THE PASSIONS OF CHRlST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
1 wish to express my gratitude to Professor Fr., Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., and to the second reader, Professor Fr. Gilles Emery, O:P., both ofwhom kindly and generously guided me throughout this work. Without their expertise in the field ofmedieval theology in general and the thought ofAquinas in particular, the quality of this work would not be what it is. 1 also wish to thank Professor Dr. LudWig Hodl and Professor Dr. h.c. multo Wolfgang Kluxen for accepting this book in the Baeumker-Beitriige series. 1 thank as well the Gorres-Gesellschafl and the Director ofAschendorff, Dr. Dirk Passmann, for their assistance in the printing of this manuscript.
Paul Gondreau
Finally, 1 wish to dedicate this book to my lovely wlfe Christiana, without whose tireless self-sacrifices and cheeifitl encouragement this work would not have seen the light of day.
University of Scranton Press Scranton and London
CONTENTS © 2009 University of Scranton Press All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gondreau, Paul. The passions of Christ's soul in the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas / Paul Gondreau. p.cm. Previously published: Miinster : Aschendorff, c2002. ISBN 978-1-58966-170-7 (pbk.) I. Jesus Christ--Humanity. 2. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274. 3. Jesus Christ--Passion. I. Title. BT218.G662009 232' .8--dc22 2008049072
PREFACE BY JEAN-PIERRE TORRELL, O.P INTRODUCTION
17
A Note on Terminology
30
Chapter I. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL SOURCES OF AQUINAS' THEOLOGY OF CHRIST'S HUMAN PASSIONS
35
A. Scriptural Sources 1.
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The Use oftbe Gospels in the Account of Christ's Passions
The Use of the Old Testament in Thomas' Account of Christ's Passions 3, The Synthesis of Revelation and Reason in Aquinas' Theology of Christ's Human Affectivity B. Patristic Sources I. Hilary of Poitiers and the Debate over the Psychosomatic Reality of Christ's Suffering and PaiD 2. Augustine a. The De civitate Dei h. The De diversis Quaestionibus 83,
35
36
2.
3.
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7
4.
John Damascene a.
The Impact of the De fide orthodoxa on Aquinas' Theology
h.
of Christ's Passions Christ's Human Affectivity in the Thought of Damascene
Other Patristic auctoritates
C. The Pre-13th-Century Medieval and Scholastic Sources 1. The Early Medieval Sources: Bede and Alcuin 2. Hugh ofSt. Victor 73 3. The Sentences of Peter Lombard a. The Impact of the Sentences on Aquinas' Theology of Christ's Passions b. Christ's Human Affectivity in the Thought of Lombard D.. The 13th-Century Sources 1. The Commentaries on Lombard's Sentences 2. The Summa theologiae and Quaestiones disputatae 'antequam esse!/rater' of Alexander of Hales 3. The De incarnatione ofAlbert the Great 4. The Christologicai Writings of Bonaventure
39 44 47 48 51 53 55
58 58 60 66 71 71
76 76 80 88 88 89 94
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E. Recapitulation and Conclusion Chapter 2. THE ANTIlROPOWGICAL SOURCES OF AQUINAS' THEOWGY OF CHRIST'S HUMAN PASSIONS A. The Treatise on the Passions (Summa theologiae I-II, qq. 22-48) 1. The Originality of the Treatise on the Passions 2. The Role of the Passions in the Proper Telos of Ruman Life 3. The Historical Achievement of the Treatise on the Passions 4. Damascene's De fide orthodoxa as the Methodological Source for Aquinas' Theology of Christ's Passions in the Summa B. Aristotle I. The Use of Aristotle in Aquinas' Theology of Christ's Human Affectivity 2. The Role of Aristotle in Thomas' Treatise on the Passions 3. Aquinas' Transfonnation of Aristotle's View on the Role of Passion in the Moral Life C. John Damascene and Nemesius ofEmesa D'. Albert the Great E. Augustine F. Others 1. Marginal Sources 2. Peter Lombard and the "Affective Spark to Sin" (fames peccati) 3. Excluded Sources G. Recapitulation and Conclusion
98
2. 3.
The Relationship between Christ's Sinlessness and His Human Affectivity Christ's Metaphysical Human Consubstantiality
158 164
101 102 102 107 109 III 113 113 116 119
120 123 127 128 128 130 132 134
Chapter 3. THE FOUNDATIONAL CHRISTOLOGlCAL PRINCIPLES OF AQUINAS' THEOWGY OF CHRIST'S PASSIONS
137
A. The Hypostatic Union and the Divine Dignity of Christ
137
B. The Full Integrity of the Humanity of Christ I. A Matter of Faith 2. Aquinas' Anti-Docetism: The FuJI Realism of Christ's Human Nature 3. The Truth of Christ's Human Nature "in All Its Singular Parts": The Case of Christ's Male Sexuality 4. Aquinas' Anti-Monophysitism and His "Existential Christology" 5. The Instrumentality of Christ's Humanity and the Role of the Soteriological Principle C. Christ's Absolute Sinlessness l. AMatter of Faith
141 141 142
145 150 152 157 158
D. The Principle of Economy and Christ's Coassumed Defects and Perfections I. The Principle of Economy and the coassumpta 2. The Tension between Christ's Coassumed Perfections and Defects in the Arena ofRis Human Affectivity 3. Christ's Coassumed Defects: His Passions a. For Purposes of Expediency in Satisfaction b. For Purposes ofCredibiJity in the Incarnation 4. Christ's Coassumed Perfections: The Fullness of Grace a. The Grace of Union b. The Personal Grace c. The Capital Grace d. The Perfection of Grace as the Foundation for the Moral Quality of Christ's Life E. The "Fittingness" (conveniens) of Christ's Human Wealmesses I. ' The Argument of Fittingness in Aquinas' Christology 2. Understanding Christ's Passions as Fitting (or Optional) Features of the Incarnation F. Recapitulation and Conclusion Chapter 4. THE ONTOLOGICAL REALISM OF THE INCARNATION: CHRIST'S POSSESSION OF A PASSIBLE SOUL A. Christ's Sensate Human Nature I. The "Animal" Side of Christ's Humanity: His Possession of a Sensitive Appetite 2. Christ's Possession of a Concupiscible and Irascible Appetite B. The Passibility of the Human Soul I. Passion as a Movement of the Sensitive Appetite a. The Passions in General b. The Specific Movements of the Sensitive Appetite: The Eleven Types of Passion 2. Passion as a Defect ofthe Soul a. Affective Suffering Signifies the Proper Meaning of Passion b. Pass~on as a Consequence of the Natural Corruptibility of the Body c. PaSSIon as a Consequence of Sin
166 166 169 170 172
174 176 177 178 179 180 181 181 183 188
191 192 192 199 202 204 204 211 219 221 225 227
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C. The Passibility of Christ's Human Soul (Utrum anima Christi foerit passibUis) 1. The Placement of the Treatise on Christ's Passions in the Structural Design of the Tertia Pars 2. The "Passion of the Body" (passio corporalis) in Christ 3. The "Passion of the Soul" (passio animalis) in Christ D. Recapitulation and Conclusion
233 236
245 252 257
Chapter 5. "THE PASSIONS WERE IN CHRIST OTHERWISE THAN IN US": THE MORAL QUALITY OF JESUS' HUMAN AFFECTMTY 261 A. The Role of the Passions in the Moral Life 1. The Passions as the First Step towards Attaining Hwnan Happiness 2. The Passions as the Proper "Matter" of Moral Virtue 3. The Commanding Role of Reason in the Moral Life 4. The Metaphysical Basis for the Role of the Passions in the Life of Virtue 5. Reason's "Limited" or "Political Rule" (principatus politicus) over the Sensitive Appetite 6. "Virtuous Passions": Moral Virtue Resides in the Sense Appetite 7. The Moral Neutrality of the Passions: Aquinas Replies to the Stoics B. The Relationship Between Christ's Passions and His Virtue 1. Christ's Immunity to the Effects of Original Sin on Human Affectivity a. The Theological Method of Aquinas b. The Affective Integrity of Prelapsarian Man c. The Consequences of Original Sin on Human Affectivity d. "Christ Received Hwnan Nature in the Purity that It Possessed in the State ofInnocence" e. Christ's Spontaneous Appetitive Inclinations: Voluntas ut natura and voluntas sensualitatis 2. Christ's Passions as Integral to His Consummate Virtue 3. The Soteriological Significance of Christ's Perfection in Virtue a. The Need for Satisfaction b. "In Order to Give Us an Example" C. The Threefold Distinction in the Morality of Christ's Passions I. The Object of Christ's Passions: Jesus' Affective Tendency to Lawful Sense Objects 2. The Principle of Christ's Passions: Jesus' Affective Movements Never Preceded the Judgment of Reason a. Antecedent Passions and Consequent Passions b. The Absence of the "Affective Spark to Sin" (fomes peccatij in Christ c. Christ's Temptations
264 264 267 269 271 273 276 281 286 288 288 291 294
3.
The Effects ofChrist's Passions: Jesus' Affective Movements Never Impeded the Use of Reason a. The Obscuring Influence of Passion b. Christ's "Propassions" D. Recapitulation and Conclusion
362 364 366 372
Chapter 6. AQUINAS ON THE SPECIFIC PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL: THE CASE OF JESUS' SENSmLE PAIN, SORROW, FEAR, WONDER, ANGER, AND THE VISIO DEI
375
"A. Christ's Experience of Sensible Pain
B.
C.
D.
E.
301 309
317 324 325 326 333 334 335 337 342 350
F. G.
I. Sensible Pain as a Passion of the Soul 2. The Christological Impact: The Reply to Hilary of Poitiers Christ's Experience of Sorrow 1. The Human Passion of Sorrow 2. Utrum in Christo foeri! tristitia Christ's Experience of Fear 1. The Human Passion of Fear 2. Utrum in Christojuerit timor Christ's Affective Experience of Wonder 1. Wonder or Amazement (admiratio) as a Passion of the Soul 2. Utrum in Christo fuerit admiratio Christ's Experience of Anger 1. The Human Passion of Anger 2. Utrum in Christo foerit ira Christ's Passions and His Enjoyment of the Vision of God Recapitulation and Conclusion
380 380 384 388 390 394 403 404 408 414 416
418
427 429
434 441
453
GENERAL CONCLUSION
457
BmLIOGRAPHY 1. Primary Sources 2. Translations 3. Works onAquinas' Theology of Christ's Human Affectivity 4. Works on Aquinas' Thought "On Genem1 Human Affectivity 5. Complementary Works
461 461 466 469 470
477
INDEX OF THEMES AND PRINCIPAL TERMS
499
INDEX OF NAMES
504
ABBREVIATIONS
SIS
5
PREFACE lly JEAN-PmRRE TORRELL, O.P. The image of Christ presented by Christians throughout the course of the centuries has gone through considerable change. From that of the Pantocrator Christ of the Byzantine mosaics to the image of the machine-gun armed warrior Jesus of the I 960s, from the figure of the majestic Christ of the Gothic cathedrals or of the Man of suffering so frequently represented at the end of the Middles Ages to the image of Jesus inspired by feminist ~eology, the choice is divergent and infinite. At the risk of surprising the reader, it should be acknowledged that an analogous divergence 'characterizes the theological reflection on Christ throughout the same course of centuries. Certainly. all Christian authors of committed belief adhere to the profession offaith of the first Councils and confess the one Christ God and man, yet many are divided still today along the two great lines that havetraditionaIly demarcated christological thought: the one that turns Christ into a hieratic or timeless idea who remains closer to the divine than' to the human, or the other, undoubtedly more popular, which accentuates his humanity sometimes to the point of obscuring his divinity. The difficult balance that must be maintained, so that neither his divinity nor his humanity is sacrificed, requires careful and multiple nuances. Without surrendering Christ's divinity in any way, Thomas Aquinas certainly ranks as the one medieval author who paid the greatest heed to the demands ofthe Incarnation and who did more than anyone to shed light on the human face of God. To verify this, all one need do is page through his treatise on the "mysteries" ofChrisfs life to see the kind of attention he gives to the historical reality of Jesus. Or all one need do is look at his study on Christ's passions. We are hardly used to seeing the tenn "passion" associated with the name of Jesus, yet we must understand that for Aquinas the tenn passion does not shoulder the pejorative sense it does for us today. Whereas for us passion calls to mind notions of excess and fits of extreme, for Thomas it refers simply to a movement of sensibility. A pas:... sion begins with the slightest sense impression and manifests itself as any kind of affective movement or as a feeling or emotion. To speak of the passions of the soul is in fact to consider human affectivity in all its degrees. Acutely attuned moralist, the Master from Aquino examined this topic with great care and devoted the most extensive part of his moral theology to it. His treatise on the passions, found in the Prima Secundae Pars of the Summa theologiae, is today the object of several studies, seminar discussions, and pUblications, yet the application Thomas made of it to the spe~ial case of Christ has yet to garner the at-
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tention it rightly deseIVes. By choosing the treatise on Christ's passions as the object of his research so that an image of Christ accessible to believers of today might be retrieved, Paul Gondreau shows a timely perspicacity which offers the occasion for the accomplishment of a truly new work.
* * * One can read this work from three angles. The first considers it from the point of view of the history of theology, whereby it pinpoints the precise manner in which Thomas, no matter his unique achievements, proves himself the heir of a process of christological and anthropological reflection that began long before his time, and where one sees at work a remarkable convergence of Eastern and Western traditions. At the ropt source of this process is of course the witness of the Gospels, which speaks profusely of Jesus' feelings or emotions: tears, wonder, joy, desire, love, fear or dread, compassion, disgust, sorrow, anger (more frequently mentioned than any other emotion). The Fathers of the Churcb also have their input. Though it is true that the general influence of Stoic philosophy, with its estimation of the passions as sicknesses of the soul, offered little encouragement to Christian thinkers to pause and reflect on Christ's human feelings, Augustine reverses this course. By his rejection of the Stoic position, he adopts in fact a decidedly pro-peripatetic attitude, and one that Aquinas will find quite congenial; among other things, Thomas will receive from Augustine the understanding that the neutral character of the passions allows the Word to assume them in his human nature without in any way jeopardizing his absolute sinlessness. The influence of John Damascene goes deeper still: in him Thomas encounters not only an Aristotelian inspiration but also and especiallya distinctly anti-docetic resolve, as well as a structured doctrine on the passions (due in large part to the influence of Nemesius of Emesa's De natura hominis, attributed in the Middle Ages to Gregory of Nyssa) and an invaluable elaboration on the distinction between the sensitive appetite and the will (where one detects the influence of Maximus the Confessor). It goes without saying that for these latter authors as for Augustine, Christ possessed only "irreproachable" passions that remained compatible with his perfect holiness; between his intellectual will and his passions there reigned, as in Adam in the state of original justice, a total harmony. As for his other patristic sources, Thomas mentions in passing Ambrose, pseudo-Dionysius, Leo the Great, and Jerome, from whom he borrows the term "propassion" to signify
a passion that remains under the control of reason. Thomas employs medievru SOlU'Ces as well (from Peter Lombard to Alexander of Hales to Albert the Great to Bonaventure), yet here he proves himself more selective, as he forges little by little his conviction that a doctrine on the passions must presuppose a hylemorphic conception of human nature, since there is no passion that does not at the same time involve a bodily modification. It is on this point especially that Aquinas distances himself from Bonaventure, for whom the existence of Christ's soul is postulated more by faith than by a hylemorphic necessity. Standing alongside tbese directly christological considerations are Thomas' "anthropological" sources, or the writings of ancient moralists. The treatise on the passions, which forms a structural_ element in the fundamental moral theology of Thomas Aquinas, owes much to these writings, even if this treatise marks a profoundly personal and original work. From the two basic tendencies to the good-to savor or to subdue-and near the end of an analysis that is as subtle as it is detailed, Aquinas constructs an edifice of eleven passions that belongs to him alone and which many specialists consider to be without parallel in both ancient and Christian literature. His method gladly underscores the psychosomatic side of the passions and the interaction that results from this: the passions proceed not only from a bodily alteration to an internal perception (pass;o corporalis); they can also follow the opposite path by arising in the sensible part of the soul and ending in a bodily reaction (passio animalis). By placing this study at the beginning of his ethical analysis, Thomas wishes to send the message that the virtuous life does not stand independent of human sensibility, and that the construction of man's moral life involves the integration of the passions or affectivity, in the virtues. ' In this last sense, Thomas shows himself to be a true disciple of Aristotle, even if the philosopber provided him only with a rudimentary definition of passion and with various moral maxims and psychological observations that hardly amount to a structured treatise. If Aquinas was able to erect a much more elaborate exposition, it is due in large part to Nemesius of Emesa, the author of the first Christian anthropological work that was transmitted by John Damascene. If Thomas cites Aristotle more often in his treatise on the passions, it does not change the fact that Nemesius and Damascene playa more influential role, in addition to Albert the Great, who holds decidedly to a hylemorphism and thus to an integration of passion in the work of virtue. Betraying an impressive array of documentation, Aquinas uses a number of other sources, though in a more marginal manner. The absence of certain authors is thus quite significant: Bonaventure, whose rational psychology
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stands in marked opposition to Thomas' position; the Augustinian apocryphal work De spiritu et anima,' the early Dominican manuals of moral theology that are so gravely devoid of speculative ambition,
* * * A second possible reading of this book consists in taking note of the foundational principles that underlie Thomas' Christology. These five themes, so fully operative in the treatise on Christ's passions, are rarely enumerated by Aquinas himself and are even more rarely noticed' as a group by his readers, yet they play an entirely essential role. The first should be fairly obvious: given the very nature of the hypostatic union, one can never dissociate the humanity of Jesus from the Person of the Word: though verus homo, he is not purus homo, What results from this is a certain reluctance to push the analysis of Christ's passions as far as the modem reader would like; a light for theological reflection, defined dogma can also at times exercise a restraining role. The full integrity of the humanity of Christ is the second of these principles that Thomas employs in the name of the faith; this principle translates not only into certain anti-docetic affrrmations and anti-Monophysitic statements, but also into an appreciation of the masculine character of Christ: this does not mean that the Word could not have been a woman, but only that the realism of his humanity requires that he be either a man or a woman. The absolute sinlessness of Christ, listed as the third principle, takes on a foundational role as well, as seen in the fact that Thomas begins his consideration of Christ's passions with this tenet. There results from this a clearly perceptible tension-which runs throughout his entire analysis-between two givens that are difficult to reconcile with each other: by his holiness, Christ participates in the integrity of the original nature of Adam, even though the truth of the Incarnation requires that he possess a passible nature like OW'S in everything, Echoing the standard practice of his predecessors, Aquinas is subsequently led to refine his analysis and distinguish, on the one hand, between the metaphysical dc::finition of the specific human nature (which does not include sin) and the historical or existential condition of man (which is marked by the consequences of sin), and, on the other, between those passions that are compatible with holiness (bodily passibility, for example) and those that are incompatible with it (inclination to sin, concupiscence), The criterion that allows for this distinction is the way in which these elements either favor or subvert the goal of the
Incarnation, viz" the accomplishment of Christ's mission: a sinner Christ can'in no way either alleviate the reality 'of sin or be an example of justice and holiness. The fourth principle, which the author terms the ''principle of economy" (in the sense of the economy of salvation), detennines the Word's assumption-ofwhatAquinas calls the "coassumed" realities. This principle is itself governed by the preceding one: on the one hand, Christ must be supremely perfected to accomplish his mission, whereby, at least from this perspective, his defects give way to his holiness (it is in this sense that authors speak of the ''principle of perfection"); on the other hand, his participation in our common humanitymust be taken to be so real that it is not doubted (this allows one to speak ofa kind of "principle of credibility"). All this converges into a fifth foundational theme: the "principle of fittingness." In his contemplation oftbe plan of God such as it is accomplished in Jesus, the theologian must acknowledge that, strictly speaking, there is no necessary explanation either for the mystery of the Incamation itself or for the passibility of Christ; in the domain of the pure generosity of the good will of God, the theologian can do his best merely to discover the secret logic of this will, which one may term a "fittingness," Such an understanding requires that any theological endeavor be grounded in a radical humility.
* * * With these preceding remarks in mind, we now pass to a consideration of the delights of the third way of reading this work-which will be the most obvious to the theologian-and attempt to follow Thomas Aquinas in his reflection on the realism of the Incarnation, On the most general level, the passions stand out above all as consequences of the ontological constitution of the humanity of Christ: since his soul exercises diverse functions like all other human souls, its sensible part is endowed with an "appetite" in which are rooted those powers that account for the soul's inclination to the good in itself (the concupiscible) or to the difficult good (the irascible). That said, it would seem that Thomas should have examined the passibility of Christ's soul among the consequences' of the hypostatic union, whereby the passions are seen to belong to human nature since its very creation. Instead, Aquinas preferred to treat Christ's passions among what he calls the Word's "coassumed" realities (grace, knowledge, etc.), whereby the passions are looked upon as defects of the
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soul that more properly belong to the condition of human nature after sin. The reasons for this decision are somewhat pedagogical, but especially historical, as they result from a perspective inherited from the received theological tradition. This leads to a narrow approach, inasmuch as Thomas passes up a more neutral presentation of Christ's passions-which would have comprised an analysis of all Christ's passions (including those relating to the good: love, joy, desire)-and instead focuses almost exclusively on those passions that involve suffering and a reaction to evil. Though the modem reader might regret this decision, this present work, with its scrupulous attention to detail, nonetheless shows how Aquinas' position progressed in some noteworthy ways: whereas in the commentary on the Sentences Thomas was unable to affirm passions originating in Christ's soul ("animal" passions [from the Latin anima for "soul"], to use his terminology), since the joy of the blessed vision would have excluded them, in the Summa he would henceforth admit of such passions. This view of the mature Aquinas was unique in the writings of his time, as underscored by the fact that his master Albert the Great flatly refused to affinn the same. Driving the analysis deeper, one will take note of the manner in which Christ's passions are much different from our own, as they remain in total compatibility with his perfect moral quality., Such a view can only be understood if one recalls Thomas' heralded view that the exercise of virtue consists not in a forced submission of the passions to reason from without, but in evangelizing them from within on account of the synergy between reason and sensibility; such a synergy results from the progressive penetration of reason and will, assisted by grace, into the domain of the sensible appetite to the extent that this appetite is empowered to assist the work of virtue through its own acts. Applying this understanding to the case of Christ, it becomes immediately clear that his experience was much more hannonious than our own: since he Was free of original sin, he evaded its effects, most notably the disordered inclination to the most immediate good (concupiscence). In point of fact, Christ found hhnself in the same situation as Adam before the Fall, whereby the sensitive appetite, fortified by original grace, subnutted perfectly to reason and will to the very point that man lived in supreme hannony both with himself and with God. Yet, such perfect moral integrity in no way undermined Christ'S ontological constitution, since from the moment he assumed our nature in its cWTent condition, he participated in its passibility and mortality; in this way Christ shares in the condition of Adam after the fall. A synthetic consideration of the status of the passions in Christ yields the realization that his differed from our own in three essential ways: with respect to their object, Christ's pas-
sions inclined only to goods in confonnity with reason and will; as for their source, Jesus' movements of affectivity were always in perfect hannony with his fullness of grace; with respect to their effects, Jesus' passions never obstructed his reason or overcame it to the point of blinding it. Ifwe keep in mind the aforementioned remarks on the consummate harmony of Jesus' moral being, we can understand how Thomas remains convinced that Jesus' sensibility lost out on nothing and preserved its entire authenticity. This does not mean, however, that all difficulties vanish, since it remains unclear how a sensibility so intimately penetrated by a grace-filled reason can retain its spontaneity, a spontaneity clearly expressed in the scene of Jesus' agony. Even so, such an observation should in no way derogate from the following twofold conclusion: first, no other,author treated this issue as fully as Aquinas; and, second, Thomas positive regard for the passions is intimately bound to his conception of the substantial unity of the human being, a unity that attains the very domain of sensibility. . If we proceed to a co~sideration of the way in which Aquinas treats the five passions he retains in Christ-sensible pain, sorrow, fear, wonder (admiratio), and anger-we see the rather clear results of his method. Concerning sensible pain, the reader can detect a distinct evolution in Thomas' thought by comparing the Sentences to the Summa: whereas in the former work the author rese:rves sensible pain to the body alone, in the latter he affirms that sensible pain involves internal repercUSsions at the level of the soul. As the mature Aquinas was well aware, ifhe did not maintain this latter position, he would have found himself in the camp of Hilary of Poitiers, according to whom Christ felt only the impact of his wounds without their concomitant pain. As for sorrow, Thomas followed an analogous path: he defines it as an "animal" passion (that is, as a passion originating internally with the mind or with the imagination), and whereas he initially had trouble recognizing its presence in Christ on account of the blessed vision he possessed, the Master from Aquino would later affirm it outright and qualify sorrow as a praiseworthy passion under certain circumstances. The fact that it was a propassion only in Christ gives Thomas the opportunity to correct the Stoic view that the wise man never allows himself to be troubled by sorrow, since the propassion of sorrow failed to reach the point of perturbing or disrupting Jesus' spirit. Curiously, Aquinas never speaks of compassion or pity with respect to Christ, even though he clearly defines it as a kind of sorrow over an evil that befalls another. After sorrow, fear is the passion that best captures the meaning of passion: whereas sorrow concerns a present evil that cannot be avoided, fear arises in the soul when it encounters an impending evil that is yet j
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to come. Thomas is careful not to confuse fear with a spontaneous aversion to death (which instead arises from a fundamental movement of the will), and, here too, he underscores more and more the internal origin of fear as well as its status as a propassion in Jesus: as with all his other passions, Jesus takes on fear voluntarily, and so gives it soteriological value, especially on account of his moral and ontological exemplarity. Aquinas was alone in addressing wonder (admiratio) in Christ; if wonder is strictly speaking not a passion, it can still be related to fear (whence the reason for its placement in this series of queries). Still, not every experience of wonder is a species offear nor even a sensible passion; Thomas also takes it to signify a kind of intellectual passion in order to prove, contrary to Apollinarius of Laodicea, that Christ possessed not only a sensible soul (psyche) but also an intellectual soul (nails, mens). This point is all the more worthy of mention, since, believing (according to his theories) that Jesus could be ignorant ofnothing, Thomas is unmistakably ill at ease with the experience of wonder in Jesus. It is also noteworthy to remark that the Dominican speaks of Christ's admiratio only in the Summa; if it comes here, it is because he was finally led to conclude to the existence of acquired lmowledge in Christ: without ceasing to lmow all things by his infused lmowledge, he could also learn new things through his growth in empirical knowledge. As most know, this position remains fairly problematic; however, it remains no less true that if Thomas was the only one to attempt to explain this given of the Gospel witness, it is because he alone dared to speak of a real experimental knowledge in Christ. Despite a certain resistance from the theological tradition which viewed anger as a capital vice, Aquinas did not hesitate to regard it as a passion and, hence, as neutral in its soW'Ce, and thus worthy of consideration with respect to Christ (the Gospels are too explicit in this regard for him to have ignored it). Defined as the appetite for a restoration ofjustice, anger can take on a certain kind of nobility that relates typically to an act of reason. In Christ this passion never blinded his reason and was wholly praiseworthy. Final attention is given to the way in which Thomas reconciles the foregoing analysis with the presence of the blessed vision that he opines Christ enjoyed during his earthly life. All his contemporaries share this view, yet Thomas offers a more refined explanation, since he alone understands the full import of the passions, given the unparalleled attention he gives them. Without entering into the matter in full detail (as this would mark the beginning point of a whole other work), the present author succinctly recapitulates Aquinas' position: by a special disposition of divine wisdom, the glory of the vision which should have re-
dounded onto the sensible powers and even onto the body was confined to the highest part of Cln'ist's soul, in such a way as to impede neither the natural passibility of Jesus' humanity nor the nonnal workings of his sensible powers. Thouih recognizing the internal rational coherence of this solution, -Paul Gondreau does not hide his misgivings; he even offers an argument that would appear to represent a new objection against Thomas' position, as he holds that it was precisely Aquinas' adherence to Christ's_ poss~ssion of the beatific vision that prevented him from transposing to Christ's case the whole group of eleven passions, as well as from pushing his analysis of the passions that he does attribute to Christ to nearly the extent he readily left open to himself. .
* * * As the foregoing swmnary should have made clear, this work of historical and critical theology is of great interest ,and sheds considerable new light on several issues. Its very subject matter, the human passions of Christ, has been examined not even once; one could even say that it has been purposely avoided. Tackling this issue head-on, and in an extensive manner, the author of this book has thus filled a great void and has offered an ·original contribution to Thomist studies. This work goes far in cOIlfInning Aquinas' positive esteem for the full human reality of Christ, an esteem enhanced by Thomas' celebrated position on the substantial unity oftbe human being; in this way, he can appraise the many aspects oftraditional Christian thought that have taken too long to be examined. The Alexandrine heritage which some have so often recently denounced in Aquinas' thought is thus, at least on this issue, considerably tempered by the influence of the Antiochene heritage. This work is remarkable on several other particular points as well. I have in mind especially the manner in which Thomas Aquinas should be read and studied today-at least if one wishes to take into account the progress in medieval and theological research in the twentieth century. The author of this present work excels both in an internal analysis of the texts and in an appeal to parallel passages; he accordingly is able to shed light on some rather elliptical passages and to spot evidence of a progression in Thomas' thought; he knows how to highlight the evolution of Aquinas' position, thanks to the perspective he gives to the texts and to the evidence he supplies in each case for the most plausible reasons for such an internal evolution. The most prominent case centers on the evidence given
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in the development of the notion ofpassio anima/is, the type of passion that originates in the sensible soul: this passion, Thomas is finally led to conclude, can cause the soul to be saddened on its own without anything bodily provoking it. This advance is comparable to the one that brings Aquinas to the full and unadulterated recognition of an acquired knowledge in Christ, and this is not just by chance. These two positions ~e1ong to !h0~~s alon~, and their originality is all the more impressive when comparing them to the mabihty of his contemporaries to admit of these same possibilities. The constant effort to place Aquinas among his contemporaries is in fact another characteristic of this work. The present author is not content simply to repeat what Thomas says, but perfonns a careful study when the context demands it. At the same time-and this is in no way the least remarkable feature-he offers a critically informed reading of Aquinas which the thought of the Dominican Master deserves; that is, the author highlights Thomas' originality (which is vast) when called for, but he also does not hesitate to point out Aquinas' limits. The most striking of these limits concerns a kind of diffident approach due to cer. tain factors well identified in this work: the weight of the patristic heritage, a theological context that is little favorable to the subject matter, the beatific vision, and the difficulty of conceiving how this vision does not impede the normal workings-of Christ's passions. These are real difficulties, but the author evades them not in the least. Enlightened disciple of Thomas Aquinas, Paul Gondreau does not hide his fundamental devotion to the thought of the Master, yet he knows how to take a certain critical distance when necessary to do so. From this point of view as well, this work is exemplary.
INTRODUCTION
"Nihil enim mirabilius excogitari potest divinitus factum quam quod verus Deus, Dei Filius, fieret homo verus" - "Nothing more wonderful can be considered than the divine
achievement of true God, the Son ofGod,-becoming true man."1 With these words from the Summa contra Gentiles, Thomas Aquinas betrays his supreme regard for the_ realism of the
Incarnation. In his recent worl< on Aquinas' Christology, the French scholar J.-P. Torrell notes that Thomas' regard for Christ's full humanity is thoroughly permeated by a distinctly anti-docetic spirit.' Torrell's claim can be readily verified by turning to that area of Thomas' thought to which this present study is consecrated: his theology of Christ's human passions (or Christ's human affectivity). St. Thomas writes on Christ's human affectivity throughout the whole of his career: first in his commentary on the Sentences, afterward in the De veritate, later in the Compendium theologiae and in his various scriptural commentaries, and, fmally, in the treatise on Christ's passions in question 15 of the Tertia Pars of the Summa theologiae, which brings this element of his Christology to full fruition.' An undeniable jewel in his christological thought, Aquin?S' theology of Jesus' human affectivity works from the recognition that the tenet of the Incarnation, or the doctrine of God become man, cannot be left in the abstract, but must yield a theological appreciation of its concrete implications, which extends totbe arena of the assumed human passions; as Thomas succinct-
1. CG IV, ch. 27. Aquinas offers almost the identical phrase in his commentary on John's Gospel {Lectura super loannem}, ch. 2, Ject. 3: "Nothing more marvelous could be accomplished than that God became man" (Nihil enim mirabiliusfieri potuit quam quod Deus factus est homo). Later in ch. 6, lect. 4, Thomas repeats this: "nothing is more a source of wonder than the Son of God made man" (nihil est admirabiJius quam Filius Dei homo factus) . 2. l-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres. La vie et I'oeuvre de Jesus selon saint Thomas d'Aquin, vol. 1 (paris: Desclee, 1999), pp. 89, 173, 197, and 272. and especially 118, where Torrell writes: "chaque fois qu'it croit pouvoir Ie faire, Thomas tient a faire du Christ un homme pleinement soumis aux lois de l'humanite." Cf. as weB G. Lafont. Structures et methode dans la "Somme theologique" de saint Thomas d'Aquin (paris: Les Editions du Cerf. 1996), p. 349. 3. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. I, qc. 3; a. 2, qc. 1-3 (when citing Thomas' commentary on Bk. HI of the Sentences, I will be using the provisional texts of the critical Leonine edition that the editor J.F. Hinnebusch has kindly provided for me); De ver. q. 26, aa. 8-10; Compo theol. cbs. 226-8 and 230-3; and STill. q. 15. aa. 1-2, and 4-10 (in teIDlS of structure, the analysis of Cbrist's passions in the Summa most resembles that of the commentary on the Sentences). For Aqufuas' remarks on Christ's passions in his scriptural commentaries; cf. Lect. super loan .• ch. 11, lects. 5-6; ch. 12, lect. 5; ch. 13, lect. 4; Lectura super Mattheum. ch. 26, lect. 5; and Expositio super lob ad litteram, on 3: I. Thomas also offers passing remarks on Christ's human affectivity in CG IV, chs. 32-3; and De malo q. 12, a. I,sed contra 4.
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ly puts it in his Summa theologiae, "the passions of the soul were in Christ even as all else pertaining to human nature. "4 The inclusion of a treatise on, Christ's passions in the Tertia Pars of the Summa theologiae merits brief attention. Since this last part of the Summa represents Aquinas' definitive vision of what a truly comprehensive Christology encompasses, the fact that here Aquinas inserts an analysis of Christ's passions indicates that, in Thomas' mind, no satisfactory Christology, i.e., no adequate theological reflection on the mystery of the Incarnate Word, can ignore the affective element of Jesus' life. At the bedrock of this conviction is Thomas' Aristotelian-inspired metaphysics of human nature, whereby the passions, which necessarily issue from the animal side of human nature, are seen to represent an essential element of human life. If complete and authentic, Christ's humanity must possess a full animal nature, including movements of affectivity. In this way, then, Thomas successfully evades-and resoundingly rejects-the temptation, to which the Stoics and those numerous spiritual writers inspired by these ancient philosophers fall prey, to look upon the passions as accessory "sicknesses of the soul," or' as inherently inimical obstacles to virtuous activity and spiritual growth. It is undoubtedly due in no small measure to the ongoing influence of Stoicism, be it conscious or subconscious, that explains why the subject of Jesus' human passions has received almost no attention in nearly two thousand years of Christian theological reflection. S Such neglect is truly remarkable, given the unequivocal witness of the Gospels, where one finds over thirty references to experiences of anger in Jesus, at least ten references to compassion in Jesus, and ten passages affinning anguish, distress, or sorrow in Jesus. An honest reading of the New Testament obliterates the icon of a pallid, stoic Jesus. Given his
4. STllI, q. 15, a. 4; emphasis mine: ''passiones animae ... in Christo juenmt, sicut et cetera quae ad naturam hominis pertinent. "
5. Among modern theologians, the subject ofJesus' emotions has generated only a handful of recent studies, all with a distinctly pastoral orientation: cr. R. Law, The Emotions of Jesus (Clonmei, Co. Tipperary, Ireland: Tentmaker Publications, 1995); 1. Brieg, The Emotional Jesus: How to Feel Good about Feelings (Mystic, Conn.: TWenty-Third Publications, 1996); D. Mohline. Emotional Whole· ness: Connecting with the Emotions of Jesus (Shippensburg, Penn.: Treasure House, 1997); 1. Mosqueda, Jesus, Emotions, and You (Westchester, IL: Good News, 1983); idem., The Emotions 0/ Jesus Christ (M.Div. thesis: Talbot Theological Seminary, 1981); L. Palmer, Human Emotions in the Life ofChrist (Ph.D. thesis: Huntington College, 1964); R. Mason, The Emotions ofChrist as Reconied in the Gospel o/Mark (Th.M. thesis: Dallas Theological Seminary, 1980); G. Mazak, The Emotional Life ofJesus as a Guidefor the Christian (ph.D. thesis: Bob Jones University, 1990; Microfiche, Portland, Or.: Theological Research Exchange Network, 1990); and C. Powell, ImplicatiOns from Jesus' Life for the Believer oS Emotional Life (Th.M. thesis: Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1979).
persistent remarks on the matter, Thomas Aquinas stands out as one of the few Christian thinkers to have given. an attentive reading to this feature of the Gospel witness on the humaoity of Jesus. And yet, despite Aquinas' efforts at assigning Christ's passions a centetpiece role in his comprehensive Christology, Thomist scholars have categorically ignored the issue of Jesus' human passions. Instead, such notions as the unity of Christ's being or the .different modes oflmowledge in Christ, and similar aspects of Thomas' Christology, have secured the almost exclusive attention of Thomists (this omission is symptomatic as well of the state of general medieval and patristic scholarship, where the issue of Christ's passibility of soul is of even less scholarly consideration6); to my knowledge, one finds only the following
6. Though rarely discUssed, the issue of Jesus' human affectivity in general medieval thought is examined in the following works: P.A. Sepinski, La psychologie du Christ chez Saint Bonaventure (paris: J. Vrin, 1948), which provides a fairly solid treatment ofBonaventure's teaching on Christ's passions, and which makes occasional references to Aquinas; M.L. Colish, Peter Lombard (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), vol. I, pp. 443-8, which supplies a briefsuIlllhruy of Peter Lombard's theology of Christ's human affectivity; W.H. Principe, "Quaestiones Concerning Christ from the First Half of the Thirteenth Century: II: Quaestiones from Douai Ms. 434: The Need of the Incarnation; The Defects Assumed by Christ," MS 42 (1980), pp. 1-40, which offers a terse commentary on the subject of Christ's human affectivity as it is conveyed in the several anonymous texts dating from 1228-36 which Principe reproduces in this article; L.O. Nielsen, Theology and Philosophy in the 1Welflh Century: A Study on Gilbert Porreta:S Thinking and the Theological Expositions of the Doctrine ofthe Incarnation during the Period 1I30-1I80, trans. R. Christophersen (Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1982), pp. 193-211,
which briefly examines Hugh of St. Victor's views on Jesus' human affectivity, as does the article by F. Vernet, ''Rugues de Saint-Victor," DTC 7,1 (1927), cols. 239-307, at 277; and G.P. Sijen, "La passibilite du Christ chez Philippe de Harveng," in Une enquete sur I'observance disciplinaire et liturgique a l'Abbaye d'Averbode au debut du XVII'sieele, ed. P.F. Lefevre (Tongerloo, Belgium: Typis Abatiae, 1938), pp. 198-208, which considers the controversy surrounding the denial of Christ's passibility of soul by the late 12th·century author Philip of Harvengst (L. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, trans. P. Lynch [2nd ed., Rockford, IL.: Tan Books, 1974], pp. 173-4, also offers a brief overview of this controversy), and which mentions Thomas' position on Christ's passibiIity by way of comparison. For the Patristics, to my knowledge one finds a treatment of the Fathers' position on Christ's human passions only in the following works: A. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition. From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451), vol. 1, trans. J. Bowden (2nd ed.• Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975), which offers passing yet penetrating comments on Christ's human affectivity in several patristic authors; X. Le Bachele~ ''Hilaire (saint)," DTC 6.2 (1947). cols. 2385-2462, at 2439-40. which examines Hilary of Poitiers' denial of Christ's passibility of soul (the impact of this denial in late 12th·century thought is examined in 1. de Ghellinck, Le mouvement theologique du XIIC sieele [2nd ed., Bmssels: Editions "De Tempel," 1948], p. 325); M. Jugie, "Gaianite (La Controverse) et la passibilite du corps de Jesus Chris~" DTC 6, I (1947). cols. 1002-23, which discusses the 6th-century denial of the corruptibility and passibility of Christ's body by Julian ofHalicamassus and Gaianos, a denial that John Damascene will seek to refute in his De fide orthodoxa; A. Gesche, La christologie du "Commentaire sur les Psaumes" decouvert aToura (Gembloux: Editions J. Ducutot, 1962), pp. 181-417, which examines the reID;arks made on Christ's passions in the commentary on the
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scholars to have treated Aquinas' account of Christ's human passions, though none do so in an extensive or critical fashion (this list excludes the various editions of the Summa with their corresponding commentaries): J.-H. Nicolas, I.-P. Torrell, M.-B. Schwalm, P. Parente, I. Biffi, F. Cunningham, P. Engelhardt, A. M. Henry, L. Ott, F. Ruello, R. Spiazzi, and E.H. Weber.' A work devoted wholly to St. Thomas' theology of Christ's human affectivity
Psalms in the commentary on the Psalms written either by the 4th-Century author Didymus "the Blind" of Alexandria or by one of his disciples (ef. as welI Gesche's "L'ame hUmaine de Jesus dans la christologie du IV e siecle," RHE 54 [1959], pp. 385-425); and L. Ott, ibid., which provides a rapid overview of the patristic position on Christ's passions. 7. I-H. Nicolas, Synthese dogmatique. De la Trinite a la Trinite (Fribourg, Switz.: Editions Universitaires, 1985), pp. 404-11 (Nicolas perfonns an abbreviated yet penetrating analysis of Thomas' account of the psychological limitations in Christ. including his human affectivity); I.-P. TorrelI, Le Christ en ses mysteres, pp. 101-8,224-42,327-39, and 358-61 (Torrell gives not only a summary of the role of the passions and other defects in the humanity of Christ in Aquinas' thought, but also an examination of the relationship betwe~n Jesus' affectivity and his temptations); M.-B. Schwalm, Le Christ d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin. Commentaires du De Incarnatione (Tertia pars Summae Theologiae). 2nd ed. by P. Coquelle (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1939), pp. 303-44 (Schwalm provides a running, and at times insightful, commentary on the treatise on Christ's passions in Tertia, q. 15 of the Summa, yet does little to go beyond the wording of the text); P. Parente. L '10 di Cristo (3rd ed., Rovigo: Istituto,Padano di Aste Grafiche, 1981), pp. 289-307 (parente focuses on a few of the main issues in Thomas' theology of Christ's passions yet does little to pierce the surface); I. Biffi, I Mister; di Cristo in Tommaso d:4quino. vol. I (Milan: Jaca Books, 1994), pp. 132-40 (Biffi gives a cursory overview of some of the more salient elements of Thomas' theology of Christ's passions); F. Cunningham, ed., Christ and His Sacraments (Dubuque, Iowa: Priory Press, 1958), pp. 163-9 (here Cunningham does little more than recap some of the major points of Aquinas' theology of Christ's passions); P. Engelhardt, ''Thomas von Aquin: Mensch und Christ in der Spannung von Vemunft und Leidenschaft," Wort und Antwort 24 (1985), pp. 134-41 (though this work offers an extremely brief introduction to Aquinas' theology of Jesus' human affectivity, it supplies penetrating comments); A.M. Henry, The Historical and Mystical Christ, "Theology Library 5," trans. A. Bouchard (Chicago: Fides Publishers, 1958), pp. 104-5 (Henry touches on a few of the highlights of Thomas' account of Christ's passions in a rather elementary fashion); L. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, pp. 173-4 (Ott provides an extremely cursory analysis of Christ's passions in Aquinas' thought that is quite rich in theological and historical content); F. Ruella, La christo[ogie de Thomas d'Aquin (paris: Beauchesne, 1987), pp. 180-7 and 373-7 (Ruello supplies little more than a summary ofa few main points that the commentary on the Sentences and the De veri/ate relate on Christ's passions); R Spiazzi, "Le passioni e Ja passione di Cristo in San Tommaso d' Aquino," Sacra Doctrina 37 (1992), pp. 5-34 (Spiazzi examines a few aspects of Thomas' theology of Christ's hUman affectivity in a strictly introductory man~ ner); and E.-H. Weber, Le Christ seloH saint Thomas d'Aquin (paris: Desclee, 1988) (though he devotes an, entire section to Aquinas' appraisal of Christ's moral actions ["L'activite volitive chez Ie Christ," pp. 177-98], Weber integrates the affective dimensiQn of Christ's humanity in this analysis in a purely marginal manner [ef. pp. 189-90, and 197-8]); cf. as well my own The Passions in Christ: A Study on the Psychology ofJesus. MtSmoire de licence (Fribourg, Switz.: University of Fribourg, 1992). Among these scholars, Nicolas, Torrell, and Schwalm' provide the more earnest theological studies. For the various editions of the Summa with their respective commentaries, cf. section 3 ofmy bibliography supplied at the end of this work.
and to retrieving this element of Aquinas' Cluistology from the closet of hiqden treasures. is therefore long overdue. Such a work would in its turn act as a complement to the recent resurgence in scholarly interest in the properly theological-and christological-nattrre of Aquinas'thought, represented by such scholars as: T. O'Meara, who strives to reinstate (though for a wide audience) the primacy oftbeology in scholarly research on Thomas' writings;8 I. Biffi, I.-H. Nicolas, F. Ruello, M.-B. Schwalm, 1. Backes, and E.-:H. Weber, all of whom attempt to offer a synthesis ofAquinas' Christology;9 and especially I.-P. Torrell, who has issued a recent work on a long neglected aspect ofAquinas' Christology, viz., the theology of the mystaries of the life of Jesus in Tertia Pars, qq. 27-59 of the Summa theologiae. 10 It is worth noting that Aquinas' interest in Christ's passions correlates with the other-
wise unparalleled interest he holds for human affectivity in general. The massive treatise on the passions presented in the Prima Secundae Pars of the Summa, the largest treatise of this entire theological work, as it comprises 27 questions of 132 articles, epitomizes such interest. Largely dependent upon his own thought and insight for the composition of this treatise, Aquinas, who is too often erroneously viewed as nothing more than an abstract thinker, examines both the _metaphysical and moral dimensions of human 'pas"sion in as
8. T.F. O'Meara, Thomas Aquinas, Theologian (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997); cf. T.S. Hibbs' perspicacious review of this work in Thomist 63 (1999), pp.139-42. 9. 1. Biffi, I Misteri di Cristo in Tommaso d'Aquino; J.~H. Nicolas; Synthese dogmatique. De la Trinite a Ja Trinite, pp. 272-621; F. RueIlo. La christologie de Thomas d'Aquin; M.-B. Schwalm, Le Christ d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin,' I. Backes, Die Christologie des hI. Thomas von Aquin und die griechischen Kirchenvater (paderbom: Ferdinand Schoningh Verlag, 1931); and E.-H. Weber, Le Christ selon saint Thomas d'Aqujn.
10. J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres. La vie et l'oeuvre de Jesus selon saint Thomas d'Aquin, 2 vols. (paris: Desclee, 1999); cf. as well I. Biffi, "I misteri delia vita di Cristo nei commenti biblici di San Tommaso d'Aquino," Divus Thomas 53 (1976), pp. 217-54; L. Scheffczyk, "Die Stellung des Thomas vonAquin in der Entwicklung der Lehre von den Mysteria Vitae Christi," in Renovatio et ReM formatio. Wider das BUd YOm "finisteren" Milte/alter: FestschrifljUr Ludwig HOd/ zum 60. Geburtstag, eds. M. Gerwing and G. Ruppert (Munster: Aschendorff, 1986), pp. 44-70; and I-M. Voste, Commentarius in Summam theologicam S. Thomae. De mysteriis vitae Christi (Rome: Scuola Tipografica Missionaria Domenicana, 1940). One could add here T. Weinandy, In the Likeness ofSinful Flesh. An Essay on the Humanity ofChrist (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), which integrates aspects
of Aquinas' Christology in its analysis of the wealmesses of Christ's humanity. In a more extended sense, G. O'Collins, Christology. A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study ofJesus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), employs elements of Thomas' Christology in a marginal (and at times Simplistic) manner in his remarks on Christ's full humanity.
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nearly an exhaustive a fashion as possible. Thomas' doctrine on the passions is not a work of total originality, however, as he benefits from certain piecemeal writings ~t offer li~ ited reflections on human passion. These include Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethzcs, Rhetonc, and, to a lesser extent, the De anima, as well as Nemesius of E~esa's De natura homi~is, a late- 4th-century work that bears the clear imprints of Aristotehan psychology and WhiCh represents the first authentic Christian work of anthropology. ~quinas wou~d also tum t,o John Damascene's Defide orthodoxa, which for its part appropnates Nemeslus ofEmesa s thought on the passions. Thomas' doctrine on the passions.leans ad~tionally up~nAlbert the Great's writings and on Augustine's De civitate Dei, whIch contams an extensIve moral treatise on the passions in a running polemic against Stoic philosophy. What finally emerges as the treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars of the Summa represents, then, a work of remarkable originality and synthesis, and $is allows for an analysis of Christ's own passions of corresponding insight and penetration. If, however, Thomas' theology of Christ's human passions derives in large measure from his doctrine on human passion in general, it is his conception of general human affectivity that remains no less indebted to his theology of Christ's h~an affectivity.ll For Thomas who is first and foremost a theologian (and who therefore !\lves first rank to the tenets of divine revelation), maintains that a proper regard for general human affectivity must in order to be complete, receive consideration in direct light of the Incarnation, since Chri~t is the full bearer of God's revelation. Confnmation of this fact comes in the structurallayout itself, or ordo disciplinae, of the Summa theologiae, as suggested by L. Boyle and S. Pinckaers. These scholars point to the fact that the moral part of the Summa (the Secunda Pars), which includes the treatise on the passions, is not meant to stand in isolation from the dogtnatic parts of the Summa: the trinitarian Prima Pars and the christological Tertia Pars. This purposeful design of a summa theologiae, i.e., a comprehensive overview of theology, indicates that, for Aquinas, a proper grasp of Christian morality comes only when put in direct relation both to the Trinity (the Prima Pars) and to Christ (the Tertia Pars)." Accordingly, without the treatise on Christ's passions in Tertia, q. 15, I.e., WIthout the
11. 1 Pieper (Guide to Thomas Aquinas, trans. R. and C. Winston [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991], p. 131) argues the same vis~a-vis the influence of the doctrine of the Incarnation on Thomas' general anthropology. . . 12. L.E. Boyle, The Setting ofthe "Summa theologiae" ofSaint Thomas (Toronto: Pontifical InStitute of Mediaeval Studies, 1982), pp. 16 and 28; and S. Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. M.T. Noble (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), pp. 221-2. For more on how the morality of the Summa points to Christ, cf. l-P. Torrell, Saint Thomas d'Aquin, maitre spirituel (Fribourg, Switz.: Editions Universitaires. 1996), pp. 135-8; for the morality of the passions pointing directly to Christ, cf. L. Mauro, "Umanitd della passione in S. Tommaso (Florence: Felice Le Monnier, 1974), p. 8. Cf. as well S. Pinckaers, "Les passions et lamorale," RSPT74 (1990), pp. 379-91, at 381-4; and G. Lafont, Structures et methode, pp. 254 and 263.
analysis of human affectivity within the full revelatory light of the Incarnation, Aquinas' account of general human passion remains radically incomplete. Moreover, for Aquinas the possibility of attaining the state of supremely regulated passion comes only through a configuration to Christ's own affective example, whose passions are harmoniously integrated into a life of consummate holiness and virtue. This further underscores the indispensable role that the import of Jesus' own human affectivity exercises in Thomas Aquinas' thought on human passion in general, particularly since for him the stUdy of theology, the aim of which is to lead one to salvation, is spiritual at its very core (cf. Prima, q. 1, a. 5). In a word, Jesus shows us how we should live with our passions in the most fully human way possible. That the recent interest sparked by Thomas' doctrine on general human passion remains predominantly philosophical in scope evinces the need for greater clarification on this point. , As for this recent interest in Thomas' teaching on general human affectivity, it should be noted that, like his theology of Christ's passions, this element of the Master from Aqnino's thought has been largely ignored in the history of Thomist scholarship." However, a veritable renaissance ofAquinas' doctrine on the passions and on the integral role of emotion in the moral life has taken place s~ce the neo:"Thomist revival of the last century, with several scholars (e.g" A.-D. SertiIIanges, R. Garrigou-Lagrange, and O. Pesch) paying cursory tribute to Thomas' doctrine on the passions within a general synthesis of the Dominican's thought, while others (e.g., E. Gilson, H.-D. Noble, M. Manzanedo, S. Pinckaers, E. Schockenhoff, L. Mauro, R.R. Baker, M.-D. Chenu, M.D. Jordan, etc.) present a more detailed analysis ofAquinas' view on human affectivity as it relates to the morallife. 14
13. L. Boyle (The Setting ofthe 'Summa the%giae; pp. 23-9) retraces tbe historical events by which the Prima Secundae Pars oftbe Summa, which contains the treatise on the passions, became almost categorically ignored as the necessary counterpart and preliminary to the moral teaching of Thomas as captured in the Secunda Secundae Pars. Formore on how most moral writers have ignored the importance that St. Thomas ascribes to the passions, cf. l-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel p. 344~ andA.-D. SertilIanges, S. Thomas d'Aquin (paris: F61ixAlcan, 1910), vol. 2, pp. 203-5. 14. A.-D. SertiI1anges,S. Thomas d'Aquin, vol. 2, pp. 203-5; R. Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought(St. Louis: B. Herder, 1950),pp. 282-3; D.H. Pesch, Thomas von Aquin. Grenze und Grosse mittelalterlicher The%gie. Eine Einfiihrung (2nd ed., Mainz: Mattbias-Griinewald-VerIag, 1989), pp. 228-30; E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy ofSt. Thomas Aquinas, trans. L.K.. Shook (New York: Random House, 1956), pp. 236-86; H.-D. Noble, les passions dans la vie mora/e, 2 vols. (paris: P. Lethielleux, 1931-32); M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones 0 emociones segum santo Tomas (Madrid: Instituto Pontificio de Filosofia "Santo Tomas," 1984); S. Pinckaers, "Les passions et 1a morale," RSPT74 (1990). pp. 379-91 (cf. as wen his The Sources of Christian Ethics); E. Schockenhoff, Bonum hominis. Die anthropoligiSchen und theologischen Grundlagen der Tugendethik des Thomas von Aquin (Mainz: Verlag, 1987), pp. 172-201; L. Mauro. "Umanitd" de/lapas
24
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
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THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
This revival parallels the growing interest in the philosophical import of the passions or emotions that has taken place in non-Thomist scholars of the last twenty-five years. IS Among those Thomist thinkers who accentuate the integral role of the passions in the moral life, J.P. Torrell again merits singular attention, as his recent work on Aquinas as a spiritual master underscores the centrality of human affectivity in Thomas' vision of the spirituallife. 16 Deserving of distinction as well is S. Pinckaers' critically acclaimed The Sources of Christian Ethics, which strives vigorously to remind moral theologians that any Thomist-inspired
moral theolOgy worthy of its name must include the passions as a vital and indispensable piece to the puzzle of the human drive for moral excellence, contrary to the rationalistic models that have doininated modem approaches to moral theory. The revival of interest in Aquinas' view on the passions has also sparked a fluny of studies aimed at exploring the significant points of contact between Thomistic psychology and modem behavioral or clinical psychology concerning a life of psychological balance. I? With the recov~ry ofAquinas' doctrine on general human affectivity well under way, then, the arena of Christ's passions remains the last element of Thomas ' teaching on human affectivity in need of retrieval.
