Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

Note 1. That a varied controversy has existed, and still flourishes, between Catholics and heretics concerning Christ the Mediator; for above all the Arians, who dared to detract from the true divinity of the Son of God and its identity with the Father, said he was named Mediator because of a certain intermediate substance between the true God and men, which while it excelled these latter was yet inferior to him; as St. Cyril of Alexandria testifies in dialogue 1 On the Trinity; to which also pertains that senseless and impure opinion of the same Arians, who asserted that God the Father, desiring to fashion all created things, first brought forth his Word as an instrument, and by it as minister created the universe. Moreover they added this insane reason to increase their blasphemous doctrine: namely that God provided himself such a minister because no created thing could sustain the pure efficiency and power of the supreme artificer, and therefore there was need that a certain intermediate substance and power be first created, which by reason of its excellence should approach nearer to God, but by reason of its creation have some commerce and tempering with the other creatures. Which indeed insane and detestable doctrine Eusebius of Caesarea handed down in book 1 Against Sabellius; there indeed when he had said that the only-begotten Son of God was necessary for the procreation and conservation of the world; he objects this to himself, and answers: but perhaps you say: does not the Father suffice? Not because the Father is insufficient did he beget the Son: but because the things made do not suffice to bear his power, therefore he speaks through a Mediator. Therefore it is necessary here, to refute this perfidy with open texts of Scripture and the continuous doctrine of the Holy Fathers in every age, to demonstrate that Jesus Christ, the Mediator of God and men, unites both natures in his same person, and thus truly is Mediator between God and men according to the state of nature.

Note 2. That another twofold opinion about Christ the Mediator is heretical, both proceeding from heretical authors, from which the Catholic Faith set forth in the midst dissents; for some contend Christ is only Mediator qua man; not however qua he is God: others qua he is both man and God; yet so that his Divinity sometimes usurps the functions of Mediator. The assertor of the former erroneous opinion is held to be Franciscus Stancarus of Mantua, Professor of Theology, or as others will have it, of the Hebrew language, at the Academy of Königsberg in Prussia, who fighting keenly against the error of Osiander acting there as Professor, who that he might plant something new contended that the justice whereby men are accounted just before God is the very justice of God inhering in them, not that justice acquired through the merits of Christ which is imputed to believers in Christ through grace, as Lutherans and Calvinists preached. Whence he asserted Christ to be our justice by reason of his Divinity alone, not his humanity. Stancarus proceeded to such heat of contention that he championed the opposite error on the other side, teaching that by reason not of divine but only of human nature Christ is our justice and the author of salvation. Which he strove to confirm not only by the oracles of Sacred Scripture and of the Holy Fathers, but even by the opinions of Theologians, whom he esteemed so highly that he said in his book On the Stancarists: One Peter Lombard glows more brightly than a hundred Luthers, two hundred Melanchthons, three hundred Bullingers, four hundred Peter Martyrs, and five hundred Calvins; all of whom if they were pounded together in a mortar would yield one ounce of true Theology: rightly said indeed, that thence truth may sometimes burst forth from the parent of error. But when Stancarus raised the banner of his new opinion, there began to fight against it not only Catholic Doctors, but also manifold sects and professors of heresy, especially Philip Melanchthon and Calvin, who against the dogma of Stancarus concerning the Mediator published two letters, one to the Polish Brethren, the other which was issued in the name of the Church of Geneva as a response; in which he demonstrates that Christ according to both natures, divine and human, exercised the office and duty of Mediator. Nor indeed content with this truly Catholic dogma, he went so far as to assert that even the divine Word before assuming man discharged those roles; for in the former letter he says, The name of Mediator fits Christ not only from the time he put on flesh, or from the time he undertook the office of reconciling mankind with God, but from the beginning of creation he already truly was mediator.

Note 3. That Christ has various habits and relations, both toward the Father, toward God, and toward us, which Leontius Byzantinus most beautifully relates and weighs, who flourished in the time of the Emperor Justinian I, book 1 Against Eutyches; where among other things he has this:

Since therefore we contemplate six relations (namely in the mystery of the Incarnation), two of the Father to the Word, and of the Word to the Father: then two of the Word to flesh, and of flesh to the Word; furthermore two of Christ to us, and ours to him; three general conjunctions are made. And the first indeed order of conjunctions holds such that the third follows from the first, the second truly from the middle. For those things by which middles agree among themselves hold contrariwise, and toward middles, as against middles. For what holds contrariwise toward itself holds fittingly toward extremes; and what again holds fittingly toward itself holds fittingly toward extremes. These things briefly said, I shall endeavour to explain by example: let three things be posited, soul simply, body simply, man composed of soul and body, and their mutual relations, as of soul to soul, of soul to its own body, of man to body simply, and to soul simply: soul indeed holds itself toward soul so that it is united by the same reason of substance, but discrete by differing hypostasis. This is the first and last relation of conjunctions. But soul toward its own body holds itself so that it is discrete by diversity of nature; united truly by reason of hypostasis, which life perfected by mutual receiving and giving back; this keeps the second and same middle relation. But man referred to body simply and to soul simply, as wholly altogether discrete from those, on account of relation to his parts makes according to communion with them. Wherefore Christ referred to us and to the Father, as wholly of parts, on account of his parts is mediate between the extremes, wholly hypostasis referred to the Father, on account of Divinity with humanity: and wholly hypostasis referred to us, on account of humanity with divinity, the habits being mutually exchanged, according to distinction and union, which he has with himself on account of his parts; and which he has with the Father and with us, on account of the conveniency of parts with extremes.

Thus Leontius.

First Conclusion. — CHRIST THE LORD IS TRULY MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MEN, NOT ONLY BY MINISTRY BUT ALSO BY STATE, IN THAT HE COMPRISES THE DIVINE AND HUMAN NATURE IN THE UNITY OF THE SAME PERSON.

It is proved first from the Apostle to the Hebrews chapter 2, who, that he may show the Son of God to be the Mediator of God and men, says it was necessary that he be made partaker of the nature of men and suffer therein: For it became him, he says, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, who had brought many children unto glory, to consummate the author of their salvation by his Passion. And a little after: Because therefore the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise partook of the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the empire of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to servitude. And further on: Wherefore it behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might become merciful and faithful Pontiff before God, that he might reconcile the sins of the people. To which also pertain all those divine oracles of Scripture which assert the Son of God became man and came into the world precisely that he might save sinners, and snatch and deliver the human race from the dire captivity of the devil.

The same truth all the Holy Fathers of both Churches, Greek as well as Latin, taught most constantly in every age, whom Petavius rehearses at length in book 12; but since it would be laborious and perhaps superfluous to enumerate them here, I shall commemorate only those who taught this truth more illustriously and openly and most constantly. First appears Gregory of Nyssa in book 1 against Eunomius, where he explains the offices of the mediator in such wise as also to denote that by reason of the complex of both natures, divine and human, he truly was mediate between God and men:

The deformity once made of the human race deceived by the wickedness of the adversary, says he, and reduced into servitude of sin, alienated from true life. Afterwards the Lord restores the work made by himself, and man becomes with that which already was God; so much so that both the whole now was, and the whole was made. And in this manner human nature is mingled and tempered with God, by the mediator and surety, that man who is in Christ, with whom the mass tempered coalesced with full virtue through the first-fruits assumed for us. Since therefore the Mediator of one is not one, but God is one: and he is in no wise divided into those persons which faith delivers to us; seeing that one divinity inheres in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; therefore the Mediator at once of God and men becomes Lord, joining man through himself to Divinity.

— Irenaeus book 3 chapter 20: It behoved, he says, the Mediator of God and men, by his propinquity to both, to bring both into friendship and concord; presenting indeed to God the man, but communicating to men the knowledge of God. Athanasius in the book On Human Nature Assumed: True, he says, is the Son of God both before he became man, and after he was made the mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ, united to the Father according to the Holy Spirit, but to us according to the flesh, and so performing the offices of Mediator between God and men, who is not only man but also God.

— To the Greek Fathers and Theologians consent the Latins: above all Tertullian, who in the book On the Resurrection of the Flesh speaks thus of Christ the mediator: This surety of God and men, called from the deposit of both, keeping committed to him by the Father, preserves also the deposit of flesh in himself, the pledge of the whole sum. For as he left to us the pledge of the Spirit, so from us he received the pledge of flesh, and carried up to heaven the pledge of the whole sum to be restored thither some time. Tertullian used a most apt term calling him surety who is called mediator, and rightly declaring its force said the deposit of both is kept by him; for the jurists teach this one is properly named surety, with whom several deposit the thing about which there is controversy. Hilary book 9: The Mediator himself, he says, constituted for the salvation of the Church, and by that very sacrament of mediator between God and man, existing one as both, while he himself unites in the selfsame the natures, is the same thing of each nature: yet so that he lacks neither in either, lest perchance ceasing to be God by being born man, and again man not being God by remaining.

Augustine above all instructs: and copiously expounds this truth in several places, but especially in book 1 On the Harmony of the Evangelists, last chapter:

Because, he says, all things rightly tend toward contraries, they are reduced through some medium; temporal iniquity alienated us from eternal justice. Therefore there was need of a mediator of temporal justice, which temporal mean would be mixed from lowest and highest: and thus neither breaking itself off from the highest, and contemplating the lowest, it might render the lowest the highest. Wherefore Christ was called mediator of God and men between immortal God and mortal man, God and man, reconciling man to God, remaining what he was, made what he was not.

Again in the tractate on Tobias 8 and Psalm 6, he says Christ Jesus is mediator between God and men for this purpose, that he may reconcile to himself those who have departed: for a middle is only between two; we had withdrawn from the Majesty of God, and by our sin had offended him. The Son was sent as mediator, who by his blood should pay our sins, whereby we are separated from God, and being interposed restore us to him, and reconcile us to him from whom averted in our sins and debts we were held. Then in sermon 120 on divers subjects: But that there might be a mediator, he says, between God and men, between the just and the unjust, between the immortal and mortals, he assumed something from the unjust and mortals, keeping something with the just and immortal. For keeping justice with the just and immortal: assuming mortality from the unjust and mortals, he was made a mediator between, casting down the wall of our sins.

Fulgentius also most beautifully and accurately in book 1 Ad Trasimundum, and chapter 15, described the nature of the Mediator:

All moreover who desire to be partakers of eternal salvation ought equally to acknowledge and hold, nor in vain is the man Jesus Christ called mediator of God and men, except because the same God took into himself the whole nature of man, and the same man has in himself the whole substance of Deity. For because man through sin was separated from God, between God wrathful and man sinning such a mediator's person must needs intervene, which for propitiating God to man should have in itself safe and true God born of God: and for reconciling man to God should contain safe man born of man: and thus of both and in both Christ should be one, so that the fulness of Deity protecting should not consume the assumed man; and the fulness of humanity neither diminish the immense nor change the impassible Deity, as if the nature of man, which had been changed into worse, were wholly restored through him than whom nothing is better. Wherefore he deigned to show himself mediate of God and men, full God, and full man.

Finally Rupertus in book 10 On the Divine Offices, chapter 6 writes thus:

Before, between Creator and creature there was no medium. For whatever was, was either Creator or creature. That therefore a medium might be found, the bond of perfect fellowship, here came this one between (intraluctus est), who might more firmly annex Creator and creature; because one and the same Christ is both, namely Creator and creature: Creator, because God; creature, because man.

From all these weighty authorities it is established against the Arians and other plagues of this kind that Christ the Lord truly has the character of mediator, who joins in himself both natures divine and human, and by reason of both sustains and fulfils the office of mediator perfect and absolutely complete in every respect.

Second Conclusion. — CHRIST THE LORD WAS MEDIATOR OF GOD AND MAN BY OFFICE, BY REASON OF HIS HUMAN NATURE INDEED, CONSIDERED NOT SIMPLY AND ABSOLUTELY, BUT AS SUBSISTING IN A DIVINE SUPPOSIT.

It is proved, because a mediator must be distinguished by some reason at least from him toward whom that mediation is directed, as toward the principal part: but Christ the Lord is not distinguished from the divine Father toward whom that mediation tended except by reason of human nature: therefore Christ is mediator by reason of human nature. Yet since that nature had need of borrowing a certain dignity from elsewhere than from herself, that she might be the more perfect mediator, therefore he is said to be mediator not simply by reason of human nature: this remains sufficiently proved from what precedes.

Stancarus objected: No one can be mediator of himself: but if Christ were mediator according to his divine nature, he would be mediator of himself, since he is one with the Father and Holy Spirit: therefore he cannot be mediator according to the divine nature, but only according to the human.

I answer first, that the minor is false, as Stancarus proposes it: for it is not true that the Son is one with the Father in person, but one, that is, he is not one person, but one nature or substance. I answer secondly to the major, that if Christ is considered not as God only, but as God and man at once, he stands as far from God as from man, and agrees with both equally, wherein consists the character of middle or mediator. Whence since the Son is not wholly himself he who is Father or Holy Spirit, being distinct from each by proper relation and hypostasis, thence it comes that by this reason he is not mediator of himself even qua he is God, because this office of mediator belongs to his person not only qua it terminates the divine nature, but also qua it terminates and affects the human.

He urged: Christ was mediator by reason of that nature through which he reconciled us to God: but he reconciled us to God only by reason of human nature; for we are reconciled to God through the death of Christ, as the Apostle says Romans 5; whence the Master of the Sentences, distinction 19, teaches Christ is mediator by reason of human nature; which indeed he proves from the authorities of St. Augustine saying in the exposition of the third chapter of Galatians: That Jesus Christ is called Mediator according to man, from that sentence of the same Apostle, is made fuller, when he says: One is God, and one mediator of God and men, man Christ Jesus, etc. There remains therefore that he who was cast down by a proud mediator, pride persuading, be raised up by a humble mediator, humility persuading. And book 10 of the Confessions, chapter 13: Inasmuch as he is man, so far mediator: inasmuch as Word, he is not less than equal God, and God with God, and together with the Holy Spirit one God. And on Psalm 103, Christ mediator between man and God; not because God, but because man: not because God equal to the Father; but were he not equal to the Father he would not be mediator. To these Tractate 62 on John: Mediator, he says, of God and men, not qua God, but qua he is man Jesus Christ.

These authorities also Stancarus objected.

— Yet from those authorities of both the Apostle and St. Augustine nothing can be gathered that does not militate against the erroneous opinion of Stancarus; we are indeed reconciled to God through the death of Christ, because the death of that supreme and morally infinite victim was of value and price, not on account of human nature only, but on account of its union and personal society with the divine, as we said elsewhere. But to St. Augustine I say he means nothing else than that the Son of God qua God was not mediator before the incarnation; but then only did he undergo the state and office of mediator when he became man; seeing that through the incarnation he emerged as mediator, both by reason of state, because he was mediate between human and divine nature, not by reason of human nature only, nor of divine only, but of both subsisting in the same person; and by reason of office and ministry, seeing that he administered the work and office of mediator through his humanity. Whence the Seraphic Doctor, distinction 19, article 2, question 2, teaches that must be distinguished the character of Christ as medium and as mediator:

For a medium, he says, differs from a mediator: for medium denotes conveniency with extremes; but mediator denotes not only conveniency but also the office of reconciliation. Then he teaches that a medium between two natures can be taken threefold: either so that two natures concur therein, as in a third nature; or so that two natures concur therein as in one person; or so that there concur therein properties conforming to two natures. Taking medium in the first way, nothing can be medium between human nature, neither Christ nor anything else; because no third thing can be constituted from human nature. Taking medium in the second way, thus Christ is medium between human nature and divine, inasmuch as he is one person in two natures, not by reason of human nature only, nor of divine only, but of both. Taking medium in the third way, Christ is medium between God and men according to his humanity, inasmuch as he has mortality simultaneously with beatitude. Mortality, I say, in which he communicates with men: beatitude, in which he communicates most with God. But if it be asked how, and according to what nature, Christ is mediator, since mediator denotes the office of reconciliation, and a mediator must differ from those whom he reconciles, and Christ according to the divine nature is he with whom reconciliation is made, it must be said that he cannot be mediator according to the divine nature, but according to the human nature, in which he can reconcile according to diverse properties, in which he communicates with God and with man. For he had justice and innocence, in which he communicates with God, and mortality, in which he communicates with man: and while death is joined to justice, sinful mortal man is allied in the same to God just and immortal, for we are reconciled to God through the death of an innocent man.

He pressed: A medium must be between extremes: therefore the mediator of God and men must be below God and above men: but Christ according to the divine nature is not inferior to God: therefore according to the divine nature he cannot be mediator, and consequently he is only mediator according to human nature.

I distinguish the antecedent: a medium must be between extremes by reason of state or person, I concede: by reason of nature, I deny. Therefore Christ is indeed mediate between God and men by reason of his state or person, because he is at once God and man; but not by reason of the other nature, because according to the divine nature he is essentially identical with the Father and Holy Spirit, but according to human nature he is of the same lot and nature with men.

He urged: Christ is mediator by that reason whereby he rendered satisfaction to God for our debts: but he did not satisfy for our sins according to the divine nature, because according to that he was identical with the Father, and consequently had he satisfied according to that nature, it would follow that he had exhibited satisfaction to himself: but no one can satisfy himself: therefore it is necessary that he have been mediator only according to human nature.

I deny the minor: for nothing hinders, as we said when treating of the satisfaction of Christ the Lord, that one and the same man be debtor and creditor under different titles: and consequently that he can satisfy himself, as appears from the case of tutor and actor (procurator), who qua particular man can owe something to his ward, and qua tutor pay it to himself.

Note 1. From Petavius book 12 chapter 6: of all the offices proper to a mediator, and consonant with his duty, is the pacification of those at variance with one another, and the reconciliation of minds to mutual concord. That however the Son was sent by the Father for obtaining and executing conciliation between God and men, Sacred Scripture most openly testifies: above all St. Paul in many places, as will appear below. But that this office of reconciling peace, assumed by that most precious pacifier of the human race, may be the more easily understood, and its worth estimated, it must be observed with St. Augustine, book 19 On the City of God, chapter 13, that peace is the tranquillity of order. Which definition he himself elucidates thus:

The peace of body, he says, is the ordered tempering of parts. The peace of the irrational soul, the ordered repose of appetites. The peace of the rational soul, the ordered agreement of cognition and action. The peace of body and soul, the ordered life and health of the living being. The peace of mortal man and immortal God, ordered obedience in faith under eternal law. The peace of men, ordered concord. The peace of house, ordered concord among cohabitants in commanding and obeying. The peace of city, ordered concord of citizens in commanding and obeying. The peace of the heavenly city, most ordered and most concordant society in enjoying God and each other in God. The peace of all things, the tranquillity of order.

Note 2. From the same St. Augustine there, that two things are necessary for perfect and absolute peace, namely order and tranquillity: Order, he says, is the disposition assigning to equal and unequal things their places each to each. Hence book 5 chapter 12 he explains peace through mere conveniency, writing that God fitly tempered and congruously ordered the universe. Who left not only heaven and earth, nor only Angel and man, but neither the viscera of any small and contemptible living creature, neither the pinions of birds, neither the little flower of grass, neither the leaf of tree, without the conveniency of their parts and a kind of tacit peace. Yet besides the congruence of parts he requires moreover tranquillity in that other passage of the same work. Indeed the miserable, he says, precisely because they are miserable, are certainly not in peace; they lack indeed the tranquillity of order, where there is no perturbation: nevertheless because by merit and justly they are miserable, even in that very misery of theirs they cannot be outside order; joined indeed not to the Blessed, yet separated from them by the law of order. Whom also he says have a certain tranquillity of order in certain things, because they are adapted to them, and so some peace inheres in them. But they are therefore miserable, he says, because although in some security they do not suffer pain, still they are not where they ought to be secure and free of suffering; but when they suffer, on whatever side they suffer, the peace has been disturbed. In that part however peace still remains, in which neither pain burns, nor is the structure itself dissolved. Finally where there is a nature in which no evil is, nor can be, as God: to be a nature in which no good exists cannot be, nor even of the devil: thus heaven is peace without any war: but war without some peace cannot be. Wherefore some tranquillity and quiet is necessary for peace, which is opposed to perturbation and war. Hence Augustine on Psalm 84: What is peace, he says, where there is no war? What is it where there is no war? where there is no contradiction: where nothing resists, nothing adverse. So then peace differs either naught or but very little from concord, if taken universally. Thus far Petavius.

Note 3. That sin introduced into the world war of threefold kind, namely against God, neighbour, and man the sinner himself. Against God indeed, since, as Isaiah testifies chapter 59: Your iniquities have divided between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he may not hear. Equally against neighbour: Whence wars and contentions among you, says St. James chapter 4! Is it not hence, from your concupiscences which war in your members? Finally against himself, since flesh concupisceth against spirit, and spirit against flesh. Whence it was necessary that the mediator of God and men reconcile a threefold peace, namely of man with God, with neighbour, with himself, that he might sustain the office and role of supreme and most excellent pacificator; which he indeed performed, as will appear in what follows.

First Conclusion. — CHRIST THE LORD TOOK AWAY THE WAR OF MAN WITH GOD, AND RECONCILED AND CONFIRMED PEACE BETWEEN BOTH.

