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.