Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

Note 1. The defects of the human body are of a twofold kind: for some are purely natural and free from vice, such as hunger, thirst, weariness, etc.; others are infected with a certain stain of turpitude, such as concupiscence, sicknesses, and those which are properly reckoned under the name of passions. Moreover, of those natural defects some are general, belonging to the whole human race, such as death, hunger, thirst, etc.; while others are special, found only in certain men, and have particular causes from which they arise, such as leprosy, sickness, deformity, etc. Now these special defects arise from various causes; for they are either contracted from nature, namely by reason of a deficient formative virtue, such are those sicknesses which are called hereditary, for instance bodily weakness, the loss of some part, deformity, etc.; or from the intemperance of climate and air; or finally from the disordered affections and actions of men, from which enormous and varied diseases daily spring up. It is asked, therefore, whether Christ had all defects of this kind, both general and special.

Note 2, or rather to be repeated from what has been said: that there was true flesh in Christ, and like ours in all things as far as natural things are concerned, except sin and its contagion: for he was conceived and born of a woman, nor did he fall from heaven; nor wholly impassible, as some Acephali wished, who on this occasion were divided into two sects, since others, at the instigation of Severus, said that the body of Christ, while he lived on earth, was tried by suffering and subject to corruption and passibility: while others on the contrary contending denied that he truly bore these things, whose leader was Julian of Halicarnassus, and afterwards Gaianus. Gaianus lived under the Emperor Zeno about the year 476; but Julian under the Emperor Phocas about the year 604. Moreover, some proceeded to such folly that they thought Christ had no bodily magnitude according to his flesh, but walked upon the sea without bulk and incorporally; that this also was the opinion of Theodoret the Pharanite Monothelite Martin I attested in the Lateran Synod, in the second Constitution. Indeed Leontius of Byzantium relates in book 2 of the three books which he published against the Eutychians and Nestorians that certain men who thought catholically concerning the two natures of Christ nevertheless thought with the Eutychians in this, that they boasted the body of Christ before the resurrection was incorruptible. Furthermore these heretics were called Aphthartodocetae, from the Greek preposition ἀ, which means without or not, and from the word φθαρτοῦ, which denotes subject to corruption and death, and from the verb δοκεῖν, which in Latin is the same as I think, because they held that the body of Christ was neither subject to death nor passible. Besides, as Nicephorus writes, book 18 of his History, cap. 12, the Catholics who opposed these heretics called them Phantasiasts and Manichees, because they seemed to assert that the body of Christ was only apparent and phantastic; whereas on the other hand the heretics insulted the Catholics and called them Phthartolatrates, as if worshipping a body subject to corruption, and also called them Skenolatrates, as if adorers of a tabernacle: nay, what is far worse, this error of the heretics at one time so pleased the Emperor Justinian, otherwise pious and catholic, that by a public edict he commanded it to be taught in the Church of God that the body of Christ was always incorruptible and never had irreprehensible passions, as Nicephorus writes, book 17, cap. 29.

Note 3. All Catholics agree that it was not necessary, in order that Christ the Lord might satisfy God the Father sufficiently for sins, that he suffer the punishments of the damned, as Calvin impiously blasphemes in book 2 of his Institutes, cap. 16, § 10. For truly if Christ ought to assume and suffer the punishments of the damned, especially so that he might free us from them: yet he could snatch us from those punishments even without suffering them, but by suffering others equivalent: not indeed according to the proportion of pain, but according to the dignity of the person suffering and satisfying; and consequently there is no reason, no authority whatsoever, that would lend the slightest support to the blasphemy of Calvin. No authority, I say: for what is brought forward from Isaiah cap. 53, namely that Christ was bruised for our iniquities and truly bore our languors, is not to be understood as though he ought to suffer the same torments which we were going to suffer in hell; but only that, for the expiation of our sins, that adorable Savior was truly given over to pains and to death. Nor does anything favor him in what he adduces from the Apostle, Heb. 4, where Christ is said to be tempted in all things by similitude of flesh without sin; for the particle all is not understood of all the punishments which sinful men must undergo in vengeance for their crime, but only of the hardships and calamities of this life.

These things therefore premised, three points remain to be determined: First, whether the body of Christ was truly passible and subject to the common defects to which other men are subjected. Second, whether he had private sicknesses. Third, whether he had the defect of deformity.

First Conclusion. — THE BODY OF CHRIST THE LORD WAS TRULY PASSIBLE, AND SUBJECT TO SENSITIVE PAIN AND TO THE COMMON DEFECTS OF MEN. This is of faith, whose contrary error was condemned in the Council of Ephesus, Anathematism 12.

It is gathered moreover from various texts of sacred Scripture: First indeed Isaiah 53, where the Prophet pronounces concerning Christ: Truly our languors he himself took, and our sorrows he himself carried, etc. Hence Matthew 4 we read that after he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards he hungered. And John 4, But Jesus being wearied with his journey, sat thus upon the fountain, etc.

The same the ancient theologians and holy Fathers teach excellently, saying that just as Christ is truly believed to have died, as no Christian doubts, much more did he suffer the other affections which precede and bring death, as Tertullian rightly argues, book 2, Contra Marcionem, c. 27. Now, he says, that I may dispatch the rest briefly, whatever you still gather together as trifling, weak, and unworthy, for the destruction of the Creator, I will set forth by one simple and sure argument: God could not have entered into human contacts unless he had assumed human senses and affections, through which he might temper to humbled human mediocrity the intolerable force of his Majesty — things unworthy indeed for himself, but necessary for man; and thus already worthy of God, because nothing is so worthy of God as the salvation of man. For if God, and that a most sublime God, cast down the summit of his Majesty with such humility as to subject himself even to death, and to the death of the cross; why should you not think that some littlenesses were fitting even for our God, yet more tolerable than Jewish insults and gibbets and sepulchres? Thus St. Athanasius in the book De Incarnatione: The body of Christ, he says, having a substance common with the others; for it was a human body, although formed by a new and unusual miracle from the Virgin alone; nevertheless since it was mortal, like other similar bodies, it underwent death. For as Ambrose writes, he who assumed a body ought to undergo all things that belong to a body, that he should hunger, thirst, be distressed, be saddened. And St. Leo: Therefore the property of each substance being preserved, and both coalescing into one person, humility is received by Majesty, infirmity by power, mortality by eternity; and that it might repay the debt of our condition, the inviolable nature was united to the passible nature. Then St. Fulgentius: And he clothed himself with our flesh together with the condition of human mortality; he received our soul also together with the infirmities without the stain of human infirmity. And the same elsewhere says that the sadness and perturbation of soul which the Son of God had voluntarily in his soul, he had in such a way that he does not deny even the passions of the human soul to be true from the will, and voluntary in truth. And because the Divinity assumed a true man, the same endured all the infirmities of human nature, true ones indeed, but voluntary within the same truth of human nature alone.

That same truth, says Vazquez, the ancient Catholic theologians proved by this following argument, as Nicephorus relates, book 17, cap. 29: if Christ did not have a passible body, nor the sense of passion, it follows that Christ is not ὁμοούσιος to us, that is consubstantial; thus argues Damascene, book 3, De Fide, cap. 28. But the heretics, as the same Nicephorus narrates, answered in this manner: How do you say that the body of Christ after the resurrection is incorruptible, and yet consubstantial to us; so also do we say that before the resurrection it was incorruptible, yet consubstantial with us. But the Catholics objected again, that the body of Christ after the resurrection is incorruptible, yet consubstantial to us, and that it has incorruptibility from the grace of God, not from its own nature. But again the heretics answered: We too say it was incorruptible before the resurrection not by nature but by the grace of God, and yet consubstantial with us. This however the Catholics repelled from those things which are said in Scripture concerning Christ; for when he is said before the resurrection to have hungered, we cannot but concede the sense of hunger in Christ; for although after the resurrection he is said to have eaten, yet he is not said to have hungered, which is far different; for hunger is a certain pain in the mouth of the stomach proceeding from melancholy; but the pain of an exterior sense is the adherence of a certain quality disagreeing with nature. Add also, in support of the Catholics, that if the body of Christ before the resurrection and after it were incorruptible and impassible by the grace of God, its assumption would seem idle, since it would never have been left in its natural state, especially if those things which the Gospel narrates as done in the body of Christ were done not truly but only according to phantasy. So Vazquez from Nicephorus. — That moreover Christ the Lord fittingly assumed the defects and passions of the human body, the Seraphic Doctor clearly proves in 3 dist. 15, art. 1, qu. 1, by a threefold reason drawn from the threefold end for which Christ put on human flesh, namely for the price of our salvation, for the example of virtue, and for the prop of our frailty. For the price of our salvation, because he had purposed to redeem us not with corruptible gold and silver, but with his own most precious blood, and to lay down his life for our lives. But for this he would not have been suitable unless he had assumed a deficient and passible nature; and therefore he ought to have had our defects and penalities in himself. From another cause also this very thing was fitting, namely for the example of virtue, and especially of humility, patience, and piety, through the mediation of which one arrives at heaven, and in which Christ willed us to imitate him, according to that saying: Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart, etc. The third reason is on account of the prop of our frailty, on account of which, he says,

the rational nature has in itself difficulty in believing truths, irascibility in hoping for arduous things, and concupiscibility in loving goods. And therefore Christ willed not only to be assimilated to us in nature, but also in defects and penalities, that by manifesting in himself the truth of human nature he might furnish a prop to our reason for believing; yet by showing the immensity of his mercy through the assumption of our misery, he furnishes a prop to the irascible for hoping; by showing the magnitude of his benevolence he offers an incentive to the concupiscible for loving him. And therefore although such defects may seem unfitting to be found in Christ if considered per se; yet if they be referred to their end, a great fitness of congruity is found.

You will object 1. Just as the defect of fault conflicts with supreme justice, so the defect of frailty and impotence conflicts with supreme power: but it did not befit the supremely just God to have the defect of fault either in himself or in the nature assumed: therefore by equal reason it did not befit him to have the defect of penalty and impotence. — The Seraphic Doctor distinguishes the major in the same place: that both conflict equally, if both infirmity and guilt are compared to the divine nature — this he concedes; for in the divine nature as no injustice can be, so no impotence can be: if both are compared to the assumed nature, he denies it; since in the assumed nature infirmity can be the matter for the exercise of virtue, for the virtue of fortitude is exercised chiefly in enduring terrible things, especially those which bring death; hence with respect to the assumed nature frailty is not related to power in the same manner as vice is related to justice; for vice, however taken, always renders the subject blameworthy, whereas infirmity and impotence render the subject more praiseworthy when joined to the inferior virtue of the soul which confers merit.

You will object 2. Just as fault, which has no subsequent punishment, is not judged ordered by justice, so also punishment, which has no preceding fault: but the defects and penalities in Christ have no preceding fault: therefore they cannot inhere in him in an ordered way: but Christ could have nothing disordered in himself: therefore neither could he have defects and penalities. — The same Seraphic Doctor distinguishes the major: punishment which has no preceding fault is disordered, if it is inflicted coercively and involuntarily — this he concedes; if it is accepted voluntarily and out of charity, he denies it. But Christ assumed the penalities not from necessity but from infinite charity, by assuming a mortal body; since it was free for him to assume a glorious and impassible body; but that he might attest his immense love toward men, he willed to be made like his brethren in all things by similitude of flesh without sin: whence the Apostle, Heb. 12, exhorts that we run by patience to the fight proposed to us, looking on Jesus the author and finisher of faith, who having joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.

You will object 3. St. Hilary, who in book 10, De Trinitate, openly says that Christ as man had truly no sense of pain, hunger, thirst, and the other penalities with which our bodies are afflicted, but only in appearance and according to appearance. For disputing against certain Arians who, that they might prove the Son inferior to the Father and not consubstantial with him, said that his Divinity was somehow capable of suffering and truly suffered, and thus accommodated pain, sadness, fear, and the like not to the nature of man assumed by the Word but to his very Divinity. Disputing against these, says St. Hilary:

Many of them will have it from the impulse of the Passion, and from the infirmity of suffering, that he was not in the nature of an impassible God, so that he who feared and grieved was either not in that power of security by which he would not have feared, or in that incorruption of spirit which does not grieve, but trembled with fear at passions of a nature more eternal from God the Father, and groaned at the atrocity of bodily punishment.

Then, bringing forward texts of Scripture by which Christ the Lord is declared to have labored with sadness or fear; he shows that he had no cause for a death or penalty to be feared, since he knew that his body was not subject to penalty nor to be dissolved by corruption: and to demonstrate this, he subjoins:

Man therefore Jesus Christ, he says, the Unigenitus God through flesh and Word, as son of man so also Son of God, took true man, deficient from himself toward God according to the similitude of our man: into whom although blow might fall, or wound descend, or knots press together, or suspension raise up — these things indeed brought by the impetus of the Passion, yet they did not inflict the pain of the Passion; like some weapon piercing water, pricking fire, or wounding air, which does not retain its nature when this passion is inflicted upon it; since it is not in the nature of fire to be fairly pierced, or air to be wounded, although it is the nature of a weapon to wound and prick and pierce. The Lord Jesus Christ indeed suffered while he was struck, while crucified, while dying: but the Passion rushing upon the body of the Lord neither was not a Passion nor yet exercised the nature of Passion; since it served that ministerial penalty, and the power of the body without sense of penalty received the force of the penalty raging within it. And he brings forward the reason why he judged the body of Christ was not vulnerable like our bodies, namely because it was of a perfection and formation far more excellent than our bodies. Indeed that body, he says, would have had the nature of our pain if our body has that property of nature that it treads the waves and walks over the billows, and is not weighed down in its going, nor do they give way under the footprints of one standing on them; that it penetrates solid things too, nor is shut out by the barriers of closed houses: but if such is the nature of the Lord's body, that by its own power, its own soul it is carried over moist things and stands on liquids and runs across structures, what is judged by nature of human flesh conceived of the Holy Spirit, etc. In which words he clearly signifies that that insensibility of the body of Christ proceeds from the state and condition of its nature; wherefore iron could not exercise its force upon it, nor could other instruments of inflicting pain confer any harm.

That such was the opinion of St. Hilary Claudianus Mamertus openly confesses in book 2, De statu animae, where speaking of St. Hilary he says:

Among very many of his most lofty disputations he is said to have maintained two things more broadly than the truth: one, that nothing created is incorporeal; the other, that Christ felt no pain in his Passion. If his Passion was not true, then our redemption also could not be true. But when blessed Hilary abolished the fault of this opinion by the power of his confession, he so bears the stylus of reprehension that he does not suffer detriment to his merits.

