[Nicholas F.]

Hi all,

I'm writing an essay on Hopkins, and I recently came across this passage from his spiritual writings:

“For grace is any action, activity, on God’s part by which, in creating or after creating, he carries the creature to or towards the end of its being, which is its selfsacrifice to God and its salvation. It is, I say, any such activity on God’s part; so that so far as this action or activity is God’s it is divine stress, holy spirit, and, as all is done through Christ, Christ’s spirit; so far as it is action, correspondence, on the creature’s it is actio salutaris; so far as it is looked at in esse quieto it is Christ in his member on the one side, his member in Christ on the other. It is as if a man said: That is Christ playing at me and me playing at Christ, only that it is no play but truth; That is Christ being me and me being Christ” (Sermons 154).

I can get roughly to the meanings of these Latin phrases by way of a dictionary, but I wonder about the nuances. I'd greatly appreciate your definitions and/or contexts for such phrases.

Thanks so much.

Nick

[Michael Juster]

Nick:

My Latin of the Catholic theological tradition largely ends pre-Aquinas in the eighth century, so if someone more familiar with the later tradition tells you otherwise, then you should believe that person.

My take would be that the literal translation of actio salutaris would be "saving act" and it is best rendered as "act of salvation." As for in esse quieto, quieto has a range of senses, but it includes "peaceful" and "idle." The infinitive "esse" literally means "to be" (or more aptly, "being") so I might try "in a meditative state" (with its sense of passivity contrasted with the sense of willed action necessary to obtain grace suggested by actio).

Hope that helps more than confuses.

Mike

[Kate Benedict]

I've got nothing to contribute in the way of the Latin but isn't it interesting to read these prose arguments that underpin GMH's poems!? "I am all at one what Christ is, since He was what I am ..."

[Nicholas F.]

Thanks, Mike. That's a great help!

And Kate: He is fascinating, contradictory, and brilliant. It's an abstract thing to say, but I've never encountered a more nervous writer of either poetry or prose.

Nick

[ross hamilton hill]

Hopkins met Yeats at a social gathering, Yeats had no idea Hopkins was a great poet, Hopkins didn't know Yeats was also a young poet , so they parted none the wiser.

[Julie Steiner]

The second Latin phrase is definitely a quotation from Duns Scotus, and the first probably is, too.

The final line of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem "Duns Scotus's Oxford" refers to Duns Scotus's argument in favor of the Immaculate Conception (often confused with the Virgin Birth of Jesus, but it's not--it's the idea that Mary herself was without original sin from the moment of her own conception within her mother). The arguments against Mary's immaculate conception have to do with whether salvation from sin could have been possible for any creature (i.e., any being created by God) before the death and resurrection of Jesus (who was, as the Nicene Creed says, "begotten, not made," and therefore not a creature like Mary). So I wouldn't be surprised if the phrase "actio salutaris" pops up in Scotus's Immaculate Conception writings. I could be totally wrong, though.

Duns Scotus also wrote about the transubstantiation of the bread and wine of the eucharist into the body and blood of Christ, and when he disagreed with some of Aquinas's conclusions about existence vs. essence, he contrasted the phrases in esse quieto (the natural form of something when it is at rest--its essence) vs. in esse fieri (its form when it is becoming something else or otherwise influenced rather than being fully itself at rest, such as when a building is under construction or when a liquid is conforming to a container).

Happy hunting. Googling scotus "in esse quieto" retrieved a bunch of articles and books that you may find helpful.

[ross hamilton hill]

Very informative Julie. Makes a lot of sense.

[Nicholas F.]

Thanks a lot, Julie. I owe you one!

And thanks, Ross, for the distracting anecdote. It slowed the spinning of my head just slightly.

Nick