Thus most beautifully teaches St. Paul 2 Corinthians 5: All things, he says, are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation: for indeed God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing to them their sins; and he hath placed in us the word of reconciliation. For Christ therefore we are ambassadors, God

beseesching through us; we pray for Christ, be reconciled to God. And to the Ephesians 2 the same Apostle writes: In Christ Jesus you, who were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and breaking down the middle wall of partition, the enmities in his flesh, making void the law of commandments in decrees, that he might make the two in himself into one new man, making peace, and might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, slaying the enmities in himself. And coming he preached peace to you that were afar off, and peace to them that were nigh, because through him we have access both in one Spirit to the Father.

— Augustine illustrates this function of pacifying and reconciling from the same and other passages of Scripture in his tractate on Psalm 61, which Psalm is inscribed concerning Solomon:

Moreover Solomon, he says, is interpreted peaceful (pacificus): and therefore such a title fits him truly and best, through whom as mediator we are reconciled to God, forgiveness of sins accepted, from enemies. For when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son; and, He himself says in the Gospel: Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. And with many other testimonies the Lord Christ is shown to be peaceful, not according to the peace which this world knows and seeks, but that peace of which it is said by the Prophet: I will give them true comfort, peace upon peace; to which peace of reconciliation, namely, is added immortal peace. For after all things rendered which God promised, the same Prophet shows we must await the last peace, wherein we shall live with God for eternity, when he says: Lord our God, give us peace, for thou hast given us all things. That peace will plainly be perfect, when the last enemy death shall be destroyed. And in whom shall this be, except in that Pacific One our Reconciler? for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.

St. Leo Pope likewise most beautifully, in his sixth sermon on the Nativity of the Lord, both describes this office of mediator bestowed unsparingly by Christ upon the human race; and also its excellence and utility in these words:

For what in the treasury of the Lord's bounty, he says, can we find so fitting to the honour of the present day as peace, which at the birth of the Lord was first proclaimed by angelic concert? Itself indeed is that which begets sons of God, nurse of charity, and mother of unity: repose of the Blessed, and habitation of eternity; whose proper work and special benefit it is to join to God what it severs from the world. Whence the Apostle incites us to this good, saying: Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace toward God. In whose sentence's brevity is contained the effect of all earthly commandments: because where there shall be the truth of peace, nothing there can be lacking of virtue. But what is it, dearly beloved, to have peace toward God, except to will what he commands, and not to will what he forbids? If indeed for human friendships equal souls seek like wills, nor can diversity of morals ever arrive at firm concord, how shall he be partaker of divine peace, to whom those things please which displease God, and who desires to delight himself in those things by which he knows Him offended? That mind is not of the sons of God, neither does such wisdom receive adoptive nobility. Let a chosen generation and royal respond to the dignity of their regeneration. Let him love what the Father loves, and dissent from his author in nothing.

Second Conclusion. — HE RECONCILED ALSO INTERNAL PEACE TO MEN WITH THEMSELVES.

The Holy Fathers prove this truth, above all the most holy Augustine Tractate 104 on John, where teaching by what modes and means our interior peace is instituted and confirmed through Christ:

The peace of Christ, he says, has no end of time, and itself is all perfection of pure intention and action. On account of it we are imbued with his sacraments: on account of it we are taught by his wonderful works and words: on account of it we receive the pledge of the Holy Spirit: on account of it finally we bear bravely every tribulation, that in it we may reign happily without tribulation.

That peace indeed is not yet perfect and absolute, nor will be resolved into all its numbers, save in eternal beatitude. Hence St. Augustine distinguishes thus, and weighs thus, the twofold peace promised us by Christ, one in the present, another in the world to come, tractate 77 on John, weighing these words of Christ: Peace I leave with you: moreover he says: He leaves peace to us who is about to depart: his peace he will give us coming at the end: he leaves peace to us in this world, his own peace he will give us in the world to come: he leaves peace to us, abiding wherein we conquer enemies: his own peace he will give us, when without enemy we shall reign. There also the most holy Doctor observes admirably that Christ signified both these peaces there, when first he says: Peace I leave with you, nor added, mine, then subjoined, My peace I give unto you. For the former peace, says St. Augustine, is called ours rather than his: since he has nothing at all repugnant in himself who has no sin whatever: but we have such peace wherein we still say: forgive us our debts. There is therefore some peace, since we delight in the law of God according to the inward man: but it is not full, because we see another law in our members repugnant to the law of our mind.

— Moreover this internal peace that adorable Mediator reconciled to us chiefly for three reasons; namely doctrine, example, and aid; which all contribute most to extinguishing in us perturbations of soul and inducing the sweetness of peace and tranquillity. First indeed his doctrine looks chiefly to this, since precisely therefore, taking up the cross daily, curbing and taming cupidities, scorning the enticements of pleasures, undertaking the laborious and arduous path through virtues to heaven, in fine informing us concerning all fomentations and blandishments of vices by his divine precepts and institutions, he reconciles true internal peace, the tumults of all passions being calmed. Which indeed St. Ambrose teaches pre-eminently on Psalm 36, where expounding those words, the mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom, he shows reconciliation made of both parts of man, interior and exterior, through the benefit and doctrine of Christ:

What is the mouth of the just, he says, which shall meditate wisdom, except the interior man? For there are two men in each one, one interior, the other exterior; the interior thinks those things which are of the mind, speaks those things which are of the mind: the exterior, those which are of the body: nevertheless the Lord coming joined both together, and constituted two men in one, lest they assail themselves with diverse motions, but be mutually associated by unity of their wills. Therefore the mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom: for now even the exterior man himself, transfused into the discipline of the interior man, and conformed to his nature, exercises its offices, that flesh may meditate what is of interior mind; but lest this seem incredible to thee, hear the Apostle saying: that Jesus will transfigure the body of our humiliation, that it be made conformable to the body of his glory.

Not only Christian precepts of life comprehended in Evangelic and Apostolic writings, but far more the illustrious examples of sanctity of Christ the Lord renew this internal peace in us. For what else did he do in his whole life, or to what did his acts and thoughts tend, except that he might store up and propose in himself a perfect exemplar of most absolute holiness for all to imitate? Since however this sanctity of our perfect life and internal peace consists chiefly in consension and concord, that wonderful consension that divine Saviour expressed and taught thus, when he suspended all his own appetites upon the nod and arbitrament of the one divine will, and bore forth nothing else than to obey the will of him by whom he had been sent into the world. Thus John 3: I seek not, he says, my own will, but the will of him that sent me. Likewise chapter 4: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me. And there: I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.

Lastly, He confirmed and established in each individual man this same private peace against not only all the tickling enticements of lusts and the allurements of pleasures, but also against every sort of temptation, by His own most potent help and the efficacy and abundance of overflowing grace in His faithful; whence it comes to pass that human weakness, fortified and upheld by these divine safeguards, silently strives toward the haven and state of eternal peace and tranquillity.

Hence Saint Augustine, book De Correptione et Gratia, chapter 12, splendidly demonstrates that the grace of Christ is far more powerful in the faithful than it was in Adam. Because, he says, with no one to terrify him, and moreover with the free choice of his will set against the command of the terrifying God, he did not stand firm in so great an ease of not sinning. These others, however — I do not say with the world merely terrifying them, but raging against them that they should not stand — stood firm in the faith; since the former man saw the good things present, which he was about to abandon, while these did not see the future good things, which they were about to receive. Whence this? Except from Him who bestowed it, from whom they obtained mercy so as to be faithful, from whom they received the spirit not of fear, whereby they would yield to their persecutors, but of power, and of charity, and of continence, whereby they might overcome all that threatens, all that provokes, all that torments.

Third Conclusion. — CHRIST ALSO RECONCILED THE THIRD KIND OF PEACE, NAMELY AMONG MEN THEMSELVES.

Proof: from the more celebrated oracles of the Prophets, wherein is signified that so great a peace and concord was to come at the time of the Messias that, wars being everywhere settled, all nations would enjoy the utmost tranquillity and peace. Thus Isaias, chapter 2: And in the last days the mountain of the house shall be prepared... all nations. And many peoples shall go, and shall say: Come, let us go up... many, shall lift up sword against nation; neither shall they be exercised any more to war. Micheas adds to these words: And every man shall sit under his vine, and under his fig tree, and there shall be none to make them afraid. By which words those most illustrious

prophets of Christ signify that an affluence of peace and quiet was to be imported through Christ. But as to what peace these prophecies are to be understood of — whether civil and political, or truly spiritual and divine — the sacred Interpreters do not agree. For some think these prophecies are to be referred to that peace which is said to have occurred under the reign of Augustus at the rising of Christ the Lord. So Saint Chrysostom and Cyril on Isaias, and Jerome in his commentaries on both Prophets. But since many grievous wars and many disasters of the Roman empire intervened while Augustus still lived, that prophetic promise does not seem to have been fulfilled in every way in this sense; wherefore I judge it more correctly to be said, with other sacred Interpreters, that those prophetic oracles are to be referred, not to a temporal and external peace, but to spiritual concord and tranquillity, which is also the later opinion of SS. Jerome and Cyril. Thus above all Justin Martyr interprets those oracles in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew; thus Tertullian in Scorpiace, chapter 13; thus especially Rupert, book 2, on Nichaeas: Have we not read, he says, that this has come to pass everywhere among peoples and nations while the Gospel of Christ shines forth, and do we not see it happening: while men formerly restless and warlike laid down their weapons of war, and by their very manner or garb changed, became the ensigns of Evangelical peace? Some were converted to the cenobitic life, others to the eremitical rule. The same is found in book 1, on chapter 9 of Isaias.

Saint Athanasius, in the book De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, excellently proves and illustrates this interpretation, where he confirms the divinity of Christ by this argument among others: that He engendered in His followers love of and zeal for peace.

For of old, he says, the Greeks and barbarians alike, given over to idolatry, waged wars against one another, and were cruel even to their own kin. For no one could make a journey at all by land or sea unless bearing a sword in hand, because of the implacable wars with which they raged against each other. Indeed their whole life was spent in arms, and the sword served them for a staff, and in it they placed all their confidence and protection. Yet, as I have already said, they worshipped images and offered sacrifices to demons; and meanwhile none of those so affected in mind could be weaned from that superstition of idols. But after they passed over to the discipline of Christ, then beyond expectation, their souls truly being compunct, they cast off that savage cruelty of slaughter, so that they no longer breathe some warlike and hostile thing or other, but all things are peaceful for them, and the things pertaining to peace and concord wonderfully affect them, etc.

Such are the words of Athanasius. Petavius adds that even in our own age the truth of this prophecy is fulfilled in savage nations abandoned to every cultivation of humanity, such as the Indians, Brazilians, Canadians, and other Americans, who so long as they are entangled in ancestral superstitions adore demons, wage incessant wars with one another, and after the manner of lions and wolves prepare banquets and feasts from the flesh of enemies. But when they have become Christians, suddenly laying aside their savagery they become so tame that they prefer to suffer evil from their enemies rather than inflict it, and they soothe them with benefits and all the offices of charity.

Note 1. That men after the sin of the first parent are truly held under the power of the devil, as Saint Bernard excellently proves against Abelard, epistle 190, chapter 5, where among other things he reports him as asserting,

that all our Doctors after the Apostles agree in this, that the devil had dominion and power over man, and possessed him by right, namely because man of his own free will, which he had, freely consented to the devil. For they say that if anyone conquers another, the conquered is by right constituted the slave of the victor. Therefore, he says, as the Doctors say, with this necessity was the Son of God made incarnate, that man, who otherwise could not be freed, might by the death of the Innocent be freed by right from the yoke of the devil. But as it seems to us, he says, neither did the devil ever have any right in man, perhaps God permitting it, as a jailer; nor did the Son of God assume flesh in order to free man.

To these Saint Bernard subjoins:

What in these words must be judged more intolerable — blasphemy or arrogance? What more damnable — temerity or impiety? Would it not be more just that a mouth speaking such things be beaten with clubs than refuted by arguments? Does he not deservedly provoke against himself the hands of all, whose hand is against all? All thus, he says; but not I thus. What then art thou? What better dost thou bring? What subtler dost thou find? What more secure dost thou boast has been revealed to thee, which has escaped so many saints and eluded so many wise men? I think this fellow will set before us stolen waters and bread eaten in secret.

Such are the words of Bernard, who after many things proves the Catholic dogma from that passage 2 Timothy 2: Lest ever God give them repentance to know the truth, and they recover themselves from the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive at his will. To this testimony Bernard adds an excellent gloss in this manner: Thou hearest at his will, and dost thou deny his power? As if he said: those who are detained in prison by another at his will are also truly said to be under his power; for malefactors are not held in prison at the will of the keeper, but at the will of the judge and magistrate. The Lord also calls the devil the prince of this world, John 14: For the prince of this world cometh, and in me he hath not any thing. And Luke 22: This is your hour, and the power of darkness. He calls the power of the devil the power of darkness. Moreover Colossians 1: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness. But what sort of power the devil has over men after sin Bernard does not explain.

Note 2. That Catholic Doctors explain this power of the devil over sinful men variously. For some understand it thus, that men are said to have been delivered over to the demon on account of sin insofar as he punishes them at his will in hell: but that they were freed through Christ on this account, because He bore in Himself the punishments due to the sins of men, so that men, their sin now remitted through the grace of Christ, are not subject to eternal punishments. But this opinion does not seem to depart from the error of Abailard; for thus the devil would only be as it were a turnkey and keeper of a prison, nor would he have power over captive men at his own will; for as to the punishment which the damned undergo in hell, they do not suffer it so at his will that he could free them from it; nor does he detain them in prison at his will so that he could snatch them thence if he wished. Therefore, I judge it truer to say not only that sinful men are reduced under his power on this account, that he holds them shut up as it were in prison and inflicts punishments upon them, but also because through the sin of the first parent they lost not only habitual grace, whereby they would be born as it were in the form of the just, but also the grace of holy thought, whereby they would conquer sin: in this way, deprived of helps, they are subject to the temptations and molestations of demons; to which without doubt they would succumb unless they were strengthened by the grace of Christ to resist, and had strength. Which opinion Saint Augustine proves lib. 13. De Trinitate chapter 12 there, in these words: But the Apostle preaches this more openly to the Ephesians 2: And you, when you were dead in your offences, and sins, wherein sometime you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, of the spirit that now worketh on the children of unbelief, in whom also we all conversed sometime in the desires of our flesh, fulfilling the will of the flesh, and of our own liking, and were by nature children of wrath, even as others: and a few words being interposed, he gathers in this way: Wherefore all men from the beginning are under the prince of the power of the air, who worketh in the children of unbelief: wherein Saint Augustine plainly teaches that men have been delivered over to the power of the prince of the air and of darkness in this, that he works in them the desires of the flesh and perverse affections.

The same Nazianzen indicates not obscurely in that oration 24, not far from the end, where he writes thus: For we were held by the devil, inasmuch as we had been sold under sin, and had exchanged vice for pleasure.

Note 3. That a twofold liberation can be distinguished; one indeed proper and strictly taken, the other improper and metaphorical. The former is that by which someone is snatched and freed from captivity by the payment of a price, agreed upon between the redeemer and him who holds the captive; after which manner all captives are ordinarily ransomed: but the other is that by which someone is led out from the yoke of captivity with no price paid. Thus Exodus 15: God is said to have redeemed the people of Israel from the captivity of Egypt: and Deuteronomy 13 Moses uses the same formula of speech to signify that liberty with which the Israelites were favoured when they were led forth with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm out of the land of Egypt. Socinus indeed concedes that Christ redeemed us by this latter kind of redemption, but not by the former: against which heretical dogma stands

First Conclusion. — CHRIST TRULY REDEEMED US FROM THE CAPTIVITY OF THE DEVIL BY HIS DEATH. This is determined in the Council of Trent, session 6: for after the Council showed in its first chapter the weakness of our nature contracted from Adam's sin, and taught that we were made servants of sin and of the devil, chapter 2 says that the advent of Christ was for the redemption of the human race. It is confirmed from the letter of Innocent II to the Archbishops of Sens and Reims, who together with their suffragans in the Council of Sens had condemned the errors of Abaelard; which condemnation the Pontiff himself approves and confirms in these words:

We who although unworthy are seen to sit in the chair of Blessed Peter, to whom it was said by the Lord: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren: the council of our brother Bishops and Cardinals having been taken, have condemned by the authority of the SS. Canons the chapters destined to us by your discretion, and all the perverse dogmas of that Peter together with their author, and have imposed upon him as upon a heretic perpetual silence: we also judge that all the followers and defenders of his error are to be sequestered from the fellowship of the faithful and bound with the chain of excommunication. Given at the Lateran, the 17th of the Kalends of August.

Saint Bernard proves this truth against Abaelard: 1. from Sacred Scripture. For the holy Apostle, 1 to Timothy 1, says thus: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: who gave himself a redemption for all. And to the Corinthians 11: This chalice is the New

Testament in my blood, which shall be shed for you unto the remission of sins. And to the Ephesians 1: We have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of his grace. To these Bernard subjoins, addressing Abaelard: Why, he says, through blood, when he could have done it through speech? To whom Saint Bernard answers: Ask Him Himself: it is permitted me to know that it is so: why it is so is not permitted: doth the clay say to him that fashioned it: why hast thou fashioned me thus? To these can be added that passage to Titus 2: Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity: and to the Hebrews 9: Christ being come an high priest of the good things to come... by his own blood entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption.

He proves secondly, chapter 9, from the fact that the advent of Christ profited not only adults, but also little ones:

Therefore Christ came not only for the cause of instruction, but also of liberation. Will not, he says, the advent of Christ profit them at all — nothing, because they were made partakers of the likeness of his death through baptism; since as yet they cannot, their age preventing, taste or love Christ? Our redemption therefore, he says, is that supreme love in us through the passion of Christ: do little ones therefore have no redemption, because they have not that supreme love? Or just as they have not that whereby they may love, so neither that whereby they may perish, so that regeneration in Christ is not necessary for them, seeing that regeneration from Adam has done them no harm? If this savours with Pelagius, it is foolish. Whatever he may think of these things, it is plain how much he envies the sacrament of human salvation; how much he empties, so far as lies in him, the dispensation of the lofty mystery, because he attributes the whole of salvation to devotion, and nothing to regeneration: who places the glory of our redemption and the summit of salvation not in the power of the cross, not in the price of blood, but in the progress of our manner of life. But for me it were far be it to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is our salvation, life, and resurrection. And indeed I behold three certain chief things in this work of our salvation: the form of humility, wherein God emptied himself; the measure of charity, which he extended even unto death, and the death of the cross; the sacrament of redemption, wherewith he took away that very death which he endured. The first two of these three without the last are such as if you painted upon emptiness. Truly great, and most necessary, is the example of humility; great, and worthy of all acceptance, the example of charity; but they have no foundation, and therefore no standing, if redemption be wanting.

ABAILARD HAD URGED AGAINST HIM, FOR THE MOST PART, in confirmation of his error, as Saint Bernard relates and refutes in chapter 8; for he said: how does the Apostle say that we are justified, or reconciled to God by the death of His Son, who ought to have been angered against man so much the more, by how much they offended more in crucifying his Son than in transgressing his first precept by the taste of a single fruit?

Saint Bernard answers, that in one and the same act there could both displease the iniquity of the malignant, and please the piety of him suffering.

ABAILARD PRESSED ON: But if that sin of Adam had been so great that it could not be expiated except by the death of Christ, what expiation will that very homicide itself have, which was committed in Christ? Saint Bernard answers, that it is undone by that very blood which they shed, by the intercession of Him whom they slew.

ABAILARD KEPT URGING: Did the death of the innocent Son please God the Father so greatly, that through Him He should be reconciled to us, who committed this sin by sinning, on account of which the innocent Lord was slain; nor would this become any less a great sin, though He could pardon that far lighter one?

Saint Bernard answers:

Not the death, but the will of him dying willingly pleased, expunging death by that death, working salvation, restoring innocence, triumphing over principality and power, spoiling the nether world, enriching those above, making peace as to the things that are in heaven, and the things that are on earth, renewing all things. And since so precious a death was to be voluntarily undertaken against sin, yet it could not come about except through sin — God being delighted indeed not at all, yet using well the wickedness of criminals — He condemned death by death, and sin out of sin. And the greater their iniquity, so much the more holy the will of this one, and the more powerful unto salvation; inasmuch as through so great an intervening power that ancient great sin of necessity yielded to this one, committed against Christ, as the lesser to the greater. Nor is this victory ascribed to sin or to sinners, but to Him who used sin well, who mightily terrified sinners, and turned into the use of piety whatever cruelty of the impious dared against Him. And truly the blood, which was shed, was so powerful unto forgiveness that it blotted out even that greatest sin itself, by which it was brought about that it was shed, and thereby left no doubt whatsoever concerning the blotting out of that former one as being the lighter.

HE STILL INSISTED: To whom does it not seem cruel and unjust, that anyone should demand the blood of an innocent man as some sort of price, or that the killing of an innocent should please him in any way — much less that God should have held the death of the Son so acceptable, that through it He was reconciled to the whole world? Ans. St. Bern.: God the Father did not require the blood of the Son, and yet He accepted it when offered, thirsting not for blood but for salvation, because salvation was in the blood. Salvation plainly, and not, as this fellow savours and writes, the extension of charity alone. For thus he concludes all his calumnies and invectives, which he vomited forth against God so impiously as unskilfully, as to say that the whole of what God appeared in the flesh accomplished was our instruction by the Word, and by His example; or, as he afterwards says, instruction; and that the whole of what He suffered and died was the showing forth, or commendation, of His charity toward us.

