Question Four of Chapter Ten
That the person who possessed a more intense degree of charity in this life is more blessed in heaven
It is asked whether one who possessed a more intense degree of charity, without acts of martyrdom, teaching, and virginity, is more blessed than one who was adorned with the aforesaid acts but possessed a less intense degree of charity.
To this it is answered that, since essential beatitude is possessed according to charity and its degree, one who possessed a more intense degree of charity will be more blessed than every person who loved less, even if the latter possessed acts of martyrdom, virginity, and teaching.
Hence Blessed Francis and Blessed Mary Magdalene in the fatherland are, as is believed, more blessed and enjoy the divine essence more perfectly than many other saints adorned with aureoles, because perhaps the former possessed a higher degree of charity and loved God more ardently than the latter, who were endowed with the aureoles which are owed to acts of virginity, teaching, and martyrdom.
And Blessed Dominic, our leader and father, is perhaps more blessed absolutely than some martyrs because he loved God more.
Hence, although some holy martyr, in the accidental reward and particular joy possessed in the fatherland from the act of martyrdom, can surpass Dominic, Dominic himself will nevertheless surpass that martyr in charity, to which the essential reward of beatitude is owed. Yet Blessed Dominic too is adorned in the kingdom of heaven with the golden crown of essential beatitude and also with the aureoles of virginity and teaching.
These things are Thomas’s in Book IV of the Sentences, distinction 49, and in the Quodlibetal Questions.