Albert the Great

English

Can charity be increased, or diminished?

Here there falls in a difficult question about what is here presupposed: that charity is increased. And it is said by the Master that it is not increased essentially, but to us, or in us. But almost all the moderns say the contrary.

It seems, however, that it is not increased:

1. For in things that are simple, if one is added to another nothing greater is produced. Therefore if the essence of charity is added to the essence of charity, nothing greater is produced; therefore it cannot be augmented.

2. Again: if I add a point to a point I have doubled the point, but I have not made a line by extension. Therefore, by parity, if I add the essence of charity I have made nothing greater by way of a continuous extension, but have doubled the charity. But this is nothing, because even if charity is granted to be increased, it is nevertheless not always increased twofold.

Solution. It is to be said that this question is one and of the same account in the augmentation of all the virtues. And I concede simply that charity is increased by the addition of essence to essence; and it seems to me that on this point the Master plainly said what is false.

To the first, then, it is to be said that there is a simple thing which has position in the continuous, and this, added to another, produces nothing greater; and there is a simple thing which has order in the discrete, and this, added to another, makes the discreteness of a plurality — an example of the first is a point, of the second a unit. There is also a simple thing which has no extension of bulk but of power; and this, added to another, makes something greater in essence or in power, and not in bulk.

Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson · cc-by · published at bonaventure.wrootpress.com. This page quotes it; that is its home.

Latin

Albertus Magnus, Commentarii in I Sententiarum, d. XVII, the article An charitas potest augeri, vel minui; Opera omnia ed. Borgnet, vol. 25 (Paris, 1893), pp. 482–483 · pd

Notes

⭐ Albert answers the increase question by ADDITION — augetur charitas per additionem essentiae ad essentiam — and says of the Master, in the first person and without softening it, bene videtur mihi in hac parte Magister falsum dixisse. That matters twice over on this page. It is the position Thomas will refuse eight years later, explaining increase as alteration in a quantity of power with no addition of parts; and it is the position the fourteenth century re-opens, since what Auriol, Wodeham and Scotus are arguing about is whether intensification requires something real to arrive. The oldest witness on the page holds what the newest ones are fighting to recover. ⭐ He also dates the consensus: Et a Magistro dicitur, quod non essentialiter augetur, sed nobis, vel in nobis. Omnes autem moderni fere dicunt contrarium. By about 1246 the Master's answer was already the minority one. ⚠ His reply to the first objection is where the argument is really made, and it is a distinction between three senses of simple: what has position in the continuous (a point), what has order in the discrete (a unit), and what has no extension of bulk but of power. Charity is the third, and only the third can be made greater by addition without being made bigger. ⚠ virtus is rendered POWER in that sentence and virtues in augmentum omnium virtutum, in the same paragraph; RENDERINGS.md requires the choice be recorded where it could be read either way.

Threads

• → contests · Bonaventure
  Albert states the Master's answer and rejects it in one breath: Et a Magistro dicitur, quod non essentialiter augetur, sed nobis, vel in nobis — and then, bene videtur mihi in hac parte Magister falsum dixisse. Lombard's caput V is the text being rejected, and the divisio is the witness carrying it on these pages.
• ← contests · Thomas Aquinas
  The two answers are incompatible and eight years apart. Albert concedes increase simpliciter per additionem essentiae ad essentiam. Thomas's article denies that a greater charity is made by adding parts and locates increase in a quantity of power measured by intensity. ⚠ Neither text cites the other; the thread is drawn because the positions exclude each other, and the direction runs from the later witness to the earlier one, which is the only direction the chronology allows.
• ← parallel · Peter Auriol
  Seventy years apart, no citation, and the same instinct: increase is not a matter of degree alone but of something real arriving. Albert: augetur charitas per additionem essentiae ad essentiam. Auriol: omnem formam intendi necesse est per acquisitionem alicuius realis participantis formae illius specificam rationem. ⚠ What separates them is the scope of the claim, not its content — Albert is answering about charity and says the question is the same for the augmentation of all the virtues; Auriol is answering about form as such and lets charity follow.
• ← transmits · Denys the Carthusian
  The second time on this edition that Denys quotes Albert and both ends are on the page, and this one is close to verbatim. Borgnet's Albert: Dicendum, quod haec quaestio una est et ejusdem rationis in augmento omnium virtutum: concedo autem simpliciter, quod augetur charitas per additionem essentiae ad essentiam. Denys: Porro Albertus de tanta difficultate modicum scribit: Haec (dicens) quaestio una est et rationis ejusdem in augmento omnium virtutum. Et concedo simpliciter quod caritas augetur per additionem essentiae ad essentiam. ⭐ Two prints, 1893 and 1902, of a thirteenth-century text and a fifteenth-century quotation of it, agreeing to the word order. That is an independent check on the Borgnet text, and this edition has very few.
• ← contests · Durandus of Saint-Pourçain
  The two answers on this page that are furthest apart, and neither man is arguing with the other. Albert: augetur charitas per additionem essentiae ad essentiam, increase by addition, simply conceded. Durandus: quod tamen augmentum magis est alteratio quam augmentum — there is no addition here at all, only a form's degrees, and the word augmentation is the wrong one.