Such are the words of Saint Bernard.

Second Conclusion. — CHRIST REDEEMED US FROM THE CAPTIVITY OF THE DEVIL, AND FROM THE VENGEANCE OF GOD, BY A REDEMPTION PROPERLY SO CALLED.

This likewise is de fide against the impious and blasphemous dogma of the Socinians; and

Proof: To redeem someone properly is to free a captive from the hands of him who holds him, a price being paid to that one: but Christ freed us captives — that is, guilty of the wrath of God on account of sins, and enslaved to Satan — from the wrath of God and from the power of Satan by His death, as it were a true price paid for us; for (Socinus himself confessing) a price is called not money only, but whatever is paid so that he who holds captives may be satisfied: therefore Christ properly redeemed us. Socinus admits the major. The Scripture hands down and confirms the minor with all those texts of Scripture praised in the first Conclusion, to which may be added that

of Matthew 20: The Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a redemption for many.

SOCINUS OBJECTS: In Sacred Scripture the word redeem is for the most part used only metaphorically, namely in the same sense as liberate or claim for oneself, even though no payment of a true price intervenes, as is clear from all those texts of Scripture, Exodus 15 v. 13, Deuteronomy 1 and 9 v. 26, 2 Kings 7 v. 23, Psalm 77 v. 16, wherein God is said to have redeemed the people from Egyptian servitude: there indeed redemption is taken only metaphorically, namely for liberation without any price paid: therefore all those texts of Scripture, whereby it is signified that Christ's death redeemed us, are to be understood in the same way.

The Anti-Socinian Author denies the consequence, and deservedly indeed; for it is not permitted to argue from particulars to every particular or universal. Add that between the corporal liberation of the Jewish people from Egypt and that spiritual one which was made through the death of Christ there is great dissimilarity; for that liberation of the Israelites could be effected by God's power alone, without any price paid, because that captivity was unjust: this could not be effected except by a price paid on account of the unchangeable justice and truth of God. On account of the truth, I say, because God had said to man: if thou sin, thou shalt die the death: therefore, that the truth of this divine oracle might be fulfilled, death had to intervene — either of the thing itself, or of another, who should deliver him from this sentence. Likewise on account of justice: both because Scripture testifies that it is God's right that those who sin be worthy of death, according to that passage to Romans 1: Who, when they had known the justice of God, understood not that they who do such things are worthy of death; and because, as Saint Bernard says, praised above, chapter 5, the devil had not only power over men, but just power, which he explains thus:

Moreover, he says, although we call it the just power of the devil, yet not also his will. Hence not the devil who invaded: not man who deserved: but the just Lord who exposed himself: for it is not from power but from will that anyone is called just or unjust. This right therefore of the devil over man, though not acquired by right but wickedly usurped, was yet justly permitted. And thus man was held justly, yet so that that justice was neither in man nor in the devil, but in God. Whence he concludes in the following chapter: justly therefore was man condemned, but also mercifully freed. Yet so mercifully, that a certain justice was not wanting in that very liberation: since this too belonged to the mercy of the Liberator, that it befitted the remedies of liberation rather to use justice against the invader than power. For what of himself could he effect, that man, once having lost his justice, should recover it, a servant of sin, conquered by the devil? There was assigned to him therefore another's, who lacked his own; and it is itself thus: the prince of this world came, and found nothing in the Saviour: and when nevertheless he laid violent hands on the innocent, he most justly held what he lost when He, who owed nothing to death, accepting the wrong of death, rightfully loosed him who was guilty both of the debt of death and of the dominion of the devil. For with what justice would that be exacted of man a second time? Of man indeed, who did not owe: of man, who has paid. For, if one, says the Apostle, died for all, then all were dead: that evidently the satisfaction of one may be imputed to all, just as that one bore the sins of all: nor let another be found who has done all, another who has satisfied: nay rather head and body are one Christ. Therefore the head satisfied for the members, Christ for his own bowels; and when according to the Gospel of Paul, whereby the lie of Peter (Abailard) is convicted, he died for us and vivified us together with himself, forgiving us all offences, blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us: and he took the same out of the way, fastening it to the cross, despoiling principalities and powers.

Such are the words of Saint Bernard. To these add, that the spiritual redemption wrought through Christ is so described that all things required for a proper redemption concur in it. Indeed, with Socinus himself confessing, in a true redemption there is first required a captive, which is the human race. Then, one holding the captive, which is at once the wrath and justice of God, and the devil. There is required moreover a Redeemer, which is Christ. Lastly, a price is desired, which is the death and blood of Christ. Therefore however much the word I redeem in other texts of Scripture is taken improperly and metaphorically of simple liberation, it is necessary to understand it properly when it explains Christ's redemption.

OBJECTS 2. Holy Stephen, Acts 7, calls Moses a redeemer: but he redeemed with no price given: therefore thus also Christ. Confirmation: the antitype ought to be conformable to its type: but Moses and the liberation effected through him were a type of Christ and of salvation gained through him: therefore as Moses redeemed the Israelites with no price paid, so also must Christ be said to have redeemed us. Moreover, Zachary in the canticle Luke 1 compares the redemption wrought through Christ with that wrought through Moses; for he says: He hath wrought redemption of his people, which words exactly answer those of Psalm 111: He hath sent redemption to his people, where the speech is about the Egyptian liberation: therefore the redemption wrought through Christ is only liberation without price, like the liberation wrought through Moses.

I answer to the argument, denying the consequence, since from a particular there is no consequence. Add that there is dissimilarity between both redemptions, of Moses and of Christ. For Moses was redeemer only from Pharaonic tyranny, for the execution of which authority and divine power alone were needed: but Christ redeemed us from the wrath of God, Romans 5:9, and from the power of darkness, of the devil, and of death, Colossians 1 v. 13, Hebrews 2 vv. 14-15; and that through His own blood, the Apostle witnessing there: In whom we have redemption through his blood.

To the first confirmation I say, that the reason ought not be the same between type and antitype; for although they agree analogically in many things, nevertheless they must differ in very many. Christ and Moses indeed agree in that each was mediator, each redeemer; but they differ in respect of person, office, and deeds, since Moses was mere man, and a servant of God; Christ man, and Son of God: Moses a typical and temporal mediator of the Old Testament; Christ the mediator signified and eternal, of both Old and New Testament, especially of the New on account of the apparition and consummation of redemption in the New: Moses a liberator from Egypt; Christ a redeemer from the wrath of God, malediction, sin, death: Moses a redeemer without death and his own blood: Christ a redeemer through His own death and blood: Moses the bestower of the promised land; Christ of the inheritance and of life eternal. Far different therefore is the redemption of Moses and of Christ.

To the second confirmation I deny the antecedent: whether or not

Zachary looked to the passage of the Psalm and to the type of the Egyptian liberation, he preaches the redemption wrought through Christ to be none other than that which the SS. Apostols declare to have been accomplished through His blood and death; which sort was in no wise the liberation through Moses.

OBJECTS 3. A redemption properly so called ought to be made by him who holds the captive: but Christ redeemed us not from a captivator, or holder of captives: therefore His redemption is not properly so called. He proves the minor first, because Titus 2 v. 11 we are said to be redeemed from our iniquities through Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity; and 1 Peter 1 v. 18 the faithful are said to be redeemed from the vain conversation of the paternal tradition; and 1 Thessalonians we are said to be delivered from wrath, that is, from the punishment due to the impious: but these redemptions are not proper liberations from captivity: therefore we are said to be redeemed through Christ not properly, but only improperly.

I answer first, that the major can be denied: for redemption properly so called is said to be made not only by him who principally holds captives, but also by him who does so less principally; likewise from the captivity itself and all its adjuncts, namely from the prison, from chains, and from the squalor of the prison, from servitude and hostile tyranny, from bonds, from torture, from fear of death, finally from death itself, which often awaits captives unless redemption be made: but Scripture testifies we have been redeemed from all these through Christ. For what was our captivity, except alienation and rejection from God on account of sin, and enslavement under the power of the demon? Christ redeemed us from this by His death, by meriting reconciliation with God for us: For if, says the Apostle to Romans 5, when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled shall we be saved by his life. The filth of the prison and the snares wherewith the devil held us captive — what were they but our sins, iniquities, and vain conversation, from which Christ freed us? Finally, from servitude, tyranny, and the fear of our enemies — the devil, hell, and death — we are said to be delivered through the death of Christ, Hebrews 2.

I answer secondly by denying the minor: for it is false that we were not held as captives by iniquities, by our vain conversation, and by the wrath of God, or indignation on account of sins: since the wrath of God signifies not only punishment and penalty, but also God's very indignation: but we were truly held captive by all these: for captives are detained not only by a judge, or by a lictor or torturer; but also by the prison, by bonds, by the indignation and sentence of the judge. But of all these, as was said just above, we were subject. Hence Hebrews 2 v. 15 we are said to be delivered through Christ from the fear of death: and Osee 13 v. 14 from death itself: and Romans 5 from the wrath of God, that is, from avenging justice: yet we are not said to be redeemed from God, because through redemption we ought not to have been snatched away from God as from an evil, but reconciled to Him as to the highest good, from whom we had been alienated through sin: but we are said to be delivered from His avenging justice, which Romans 1 v. 18 according to the Greek edition is called the wrath of God: which is certainly confirmed, because Galatians 3 v. 13 it is said that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: therefore He redeemed us also from the avenging justice of God: for what else is the execration of the law than the sentence of damnation justly pronounced by God in the law against sinners?

SOCINUS PRESSES ON: The execration of the law does not signify the justice of God, to whom satisfaction was to be made, but the penalty of execration enacted by the law; from which penalty we have been redeemed: but we are not redeemed from that penalty through true redemption, because it would be ridiculous to say that a price for that penalty has been paid, but we are only said to be redeemed from it because we have been exempted from it: therefore, etc.

I answer, that the execration of the law is taken in two ways, namely actively and passively. And indeed passively it signifies the penalty of execration enacted by the law, as Socinus wishes; but actively it is the voice, or sentence, of the law condemning with execration, or the law itself execrating sinners. But what is the voice of the law except the voice of God? And the law execrating, except God execrating, that is, except God angry? And the wrath of God, except justice? Therefore the execration of the law actively signifies the justice of God. Although indeed the Apostle asserts that we have been redeemed from both execrations, both active and passive, through Christ; nevertheless he speaks first of the execration of the law as it is the sentence of the law, or the voice of God execrating; secondarily indeed, as it is the penalty of execration. For there, verse 10, he says: For whosoever are of the works of the law are under a curse: for it is written: Cursed is every one that abideth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them: therefore Socinus contends falsely and unskilfully that the Apostle, by the execration of the law, signifies not the justice of God, from which we are said to be redeemed, but only the penalty of sin.

OBJECTS 4. In a true redemption all these conditions concur: 1. there is some captive: 2. there is some one holding the captive: 3. there is one ransoming the captive from the holder: finally, there is a price, which is paid over to the holder. In the redemption of Christ not all these conditions concur: there is indeed a captive, namely the human race: there is a holder, namely sin, the devil, the world, and what follows upon sin, the guilt of eternal death: there is a ransomer, God, or Christ, through whom God effected our liberation: and there is also a price, Christ Himself, or the life of Christ: but the last condition is wanting, that the price is not paid over to the holder, namely to sin, the devil, etc. Therefore it is not a true redemption.

Or more briefly: in a true redemption the price is received by him who holds the captive: in the redemption of Christ the devil did not receive the price: therefore it answers not at all to a true redemption.

The Anti-Socinian answers, that even if the conclusion were granted — that spiritual and eternal redemption does not exactly answer to all the conditions of external corporal redemption — nevertheless the blasphemy of the ignorant heretic would not stand: seeing that the captivity of spirit and of body, and thus also their redemption, must needs differ in many respects, as we said above. Therefore the major, although it may be true concerning external redemption, can nevertheless be denied concerning spiritual. But whatever may be said of the major, we deny the minor as false in many ways. First, it is false that he who holds us captive — whether alone or chiefly — is the devil, sin, the world, death; for He who first thrust down sinners and holds them in the prison of damnation by His own right is God Himself: but those things which the heretic names hold us not first but secondarily, nor by their own right but by another's — that is, God's — the devil indeed as lictor and apparitor of the judge God, sin as snares, the world as death, as prison tortures. That however we are captives of God first and by right is proved by arguments and testimonies of Scripture.

By arguments indeed: first, because God, Monarch and Judge of all, alone has power to cast body and soul into hell.

Secondly, we are guilty of injury to the divine majesty through sin: To thee only have I sinned: therefore we have been cast off by the divine majesty. Thirdly, we are by nature children of the wrath of God: the wrath of God is revealed from heaven: the wrath of God abideth over unbelievers: therefore we expiate the wrath of God as Judge. Fourthly, we ask not of Satan, but of God, that sins be forgiven us, that is, that the bonds of eternal damnation be loosed: therefore we are bound constrained first not by Satan only, but by God as judge. This very thing also the Scriptural testimonies confirm; for Romans 11: God hath concluded all in unbelief, that he might have mercy on all. Likewise 2 Peter 2: It is God who spared not the angels that sinned, but dragged them down by infernal ropes into tartarus, delivered over to be tormented. How much more men sinning did He deliver over to the power of Satan as of a torturer? The same the parable confirms of the angry king delivering the wicked servant to the torturer. Matthew 18 and 1. For that king is God: and Christ Matthew 25, commanding fraternal forgiveness while we are on the way, lest the judge deliver us to the apparitor, and we be cast into prison. From which it is plain that we are captives through sin by the ordination of God, as of an offended King and judge, first, and by the right of supreme power; but of Satan and sin secondarily, as of a torturer, or of the bonds wherewith God has handed us over by just judgment. Those passages of Scripture indeed which attribute power to Satan over us, 2 Timothy 2:26, Colossians 1:13, etc., speak only of secondary power, which demons have received from God as judge over sinful men, as tyrants; of which Christ says: Thou shouldst not have any power against me, unless it were given thee from above. For God is He who alone hath power over all plagues, Apocalypse 16:9, without whose nod Satan can neither invade then, Matthew 8:31. Blaspheming therefore, the heretic errs, transferring the supreme right of God to the devil.

Note 1. That a twofold necessity can be distinguished as regards the present institution: one of the consequent, another of the consequence. The necessity of the consequent is the necessity of something not only by reason of it from some antecedent, but by reason of itself; when, for example, with the antecedent removed, the consequent remains necessary in itself. In this manner it is necessary that man be risible. Whence, when it is said, man is, therefore he is risible, that consequent is judged necessary of itself; although nothing can be risible unless it be man, as the subject of such a property. The necessity of the consequence is the necessity of something solely by reason of the position of the antecedent, in the way that it is necessary that man be moved if he runs; because, given the running, he cannot but be moved; although both of those things — both to be moved and to run — are simply contingent with respect to man. When therefore it is asked whether it was necessary that the human race be redeemed through the passion of Christ, it is deservedly doubted whether the question is instituted concerning the necessity of the consequent and absolute; or rather concerning the necessity of the consequence, or conditional.

Note 2. Or rather to be recalled from Disp. 1, art. 3, sect. 3, quest. 1: the various positions of St. Anselm set forth around the present difficulty, which Doctor Subtilis in 3. dist. 20 quest. 1 reduces to four propositions. The first is: it was necessary that man be redeemed. Second, man could not be redeemed without satisfaction. Third, that satisfaction could not be exhibited by anyone other than the God-Man. Fourth, that that satisfaction ought to have been made through the death of Christ. Saint Anselm proves the first proposition, book 2 Cur Deus homo, c. 1. Because, he says, God does nothing in vain: but He would have created man in vain had He left him in his sin: therefore God ought, by the necessity of His manner of operating, to redeem man. He proves the second, book 1, chapters 21 and 25. Because, he says, unjust is the man who does not render to God what he owes; he is unjust also if he does not render to man what he owes: but no unjust man is admitted to eternal beatitude: therefore he who does not pay God what he owes shall not be saved: but every sinner took away from God the honour due to Him: therefore until he has satisfied, he is debtor and unjust. Nor can it be said, he says, that man could have been excused on account of impotence, or that it could have been pardoned him through mercy. Not the first, because impotence indeed would excuse, if man had not voluntarily cast himself down into fault: nor the second either, because to say that God remits something through mercy because He cannot otherwise is ridiculous: therefore man ought absolutely to be redeemed through satisfaction. He proves the third; because, he says, there is required on the part of the satisfier that he offer more to God than the whole creature is worth. Finally he proves the fourth, because man had sinned through sweetness: therefore he ought to be redeemed through bitterness: but man can suffer nothing more bitter, or difficult, or greater under God, spontaneously and not out of debt, unto the honour of God than death: therefore Christ Man, who was greater than all, ought to satisfy through death.

Note 3. That God was not lacking innumerable other ways of saving men than through the death of His proper Son, as we proved elsewhere, and Saint Bernard excellently declares, epistle 190, chapter 8, in these words:

Who denies that other and yet other modes of our redemption, justification, liberation were at hand for the Omnipotent? Yet this does not prejudice the efficacy of this one, which He chose out of many. And perhaps this one surpasses, whereby in this land of oblivion, of heaviness, of our fall, we should be admonished more strongly and more vividly by so many and so great afflictions concerning the Restorer. But otherwise no man knows, nor can fully know, how much good toward grace, how much congruity toward wisdom, how much comeliness toward glory, how much profit toward salvation the inscrutable depth of this venerable mystery contains of itself; which depth the Prophet considering trembled, did not penetrate: the Precursor of the Lord judged himself unworthy to penetrate it.

These things premised, two things are here to be determined: First, that Christ did not have to redeem us absolutely, but only conditionally, through His death: Second, that nevertheless He truly redeemed us through His death and passion, the price of His sacred blood being paid.

First Conclusion. — IT WAS NOT SIMPLY NECESSARY THAT MAN BE REDEEMED THROUGH THE DEATH OF CHRIST, BUT ONLY NECESSARY WITH THE NECESSITY OF CONSEQUENCE.

The conclusion is evident on both parts from all those things which we said concerning the satisfaction of Christ, where it was demonstrated that God was not lacking other modes of repairing man than through the death of His Son. Which the SS. Fathers splendidly explain, especially Saint Augustine, lib. 13. De Trinitate chapter 10. Against those who say that God lacked any mode whereby He might free men from sin, he says thus: It is little thus to refute them, so that we assert this mode, whereby God deigns to free us through the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, to be good and congruous to divine dignity: it remains also, that we show that God lacked no other possible mode, since all things lie equally subject to His power. But throughout that whole chapter and the following ones he shows only the congruity of this sort. — Then he shows that another was possible, chapter 13, at the beginning, in these words: But the devil was to be overcome not by the power of God, but by justice: for whose power is mightier than the Omnipotent? Or can the power of any creature be compared with the power of the Creator? He feels therefore that God could have freed us in another way, if He had wished to use His power. The same the other Fathers teach. Saint Leo, sermon De Nativitate, chapter 3, where he says: When the mercy of God had ineffably many resources available for repairing the human race, He chose this way of consoling above all, whereby for destroying the work of the devil He used not the power of might, but the plan of justice. And sermon 12 De Passione Domini has the same. To these accords Saint Gregory, book 17 Moral., chapter 18, and likewise the other SS. Fathers commemorated by us in treating of the satisfaction of Christ the Lord.

Therefore it must be gathered with the Doctor,

that it was not necessary that Christ Man redeem man through death except by the necessity of consequence, namely supposing that He ordained to redeem him thus: just as if I run, I die: this is the necessity of consequence: but the antecedent is simply contingent, and likewise the consequent, namely my running and my being moved. Similarly Christ's suffering death was contingent, just as it was contingent that He provide Himself about to suffer: there is therefore no necessity except of consequence, namely if He was provided to suffer, He will suffer: but both the antecedent and the consequent were contingent.

Thus the Subtle Doctor. From which he infers, number 10,

that Christ suffered on account of justice: for he saw the evils of the Jews, who held Him, and how they were afflicted by disordered affection and distortion toward their law, nor did they permit a man to be healed on the sabbath, and yet they drew out an ox or a sheep from a pit on the sabbath, and many other things: therefore Christ, wishing to recall them from that error through deeds and words, preferred to die rather than not to do so, because then truth was to be spoken to the Jews, and thus He died for justice. Yet in fact He ordered His passion by His grace, and offered it to the Father for us, and thus we are much bound to Him: since indeed man could otherwise have been redeemed, and yet out of His liberal will He redeemed him thus, we shall be much bound to Him, and more than if we had been redeemed thus necessarily, and could not have been otherwise; therefore to allure us to His love, as I believe, He did this especially, because He willed man to be more bound to God: just as if someone first begat a man, and afterwards instructed him in discipline and holiness, he would be more obliged to him than if he had only begotten him, and another had instructed him; but this is utility, not necessity.