Historically, though Aquinas' theology of Christ's human affectivity marks a significant achievement in the aI)D.als of theological thought, it is not the sole accomplishment of its kind, since it comes in the midst of an intense medieval debate over the role of passion sione in S. Tommaso; RR Baker, The Thomistic Theory o/the Passions and Their Influence upon the Will (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1941); M.-D. Chenu, "Les passions vertueuses. L'anthropologie de saint Thomas," RPL 72 (1974), p. 11-18; M.D. Jordan, "Aquinas's Construction of a Moral Account of the Passions," FZPT33 (1986). pp. 71-97; cf. as well K. White, ''The Passions of the Soul (IaIJae, qq. 22-48)," in Essays in the Ethics o/St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. S. Pope (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002); and D. Chardonnens, L'homme sous Ie regard de la providence. Providence de Dieu et condition humaine selon I 'Exposition Jitterale sur Ie livre de Job de Thomas d' Aquin (paris: J. Vrin, 1997), pp. 185-98, which offers an analysis of Aquinas' doctrine of human passion as related in his exposition on the Book of Job. For additions to this list, see section 4 of my bibliography supplied at the end of this work. IS. A representative sample of this growing interest would include: P.A. French and H.K. Wettstein, eds., The Philosophy o/Emotions (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notte Dame Press, 1999); C. Calhoun and R. Solomon, eds., What Is an Emotion? Classic Readings in Philosophical Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1984); R. Solomon, The Passions (Garden City. N.¥.: Doubleday, 1976); W.W. Fortenbaugh. Aristotle on Emotion: A Contribution to Philosophical Psychology. Rhetoric, Poetics, Politics, and Ethics (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1975); I Brunschwig and M.e. Nussbaum. eds. Passions and Perceptions: Studies in Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1993); M. Scheler, Grammatik der Gefohle. Dos Emotionale als Grundlage der Ethik, Ausgewiihlt und mit einem 10nvort herausgegeben von Paul Good (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbucher Verlag, 2000); A.O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests (princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); A.J.P. Kenny, Action. Emotion and Will (Bristol, Eng.: Thoemmes Press, 1994; first published in 1963); S. Bandes. et aI., The Passions o/Law (New York: New York University Press, 1999); A.O. Rorty, ed., Explaining Emotions (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1980); idem, "Aristotle on the Metaphysical Status of Pathe, " Review o/Metaphysics 37 (1984), pp. 521-46; I. Dilman, "Reason, Passion, and the Will," Philosophy 58 (1984), pp. 185-204; J. Schaeffer, "An Assessment of Emotion," American Philosophical Quarterly 20 (1983), pp. 161-72; and W.M. Hoffman, "Structure and Origin of the Religious Passions,"International Journal/or Philosophy of Religion 8,1 (1977). pp. 36-50. Also, the Societas Ethica, European Society for Research in Ethics, hosted its annual conference on the theme of ethics and emotions on August 25-29, 1999, in Padua, Italy, in order to reverse the longstanding philosophical neglect of the passions. 16. I-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel pp. 344-65.
in Christ's life. This debate stems from the controversial position taken by the patristic author Hilary of Poitiers, who essentially denies the psychological or affective reality of Christ's suffering and pain. According to Hilary, Christ's soul did not feel the pain inflicted upon his body, as if his body were, as it were, entirely anesthetized at the time of his cruci-
fixion. Hilary adopted this view in his attempt to defend the orthodox Christian faith against theAriI;Ul heresy, which took Jesus' display of passion as a sufficient disclaimer of the di-
17. Cf. A PIe "St. Thomas Aquinas and the Psychology of Freud," Dominican Studies 5 (1952), pp. 1-34 (this is a revised English version of "Saint Thomas d' Aquin et lapsychologie des profondeurs," Vie spirituelle Suppl. 82 [1951], pp. 402-34); M. Stock. "Thomistic Psychology and Freud's Psychoanalysis," Thom 21 (1958). pp.125-45; IP. Reid. "Emotional Psychopathology," appendix'4 to Summa theologiae, vol. 21,FearandAnger(London: Blackfriars, 1965),pp. 156-Q3; G. Cottier. "Libido" de Freud et "appetitus" des saint Thomas," in L 'anthropologie de saint Thomas, ed. N.A. Luyten (Fribourg, Switz.: Editions Universitaires, 1974), pp. 91-123; S. Pfiirtner, Triebleben und sittliche Vollendung. Eine moraJpsychologische Untersuchung nach Thomas von Aquin (Fribourg, Switz.: Universitiitsverlag. 1958), pp. 205-28; P. Gondreau, The Passions in Christ. pp. 69-76; A. Stagnitta. L 'antropologia in Tommaso d'Aquino: saggio di ricerca comparata sulJe passioni e abitudini delI'uomo (Naples: E.D.1. Editrice. 1979), pp. 53-118; R. Klingseis, "Modeme Theorie tiber das Unbewupte bei Thomas von Aquin," Divus Thomas 7 (l929),pp. 147-83 and 279-300; 8 (1930),p. 40-59, 129-206, and 381-405; P. Nolan, St. Thomas and the Unconscious Mind Abstract ofa Dissertation at the Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 1953); G. Thibon. "La psychoanalyse freudienne et la psychologie scolastique," RT 14 (1931), pp. 488-521; F. Bednarski, "La . psychoanalyse de l'agressivite ala lumiere de la psychosynthese de saint Thomas d' Aquin," Ang 58 (1981), pp. 389-419; idem. "Vis concupiscibilis et irascibiIis in luce psychologiae "pro fundi", in De homine: Studia hodiernae anthropo{ogiae (Rome: Officium Libri Catholici, 1972), vol. 2. pp. 60-4; M. Rock. "Aggression einmal anders. Zum Stellenwert der "agressio" bei Thomas von Aquin," Trierer theologische Zeitschrift 26 (1973), pp. 367-73; and H.G. Weil. The DynamicAspect o/Emotions in the Philosophyo/St. ThomasAquinas (Ro~e: Pontificia Studiorum Universitas AS. ThomaAq. en
urbe,1966),pp.75-97.
1'<
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THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF sr. THOMAS AQUINAS
vinity of Christ. To refute this. Hilary unfortunately went to the other extreme by denying
the reality of Christ's affective suffering. However, because he was an orthodox defender of the faith and a Latin-speaking Father of the Church, his authority and influence were considerable in the West, and his position demanded a response.
What resulted was a discussion on Christ's passions that stretched throughout the entire Middle Ages, reaching its pinnacle in the 12th and 13th centuries, with most authors,
Aquinas among them, rejecting Hilary's glorified acconnt of Christ's suffering. These authors turned to Augustine for support, as Augustine looks to the passions displayed by Christ as the ultimate rebuttal to the Stoic contempt for human emotion (though Augustine knows of Hilary's works, he makes no mention of this element of the Bishop of Poitiers' Christology). Support also came from Jolm Damascene, whose De fide orthodoxa contains an extensive treatise on Christ's human passions, which follows upon an examination of human passion in general; Damascene was responding to the 6th-century Greek-speaking heretic Julian of ~alicarnassus, who, like Hilary, denied any kind of affective suffering in Christ. Among the patristic influences on Aquinas' theology of Christ's human passions, Damascene certainly merits top rank, with Augustine holding a close second. As for those scholastic figures who defended the reality of Christ's passions and who had a sizable impact on Aquinas, mention must go to Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, and Bonaventure, and especially the 12th-century author Peter Lombard, whose influential Sentences offered a rather extensive treatment of Jesus' human passions. Yet, the cause of defending the full reality of Christ's human passions would have no greater champion than Thomas Aquinas himself for the simple reason that no author treats the subject of Christ's passions in greater depth or assigus it more written attention (Alexander of Hales marks his closest rival). In a real way, Aquinas marks the zenith of a medieval trend that pushes for greater attention to be given to Christ's full humanity, including his passions. Notably, because the medieval approach to the issue of Christ's human passions takes its distinctive shape largely as a result of the need to affirm the reality of Christ's suffering and pain in soul against its detractors, discussion on the matter remains rather narrow, whereby the negative or suffering side of Jesus' human affectivity predominates. Jesus' congenial emotions, such as his joy, love, desire. hope, etc., are therefore passed over in complete silence. The object of inquiry, in other words. centers not on Christ's emotions as such, but on his susceptibility to affective suffering, or on his being subject to such passions as sorrow, fear, anger, and the like. (When he discusses the passions of the soul in general, Thomas employs a much broader notion of passion, whereby he includes both the congen-
PAUL GQNDREAU
27
ial and disagreeable senses of passion.) This narrow approach to Jesus' passions is certainly evident in Aquinas, for whom the notion of passion in reference to Christ signifies most properly affective suffering, i.e., the loss of a suitable affective disposition in exchange for a contrary one. This explains why the Master from Aquino examines Christ's passions under the rubric of "defects of soul," where defect signifies not moral wealmess but a deficiency or limitation of nature, as death and hunger are counted as defects. This fonows from Aquinas' nnderstanding that God initially created the human being free from all evil and suf~e?ng, and ifhumans now find themselves subject to such disagreeable passions as sorrow, ~t IS because human sin introduced suffering and evil into the world in the first place; Jesus, III his assumed human nature, also makes himself subject to some of the consequences (or defects) of sin, including affective suffering. yet only those consequences (or defects) that remain compatible with his perfection in grace and virtue. Aquinas constructs his account of Jesus' human passions according to five fOWldational principles. First, Thom~ holds to a Christ who owns a human nature hypostatically united to the divine Person of the Word, with the result that the ultimate ontological basis of even the most human of elements in Christ, including his passions, is the divine being of the Word. Second, for Aquinas, the realism of the Incarnation ensures that Jesus J full humanity is in no way abbreviated by its union to a divine Person and, indeed, possesses everything essential pertaining to human nature, including movements of passion. Third, Aquinas holds to the doctrine of Christ's absolute sinlessness, whereby Jesus is understood to be free from all stain of original and actnal sin, with tbe result that his perfect moral integrity is in nowise subverted by the defects and weaknesses of the human nature he assumes. Fourth, the existential condition Qf Christ's humanity, in accordance with the economic nature of his mission and purpose, is detennined by what Aquinas terms the coassumpta, i.e., the coassumed defects and perfections of Christ, such as mortality, passibility, and consummate grace. And, fifth, Thomas recognizes at work in the revealed mystery of the Inc~atio~ a certain principle of fittingness, whereby those aspects of Christ's humanity as hIS pasSIOns are seen to represent fitting ways by which God enters into consubstantial solidarity with the human race, since all humans are necessarily subject to such emotions as anger, sorrow, joy, pleasure, etc. Unique to Aquinas' theology of Christ's human affectivity is his insistence upon the complete integrity of the "animal" side of Christ's human nature, since it is here where the Master from Aquino locates the affective dimension of Christ's humanity. The passions, in other words, are distinct animal capacities of operation, inasmuch as they are movements
I"
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THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
of the sensitive appetite, a faculty or power of the animal soul or sensate soul that is subsumed into the one hwnan rational soul. Thomas further subdivides the sensitive appetite into the concupiscible and irascible appetites, with the former pertaining to the affective
tendency humans possess to suitable sense goods that are immediate and easy to attainthe tendency of simple desire-while the latter concerns the inclination to sense goods that are more removed and difficult to attain-the tendency of struggled desire. Aquinas then lists eleven total passions as issuing from these two types of desire: six from the concupiscible appetite-love or like, hatred or dislike, desire, aversion, joy, and sorrow-and five from the irascible appetite-hope, despair, courage, fear, and anger. ill these eleven passions, Thomas pinpoints the specific ways by which a human being inclines either towards objects perceived by the senses as suitable (conveniens) or away from objects perceived by the senses as hannful (inconveniens). Endowed with a sensitive appetite, or with a full animal nature, Christ was necessarily subject to these eleven specific passions, since they belong to the normal function of the sensitive appetite that every human being possesses by nature.. What interests Aquinas the most, however, is the moral quality of Christ's passions, and here the glue that unites Thomas' entire vision is the tenet of Jesus' sinlessness and perfection in virtue and grace. This tenet allows Aquinas to present Jesus as the one who is more human than any other individual born into original sin, since it is sin that makes us less human, not sinlessness. For Aquinas, one must shun the notion that if one has not experi~ enced sin, then one has not lived a full human life, since metaphysically speaking sin in no wise belongs to the essence of human nature. This is significant when it comes to the passions, since Thomas is well aware that sin has left in its wake a particularly disastrous and crippling condition, one where the passions often exert a dominating influence over the human spirit. Because of sin, the sensitive appetite is fundamentally disordered, as it tends in a limited yet autonomous manner to its own sense object irrespective of the command of reason and will (this results in what Thomas terms "concupiscence," i.e., the condition where a struggle of flesh against spirit occurs). To make proper sense of Jesus' passions, Aquinas must therefore explain what the passions were like both before and after the in~ troduction of sin into the world, and forge a position whereby the sinless Jesus is seen to possess a radical hannony of soul like that ofAdam in the state of original innocence. Because he is sinless, Jesus can have no experience of a disordered soul, and his sensitive appetite must operate at all times in total and fundamental synergy with the command of his reason
PAUL GONDREAU
29
and will. Aquinas' genius lies in his ability to give a detailed theological account of the way in which Jesus' reason radically penetrates the sensate or animal dimension of his human~ ity, to the point that his every movement of passion is instinctively and innately oriented to the exercise of virtue (an account that could not be at greater odds with the Stoic view). The impact that this has on human salvation is paramount because he enjoys total hannony of soul, Christ can, Thomas insists, adequately atone for human sin (which he cannot do if he is guilty of sin), as well as provide an example of virtue for Christians to imitate, both through their actions and through their sharing in the grace that confonns them ontologically to the image of the one after whom they are strivi,ng to model their lives. Jesus shows us how we should live with our passions in the most fully human way possible. Aquinas does not end there, as he spells out three specific ways by which the moral quality of Christ's passions differs from our own disordered condition. First, Christ expe~ rienced only those passions whose objects were inherently aligned with higher rational goods. Second, Jesus never experienced the onset of "antecedent" or unfores~en passions, i.e., passions that precede the judgIilent of reason; rather, his sensitive appetite engendered only "consequent" passions, or passions that issue as a result of the command of.reason. This means that Jesus was preserved from temptations that arise "from within," or temptations that arise from disordered interior movements of passion. Lastly, Christ's passions were unique in that Jesus' reasoning capabilities were in no way impeded or obstructed by the distracting, opposing, or restraining influence of passion. Christ was not blinded by his passions; instead they always respected the bounds of reason, for which reason Thomas, borrowing a tenD from Jerome, at times labels them "propassions." These three ways, then, help the reader understand how Jesus experienced no passion that did not de facto become the occasion for an act of virtue. Put another way, Christ's virtuous life was more perfect and praiseworthy in the very measure that it involved his affectivity-Jesus was more perfect and praiseworthy in showing anger, desire, hope, etc., than if he remained a stiff of a stoic, unmoved affectively by the world around him. Though open to further scrutiny, St. Thomas' account of Christ's passions provides a highly nuanced and resounding defense of what many would consider an inherent impossibility: the coexistence of movements ofpassion, even intense ones, and moral perfection. Aquinas presents to his readers the image of a sinless man who remains yet fully alive with intense emotion.
30
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
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THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Lest his account of Jesus' human affectivity remain purely generalized in scope, Aquinas does examine the particular passions in Christ that concern the negative or suffering side of his affectivity, viz., his bodily pain, sorrow, fear, and anger. This allows him to offer, for the reasons noted above, theological credibility to the psychosomatic reality of Jesus' suffering and pain. Here Thomas draws upon the extensive introspection he performs into all eleven passions of the human. soul in the Prima Secundae Pars. The order by which Thomas examines Christ's particular passions-beginning with his bodily pain and then proceeding to his sorrow, followed by his fear, and finally his anger-observes a strategic plan purposefully designed to offer the most convincing rejoinder to those who wish to dispute the reality of such passions in Jesus' life. By opening with a consideration of Christ's bodily pain, Thomas secures a point on which all believing Christians must concur: the fact that the redemptive act of Christ is accomplished through his tortuous crucifixion and death, i.e., through his bodily suffering and pain. Absolute certitude on this stark reality allows Aquinas to escort his reader along an ensuing a priori chain, whereby one finds oneself affirming the reality of all Jesus' other disagreeable passions that arise from his bodily suffering and pain: sorrow, fear, and anger. For sorrow necessarily accompanies bodily pain as its affective or psychical consequence, while fear and anger respond to the same harmful object that engenders sorrow-if fear regards the perceived hannful object as yet to come (Jesus feared his impending tortuous crucifixion and death in Gethsemane), sorrow regards it as immediately present (Jesus was sorrowful when his imminent death was upon him), and if sorrow succumbs to the presence of the perceived harmful object, anger instead seeks to attack and avenge it. In Aquinas' mind, then, the avowal of Christ's bodily pain leads straight to a confession of his sorrow, his fear, his anger, etc. Forming part of the package of the suffering and pain he endured in order to liberate the human race from its bondage to sin, all Jesus' disagreeable passions are subsequently indispensable elements in the mystery of human salvation. This underscores the soteriological import of all Christ's affective movements. A Note on Terminology
Offering a study on Aquinas' theology of Christ's human affectivity encounters a particular ,challenge relative to the technical Latin terminology employed by Thomas, since many tenns either have no true equivalent in English (such as passio, or principatus politicus), or they strike little familiarity with the modem ear (such as sensitive appetite, concupiscible
and irascible appetites, cOIporeal transmutation, etc.). As for the key tenn to this work-
passio (or passiones animae)-scholars of all languages continue to grapple with finding an accurate rendering of this expression. IS For most, the choice comes down to either "passion" or "emotion"-with one Spanish author even including both terms in the title to his work on the matterl 9 -while others opt for "affection of the soul," or simply "affection" or "feeling," although these latter terms, given their general and vague-senses, fail to denote what Aquinas very precisely expresses by passio. 20 Among contemporary scholars, most prefer to render passio in English as "emotion," since this term better avoids the connotation of vehemence or intensity that frequently accompanies the term passion, as illustrated particularly by the adjectival fonn "passionate."" Contrary to this trend in modern scholarship, the preferred term of choice for passio throughout this entire study will be "passion," since passio quite obviously stands as the Latin cognate of passion. Passion is also the traditional term used by philosophers writing
18. For the problem in French, cf. M. Corvez,Appendix 2 to Somme the%gique, vol. 1, Les passions de I'ame (edition "Revue desjeunes," Paris: Desclee, 1949), pp. 241-4; and P. Michaud-Quantin,La psycho[ogie de I'activite chezAlhert Ie Grand (paris: J. Vrin, 1966), p. 91; for the problem in Gennan, cf. C. Svorcik, "Die Theorie der Gefiihle (passiones) nach dem hI. Thomas von Aquin: Studien und Mitteilungen aus dem Benediktiner und Cistercienser Orden 23 (1902), pp. 16-30 and 24359, at 17; for Spanish, cf. M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones 0 emociones segrun santo Tomas, p. 11. John Damascene notes the identical problem even with the original Greek; cf. Defide orthodoxa, Bk. II, ch. 22 (ed. E.M. Buytaert, [St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute, 19551, p. 132; cf as well Nemesius ofEmesa, De natura hominis, ch. 18 (in Neme.sius d'EmeseDe natura hominis. Traduction de Burgundio de Pise, eds. G. Verbeke and 1.R. Moncho [Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975J, p. 96). 19. M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones 0 emociones segnin santo Tomas. 20. Hence, the shortcoming of 1. Oesterle's rendering ofpassio as "an affection of the soul" in the translation of the De malo (On Evil [Notre Dame, IN: University of Notte DamePress,1995], pp. 1412, n. 183 to q. 3, a. 10, argo 3, where Oesterle offers the explanation for the choice of "affection of the soul"). Aware of the difficulty oftranslatingpassio, R.E. Brennan (Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophic Analysis 0/the Nature a/Man [New York: Macmillan, 1941], p. 155) chooses to call the passion of "high intensity" an "emotion" and a passion of "low intensity" a "feeling." 21. Thus, S. Loughlin, "Similarities and Differences between Human and Animal Emotion in Aquinas's Thought," Thom 65 (2001), pp. 45--65, at 45, n. 1; 1.A. Barad, "Aquinas on the Role of Emotion in Mond Judgment and Activity," Thorn 55 (1991), pp. 397-413, at 398, n. 3; and E. D'Arcy, "Introduction" to Summa theoiogiae, vol. 19, The Emotions (London: Blackfriars, 1967), pp. xixxxxii, at xxi-xxvi; cf. as well A.O. Rorty, "Aristotle on the Metaphysical Status of Pathe, "pp. 5212, and 539-46; and B. Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1985), p.127. For evidence that the term passion is typically associated with an experience ofvehemence, one need only consult a common dictionary, such as the Rnndom House College Dictionary (New York: Random House, 1988, p. 972), which defines passion as "any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling," or as a "strong affection."
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THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
on the matter in English, as in the case of David Hume. 22 Most importantly, the term passion, no matter its inadequacies, more accurately corresponds to the medieval usage ofpassio, whereby an experience of psychical suffering, or a movement of disagreeable affectivity is denoted, a sense that the term emotion does not, at least on its own, impart; this is seen particularly in the case of Christ, whose suffering on the cross receives the telling appellation "Passion" rather than "Emotion," and where the need to underscore the reality of Christ's psychosomatic suffering and pain takes center stage in the medieval discussion on the human affectivity of Jesus. For Aquinas,passio also signifies any degree of affective inclination towards a suitable object (or avoidance of a hannful object) perceived by the senses; passio, in other words, refers most precisely to what one may tenn "affective response." Though such human affective responses may-and many times do-attain a stage of powerful intensity or vehemence, such an occurrence is not, at least for St. Thomas, necessary for an affective response to qualify as a genuine passia. To understand properly what the term passia means in Aquinas' thought, then, one must conceive of it as a technical scholastic designation referring to any affective movement, no matter how slight, in response to a perceived good or evil, but one that involves most especially the loss of a suitable affective disposition in exchange for a contrary one. To arrive therefore at an optimal English rendering of the technical Latin terminology employed by Thomas in his theology of Christ's human affectivity, it is preferable, psrticularly in a historical study, to stay with English expressions that, no matter their usage in current parlance, maintain as close an etymological link as possible with the original Latin (such as, e.g., "passion" for passio, "sensitive appetite" for appetitus sensitivus, etc.). If one must choose between ''relearning'' the meanings of certain tenns as they were used by the medievals (such as "appetite"), and adapting medieval terminology to fit modern sensibilities, it is better, at least in the arena of Aquinas' thought on human affectivity, to opt for the former course, so as to avoid adding to the confusion that such terminology creates on its own.23 The reader should stand alerted, however, that all attempts to find truly accu-
22. David Hume, A Treatise ofHuman Nature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967),3,3. 23. The added confusion that comes with adapting Aquinas' tenninology to fit modern sensibilities can be found with E. D' Arcy's ("Introduction," pp. xxiv-v) decision to translate appetilUs concupiscibilis as "affective orexis" and appetilUs irascibilis as "spiritual orexis." Though D' Arcy rightfully wishes to avoid the culinary connotation that the English tenn "appetite" conveys, such renderings hardly succeed in making Aquinas' Latin tenns more accessible to the English reader.
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rate equivalents for the precise terminology employed by Thomas to explain the affective reality of Christ's humanit)' ultimately fall short, with the result that even the finest English phraseology remains a compromise.
CHAPTER!
THE CHRISTOLOGICAL SOURCES OF AQUINAS' THEOLOGY OF CHRIST'S HUMAN PASSIONS No. man was as voracious a researcher as Thomas Aquinas; J.-P. Torrell recounts how
Aquinas had the custom of going from Dominican priory to priory digesting different works, especially those of the Fathers, and M.-D. Chenu notes that Thomas spared no. effort in procuring the best possible texts and translations for himself. I To appreciate properly the thought---4!Ild especially the originality--<>fSt. Thomas on the issue of the human passions in Christ, one must accordingly ftrst detennine which texts and source materials procured by him influenced the formulation of his thought on the matter. Establishing insofar as possible the properly Christological source-origin ~f Aquinas' theology of Christ's passions shall mark the objective of this chapter. A. SCRIPTURAL SOURCES
"(W]e should not say anything about God that is not found in sacred Scripture, either explicitly or implicitly." 2 Though used in reference to. a query on the Holy Spirit, these words of Aquinas could not better epitomize what the Dominican Magister in Sacra Pagina also
asserts about Christ's human passions. The foundational and authoritative witness of the New Testament, and even, as we shall see below, of the Old Testament provide Thomas with what shall form the nucleus of his Christological psychology. In this sense, Aquinas' account of Christ's passions substantiates, at least in the arena of his Christology, E. Gilson's claim that "the entire theology of st. Thomas is a commentary on the Bible; he advances no conclusion without basing it somehow on the word of sacred Scripture, which is the Word of God."3
1. J.-P. Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas. The Person and His Work, trans. R. Royal (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press of America, 1996), p. 140; M.-D. Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas. trans. A.-M. Landry and D. Hughes (Chicago: Hemy Regneiy Co., 1964), pp. 47-8. Cf. as well T.F. O'Meara, Thomas Aquinas, TheolOgian (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), pp. 22-4. 2. STI, q. 36, a. 2 ad I: "de Deo dicere non debemus quod in sacra Scriptura non invenitur, vel per verba, ver per sensum." Cf. as well Contra errores Graecorum, I, 1. 3. E. Gilson, Les tribulations de Sophie (paris: J. Vrin, 1967), p. 47, cited in J.-P. Torrell, Saint Thomas d'Aquin, maitre spirituel (Fribourg, Switz.: Editions Universitaires, 1996), p. 505: "Toute la tbeologie de ~aint Thomas est un commentaire de la Bible; it n'avance aucune conclusion sans la justifier par quelque parole de I'Ecriture sainte, qui est la Parole de Dieu." For agreement, cr. W.G.B.M. Valkenberg, Did No.t Our Heart Burn? Place and Function ofHoly Scripture in the Theology ofSt. Thomas Aquinas (LouvainlUtrecht: Peeters, 1990), pp. 299-306. That Aquinas grants to Scripture only the highest role to play throughout his entire career has long been noted: cf. C. Spicq, "Saint Thomas d' Aquin exegete," in ''Thomas d' Aquin (saint)," DTC 15, I (1946). eols. 694-738; B. Decker, "Schriftprinzip und Erganzungstradition in der Theologie des hi. Thomas von Aquin;" in Schrift und
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For Aquinas, the study of theology is distinguished as such by its fonnal examination of God's revelation, the "incontrovertible" (ex necessitate arguendo) source of which is Scripture. 4 This is verified by any of Thomas' commentaries on Scripture, where it becomes abundantly clear that, far from projecting his own preconceived understanding onto the words of Scripture, Thomas allows the revealed word of God to dictate and detennine his own thinking. 1. The Use o/the Gospels in the Account o/Christ's Passions In building his theology of CIrrist's human affectivity upon the revelation of Scripture, Aquinas turns first to the New Testament, particularly the Gospels, as these four accounts of the life of Jesus remain the only extant sources of the historicai actions of the Incarnate CIrrist. Thomas did not need to search far for references in the Gospels relating to Jesus' human passions (in the following I quote from the Vulgate, since this was the version used by Aquinas)5: Jesus displays deep sorrow by "weeping" (lacrimatus est) over the death of a close friend (In 11 :35) and (flevit) over his beloved Jerusalem (Lk 19:41); he expresses "wonder" or "amazement" (miratus est) at the Centurion's faith (Mt 8: 10); he "rejoices" (exultavit) with his disciples (Lk 10:21) and reveals his "longing desire" (de.iderio de.ider-avij to eat the Passover meal with them (Lk 22:15; cf. as well Mt 23:37 and Lk 13:34); he expresses affectionate "love" (diligere) for select individuals, both male (Mk 10:21; Jn 13:23) and female (In 11 :5), and he displays special affection for children (Mk 9:36) as well as for his disciples in general (Lk 12:4); he acknowledges his soft-hearted disposition (Mt 11 :29); he undergoes, in what emerges as his most poignant display of affectivity,
Tradition: DeutscheArbeitsgemeinschaftjur Mariologie (Essen: Hans Driewer, 1962), pp. 191-221; M. AiIlet, Lire /a Bible avec S. Thomas. Le passage de la litteraa la res dans la Somme tMologique (Fribourg, Switz.: Editions Universitaires, 1993); M.-D. Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas. pp. 233-63, esp. 259-60; J.-P. Torrell, The Person, pp. 54-9; S. Lyonnet, "L'actualite de saint Thomas exegete," in Tommaso d'Aquino ne/ suo settimo centenario: aUi del Congresso Internazionale IV: Problemi di teologia (Naples: Edizioni Domenicane Italiane, 1976), pp.9-28; M. Arias Reyero, Thomas von Aquin als Exeget. Die Prinzipien seiner Schriftdeutung und seine Lehre von den Schriftsinnen (Einsiedeln, Switz.: Johannes Verlag, 1971); T. Domanyi, Der Romerbriefdes Thomas von Aquin. Ein Beitrag zur Untersuchulig seiner Aus/egungsmethoden (Bem-Frankfurt-Las Vegas: Lang, 1979); and S.H. Seidl, "Thomas vonAquin und die Modeme Exegese," Zeitschriftjiir katholtsche Theologie 93 (1971), pp. 9-28. 4. STI, q. I, aa. 1-2, and a. 8 ad 2. 5. cr. Bib/ia sacra iuxta Vulgata Clementinam, eds. A. Colunga and L. Turrado, "Biblioteca de Au-
tores Cristianos 14" (Madrid: Edizioni San Paolo, 1995). For more on Thomas' dependence on the Vulgate, cf. C. Spicq, "Saint Thomas d' Aquin exegete," col. 695-701.
intense emotion-great "fear" (pavere), "weariness" (taedere) and "sorrow" (tristis)--over his impending death (Mk 14:32-42 and par.; cf. as well Heb 5:7).' The passion Jesus.exhibits the most in the Gospels, with thirty such references, is anger: Jesus becomes "indignanf' (indigne) with his disciples (Mk 10: 14); he is "angry" (cum ira) at the Pharisees' hardness of heart (Mk 3:5) and curses them, "Woe to you [vae vobis), scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" (Mt 23:15); he sharply "threatens" (comminatus est) Peter with the words "Get behind me, Satan!" (Mk 8:33); he even gets physically violent when he drives the money-changers out of the Temple (Mk 11:15-19).' Jesus also nndergoes compassion on several occasions, with twenty-five such references: he is "moved with pity" (misericordia motus) for a widow (Lk 7:13); he has "compassion" (miseratus est) for the shepherdless crowd (Mk 6:34) and "pity" (mi.eratus) on two blind men (Mt 20:34); etc. 8 Given the significant theological attention Aquinas would grant the issue of Jesus' passions throughout his entire writing career, one can presume that Thomas' Chnstological psychology followed upon an attentive regard for the Gospels, an honest reading of which obliterates the icon of an unfeeling, stoic J~SUS.9 To be sure, commenting on the biblical gronnding of Aquinas' Cbristology in the Summa theologiae, J.-P. Torrell reminds us that ''we should not forget that when he wrote the Summa, Thomas had already commented in
6. There are 10 totli.l references in the Gospels that evoke the experience of anguish, distress, or sorrow in Jesus: Mk 14:33; 15:34; Mt26:37; 27:46; Lk 12:50; 22:44; Jn I1 :33,35; 12:27; and 13:21. Cf. L. Ott, Fundamentals o/Catholic Dogma, trans. P. Lynch (2nd ed., Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books, 1974), pp.173-4. 7. There are 5 explicit references to Jesus' anger or indignation in the Gospels (Mk3:5 [2x]; 10:14; Jn 11 :33,38) and at least 25 references in which anger (or indignation or frustration) imply the emotional experience of Jesus (Mk 7:6; 8:17,33 [2x]; 9:42; I1:I5-19; Mt 7:5; 9:19; 12:34; 15:7; 16:811,23; 17:17; 18:67; 21:12-17; 22:18; 23:13-33; Lk 6:42; 9:41 ,s5; I1 :37-54; 12:56; 13:15; 17:1-2; and In 2:13-16). Many of these passages involve Jesus in some kind of confrontation, such as when he lashes out against the scribes and Pharisees (Mt 23: 13-33), or when he unleashes either his ire against the money-changers in the Temple (Mk 11 :15-19, and par.) or his indignation toward the disciples (Mk 8:33). Also, since many of these texts are parallel passages. these 30 references to Jesus' anger do not imply 30 separate incidents of anger in Jesus'life in the Gospels. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the Gospels testify more to anger in Jesus'life than to any other emotion. 8. There are 10 explicit references to Jesus' compassion in the Gospels (Mk 1:41,43; 6:34; 7:34; 8:2; Mt9:36; 14:14; 15:32; 20:34; and Lk 7:13) and 15 references in which one may infer a feeling of compassion in Jesus (Mk 2:5; 5:34,43; 9:36; 10:13-16; Mt 8:3; 9:2,22; I1:29; 19:13-15; 23:37; Lk 5:13; 8:48: 13:34; and 18:15). 9. In this respect. the conunents ofP.A. Sepinski (La psych%gie du Christ chez Saint Bonaventure [paris: J. Vrin,1948], p.l) are pertinent: "Sans aucun effortd'analyse ou de synthese, l'Evangile pose Ie Christ, par Ie seul fait de sa vie, sons les fonnes les plus diverses de son activite psychique."
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extenso on the Gospels of Matthew and John, so he knew quite well who the Jesus of the Gospels is. "10 An anomalous air hangs over Thomas' use of Scripture in the analysis ofCluist's human affectivity, however, for the simple reason th~t in the relevant passages from the commentary on the Sentences and the De veritate, Aquinas offers only nine and five scriptural references respectively, whereas in the Summa one finds a veritable explosion of scriptural passages. ll Not coincidentally, such an incongruity corresponds to the larger, more general course taken by these works in their respective usages of Scripture; as the scholar W.G.S.M. Valkenberg observes, the Summa exploits the testimony of Scripture in a much greater and more direct manner than either the commentary on the Sentences or the disputed questions (including the De veritate).12 The anomaly is dispelled when one realizes, as Valkenberg points out, that in the Summa Thomas is more acutely cognizant of the "radicalized manner" by which theology depends upon God's revelation; hence, his pronounced penchant to ground the Summa in the primary source of revelation, the source that provides the proper framework for any theological exposition: sacred Scripture. 13 By contrast, the commentary on the Sentences remains within the tradition of Lombard's own Sentences and its various commentaries, in which Scripture is cited in a much less frequent manner, since the objective lies not so much in accentuating the reliance of theology on God's revelation as in offering, and subsequently commenting upon, a compendium of patristic opinions that follow the Apostles' Creed. 14
lD. l-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres. La vie et I 'oeuvre de Jesus selon saint Thomas d'Aquin, vol. 1 (paris: Desclee, 1999), p. 16: "On ne saurait oublier enffet qu'au moment ou i1 ecrit la Somme Thomas a deja commente in extenso les evangiles selonMatthieu et seionJean, et it sait bien qui es~ Ie Jesus des evangiles." Cf. ibid., pp. 27-~4 for more on the authority of Scripture (and of the Fathers of the Church) in Thomas' theology. II. Cf.ll! Sent, d. 15, q. I, aa. 2-3, and q. 2, aa. 1-3; and De ver., q. 26, aa. 8-10. The passages from the Summa shall be noted below. 12. Cf. W.O.B.M. Valkenberg, Did Not Our Heart Burn? Place and Function ofHoly Scripture in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (LouvainlUtrecht: Peeters, 1990), p. 190. The references to Valkenberg's work pertain not to the published edition, an edition not made available to me, but to Valkenberg's personal electronic version, which was kindly provided to me by the author. 13. W.O.B.M. Valkenberg,DidNotOurHeartBurn?, pp. 191-201; cf as well M. Corbin, Le chemin de la the%gie chez Thomas d'Aquin (paris: Beauchesne, 1974), pp. 815-41. Valkenberg identifies two causal factors for this attitude toward Scripture by which Thomas approaches the Summa: the influence gained through Aquinas' commentaries on Scripture, the expositiu, and Thomas' discovery, particularly at the time of the writing of the Catena aurea, ofa patristic heritage rich in biblical theology. 14. cr. Valkenberg,Did Not Our Heart Burn?, pp. 291-303. For the compendious nature of the Sentences and its commentaries, cf J.-P. Torren, The Person, pp. 39-45; and lA. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d:Aquino. His Life. Thought. and Work (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), pp. 67-77.
Muc~ less is the literary. genre of th~ disputatio; which employs Scripture in a distinctly margmal manner, comnutted to drawmg attention to the revelatory basis of theology. Thomas' endeavor to underscore the role of God's revelation in theology in the Summa accounts then for the striking and unparalleled abundance of scriptural citations that come in the analysis of Jesus' human affectivity in the Tertia Pars; here Thomas cites Scripture no less than eighty-three times (!), making the Bible his odds-on favorite. authoritative sour~~ ~or the subject of Cluist's human affectivity. IS One can, in fact, detect the growing senSItiVity on Thomas' part toward the role of revelation in theology already in the Compendium theologiae, a work written between 1265-67, i.e., almost ten years after the De verate (written between 1256-59) and just a few years before the Tertia Pars, which was composed between 1272-73;16 in the seven short chapters dedicated to the issue of Jesus' human affectivity in the Compendium the%giae (chs. 226-8 and 230-3), Thomas offers a full twenty citations of Scripture.
2. The Use ofthe Old Testament in Thomas' Account of Christ's Passions
Of noteworthy interest for Thomas' use of Scripture in the Summa's analysis of Jesus' human affectivity is the fact that, of the eighty-three scriptural passages offered, thirtyseven come from the Old Testament, among which twenty-six passages are said to concern the Person ofChrist. 11 Though this may seem odd to modern readers, since it is disjoined from the historical/textual Critical rigors of modern biblical exegesis, such a henneneutic coheres with the medieval method of biblical interpretation in Christological matters on two principal scores. First, certain Old Testament passages that Thomas applies to Jesus con-
15. Cf. STIII, q. 5. a. 3; q. 14, aa. 1-4; q. IS, aa. 1-2,4-10; q. 16, a. 8 ad 2; q. 18, a. 2; q.19, a. 2; q. 21, a. 2;.and q. 46, aa. I, and 5-8. No matter the impression given by these numerous citations, Valkenberg rD,ld 1'!0t Our Heart Bum?, p. 193) reminds us: "a research based only on explicit quotations cannot do Justlce to the whole range of influence of SCripture on Aquinas' theology." l~.. For the datin? of these works, cf. J.-P. Torrell, The Person, pp. 333-50; and P.-M. Gy, "Le texte ~ng~n.al de la ~ertJ.a pars de la Somme Theologique de S. Thomas d' Aquin dans l'apparat critique de I EditIOn Leonme: Ie cas de I'Eucharistie," RSPT65 (1981), pp.608-16. 17. F~r ~ example of Old Testament references in these 26 passages, cf. q. 15, a. I ad I, and q. 46, a. 6 (CItation ofPs 21:1);q. 21, a. 2, argo 1 (ps 83:2); q. 15, a. 4, sed contra, and q. 46, a. 7, sed contra (ps 87:3); q. 46, a. 6, argo 5 (Jor II: 19); q.46, •. 6 ad 4 (ler 12:7); q. IS, a. 6, argo 2 (Jer 23:6); and q. 46, a. 6, sed contra (Lam 1:12). Of the twenty references to Scripture offered in the Compo theol., five come from the Old Testament.
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cern either the "Servant of Yahweh" oflsaiah 42-53 or various Psalms (e.g., 2:1-2; 21:1), texts that Christian believers have understood as fulfilled in Christ since the very time of the Evangelists (cf. Mt 12:17-21; In 12:38; Mk 15:34). Second, and more importantly, Thomas' use of the Old Testament in the discussion on Jesus' human affectivity typifies his application of the spiritual or allegorical sense of biblical henneneutics in vogue during the Middle Ages; as the scholar C. Spicq notes, Aquinas strives to observe the principle advanced by medieval theologians, according to which it is believed that everything in Scripture pertains somehow either to Christ or to the Church. 18 This spiritual sense of medieval biblical henneneutics, which may sound foreign to those familiar with modern methods of biblical exegesis, is in no sense unique to Aquinas orto his way of interpreting the Old Testament, even if one can detect innovations in his scriptural exegesis. 19 In a word, Thomas' biblical exegesis leads him to view the totality of Scripture, with its literal and spiritual senses, as a cohesive, unified working whole. 20 For Aquinas, one locates the spiritual sense of Scripture-i.e., the spirit or the God-given meaning of the Scriptures-not apart from or in contradistinction to the literal sense, but through it; the literal sense captures in words what the human author intends, while the spiritual sense relates the divine message that God wishes to impart through these words, words that in any case never exhaust the spiritual and divine realities they signify.21 The divine mystery at all times
remains larger and deeper than what the actual or literal words of Scripture reveal about it; as Thomas himself writes: "infinite human words cannot explain one word of God.'>22 This leaves the·exegete-theologian free to explore the mysteries that remain imperfectly
communicated, especially in the Old Testament, through the medium of human language, but which are nonetheless attainable if one loans an attentive ear to the spiritual sense of the "Sacred Page." To be sure, though it may have escaped the awareness of the human author in question, this spiritual sense contains treasures that are ordered, so far as Thomas is concerned, and to quote the scholar B. Smalley, to "the benefit ofreaders living afterwards, recipients of a fuller revelation than God had vouchsafed to the hwnan author. '>23 No doubt counting himself among such "beneficiary readers living afterwards," Aquinas wastes little energy in seeking to thrash out this "fuller revelation" of God and in clarify-
ing what precisely the larger and deeper divine mysteries transcribed in the Old Testament involve. The greatest mystery that Aquinas sees at work in the Old Testament, and, indeed,
in the whole of Scripture, is the mystery of Chris!. Smalley does not hesitate to affirm that for Thomas, "[t]he Bible was Christ centered," and that "[t]o deny it would be to deny God's plan for salvation.'>24 In this view, the literal sense of the Old Testament is incorporated,
through what M. Morard terms a "quasi-ontological union," into that which the Old Testament announces and points toward for its fulfillment: the mystery of Christ.2S For Aquinas,
one can identity Christ (or his mystical Body, the Church) with the spiritual sense of most any passage from the Old Testament, which explains why he writes on so many occasions, adapting an expression ofAugustine: "dicitur ex persona Christi ... it is written [in a given 18. C. Spicq, "Saint Thomas d'Aquin exegete," col. 711. Cf. as well M.-D. Chenu, Toward Understanding St. Thomas, pp. 253-9. In his preface to Postilla super Psalmos, Thomas expresses his con-
Old Testament passage] on behalf of the person of Chris!. .. ""
cern to avoid the error advanced by Theodore ofMopsuestia, which was condemned at Constantinople II (553) and which states that "nothing in the Old Testament refers expressly to Christ, but to other things, and was only later adapted to Christ" (Theodorus enim MOp8uestenus dixit, quod in sacra scriptura et prophetiis nihil expresse dicitut de Christo, sed de quibusdam a/iis rebus, sed adaptaverunt Christo). For more on this, cf. M. Morard, ''Une source de saint Thomas d' Aquin: Ie Deuxieme Concile de Constantinople (553)," RSPT81 (1977), pp. 21-56, at 31-4 and 48-50. 19. Cf. D.H. Pesch, Thomas von Aquin. Grenze und Grasse mittelalterlicher Theologle. Eine Ein./Uhrung (2nd ed., Mainz: Matthias-Griinewald-Verlag, 1989), p. 88. For more on the innovations of Thomas' interpretation of Scripture, cf. B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (3rd. ed., Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1984), pp. 300-3; and idem, The Gospels in the Schools, c.l100-c.1280
(London-Ronceverte, West Virginia: Hambledon Press, 1985), pp. 257-71. 20. For the pivotal text on the matter, cf. STI, q. I, a. 10. Cf. as well R.E. Brown, The "Sensus Plenior" ofSacred Scripture (Baltimore: St. Mary's University, 1955), p. 61. 21. Cf. STI, q. 10, a. 1 ad 3; Lecturasuper Matthaeum. ch. 3, lect. 1; and Quodlibet VII, q. 6, a. 3; In Gal, ch. 4, lect. 7; and Expos. super lob ad Iitt., on 1:6. Cf. as well lA. Weisheipl, "Introduction" to Commentary on the Gospel ofSt. John by St. Thomas Aquinas (Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1980), pp. 3-19, at 9-11; M.-D. Philippe, "Preface" to Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Commentaire sur l'Evangile de saint Jean, vol. I (Buxy: Les amis de saint Jean, 1978), pp. 28-47j and B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, pp. 292-300, where Smalley maintains that Aquinas considers "the 'spirit' of Scripture as something not hidden behind or added on to, but expressed by the text. We
cannot ... understand the Bible by distinguishing letter from spirit and making a separate study of each." Such an exegesis, of course, follows upon Aquinas' Aristotelian metaphysics, whereby reality as such is identified with concrete material things perceived by the senses. 22. Lectura super Ioannem. ch. 21, lect. 6: "i11finita enlm verba hominum non possunt attingere unum Dei verbum"; cited in T. O'Meara, Theologlan. p. 71. 23. The Gospels in the Schools, p. 265. 24. B. Smalley, The Gospels in the Schools, p. 266; cf. as well W.G.B.M. Valkenberg, Did Not Our Heart Burn?, p. 196. For texts in Aquinas, cf. SiI, q. 1, a. 10; and Lectura super Epistolam Primam ad Corinthios, ch. 15,lect. 1. 25. M. Morard, "Une source de saint Thomas d' Aquin," p. 33:
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Nowhere is this identification of the spiritual sense of the Old Testament with the mystery of Christ better seen than in Thomas' regard for the Psalter. To the Dominican exegete's eyes, the Psalms, which articulate the spiritual experiences of the entire hwnan quest for
that he draws not enough from the testimony of the Gospels, at least ifone attends to the impression given by the actual passages he cites. Since Christ's passions pertain to the his-
God, playa privileged role in annonncing the spiritual experiences that Christ would later undergo in his hwnanity; in a word, Jesus undergoes in his lifetime what all of humanity undergoes through the expressions of the Book ofPsaIms, as illustrated by Ps 21: I ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?") in the example of Jesus' cry of dereliction on the cross (cf. Mk 15:34), or Ps 69:9 C'zeal for your house has consumed me") in the case of Jesus' anger toward the money-changers in the Temple (cf. Jn 2: 17).27 Thomas also sees the prophets as playing a crucial role in portending the human experiences of Christ in the work
provide, one should seem obliged to refer heavily to the Gospels in particular if one wishes to offer a credible account of Jesus' human affectivity. The sensibilities of the modem the-
of salvation. For the aforementioned reasons~ then, Thomas makes abundant use of Old Testament passages, particularly those from the Psalter and from Isaiah and Jeremiah, in his discussion on Jesus' human affectivity, while he shows no great concern to base this discussion
primerily on the testimony of the Gospels. Though the Master from Aquino's ability to draw his Christological psychology from so many books of the Bible, including the Old Testament, may seem admittedly odd, if not spurious, to the modem biblical exegete, it does , give witness to an impressive synthesis of exegesis and Christology.28 If Aquinas' endeavor to draw his theology of Jesus' hwnan passions from the entire witness of Scripture is perhaps found wanting in anything, however, it would be in the fact
27. Cf, STIlI, q. IS, a. 9,sed contra; cf. as well B. Smalley, The Gospels in the Schools, p. 268; and Va1kenberg, Did Not Our Heart Burn?, pp. 196-205. J.A. Weisheipl (Friar Thomas, pp.306-7) notes that the Tertia Pars was written while Thomas was lecturing on the Book of Psalms' in Naples, which accounts for the parallels between the Christology of the Tertia Pars and the Book of Psalms. 28. G, Lafont (Structures et methode dans La "Somme theologique" de saint Thomas d'Aquin [paris: Les Editions du Cerf. 1996], p. 382) applauds Thomas' use of Scripture in STIlI: qq, 14-15. As for perfonning Christology today, the 1984 Pontifical Biblical Commission (Scripture and Christology: A Statement of/he Biblical CommiSSion with a Commentary, trans. J.A. Fitzmyer [N.Y.: PaulistPress, 1986], p. 31) endorses such a synthesis of exegesis and Christology as the paradigm: "The use of Scripture in Christoiogy is governed, then, by the principle oftotality, which the Fathers and the medieval theologians well recalled, even though they were reading and interpreting the biblical texts according to the methods suited to the culture of their own times." Emphasis theirs. Vatican Council II, Dei verbum, §12 (DEC, p. 976) affinns much the same when it writes: "a right understanding of the sacred texts demands attention to the content and unity of Scripture as a whole" (ad recte sacrorum textuum sensum eruendum, non minus diligenter respiciendum est ad contentum et unilatem totius scripturae). For more on Aquinas' union of exegesis and theology, cf. M.A. Reyero, Thomas von Aquin als Exeget, pp. 247ff..
torical actions of Jesus, details of which only the Gospels (or the New Testament in general)
ologian thus cannot help but find limitations in Thomas' minimal effort at grounding the analysis of Christ's passions in the testimony of the Gospels-though, it must be admitted, his efforts in this respect certainly surpass those of his predecessors Alexander of Hales and
Albert the Great." One must realize however that such a criticism does not do adequate justice to Thomas' perspective on the matter. He lives at a time when the whole of Scripture, particularly through an invocation of the spiritual sense of the Old Testament in general and of the
Psalter and Books of the Prophets in particular, is looked upon as playing as important a role in the revelation of Christ's hwnanity as the Gospels. In his mind, there is no real qualitative difference between what a passage from the Psalms might announce about Christ's hu-
manity and what a passage from the Gospels might say concerning Jesus' life. Furthermore, the historical-critical consciousness that characte~es modem biblical exegesis could not be further removed from the entire medieval exegetical mindset, Aquinas notwithstanding. Still, one wishes that the Magister in Sacra Pagina had offered more references to the Gospels in the discussion on Jesus' human affectivity, as, in fact, one better finds in the
29. Albert offers not one citation from the Gospels in his two studies on Christ's human affectivity inIII Sent, d. 15, aa. I-II; d. 16, aa. 1-5; and d. 17, aa. 2-3, and 7; and De incarnatione. tr. 4, q. 2,aa. 2-3; tr. 4, qq. 4-5; tr. 6, q. 1, aa. 1-13 (ed. Coloniensis [Munster: Aschendorff, 1958], vol. 26, pp. 20810,219-30). Alexander of Hales cites only Mk 14:34 in his discussion on Christ's passions in III Sent, d. 15, no. 7 and 29 (in Alexander of Hales, Glossa in quatuor Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, ed. CoIIegii S. Bonaventurae, vol. 15 (Quaracchi, Florence: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1954], pp. 153 and 160), and Mt 26:37-38 in Quaestiones disputatae 'antequam esset/rater: q. 16, De Passibilitate animae Christi etAdae, disp. 3, memo 1 (Quaracchi, Florence: Co11egium S. Bonaventurae, 1960, vol. 19, p. 253). The same holds for his treatise on Christ's passions in his Summa theologiae (Summa halensis), Bk. Ill, inq. I, tr. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo 1-2 (ed. Quaracchi. vol. 4, pp. 58--66), which cites only Mt 26:38. As for Aquinas, the Gospel references in the Summa, the Compo theol., the De ver., and the Sentences are the foIIowing: tO'affirm sorrow in Jesus, Thomas cites Mt 26:37-38 and In I I :35 (recall there are ten total passages in the Gospels alluding to sorrow or distress in Jesus; cf. supra, n. 6); for Jesus' fear, Thomas cites ?v1k 14:33; for ''wonder'' or "amazement" in Jesus, Thomas cites Mt 8:10; and for anger in Jesus, Thomas alludes to Jn 2:17.