— But the outstanding princes of theology labor all the more attentively to preserve the sound and integral doctrine of this luminary of the Church, defender and pillar of faith, because they heard St. Jerome in epistle 7, the one to Laeta, advise that the books of Hilary be run through with unimpeded foot. Therefore the Master of the Sentences, dist. 15, and St. Thomas, 3 part, qu. 18, art. 3, ad 1, expound the aforesaid opinion of St. Hilary in such wise that they judge his mind to be that Christ did not feel the pain inflicted on account of sin; whence, since he had in himself neither cause nor merit of pain, he did not even receive the force of penalty with the sense of penalty: and they teach that this was expressed in his words when he says: Not having the nature of grieving: for his nature must not be estimated from the condition of our nature, since it was begotten in an unusual manner. But Alexander, qu. 17, memb. 1, art. 2, expounds it in such a way that he wishes St. Hilary taught nothing else than that Christ did not feel pain except at the arbitrament of his will; so that there was in him no necessity either of grieving or fearing such as is in us. Hence he felt pain not unwillingly, but accepted voluntarily, etc. But the Seraphic Doctor brings forward three answers, to which all the sayings of others for explaining the mind of St. Hilary are easily reduced. The first, which the Master of the Sentences also hands down, is that Hilary denied of Christ not pain but the cause of pain, namely sin; not the truth of pain but its necessity; not the perception of pain but the perturbation, which withdraws the soul resisting the pain from its own state. That this is evident from the whole series of the passage. Does he fear, he says, who goes forth to meet armed men coming to seize him? and was there infirmity in the body at whose encounter the terrified ranks of the pursuers fell down? What infirmity then do you think ruled over that body, whose nature had such power? And a little below, speaking of the ear of Malchus restored at the touch of the hand of Christ, he says: If this was the power in the body of Christ, by what faith, I ask, is it defended that he was naturally infirm, to whom it was natural to inhibit the whole nature of human infirmities? Comparing therefore the powers of words and deeds, it cannot be doubted that infirmity was not in the nature of that corporeal nature, to which it belonged by the power of its nature to repel every infirmity of bodies, and that that passion, though inflicted upon the body, did not yet introduce into the body the nature of grieving: because although the form of our body was in the Lord, yet the form of our vitious infirmity was not in the body which came forth from the Virgin from the conception of the Holy Spirit. From these things appears what was the mind of St. Hilary, namely that the passion of Christ arose not from necessity or infirmity, and that the punishments which he bore brought into him no sense of pain contrary to his will; in which he differs from us who suffer with a reluctant mind.

— Philip, abbot of Bona Spei, explains it in the same way. Which exposition, that it may be understood, it must be presupposed according to the principles of St. Augustine that pain, which is called corporeal, is not in the body but in the soul, and that it is nothing else than the reluctance of the mind arising from the fact that the body suffers something displeasing to it. Pain of the flesh, says Augustine, is only an offense of the soul from the flesh, and a certain dissent from its suffering. Wherefore, when the soul cannot attend to the wounds of the body, as happens in lethargies, then most true is the saying of St. Hilary that the edge of a weapon piercing the body inflicts no more pain than if it pierced water. But the matter stands almost in the same way if the mind attending to the pain does not resist it: for pain is posited not in attention alone but also in reluctance. Hence if the mind then perceived the cause of pain, namely the wound, because it perceived it; yet it would not properly feel pain, because it did not resist it. And accordingly, since the will of Christ was superior to all punishments to be inflicted, and since it was most constant in the purpose of obeying God the Father by satisfying for men, torments could bring him no reluctance; and thus excellently says St. Hilary that the flesh of Christ suffered, but that the passion did not reach the soul; for he was indeed wounded for our iniquities, but since he was offered because he himself willed it, those wounds did not cast down his soul with an internal sense of pain. Yet that he bore our pains and carried our languors, insofar as pain is commonly conceived as an external injury or change of the natural state of the body which the mind perceives, whether meanwhile it resist or consent, St. Hilary teaches in the places to be cited below.

— The second answer of the Seraphic Doctor is that

St. Hilary does not exclude the sense of pain from Christ according to the human nature, but according to the divine: whence those words are to be referred to the person of Christ; for the understanding of the sayings, he says, must be taken from the causes of speaking. For Hilary in the words premised wished to exclude the error of Arius, who said that Christ suffered in his whole self.

So also Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, expounds the mind of St. Hilary:

Since therefore, he says, St. Hilary says that blows and wounds brought passion to the man assumed by the Son of God, yet did not inflict the passion of pain, as if a weapon pierced water etc.: it is the same as if he said, the man assumed felt the impetus of the passion and the force of pain, the God assuming did not feel; and this he declares a little later saying: the power of the body, that is, the Divinity assuming that body to other bodies(?) remains, so that there be sense: the power of the body without sense of penalty with respect to the divinity assuming. And in this manner of speaking truly and with the faith of the Christian religion safe, it can be said that Christ or the body of Christ suffered and did not suffer, grieved and did not grieve, died and did not die.

Otherwise if the aforesaid Doctor had wished to understand against the most common faith of the Church, against the definition of all the holy Fathers, the flesh of Christ to be insensible and devoid of pain, he would by no means have referred to the man assumed by the Son of God as like us in the aforesaid opinion: for what similitude is there between sensible and insensible, suffering and devoid of pain? This Lanfranc wrote against Berengarius objecting against St. Hilary the error concerning the insensibility of the body of Christ, in an Epistle to Romuald, abbot of Poitiers, related by Baronius, tome 2 of the Annals, 1088. Which exposition seems to be handed down by St. Hilary himself, canon 31 on Matthew against the Arians, writing thus:

The whole sense of those men is, that they think fear of death fell upon the Son of God, who assert that he was not brought forth from truth nor existed from the infinity of almighty substance but was made from nothing through him who created him, and therefore in him anxiety of body, therefore passion of spirit along with the passion of the body: therefore fear of death, as one who was able to fear death and could die.

But he expounds his opinion most clearly in the Enarration on Psalm 53:

He is not to be understood as given over to passion from necessity of nature rather than from the sacrament of human salvation, and to have willed rather than been compelled to subject himself to passion: and although the unchangeable divine nature no injurious perturbation would offend, nevertheless the passion accepted was voluntary, destined indeed itself to fulfill the penal office, yet not about to bear the sufferer in actual sense. Not that it had not the nature of being harmed, but because pain does not feel from the nature of the Divinity. God therefore suffered, because he voluntarily subjected himself to passion; yet he did not fall from the power of his own nature so as to grieve; for there follows: I will sacrifice to thee willingly, etc.

— The third answer, which Bellarmine embraces in book 3, De anima Christi, cap. 8, together with very many others whom Vazquez relates, dist. 59, cap. 1, is that truly this luminary of the Church suffered an eclipse in this part, but at last, its light multiplied, appeared more radiant through his retraction; for the Seraphic Doctor relates there: I heard William, Bishop of Paris, relate that he had seen and read through the book of the retraction of Hilary. That Hilary retracted his error in that little book, St. Thomas teaches in 3 dist. 15, and Albert in the same place, and Claudian Mamertus above. — And although this book of retraction now does not appear and has perished through the injury of time, nevertheless one may gather that St. Hilary held an opinion contrary to the former assertion, and truly Catholic, from his commentaries on the Psalms: for explaining Psalm 68 upon these words, Save me, O God, for the waters have come in even to my soul, he writes thus:

For when the waters entered even to the soul, he became subject to the death of the cross, when the impulses of various passions broke through even to the death of the soul. And a little later: Truly both the power and might of these entering passions is from nothing else than from the assumption of flesh: for the terror of our infirmities could not fall upon God: nor could the passions exercise themselves except through the flesh of our body as subject matter. And again: The Lord was struck, receiving our sins and grieving for us, that health might be restored to us through the resurrection from the dead, he having been stricken even to the infirmity of the cross and of death. Likewise: Every terror, he says, of the tempest raging against us fell upon us, etc. Then also he began to be able to suffer and to die, descending into the depths through the setting of death. And below: Therefore there was not in the Unigenitus Son of God natural infirmity, but assumed, because on account of God he took up these reproaches of passions.

By which words St. Hilary truly testifies that God took up grief and fear not by his own nature but in the flesh assumed. And again he asserts that God assumed flesh of the same nature as the flesh of Adam after sin, weak, and truly grieved: But he had not spared, he says, first that Adam formed of the clay of the earth, whom he cast out of Paradise after his fault, lest touching the tree of life he should remain in eternity of punishment, so that Adam, taking up the second from the heavens the nature of his body, and struck by an equal death, might call it back again into eternal life, without the eternity of punishment. Him therefore thus struck by God they pursued, adding to the pain of wounds the pain of this persecution: for he grieves for us according to the Prophet, and was esteemed vile in pains: you see how manifestly he is said to have borne not only wounds, that is perforations; but also the pains of wounds: which is plainly contrary to what he wrote in the place of the tenth book On the Trinity. Nor does it matter that none of the ancients noted this error in Hilary, nor that St. Jerome admonished Laeta that his daughter run with unimpeded foot through the Epistles of Athanasius and the books of Hilary, that she delight in their treatises, their intellects, in whose books the piety of faith may not waver: for not all errors into which some of the Fathers fell were noted by others: whence it could happen that St. Jerome too passed it over and did not observe it. Or I say that it would have been in vain for this error to have had to be noted by them, which St. Hilary himself had erased by his own retraction and contrary documents: for by this reason not all the lapses of St. Augustine, which he himself corrected in the books of his Retractations, have been noted and condemned by subsequent holy Fathers and ecclesiastical writers.

— But let that one of these answers be chosen which shall seem best.

You will object 1. He did not have a passible body who was devoid of all passion, whom neither pleasure nor pain nor any movement of human affection invaded, who ought not to eat except to remove the suspicion that he was pure spirit: but this is the opinion of St. Clement of Alexandria concerning Christ: therefore so far is it from being heretical that rather it is confirmed by the reckoning of the more ancient Fathers of the Church. That St. Clement defended it is manifest from book 5 of the Stromata, page 168: Such indeed is he who is endowed with knowledge, he says, that the affections which arise in order that the body may endure do not usually fall upon him, namely hunger, thirst and the like: but that in the Savior indeed the body should require the necessary ministries of the body as body in order that it remain, is ridiculous. For he ate not on account of the body which was contained by holy power, but lest those who conversed with him conceive otherwise concerning him, as certainly certain later men judged him to have appeared by vision and phantasm; but he himself was devoid of passion, as one upon whom no motion of affection fell, neither pleasure nor pain. — I answer, that St. Clement excludes from Christ only the necessity of hunger and thirst, disordered passions, and movements of affections creeping in without consulted reason. But he does not deny that he truly suffered hunger and thirst and the other affections out of condescension. His body indeed, insofar as united to the Word of God, did not require the necessary ministries of life, because the infinite power of the Word could preserve it without those and contain it by holy power: he willed nevertheless to be tempted in all things by similitude without sin, lest he be thought to have assumed a phantastic or apparent body. That moreover he judged Christ truly to have suffered is evident from his Exhortation to the Gentiles, cap. 19, where he says: Believe the man who is man God, believe the living God who is man, who suffered and is adored, believe the servant dead, etc. And book 2 of the Paedagogus, cap. 8: How alien it is, he says, that we who have heard that the Lord was crowned with thorns, insulting the venerable Passion of the Lord by sport, should have our heads crowned with flowers. This can be confirmed by the words of Origen, who, from the doctrine of the Church and school of Alexandria, in which he had heard St. Clement as master, writes thus in book 2, Contra Celsum: If, as Celsus says, Jesus felt no pain or molestation during that time: in what way could those who afterwards followed use Jesus as an example of enduring any laborious and troublesome thing for virtue's sake, if he truly did not suffer as man, but only in appearance?

Second Conclusion. — CHRIST DID NOT ASSUME THE PRIVATE DEFECTS OF MEN, SUCH AS INFIRMITIES, LEPROSY, ETC.

Proof. Christ assumed only those defects which conduced to the work of redemption; but private infirmities and languors did not conduce to the work of redemption, nay greatly hindered it, since they would have been the cause why Christ could not have devoted himself to the conversion of men and the preaching of the Gospel: therefore he ought not to have assumed those defects.

Then, those special defects arise either from the weakness of the formative virtue, or from disordered actions, or from the vengeance of sin: but under none of these headings could those defects be found in Christ.

You will object 1. That prophecy of Isaiah 53, where he speaks thus of Christ: Truly our languors he himself took, and our sorrows he himself carried, and we thought him as it were a leper, and struck by God and humbled. But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins. — I answer, that the Prophet is not to be understood of morbid languors or peculiar infirmities which arise from the intemperance of the human body, but of those languors and pains which he received inflicted bloodily by the cruelty of the Jews at the time of the passion: for by so many scourges and so many wounds his sacred body was torn, that truly he appeared to men as it were a leper, and there was in him no beauty nor comeliness.

Third Conclusion. — CHRIST HAD NOT THE DEFECT OF DEFORMITY, BUT WAS RENOWNED FOR EXCELLENT BEAUTY AND GRACE.

It is proved first by those oracles of sacred Scripture by which Christ is foretold as to be endowed with singular beauty. Thus Gen. 49, His eyes are more beautiful than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk. Thus Ps. 44 it is said Thou art beautiful in form above the sons of men: which text the sacred Interpreters expound of the bodily comeliness of Christ the Lord. Which indeed Nicephorus confirms, book 1 of his History cap. 10, where he narrates that Christ was beautiful and of fair figure such as befitted a man; so that his beauty was joined with gravity and modesty: wherefore St. Jerome on chapter 53 of Isaiah testifies that the form of Christ was most elegant and most beautiful, so much so that by sight alone he drew all men to himself with potent allurement. That very splendor, he says, and majesty of the Divinity hidden, which shone forth even in his human face, was able from the first glance to draw beholders to himself.

This truth can be proved equally from the fact that for beauty only these three things are required: the best temperament, proportion of members, and due color; which three things his divine formative virtue sufficiently indicates were in Christ. For what is born of the Virgin of the Holy Spirit is.

They could object against this conclusion certain holy Fathers and ancient theologians: above all Clement of Alexandria, who in the Paedagogus, after many things disputed concerning true beauty, finally proves by the example of Christ that it ought to be placed in soul and virtue, not in the elegance of body. For the Lord himself, he says, was deformed in appearance, the Spirit testifies through Isaiah. And we saw him, and he had no beauty nor comeliness: but his form was unlovely beyond men. And who is more excellent than the Lord? Then he regards not the beauty of flesh, which deceives by a certain appearance; but the true beauty of soul and body: of soul indeed beneficence, of flesh truly immortality. — And in the third book of the Stromata: The very Head of the Church, Christ, he says, passed through the flesh lacking beauty and deformed, that he might teach us to look to the state of body devoid of beauty belonging to the divine principle. And in book 6: The Lord, he says, did not without reason will not to make use of the form of the body, lest anyone admiring elegance and beauty depart from the things which are said.

Thus in Origen, Celsus the Epicurean objects that the body of Christ is said to have been small and deformed and by no means noble. To whom Origen answers, that it was written beyond controversy that the body of Jesus was deformed, yet not ignoble, as he expounds it. — Tertullian also in the book De carne Christi, cap. 9, detracts beauty from the flesh of Christ, and says this very thing made him the more admirable: But the earthly condition of flesh, he says, is not wonderful. Itself it was that which made his other things wonderful, when they said: Whence has this man doctrine, and these signs? Even among those despising his form this was ⟦rox?⟧. So much was the body neither of human honor, much less of heavenly brightness. While even among us the Prophets are silent concerning his lowly appearance, the passions themselves, and the insults themselves speak: the passions proved the flesh human, but the insults dishonored. Would anyone dare with utmost nail to scratch a new body, to contaminate that face with spittings, unless deserving it? The same he signifies also in chapter 4 of book 11, Against the Jews. — But I answer, that the aforesaid Fathers and ancient theologians were led by a weaker argument to assert these things of Christ; for the passage of Isaiah upon which they chiefly rely in their assertion is to be understood of Christ suffering and wounded and torn with blows, not of the natural form of his body, as St. Chrysostom praised above explains, when he says: For he was admirable not only when working miracles, but even when simply regarded he abounded in immense grace; and the Prophet signifying this sang: Thou art beautiful in form above the sons of men. But when Isaiah says: He had no beauty nor comeliness, either speaking with regard to the glory of the Divinity, that hidden and inexplicable one, he speaks thus; or narrating those things which happened at the time of the passion, namely that dishonor which he sustained hanging on the cross, and the rejection which he displayed throughout the whole time of his life.