OBJECTS 1. If Christ's passion had not been absolutely necessary, it ought not to have been ordained by God: but it was ordained: therefore it was absolutely necessary for man's salvation. The major is proved: God ought not to have ordained the privation and loss of so great a good as is the life of Christ, unless He judged this absolutely necessary for attaining the end ordained: for no wise man spends a thing of the highest price to obtain what he could attain that is of lesser utility and price.

I deny the major: God indeed ordained this, not from necessity, but from infinite love toward men, and the exceeding charity wherewith He burned toward the human race, as we declared elsewhere, and as the Doctor declares presently.

OBJECTS 2. Any good act of Christ was sufficient satisfaction: therefore satisfaction and redemption through the death of Christ was not necessary, even with the necessity of consequence. The antecedent is proved: because any act, as act, is something better than a passion. Then, any act of Christ, since it hangs from His person alone, has greater dignity than a passion which is undergone at the hands of others. Finally, that is more acceptable to God which has no crime whatsoever annexed than that which is infected with some consequent crime: but any act whatever of Christ had nothing, neither of itself nor consequently, that savoured of crime; but the passion of Christ had annexed the crimes of those crucifying Him: therefore it seems to have been of less dignity and utility for the redemption of men than any one of His acts.

I deny the consequence: for although an act is more excellent than a passion, yet since God had ordained that men be redeemed rather through a passion than through acts, hence it is that by the necessity of consequence it was more fitting that the human race be redeemed through the passion of Christ than through His acts.

The Doctor adds, number 11. Although any good act is better than a passion, which does not arise from the command of a good act; nevertheless the act whereby some passion is commanded is more praiseworthy than the act of virtue which was exercised about a delightful object; whence, he says, the act of virtue about the sorrowful is more meritorious than the act of virtue about the delightful, and passions voluntarily concurring with the act of virtue are together more meritorious when accepted than the act alone. Hence the Saviour said of Paul, Acts 9: I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake: He did not say: how great things he must do. Therefore Christ's willing thus to suffer proceeded from intense love of the end and of us, whereby He loved us for God's sake.

OBJECTS 3. Christ through His death could not redeem those who themselves inflicted death upon Him: therefore neither the whole human race. The antecedent is proved: because so great an evil was the action depriving Christ of life as so great a good was the life of Christ. Moreover: the hatred of those killing Christ was of malice as great as the friendship of Christ was of goodness: therefore since punishment ought to be greater than fault, Christ could not satisfy for His own crucifiers.

The Doctor denies the antecedent, and to its proof says: First according to the doctrine of Saint Anselm, that perhaps the sin of Christ's crucifiers was not graver than other sins, because perhaps they did not know Christ to be God. For, as the Apostle speaks, 1 Corinthians 2: If they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. — But since the Doctor judges the Apostle not to speak of the Jews, but of the demons, who if they had known Christ to be God would never have instigated men to inflict death upon Him, lest through it the human race be redeemed, and lest their power be made void, he answers secondly the same,

that there is no sin even of Christ's crucifiers which was not expiable even through His passion, because none could be so abominable or odious to God but that the voluntary offering of Christ for expiating the sins of men was more pleasing to Him: because that action had perfection from supernatural charity, from which it proceeded, and moreover from the circumstance of the person of Christ, by reason of which any sin whatsoever ought rather to displease more than please. And if it had not such goodness of itself, it could nevertheless be accepted by God as satisfaction; just as a more meritorious act of eternal life, which does not attain its dignity, would still be accepted by God as a condign merit.

Second Conclusion. — CHRIST TRULY REDEEMED US THROUGH HIS DEATH AND PASSION, AND ASSERTED OUR SPIRITUAL AND HEAVENLY LIBERTY.

Saint the Apostle hands down and commends this truth above all others, especially to Romans 5, where he says: But God commendeth his charity towards us: because when as yet we were sinners according to the time, Christ died for us. Much more therefore being justified now by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him. And to Ephesians 1: In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins. And to Colossians 1: It hath pleased him... by him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things on earth, and the things that are in heaven. And you whereas you were some time alienated and enemies in mind in evil works, yet now he hath reconciled in the body of his flesh through death.

The dignity of that price of infinite worth whereby we have been redeemed Saint Peter thus explains, Epistle 1, chapter 1: You were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers: but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled.

The same truth the SS. Fathers illustrate in a wondrous manner. Especially indeed Saint Chrysostom, who weighing that passage of the Apostle to Romans 5: If by one man's offence death reigned through one, much more they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift and of justice shall reign in life through one Jesus Christ: after he had observed that Paul did not say grace simply, but abundance of grace: for, he says, we received only so much from grace as was needed to extinguish sin, but far more; then subjoins this: Just as therefore, if someone cast into prison one owing ten obols: not him alone, but together with him also cast his wife, and children, and servants on his account; then another coming should count out not ten obols only, but lavish innumerable talents of gold, and lead that captive into the Palace, and seat him upon the throne of the supreme Magistrate, and make him partaker of the highest honour and of all remaining splendour, so that the moneylender could no longer make mention of those ten obols; so has it been done in us. Did Christ pay back far more than we owed, and so much more, as an insignificant drop exceeds an immense sea.

Speaking of that same price of the blood of Christ Gregory Nazianzen says: Yet none is to be compared with the miracle of my salvation (he says); a few little drops of blood reforming the whole world, made like the rennet of milk to all men, gathering and congregating us into one. And Basil, in Homily on Psalm 48, splendidly and magnificently preaches much concerning the condescension of this Redeemer on these

words of the Psalm: He shall not fear when his own house shall be enriched, and when his glory shall be increased. For where he says: What indeed can so great a thing find man, that he give for the redemption of his soul? But one thing is found for liberating all men together, which is expended as the price of the redemption of our souls: namely the holy and precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He shed for us all. Whence we are redeemed with a price. If therefore a brother redeem not, shall a man redeem? Wherefore since man cannot redeem us, He who redeemed us is not man.

The same truth Saint Augustine preaches luminously, sermon 122 De Tempore: Thou hast paid, he says, for me the price of redemption: O precious price of the lost! etc. Let the redeemed earth say to Him, earth irrigated, redeemed by blood, irrigated by baptism: Great is my iniquity: but greater is thy redemption. Let therefore the adversary of my human race hear the voice of my Lord, and no longer applaud himself in his pride; because for the crime of the whole world our Lord Jesus Christ lost himself upon the cross. And in that sermon which was numbered 114 De Tempore and banished to the appendix of the rejected: Today our Lord weighed upon the balance of the cross the price of our salvation, and by one death absolved the whole world, as He was the creator of all, so also the restorer of all. For let us believe without doubt that He redeemed the whole world who gave more than the whole world was worth. For the merit of the ransom surpassed the dignity of the outstanding price; between the redeemed and the redeemer there was a dispensation, there was no compensation. — Leo also I, sermon 12 De Passione Domini: With the blood of Christ shed forth, he says, the dominion of liberty was more firmly established than the debt of servitude. And in sermon 1 De Ascensione: We have gained more, he says, through the ineffable grace of Christ than we had lost through the envy of the devil. — Thus Peter the Venerable in that little book inscribed against Peter Abaelardus: for the eternal torment of man, he says, the temporal torment of God and man was offered; for the eternal death of man the temporal death of God and man, which is known to be of such weight in the scale of His very justice, that for justly ordering the sins of the world the transitory death of the Son of God far outweighed the eternal death of the sons of men. Plainly more was rendered to justice when Christ died than is compensated when man is damned. Justice therefore has whatever is its own, because the Son of God died for the sins of men. — Anselm likewise, book 2 Cur Deus homo, chapter 19, says that Christ spontaneously gave to God something of such a kind for His honour, with which nothing that God is not can be compared, and which can compensate for the debts of all men. And in the following chapter: What more just, than that he, to whom is given a price greater than every debt, if it be given with affection of debt, remit every debt?

WHETHER AND WHEN CHRIST MERITED.

NOTE 1. The primary function of Christ as Mediator and Redeemer is not only to establish reconciliation and peace between God and men, but also to merit for them grace and eternal life, and by meriting to make satisfaction to the Father angry on account of their offenses. It must be known, however, that calling, merit, satisfaction, redemption, and mediation are various appellations which, according as they are viewed in different ways, befit one and the same action of Christ; for the voluntary oblation of Christ unto death was at once meritorious, satisfactory, redemptive, and mediatorial. Meritorious indeed, inasmuch as it was a free action performed in grace, and in the state of wayfaring, in obedience and for the glory of God: satisfactory, inasmuch as it was offered to God in compensation for the injury inflicted by our sins: redemptive, inasmuch as through it Christ rescued us from the captivity of the devil and of sin: finally mediatorial, because, as the Apostle says, 2 Cor. 5, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing to them their sins. Nevertheless all these seem in some degree to differ among themselves, for merit signifies some right to a reward and price, which properly and per se ought not to belong to satisfaction. Moreover, merit extends to more objects than satisfaction does, because the satisfaction of Christ regards only our sins, whereas merit regards the Angels and Christ himself, since he merited many things for himself. Likewise satisfaction is distinguished from redemption in that the former regards principally the person offended, and less principally the person on whose behalf satisfaction is made; while the latter regards principally the person who is set free, and quasi-secondarily either the person through whose service he is set free, or those things from which his liberation is made. Finally mediation is distinguished from all of these inasmuch as it equally regards two extremes, or two persons, whom it mutually reconciles.

NOTE 2. In general a twofold merit is assigned by theologians: one of condignity, the other of congruity. Merit of condignity is said to be that to which the recompense or reward is owed from condignity, or from justice: but that merit is called of congruity to which compensation is not indeed owed from justice; yet it is rendered from a certain fittingness and honorableness. Now for merit of condignity six conditions are required. First, that the work be morally good, namely from its object and all its circumstances; for, as St. Augustine says in the book On Grace and Free Will, chapter 6, The Lord does not crown evil works: since just as evil works do not deserve praise but blame, so neither do they deserve reward, but punishment. — The second condition is that the meritorious action be voluntary and free, because with respect to natural acts we neither merit nor demerit. Whence the Apostle, 1 Cor. 9, If I do this willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation is committed to me: what then is my reward? And St. Augustine, book 2, chapter 1, On Free Choice: How would that good exist, whereby justice itself is commended in condemning sins and honorable deeds are held in honor, if man lacked the free choice of his will? — Third, merit must be an act of man the wayfarer, for the Blessed and the damned, because they are at the term, can neither merit nor demerit. Whence the Apostle to the Galatians 6, Whilst we have time, let us work good. The Subtle Doctor sets forth the reason for this in book 2, distinction 6, question 2, namely because merit proceeds from an affection of justice, and that in a twofold manner: namely either by loving God with the love of friendship in himself, or by moderating appetite on his account; but when we are only wayfarers, the occasion offers itself of moderating the affections of our own advantage; because only in this state can we inordinately will our own advantage; whence it follows that for the notion of merit the one meriting must exist in the state of wayfaring. — Fourth, that the meritorious act proceed from a man existing in the state of grace and friendship with God; for if the subject is not pleasing to God, all his works cannot be pleasing to him. Whence the Apostle, 1 Cor. 13, If I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. — Fifth, the meritorious act must be referred to God as to its proper end and object. For just as, the Doctor says in book 1, distinction 1, question 6, the love of concupiscence is properly the root of all demerit, so the love of divine friendship is the root of all merit: but the love of friendship is an elicited act conformable to the superior rule, which is the supernatural dictate of reason, or a certain knowledge deduced or revealed concerning the things necessary for salvation, according to which as often as we act, so often are we borne by the love of friendship toward God; and consequently with an affection of justice, in which love and affection disorder cannot occur, for the object of it is supremely right and supremely rectifying actions; and thereupon for the notion of a meritorious act it is necessary that it be referred to God with an affection of justice, or the love of friendship. — Sixth and last, it is necessary that there be present on the part of God a covenant and promise; and on the part of the one acting, or meriting, an ordination of the work toward obtaining the reward; because without such a promise and ordination God cannot be obligated to anyone to render a reward. This condition the Council of Trent clearly designates, session 6, chapter 16, when it says: for those who work well even unto the end, and who work in God, eternal life is to be proposed, both as a grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Jesus Christ, and as a reward faithfully to be rendered for their good works and merits by the promise of God himself.

NOTE 3. Four times or instants can be distinguished concerning which the controversy may be whether Christ merited in it: namely either the instant of conception and formation: or the intervening time from his conception up to the last instant of death: or the very instant of death: finally the time which followed after death up to the resurrection, and the immortal and beatific state of his body. Hence the opinion of theologians is fourfold. The first denies that Christ merited in the first instant of conception. Thus the Alexandrine, part 3, q. 17, m. 2, art. 1. To him subscribes St. Bonaventure, book 3, d. 18, art. 10, q. 2. The second asserts that Christ merited not only in this mortal life, but also after death, especially when his blood was poured out from his transfixed side. The third extends the merit of Christ up to the instant initiatory of death and terminative of life. Thus Cajetan, 2-2, q. 124, art. 1. The fourth, finally, more common and truer, teaches that Christ did indeed merit from the first instant of conception up to the last instant immediately preceding death.

First conclusion. — CHRIST TRULY AND PROPERLY MERITED FOR US THE GRACE OF REDEMPTION AND RECONCILIATION WITH GOD.

This is of faith, and is gathered from Isaiah 53, If he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed. And for that he labored, his soul shall see and be filled. By his knowledge shall this my just servant justify many, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I distribute to him very many, and he shall divide the spoils of the strong, because he hath delivered his life unto death, etc. Even as the Apostle declares in his epistle to the Philippians, He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross: For which cause God also hath exalted him, etc. In which places there is contained, as it were, a certain stipulation and pact of God with the man Christ: and indeed of such a kind, that if he should wish to spend his death upon men to be redeemed, then they would be admitted to grace and to the hope of recovering salvation: then he himself for his part would acquire glory, and God immortality.

There also supports this a reason, because all the conditions required for merit were truly and perfectly in Christ. First, indeed, his acts were free, and freely he took upon himself the burden of redemption imposed on him by the Father. For he was offered because he willed it, Isaiah 53. Hence John 10 he said himself: Therefore doth the Father love me: because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No man taketh it away from me: but I lay it down of myself: and I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. — Second, his actions were morally good and honorable, both from their object and from their circumstances, as he himself testifies, John 8, saying, I do always the things that please him. — Third, his humanity was supremely pleasing and acceptable to God by reason of the grace of union and habitual and actual sanctification. — Fourth, he ordered all his acts to the glory of God, as he testifies in many places, especially John 8 in these words, I seek not my own glory, but the glory of him that sent me. — Fifth, his state was that of a wayfarer. For although Christ according to his mind, or higher part, was comprehensor from the instant of his conception, nevertheless according to the lower part, and inasmuch as he bestowed upon his body vegetative and sensitive life, and inasmuch as he was the principle of the passions or animal affections of the sensitive appetite, he was a wayfarer also according to his soul: whence simultaneously in the same soul of Christ were found the joy of the comprehensor and the sadness of the wayfarer, as we said when treating of the Passions of Christ. Wherefore Jeremiah prophesies of him, chapter 14, The expectation of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble: why wilt thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night? — Finally, that a covenant intervened is evident from the words of Isaiah praised above, concerning which covenant Rupert treats most excellently in the first book of his commentaries on Genesis, chapter 31, where he accommodates to Christ that covenant which God entered into with Noah and his posterity after the flood, when he said: My covenant shall be established with you. We say, he says, that the covenant is not often indeed promised, but one and entered into once. One covenant, I say, by which alone the enmities are dissolved, which existed between God and men: the Incarnation, or the Passion of Christ the Son of God. Thither without any contradiction the constitution of peace stands ratified with the reason of giving and receiving, while God receives faith from men, and gives to men the same Christ his Son, that we may be saved through him. But this faith God exacted from men through the Mediator and Arbitrator, and as it were feudal champion, Christ the Lord, who stipulated on behalf of the human race. Moreover in chapter 36 Rupert explains more openly the force of this covenant thus: In this, he says, God struck a covenant with men through Christ his Son, whereby, reconciling us to himself in him dying on the cross, he washed us from our sins in his blood, and gave us through him the holy spirit of his charity.

You will object 1. Christ could not sin: therefore neither could he merit. The consequence is proved: if he could not sin, he must have been perfectly joined to the ultimate end: but he who is perfectly joined to the ultimate end cannot merit, otherwise the Blessed, so joined to God, could merit: therefore if Christ could not sin, neither could he merit. — I deny the consequence, and of the proof of it I distinguish the major: he must have been perfectly joined to the ultimate end with respect to both affections, of justice and of advantage, I deny: with respect to the affection of justice only, I concede. And similarly, with the minor distinguished, I deny the consequence. For Christ was indeed perfectly joined to God as regards the affection of justice: For the superior portion in Christ, says the Doctor, number 16, is joined to God by the glory quieting that portion, and by the affection of justice the whole man, so that he could not sin; he could however suffer, because something could happen against the affection of advantage, and that Christ could ordinate and accept, and thus merit. So the Doctor, by which words he signifies that although Christ was so perfectly joined to God by the affection of justice that he could not turn away from him by sin, and thus by reason of that union he could not sin, nevertheless because that union did not prevent him from being able to suffer something freely, since he was not perfectly joined by the affection of advantage and of delightful good as regards the lower portion, hence it is that although he could not sin, yet he could merit.

You will object 2. Christ always enjoyed God: therefore he never merited. The consequence is proved: because if he could merit, then most of all either by the same act of fruition, or by a distinct one: not by the same, because of the notion of a meritorious act it belongs that it be elicited contingently, so that the will, insofar as it is prior by natural priority to that act, can contingently elicit it or not elicit it: but the beatific act of fruition, since it is necessary, cannot be contingently elicited: therefore neither can it be meritorious. Nor even by a distinct act, because the act of fruition is adequate to the power; for the power enjoys God as much as it can, and spends every effort in eliciting love of him: therefore it cannot have another act concerning God. — I deny the consequence, and to the proof of it I say that Christ was able to merit by an act of the lower portion of the soul, which was distinct from the act of fruition belonging to the higher portion; for although that fruition was an act adequate to the higher portion of the soul, that did not prevent him from being able, according to the lower portion, to have another act, which is in some way referred to God: for although a meritorious act ought to presuppose the love of friendship of God, it is not nevertheless necessary that it be the love of friendship of God, because it can be immediately love of a thing as of an object loved on account of God.

You will insist. Christ ought to have merited according to acts of the soul as it is an understanding and free faculty: but as such it is not the lower but the higher part of man: therefore if Christ could not merit according to the higher portion, by no means could he merit. — I distinguish the minor: the soul, as understanding and free, is the higher part of man insofar as it is occupied immediately about divine and eternal things, I concede: insofar as it is occupied about temporal and created things, I deny. Now the soul of Christ, as understanding and willing, could merit by that same reason by which it gave life to the body and moved it to acts, and voluntarily accepted all the bitter things of pain and sorrow, which both the body and itself had to endure in the Passion, that it might comply with the eternal Father, who had decreed and commanded such acts or passions.

Second conclusion. — Christ merited in the first instant of his conception.

This is common to both the Angelic and the Subtle school, and is gathered from Hebrews 10, where the Apostle says of Christ: When he cometh into the world, he saith: Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest not... then said I: Behold I come. In the head of the book it is written of me, that I should do thy will, O God. There the Apostle says pointedly, coming into the world, not indeed after he had come; that he might signify that in the very first instant of his union and formation he devoted himself to the Father as a victim. From these things one may argue thus: that voluntary oblation, whereby Christ, coming into the world, devoted himself as a victim to passion and death for the glory of his divine Father, was meritorious: but such an oblation occurred in the first instant of his formation: therefore in that instant Christ merited. The major is evident: since such oblation and acceptance of death was free and from charity, and had the other conditions required for merit. Hence the Apostle subjoins of it there: in which will we are sanctified by the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ once: but the will, or operation, by which Christ sanctified us, was satisfactory and meritorious. The minor also is clear from the words of the Apostle, since, as we have observed, he said notably, coming into the world, which signifies the first instant of his formation. — Moreover this is also gathered from this, that Christ said, then said I, etc.; for the word then refers to that passage, but a body thou hast fitted to me, that is, to that instant at which God fitted to him a body for immolation and sacrifice. But this adaptation was made in the first instant of the formation of his body: therefore, etc.

The Doctor proves the conclusion, distinction 18, number 11, with this reason: Christ in the first instant of his conception had all that which was required for a meritorious act: therefore in that instant he could merit. The consequence is plain: since there must be attributed to Christ the Savior all that which most conduces to the glory of God and to the salvation of men for that instant at which he can operate it, seeing that it redounds most greatly to his glory and to the completion of his ministry. But the antecedent is proved: since in that first instant the human nature of Christ, for that instant in which it was united to the Word, had an act of will free, supernatural, pleasing to God, acceptable, and affected with the other conditions required for merit; indeed in that instant he had vision and beatific love, and knew very many creatures in the Word, and consequently beheld the lot and state of men whom he could save if he willed. And since through beatific love and sanctifying grace he burned with supreme charity, there is no doubt that in that very instant he offered himself to the Father as a victim for the salvation of men: therefore for that instant he merited. — It is confirmed: if anything stood in the way of Christ's being able to merit in the first instant, it would be especially because merit consists in free operation, which he could not have in the first instant of the formation of Christ: both because operating follows upon being, and because a free act requires consultation, and since consultation consists in discourse and comparison, it cannot be exercised in an instant: but this reason is null, since for a meritorious and free action it is not required that the cause, or principle, precede in time its operation, or elicited act; but it suffices that it precede by priority of nature, and consequently can be simultaneous with it. Whence just as in the same instant in which the sun began to be, in that same it also began to illuminate, so Christ, since in the first instant of his conception he possessed the fullness of speculative and practical science, and an intellect perfectly illuminated, and a will ready and perfect in all respects, in order to exercise a meritorious and voluntary act, needed neither consultation nor deliberation of counsel in order to elicit that act freely, and consequently no time was required of him that he might exercise that meritorious act.