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writings of Thomas' Franciscan colleague Bonaventure.3D This chagrin is reinforced when glancing at Aquinas' treatment of the acta et passa Christi in Tertia, qq. 27-59, a section that J.-P. Torrell tenns the ''theology of the mysteries of the life of Jesus," where Thomas proves his impressive ability to ground a Christology that focuses on Jesus' historical actions thor-
oughly in the Gospels." 3. The Synthesis ofRevelation and Reason in Aquinas' Theology of Christ's Human Affectivity
making Scripture the second-most cited source in this section after Aristotle.32 This use of Scripture in the treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars is significant, since this treatise serves as the anthropological foundation for the analysis of Christ's passions in 1i!rtia, q. 15. However, because Thomas' anthropological regard for human passion results more from the influence of Aristotle than from Scripture, one must afflnn the supreme role played by the Stagirite in the formulation of Aquinas' thought, even on the issue of Jesus' human af-
fectivity. For, without the works ofAristotle, the very method by which Aquinas probes the
from Thomas' abundant use of Scripture in his analysis of Christ's passions, particularly for this study, is the role of revelation in the formulation of his thought, and how he synthesizes the revelation of Scripture with his use of Aristotle. Aquinas' copious references to Scripture suggest that the divine revelation transcribed
affective dimension of Christ's life by beginning with a sound metaphysics of human nature loses its entire sense. 33 It is, in fact, this 'pellucid Aristotelian-inspired ontology of human nature that equips Aquinas with the heart of his characteristic grasp of human passion, and by consequence, of Christ's passions. Still, the role of revelation in the development of Thomas' thoughts on human passion should not be undersold. Since the fullness of God's revelation is disclosed in Christ, one cannot overestimate the impact that the existential example of a God-man who has assumed
therein represents a true font for his Christological psychology. Confinnation of this fact
human passion in his incarnated humanity had on Thomas' appreciation of the objective
comes, as seen above, in the lUlparalleled number of scriptural references that appear in the analysis of Jesus' human affectivity in the Summa, a work devoted directly to underscoring the reliance of theology on God's revelation. As such, then, these references indicate
goodness of human emotion. That is, the essential status of affectivity in hUman life lies
Whatever the exegetical limitations the modem theologian might want to see in the role of
Scripture in Aquinas' Christological psychology, the most important lesson to be gleaned
Thomas' appraisal of Christ's human affectivity as a properly theological subject matter. This source-influence of Scripture extends beyond the strictly christological arena and ineludes Thomas' doctrine on human affectivity in general, as evidenced by the one hundredforty citations of Scripture that Thomas offers in the Prima Pars and the Prima Secundae Pars of the Summa, in which he addresses the notion of human affectivity in general,
openly exposed in the fact that God himselfhas become substantially united to a human nature endowed with a sense appetite and with movements of affectivity. If Thomas is con-
vinced that human life-and especially humao morality-must include and integrate the passions, and his writings clearly show that he is, one can only suppose that the role which his faith in the revealed account of Christ's humanity exercised in arriving at such a view was critical. One could in fact turn to the layout itself of the Summa as a careful confirmation of the place Christ's revealed humanity occupies in Aquinas' conception of human affect. As L.
Boyle and S. Pinckaers have again argued, the purposeful design of the Summa indicates that 30. In /II Sent, d. 15, a. 2, q. 3, arg, I and 4 (in Commentaria in quatuor libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi, vol. 3 [Quaracchi, Florence: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1887), p. 339), Bonaventure offers three references to affinn anger in Jesus: Jn 2:17; Mt 7:23; and Mt 11:20. He also cites Jn 11:33 to affirm emotion in Jesus in d. 15, a. 2, qq. 2 and 3 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 339-40). To affinn sorrow in Jesus, he cites Mt 26:38 and Lk 19:41 in d. IS, a. 2, q. 2, argo 1 and 2 (ed, Quaracchi, p. 338). Finally, to affirm affection in Christ, Bonaventure cites Mt 11:29 in d.lS, a. 2, q. 3, sed contra (e.d. Quaracchi, p. 339). Peter Lombard also deserves recognition, as he cites the Gospels 5 times in affirming passion in Christ; cf. Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, chs. 1-4; d. 16, ch. 1; and d. 17, cbs. 1-3, in Magistri Petri Lombardi Sententiae in IV Iibris distinctae, ed. Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas (Grottaferrata [Rome): Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Clams Aquas, 1971-81), vol. 2, pp.92-IlI. 31. Cf. I-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres. La vie et I'oeuvre de Jesus selon saint Thomas d'Aquin; and idem, The Person, pp. 261-2, where Torrell writes: "Popularized in France under the name Vie de Jesus (Life of Jesus), these Questions 27-59 of the Tertia reveal a scriptural and patristic return to sources that would astonish those who do not wish to see in Thomas anything other than an impenitent Aristotelian. There is here, on the contrary, nothing surprising for one who has studied Thomas's scriptuml commentaries ,,,."
32. Cf. STI. qq. 80-81; I-II. q. 17, a. 7; qq. 22-48; q. 50, a. 3; q. 56, a. 4; q. 59, aa. 1-5; q. 60, aa. 2 and 4-5; q. 74, aa. 3-4; q. 77, aa. 1-8; q. 78, a. 4; q. 82, a. 3; and q. 89, a. S. Of these 140 citations, 74 come from the Old Testament and 66 from the New Testament. I have tallied these numbers myself through a perusal of these passages from the Prima Pars and Prima Secundae Pars. 33. In the opening remarks to 'the De anima (Bk. I, ch. 1 [402a7-8]), Aristotle expresses his intention to begin with an analysis of the "essential nature" of the soul, and from there proceed to the soul's acts or operations. Cf. J.P. Reid, "St. Thomas's Sources," appendix 2 to Summa theologiae, vol. 21, Fear andAnger (London: Blackfriars, (965), pp. 146-50, at 147.
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the Secunda Pars, which includes Thomas' teaching on human passion and affectivity, can only be fully tmderstood in direct correlation to the section on Christ that follows in the Tertia Pars. 34 Aquinas in the Summa does not intend his analysis of human affectivity in the treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars to stan~ apart from his summary of Christ's passions in Tertia, q. 15, just as the whole Secunda Pars is not meant to stand apart from the Tertia Pars as its necessary countezpart. Added to this is the fact that in no other work does Aquinas give extensive attention to human passion tmless in direct relation to Jesus' human affectivity. Further, we shall see that when Thomas comes to affinning, contra the Stoic contempt for the passions, the fundamental compatibility between hnman affectivity and moral perfection, he, like Augustine before him, turns to the affective example of Jesus as the irrefutable proof of such compatibility. Thus, though Aquinas' analyses both of hnman passion in general and of Christ's passions in particular operate according to an Aristotelian-inspired method of "metaphysics first," whereby Thomas takes as his startiug point a thoroughly established ontology of human nature, his understanding of the role of passion in human life is influenced by the data of revelation in a wholly crucial way, especially the data brought to light by virtue of Christ's own assumption of human passion. There is, in other words, a continual interplay between reason and faith, or between a purely natural knowledge and a divine or supernatural knowledge, in Aquinas' theology of Christ's humanity. For Thomas Aquinas, theologian before all else, there can be little doubt that since the datum of divine revelation reaches its perfection in the Incarnation, the passions of Christ disclose the full truth of human affectivity. Yet there can be no less doubt that Thomas constructs his reflection on the humanity of Christ on an anthropology that owes much to Aristotelian philosophy. If Christ is the one who reveals for us the full truth of our human condition, it is also Aristotelian thought that instructs us of many things in human nature on which Christian revelation says nothing explicit. The axis around which Aquinas develops his doctrine of Christ's passions is therefore this harmonious and complementary synthesis of faith, represented by the revealed light of Christ's human affectivity, and reason, represented by an Aristotelian-inspired anthropological psychology. It is this synthesis that gives Thomas' christological psychology one of its distinctive trademarks.
34. L.E. Boyle, The Setting ofthe "Summa theologiae" ofSaint Thomas (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. 1982), pp. 16 and 28; and S. Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. M.T. Noble (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 1995). pp. 221-2.
B. PATRISTIC SOURCES That Aquinas' theology was, in addition to Scripture, steeped in the richest of patristic tradition has long been acknowledged by noted scholars.3s For a thinker who possessed exemplary originality in speculative thought, Thomas Aquinas was every bit as much the theologian who, to paraphrase J.-P. Torrell, wished faithfully to represent an echo of his inherited Christian tradition, and he singles out the Fathers of the Chnrch as offering the most "probable" (probabiliter) exposition of the truth of God's revelation. 36 When ascertaining the sources of Thomas' theology of Christ's human affectivity, then, the student ofAquinas has the duty to ascertain whose patristic voices are the ones that revemerate within the echo of his christological psychology. Despite the clear testimony of Scripture on the emotions--even intense ones-in Jesus, the early Church Fathers rarely take up discussion on the matter, save for various passing
35. For studies on the patristic element of Aquinas' thought, cf. L.J. Elders, 'Thomas Aquinas and the Fathers of the Church," in The Reception a/the Church Fathers in the West. From the Carolingians to the Maurists, vol. 1, ed. I. Backus (Leiden: E.I. Brill, 1997), pp. 337-66; L.-J. Bataillon, "Saint Thomas et les Peres: de la Catena la Thrtia Pars, "in Ordo sapientiae et amoris. Image et rnes sage de saint Thomas d' Aquin atravers les recentes etudes historiques, henneneutiques et doctrinales. Honunage au Professeur lean-Pierre Torrell, O.P. aI'occasion de son 65c anniversaire, ed. C.-J. Pinto de Oliveira (Fribourg, Switz.: Editions Universitaires, 1993), pp. 15-36; C.G. Geenen, "Saint Thomas et les Peres," in "Thomas d'Aquin (saint)," DTC 15,1 (1946)"cols. 738-62; idem, "Le fonti patristiche come 'autorita' nella teologia di San Tommaso," Sacra Doctrina 20 (1975) no. 77, pp. 7-17; C.G. ConticeIIo, "San Tommaso ed i Padri: La Catena aurea super Ioannem, " AHDLMA 65 (1990), pp. 31-92; I. Backes, Die Christologie des hI. Thomas von Aquin und die griechischen Kirchenviiter (Paderbom: Ferdinand Schoningh Verlag, 1931); M. Morard, "Une source de saint Thomas d' Aqllin: Ie Deuxii:me Concile de Constantinople (553):- pp. 21-56; G. Emery, "Lephotinisme et ses precurseurs chez saint Thomas.Cerinthe, les Ebionites, Paul de Samosate et Photin," RT95 (l995), pp. 371-98; I.I. de Miguel, "Los Padres de la Iglesia en la criteriologia teol6gica de santo Tomas de Aquino," Scripta theologica 7 (l975), pp. 125-61; I.-P. Torrell, The Person. pp. 136-40; LA. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas. pp. 171-6; H.F. Dondaine, "Note sur la documentation patristique de saint Thomas a Paris en 1270," RSPT 47 (1963), pp. 403-6; and W.H. Principe, "Thomas Aquinas's Principles for Interpretation of Patristic Texts," in Studies in Medieval Culture, VIII & IX (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University, 1976), pp. 111-21. 36. _STI. q. 1, a. 8 ad 2; and I.-P.' T~rrell, Maitre spirituel, p. 507. This holds especiaIly for the definitive pronouncements of the ecumenical councils; cf. C.G. Geenen, "The Place of Tradition in the Theology ofSt. Thomas," Thom 15 (1952), pp. 110-35; and idem. "The Council ofChalcedon in the Theology ofSt. Thomas," in From anAbundant Spring: The Walter Farrell Memorial Volume of "The Thornis"; ed. Staff of The Thornis' (New York: P.!. Kenedy. 1952), pp. 172-217, at 173-4.
a
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comments on the pertinent Gospel passages.37 This reticence stems from a deeper problem characterizing the patristic age: the reluctance to affinn a full human soul in Christ; as the scholar A. Grillmeier points out, it was not until the seventh century that the early Christian authors unanimously concurred upon Christ's possession of a full human soul. 38 Since the passions arise from the human soul, this dileinma faced with respect to Christ's human psychology would in large measure account for the demurral of the Fathers to address overtly the issue of Christ's passions. The popularity that Stoicism enjoyed in the ancient world stands out as another contributing, and no less prevalent, factor in the Fathers' relative silence over the affective dimension of Christ, as this philosophical school of thought held up the state of a7Ul8ela, i.e.,the life unswayed by any and all movements of passion, as the supremely virtuous ideaJ.39 Spurred on as well by the import of Christ's victory over suffering and death, many of the Greek Fathers forged a theological vision that stressed a rigorous battle of the Christian believer against affective suffering, if not against human passibility in general."
faith against Arianism. This authority and influence explains why Hilary's problematic Christological psychology would not only act as a lightning rod for the medieval discussion on Christ's passibility, but would also establish the perimeters in which the medieval authors would forge their respective views on Christ's passions, Thomas Aquinas included. Hilary's polemic with the Arians, who took Jesus' display of passion as a sufficient rejoinder to the tenet of Christ's divinity, sets ~e context for the Latin.Father's remarks on Christ's human affectivity. Though Hilary acknowledges that Christ, in order to ''prove the reality of his body" (ad demonstrandum corporis ventatem), experiences passion, particularly at the time of his crucifixion and death, the Bishop of Poitiers gives this experience a glorified twist by refusing to acknowledge the psychical impact of such suffering. For Hilary, Christ suffered in a purely physical or somatic manner, without even the psychical perception of the pain his body was enduring, as if Christ's body was entirely anesthetized-he endured the physical injury but felt nothing, as affrrmed in the following passage from the De Trinitate:
1. Hilary ofPoitiers and the Debate over the Psychosomatic Reality of Christ~ S,qJering and Pain
He [the Lord] felt the force of passion, but without its pain .... He had a body that could undergo passion, and it did undergo passion, but he had not a nature that could feel pain. For his body possessed a unique nature of its own .... What is your senseless hope [0 Arian heretic], in denying that Christ is God and in attributing to him fear and passion'? .. It is then a mistaken opinion of human judgment, which thinks he felt pain because he suffered.41
The first patristic author to offer outspoken-and problematic-remarks on Christ's passibility, and one who plays a large role in Aquinas' own theology of Christ's human affectivity is Hilary of Poitiers (c. 315-367). A Latin Father of the Church, Hilary exerted considerable authority and influence in the medieval West on account of his orthodox defense of the
37. L. Ott (Fundamentals o/Catholic Dogma, p. 173) sees in the Fathers' ''unanimous rejection of Docetism" their "general conviction of Christ's passibility"-yet this is implicit at best. 38. A. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition. From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451), vol. I, trans. 1. Bowden (2nd ed., Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975), p. 241. P. Parente (L'10 di Cristo [3rd ed., Rovigo: Istituto Padano di Arti Grafiche, 1981], p. 291) thus errs in maintaining: "I Padri sono generalmente concordi nell'attribuire affetti e passioni umane a Gesu." For more on this aspect of patristic Christology, cf. P.A. Sepinski, La psych%gle du Christ, pp. 4-15. 39. As G. Verbeke (The PresenceojStoicism in Medieval Thought [Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1983], p. 48) notes, "[t]he Stoic notion of impassibility {apatheiaj was adopted also, with more or Jess emphasis, by Clement ofAlexandria, Origen, Basil the Great, Gregory ofNazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom." For the Stoic view on the passions, cf. Cicero,Deflnibus, Ill, 20; De 1Uscul. Quaest, I, ch. 80; III. cbs. 4 and 10; IV, chs. 5-6; Seneca, De clem., 7; Moral Epistles, IX, epistles 5, 9, and 85; and Virgil, Aeneid, Bk. IV, 449; cf. as well D. Kambouchner, "Passions," in Dictionnaire d'ethique et de philosophie morale, ed. M. Canto-Sperber (paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1996), pp. 1081-7, at 1084-6. 40. This point is developed at great length by J.-C. Larchet in his workDieu ne veutpas lasouffrance des hommes (paris: Editions du Cerf. 1999).
As one can see, Hilary clearly struggles with, on the one hand, acknowledging Christ's passibility, the reality of which the testimony of the Gospels leaves little doubt, and, on the other, his reluctance to cede in any way to the Arian take on Christ's passions, and thereby avoid being led down the Arian slippery slope of denying the divinity of Christ. In his polemic with the Arians, in other words, the Bishop of Poitiers opts for an extreme position, and finds himself advancing, in order to safeguard the orthodox faith in Christ's divinity, mUltiple and peculiar double takes on Christ's passibility: "He felt the force of
41. Hilary,De Trinitate, Bk. X, chs. 23-7, and 47 (CCSL 62A, pp. 477-501): "[Ald/errent quidem haec inpetum passionis, non tamen dolorem passionis inferrent ... [Hjabens ad patiendum quldem corpus, et passus est, sed naturam non habens ad dolendum. Naturae enim propriae ac suae corpus illud est . .. tu quid sectaberis spei {o heretice,j Christum Deum negando. et metum ei passionis addendo? ... Fallitur ergo humanae aestimationis opinio, putans hunc dolere quod patitur. "Cf. X. Le Bachelet, "Hilaire (saint)," DTC 6,2 (1947), cols. 2385-2462, at 2439-40; A. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition pp. 395-8; and C. Kannengiesser, "Hilaire de Poitiers (Saint)," DSp 7, I (1969), cols. 466-99. Aquinas cites Hilary's De Trinitate in STIlI, q. 15, a. 5 ad 1, and q. 46, a. 5 ad I.
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passion, but without its pain"; "his body tmderwent passion, but he had not a nature that could feel pain."42 In the end, such double takes only suppress the complete integrity of the humanity of Christ, as they truncate the movements of affectivity that follow upon the principles of Christ's human nature. Again, Hilary's position would become the source and focal point of the entire medieval debate over the precise nature of Christ's human passibility, a debate that runs throughout the entire course of the Middle Ages and which, initiated by Peter Abelard's Sic et non,
reaches its zenith in the 12th and 13th centuries." While many do not adopt the Bishop of Poitiers' essentially tmtenable position, most authors, Aquinas among them, propose a benigna interpretatio of Hilary's view on Christ's passibility.44 More importantly, Hilary's influence was decisive in restricting the medieval query on Christ's human affectivity to the need for affinning the psychosomatic reality of Christ's suffering and pain in both body and soul. That is, the scope of the medieval discussion on Christ's passibility becomes, thanks to the debate generated by the controversial views of the Bishop of Poitiers,
42. Hilary repeats this "yes, but. ..." position on Christ's passibility at several points in De Trinitate, Bk. X, chs. 23-47. 43. Cf. Abelard, Sic et non, q. 80 (in Peter Abailard, Sic et Non: A Critical Edition, eds. B. Boyer and R. McKeon, vol. 3 [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977], pp.283-96). Hilary's glorified Christology was debated already in the 5th century by Claudianus Mamertus (T474) (De statu animae. Bk.lI, ch. 9 [CSEL II, pp. 134--5]), who argued that Hilary denied the reality ofChrist'ssufferings: "nihil doloris Christum in passione sensisse, cuius si vera passio non fuil. " According to Lanfranc (1010-89) (Epist. 50 [PL 150, 543]), this charge against Hilary was repeated by Berengar of Tours (1010-88). After Abelard's discussion over Hilary's position continued with the Sententiae divinitatis, tr. IV, ch. 3,7, written between 1142-48 by a disciple of Gilbert de la Pom[:e (in B. Geyer, Die Sententiae divinitatis. Ein Sentenzenbuch der Gilbertschen Schuie, "BGPTM 7,213" [MUnster: Achendorff, 1967], p. 89*). Peter Lombard followed suit (III Sent, d. 15, 00. 3, and d. 17, ch. 3 [ed. ColI. Bonav., pp. 100-11 D, and, through Lombard, the debate passed over to the Sentence conimentaries of the 13th century. Before these commentaries, however, Hilary's position had also been the subject of debate between Gerhoh of Reichersberg (t 1169) and Eberh,ard of Bamberg; cf. 1. de GheUinck, Le mouvement theologique duXII sii~cle (2nd ed., Bruges: Editions "De Tempel," 1948), p. 284. The late 12th-century figure Philip ofHarvengst (tI183) (Epist. 25 [PL 203, 175-6]) is one of the few to defend Hilary's position. For an overview of this debate. cf. G.P. Sijen, "La passibilite du Christ chez Philippe de Harveng," in Une enquete sur I 'observance disciplinaire et liturgique I 'Abbaye d 'Averbode au debut du XVI siecie, ed. P.F. Lefevre (Tongerloo, Belgium: Typis Abatiae, 1938), pp. 190-208; and L. Ott, Fundamentals o/Catholic Dogma, p. 173. It might be noted that Hesychius of Jerusalem (t451) also believed that impassibility was Christ's nonnal condition. 44. Aquinas,Ill Sent. d. 15, q. i, a. 3, sol. 1; De ver., q. 26, a. 8 ad 7; and STIlI, q. IS, a. 5 ad 1.
rather narrow, inasmuch as the disagreeable or suffering side of Jesus' human affectivity takes center stage, while the congenial side of Christ's passions (such as his love, hope, or desire) becomes relegated to the comer of inconsequential material. This point must be retained if one is to gain a proper grasp ofAquinas' theology of Christ's human passions.
In shaping his response to Hilary, and thereby establishing the proper groundwork for his entire position on the human affectivity of Christ, St. Thomas turns to two principal patristic authors for support, one from the Latin West and the other from the Greek East: Augustine, who sees in the pa~sions displayed by Christ the irrefutable repulse of the Stoic contempt for the moral quality of human emotion (though familiar with Hilary's works, Augustine makes no mention of the Bishop of Poitiers' problematic take on Christ's affective suffering); and John Damascene, whose Defide orthodoxa takes issue with the Aph-
thartodocetic denial of Christ's bodily passibility. A casual glance at Aquinas' writings on Christ's human passions quickly reveals that, among the patristic influences on such writings, Augustine and John Damascene certainly merit top rank. Nonetheless, other patristic authors playa role in the formulation of Thomas' theology of Christ's human affectivity as well. Since this latter influence is of decidedly lesser consequence, these various other auetoritates shall receive brief consideration only after examining the place ocCupied by Augustine and Damascene in the Christo logical psychology of Thomas.
2. Augustine The influence of Augustine's Christology on Thomas' account of Christ's passions is attested by the simple number of citations that the Latin Father receives in the pertinent passages from Thomas' De veritate and Summa-thirty-nino--making Augustine the preferred authoritative source, besides Scripture, for Thomas' discussion on the matter.4S That Augustine should figure so prominently in Thomas' Christology is hardly surprising, considering the Bishop of Hippo's unparalleled impact on Latin medieval theology. To be sure,
Augustine's Christologica1 psychology finds its way into Thomas' thought not only through the latter's firsthand acquaintance with the works of the Latin Father, but also indirectly through his exposure to the considerable role that Augustine plays in the Christological
a
Alexander of Hales' remark (Summa theol., Bk.lII, inq. I, tr. S, q. I, mem02,ch. 1, a. I red. Quaracchi. p. 1991]) that "Hilary did not wish to deny the reality of (Christ's) sensible suffering, but only the error of the Arians" (Hilarius non vult removere verum sensum passion is, sed errorem Ariz') is exemplary of this benigna interpretatio.
45. Cf. De Ver. q. 26, aa. 8-10; STill. q. 5, a. 3; q. 14, aa. 1-4; q. 15, aa. 1-2,4--10; q. 16, a. 8 ad 2; q. 18, a. 2; q. 19, a. 2; q. 21, a. 2; and q. 46, aa. 1, and 5-8.
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psychologies of his Scholastic predecessors Peter Lombard, Alexander ofRales, Albert the Great, and Bonaventure.46 Despite the numerous references to Augustine in the discussion on Christ's passions in the De veritate and the Summa, however, the Bishop of Hippo's weighty impact upon the Christological psychology of Thomas came about only after the latter had written his commentary on the Sentences, as the Latin Father is cited only three times in the pertinent passages from this first major work of Aquinas. 47 Thomas leaves to the side in his analysis of Jesus' human affectivity in the Sentences one work ofAugustine in particular-the De civitate Dei-which he would later greatly exploit." Another work that Aquinas leaves to the side in his study on Christ's passions in the Sentences, but which is employed in the Tertia Pars, is the Bishop of Hippo's De diversis Quaestionibus 83.49 Since both works of Augustine contain particularly weighty remarks on Christ's passions, they each merit brief analysis.
46. For Lombard, Augustine is the most-quoted patristic auctoritas with 12 citations (Hilary is next with 6 citations); cf. III Sent, d. IS, chs. 1-4; d. 16, ch. I; and d. 17, chs. 1-3 (ed. Coll. Bonav., pp. 92-111). With 17 references to Augustine, Albert cites the Bishop of Hippo more than Aristotle and John Damascene in III Sent, d. 15, aa. 1-11; d. 16, aa. 1-5; and d. 17, aa. 2-3, and 7. Augustine is Alexander of Hales' second-most cited source after John Damascene in III Sent, d. 15, nn. 1-54 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 150-70), with 14 references, and in Summa theol. (Summa hal.), Bk. m. inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo 1-2 (ed. Quaracchi. pp. 58-66), with 6 references; in Alexander's Quaestionis disputatae 'antequam esset /rater '; q. 16, Augustine is his preferred auctoritas. with 18 citations. For Bonaventure, whose thought P.A. Sepinksi (La psychologie du Christ chez saint Bonaventure, p. 28) calls "Augustinian in spirit and in heart," Augustine is cited four times in III Sent. d. 15, a. 1, qq. 1-
3; a. 2, qq. 2-3, and d. IS, dub. 1-4 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 330-42). 47. Cf.lII Sent, d. IS, q. 2, a. I, qc. 3, argo I; d. IS, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 3, argo 2; and d. IS, q. 2, a. 3, sol. 2. These few references to Augustine are all the more surprising when one takes note ofAugustine's weighty impact on Albert's commentary on the Sentences (cf. preceding note). 48. The omission ofAugustine's De civ. Dei in the discussion on Jesus' human affectivity in the commentary on the Sentences is strange considering that Aquinas elsewhere in this work refers to the De civ. Dei. including ch. 9 ofBk. XIV (cf., e.g., III Sent. d. 26, q. 2, a. 3, qc. 2, argo 3; and d. 27, q. 1, a. 3, sed contra). which contains the pinnacle ofAugustine's analysis of Christ's passions; cf. C.H. LohI, St. Thomas Aquinas, 'Scriptum Super Sententiis '; An Index ofAuthorities Cited (Avebury. New York: Fordham University Press, 1980), pp. 216-9. This is all the more anomalous by noting the references to the De civ. Dei in Lombard's discussion on Jesus'human affectivity (III Sent. d. 17, ch. 1 red. ColI. Bonav., pp. 105-6]). as wen as in the commentaries on the Sentences of Albert (III Sent, d. 15, a. 3, argo 5; and d. 16, a. 2, sed contra). Alexander of Hales (III Sent, d. IS, n. 54 [ed. Quaracchi, pp. 1689]), and Bonaventure (III Sent, d. 15, a. 2, q. 2, argo 3, and sed contra 4; and-d. 15, a. 3, q. 3 red.
Quaracchi, pp. 338 and 340]). 49. Dediversis Quaestionibus 83, q. 80, n. 3 (CCSL44A, pp. 236-7), paraphrased inSTill, q. 5, a. 3. The omission of this text from the -discussion on Christ's human affectivity in the Sentences is also noteworthy. given the fact that Thomas does cite this work in III Sent, d. 1, q. 1. a. 4.
a. The De civitate Dei Though omitted from the discussion on Christ's passions in the commentary on the Sentences, Augustine's De civitate Dei, particularly Bk. XIV, made its decided Christological impact upon Thomas by the time the Dominican theologiau had come to the writing ofhis De veritate; out of the seventeen references to Augustine in the analysis of Christ's passions in the De veritate, Thomas cites the De civitate Dei fourteen times, With eight of the citations coming from Bk. XIY.so Thomas reverts especially, not only in the De ven·tate, but particularly in the Tertia Pars, to Chapter 9 ofBk. XIV; for the obvious reason that this chapter contains, in what emerges as Augustine's ulfin1.ate rebuttal in his polemic with the Stoic contempt for human emotion, the following remarks on Christ's passions: Even the Lord himself, when he condescended to lead a human life in the fonn of a slave, had no sin whatever, and yet exercised these passions when he judged they should be exercised. For the human affectivity of him who had a true human body and a true human soul was in no sense a deceptive lie. When, therefore, we read in the Gospel that the hard-heartedness of the Jews· moved him to sorrowful indignation [cf. Mk 3:5] ... that when -about to raise Lazarus he even shed tears [cf. Jn li:35], that he earnestly desired to eat the Passover with his disciples [cf. Lk 22,:15], that as his passion drew near his soul was sorrowful [cf. Mt 26:38J, these emotions are certainly not falsely ascribed to him. But as he became man when it pleased him, so . .. when it pleased him he experienced these emotions in his human sou1.S1
50. For De civ. Dei, Bk. XlV (CCSL 48, pp. 421-38), cf. De ver., q. 26, a. 8, argo 10, sed contra 2, sed contra 3, corpus, and ad 4 (where cbs. 6 and 9 are quoted); and a. 9, argo 3, argo 6, and corpus (where chs. 7 and 15 are quoted). The other citations from the De civ. Dei (CCSL47, pp. 234-54) are Bk. VITI, ch. 17 in q. 26, a. 8, argo 4; ·Bk. IX, ch. 4 in a. 8 ad 2; and Bk. IX, ch. 5 in a. 8, argo 5, argo 6, and a. 9 ad S. 51 ~ De civ. Dei, Bk. XIV. ch. 9 (CCSL 48, p. 427); "Quam ob rem etiam ipse Dominus informa servi agere vitam dignalus humanam, sed nu/lum habens omnino peccatum adhibuit eas, ubi adhibendas esse iudicavit. Neque enim, in quo verum erat hominis corpus et verus hominis animus,fa/sus erat humanus affectus. Cum ergo eius in evangelio ista referuntur, quod super duritia corda ludaeorum cum ira contristatus sit . .. quod Lazarum suscitaturus etiam lacrimas foderit. quod concupiverit cum discipulis suis maducare pascha, quod propinquante passione Iristis /uerit anima eius: non/also utique re/eruntur. Verum i/le hos molus certae dispensationis gratia ita cum voluit suscepit animo humano. ut cum voluitJactus est homo. "This text is cited in De ver., q. 26, a. 8; andSrIll. q. 15, a. 4, and a. 6 ad 3; also, in Lect. super loan., ch. 11, Iect. 5, Thomas offers the same Christological rebuttal to the Stoics: "Sed Dominus tristari voluit . .. quod est contra Stoicos. ". For more on Augustine's polemic with the Stoics o,:,erthe issue of passion in the De civ. Dei, cf. M.D. Jordan, "Aquinas'S Construction of a Moral Account of the Passions," FZPT33 (1986), pp. 71-97, at 90-5. A possible source for Augustine's thought is Marius Victorinus, who inAdv. Arium I, 22, 14, and lIT, 3, 27-52 (SC 68, pp. 244 and 446-8). does not hesitate to affinn the natural experience of emotion in Christ.
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In this text Augustine opts for a rather striking anti-docetic stance on the various features
of Christ's humanity, as he takes for granted, presumably on the grounds of revealed faith, and, subsequently for him, on the groWlds of historical fact, that Christ's humanity possessed all the essential elements pertaining to human nature: 'Just as there was in him a true human body and a true human soul, so was there in him true human emotion." The Bishop of Hippo _does not waver in his endorsement of the full realism and integrity of the humanity of Christ. This passage also reveals, in what would become standard for the medieval debate on the matter, Augustine's insistence that any discussion on Jesus' passions must incorporate an unequivocal affirmation of Christ's absolute sinlessness: "The Lord ... had no sin whatever." This insistence stems from the particular dilemma faced, at least with respect to a sinless Christ, when one acknowledges, as Augustine does, the pronounced way in which the affective dimension of human life shares in the consequences of sin, to the point even of its owning innate proclivities to sin. 52 In his exposition on Psalm 87, Augustine reinforces this dilemma by associating the sinless Christ's passions with the package of effects that ensue upon the corruption of human nature incurred by original sin: The words [of Jesus}. 'My soul is sorrowful' [Mt 26:38}, are like the words, 'My soul is full of evils' CPs 87:3J .... Thesefeelings of human weakness the Lord Jesus took upon him, just as he did the flesh of human weakness and the death of human flesh, not by the condition of necessity, but by the free will of his mercyY
This problematic tension advanced by the Bishop of Hippo between a sinless passible Christ on the one hand and a Christ who partakes in the defects of human affectivity, defects that involve, at least in the case of all other humans, inherent tendencies to sin on the other, will pervade the entire medieval discussion on Christ's passions, Thomas Aquinas included. Augustine for his part recognizes this tension, as evidenced by his remark in the De civitate Dei that "the Lord ... had no sin whatever, and yet exercised these passions." The intellectual integrity ofAugustine drives him to intimate such a tension in clirist, since the passions, no matter their entanglement with sin, nonetheless belong to the essence of human
52. Cf. Augustine,De civ. Dei. Bk. XIv, cbs. 9-11,15, and I7 (CCSL48,pp. 427-33 and 436-40). 53. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. 87:3 (CCSL 39. p. 1209): "Quod enimail: 'THatis est anima mea, 'hoc dictum est: 'Repleta est malis anima mea' . .. Has autem humanae infirmitatis affectus, aicut ipsam carnem infirmitatis humanae. DC mortem carnis humanae Dominus iesus, non conditionis necessitate, sed miserationis voluntate suseepit. "
i.
nature. Augustine's determination to preserve the full reality of Christ's humanity leads him to uphold the integral role of emotion in Jesus, even if, given the palpable way in which the passions bear the consequences of original sin, this gives rise to a problematic Christological psychology. It is undoubtedly in view of resolving this tension that Augustine affirms Jesus' supreme willful command over all movements of affectivity, a position that will become standard in medieval thought: "The Lord ... exercised these passions when hejudged (iudicavit) they should be exercised," and only "when it pleased (vo/uit) him [W] experience these. emotions." For AugustiD.e, since human affectivity may at times incline one to unlawful goods regardless of the command of the will or the ultimate good of reason, it follows that a perfectly sinless Christ experienced passion only within the scope of the supreme command ofhis will. It is, in other words, in view of safeguarding both Jesus' absolute sinlessness and his genuine passibility of soul that Augustine, and the medievals after him, Aquinas among them, find it necessary to preclude affective movements in Christ that would in any way have escaped the strict bounds of reasoned control. Finally, latent in Augustine's statement that Christ "condescended to lead a human life in the form of a slave" is the notipn, later to be crystallized by Aquinas, that Jesus' passions, because they accrue to a corrupt human nature, follow upon Christ's economic mission or purpose, i.e., upon the package ofimperfections assumed freely, and, hence, kenotically, by Christ in view of his mission to redeem the human family bedeviled by the consequences of sin; as the Bishop of Hippo again states in his Enarr. in Ps. 87:3, Christ took on these consequences "by the free will of his mercy." This Christological position also lays the groundwork for Thomas' development of the notion that Jesus' passions represent a "fitting" or "suitable" (conveniens) feature of the Incarnation, since Christ would only "condescend" to take on the weaknesses associated with human affectivity ifit were somehow fitting or appropriate to do so. b. The De diversis Quaestionibus 83
Besides the De civitate Dei, Aquinas in the Tertia Pars of the Summa employs three additional texts from Augustine that address the issue of emotion in Jesus, the most pivotal coming from the aforementioned De diversis Quaestionibus 83, while the other two, which Thomas discovered when compiling his patristic texts for the Catena aurea, come from the
56
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De Genesi contra Manichaeos and the In Iohannis Evangelium. 54 ill the De diversis Quaestionibus 83, Augustine offers, in what emerges as another unmistakable rejoinder to the
Stoic and docetic views, an lUladulterated affinnation of the reality of Jesus' full human nature, which must include a human soul along with its ensuing emotions: Just as the reality of (Jesus') body was attested [by his being scourged, crucified and buried], so too was his soul revealed through his emotions, since only the soul can give rise to the emotions. These movements of the soul are attested in the writings of the Evangelists, in which we read that Jesus was amazed [cf. Mt 8: 10], angry [cf. Mk 3:5], sorrowful [cf. Mt 26:38], joyful [cf. Lk 10:21], and that he 'experienced countless other emotions. And just as the lUlion between body and soul makes the experience of the one affect the other, so was it this way in Jesus when he was hungry [cf. Mt 4:2], when he slept [cf. Mt 8:24], when he was weary from his journey and had to sit down [cf. Jn 4:6], and the like .... Just as the passages in the historical accounts that mention Christ's hands [cf. Mt 19:i5], his head [cf. Mk 14:3], etc., reveal his body, so too what is reported of the feelings ofthe soul by the same narrative content makes known his soul.ss The striking feature of this passage is the disclosure it makes of the methodological procedure by which Augustine regards the issue of human emotion: any analysis of the passions, including those of Jesus, must for the Bishop' of Hippo first corne to grips with the ontological substructure of these psychical phenomena-the soul-without which they retain little intelligibility: "the emotions ... make sense only if they reveal (Jesus') soul." The scholastics would later transcribe this methodological procedure into the philosophical principle agere sequitur esse (action follows being), which in this case translates as the "action" of human passion following the "being" of the sensitive soul of human nature. This 54. Augustine, De div. Quaest. 83, q. 80, n. 3 (CCSL44A, pp. 236-7), paraphrased in STIII, q. 5, a. 3; De Genesi contra Manich., Bk. I, ch. 8,14 (CSEL91, p. 80), cited in q. 15, a. 8 (and previously in Catena aurea in Matt. on Mt 8; 11); and Tract. in Ioh. X, on In 2: 17 (CCSL 36, pp. 105-6), cited in q. IS, a. 9 (and previously in Catena aurea in loan. on In 2: 17); cf. L. Bataillon, "Saint Thomas et les Peres," p. 26. Augustine's Epist. 118, ad Dioscorum, ch. 3 (PL 33, 439). is also cited in reference to Christ's passions in Comp. theol., ch. 231. . 55. Q. 80, 3 (CCSL 44A, pp. 236-7): "Sicut ergo ista corpus eum habuisse testantur, sic eum indicant habuisse animam ajJectiones iIIae, quae non possunt esse nisi in anima, quos nihilo minus eisdem evangelistis narrontibus legimus; Et miratus est Iesus e/ iratus et contrista/us et exhUaratus et multa alia innumerabilia, sicut etiam ilia quae coniuncta officia simul et animae et corporis ostendunt: sicuti sunt quod esur;vit, quod dormivi!, quod!atigatus ab itinere sedit. et alia huiuscemodi ... Quemadmodum autem narratum aliquid, ubi nominata sun! manus Christi et caput et cetera. indicant eius corpus, ita etiam quae de anim; affectionibus eadem narrationis tenore nominata sunt indicant eius animam."
method, in other words, is one of "metaphysics first," a method that, intimated here by Augustine but inspired primarily by Aristotle's De anima, would corne to give Aquinas' Christological psychology one of its distinctive trademarks, as we have already noted. For Augustine, the matter is clear as to the necessary ontological grounding of the passions: "only the soul can give rise to the emotions." A meaningful analysis of Christ's passions must begin with the human soul of Christ. One should also take note in this passage from the De diversis Quaestionibus of Augustine's unmistakable affirmation of the psychosomatic lUlion of human nature: "the union between body and soul makes the experience of the one affect the other." Such a hylemorphic view of human nature would later become l1;_cornerstone of Thomas' own thought, as it pervades the Dominican's entire psychological writings- "the soul's whole essence is lUlited to the body, so that ... when the body lUldergoes passion ... the entire soullUldergoes passion"s6-though, again, in this respect Aquinas bears the influence more of AristotIe (and of Albert the Great) than of Augustine, even inasmuch as all three are in substantial agreement on this precise matter.S7 Finally. with no less than thirteen direct references to Scripture in the two short passages from the De civitate Dei ~d the De diversis Quaestionibus cited above,. Augustine reveals his evident concern to square his analysis of Christ's passions with the authoritative witness of sacred Scripture, especially the Gospels. Aware that the Gospels remain the only extant sources of Jesus' historical actions, including his emotions, Augustine proves his realist approach to the issue of Christ's passions, or at least his refusal to project his own prefabricated Christology onto the objective reality of Jesus' human affectivity. The Latin Father also betrayS his acute esteem for the science of theology, or, in this case. Christology, which takes God's revelation as its absolute starting point When detennining the sources of the thought ofAquinas on the role of the human passions in Christ, then, the works ofAugustine, especially the De civitate Dei, must be placed
56. STIll, q. 46, a. 7: "Tota essen/ia animae coniungitur corpori. ita quod . .. corpore patiente . .. tota anima patiebatur." 57 .. For Aristotle, cf. De anima, Bk. I, ch. 1 (403a4-403b4); for Albert. cf. De homine, q. 4; and Summa Theologiae. pars n, tr. 12, qq. 69 and 77. When discussing the differences between the Aristotelians and the Stoics over the role of emotion in the life of virtue, Augustine in De civ. Dei. Bk. IX. chs.4-5 (CCSL 47, pp. 251-4), and ilk. XIv, chs. 5-14 (CCSL 48, pp. 421-38), essentially sides with theAristoteIians, thereby indicating the convergence between his psychology and anAristotelian one.
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near the top. The impact of "the Theologian" on Aquinas' theology of Christ's human passions was consid~rable indeed, and in many cases decisive. >
3. John Damascene
a. The Impact of the De fide orthodoxa on Aquinas' Theology o/Christ's Passions
For all ofAugustine's influence oh Thomas, the key source for Thomas' Christological psy~ chology remains John Damascene's DefuJe orthodoxa. It is Damascene's account of Christ's passions in the De fide orthodoxa-highly original in its composition as it has no p~allel in earlier patristic literature-which, after its retrieval in the Latin West by Peter Lombard in the mid~12th century, made nothing less than a monumental impression upon Aquinas' Christology." This eighth-century work betrays its influence all throughout Aquinas' theoiogy of Christ's passions, even when the Dominican Master does not explicitly refer to it. Thomas exhibits this influence from the very start;.whereas Peter Lombard's Sentences make Augustine the authoritative source for the discussion on Christ's human affectivity (Lombard's place in the Scholastic discussion on Christ's passions shall be considered shortly), Aquinas' commentary on Lombard's texts almost categorically leaves Augustine to the side, making instead, as did Alexander of Hales before him, the De fide orthodoxa of Damascene the key authoritative patristic auctoritas. S9 Though later on in the De veritate and the Summa Thomas cites Augustine more often than Damascene in the passages per~ taining to Jesus' passions, Damascene played. a more influential role when the young Thomas first fonnulated his Christo logical psychology, from which the mature Thomas
58. For more on the Christological impact of D.amascene on Aquinas, cf. I. Backes, Die Christologie des hi. Thomas von Aquin und die griechischen Kirchenvatet; pp. 123-7; and M.~D. Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, p. 151. 59. Cf. Aquinas, III Sent, d. IS, q. 1, aa. 2-3, and q. 2, aa. 1-3, where Damascene is cited 10 times and Augustine only 3 times. Alexander of Hales cites Damascene no less than 19 times in his discus~ sian on Jesus' human affectivity in III Sent. d. 15, nn. 1-54 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 150-70), while Au~ gustine receives 14 references; in his treatise on Christ's passions in Summa theo!. (Summa theol., Bk. m, inq. 1, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo 1-2 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 58-66), Alexander cites Damascene 17 times, and Augustine 6 times. Albert makes Damascene his third most~quoted source (behind Aristotle and Augustine) in his analysis of Christ's passions in III Sent, d. 15, aa. 1-11; d. 16, aa. 1-5; and d. 17, aa. 2-3, and 7; and De incarnatione, tr. 4, q. 2, aa. 2-3; tr. 4, qq. 4-5; tr. 6, q. I, aa. 1-13 (ed. Colon., pp. 208-10, 219-30). For the place occupied by Damascene in the Christology of Bonaventure, cf. I. Backes, Die Christologle des hI. Thomas von Aquin, p.45.
would diverge in no significant manner.60 It must also he kept in mind that Aquinas cites several ofAugustine's works, whereas he cites only Damascene's Defide orthodoxa, and this nearly as marty times as the total number. of references to Augustine in the relevant passages from the Summa. 61 Such a numeration gives a more accurate depiction of the role that Damascene's thought plays in Thomas' Christological psychology. Furthehnore, one must look not only at the number of explicit references in establishing the influence of a certain figure, in this case Damascene, upon Aquinas' thought, even inasmuch as numbers offer a telling sign of how much Thomas is indebted to a given auc~ toritas. To be sure, any "cataloging" of Thomas' explicit citations cannot by itself take into account the largely unspoken or tacit imprint a given writer may have placed upon the thought of Aquinas (a good example is Albert the Great, who is cited only once by name throughout the whole ofThornas' works}." The reason that Damascene's Defide orthodoxa exerts such a heavy influence upon Thomas' theology of Christ's human passions is most likely threefold in nature: first, Dam~ ascene's anthropological psychology-and, subsequently, his Christological psychology-betrays strong Aristotelian features, especially due to his dependence upop Nemesius of Emesa (who shall be discussed in the following chapter};" second, whereas Augustine wrote no specific Christological work, Damascene's entire Book Three of his Defide orthodoxa is devoted to an extensive Christological study, including a fairly systematic analysis of Christ's passions (cbs. 20-26); and, third, Damascene's perspective on Christ's passions, whereby the reality of Christ's suffering and pain in both body and soul is a!finned contra the Aphthartodocetic denial of the same, fits in admirably with the Western medieval need to combat Hilary ofPoitiers'rejection of the affective reality of Christ's suffering.
60. Much the same parallel exists with Alexander of Hales; whereas Alexander cites Damascene more than Augustine in his commentaty on the Sentences (cf. preceding note), he later reversed this when he wrote on Christ's passions in Qu. disp. 'antequam essetjrater', q. 16 (ed. Quarrachi, pp. 224-75): Augustine is cited 18 times, whereas Damascene is cited 7 times. 61. In the pertinent passages from the Summa (cf. supra, n. 45). Augustine is cited 23 times and the Defide orth. 17 times; in De ver., q. 26, aa. 8-10,Augustine is cited 17 times and the Defide orth. 7 times. 62. Cf.I Sent, d. 8, q. 5, a. 3, sol. This was verified through the use ofR. Busa, ed., ThomaeAquinatis Opera omnia cum hypertextibus in CD-ROM (2l1d ed., Milan: Editoria Elettronica Editel,1996). 63. For more on the Aristotelianism of Damascene's anthropological psychology, cf. M. Jugie, "Jean Damascene (saint)," DTC 8,1 (1947), eols. 693-751, at 697 and 709; for.the influence of Nemesius on Damascene's anthropology, cf. ibid., col. 724.
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The influence of Damascene's account of Christ's passions on Thomas is especially evident when one compares, as in the following manner, the structure of Tertia, q.15 to Dejide orthodoxa, Bk. III, chs. 20-26: uamascene, lieflae or/naooxa,.DK. HI
Aqumas, Summa Iheologzae, q. 15
"Whether there was sin in Christ" (a. I: Utrum in Christo fuerit peccatum) =
"On the natural and indetractible passions [of Christ]" (ch. 20; De
naturalibus et indetractihilibus ptWsionibus
"Whether there was the affective spark to sin in Christ" (a. 2: Utrum in Christo foeritfomes peccall)
bilis)
"On ignorance and servitude [in
"Whether in Christ there was ignorance" (a, 3: Utrum in Christojueri/ ignorantia)
=
"Whether there was sensible pain in Christ" (a. Sa; Utrum in Christo fuerit color sensibilis)
=
Christ]" (ch. 21: De ignorantia et servitute)
"On the passion of the Lord's body and the impassibility of his divinity" (ch. 26: De passione corporis domini et impassibilitate eius deitalis)
"Whether Christ at the same time suffered and enjoyed the vision of God" (a. 10: UIrum Christus simulfoerjt viator et comprehensor)
"On (Christ's] fear" (ch. 23: De timore)
= "On the Lord's praying [in the Garden and on the cross!' (eh. 24: De Domini oratione
As thiS schematic companson between the two works indicates, and as a p erusal of the corresponding Christological analyses quickly verifies, the De fide orthodoxa of John Damascene emerges as the most foundational and influential source for the formulation of Thomas' exposition of thought on Jesus' human affectivity. The answer to the query. then, of where Aquinas' account of the role of the human passions in Christ originates, one must begin first and foremost with the De fide orthodoxa of SI. John Damascene. We turn, then, to a brief consideration of Damascene's work.
b.
Christ~ Human
Affectivity in the Thought ofDamascene
'I I;
I
group, the Aphthartodocetae. Founded by Julian ofHalicarnassus (t536) and furthered by Gaianos (6th century), the Aphthartodocetae held to the absolute incorruptibility and, especially, impassibility of Christ's body, and thereby advanced a glorified Christology similar to that of Hilary ofPoitiers. 64 Explicitly rejecting the thought of Julian and Gaiauos, Damascene offers 'his own comprehensive rejoinder in Bk. III, cbs. 20-28 of the De fide orthodoxa, a rejoinder that has as its chief objective a defense of the orthodox Christian belief in the reality of Christ's suffering and death." Damascene secures as his first line of defense an unequivocal affirmation of the full human consubstantiality of Christ: How could (Christ) have become a man ifhe assumed flesh without a soul, or a soul without an intellect? For that is not man ... ;-He therefore assumed the whole man, even the noblest part that had become weakened ....66
"Whether Christ's soul was passible" (a. 4: Utrum anima Christijuerltpassi-
"Whether there was sorrow in Christ: (a. 6: Utrum in Christofuerit tristitia) "Whether there was fear in Christ" (a. 7: Utrum in Christo fuerit timor) "Whether there was wonder in Christ" (a. 8: Utrum in Christofueritadmiratio) "Whether there was anger in Christ" (a. 9: Utrum in Christofuerit ira)
61
Historically, the principal impetus that propelled Damascene to offer ~is extensive commentary on Christ's passibility was, again, his polemic with the docetic-Monophysitic
Such an antlrropological Christology leads Damascene to conclude to the presence of human appetite, both intellectual and sensitive, and, betraying the influence of Maximus the Confessor (c. 582-662), to a human "energy" in Christ,67 an affirmation that serves as a prelude to his ensuing discourse on Christ's passions.68 In a word, Damascene's sound meta64. Cf. 'M. Jugie, "Gaianite (La Controverse) et la passibilite du corps de Jesus-Christ," DTC 6, 1 (1947), cols. 1002-23; A Grillmeier, "Aphtartodoketismus," LTK 1(1993), pp. 803-4; L. Ott, Fundamentals o/Catholic Dogma, pp. 173-4; and G.P' Sijen, "La passibiJite du Christ chez Philippe de Harveng," p. 198.Accordingto K. Rozemond (La christ%gie de saint Jean Damascene [Ettal: Buch·
KUDstverlag Ettal, 1959]. pp. 56-7), Damascene learned of the Aphthartodocetae heresy through the patristic florilegium, Doc/rina pa/rum de ineama/ione verbi (ed. F. Diekamp [2nd ed., Munster: Aschendorft', 1981], pp. 112-4), which is dated between 685-726; despite mentioning this fact, Rozemond offers no analysis of Christ's passibiJity in Damascene's thought. Cf. as well P.M. Baur, The The%gy o/Sain/ John Damascene sDe fide orthodoxa. Diss. Catholic University of America (Washington. D.C.: Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 195 I); P.-T. Camelot, "Julien, eveque d'Halicarnasse," Ca/holicisme 6 (1967), pp. 1239-40; and R. Kany, "Julianos, Bf. V. Halikarnassos," LTK 5 (I996), p. 1078.