Since error and ignorance are general and common defects of the human mind vitiated by sin, it is deservedly asked from there whether, just as Christ put on with his body the common bodily penalities of individual men, so likewise he assumed that defect of the human intellect. That this may appear more clearly,

Note 1. Ignorance is distinguished generically as twofold, namely of pure negation and of depraved disposition. Ignorance of pure negation is a certain simple nescience or lack of knowledge of some thing, by which reason we are said to be ignorant also of those things which we are not bound to know; but ignorance of depraved disposition is lack of knowledge of some object concerning which we are bound to form a right judgment. This again is twofold, according to the lack of a twofold science, speculative and practical. Speculative ignorance is that whereby the intellect errs concerning merely speculative things, by which reason it often happens that we err concerning the truth of the speculative sciences. But practical is that whereby the intellect perversely judges about things to be done, pursued, and fled. And this again is twofold, namely invincible and vincible: Invincible is called that whereby one is ignorant of something which is not in his power to know: thus someone invincibly is ignorant of what kind of death he ought to die, unless God reveal it to him. Vincible is that whereby one does not know something which he could know if he applied every moral diligence. This again is twofold, namely affected and gross. The first is that whereby someone spontaneously wills to be ignorant of something, lest namely he be bound to fulfill it, of which David speaks when he says: He would not understand, that he might do well. Gross is that whereby one will not apply study and labor in order to know something which he ought to know. It is asked therefore whether Christ labored under any of these ignorances.

Note 2. Error can be distinguished as twofold; namely one in the intellect, another in sense: which indeed can occur in a twofold way: namely either from some intrinsic indisposition of an external or internal sense, upon whose phantasms' presence and similitude the agent intellect forges intelligible species; or from something extrinsic: thus it often happens that through a corrupted medium, or too great a distance of the object, a thing is thrown off otherwise to the senses than it truly exists in itself. It must be resolved therefore whether Christ was free from all error entirely in both ways.

Note 3. Very many heretics erred most foolishly concerning the knowledge of Christ the Lord; for, as St. Irenaeus relates, book 1 against heresies cap. 17, the Gnostics who were called Valentinians asserted that Christ learned the alphabet under the rod of his teacher, and that he knew very many things not, and that what he knew he had learned from men. These were followed by the Agnoetae, whose leader and father was Themistius, from whom they were also called Themistians, who, as Sophronius relates in the epistle to Sergius, was the father of ignorance, who raved that Christ our true God did not know the day of judgment. Furthermore, that the Agnoetae did not assert that Christ according to the proper nature of the Word and divinity was ignorant of the day of judgment, but only according to his humanity, is evident from Nicephorus, book 18 of his History, cap. 30; for of them he says: They say, that God the Word indeed knows all things, but that the humanity united to him in substance is ignorant of very many things: certainly these say it does not know the day of the consummation of the whole world, as being less than the Father. On account of this, because in the Gospel according to Matthew and Mark it is said: But of that day no one knows, neither the son of man. To these heretics were added Lutherans and Calvinists who, as Canisius notes, book 3 De Maria Deipara, cap. 22, teach not only that Jesus was ignorant of the day of judgment, but also that in boyhood he had an ignorance common with other boys, so that in the manner of the others, just as in body, so also in science and knowledge of things and endowments of mind he grew. Nay their unbridled license of speaking proceeded so far that they attribute error and ignorance even to him now grown up, asserting that he was deceived when, approaching the fig tree and seeking fruit on it, he found only leaves, and when he prayed to the Father in the garden and afterwards corrected his prayer.

Although it is most constant that the Lord truly merited for himself and for us very many divine benefits throughout his whole life; nevertheless Calvin impudently assails this truth with sacrilegious mouth. For he writes in the commentary on chapter 2 to the Philippians: Frivolous is what from this place: For which cause God exalted him etc. the sophists attempt to elicit, namely that Christ first merited for himself, then for others. And a little after, after his manner he re-echoes Satan and devils, and lacerates all theologians with rabid mouth saying: Who does not see that this is suggested by Satan, that Christ suffered on the cross that he might acquire by the merit of his work what he did not have? Who denies that those cry out at the instigation of Satan that Christ merited glory for himself before salvation for us? He adds: Therefore let readers learn to detest the Sorbonic sophists with their twisted speculations.

That however it may clearly stand forth that he brings forward falsehoods, see

Single Conclusion. — CHRIST LABORED UNDER NO KIND OF IGNORANCE WHATEVER, EVEN AS MAN. The truth of this Conclusion remains sufficiently proved from those things which we said concerning the fullness of the science of Christ the Lord. For he who had the most perfect knowledge of the existence of all things, and of things future and past, either in the Word through blessed science, or in its proper genus through infused science, labored under no vacuity of knowledge of things.

It is confirmed moreover from Clement of Alexandria in the book Paedagogus, cap. 6, where speaking thus concerning the baptism of Christ: Wisely therefore let us ask, whether Christ regenerated today is already perfect, or — what is most absurd — is anything wanting to him? but if it is so, was it needful that he learn something? but since he was God, it was consistent that he learned nothing. He judges it absurd therefore that anything was wanting to Christ, so that it was needful for him to learn. But that Clement speaks of Christ according to his humanity is manifest; for he subjoins: For neither was any one greater in word, nor is there Master and Doctor for him who alone is Master. Will they not then confess even unwillingly, that the Word born perfect from the perfect Father was perfectly regenerated by economical preordination? And if he was perfect, why was he who was perfect baptized? It behooved (they say) to fulfill the human profession most beautifully, for thus I speak, so he is baptized by John, he becomes perfect namely: therefore did he learn nothing from him? By no means: but by washing alone he is perfected, and sanctified by the coming of the Spirit.

The same truth and reason the Seraphic Doctor proves, dist. 15, art. 2, quaest. 1. Christ, he says, did not have the defect of ignorance, because neither did it befit him, because his soul ought to have been beautiful, and thereby filled with light, wisdom and rectitude of justice; but ignorance is privation of science, and can be a way into error and obliquity from rectitude of justice, and hence did not become Christ. Nor was it expedient for us whom he had come to redeem and direct. For if he had had the defect of ignorance, he would not have known how to redeem us, because if a blind man gives guidance to a blind man, both fall into the pit. And therefore neither did it befit him nor was it expedient for us that he should assume such a defect. It must be conceded therefore that Christ in no way had the defect of ignorance in himself. Thus St. Bonaventure.

You will object 1. Christ as an infant, although he was the Word of the Father, had the defect of eloquence and divine power: therefore by equal reason, although he was the wisdom and power of God, he had the defect of wisdom and knowledge. —

He denies the parity, the Seraphic Doctor, and brings forward the reason of disparity, that since the defect of eloquence and strength was exterior, it served, like the other infantile infirmities, for manifesting the truth of the assumed nature; but the defect of wisdom, since it is interior, would have served for nothing at all. He adds, that the former defects are matter for the exercise of virtue, patience, and fortitude; but the defect of cognition can serve for no virtue whatsoever, nay it calls away from the exercise of virtue: therefore there is no parity between the two defects.

You will object 2. The inquiry of truth supposes ignorance of it: but Christ the Lord inquired many things many times; for John 11 he asked the sisters of Lazarus where his sepulchre was, saying: Where have you laid him? And Luke 24 he asked the two Disciples walking on the way: What are these words which you confer with one another walking, and are sad? And John 21, as if doubting, he asks Peter whether he loves him more than the other Disciples, saying: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than these. And Matt. 21, Seeing one fig tree by the wayside, he came to it: and found nothing on it but leaves only, and he said to it: May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever; and immediately the fig tree withered: therefore before he approached the tree he did not know that there was no fruit on it.

Origen answers in the commentary on chapter 13 of Matthew: He who knows what is in the hearts of men, Christ Jesus, as he taught concerning this in the Gospel of John, does not ask as ignorant, but because he once assumed man, he uses all things that are man's, of which one is to ask. Nor must it be wondered at if the Savior does this, since he himself also, God of all, accommodating himself to the manners of men, inquires just as if some man should act according to custom toward his son, as in this: Adam where art thou? And to Cain: Where is Abel thy brother? The same St. Chrysostom teaches, Homily 11, where acting against the Jews who denied the divinity of Christ because he had asked about many things after the manner of the ignorant, as concerning Lazarus, Where have you laid him? prescribing against them in turn he objects various passages of the Old Testament in which God asks after the manner of the ignorant: from which he concludes that the Jews do not rightly gather ignorance in the Son from his inquiry unless they concede the same was in the Father. But St. Chrysostom seems to have spoken only of Christ as he is God. But of the same as he is man, Cyril removes every species of ignorance thus in book 3, Against Nestorius: We believe, he says, that from the very womb and belly of the Virgin Emmanuel himself, who was God, came forth a man full of all wisdom and grace which naturally inhered in him: what increase then would he take who has in him all the treasures of wisdom, who together with God the Father is the giver of heavenly grace?

You will object 3. Admiration supposes ignorance: for, says Aristotle, 1 Metaphysics cap. 2, Through wonder men now and first began to philosophize, namely by investigating the causes of things which they did not know: but Christ the Lord often had admiration: for Matt. 8 he marveled at the faith of the Centurion, and Matt. 13 beholding the faith of the Canaanite woman he exclaims admiringly: O woman! great is thy faith: therefore Christ had ignorance. —

The theologians answer commonly that Christ marveled with an admiration proceeding from experimental knowledge, according to which he could learn many particulars, as we said above. But I judge it better to say with St. Augustine, epistle 101, that admiration is twofold: one, whereby there arises from wonder at a cause whose effect one sees, and this excites in us a vehement desire of investigating the cause; another truly from the unusualness and rarity of some thing, which when we see we marvel with delight, and delight with admiration: which admiration indeed is nothing else than an affection of delight arising from the magnitude of a thing and inclining to praise. Thus Christ, says St. Augustine, marveled at the faith of the Centurion; for no reason of any thing could be hidden from him: but admiration is put for praise: whose equal had not appeared among the people of the Hebrews. Nor therefore is that knowledge to be reprehended whereof it was said: if reason is sought it will not be wonderful: since there is another kind of admiration even when the reason is manifest to the admirer.

You will object 4. The chief foundation upon which heretics most rely, that they may establish some ignorance in Christ, namely certain texts of Scripture perversely understood by them: those indeed are chiefly those in which it is asserted Christ knew not the day of judgment. Thus Matthew 21, 24: But of that day and hour, saith Christ himself, no one knows, neither the Angels of heaven, but the Father alone; but in Mark: But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the Angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but the Father: therefore something is hidden from Christ, and consequently there was ignorance in him. —

I answer first, that Christ truly knows the day of judgment, both as God, because that day is known to the Father, and as man, since for the state of judge it is necessary to know when judgment ought to be rendered: but the eternal Father, as we read John 3, gave him power to make judgment, because he is son of man. Add that, as St. Chrysostom argues, Hom. 71 on Matthew, if it was given to Christ as man to know how he ought to judge, which is greater, much more was it given him to know what is less, namely the time of judgment. Moreover, he who foretold the other circumstances of the coming judgment cannot be said to have been ignorant of the circumstance of time: but from the same passages of the Gospel it stands forth that he designated and foretold the other circumstances of the coming judgment: therefore also he knew the time in which it was to be accomplished. Again, Christ the Lord as man foreknew the deeds of others: therefore much more ought he to have foreknown his own: truly he would not have foreknown his own deeds if he had not known the day on which he was to be Judge of the living and the dead. Finally, as St. Gregory argues, book 8 of his Epistles, epistle 42, expounding that passage of John cap. 13, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands. If all things, says Gregory, certainly the day of judgment and the hour; who then is so foolish as to say that the son received into his hands what he does not know? Therefore Christ truly, even as man, knew the day of judgment.

I answer secondly, that as far as the sense of the words by which the Evangelists relate that also the son of man knows not the day of judgment, there are various explanations and solutions of the holy Fathers. For first St. Ambrose, book 5 De Fide, c. 7, and Jerome on chapter 24 of Matthew assert that this particle, nor the son, was added into the text by the Arians, afterwards however struck out by Catholics; whence, as Jerome notes, in the Greek codices of Adamantius and in most Latin ones, that particle nor the son was never in Matthew. Whence even now it is not found in the Vulgate. But that solution cannot please, since that particle was always in Mark and is even now read in the Vulgate edition, which by the authority of the Council of Trent, session 4, has been approved as authentic. Hence it pleases with certain of the holy Fathers to assert that Christ knew not the day of judgment because namely he knows it not through connatural science, which is acquired by human study, the benefit of the senses, and the teaching of men. Thus St. Basil, epistle to Amphilochius, who had inquired concerning that question, answers that Christ as man was ignorant of the time of judgment: If anyone, he says, refer that ignorance to God, who by a certain dispensation received all things into himself, and advanced in wisdom and grace with God and men, he will not stray from the pious sense of Scripture. To him subscribes Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. 46: To know indeed as God, but to be ignorant as man, if anyone separate that which appears in Christ from that which is perceived by mind. Cyril likewise in the refutation of Theodoreto ad anathematism t. says: And so he knows divinely indeed, as being the wisdom of the Father: but because he underwent the measure of an ignorant humanity through dispensation, this too he claimed as his own together with the others. Whence in book 2 he ascribes the ignorance of that day to the humanity of Christ: For it is not unbecoming to a creature, he says, nor unusual, to be ignorant of divine mysteries. And below: What wonder is it if while the Angel is said to be ignorant of this divine mystery, although he be the wisdom and power of God! But this solution can please only insofar as it would signify that Christ as man was ignorant of the day of judgment because he did not acquire that knowledge by his own study, but had it infused into him divinely, in which manner also St. Basil praised just now interprets it, saying that it was said Mark 13, nor the son, but the Father, because neither would the son know unless cognition were given from the Father, for all things he himself received from the Father. —

Some think that Christ knew not the day and hour of judgment because he did not cause to know, judging that it was not yet the time for revealing it, just as the Lord also Gen. 18 said concerning the Sodomites: I will go down and see whether the cry which comes to me have its works completed, or if it be not so, that I may know: in which words the Lord professes himself ignorant, not because he was truly ignorant and wished to know, but because he is said to know then when already there is fullness of time for acting and punishing sins; just as also Genesis 22, The Lord said to Abraham: Now I know that thou fearest the Lord; not because God then had begun to know it, but because then was the time that Abraham receive testimony. Thus explain St. Hilary, book 9 De Trinitate, Ambrose, book 5 De Fide, c. 7; above all however St. Augustine, book 83 Questions, q. 60, where he has this: As God is said to know, even when he causes to know, as it is written: The Lord your God tempteth you, that he may know if you love him; for this was not said as though God were ignorant, but that they themselves may know how much they have profited in the love of the Lord; which unless temptations come is plainly not acknowledged by men; and he himself is tempted is put for that he permits himself to be tempted: so also when he is said not to know, either it is said for this that he does not approve, that is, does not acknowledge in his discipline and doctrine, as it was said: I know you not: or for this that he usefully makes men ignorant, that which it is useless to know: therefore well is accepted what was said, the Father alone to know, to have been said thus because he causes the son to know; and what was said, the son not to know, to have been said thus because he causes men not to know, that is he does not bring it forth to them how they might usefully know. —

St. Ambrose confirms all these things most excellently in the place praised just now, where, when he demonstrated that Christ truly as God knew the time of the future judgment, he proves that he also had it ascertained as man: since he expressed the hour, and place, and signs, and causes of the future judgment. Indeed the hour, since Luke 17 he says: in that hour, he who shall be on the housetop, let him not come down to take his goods out of his house; but the day, because he called himself Lord of the sabbath. Could the Lord, says Ambrose, be ignorant of the day, who himself said that the son of man is Lord of the sabbath? The place, when namely showing to the Disciples the structure of the temple he said: Do you see all these things? Amen I say to you, there shall not be left a stone upon a stone. Matt. 24. The signs, Luke 21, Take heed you be not seduced; for many will come in my name saying, that I am Christ. And below: There shall be great earthquakes in places, etc. This however supposed, he concludes thus: He knew therefore all things; but we seek by what reason he willed not to designate the moments? if we seek, we shall find it belongs not to ignorance but to wisdom; for it would not profit us to know, that while we are ignorant of the certain moments of the future judgment, we, ever as placed in watchfulness, and set in a certain watchtower of virtue, might avoid the habit of sinning, lest the day of the Lord overtake us amid vices. And afterwards: Therefore I said, that to know would not profit, nay it profits to be ignorant: that we fearing as ignorant, observing might be amended. And below: From the Apostles, who believed the Son of God to know future things. for unless they had believed this, they would never have asked: asked therefore when he would restore the kingdom of Israel, he did not say he was ignorant of it: but he said: It is not yours to know times and years which the Father hath put in his own power. Attend what he said, it is not yours to know; read again it is not yours, he said, not mine. And below: I recognize even in this place his solemn charity toward the Disciples, and his grace: to seem ignorant of those things which he judged known things useless, which was never to demonstrate his own power.