You will object 1. A meritorious act must come about contingently, because it proceeds from a will freely determining itself to act: but Christ in the first instant of his formation could not have a contingent act: because whatever is, when it is, must necessarily be: therefore neither meritorious. The minor is proved: an act cannot be contingent unless inasmuch as its cause precedes its act in time, and can elicit it: but a will having an act for the first instant of its existence does not precede that act in time: therefore if the will of Christ had an act for the first instant of its formation, that act could not be contingent and free, nor consequently meritorious. — I distinguish the major: it must come about contingently, that is, it must proceed from a will freely determining itself to elicit that act, I concede: that is, it must proceed from a will existing prior in time and determining itself to elicit that act, I deny. Whence I deny the minor, and to its proof I say: whatever is, when it is, must necessarily be; in the composite sense, on the supposition that it exists, I concede: in the divided sense, so that what is for this instant could not absolutely fail to be for the same instant if the will had not willed to determine itself to it, I deny. Or otherwise I say with the Doctor, number 17: whatever is, when it is, must necessarily be in the mode in which it is, I concede: otherwise, I deny. Hence when a contingent being is, it is true that it is necessarily contingent: but it does not follow thence that it is a necessary being, and thus it is necessarily, not necessary.

You will object 2. Two changes whose terminus of one precedes the terminus of the other cannot be simultaneous in the same instant of duration: but the will, which is the terminus of the creative change whereby it itself is produced, must necessarily be presupposed to the volition which is the terminus of the change whereby the will moves itself so as to pass from not willing to willing: therefore the change whereby the will is produced cannot be simultaneous with that whereby the will operates. — I distinguish the major, says the Doctor: those changes cannot be simultaneous with a simultaneity opposed to that priority which one of the termini ought to have with respect to the other, he concedes the major: with another simultaneity not opposed to it, he denies the major. Similarly the minor must be distinguished: it must be presupposed in time, I deny: in nature, I concede. Therefore since between those changes the order of time is not observed, but only of nature, therefore also between their termini the order of time need not necessarily be observed, but of nature; and consequently since the will of the soul of Christ and its act could be simultaneous in time, in the same instant of time in which the will existed, it could merit through that simultaneous act.

Third conclusion. — Christ merited throughout the whole time of his life.

This likewise is common, and

He fulfilled the office of Mediator: but the chief office of Savior and Redeemer is to merit for us those things which are necessary for salvation, and to pay to the eternal Father the satisfaction due for our offenses: therefore he merited throughout the whole time of his life. The major is evident: indeed among the other titles of glory by which Christ is celebrated, he is specially called Jesus and Savior. Hence Luke 1, the Angel, messenger of the Incarnation, addressing the Virgin says: And thou shalt call his name Jesus. And chapter 2, the Angels announcing the nativity of Christ to the Shepherds said: This day is born to you a Saviour; and consequently for this above all he had come, that he might fulfill the office of Savior and Redeemer. The minor also is evident: indeed he could not fulfill the role of the most perfect Savior and Redeemer without making satisfaction most perfectly to the eternal Father for our debts, and meriting for us his grace and glory, and restoring us to our pristine dignity and liberty lost through sin. But all these things he could not effect except by his merits and good works: therefore, etc.

It is confirmed: If there were any time in which it could be thought that Christ had not merited something for us, especially the time of his infancy: but at that very time Christ merited our salvation by his merits: therefore, etc. The major is evident: since at that time especially Christ seems to have been less apt and disposed to merit anything for us, seeing that he elicited no external acts, nor did he seem to suffer anything voluntarily, by which he could most be thought to merit anything. But the minor St. Ambrose proves, book 2, on Luke, chapter On the Nativity of the Savior, where among other things he says:

He therefore was a little child, an infant, that thou mightest be a perfect man: he was safe in swaddling clothes, that thou mightest be loosed from the snares of death: he was in the manger, that thou mightest be on the altars; he was on earth, that thou mightest be in heaven: he had no other place in that lodging, that thou mightest have many mansions in the heavens... Therefore that poverty of his is my inheritance, and the infirmity of the Lord my strength: he chose to be in want himself, that I might abound... His weeping infancy washes me clean; those tears of mine washed away my faults: therefore more, Lord Jesus, do I owe to thy injuries, that I am redeemed, than to thy works, that I am created.

But in no other way could Christ procure these things for us except by way of merit: therefore St. Ambrose acknowledges in the tears, the swaddling clothes, and the humility of Christ's infancy, the merit we contend for. To him subscribes St. Augustine, sermon 11, On the Seasons, where he speaks thus of Christ: Let us adore the swaddling clothes of his infancy, from which were made the plasters of our nature. And St. Bernard, sermon 2, On Circumcision: Deservedly indeed, he says, while the child who is given to us is circumcised, he is called Savior, namely because from this he had already begun to work our salvation by shedding that immaculate blood for us. In which words those holy Fathers plainly signify that Christ merited for us even by his infancy.

You will say: The acts of Christ were meritorious insofar as they were pleasing to the divine Father and accepted by him in order to the salvation of men: but only his passion seems to have been accepted for that end, since concerning it alone the divine covenant intervened, as is evident from the aforesaid prophecy of Isaiah, If he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed: therefore Christ the Lord is not to be said to have meditated upon and worked out our salvation through all the acts of his life. — I deny the minor: for although the acceptance and divine covenant appears most especially with regard to the passion and death of Christ, nevertheless other operations of Christ are not lacking as being meritorious, because that covenant is expressed only on the hypothesis that the Son of God willed to accept and ordain his passion for the benefit of our redemption, especially since all the acts and penalities of Christ were ordained to the passion as to the perfect completion of our satisfaction and redemption. Whence it must be said, says the Alexandrine, member 3, article 2, that every work of Christ before the Passion was meritorious for us: but the Passion was meritorious and satisfactory for us: meritorious of eternal life, and satisfactory with respect to remission of punishment.

You ask: whether all the actions of Christ were meritorious, so that none were indifferent, such as, for example, the actions which we are wont to elicit either for our own advantage or without perfect deliberation and liberty of will. — I answer, that it seems more probable that all the actions of Christ were meritorious, because Christ the Lord did nothing at all for his own advantage, and whatever he wrought he always wrought with full deliberation and supreme liberty of will.

Fourth conclusion. — Christ merited for us up to the instant of death, but not after the instant of death, nor after death.

The first part is evident, because up to the last instant of death Christ had all the conditions required for merit, as is sufficiently clear from what has been said: therefore up to that instant he must be judged to have worked out our salvation.

But the second part of the Conclusion is intimated: because the state of wayfaring required for merit signifies the conjunction and union of soul with a passible and mortal body: but in the physical instant of death the soul of Christ was not united to a mortal body, for according to the common opinion of Philosophers living things cease to be through their first not-being, and consequently in the instant of Christ's death it was true to say: now for the first time Christ is not, as man, living a mortal life; and consequently in that instant the soul of Christ was not united to a mortal body.

Finally the third part is sufficiently evident from what has been said, since one of the chief conditions required for merit is the state of wayfarer: but after death Christ was no longer a wayfarer, whence he said John 9, I must work the works of him that sent me, whilst it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work, that is, merit: but by night St. Chrysostom, Homily 53 on John, and Augustine, tractate 44, understand the time after this life: therefore Christ the Lord could not merit after the instant of his death.

You will say: The death of Christ, and the wound inflicted on his side, and the blood flowing from it with water had the character of merit: therefore in truth Christ merited at the instant of death and after death. The antecedent is proved: both because we are said to be redeemed by the death of Christ, as the Apostle signifies in many places; and because the holy Fathers teach that the blood and water flowing from the side of Christ possessed the greatest power, and thence also flowed the sacraments: thus St. Leo, Epistle 1, chapter 6. Then, he says, he ratified the power of regeneration when from his side flowed forth the blood of redemption and the water of baptism. The same is taught by very many of the holy Fathers, especially Ambrose, book 12, on John, chapter 29, where he calls the blood and water flowing from the side of Christ a certain origin and firstfruits of mystical benediction and sacred Baptism. — I answer, that the death of Christ and that inflicted wound are to be judged meritorious insofar as Christ still living, and foreseeing what he was about to suffer, not only in death but also after death, voluntarily accepted all those things and offered them to God the Father with an anticipated and previous affection in expiation of our offenses and for the securing of our salvation. Nor does it matter that the holy Fathers say that the flow of that blood and water issuing from the side of Christ signifies two sacraments; for thence it does not follow that Christ by that effusion of blood and water merited that divine power which the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist possess for meriting the salvation of men; but only that those two sacraments were most especially foreshadowed and expressed in that effusion of water and blood.

You ask: whether Christ had one single merit continued from the instant of conception to the extremity of his life, or rather manifold. — I answer, that it seems more probable that he had manifold merit, by reason of the diverse acts which he elicited; for just as he who with one continued will of pleasing God fasts and gives alms has a twofold merit, so it is likewise probable that Christ, through that will whereby he continuously pleased the eternal Father, according to John 8, I do always the things that please him, since he exercised diverse virtues, had diverse merits. Nor does it matter that he had one will of making satisfaction for us, from which will all his acts proceeded; for, as we said just now, the continuation of the same effect and will of pleasing God does not hinder him from having exercised more virtues, and consequently he could have had diverse merits.

Or rather, from what has been said it must be recalled that Christ was simultaneously wayfarer and comprehensor. Wayfarer, I say, according to the lower portion, inasmuch namely as his soul informed a passible and mortal body, bestowing on it a living, vegetative, and sensitive grade, and inasmuch as he was the principle of the passions or animal affections of the sensitive appetite; but comprehensor according to his mind, or higher part, in respect of which his soul had being and operating independently of the body, and elicited its own operations of intellect and will, in which he clearly saw God and enjoyed his divinity. Whence, as the Doctor most excellently observes, d. 18, the state of Christ the Blessed differed from the state of other Blessed ones, since the other Blessed are joined to God most perfectly according to both affections, of justice and of advantage, with respect to the higher portion, and thence no disadvantage is left regarding the lower portion; but Christ was indeed so joined to God beatifically through the affection of justice, by which he adhered to him through vision and love, but not through the affection of advantage and pleasure, since he still lay subject to many disadvantages and penalities according to the lower portion, and consequently he did not adhere to God beatifically most perfectly and completely.

NOTE 2. Although the same soul institutes the inner and higher portion, nevertheless its acts are one sort according to the higher part and another according to the inner part, as is evident per se. Theologians agree among themselves that Christ without doubt merited through the acts of the lower portion, since according to it he was perfectly a wayfarer; but they dispute among themselves concerning the acts of the higher portion: especially through the acts of charity both toward God and toward neighbor. St. Thomas, part 3, question 19, article 3, ad 1, and with him all his disciples teach indeed that Christ merited through charity toward God; but since that act of charity seems necessary — for Christ, as clearly and intuitively seeing the divine essence, necessarily loved God, since God clearly seen ravishes the will into love of himself and quasi-necessitates it, as St. Thomas teaches, 2-2, q. art. 1, in these words: The will of one seeing the essence of God loves out of necessity under order toward God — to solve this difficulty some of his disciples, with Soto, book 1, On Nature, chapter 1, and Suarez, distinction 39, section 2, distinguish in Christ two dilections toward God: one regulated by blessed science, the other regulated by supernatural and infused science; and assert the first to be necessary, but the other free and meritorious. Others distinguish two other acts of charity in Christ, each regulated by blessed science: one whereby Christ loved goods intrinsic to God, namely his divine essence, perfections, persons, etc.; the other whereby he willed goods extrinsic to him, namely glory, praise, honor, and obedience which are exhibited to him by creatures; whence they assert that he merited not through the first act of charity but through the second. Thus teaches Lorca, d. 72, chapter 2. Some assert that the dilection of Christ was terminated to the divine goodness, and that as it is the reason of loving and willing goods intrinsic to him it was not free, nor consequently meritorious: but as it was terminated to the divine goodness inasmuch as that is the reason of loving creatures and of willing God extrinsic goods, it was not, they say, necessary, but free, and consequently meritorious. Thus Capreolus, distinction 19, book 3. But the rest, oppressed by the difficulty of the argument, incline to the position of the Subtle Doctor, who affirms that Christ the Lord merited not only through the actions of the inner portion, but also through the actions of the higher portion, especially through acts of charity toward neighbor, whom he beheld in the Word, as well as through the act of beatific charity regarding God clearly seen.

NOTE 3. That Christ exercised acts of two kinds, of which some were commanded, as the Passion and death, which were prescribed and ordained for him; whence he calls death the chalice which the Father gave him. Others indeed were not commanded and prescribed by God, nor did Christ elicit them from the motive of obedience, but from the motive of other virtues: for instance, either of mercy while he cured the infirm, or almsgiving while he fed the hungry, or mortification while he watched and fasted, or devotion while he spent the night in prayer to God, or religion while he went up to the temple to adore and pray. All Theologians agree that he merited through acts which were not prescribed, but since he was impeccable and would not seem free regarding prescribed acts, because liberty in obedience to a precept consists in an acquired power to obey or not obey; hence some Theologians judge more probably that he did not merit through commanded acts, since it does not appear by what reason he had sufficient liberty that he might exercise those acts meritoriously. But others, affirming that he merited even through those acts, split into various parties: for some, that they may reconcile the liberty of Christ with his impeccability, teach that there was not imposed upon Christ a strict prescription obliging under guilt to dying and suffering, but only the will of God was intimated, which had decreed that men could not be redeemed except through his death. Thus Lorca, d. 73. They concede indeed, given that command of dying, that Christ could not fail to die; this necessity however, they say, was not antecedent but consequent upon the liberty of Christ, because he had freely asked of the Father that this command be imposed on him, and freely accepted it: but consequent necessity does not impede liberty. Thus Cabrera. Some, with Lugo, assert indeed that Christ had a command of dying which he could not fail to accept; nevertheless he died freely, because that command did not oblige to dying for that instant at which it was posited. Whence Christ could, before that time of fulfilling pressed on, ask and obtain from the Father its dispensation or commutation, and consequently he died freely. Very many recent authors, with Lessius, Vazquez, Valencia, say that Christ notwithstanding his impeccability freely fulfilled the command of undergoing death, because although he was not free regarding the substance of death, so that he could not fail to die; yet he was free regarding the motive, because he could die from a motive of fortitude, or patience, or mercy. There are also those to whom Gonet subscribes, who affirm that Christ died freely for this reason, because although he could not will not to die in the composite sense, that is, join the negation of death with the command obliging to death, yet he could well do so in the divided sense, willing the negation of death inasmuch as it prescinds from the command. But how useless these modes are for reconciling the liberty of Christ with his impeccability we shall show below.

There are therefore three things to be determined in this Question: First, that Christ merited through the acts of the lower portion, as well as of the other virtues distinct from charity. Second, that he also merited through acts of charity not only of the wayfarer, corresponding to infused science of God, but also through acts of beatific charity, both toward neighbors shining forth and as seen in the Word, and toward God, or through the very fruition of God. Third, that he truly merited through commanded acts, because for this he had sufficient liberty.

First conclusion. — Christ merited through the acts of the lower portion and of the other virtues distinct from charity.

So the Doctor, d. 18, n. 5.

The first part is evident: for through those acts Christ merited which he freely elicited as wayfarer: but Christ freely elicited the acts of the inner portion, since he exercised them at the nod and command of the will with the previous dictate of the intellect: therefore, etc. The Doctor unfolds this truth thus, n. 5.

Christ, he says, was in some respect a wayfarer and passible according to the sensitive part, and the inner portion of the volun> tatis: thence he had many objects present to the senses and to the inner portion, about which he could freely will against the affection of advantage, which is always fitting to that to whom it belongs; the same by fasting, watching, praying and many other such things he could merit, either by exercising such things outwardly, or by willing them inwardly for God.

By which words indeed the Conclusion is sufficiently proved. Yet further he inquires how this could come about, especially from the will? And he answers that although the higher portion was perfectly joined to God according to the beatific act, nevertheless it was the same will passible according to the lower portion, and as such was wayfaring, and consequently could merit.

The Doctor objects: What is simply at the term cannot merit: but the lower portion of the will of Christ was simply at the term: therefore it could not merit. The major is certain. The minor is proved: that is simply at the term which cannot have an inordinate act concerning something tending to an end: but the lower will of Christ could not have an inordinate act concerning something tending to an end: therefore it was simply at the term. — I answer with the Doctor, conceding the major and denying the minor; and to the proof by saying that indeed such a will could not have an inordinate act concerning something tending to an end, yet not for that reason was it simply at the term, because from the fact that the lower portion was joined to God solely by reason of the conjunction of the higher portion, it does not follow that the lower portion was joined with God according to the affection of advantage, which nevertheless is required for it to be said to be simply at the term; and because from the defect of such conjunction many things befell Christ the Lord against the affection of advantage, therefore by accepting them for God he could merit.

The second part also stands, namely that He could merit through acts of the other virtues distinct from charity: since indeed He merited through the virtue of obedience, because He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, for which cause God exalted Him and gave Him a name, etc., as the Apostle says to Philippians 2: but obedience is distinct from charity: therefore, etc.

Second Conclusion. — Christ truly merited through acts of charity, not only toward neighbour, but also toward God, and that even through the act of beatific charity.

This consists of three parts: of which

The first is common to both schools, the Subtle and the Angelic, and which the Subtle Doctor expressly hands down, number 8, where he says: The inferior portion merited by eliciting operation about creatures, by loving mother, and others good in God, and evil men for God's sake; and it is proved: the act of charity toward neighbour, whether it correspond to acquired or infused science, belongs to the inferior portion: but according to the acts of the inferior portion He could merit, as was said above: therefore also through acts of charity toward neighbour. — Then, Christ could merit absolutely, and truly did merit, as was proved: therefore He could also merit through the act of charity. The antecedent stands from the preceding Question. The consequence is evident, because Christ must be granted merit according to every possible perfection: but the merit of the act of charity is specifically more perfect than the merit of the other virtues: therefore it must be held that Christ merited through the act of charity. — Finally, if anything stood in the way of Christ's having merited through an act elicited by charity — especially since this act in Christ would not have been free, seeing that all other conditions required for merit are not wanting to this act of charity: but neither is necessary freedom wanting to it, since Christ most freely determined Himself to execute and perform all that which most conduced to the glory of God and the utility of neighbour: therefore Christ the Lord could truly merit through acts of charity tending immediately to neighbour and mediately to God.

The second part is also evident, namely that Christ merited through acts of charity terminated immediately in God: since indeed Christ as wayfarer could know God, and truly did know Him through infused science, and consequently could love Him with a love corresponding to that science: but a love corresponding to that science was truly meritorious: therefore Christ could merit immediately through the act of charity. The major stands from what was said in treating of the knowledge of God. Its sequel too is evident: for then the will can love with love all that which is represented to it by the intellect as lovable: therefore since God was represented through infused science to the soul of Christ, as an object supremely good and lovable, there is no doubt that the soul of Christ could tend toward Him by an act of love corresponding to that infused science. The minor also appears true: since that act is meritorious which has all the conditions desired for merit: but the act of the love of God elicited by the soul of Christ, inasmuch as she knows God through infused science to be supremely lovable, has all the conditions for merit: for it is indeed an act of a wayfarer, free, honest, and pleasing to God: therefore it is truly meritorious.

Finally the third part is proved by the Doctor, n. 9, namely that Christ merited even through beatific love:

Because, he says, every act accepted by God, as a good and laudable act, for which God wishes to retribute something to him whose act He accepts, or to another for whom it is done, is meritorious: such is every act of Christ according to His human nature, even the beatific act, whereby according to the superior portion He enjoys God; because that person was not simply in termino according to every condition of itself; therefore God could accept every created act of that person as worthy of some good to be retributed for it to that person, had He stood in need, or to another, namely us, for whom He merited. And holding this, one must say that if the beatific act according to the superior portion of Christ was meritorious — which involves no contradiction — the beatific act of Michael, or of any other Blessed, can be accepted as something worthy of retribution, which being retributed would be given on account of merit: suppose something were given to Michael on account of the meritorious act of guardianship which he exercises over me: a contradiction, I say, there would not be; yet in fact God does not so accept that act, because that person is wholly outside the state of meriting according to the whole subject: not so Christ; but according to something He was in the state of wayfarer, and on this account every created act of His was accepted, and meritorious for those for whom it was offered to God.

