Anyone curious about the doctrine of grace in early Franciscan theology,

in the period between St. Francis himself and St. Bonaventure,

would naturally consult the so-called Summa Hellensis,

the massive mid-13th century compendium of theology associated with Alexander of Hales and his students,

completed about the time that Saints Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas were finishing their studies.

Such a one might be forgiven for turning directly to book three and then to part three,

where the Hellenists, as I will call the author, having treated Christology in part one and then law in part two turns to grace

and the virtues in part three. Indeed, part three's discussion of grace is extensive,

treating numerous aspects of both actual and sanctifying grace. It thoroughly analyzes

what could be called the ontology of grace, namely the existence,

necessity, essence, differences, subject, cause, effects, and knowledge of grace, as well as

grace's relation to the gifts and the fruits and the virtues.

Yet part three is not the place, the first place, where the sumovalensis treats grace, nor, as I will

argue, is one well served by starting there in order to understand its teaching on grace.

Rather, the crucial discussion of grace in this work is buried in its Christology in part one

of book three. There, after treating the hypostatic union itself and then Christ's

conception and nativity, but before treating his passion, resurrection, ascension, and coming

judgment, the Pelensis considers the grace of Christ himself. And that entire discussion of the

grace of Christ, strikingly, is dominated by one issue,

what is sometimes called capital grace, namely the grace of Christ insofar as he is the head of the church.

Capital grace, I shall argue, is central to the entire conception of grace in the Sumovalensis,

because capital grace is the proper means by which believers receive grace in the economy of salvation.

...