Therefore, that certain Fathers assert that Christ as man said he was ignorant of the day of judgment, I judge to be thus to be expounded: not as though they denied the Son knew the day of judgment in the very humanity, but because he did not know it from the humanity itself, that is, not from the force or virtue of the humanity; since gratuitously there was infused into him divinely the science.

Rational appetite I call the human will, whereby man pursues with liberty and desires those things which are consonant or dissonant to reason. And as the propensity of that will toward good is virtue, so also movement and inclination toward a prohibited object is reckoned vice and sin. Hence sin itself, as well as sinful propensity, are truly defects of that appetite exorbitating from the straight path of reason and virtue. Wherefore theologians deservedly inquire here whether Christ either could sin, or had some inclination prone to sinning which is commonly called the fomes of sin.

Note 1. It is certain by faith that Christ was never stained by any original sin: for from the very beginning of his formation he was endowed with all fullness of graces, as has been proved above at length. Hence the Angel, herald of his nativity, says to the Virgin, Luke 1, That which shall be born of thee shall be holy, by which he signified that he had as it were native holiness, as St. Basil teaches most excellently on Ps. 14, expounding this verse: Thou hast loved justice, etc. For being what it is, other men indeed are asserted to be well affected to honesty and averse from evil by labor, exercise, and attention of mind: but to thee there belongs a certain natural kinship with good and alienation from evil. Cyril subscribes, book 11 on John: Holy, he says, is all that which is immune from the filth of the world: which indeed naturally is in Christ, according to

the similitude of the Father: but adventitious and acquired inheres in holy disciples through sanctification which is of grace.

Reason also supports this: since original sin flourishes only in those who derive origin from Adam through the seminal way: but Christ was not propagated from Adam through the seminal way, because he was not conceived from virile seed but only from the Holy Spirit, nor did he receive from Adam actively human nature but only materially, inasmuch namely as he took the visible substance of flesh from the flesh of the Virgin, which had been propagated from Adam through the seminal way; like other men he would have been under the guilt of original sin unless by an intervening divine benefit she had been preserved. The difficulty therefore concerns only actual sin, whether namely the humanity assumed by the Word ever fell into any sin, or at least could have fallen into it, apart from the extraordinary power of God. Although among the more ancient heretics none was so blasphemous and impudent toward Christ as to ascribe to him any sin; among the more recent ones however, being more impudent, there was a certain Apostate of the Praemonstratensian Order who dared to assert that the crucified Christ fell into despair when he said: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? and for this reason was condemned to the torments of hell, as Lindanus relates in dialogue 2 and Hosius book 1 De Haeresibus nostri temporis. Calvin also, as Suárez narrates, disp. 33, sect. 1, is said to have asserted that Christ in the garden was so troubled and agitated with temptations that he prayed without spirit saying: Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me, and therefore as if returning to himself immediately corrected the disorderly petition, and subjected his own will to the will of the Father. Wherefore it is worth the labor here to prove that Christ was never defiled by any actual sin.

Note 2. The impeccability of Christ the Lord, as man, can be considered either by comparison precisely to his liberty: or by comparison to the blessedness of his soul, which he always had from the first instant of his creation; or by comparison to his sum of habitual grace and the other supernatural gifts accompanying it; or finally by comparison to the hypostatic union taken simply and precisely. But the present difficulty is moved only according to the last consideration; namely whether impeccability thus befits Christ as he is man, that while only the hypostatic union of the divine Word with his humanity remains, all other supernatural gifts set aside, he would still be impeccable, and it would conflict with him to commit any sin even the lightest.

Note 3. These two are distinguished from each other: to have the power whereby one sins, and to have the power of sinning. For the first imports having a created will, which by that very fact that it is created is defectible if considered in itself, and is that by which sin is committed: but the second superadds to this first an aptitude for committing sin and a quasi-propensity into sin, insofar as the created will is (so to speak) lapsable into sin. Here there is no speech concerning the power whereby one sins, whether that be in Christ the Lord: since this is nothing else than a created will, it had place in Christ the Lord as man; but only the power of sinning is treated of, not indeed insofar as it signifies a propensity into sin, but insofar as it signifies non-repugnance; so that without any contradiction Christ, notwithstanding the hypostatic union, absolutely — if God by an extraordinary disposition permitted it — could sin.

First Conclusion. — IT IS OF FAITH THAT CHRIST NEVER IN FACT COMMITTED SIN EVEN THE LIGHTEST.

It is proved first from sacred Scripture, which so often most constantly testifies to the outstanding sanctity and innocence of Christ. Thus Christ himself John 8 says to his Jewish detractors and calumniators: Which of you shall convince me of sin? Isaiah had pronounced this very thing cap. 53, saying that he had done no iniquity neither was guile found in his mouth: to which place St. Peter alluded, Epistle 1 cap. 2, when he says: Who (namely Christ) did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Hence St. Paul Heb. 4: We have an high priest who cannot have compassion on our infirmities, tempted in all things by similitude without sin, etc. As if he said: tempted in all things after our manner, or by similitude of us; yet so that he never sinned. And cap. 7, For it was fitting that we should have such an high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners.

It is proved secondly from Councils, as the Ephesine Can. 10, defining that Christ had no need of oblation for himself, because he knew sin not at all. The Lateran under Martin I, Can. 5, defining that our substance was perfectly in Christ, without sin. This very thing all the holy Fathers and ancient theologians most constantly testify, who defend the innocence of Christ and his immunity from every sin. Thus St. Basil Epist. 65, Gregory of Nyssa Orat. 14, Augustine book 5 contra Julianum, cap. 5, etc.

Reason supports this too: The first indeed can be sought from the plenitude of grace. He who has the plenitude of sanctifying grace cannot have any sin; since sanctifying grace, in the ordinary way at least, does not subsist together with sin, and consequently the plenitude of habitual grace eliminates every sin whatsoever. The second can be sought from the blessedness of Christ; since nothing defiled shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but Christ from the instant of his conception was blessed: therefore he was defiled by no sin. The third reason finally is sought from the end of the Incarnation; for in this appeared the Son of God that he might dissolve the works of the devil, namely sin; for Christ came into the world for this, that he might wash away all sin and be the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world: but he could not have fulfilled this ministry if truly he himself had been stained with sin. If indeed, says St. Athanasius, book On the Incarnation of Christ a little from the beginning, the Son of man came that he might dissolve the works of the devil, in what way could he have sin in himself, since he himself came that he might destroy sins in us? Whence St. Paulinus excellently in the Panegyric on the death of Celsus:

For he would not blot out faults unless free from them,

nor could he release the guilty, himself being guilty.

Nor would death yield to the sinner, since holding bound

the ones bound by sin he legitimately retains.

St. Bernard pursues elegantly the same reason, sermon 1 On the Vigil of the Nativity, in these words: Behold a lamb without stain, the lamb who takes away the sins of the world; for who would better take away sins than he upon whom sin does not fall? He without doubt can wash me, of whom it stands forth that he is not stained. This hand cleanses my eye covered with mud, which alone is without dust. He draws out for me the mote from my eye, who has not a beam in his own. Nay this one draws out the beam from mine, who has not even a little dust in his.

They object, heretics, certain texts of Scripture by which sin seems to be attributed to Christ: thus Ps. 21, My God, my God, look upon me; why hast thou forsaken me? far from my salvation are the words of my sins, which words it is beyond controversy that the Psalmist pronounced in the person of Christ. Whence St. Augustine judges that this Psalm ought to be called not so much a prophecy as an Evangelic history. Since therefore Christ calls some sins his own in these words, he does not seem to be devoid of sin. Similar is that Ps. 38, Because of the face of my sins, which St. Augustine likewise admits was said concerning Christ. There can be added the testimony of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5 and Gal. 3, saying Christ was touched by sin for us and made a malediction. —

I answer by denying that from there any sin could be concluded to have been in Christ. Not indeed from the testimonies of the Psalmist: for this particle of my sins does not signify that there was any sin in Christ, but since Christ as surety had promised that he would satisfy God the Father for us: Ps. 39, Holocaust and oblation for sin thou didst not require; then I said: Behold I come, etc., and Isaiah 53, and thus had taken upon himself the obligation of satisfying for all men, the eternal Father exacted from him satisfaction for all the sins of men, by which reason those sins as if proper to himself made him far from the salvation of body and liberation, which he sought from natural inclination. Whence St. Augustine in the exposition on this Ps. says: Of whose sins, of whom it was said, who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth? How therefore does he say: my sins, except because he prays for our sins, and made sins, that he might make his justice our justice! Therefore he calls the sins of men his own by personal appropriation, because what belongs to the members is attributed to the person of the head, according to the rule of Tyconius received by St. Augustine book 3 De doctrina Christiana, cap. 32: The things which are of the members are attributed to the head, on account of the conjunction they have with it, considering head and members after the manner of one person: which rule however is thus to be understood, provided those things which are of the members do not impede their conjunction with the head; otherwise it would follow that the sins of the faithful which are done daily could also be attributed to Christ, and that when the faithful sin Christ himself sins. Whence in the Council of Basel, session 2, among other propositions of Augustine de Roma Archbishop of Nazareth the following proposition is condemned as scandalous and erroneous: Christ sins daily, and similarly this: since Christ has been, he sinned daily. But the Council adds these words: Although he says he does not understand it of the Head of the Church, Christ Jesus our Savior, but of his members, which with Christ their Head he asserted to be one Christ. To the Apostle I say, Christ is said to have been made sin insofar as he was touched as victim for sins: for in the ancient law sacrifices for sins were called sins, according to that Osee 4: They shall eat the sins of my people. Thus explains St. Aug. in the Enchiridion cap. 49. Or he is said made sin, because he was made in the similitude of sinful flesh, on account of the mortal and passible body, as well as on account of the penalities due to sin which he assumed.

You will object 1. He can sin in the ordinary way in whom there is free will flexible toward good and evil: but Christ the Lord had free will flexible toward good and evil: therefore in the ordinary way he could sin. —

I distinguish the major: in whom there is free will flexible toward good and evil both in act second, and in act first, both extrinsically and intrinsically — this I concede; only in act first and intrinsically — this I deny. Similarly I distinguish the minor: in Christ there was free will flexible toward good and evil in act first and intrinsically — let this pass; in act second and extrinsically — this I deny. Indeed since the human nature of Christ was of the same rational character as ours, ignorance and sin set aside, it also had a free faculty like ours in act first; but not in act second; because his liberty by reason of the plenitude of grace and beatific union was so determined toward good that it could by no means incline into evil: whence Christ indeed had power, namely free will whereby one sins, but truly not the power of sinning or propensity into sin.

You will object 2. Christ could merit: therefore also demerit: for merit and demerit turn about the same thing. — I deny the consequence; since, as we shall say in Disputation 3 treating of the merit of Christ, for the ratio of merit it is not necessary that one be able to demerit and sin, but only that he have free will furnished with sanctifying grace together with the other conditions necessary for merit.

Second Conclusion. — CHRIST WAS WHOLLY IMPECCABLE, NOR COULD HE IN ANY WAY SIN. Thus agree all the holy Fathers and theologians, although they dissent among themselves in assigning the reason of this impeccability; for certain ones with Sts. Thomas and Bonaventure in 3 dist. 12 wish it to be sought precisely from the force of the hypostatic union. The others however with the Subtle Doctor in the same place seek it precisely from the plenitude of consummated grace, or glory, which Christ had as blessed: for the Doctor says num. 2: I say that since Christ in the first instant of his union with God was blessed, and blessedness took away from him all peccability or possibility of sinning which can be taken away through blessedness: although with this the power of meriting stood dispensatively; for the plenitude of glory with which he was joined no less than another Blessed One, although he could have merited — thus it excludes every power in him of averting from the end, as in others, etc.

That however Christ was not impeccable precisely by reason of the hypostatic union the Doctor proves; because the hypostatic union cannot attribute impeccability to Christ unless either insofar as it would necessarily make him blessed: or insofar as it has absolute incompossibility with sin: but neither is absolutely true. Not indeed the first, because such union has not necessarily conjoined to it blessedness: therefore it does not necessarily make Christ blessed. The Doctor proves the antecedent dist. 2, q. 1, nu. 3. First, because what is prior can be without what is posterior: but the hypostatic union is prior to fruition and blessedness; for just as it is prior for a nature to be personated in itself than that it operate, and proper personality is prior to operation, nor does it have so necessary a connection with operation that excellently there could be a nature personated with proper personality without any operation; so it is prior for a nature to be personated by an alien personality when it has not its own, than to operate; nor is there any utterly necessary connection between alien personality and operation by reason of which it could not be personated by alien personality without operating: therefore the hypostatic union can be without vision and beatific love, in which blessedness consists.

Then: No nature can necessarily become blessed unless it be necessarily joined to the beatific object: but by the hypostatic union human nature is not necessarily joined with God as he is the beatific object; because, says the Doctor, no nature necessarily enjoys that object except that which is necessarily immuted by it as present: but human nature is not immuted by the beatific object either under the aspect of intelligible or under the aspect of enjoyable through the hypostatic union; partly because the beatific object necessarily immutes only an intellect proportioned to itself, namely the divine under the aspect of intelligible, and the divine will under the aspect of enjoyable; partly because through that union the Word is present to the nature only personally, and under the aspect of supposit terminating the dependence and communicability of that nature; but not under the aspect of object moving to knowledge and love of itself: therefore, etc.