You will say: According to that portion Christ could not merit, according to which He was outside the state of the way: but He was outside the state of the way in respect of the superior portion, and through beatific acts: therefore He could not thus merit. — The Doctor answers, that just as merit consists not only in the act itself elicited, but in some manner in the conditions of the person eliciting, so divine acceptance regards not only the act, but the accidental conditions of the meriting person; whence although the superior portion and that act of fruition were outside the state of the way, nevertheless by reason of the whole Christ eliciting the meritorious act, there was some congruity of accepting that act of fruition as meritorious, such congruity as is not in the other Blessed, who are altogether outside the state of the way; although however speaking absolutely no repugnance seems to appear why the act of the beatitude of another Blessed might not also be accepted as meritorious, and worthy of some retribution, in the way, for example, that God can accept the act of guardianship which a guardian Angel exercises over me as meritorious, and worthy of retribution.

You will say 2: A meritorious act ought to be free; but the act of beatific love is not free: therefore, etc. — The Doctor denies the minor in dist. 1, qu. 1, proving its contrary: because a diverse approximation of something passive to the agent, or of a power to the object, does not make necessity or non-necessity, but only renders the act more intense or less intense: but loving God in the way and in the fatherland differ only in respect of a diverse approximation of one and the same power to the same object: therefore this approximation will not cause necessity, if previously there was no necessity, but only a more intense or less intense act; wherefore the love of God in the fatherland differs from the love of God in the way only in that the former is more intense than the latter, not more or less necessary. Therefore it must be concluded with the Doctor, n. 10, that the beatific love of Christ was free and meritorious inasmuch as it tends to God Himself immediately, and inasmuch as it terminates at creatures shining forth and intuitively known in the Word. Whence he concludes there, that Christ could merit simply; first, through acts of the sensitive power commanded by the will: secondly, through the act of beatific love as it tends to God Himself: thirdly, through the same act as it tends to creatures for God's sake.

You will say 3: That act is not free whose opposite act cannot be given: but to the beatific act of the love of God an opposite act cannot be given, namely the act of hatred about God intuitively known: therefore the act of the love of God intuitively known is not free. The major seems true, since for an act to be free the power ought to be indifferent, that it may exercise a contrary and opposite act about the same object. But the minor is proved: in God intuitively known no reason of evil appears: therefore neither can any motive of hatred be. — I distinguish the major: that the will be free with the liberty of contrariety, it must be able to elicit an act opposite to that which it elicits — I concede; that it be free with the liberty of contradiction — I deny: for to this liberty it is not necessary that the will be able to elicit a contrary act, but it suffices that it can suspend its act about the proposed object. But the will of Christ considered physically in itself can suspend its act about the beatific object, although by reason of the maintenance and of the object extrinsically attracting and determining more strongly to its love, it cannot morally suspend that act of love. Whence, the minor being distinguished, the consequence must be denied.

Third conclusion. — Christ merited through the acts whereby he observed the precepts imposed upon him, especially since for that instant at which he kept the precept he could, simply as regards physical power, fail to observe it, although morally he could not.

It is proved first: Because he merited through obedience: but obedience presupposes a precept: therefore, etc. The minor is plain. The major is proved from the Apostle to the Romans 5, As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one many shall be made just. And Philippians 2, Becoming obedient unto death, etc.

It is proved second: If Christ had not merited through the observance of precepts, it would be chiefly because in them he was not free: but he had sufficient liberty for merit: therefore, etc. The major is plain: since all agree that the observance of a precept has the other conditions required for merit, seeing that it is an act morally good, pleasing to God, ordered to him, and elicited by Christ as wayfarer. But the minor, wherein lies the difficulty, is proved: the reason of a precept precisely considered in itself does not take away the liberty of exercising an act: therefore Christ could freely fulfill the precept. The consequence is plain. The antecedent is proved: liberty is only taken away by a necessity imposed on the very act itself, or only by that very fact that the act is exercised necessarily, because the liberty of the will is properly opposed to necessity, since the will is free not only from coaction but also from necessity: but the reason of a precept, as such, does not effect that the act be exercised necessarily by the will: therefore neither does it take away from such an act the character of free. The minor stands, because we ourselves freely observe precepts, and consequently the reason of the precept does not prevent the prescribed act from being exercised freely.

Nor must you say that the condition of Christ is unlike ours, and that for this reason we are said to observe precepts freely because we can omit them by sinning. Christ, however, being impeccable, could not fail to observe the precepts prescribed to him. This answer, I say, does not dissolve the force of the argument, for those confirmed in grace cannot sin, and nevertheless they observe the precepts freely, and through that observance they merit, as is evident both of the most blessed Virgin and of the Apostles, who while they were wayfarers, after receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit, could not sin, yet truly merited: therefore although the soul of Christ is impeccable, nevertheless when it was still in the mortal state it did not cease to merit through the free observance of precepts.

Further, these two things — not being able freely to admit omission of a precept, and not being able to commit anything against a precept — are greatly distinguished from this third proposition: to have necessarily an act of will executing the precept; nor can the third be inferred from the two prior propositions. For the two former are compatible with liberty; but the third not so: yet the will of the soul of Christ, by reason of its impeccability, had only the two former; but by reason of the precept imposed on it it did not have the third: therefore freely, and not necessarily, it could fulfill what was commanded. The major stands: because being able to will evil does not pertain to liberty: but those two prior propositions denote only the supreme rectitude of the will in the one acting, which accords excellently with liberty in acting: but the third proposition takes away liberty altogether, since liberty cannot be understood together with a necessary act of willing. The minor indeed sufficiently stands of itself regarding the prior part. It is proved regarding the latter part: the precept imposed on the will of Christ was related of itself toward that will in the manner in which the commands of God stand toward our wills, because it cannot be explained what the precept prescribed to Christ had peculiar to itself, qua precept, which the precepts prescribed to us do not have: but the precepts prescribed to us stand toward our wills in such wise that those wills nevertheless have a free act, and not a necessary one, of willing execution of what is commanded, nor do they receive from the force of the precept anything by which they are determined to exercise the act of the precept necessarily: therefore also the will of Christ, even given the precept, had a free act, nor by virtue of it was it determined to observe it necessarily.

It is confirmed: If anything necessarily determined Christ to observing the precepts divinely prescribed to him, it would be especially vision and beatific love: but these did not so determine him that physically speaking he could fail to observe those precepts if he had willed: therefore notwithstanding them he was free in the observance of precepts. The minor is proved: beatific vision does not determine to an act except mediately through love: but love does not determine except inasmuch as it itself exists: but the act of love ought not to be so necessary that the will cannot fail to elicit it, otherwise that act of love would not be free, nor consequently would the act of beatific love in Christ have been meritorious, whose contrary was proved above: therefore if that act of beatific love is not so necessary that the will cannot cease from it, at least physically, neither will it so necessarily determine the will to observing the precepts that it could not physically turn away from that observance. Add that no reason can be assigned why the will, which is a power essentially free, could be so determined by any object however intentionally proposed to producing love, that physically it could not fail to elicit that act of love, although it be so determined and allured by the object that it cannot cease from love of it: therefore it is not determined necessarily to that love physically: therefore it can physically cease from it, and consequently through it the will is not necessitated to keeping the precepts.

You will say. Physical liberty does not suffice for a precept to be duly prescribed to anyone, nor for him to be judged worthy of praise and reward when he fulfills it: therefore if Christ had only physical liberty with respect to fulfilling the precept, he could not merit through the observance of it. The antecedent is proved, because when someone is morally determined to an act, although physically he could fail to have it, such an act would be superfluously prescribed to him, nor would he acquire anything of praise in eliciting that act; for absurdly would someone forbid another to slay a whole army of men opposing him, nor would it be much praiseworthy for him to obey such a command, because although he has physical power for it, he has not moral power: therefore if the observance of a precept be not also within the moral power of the observer, he can procure nothing of praise and merit thence. The consequence is plain. The antecedent is proved: for although it were good not to slay all men, although also it lies in the physical power of one man to slay them, nevertheless he is not said freely not to slay all of them, nor does it redound to his praise that he does not slay them, because that is morally impossible to him: therefore if it be morally impossible that Christ, loving God with beatific love, fail to observe his precepts, that observance cannot be meritorious for him. — I deny the antecedent. For something can be prescribed to which one is morally determined, because although a precept does not serve to determining, nor even to positing the substance of an act, yet it could be imposed so that a laudable act, which otherwise would be performed, should have also the goodness and merit of obedience; thus, for example, it can be prescribed that he who fasts out of devotion on Fridays fast on those days out of precept also, because although that precept does not determine the man on whom it is imposed to the substance of fasting, which already he was prepared elsewhere to perform, nevertheless it determines him to observe it from the motive and virtue of obedience. To the proof of the antecedent I deny that parity about killing, because that killing is not within the power even physical of the will; for it depends on the forces of the body, which of themselves do not suffice for the slaying of an army, even though the will should determine itself to that killing; whence that non-killing does not redound to the praise of the will itself, not because the will has not moral power for it, but because the will alone ought not concur in that killing, since other faculties also ought to contribute to it, which are not subordinated to the will for performing it: therefore that example does not fit. Therefore although Christ through beatific love is morally determined to fulfilling all that which is commanded him by God; nevertheless these things are no less usefully commanded him, because if they were not commanded, beatific love would not determine him to it; for it determines him because the omission of those acts would be sinful: but sin is incompatible with the love of God above all things: but that omission would not be sinful unless the acts were commanded: therefore although Christ is morally determined by God, nevertheless those acts were rightly and usefully commanded him by God.

You will insist. If Christ had only physical liberty not to observe the precepts, it follows that he had no greater liberty for non-observance of precepts than for ceasing from beatific love, and consequently that he did not merit more by undergoing the death prescribed him than he merited by loving God with beatific love: but it does not seem very laudable, nor meritorious, that Christ seeing God clearly and intuitively loves him, although physically he could fail to love: therefore if for the observation of precepts Christ had no other liberty than physical for observing them, he does not seem to have merited much in that observance. — I answer, that the reason of greater praise and merit was in the death of Christ and in the observance of other precepts than in beatific love, because although he was morally determined, on supposition of beatific love and of the precept, to accept it, yet truly death was very difficult and bitter for him, nor could he undergo it de facto without greatest pain and supreme sorrow: whence on account of the greatest difficulty which undergoing death carried with it, it was very laudable for him, and he merited a great reward by undergoing it.

You will say 2: Christ could not fail to elicit acts commanded by the Father, nor fail to accept death: therefore in them he was not free with the liberty of election. The antecedent is proved, because he could not sin: but he would have sinned by not accepting what the eternal Father had commanded. — I answer by denying the antecedent, for although Christ could not sin, and therefore not transgress the mandate of the Father; yet he obeyed that mandate in such wise that at that same time at which he performed the commanded acts he could fail to perform them, if his human will be considered in itself, and according to the mode of operating which he had in that state. And just as the blessed Angels execute the divine mandates with the liberty of election, and yet cannot transgress them or sin, so Christ kept the mandates of his Father with the liberty of election, freely, even though he could not sin.

You will insist. Given the precept, Christ was not indifferent to choosing the commanded acts, nor to accepting death. — I answer: He was not indifferent given the precept, indifference on the part of the act, I concede: indifference on the part of the power, I deny. Thus, given the determination of the last judgment of reason, the will is not indifferent to choosing this or that means, indifference on the part of the act, because the act of will necessarily follows the last judgment of reason; yet it is indifferent on the part of the power, because the will of itself is indifferent to this or that means: so, given the premotion of efficacious grace, the will is not indifferent to acting or not acting, indifference on the part of the act, but is indifferent on the part of the power.

You will insist. Given the precept he cannot fail to keep it. — I answer: He cannot fail to keep it in the composite sense, I concede: in the divided sense, I deny: that is, these two things cannot be composed together in Christ — for example the precept of undergoing death and an unwillingness to die; simply, however, if both death and the will of Christ be considered in themselves, with the same precept standing, he retained the free faculty of not dying, and could fail to die: for the precept of the Father wrought nothing in the will of Christ that would impede its liberty, but left it equally free as regards acts of election, as if it had not been given.

Corollary. — From what has been said it follows that all those modes of reconciling the impeccability of Christ with his liberty in keeping the mandates prescribed to him set forth in the third Notable are not to be approved, nor do the aforesaid opinions appear probable. Not indeed the first, which contends that no precept strictly and properly so called was imposed on Christ as man, but only that the divine will was intimated to him, which did not clothe itself with the obligation of executing the thing so that its omission would be sin. It is not proved, I say, because truly from Sacred Scripture it stands that a command of dying was imposed on Christ by the Father, for John 10, This commandment I have received of my Father, namely to lay down my life: and as the Father gave me commandment, so do I, and 15, As also I have kept my Father's commandments: which things all plainly signify that precepts properly so called were imposed on Christ, since the words of Sacred Scripture ought to be taken according to their proper signification when no repugnance or indecency follows thence: but none appears from a precept properly so called having been imposed on Christ, because, as is evident from what has been said, he was no less free in keeping those precepts than if they were precepts taken in a wider signification. Next, it is certain that Christ the Lord as man was subject to the precepts of the law of nature; for under the name of law of nature nothing else is understood than the dictate of natural reason, which God the Creator implanted together with nature in the minds of men, which are ordered to doing or not doing something; wherefore whoever is a true man is bound by natural law: therefore Christ was bound to keep those precepts: therefore either he merited through the observance of those precepts, and thus he could also merit through positive precepts observed: or he did not merit, which seems absurd, seeing that the observance of the precepts of natural law in Christ has all that which is required for the notion of merit. Finally, the proper object of obedience is a precept: but Christ truly merited through obedience, as is evident from Romans 5, As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one many shall be made just, in which words the holy Apostle compares the obedience of Christ with the disobedience of Adam, to signify that as Adam was disobedient to a command of God properly so called, so the obedience of Christ became known in his subjection to a command strict and properly so called.

The second opinion also, asserting that Christ freely kept the precepts prescribed to him because, although given the precept of undergoing death he could not fail to die, this necessity of dying was not antecedent but consequent upon the liberty of Christ, since that precept was imposed dependently upon his acceptance — this mode, I say, is not proved first, because it has no foundation in Scripture, which is far from signifying that that command was not imposed on Christ the Lord except dependently upon his free acceptance; rather it teaches that the command preceded and the acceptance of Christ followed, as we read Psalm 39, where the Prophet in the person of Christ says: In the head of the book it is written of me that I should do thy will: O my God, I have desired it, and thy law in the midst of my heart. Nor do those texts favor this opinion, Isaiah 53, He was offered because he willed it. And John 10, No man taketh my life away from me, but I lay it down of myself: for they signify only that Christ suffered death not unwillingly but gladly and willingly. Next, the obedience of Christ ought to have been most perfect: but that obedience is more perfect by how much the less the command depends upon the will of the subject: therefore the obedience of Christ ought to have depended more upon the will of God ordaining and commanding death than upon the will of Christ desiring that command be imposed on himself. Finally, this opinion has no place regarding the precepts of the law of nature, by which Christ was bound independently upon his free acceptance: but the liberty of Christ must be reconciled with his supreme impeccability regarding the observance of the precepts of natural law just as much as regarding the observance of other precepts of positive law: therefore this mode of reconciling is less fitting.

Nor is the third mode proved, which affirms that Christ freely fulfilled the mandate of dying because before the time of fulfilling that command pressed on Christ could ask and obtain from the Father its dispensation: it is not proved, I say, both because it does not seem that dispensation could easily be granted to Christ concerning the precepts of the law of nature, by which he was bound: therefore neither could he ask dispensation from the Father concerning them. Then because God could at some instant command him to do something: but in that instant the command could not be removed, because otherwise it would follow that the command would be and not be in the same instant: therefore it is necessary that the observance of the command be reconciled with impeccability in another way than through being able to ask dispensation. Then because although Christ had no command against asking efficaciously a dispensation from the command of dying for the salvation of the human race, yet he had counsel against asking it, since that death ought to redound to the glory of God and the salvation of men: but Christ had power not only not to transgress commands but also non-embracing the counsels of God was repugnant to him, because not only sin by reason of his holiness but any moral imperfection whatsoever contracted through omission of a counsel was repugnant to him: therefore this mode of reconciling does not seem suitable either.

The fourth opinion also is disapproved first, because Sacred Scripture intimates that the death of Christ was commanded not only as regards substance but also as regards the circumstances of time and motive. Of time, I say, as is gathered from Luke 12, where Christ says: And I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized: and how am I straitened until it be accomplished! in which words Christ the Lord signifies that the time of his death was determined by the Father and that he anguishes over the delay and postponement of that time: and chapter 22, The Son of man goeth according to that which is determined: and John 17, Knowing Jesus that his hour was come that he should pass out of this world to the Father. Similarly he signifies that other circumstances were commanded him, especially the circumstance of place, Luke 13, It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem: the circumstance of the manner of punishment, John 3, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up, etc. Similarly there was commanded him the manner of obedience, as is evident from Philippians 2, He humbled himself becoming obedient unto death. Also the motive of charity was commanded: hence John 14, That the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father hath given me commandment, so do I.

Second, from that opinion it would follow that Christ did not merit our redemption through the satisfaction of death precisely because he died, but only from the fact that he sustained death with such affection or motive: but this conflicts with Scripture; for it is said Isaiah 53, If he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed: in which words the reward of the redemption of men is attributed not to the circumstances but to the death itself: therefore, etc. Second it is plain, for an act is meritorious by that reason by which it is free: therefore if it were free only as regards motive and circumstances, but not as regards substance, the consequence is that the death of Christ of itself is not free. — Finally, since Christ through his beatific vision knew the eternal will of God in its unity, he saw not only in it as regards genus and substance of death, but he also saw the motives according to which the eternal law required that he suffer that death, and all the circumstances of that death: for what St. Augustine writes, book 13, chapter 15, On the blessed Angels, can hold also in men, but most truly in Christ comprehensor: Let him see making always, and let him cease if he shall be able.

What thy eternal will willeth concerning times, they read, choose, and love; they read always, and never passes away what they read: for by choosing and loving they read the very immutability of thy counsel. Therefore Christ, as comprehensor, knew not only the substance of his death but also the circumstances defined and ordained by the eternal law of God: now the eternal law is nothing else, as St. Augustine teaches, book 1, On Free Choice, chapter 6, than the highest reason existing in God, which must ever be obeyed. Therefore if Christ was not free as regards the substance of death, because it was commanded, neither would he have been free as regards the circumstances and motives, which were defined by God.

Finally the last opinion must be disapproved, namely that Christ could refuse death in the divided sense, although he could not refuse it in the composite sense, and as it was commanded. It is disapproved, I say, both because the present controversy is not moved about death qua death, but about death qua commanded: therefore if Christ was not free regarding death qua commanded, it cannot be said that he died freely and meritoriously: then because that Christ could refuse death in the divided sense is that he could have willed not to die while nevertheless knowing death was to be undergone: but Christ could not have such willing given his impeccability. It is proved. To be able to will-not commanded death in the divided sense is to will to sever it from the command: but Christ could not have a volition of severing his death from the command of God, otherwise he would have had a volition opposed to the divine volition: therefore Christ could not will-not commanded death in the divided sense.

Nor does it avail to reply with Gonet that divisibility, or the volition of separation of death from the command, is not positive but precissive, because positive division of the negation of death from the command requires ablation of the command, but precissive not so. — This answer, I say, is rather an evasion than a legitimate explanation of the difficulty: for indeed Christ merited positively when he fulfilled the commands: therefore positively he had liberty of fulfilling them: but positive liberty of fulfilling commands supposes, or imports, a positive power of fulfilling them or not fulfilling them; for liberty of indifference requires a power of acting or not acting: therefore if Christ could have nolition of commanded death, it behooved that he have it not only precissively but also positively; so that his will could positively will-not to join death with the command: that is, to will positively to divide it from the command: therefore, etc.

It is certain that Christ from the instant of his conception had habitual grace, whereby he was formally sanctified, as well as the essential glory of the soul, namely the fruition of God through intuitive vision of him and beatific love. It is equally certain that if he had assumed human nature destitute of such habitual grace and essential glory, he could have merited both by good supernatural acts elicited with supernatural aid; since none of the conditions required for merit would fail those acts. Whence only this remains here to be examined, whether Christ through subsequent works merited habitual grace and essential glory, or at least could have merited them de potentia absoluta: since merit need not necessarily precede reward by precedence at least of time, for either merit is compared to the reward, or it is compared to God conferring the reward: but from neither head is precedence of time required with respect to the reward. And indeed that not from the first head is plain, because in those who daily merit the increase of grace there is simultaneously merit and reward; for in the same instant in which they merit God infuses the increase of grace. Nor from the second head, because no repugnance seems to appear why in the same instant in which merit exists God should not accept it for some reward, since he is omnipotent, if nothing else stands in the way. Moreover whenever some way to a term is instantaneous, term and way can be simultaneous, nor is there any repugnance, as appears in generation: but truly merit is instant, and is quasi a way to the reward as to its proper term; therefore it does not conflict that such a term be posited in time with such a way; neither on the part of term and way, nor on the part of God conferring such a term. Moreover it seems not to be so otherwise, namely from something extrinsic; for if any repugnance existed, especially because he who elicits the reward is in a state repugnant to the state of possession of the term — just as for example Peter, being a wayfarer as such, does not straightway attain the reward although he merits, because he merits through faith or through other virtues belonging to the state of wayfarer repugnant to the state of beatific reward. But in our case this repugnance could not be present, because Christ could merit through virtues which have no repugnance with the beatific state.