65. For Damascene's direct reply to Julian and Gaianos, cf. Defide orthod.• Bk. III, ch. 28 (in De jide orthodoxa. Versions ojBurgundio and Cerbanus, ed.E.M. Buytaert eSt. Bonaventure, N.Y.-Louvain-Paderbom: Franciscan Institute-E. Nauwelaerts-F. Schoningh. 1955], p. 275). The other chief opponents ofApthartodocetism are the Monophysite Patriarch Severus of Antioch and the orthodox thinker Leontius of Byzantium (t543). Cf. L. Ott, Fundamentals a/Catholic Dogma, p. 173. 66. Dejide orth., Bk. TIr, ch. 18 (ed. Buytaert, p. 251): "Qualiter igitur homo factus est, si carnem inanimatam vel animam anun (id est sine intel/ectu) assumpsit? Non hoc enim homo . .. Assumit igitur tatum hominem, et quod huius optimum, quod ab injirmitate ceciderat ... ". Cf. K. Rozemond, La Christ%gie de saint Jean Damascene, pp. 43-9. 67. Cf. Defide orth., Bk. ill, cbs. 14-19 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 213-59). 68. P.B. Kotter Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos. vol. 2 [Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1973), p. XXIX) has identified 70 passages in the De fide orthodoxa in which remarks on Christ's wills and energies can be traced to Maximus; cf. as well A. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition: From Chalcedon to Justinian 1, vol. 2, pt. I, trans. P. Allen and J. Cawte (Atlanta: John Knox
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physics of human nature, whereby he lays out his vision of the full ontological grounding of Christ's humanity, brings him to an unadulterated avowal of Christ's possession of that element of human nature which the Aphthartodocetae wished to exclude from Jesus' human experience: passion (or passibility): We confess then that (Christ) assumed all the natural and indetractible passions of man. For he assumed the whole man and all human attributes, save sin. For sin is not natural, nor is it implanted in us by the Creator ... ,,19 Damascene, contra the Aphthartodocetae (as well as docetism and monophysitism in general), holds utmost respect for the integrity of Christ's human nature, a nature that must be allowed to operate in all the ways it requires, which includes suffering and movements of passion (Damascene defines passion as a "movement of the sensitive appetite in response to a perceived good or evil" 70): "the one Christ ... truly suffered in that part which is capable of passion [his humanity], as it was natural it should."71 Here, in fact, Damascene shows the special indebtedness he owes to Leo the Great's Tomus ad Flavianum, and in particular to the tome's celebrated anti-rnonophysitic axiom, "Each fonn accomplishes in concert with the oth~r what is appropriate to it, the Word perfonning what belongs to the Word, and the flesh carrying out what belongs to the flesh."72 The equivalent of Leo's axiom appears all throughout Book Three of the De fide orth~doxa, especially in chs. 19-20, the chapters dedicated to Christ's human energy and passions. Damascene's terse assertion, quoted above, that sin is not natural to the human experience, holds paramount importance for the debate over Christ's human: affectivity, and it
Press, 1987), vol. 2, pt. I, p. 76. For more on the influence of Maximus the Confessor on Damascene's ChristoJogy, cf. K. Rozemond, La christologle de salnt Jean Damascene, pp. 37-40; and M. Jugie, "Jean Damascene (saint)," col. 698. 69. De fide orth .• Bk. III, ch. 20·(ed. Buytaert, p. 259): "Confitemur autem quoniam omnes naturales et indetractibiles passiones hominis assumpsit. Totum enim hominem et omnia quae hominis assumpsit, praeter peccatum. Hoc enim non naturale est, neque a conditore in nobis disseminatum. "Cf. as well Bk. Ill, ch. 24 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 267-9); and C.N. TsirpanIis, The Anthropology ojSaint John O/Damascus (Athens, [,.n.], 1980). 70. De fide orth.. Bk. II, ch. 22 (ed. Buytaert, p. 132): "passio est molus appetitivae virtutis sensibilis in apparitione boni et mali. " 71. Defide or/h., Bk. III, ch. 26 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 270-1): "Uno enim Christo . .. patiente quodpassibile quidem ut aptum natum pati passum est. "Cf. STill, q. 15, a. 5. 72. Leo the Great, lbmus ad Flavianum (DS 294; DEC, p. 79): "Agit enim utraque jonna cum alterjus communione quod proprium est. Verbo scilicet operante quod verbi est et carne exsequente quod carnis est. .. The ultimate foundation for this axiom can be found in TertulIian, Adversus Praxean 27, 11 (eeSL 2, p. 199). For more on the influence of Leo's Tome on Damascene's Christology, cf. K. Rozemond, La christologie de saint Jean Damascene, pp. 38-40; and M. Jugie, "Jean Dam-
ascene (saint)," col. 735.
clearly foreshadows the anthropological Christology of Aquinas. For Damascene, sinlessness in no way subverts Jesus' full human consubstantiality, since sin does not enter into the essential makeup of the human being; as he writes earlier in the De fide orthodoxa: "sin is the result of free choice and is not an integral part of nature:?3 It follows that one need not sin in order to experience all 'natural" features of human life. On the flip side, Damascene also indicates that the absence of sin, contrary to what the Stoic (or the Aphthartodocetae) might say, in no way excludes the movements of the sensitive appetite, the passions, from one's life, or, in this case, from the experience of Jesus. Excluding sin from the essence of human nature allows Damascene to resolve the delicate quandary, recognized by Augustine, of a Christ who remains both sinless and possessor of a passible nature that suffers the consequences of sin, sometimes to the point, at least in the case of all other children ofAdam, of moral excess; though the passions follow upon the natural principles of human nature, they also share, the monk from Damascus affinns, in the corruption incurred by original sin: "corruption ... signifies all human passion (or suffering), such as hunger, thirst, distress, the piercing with nails, death ... and so forth. "74 Damascene's resolution of the dilemma of a sinless yet affective1y enfeebled Christ thus stems from his recognition that, because the passions represent'an essential feature of human nature, their sharing in the corruption of sin need not a priori translate into disordered, and, hence, sinful experiences. In this way, those passions that fail to fall "under the dominion of sin" (non subiectarumpeccato) maybe considered "natural" and "indetractible,''75 and thereby likened to other consequences of sin which of themselves imply no moral defect, such as hunger or death: The natural and indetractible passions are those that are in us by reason of their having entered into human life through the condemnation incurred by the transgression; namely, hunger, thirst, distress, fatigue, tears, corruption, shrinking from death, fear, agony with sweat... and other such passions which naturally belong to every man. 76
73. Defide orth., Bk. II, ch. 12 (ed. Buytaert, p. 114): "non in natura peccare habentem, in electione vera magis." 74. Defide orth., Bk. III, ~ch. 28 (ed. Buytaert, p. 274): "Phtharas (id est corrnptionis). " signiflcat enim humanas has passiones: jamem, sitim, /aborem, clavorum perjQrationem, mortem . .. et quae talia. " 75. Defide orth.. Bk. III, ch. 23 (ed. Buytaerl, p. 266). 76. Defide orth., Bk. III; ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 259-60): "Naturales autem et indetractibiles passtones sunt quae non in nobis quaecumque ex ea quae per transgressionem condemnatione in
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The foregoing understanding of natural and indetractible passion thus helps Damascene hannonize a sinless Christ with a Christ whose affective life participates in the corruption of original sin. However, since the corrupting effects on the affective dimension of human life may also lead to disordered passion, a fact at direct odds with Jesus' sinlessness, Damascene, in a move reminiscent ofAugustine, opines-that Jesus necessarily owned supreme willful command over his passions: "in [Christ] ... everything is voluntary. For he willed to hunger, he willed to thirst, he willed to fear, and he willed to die."77 For Damascene, this supreme command of Jesus' will over all lower appetitive impulses extends to every movement that results from the "laws of nature" (lege naturae), including the natural inclination to shrink from his impending death: He voluntarily and willingly deigned to take on that which was natural. Thus, the fear itself and terror and agony [that he experienced] belong to the natural and inde tractible passions that are not subject to sin.18 M
Given Jesus' volitional selfMmastery, Damascene conceives of a perfect harmony pervading Jesus' entire psyche: "Christ's natural passions were in harmony with nature and above nature."79 This stands in sharp contrast to the "spirit/flesh" conflict that characterizes all other human beings, a conflict that arises from the naturally rebellious propensity of the lower apM petitive powers. In Christ, no affective propensities obscured his spirit from perfect Conformity to higher human goods (Aquinas will later explain that this feature of Christ's psyche results from a unique grace, since it transcends the nonnallaws of nature). Since no such rebeIlious conflict assailed Jesus' interior life, the monk from Damascus goes on to compare Jesus to Adam in the state of original integrity, and in particular to the fact that Adam's psychological strengths precluded any kind oftemptation arising from disordered interior movements (a comparison that Aquinas will, with modifications, appropriate for his own Christological psychology):
humanam devenere vitam, puta/ames, sitis, labor; somnus, /acrimae, corruptio, mortis refutatio, timor. agonia ex qua sudores ... et quae talia, quae omnibus hominibus naturaliter insunt. 77. Dejide orth., Bk.lII, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 260): "in ipso . .. omnia vo/untaria. Vo/ens enim esurivit, va/ens sitivit, volens timuit, volens murtuus est. " 78. Defide orth., Bk. Ill, ch. 23 (ed. Buytaert, p. 266): "Vo/untarie enim natura/fa volens suscipere dignatus est. Quare ipse timor et pavor et agonia naturalium est, et indetractibilium passionum, et non subiectarum peccato. II
II
79. Defide arlh., Bk.lIl, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 260): "naturales noslrae passiones secundum naluram, et super naturam,juerunt in Christo. "
The evil one,like with Adam, made his assault [on Jesus] not by interior thoughts but from without For it was not by interior thoughts that Adam was assailed but by the serpent.so
In the·Dejide orthodaxa Damascene does exhibit.moments of hesitation in his endeavor to drive the theological regard for Christ's full human affectivity forward. This is seen in his exegesis of Christ's prayers, "Father, not as I will, but as you will" (Mt 26:39) and, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mt 27:46).81 Wanting to avoid the particularly problematic Christo-psychological quandary called for by these poignant statements, Damascene opts for the po'sition that these expressions of Jesus, rather than pointing to his own state of soul, instead reflect the experience of the whole human race: Inasmuch as he is man, he manifests the natural will ofhumanity [when he prays, 'not as I will, but as you will'] .... Further, these words, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?,' he said as making our person his own .... It was as appropriat ing our person that he offered these prayers.82 M
Integral to Damascene's defense of the fullness of Christ's human nature is his,corresponM ding assertion of Christ's divinity. In the midst of his analysis of Jesus' human affectivity, Damascene reminds the reader that the ultimate ontological. basis of Christ's humanity is its subsistence in the divine Person of the Word: "The flesh of the Lord, which was united in subsistence with God the Word ... ,became lifegiving through its hypostatic union in the Word. "83 The monk from Damascus affirms that, as the ultimate foundation for Christ's humanity, the hypostatic union guarantees the perfection of grace in Jesus'life.84 To this ef-
m.
80. Defide orth .. Bk. ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert. p. 260): "Igitur perniciosus quidem extrorsum immitM tebat, non per intelligentias~ quemadmodum et Adae; etenim ilIi non per intelligentias, sed per serM pentem. "Cf STIlL q. 15, a. 2 ad 3: "licet non sustinuerit impugnationem interiorem ex parte fomitis, sustinuit tamen exteriorem impugnationem ex parte mundi et diaboli. "Cf. as well In ad Romanos, ch. 7, Ieet. 2; andSTl.q. 8I,a. 3 ad 1. 81. De jule orlh.. Bk. III, ch. 24 (ed. Buyt.ert, pp. 267-9). 82. Defide orth., Bk. Ill, ch. 24 (ed. Buytaert, p. 269): "ut autem homo existens, eam quae humaniM tatis naturaliter demonstrat voluntatem ... Hoc autem, id est: 'Deus meus, Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti?' nostram propriam faciens dixit personam . .. [QJuar nost;am oikiumenos (zd est propriamfaciens) personam haec oravit. "Cf K. R,ozemond, La christ%gie de saint Jean Damascene,
pp.43-4. 83. Defide orth., Bk. Ill, ch. 21 (ed. Buytaert, p. 261): "Domini autem caro, unita secundum h~ postasim ipsi Deo Verba . .. vivificativa autem facta est, propter eam quae ad Verbum secundum hypostasim unionem." cr. as well Bk. II, ch. 22 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 138-42); and K. Rozemond, La christologUt de saint Jean Damascene, pp. 26-9.
84. Dejuie orth .• Bk.lIl;ch. 22 (ed. Buytaert, p. 264): "by reason of the hypostatic union ... he who was both God and man poured forth over the world his grace and wisdom and plenitude of every blessing" (quae secundum hypostasim unionem ... quia idem erat et Deus simui et homo, gratiam et sap;entiam et omnium bonorum p/enitutiinem mundo irrigans).
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fect, ChriSt'S perfection of grace emerges as the logical complement not only to the doctrine of the hypostatic union, but also to the tenet of Jesus' consummate sinlessness, and it is the fullness of grace that ultimately accounts for Christ's perfect moral integrity and, subsequently, the superlative harmony that pervaded Jesus' soul. One final conspicuous feature of Damascene's analysis of Christ's passions is, in what will become standard for the scholastic discussion, that it restricts the scope of inquiry to only those passions in Christ that ensue upon the sense perception of some evil, such as fear, agony, sorrow, and the like, and, hence, to those passions that bring about suffering, or those passions that emerge as consequences of sin. Not once for reflection does Damascene mention Jesus' experience of, say, joy (cf, Lk 10:21), affective love (cf. Mk 10:21), or desire (cf. Lk 22: 15). However, if one attends to the primary objective of the De fide orthodoxa's analysis of Christ's humanity, viz., to affinn, contra Julian and Caianos, the reality of Christ's suffering and death, one can readily recognize the rationale for exploring only the disagreeable or suffering passions in Christ. Such a rationale explains why Damascene employs the term passion as a basic equivalent for suffering (though he does acknowledge on one occasion that passion may involve good as well as evil),85 a signification that will carry over into the medieval West. Passion understood as suffering in tum accotUlts for Damascene's classification ofpassibility as a consequence of Adam's fall. This is nowhere better seen than in the exclusion of passion from the experience ofAdam and Eve in Paradise, i.e., from the state where evil, and, subsequently, suffering, were nonexistent: "'they were both naked,' Adsm and Eve, 'and were not ashamed' [cf. Gen 2:25]. For God intended us to be impassible, as impassibility characterizes this most perfect existence. "86 4. Other Patristic auctoritates
Aquinas draws upon other patristic authorities in the fonnulation of his theology of Christ's human passions, though in a noticeably marginal manner. In the Summa, for example, Thomas offers passing references to Ambrose (c. 339-397) andpseudo-Dionysins (c. 500)
85. Defide orth., Bk. II, ch. 22 (ed. Buytaert, p. 132): "passion is an irrational movement of the soul
in response to a good or evil" (passjo est molus irrationalis animae boni vel mali). 86. De fide orth., Bk. II, ch. 11 (ed. Buytaert, p. 108): . "nudi erant uterque: Adam et Eva, 'et non erubesceban/.' Tales au/em impassibiles voluit nos esse Deus: impassibilitatis enim summae hoc est. " Damascene also states in Bk. II, ch. 12 (ibid., p. 113): "God made man ... free from fear" (fecit igi~ tur Deus hominem ... sine tristitia), where fear stands for any disagreeable passion.
in support of his analysis of Jesus' human "affectivity.8? One could also list Leo the Great (t461) and his Tomus ad Flavianum as playing, via Damascene especially, a fairly instrumental role in Thomas' Christologica1 psychology.s8 The heretical views of Acius (c. 250- .
c. 336) and Apollinarins (c. 310-0. 390), according to both of whom Christ possessed no human soul on account of his display of passion, represent, inasmuch as he flatly rejects them, a further source for Thomas' doctrine on Jesus' human affectivity.8!J Yet, of the patristic auctoritates other than Augustine and Damascene- (and Hilary of Poitiers) whose Christological psychologies influenced the thought of Aquinas, the one with the deepest imj:>actwas Jerome (c. 342-420). When it comes to the subject of Christ's passions, Jerome writes with an unparalleled openness for his time: "Jerome dares to speak ofpassiones and libidines corporis in Christ," t1le scholar A. Grillmeier writes, "and in this he is very modem."oo In particular, Jerome provides the Latin West with an important qualification vis~a-vis Jesus' affectivity, which would· in turn become a cornerstone of Thomas , own position in the Summa: applying the tenn "propassion" to Christ, a tenn that refers to a specific type of human emotion or movement of affectivity which does not attain the sta-
87. For Ambrose, De 1Hnitate. II, 7 (PL 16, 594), and Defide. Bk. II, ch. 7,52-7 (CSEL 78, pp. 746) are cited in STIlI, q. IS, a. 6, sed contra, and q. 18, a. 2, sed contra. For pseudo-Dionysius, Eptst. XadIoannem Evangel. (pG 3,1117) is cited in STID, q. 46, a. 7, argo 3. 88. Though Thomas cites Leo's axiom, "each form accomplishes in concert with the other .... " in STIlI, q. 19, a. I, itis Damascene's employment of the axiom that Thomas prefers, particularly in the discussion on Christ's emotions: cf. STIll, q. 14, a. 1 ad 2, and a. 2; q. IS, a. 2, argo 2; q. 46. aa. 6 and 8, sed contra; III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 2 ad 2, and sol. 3; and d. 15. q. 2, a. 3, sol. 1 ad 1. As for the role ofLeo's Tome in Aquinas 'Christology, C.G. Geenen ("The Council ofChaIcedon in the The~ ologyofSt Thomas." p. 18S) affirms that "Thomas accepts [it] as a source of his Christological doctrine." especially given the 1bme's formal endorsement by the Council ofChalcedon in 451 (cf. DS 300. and DEC, p. 85), of which Aquinas was we1l aware. For an analysis of Leo's Thme. cf. MA. Nicolas, "La doctrine christoIogique de saint Leon Ie Grand," RT51 (1951), pp. 609--62. 89. For Aquinas' refutation of this element of the thought of Arius and Apollinarius. cf. Lectura super Ioannem. ch. 1. lect. 7; Compo theol., chs. 204-5; and STID. q. 5, a. 3. For more on the position of Arius and Apo1linarius; cf. A. Gril1meier, Christ in Christian Tradition, pp. 239-43; B. Ses~ boiie and J. Wolinski, Le Dieu du sa/ut, vol. 1, "Histoire de dogmes" (paris: Desclee, 1994), pp. 342-60; and J.N.D. KeIly, Early Christian Creeds (London: Longmans, 1960), p. 334. Cf. as well P. Worrall, "S!. Thomas and Arianism," RTAM23 (I 956), pp. 208-59; 24 (1957), pp.45-100. 90. A. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian 7radition, pp. 401-2; cf. as well J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (2nd ed., New York: Harper and Row, 1960), p. 336. For passages in Jerome refening to Christ's passions, cf. Comm. in Esaiam, XlV (on 53: 14) (CCSL 73A, p. 589), trans. in Grillmeier, ibid., p. 401; In Matheurn III, on Mt 16:21-22 (CCSL 77, pp. 1434), and In Matheum IV, on Mt 23:37 (CCSL 77, p. 221).
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tus of a full-blown passion, i.e., a passion that remains within the strict bounds of reasoned control and, hence, within the sphere of virtuous activity. Jerome writes: 'And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, Jesus began to be sorrowful and to be sad' (Mt 26:37) .... The Lord, in order to prove the truth of his assumed manhood, is truly sorrowful, yet his soul is not dominated by a passion; rather, it is by a propassion that he begins to be sorrowful. For it is one thing to be sorrowful and another to begin to be sorrowful. 91
The application of propassion to Christ does not in fact originate with Jerome, as this Latin Father borrows this usage from Didymus "the Blind" of Alexandria (c. 313-398), who in turn inherited the notion from Origen (c. 185-254), though Origen never used propassion in reference to Christ.92 John Damascene also approaches an equivalent understanding of propassion in Chris!." It would be through Jerome, though, that the Christological appropriation of propassion would enjoy lasting success in the Latin West, beginning with Peter Lombard.94 Mention must also be made of those various auctoritates who figure into Aquinas' massive compilation of patristic texts in the Catena aurea and whose commentaries on the Gospels Thomas cites as offering favorable remarks on Jesus' affective display of emotion: Origen, John Cluysostom (c. 347-407), Cyril ofAlexandria (t444), Victor ofAntioch (5th cent., cited by Thomas under the name of Cluysostom), and the 11th-century
91. Jerome, In Math. IV (on 26:37) (CCSL 77, p. 253): "'Et adsumpto Petro et duobusjiltis Zebedaei eoepi/ contristari et maestus esse' . .. Dominus. ut veritatem adsumpti probaret hominis. vere quidem eontristatus sit sed, ne passio in animo illius dominaretur, per propassionem eoeperit eontristari. Aliud est enim eontristari et aliud incipere eontrtstari." This text is either cited or paraphrased by Aquinas in STIII, q. 15, a. 4; a. 6 ad 1; a. 7 ad 1; and q. 46, a. 7, argo 3. For more on the notion of Christ's propassions in Jerome, cf. A. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, pp. 363-402. 92. Cf. Didymus ofAlexandria, Commentary on the Psalms. text XV1II, 10, in A. Gesch6. La ehristologie duo "Commentaire sur les Psaumes" decouvert Toura (Gembloux: Editions J. Duculot, 1962), p. 135; and Origen, Seleeta in Psalmos, on Ps 4:5 (pG 12, 1141-4). Although the authenticity
a
of the commentaIy on the Psalms attributed to Didymus, discovered in Toura, Egypt in 1941, is still disputed, it in any case certainly bears the influence ofDidymus, as A. Gesch6 (ibid.• pp. 181-417) affirms, who in turn defines propassion for Didymus as: "Un emoi passager, instantane, non delibere, inherent ala nature de l'arne raisonnable, une epreuve, un etat critique, a ne confondre avec la passion (."80,). 93. Damascene, Dejide orth., ~k. lIT, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 260): "Our natural passions were in harmony with nature and above nature in Christ ... [T]hey were above nature because that which was natural did not assume command over the wiU in the Lord" (naturales nostrae passiones secundum naturam, et super naturam,fuerunt in Christo . .. super naturam autem, non praeeedebant in Domino voluntatem naturalia). Cf. De ver., q. 26, a. 8. 94. Cf. Lombard, III SimI, d. IS, ch. 2 (ed. Coll. Bonav., pp. 98-100), where Lombard devotes an entire chapter to Christ's "propassione et passione timoris vel trjstitiae. ..
Byzantine exegete Theophylact (tIl08)." Interestingly,Aquinas retains none of these figures in the group of auctoritates he cites in his account of Jesus' human affectivity in the Summa (and they are cited in no work previous to the Catena aurea).96 However, if, as I.T. Eschmann asserts, the Catena aurea "marks a turning point in the development ofAquinas'S theology;>97 then one must acknowledge that these various auctoritates played a role, however minor, in the fonnulation of Thomas' theology of Christ's passions in the Tertia Pars of the Summa, as the Catena aurea predates the Tertia Pars by possibly as little as four years." In the very leas~ these sources helped solidify the position Aquinas had established regarding the sensitive affectivity of the God-man since the writing of his commentary on the Sentences, particularly in response to the problematic Christology ofHilruy ofPoitiers.
•
• * With the possible exception of Jerome and his introduction of the tenn "propassion" into Latin theology, the main patristic sourc,es for Aquinas' theology of Chris~'s human
95. Cf. Origen,In loan., on In 13:21 (SC 385, pp. 281-3), cited in Aquinas, Catena aurea in loan., on In 13:21 (for more on the position ofOrigen, whom history recalls as ''the theologian of the soul of Christ," on Christ's passions, cf. his De prine. Iv, 4-5 [SC 268, pp. 413-4); Contra Cels .• II, 17 and 25 (PO II, 833-45); and A. GrilImeier, Christ in Christian Tradition. p. 146); Chrysostom, In Matt. hom. 49 and 74, on Mt 14:14 and 23:37 (pG 58,496-7 and 682), cited in Aquinas, Cat. aur. in Matt., onMt 14:14,andCat. aur. inLue., onLk 13:34; Cyril ofAlexandria,Comm. in Lue., onLk 19:41 (pG 72,878-9), cited in Aquinas, Cat. aur. in Lue., on 19:41; Victor ofAntioch, Catenae in Marei. ed. J.A. Cramer(Oxford,1840), pp. 259-447, cited in AquinaS, Cat. aur. in Marc., on Mk 3:5 and 10:16; and Theophylact, Enarr. in Ev. Marci, on Mk 14:32-42 (pO 123, 654C-D), cited in Aquinas, Cat. aur. in Marc., on Mk 14:33-34; Theoph., Enarr. in Ev. Lue .• on Lk 22:14-20 (PG 123, 10678), cited in Aquinas, Cat. aur. in Lue., on Lk 22:15; and Theoph., Enarr. inEv. loan., on In 11:33 (PG 124, 99CD), cited in Aquinas, Cat. aur. in loan. on In 11 :33. L. BatailIon ("Saint Thomas et Jes Peres," p. 16) notes that Victor of Antioch and Theophylact are among the various authorities cited in the Catena aurea who were unknown in the Latin West before the publication of this work, proving the impressive and painstaking research Thomas perfonned for the Catena aurea. 96. Thomas does cite Chrysostom (In loan. hom.• 22 [pO 59, 136]) in STIII, q. 46, a. 6, yet this reference from Chrysostom contains no direct remarks on Christ's passions. 97. I.T. Eschmann,"A Catalogue ofSt Thomas' Works: Bibliographical Notes," in E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy ofSt. TholtJas AqUinas. trans. L.K. Shook (New York: Random House, 1956), pp. 381-430, at 397. For agreement, cf. J.-P. Torrell, The Person, p.l39. 98. J.-P. Torrell (The PerSon. pp. 333-8) dates the composition of the Catena aurea at 1264-68 and the Tertia Pars at 1272-73. For a fairly detailed analysis ofthe relationship between the C~tena aurea and the auetoritates cited in the Tertia Pars, cf. L. Batail1on, "Saint Thomas et les Peres," pp. 15-36.
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affectivity are Augustine and John Damascene, as well as Hilary of Poitiers, whose problematic Christology plays a decisive role in the framing of the medieval discussion on Christ's passions. Still, the fact that Aquinas goes'to great lengths to ground his Christological psychology in a vast array of patristic texts should not go unappreciated by the modem reader. Further, Thomas' familiarity with patristic literature and the vital role he ascribes to the patristic voice in his Christological psychology were clearly developing features of his professional career; whereas Thomas offers only fifteen patristic references from four different Fathers (Damascene, Augustine, Gregory the Great, and pseudo-Dionysius) in his discussion on Christ's passions in the Sentences, this number grows to twenty-six references from four different Fathers (Augustine, Damascene, Hilary, and John Chrysostom) in the De veritate. 99 By the time Thomas comes to writing on Christ's human affectivity in the 1ertia Pars, the number has ballooned to fifty-four patristic citations from nine different Fathers (Augustine, Damascene, Jerome, Hilary, Ambrose, Gregory the Great, pseudo-Dionysius, John Chrysostom, and Vigilius).IOO These figures substantiate Y. Congar's claim, which is in turn corroborated by L. Bataillon's recent studies, that Aquinas "spent his whole life looking for new texts. "101 They conflrm as well J.-P. Torrell's assertion that the Christological section of the Summa betrays
99. Cf.lll Sent, d. 15, q. 1, aa. 2'3, and q. 2, aa. 1-3, where Damascene is cited 10 times,Augustine 3 times, and Gregory the Great and pseudcrDionysius once. In De ver, q. 26, aa. 8-10, Augustine is
cited 17 times, Damascene 7 times, Hilcuy once, and Jo1m Chrysostom once. It should be noted that the citations from Gregory the Great and John Chrysostom are anthropological and not explicitly Christological. 100. For the passages from the Summa, cf. supra, n. 45. In these passages,Augustine is cited 23 times, Damascene 17 times, Jerome 4 times, Hilary 3 times, Ambrose twice, Gregory the Great twice, pseudo-Diohysius twice, Jo1m Chrysostom once, and Vigilius (6th-cent: Bishop ofThaspus in North Allica, whom Aquinas confuses with Augustine in STm, q. 5, a. 3) once. C.G. Geenen C'SaintThomas et les Peres," col. 743) notes that 20 citations from the Greek Fathers can be found in Thomas' entire commentary on the Sentences, while 120 appear in the Tertia Pars of the Summa. 101. Y. Congar, Fifty Years ofCatholic Theology: Conversations with lVes CongaI'. (philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), p. 70, cited in T. O'Meara, Theologian. p. 183. For L. Bataillon ("Saint Thomas et Ies Peres," p. 25), "Thomas "ne s'en est pas contente et a continue arechercher d'au1res sources patristiques pour I'elaboration de sa theologie." C. Spicq (Esquissed'une histoire de I'exegese latine au moyen age [paris: J. Vrin, 1944J, p. 310) does not hesitate to accord Thomas' patristic research a place of "first rank," while A. Nichols ("Introduction to the 1997 Republished Edition" of Catena aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out ofthe Works ofthe Fathers by St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. J.H. Newman, 4 vols. [Southampton, England: 8t. Austin Press, 1997; first pUblished in 1841-45 by J.H. Parker, OxfordJ, vol. I, p. v) qualifies Thomas' patristic research as "staggering" for its time.
the wealth of Thomas' knowledge of patristic literature. 102 Thomas'remarks on Jesus' hwnan affectivity, therefore, not only attest to his impressive erudition, they also indicate that at the heart of this Aristotelian Dominican is a theologian who has a profound love and respect for his Christian heritage-and who wishes to transmit faithfully that heritage.
C. THE PRE-L3TH-CENTURY MEDfflVALAND SCHOLASTIC SOURCES In addition to the witness of Scripture and the writings of various patristic authorities, Aquinas. himself a High Medieval scholastic. draws upon numerous medieval and Scholastic sources in the forging of his theology ofChrisl's human passions. 1. The Early Medieval Sources: Bede and Alcuin
Though the subject ofChrises human affectivity receives sparse attention from the early medieval authors, Aquinas succeeded in locating two such sources in his compilation of texts for the Catena aurea: the writings of Venerable Bede (t735) and Alcuin (t804).IOJ Since the remarks these authors convey about Jesus' passions cohere well with those of Augustine and John Damascene, they are instrumental in shedding light on the development of the medievalline of Christo·psychological thought that leads to Aquinas. In his Gloss on the Gospel of Mark (Catena aurea in Marcum) on Mk 8: 12 (where Jesus shows anger toward the Pharisees), Aquinas cites the following passage from Bede: now on account of the foolish request of the unbelieving and tempting Pharisee, Jesus groans and is saddened, since be bears the real natural feelings of a real hUman nature, as he rejoices over human salvation as well as grieving and groaning over their errors. 104
102. J.-P. Torrell, The Person, pp.261-2. 103. Thomas also, in Catena aurea in Matt., on Mt 15:32 and 26:39-41, cites Remigius of Auxerre (t908) on the issue of Jesus' emotions, yet the texts Aquinas cites are not found among the collection ofRemigius'works in PL 131,47-970. 104. Bede, InMarcum II, on Mk 8:12 (CCSL 120, p. 532); "nuncob stultam Pharisaeurum non credentum et temptanttum petitionem gemit et contristatur quia veram hominis naturam veras humanae naturae circutnJerens affectus sicut de hominum salute laetatur ita super eorum dolet et ingemescit erroribus." Though this passage is original to Bede, his commentS on Christ's human affectivity typically borrow heavily from Ambrose and Jerome, as in In Marc. II, on Mk 8:32 (CCSL 120, pp. 5328), citation of Jerome, In· Math. III, on Mt 16:21-22 (CCSL 77. pp. 143-4); In Marc. IV, on Mk
14:33-34 and 15:34 (CCSL 120, pp. 615-34), citation of Ambrose,DefuJe. Bk.II, ch. 7, 56-8 (CSEL 78, pp. 75-6); and In Luc. 1\1, on Lk 13:34 (CCSL 14, pp. 273-4), citation ofJerome, In Math. IV, on
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Bede's terminology here-ureal natural feelings of a real human nature"-strikes a decidedly anti-docmc tone, and thereby places hbn on the side, occupied by Augustine and Damascene before him and by Aquinas after him, that favors the full integrity and consubstantiality of the hwnanity of Christ. Bede also betrays the perspective, which will become classic in the High Middle Ages, especially in Aquinas, whereby the passions, Christ's notwithstanding, make sense only if seen to follow upon a proper ontological bedrock-a "real human nature," as Bede says. In other words, ontology, or metaphysics, must precede a study on human psychology. Only when one grasps the essence of human nature, which includes, to use Thomas' language, the possession of a sensitive soul, do the movements of that sensitive soul-the passions-become apprehensible. As for Alcuin, St. Thomas cites the following passage from this early medieval author in his Gloss on the Gospel of John (Catena aurea in Ioannem) on Jn 11:35, which comments on the scene of Jesus weeping over the death of Lazarus: If Jesus was hungry, which he truly was, it is because he willed it; if Jesus slept, which he truly did; it is because he willed it; if Jesus was sorrowful, which he truly was, it is because he willed it; ifJesus died, which he truly did, it is because he wi lied it. lOS
This passage stands as a striking parallel to Damascene's statement, "[Christ] willed to hunger, he willed to thirst, he willed to fear, and he willed to die," as well as to Augustme's assertion that Jesus experienced emotion "when he willed it."106 The kind of volitional command that Alcuin considers Jesus to have enjoyed over such natural occurrences as hunger and passion makes sense only if, one, such things as hunger and passibility are seen to accrue to the corruption of human nature incurred by sin, and, two, Jesus is believed to partake in a condition of absolute sinlessness. In other words, implicit in Alcuin's position, which will become explicit by the time of Peter Lombard, is the view that hunger, fatigue, passibility, and mortality all represent "infinnities" or "defects" that have assailed the human condition since the entrance of sin into the world. Since all humans, born into sin, suffer
Mt 23 :37 (eCSL 77, p. 221), all of which are cited (under the name of~ede) respectively in Aquinas, Catena aurea;n Marc., on Mk 8:33; 14:33-34; 15:34; and Catena aurea in Lue., on Lk 13:34. 105. Alcuin, Commentariorum in /oannem, Bk. 5, ch. 27 (pL lOa, 901): "EsurivitJesus, verum est, quia voluit; dormivit Jesus. verum est. quia voluit; contristatus est Jesus, verum est, quia voluit; mor-
I
tuus est Iesus. verum est, quia voluit... 106. Damascene, De fide orth., Bk. m, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 260). Augustine, De civ. Dei, Bk. XIv,
ch. 9 (CCSL 48, p. 427).
\i il
from these defects through no choice of their own, and since Jesus, contrary to the usual human experience, suffered from these defects through his own choice, it follows that sinlessness alone accounted for Jesus' supreme volitional self-mastery. Z. Hugh ofSL Victor
One must proceed to the 12th-century to locate the next medieval source for Aquinas' doctrine of Christ's human affectivity: the important theologian Hugh of st. Victor (t1l42), whom his contemporaries called a "second Augustine" and whose Christological thought would leave an even deeper impression on Bonaventure a century later. 101 Hugh of 8t. Victor is the first of the Scholastics to address explicitly the issue of Christ's passions in a proper dogmatic treatise, which he does in two works: the De sacramentis Christianae fidei. and the De quatuor voluntatibus in Christo. 108 Both works figure explicitly into Aquinas' Christology, with Thomas citing the latter in his analysis of Jesus' human affectivity in both the Sentences and the Summa. 109 Though a minor player in Thomas' theology of Christ's passions, Hugh did have a major impact upon one of the chief sources ofAqu~as' analysis of Jesus' hwnan affectivity: the writings of Peter Lombard. In his De sacramentis Christianae fidei. Hugh of St. Victor writes the following concerning the affective dimension of Christ's life: Since sinful flesh could not be saved from the punishment of sin without the suffering in the flesh of him who was without sin, it is by the power of (Christ) that he took on in the assumed flesh the infinnities ofpassibility and mortality, and it is by his will
107. Cf. B. Smalley, The Study o/the Bible, p. 85; and E. Gilson, The Philosophy 0/ St. Bonaventure, trans. DJ. Trethowan and F.J. Sheed (paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1965), p. 76. For a rapid overview of the Christo-psychological achievements of the 11th and 12th centuries, cf. P.A. Sepinski, La psych%gie du Christ, pp. 16-24. 108. Hugh of St. Victor, De sacramentis Christianae fidei, Bk. II, pt. I, ch. 7 (the title of this chapter is De carne q1:4am Verbum assumpsit, qualisfuit secundum passibilitatem; et sensum et. affectum) (pL 176, 390-1); and De quatuor voluntatibus in Christo (PL 176, 841-6). For Hugh of St. Victor'S De sacramentis as a work: oftrue"theblogical synthesis, cf. J. de Ghellinck, Le mouvement theologique du XIII~ sieele. pp. 185-92. For more on Hugh of St, Victor's views on Jesus' affectivity, cf. L.O. Nielsen, Theology and Philosophy in the Twelfth Century: A Study on Gilbert Porreta sThinking and the Theological Expositions a/the Doctrine a/the Incarnation during the Period 1130-1180, trans. R. Christophersen (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1982). pp. 193-211; and F. Verne!, "Hugue, de Saint-Victor," DTC 7.1 (1927), cols. 239-307, at 2770 109. Thomas cites theDe quatuor valuntatibus (PL 176, 841) in III Sent, d. 17, a. I, sol. 3, obj. 6; d. 17, a. 3, sol. 4 ad 2; and STIlI, q. 18, a. 3, argo 3. Foran example of how the De sacramentis plays a role in Thomas' Christology, cf. STllI, q. 50, 3. 4. Aquinas also cites the De sacramentis (Bk. II, pt. 14, ch. 6 [pL 176,561]) in his analysis of human passion in general in De ver., q. 26, a. 6, argo 6.
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that he endured these things; it is not by necessity that he suffered, . , , To be sure, how could there be true compassion in Christ if not by true passion? [Otherwise1, how would the following words of the Prophet hold: 'Truly he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows' (Is 53:4)?1l0 Here Hugh explicitly identifies passibility with "infinnity" and likens it to mortality and to suffering in the flesh, i.e" to evils attached to the condition wrought by sin; indeed, in this passage passibilitas functions as an equivalent for "suffering." Yet, as with Augustine and Damascene and as with the Scholastic tradition that will follow, at the heart of the Victorine's Christological psychology stands the tenet of Jesus' consummate sinlessness: "He who was without sin," Thus, in a move reminiscent of the auctoritates examined above, Hugh recognizes that Christ must have taken on in a purely free manner such consequences of sin as passibility and mortality-his sinlessness precludes the necessary assumption of a human condition wrought, no matter how slight, by sin-and that his will retained total command over all passible movements: "it is by his will that he endured these things." By the same token, however, Hugh does not suspect Jesus' sinlessness of subverting the experience of "true passion" (vera passio), once, of course, one understands that Christ truly did choose to take on a passible nature. That is, like mortality (but unlike concupiscence), the infirmity ofpassibility does not per se expunge the moral integrity of Jesus' sinless nature; Jesus retains perfect moral rectitude while undergoing "true passion," For the Victorine, then, Christ owns a sinless yet affectively enfeebled human nature, Hugh develops this thought in his De quatuor vo/untatibus in Christo, In this work, the Victorine distinguishes four "wills" in Christ: a divine will (vo/untas divinitatis), a rational will (voluntas rationis), a will of pity (voluntas pietatis). and a will of flesh (volun/as camis), III Though Aquinas will not entirely accept this distinction, he does exploit its particular merit, as when he equates Hugh's "will of pity" with the vo/untas ut natura in Christ,
or with Christ's instinctive inclination to the natural good. 112 Further, Hugh's ontological approach to the issue of Christ's passibility, whereby the Victorine seeks to ground Jesus' affective movements in a prior appetitive faculty, could also be seen as congruous with Thomas' own method of analyzing Jesus' human 'affectivity. In a key passage from the De quatuor voluntatibus, Hugh proves his high regard for the fullness of Christ's humanity through his insistence that the reader ponder specific examples of Jesus' "passions in the flesh" (passionem in carne); It belongs to human nature to feel compassion and to be moved to pity by another's misfortune ... And this likewise came to pass in Christ according to his human nature, such as when he drew near to Jerusalem and 'seeing the city he wept over it' (Lk 19:41). Why did he cryifhe was not sorrowful? . , . Scripture says: 'Jesus was deeply moved in spirit and troubled' Jn 11:33). Consider what this means: 'he was deeply troubled,' In what way was he troubled? What was this disturbance that deeply troubled Jesus? It was pity and compassion that was the cause of this disturbance. , .. Thus Jesus was deeply troubled when he freely underwent the compaSsion that troubled him . , . And so Jesus willed to take on passibility in his assumed human nature, thereby experiencing the properties of humanity, such as the passions in the flesh and compassion in the spirit. 113
For the Victorine, as for the authors already examined, the very reality and credibility of Jesus' humanity hinges upon an avowal of such "properties of humanity" as Christ's passibility of soul: "it belongs to human nature to feel compassion and to be moved to pity." To be sure, Hugh turns the gaze in this passage to either "humanity" or "human nature" no less than four times, thereby indicating his view that the passions come part and parcel with a genuine human nature. In the Victorine's eyes, then, it seems Qne can speak ofpassibility both as an infirmity wrought by the corruption of human nature and as an essential prop-
112. Cf. Aquinas, III Sent, d, 17, -a, 1 sol. 3 ad 6; a. 3, sol. 4 ad 2; and ST Ill, q. 18, a. 3, ad 3, For Hugh, the "will of pity" enabled Jesus to "sigh with compassion over the misfortune ofanother," while the ''will of flesh" allowed him to "munnur with passion in response to some particular evil" (va/un/as pietatis per compassionem in malo alieno suspirabat,' volun/as carnis per passionem in malo proprio munnurabat) (PL 176, 841). The reasons for Thomas' dismissal of this distinction shall 110. De Sacramentis Christianaejidei, Bk. II, pt. I, ch. 7 (PL 176,390--1): "Sed quia caro peccatrix a poena peccati /iberari non potuit, nisi caro eius quae sine peccato era! pateretur, injinnitatem passibilitatis et moarta/itatis in carne assumpta retinuit ptlestate. sustinuit vo/untate, non passus est necessitate . .. Quomodo enim in Christo vera compassio fuil, si vera passio non fuit? Quomodo stabit quod dicit propheta: 'Vere /anguores nostros ipse tulit, et d%res nostros ipse portavi! (Isa. VII)?" Ill, Hugh ofSt. Victor, Dequatuor vo/untatibus in Christo (PL 176, 841): "in Christo voluntas!uit divinitatis et voluntas rationis, et voluntas pietatis et voluntas carnis, .. This text is reproduced verbatim in Bonaventure, III Sent, d, 17, a, I, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 366),
be examined in the following chapter, 113. Hugh of St. Victor, De quatuor voluntatihus in Christo (PL 176, 842-6): "Proprium est enim humanitatis compati et moveri pietate in miseria aliena . .. Et haec similiter secundum naturam hu~ manitatis in Christo invenitur. Cum appropinquaret IelilSalem 'videns civitatemf/evit super eam (Luc. XIX), Quaref/ebat si non do/ebat? . , . Scriptum est: 'Jesus' autem 'injremuil spiritu et turbavit semetipsum' (loan XI). Hic intendUe: 'Turbavit semetipsum '. Quomodo turbavit? Quae foit lsta turbatio qua semetipsum turbavit Iesus? Pietas ipsa, miseratio ipsajuit turbatio . . , Sic Iesus semetipsum turbavit. quando miseratio turbavit eum quam sponte susceperat .. , Sic itaque Iesus in humanitate assumpta auandiu eam passihilem partare voluit secundum proprietatem humanitatis et passionem in carne et compassionem in mente partavit, "
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erty of that same nature, a position that Aquinas will adopt, though not without attempting to reconcile this ostensible incongruity. Certainly, Hugh's assertion that Christ "freely (sponte) underwent" and ''willed (voluit) to take on" passion makes sense only if passibility is seen to accrue to human.in:firmity~ as Christ takes on,.given his siniessness, no consequence of sin by necessity. Nonetheless, through his implicit contention that no incompatibility exists between sinlessness and, to repeat his unmistakably anti-docetic phrase, '~passions in the flesh," Hugh makes significant strides towards achieving a Christology that smiles upon an exploration of Jesus' full humanity: "Why did he Cly ifhe was not sorrowful?" ''What was this disturbance that deeply troubled Jesus?," etc.
3. The Sentences ofPeter Lombard
a. The Impact o/the Sentences on Aquinas' Theology ofChrlst's Passions Without question, the pre-13th-century Scholastic source that had the greatest impact on Thomas' doctrine of Christ's human affectivity was the Sentences of Peter Lombard, a work composed between 1155-57 (probably closer to 1157).B' This impact stems from the ex· tensive treatment of Christ's human affectivity that this work offers in Book Three, distinctions 15-17-and the subsequent commentary Thomas was required to render on this as well as the whole of Lombard's Sentences at the beginning ofhis professional career. This provided the Dominican with the immediate theological context in which to address the issue of Christ's human passions. lls Lombard's analysis of Jesus' human affectivity echoes the thought of several sources, both patristic and medieval. To be sure, the Master of the Sentences brings together for
114. For the dating of Lombard's Sentences, cf. "Prolegomena" to Magistri Petri Lombardi Sententiae in IV libris distinctae (ed. CoIl. Bonav.), vol. I, pp. 122-9; G. Emery, La IHnite creatrice.1'rinite et creation dans les commenlaires aux Sentences de Thomas d'Aquin et de ses precurseurs Albert Ie Grand et Bonaventure (paris: J. Vrin, 1995), p. 3D, n. 5; and D. Van den Eynde, "Nouvelles precisions chronologiques sur quelques oeuvres tb60Iogiques du XIIa siec1e," FS 13 (1953), pp. IIO-~, at 118. 115. For Lombard's analysis of Christ's passions, cf. his III Sent, d. 15, cbs. 1-4; d. 16, ch. 1; and d. 17, chs. 1-3 (ed. Coil. Bonav., pp. 92-111); the English translation of Lombard's Sentences by B. Soule (as well as an introduction to Lombard's theology by the same author) is nearing completion. For a brief overview of Lombard's position on Christ's human affectivity, cf. M.L. Colish, Peter Lombard (2 vols., Leiden and New York: E.l. BriU, 1994), vol. 1, pp. 443-8. For Lombard's Christology in general, cf. AM. Landgraf, Dogmengeschichte der Friihscholastik (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1956), vol. 2,1, pp. 88t!; and L. Nielsen, The%gy and Philosophy in the 1Welflh Century. pp. 24379. For the sources of Lombard's thought, c£ O. Balzer, Die Sentenzen des Petrus Lombardus: ihre Quel-Ien und ihre dogmengeschichtliche Bedeutung (Aalen, Gennany: Scientia VerJag Aalen, 1987). Cf. as well r. Brsdy, "Pierre Lombard," DSp 12,2 (1986), cols. 1604-12.
the fIrst time the many diverse opinions on the matter, opinions that had theretofore remained as scattered as the time periods from which they had originated (though Abelard had made modest gains in gathering his own collection ofpatristic texts in his Sic et non), which in itself represents a synthesis of no small order. This amalgam of Christo-psychological thought in tum enabled the discussion on Christ's passions to drive forward, particularly among the 13th-century Sentence commentators,Aquin~ among them. As for the patristic sources of Christ's passions, Lombard reflects the thought of Jerome, Ambrose, Leo the Great, and, especially, Augustine. Lombard also takes up for discussion the "difficult questions" that arise from Hilary of Poitiers' denial of psychical or affective suffering and pain in Christ (difficiliorem affin.mt quaestionem verba Hilarii), questions that receive, despite his inclination to rebuff them, a benigna interpretatio. 116 The reply to Hilary's denial of Jesus' suffering and pain in soul will color much of Lombard's analysis of the passibility of Christ. In addition to these patristic figures, the Master of the Sentences also betrays the influence of a mid-12th-century theological terrain already well satur.ated with Christo-psychological concerns centering on full introspection into Christ's passibility of soul. These include Hugh of st. Victor and, especially, the Summa sententiarum, an anonymous work produced by the school o[St. Victor shortly afrer 1137.117 Lombard also bears the traces of the Sententiae divinitatis, a work produced between 1142-48 by an anonymous author from the school of Gilbert de la Porree. IIS Apart from the influence of the aforementioned figures on Lombard's analysis of Jesus' human affectivity, however, the one work that offers Lombard his main source of inspira-
116. Cf. Lombard, III Sent. d. 15; ch. 3 (ed. CoIl. Bonav., pp. 1O()-2). 117. Cf. M. Colish, Peter Lombard, vol. I, pp 57-65, and 446. The remarks on Jesus' human affectivity from the Summa sententiarum are found in chapters 15-9 (PL 176,70-80), chapters devoted to the Incarnation. 1I8. Cf. B. Geyer, Die Sententia~ divinitatis. Ein Sentenzenbuch der Gilbertschen Schuie, "BGPTM 7;213:' (MUnster: Achendorff, 1967), pp. 22 and 54-62 (in this work Geyer offers an analysis of the Sententiae divinitatis [pp. 1-62] followed by the critical edition of the text itself [pp. 1-199]); R.H. Riter, The Relationship ·ofthe Sententiae divinitatis to Peter Lombards Sentence Books (Notre Dame. IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1936), pp. 2 and 20; snd F. Vernet, "Gilbert de 1a Pome," DTC 6,2 (1947), cols. 1350-8. at 1355. The section from the Sententiae divinitatls that concerns Christ's passions is tr. Iv. ch. 3, 2 and 7 (ed. Geyer, pp. 77*-9* and 88*-9*). The Sententiae divinitatis for its part·assimilates, in addition to Hugh ofSt. Victor, the remarks of Peter Abelard on Jesus' human affectivity; cf.Abelard, Sic et non, qq. 7-83 (ed. B. Boyer and R. McKeon, pp. 276-301), and Comm. in Epist. odRomonos. Bk. II, onRm 5:19 and 6:9 (CCCM 11, pp. 162-79); andBk. III, on Rm 8:3435 (CCCM 11, pp. 226-7).
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Damascene, De fide orthodoxa, Bk. III
Lombard, III Sentences tion for placing ChriSt'S passions in the theological spotlight in Book Three of the Sentences is the De/ide orthodoxa of John Damascene. 119 Though virtually unknown in the West before Lombard's day, the Defide orthodoxa had become accessible to the Master of the Sentences through Burgundio of Pis a's Latin translation that was executed between 1153-54.120 With the completion of this translation, the "light come from the East"-which is how J.P. Torrell, adapting the opinion ofM.-D. Chenu, describes Damascene's impacton the Latin
"On the human defects that Christ assumed" (d. IS, ch. I: De hominis defectihus quos assumpsit Christus)
~
''On the natural and indetractible passions [of Christ]" (ch. 20: De natura/ibus et indetractihi/ihus passionibus) "On ignorance and servitude [in Christ]" (ch. 21: De ignorantia et servitute)
West-had an immediate illtuninating effect on Lombard's thought, as evidenced by the structural design itself ofthe Sentences, which emulates the plan of the Defide orthodoxa. '"
"On the propassion and passion of fear or sorrow [in Christ]" (d. IS, ch. 2: De propassione et passione timoris vel tristitae)l21
Significantly, the manner in which Lombard analyzes Jesus' human affectivity in III Sentences, distinctions 15-17, bears the obvious imprints of Deflde orthodoxa, Book Three, chs. 20-26, as the following comparison, like that sketched earlier between the Summa and the De fide orthodoxa. makes plain:
=
"On [Christ's] fear" (ch. 23: De timore)
=
"On the passion of the Lord's body and the impassibility ofWs di\tinity" (ch. 26: De passione corporis Domini et impassibilitate eius deltatis)
"On Christ's sorrow and the cause of his sorrow" (d. 15, ch. 4: De tristitia Christi et eius causa secundum eundem) "Whether it was necessary for Christ to suffer and die, which are kinds of defects" (d 16,ch.I:AninChristofoerit necessitas patiendi et moriendi. quae est defectus generalis) "On Christ's hUlllllD states and what he took on individually" (d. IS, ch. 2: De statibus hominis etquid Christus de singuJis acceperit)
=
[by Christl"
,
(ch. 25: DefamUiaritate)
"IfalI Christ's prayers or wishes were
fulfilled" (d 17, ch. I: Si omnis Christi oratio vel voluntas impJeta sil)llJ
"On [Christ's] growth" (ch. 22: De profectione) "On the natural attributes appropriated
=
"On the Lord's praying [in the Garden and on the cross]" (ch. 24: De Domini oratione)
119. For more on Damascene's Christological impact on Lombard, cf. 1. de Ghellinck, "Pierre lom-
bard," DTe 12. 2 (1935), cols. 1941-2019, at 1996-7.
Through his revival ofDamascene's Christological psychology, then, Lombard became the first of the medieval theologians to give the subject ofJesus' human affectivity a centerpiece role among the more salient Christological considerations. This is a matter of no small significance when it comes to Aquinas. since the opportunity to comment on Lombard's Sentences thrust Thomas for the first time in his writing career into the arena of Christ's human passions, and in tenns ofmethod. the way in which the young Thomas treats Jesus' passions in his Sentence commentary is essentially the same as how the mature Thomas
120. For the dating ofBurgundio's translation of the Defide orthodoxa and Lombard's use of this text, cf. E.M. Buytaert, "Introduction" to his critical edition of De fide orlhodoxa, pp. XU and XIv. Though Cerbanus had completed a Latin translation of the Defide orthodoxa in 1145, widespread Latin familiarity with Damascene's work would not come until Burgundio's translation. Cf. M.-D. Chenu, La theologie au douzieme siecle (paris: 1. Vrin, 1957), p. 283. 121. Cf. J.-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel, pp. 35-7~ M.-D. Chenu, La tM%gie au douzieme sMc/e pp. 274-322; and J. de GheIIinck,Le mouvement tMo!ogiqueduX/P siecle. pp. 374-415. Torrell notes that Damascene was not the sole source of this 12th-century "Eastern Iight"~ so were John Chrysostom and pseudo-Dionysius. For the parallels between the designs of the Defide orth. and the Sentences, cf. M. Jugie, "Jean Damascene (saint)," col. 750.
,
122. This chapter betrays the influence ofSententiae divinitatis, fr. IV, ch. 3,7 (ed. Geyer. p. 88*-9*); "Si [Christusj tristitiam habuit veJ timarem." 123. This chapter also shows the influence ofSententiae divinitatis. tr. IV. ch. 3,5 (ed. Geyer. pp. 86*8*); "Si Christus exauditus in omni sua oratione. "
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treats it in the Summa. Clearly, as a source for Aquinas' theology of Christ's human affectivity, Peter Lombard's Sentences ranks near the top. b. Christ's Human Affectivity in the Thought 0/ Lombard
The driving force behind much of Lombard's account of Christ's human affectivity is the need to underscore, contra Hilary of Poitiers, the reality of Christ's suffering and pain in soul as well as in body. Lombard's aim is complemented by his assimilation of the thought of Damascene, whose own analysis of Christ's passibility in the Dejide orthodoxa had attempted, as we have seen, to affmn the same in reply to the Aphthartodocetic denial of Christ's passibility. One of the ways Lombard achieves this objective is by affmning in a distinctly anti-doeetic manner the complete humanity of Christ, of which his passibility forms an integral part: "Christ took on the true nature of man"; "He possessed certain defects in order to prove his true humanity"; "Christ experienced true fear and sorrow in his human nature"; "He took on true weakness in the same way that he assumed true flesh"; etc. 124 In Lombard's eyes, there can be no hesitation, at least if one wishes to counter the effects of Hilary's Christology, in affll1Iling the full reality of Christ's humanity, and the Master of the Sentences evokes particularly expressive aspects of that humanity-"true fear and sorrow," "true wealmess," "true flesh," etc.-to advance this incontrovertible point. As with Damascene, then, the Master of the Sentences, througlJ such statements as these, as well as through the place he accords Christ's passibility of soul at the heart of his comprehensive Christological study, attempts to champion Christ's human consubstantiality, and thereby thwart attempts to abbreviate Jesus' humanness. 12S Such an achievement would not be lost on the mind of Aquinas. Important to Lombard's endeavor to affirm the reality of Christ's suffering and pain in both soul and body is his distinction, borrowed from the Summa sententiarum, between defects of "the body" and defects of "the soul": "[Christ's1true body is shown through the bodily defects he takes on, viz. hunger, thirst, and the like, while his true soul is shown through
124. III Sent, d. IS, cbs. 1-2 (ed. CoIl. Bonav., pp. 93-8): "Suscepitautem Christus sicut veram lIaturam hominis"; "Quos en;m delectus habuit, vel ad ostens;onem verae humanitatis"; "Habuit enim Christus verum timorem et tristitiam in natura hominis "; "in se transtulit veram injlrmitatem, sicut accepit veram carnem. " 125. Cf.M.CoIish,PelerLombard. vo1.1,p.398.
the defects of soul he assumes, viz. sorrow, fear, pain, aDd the like. "126 Whereas the previous authorities, notably, Augustine, Damascene, and Hugh of st. Victor, had all grouped Christ's passibility together with other assumed consequences of sin, such as hunger, thirst, and mortality, Lombard offers a more precise grasp of these consequences of original sin by separating them between, on the one side, the defects of the body, which include such things as hunger and mortality, and, on the other, the defects of the soul"which involve the passions; thus, Christ's passions more accurately concern his assumed "defects of soul" rather than simply his assumed defects in general. This distinction will resonate in the writings ofAquinas, who sees the defects ofthe soul as demarcating the proper context in which one examin~s Christ's passions, as in Tertia, q. 15'ofthe Summa theo!ogiae. Qualifying the passions as defects of the soul (and, hence, as a consequence of sin) grants Lombard the justificatory basis for examining, following Damascene, the experience of disagreeable passion in Christ, or passion that ensues upon the sense perception of evil, such as the passions of sorrow or fear, which Hilary's Christology had precisely disputed. Although there had been historical precedent for going beyond this more restrictive approach to Jesus' passibility of soul, as Abelard had devoted an entire quaestio in his Sic et non to an agreeable passion in Christ-joy (delectatio),"-Lombard opts to adhere closely, given his polemic with Hilary, to the method provided by Damascene, whereby "passion" equates primarily with "suffering," i.e., with an affective hurt resulting from an encounter with a sense evil. Aquinas will in sequential order adopt this same method in his analysis of Jesus' human affectivity, though the Dominican acknowledges that Christ's passions also comprise, as in the case ofjoy or love, the congenial affective alteration that occurs in response to the perception of a sense goOd. 128 Further, Lombard's allegiance to the model sup-
126. Lombard, lJI Sent, d. 15. ch. 1 (ed. Coli. Bonav., p. 93): "Ut enim probaretur verum corpus habere, suscepit delectus corporis: lamem et sitim et huiusmodi: et ut veram animam probaretur habere, suscepit delectus animae, scilicet trtstitiam, timorem, dolorem et huiusmodi. " This is an almost verbatim reproduction of a passage from the Summa selltentiarum, ch. 17 (pL 176. 75); "Ut enim probaretur verum corpus habere, suscepit delectus corporis,lamem, sitim, etc., ut probaretur veram allimam habere, suscepit dcifectus animae, scilicet tristWam, timorem, et caetera huiusmodi. " 127. Abelard, Sic et non, q. 82 (00._ Boyer and McKeon, pp. 298-9): "Quod in Christo suggestio etiam delectationis fuerit et contra. .. 128. Cf. Aquinas, De vel!, q. 26, a. 8: "In Christ there were not only passions with regard to good but also with regard to evil" (in Christo non solum fuerunt passiones respectu boni, sed etiam respectu mali). In 3. 6 of this article Thomas lists "joy" and "love" as examples of passions that concern the perception of some good (passiones, ut gaudium et amor, quae sunt respectu bom).