Finally: Beatific operation cannot be produced without the effective concurrence of God: therefore unless that concurrence be present necessarily, however much the hypostatic union be present, there can be no beatific operation of human nature: but that concurrence is not so necessarily granted to the assumed nature for beatific operation that God could not deny and suspend it: therefore there can be hypostatic union without that beatific operation. The antecedent is evident: the consequence equally. The subsumption is proved: if that concurrence required for beatific operation were necessarily granted to the human nature assumed, especially because it would be really identified with the unitive action of that human nature with the Word, or because it would be a property or accident of it necessarily consequent upon it: but none of these can rightly be established; since that concurrence to beatific operation can be without hypostatic union, as stands forth in the Blessed, who have such concurrence although they are not hypostatically united to the Word: similarly God can concur to the hypostatic union without that he necessarily concur with human nature to beatific operation: partly because union is really distinguished from operation: partly because by no reason can the contrary be proved, namely that God cannot concur to the hypostatic union without that he concur to that very beatific operation.

The second part is proved, namely that that union has not absolute incompatibility with sin, such that it implies a contradiction that the humanity sin while it remains united to the Word. I say it is proved: The human will of Christ is from itself as indifferent and free toward good and evil as ours: therefore thus also it could sin, like ours, unless by something else it were determined not to sin: but it cannot be so determined not to sin through the hypostatic union, but rather if God willed, with such union posited, it could sin. It is proved: if that union so determined the will not to sin, yet if

God absolutely willed it could still sin, especially since it would determine it either physically or morally: but neither way can this be done. Not indeed physically, because it would physically determine the will not to sin insofar as it would physically concur to an act incompatible with sin, either in the genus of efficient cause or in the genus of formal cause, in the manner in which a habit or one act determines a faculty toward another act: but the hypostatic union, or personality of the Word, does not so concur with the will of the assumed human nature. Not indeed the union, partly because it is a relation adventitious from without, which of itself is neither effective nor operative: partly because it is not subjected precisely in the will but in the whole humanity: finally partly because it is not proposed objectively to that will, that it determine it to operating or not operating. Nor indeed the personality of the Word, since that has not the character of an efficient principle but only of a supposit terminating the humanity of the Word, nor is it of itself active ad extra. Add that even if either union or personality could determine the will not to sin insofar as they would concur with the human will to an act opposite sin, they would grant that only with God concurring with them: but God would not so necessarily have to concur with them that he could deny such concurrence to them and suspend it: therefore, etc. Nor indeed can the hypostatic union or the personality of the Word morally determine the will of the assumed nature not to sin necessarily and infallibly, because no reason can be assigned why they would so determine it morally, unless either insofar as they would be proposed objectively to the will, and thus allure it concerning good, so that it could not be turned away from it; or insofar as they themselves would be determinations of the will whereby they would affect it, and thus determine it; or finally insofar as by divine ordination they would have some incompatibility with sin: but neither of those can rightly be affirmed. Not indeed the first, for neither union nor the personality of the Word are thus proposed objectively to the will of the assumed nature. Nor the second, because the union and personality of the Word cannot stand in the manner of a form so affecting and determining human will. Finally not the third, because such divine ordination would be asserted without foundation. Therefore neither the personality of the Word nor the hypostatic union can of themselves precisely so determine the will of the assumed nature not to sin, but by the absolute power of God the will itself remains so free for sinning that truly it could sin, unless it were rendered impeccable from elsewhere than precisely from that hypostatic union itself.

The adversaries reply, that that union impedes lest the will of Christ sin, insofar as it is formally incompatible with sin, just as whiteness with blackness, or love with hatred. — On the contrary, things formally do not expel each other unless insofar as they can be subjected in the same subject, or be occupied about the same object: but union and personality are not subjected in the same subject in which sin could inhere, nor do they turn about the same object or the same term; for the term of the sinful act which could be done is one, and the term of the hypostatic union another. Add that sin, qua such, is a moral entity: but it is absurd that any physical form should have from its nature incompatibility with a moral form qua moral.

They reply 2, that the hypostatic union is opposed to sin insofar as it necessarily requires that God not concur to sin, nay that he concur to an act incompatible with sin. — On the contrary, if it required this, it would require it especially either physically or morally. Not physically, because no physical entity can require necessary divine concurrence except insofar as that would be necessary for conserving that entity for that time or instant in which it ought to exist: but concurrence to an act opposed to sin cannot be necessary for the conservation of the hypostatic union, which can remain even without any act and operation: nor indeed can the negation of concurrence to sin seem necessary except insofar as it itself had formal incompatibility with sin: but it has not this, as stands forth from what has been said: therefore it does not require it physically. Nor indeed does it require it morally, because this alone it would require insofar as if God did not effect it, he would do something judged most unworthy of himself: but although Christ as man on the hypothesis should in fact sin, that sin would redound neither upon God nor upon the person of the Word, as will appear in the solution of objections: therefore, etc.

They object 1. The adversaries bring various authorities of the holy Fathers, by which they strive to prove that the impeccability of Christ is to be sought precisely from the hypostatic union, because the holy Fathers teach that Christ is impeccable on account of the communion and union of his humanity with the Word. Above all they produce Dionysius of Alexandria in the Epistle against Paul of Samosata, where near the end he says: Unless he had been (namely Christ) the same who was God the Word, he could not be alien from the power of sinning; for there is none who cannot sin except the one Christ, as the Father of Christ, and the Spirit, etc. —

I answer first, that this authority is of no moment: for above all it needs exposition in every opinion: for it seems to signify that the Blessed Virgin needed exercise and contest, that she might be freed from sin; and even that she in fact had some sinful defect; which however is false. Nor does it avail to reply with Vazquez that the Blessed Virgin did not have sin in fact; but yet that it did not proceed from her sanctity, but from the providence and care of God; for above all this does not touch the matter; for St. Dionysius seems to say there is none besides Christ who does not have sin, whether it proceeds from justice and sanctity or from elsewhere. Then, just as the Blessed Virgin could be alien from sin and from the power of sinning through the providence of God although she was not God, so Christ could be immune from sin, and thus the sole Deity and its union would not be the cause on account of which he was alien from the power of sinning; which seems contrary to this passage. One could also answer with Poncius, that the sense of this passage is that for this reason Christ the Lord in fact is immune from the power of sinning, because his humanity is united to a divine person and imbued with divinity; which indeed is true, although from elsewhere he could also be immune from sin under other headings, namely either from the special providence and protection of God, or from this that beatitude of soul is attributed to him, even if he could sin by absolute power: for just as one might say that fire burns applied tow from its nature, that no other reason exists on account of which it burns than because it is of such nature and virtue; nevertheless from that it does not follow that even if it had not such nature it could not burn, if namely God gave it heat, just as he can give it to water although it would not require it from its own nature; nor does it follow that it must burn so necessarily that by the absolute power of God it could happen that it not burn. The same by similitude can be said of Christ.

They object 2. Origen book 2 Periarchon cap. 6 where he says: Iron by its nature is capable of heat and cold; yet if it be always kept within the furnace of fire it may be called incapable of cold: in this manner also that soul, namely of Christ, which as iron in fire is placed always in the Word, always in wisdom, always in God, all that it does, that it senses, that it understands, it is God; and therefore it can not even be called convertible, which possessed inconvertibility ignited unceasingly from the unity of the Word of God. From which the adversaries infer that the inconvertibility of the soul of Christ toward sin, which we call impeccability, proceeds from the very Deification which takes place through union. —

But I answer, that by this example our opinion is rather defended than assailed: for just as although connaturally iron placed in fire cannot grow cold, yet it could supernaturally conserve its cold if God disposed matters thus, namely that he not concur with fire to introduce its heat into that iron; or if he conserved heat together with cold in the iron: so by similitude, although connaturally impeccability follows from the hypostatic union, because this has annexed the plenitude of sanctifying grace; nevertheless, just as by absolute power God can conserve grace together with sin, so by the same power God could permit that the humanity of Christ fall into some sin, the hypostatic union however persevering in it.

They object 3. The authority of St. Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. 36, which is the fourth On Theology, where speaking of the will of Christ: Whose will since it is wholly deified, doubtless does not oppose God: therefore the impeccability of Christ is referred to the deification of the will, which is the hypostatic union itself. To him subscribes St. Epiphanius in the Ancoratus, where he says: If we have said Christ a perfect man born of Mary, do we then suspect that he was subject to sins? Far be it; for he did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth; for if he breathed his power into Saints, and those whom he inspired testify that they were holy, just, advancing in their days beyond reproach: how much more he, in whom it pleased all the fullness of Deity to dwell corporally, even if he received true flesh from Mary ever Virgin, and a truly human soul, and mind, and whatever else there is in man, himself having in himself all things held them, being God undivided toward malice, not broken by that evil one, not captured in will, not falling under the sin of Adam!

I answer, that these or similar authorities signify nothing else than that the hypostatic union from its nature and dignity required that some form be conferred and conserved in Christ, namely either sanctifying grace or blessedness, whereby Christ would be determined not to sin; but not that that union precisely would be per se the reason of that impeccability.

They likewise object St. Hilary, book 10 De Trinitate, where explaining that saying of the Apostle Rom. 9 concerning Christ the Lord, who is said to be made in the similitude of sinful flesh, he asserts that it conflicts with Christ as much that he could sin as that he not be Christ:

This man Christ Jesus, he says, is in the truth of Nativity while he is man, and is not in the property of sin while he is Christ; because he who is man could not fail to be man what he was born: and he who is Christ could not lose what he is Christ: and thus while man Christ Jesus is, he has the nativity of man because he is man, nor is he in the vitious infirmity of man, because he is Christ.

From which the adversaries infer that just as by the force of the hypostatic union he has that something be constituted from the personality of the Word and the humanity, so, according to the mind of St. Hilary, the same Christ the Lord has by the force of the same hypostatic union that he cannot sin. Similarly St. Augustine book On Correction and Grace c. 11 speaks thus:

Nor was there to be feared lest in that ineffable manner in the unity of person the human nature assumed by the Word God should sin through free arbitrament of will, since that assumption was such that human nature so assumed by God would admit no motion of will in itself.

By which words St. Augustine seems to reduce the impeccability of the humanity of Christ to its very assumption by the Word. But Anastasius Sinaita cap. 2 Ὁδοῦ seems to teach this most clearly: The mind alone (he says) of Christ and his most holy soul was incapable of and ignorant of all malice: for it was the form of a servant, which was ruled and governed by the divine Word in the same hypostasis conjoined to itself. Rupert also in the book De voluntate Dei, cap. 11 says: That the humanity of Christ, not through creation but through assumption was made such a creature as would not only not will to sin but truly could not sin. And he proves it from the words of Christ John 6: Amen, amen I say to you, the Son cannot do anything of himself but what he shall have seen the Father doing. Sabund.: For what is it for anyone to do anything of himself except to do evil?

I answer, that all these authorities signify nothing else than that truly Christ cannot in fact fall into any sin in the ordinary way, by reason of his hypostatic union, which carries with it annexed the plenitude of sanctifying grace and the blessedness of soul: whereby it comes about that the will of that humanity can by no means in the ordinary way be removed from God through sin; which however does not impede but that according to the absolute power of God the hypostatic union can subsist even if the humanity of Christ rushed into some sin.

You will press. St. Hilary teaches that it is as impossible for Christ to sin as not to be Christ: but by absolute power Christ cannot fail to be Christ, the union of humanity with the Word supposed: therefore equally, that supposed, it is impossible for him to sin.

I answer, that St. Hilary only wishes that if Christ could sin connaturally like other men, from there truly would follow that he had not the hypostatic union requiring connaturally the character of impeccability and blessedness: nevertheless it would not follow that he would not be Christ if by the absolute power of God that impeccability were not conferred upon him, by whose negation he would sin or at least could sin.

You will insist. No absurdity can follow from this, that Christ would in fact sin, which equally would not follow if he could sin by the absolute power of God: therefore just as rightly it is asserted, that those absurdities might be avoided, that he did not in fact sin; by equal reason it must be said that also by absolute power he could not have sinned.

I deny the antecedent; because if he could sin in fact and according to the ordinary power of God, it would follow that he also in fact had not the blessedness of soul nor any external protection of God, namely that whereby the Virgin Mother of God and likewise the Blessed were made impeccable: it would follow equally that the hypostatic union would not require connaturally that impeccability: but none of these absurdities would follow if he were only impeccable by the absolute power of God: therefore there is no parity anywhere.

They object 3. If Christ could sin by the absolute power of God, it would follow that sin ought to be attributed to God: but it implies a contradiction that God can sin: therefore, etc. The sequel of the major is evident: for what is done only through the extraordinary power of God and would by no means come about unless by absolute and extraordinary power God concurred to its production, is attributed to God alone.

I deny the sequel of the major, and I distinguish that proof: what is done through the absolute power of God is attributed to God alone when it is done only through his extraordinary concurrence; as when he works prodigies and miraculous deeds — this I concede; what is done through the extraordinary power of God granting an extraordinary indeed but indifferent concurrence; so that the concurrence does not determine the cause with which it acts to act, but is determined by it — then that act is not to be attributed to God alone, this I deny. But if God by absolute power granted such an indifferent concurrence to Christ toward good and evil acts, such as he grants to men by ordinary power, if through that mediating extraordinary concurrence the humanity of Christ sinned, no more would that sin be attributed to God on account of that extraordinary concurrence than the sin of other men is attributed to him on account of ordinary concurrence. For just as on that account the sin of men is not attributed to God although sinful acts cannot come about except dependently on his concurrence, because that concurrence is of itself indifferent toward good and evil acts, and is determined toward evil acts only through human will; so neither would the acts of the humanity of Christ, if on hypothesis they were sinful, have to be attributed to God on account of that extraordinary concurrence; because this would be of itself indifferent toward good or evil acts, and would be determined toward those sinful acts only through the human will of Christ.

They object 4. Upon the Divine Word by the force of the hypostatic union lies the obligation of governing and ruling the humanity, and holding it to duty; and consequently if the assumed humanity sinned, that sin would be attributed to the divine Word: but by whatever reason it implies God sins, by the same it conflicts also with the divine Word to be infected with sin; therefore, etc. The minor stands forth. The major is proved as to the first part, namely that it falls to the Word to rule the humanity; for St. Epiphanius in the Ancoratus cap. 3 says: The Word, by its virtue restrained the inferior nature from every useless animal multitude .... but the human soul, and mind, and whatever else there is, himself having all things in himself held them, being God undivided toward multitude. And Anastasius Sinaita c. 21 Ὁδοῦ confirms the same:

We confess also that soul and body which are hypostatically united to the Word are subject to the Word, and together with all their properties are more ruled and led by the Word than any other creature is subjected to him and ruled by him, since they are joined far more closely to the Word than all > other things besides.

Proof, moreover, as to the second part, namely that that sin would be attributed to the Word, because whenever two things are united in some nature or person, the lower is naturally subordinated to the higher, and consequently the higher is held to rule and govern the lower: but by force of the union of humanity with the Word, the human and divine nature concur in the one person of Christ: therefore by reason of this union the divine nature is held to govern and rule the human; and consequently the sin of the united humanity would be attributed to the Word, not only as subsisting in humanity, but also in itself, and insofar as it subsists in the divinity.