Note 2. It is certain that Christ merited not only for himself but also for others; indeed he bore the office and function of mystical head of the Church, whose function was to infuse spiritual life into the members; for as in a natural body the head senses both for itself and for all the members; so in the mystical body of the Church Christ ought to provide life, motion, and spiritual sense not only for himself but also for his members. Hence arises the difficulty whether Christ also merited anything for Angels. And whereas men are partly faithful, and among the faithful some preceded Christ and others followed him, the question is what Christ merited for all these, namely whether by his merits he obtained for them not only first sanctifying grace, liberation from guilt, and the unsealing of the heavenly gate, but also predestination itself, understood both for eternal election to glory and for the due ordination of means for attaining it.

Note 3. Among the various errors of Calvin this one was chiefly notable, that, as he teaches, book 2 of the Institutes, chapter 17, § 6, Christ the Lord merited nothing for himself, neither the glory of his body nor exaltation of name, but ordered all his merits toward us and conferred upon us every corresponding reward. Wherefore he bitterly assails the scholastic Doctors and accuses them of vain curiosity and damnable temerity because they teach that Christ merited not only for us but also for himself. But how impious, and how opposed to the divine Scriptures this heretical dogma is, will appear below.

First conclusion. — Christ did not de facto merit for himself, nay neither could he merit de potentia ordinaria sanctifying grace and the glory of his soul; although de potentia ultraordinaria he could have merited both. This Conclusion consists of three parts, of which the first is held not only by the Alexandrine, part 3, q. 17, member 3, art. 1., St. Thomas there q. 19, art. 3., St. Bonaventure, d. 19, book 3, a. 2., but also by the Subtle Doctor there n. 12., where he says: I say that he did not merit for himself fruition: because if so, either by an operation elicited concerning those things which are toward the end, or concerning the end itself. Not in the first manner, because he had his first act concerning the end, enjoying, namely, before he had any other act concerning something toward the end. And if merit was concerning something, or certain objects seen in the Word, as was said according to the preceding way, or concerning his mother, or concerning many elect, willing them beatitude: nevertheless naturally the operation concerning the end itself preceded, namely the Trinity, or the essence in the Trinity: nor by the act of fruition, whereby he enjoys the Trinity, did he merit the same fruition, because this would be nothing else to say than that he merited fruition who had fruition: or he merited because God gave the act: which is nothing to say, because no act is meritorious of itself, although it can be of another: therefore God liberally, without any preceding merit, gave the ultimate to the end, and thus he did not merit for himself fruition. Whence Augustine, book 13 On the Trinity, chapter 19, says that the highest grace is that man in the unity of person is joined to God: and although they speak of the grace of union, that is, of the gratuitous uniting will of God, nevertheless to that union there concomitantly follows the grace of fruition of so great a thing, therefore it was the highest grace without preceding merits, says the Doctor. For it signifies that Christ could not have merited that fruition except through some meritorious act, which would be occupied either about God or about some creature, and through the very fruition itself: but neither of these can be affirmed. Not the first, because he had no act whereby he could merit prior to the instant of fruition. Not credibly the second, since his soul could not be occupied about a creature through any act antecedent to that fruition, since he could know creatures in that first instant only in the Word, and consequently he enjoyed the Word before, at least by priority of nature, he saw any creature represented in the Word. Finally not the third, otherwise he would be said to have merited the very fruition because he had fruition, which certainly would be ridiculous: for no act is meritorious of itself, although it can be meritorious of another.

The same must be said of habitual sanctifying grace, which he could not merit through acts proceeding from it: but every meritorious act of Christ proceeds from habitual grace: therefore he could not merit it. The major stands: for the principle of merit by ordinary law cannot be the reward of works proceeding from itself. The major also is evident, because Christ ought to have merited through acts connaturally meritorious. Indeed we must think that the acts of Christ were elicited conformably to his nature unless revealed otherwise; but by no revelation does it stand that Christ elicited supernatural acts connaturally; and thence we must not assert it: but the connatural mode of a meritorious act is that it proceed from habitual grace, and not that it precede it: therefore it must be asserted that Christ de potentia ordinaria did not merit his sanctifying grace.

The Doctor objects: It is more glorious and more laudable to possess a reward through merits than without merits: but Christ had grace and glory in the noblest manner of all: therefore it was fitting that he have it through merits. — He answers there distinguishing the major: that is more laudable when the reward can be had from merits, he concedes: otherwise, he denies. And similarly, with the minor distinguished, he denies the consequents. Because, he says, the conjunction of the soul of Christ with God through the act of fruition was so great and so excellent that merit could not concur to it, and it is nobler to have an act to which merit cannot precede from the liberality of the giver than to have a less noble act from preceding merits: and this seems reasonable, because just as God created in the order of nature some substance, say the nature of an Angel, to the creating of which the causality of a cause could not cooperate on account of the perfection of such a nature, so in the moral order God created some beatific act to which no meritorious act can be prior; and such was the beatifying act of the soul of Christ, and this on account of the nobility and excellence of the act and of the mode of having the act, because immediately before he had any act concerning those things which are toward the end, he had that beatific act. He offers another solution sufficiently pious and probable, saying that on account of the good of the fatherland and its beauty, which consists in a certain diversity, someone ought to have beatitude without any merit, since others are given there possessing beatitude in various ways through merits. — To that objection the Seraphic Doctor answers, that it is more glorious to have a reward through merits than without merits in those who are united through conformity of affection; because in those grace and glory are quasi accidental by way of acquisition, because those by their nature are born indifferent to being good or evil; but otherwise it is of the man assumed by the Word, who is united to God not only through conformity of affection but even by personal union: whence not the man is said worthy but God, and therefore grace is in a manner natural to him, because it is connaturally required by the hypostatic union, whence it is far more glorious for him to have glory from his first creation than to have it through acquisition.

You will object 2. The will of Christ was prior by nature to fruition: but that priority suffices for merit: therefore Christ could merit fruition. Next, the same act, as prior by nature to itself, can merit itself: therefore Christ could fittingly merit fruition through the very fruition. — The Doctor denies the minor, because for meriting a reward it does not suffice that the will be conceived as prior to the reward, because it itself is not the merit, but the merit itself must precede the reward at least in nature. And secondly he denies that an act can be considered prior by nature to itself, except in consideration of reason without sufficient foundation in the thing; which consideration does not suffice for it to be merit with respect to itself; and he says moreover that if the act were merit of itself, the same would be to elicit, God therefore adds the act as reward because he gave the act. Add that it is evident from the terms that although the same act could be a reward for Christ, that is given to him by reason of the connatural exigency of the hypostatic union, and a merit with respect to other rewards: yet it could not be merit with respect to itself.

You will object 3. As grace stands to glory, so merit stands to reward: but Christ had grace ordained to glory: therefore equally he ought to have merit ordained to reward, namely to beatitude and the fruition of God. — The Seraphic Doctor distinguishes the major: they stand thus as regards the condition of disposing, he concedes: as regards their origin, he denies: because glory is granted by God alone, but merit is an act proceeding from free will informed by grace. In Christ there could be an order of grace to glory saving the order of each to union: but so it is not of the order of merit to reward, for merit signifies ordination to reward as disposition and completion, and as way to term, and therefore it is necessary that merit precede reward, either by priority of time or of nature; but in neither manner ought it to have preceded in Christ.

You will object 4. The holy Angels had a reward through merits: but the grace in the Angels was of no lesser excellence than in Christ: therefore Christ also ought to have had a reward through merits. — I deny the parity, because the Angels in the first instant of their formation had no union with God except merely accidental, namely through sanctifying grace: but Christ had personal union with God from the instant of his formation, which personal union required not only sanctifying grace but also the beatific union of the soul of Christ with God through vision and love.

The second part is proved, namely that Christ the Lord de potentia ordinaria could have merited habitual grace and the beatitude of soul which he had from the beginning of his formation: because for the notion of merit a certain priority of nature suffices between the merit and the reward: but although the soul of Christ from the beginning of its formation and union with the Word was endowed with beatitude and sanctifying grace, there could still be a priority of nature between the meritorious act, say between a certain act of charity corresponding to infused science, and the beatitude itself; for although de facto the first act which the created will of Christ elicited was beatific, nevertheless de potentia absoluta it could have been other than beatific, and prior to the beatific act by a certain priority of nature, which would not have prevented that soul from having been blessed by similitude of time, not of nature. And to this opinion favor most strongly all those who hold that Christ de facto merited, or at least could have merited even de potentia ordinaria his own beatitude, as Albertus Magnus, De Bassolis, etc.; which opinion the Recent authors wrongly accuse of temerity, since it has so many grave patrons.

You will say: It conflicts for some subject to be simultaneously at the term and moved toward the term: but the soul of Christ through fruition and beatitude is at the term, while through merit it is moved toward that beatitude as toward its term: therefore it conflicts for it to be blessed in the first instant and at the same time to merit that beatitude. Next, no one can merit except through the mediation of an act of hope of obtaining the reward: but hope of beatitude cannot exist in the same instant as its fruition and possession: therefore it involves Christ, blessed in the same instant, to merit his beatitude at the same time. Finally, no one can merit without dilection of God, which is regulated through an act of intellect: but in that first instant the soul of Christ could not be regulated by any knowledge which sufficed and was not beatific vision: moreover dilection existing simultaneously with blessed vision cannot be regulated by obscure cognition of faith, because obscure cognition cannot exist together with intuitive cognition: therefore that dilection would necessarily have to be regulated by the knowledge of infused or beatific science. But it cannot be regulated by intuitive knowledge, which is posterior to beatific science: therefore the dilection of Christ must needs be regulated by blessed science: but dilection regulated by science cannot be meritorious: therefore through it Christ could not merit. — I answer to the first by distinguishing the major: a subject cannot be simultaneously at the term and in successive motion toward the term, I concede: instantaneous, I deny: but merit does not consist in successive motion but in action and instantaneous change; the same can be simultaneous and in the same instant of time with the reward, as is evident from the increase of sanctifying grace, which is simultaneous and in the same instant with the merit of that grace. To the second I say that the major is true by ordinary law, namely that one cannot merit beatitude without hope of attaining it; nothing however hinders, nor can any repugnance be shown, that de potentia Dei absoluta one could merit without certain and undoubted confidence of obtaining the reward toward which he aspires. And thirdly I say that that dilection of Christ even in this case would have to be regulated by infused science, which although de facto it presupposes beatific knowledge and intuitive vision, yet in that hypothesis glory would be supposed to be infused before the light of glory, and consequently in that case it would pre-exist before intuitive vision of God, and would regulate the dilection of the soul of Christ whereby it would merit that vision and fruition of God.

Second conclusion. — Christ truly merited the glory of his body and the exaltation of his name.

This is gathered from Sacred Scripture, which plainly signifies that truth. Thus Luke 24, Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into his glory? namely of his body, for the glory of his soul he had from his first conception. He ascended, what is it, but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? where ascent into heaven is attributed to descent through humility. Likewise the same Apostle, for which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend, etc. In which words the Apostle (as St. Thomas observes there) commends the reward of the humility of Christ, through which he merited exaltation for himself as regards three things: namely as regards the glory of resurrection, as denoted by those words, for which cause God also hath exalted him: as regards the manifestation of his divinity, as the following words designate, and hath given him a name which is above all names: and as regards the reverence of the whole creation, wherewith it ought to repay him honor, as the following words signify, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend, etc. — But that exaltation of name consists most especially in those various testimonies whereby his divinity and holiness were attested while he was born, baptized, transfigured, and died. The glory of the body indeed consists in the glorious dowers with which that divine body was illumined at the instant of resurrection, as well as in the very resurrection, which St. Augustine teaches him to have merited: nay rather he humbled himself, therefore God exalted him from death. Hence the same, tractate 104 on John: Humility is the merit of brightness, he says, brightness is the reward of humility: which brightness indeed Christ sought from the Father John 17 in these words: I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do: and now glorify thou me, O Father. The same truth is confirmed by the authority of the holy Fathers. There came forth first St. Chrysostom, who thus writes, homily on Philippians: We say, did not Christ perform obedience in a manner beyond measure? Therefore he snatched the supreme honor. Was he not made a servant? Wherefore he is Lord of all, both of Angels and men. There follows St. Virgil martyr, book 5 against Eutyches: Did the divine nature of Christ, he says, need to be raised up to honors and increased with prerogatives of dignity, that by the merit of humility and obedience and death it might hold the summit of lofty merits and deserve to receive power over heaven and earth, as though it had not possessed these before? Let them read the Apostle teaching concerning this very thing: He humbled himself becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him, etc. In these words the blessed Martyr plainly denies that the exaltation of which the Apostle speaks belongs to the divine nature of Christ. Then he hands down that it was given to the human nature, because through humiliation, obedience, and suffering death he had deserved to receive it. Afterward too he confirms the same by other testimonies of Scripture. For he subjoins: And David writes: He shall drink of the torrent in the way, therefore shall he lift up the head. Of the torrent, that is, of the river of human death: therefore shall he lift up the head who tasted death. And he himself in the Gospel: Therefore, he says, doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life for my brethren. And a little after: Let us pursue, he says, the gifts of his beatitude acquired by the merit of his passion. The prophet Isaiah says: If he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed, and the will of the Lord shall be directed in his hand, etc. Finally he concludes: Behold how great things the prophetic word describes him as about to attain on account of the merit of his passion. From which clear Scriptures of both Testaments it is made certain that Christ on account of the merit of his passion received the glory of his own body and the exaltation of his name. To these subscribes St. Cyril writing in the book On the True Faith in God, to Regina, book 3, Sent. dist. 18: On account of that death and suffering he merited the crown of highest glory. There follows St. Fulgentius, book 3 to Euthymius, in these words: The Son of God did not despise to take upon himself our flesh, that is our lowest part, because he had come to liberate the whole man: nor could he become lowest in our lowest part, through whom our innermost part merited to be exalted into that name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend, etc. With these agrees Rupert, book 2 on Habakkuk, ps. 68, when explaining those words of David: They gave me gall for my food: and of Wisdom: Let us condemn him to a most shameful death: thus, he says, filled with such great ignominy, he suffered, for glory, namely knowing that thence there would come to him that already from it he should sit at the right hand of power in the glory of God the Father: for on account of this, says the Apostle, God also hath exalted him, etc. I might add many other opinions of the holy Fathers on this matter, but lest I seem more diffuse, those suffice me quite abundantly for confuting the blasphemy of Calvin, who expounding the aforesaid words of the Apostle, For which cause he exalted him, etc., did not blush to write: Frivolous is what the sophists attempt to elicit from this place, namely that Christ first merited for himself, then for others. But he goes further: 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 possess? Who denies that these cry out by the instinct of Satan that Christ merited glory for himself before salvation for us? Such are his words.

You will say: The reward is more excellent than the merit, because God rewards above condignity: but the charity of Christ superabounded over the glorification of his body: therefore the work proceeding from that charity was worthy of greater remuneration: therefore it was not ordained to the glorification of his body as merit to reward. — The Seraphic Doctor answers, question 2, that the major is true indeed of substantial reward, wherewith God remunerates man above condignity, but not of accidental reward, or of a lesser good than the substantial; for man can merit a lesser good by a major: and therefore that major proposition is not universally true. He will answer secondly to the minor, that it can be said that the reward of the body of Christ was more excellent than the merit if the comparison be made to the state and to the work through which he merited; for the state of the body was nobler after glorification than before: also the glory of the body exceeded the labors of the body which Christ sustained.

You will say 2: The soul of Christ was endowed with beatitude on account of its union with the Word, but not on account of any merits: but his body also was united to the Word: therefore by equal reason glory and beatitude ought to have been given without any merits. — The Seraphic Doctor answers there, that there is no parity between the beatitude of the body and of the soul in Christ, because since Christ had come to make satisfaction for our offenses, it was fitting for that end that some portion of him lie subject to penalities, that he might make satisfaction to divine justice and merit glory for us; but the inner portion was more fitting for that than the higher, therefore it was fitting that the higher portion be endowed with beatitude, while the lower would merit it both for itself and for us.

You will say 3: No one can merit what is owed to him by right: but the glory of the body was owed to Christ by right, for it naturally follows from the beatitude of the soul: therefore Christ could not merit it. — The Doctor answers, n. 5, that Christ indeed did not merit simply and directly the glory of his body, but only indirectly, namely by the removal of the impediment whereby the glory of the soul was suspended and prevented from overflowing into the body. It can be said, he says, piously thinking with the Master, and piously glossing, that although he did not merit directly impassibility of either, he nevertheless merited the removal of the impediment, wherefore they were not straightway, namely the cessation of the miracle preventing the overflow of glory into the inner portion and into the body. By which words the Doctor signifies that Christ merited and obtained from God that this miracle, whereby the glory of the soul was suspended and prevented from overflowing into the body, should no longer continue.

Nor does it avail to say with Gonet, and other Recent authors, that the doctrine of Scotus in this part seems less consistent, because thence it would follow that Christ did not properly merit the glory of his body. That indeed I deny to be gathered from the doctrine of the Doctor, for the Doctor does not deny that Christ did not merit the glory of his body, but only that indirectly this glory fell under merit.

You will say finally: The sole cause of the advent of Christ into the world is the salvation of men: therefore he spent all his merit for our utility, not for his own glory. Calvin proves the antecedent from John 3, For God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son. John 17, For them I sanctify myself. Romans 8, He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.

I answer, that by all these texts of Scripture is signified that Christ intended our salvation firstly and principally; this nevertheless does not prevent that less principally and secondarily he could intend the glory of his body and the exaltation of his name, which indeed St. Cyril signified, book 3 of the Thesaurus, chapter 2, who arguing against the Arians teaching that Christ is not true God and had not before the Incarnation a name above every name, but obtained it by his merits, demonstrates that error from this, that thence it would follow that Christ was incarnate more for his own utility than for ours:

For if, he says, according as they say, the Son of God was exalted after the Incarnation and made sublime in what he previously had not, he would have been incarnate more for himself than for men, for he profited himself more according to ⟦greek: ζῶν⟧ than men: thus not more for our salvation than that he himself be exalted and attain the greatest name, would he have been made man.

Third conclusion. — CHRIST MERITED FOR US NOT ONLY FIRST AND SECOND GRACE, WHEREBY WE ARE JUSTIFIED, BUT ALSO LIBERATION FROM GUILT AND FROM PUNISHMENT, AS WELL AS THE OPENING OF THE HEAVENLY GATE AND INTRODUCTION INTO PARADISE.

This Conclusion consists chiefly of three parts, of which

The first the Apostle signifies to the Ephesians 1 when he says: Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. On which place Ambrose: Every gift of grace is in Christ, and if anyone despising Christ thinks himself blessed, he shall know that he errs. Likewise 2 Tim. 1, He called us by his holy calling, which is given to us in Christ Jesus. Likewise Philippians 1, Unto you it is given for Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.

It is confirmed by the authority of the Council of Trent, session 6, chapter 5. It is declared further that the beginning of justification itself in adults is to be taken from God through Christ Jesus preventing him with his grace, that is, that of his vocation, whereby they are called without any merits of theirs existing. The same truth is gathered from John 1, Of his fullness we all have received, and grace for grace. In which place, as Chrysostom observes there Homily 13, and Augustine tractate 3 on John, it is denoted that all supernatural goods are in us through Christ. And indeed this is gathered from those words, grace for grace; for according to the Hebraic idiom they signify every grace, as appears from Job 2, Skin for skin — man shall give skin for his life, that is, every skin: as if it were said: from first good even to last, and from least even to greatest and most precious, man will permit himself to be despoiled that he may protect his life. Thence most excellently Bernard, sermon 13 on the Canticles: Whatever of wisdom, whatever of virtue you trust yourself to have, attribute to the virtue of God, to the wisdom of God, Christ. And earlier at the beginning of the sermon he had said: The origin of fountains and rivers is the sea; of virtues and sciences the Lord Jesus Christ. This truth will appear more evidently in the Treatise On Grace, where it will be demonstrated that all grace whatsoever is derived from Christ into men.

The second part also appears from the same Apostle there, where he says: He hath graced us in his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption. As if he would say, that God through the merit of Christ not only filled us with all grace but also redeemed us from all guilt and punishment. Hence Sacred Scripture so often indicates that Christ came as redeemer and to redeem us from all iniquity. See 1 Timothy 2, Christ is said to have given himself a redemption for many.

Finally the third part also stands: for, says the Doctor, although very many Patriarchs and most holy men departed this life before the ascension of Christ, nevertheless none of them possessed eternal glory, wherewith infants recently baptized are now endowed: which is a sign that none had been possessed of heavenly glory before the ascension of Christ into heaven.

Last conclusion. — CHRIST THE LORD MERITED GRACE AND GLORY ALSO FOR THE HOLY ANGELS.

It is proved first from the Apostle to the Ephesians 1, where God is said to have purposed to restore all things in Christ, both those in the heavens and those on the earth in him. Likewise from the epistle to the Colossians 1, In whom all things are asserted to be reconciled through Christ, and pacified through the blood of his Cross, whether those on earth or those in heaven. The other testimonies of the sacred Books adduced by some do not seem sufficiently clear.