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plied by Damascene (and somewhat to the established precedent of the Sententiae divinitatis and the Summa sententiarum) includes the decision to confine his introspection into specific disagreeable passions in Christ to only sorrow, fear, and sensible pain (d%r sensibilus).12~ It will not be until Bonaventure that this list will extend to include anger, and Thomas for his part will add wonder (admiratio) to the list of specific (disagreeable) passions analyzed in ChriSt. 130 Associating Christ's passions with the defects of soul assumed in the Incarnation leads Lombard to posit another distinction, original to him, between "defects of punishment" (defectus poenae) and "defects of guilt" (defectus culpae), which attempts to reconcile Christ's assumed weaknesses with his perfect sinlessness:
takes in certain aspects of the punishment of sin that remain compatible with perfect moral innocence, among which is the passibility of soul, one can say that the sinless Christ at the same time owns a "siilful" condition, and, hence, that he assumes various consequences or penalties of sin. In short, Jesus is punished for sin without being guilty of sin. To detennine which defects (or consequences/penalties of sin) remain compatible with perfect moral integrity, the Master of the Sentences proposes a general-rule of thumb:
Just as Christ took on true human nature, so did he take on true human defects, but not all. He assumed the defects of punishment, not of guilt; nor did he assume all defects of punishment, but only those that were expedient to'his mission and which did not derogate from his dignity. Just as he became man for man's sake, so for man did he take on the defects of man.!)]
For Lombard, in order for a defect to enter into the assumed humanity of the Incarnation, two criteria must be met: first, it must in some way assist (expedit), and in no way impede, the efficacy of Christ's redemptive mission, a mission that by its very nature requires a sinless savior who possesses every perfection of grace; this explains why Lombard, whose opinion here receives the almost unanimous consensus of the 13th-century authors, including Aquinas, singles out iguorance and difficulty in "willing or doing good" as two examples of defects that fail to meet this criterion: "These Christ did not have. "134 Second, the defect must cohere with a certain principle of "fittingness" (conveniens), i.e., it must be appropriate for Chris~ whose diguity follows upon his status as the Incamate Word, to assume it. The Master of the Sentences sees the need for Christ to appear as a true and gen~ uine human being as one such "fitting" reason for the assumption of such defects as passibility and mortality, a view that Aquinas will resoundingly endorse throughout his entire writing career. Lombard also suggests, as seen in a passage previously cited from the Sentences. that any defect which derogates from Christ's diguity as the God-man cannot be deemed a fitting feature of the Incarnation, and, hence, has no part to play in the actus as-
In a word, Lombard recognizes, consistent with the received tradition (notably, Augustine and Damascene), that the doctrine of Jesus' absolute sinlessness, which he affirms in unambiguous tenns-"[Christ] was conceived, born, and lived his life without sin"13L-may prima/ade appear to confli~t with an admission of assumed defects in Christ. For this reason, he proposes the distinction between defects of punishment and defects of guilt, both of which ensue upon original sin, as a way of resolving this seeming incongruity. By assigning such features of human life as hunger, mortality, and passibility to the arena of the defects of punishment rather than to the defects of guilt, Lombard can affinn movements of passion in Christ (defects of punishment) without jeopardizing the tenet of Jesus' consummate sinlessness. Since Lombard strictly precludes any sharing of Christ in the guilt of sin, Qne can in no sense call Jesus a "sinner"-he is not guilty of sin; yet, since Jesus par-
129. Cf. Lombard,llI Sent, d. 15, cbs. 1-2, and 4, and d. 17, ch. 3 (ed. ColI. Bonav., pp. 93-111). The Sententiae divinitatis restricts the inquiry into Christ's passions to SOrroW and fear (tr. IV, ch. 3, 7 [ed. Geyer, pp. 88"'-9"'). Cf. as well Summa sententiarum, ch. 17 (PL 176, 75). 130. Cf. Bonav.,lIl Sent. d. 15, a. 2, q. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 339-40), andSTID, q. 15, oa.5-9. 131. Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, ch. I (e,d. Coil. Bonav., p. 93): "Suscepit autem Christus sicut vemm naturam hom in is, ita et veros defectus hominis, sed non omnes. Assumpsit enim defectus poenae, sed non culpae; nee /amen omnes defectus poenae, sed eos omnes quos homini eum as Sumere expediebat e/ suae dignitati non derogabat. Sicu! enim propter hominem homo factus est, ita propter eum hominis
defectus suscepit. " 132. III Sent, d. 15, ch. I (ed. Coli. Bonav., pp. 95-6): "sine pecca/o est conceptus et nalus et in lerris conversatus. "
Christ took on aU our defects except sin, which he found fitting and expedient to his mission ... He possessed certain defects in order to prove his true humanity, such as fear and sorrow ... or passibiJity and mortality.133
sumptionis.
133. III Sent, d. IS, ch. 1 (ed. ColI. Bonav., p. 94); emphasis mine: "Omnes igiturdefectus nostros suscepi/ Chrislus praeter peccatum, quos ei conveniebat suscipere et nobis expediebat ... Quos enim defectus habuit, vel ad ostensionem verae humanitatis: ut timorem et tristitiarn ... ut passibilitatem et mortalitatem. 134. III Sent, d. IS, ch. 1 (ed. CoIl. Bonav., p. 94): "Haec [ignorantiam atque difficultatem vo/endi vel faciendi bonum autem Christus non habuit; non igitur accepit omnes defectus nostrae injirmitatis praeter peccatum." Cf. Alexander of Hales, III Sent, d. IS, n. 54 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 168);Albert, III Sent, d. IS, a. 5, and a. 8 ad 5; Bonaventure, III Sent, d. IS, a. I, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 333); and Aquinas, STID, q. 14, a. 4. JJ
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With the foregoing in mind, Lombard, developing the thought of Augustine and the Summa sententiarum, advances a careful delineation of Christ's sinless-yet-enfeebled
human nature by attributing to Christ's humanity va;ious features of the four conditions or phases of human nature: the state before sin (Le., prell apsarian man in the state oforiginal justice); the phase after sin but before the gift of grace (i.e., after the fall ofAdam but before the redemptive accomplishment of Christ); the condition under the reign of grace (i.e., after Christ's redemption); and the glorified state (i.e., the direct presence of God in the beatific vision); There are four states of man: the first is before sin, the second is after sin but before grace, the third is under grace, and the fourth is in glory. From the first state [Christ] took on immunity to sin.... From the second state he assumed punishment and other defects. From the third he took on the fullness of grace, and from the fourth the inability to sin and the perfect contemplation of God. 13S
While Lombard appends Christ's passions to the punishments and defects of the second state, he also maintains that the assumed defects of the second state in no way subvert Jesus' sharing either in the absolute sinlessness appertaining to the first state or in the perfection of grace of the third state (Jesus possesses every perfection in grace, since he is the soW'Ce
of all grace poured out in this third phase of human existence). Insofar as Lombard compares Jesus to the first man in the state of original integrity, and inasmuch as he places the tenet of Jesus' perfection in grace at the core of his analysis of Christ's passibility of soul, the
subject to these defects. and so we undergo both propassions and passions. But Christ experienced only propassions. 136 We had seen earlier that propassion for Jerome implies a movement of affectivity, a passion, that remains within the strict-bounds of reasoned control. Lombard, adapting the thought of Jerome, as well as of the Summa sententiarum and of the Sententiae divlnitatis (though this latter work employs no explicit use the term propassion), offers his own definition ofpropassian, viz., an affective movement that "does not disturb the intellectual facuIties from rectitude or from contemplation of God," whereas true passion "stirs and troubles the mind."137 (This is as close as Lombard comes to offering a proper definition of passion throughout his entire analysis of Jesus' human affectivity.) Because Jesus possesses, by virtue of his sinlessness and perfection in grace, consummate moral rectitude, any movement of affectivity that "stirs or troubles the mind" must be excluded from his life, since such movements de facto undermine this rectitude owned by Jesus. Hence, the Master of the Sentences' insistence that propassion alone properly corresponds to the experience of Christ's passibil-
ity of soul. Aware that the agony suffered by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, in which Jesus expresses an aversion to his impending death (cf. Mt 26:39), presents a problematic rejoinder to the view that Christ experienced no affective "stirring or troubling of the mind," Lombard proposes the following Damascene-inspired exegesis. 138 First, the Bishop of Paris speaks only of Christ's affectus, which can translate as "affection," but which in this case
Bishop ofPa;is hearkens back to the Christological psychology of Damascene that was examined earlier. At this point in the discussion on Christ's sinless-yet-passible soul, Lombard introduces Jerome's Christological use of the tenn "propassion" as a way of better clarifying the precise nature of Jesus' experience of human passion: Christ experienced true fear and sorrow in his human nature, but not as we do, since in us they perturb our highest parts. Because of our sin we are necessarily
135. Lombard, III Sent, d. 16, ch. 2 (ed. Coil. Bonav., p. 105): "Sunt enim quatuor status hominis: primus ante peccatum, secundus post peccatum et ante gratiam, tertius sub gratia, quartus in gloria. De primo statu accepi/ [Christ] immunitatem peccati ... Sed poenam assumpsit de statu secundo et alios defectus; de tertio vero gratiae plenitudinem; de quarto non posse peccare et Dei perfectam contemplationem ". Cf. Augustine, De div. Quaest. 83, q. 66, n. 3 (CCSL44A, pp. 154-5); and Summa sententiarum, ch. 18 (PL 176,78), which only lists three phases of human tife (it omits the state of glory). Cf. as well M. Colish, Peter Lombard, vol. I, p. 444, where CoIish erroneously attributes the fourth glorified state to Christ's resurrection.
136. III Sent, d. 15. ch. 2 (ed. CoI1. Bonav, p. 98): "Habuit enim Christus verum timorem et tristitiam in natura hominis. sed non sicut nos, qui sumus membra eius. Nos enim causa peccati nostri his defectibus necessario subiacemus. et in nobis sunt isti defectus secundum propassionem et passionem; sed in Christo nonnisi secundum propassionem." 137. Lombard, III Sent, d. IS. ch. 2 (ed. Coli. Bonav., p. 99): "Ajjicitur enim quis interdum timore vel tristitia, ita ut mentis inte//ectus non inde moveatur a rectitudine vel Dei contemplatione. et tunc propassto est. Aliquando vero movetur et turhatur, et tunc passio est." Summa sententiarum. ch. 17 (pL 176, 75) mentions Jerome's distinction, but gives little development of it. One detects shades of Lombard's position in Sententioe divinitatis, tr. IV; ch. 3, 2 (ed. Geyer, p. 77): "We say that Christ felt initial ... fear;·but the fear was not in him in an initial manner [i.e., in an inordinate fashion] but rather in an upright manner" (dicimus Christum initialem ... timorem hahuisse,· sed nonfuit in eo initialiter, sed caste). 138. Cf. Damascene,Dejide or/h., Bk.Ill, ch. 23 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 265-6); cf. as well Bk. II, ch.22 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 135-7), where Damascene develops the thought of Maximus the Confessor, Opusc. I ad Marinum (pG 91, 12-28), as well as of Nemesius ofEmesa, De nat. hominis, ch. 32 (in Nemesius d'Emese De natura hominis. 7raduction de Burgundio de Pise, eds. G. Verbeke and J.R. Moncho [Leiden: EJ. BrilI,197S], p. 127). Lombard is also inspired here somewhat by the remarks found in Summa sententiarum. ch. 17 (pL 176, 76).
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probably means human affect in general, or, more precisely, "affective inclination," a subtle yet important distinction, since inclination stands prior to a fully elicited appetitive movement. Second, he distinguishes between two senses of human affect: spiritual (or rational) and sensitive. 139 With this distinction in mind, Lombard, rejecting the view that Jesus' aversion to death ensued upon his rational affect, instead assigns this aversion to the arena of his sensitive affect; in this way, Jesus' spiritual faculties were spared from the disquieting disturbance that such an aversion might otherwise have induced: "His rational affect wanted that which the divine will wanted, viz., to suffer and die, whereas his sensitive affect did not desire this, which instead shrunk from his suffering and death."I" Aquinas will to a large degree adopt this distinction between what Jesus willed through his rational affect and what he desired through his sensitive affect, though with modifications. One of the overriding themes of Lombard's analysis of Jesus' human affectivity, which he borrows from the inherited tradition, particularly Damascene and Hugh of SI. Victor, and which fits in line with Lombard's position on the absolute sinlessness of Christ, is that Christ voluntarily assumed such defects of soul as the passions: Christ truly assumed human passibility and took on the weak condition of human defect and affection, but only voluntarily and not by necessity.... Christ voluntarily, and not by the necessity of nature, assumed these and other defects, viz., the necessity of both suffering in the soul and suffering and .dying in the flesh.141 Lombard's view on the voluntruy assumption of Christ's passibility concerns the fact that all defects ensue either upon the punishment incurred by original sin or upon the contracted guilt of original sin. Since all humans are conceived and born into original sin, we all inherit by necessity the various defects of nature; yet, since Christ was conceived and born without all stain of original sin, he remained free to take on any defect of his choosing-
139. III Sent, d. 17, ch. 2 (ed. Coli. Bonav., p. 107): "in nobis duplex est affectus, mentis scilicet et sensualitalis. "Cf. II Sent, d. 24, cbs. 3-5. and 13 (ed. Collegii S. Bonaventurae, pp. 452-60). 140. 111 Sent, d. 17, ch. 2 (ed. ColI. Bonav., p. 106); "AJJectu autem ratiqnis id vo/ebat quod vo/untate divina, scilicet pati et mori; sed affectu sensualitatis non vo/ebat, immo refugiebat." 141. Lombard,II/ Sent, d. 15, cb. 1, and d. 16, ch. 1 (ed. Coli. Bonav., pp. 97 and 104): "Christurn vere passibi/em assumpsisse hominem, atque in eo defectus et affectus nostrae injlrmitatis suscepisse. sed vo/untate, non necessitatis conditione . .. Christum vo/untate, non necessitate suae naturae, hos defectus sicut alios accepisse, scilicet necessitatem patiend; in anima, simu/ autem patiendi et rnoriendi in carlie. "Cf. Damascene, De fide orth., Bk.llI, ch. 23 (ed. Buytaert, p. 266); and Hugh of st. Victor, De saer. Christ. fidei, Bk. II, pt. I, ch. 7 (PL 176, 390-1), and De quat. volunt. in Christo (PL 176, 846). cr. also Summa sententiarum, ch. 17 (PL 176. 75): "Iesus ergo foit tristis; sed volun tate suscepit tristitiam veram." M
he contracted no defect by the necessity of nature. Further, those defects Christ did choose to take on were assumed, the Master of the Sentences affirms in a way reminiscent of Augustine, out of his ":free mercy": We own these defects on account of original sin .... But Christ owns no such defect on account of sin, since he was conceived. born, and lived his life without sin: It was out of his free mercy alone for us that he took on true weakness, just as it was out of his mercy that he assumed true flesh; for he could have assumed a human nature wi¢.out any weakness, just as he assumed it without guilt. 142
In short, Lombard disallows for any limitation on Christ's will. Jesus owned total command over his entire psyche, including the impulses of affectivity (a command tha~ again, Aquinas will attribute to a grace that allowed Jesus' state of soul to supersede the normal laws ofnalure). The inner conllict betweenilesh and spilit has no place in Lombard's Christology.'4l Acknowledging Christ's supreme volitional command over the affective dimension of his life is of considerable advantage to Lombard in his reply to Hilary, since affirming the reality of suffering and pain in Jesus need not de facto conclude to the necessary experience of disagreeable passion in Christ (a conclusion that Hilary no doubt wished at all cost to avoid). Lombard's Christologica! psychology betrays two final features worthy of mention. The first, rooted in Augustine, concerns his hylemorphic anthropology, as evinced by the as~ sertion, "the soul feels pain through the body as through an instnunent."I44 For Lombard, human passion, Christ's notwithstanding, is a psychosomatic affair, as neither the body 142. III Sent, d. IS, ch. I (ed. ColI. Bonav., pp. 95-6); "Nos enim expeccato'originali hos defedtus trahimus . .. Christus autem non ex peccato huiusmodi habuit delectus, quia sine peccato est conceptus et natus et in terris conversatus. Sed ex sola miserationis voluntate de nostro in se transtulit veram injirmitatem, sicut accepit veram carnem; quam sine omni infirmitate assumere potuit, sicut absque culpa eandem suscepit." Previous to this (ibid., p. 94), Lomb!lrd affirms: "Hos autem defectus non conditionis suae necessitate, sed miserationis voluntate suseepit. "Cf. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps
87:3 (CCSL 39, p. 1209). 143. Summing up this aspect of Lombard's thought, M. Colish (Peter Lombard, vol. 1. p.447) writes: "(Christ's) will is not weakened; His flesh does not lust against the spirit; and the eye of His intellect is not clouded. According to Peter, the human Christ had the full power to choose evil or lesser goods. Indeed be did not shrink: from accepting the evils of physical suffering, because he judged them to be compatible with rational goods." 144. Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, ch. 1 (ed. Coli. Bonav., p. 93): "Sentit igitur anima dolores, sed quosdam per instrumentum corporis.·" Cf. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, Bk. xn, ch. 24 (CSEL 28, 1, p. 416), andDediv. Quaest. 83,q. 80, n. 3 (CCSL44A, pp. 236-7). For more on this in Lombard, cf. B.C. Buttgieg, The Origin and Union ofthe Human Soul with the Body in the Commentary on the Sentences ofPeter Lombard (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University, Master's Thesis, 1972); M. Col~ ish, Peter Lombard, vol. I, p. 443; and AM. Landgraf, Dogmengeschichte der FrUhscholastik, vol. 2, 2, pp. 266ff.
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nor the soul remain unaffected by the movements of affectivity, a position that Aquinas will much advance. This understanding of the hylemorphic relation between body and soul also reduces Hilary's denial of suffering and pain in Christ's soul to an absurdity, since the Bishop of Poitiers ' denial simply rejects any such hylemorphic relation. The second feature of Lombard's thought, which also hearkens back to the writings of Augustine as wen as to Damascene, at the same time that it points forward to Aquinas, pertains to Lombard's "metaphysics-first" approach to Christ's human affectivity, in which the movements of passion retain intelligibility only if they a posteriori conclude to a proper ontological base, viz., the human soul: "[Christ's] true soul is shown through the defects of soul he assumes, viz., sorrow, fear, distress, and the like."14S As Aquinas would again later say, "action follows being," or, in this case, th~ movements of passion follow upon the being of a sensitive soul.
tences in order to become a master of theology, commentaries that would naturally include an analysis of Christ's passions,I47 The Sentence conuiJ.entaries' that had the greatest influence on Thomas' Christological psychology, and with which he maintained a continuous open dialogue, were those ofAl-
bert and Bonaventure, both of which had been completed by the time Thomas began his own commentary in 1252. 148 The Sentence commentary ofAlexander of Hales, the -influence of which is clearly discernible in Aquinas' writings, also deserves special mention. 149 In brief, the Sentences of Peter Lombard and its various commentaries, especially those of Albert, Bonaventure, and Alexander of Hales, were the most proximate sources from which st. Thomas drew his own acconnt of Jesus' human affectivity. Only by placing this aspect of Aquinas' thought in direct relation to these sources, then, can one fully grasp the import of Thomas' position.
D. THE 13TH-CENTURY SOURCES Because Lombard's Sentences was destined to playa critical role in scholastic thought of the 13th century~ it was inevitable that its extensive analysis of Christ's human affectivity in Bk. III, distinctions 15-17, would leave an indelible mark on 13th-century Christology, Thomas Aquinas notwithstanding. This impact extends not only to the Sentence commentaries themselves, but also to other major works that accord the subject of Christ's hWlian passions significant treatment, particularly by Thomas' three great predecessors, Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, and, to a lesser extent, Bonavenfure.Aquinas will build his theology of Jesus' human affectivity upon all these sources. 1. The Commentaries on Lombard's Sentences
The great period of the Sentence commentaries originates with Alexander of Hales, as he was the first not only publicly to lecture on the Sentences but also to divide Lombard's text into distinctions, a division retained by Albert, Bonaventure, and Thomas.146 Shortly after Alexander had made the Sentences his standard lecture material, it became an academic requirement to write, much like the modern doctoral dissertation, a commentary on the Sen-
145. Lombard,IlI Sent, d. 15, ch. I (ed. Coli. Bonav.,p. 93): "u/veram animamprobareturhabere,
suscepit delectus animae scilicet trislitlam. timorem, dolorem et huismQdi. " 146. Cf. J. Brady, "The Distinctions of LombardIS Book of Sentences and Alexander of Hales," FS 25 (1965), pp. 90-Il6, at Il2-3; and G. Emery, 'lrinitecreatrice. p. 30, n. 5.
2. The Summa theologiae and Quaestiones disputatae 'antequam esset frater' 0/Alexander 0/Hales
Besides the Sen'tence commentaries of Albert, Bonaventure, and Alexander of Hales, Thomas had benefit oftwo additional works by Alexander of Hales which examine Christ's
147. Cf. lA. Weisheip1,Friar Thomas. pp. 67-70. 148. Cf. M.-D. Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, p. 273; G. Emery, Trinite creatrice, pp. 27-30; and P. Glorieux, "Sentences (Commentaire surles)," DTC 14,2 (1941), cols. 1860-84, at 18717. For the remarks ofAlbert and Bonaventure on Jesus' hUman affectivity, cf. respectively III Sent, d. 15, aa. I-II; d. 16, aa. 1-5; and d. 17, aa. 2-3, and 7; and III Sent, d. 15, a. I, qq. 1-3; a. 2, qq. 1-3; and dub. 1-4 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 330-42). J.-P. Torrell (Fhe Person. p. 332) dates Thomas' commentary between 1252-56, which places it shortly after Albert's (dated between 1243-49 [cf. J.A. WeisheipI, "The Life and Works ofSt.Albert the Great," in Albertus Magnus and the Sciences: CommemorativeEssays 1980, ed. J.A. Weisheipl (Toronto: Pontifical Institute ofMediaevaI Studies, 1980), pp. 13-51, at 22-3; and O. Lottin; "Problemes concernant la 'Summa de creaturis' et Ie Commentaire des Sentences de saint Albert Ie Grand," RTAM 17 (1950), pp. 319-28, at 320-6]). Bonaventure's commentary on the Sentences was completed by 1252; cf. J.-G. Bougerol, Introduction d saint Bonaventure (paris: J. Vrin, 1988), .pp. 31-42. and 186-96; and G. Bindig, ''Bonaventura,'' LM 2 (1983), pp. 402-7. L. Jessberger (Das Abhangigkeitsverhaltnis des hi. Thomas von Aquin von Albertus Magnus und Bonaventura im dritten Buche des Sentenzenlrommentars (Diss. Wiirzburg, 19~6], pp. 199-203) holds that Thomas' commentary on Book Three of the Sentences, which especially concerns us, was even more influenced by Bonaventure than by Albert For more on this, cf. E.-H. Weber, Dialogue et dissentions entre saint Bonaventure et saint Thomas aParis (1252-1273) (Paris: J. Vrin,
1974), pp. 17-8. 149. Cf. G. Lafont, Stroctures et methode, pp. 207-16.Alexander's Sentence commentary dates from sometime between 1228-36; cf. "Prolegomena" to Alexander of Hales, Glossa in quatuor Ijbros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi. vol. 15, ed. Quaracchi, p. 35. For Alexander's analysis of Christ's passions, cUll Sent. d. 15, nn. 1-54 (ed. Quaracclii, pp. 150-70). .
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human affectivity: the Quaestiones disputatae 'antequam essetfrater'(which contains an entire quaestio entitled Depassibilitate animae Christi et Adae), and his Summa theologiae (or what is also called the Summa ha/ensis, or Summafratris Alexandrz).lso With these two works. the first written sometime between 1220-37 (with 1236-37 being more probable) and the second composed after 1240, Alexander of Hales, the distinguished Franciscan Scholastic and Master of Bonaventure, becomes the first of the 13th-century authors to move beyond the commentary on Lombard's Sentences in presenting a systematic treatment of Jesus' passions (though a series of Christological quaestiones authored by Guy ofOr-
chelles, by a certain Magister Willermus-<>ither William of Auvergne, William of Etampes, or William ofCramaot-and by ao aoonymous author, all of which date from 1228-36, also treat the subject of Christ's human affectivity in some detail)."1 Deserving of singnlarnotice is the fact that Alexander's treatise on Christ's passions in his Summa theologiae clearly represents the prototype for Thomas' treatise on the same in his own Summa theologiae; in the fonner, Alexander examines, like Aquinas after him, Christ's passions under the rubric of coassumpta (or those features of Christ's humanity that do not follow upon the essential elements of human nature), and, following Lombard, as part of the incarnated "defects of soul" (De defectibus ex parte animae), with separate queries assigned to Christ's sorrow, fear, and anger. 1S2 It should not go unappreciated that the decision to include an
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analysis of Jesus' human affectivity within a comprehensive overview of theology (summa theologiae) originates with Alexander of Hales, which speaks volumes ofAlexander's own Christological convictions, in addition to his impact on the composition of the Christological section ofAquinas'Summa theologiae. Only Alexander of Hales, in fact, rivals Aquinas
in the amonot of attention ascribed to the subject of Christ's human affectivity. A notable feature of Alexander's aoalysis of Christ's passions in both his Quaestiones disputatae 'antequam essetfrater 'and his Summa theologiae. though it stands out particu-
larly in the former, is his employment ofAristotelian psychology, thereby evincing the arrival of the Stagirite's thought in the Latin West by his time. IS) The novel inroads into Christ's psychology occasioned by the discovery ofAristotle were no doubt eohanced by the influence of John Damascene, who again had assimilated Aristotelian thought into his account of Jesus' human affectivity, and whose weighty impact on Alexander is clearly perceptible, such as when the Francis<;an develops a distinctly hylemorphic approach to the discussion on Christ's passible SOul. IS4 Despite such factors, however, the influence ofAristotelian psychology remains distinctly marginal in Alexander's Christoiogy, a fact that will contrast sharply with the Christological psychologies of both Albert the Great aod Thomas Aquinas. Nowhere is this contrast better seen than in the manner by which the basis for Christ's possession of a passible soul is affinned: whereas the two Dominicans look to the exigencies that follow upon hwnan nature, conceived of in an Aristotelian framework. as
providing such a basis, Alexaoder appeals exclusively to Christiao faith, without any refer150. Alexander of Hales. Quaestiones disputatae 'antequam essetfrater', q. 16, disp. 1-4 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 19, pp. 224-74); and Summa theologiae, Bk.m. inq. I, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo 1-2 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 4, pp. 58-66); for other passing remarks on Christ's human affectivity in this latter work, cf. Pars I. Bk. I, inq. I, tr. 5, sect 2, q. 3, ch. 3, a. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, Vol. 1, pp. 312-3); and Pars I, Bk. II, inq. 2, tr. 3, sect. 2, q. 3, ch. 4, a. 2, corpus and ad 5 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 2, pp. 270-1). 151. For the dating ofthe Quaestiones disputatae 'antequam essetJrater, 'cf. "Prolegomena" to this work (ed. Quaracchi), pp. 34-6; for the dating of Alexander's Summa theologiae, cf. W.H. Principe, Alexander of Hales' Theology of the Hypostatic Union (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1967). p. 15. The various quaestiones dating from 1228-36 are found, with an analysis, in W.H. Principe, "Quaestiones Concerning Christ from the First Half of the Thirteenth Century: II: Quaestiones from Douai Ms. 434: The Need of the Incarnation; The Defects Assumed by Christ," MS 42 (1980), pp. 140. Cf. as well Principe's general introduction to these quaestiones in his "Quaestiones Concerning Christ from the First Half of the Thirteenth Century: I: Quaestiones from the Bib~ liotheque Nationaie, Paris," MS 39 (1977), pp. I-59, at 1-2. 152. Alexander of Hales, Summa theol., Bk. Ill, inq. I, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo 2, ch. 1 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 62-6); following Lombard, Alexander qualifies Christ's passions as part of the defects of"pun~ ishment" rather than defects of "guilt" (non est verum quod omnis poena sit propter culpam) in memo 1 ad I. The separate queries are listed as follows: a. 2-Utrum Christus assumpserit tristitiam ex parte ajJectus (for Aquinas, Tertia, q. 15, a. 6-Utrum in Christo fuerit tristitia); aa. 3 and 4-Utrum in Christo fuerit vera passio timoris, and Utrum Christus habuerit timorem reverentiae maiorem quam nos (a. 7 for Aquinas-Utrum in Christo fuerit timor); and a. 5-Utrum in Christo fieri! passio irae (a. 9 for Aquinas-Utrum in Christo luerit ira). Cf. G. Lafont Structures et methode. p. 348.
ence to Aristotle, in arguing the same (though, given the influential views of Hilary of Poitiers, Alexander's appeal represents a consequential achievement deserving of
153. Magister Willermus also cites Aristotle (De anima, Bk. II, ch. 9 [421-26]) in his analysis of Jesus'sorrow; cf. W. Principe, "Quaestiones Concerning Christ II," pp. 36-7, §§19-23. For an overview of the introduction ofAristotle into the Latin West of the 12th and 13th centuries, cf. 'F. ChenevaI and R. hnbach, eds., "Einleitung" to Thomas von Aquin Pr%ge zu denAristoteleskommentaren (Frankfurt am Main: V. K,lostermann, 1993), pp. XXVIII-XLI (the arrival ofAristotle's De anima is placed in the second half of the 12th century). 154. Alexander of Hales, Summa theol., Bk. lIT, inq. 1, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo i ad 7 (ed. Quaracchi, p.61): "secundum quod dicit loannes Damascenus [cf. Defide orth., Bk.m, ch. 26 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 270-1)] quod 'anima corpore inciso condolet et compatitur'; ita et anima Christi ex unione ad carnem habet compassibilitatem.!' For Damascene's role in Alexander's analysis of Christ's passions, cf. supra, nn. 59-60. The influence of Damascene in the discussion on Jesus' human affectivity can also be seen in Guy ofOrchel1es (cf. W. Principe, "Quaestiones Concerning Christ II," p. 28, §39) and in Magister Willennus (cf. ibid.. p. 33, §§l and 3).
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particular acclaim); "I affinn the conclusion [viz., that Christ's soul was passiblel, since it belongs to our faith. Our faith states that Christ assumed a passible soul."155 Basic to Alexander's entire theology of Christ's passions in these two works, which he inherits from the received tradition and upon which he founds the continuous comparisons between Adam's state of soul and Christ's (again, the quaestio in the former work is entitledDe passibilitate animae Christi etAdae), is the doctrine of Jesus' sinlessness. l56 The absence of sin in Christ entailed, so Alexander insists, the experience of passion that was of the "highest [moral] order" (summum ordinatio), and "without any tendency to disorder."157 From this the Franciscan is led, also consistent with the inherited tradition, to classify CIuist's emotions as "propassions," i.e., affective movements that fail to eclipse the rule of reason; in Christ's case, this translates. negatively, into the exclusion of all "disordered passion," and, positively, into the ordering ofCIuist's entire affectivity to God. ISB Drawing the implications of this position out still further, Alexander excludes from Jesus' affectivity what he terms the fomes peccati, a notion with a long 12th-century history and one that shall be analyzed in greater depth in the following chapter, for the moment, however, its absence in Christ means that Jesus experienced no sudden or instantaneous movements of af-
155. Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater ': q. 16, disp. 2, memo 1. n. 36 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 240): "Concedo conc/usionem [i.e., cuius est possio, eius est et passibilitas; ergo tam passio quam passibilitas fuil in anima Christi}, et jUtei nos/rae est. Fides enim nostra dicit quod Chrisms assumpsit animam cum passibilitate." By contrast, cf. Albert, III Sent, d. 15. a. 2; De incarn., tr. 6, q. I. a. 1 (ed. Colon., p. 220); and Aquinas, III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. I, so1. 3 ad 2; andSTIII, q. 15, a. 4, argo 1. In Summa theologiae, Bk. lIT, inq.l, tr. I,q.4.d.3,mem.l (ed. Quaracchi,p. 60),Alexandertums largely to Dam-
ascene in formulating his response to the question of whether Christ's soul was passible. 156. Cf. Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater, 'q. 16, disp. 2, memo 1, n. 3S (ed. Quaracchi,pp. 238-40); and Summa theologiae, Bk. III. inq. 1. tr.I, q. 4, d. 3, memo I (ed. Quaraccbi, p. 60). . 157. Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater,' q. 16, disp. 2, memo 7. n. 62 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 252): "passio in Christo nonfuit inordinata, immo in ipsa passionefuit summa ordinatio" ; Summa theologiae, Bk. III, . inq. 1. tr. I, q. 4. d. 3, memo I ad4 (ed. Quaracchi,p. 60; cf, as well memo 2,ch. 2 [ed. Quaracchi,p. 66]): "Potest adhuc perturbatio sumi prout passio nullo modo aggenerans inordinationem, ut iram vel impatientiam vel aliquod h.uiusmodi, et sic fuit in Christo. " 158. Summa theologiae, Bk. III. inq. I. tr. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo 2, ch. 1, a. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 63; cf.as well Pars II, Bk. II, inq. 2, IT. 2, sect. 2, q. I, a. 3,11 ad I red. Quaracchi, p. 154]: "propassionem, quae attenditur in sensualitate praeter perturbationem YOtionis, et hoc modo fuit in Christo tristilia"; Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater', q. 16, disp. 3. memo 1-2, nn. 66-70 (ed. Quaracchi, pp.254-8): "Dieo quod in Christo . . . fuit propassio . .. quando scilicet huiusmodi immoderatio venit non cum cautela in parte inferiori: nulla taUs immoderatio fui! in anima Christi, et haec immoderatio 'passio' appellatur . .. Ex summa ergo ordinatione animae ad Dominum suum ex parte affectiva, facillima vita est. "
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fectivity that would have collided with the good ofreason. ls9 This absence of psychological conflict would have included the agony in the Garden; Alexander maintains, reminiscent of Damascene and Lombard, that Jesus feared his death on account of the spontaneous inclination of nature only (timor naturalis. or what Aquinas will call the movement of the voluntas ut natura) and not as a result of some kind of rational judgment (timor rationis, or what Thomas tenns the voluntas ut ratio).160 Worthy offurther mention is the fact that, as opposed to his Summa theologiae, Alexander's Quaestiones disputatae 'antequam esset /rater' offers few digressions into specific passions in Christ; instead he chooses, as shall ,Albert the Great after him, to direct his queries at more abstract issues, such as whether Christ's soul was passible, or whether Christ's soul was, more passible than Adam's, etc. 161 In both works, however, Alexander devotes considerable attention to the summum gaudium that he considers Christ to have enjoyed on account of his eartblyexperience of the visio Dei. 162 Lest one understand Christ's eqjoyment of the beatific vision to lessen the reality of his suffering and death, however, the Franciscan Master is unequivocal in his insistence that the "whole Chrisf' (totus Chris¥ Ius) did indeed experience the reality of (disagreeable) passion. 163
159. Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater', q. 16, disp. 3, memo 3. n. 73 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 259): "sic anima Christi nunquam ad servum CQnvertebatur, quia nunquam caro per motum suum dominabatur in eo; non enimfoitfomes in -sensualitate vel stimulus in carne. "Cf. Summa theologiae, Bk.III, inq. I, tr. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo 2, ch. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 66). 160. Qu. disp. 'ant. essfltfrater, 'q. 16. disp. 2, memo 4. n. 50 (ed. Quaracchi. p. 247): "unde timor naturalisfuit in eo. Est alius timor rationis, et iste nonfuit . .. " In SumlJla theologiae, Bk. III. inq. 1. tr. 5, q. 1. memo 2, cb. I. a. 2 (ed. Quaracchi. pp. 200-I).Alexander qualifies Christ's sorrow as ut est natura in contradistinction to sorrow ut est ratio. 161. Cf. Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater, 'q. 16, disp. 2, memo 1 (An Christus assumpsit animam cum passibilitate) (ed. Quaracchi, p. 237), and disp. 4, memo 3 (Anpassio maior in Christo quamfuisset in Adam) (ed. Quaracchi. p. 269).A1exander mentions only two passions in Christ: fear (q. 16. disp. 2, memo 4; and disp. 4, memo I, n: 86, and memo 2. n. 97 [ed. Quaracchi, pp. 247-69]) and joy (q. 16, disp. 3. memo 2 and 4; and disp. 4, memo 1, rm. 86 and 90 [ed. Quaracchi, pp. 255-65]). 162. Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater', q. 16, disp. 2. memo 6-7 (ed. Quaracchi, .pp. 249-50): "Anpassio haec fuerit in ipsa parte superiori ": and "An compossibilis cum fruitione deitatis aliquis sensus doloris aut perturbatio passionis"; and disp. 3, memo 2 and 4-5 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 255-60): "An attigit passio supremam vim animae et e converso gaudium ipsam partem sensitivam ",. "An vera passio compossibilis cum summa deleetatione "; and "An vera passio compossibilts cum gaudio eomprehensoris." Cf. as well Summa theologiae, Bk. III, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo I ad 8 (ed.
Quaracchi, p. 61); and IT. 5, q. I, memo 2, ch. I a. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 200-1). 163. Qu. disp. 'ant. essetjrater,' q. 16, disp. 2. memo 7, n. 60 (ed. Quaracchi. p. 252): "in anima Christi . .. pienissime ordinabatur anima ad eorpus sicut ad passibile, et plenissime ad Deum. "Cf. as well disp. 3, memo 4. n. 77 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 260); and Summa theologiae, Bk.lII, inq. 1, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo I ad 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 61).
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3. The De incarnatione ofAlbert the Great
Of added influence on Aquinas' theology of Christ's passions are the Christological writings of his Dominican master, Albert the Great. In addition to his conunentary on the Sentences, Albert, in a work entitled De incarnatione, devotes a total of four questions comprising fifteen articles to the subject of Christ's passions, with one quaestio (of thirteen articles) bearing the explicit title De passione Christi.1M With the De incarnatione, Albert emerges as the second of the 13th-century authors to grant the issue of Christ's passions significant systematic attention in a work other than the conunentary on the Sentences. Because of the early composition of the De incarnatione-certainly no later than 1246 and written shortly after Albert had completed his commentary on Book Three of the SentencesAquinas was able to draw from this work when he first forged his position on Jesus' human affectivity in his commentary on the Sentences (which again dates from 1252-56).165 To this effect, though one can detect diffe'rences in the way the master examines Christ's passions from that of his student, a swift perusal of the De incarnatione readily reveals the fact that in this work Albert lays much of the preparato!)' groundwork whichAqulnas will adopt to move the discussion on Jesus' human affectivity forward. In the De incarnatione, Albert betrays a pronounced penchant, the imprint of which so clearly manifests itself in the method of Aquinas, for grounding the analysis of Christ's human affectivity in a sound philosophical psychology, particularly that ofAristotle.'" Albert in fact gives considerably more attention to the philosophical side of the issue than does Aquinas, often advancing extensive philosophical distinctions and analyses that at times remain remotely related to the precise Christological query in question. Albert also opts, like Alexander of Hales before him, for a decidedly abstract approach to the matter, preferring to inquire into such general issues as whether Christ's soul was passible, whether
he assumed or contracted a passible nature, etc., while giving only scanty, almost token, regard for specific passions in Christ. 167 This method stands in s,harp contrast to that of Aquinas, who gives significant consideration to Christ's particular p'assions in the Summa. Foundational to Albert's entire treatment of Christ's passions in the De incarnatione is his finn insistence upon the o~tological or consubstantial integritY of Christ's human nature, part and parcel of which is the possession ofa passible soul. 16ll In a move designed in fact to curb the problematic Christology of Hilary of Poitiers, Albert classifies Christ's pas" sibility as the fIrst of the consequentiae unionis. i.e., as the first feature of Christ's humanity which follows necessarily and irmnediately upon the ontology of the human nature assumed in the hypostatic union, a position that will come to distinguish Aquinas' own Christological psychology}69 In the same b:reath, though, and consistent with the inherite~ tradition, Albert opines that Christ's passions fall under the catego!)' of human weakness or defect, among which one fInds, for example, hunger, thirst, and death. 170 No matter the relation between human defect and passion, however, Albert maintains, along with the entire medieval tradition, a strict coherence between Christ's passions and his absolute sinlessness. i7J This leads to a qualification of Jesus' passions as "propassions," which for the Dominican means that Christ's movements of passion did not exceed the bounds of moderation.172 Finally, because Albert, like Alexander of Hales, considers Christ to have enjoyed the. direct visio Dei during his lifetime, he offers inquiries into the way in which this may have
167. Cf. De incarn.• tr. 6,q.l,a. 1 (Utrnm animapassibilissitpernaturamsuam vel non), and a. 6 (An Christus fuerit passibilis passihilitate assumpta vel contracta) (ed. Colon., pp. 219-25). For examples or Albert's treatment or specific passions in Christ. e.g., sorrow or joy, cf. tr. 4, q. 2, aa. 2 and 164. Cf. Albert, De incarnatione. tr. 4, q. 2, aa. 2-3, and qq. 4-5; tr. 6, q. 1 (De passione Christi). I. aa. H3 (ed. Colon., pp. 208-10 and 219--30).
165. For the dating of Albert's De incarnatione and Sentence commentary, cf. lA. Weisbeipl, "The Life and Works of St. Albert the Grea~" pp. 22-3; P. Simon, "Albert der Grope," TRE 2 (1978), pp. 177-84, at 179; and G. Emery, Trinite creatrice, p. 29. In addition to these works,Albert offers a brief analysis of Jesus'love in Summa theologiae, pars I, tr. 16, q. 65, an analysis that probably had no impact on Aquinas because of its late composition (cf. D. Siedler and P. Simon, "Prolegomena" to Albert, Summa theologiae, [Pars Prima, qq. 1-50], vol. 34,1, ed. Colon. [MUnster: Aschendorff, 1978], pp. XVI-II). 166. Cr., e.g., Albert's opening remarks on Christ's human affectivity in De incarn .• tr. 4, q. 2, a. 2, contra (ed. Colon., p. 208), in which he writes: "Motus sequitur apprehensionem, ut dicit Philosophus (De anima, Bk. Ill, ch. 10 (433aI7ff).] ... " Aristotle is Albert's most-cited source in his analysis of Christ's passions in the De incarn., with 30 such references.
9 (ed. Colon., pp. 208-9 and 227-8); tr. 6, q.I, a. 2, ad 6, and a. 8 (ed. Colon., pp. 222~. 168. Cf. De incam., tr. 4, q.4 (ed. Colon., pp. 209--10), and tr. 6, q.l, a. I (ed. Colon., p. 220): "Dic-
itur enim pati secundum receptihile formae convenientis vel non convenientis quocumque modo. Et secundum hunc modum anima passibilis est per naturam. Et hoc modo anima Adae fuit passibilis et similiter anima Christi. " cf. as well aft. 7-8 (ed. Colon., pp. 225--6). 169. Albert entitles De -incarn., tr. 6, "De consequentihus unionem ex parte finis, " with the first question being consecrated to Christ's passions. For Albert's explicit response to Hilary, cf. tr. 6, q. 1, a. 5 (ed. Colon.,p. 224). For Aquinas, the consequentiae unionis are treated in STUI, qq. 16-26, with Christ's sensitive appetite receiving mention in q. 18, a. 2. 170. Cf. De incam., tr.4, q. 4; and tr. 6, q. I, aa. 5-7 (ed. Colon.. pp. 209--10 and 224-6). 171. Cf. De incam" tr. 4,'qA; tr. 6, q.I, aa. 1-2, and a. 5 (ed. Colon., pp. 210 and 219--25). 172. Cf. De incam., tr. 6, q. I, a. 2, argo 6 and ad 6 (ed. Colon., pp. 221-2): "Chr.istus autem tristifiam et limorem. ul dicunt Sanctl: non habuit nisi secundum propassionem ... In Christo autem fuil dispositio ad tristandum et gaudendum, sed noli ad immoderate.. "
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nature that includes the "defect" ofpassion. 176 Bonaventure also sees the soteriological purpose of the Incarnation as instrwnental in Christ's affective life: just as Christ heals every aspect of the human nature he assumes, so does his taking on of human passion heal the affective dimension of humanity, for which reason Christ's passions emerge as "fitting" (conveniens) yet freely assumed features of the Incamation.177 Bonaventure thus unequivocally affirms, iu the spirit of his master Alexander of Hales, the reality of Christ's affective suffering as a matter of revealed doctrine (fides catholica), displaying in the process little patience for Hilary's glorified Christology.178 For Bonaventure, then, Jesus is a man of true flesh and blood clothed in the existential dimensions of a genuine human nature, and who by that fact must experience the .natural movements of passion. 179 Among these movements of passion, the Franciscan singles out for partiCUlar attention Jesus' compassion, though he gives extensive consideration to Christ's other passions, such as sorrow, fear, and anger (Bonaventure is the first to offer a systematic analysis of Jesus' anger).180 In this sense, the detailed attention he assigns to specific passions in Christ, especially anger, represents an achievement of no small order, since here he departs not only from his master Alexander of Hales, but also from the entire inherited tradition. Following his colleague Bonaventure in this regard, Aquiuas would go on to advance this accomplis~ent further.
altered Jesus' experience of passion; he concludes that the beatific vision did not prevent the "whole Chrisf' (both physical and psychological) either from suffering or from undergoing simultaneous joy and sorrow. 173 4. The Christological Writings ofBonaventure
As for Thomas' Franciscan colleague Bonaventure, the bulk of his Christological psychology is located in his commentary on the Sentences. Bonaventure does however touch upon the subject of Jesus' hwnan affectivity in other works, notably: the Breviloquium, the De perfectione vitae, his commentaries on Luke and John, the Lignum vitae, and the Vitis mystica ad Sorores. 174 Since most of these works were completed no later than 1257 (the year after Aquinas had completed his commentary on the Sentences), they certainly influenced to some degree Thomas' own thought, with the commentary on the Sentences exerting the greatest impact. 17S At the heart of Bonaventure's theology of Jesus' human affectivity, which borrows heavily from Alexander of Hales and Hugh of St. Victor, as well from Damascene and Lombard,lies his esteem for the integrity of the human nature assumed by Christ, a human
173. De inearn .. tr. 6, q. I, aa. s.:-9 (ed. Colon., pp. 226-7): "Undesicut totus homo peccavituno peceato, ita totus Christus passus est una passione, ita scilicet quod corpus pateretur et anima compateretur . . . Et ita Christus in uno indivisihili tempore apprehendit passionem ut tristabile et iueunditatemfruitionis ut deleetabi/e." Cf. as well tr. 4, q. 2, a. 2 (ed. Colon., pp. 208-9): "Utrum secundum partern inferiorem et superiorem Christus timuerit." 174. Cf. P.A. Sepinski, La psychologie du Christ chez saint Bonaventure, p. 29. For Bonaventure's works, cf. Brevi/oquium, pt. 4, chs. 5-10 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 5, pp. 245-52); De perfect. vitae, ch. 5 (De passionis Christi memoria) (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 8, pp. 120-4); Collationes in loh .. V, annot. 20; XLIV, annot, 41; and LXX, 1 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 6, pp. 564-618); Comm. in loan., II, 22-8; VIII,3944; IX, 1; XI, 46--8 and 56-7; XIII, 42; XIX, 28-38; and XXI, 52 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 6, pp. 273-5, 362-432, and 529); Comm. in Evang. Lucae, V. 50; VI, 18 and 53; VII, 23-8; IX, 88; XIII, 74; XIX, 63-4; and XXII, 54 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 7, pp. 126-244,357,495, and 556); Lignwn vitae, 14--9 and 28-31 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 8, pp. 74--80); and ntis mystica, III, 1-3; XI, 1-3; XV; 1; and XIX, 2 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 162-84). Although Christ's human affectivity is alluded to in the Meditationes vitae :Christi, this work is excluded as a source of Aquinas' thought because ofits almost certain pseudoBonaventuran authorship; cf. L. Oliger, "Le Meditationes vitae Christi del Pseudo-Bonaventura," Studi Francescani 7 (1921), pp. 143-83; 8 (1922), pp. 18-47. 175. For the dating of these works, cf. W. Dettloff, "Bonaventura," TRE 7 (1981), pp. 48-55, at 49 (the Lignum vitae and the Vitis mystica ad Sorores are impossible to date precisely). For more on the
relationship between Aquinas and Bonaventure, cf. J. Bougerol, "Saint Thomas d'Aquin et saint Bonaventure freres amis," in 1274-Annee charn;ere, mutations et continuites. Colloques intema tionaux du C.N.RS. n°. 558 (paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1977), pp. 741-50. w
176. Cf. Bonaventure. III Sent, d. 15, a. I, qq. I and 2, and dub. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 331-3 and 341); and Brevil. pt 4, ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 248). 177. Cf. Bonaventure.III1ent, d'. 15, a. 1, q. 1 ad 3, anda. 1, q. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 331 and 351); and Brevil. pt 4, ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 248); cf. as well P.A. Sepinksi, La psychologie du Christ chez saint Bonaventure, pp. 26 and 181-3. 178. Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 15, a. 1, q. 1 and ad 1 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 346): "Dieendum, quod absque dubio, sicut Evangelium dicit, etrules catholica sentit, vera doloris passio fuit in Christo. "Cf. as well III Sent, d. 16, dub. 1 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 359). 179. Cf. Bonaventure, Comm. inEv. Luacae, rv; 7, and VIII, 37-8 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 90 and 199); Vitis mystica, XI, 2 (ed. Quaraccbi, p. 177); Comm. in loan, IV, 7 and 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 290); cf. as well P.A. Sepinksi, Lapsychologie du Christ, pp. 221-6; Z. Hayes, "The Life and Christological Thought of St Bonaventure," in Franciscan Christology. Selected Texts. Translations and Introductory Essays, ed. McElrath, Damian (St Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute, 1980), pp. 59-88, at 64; and A. Di Maio. "La dottrina bonaventuriana sulla natura," Miscellanea Francescana 89 (1989), pp.335-92. 180. Forreferences to Jesus' compassion, cf. Comm. in Ev. Lucae, VI, l3, and VII, 23-4 (ed. Quarac~ chi, pp. 137 and 171-2); Comm. in loan., IX, 1, and XIII, 42 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 372 and 432); Lignum vitae, 18-9 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 75-6); Coli. in loh., xxxm, I (ed. Quaracchi, p. 573); and Vitis mystica, III, I (ed. Quaracchi; p.. 162). Forspecific passions in Chris~ cf. III Sent, d. 15, a. 2, qq. 2-3 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 338-40); Comm. inEv. Lucae. XI, 57, xm, 74, and XIX, 64 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 357, 404, and 557); Lignum vitae, 14-8, and 28 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 74-9); Comm. in lohn., VIII, 44, and XI, 46-8 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 362-3, and 402-3); and Coil. in Ioh" XLIII, 1 (ed. Quaraccbi, pp. 59()-1).