It is confirmed first, because the body is lower than the soul, and through union they concur in one and the same nature; from such a union the soul takes on the obligation of governing the body: but humanity is lower than the Divinity, and by force of the hypostatic union it concurs with the Deity in the same person of Christ: therefore by force of this union there rests upon the Divinity a special obligation of governing humanity. Hence in the 6th General Synod, action 8., it is said thus: Just as our body is ruled and adorned and ordered by our intellectual and rational soul, so in Christ the man the whole dispensation of that same man was always, and in all things, moved immovably by the deity of the same Word.

It is confirmed second, since when a higher and a lower power concur in one and the same nature, there arises in that nature the obligation of governing the lower power through the higher power, as appears in human nature, which is held by natural obligation to rule and govern the lower appetite through the will: therefore likewise when two natures concur in one and the same person, there arises in it the obligation of governing the lower nature through the higher; and consequently there rests upon the Word, in whom by force of the union of humanity with him the divine and human natures concur, a special obligation of ruling and governing the human nature through the divine; and forthwith the sin of the united humanity would be attributed to the Word, not only by reason of the human will, but also by reason of the divine will.

I deny the major, and I distinguish its proof and its confirmations: every superior is held to rule and govern the inferior, such that by reason of the failure of that direction and governance the sins of inferiors are attributed to the superior, when this devolves upon him from office and special justice, I concede; when only from general and common concurrence, I deny. Indeed disordered movements of the interior appetite are attributed to the soul, not precisely because those rational and sensitive powers concur in one and the same nature, and because one of them is superior and the other inferior; but precisely because they are so mutually united that the lower cannot be brought to an honest good except through the cognition and direction of the higher; since all the faculties and powers of man ought to be ruled and governed by his will and knowledge. It is otherwise, however, with the humanity of Christ in respect of the Word, for the humanity of Christ is not governed peculiarly by the uncreated will and knowledge of God, but only commonly, namely in the manner in which the other creatures are governed by the first cause; for the supposit of the Word provides nothing more per se precisely toward the humanity than what its own personality would provide, terminating the communication and dependence of the same nature; whence although that humanity were, on hypothesis, to sin, that sin ought not be attributed to the Word. To the authorities of the Holy Fathers asserting that the Word rules the humanity, just as the soul rules the body, I say they wish only this, that, just as the soul by reason of its conjunction with the body infuses into it life, motion, and natural direction; so the Word congruously infuses into his humanity supernatural life and motion, by reason of the abundant grace and beatitude with which he illumines it and moderates its affections. Whence just as notwithstanding the fullness of grace and the state of beatitude, Saints and Blessed persons could without contradiction commit sin; so also without repugnance, by the absolute power of God, notwithstanding the fullness of grace and beatitude, the humanity of Christ could sin.

They press. Actions belong to supposits or subsistents, as the common axiom teaches: but the supposit of the assumed humanity is the supposit of the Word, inasmuch as it subsists in it: therefore if the assumed humanity could sin, the hypostatic union persevering, truly that sin would be attributed to the Word. It is confirmed: the humanity of Christ is the instrument of the Word: but the actions of instruments are attributed to the supposit whose instruments they are: therefore the sin of the humanity of Christ would have to be attributed to Christ himself.

I distinguish the major: actions belong to supposits elicitively, I deny; denominatively, I concede. For when it is asserted with the common axiom that actions belong to supposits, this is not said because the supposit, as that by which or as that which influences the operations of the nature, but because it sustains the nature proximately operating, as that by which and that which. Whence actions are said to be of supposits not effectively, but only denominatively. To the minor I say that if the humanity sinned, the sin would be reflected only upon it, as upon the elicitive principle of that sinful action, but not upon the Word itself, unless perhaps only denominatively, in which certainly no greater repugnance appears than that the same divine Word should be called dead and crucified: for according to the truth of the thing the denomination of a sinning divine Word does not conflict more with his attributive or essential sanctity than the denomination of dead conflicts with essential life: for death is as repugnant to life as sin is to sanctity: nay more, because death is opposed physically to life, but sin only morally to sanctity.

The Thomists propose: that there is a disparity, because death, like any other evil of punishment, is inflicted by the justice of God and ordained to the glory of God; but the evil of fault, or sin, is committed by a withdrawal from the act of divine wisdom and from the order of divine honesty, and therefore although there be no indecency that the Word, in the assumed nature, or as subsisting in humanity, be denominated passible, crucified, and dead through the communication of idioms: there is nevertheless moral indecency that the Word, even as subsisting in the human nature, or through the communication of idioms, be called sinning, for this offends pious ears and is not admitted by the greater part of Theologians.

On the contrary, the permission of sin can redound to the glory of God no less than any evil of punishment: for God can ordain sin both to the commendation of his justice by vindicating and punishing it, and to the manifestation of his mercy by relaxing it and freely remitting it: therefore by the reason that punishments can redound to the glory of God, sins can equally redound: nor does one offend pious ears of the wise more than the other, seeing that they know both are attributed to God only denominatively. Nor does it matter that there is a certain moral indecency that the Word be called to sin: for this moral indecency does not hinder that extrinsic denomination from being able to befit him, just as the denomination of dead and crucified, which, being physical, conflicts more with God, who is life by essence, than any moral denomination. Nor does it matter either that sin is an aversion from God: whereas it is repugnant that God be averted from himself. That, I say, does not stand in the way, for this aversion is only something moral: death however is something physical, and physically opposed to the life which it destroys; therefore if, notwithstanding the opposition or withdrawal of death from life, God, who is life essentially, can be called dead through extrinsic denomination by reason of his dead humanity, which is united to him hypostatically, why could he not, by a similar reason, be called sinning, and morally withdrawing from himself, by reason of the assumed humanity, if that were supposed to sin?

To the confirmation I say, whatever be the case concerning the major, the minor must be distinguished: the actions of instruments are attributed to the supposit whose they are, when they have a particular dependence upon him, I concede: when they do not have it, I deny the minor: nor the consequence either, because sinful actions of the will would not have a greater dependence upon the divine supposit in that hypothesis — namely that they would be sinful — than they would truly have if that nature were not united to him. To which response, says Pontius, the example of the axe, insofar as it is the instrument of the craftsman, is most apt, which of itself can at once cut and grow hot; for in cutting wood it also warms: but that heating is not attributed to the craftsman, but to the axe; the cutting, however, is ascribed to the craftsman, because to that he coacts by his locomotive power, and upon him it principally depends.

You will urge. Actions belong to supposits not only denominatively, but even elicitively; since John the Theologian in the Council of Florence, session 18, from this common saying of the Philosophers, that actions belong to supposits, proved that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, and that the essence in the divines does not generate, but the Father by reason of the essence: yet the divine Father generates not denominatively only, but even elicitively as that which, through the essence as the principle by which of generating; and none of the Latin Fathers, for whom he was disputing, or the Greeks, against whom he was acting, protested to the contrary: nay, the Greeks, convicted by the argument of John the Theologian, confessed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son: therefore that principle was tacitly approved by the universal Church, Greek as well as Latin.

I deny the antecedent, and to its proof I say that (as we have often said, treating of the constitutive principles of the divine persons, and of the real distinction of the Holy Spirit from the Son, although he would not proceed from him) all the philosophical reasons which John the Theologian himself assumes to prove that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son were not truly proved by the Council, seeing that very many even of those reasons fail in sound Philosophy, as we observed there, and moreover all Theologians agree that the reasons which are brought forward in Councils by the actors for establishing dogmas of faith are not always of faith: nay sometimes they rely upon principles contrary to the dogmas of faith, as appears from the 7th Synod, where to prove that Angels can be depicted only this principle is assumed, namely that they are corporeal. For the Council approves as a dogma of faith that Angels can be depicted, but not that they are corporeal, for this is contrary to the dogmas of faith handed down in subsequent Councils, in which it was proved that Angels are spiritual substances, as we proved in the treatise On Angels.

All these are confirmed by our responses and reasons: First, because the human nature in itself would be a sufficient adequate cause of its own sinful action, even if the Word did not physically influence that action in the character of supposit, no less than heat is the efficient cause of its own heating, and the separate soul the cause of its own intellection and volition: therefore it is gratuitously asserted that some concurrence of the divine supposit is necessarily required for eliciting that action.

Next, even if the divine supposit concurred partially and effectively in the sinful action, it would not follow from this that that action ought to be imputed to the supposit as to a cause which would operate culpably: because although the supposit of the Word would concur physically in that action, nevertheless the determination would come from the will, in whose power it is to act or not to act: but a sinful action, as sinful, is not attributed to every cause concurring physically to the entity of the act: otherwise sin would be attributed to God, who physically concurs in all acts, whether good or evil: therefore although the supposit of the Word would concur physically in the actions of humanity which would be sinful, sin on that account ought not be attributed to him, because he is not the determining cause of those acts. Finally, neither with better reason would the Word influence those acts of humanity physically than the Father and the Holy Spirit, because the operations of the Trinity ad extra are undivided: but sinful acts, which are now elicited by men, are not attributed to the Father, nor to the Holy Spirit: therefore by parity of reason those sinful acts which would be elicited by the humanity of Christ would not have to be attributed to the Word.

Finally it is objected. The humanity of Christ is sanctified and made pleasing to God through the hypostatic union, even with every gift of habitual sanctifying grace set aside: therefore it cannot have any sin at least mortal, whether actual or habitual. The consequence is proved, because any sin whatever has an incompossibility with sanctifying grace: therefore if the hypostatic union has a greater power of sanctifying than grace has of itself, it could suffer no sin along with itself. It is confirmed: the humanity of Christ is substantially sanctified by the Deity and personality of the Word through infinite sanctity substantially, indeed not in an infinite manner, because a creature is not capable of such infinite sanctity; but insofar as any creature can be sanctified, so as altogether to become incapable of sin, even by the absolute power of God — if it does not conflict that some creature be of such great sanctity that even by the absolute power of God it cannot commit any sin: therefore such is the humanity of Christ.

I deny the consequence, because, as will be said presently, there is no grace of such perfection that it is physically so incompatible with sin that it could not subsist alongside it by the absolute power of God: but the same must be said of the hypostatic union, inasmuch as it has the power of sanctifying.

To the confirmation Pontius distinguishes the major: the divine nature and personality confer upon the nature such great sanctity as it can receive from them through that conjunction, I concede the major: he confers such great sanctity as can be received both from the divine nature itself and personality and from those gifts, he denies the minor.¹ For who would say that a nature is indeed united yet not blessed, endowed with such great sanctity as a nature united and at the same time blessed would have?

From these it appears, says the same Pontius in his commentary, number 12,

How insipid and imprudent is the censure of certain Theologians: especially Capreolus, when he says (against the most famous Assertors of our opinion, such as Durandus, the Subtle Doctor, and all his Disciples both ancient and recent) that one must proceed not so much with reasons as with flames — but certainly with flames by which he himself ought rather to be burned. He adds that Suarez, a little more modestly, but still quite immodestly, asserts it temerarious. Vasquez did not wish himself to determine the censure, but lest he not censure it, he pronounces it worthy of some censure.

But how vain and groundless this censure is, and unworthy of these Authors, easily appears from what has been said, and from the fact that the moderns themselves assail each other's foundations concerning the impeccability of Christ, and yet the attackers themselves establish nothing better or more efficacious. Moreover, although all these things, which we have said only for the sake of theological exercise, are not without probability; nevertheless I warn that one must abstain from these and similar propositions: Christ was absolutely peccable; or, Christ according to his humanity could sin by the absolute power of God: especially before the ruder and unskilled, for whom such theological controversies are not accessible: lest perchance they take from it occasion for thinking and saying that Christ was peccable in the manner in which other just men are, which would indeed be erroneous and heretical; for perhaps no just man, if you except the Blessed Virgin, was so tenacious of innocence that he never fell into sins at least venial.

From these gather, notwithstanding these things, that the impeccability of Christ is rightly inferred from the hypostatic union; indeed not through the intrinsic way, as the Thomists wish; but through the extrinsic, namely because it is expedient and most congruent that the nature united to the Word be incapable of sin, both on account of his personal sanctity: then on account of the beatific vision, which, joining the soul united to the Word to the first rule of right operation, renders it also impeccable, and moreover has the force and efficacy of repressing every disordered affection of the sensitive appetite: finally on account of the perfection and plenitude of habitual grace existing in the soul of Christ, and likewise of the virtues which flow from it: for since grace is morally opposed to sin, it follows from this that the most abundant fullness of grace, such as was in the soul of Christ, leaves no place for sin. Whence the root of that impeccability is above all the very maintenance of God, whereby the humanity of Christ, as personally united to the Word and joined to God through the beatific union, and also through the fullness of grace, is preserved most constantly in this threefold state, so that it can be separated neither by anything extrinsic, nor admit anything that would beseem ill that hypostatic, or beatific, or gratuitous, that is, sanctifying union, just as sin truly beseems this threefold state exceedingly ill morally. Hence in fact both opinions, that of the Angelic as well as of the Subtle Doctor, agree that the impeccability of Christ must be traced to that threefold union of his soul with God; which suffices both for faith and for the doctrine of the Holy Fathers: whether however it could be done otherwise de possibili is a controversy, pertaining purely to Philosophy.

You ask: whether Christ had the fomes of sin, or an inclination of the sensitive appetite toward sensible objects against the dictation of reason, which inclination is called the fomes of sin, because it is its incentive; and what that would be.

I answer first, that in fact that fomes of sin was in no wise in Christ. And it is proved from the sixth General Synod, action 11., and from the fifth, collation 8., Canon 112., where it is defined that in Christ there were only irreprehensible and innocent passions: but the fomes of sin is a noxious, reprehensible, disordered passion, since it is sometimes called by the Sacred Letters sin, not that it is properly sin, but that it is from sin and inclines toward sin, as the Synod of Trent explains, session 5., in the decree on original sin. It is confirmed from the Fathers, St. Leo writing thus in epistle 11.: The bodily senses constrained him without the law of sin, and the charity of his affections under the moderation of Deity and custom, nor at length was he held by enticements, nor did he yield to injuries. Similarly from St. Damascene 3. On the Faith, chapter 20., saying that Christ was tempted by the demon otherwise than the first parents were, because the first parent was tempted extrinsically and intrinsically, but Christ only extrinsically. Nor does it stand in the way that Heb. 4. it is said, Christ was tempted in all things, for that particle, in all things, must be understood accommodately to the nature and condition. Reason favors this conclusion: because from the Council of Trent the fomes of sin remains in us only for the struggle: but it was not seemly for such shameful struggle to be found in Christ: therefore neither the fomes of sin.

I answer second, that the fomes of sin would have been removed from Christ through the virtues which he had in the most perfect state, and through that excellent dominion which he had over all his powers, and likewise through the perpetual attention of reason, which anticipated all objects that could move his appetite toward sin. It is proved: if justice, e. g., in the state of innocence sufficed for that: therefore these also suffice for it, since they surpass the powers of that state.

