Breviloquium

After the union of natures in the incarnate Word had been considered, and likewise the fullness of charisms, next the endurance of passions is to be considered; concerning it, the state of the one suffering, the mode of suffering, and the outcome of the passion are to be considered¹.

Concerning the state of the one suffering, this is to be held: Christ assumed not only human nature, but also defects pertaining to nature. For he assumed bodily penalties, such as hunger, thirst, and weariness; he also assumed spiritual ones, such as sadness, groaning, and fear. Yet he did not assume all bodily defects, such as the defects of various diseases, nor all spiritual ones, such as ignorance and the rebellion of the flesh against the spirit; nor did he assume the necessity of suffering in just any manner, for he took it up in such a way that he could suffer nothing unwillingly, neither according to the will of the Deity nor according to the will of reason, although the passion was against the will of sensuality and the flesh, as the prayer of the Savior expresses when it says: “Not as I will, but as you will”².

The reason for understanding the foregoing is this: since the restorative principle, in reconciling, necessarily has the office of a mediator, it must have fittingness with both extremes, not only with respect to nature, but also with respect to those things that concern nature. Since, therefore, God is just and blessed, impassible and immortal, while fallen man is sinful and wretched, passible and mortal, it was necessary that the mediator of God and men³, in order to lead man back to God, share with God in justice and blessedness, but with man in passibility and mortality; so that, having “passing mortality and permanent blessedness,” he might lead man back from present misery to the blessed life. Conversely, the evil angel, having immortality together with misery and injustice, was a mediator causing man to fall into guilt and misery through his suggestion. Since, therefore, Christ the mediator had to possess innocence and the blessedness of fruition together with mortality and passibility, it follows that he had to be at once a wayfarer and a comprehensor. — For he had something of every state in himself⁴, according to which he is said to have assumed from the state of innocence immunity from sin, from the state of fallen nature mortality, and from the state of glory the blessedness of perfect fruition.

Again, since vicious penalties, such as those four inflicted on account of original sin⁵, namely, ignorance, infirmity, malice, and concupiscence, cannot stand together with the most perfect innocence, it follows that he neither had to assume nor assumed these. — But since the punishments that exercise perfect virtue and testify to true, not simulated, humanity are above all those that regard nature in common, such as hunger and thirst in the absence of food, sadness and fear in the presence of harm, it follows that he had to assume and did assume them.

Finally, since no innocent person ought to endure any punishment unwillingly, because this would be against the order of divine justice, and no mortal wills to die and suffer according to the appetite of nature, which naturally flees death, it follows that Christ had to possess such penalties, yet in such a way that he could suffer nothing unwillingly according to reason, not only because of the blessedness and omnipotent Deity united to him, through which he could repel everything, but also because of his most perfect innocence, which, according to the order of natural justice, is permitted to suffer nothing unwillingly⁶. Yet he also suffered in such a way that this was against the natural inclination and appetite of nature, which is in sensuality and the flesh. — Hence Christ, praying according to reason, expressed the will of the flesh, by which he fled from the passion, when he said: “Let this chalice pass from me”⁷⁸; yet he conformed the will of reason to the will of the Father and preferred it to the appetite of the flesh, when he said: “Not my will, but yours be done.” — Thus one will was not contrary to the other, because “according to the divine will he willed what was just; according to the will of reason he consented to justice; but according to the will of the flesh he refused punishment, yet he did not accuse justice. And thus each will did what was its own and followed what pertained to it: the divine will, justice; the rational will, obedience; the will of the flesh, nature”⁹; and consequently there was not in Christ struggle and combat, but a peaceful ordering and ordered tranquility.