The holy Fathers also support it. First of all St. Augustine, who in the book On the Harmony of the Evangelists, chapter 35, thus writes:

Wherefore since Christ himself is the wisdom of God through whom all things were created, and since no rational minds either of angels or of men become wise except by participation in that wisdom itself, to which we must adhere through the Holy Spirit through whom charity is poured forth in our hearts, which Trinity is one God: it was provided by divine Providence for mortals, whose temporal life is held bound up in things rising and falling, that the same wisdom of God itself, by the assumption of man into the unity of his person, in whom he would be born temporally, live, merit, rise again, might say, doing, suffering, and enduring, things congruous to our salvation, and would become below an example to men of returning, and to the Angels who are above an example of remaining.

— Fulgentius subscribes, book 2 To Trasamund, chapter 2.

Nothing else, he says, could keep the Angel standing from ruin but that which could repair fallen man after his fall. The same grace wrought in both: in this one that he might rise; in that one lest he should fall: in that one lest he be wounded: in this one that he might be healed: from this one it repelled infirmity: it did not suffer that one to be weakened. Of this one he is the food; of that one the medicine.

— Gregory subscribes, book 2 of the Dialogues, chapter 2.

He who without the gift of the Only-begotten could not, so he says, enable anyone to have the spirit of sanctification — not only of men but also of Angels: for it is written Psalm 18, The lands of the Lord, the heavens are established. If therefore even the Angels are believed to be in the heavens by sanctification, much more is it believed of men, who cannot merit outside that grace of sanctification.

— From the Greek Fathers one may adduce Cyril, from book 9 On Adoration, who interprets those words of 1 John, Of his fullness we all have received, concerning Christ thus:

For every creature, both visible and not subject to sight, is a partaker of Christ. Namely both Angels and Archangels, and whatever there is beyond these, or even the very Cherubim, do not stand otherwise than through Christ alone in the Holy Spirit. But of Christ himself, who is God, and of what he was made before the Incarnation, he speaks plainly.

— Similarly Hippolytus of Portus in fragment 2, which is in the Collectanea of Anastasius, where concerning the Incarnation of the Word he thus writes:

Therefore for this reason the God of all things became man, that having taken possession of passible flesh he might redeem our whole lost race: and that working wonders in flesh through his impassible divinity, he might lead us to incorrupt and blessed life, not as he seduced those orders of intelligible substances which are in heaven into gods, he would establish them firm against change by the mystery of his Incarnation: whose proper work is the recapitulation of all men.

There also supports it a reason: for the Angels were adopted to glory as strangers: but it is not fitting that anyone be adopted to the inheritance of a natural son except mediately through the natural son, who is Christ.

You will say: The Angels attained beatitude before Christ was incarnate: therefore independently of him. — I deny the consequence: for this benefit befell them because they were immune from so great a sin, whence their beatitude did not have to be deferred: thence nevertheless it is not consequent that they obtained it not in respect of the merits of Christ, since the Fathers of the Old Testament who preceded the Incarnation of Christ were endowed with very many graces and benefits solely in respect of the merits of Christ: therefore by equal reason the Angels could obtain their beatitude dependently on the merits of Christ, although they had attained it before his Incarnation.

All Theologians indeed agree that the merit of Christ is infinite: but they disagree in assigning the reason of this infinitude. For the Thomists and very many Recent authors teach that the merit of Christ was infinite formally and intrinsically: but the Subtle Doctor with all his Disciples contends that it was only extrinsically, or denominatively, infinite, in the way, for example, that beatific vision can be said to be infinite in some respect. Now this accidental and extrinsic infinitude can arise from a manifold head: First indeed, on the part of the object about which it is concerned; for just as mortal sin through a certain extrinsic denomination from the infinite object which it offends is denominated gravely infinite, so also the merit of Christ by reason of its object can be denominately called infinite. Second, on the part of the operating person: thus the actions of the humanity of Christ can be said to be infinite, because namely from his union with the Word there arises a certain dignity in the humanity, and consequently in its actions, by reason of which dignity those actions can be extrinsically and accidentally called infinite. Third, on the part of divine acceptance, because namely God accepts those merits of Christ for the salvation of infinite men, if so many men were to run toward salvation. But whether the merits of Christ were infinite only with this extrinsic infinitude will be determined here.

Note 2. Or rather, from what has been said we must return to this: that the divine Word has no special physical causality concerning the assumed humanity which the Father and the Holy Spirit do not have: since the works of the most holy Trinity ad extra are indivisible, so that no person works anything without the other persons being likewise reckoned to produce the same; since their operation ad extra is through power and will, which in the three divine persons is indivisible and most simple. Whence they are not three omnipotents but one omnipotent. Add that the divine Word terminates only the dependence of the assumed nature, in quasi the same kind of termination whereby a point terminates a line, which certainly can occur without special influx.

Note 3. A principle never operates except according to the nature and perfection of the principle quo. Warm water, for example, as four has never warmed as five: because the heat, which is the principle of warming, has only the perfection of four degrees. Hence it follows that although the person of the divine Word should physically concur with special influx to the elicition of the actions of the assumed humanity, nevertheless such actions would always have to be measured according to the perfection of the principle quo, say of created intellect or will; which principles, since they are physically and naturally finite, cannot give forth physically and naturally infinite actions. Whence let it be

Single conclusion. — THE MERIT OF CHRIST IS NOT INFINITE FROM ITSELF FORMALLY AND INTRINSICALLY, BUT ONLY EXTRINSICALLY.

So the Doctor, distinction 19, number 4, and he proves that Conclusion with very many reasons, of which the first can be proposed thus: if some human action of Christ were of infinite value and acceptability, it would follow that it would be of such value as is the uncreated and essentially infinite volition of God himself: but it is wholly absurd that a created and contingent volition, which by its nature could intrinsically be and not be, and which depends upon a finite and limited principle, should be of such value as uncreated volition: therefore the meritorious action of Christ is not of infinite value. The major is also plain: because uncreated volition cannot have greater value than the infinite: therefore if created volition had infinite value, it would have as much value as uncreated volition has. — It is confirmed: if the created volition of Christ has from itself infinite value and acceptability, then it is required from itself that it be as pleasing and acceptable to God as the very person of the Word is pleasing and acceptable to God: but this seems altogether absurd: therefore it is not of such value or acceptability. The minor is proved, because thence it would follow that as the Word and its volition are simply infinite, so also that created volition would be simply infinite, which certainly not even the adversaries themselves will admit, nor can it by any reason be probable.

The Doctor proves secondly: If the created volition of Christ were from itself of infinite value, it would also have infinite perfection in the order of fruition: the dignity of merit arises from the greater dignity of the act: therefore if created volition has not such great perfection in the order of fruition, it will not have such great dignity, nor consequently such great value: or if it has such great value, it must have such great perfection in the order of fruition.

The Thomists reply: the reason of the Doctor is true if the merit of Christ were infinite in the order of being: but since it is infinite only in the order of merit, not indeed in the order of being, that argument concludes nothing. — Against, the merit of Christ is not infinite in the order of being: therefore neither is it infinite from itself formally and intrinsically. The antecedent the Adversaries admit. The consequence is proved: it cannot be understood how formally and intrinsically the merit of Christ is infinite unless because in its formal entity, and inasmuch as it depends upon an infinite operator operating infinitely, it is infinite: but that is to be infinite in the order of being: therefore if the merit of Christ is infinite formally and intrinsically, as the Adversaries wish, it will be infinite in the order of being.

It is confirmed by the reason of the Doctor, which is his third proof: the meritorious action of Christ was a finite good by its intrinsic notion, not only in the genus of being but also in the genus of morals: therefore it was not infinitely meritorious by its formal notion. The consequence is plain, because it was not more accepted than it was good, according to the opinion of those who wish it to be infinite: therefore if by its formal notion it was not infinitely good in the genus of morals, therefore neither infinitely accepted: therefore neither infinitely meritorious. The antecedent is thus shown: the per se principle of the meritorious action of Christ taken together with all respects even to the Word is intrinsically finite: therefore its action also was formally finite and limited. The antecedent is plain, because the principle of that action is the created will of Christ informed by infinite grace, which from respect to the Word puts on no intrinsic infinitude, because that respect is finite. The consequence is proved: because from a principle essentially intrinsically finite there cannot be an action intrinsically and formally infinite; for an act does not exceed the power of its cause.

The Thomists answer, that the principle quo formal indeed is finite in the genus of being and morals, but the principle quod is infinite: which is so constituted that the meritorious action may be said to be infinite in the genus of morals. — Against, this principle does not act except in virtue of the principle quo, as was said in the third Notable; therefore although the principle quod be infinite, nevertheless an action cannot be elicited except precisely according to the measure of the perfection of the principle quo: which, because it is finite, the meritorious action of Christ also intrinsically and formally ought to be finite. It is confirmed: an agent which through its formal principle is formally finite in the genus of being and nature cannot cause a formally infinite effect, nor elicit a formally infinite action: therefore neither through the principle quo formally finite in the genus of morals and grace can it elicit an infinite action in the genus of morals. The consequence is plain by parity of reason. The antecedent is proved, because Christ, for example, through created intellect cannot elicit a formally infinite intellection.

They reply again, that this infinity must be sought from the fact that the divine Word has a special influx into the actions of the humanity, by reason of the activity of that humanity which belongs to it, whence it can elicit an infinite action, even though the principle by which it merits formally be finite. — Against this, first, nearly all Theologians agree that the divine Word had no peculiar efficiency with respect to those actions. Second, even if it were admitted that he had that influx, it still implies that an action elicited from him through a formally finite principle is infinite. Proof, because an act essentially infinite cannot depend essentially upon causes formally finite in perfection, even with an infinite cause concurring: so that the finite cause have an essential causality over that act: but the assumed nature had a created essential causality over the actions of Christ: therefore they could not be formally infinite. The consequent is evident together with the minor. The major is clear, both because the causality of an effect does not come from a finite cause alone, and also because, although an infinite and a finite cause are subordinated, it still implies that an infinite effect arises from them, because an effect cannot exceed the perfection of its proximate cause, from which it emanates; whence since some effect is produced by God and by the sun, because it depends essentially on the sun, which is a finite cause, such an effect cannot be formally infinite; therefore however much the divine Word may have a peculiar efficiency with respect to the actions of Christ's humanity, nevertheless they cannot for that reason be formally infinite: because they are modified and determined by other finite causes in the genus and order of finite actions and beings.

It is confirmed by the fourth argument of the Doctor: No effect formally and intrinsically infinite follows even from an infinite cause unless that cause itself acts infinitely, or in an infinite manner: but the divine Word, as the person of the assumed humanity, granted that he acted by meriting, did not act in an infinite manner. Proof, both because as such he was acting the part of a human person, which would not have operated otherwise than its own person would have, had there been one; and also because to merit and to satisfy are actions expressing inferiority and submission: therefore they cannot be elicited by God as such: therefore neither by the Word operating infinitely, or in an infinite manner.

The Thomists reply, with Suarez, that indeed the meritorious actions of Christ were not infinite by reason of a certain efficiency and influx which the divine Word had upon the humanity and its operations, but only by reason of the union which those operations of Christ have with the divine Word; by reason of which union those operations of the humanity are reckoned as it were proper to the Word, and consequently dignified into infinity. — Against this, although an action receives some dignity from the person from whom it is elicited, nevertheless an action finite according to its entity cannot receive infinite dignity, even though it be elicited by an infinite person: therefore this response is worthless. Proof of the antecedent: an action finite in perfection according to its entity cannot have as much value and moral dignity as it would have if it were infinite according to its entity: but if it were infinite according to its entity, it could have infinite value and moral dignity: therefore an action which is finite according to its entity, however much it be elicited by an infinite person, cannot of itself and intrinsically have infinite dignity. —

It is confirmed, because an action of infinite goodness proceeding physically from some infinite person ought to have greater dignity also in the order of merit than another action of finite entity elicited by the same infinite person: but this would be false if an infinite reward could correspond to a physically infinite action: therefore such a reward is not owed of itself to such an action proceeding from the person of Christ by reason of its own intrinsic worth and dignity.

It is confirmed secondly, that the value of an operation ought no more to grow from the perfection and dignity of the person than the value of cognition or of vision grows from the dignity of the object: for just as the action of a more worthy person is judged more excellent than the action of a less worthy person, so the vision of a more perfect object is held more excellent than that of a less perfect one: but although the perfection of vision grows and is augmented according to the greater perfection of the object, it does not follow from that, that a vision terminated at an infinite object is intrinsically of infinite perfection; otherwise the beatific vision of any creature whatsoever would be intrinsically infinite in perfection: therefore although the dignity of an action grows from the dignity of the person, it does not follow from that, that if the person be of infinite dignity, the action also be of infinite dignity in the genus of morals and merit. These things seen, even if the dignity of the person influenced something into moral goodness, it would not make that goodness infinite, even if that person be infinite: therefore although the circumstance of the person augments the value of merits, it will not make it infinite, even if the person be infinite.

Suarez responds that the consequence does not hold, because, he says, in one way the circumstance of the person concurs toward dignifying the action in the order of merit: in another way indeed toward dignifying it, or augmenting its moral goodness in the genus of virtue: for it dignifies the action in the order of merit by morally affecting the action itself: but it neither dignifies nor augments moral goodness in the genus of virtue except insofar as the power itself is exercised about the object of such a virtue. Whence it cannot communicate goodness except according to the mode in which the power tends toward that object; and therefore, since the power tends finitely toward the object, it comes about that an infinite person does not communicate infinite moral goodness to the elicited act. — Against this, the finite mode in which the power tends toward the object impedes the communication of infinite goodness into that moral action, even though that action proceed from an infinite person: therefore also the finite mode of operating of an infinite person will impede that person from communicating infinite meritorious dignity to this finite action. The antecedent is from Suarez himself. The consequence, however, is clear by priority of reason.

Further, the value and merit of an action is a property consequent upon the moral goodness of the action itself; whence a thing is worth as much as it is good: therefore since the moral goodness of the actions of Christ is finite, the value and merit of those actions will also be finite. Finally, Suarez gratuitously asserts that the person dignifies itself by the action in the genus of merit independently of the object, but does not thus dignify it in the genus of virtue.

Therefore it must be concluded that the merit of Christ is only infinitely extrinsic and accidental, namely by reason of a threefold circumstance, of the object, of the person, and of the divine acceptation. First indeed, from the circumstance of the object; for just as by a certain extrinsic denomination some sin committed against an infinite object, say God, is called infinite, so also a meritorious action elicited toward God, or on account of God, could be called extrinsically infinite by some denomination. Secondly from the circumstance of the supposit, because whenever any nature operates in an infinite supposit, even if that supposit do not concur actively, nevertheless because it dignifies in some way the operating nature, it consequently dignifies also the action elicited by such a nature; whence since the supposit is infinite, those actions too can be called in some way infinite, that is, extrinsically and accidentally. Finally thirdly, by reason of the divine acceptation, because surely, although some work may not be infinite in itself, yet since for its character as meritorious the divine acceptation is required, it can by the power of that acceptation be called infinite, inasmuch surely as it is accepted for infinite sins, or for infinite men: therefore the merit of Christ can be called infinite by many titles which are only extrinsic and accidental.

The Adversaries object, first indeed certain authorities of Scripture, by which although it is not signified that the merit of Christ was infinite, nevertheless it is declared to have been of sufficient value for paying the debts of the sins of all men whatsoever: from which it may be inferred that that merit was infinite: thus Ps. 139. With the Lord there is mercy, and with him plentiful redemption. 1 Cor. 6. For you are bought with a great price. 1 John 2. And not for our sins only, but also for those of the whole world.

They confirm it from Clement VI, in the aforesaid Extravagant Unigenitus, where speaking of the treasury of the Church he says thus: Of whose consumption or diminution there is not any cause for fear whatsoever, on account of the infinite merit of Christ. Therefore according to the Pontiff, the operations of Christ were of simply infinite meritorious value. The consequence is clear: both because if their meritorious value were not simply infinite, the merits of Christ would not be called absolutely infinite; and also because otherwise it would be lawful to fear with reason lest the sins of men grow so much that at length from their multitude the merits of Christ would finally be consumed. But that the Pontiff, to persuade us of the infinity of the merits of Christ, has recourse not to the extrinsic acceptation of God but to the intrinsic conjunction of them with the Word, is gathered from this: that he says one drop of Christ's blood, on account of its conjunction with the Word, was most sufficient for the sins of all men: but if the merits of Christ were only infinite from the extrinsic acceptation of God, he would have recourse to that, and not indeed to the union with the Word: therefore, etc.

— I answer. From all those authorities both of Scripture and of the Pontiffs nothing else is to be inferred than that truly the merit of Christ is morally infinite, and most sufficient for paying the debts of infinite men: not indeed of itself, or from the fact that it proceeds precisely from an infinite person, but from the fact that God accepted it as the price and satisfaction for remitting the infinite punishment due to sins, and for conferring life eternal; no less than if it were of itself of infinite value. Now the reason why God thus accepted the merits of Christ is rightly gathered from this: that those meritorious works, inasmuch as they proceeded from a divine person, had a special extrinsic dignity which moved God to accept those merits rather than the merits of all men and Angels whatsoever. For although the circumstance of the person did not bestow an intrinsically infinite dignity, nevertheless it conferred so great a value and so great a dignity upon those works that no other meritorious works whatsoever had greater dignity, nor even equal. Whence not without reason does the Pontiff, to signify that the merit of Christ and the price of his blood was most excellent, have recourse to the union; since indeed the supreme dignity of Christ's humanity and of its operation is rightly gathered from the hypostatic union, although it does not follow from that that that dignity be intrinsically infinite.

The Adversaries insist: That divine acceptation either was according to the meritorious dignity of the operation of Christ, or exceeded it; that is, God made those merits worth more by accepting them than they were worth of themselves. If the first, therefore those works have of themselves infinite dignity independently of the acceptation of God. The second indeed cannot be said, because a work not worthy of itself but only by the acceptation of the one rewarding is imperfect in the order of merit, just as a price which of itself is unequal, but has equality only from the voluntary acceptation of the seller, is imperfect in the order of price: therefore if the works of Christ were not of themselves worthy in the order of merit, but had that from the extrinsic acceptation of God, it is necessary that they have been imperfect in the order of merit.

— I answer, that the merits of Christ were not accepted beyond their dignity and value, because although they were not intrinsically infinite, nevertheless because they proceeded from a person of infinite dignity, they were of such value as was required that they be accepted by God for the salvation of infinite men, namely because those merits exceeded the dignity of any other conceivable meritorious work whatever. I add that even if God had accepted them beyond their dignity, it would not follow that those works of Christ were imperfect in the order of merit: since those merits cannot be judged imperfect to which a more excellent and more perfect merit cannot be given: but to the merits of Christ a more excellent merit cannot be given: therefore they cannot be judged imperfect. Hence there is no comparison of those merits with a price. For this very reason a price, whose value depends on the acceptation of the seller, is judged imperfect, because to such a price a greater can be given which would of itself equal the dignity of the thing bought: but to the merits of Christ some more excellent merits cannot be given which could of themselves equal the payment to be made for the expiation of infinite sins and the salvation of infinite men: therefore from that they ought not be judged imperfect.

They object 2. The meritorious actions of Christ are called by the holy Fathers theandrical, that is, divine, or actions of God and man; for thus St. Dionysius calls them, Epistle 1. to Caius, and St. Damascene, book 3. De Fide, chapter 15: but a theandrical action proceeds as much from the Word as from the humanity: therefore the Word inflows into the actions as much as the humanity itself: but an action into which the Word peculiarly inflows is of infinite value: therefore the actions of Christ, as meritorious, were of themselves of infinite value. — I distinguish the major: that they proceed as much from the Word as from the humanity by physical or moral influx, as though the Word equally inflowed into the actions as the humanity inflowed into them, I deny: that they proceed as much from the Word as from the humanity, that is, those actions are produced by a person who is at once God and man, as from the principle by which, I concede: from that, however, it does not follow that the Word influows potentialiter into these actions, and consequently it is not true that those actions are of themselves of infinite value.

They object 3. The gravity of an offense grows according to the perfection of the person offended: but satisfaction according to the perfection of the person satisfying: therefore as the fault committed against an infinite person is judged infinite, so satisfaction made by an infinite person ought to be judged infinite. — I answer, that the antecedent is true according to proportion, not according to degree; that is, by a certain proportion an injury offered to an infinite person is judged infinite, yet not according to the degree of perfection of the person offended, because the person offended, if it be infinite, is infinite according to degrees intrinsically and formally of infinite perfection; but the injury not according to degrees of infinitude, but by a certain extrinsic denomination from the infinite person offended, is called infinite: hence satisfaction, or a meritorious action, is measured according to the perfection of the person meriting, not according to degree but according to proportion, especially if the person to whom the merit is attributed has no efficiency over it, but only dignifies it extrinsically and accidentally, as we said the supposit of the divine Word dignifies the meritorious actions of the assumed humanity.

— Yet I should judge that this controversy could easily be settled, and both opinions reconciled, by saying that Christ truly merited for infinite men as to sufficiency; not that his meritorious works had infinite goodness and dignity, which also very many Thomists concede; but that they were of such dignity and of such great value, from the fact that they would proceed from a divine person, that God, moved by their value and supreme dignity, was led to accept them for all men absolutely, even if they were infinite in number.