I answer third, that even by the absolute power of God the divine Word could not assume a human nature with the fomes of sin, not that there is physical repugnance to this, but because there is moral repugnance, on account of the dignity and majesty of the divine supposit. Which indeed is proved: for if the Word could have assumed a nature with the fomes of sin, especially either because he could assume the nature of a brute, in which there could have been motions of the sensitive appetite toward objects delightful beyond measure, or because although such motions could have been in Christ, yet he could also not consent to them, and so use them for struggle and merit: but the first reason is none, because although in the irrational nature of a brute so great indecency is not said to exist, since this nature is not born to be ruled by the dictation of reason; nevertheless in our nature, inasmuch as it lies subject to the direction of the higher part, there is some indecency in experiencing such imperfection, and since the state of human nature, even as existing in the Word, is due, and in its own way ordered to reason, and it is unseemly to feel base motions in oneself, even though the consent of the will does not follow them, nevertheless on account of such indecency the divine Word ought not, nor could he, assume a nature with the fomes of sin. Likewise the second reason is none, for those things which are in the assumed nature for the struggle ought to be such that they include no indecency with respect to the state and condition of Christ.

Note 1. From the Doctor in 2. dist. 21., single question, there is a double portion of the soul, namely the superior and the inferior. The superior portion is the very faculties of the soul, to wit intellect, will, and memory, inasmuch as they are occupied about eternal and spiritual things. The inferior portion indeed is the same faculties, inasmuch as they busy themselves about temporal things. From these the Doctor infers that the portion is not distinguished by the fact that one is contemplative and the other practical, as some wish, because both speculative and practical pertain to the superior portion: the speculative indeed inasmuch as the intellect alone speculates eternals; the practical inasmuch as that same intellect speculates eternals as lovable by us. Practical again inasmuch as the will, as the superior portion, which by its nature is a practical faculty, wills to embrace and pursue eternals. He further infers that the superior and inferior portions of the intellect, likewise the superior and inferior of the will, are not two powers. First, because the same power knows principles and conclusions; otherwise no power would know the same thing, since it is not known per se except from comparison with the principle: but the inferior portion of the intellect, e. g., knows the conclusion, and the superior portion the principle: for St. Augustine says the superior portion is intent upon contemplating eternal and superior rules; the inferior truly intent upon doing temporal things according to eternal rules: but those things about which the inferior portion is occupied are conclusions of the eternal rules: therefore the inferior portion of the intellect knows the conclusions of principles whose superior portion is of the same intellect. It is confirmed, because the same habit does not simply perfect two powers: but the same charity, e. g., perfects the will of the superior portion: since the same charity is in the will of the superior portion, whereby God is loved, nor not also in the will of the inferior portion, whereby neighbor is loved, who is a temporal object; for one and the same charity extends itself to all lovable things: therefore since one and the same habit of charity resides in the superior and inferior portion of the same soul, it follows that those portions are not distinct faculties and powers.

Note 2. The eleven passions of the sensitive appetite or of the inferior portion of the soul customarily enumerated by the Philosophers, of which five reside in the irascible appetite, namely hope, despair, fear, daring, and anger: six truly in the concupiscible appetite, to wit love, hatred, desire, joy, flight, and sadness. It is certain however that hope could be in Christ, as one who was able to hope for the glory of his body, and liberation from all those penalities and torments with which his humanity was agitated both at the time of life and at the time of passion. Despair was similarly in him, indeed not that which the impious Calvin sustains, such namely as the reprobate have concerning the object of beatitude; but only that which busies itself about an unavoidable sensible evil; for when some evil presents itself to us not apprehended as inevitable, we struggle between hope and despair: when truly it is now proposed as inevitable with every hope of escape taken away, we despair. Daring was likewise in him, because he had fortitude of mind and constancy with respect to undergoing death; nor did he only patiently sustain inflicted torments and the insults of adversaries, but even went forth courageously to meet them, as the holy Evangelists relate. Similarly as to the portion of the concupiscible appetite, it is certain he had love and hatred: seeing that with sensitive love and hatred he pursued certain things, namely the conservation of his own life and aversion from death. He had similarly desire, for he said to his Disciples: With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you. He had equally flight from death and pain when he prayed the Father: Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Although however he was a man of sorrows and in labors from his youth, nevertheless he had delight, especially in spiritual goods; whence in his name the Royal Psalmist sings Psalm 83.: My heart and my flesh have exulted in the living God. Whence it is above all disputed among Theologians whether Christ had passions of sadness, fear, and anger; wherefore,

Note 3. From the Doctor in 3. d. 18. num. 12., one must philosophize in the same manner concerning sadness and joy, as, proportion preserved, concerning delectation and pain with respect to the sensitive appetite; for just as pain in the body is caused by a disagreeing object approached and applied to the sensitive part, so likewise sadness is caused by an object ungrateful to the will; whence St. Augustine book 14. Of the City of God, chapter 14.: Pain of the flesh is only offense of the soul from the flesh, and a certain dissent from its passion: just as the pain of the soul, which is called sadness, is its dissent from those things which happen to us unwillingly. It happens however, says the Doctor, that the will is disposed toward objects from which it can receive sadness in many ways: First indeed it happens that something be contrary, indeed not to the elicitive act of the will itself and the free appetite, but only to the natural appetite; for although the will is one simple faculty, it is nevertheless sometimes considered as natural appetite; at other times truly as free appetite: as natural appetite it agrees with all other natural things, to which it is common to have some convenient objects and some inconvenient or contrary ones; just as water, for example, to which heat is contrary, as coldness is convenient. The will therefore, viewed as natural appetite, naturally tends toward felicity, likewise naturally flees misery: so that even without any elicited act given by it, it is deemed naturally borne toward beatitude and turned away from misery: therefore when an object of that sort disagreeing with the natural appetite of the will presents itself, sadness follows from it. Secondly, sadness is caused when something happens with the will unwilling by elicited nolition, whatever that may be which it does not will; for example, if someone be unwilling to be visited, and is visited: thence the will is saddened. Thirdly, sadness is caused from conjunction of the will with sensitive affection; for it is impossible for the sensitive faculty to receive pain, and thence not to raise up sadness in the will. Fourthly, although there be no nolition, the will can also be saddened through weariness; how e. g. someone taking a bitter potion would be unwilling to take it if he could, and on account of that unwilingness sadness arises in his will. From these the Subtle Doctor gathers that sadness resides formally in the will, just as sensible pain resides in the sensitive appetite; and that sadness is not any action of the will, just as sensible pain is not an action of the sensitive appetite, because every action of the will is in the power of the will, but sadness is not in the power of the will, at least consequently: therefore it is not an action of the will. I say at least consequently, because it is clear antecedently to be in the power of the will, namely inasmuch as volition and nolition, from which sadness arises, are in the power of the will; yet once the nolition of some object has been posited, with that object antecedently actually notwilled, it is not in the power of the will not to be saddened. It is added that experience teaches sadness not to be any action, for when we are saddened we experience ourselves suffering strongly, from which passion there sometimes follows anguish, that is a vehement passion, and melancholy, that is sadness hardened by long duration; which things indeed indicate passion rather than action.

First Conclusion. — In Christ the Lord there were truly human passions, yet not with that imperfection with which they exist in other men.

This is determined of faith in the 6th Synod Act. 1., and is proved by various texts of Scripture, whereby human affections and movements are asserted to have been in Christ. Thus John. 2. it is said of him: The zeal of thy house hath eaten me. Mark 3.: Looking round on them with anger, being grieved for the blindness of their hearts, Matth. 26.: My soul is sorrowful even unto death.

The Holy Fathers testify the same with unanimous sentiment: Ambrose book 1. On the Faith chapter 3.; Augustin lib. 14. De Civit. Dei, c. 7.; and St. Leo Epistle 11., which is to Julian near the end, where he writes thus: Bodily senses flee without the law of sin, and the charity of affections under the moderation of Deity and mind. The same St. Damascene taught, 3. On the Faith chapter 20., concerning all defects of our soul which are alien from reprehension, among which he enumerates fear, anguish, refusal of death. Reason also favors it, because those affections of the sensitive appetite look to the conservation, dignity, and exercise of human life; they contribute also to satisfaction for the sins of men, as appears of pain and sadness.

The second part also appears, namely that those passions were otherwise in Christ than in us, both as to object, and as to principle, and as to effect. First indeed as to object, because those movements of mind in us are mostly borne toward illicit things: but in Christ the Lord they always tended to an honest good, because he was truly impeccable and lacked the very fomes of sin inclining toward evil. Secondly, as to principle, because passions of that sort in us often anticipate judgment and use of reason: but in Christ they always arose according to the disposition of reason, either positively moving, or providing and permitting; whence they never anticipated his reason; but were in him only by deliberate will, when he willed, as long as he willed, and how he willed. Which John certainly signified when chapter 11. he thus said of Christ the Lord: He groaned in spirit, and troubled himself: for that manner of speaking signifies that Christ the Lord freely excited in himself that movement of compassion and indignation, from which he himself was troubled, as St. Augustine teaches, tract. 19. on John. In his power, he says, it was to be affected thus or not thus; for the Word took upon himself soul and flesh, fitting to himself the nature of the whole man in unity of person. And a little after: Where supreme power is, infirmity is handled according to the nod of the will — that is, he troubled himself. St. Athanasius likewise proves the same, Oration Against Apollinaris, from the fact that Christ the Lord signally said John 12.: Now is my soul troubled; for he says: For that cause the Lord said: now is my soul troubled, but this particle now is the same as when he willed. Finally thirdly those passions were otherwise in Christ than in us as to effect: for in us they sometimes drag reason toward illicit things, so that it consent to those disordered movements, nor do they consist only in the sensitive appetite, but they entice even the rational appetite toward themselves; it was otherwise in Christ, for since his soul had full dominion over all its faculties and acts, he admitted into himself such passions not only by simple permission, but by positive consent; and since he had all treasures of wisdom hidden in himself and foresaw the future, he could easily know all that which his appetite could excite, and make it so that these passions could in no way drag him toward illicit things. Thence most Scholastics after St. Jerome on chapter 25. of St. Matthew say that in Christ there were indeed not passions, but propassions, because, they say, by the name of propassion is signified an affection which excites some motion of the body, and moves man indeed, but does not remove his reason from its right and free exercise, as happens through passions. Truly this distinction existed only among the Stoic Philosophers and their followers: for among the Peripatetics and the Holy Fathers the name of passion and propassion plainly signifies the same thing, and is common both to ordered and disordered affections.

Second Conclusion. — Christ truly had the affection of sadness, indeed not in the superior portion of the soul precisely and separately taken, but inasmuch as it is bound up with the sensitive appetite.

This Conclusion has two parts, of which

The first stands from those texts of Scripture praised above, whereby it is asserted that Christ was truly saddened. Thus Matt. 26.: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. And Luc. 22.: Being in agony, he prayed the longer. Thence St. Ambrose book 2. On the Faith chapter 2.: And man had sadness. For he received my sadness. Confidently do I name sadness, who preach the cross.

The Seraphic Doctor proves the same truth dist. 15. art. 2. q. 2. First indeed, because, as we read Luke 19., Christ seeing the city of Jerusalem wept over it: but weeping is a sign of pain and grief: therefore Christ by weeping testified anguish of mind and sadness. Secondly, Christ loved and desired our salvation: but whoever loves something is saddened by its loss: therefore when Christ saw many neglecting their salvation, it appears that he felt in himself true affection of sadness. Thirdly, the greater the bowels of piety in anyone, the more he is affected with grief: but Christ had most abundant bowels of piety: therefore he had greatest sadness over the necessities and infirmities of others.

The second part also stands, namely that that sadness was not in the superior portion of the will of Christ, because that superior portion of the will cannot be saddened unless from the fact that someone would not will God to be, or would not will him to have some intrinsic perfection; for the will as superior portion attends to eternal things: but neither of these movements could the soul of Christ have: partly because eternal things cannot bring any molestation; since they are desired by natural appetite, because the will is naturally borne toward eternal things as toward the highest good and supreme commodity: they are likewise desired by elicited appetite, because the will cannot orderly flee what right reason dictates: but it dictates that eternal things should be pursued; and forthwith the will cannot flee them by elicited appetite: partly also because the will of Christ, although most free, by reason of its eminent love toward the Father, was borne with highest affection toward all that which had been decreed by him concerning his own humanity. Hence he said John 4.: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work: whence at the pressing time of death, when his soul according to the inferior part shuddered at the torments to be inflicted, and had therefore asked the Father: If it be possible, let this chalice pass from me: immediately he subjoined: But yet not my will, but thine be done.

Finally the third part appears, namely that sadness was in the soul of Christ as bound up with the sensitive appetite: so great is the connection and confederation of the rational soul with the body that they communicate to each other their proper affections and passions; hence when the soul labors with sadness, the body fails with languor, and sometimes is altogether extinguished. Whence Ecclesiasticus 30. admonishes most excellently: Put sadness far from you, for sadness hath killed many, and there is no profit in it. Similarly when the body is oppressed with pain, the soul labors with sadness; whence vehement pain cannot be felt in the sensitive part without the rational part being affected with greatest sadness: but there was greatest pain impressed upon the body of Christ at the time of passion; whence truly at that time he suffered anguish of mind and sadness.

That sadness however, however truly it was in Christ, was nevertheless not in him in the same manner as it was in us; for (says St. Bonaventure in the place praised at the beginning of this Conclusion:)

There is a certain sadness which is beyond the command of reason: and there is a sadness which is against the right judgment of reason: and there is a sadness which is subject to the command and judgment of reason. And that sadness beyond the command of reason is that which arises from a certain necessity and surreption, as first movements: and this indeed is common to wise and unwise, good and bad. That sadness truly is against the right judgment of reason, in which reason is subjected to sensuality, nor only disturbed but even perturbed. But that sadness is according to the command and judgment of reason, when anyone is saddened by reason dictating and urging him only thus, and that he ought thus to be saddened over something. I say therefore, that in Christ there was sadness only in this third manner: because he was saddened over nothing except according as reason dictated to him. And John hints at the same thing, where it is said: But Jesus groaned in spirit, and troubled himself: in which it is shown that disturbance and sadness did not preside over reason, but lay subject to it: but in the first two manners sadness was not in Christ.

You ask 1. Since sadness is a movement of mind fleeing those things which happen to us unwillingly; and since we can have a double nolition of a thing which we flee, one indeed conditional and by hypothesis, the other truly absolute and simply: you ask, I say, whether the sadness which Christ had concerning future death followed upon an absolute nolition of that death?

The Doctor answers dist. 15. num. 27., affirming both parts to be probable: for indeed that Christ did not have sadness following an absolute nolition, but only a conditional nolition of death, he proves with five reasons, which Pontius thus weighs in his commentary:

First, because the same power, such as the will is, as to the superior and inferior portion, cannot have opposite acts in the highest degree: but to judge a passion to be simply to be willed is an act of intellect opposite to the act whereby he would judge that it was not simply to be willed: and to will simply is an act opposite to not willing simply: therefore since Christ, as to intellect, judged the passion to be simply to be willed, and as to will willed it simply; he could neither, as to intellect, judge that it should be simply notwilled, nor as to will simply not will it.

He proves secondly, because opposites do not follow from principle and conclusion: but they would follow if this assertion were not true: therefore, etc. The minor is proved: because the conclusion of the practical discourse, whereby the intellect proves death to be simply to be willed, is this: Death is to be willed simply, and this conclusion follows from these principles: What is necessary for the ultimate end is simply to be willed: but death is necessary for that: therefore it is simply to be willed: but this very conclusion ought to be the principle from which it could be concluded by the inferior portion that death was to be notwilled: therefore opposites would follow from principle and conclusion — nay, it would follow that some proposition could be a principle for demonstrating its own opposite, which implies contradiction. This last sequel is proved: because conclusions of practical principles taken from the ultimate end are principles for concluding something about particular ends, which are ordained to the ultimate end: therefore that conclusion, death is to be willed, would be a principle for concluding that it was to be notwilled in order toward some particular end.