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Like his medieval and patristic predecessors, Bonaventure grounds his analysis of , Christ's passions in the doctrine of Jesus' absolute sinlessness, which allows him to argue . 1ower appetItive . . movement s. 181 for a Christ who enjoys total rational control over his
Though Jesus possesses a passible .natur~ consubstantial to all o~er humans, ~is. cons~
mate sinlessness. or perfect moral mtegnty, means for the FrancIscan that Christ s expeneDce of passion is ofa qualitatively different order; as the scholar P.A. Sepinski observes in his study on the Christology of Bonaventure, Christ's psychology enjoys a "perfect harmony between the flesh and the spirit. .,182 For this reason, Bonaventure. citing J erame and Lombard, qualifies Jesus' emotions, especially his fear of death in the Garden, as ''prop",:sions," or as "incomplete passions" (passio diminuta), since they are movements of SensItivity that do not obstruct his oculum mentis, or his higher reasoning powers.l8J Bonaventure also, holding to the belief that Jesus enjoyed the visio Dei during his lifetime, excludes the pain of Christ's suffering from intercepting the joy experienced by his superior powers. l84 E. RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION
Although this chapter has examined several sources of Aquinas' thought on the issue of Christ's human affectivity, a quick overview of the matter-yields the following source-scenario. Cognizant of the radical dependence of theology on God's revelation, Thomas, the Magister in Sacra Pagina. turns, particularly in the Summa theologjae, frrst and foremost to the authoritative witness of Scripture in the formulation of his doctrine on Christ's passions. This includes not only the New Testament, and especially the Gospels, the only extant sources of the historical actions of Jesus, but also the Old Testament, especially the Book
181. Cf. Bonaventure, /II Sent. d. 15, a. I, q. 2; a. 2, q. 2; and d. 17, a. I, q. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 332-9, and 369); Drevil, pI. 4, ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 249); and Comm. in loh., VIII, 39, and XI, 56 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 362 and 404). . 182. P.A. Sepinski, La psych%gie du Christ chez saint Bonaventure, p. 193: "La psychoiogle du Christ se resout egalement pour saint Bonaventure en une hannonie parfaite entre la chair et l'esprit" . 183. Cf. Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 15, a. 2, q. 3, and dub. 4 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 340-2): "Quodam etiam modo [of passion] non juit, videlicet prout dicit perlurhCltionem oculi menta/is . .. Dicendum quod propassio secundum genera/em nominis sui acceptionem dicitur esse passio diminuta ... propassio dicit passionem partis sensua/is, vel virtutis natura/is . .. Et ita timor in Christo de morte futura potuit esse in parte sensuali. ut merito secundum Hieronymum etMagistrum possil et debeat did propossio. n 184. III Sent. d. 16, a. 2, q. 2, sed contra 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 355): "Sf Christus secundum portionem , rationis superiorem continue gaudebat, ergo videtur, quod secundum Warn d%rem [of his lower faculties] non experiebatur nee sentiebat. ..
of Psalms and the Books of the Prophets; for, consistent with the prevailing exegesis of his medieval day, Aquinas sees all of Scripture, and particularly the Psalter and the Prophetic writings, as instrumental in revealing the human experience of Christ. Among the patristic sources, Aquinas' theology of Christ's human affectivity, as with that of the whole of the Middle Ages, develops in response to Hilary of Poitiers' denial of the affective reality of Christ's experience of suffering and pain. To counter Hilary's glorified Christology, St. Thomas leans especially on the thought of Augustine and John Damascene though other Fathers, including Jerome, also bear an influence on Aquinas' theology ofCruist's passions. In reality, the subject of Jesus"human affectivity receives little, if any, attention from most patristic authors, with Augustine, writing against the Stoic contempt for emotion, and Damascene, responding to the heretical denial of Christ's passibility by Julian ofHalicamassus and Gaianos, representing two notable exceptions to this neglect. As for the medieval sources bequeathed to Thomas, Peter Lombard's Sentences, with its extensive treatment of Jesus' human affectivity, along with the ensuing Sentence Commentaries of Aquinas,' immediate predecessors-Alexander of Hales, Albert the G~eat. and Bonaventure-were especially influential in the forging of Thomas' teaching on Christ's passibility. Aquinas additionally benefited from other writings dedicated to the issue of Christ's passions from these same 13th-century theologians, principally from Alexander of Hales and from Thomas' Dominican master, Albert. Earlier medieval writings, particularly those of Bede, Alcuin, and, e~pecially, Hugh of st. Victor, also influenced the thought of Aquinas. Deserving of singular mention among Aquinas' sources are Damascene's De fide orthodoxa and Lombard's St!ntences, given the achievement of both, the latter largely through its 12th-century Latin recovery of the former, to assign the subject of Christ's human affectivity an indispensable role in a comprehensive Christological study; this endeavor also includes the Summa theologiae of Alexander of Hales. Aquinas would not only adopt this regard for the place occupied by the affective dimension of Christ's humanity in a Christological synthesis worthy of its name, he would also advance it further, as evidenced by the fact that his life's works grant the subject of Jesus' passions more attention than any of his predecessors, patristic or medieval, save for the possible exception of Alexander of Hales. In a real way, Aquinas marks the zenith of a medieval trend, begun by Damascene and accelerated by Lombard, though not without the assisted efforts of others, which pushes for greater attention for Christ's full hwnanity, including his affectivity,-a trend that will ; have run its course soon-after the time of Aquinas.
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Furthermore, the medieval approach to the issue of Christ's passibility, Aquinas' among them, takes its distinctive shape largely as a result of the historical context in which Damascene's Defide orthodoxa and Lombard's Sentences frame their analyses of Jesus' human affectivity, the fonner in retort to Julian and Gaianos, the latter in reply (like most other medievals) to Hilary (as well as in its appropriation of the perspective of Damascene). It is, in other words, in order to affinn, contra the objectors, the reality of Christ's suffering and pain in soul that Aquinas, following the lead of Damascene and Lombard especially, develops his theology of Christ's human passions, though the Dominican theologian will bring other objectives to bear on the matter. Such is the immediate historical context out of which emerges Thomas' position on Christ's passability of soul.
I
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Furthennore, the medieval approach to the issue of Christ's passibility, Aquinas' among them, takes its distinctive shape largely as a result of the historical context in which Damascene's De fide orthodoxa and Lombard's Sentences frame their analyses of Jesus' human affectivity, the fonner in retort to Julian and Gaianos, the latter in reply (like most other medievals) to Hilary (as well as in its appropriation of the perspective of Damascene). It is, in other words, in order to mum, contra the objectors, the reality of Christ's suffering and pain in soul that Aquinas, following the lead of Damascene and Lombard especially, develops his theology of Christ's human passions, though the Dominican theologian will bring other objectives to bear on the matter. Such is the immediate historical context out of which emerges Thomas' position on Christ's passability of soul.
CHAPTER 2
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOURCES OF AQUINAS' THEOLOGY OF CHRIST'S HUMAN PASSIONS
After considering the Cbristological soW'Ces of Thomas ' theology of Christ's passions, there remains the task, to which this chapter is assigned, of detennining the properly anthropological or even philosophical sources of this aspect of his theology. That one can detect such sources follows from Thomas' offering in the Summa theologiae of a preliminary anthropological analysis of the passions, which is both'philosophical and theological in character, followed by a sep~te exposition of the theology of Christ's passions.! More specifically, one finds in the Prima Secundae Pars ofthe Summa. questions 22-48, an elaborate and detailed treatise on the passions, which is then applied in a fairly systematic fashion to the human passions of Christ in Tertia, q. 15 (where alone there are seven cross references to this earlier treatise). In short, Thomas constructs his theology of Christ's passions upon a previously established anthropological understanding of general human affectivity. Although the treatise on the passions is not meant to stand alone without Tertia, q. 15, which requires the affective example of Christ for a complete rendering of human affectivity, this treatise nonetheless represents a necessary prelude to the study on Christ's passions, since only a solid grasp both of the ontology of human nature and of an ensuing psychology will, in Aquinas' eyes, equip one to understand fully t4e affective dimension of human life, including Christ's. Thomas believes that Christ's bwnan nature is consubstantial to ours, for which reason- he does not hesitate to begin with what he knows about human nature and proceed from there to unpack the meaning of Jesus' passions. It is here, in fact, where Aquinas leaves his distinctive mark, since the originality by which he analyzes human passion in general allows for a corresponding originality in his exposition of Jesus' passions. As noted earlier, Aquinas' theology of Christ's passions brings, in addition to the characteristic medieval need to affIrm the reality of Christ's suf-
1. Previous to the Summa, Thomas discusses human passion in De ver., q. 26; De malo qq. 10 and 12; and various passages in III Sent. especially d. 26, q. 1, aa. 1-5; Quaestiones disputatae De virtutibus, Summa contra Gentiles. Sententia Libri Ethicorum (commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics), especially Bk. n, leet 5., and Quaestio disputata De anima. Cf. L. Mauro. "L 'umanitd" della passione in S. Tommaso (Florence: Felice Le Mormier, 1974), pp. 36-44; and E. Schockenhoff, Bonum hominis. Die anthropoligischen und theologischen Grundlagen der Thgendethik des Thomas von
Aquin (Maio.: MatthiaS Griinewald-Verlag, 1987), p. 174.
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fering and death in both body and soul, other issues to the table of Jesus' hwnan affectivity. Aquinas' desire, first, to advance an exhaustive account of human passion on its own
tenns, and, second, to square this account with Christ's own affectivity represents just one of these issues unique to Aquinas' approach to the matter. Accordingly. if unfamiliar with Thomas' Aristote1ian~inspired antlrropological psychology, one will fail ,to grasp his ensuing take on the human affectivity of Christ. We turn, then, to a consideration of the sources
of this anthropological psychology.
A. THE TREATISE ON THE PASSIONS (SUMMA THEOLOGIAE I-II, QQ. 22-48) 1. The Originality ofthe Treatise on the Passions
We begin with Thomas' own treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars, since the principal source of his doctrine of human passion is perhaps his own thought. The intense personal interest that Thomas brings to the subject of human affectivity in general is indicated by the sheer size of this treatise: it is the largest treatise in the entire Summa, com- . prising 27 questions of 132 articles.2 To gain a better grasp of the impressive size and comprehensive nature, as well as the originality, of the treatise, the following rapid overview of it is offered:
2.
Cf., S. Pinckaers, "Les passions et la morale," RSPT74 (1990), pp. 379-91, at379.
Treatise on the PassIons (Summa theologiae, Prima Secunrlae Pars) THE PASSIONS IN GENERAL Q. 22 The Subject of the Passlous A. I The Passions are in the Soul A. 2 The Passions belong to the Appetitive Part of the Soul A. 3 The Passions belong to the Sensitive Appetite Q. 23 The Distinction of the Passions A. I The Distinction between the Concupiscible Passions and the Irascible Passions A. 2 The Contrariety of the Irascible Passions A. 3 The Passion ofAnger has No Contrary A. 4 The Different Species of Passions among the Same Power Q. 24 Good and Evil In the Passions A. I Moral Good and Evil in the Passions A. 2 NotAlI Passions are Morally Evil A. 3 The Passions can increase or decrease the Goodness or Malice of an Act A. 4 Good and Evil in the Passions according to their Species Q. 25 The Order of the Passions to Each Other A. I The Precedence oftheConcupiscible Passions over the hascible Passions A. 2 Love as the First Concupiscible Passion A. 3 Hope as the First lIascible Passion A. 4 The Principal Passions are Joy, Sadness, Hope. and Fear THE PASSIONS IN PARTICUlAR • The Passions of the Concuplsclble Appetite Q. 26 The Passion of Love A. I Love belongs to the Concupiscible Appetite A. 2 Love is a PasSion A. 3 The Similarity between Love and Dilection A. 4 The Distinction between the Love of Friendship and the Love of Concupiscence Q. 27 The Causes of Love A. I Good is the Cause of Love A.2 Knowledge as a Cause of Love A.3 Commonality as a Cause of Love A. 4 AU Other Passions presuppose· Love Q. 28 The Effeets of Love . . A. 1 Union as.an Effect of Love A. 2 Mutual Indwellin~as ali Effect of Love A. 3 Ecstasy as an Effect of Love A.4 Jealousy as an Effect of Love A. 5 Perfection and Betterment as Effects of Love A. 6 Love as the Cause of Every Action Q. 29 The Passion of Hate A. I Evil as the Object of Hate A. 4 The Impossibility of Hating Oneself A. 2 Love as a Cause of Hate A. 5 The Possibility of Haling the Truth A. 3 Love is Stronger than Hate A. 6 Hatred as Directed to a Thing in General Q.30 The Passion of Desire A. I Desire is in the Sensitive Appetite A. 3 Natural Desires and Desires Unique to Individuals . A. 2 Desire is a SpecifiC Passioq A. 4 Desire as both Finite and Infmite Q.31 The Passion of Pleasure A. I Pleasure is a Passion A. 5 Relation between Sensible and Spiritual Pleasures A. 2 How Pleasure is in Time A. 6 The Classification of Sensible Pleasures A. 3 Pleasure is different from Joy A. 7 Natural Pleasures and Pleasures Unique to Individuals A.4 Spiritual Pleasure A. 8 Contrary Pleasure Q. 32 The Causes ofPleaaure A. I Operation as a Cause of~leasure A. 5 Actions of Others as a Cause of Pleasure A. 2 Movement as a Cause of Pleasure A. 6 Doing Good to Others as a Cause of Pleasure A. 3 Hope and MemoI)' Cause Pleasure A. 7 Commonality as a Cause of Pleasure A. 4 Sorrow as a Cause of Pleasure A, 8 Wonder or Amazement as a Cause of Pleasure Q. 33 The Effects of Pleasure A. I Pleasure causes the Expansion of Affections A. 2 Pleasure causes Desire for Itself A. 3 Pleasures can hinder the Use of Reason A. 4 Pleasure perfeets Operation
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Q. 54 Good and Evil In Pleasure A. 1 NotAll Pleasures are Evil A. 2 NotAIl Pleasures are Good A. 3 Pleasure in God as the Greatest Good A. 4 Sensitive Pleasure is Not the Rule of Moral Good or Evil Q. 35 The Passion of Pain or Sorrow A. 1 Pain is a Passion in the Soul
A. 2 Sorrow is a Spet:ies of Pain A. 3 Sorrow or Pain is Contrary to Pleasure A. 4 NotAII Sorrow is Contrary to All Pleasure A. 5 The Relation between Sorrow and the Pleasure of Contemplation A. 6 The Relation between Desire for Pleasure and Flight from Sorrow A. 7 Interior Pain is Greater than Exterior Pain A. 8 The Species of Sorrow Q. 36 The Causes of Sorrow or Pain A. 1 Sorrow or Pain is caused by a Present Evil A. 2 Desire as a Cause of Sorrow A. 3 The Desire for Unity as a Cause of Sorrow A. 4 An Irresistible Power as a Cause of Sorrow Q. 37 The Effects ofPaln or Sorrow A. I Pain suppresses the Power to Learn A. 3 Sorrow or Pain weakens All Activity A. 2 Sorrow or Pain weighs down the Soul A. 4 Sorrow as Most Hannful to the Body Q. 38 TheRemedies of Sorrow or Pain A. I Every Pleasure assuages Every Pain or Sorrow A. 2 Tears and Groans assuage Pain or Sorrow A. 3 The Compassion of Friends assuages Pain or Sorrow A. 4 The Contemplation of the Truth assuages Pain or Sorrow A. 5 Sleep and Baths assuage Pain or Sorrow Q. 39 Good and Evil in Sorrow or Pain A.I NatAli Sorrow is Evil A. 3 Sorrow can be used for Some Good A. 2 Sorrow can be a Virtuous Good A. 4 Sorrow or Pain is Not Man's Greatest Evil • The Passions of the Irascible Appetite Q. 40 The Passions of Hope and Despair A. 1 Hope differs from Desire A. 5 Experience as a Cause of Hope A.2 Hope belongs to the Appetitive Power A. 6 Youth and Drunkenness as Causes of Hope A. 3 Hope is in Animals A. 7 The Relation between Hope and Love A. 4 Despair is Contrary to Hope A. 8 Hope as an Assistance to Action Q. 41 The Passion of Fear in Itself A. 1 Fear is a Passion in the Soul A. 3 Natural and Non·Natural Fear A. 2 Fear as a Specific Passion A. 4 The Species of Fear Q. 42 The Object of Fear A. I Evil as the Proper Object of Fear A. 4 Fear Itselfcannotbe the Object of Fear A. 2 Natural Evil as an Object of Fear A. 5 Fear as startled by Sudden Things A. 3 Relation between the Evil of Sin and Fear A. 6 The Fear of Irremediable Things Q. 43 The Causes of Fear A. I Love as a Cause of Fear A. 2 Defect as a Cause of Fear Q. 44 The Effects of Fear A. I Fear causes Contraction A. 3 Fear causes Tremblinf!: A. 2 Fear disposes One for Counsel A. 4 Fear can hinder or asSlstAction Q. 45 The Passion of Courage A. I Courage is Contrary to Fear A. 3 The Causes of Courage A. 2 The Relation between Courage and Hope A. 4 The Effects of Courage Q. 46 The Passion of Anger in Itself A. 1 Anger as a Specific Passion A. 5 Anger as More Natural than Desire A. 2 Good and Evil as the Object of Anger A.6 Hatred is worse and graver than Anger A. 3 Anger belongs to the Irascible Appetite A. 7 The Relation between Anger and Justice A. 4 Anger can be accompanied by Reason A, 8 The Species of Anger Q. 47 The Causes and Remedies of Anger A. I Anger as caused by an U[ijust Slight A. 3 The Relation between Excellence and Anger A. 2 Slight as the Cause of Anger A.4 Unmerited Contempt as a Cause of Anger Q. 48 The Effects of Anger A. I Anger causes Pleasure A. 3 Anger hinders the Use of Reason the Most A. 2 Anger causes a Bodily Transmutation A. 4 Anger causes Interior Disturbance
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Although drawing on several sources, Thomas displays, in tenns of content, scope, and method of analysis, an accomplished and unparalleled degree of originality in this work, which in many respects r~mains unswpassed to this day, even in the light of modem psychology. In this sense, P. Parente and A. Pie contend that Thomas' treatise on the passions provides modem psychology with the model and metaphysicaVrnoral foundation it lacks, a position which the many recent studies exploring significant links between Aquinas' psychology and modem behavioral or clinical psychology have advanced.3 As should appear obvious from the outline of this treatise, Thomas leaves no stone unturned and spares no painstaking effort in his endeavor to explain the complex reality of human affectivity in as satisfactory a manner as possible. To this end he extensively pursues the nature, objects, causes, effects, and moral value of each passion, as well as the remedies of certain of them. A.-D. Sertillanges quite rightly classifies this treatise as an "inexhaustible gold mine," and M.-M. Labourdettenotes the manner in which it "presupposes and integrates a great wealth of concrete observation and experience."" Further, the treatise reveals the method by which Thomas, consistent with the inherited tradition, grounds his analysis of human passion in a so'und metaphysics of human nature; only by first grasping the metaphysical makeup of the human being can one proceed, as
Aquinas attempts to dO.in this treatise, to an accurate exposition of the affective diinension of human life, and subsequently, as Thomas will do in the Tertia Pars, to an adequate interpretation of the affective dimension of Christ's life. Put another way, agere sequitur esse- "action follows being':os which, for Aquinas, means that unlocking the meaning of the passions can only begin with a grasp of the type of "being" from which these actions come: human nature. Study- .
3. P. Parente,L'lo di Cristo, p. 290, n. 399; and A. PIe, "St. Thomas Aquinas and the Psychology of Freud," Dominican Studies 5 (1952), pp. 1-34, at~; cr. M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones 0 emociones segUn santo Tomas (Madrid: Iqstituto Pontificio de Filosofia "Santo Tomas," 1984), p. 6; and J.P. Reid, "St. Thomas's Sources:' p. 148. For studies comparing Aquinas'psychology, involving the role of the passions, to modem psy~hology, cf. "Introduction" to this study, n. 17. For comparison with the scholastics who come immedjately after Aquinas, cf. A.R. Perreiab. "Scotus on Human Emotions," FS56 (1998), pp. 325-45; and F. de J. Chauvet, "Las ideas filos6ficas de J. Duns Escoto sobre las pa· siones," Estudios Franciscanos 48 (1936), pp. 244-65. 4., A.·D. Sertillanges, S. Thomas d'Aquin (paris: Felix Alcan, 1910), vol. 2, p. 204: "Le traite des passions, dans la Somme theo!ogique, est, pour, ceux qui Ie peuvent aborder, une mine inepuisable." M.-M. Labourdette, Cours de the%gie morale. Lei actes humains (Summa Jheologiae I-II, 6-48) (Toulouse. France, 1963-64), p. 207: ','Ce traite ... suppose et s'integre une grande richesse d'observation concrete et d' experience." 5. ST I-II, q. 55, a. 2 ad 1.
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ing the ontology ofhtunan nature represents a sine qua non preliminary to analyzing human
psychology, so far as the Dominican Master is concerned, a method of no less value for the human psychology of Christ. Thomas follows this method assiduously throughout his analysis both of human passion in general and of Christ's passions in particular in the Tertia Pars. Of further note is the fact that there is nothing comparable to this treatise in ancient classical or Christian literature, save for a faint foreshadowing cfit in Damascene's De fide orthodoxa, and, previous to that, in Nemesius ofEmesa's De natura hominis, both of which shall be examined shortly. As for Aristotle and Albert the Great, one scholar affirms that Thomas' treatise is "thoroughly unlike anything conceived" by either of these two intellectual giants (even though Albert does make a modest attempt at a kind of treatise on the passions in his De bono}.6 Though the treatise comes at a time in the 13th century when interest in Christ's passions was peaking, Thomas had for the most part only his own insights, experience, and ingenuity on which to draw in this·treatise.7 Furthennore, given the multiplicity oftenns for many of the passions and the ambiguities surrounding these tenns in the literature preceding him, Thomas was required, ifhe wished to present a systematic analysis of the passions worthy of its name, to pull off a work of original synthesis of no small order. For these reasons,. S. Pinckaers does not hesitate to qualify Thomas' treatise on the passions as "a unique, clasSIC ... and too neglected of a work," and as a "veritable work of remarkable genius.',g Representing a response to what. Thomas perceived as a failure on the part of Aristotle and Albert to offer a satisfactory analysis of human passion, the treatise' on the passions certainly stems from Aquinas' concern to come to terms with the properly theological and psychological import of human affectivity. 9 To be sure, the nearly exhaustive manner by which Thomas examines human passion in the treatise testifies to his own vested and keen interest in the topic of human affectivity. Certainly, Aquinas' earlier works intimate that what ultimately emerges as the treatise on the passions' in the Summa had been fermenting for quite some time: in the middle of his analysis of Jesus' human affectivity in the commentary on the Sentences, Thomas inserts an examination of human passion in
6. a.c. Reilly, The Psychology 0/ Saint Albert the Great Compared with that 0/ St. Thomas, Diss. Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1934), p. 65. 7. cr. M.-M. Labourdette, LeS actes humajns. p. 207. 8. S. Pinckaers, "Les passions et la morale," p. 379: "C'estune oeuvre unique, c1assique ... et trop
negligee"; and idem, The Sources oj Christian Ethics, p. 224. 9. Cf. G. ReiIly. The Psychology ajSaintAlbert, p. 63.
general; 10 this expands in the De veritate, whereby Thomas prefaces his remarks on Christ's passions (q. 26, aa. 8-10) with an extensive excursion on human affectivity in general (q. 25, aa. 1-7, and q. 26, aa. 1-7). Aquinas thus brings great personal concern to bear on the topic of the passions, and one can better understand why he gives the subject of Jesus' human affectivity greater attention than any of his predecessors. Although the immense quantitative reflection that Aquinas appends to the topic of human passion may come as a surprise to those who spontaneously consider Thomas to' represent the preeminent rational thinker, this rational thinker' also left considerable room for the affective dimension ofhwnan life in his written works. This fact aione offers telling evidence of the Scholastic Master's refusal to assign human passion a marginal, not to mention inimical, role to play in the totality of human life. Theireatise may have its limits, but what it reveals .of the mind ofAquinas has been inadequately appreciated. 2. The Role ofthe Passions in the Proper Telos ofHuman Life The recent studies of S. Phi.ckaers on Thomas' treatise on the passions and of l-P Torrell on the spirituality of Aquinas both argue forcibly for the properly theological understanding that Aquinas ascribes to human affectivity, whereby the moral and spiritual import of the passions are given top priority. II For Aquinas, one cannot exclude the passions from their inherent relation to true human happiness, since the ultimate human end--eternal happiness or beatitude--can only be attained through the practice of virtue, which in turn presupposes movements of passion for its very exercise, at least with respect to moral virtue. 12 This point is supported by t4e structural design itself of the Summa, in which the Prima Secundae Pars (which contains the treatise on the passions) serves as the foundational prelude to the Secunda Secund~e Pars, which seeks to place morality in direct relation to the specific virtues,l3 Even more telling is the fact that inthe Prima Secundae Pars
to. Christ's defects are studied in III Sent. d. IS, q. 1, aa. 2-3. his passions and pain in d. IS, q. 2, aa. 2-3, and human passion in d. 15, q. 2, a. I. Thomas also offers passing remarks on the passions.in /II Sent. d. 26, q. 1; d. 27, q. 1; d.. 34; andIVSent. d. 49, q. 3. 11. S. Pinckaers. "Les passions et la morale," pp. 379-91 j and J.-PTorreU. Maitre spirituel pp. 3. 4465. 12. STI-II. q. 59, aa. 4-5. rhis view ofAquinas. which is at odds with Bonaventure (III Sent. d. 33, a, 1. q. 3 [ed. Quaracchi, pp. 715-8), shall be examined in greater detail in chapter 5 of this study. 13. For more on this, cf. L. Boyle, The Settingo/the 'Summa theologiae', pp. 23-9; and S. Pinckaers, The SourCes oj Chiristian Ethics, pp. 221-9. Cf. as well O. Pesch. Thomas von Aquin, pp. 22830. .
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itself, the treatise on the passions follows immediately upon the treatises on happiness and the moral quality of human acts (qq. 1-5 and 18-21), which indicates that, for Aquinas, the passions emerge as a necessary fIrst step in the acquisition of human happiness.. or in the consummate perfection of every human yearning. To be sure, if Thomas defers from including the treatise on the passions in the treatise on the soul in the Prima Pars, qq. 75-90, only to insert it among the moral treatises of the Secunda Pars, even though the treatise on
the soul purports to study the operations of the soul (cf. Prima, q. 75, prol.), which comprise the passions, it is to underscore the wholly integral role that human affectivity plays in the moral life. On this score, K. White reminds us how Aquinas remains convinced that "the intellectual vision of the greatest good [in which consists our last end] is also our greatest delight."14 The treatise on the passions, then, highlights Aquinas' realistic approach to the morality of human acts, as the moral quality of human life begins for him in the most concrete of human experiences: movements of sensitive affectivity, the passions. IS For Aquinas, the human being lives not by abstract choices
between emotional pleaSUre and spiritual pleasure.ls As human acts, the passions' de facto share in human freedom and morality. It bears insisting that in the perspective of Aquinas the passions are teleologically ordained to happiness in God by means of the virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and grace; the_ passions can in no sense be severed from the spiritual movements of the soul. This point returns us to the importance of Christ's passions, whose example not only.demonstrates the necessary role that human affectivity enjoys in the moral life, but who also, as the true font of grace and the gifts, makes the attainment of true human happiness possible. Christ's own affective example must necessarily take center stage when placing the passions, as does Aquinas, in their theological context; again, the treatise on the passions is not meant to stand alone without the corresponding analysis of Christ's passions in Tertia, q. 15. 3. The HistoricalAchievement o/the Treatise on the Passions
The historical achievement of Aquinas' unifying moral vision, in which human passion is seen to play an integral role in the attainment of human happiness--or, as Pinckaers puts it, that "passion is one of the direct and necessary components in the response to the ques· tion ofhappiness"-merits briefremark. 19 In the ancient world, the Stoics had rejected the role of passion in the quest for human happiness and insisted that the virtuous individual must rise above the pull of the lower appetites, since the passions represent nothing more than "diseases of the soul," a view that Thomas sharply criticizes throughout his entire writing career.20 To the other extreme, the Epicureans had identified human happiness with sensible pleasure as such, a view at obvious odds with the spiritual nature of eternal beatitude and one that Aquinas also censures.21 For the PI~tonists, whq,.beli'eved that the soul alone comprises the essence ofhwnan nature rather than the composite of body and soul, it was opined that one must move beyond sensible pleasures in order to attain true spiritualjoy-though on other occasions Plato main-
14. K. White, "The Passions of the Soul (Iallae, qq. 22-48)," in Essays in the Ethics o/St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. S. Pope (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002), the very end of the ar-
ticle. 15. "When the moralist comes to discuss concrete cases, he comes up against the fundamental fact that man is a being moved by his passions. The study of the passions, therefore, must precede any discussion of moral problems ..." E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy a/St. Thomas, p. 271. For agreement, cf. E. Schockenhoff, Bonum hominis, pp. 172-3. 16. STI-n, prol.: "Sennones enim morales universales minus sunt utiles. eo quod actiones in particularibus sun/. .. cr. M.-M. Labourdette, Les actes humains, p. 205. 17. These and the following remarks are inspired by S. Pinckaers, "Les passions et la morale," pp. 381-{5.
18. Cf. STI-II, q. 26, a. 3, and'q. 31, aa. 3-5. 19. S. Pinckaers. "Les passions et Ia morale,'" pp. 381: "La passion est une des composantes directes et necessaires de 1a reponse ;lla question du bonheur." 20. For a sizable sampling of texts in which Aquinas criticizes the Stoic view on the passions, cr. chapter 5, n. 46. 21. cr. STI-II. q. 34, a. 2.
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tains that reason and affectivity must collaborate in the exercise of virtue, for which reason Aquinas rarely comments on the Platonic view on the morality of the passions. 22 The influence of Stoicism and its pessimistic take on the morality of the passions car-
ried through to the 12th and 13th centuries (and beyond). William ofSt. Thierry (t1148), for example, condemns the passions, while Richard ofSt. Victor (tl173) repeats the Stoic charge that the passions are nothing more than "ailments" of the soul.23 Such views could only have stoked the fires that Hilary of Poitiers' denial of Christ's passibility of soul had already lit. Thus, when Thomas penned his treatise on the passions in the Summa, he was certainly venturing into uncharted waters. Though Aristotle had held to the indispensable role of the passions in the life of virtue and the pursuit of happiness, Thomas was the first to transform this Aristotelian view into a properly Christian moral vision and refine it to fit the rigorous methods of his scholastic mind. After Aquinas, however, moralists sympathetic to the thought of the Dominican Master either lost sight of or simply ignored Aquinas' view on the role ofhmnan affectivity in the moral1ife. Evidence for this is found in the moral teaching of the Secunda Secundae Pars becoming almost entirely dissociated from its preliminary partner the Prima Secundae Pars in the early history ofThomism.24 S. Pinckaers has also pointed out how modem moral theology has allowed the notion of obligation and "law" to dominate the moral arena, thereby marginalizing, ifnot simply disregarding, the role of happiness in the morallife.2s Thomas' view on the integral role of passion in the quest for hmnan happiness has in the sequel received little attention in the seven hundred years, following his death, yet it is a view that must be retrieved if one is to understand properly his thought, not only on human passion in generlt)>ut also- and especially on the human passions of Christ.
22. Plato, Phaedo. 64--84; and Phaedrus, 246-56. For Thomas' view on the Platonic position, cf. ST I-II, q. 34, a. 3; S. Pinckaers, "Les passions et la morale," p. 380; and M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones. p. 62; cf. as well R.I. Henle, Saint Thomas and Platonism: A Study on the Plato and Platonici Texts in the Writings a/Saint Thomas (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1970). Augustine opts for a positive reading of the Platonists' regard for the morality of the passions in De civ. Dei, Bk. IX, ch. 4 (CCSL 47, p.251). 23. Cf. William ofSt. Thierry, De nat. corp. et an. (PL 180, 714), and Richard ofSt. Victor, De statu into hom, I, 9 and 34 (PL 196, 1122 and 1141), cited in P. Michaud-Quantio, La psych%gie de l'activite chez Albert /e Grand (paris: 1. Vrin, 1966), p. 101. 24. L. Boyle (The Setting o/the 'Summa theologiae '. pp. 23-9) retraces the way in which the Secunda Secundae was taken apart from the rest of the Summa and was used almost as a separate work on its own, particularly through the efforts of John ofFreiburg, a contemporary of Thomas. Cf. as well J.P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel, p. 344. 25. S. Pinckaers, "Les passions et la morale," pp. 380-1.
4. Damascene's De fule orthodoxa as the Methodological Source for Aquinas' Theology of Christ's Passions in the Summa
Aquinas' two-step methodological approach to the subject of Jesus' human affectivity in the Summa, whereby a first-stage antluopological account ofhumao passion is followed by a second-stage Christological analysis, certainly has as its main source of inspiration John Damascene's De fide orthodoxa; here the monk: from Damascus offers an iiritial anthropological study of human affectivity in general followed by its systematic application to Christ. Thomas in other wordS· performs much the same analysis as does Damascene, though the former in a more exhaustive way and.in a manner befitting the scholastic methods of his time. 26 This becomes evident when comparing the tw~ works schematically in the followingmanner:
26. M.-D. Chenu (La the%gie au data ieme siecie. p. 283) offers apropos remarks: "L'entree de Jean de Damas [in the 12th-century Latio West] presente ... un caractere plus homogene avec Ie labeur scolastique du siecle, car son De fide orthodoxa_ est une oeuvre didactique et systematique spontanement assimilable ala clientele des ecoles et au but professionnel du theologien."
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m THE PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS Aqujna¥ STI-ll go 22 48
Damascene De fide onb Bk, II
The passion of pleasure (qq. 31-34)
"On passion and operation" (ch. 22; De passione et operatione) "On Joy" (ch. 13: De laetitUs)
The passion of pain or sorrow (qq. 34-39
"On Sorrow" (ch. 14: De tristitia)
The passion offear (qq, 41-44)
"On feal" (ch 15: De timore)
The passion of anger (qq, 46-48)
"On anger" (ch 16: De ira)
The passions in general (qq. 22-25)
Aquinas ST III 0 15
Damascene
De fide nrth
Bk III
"Whether there was sin in Christ" (a. 1: Utrum in Christofueritpeccatum)
"Whether there was the affective spark to sin in Christ" (a. 2: Utrum in Ch rls to foerlt fomes peccatl) "Whether Christ's soul was passible" (a. 4: Utrum anima Christifoeritpassi-
"On the natural and indetractible passions [ofChrist1" (ch. 20: De naturalibus et indetractibilibus
passionibus)
bi/is)
"Whether in Christ there was ignorance" (a. 3: Utrum in Christo
"On ignorance and servitude [in Christ]" (ch. 21: De ignorantia et servi-
/uerit ignorantia)
lUte)
dolor sensibilis)
"On the passion of the Lord's body and the impassibility ofms divinity" (ch. 26:
"Whether Christ at the same time suffered and enjoyed the vision of God" (a. 10: Utrum Chris/us simul
De passione corporis Domini et impassibilitate eius deitatis)
Juertt viator et comprehensor) "Whether there was SOITOW in Chrisf' (a. 6: Utrum in Christo juerit Whether there was fear in Christ" (a. 7: Utrum in Christo Juerit timor) "Whether there was wonder in Christ" (a. 8: Utrum in Christojuerit
admira/io)
first time he read the De fide orthodoxa, Thomas might well have conceived of bringing to full tenn the task only initiated by Damascene. Despite his accomplishments, however, Aquinas does desist from driving the discussion on Christ's passions forward to the extent that he readily left open to himself. When one juxtaposesPrima Secundae, qq. 22-48~ alongside Tertia, q. 15, one immediately recognizes the disparity between the two tracts, as' the analysis of Christ's passions pales in comparison. The reader is left with the impression that, after building a masterful foundation and skeletal structure in Prima Secundae, qq. 22-48, Aquinas only abandons the crowning achievement ofthis project by declining the opportunity to apply the same depth and attentive detail as that given-to human passion in general to the pas1ions of Chris~ the primordial exemplar of all human life. There are of course historical reasons for Aquinas' restricted scope of analysis of Jesus' human affectivity, the most evident being the immediate need to respond to the medieval polemic with-Hilary ofPoitiers' denial of the psychological or affective reality of Christ's suffering and pain. Still, the fact of the matter remains that Aquinas does not use his response to this polemic as the occasion for doing with Christ's passions what he does with human passi6n in general in the Prima Secundae Pars. It is unfortunate, particularly for the field of Christology, that Thomas' reflections on Jesus' human affectivity in Tertia, q. 15, do not draw more upon the exceptional psychoanalytic talents that he otherwise displays in his treatise on the passions. B, ARISTOTLE
"Whether there was sensible pain in Christ" (a. 5: Utrum in ChrisloJuerit
tristitia)
113
"On [Christ's] fear" (ch. 23: De timore)
"On the Lord's praying [in the Garden and on the cross]" (ch.24: De Domini oratione)
1. The Use ofAristotle in Aquinas' Theology of Christ's Human Affectivity
From the start, Aquinas betrays the conviction that philosophy, and particularly Aristotelian philosophy, plays an indispensable role in elucidating the mystery of Christ's human passions, a modus operandi inherited from his master Albert the Great,21 Aristotle's impact on Aquinas' Christoiogy is immediately evident in the discussion on Christ's passions in the commentary on the Sentences, where Aristotle emerges, like in Albert's De incarnatione, as the key authoritative source; here Aquinas cites the Stagirite nearly three times as often as his next favorite source, Damascene's Deflde orthodoxa. 28 Aristotle's thought would continue to' playa predominant role in Thomas' reflections on Jesus' human affectivity throughout his entire writing career, no inatter if the Stagirite ceases to be the most-cited source on
"Whether there was anger in Cluist" (a. 9: Utrum in ChristoJuerit ira)
The striking structural parallels between the De fide orthodoxa and the Summa thus suggest that Damascene's work planted the anthropologicaVChristologicai seed that came to full fruition in the Prima Secundae Pars and the Tertia Pars of the Summa. Since perhaps the
27. Cf. lA. Weisheipl, ''The Life ahd Works," pp. 29--30; and M. Grabmann, Die Kuiturphilosophie des hI. Thomas von Aquin (Augsbnrg: B. Filser,1925),pt. 23, cited in T. O'Meara, Theologian, p. 44. 28. Cf. III Sent, d. 15, q. I, aa. 2-3, and q. 2, aa. 1-3, where Thomas cites Aristotle no less than 28 times (compared to 29 citations in Albert's De incarn.).
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the matter in the Summa. a work that in any case ~eeks to Wlderscore the reliance of theology on God's revelation,29 Albert and Thomas were not the fIrst to involve Aristotle in the discussion on Christ's human psychology. Alexander of Hales and the unidentified Magister Willennus had in the early-13th-century explicitly employed Aristotle's philosophy in their Christo-psychological writings. The English Dominican Richard Fishacre had also incorporated Aristotelian thought into his analysis of Christ's psychology in his commentury on the Sentences, written between 1241-45." What has no scholastic precedent however is' the lack of reserve by which Albert and Thomas place Aristotelian psychology at the full service of the human psychology of Christ. Even Bonaventure, who after the manner of his master Alexander of Hales does cite Aristotle in his analysis of Christ's passions. does not yet dare to give this pagan philosopher such authority in what essentially remains a proper theological matter. Despite his esteem for the Stagirite, Bonaventure leaves Aristotle very much on the periphery in his Christopsychological writingS.)1 Thomas moreover does not ground his theology of Christ's passions so heavily in the thought of Aristotle merely to advance what some modem scholars have in the past sus-
pected of being an agenda to "baptize" the pagan Stagirite. In his recent edition of a Master of Arts' class on Aristotle's De anima offered between 1246-47, R-A. Gauthier has instead shown that by the time Thomas began his studies in Paris, "Aristotle was delivered to him already digested and completely Christian."" From this Gauthier concludes that Thomas was attempting less to "Christianize" Aristotle's psychology as to offer the "pure"
or "authentic" Aristotle. Hence, ifAquinas so readily applies Aristotelian psychology to his analysis of Jesus' hiunan affectivity, it is because he is conVinced the thought of Aristotle
offers an indispensable key to understanding the human psychology of Christ. With full exposure to-and, unlike Bonaventure, total voluntary immersion into--the
philosophic-psychological texts ofAristotle, Aquinas no doubt believed himself adequately equipped to understand exactly what the "sensitive movements of affectivity," Le., the passions, involve in ChriSt. In this sense, given the distinctly Aristotelian origin of the inherited terminology, received through the influence of John Damascene and Nemesius of Emesa, on the subject ofJesus'· affectivity-vis' affectiva, passiones animae, appetitus sensitivus, vis concupiscibilis, vis irascibilis, etc.-Thomas would certainly have considered himself more than at home, and more than qualified, in pronouncing his opinion on the matter.)) Hugh of St. Victor and Bonaventure provide a case in point of how Thomas' Aristotelian sensibilities allowed him to go beyond the limitations inherent in those various analyses of Christ's human affectivity not fully rooted in Aristotelian categories. As seen earlier, Hugh of St. Victor, and Bonaventure after him, attribute a "will of pity" and a ,"will of flesh" to
Christ; the fOlmer allowed Jesus to "sigh with compassion over the misfortune of another" and the latter to ''murmur with passion in response to some particular evil."34 Though Aquinas offers, as we have seen, a benigna interpretatio of this distinction, whereby he
equates Hugh's "will of pity" with what he tenns voluntas ut natura, and .though he himself distinguishes between the concupiscible and irascible appetites, Aquinas certainly does
not ascribe to Hugh's division between the will of pity and the will of flesh. For Aquinas, the concupiscible and irascible are two powers of the one sensitive appetite, as two species under the one genus; that he does not view the concupisciblelirascible differentiation as
29. Cf. STIll. q. 5, a. 3; q. 14, aa. 1-4; q. 15, aa. 1-2,4-10; q. 16, a. 8 ad 2; q. 18, a. 2; q. 19, a. 2; q. 21, a. 2; and q. 46, aa. I, and 5-8. Here Thomas cites Augustine the most (after Scripture) with 23
citations; next is Aristotle with 20 citations and Damascene with 17 citations. 30. Cf. W.H. Principe, "Richard Fishacre's Use ofAverroes with Respect to Motion and the Human Soul of Christ," MS 40 (1978), pp. 349-60. Again, for more on Aristotle's gradual acceptance into 12th- and 13th-century Latin thought, cf. F. Cheneval and R. Imbach, "Einleitung" to Thomas von Aquin Prologe, pp. XXVIII-XLI. 31. For more on this, cf. P.A. Sepinski, Lapsychologie du Christ chez Saint Bonaventure, p. 31. M.D. Chenu (La theologie comme science au XIII e siec/e [Paris: J. Vrin, 1969], p. 21) recounts a related anecdote: "Christus unus magister; protestera magnifiquement Bonaventure, dans une dispute fameuse, contre l'entree d' Aristote ala faculte de theologie." 32. R.-A, Gauthier, "Introduction" to Anonymi, Magistri artium (c. 1245-50),Lectura in librum De anima: A quodam discipulo reportata, ed. R.-A. Gauthier, "Spicilegium Bonaventurianum 24" (Grottaferrata [Rome]: Editiones Collegii S, Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1985), pp, 14-22, at 22; "Aristote lui a ete livre digere et deja tout chretien." This edited work concerns notes transcribed by a student who took a course for beginners in philosophy on Aristotle's De anima. As these notes indicate, the master of the course was reading Aristotle through the lens of a Christian theologian.
Hence, Aquinas, who could well have taken this course or one like it when he performed his three years of philosophical and theOlogical studies in Paris between 1246-48 (cf. J.-P. Torrell, The Person, pp. 19-24), would have received a.n already Christianized Aristotle. 33. For more on the Aristotelian origin ofthis terminology, cf. M. Meier, Die Lehre des Thomas von Aquino "De passionibus antmae" in quellen-ana/ytischer Darstel/ung, "BGPTM 14,2" (Munster: Aschendorft', 1912), pp. 31-41>; and S. Pffirtner, Triebleben und sittliche Vollendung. Eine moralpsychologtsche Untersuchung nach' Thomas von Aquin (Fribourg, Switz.: Universitiitsverlag, 1958), pp. 40--59.
34. M Hugh of Sl Victor, De quat. volunt. in Christo (PL 176, 841); "in Christo fuit . ' . voluntas pietatis per compassionem in malo alieno suspirabat,' voluntas carnis per passionem in malo proprio munnurabat. "This is repeated verbatim by Bonaventure in III Sent. d. 17, a. I, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p.366).
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equivalent to the Victorine's separation of the will of pity from the will of flesh is indicated by the fact that he nowhere mentions the Victorine distinction when discussing the difference between the concupiscible and irascible appetites.3S Thomas' Aristotelianism leads him to a more unifying view of human nature and one that, unlike other schools of thought, avoids such cleareut distinctions in the human intellectual and sensible facy.lties. 36
2. The Role ofAristotle in Thomas' Treatise on the Passions
Though Aristotle's direct impact on Aquinas' analysis of Christ's passions has been mentioned, there remains another more indirect manner by which the Stagirite's thought figures into Thomas' appraisal of Christ's human psychology: his role in the Dominican's account of human passion, an account that again serves as the anthropological bedrock upon which Thomas builds his theology of Jesus' human affectivity. The significance of this role is gleaned from simple statistical facts: in the passages concerning human affectivity in the Prima Pars and Prima Secundae Pars, Thomas cites Aristotle no less than three hundred sixty~one times from seventeen separate works, with more than seventy percent of the references coming from the Nicomachean Ethics and the Rhetoric. 37 Aristotle is cited therefore two and a half times more often than the next most-quoted source: Scripture. Because of the enonnity of these numbers, some scholars see "the Philosopher" as the leading authority in Thomas' writings on the passions.38 M. Jordan and G. Lafont look elsewhere, however-and correctly, in my opinion-for the main sources of Aquinas' teach-
35. The distinction between the irascible and concupiscible appetites in Aguinas comes from Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. II, ch. 22 (ed. Buytaert, pp. I32-3), who had borrowed the notion from Nemesius ofEmesa. De natura hominis. ch. 15 (in Nemesius d'Emese De natura hominis. Traduction ~e ~u~~di~ de Pise, eds. G. Verbeke and J.R. Moncho [Leiden: RJ. Brill, 1975], pp. 92-4); Neme-SIUS , dIstInctIOn was for its part a development of Aristotle's thought in Mc. Ethics. Bk. II, ch. 7 (11 08a). Albert also appropriates this distinction in De hom. qq. 66-7. 36. For support, cf. S. Pinckaers, "Les passions et la morale," p. 383; P. Michaud-Quantin, La psych%gje de /'activite, pp. 83-4; and L. Mauro, "Umanitti" fje/la passione, p. 76, n. 2. 37. STI. qq. 80-81; I-II. q. 17, a. 7; qq. 22-48; q. 50, a. 3; q. 56, a. 4; q. 59, ... 1-5; q. 60, aa. 2 and 4-5; q. 74, aa, 3-4; g, 77, aa. 1-8; g, 78, a. 4; q. 82, a. 3; and g. 89, a. 5. These works are with the number of~mes they are cited in parenthesis: Nicomachean Ethics (161); Rhetoric (93); M;taphYSics (27); De amma (22); Physics (18); Politics (11); Problems (9) (this work is of probable pseudo-Aristotelian aut~orship); Topics (6); Perye,:",enias (3); De caelo (2)jPraedic (2)jHistory ofAnima/s (2); De generatlOne (1); Movement ofAmmals (1); Departibus animal (1); De memoria et remin. (1); and Meteor%gy (1). These numbers have been tallied through my own perusal of the Prima Pars and Prim~ Secundae Pw,s. For a more detailed analysis of which books of Aristotle figure into Thomas' teachtng on the paSSIOns, cf. L. Mauro, "Umanita" della passione, pp. 21-5. 38. Thus, M. Meier, Die Lehre des Thomas von Aquino, p. 7; L. Mauro, "Umanita" della passione,
p. 27, who also singles out the influence of Augustine; and J.P. Reid, "St Thomas's Sources," pp.
ing on human passion, viz., to Nemesius ofEmesa and John Damascene Albert the Great Augustine, and Lombard (via his remarks on sensuality as well as his disdussion on Christ'~ human affectivity in the Sentences}.39 That Aristotle should be discounted as the main source for Thomas' doctrine on the passions follows from the simple fact that the Greek philosopher nowhere offers a systematic analysis of the passions. Instead, the Stagirite advances what M. Jordan calls- '·'innumerable details and applicable maxims" but nothing systematic or defmitive as to the nature of the passions.40 For example, Aristotle's best attempt at defining passion-"all those feelings that so change men as to affect their judgments"41-hardly rivals that offered by John Damascene and Nemesius of Emesa-"passion is a m.ove~ent of the sensitive appetitive faculty in response to the perception of something good or bad"42-which will serve as the definition used by Aquinas and, before him, by Alexander of Hales and Albert the Great" The primary loci for Aristotle's thought on human affectivity are, as indicated by Thomas' citations, the Nicomachean Ethics (especially Bk. 11, cbs. 5-6; Bk. 1lI, chs. 6-7; Bk.IV, chs. 5-6; andBk. VII, chs. 3-10) and the Rhetoric (especially Bk. II, chs. 2~14).ln the Ethics Aristotle offers passing comments on the-passions inasmuch as they relate to moral virtue (especially continence in Bk. VII) and to pleaure. In the Rhetoric the Stagirite
146-8. R.-A. Gauthier ('.'Introduction" to Thomae Aqu., Sent. Lib. De anima &p. Lib. Posteriorum, vol. 1*2 [Rome: Lepnine·ed., 1989], ch. 3: "Les sources," pp. 43-71, at 55) also suggests as much when he insists that without William ofMoerbeke's translation ofAristotle's Rhetoric. Thomas might never have composed the treatise on the passions in the Summa ("saint Thomas n'aurait pas ecrit [the treatise oil the passions] sans Guillaume de Moerbeke''). 39. Cf. M. Jordan, "Aquinas's Construction ofa Moral Account of the Passions," pp. 75-6; and G. Lafont, Structures et methode, pp. 194-6. For more on the difficulties in pinpointing the sources of Thomas' thought on the passions, cf. T. Centi, "Valore del trattato tomistico sulle passioni," Sapienza 13 (1961), pp. 395-410, at 399-401. Lombard's remarks on sensuality are found in II Sent. d. 24, chs.4-13 (ed. ColI. Bonav., vol. I, pp. 453-60). 40. M. Jordan, "Aquinai's Constuction,"pp. 75-8. Cf. as well W.W. Fortenbaugh,Aristot/eonEmolion: A Co.ntribution to Phil~ophical Psychology, Rhetoric, Poetics. Politics. and Ethics (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1975). . 41. Rhetoric, Bk. II, ch. 1 (1378a20-21); cf. as well Nic. Ethics, Bk. II, ch. 5 (l105'b21-23): "By pasSIons 1 mean appetite, ange~, fear, confidence, envy, joy, love, hatred,longing, emulation, pity, and in general the feelings that are accompanied by pleasure or pain." 42. Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. n, ch. 22 (ed. Buytaert,p. 132), and Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 15 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, p. 93): "passio est molUs appetitivae virtutis sensibilis in apparitione boni et mali. 43. STI-II, q. 22, a. 3, sed contra; Alexander ofRales, III Sent. d. 15, n. 11 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 154); and Albert, De incarn.• tr. 6, q. I, a. I, argo 1-2 (ed. Colon., p. 219). Thomas does cite Aristotle's definition of passian once in STI-n, q. 23, a. 3. but only in relation to anger. U
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develops particular points of interest on the passions if only because the rhetorician must
come to tenns with the affective dispositions of his audience in order to deliver convincing argument (Bk.ll of the Rhetoric is written expressly for "putting one's audience in the right frame ofmind").44 R.-A. Gauthier has noted the debt that Thomas' treatise on the passions owes to William ofMoerbeke for his having translated Aristotle's Rhetoric. 4S
Despite these deficiencies, however, a perusal of the various maxims, explanations, and developed points concerning the passions that occur throughout Aristotle's entire writings may give way to an understanding of human affectivity that could, with a fair amount of original accretions, serve as the foundation fpr a more exhaustive account of the passions. Not only did Thomas succeed in doing, this;but so too before him did Nemesius ofEmesa
Aristotle's only other significant treatment of human passion comes in the De anima, yet even here he touches on the maUer only as an expedient way of illustrating the hylemorphic dimension or psychosomatic WIity of human nature.46 After this, the De anima
of these latter figures" would in fact leave a deep impression on Aquinas, as shall be exam-
adds nothing to the subject, save only to acknowledge briefly the appetitive quality of sensate life, whereby Aristotle qualifies passion as a species of the genus appetite. 47 For a work devoted to a study of the soul, the omission ofa detailed analysis of the passions represents a· curious drawback, even if the De anima professes to examine only the "essential nature" and "properties" (or powers) of the soul rather than so much the soul's operations, which would include the passions.48
and John Damascene (and to a lesser extent Albert the Great); the Aristotelian psychologies ined shortly. Hence, though it moves far beyond that of "the Philosopher," Aquinas' theory of human passion remains inspired by and faithfully grounded in the thought of Aristotle. 3. Aquinas' Transformation ofAristotle's VIew on the
Role ofPassion in the Moral Life Before leaving Aristotle's influence on Thomas' account of human affectivity aside, one point merits final conuilent, viz., the way in which Aquinas succeeds in adapting AristotIe's view on the role of passion in the moral life to fit his own proper theological understand-
ing of the 44. Aristotle, Rhetoric, Bk. II, ch. 1 (l377b23-24). In Rhetoric, Bk. II, chs. 2-11,Aristotle considers the following specific passions: anger (ch. 2); calmness (ch. 3); feelings offiiendship, including
hate (ch. 4); fear (ch. 5); shame (ch. 6); kindness (ch. 7); compassion (ch. 8); indignation (ch. 9); envy .(ch. 10); and emulation (ch. 11). As J.P. Reid ("St. Thomas's Sources,",p. 148) notes, these passions "are defined and discussed from three points of view: (a)'the states of mind in which they are felt; (b)
the people towards whom they are felt; and (c) the grOlmds on which they are felt" Aquinas will draw on these chapters when addressing the passions of the irascible appetite in STI-II, qq. 40-48. 45. R.-A Gauthier, "Les sources" (in "Introduction" to Thomae Aqu., Sent. Lib. De anima Exp. Lib. Posteriorum), p. 55*: "n'y a peut-etre dans ia-Somme de theologie un traite que saint Thomas n'aurait pas ecrit sans Guillaume de Moerbeke: c'est Ie traite des passions da la Iallae q. 22-48, qui doit sans doute Ie developpement qu'i1 a pris ala Rheorique d'Aristote traduite par Guillaume." As noted above, this claim is most certainly exaggerated, even if it succeeds in illustrating the importance of William's translation in the fonnulation of Thomas' doctrine on the passions. 46. Aristotle, De anima. Bk. I, ch. 1 (403a4-403b4). 47. Aristotle, De anima, Bk.lI, ch. 3 (414bl-5); "If any order ofliving things has the sensory, it must also have the appetitive; for appetite is the genus of which desire, passion, and wish are the species; now all animals have one sense at least, viz. touch, and whatever has a sense has the capacity for pleasure and pain and therefore has pleasant and painful objects present to it, and wherever these are present, there is desire, for desire is appetition ofwhat is pleasant." These remarks from the De anima figure principally in Thomas' analysis of the sensitive appetite in STL qq. 80-81. c£ as well De anima, Bk. III,
ch. 10.
48. Cf. Aristotle, De anima, Bk. I, ch. 1 (402a7-8); and J.P. Reid, "St Thomas's Sources," p. 147. Because the De anima lacks a systematic study on the passions, most of the medieval commentaries on the De anima contain little or nothing by way of comment on human affect For more on these commentaries, cf. R.-A. Gauthier, "Introduction" to_ Thomae Aqu., Sent. Lib. De Anima, vol. 45, I (Rome: Leonine ed., 1984), ch. 4: "Les sources du commentaire," pp. 235*-73*.
human teleological pursuit of happiness. Aristotle's ultimate goal in the Ethics
of course is to offer a comprehensive analysis of human happiness. Essential for the attainment of happiness for the Stagirite is moral virtue, which itself requires movements of passion for its proper exercise; as he writes in the Nicomachean Ethics, "moral virtue .. .is concerned with passions and actions."49 Happiness must therefore go through-not around, apart, or in abstraction from-human passion . Aristotle's position in other words avoids the two extremes of, on the one hand, the Stoics, who refuse to give passion a role to play in human happiness, and, on the other, the Epicureans, who identify human happiness with sensible pleasure. Plato also ascribes a minor role to the passions in the attainment of happiness, though he hints at the opposite as we11.50
Though rejecting an identification of human happiness with sensible pleasure as such, Aristotle yet does not desist from affinning that movements of sensitive affectivity, the passions, play an indispensable and integral role in the pursuit of happiness.
