A letter from Ruskin to his father (Boulogne, July 1, 1861), illustrates this passage and § 101:—
“Grace” is in the Iliad a single Goddess, the wife of Vulcan; she is feminine household strength; afterwards this single goddess becomes three, of whom the youngest and loveliest, Aglaia, was still the wife of Vulcan. They are the Powers of all benevolent and affectionate social action; and whereas every other Goddess occasionally becomes hostile or terrible, the Graces never appear but in acts of kindness, whence gradually grace comes to signify kindness or favour, and so we have ’to do a grace,’ or demand a grace: so ‘faire grace’ in French, to pardon; ‘demander grace,’ to seek pardon; ‘demander une grace,’ to ask a favour. But the original meaning of the word is always the power of benevolent action, and thus the ‘Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ’ means the power for life and kindness, the animating mercy; not the greatest mercy. It refers especially to the life of the branches in the vine, and therefore comes first in all the benedictions (the Grace of Christ, and Love of God, and Fellowship of the Holy Ghost), for this life must precede all other gifts. So the hackneyed and little understood expression—King or Queen by the grace of God—means by the power and help of God, not merely by permission of God or pardon of God.
There are many interesting details connected with the passing of the first at the one Goddess into three. For some time there were only two at Athens, and as many at Sparta, but I can’t write out these unless I had my Greek books. You must also remember that the Greek word for Grace is ‘Charis,’ whence the Latin Charitas and finally our Charity. One might write quite an interesting lecture on the branchings of the word; into the Italian ‘grazia’ and ‘carita’; and the French ‘grace’ and ‘gracieuse’ on one side, and ‘charité’ on the other; and our ‘gracious’ and ‘graceful,’ and on its equivocal uses leading to error, like the ‘Maria mater gratiæ’ of the Roman Catholics, and the modern English ‘state of grace’ in a sense of pardon. Everything becomes endless when one works it out.”
Last modified 14 March 2019