He proves third, independently of the doctrine supposed in the preceding reason: because it is impossible that opposites be concluded simply about the same conclusion, just as it is impossible that it be simply to be walked here and now, and not be simply to be walked: therefore if the superior reason shows from principles that death is simply to be willed, the inferior reason cannot rightly conclude from the same principles that it is not simply to be willed.

He proves fourth, that the inferior reason could not dictate death to be notwilled: the inferior reason dictates death to be sustained for the common good; since the common good of men depended upon the death of Christ: therefore the inferior reason could dictate that death should be sustained for that good: and consequently it could not judge that it should be notwilled.

You will say. It is one thing that death should be sustained, and another that it should be willed: therefore although the inferior reason could dictate death to be sustained, it does not follow thence that it could dictate it to be willed.

On the contrary, because if death is to be sustained: therefore either the will does not positively will it, and so it is not conformable to reason; or it wills it, and so cannot absolutely not-will death, because if it absolutely notwilled death, it would not will to sustain death, but would flee from it as much as it can. He adds two other reasons from the authority of St. Augustine clear enough: but he does not propose this assertion absolutely as his own, but seems to me to incline more toward it. Thus Pontius proposes and weighs the reasons of the Doctor.

He also proves the other part, namely that the inferior portion could absolutely not-will the Passion, and consequently Christ was saddened over it as over an object absolutely notwilled, n. 31., from the fact that the inferior portion ought not consider the Passion with order to the ultimate end, because it is not occupied about eternals, but only about temporals: therefore since the Passion is not to be willed simply and absolutely except as conducing to the ultimate end, which is apprehended only through the superior portion, Christ according to the inferior portion could absolutely not-will the Passion. Next, he solves the arguments proposed for confirmation of the denying part. Truly since the Doctor proposes this only for the sake of exercise, in the opinion of others who would wish to embrace this part, therefore I judge it more correctly to be said, with Gabriel, Cavello, and Pontius, that the Doctor inclines more to the former than to the latter part, namely that Christ was saddened from the fact that his Passion was conditionally notwilled. However it be, it is most certain that Passion-sadness truly was in Christ.

You will say 1. Contraries cannot be together in the highest degree in the same subject: but the soul of Christ had joy in the highest degree because of beatitude: therefore it could not have sadness.

The Doctor answers n. 33., distinguishing the minor: joy and sadness are contraries when they are about the same object, he concedes: when they are about diverse objects, he denies. But joy and sadness in Christ were about diverse objects, joy indeed about the beatific object, sadness truly about death and torments to be undergone. That sadness and joy about diverse objects can be together, he proves by a similar case of knowing and not-knowing, which can be in the same intellect with respect to diverse objects.

You will insist. Highest joy, whether about the same or a diverse object, excludes any sadness whatever: because it of itself impedes consideration of other objects which could inflict sadness: but Christ had highest joy: therefore he could by no means have sadness.

The Doctor answers, distinguishing the major: highest joy excludes all sadness directly and formally, I deny: indirectly, I concede: that is, although there was in the soul of Christ highest delectation de facto, which naturally could of itself impede consideration of other saddening objects; yet God so disposing it did not impede, nor did the greatest joy in the superior portion of the will of Christ exclude pain in the sensitive appetite, nor even sadness in the inferior portion: because that delectation did not overflow into the inferior portion. Whence this was done through a new miracle — that the glory in the superior portion of the will did not overflow into the body, but permitted it to be passible, nor even did it overflow into the same power as it is compared to another object. Whence just as it was through miracle that he was at once wayfarer and comprehensor, so it was miraculous that this glory did not overflow into the body, nor into the lower powers, as it overflows in the Blessed.

You will say 2. Impassibility of the glorious body does not admit, nor can it bear, in the same glorious body any Passion from whatsoever cause extrinsic or intrinsic: therefore neither can the beatitude of the soul admit sadness repugnant to itself. — I deny the consequence; and the reason of the disparity is, that the glorious body has not two portions, such that with respect to one it could be impassible and passible according to the other: but the soul of Christ since it was united to God, and to a mortal and passible body, had two portions and two affections, whereof one tending toward God affected it with highest delight and beatitude: but the other occupied about the passible body was straitened with grief on account of the torments to be inflicted upon that body.

You will say 3. Because the soul of Christ is joined to the ultimate end through knowledge and beatific love, therefore it cannot sin even concerning neighbor: therefore likewise, because that soul is joined to God as highest good and ocean of all delight and joy, it cannot in any manner be saddened even by reason of penalities and torments of the body. — I deny the consequence, and the reason of the disparity is, that the beatific love, whereby the soul is united to the ultimate end, determines her to do nothing that opposes or offends that end: but she would be offended if that soul sinned against neighbor, because that sin would redound upon God commanding love of neighbor and forbidding every offense to be inflicted upon him: but joy about the beatific object does not hinder the soul from being able to be affected with sadness on account of another object, especially when it vivifies a still passible body, because that sadness in no manner looks to, nor is reflected upon God, inasmuch as he is the object of beatitude.

You will say 1. Sadness is about those things which happen to us unwillingly: but Christ suffered nothing with the will resisting; for, as we read Isaiah 53.: He was offered because he himself willed: therefore he had no sadness. — I distinguish the major: sadness is about those things which happen to us unwillingly either absolutely or conditionally, I concede: absolutely only, I deny. Christ however, as we said, although he willed the Passion absolutely, especially according to the superior portion of the soul, could not-will it; nay even with respect to the very inferior portion he could not-will that Passion.

Finally you will object certain texts of Scripture whereby sadness seems to be barred from Christ; truly above all that Isa. 12. where of Christ it is said: He shall not be sad, nor turbulent; likewise that Prov. 12.: Whatsoever shall happen to the just man shall not sadden him. The Stoics assign this reason for it, because no one is saddened except by loss and forfeit of his own goods: but the just man reputes none of his own goods except justice and virtue, which he cannot lose: but Christ was most just; whence Jeremiah 23.: This is the name wherewith they shall call him, The Lord our just one: therefore, etc. — The Seraphic Doctor answers that Isaiah does not exclude from Christ any sadness whatever, but only disturbing sadness; whence it is said Matth. 26.: He began to be sad and heavy, whereby is signified that Christ the Lord, although affected with highest sadness, was nevertheless not cast down in mind, nor perturbed in reason, as usually happens in other men who, when oppressed with immense sadness, cast away all use of reason and constancy of soul. He answers the second text similarly, that the Wise man must be understood of that sadness which overturns the state of mind; but not of that whereby anyone is saddened by compassionating others, or even by fleeing some evil inflicted upon himself.

Third Conclusion. — THE PASSION OF FEAR TRULY WAS IN CHRIST.

It is proved from holy Scripture, for Mark 14.: Jesus began to fear and be weary, and heavy. Whence St. Cyril, book 4. on John, having said that the Word fears nothing according to himself, subjoins: But made flesh, he permits his flesh to suffer what belongs to it: and therefore as true man he dreaded death standing at the doors. The other Fathers teach the same, Chrysostom, Homil. 21. on Matth.; St. Leo, sermon 7. On the Passion of the Lord. Reason also votes for it: because fear is an affection natural to passible man, toward whom some evil impends, and since it is penal it can serve for satisfaction: but Christ assumed everything harmless that most served for demonstrating the truth of the assumed nature, and likewise for satisfying for our offenses: therefore, etc.

You will say. St. Hilary, book 10. On the Trinity, Augustin, Enarration on Psalm 21., and Jerome on chapter 27. of Matth. deny that fear was in Christ, which is confirmed by that Prov. 28.: The just, confident as a lion, shall be without terror: therefore fear did not exist in Christ. — I deny the consequence, and to the antecedent I say that St. Hilary excludes fear from Christ in the manner he does sadness, indeed not disturbing but perturbing; in which manner St. Jerome also is to be understood. To St. Augustine I say, that he excludes fear which would impede efficacious willing of dying; but not that which would not take away that will itself.

You will say 2. Fear could not stand with fortitude of mind in the heroic degree: therefore since in Christ the virtue of fortitude, like the other moral virtues, was in the heroic degree, fear could not be in him. — I answer, that an inefficacious act, and non-absolute, of one passion can stand at once with some efficacious and absolute act of a virtue somehow opposed to it, as appears in Martyrs, who could have inefficacious acts of avoiding death; whom nevertheless they bravely suffered. Add that fear did not arise from absolute desire of living longer; nay rather he supremely wished death for us; but it came only from an inefficacious affection, and insofar as death presented itself as some evil of nature, yet with affection of justice he far preferred the good of our redemption.

You will say 3. From Aristotle 2. Rhetorics, chapter 5., Fear includes uncertainty of the evil apprehended as about to come, and likewise some hope of escaping it: yet the soul of Christ so feared death that nevertheless he knew with certainty it would happen to him in this and that manner; whence he even foretold it in many places. Add that he knew it to have been previously decreed by a certain efficacious decree: therefore properly speaking he had no fear of death. — To this objection the Various answer variously; First indeed St. Thomas, conceding the antecedent, says as to the consequence, that fear indeed was not in Christ according to the perfect and exact character of fear, because truly, he says, as Aristotle has it, fear includes uncertainty of event. Richard our own answers that uncertainty is not necessary for fear when the thing feared is in the power of the one fearing, as when e. g. someone elects to have his arm cut off, since such cutting is in his power; no uncertainty is required in order that he fear the future cutting. Wherefore Christ could properly fear, even if death were not uncertain; because it was in his power. But to Aristotle he says, fear includes uncertainty when the event is not in the power of the one fearing. Vazquez approves this solution — nay further proves that uncertainty is by no reason to be desired for fear; because, he says, many Fathers, among whom is St. Damascene book 2. On the Faith, chapter 13., define fear without any uncertainty of event. To the authority of Aristotle he responds that he does not treat every affection of fear, but that to which Rhetors ought to move their Auditors: but this does not occur, he says, except when the event is uncertain: which he confirms from the fact that Aristotle there speaks of fear which leaves place for deliberation, of which sort only fear including uncertainty of event can be: for when what is future is altogether certain and inevitable, no place is left for deliberation. — But the more common and better response is, that fear of evil is twofold: one efficacious, which accom

Hence it appears that Cajetan less rightly asserted in art. 7. question 15., together with some more recent Thomists, that sadness and fear were only in the sensitive appetite of Christ: for this the Holy Fathers most constantly deny outright, since from sadness and love they gather that there was truly in Christ a human mind and will. Furthermore holy Damascene, book 2. On the Orthodox Faith, chapter 15., enumerates six species of fear, all of which he affirms were in Christ: the first is Sluggishness, which is flight from an impending action which we apprehend as burdensome: but that this was in Christ is evident, for he willed not only to suffer torments from others; but also being compelled to do something troublesome and laborious, as to carry the cross: for he could not only fear torments to be inflicted by others; but also be affected with weariness over that troublesome action to be done. The second species is Shame; which is fear impressed on account of expectation of vituperation; which shame Christ could have had, not that he committed any actions worthy of vituperation; but because he was to heaped with reproaches and vituperations of men. The third species is Bashfulness, which is fear arisen on account of disgrace: but that this fear was in Christ stands from the fact that he often suffered disgrace from men; seeing that for us he was made accursed. The fourth is Astonishment, which is born from immense imagination of a noxious and disagreeing thing; which was in Christ, especially at the time of passion — began to weary, and be heavy. The fifth is Terror from some unwonted aspect of a thing; which terror certainly was in Christ is gathered by reason of experimental science, whereby according to that science he could not only marvel at, but even stand astonished at bitter things to be shortly sustained and endured. Finally the sixth is Agony, which is fear of an unlooked-for evil that cannot be foreseen: but this could not have been in Christ according to the truth of the thing, unless perhaps you define agony with certain experts of the Latin tongue, saying that it is fear with trembling of the limbs; of which sort I would not dissent that it truly was in Christ, seeing that St. Luke said chapter 22.: Being in agony he prayed the longer.

Fourth Conclusion. — ANGER WAS IN CHRIST THE LORD. Which indeed is gathered from that John 2. where it is narrated that he made a scourge of cords, and cast out those selling and buying out of the temple. He adds moreover John.: And his Disciples remembered truly, because it was written: The zeal of thy house hath eaten me: for, as St. Mark also relates chapter 3., when the Pharisees watched Christ whether he healed on sabbaths, that they might condemn him and accuse him as a transgressor, then he says to the man having the withered hand: Stand forth into the midst: and he says to them: Is it lawful on the sabbaths to do good, or evil? to save soul, or destroy? But they were silent: and thus looking round upon them with anger, grieved over the blindness of their hearts, he said to the man: Stretch forth thy hand, etc.; therefore truly Christ had movement of anger.

But the Seraphic Doctor observes q. 3. art. 2. dist. 5.

That anger in one manner signifies pure affection: and thus anger is called affection of detestation of some evil, or apparent evil. In another manner anger signifies affection with punishment: and thus anger has perturbation and disquiet annexed. But this can be in triple difference, because either that perturbation touches only the inferior powers, and in no manner touches the eye of the mind, disturbing it for a time but not exceeding: or it touches the eye of the mind itself perturbing and obscuring it; and according to these, the movement of anger is found in fourfold difference, as is gathered from the sayings of the Saints. In one manner it purely signifies effect of detestation, and in this manner it could have been in Adam in the state of innocence. In another manner it signifies manner of detestation with disquiet and perturbation of the sensual part, without any perturbation of mind; and in this manner was the affection of anger in Christ: for as the Gospel says, groaning he troubled himself. In the third manner, it signifies affection of detestation with commotion and perturbation not only of the sensual part but also of reason for a time; and in this manner it is found in just men who are angered with zealous anger, concerning whom Gregory says that thence the perturbed mind profits, that it may shine; as the eye through a collyrium poured in is disturbed for a time, that afterwards it may become clearer. In the fourth manner, anger signifies affection of detestation with commotion of sensuality, and also of mind; such that that commotion has perturbation of mind annexed to it, or is ordained toward it; and thus is anger through vice, and it is found in sinners, and forbidden by the Lord.

THIRD DISPUTATION.

ON THE DIGNITY, MINISTRY, AND CULT OF CHRIST THE LORD.

Having examined, and declared abundantly as far as our capacity permitted, all those things which pertain to the mystery of the incarnate Word and its excellencies, there now remain to be declared and discussed his dignities, functions, and due veneration. Although however all those endowments of Christ the Lord are very many, his ministries varied, and manifold cult to be exhibited to him: nevertheless since these all do not present investigation and resolution so difficult, for that reason suspending longer and more protracted discussion, we shall propose and weigh all these in this present last Disputation in the three following Articles.

FIRST ARTICLE.

ON THE DIGNITIES OF CHRIST.

That Christ shines with innumerable titles of glory, as God and man illustrious with all excellencies, no one denies; nevertheless that we may pass over all of these into a certain order, chiefly under threefold title of Head, King, and Judge we shall comprehend and expound them in as many Sections to be subjoined.