With the tools of a scholastic Christian theologian at his disposal, Aquinas upgrades Aristotle's position bY,P0rtending that the passions, because they represent an authentic
49. Nic. Ethics. Bk. II, ch. 6 (1106bI5-16).
50. StilI, Augustine situates the Platonists closer to Aristotle than to the Stoics on the issue of the morality of the passions; cf. De civ. Dei, Bk. IX, ch. 4 (CCSL 47, p. 251).
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means to happiness, are necessary for the exercise of moral virtue; the passions must de facto serve the true teleological end of human life: eternal happiness or beatitude. More than a simple upgrade, however, such a transposition involves a radical transformation in the 00derstanding of the role of human affectivity in the moral life, since it means the passions playa role in the exercise of the theological virtues, in the enjoyment of the gifts of the Holy
Spirit, and in the life of grace. 51 And, to return to the subject of this study, it is the affective example of Christ especially that unequivocally confmns aud demonstrates how the passions share in these dimeJ;1Sions of the Christian moral life. and how the attainment of eternal happiness can only go through-not,around, apart, or in abstraction from-human affectivity. Though originating with the moral vision of Aristotle, such a view of the role
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on hwnan passion: the De natura hominis (llepi rpva8ruc; av8pru1rov) of Nemes ius, Bishop ofEmesa in Syria, written between 390-400 A.D.53 Damascene's dependence upon Nemesius' De natura hominis is so extensive that the scholar P.B. Kotter has identified seventy passages in the De fide orthodoxa in which Damascene's remarks concerning psychology and anthropology can ·be traced to Nemesius.54 Although the De natura hominis was known to and cited by the medieval Scholastics, including Aquinas, it was attrihl-!-ted by the me-
dievals to Gregory of Nyssa, probably because of its resemblance to the title and anthropological content of Gregory's work De opijicio hominis, which was written shortly beforehand in 379.55 The medievals confounded Nemesius with a certain Remigius as well, as one finds in the case of Aquinas, Alexander of Hales, and Albert.56
of passion in the moral life would require the Christocentric acumen of Aquinas to reach this stage of elucidation.
C.
JOHN DAMASCENE AND NEMESIUS OF EMESA
The enonnous influence of Damascene's Christology on Aquinas' account of Christ's passions has earlier been noted, yet the impact of Damascene's psychological anthropology on Thomas was no less great.52 In the Summa~ treatise on the passions, the Defide orthodoxa emerges as the fowth-most cited source, with thirty-five such references, behind only Aristotle, Scripture, and Augustine. Further, it was seen how Damascene's method of of-
fering an anthropological analysis of human affectivity, followed by its application to Jesus' passions, represented Aquinas' main source of inspiration for doing the same in his treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars and in his treatise on Christ's passions in Tertia. q. IS. Unlike his tract on Christ's passions, however, Damascene's anthropological study on human affectivity does not issue from an original composition; here Damascene relies almost exclusively on one work in particular, appropriating for the most part its remarks
51. For support, cf. G. Lafont, Structures et methode, p. 216; J.-P Torrell, Maitre spirituel, pp. 3579; and idem, "La philosophie morale de saint Thomas d' Aquin," in Dictionnaire d'ethique et de phiosophie morale, ed. M. Canto-Sperber (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1996), pp. 151723. Cf. as well W.B. Monahan, The Psychology ofSt. Thomas Aquinas and Divine Revelation (Worcester-London: E. Baylis & Son, Ltd., 1935). 52. Cf. O. Lottin, Psychologie et morale aw: XIII! et XIII! siecles. ProbIemes de psychologie, vol. I, 2nd ed. (Gembloux, Belgium: J. Duculot, 1957), pp. 414-23; and M.-D. Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, .p: 114. In his otherwise splendid overview of the impact ofDamascene's psy-
chology on 12th- and 13th-c~tury thought as a whole, Lottin (ibid. pp. 394-424) unfortunately fails to mclude Damascene's teachmg on the passions.
53. The De natura hominis offers the following analysis of the passions (ed. VerbekeMoncho, pp. 92-126; this work provides the critical edition of the Latin text known to Aquinas): "On the irrational part of the soul, also known as the concupiscible powers" (ch. 15: De irrationali animae parte vel specie quae et passiva et concupiscitiva vocatur),' "On desire" (ch. 16: De desiderativo); "On pleasure" (ch. 17: De'voluptatibus); "On sorrow" (ch. 18: De triStitia); "On anger" (ch. 19: De irq.); "On fear" (ch. 20: De limore),' "On the irrational part of the soul that does not obey reason" (ch. 21 :De. irrationali parte animae quae non oboedit rationi),' and the following two chapters in which the moralty of the passions is briefly considered: "On involuntary acts·that are due to ignorance" (ch. 30: De involuntario quod est propter ignorantiam); and "On voluntary acts" (ch. 31: De voluntario). Compare this to Damascene, De fide fir/h.. Bk. n (ed. Buytaert, pp. 119-47): "On joy" (ch. 13); "On sorrow" (ch. 14); "On fear" (ch. 15); "On anger" (ch. 16); "On passion and operation" (ch. 22); and "On voluntary and involuntary acts" (ch. 24). Datpascene's psychological anthropology was also influenced by Maximus the Confessor's De anima,' cf. R-A. Gauthier, "Saint Maxime Ie Confesseur et la psychologie de l'acte hurnam," RTAM21 (1954), pp. 51-100; and G. Lafont, Structures et methode, pp. 194-6. For the dating of the De natura hominis, cf. G. Verbeke, "Avant-propos," in ibid., p. V; and W. Telfer, Cyril ofJerusalem and Nemesius 0/Emesa, "Library of Christian Classics 4" (philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1955), p. 206. The critical edition of the original Greek text of the De natura hGminis is edited by M. Morani. Nemesii emesen; De natura hominis (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1987). 54. P.B. Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, vol. 2, p. XXIX. 55. Cf. G. Verbeke, "Avant-propos," in Nemesius d'Emese, p. V; W.W.Jager, 1\vo Rediscovered Works' ofAncient Christ(an'Literature: Gregory ofNyssa and Macarius (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1954), p. 26; and J. Quasten, Patrology, vol. 3 (Westminster, MD: Newmann Press, 1960), p. 354. Cf. as well M. Morani, La tradizione manoscrilta del "De natura hominis" di Nemesio (Milan: Vita e Pensiero,
1981). 56. In IIISent. d. IS, q. 2, a'. I, sol. 2, Thomas attributes the definition of passion-"motus anime per suspicionem boni vel mali "--to the unknoWn author Remigius. The same occurs in Alexander of Hales (III Sent, d. IS, n. 11. and. 32 red. Quaracchi, pp. 154 and 161]; Qu. disp. 'ante. essetfrater', q. 16, disp. II, memo I, n. 2 Quaracchi, p. 225]; and Summa theol. (Summa hal.), Bk. III, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo 1, argo 2 [ed:Quaracchi, vol. 4, p. 58]); and Albert (De incarn., tr. 6, q. 1, a. I, argo 2 red. Colon., p. 219]). A. Schneider identifies this Remigius with Remigius of Auxerre (t908); cf. Die PsychologieAlberts des Gropen. Nach dem Quellen dargestellt von Arthur Schneider; "BGPTM 4/5-6" (MUnster: Aschendorff; 1903-6), pp. 366-72, and 534. I. Brady ("Remigius-Nemesius," FS 8 [1948], pp. 275":84) however o~ers compelling evidence to show that Remigius is none other than
red.
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Nemesius' De natura hominis represents the flrst truly anthropological work authored
by a Christian, and in tenus of subject matter and written scope one may classifY it as the first genuine anthropological work in the absolute sense of the tenn.S? With respect to human affectivity, the De natura hominis contains the first true treatise on the passionS, as indicated by the following chapter titles from the work: "On the passions or concupiscible powers," "On desire," "On pleasure," "On sorrow," "On anger," "On fear," etc,58 A strictly anthropological treatise, the De natura hominis does not contain a subsequent application of its analysis of human affectivity to Christ's passions, a step that would have to wait Wltil Damascene's De fide orthodoxa four hundred years later. Still, Nemesius adopts a thoroughly theological approach to the passions, whereby the natural and supernatural elements of human passion are seen as harmoniously integrated, a perspective that will cohere nicely with Aquinas' approach.59 Furthermore, the De natura hominis is the first Christian work to betray a heavy influ~ ence of the philosophical psychology of Aristotle. Though strongly iudebted iu other respects Platonic thought, to Galen, and even to Stoicism, as well as to Origen and others, Nemes,lus turns almost exclusively to Aristotle as the key source in the fonnulation of his teaching on human affectivity.60 This Aristotelianism, in addition to the Bishop ofEmesa's view that all aspects of human nature, including the passions, are expressive of God's will in creation, account for Nemesius' positive appraisal of human affectivity.61 Little wonder,
then, that Aquinas firidsgreat appeal in Nemesius, as evidenced by the sixty~seven times Thomas cites the De natura hominis in the Summa, either explicitly, or implicitly via Dain~ ascene, of which sixty passages come in the Prima Secundae Pars alone.62 Thomas also detects the' connection between Damascene's thought and Nemesius': in the De veritate he acknowledges that the two employ the "same language" (idem verbum) with respect to human passion, and iu the Summa's remarks on human affectivity he explicitly links the two (Damascenus et Gregorius Nissenus [= Nemesius]) on eight occasions. 63 Because he is the proper source of Damascene's anthropology of human affectivity, it is Nemesius, through his De natura hominis and through his influence upon the De fide orthodoxa, whq exerts the greater influence on Thomas' theory of the passions. Aquinas owes a great deal to the thought of Nemesius, who does much to drive Aristotle's basic insights on human affectivity forward in unprecedented ways, thereby ranking the De natura ho~ minis near the top with respect to the sources of Thomas ' doctrine on human passion.
:0
Nemesius of Emesa. which the definition of passion given by Thomas, Alexander of Hales, and AI· bert clearly supports. Aquinas in fact appears to have suspected this, since in all the passages after the Sentences in which he offers the definition of passion, never again does the name "Remigius" appear. 57. (Dept rpvaBm, av8pm7Cov) e iI primo trattato di antropologia scritto da un cristiano e proba~ bilmente la prima antropologia in senso assoiuto, organicamente concepita e redatta, di cui si abbia conoscenza." A. Siclari, L 'antropologia di Nemesio di Emesa (padua: La Garangola, 1974) p. 7. For agreement, cf. B. Domanski, Die Psychologie des Nemesius, "BGPTM 311" (MUnster: Aschendorff,
1973), p. XVI. 58. De natura hominis, chs. 15-1 (ed. Verbeke~Moncho, pp. 92-104). For an analysis of Nemesius' teaching on the passions, cf. A. Siciarl, L 'antropoiogia di Nemesio di Emesa, pp. 183-99; and B. Do. manski, Die Psychologie des Nemesius, pp. 114-20. 59. For more on this aspect of Nemesius' anthropology, cf. M.-D. Chenu, La theologie au douz. ieme siecie, p. 280. 60. Cf. G. Verbeke and J.R. Moncho, "L'anthropologie de Nemesius," in Nemesius dEmese, p. LXXIX. For more on the Aristotelianism of Nemesius' psychology, cf. E. Amann, "Nemesius d'Emese," DTC 11,1 (1931), cols. 62-7, at 64; E. Dobler, Nemesius von Emesa unddiepsychologie des menschlichen Actes bei Thomas von Aquin (S. Th. la·llae, qq. 6-17): eine quellenanalytlsche Studie (Werthenstein [Lucerne], Switz.~ Verlag "Sendbote der Heiligen FamiHe/' 1950), p. 23; and M. Jordan, "Aquinas's Construction," p. 78. 61. For more on this, cf. A. SicJari,L'antropologia di Nemesio di Emesa, pp. 181-9.
D_ ALBERT THE GREAT
The Christological impact ofAlbert on Thomas' theology of Christ's passions was earlier noted, yet Albert's influence on the psychological writings of his fonner student does not eud there, siuce aU of Albert's works continued to make an impression upon the younger Dominican throughout the latter's entire writing career.64 One can locate Albert's writings on human affectivity priucipaUy iu the De bono and the De homine, both of which were written by 1246, the year that Thomas arrived in Paris to begin his philosophical and
62. Cf. E. Dobler, Nemesius von Emesa, chart on pp. 15-7; and O. Lottin, Psychologie et morale,
vol. I, pp. 421-2. 63. De ver., q. 26, a. 3 ad 10: "Damascenus enim et Gregor;us Nyssenus idem verbumproponens, loquunturdepassione corporali. .. Cf. STI. q. 81. a. 2, sed contra; I-U, q. 31, a. 3; q. 35, a. 8, argo I, and sed c,ontra; q. 37. a. 2;sed contra; q. 41, a. 4, sed contra; q. 46, a. 3, argo 3; and q. 46, a. 8, sed contra; and M. Jordan, "AquinaS's Construction," p.?? It is with Nemesius and Damascene in mind that G. Lafont (Structures et methode, pp. 195-6) writes: "saint Thomas a eu en mains une sorte de compendium de l'anthropologie chretienne des Grecs et que c'est ~n reflechissant sur ces donnees qu'it a progressivement bati sa propre construction." For a detailed analysis ofthe reliance ofAquinas' an· thropological psychology on both Nemesius and Damascene, cf. E. Dobler, Zwei syrische Quellen der theologischen Summa des Thomas von Aquin. Nemesios von Emesa und Johannes von' Damaskus. 1hr Einfluss aufdie anthropologischen Grundlagen der Mora/theologie (S. Th. I~n, qq. 6-17; 22-48)
(S.T.D. Diss., University ofFribourg, Switz., 2000). 64. Cf. J A. Weisheipl, Thomas d'Aquino and Albert His Teacher (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980), p. 13; and G. Emery. La IHnite creatrice, pp.29-30.
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theological studies there. 65 Albert offers scattered comments on the passions in various
other works as well: the Quaestio de sensualitate et eius motibus, also completed by 1246;66 the Super ethica, which contains a brief analysis of the morality of the passions, including a special emphasis on anger, and which was written no later than 1252;67 the Super Dionyslum De divinis nominibus, which, completed about 1250, offers a brief remark on the morality of the passions;68 and the De mottbus animalium. 69 Of these works, the De bono deserves special mention, as it contains the first scholastic attempt at what one may call a treatise on the passions, with one quaestio, entitled De passionibus, consecrating seven articles to the matter: "What is passion" Ca. 1: Quid sit passio); "How the passions are divided" Ca. 2: Quat sint genera passionum); "What the essence or definition of pleasure is" Ca. 3: Quid sit voluptas substantia vel diffinitione),' "Whether simple pleasure pertains more to sense desire or more to reason" Ca. 4: Utrum simplicius deleetatur sensibilis in desiderata suo vel rationalis in suo),' "Of what causes the passions that involve suffering to arise" Ca. 5: De passionibus ilIatis, quibus eausis inferantur); "Whether we merit good or evil by our passions" Ca. 6: Utrum passiones meruimus aliquo nostro merito bono vel malo); and "Whether we merit by the passions that involve suffering" Ca. 7: Utrumpassionibus ilIatis meremur).70 The influence of this short treatise on Thomas is evident in the De veritate, where Aquinas seems to model his discussion on the
morality of the passions after the structure of this quaestio from the De bono. 71 To be sure, Albert's pioneering achievements in the area of human affectivity inspired P. Michaud-
Quantin to claim that Albert holds the honor of"being the fiIstto open the field [of the passions] to western theological speculation and to make an attempt at its systematic exploration."72.!J'hough·Albert's initiating efforts in this respect remain but a faint foreshadowing of what his own Dominican disciple would accomplish in the-Prima Secundae Pars of the Summa, the inestimable influence of the fonner on the latter should not go unappreciated. In tenns of sources, Albert, like Aquinas after him, turns primarily to Aristotle and especially to Nemesius ofEmesa and John Damascene, going 50 far in the De bono as to single out by name "Gregorius Nissenus [= Nemesius] et Iohannes Damascenus" as the sources primarily responsible for the fonnulation of his thought on the passions.73 Such a confession indicates that Albert had no small role to play in transmitting to Aquinas the reliance upon the thought of Nemesius and Damascene that Thomas' writings on human affectivity so visibly demonstrate. Of further service to Aquinas was Albert's goal, inherited from Neme-
sius, of faithfully aligning his psychology with that of Aristotle, which led the elder Dominican to gather for the first time into a working whole many of the scattered and
piecemeal remarks of the Stagirite on human affectivity.74 Though Albert, unlike Thomas, integrates Platonic elements into his account of the passions, which leads to a more nega-
tive regard for the concupiscible passions (which have been especially tinged by sin), his 65. Cf. P. Simon, "Albert derGro~e," TRE 2 (1978), pp. 177-84, at 179; J.A. Weisheipl, "The Life and Works," pp. .22-3; J.-P. Torrell, The Person, pp. 19-24; and Albert, De bono, tr. 3, q. 5, aa. 1-4 (ed. Colon. [Miinster: Aschendorff, 19511, vol. 28, pp. 195-210); and De homme. qq. 66.9, the critical edition of which (ed. CoI9n., vol. 27, 2) was kindly provided to me by the editors H. Anzulewicz and I. SOder before its publication in 2002. For a detailed analysis of Albert's thought on human affectivity, cf. P. Michaud-Quantin, Lapsychologle de /'activlte, pp. 91-113 (here Michaud-Quantin updates his previous study on the matter, "Le traite des passions chez Albert Ie Grand," RTAM 17 [19501, pp. 90-120); G. Reilly, The Psychology a/Saint Albert. pp. 59-72 (although Reilly's glaring omission is his failure to include the De bono in his study); A. Schneider, Die Psychologle Alberts des Gropen; and O. Lottin, Psychologle et morale aux XIr et }{Jr siecies. Problemes de morale, pt I, vol. 2 (Oembloux, Belgium:]. Duculot, 1948), pp. 572-8. 66. Cf. W. Kobel and H. Anzulewicz, "Prolegomena" to Albert. Quaestio de sensualitate et eius motibus, ed. Colon., vol. 25,2 (Munster: Aschendorff, 1993), p. xxxvm. Aquinas']] Sent, d. 24, q. 2 is modelled after this Quaestio. 67. Albert, Super Ethica: Commentum et quaestiones, Bk. I1I,lect. 1 and 3 (ed. Colon., vol. 14,1 [Munster: Aschendorff, 1968], pp. 137-53). For the dating of the Super ethica, cf. W. Kubel, "Prolegomena" to ibid.• p. VI; P. Simon, "Albert der Grope," p. 179; and J.A. Weisheipl, 'The Life and Works," pp. 29-30. 68. Albert, Super Dian.. ch. 4 (ed. Colon., vol. 37,1 [Munster: Aschendorff, 19721, pp. 279-80). For the dati1Ig oftbis work, cf. P. Simon, ''Prolegomena'' to ibid.. p. VI. 69. Albert, De mot. animal, Bk. I, tr. 2, ch. 4. 70. Albert, De bono, tr. 3, q. 5, aa. 1-7 (ed. Colon., pp. 195-216).
overall predominant Aristotelian approach to the matter would leave a deep impression upon Aquinas. 7S
71. De ver., q. 26, aa. 2-7. For a detailed analysis of this connection, cf. M. Jordan, "Aquinas's Construction," pp. 85-6. Cf. as well L. Mauro, "Umanitd" della passione, pp. 40-2. 72. P. Michaud-Quantin, l:-apsychologie de l'activiti, p. 113: "Albert n'en a pas moins eu Ie mente d'etre Ie premier aouvrir ce champ ala specUlation tbeologique occidentale et afaire un effort en vue de son exploration systematique." 73. Albert, De bono, tr. 3 .. q. S, pro!. (ed. Colon., p. 195): "videtur utile determinare de passionibus, praecipue quia sancti. scilicet Gregorius NlSsenus et Iohannes Damascenus, determinant de i//is. P. Micbaud-Quantin (La psychOlogie de /'activite, pp. 98-13) notes that Albert actually turns to Nemesius more than Damascene in his treatise on the passions. cf. as well M. Jordan, "Aquinas's Construction,"p.77. 74. Cf. Albert, De homine, q. 6; P. Michaud-Quantin, La psychologie de I 'activite. pp. 77R I 01; and G. ReiIly, The Psychologyo/Saint Albert, pp. 10-8. Cf. as well A. de Libera, Albert Ie Grand et la philosophie (paris: J. Vrin, 1990); and O. Meyer andA. Zimmermann, eds.AlbertusMagnus, Doctor universa/is 1280/1980 (Mainz, Matthias-Griinewald-Verlag, 1980). 75. Cf. Albert, De bono, tr.3, q. 5, a. 2 ad 11 (cd. Colon., p. 203); and De homine, q. 66, a. 3. For more on the Platonism of Albert's psychology, cf. P. Michaud-Quantin, La Psychologie de I 'ativite. pp. 81-7;G. Reilly, The Psychology ofSaint Albert, p. 14; and M.R Pagnoni-Sturlese, "A propos du neoplatonisme'd'Albert Ie Grand," Archives de philosophie 43 (1980), pp. 635-54.
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An example of this Aristotelian approach adoptad by Albert and appropriated by Aquinas is seen in their mutual conviction that psychology must be groWlded in a sound metaphysics. Following strictly the methodology of the Stagirite's De anima, the two Dominicans insist that the field of psychology-the "study of the soul"-must begin with a regard for the essence of the soul and from there proceed to examine the soul's powers and ultimately the soul's operations, where one at last locates the passions. 76 A s~tisfactory account of the passions, which both define as movements or operations of the sensitive appetite, can only follow upon a finnly established ontological understanding of the human soul. Given his intense personal interests in biology and zoology, Albert finds appeal in the physiological aspects of the passions. The singular interests of the mentor were not wasted on the astute student, however, as Thomas will greatly develop his master's teaching that the passions' involve bodily changes into a cornerstone element of the Thomistic doctrine on the passions. n With this in mind, it can be seen how Aquinas' celebrated hylemorphism owes much to Albert, who for his part insists upon a real union between body and soul, and with it the essential psychosomatic interplay characterizing all movements of affectivity.18 Offurther debt to Albert's thought is Aquinas' take on the morality of the passions. Beginning with the conviction that in themselves the passions are morally neutral, Albert insists that what makes the passions commendable or blameworthy is how the human agent, endowed with reason and free will, acts on them, a view that will mark the heart of Thomas' own.position. 19 This Aristotelian-inspired assessment leads the senior Dominican to advance the notion that the affective dimension of human life represents an essential component in the moral teleological pursuit of happiness. so For Albert, as for Aquinas after him,
76. Cf. G. Reilly, The Psychology ojSaintAlbert, pp. ix and 10. 77. Cf. Albert, De mot. animal, Bk. I, tr. 2, ch. 4; and De incarn., tr. 6, q. 1, a. 1 ad 1; and a. 2 (ed. Colon., pp. 220--1); cf. as well G. Reilly, The Psychology ofSaint Albert, pp. 59-60. For Thomas, cf. STI-II, q. 22, a. 3. 78. Cf. Albert, De hom., q. 4; and Summa theologiae, parsII, tr. 12, qq. 69 and 77. For more onAlbert's hylemorphism, cf. A. Schneider, Die Psychologie Alberts des Grofien, p. 27; and Maurice de Wulf, History ofMedieval Philosophy (London: Longmans, 1926), vol. I, p.403. 79. Cf.Albert, De bono. tr.l, q. 5, a. I ad 4 (cd. Colon., p. 74); and Super Ethica. Bk.lII, lect. I (cd. Colon., p. 137). For the equivalent in Aquinas, cf. STI-II, q. 24, a. 1. Cf. as well P. Michaud-Quantin,La psychologle de l'activite, pp. 94-5. 80. Cf. Albert, Super Dionys., ch. 4 (ed. Colon., pp. 279-80); cf. as well O. Lottin, Psychologie et morale, vol. 2, p. 573.
human happiness, understood in its strict theological sense, must go through-not around, apart, or in abstraction from-the passions.
E. AUGUSTINE Augustine represents the last major source in the fonnulation ofThomas 'thought On human affectivity.s1 In the treatise on the passions in the Summa, Au~stine is cited no less than ninety-nine times, making him the third-most cited source after Aristotle and Scripture, .and of these citations thirty percent come from the De civitate Dei, which places this work on a par with the Defide orthodoxa of Damascene (which is cited thirty-five times in the treatise). The predominant role ofAugustine in general and of the De civitate Dei in particular in the treatise on the passions is of course commensurate with the otherwise weighty impact that the De civitate Dei exerts on Aquinas' account of Christ's passions in the Tertia Pars.
As indicated earlier, Augustine's remarks on Christ's passions in the De civitate Dei arise in response to the dispute, incited by the Stoics, over the general role of hum3:D- passion in the moral life; Augustine, the master polemicist, holds up the affective example of Christ as the ultimate retort to the Stoics (the Latin Father does the same in a tractate on John's Gospel, which Aquinas reproduces in the Catena aurea). proving the necessaryand potentially healthy-role of affectivity in the earthly lives of the "citizens of the holy City of God."" In this way, Christ's affective moral exemplarity marks the pinnacle ofAugustine's long discourse on the morality of-the passions, a discourse that stretches from Bk. IX, cbs. 4-5 tq Bk. XIV, cbs. 5-14." Consequently, although other works from the Bishop of Hippo are cited by Thomas, especially the De Trinitate, it is the De civitate Dei that most influences Aquinas' thoughts on human passion, particularly Books IX and XIV. M. Jordan in fact sees the De civitate Dei as providing Thomas with the essential material from which the Master from Aquino
as
81. For more on Augustine a source for Thomas' theory on the passions, cf. L. Mauro, "Umanita" della passione, pp. 12-9. 82. Augustine, De civ. Dei. Bk. XN, ch. 9 (CCSL 48, p. 426). In his 1Joact. in loh. LX. n. 3 (CCSL 36, p. 479), on Jn 13:21. in which Jesus is troubled in spirit over his impending betrayal, Augustine writes: "May the arguments of the philosophers [i.e., the Stoics] perish, who deny that disturbances of the soul befall the wise man" (pereant argumenta philosophorum. qui nega(lt in sapientem cadere perturbationes animorum). Aquinas cites this passage in Catena aurea in loan., on Jn 13:21. 83. CCSL47, pp. 251-4, and CCSL48, pp. 421-38.
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draws his teaching on the role of the passions in the moral life, more so than from Albert, Aristotle, or Nemesius and Damascene. 84 The evidence for this stems from the datum that Books IX and XIV of the De
F. OTHERS
1. Marginal Sources Aquinas draws upon other sources in his treatise on the passions in the Summa, yet in a dis~ 'tinctly marginal manner. These include patristic sources (pseudo-Dionysius especially, but also Gregory the Great, Ambrose, Jerome, and John Chrysostom), philosophical sources (Boethius, Avicenna, Cicero, and Plato), and even literary sources (Virgil), as well as the Dominican Breviary.87 Even if marginally accomplished, however, the synthesis of these
84. "It is only when he has the Augustinian texts that Thomas is able to construct the question about the morality of the passions in an illuminating historical perspective." M. Jordan, "Aquinas's Con~ stniction," p. 79. For agreement, cf. L. Mauro, "Umanita, " della passione, p. 14. 85. De ver., q. 26, a. 8 ad 2 and ad 9; a. 9 ad 5; SententiaLibri Ethkorum, Bk. I,lect. 16; STI-II, q. 24, a. 2; q. 39, a. 2; q. 59, a. 2; etc. 86. Still, D. ChardQnnens (L 'homme SOlIS Ie regard de la providence. Providence de Dieu et condi~ tion humaine selon I' Exposition litterale sur Ie livre de Job de Thomas d' Aquin [paris: J. Vrin, 1997), p. 192) holds that Albert's doctrine on the passions in the De bono depends heavily on Augustine's De civ. Dei without explicitly mentioning it. 87. L. Mauro ("Umanita" della passione, pp. 26-7) offers a more detailed analysis of the role of Gregory the Great's Moralia in lob and Regu/a pastora/is in Thomas' doctrine: on the passions.
sources in the treatise on the passions indicates the workings of an expansive and eclectic yet no less coherent and cogent mind, since all these sources played a role, no matter how minimal, in the formulation of Thomas' doctrine on the passions.88 Such a feat, which knows no historical parallel, stands as a tribute to the ability ofAquinas to produce an ordered and lucid account of1jwnan passion that betrays as much the ingenuity and originality of its author as the complexity of the source material from which it is drawn. Another marginal source that merits notice is the Hepi 1!a()wv, a work penned by an unknown author of the 3rd or 2nd century B.C. that many (including Thomas Aquinas) mistakenly attributed to Andronicus of Rhodes, the 1st-century B.C. leader of the Peripatetic school of Athens; the identification of the author of the lI~pi 'R:a()wv with Andronicus is manifestly false because of the predominantly Stoic, rather than Aristotelian, inspiration of this work.89 The interest that the lIepi 'R:a(){f)v, the Latin translation ofwhich was made available by Robert Grossteste (tI253), carries for Aquinas resides in the fact that it offers a section on the passionslDe affectibus) and another on the virtues and vices (De virtutibus et vitiis), the latter of which cOhtains Aristotelian elements, thereby explaining the mistaken opinion that Andronicus of Rhodes hed authored the /lepi mewv. Because the section on the passions (i5e affectibus), which offers a catalogue and definition of the passions followed by an analysis of those passions that confonn to reason, remains thoroughly Stoic in outlook (due in large part to its dependence upon Chrysippus, the so-called second founder of Stoicism), Thomas categorically ignores this work when discussing the passions themselves; however, because the section on the virtues and vices (De virtutibus et vitiis) integrates Aristotelian principles in its summary of the relationship between affectivity and moral action, Aquinas betrays a readiness to cite this work in his own moral writings. 9O Still, the fact that the ''pseudo-Andronicus'' author of the De virtutibus et vitiis, no matter his use of Aristotle, remains a devoted Stoic indicates the underlying influence of Stoicism on
88. Cf. A.-D. Serlillanges, S. Thomas d·Aquin. vol. 2, p. 204. 89. For the critical edition of this work, edited by A. Glibert-Thirry, cf. Pseudo-Andronicus de Rhodes "lIEP! IlABDN". EditioJl critique du texte grec et de la traduction latine medievale (Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1977); for the identity of the author, cf. ibid.. pp. 304. 90. Cf. A. Glibert-Thirry, ed.,Pseudo·Andronicus de Rhodes "/lEPI /lAeQN". pp. 1-29; on pp. 357-8, Glibert-Thiny supplies a chart listing all the passages where Thomas cites the nfpi ITal:lwv, all of which can be located either in III Sent, d. 33, q. 3, or in the commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Sent. Libri EthiC.), or,·finally, in the Secunda Secundae Pars of the Summa (cr., e.g., ST 11-11, q. 129, a. S, sed contra). .
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Thomas' doctrine on human affectivity, despite the Dominican's outspoken censure of the Stoic disdain for the moral quality of the passions. Briefmention should also be made ofAlexander of Hales' attempt to offer a treatise on human affectivity in his Summa theologiae, a treatise that examines the notion of "sensuality" (De sensualitate) and which appears in the midst of a quaestio entitled De vi sensibili.91 The treatise is composed of four articles: A. 1: "Whether sensuality belongs to the sensitive part or the rational part" (Utrum sensualitas sit partis sensibilis aut radona/is); A. 2: "To which kind of stimulus belongs sensuality" (In quo genere motivae sensualitas); A. 3: "Whether sensuality is identical to the inferior part of reason" (Utrum sensualitas sit idem quod inferior portio rationis) ; and A. 4: "Whether sin is in sensuality or not" (Utrum in sensualitate sit peccatum vel non). Since the anthropology of Alexander's Summa thealagiae had a clearly discernible impact on certain elements of Thomas' Christological psychology, particularly in the discussion on Jesus' temptations, as we shall later see, one can suppose that Aquinas did not ignore this work's analysis of sensuality, and that it influenced Thomas' own views on human affectivity.92 2. Peter Lombard and the IfAffective Spark to Sin" (fomes peccati)
Though not explicitly cited in Thomas' moral account of the passions. Peter Lombard represents an important background player in that account, since the Bishop of Paris provides the Sentence commentators of the 13th century, including Aquinas, with a perspicacious take on the insidious role ofhwnan affectivity in the moral life. More precisely, in the discussion on the effects of original sin in Book Two of the Sentences, and particularly on concupiscence, Lombard makes use of the important term/omes peccati, or what one might call the "affective spark to sin," a tenn with a long 12th-century history that goes back to at least William ofChampeaux (t1l21) and which Lombard for his part retains without reservation. !))
The notion of/omes peccati essentially refers to the inherent proclivity of the sensitive appetite to illicit goods, or to a kind of affective ignition switch (fomes means "spark") that places the lower appetitive powers on a constant "state of alert," always ready to be prodded,at an instant's notice to lunge after some object of sense desire irrespective of the commands of reason. 94 Closely related to the notion of concupiscence. the James peccati is seen by Lombard to follow necessarily upon original sin; it therefore ch~cterizes the affective life of all those born into original sin. After appropriating the tennfomes peccati from Lombard, Aquinas makes it entirely his own by giving it a Christological twist and including it in his account of Christ's passions. Historically, Thomas is. the first to make significant use ofthe/omes peccati in relation to Christ (which Lombard does not do in his query on Christ's sensuality in III Sentences, distinction 17), though the idea is present in the unidentified Magister Willennus of the early 13th century, as well as in Alexander of Hales, Albert, and Bonaventure.!)S Despite going further than his predecessors on the matter, however, Thomas was initially reluctant to give the/ames peccati a vital part to play in his Christology, since he ascribes the notion a minor role at best in the discussion on Christ's passions in the Sentences, in the De
the term/omes peccati (though Lattin never explicitly rules out a longer tradition behind the term), defining it, in what will become classic, as: "lnnatus est iIIe /omes peccati et carnalis ilia infirmitas qua omnis homo pronior est ad peccandum" (ibid., p. 22). After William of Champeaux, the term is also employed by Hugh of Amiens in his Quaestiones theologicae, written between 1123-30; by Robert Pullus, professor at Paris in 1142, in his Sententiarum libri octo,' and by a work dependent upon the Summa sententiarum;··written before 1138. 94. It is difficult to offer a precise English rendering of the Latin term/omes. which literally translates as that which feeds a fire, or as kind of kindling or sparlc; cf. R. Deferrari, A Latin-English Dictionary oj St. Thomas Aquinas (Boston: St Paul Editions, 1960), p. 408. In brief, the/omes peccati refers to the initial feeding or inducement of the sensitive appetite in its inclination to an unlawful object; it is ~e affective simmerin~ "coal" waiting to spark the sensitive appetite into a fully flaming sinful movement of appetition. Hence, my own translation as "the affective spark to sin." 95. The Magister Willermus offers a brief query on "Utrum Christus assumpserit /omitem et ignorantia".! "; te_xt in W. Principe "Quaestiones Concerning Christ IT," p. 33, §§ 1-2. Alexander ofRales (Qu. disp. 'ante. essetfrater, 'q. 16, disp. 3, memo 3, n. 73 [ed. Quaracchi, p. 259]) writes in reference to Christ's assumed defects: "non enim/uit/omes in sensualitate vel stimulus in came. "For his part, Albert (Ill Sent, d. 17, a.4) affmns the absence ofthe/omes in Christ when he explains: "sicut est in
a
91. Cf. Alexander ofRales, Summa theologiae (Summa halensis), Pars I. Bk. II, inq. 4, tr. 1, sect 2, q. 2, ch. 2, aa. 1-4 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 440-4). Cf. as well Alexander's analysis of the passibility of soul of the flTSt man in the state of innocence in Summa theol, Pars I, Bk. II, inq. 4, tr. 3, q. 1, cbs. 15 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 631-45). For O. Lottin's extensive historical analysis of the notion of sensuality, which he calls the "first movements of the sensitive appetite," from Lombard to Aquinas, cf. his Psych%gie et morale, vol. 2, pp. 493-589. 92. In an electronic communication to me dated August 18, 1998, J.-P. Torrell confirms that Thomas "knew quite well and used" the Summa theologiae ofAlexander of Hales. 93. Cf. Peter Lombard, II Sent. cf. 30, cbs. 8-9 (ed. Coil. Bonav., vol. I, pp. 499--501). For an overview of the 12th-century development of this term, cf. O. Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux XW etXl//~ s;ec/es. Problemes de morale: Pt. 3, vol. 4 (Gembloux, Belgium: 1. Duculot, 1954), pp.22-74. According to Lottin, William ofChampeaux's Liber pancrisis is the first 12th-century work to use
nobis in quibus va/untas in/romitatis carnalis eorifortatur exfomite. et quandoque ex re/iquiis peecatornm: in Christo autem non fuil taUs con/ortatio. "The same goes for Bonaventure in III Sent, d. 15. a. I, q. 2, sed contra 3 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 332): "/omes et pronitas ad malum non est culpa, quia potest esse in nobis, omni culpa deieta,',sed Christus ta/em defectum nee habuit nee habere potui!, quia non potuit peccare."
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veritate, and in the Compendium the%giae. 96 His earlier inhibitions evaporate in the Summa, though, as Thomas wastes little time in exploiting the full Christological use of the term in Tertia, q. 15, where he devotes the entire second article to the question, "Whether there was the affective spark to sin in Christ" (Utrum in Christofueritfomes peccati). 3. Excluded Sources
Brief mention should also go to those various sources excluded by Thomas in his doctrine on the passions, with the most notable being Bonaventure. Part of the reason for the omis-
sion of Bonaventure stems from the fact that, outside the analysis of Christ's passions, the Franciscan rarely discusses the subject of human passion.,}1 The other reason would be the differences, sometimes substantial, in psychological anthropology between Thomas and Bonaventure; though Bonaventure's psychology refers at times to Aristotle (whom he also denotes as "the Philosopher"), its predominant Augustinian flair leads Bonaventure down a path at times quite distinct from that of Aquinas.98 Evidence for this is found, for example, in Bonaventure's equivocal attribution of both sensitive and intellectual appetitive movements to the intellectual side of the sou1.99 Thomas, by contrast, insists upon a clear distinction between the intellectual appetite-the will-and the sensitive appetite, which is . further divided into concupiscible and irascible parts and from which arise the movements of passion. 100 A deticient Aristotelianism probably also explains why Thomas rejects as a source for his teaching on the passions the Cistercian work De spiritu et anima, written sometime after
96. The first time Thomas employsfomes peccati in a Christological context is in III Sent, d. 17, a. 1, sol. 2 ad 4: "quantum ad curruptionem fomitis, que in Christo non foil. "The next occurrence appears in De ver., q. 26, a. 8, argo 8; and then again in Compo theo!.. ch.224: "rebellio vel inobedientia inferiorum virium ad rationem, que dicitur fomes peccati; qui in Christo nullatenusfuit. "
97. Nonetheless, for an examination of Bonaventure's view on human affectivity in general, cf. E. Dreyer, "Affectus in St. Bonaventure's Theology," FS 42 (1982), pp. 5-20. 98. Cf. C. O'Donnell, The Psychology ofSt. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas: A Dissertation (Washington, D.C.:. Catholic University ofAmerica Press. 1937). pp. 10-3; E. Lutz. Die Psychologie Bonaventuras nach den Que/len dargesteltt (Munster: Aschendorff, 1908); and E. Gilson, The Philosophy ofSt. Bonaventure. 99. "Per intellectivam autem discernit per rationalem, malum repellit per irascibilem, bonum appetit per concupiscibilem. "Bonaventure, Brevil., pt. 2, ch. 9 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 227). For an analysis of this, cf. C. O'Donnell, The Psychology ofSt. Bonaventure, pp. 50-3. 100. STI, q. 80, a. 2; and q. 81, a. 2. For an analysis of the differences between Thomas and Bonaventure on how the powers of the soul are distinguished from the sou1-itself. cf. C. O'Donnell, The Psychowgy of St. Bonaventure, pp. 55-60. For an example of a point of contact between the two, cf. Bonaventure's Aristotelian division of the soul into vegitative. sensitive, and intellectual parts in II Sent, d. 24, pt. I, a. 2, q. 3 (ed. Quatacchi, p. 566).
1170 and which contains an analysis of human passion. 101 Because of the pseudo-Augustinian authorship of the De spiritu et anima, this work enjoyed considerable popularity among various authors of the late-12th and early-13th centuries, among them Alexander of Hales, John of La Rochelle, and Vmcent ofBeauvais. I02 The popularity run's out on Aquinas, however, who, following Albert (and Bonaventure), rejects. first, its alleged Augustinian authorship, and, second and more importantly, its psychological anthropology, except where it strictly coheres with Aristotelian thought. 103 M. Jordan identifies other excluded sources from Thomas' account of the passions, such
as the pastoral manuals and pedagogical writings of Humbert of Roman, Vincent of Beauvais, and Raymond ofPeiiafort. I04 Aquinas rejects th~e sources in constructing his writings on the passions because their pastoral character does not help to advance 'his speculative brand of morality, including the role of human affectivity in the moral life. 105
101. The text oftbe De spiritu et anima is found in PL 40, 779-832 under the name ot Augustine. An English translation of thIs text is supplied by E. Leiva and W. Ward in Three Treatises on Man: A Cistercian Anthropology, ed. B. McGinn (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1977). pp. 179288. For an overview of tJte authorship and the dating of the De spiritu et anima, cfr. B. McGinn, ibid., pp. 63-74, esp. 67; and L. Norpoth, Der pseudl-augus tinische Traktat; De spiritu et anima, Diss. Munich. 1924 (Cologne-Bochum: C.E. Kohlhauer. 1971). 102. Cf. B. McGinn. Three Treatises on Man, pp. 68-72, where McGinn explains how this work was attributed at v8!ious tlmes to many author.s, notably Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugh of St. Victor, Isaac of Stella, and William of St. Thierry, but its association with Augustine was the one that predomi- . nated because of the extensive Augustinian ~xts it compiles. For reference to this work in Alexander ofHaIes, cf. Summa theol. (Summa halensis), Pars I, Bk. II, inq. 4, tract. I, sect. 2, q. 2, tit. 2, memo 1 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 439); for Jolm of La Rochelle. cf. Tract. de divis. multo potent. animae, Pt. 2, L (ed. P. Michaud-Quantin [Paris: J. Vrin, 1964], p. 127); and for Vincent of Beanvais, cf. Speculum naturale, Bk. 27, ch. 74 (Graz. Austria: Akademische Druck-u. Verlangsanstalt, 1964, col. 1969). Cf. M. Jordan, "Aquinas's Construction," pp. 80-1. 103. IV Sent, d. 44, q. 3, a, 3, sol. 2 ad 1; De spir. creat., a. 3; STI, q. 77, a. 8 ad I; q. 79, a. 8 ad 1; a. lOad I; and q. 82, a. 5 ad 2. For Albert, I Sent, d. 8, a. 25 ad 2; and Bonaventure, II Sent, d. 24, pars I, a. 2, q. 1 ad 1 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 561). Cf. as well G. Thery, "L'authenticite du De spiritu el anima dans S. Thomas etAlbert Ie Grand," RSPTIO (1921). pp. 373-7, at 374-5; B. McGinn. Three lliatises on Man, p. 72; and C; O'Donnell, The Psychology ofSt. Bonaventure, p. 55. 104. Humbert of Roman, De erod.praed., pt. I, ch. 5, and pt. 6. chs. 25-7, in Opera de vita regulari. ed. 1.J. Bertbier, vol. 2 (Turin and Ro~e: Marietti, 1956), pp. 389-443; Vmcent of Beauvais, De erod. fllior. nobi/, chs. 31 and 36 (ed. A. Steiner [Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1938]); Raymond ofPefiafort, Summa de cas, in Opera omnia, ed. J. Rius y Serra (Barcelona: University of Barcelona, 1945). Cf.. M. Jordan, "Aquinas's Construction," pp. 81-3. 105. For more on Thomas' purposeful speculative alternative to the pastoral writings of his fellow Dominicans, cf. L. Boyle, The Setting ofthe 'Summa theologiae, 'pp. 2-20.
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G. RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION
Convinced that theology must by its very nature employ sound philosophical principles, Aquinas employs an Aristotelian·inspired anthropology of human passion as providing the proper foundation for his analysis of Christ's passions. Though the Dominican theologian expresses his thought on human passion in several of his writings, it is his treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars, the largest treatise of the entire Summa theo!ogiae, that commands attention. Here the maturity, depth, and systematic quality of Thomas' thought on the matter come to the fore, as human affectivity represents a matter of great per~ sonal interest to Aquinas. Because of the lack of sufficiently detailed existing material on the passions, Thomas depends· in many ways on his own insights and observations in the composition of this treatise. It is this independence oftbought and acute interest in the issue of human affectivity that allows for a contribution of comparable originality and singular quality in the arena of Christ's passions. Furthermore, the strategic placement of ~e treatise on' the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars ofllie Summa indicates where Thomas stands on the integral role of affectivity in the moral life: by inserting the treatise inunediately after considerations on hwnan happiness and the moral quality ofhwnan acts, Aquinas shows that to understand properly human passion one must see it as a necessary first step in the acquisition of human happiness and as a direct correlation to the notion of moral virtue. For all its originality, however, Thomas' teaching on the passions draws equally from a vast array of sources, since'part of the accomplishment afthis teaching is that historically it organizes into a comprehensive and systematic whole what had previously remained a mass of mostly piecemeal Of limited reflection on human passion. The principal sources whose thought on hwnan affectivity most infiuencedAquinas 'were: first, John Damascene's De./ide orthodoxa and Nemesius ofEmesa'sDe natura hominis, with the treatise on the passions of the latter being largely appropriated by the former, and with the De fide orthodoxa's first·stage analysis of human passion followed by its second·stage application to Christ's passions inspiring Aquinas to do the same in the Summa; second, the tracts on human passion in the works of Albert the Great, particularly the De bono and De homine,· third; Augustine's writings, especially the De civitate Dei, with its extensive moral treatise on the passions contra the Stoic contempt for emotion; and, fourth, Aristotle's works, notably, the Nicomachean Ethics, the RhetOriC, and, to a lesser extent, the De anima. Though Aristotle advances no systematic analysis of the passions, issuing instead passing applicable comments and maxims, the Stagirite's thought on the topic, no matter its rudimentary state, fonus the essential nucleus of the positions of Nemesius, Damascene, Albert, and even Augustine, who for his part sides with the Peripatetic view on the morality of the passions. Aristotle's psychology is therefore the conunon thread linking all of Aquinas' main
sources together. Thomas' teaching on the passions draws upon nwnerous other sources as well, mostly patristic but also philosophical and medieval, proving that what finally emerges as the treatise on Christ's passions in the Summa represents as much the accomplishment of original thought as a synthesis of extensive research, influence, and inspiration from a wealth of diverse works~
CHAPTER 3
THE FOUNDATIONAL CHRISTOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF AQUINAS' THEOLOGY OF CHRIST'S PASSIONS
Aquinas' theology of Christ's hwnan affectivity results from the givens of revealed faith, disclosed both through Scripture and through Church tradition, since Christology is but one aspect of the science of theology, a science that for Aquinas moves within the framework of the articles of faith.' Because Thomas views theology as depending upon God's revelatory initiative, an initiative received in the obscurity of fai'Ql, his discussion on ·Christ's passions retains little sense if one remains outside the perimeters of the faith, or at least what Thomas considers to demarcate the perimeters of the faith. To engage properly the thought of Aquinas on the theology of Christ's human affectivity, it is imperative to conceive of things
from God's perspective.. With this in mind, we· turn to a consideration of the Christological principles that Aquinas accepts as ensuing upon revealed faith, principles that provide the essential backdrop for his theological reffections on Jesus' human affectivity. Though one could list more, we shall give consideration to Aquinas' emplo~ent of the following five principles: (I) the hypostatic union and the corresponding dignity this confers upon Christ's humanity; (2) the fullness and integrity of Christ's human nature; (3) Christ's total and absolute sinlessness; (4) Christ's assumed defects and perfections as determined by what may be called the principle of economy (or the principle of the economy of saivation); and (5) the "fittingness" of the human weaknesses assumed by Christ. Though they shall receive an abbreviated treatment only, these five pivotal tenets warrant attention on the grounds that they are so fully operative throughout the whole of Thomas' reflections on Christ's passions.
A. THE HyPOSTATIC UNION AND THE DIVINE DIGNITY OF CHRIST The most foundational element 10 Thomas' whole Chrislology, including his theology of Christ's passions, is his commitment to the doctrine of the hypostatic union, i.e., to the two natures ofehrist, human and divine, subsisting in the one·divine Person of the Word: The union of the human nature with the divine was effected in the Person, in the hypostasis, in the suppositum, yet observing the distinction of natures, so that it is the same Person and hypostasis of the divine and human natures, while each nature retains what is proper 10 it2
1. Cf. STI, q. I, a. 8; and III, q. I, a. 3. For more on this aspect ofAquinas' thought, cf. M.-D. Chenu, La the%gle comme science au X/P sleele. pp. 92-9; J.-P. Torrell, La the /ogie catholique, "Que saisje? 1269" (paris: Presses Univeisitaires de France, 1994), pp. 56-60; idem,'The Person, pp. 156 and 265-6; and Y. Congar, "Theologie," DTC 15,1 (1946), cols. 451-62. 2. STIlI, q. 46, a. 12: "unlo humanae naturae et divinaefacta est in persona, et hypostasi, et supposito, manente tamen dlstinctlone naturarum, ut scilicet sit eadem persona, et hypostasis divinae et humanae naturae, salva tamen u.triusque naturae proprietate. "Cf. as well STIlI, q. 2, aa. 1-3, and
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Christ is one divine Person united to two distinct natures: human and divine. Christ owns a unity of being along with a dnality in essence or nature.' Set forth by the Council ofChalcedoD in 451, this doctrine was tenaciously adhered to by Thomas throughout his entire writing career. 4 Reminiscent of John Damascene, the implications that Aquinas' belief in the hyposta~ tic union bear on his account of Christ's human affectivity are paramount: because Christ's human nature is hypostatically united to the divine Person of the Word, all aspects ofJesus' humanity should never be dissociated from the divine being of the Word.s The Person of the
Word confers a divine dignity upon all Christ's human actions, including his passions, since these actions are attributed to the Person of the Word, the subject of these actions.6 Thomas, in fact, explicitly affirms that, given the communication that occurs between the two natures in Christ via the union in Person, Christ's human nature serves as "the instrument of the divine action," and that Jesus' "human action receives power from the divine nature."7 Developing the thought of Aquinas, H.-M. Diepen captures this point well with his succinct
assertion: "[Christ's] humanity is assumed into the integrity of the divine Person. The human existence [ofChri,t] is integrated into the divine being.'" Simply put, the hypostatic union places the human Christ in an entirely unique class, to which no pure human being can belong. Christ's dignity as the divine Person of the Word
endows his humanity with a corresponding divine dignity, and all elements of Thomas' Christology should be seen as an attempt to buttress this view of Christ's human·nature as one adorned with the dignity of a divine Person. Such a view no doubt accounts for hesitancies on the Dominican theologian's part to drive his analysis of Christ's passions deeper at certain points (hesitancies that shall be examined later in this study), yet it is a view that
must be carefully retained if one is to grasp adeqnately the thought of Aquinas on Jesus' human affectivity9 Thomas' Christologynever loses sight of the fact that, no matter the
question of the quality of Christ's humanness, what one is ultimately probing is the mystery of a divine Being united to a human nature; the metaphysical subject of Christ is first and last the divine Person of the Word: According to the truth of the Catholic faith, Christ had a true body of the same ~a ture as ours, a true rational soul, and, together with these, perfect deity. These three . substances are united in the one Person .... 10 If Christ's divine dignity as. the Incarnate Word places him in a unique "human" class, such a dignity should however not be seen, so far as Aquinas is concerned,_as a contamination
of his full human consubstantiality. For Thomas, the divine dignity of the God-man does not 6. For a sound analysis of the hypostatic union in Thomas, cf. M.-Y. Leroy, "L'union selon l'hypostase d'apres S. Thomas d'Aquin," RT 4 (1974). pp. 205; 43; and J.-H. Nicolas, Synthese dogmatique. De Ja ninite ala ninite (Fribourg, Switz.: Editions Universitaires, 1985), pp. 301-58. 3. Cf. H.-M, Diepen,La theologle de {'Emmanuel. Les lignes maitresses d'une christologie (Bruges: DescU:e de Brouwer, 1960), pp. 112-3, Cf. as well J.~J. Latour, "Imago Dei lnvisibilis. Esquisses sur les relations de l'anthropologie chretienne de la psychologie du Christ," in Probiemes actuels de christologle, eds. H. Bouesse and J.-J. Latour (paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1965), pp. 227--64; F. Ruella, La christologie de Thomas d'Aquin (paris: Beauchesne, 1987), pp, 64-129; and O. Pesch, Thomas von Aquin, pp. 334-5. 4. Cf. J.A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino. pp. 76 and 164-8; I. Backes, Die Christologle des hi. Thomas von Aquin, pp. 29-30. 5. "Pour Ie Docteur angC&lique, c'est a partir de cette vision de la nature [human] subsistant dans la Personne du Verbe qu'it faut envisager toute la qualification concrete qu'eIle possede." G. Lafont, Structures et methode, pp. 351-5, at 355. For Damascene, cf. Deflde orth., Bk. III, ch. 21 (ed. Buytaert, p. 261). 6. Cf. Aquinas, De rationibusfidei, ch. 6; H.-M. Diepen, La thealogie de l'Emmanuel, pp. 43-7; and M. Nedoncelle. "Moi du Christ et moi des hommes ala lumiete de la reciprocite des consciences," in Problemes actuels de christologle, pp. 201-26. 7. STIlI, q. 43, a. 2: "humana natura est instrumentum divinae actionis, et actio humana virtutem accipit a natura divina." Aquinas grounds his thought here in Leo the Great's Tomus ad Flavianum (OS 294; DEC, p. 79). Cf. as well ST Ill, q. 16, a. 4; aod q. 19, 1.
a.
tum Christ into some. kind of "super"-man or Monophysitic, monstrous mutant; rather, it
renders him a perfect man, a model for all to imitate through the help of his grace. It is, in other words, Christ's divine dignity that accounts for his supreme human dignity. Christ's hwnanity and divinity naturally complement each other in the thought ofAquinas, with the result that Jesus represents our human nature deified, by which reason he possesses all the perfections and realizations ~at all humans are meant to possess.
