GIFT
553
GIFT
accompanied him to Rome in the capacity of chaplain,
and it is said that during this visit he resided for a
time in the household of St. Charles Borromeo. About
this time (1597) Gifford was preferred to the deanery
of Lille, which office Clement VIII conferred on him
at the instance, it is alleged, of the Archbishop of
Milan. This dignity he retained for about ten years,
and, after his withdrawal from Lille (c. 1606), he was
made "rector magnificus" of Reims University. In
1608, Gifford, who had always held the Benedictines
in high esteem and befriended them in many ways,
took the habit of that order and subsequently became
prior at Dieulouard (Dieulewart). In 1611, Father
Gabriel of St. Marj', as Gifford was known in religion,
went into Brittany and laid the foundation of a small
community of his order at St. Malo. He was favour-
ably received by the bishop, and a chair of divinity
was assigned to him (Petre, op. cit. infra). He was
one of the nine definitors chosen in 1617 to arrange the
terms of union among the Benedictine congregations
in England, of which province he was elected first
president in May of the same year. In 161S, Gifford
was consecrated coadjutor to Cardinal Louis de Lor-
raine, Archbishop of Reims, with the title of Epis-
copus Archidalice (Bishop of Archidal). On the death
of Guise, he succeeded to the archbishopric, becoming
also, by virtue of his office, Duke of Reims and First
Peer of France.
Before his death, which occurred in 1629, he had acquired a high reputation as a preacher. His writ- ings include: "Oratio Funebris in exequiis ven- erabilis viri domini Maxa^miliani Manare prepositi ecclesia: D. Petri oppidi Insulensis" (Douai, 1598); "Orationes diversa;" (Douai); " Calvino-Turcismus" , etc. (Antwerp, 1597 and 1603). The latter work, be- gun by Dr. Reynolds, Gifford completed and edited. He translated from the French of Fronto-Ducseus, S. J., "The Inventorj' of Errors, Contradictions, and false Citations of Philip Mornay, Lord of Plessis and Mor- nay". He also wrote, at the request of the Duke of Guise, a treatise in favour of the League. The " Ser- mones Adventuales" (Reims, 1625) were a Latin ren- dering by Gifford of discourses originally delivered in French. He assisted Dr. Anthony Champney in his "Treatise on the Protestant Ordinations" (Douai, 1616) ; other o^ Giff ord's MSS. were destroyed in the burning of the monastery at Dieulouard in 1717.
Wood, Athence Oxoniensis, ed. Bliss, II (London, 1S15), col. 453 sqq.. essays an orderly narration of the events in Gifford's life; Cooper in Diet. Nat. Biog., s. v.; Records of_ the English Catholics, I — Douay Diaries (London, 1878), passim,- Gillow, Bibl. Diet. Eng. Cath., s. v. Giffard; Petre, Notices of the Eng. Colleges and Convents on the Continent, etc. (Norwich, 1849), 28. 30 sqq.; Marlot, llistoire de Rheims. IV (1846), 450, 535 sqq.; Snow, Benedictine Chronology, 37; Duthill(eul, Bibliographie Douaisienne (Douai, 1842), 46-47 (no. 119); Lewis Owen, Running Register (1626), 91: Pits, De .inglice fScriptoribus. 809; G.iRDiNER, History of England, I. 140; VVeldon, Chron. Notes, 105, 159. For a more intimate insight into certain phases of Gifford's character, see Butler in The Month, CIII (1901); Pollen, ibid. (1904); Knox, letters of Card. Allen (1882); private documents and letters, some of which are published in the Appendix Documentorum Ineditorum {Douay Diaries), xxii (326), Ixi (.395), etc.; and Dodd, Church Hist, of England, ed. Tierney (London, 1839), II.
P. J. MacAuley.
Gift, SuPEHNATUH.iL, may be defined as something conferred on nature that is above all the powers (nres) of created nature. When God created man. He was not content with bestowing upon him the essential endowments required by man's nature. He raised him to a higher state, adding certain gifts to which his nature had no claim. They comprise qualities and perfections, forces and energies, dignities antl riglits, destination to final objects, of which the essential con- stitution of man is not the principle; which are not required for the attainment of the final perfection of the natural order of man; and which can only be com- municated by the free operation of (Sod's goollness and power. Some of these are absolutely supernatural.
i.e. beyond the reach of all created nature (even of the
angels), and elevate the creature to a dignity and per-
fection natviral to God alone; others are only relatively
supernatural (preternatural), i.e. above human nature
only, and elevate human nature to that state of higher
perfection which is natural to the angels. The original
state of man comprised both of these, and when he fell
he lost both. Christ has restored to us the absolutely
supernatural gifts, but the preternatural gifts He has
not restored.
The absolutely supernatural gifts, which alone are the supernatural properly so called, are summed up in the Divine ailoption of man to be the son and heir of God. This expression, and the explanations given of it by the sacred writers, make it evident that the son- ship is something far more than a relation founded upon the absence of sin; it is of a thoroughly intimate character, raising the creature from its naturally hum- ble estate, and making it the object of a peculiar be- nevolence and complaisjincc on God's part, admitting it to filial love, and enabling it to become God's heir, i.e. a partaker of God's on n beatitude. " God sent his Son . . . that he might redeem them who were under the law-: that we might receive the adoption of sons (t7)i/ vioeecrlav). And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father. Therefore now he is (Gr. text: thou art) not a servant, but a son. And if a son, an heir also through God" (Gal., iv, 4-7) "Who hath blessed us with [all] spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ . . . Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children {viodetr la.y) through Jesus Christ unto himself" (Eph., i, 3-5). "Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and should be the sons of (jod" (I John, iii, 1). Further, this exalted estate is de- scribed as a communication or partnership with the only-begotten Son of C!od, a participation in the privi- leges which are peculiar to Him in opposition to mere creatures. "That they all may be one, as thou. Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us. . . . And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to them ; that they may be one, as we also are one: I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one " (John, xvii, 21-23). It is also styled /cllowship (Koi.vuvla) "with the Father, and with his Son" (I John, i, 3); and "the communication (^ Koifuvta) of the Holy Ghost" (II Cor., xiii, 13). Divine adoption is a new birth of the soul (John, i, 12, 13; iii, 5; I John, iii, 9; v, 1; I Pet., i, 3; and i, '23; James, i, 18; Titus, iii, 5; Eph., ii, 5). This regenera- tion implies the foundation of a higher state of being and life, resulting from a special Divine influence, and admitting us to the dignity of sons of God. "For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son; that he might be the firstborn amongst manv brethren" (Rom., viii, 29). Cf. also II Cor., iii, IS; Gal., iii, 26, 27; iv, 19; Rom., xiii, 14. As a consequence of this Divine adop- tion and new birth we are made partakers of the divine nature" (Betas Komuml ^meus, II Pet., i, 4). The whole context of this passage and the passages already quoted show that this expression is to be taken as literally as possible; not, indeed, as a generation from the substance of God. but as a communication of Divine life by the power of God, and a most intimate indwelling of His substance in the creature. Hence, too, the inheritance is not confined to natural goods. It embraces the possession and fruition of the good which is the natural inheritance of the Son of God, viz., the beatific vision. " We are now the sons of God ; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall tie. We know, that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is" (I John, iii, 2). "We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then [in the beatific vision] face to face" (I Cor., xiii, 12). The Fathers have not hesitated to call this super-
