledge of the articles - just as in the case of natural knowables intellect is said to be knowledge of principles and science of explicit conclusions. Hope is not listed here but is given to be understood by charity [which is expressed by wisdom], and wisdom is that whereby God in himself tastes for me, and by which the good tastes for me (for he who tastes both approves the taste in itself and desires it for himself).