8. H.~M. Diepen, La thea/ogie de I 'Emmanuel, p. 114: "L'humanite est assumee a l'integrite de la Personne divine. L'existence humaine est inregree al'etre divin." 9. Cf. STIlI, q. 2, a. 10 ad 1. G. Lafont (Structures et methode, pp. 355-9) affinns that this manner by which Thomas gives pride of place to the hypostatic union in the discussion on Christ's humanity "est reellement propre a saint Thomas," 10. Compo theol., ch. 209: "in Christo secundum veritatem Catholicae fideifuit verum corpus nostrae naturae, vera anima rationalis, et simul cum hoc perfecta dei/as. Hae autem Ires substantiae in unam personam conveniunt ... .,
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There is then a circularity, so distinctive ofAquinas' theology in general, at work above all his Christoiogy.ll In the circular vision at play here, all elements of Jesus' humanity point, in the first upward movement, to the personal hypostasis of the Word, and then, in the second downward movement, back onto Christ's human condition, whereby the God-man's humanity emerges as the supreme realization of what it means to be a human being.12 The union of natures in the Person of the Word allows Christ in his humanity to stand for everything that each human being is called to be. The point to be underlined in these short remarks on the divine dignity conferred upon Christ's humanity by virtue of the union in the Word is that if one looks upon Christ only as a man, or if one reads Aquinas from a purely "low Christological" perspective, Thomas' theology of Christ's human affectivity will remain hopelessly obscure. To borrow the notable distinction of J. Maxitain, which faithfully captures this feature ofSt.Thomas' thought, although a verns homo, Christ is not apurns homo. 13 This true-but-not-purely-human Christ leads Aquinas on one' occasion expressly to qualify the "good theologian" (bonus theologus) as the one who confesses a faith in both Christ's humanity and his divinity. i4 Thomas would by all indications classify himself as this "good theologian," since he never allows his introspections into Christ's humanity to obfuscate the ultimate identity of the human
Christ in question, who is none other than the divine Person of the Word. The good theologian, modeled after· the example of Aquinas, must always seek to hannonize both aspects of Christ's character, so as' to prevent the focus on one aspect from diminishing the importance of the other. Sound Christology requires a careful balancing act B.
THE FULLINTEGRITY OF THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST
For all of the singular dignity conferred upon Christ's humanity by virtue of his being the divine Person of the Word, a true and full man he remains in Aquinas' eyes, as union in the Word in no sense changes the constitution of Jesus' .humanity. Jesus is not a "half-God, half-man" creature; he is fullY God llllilJully man. This full manhood of Christ Thomas at all times stannchly affirms, and, indeed, no scholar who knows the thought of the Dominican Master well would dispute the fact that the humanity of Christ holds an absolutely central role in Thomas' theology. To repeat what was noted earlier in this study, Aquinas marks the zenith of a medieval trend that pushed for greater attention to be accorded to ~hrist's full humanity, of which Jesus' passions playa particularly crucial role. A brief examination of Aquinas' general position on Christ's full human consubstantiality will therefore· prove valuable for a study on his theology of Jesus' human affectivity, since it provides the fuller context in which this theology is situated. 1. A Matter ojFaith
11. I.-P. Torrell (The Person, pp. 150--6) quotes a passage from Compo /heol, ch.201 that confirms Christ's role in Thomas' circular theology in a most expressive way: ''The totality of God's work finds its culmination when man, the last to be created, returns by a sort of circular movement to his first beginning, when through the work of the Incarnation he finds himself united to the very principle of all things." (Perficitur etiam per hoc quodam modo to/ius operis divini universitas, dum homo, qui est ultimo creatus, circulo quodam in suum redit principium, ipsi rerum principio per opus incarnationis unitus.) Cf. as well III Sent, Prol.; d. 2, q. I, a. 1; CG II, ch, 46. The pivotal and crowning role of
If Aquinas learned of the definitive faith in the hypostatic nnion from the Christologicai councils, notably, Chalcedon, then no less did he learn of the decisive profession of Christ's full human consubstantiaiity from these same cOWlcils, notably, Ephesus (431), Chalcedon, Constantinople II (553), and Constantinople III (680-81)." The complete humanity ofthe Incarnate Word represents· for Aquinas no less a tenet of the faith than the divinity of Christ, or, as shall be seen shortly; the sinlessness of Christ.
Christ in the circular theology of Thomas is, of course, nothing new to those well acquainted with the thOUght of Aquinas; cf. M.-D. Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, pp. 313-5; O. Pesch, "Urn den Plan der Summa Theologiae des hI. Thomas von Aquin," in Thomas von Aquin, ed. K. Bernath (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1978), pp. 128ff; Max Seckler, Das Heil in der Geschichte: geschichtstheologisches Denken bei Thomas von Aqujn (Munich: Kosel-Verlag, 1964), p. 35; and J. Aertsen, ''The Circulation-Motive and Man in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas," in l'homme e/ son univers au moyen age, ed. C. Wenin (Louvain-Ia-Neuve, Belgium: Editions de l'Institut superieur de philosophie, 1986), vol. 1, pp. 432-9. Cf. as well A. Patfoort, "L'unite de la Ia Pars et Ie mouvement de la Somme tbCologique de S. Thomas d'Aquin," RSPT47 (1963), pp. 513-44. 12. For more on this, cf. H. Bou~sse, "De la causalitl: de l'humanitl: du Christo"~ inProbMmes actuels de christologie, pp. 147-77; and I.-I. Latour, "Imago Dei invisibilis, " pp. 227-64. 13. I. Maritain, On the Grace and Humanity ofJesus, trans.r.w. Evans (New York: Herder & Herder, 1969), p. 70. 14. Lect. super loan., ch. 20, lect. 6, cited in I.-P. Torrell, The Person, p.200.
15. Christ is declared to be "consubstantial [O/lOOVUIOV] with us as regards his humanity" by Ephesus (DEC, p. 70), Chalcedon (OS 301; DEC, p. 86), and Constantinople 11 and III (OS 430 and 554; DEC, pp. 118 and 127). Cbalcedon (OS 301; DEC, p. 86) and Constantinople III (OS 554; DEC. p. 127) add that Christ is "like us in-all things but sin" (cf. Heb 2:17;4:15). e.G. Geenen ('The Council of Chalcedon in the Theology of St. Thomas," p. 173) explains how the decrees of all the early Christologicai councils, Aquinas' knowledge of which was unparalleled for his time, acted as true "fonts of [Thomas'] theology, beCause for him these texts [ofthe cOWlciIs] contain, and reveal to him, the very principles of sacred doctrine." For agreement, cf. M. Morarel, ''Dne source de saint Thomas d'Aquin," pp. 36-54.
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2. Aquinas' Anti-Docetism: The Full Realism 0/ Christ's Human Nature
One of the manifest ways by which one can recognize Aquinas' resolute defense of Christ's full humanity is the manner in which Thomas' Christology is motivated by a pronounced anti-docetic spirit. Aquinas' anti-docetism can be gleaned from several aspects of his Christology: in the Tertia Pars of the Summa alone, for example, the word "flesh" (caro), a word with obvious anti-docetic overtones, appears in reference to Christ no less than two hundred twenty-eight times, as in the assertion, "Christ is man according to the flesh. "16 Further, in his query on Christ's assumption of a "trUe body" (verum corpus) in Tertia, q. 5, a 1, Aquinas explicitly denounces the view that holds to either an "illusory" (phantasticum) or an "imaginary" (imaginatum) take on Christ's body no less than six times. In Compendium theologiae, chs. 207-9, Thomas argues the same, insisting that a denial of Christ's true body: plainly contradicts sacred Scripture, which relates that Christ was born of the Virgin, that he was circumcised, hungry, that he ate, and that he had other experiences which en~e upon the nature of human flesh ... [A]ccording to the truth of the Catholic faith, Chnst had a true body of the same nature as ours .... 17
The Jesus of Thomas Aquinas is a man of true flesh and bone, not some angelic masquerader. . Anothe: evident way in which Aquinas advances his anti-docetic Christology is through hIS emphasIs upon what he calls "the truth of the human nature in Christ" (veritas humanae naturae in'Christo), or, related to it, "the truth of the Incarnation" (veritas incarnationis). Though Thom~ prefers the first phrase, which appears on eighteen occasions in III Sentences and in the Tertia Pars alone, he employs the second phrase nine times in his entire opera. 18 Thomas also speaks on several occasions of the "perfection of the human nature"
16. STIlI, q. 16, a. 2,.sed contra: "Christus secundum earnem est homo. "''The 228 occurrences of caro were verified by R. Busa, ed., Th. Aq. op. omnia cum hypo in CD-ROM For perhaps Thomas' stro~gest anti-doc.etic w~rds, in :which he condemns those who affirm an "imaginary flesh" (phantastlcam tantum) In Christ, cr. hIS commentary on 1n 1:14 in Leet. super loan., ch. I,Ieet. 7. Cf. as well G. Lafont, Structures et methode, pp. 349-58. 17. Comp. theol., cbs. 2.07 and 2.09: "haec autem positio manifeste sacre seripturae contradicit, q.uae Christum asserit ~e virgine natum, c;rcumeisum, esuriise, comedisse et alia pertulisse quae pertment ad humane corms naturam ... [I]n Christo secundum veritatem Catholicaeftdeifuit verum corpus nostrae naturae... ., For similar remarks, cf. Lect. super loan., ch. 2, lect. 1.
18. For verltas humanae naturae in Christo. cf. III Sent. d. 2. q. 2, a. I, sol. 3 ad 3 (2x); d. 3, q. 5, a. 2 ad I and ad 2; d. 17. a. 3, sol. 1; d. 21, q. 2, a. 4, qc. 4. argo 3; and d. 21, q. 2, a. 4, sol. 4; STill. q. 5, a. 1 ad 1. and a. 2; q. 15, a. 1 (3x), and a. 7 ad 2; q. 33, a. 1 ad 4; q. 35, a. I. argo 1; q. 54, a. 3 ad 3 (2x); and q. 55, a. 6 ad 2. For the expression veritas incarnationis, cf. III Sent, d. 21, q. 2, a. 4,
(perfectionis humanae naturae) in Christ, or simply Christ's ''perfect human nature" (humana natura peifecta}.19 Aquinas will also at times refer to "the integrity of our nature" (nostram naturam integram) that Christ assumed. 20 Essentially, through recourse to such tenns as the "truth," "perfection," and "integrity" of the human' nature assumed in the Incarnation, Aquinas underscores the ontological fact that Christ's humanity, if genuine and authentic, must be endowed with all that ensues upon the essential metaphysical cQmposition of any true human individual-"Christ assumed ,everything natural that follows' upon human nature," to quote a passage from III Sentences 21-such as a body and a soul, ,an intellect, a will, a sensitive appetite, etc. Thomas in other words draws out what Christian faith implies in its insistence upon the authenticity of Christ's incarnated human nature, as he reverts to tenns that prevent one from slipping, however inadvertently, into a semi-docetic indifference toward the ontological realism of the Incarnation; hence, the recur;ring theme in his writings of "the truth of the human nature in Christ," "the truth ofthe Incarnation," "the perfection of Christ's human nature," "the integrity of Christ's human nature," etc. The recurrence of such phrases sends an unmistakable message that should not be lost on the astute reader: the reality of the Inc~tion hinges upon the truth of the hmnannature in Christ. It should be noted by way of parenthetical comment that Aquinas' Christological use of such terms as "animal nature," as in Tertia, q. 18, a. 2, involves a quite different meaning from how they may sound to the modem ear. As S. Pinckaers observes, words like "animal nature" do not in Aquinas' mind carry the pejorative or negative sense that they would
qc. 4, sed contra 2; CG IV, c~s. 29, 34, and 55; Cat: aurea in Matt. on Mt. 14:14; Leet. super loan., ch. I,leet. 7; and STill, q., 5, aa; 3-4; q. 31, a. 4. 19. Combined the. two phrases occur a total of 19 times (cf. Th. Aq. Op. omnia cum hypo in CDROM): peifectionis humanae naturae in III Sent, d. 12, q. 3, a. I, sol. 1 ad 2; d. 17, a. 1, qc. 3, argo 1; d. 17, a. !, sol. 2 (2x); CG IV, clI. 36; STIlI, q. 1, a. 6, argo 2, corpus. and ad 2; q. 4, a. 2 ad 2; q. 9, a. 1, sed contra,' q; 18, a. 1; q. 18, a 3, argo 1;.De unione verb; incarnati, a. 6; and Cat. aurea in Marc .• on Mk: 7:33; and humana naturapeifecta inJII Sent, d. 14, a 3, sol. 2 ad 1; CG IV, cbs. 36 and 39; ST III, q. 18, a. 1; and Resp. ad leet. Bisuntinum, q. 4., One could also add bere Thomas' reference to the peifectione hominis in Christ in III Sent, d. 17, a. 1, sol. 1.
20. CUll Sent, d. 14, a. 1, qc. 2, sed. contra 1; d. 17, a. 1, soJ. 1; De ver.. q. 26, a. 10, argo 11; SermonAttendite, pt. 2; and STill, q. 9, al. 21. III Sent, d. 14, a. 3, qc. 3, sed contra I: 'Christus assumpsit omnia naturalia que consequuntur humanam naturam. "
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come to take on in the rationalism of the 17th century.22 A morally neutral reality, animal
nature for Thomas signifies, at least in a metaphysical sense, an expression of the goodness of God's creative will. When Aquinas refers to the "perfect animal nature" subsumed in the Incarnation (cr. Tertia, q. 18, a. 2), then, he does so in an objective fashion and in a way meant to uphold the full realism and integrity of Christ's humanness-indeed, the rich beauty and goodness of the Incarnation itself. Because a true human must for Aquinas be endowed with such things as sense knowl~ edge and sense appetite, it should come as no smprise that the issue of the "truth of human nature" (veritas humanae naturae) marks one of the major ontological motifs of Aquinas' theology of Christ's passions, a motif almost certainly inspired by Jolm Damascene and
The power of the Word made this [display of passion in Christ's lower powers] hap~ pen, so that the truth of human nature in all its parts might be clearly proved.... 2S After this, the motif surfaces again in Aquinas' commentary on John's Gospel (written between 1270-72, just before the Tertia Pars},26 in which Jesus' display of emotion at the news of Lazarus' death in In 11:33-35 evokes the following commentary from Thomas: Christ willed to be troubled and sorrowful to prove the condition and truth of his human nature.... The Lord willed to be troubled ... for the sake ofthe teachings of the faith, viz., to prove the truth of human nature. And so he acts on this occasion with the passions that pertain to all humans. 27
Peter Lombard.23 Thomas turns to this motif of the veritas humanae naturae to serve as the ontological basis for Jesus' human affectivity throughout his entire writing career, beginning with the commentary on the Sentences: It was necessary for Christ to become like his brethren in all things pertaining to their salvation. This involves the truth of human nature, viz., the essential aspects of that nature along with its natural properties and passions through which the work of redemption was to be accomplished. 24 The next time Thomas offers this motif is in the De veritate, where he attempts to explain why Christ's enjoyment of the beatific vision in the higher powers did not impede the simultaneous experience of pain and sorrow in the lower powers:
22. "The moral depreciation of animality came out of seventeenth-century rationalism, which separated pure thought from the body and sensibilities and gave rise to a certain contempt for the latter." S. Pinckaers, The Sources o/Christian Ethics, p. 437. 23. Damascene writes in the midst of his analysis of Christ's human affectivity in Defide-orth., Bk. III, ch. 25 (ed. Buytaert, p. 270): "the Lord assumed our nature and all our natural attributes, becoming in nature and truth man" (Dominus et naturam nostram et naturalia omnia assumpsit. natura et veritate factus homo). This becomes more explicit in Lombard, III Sent, d. IS, ch. 1 (ed. CoIl. Bonav., p.95): "Quos enim defectus habuit, vel ad ostensionem verae humanitatis: ut timorem et tristitiam ... ut passibilitatem et mortalitatem. "For similar remarks, cf. Alexander of Hales, III Sent, d. IS, n. 25 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 159); Albert,lII Sent, d. IS, a. 6; and Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 15, a. 1, qq. 1-2, and dub. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 331-41). 24. III Sent. d. 3, q. 5, a. 2 ad 1: "Christus Jratribus per omnia assimilari debuit que necessaria erant ad eorum reparation em. Huiusmodi autem sunt ea in quibus veritas humane nature consistit, scilicet partes essentiales eius et proprietates naturales et passiofles quibus opus redemptionis explendum erato ..
Finally, the motif of the veritas humanae naturae appears in the opening remarks on Christ's psychological weaknesses in Tertia, q. 15: "Christ assumed our defects ... in order to prove the truth of human nature."UI One can see then that the ontological necessity of affirming a whole and entirely intact human nature in the Incarnation-"in all its parts" (ad singulas partes eius), to use the wording of De veritate, q. 26, a. 100represents a matter of no small importance fot Aquinas, especially when the "part''- of Jesus' humanity at issue is his affectivity.
3. The Truth ofChrist's Human Nature (fin All Its Singular Parts": The Case of Christ's Male Sexuality One particularly palpable way in which Aquinas brings out the ontological force of the truth, perfection, and integrity of Christ's human nature, and along with it his resolute antidocetism, is by way of brief comment on one conspicuous "singular part" of Christ's humanity: his male sexuality. The text in question comes in Thomas' commentary on the Sentences, in which he talces up Lombard's discussion on whether, to quote Lombard, "God could have assumed a humap nature in the female sex" (si Deus potuit assumere hominem
25. De Ver., q. 26, a. 10: "virtute Yerbi id/aciente, ut comprobaretur veritas humanae naturae quantum ad singu/as partes eius." 26. For the dating of the Lectura super Ioannem, cf. 1.-P. Torren, The Person, p. 339. 27. Lect. super loan .• ch. II, lect. 5, and ch. 12.1ect. 5: "voluit enim Christus se turbare et tristari ad probandum conditionem et veritatem humanae naturae ... Dominus turbari voluit propter fidei documenta, ut scilicet veritatem humanae naturae approbaret: et ideo iam ad passionem approprinquans omnia humanitas agi!." One could also add here Thomas' statement in the Lectura super Mattheum, ch. 4, lect. 1: "Chr~tus esurire volu;t, ut suam humanitatem demonslraret. .. 28. STIlI, q. 15, a. 1: "Christus suscepit delectus nostros ut ... veritatem humanae naturae comprobaret. "
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muliebri}.29 In effect, Lombard revives a point initiated in Augustine's work De diversis Quaestionibus 83, where the Bishop of Hippo asserts that God became a male because this represents the "more honorable sex" (sexus honorabilior}.30 Whatever the particular import of this issue, our interest here lies not with Thomas'
opinion on this precise question, an opinion that betrays his medieval anthropology;31 rather, our concern centers on Thomas' initiative, unprecedented for his scholastic day, to take the occasion of this inquiry into the fittingness of Christ's male sex to add a query on a deeper Christo-ontological issue: whether Christ had to assunie any particular sex at all (utrum Christus debuerit sexum aliquem accipere).32 This query provides Aquinas with the opportunity to accentuate, in a context of obvious Christological sensitivity, a matter of no small significance to the Dominican theologian: the concrete or existential realism of the humanity of Christ, a realism that covers the affective dimension of Christ's humanity as well.
The question of whether Christ had to assume a particular sex touches the heart ofCluistian belief in the ontological basis of the Incarnation. It is one thing to affirm, in what essentially remains a rather abstract avowal, that God became man, quite another to draw out the singular or concrete implications of a God-become-fully-human, or to focus on what Aquinas again calls the "singular parts" (singulas partes) of the truth of Christ's human nature. For Aquinas, the stakes are high in considering whether the Incarnate Word had to assume a particular sex; either one replies in the afflrmative, or the bottom falls out on any kind of credible incarnated humanity:
Christ came to restore human nature by his very assumption; and for this reason it was necessary that he assume everything following upon human nature, namely, all
29. Lombard,III Sent, d. 12, ch. 4 (ed. Coll. Bonav., p. 83), along with Aquinas' commentary in III Sent, d. 12, q. 3, a. I, qc. 2. 30. Augustine, De div. Quaest. 83, q. II (CCSL 44A, p. 18). 31. In III Sent, d. 12, q. 3, a. I, sol. 2 (cr. STIlI, q. 31, a. 4 ad I), Aquinas argues that Christ fulfilled the roles of "doctor, master and protector of the human race" (doctor, rector, et propugnator humani generis), none of which are "appropriate for women" (que mulieri non competunt). In ad 1 of this solution, Thomas asserts that ''just as weak nature [= the female Eve] was at the origin of the ruin, so must strong nature [= the male Christ] be at the origin of the restoration" (sicut prineipium penlitionisfuit naturafragilior, itaprincipium reparadonis debet esse natura/ordor). InSTID, q. 31, a. 4 ad 1, Thomas, agreeing with Augustine, holds that the male Christ took on the ''nobler sex" (sexus maseulinus est nobilior). Albert (Ill Sent, 4 d. 12. a. 10; De Inearn., tr. 3, q. 2, a. 4 [ed. Colon., pp. 1989]) and Bonaventure (Ill Sent, d. 12, qq. 1-2 [ed. Quaracchi, pp. 270-3]) argue along the same lines. For more on Aquinas' view on the sexes, cf. O. Pesch, Thomas 'Von Aquin, pp. 208M27. cf. as well F. Ruello, La ehr;stologie de Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 154-5. 32. Aquinas, III Sent, d. 12, q. 3, a. I, qc. I.
the properties and parts of human nature, among which is sex; and therefore it was proper for him to assume a sex. 33 The sed contra and the answer to the second objection of this article extend the same line of reasoning: Christ had to be lIke his brethren in all things natural, as Heb 2: 17 says. Yet sex is natural to man. Therefore, he had to assume a sex ... [Christl assumed a sex not in order to use it but instead for the perfection ofnature.14 As these comments make plain, Aquinas, countering a fairly stalwart patristic and medieval voice that preferred to leave a perpetual stigma of sin attached to the notion of human sexuality, takes a candidly objective approach to the subject of human sexuality in general and of the sexuality of Christ in particular.3s Such an approach in fact receives its inspiration from Albert the oreat, whereby human sexuality is viewed as an expression of God's creative activity and, hence, as part of the "nature ofthings."36 Aquinas' appropriation of this anthropology explains why he insists that sin has no role to play in the original created order of the human race, including the sexual dimension of human nature: "It is c~ear that
33. III Sent, d. 12. q. 3. a. 1. sol. 1: "Christus venit ad reparandum humanam naturam, quam per assumptionem reparavit. Et id,eo oportuit quod quiequid per se eonsequitur ad humanam naturam assumeret, scilicet omnes proprietates et partes humane nature, inter quos est etiam sexus. Et ideo decuit quod sexum assumeret. " 34. III Sent, d. 12. q. 3. a. 1. sed contrq and sol. 1 ad 2: "Chrisms <debuitfratribus assimilari' quantum ad naturalia, ut dieitur Heb. II. Set sexus est de naturalibus hominis. ergo debuit sexum assumere ... [Njon assumpsit sexum ad usum set ad perfeetionem nature. " 35. 1\vo patristic figures w~ose views on the role of sexuality in human nature Aquinas reacts against in STI, q. 98. a. 2 are Gregory of Nyssa (De hominis opijicio 17 [PG 44. 189]) and John Chrysostom (In Genesim. hom. 16 [pO 53. 126]). S. Pinckaers (l'he Sources, p. 439) adds to this list the Augustinian tradition, represented (though Pinckaers does not mention him) by Alexander of Hales, who writes in response to the question ofwhether sexual intercourse in the state ofinnocence involved "intense pleasure" (utrum in statu innocentiafoisset intensa deleetatio in coitu): "there was at that time not as much intense pleasUre there is now, the manner of which does not so much observe the proper measure and order" (non esset tunc tallta deleetationis intensio quanta est nunc, cum modo tanta sit ut modum et onlinem debitum non observet); cf. Summa theol. (Summa halensis), Pars I, Bk. 11, inq. 4, tr. 3, q. 2, ch. 2 (00: Quaracchi. vol. 2, pp. 701-3). For Aquinas (STI. q. 98. a. 2 ad 3), the direct contrary is true: "the seq.se pleasure [afforded by sexual intercourse in the state of innocence] would have been the greater in proportion to the greater purity of nature and the greater sensibility of the body" (j'uisset enim tanto major deleetalio sensibilis, quanto essel purior natura, et corpus magis sensibile) . . 36. Cf. S. Pinckaers, The SourCes. pp. 438-40; cf. as wellA. Oi Marino, "La fondazione delle nonne etiche sessuali in San Tommaso d' Aquino," in Tommaso nel suo settimo eentenario: atti del Congresso Internazionale V: l'agire moraie (Naples: Edizioni Oomenicane Italiane. 1977), pp. 308-13.
as
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generation by sexual intercourse is natural to man by virtue of his animal life, which he
possessed before he sinned. "37 Such a view certainly accounts for the corresponding Christoiogical originality by which Thomas launches the foregoing discussion on the integral role of sexuality in the humanity of Christ. As illustrated by Thomas' comment, "generation by sexual intercourse is natural to man by virtue of his animal life," the principle issue at work in his sexual anthropology, and subsequently in his comments on Cluist's male seXUality, is what he understands as accruing to the "animal" side of human nature; as Thomas would later write in the Summa: "it was necessary for the Son of God to have assumed together with the human nature that which belongs to the perfection of animal nature."38 For the Dominican theologian, sexuality belongs to the ''perfection of[man's] animal nature" on account of the material body, which represents the animal side of humanity. In short, the human body, representative of human animality, gives rise to certain attributes, among which is the sexual differentiation between male and female; hwnan sex and gender ensues immediately upon the human body.39 For this reason, any true animal, and, hence, any true human being, must by nature of its body possess a particular sex and gender. The point to be underlined here is that maleness or femaleness belong to the essential bodily makeup ofthe concrete human indiVidual, i,e., to the material makeup of this man or of that woman, since the body distinguishes individuals from each other (or, as Aquinas writes, "[human] individuation depends on the body.")" Simply put, if maleness and femaleness necessarily follow upon the body, and if the body is what characterizes human individuals as such, it follows that maleness and femaleness pertain to the proper existential conditions of human individuals as individuals. Insofar as a hwnan individual po'ssesses
what Aquinas calls "designated matter" (materia signata), i.e., a concrete-and sexedanimal body, this man's maleness or that woman's femaleness is essential to the existential human identity of the man or woman in question. The "being-man" and "being-woman" of this man or that woman cannot be separated from their "being-human." Without male and female individuals, there exists no generic hnman race (cf. Gen 1:27). What Aquinas therefore ultimately wants to underscore in his assertion that Christ must take on a particular sex and gender is that the Incarnation concerns not some abstract entity, but rather a concrete assumed human nature; the Incarnation implies the designated matter (ma.teria signata) of the male Jesus of Nazareth; as Thomas will write in the Summa,. "the [incarnated] hnman nature cannot be predicated of Christ in the abstract, but only in the concrete.''41 Affirming the asswnption of a hwnan nature by the Word necessarily affinns the historical designated matter, i.e., the individuated bodily makeup of the Incarnate Christ. Thus, when Thomas writes that "whatever pertains to the nature of a human body was entirely in the body of Chris!, [viz.] ... flesh, bones, blood, and other such things that pertain to the very nature of the hwnan body," he certainly understands these "other SU9h things" to include Christ's specific sex and gender.42 Considerrng then the concrete and existential qualities of his human nature, Christ is as essentially bonnd to his male sex and gender as he is to his humanity. Hypothetically, of course, God could have assumed the female sex and gender, yet Aquinas is concerned more with the historical reality of the Incarnation than with a hypothetical Christology." Thomas' remarks on the essentialness of Jesus' male sexuality therefore affinn more than jnst the total humaruiess of Christ; they affirm a hnman Christ who, like his human brothers and sisters,. exists in reality, in thehic et nunc, a human Jesus who lives according to the existential· conditions of his historical life and who possesses "all the singular parts" rad singulas partes) of a real hnman being. They affirm a human Christ who by virtue of
37. STI, q. 98, a. 2: "Manifestum est autem quod homini, secundum animalem vitam, quam etiam ante peccatum habebat, naturale est generare per coitum." Cf. as well II Sent, d. 20, q. I, a. 2; and
CG III, ch. 126. 38. STIlI, q. 18, a. 2: "oportet quod Filius Dei assumpserit cum humana natura etiam ea quae pertinent ad pelj'ectionem naturae animalis. " 39. Aquinas, De ente et essentia, ch. 5: ..the diversity of male and female among animals derives from matter [cf.Aristotle, Metaph., Bk. X, ch. II {1058b21-23)]" (masculinum etfemininum in animalibus, quorum diversitas ad materiam reducitur). Thomas' De ente and his commentary on the Sentences
were written more or less at the same time during his first teaching years in Paris from 1252-56; cf. I.-P. Torrell, The Person, pp. 39-49. 40. Aquinas, De ente, ch. 4: ";ndividuatio eius ex corpore dependeat. "In ch. 5 Thomas maintains: "each individual thing is individuated by matter" (unaqueque res individuatur ex materia). Also in ch. 4 Thomas states: "because of the division of designated matter, the multiplication of individuals in one
species is possible" (in eis tam propter divisionem materiae signatae possibUis est multiplicatio individuorum in una specie).
41. ST III, q. 17, a. 1: "humana natura non potest praedicari de Christo secundum se in abstracto, sed solum in concreto. " 42. STm, q. 54, a. 3: "quidquid ad naturam corporis human; pertinet, totum fuit in corpore Christi ". Manifestwn est autem quod ad naturam corporis humani pertinent carnes, et ossa, et sanguis, et alia huiusmodi. Et ideo omnia iSta in corpore Christi ... Juerunt. "In this text, Thomas is referring to
the resurrected Christ 43. Cf.lIISent, d.12, q. 3, a. 1, sol. 2: "quia ipse [God]potuitassumerequalecorpus voluit."
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the possession of an animal body must own a particular sex and gender like any other concrete human individual. For Aquinas. the reality of the Incarnate Word does not stand in vacuo from the male individual Jesus. Though Thomas would never again take up the issue of the male sexuality of Christ in writing, the fact that he alone among his scholastic predecessors and contemporaries finds it important enough to stress the necessary role of an assumed sex and gender in the ontology of Christ proves how deeply at times he is willing to drive his anti-docetism, and thus how deeply runs his esteem for the full humanity of Christ." The Incarnation does not remain an abstract dogma for the Dominican theologian, as his emphasis on the truth of Christ's human nature "in all its parts" incontestably verifies.
4. Aquinas' Anti-Monophysitism and His "Existential Christology" In addition to his anti~docetism, Thomas also betrays strong anti-Monophysitic currents, particularly in the discussion on Christ's passions. In the analysis of Jesus' human affectivity in the Sentences and the Tertia Pars, Aquinas repeats eight times, via Damascene, the celebrated anti-Monophysitic axiom of Leo the Great, viz., that "Christ's flesh was allowed to suffer and do what is proper to it."4s The import that this axiom bears on Christ's passions is that the Person of the Word and the divine nature of Christ allowed the sensitive appetite of his human nature, the facultative grOWlding of the passions, to operate in a manner completelyakin to its nature; the operations of Jesus' sensitive appetite, i.e., the movements of passion, were in no way suppressed through some kind of absorption into Christ's divine element.46
44. Thomas do.es touch on the issue of Christ's maleness in ST III, q. 17, a. I, but only as it relates to Latin grammatical forms, as T. O'Meara (Theologian. p. 271, n. 68) observes. We shall return to the subject of Christ's sexuality in a future work devoted specifically to this issue. 45. "{PJermittebatur caro Christi pati et operari quae propria "; cf. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 2 ad 2;.d. 15, q. 2, a. 3, sol. 1 ad 1; d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 3; STIlI, q. 14, a. 1 ad 2, and a. 2; q. 15, a. 2,
argo 2; q. 46, a. 6, and a. 8, sed contra. For more on the role of Le()'s axiom in Aquinas and Damascene, cf. chapter one, nn. 72 and 88. For a commentary on this axiom in Aquinas, cf. P. Parente, L '10
di Cristo. pp. 264-6. 46. In affirming duality of operation in Christ, one for his divinity and one for his humanity (though in communion with each other), Thomas tites in STIlI, q. 19, a. 1 the decree of Constantinople III (DS 557; DEC. p. 128): '''We honor two natural, indivisible. unconvertible, unconfused, and inseparable operations in the same Lord Jesus Christ, our true God,' this referring to the divine operation and the human operation" (,Duas naturales operationes indivise, inconvertibiliter, inconjuse, inseparabiliter in eodem Domino lesu Christo, vero Deo nostro, glorificamus.' hoc est divinam operationem et humanam operastionem). Part and parcel of the "human operation" of course is the operation of the sensitive appetite.
Aquinas' anti-Monophysitic respect for the realism ofChrist's humanity follows upon another bedrock principle of his theology: grace building upon and perfecting nature." Usually invoked in reference to the baptized who are divinized by sanctifying grace, this prin~ ciple holds no less value for Christ's humanity divinized by the grace of personal Wlion with the Word, or fo!:-a humanity that subsists in a divine Person. Aquinas' theology of grace building on aDd perfecting nature favors a vision of harmony between the natural and su~ pernatural domains, in which only the utmost respect is shown for the integrity of God's cre~ ated natural order. 48 Such respect, if consistent, must include the created human nature of Christ. In Aquinas' Christology, the grace of union. by which Christ is substantially united to the Person of the Word as well as to a divine nature, in no way disrespects, destroys, con~ taminates, erases, or fuses with the essential elements of Jesus' human nature. Christ's hu~ manity, which includes his sensitive appetite, is not created in vain. Leaving the human nature of Jesus whole and intact, the grace of union works with Christ's humanity, not against it. The Incarnation for Aquinas retains its intelligibility only if Christ's humanity remains essentially the same as ourS and is not alleged to be either somehow set aside in some semi docetic fashion or fused with his divinity in a Monophysitic manner. St. Thomas complements this Christological vision by the particular attention he. gives to the theological import of the historical life of Christ in Tertia. qq. 27-59, an attention without parallel among his Scholastic pred.ecessors.49 J.~P. Torrell in fact sees in Tertia. qq. 27-59 nothing less than a.pronoWlced desire on Aquinas' part to construct a "concrete or
47. Cf. STI, q. I, a. 8 ad 2: "gratia non tol/at naturam, sed perflciat." Cf. as well STU-II, q. 8, a. 1 ad 1 and ad 2.
48. For more on this, cf. T. O'Meara, "Grace as Theological Structure in the Summa Theologiae of
Thomas Aquinas." RTAM 55. (1988), pp. 130-53, where O'Meara offers a sustained argument holding that grace is to be seen as present everywhere in the Summa; and U. Horst, "Uber die Frage einer heilsokonomischen Theologie bei Thomas von Aquin"; in Thomas von Aquin, ed. K Bernath, pp.
373ff. 49. For more on this point, cf. G. Lohaus, Die Geheimnisse des Lebens Jesu in der Summa Theologiae des hi. Thomas von Aquin (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1985), p. 256; L. Scheffczyk, "Die Stellung des Thomas vonAql.iin in der Entwicklung der Lehre von den Mysteria Vitae Christi," in Ren~ ovatio et Rejormatio. Wider das BUd vom ''jinisteren'' Mit/etalter: FestschrifljUr Ludwig HOdI zum 60. Geburtstag, eds. M. GeIWing and G. Ruppert (Munster: Aschendorff, 1986), pp. 44-70, at 54-5; I. Biffi, I Misteri di Cristo in ·Tommaso d'Aquino. vol. 1 (Milan: Jaca Books, 1994); and R. Schenk, "Omnis Christi actio nostra est instructio. The Deeds and Sayings of Jesus as Revelation in the View of Thomas Aquinas"; in La doctrine de la revelation divine de saint Thomas d'Aquin. ed. L. Elders, "Studi Tomistici 37" (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1990), pp. 103-31, at 105.
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existential Christoiogy," as it shows "that the Word was made man in the most human way."so
lem stems from the fact that only God can rive grace, and thereby effect or cause our justification, whereas to say Christ's humanity act~ as the instrument of his divinity is tantamount to saying that his humanity also gives grace, since an instrument, far from a simple conduit that does nothing more than channel the work of the principal agent, modifies the caused effect through its proper action of mediation. The dilemma, in other words, centers on making sure one does not take away from God what properly belongs to him, or on not ascribing to Christ's humanity what properly belongs to the divine Person of the Word, viz., the giving of grace. Thomas overcame the dilemma once he 'realized that God can indeed cause grace through a mediated (human) instrument, inasmuch as grace, because it ranks as a quality or an accidental fonn rather than as a substance or a subject as such, does not require simply God's immediate causal action-the immediate and total causal action of God in the giving of grace would be required only if grace effected a substantial change. 53 With the realization that graCe effects an accidental rather than a substantial change on the part of the soul, Aquinas, alone among his Scholastic counterparts, could altogether agree with John Damascene that Christ's hwnanity acts as the instrument (organum) of his divinity:
5. The Instrumentality of Christ's Humanity and the
Role o/the Soteriological Principle Thomas' positive appraisal of Christ's full humanity is evident in his doctrine on the "instrumentality" of Christ's humanity, a doctrine inherited from John Damascene but modi-
fied and extended according to the refinements of his Aristotelian mind. SI In effect, Thomas forges this doctrine in response to the position he adopts on Christ's resurrection as the cause of our own, a position inspired by the witness ofRm 4:25 ("[Christ was] raisedfor our justification") and I Cor 15:20 ("Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits a/those who have fallen asleep"). As many know, Aquinas' view on the issue of Christ as the efficient instrumental cause of our own resurrection, or, more generally, as the instrumental cause of grace (or of our justification), went through considerable development, with the De veritate marking the decisive turning point in the Dominican's conviction that instrumental efficient causality truly belongs to Christ's human nature.~2 The initial prob¥
50. J.-P. Torrell. The Person, pp. 263-4: ''This theologian [ThomasJ. who is believed to be abstract, knows the weight of the historical insertion of the Incarnate Word, and it is this that he labors to take into account." 51. Cf. Damascene. Defide orth., Bk. III, chs. 15 and 19 (ed. Buytaert. pp. 239 and 258). For more on this issue, cf. J.-P. Torrell, "La causalite salvifique de la resurrection du Christ selon saint Thomas " in J.-P. Torrell Recherches thomasiennes (Paris. J. Vrin, 2000), pp. 214-41 (originally published in
RT
The human nature in Christ was assumed in order to accomplish instrumentally those actions that are proper to God alone. such as cleansing from sin, enlightening minds by grace, and leading into the perfection of eternal life.54
With Christ's humanity owning a true instrumental efficaciousness, one can affirm that, . just as an instrumental agent .always acts under the motion of the principal agent (like a saw that is moved by a carpenter), so does the Person of the Word move his united human nature to give grace---Christ's human nature, as I.-P. Torrell puts it, "contrib~tes really in the
96 [1996], pp. 179-208); N. Crotty, ''The Redemptive Role of Christ's Resurrection," Thorn 25 (1962), pp. 54-106; 1. Backes,Die Christologiedes hi. Thomas vonAqu;n, pp. 276-7; E.-H. Weber, Le Christ selon saint Thomas d'Aquin (paris: Desclee, 1988), pp. 179-87; J. Lecuyer, "La causalite efficiente des mysteres du Christ selon saint Thomas," Doctor communis 6 (1953), pp. 91-120; H. Bouesse, "La causalite efficiente instrumentale de I'humanite du Christ et des sacraments chretiens," RT 39 (1934), pp. 370-93; B. Lavaud, "Saint Thomas et la causalitl: physique instrumentaie de la sainte bumanit.e et des 'Sacrements," RT 32 (1927), pp. 292-316; O. Pesch, TJromas von Aquin, pp. 327-30; F. Cun~mgham, ed., Christ and His Sacraments (Dubuque, Iowa: Priory Press, 1958), pp. 161-3; T. Tschlpke, Die Menschheit Christi als HeUsurgan der Gottheit unter besonderer Beriilcksichtigung der Lehre des hI. Thomas von Aquin (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1940), pp. 116-45; and H.J. Weber, Die Lehre von der Auferstehung der Toten in den Haupttraktaten der scholastischen Theologie von Alexander von Hales Zu Duns Skotus (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1973). Cf. as well H.F. Dondaine, "A propos d'Avicenne et de saint Thomas, De la causalite dispositive a la causalite
instrumenta1e," RT51 (1951), pp. 440-53. 52. In his enlightening study, "La causaIite salvifique de la resurrection du Christ selon saint Thomas," pp. 214-27, J.-P. TorrelI carefully traces this development of thought; for the position of the young Aquinas, cf.III Sent, d. 13, q. 2, a. 1 ad 3; d. 18, a. 6, qc. I, sol. I; d. 21, q. 2, a. 2 ad 1 and ad 2; and IV Sent, d. 43, q. 1, a. 2, sol. I, corpus and ad 1 and ad 3; for the first change in Thomas' position, cf. De ver., q. 27, a. 3 ad 7, and, especially, a. 4, and q. 29, aa. 4-5; for a more lucid position, cf.
t
CG IV, ch. 41; for the view of.the .mature Aquinas, cf. STIlI. q. 19, a. I, corpus and ad 2; cf. as well STlJ!, q. 2, a. 6 ad4: q. 50,a. 6andad3: q. 56,a. 1; q. 57,a. 6 ad l;q. 62,a. 1 ad2: and Lect. super loan., ch. 6, lect. 6; cf. as well STI, q. 45. a. 5. 53. Cf. STI-II, q. 110, a: 2 ad 3; De veT, q. 27, a. 3 ad 9; and a. 4 ad 15; cf. as well J.-P. Torrell, "La causalite salvifique de la resurrection," pp. 222-3, for a fuller explanation of this issue. For Thomas' definition of instrumental cause, cf. STI, q. 45, a. 5. 54. CG Iv, ch. 41: "Sed humana natura in Christo assumpta est ut instrumentaliter operetur ea quae gratiam et introducere in per/ectionem vitae eternae. "For Albert the Great's position, cf. De resurrectjone, tr. 2, q. 1, sol. (ed. Colon., vol. 26. p. 259); and IV Sent, d. 43. a. 5; for Bonaventure, who, as Torrell explains, "sees (in ~st's humanity) no proper causality"; cf. IV Sent, d. 43, a. I, q. 6, corpus and ad4 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 895). For more on this teaching as unique to Aquinas, cf. J.-P. Torrell, '~La causalite salvifique de la resurrection," p. 220: I. Backes, Die Christ%gie des hi. Thomas von Aquin, pp. 276-7; and T. Tschipke. Di.e Menschheit Christi, p. 116.
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production of grace. "S5 Put another way, since Thomas understands the use of an instrument, in this case the living and free human nature assumed in the Incarnation, to modify the action of the principal agent, in this case the divine Person of the Word, it follows that Christ's humanity modifies the redemptive'work proper to the divinity of the Word. 56 To use a metaphor, Christ's humanity is as necessary in the work of redemption as a piano is in the musical accomplishments of a virtuoso pianist; Christ's humanity is the cause of divine grace in no less a way than a piano is the cause of the music that ushers from the hands of the virtuoso piani~t. Jesus acts as savior of the human race through his human nature, not apart, around, or In abstraction from it; the divine actions of Christ depend upon his hu~anity. As T. O'Meara spells out: "The events of Jesus' life are sacramental [and, therefore, lDstrumental]; in this or that biblical event, striking or ordinary, the divine is extended through the man Jesus."57 Thomas does not stop there, as he goes on to spell out in precise detail which ele~ents of Jesus' humanity serve as the salvific instruments of his divinity, elements that directly rel~te to our pre~e~t. study: "all the ~tions and pasSions of Christ operate instrumentally in virtue of hIS divInlty for the salvatlOn of men. "58 Jesus' human affectivity assumes an active role in the work of salvation; he acts as Savior of the human race through his affective passibility, not apart, arOl.Uld, or in abstraction from it. This soteriological "Christcraffectivi~" does not cea::e ~ith !esus' de~th and res~ction, since Christ's humanity, eternally glonfied through hIS hlstoncal acta et passa, contlDues to channel the fruits of redemption to all t?0s.e who live after the historical life of Jesus." Such is the dignity of the humanity of Christ m general and of Christ's passibility in particular that Aquinas' theory of Christological instrumentality affords. . IfAquinas views Jesus' entire life as operative in human salvation, it is because he, like h~s colleague Bonaventure, favors the position, forged by Irenaeus, Athanasius, and espeCially Leo the Great, that views salvation as offered already in the very being of the Incar-
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nation-the so-called "mystic doctrine of redemption"-rather than in just the salv'ific acts surrounding Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection-the so-called "moral doctrine ofredemption."6O A. Grillmeier offers a succinct recapitulation of this mystic doctrine of redemption when, in reference to the Christology of Leo the Great, he writes: "the being of Christ already represep.ts redeemed man. "61 The same holds for the Christology ofAquinas, who maintains: "[human] nature itself is healed by the assumption."62 The. Word's assumption of a human nature communicates-by the very act of assumption--salvation to the entire human race, with the result that Christ's redemptive action is not limited to the principal events of his Passion and death, but comprises his entire historical existence as well. . Implicit in Aquinas' "mystic doctrine of the Incarnation," and as the last motif to be considered operative in Thomas' insistence upon the full integrity and realism of the hu~ manity of Christ, is the logic. of the celebrated soteriological principle: "quod est inassumptibile, est incurabile"-"What was not assumed [by Christ) was not healed [by him)"; or Thomas' own equivalent: "Verbum humanam naturam assumpsit, ut eam repararet. Ergo, id reparavit quod assumpsit"-"the Word assumed human nature in order to restore it. Therefore, he restored what he assumed." This principle, which Aquinas explicitly employs a total of nine times in his entire opera, three of which occur in the discussion on Jesus' human affectivity, owns a rich patristic heritage, well familiar to the Dominican.63
60. For more on this, cf. 1.-P. Jossua, Le sa/ut, incarnation ou mystere pascal, chez /es Peres de I'Eglise de saint lrenee asaint Leon Ie Grand (paris: Editions du Cerf, 1968); 1.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. I, pp. 91'2; and, in Vatican Council II, Gaudium et spes, §22. 61. A. Grillmeiet, Christ in Christian 1radition, vol. I, p. 531. 62., STIlI, q. 31, a. 1: "ut ipsa natura per .assumptionem curaretur. "For Bonaventure (Brevi/, pt. 4, ch. 7 [ed. Quaracchi, p. 247]), ''the time for (Christ's) acquiring merit ran from the instant of conception to the instant of death". (quantum ad tempus, in quod merebatur. quia ab instanti conceptionis usque ad horam mortis).
55. 1.-P. Torrell, "La causalite salvifique de la resurrection," p.225: "eUe contribue reellement a la production de la grace." 56. Cf. J.-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel, pp. 169-73 (cf. as well idem, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. I, pp. 269-72).
57. T. O'Meara, Theologian, p. 134. 58 .. S~.III, q. 48, a..6 (cf. as well STIlI, q. 49, a. 1); emphasis mine: "omnes actiones etpassiones ChnstJ mstrumentaMer operantur in virtute divinitatis ad salutem humanam. ..
59. Cf. H. Bouesse. "De la causalite de l'humanite du Christ," inProb/emes actuels de christ%gie, pp. 147-77, at 175; and J.-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel, pp. 182-4. For texts in Aquinas, of. De ver., q. 27, a. 4; STill q. 48, a. 6 ad 2; and q. 49, a. 3 ad I.
63. For passages where the statement "quod est inassumptibile, est incurabile" appears (this is a direct citation of Damascene, De ]ide orth., Bk. III, ch. 6 [ed. Buytaert, p. 188]), cf. III Sent, d. 2, q. 1, a. 2, argo 1; d. 12, q. 3, a. l,sed contra 2; STIT, q. 5. a. 4; and the three times in reference to Christ's human affectivity in III Sent,_ d. 15, q. 1, a. 2, argo 2; d. 17, a. I, qc. I, sed contra 1; and STIlI, q. 14, a. 4, argo 1. For Thomas' own "Verbum humanam naturam. assumpsit, ut eam repararet. Ergo, id reparavitquodassumpsit, "cf.III Sent, d. 21, q. 2, a. 1 ad 4; CGIY, ch. 81; and Lect. super loan., ch. 11, leet. 7. These loci were identified through R. Busa, ed., Th.Aq. op. omnia cumhyp. in CD-ROM For more on the soterioiogical purpose of the Incarnation in Aquinas, cf. STIlI, q. I, a. 3; q. 44, a. 3; q. 48, a. 6; and CG Iv, cbs. 42 arid SO. Though Aqninas cites only Damascene as his source for the soteriological principle, B. Sesboiie and 1. Wolinski (Le Dieu du salut, p.224) identify Origen as the first to formulate the principle. In effect, the principle retraces its roots to lrenaeus' theory of recapitulation in Christ and even perhaps to the notion of the New Adam in Rm 5: 12-21. For an impressive list of Fathers who emp,loy the soteriological principle in one form or another, cf. Vatican
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As most know, the soteriological principle focuses on the logic inherent in the role of a Savior who is the Word owning a concrete hwnan nature. In short, it strikes against the reason of the Incarnation to suppose that God should choose to be'come human in order to redeem the human race without at the same time taking on all essential aspects of the human nature he assmnes. That is, Christ's soteriological role makes little sense ifhe does not substantially take on everything he came to redeem. Such reasoning offers key support to Aquinas' resolute stance on the full human consubstanti8J.ity of Christ, as is clear in a passage from the Sentences cited previ(;lUsly, but which merits to be read again: It was necessary for Cluist to become like his brethren in all things pertaining to their salvation. This includes the truth of human nature ... by which the work ofredemp-
tion was to be accompJished. 64
•• •
as a consistent and meaningful expression of what his general Christological thought otherwise attempts to capture. It was noted in the previous section that looking upon Jesus as a pure man necessarily consigns one to a misreading of Aquinas' account of Christ's passions. In like manner, it should now appear obvious that any regard for Christ that either abbreviates his humanity or views him purely as the God-man will certainly lead one to miss the heart of Thomas' Christology, and particularly his theology of Christ's human affectivity. This does not mean that Aquinas does not himself at times hesitate in making advancements in the discussion on Christ's humanity. No matter this fact, however, Thomas' staunch defense of the complete realism and integrity of the humanity of Christ remains an historical and theological achievement deserving offull acknowledgment. 8t. Thomas possesses the objectivity necessary to accord the humanity of Christ the unadulterated theological worth it warrants. If this can be verified anywhere, it will be in his theology of Christ's human passions.
C Though the foregoing remarks do not exhaust the countless ways by which Aquinas ascribes paramount importance to the humanity of Christ,6S they do substantiate the assertion of certain scholars that an "omnipresent theme of the realism of the Incarnation" pervades Thomas' entire writings.66 Placed against the backdrop of this "omnipresent theme" of the realism of the Incarnation, the Dominican Master's theology of Christ's passions emerges
Council II,Ad gentes, §2 (DEC, p. 1012, n. 15). Bonaventure also makes profitable use of the soteriological principle in his Christologicai psychology; cf, e.g., III Sent, d. 15, a. 1, q. 1 ad3 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 331); and P.A. Sepinksi, La psycholog;e du Christ, pp. 181-3. For Albert, cf. De incarn., tr.4, q, 4 ad 2 (ed, Colon" p, 210), 64. III Sent, d. 3, q. 5, a. 2 ad 1: "Chrislus jratribus per omnia assimilari debuit que necessaria erant ad eorum reparationem. Huiusmodi autem sunt ea in quibus veritas humane nature consistit ... quibus opus redemptionis exp/endum erato .. This remains the thought ofAquinas throughout: "ChrisIus human.am naturam assumpsit, ut eam a corruptione purgaret." STIII, q. 31, a. I. 65. For additional texts that one could confer: STI, q. 2, Pro!.; I-II, q. 112, a. 1 ad 1; II-II, q. 82, a. 3 ad 2; III, q. 1, a. 2; q. 19, a. 1 and ad 2; q. 40, a. 2 ad 1; III Sent, d. I, q. 1, a. 2; Comp. theol., cbs. 200-1; CG IV, ch. 54; De rationibus fidei, ch. 5; In ad Romanos, ch. 8, leet. 7; In ad Hebraeos, ch. 10, leet. 2; Lect. super loan., ch. 6,lect. 3; In ad Cor. 11:1.
66. G. Narcisse, "Les enjeux epistemologiques de I'argument de convenance selon saint Thomas d'Aquin," in Ordo sapien/iae el amaris, ed, C.-J. Pinto de Oliveira, pp, 143--67, at 149, Cf. as well G',Lafont, Structures et methode, PP: 349-58. Given this "omnipresent theme," J.T. A. Robinson (The Human Face olGod [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973}, p.40, n. 14) errs in accusing Thomas' Christology of being nothing more than a "glorified Hilary [of Poitiers]."
CHRIST'S ABSOLUTE SINLESSNESS
Another Christological tenet that occupies a preeminent role inAquinas' analysis of Christ's human affectivity is that of Jesus' sinlessness. 8t. Thomas on all accounts holds an intransigent line on the absolute sinlessness of Christ, that is, a Christ free from all stain of original and actual sin: "In no way did Christ assume the defect of sin, either original or actual, as attested by 1 Pt 2:22"; or again, "(Christ) himself did nothing wrong in the order of his life...67 Evid~nce for the significance that Jesus' absolute sinlessness holds for the discussion on his passions is found in the fact that Thomas opens his treatise on Christ's passions in Tertia, q. IS, not with a consideration ofpassibility as such, but with two articles devoted to the issue of Jesus' sinlessness: "Whether there was sin in Christ" (Utrum in Christo fuerit peccatum), and "Whether there was the affective spark to sin in Christ" (Utrum in Christo
fueril fomes peccali).
67. STIll, q. 14, a. 4, and q. 15, a. 1: "Christus nullo modo assumpsit delectum peccati, nee originalis nec actualis: secundum illud quod dicitur.J Pet 2:22 ... ipse nihil inordinatum in regimine suae vitae exercuit. For more on Jesus' absolute sinlessness in Aquinas, cf. M.-B. Schwalm, Le Christ d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin. Conunentaires duDe /ncarnatione (Tertia pars Summae The%giaeJ, Of
2nd ed, by P. CoqueUe (paris: P. Letbielleux, 1939), pp, 277-92.
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1. A Matter ofFaith
As the just-cited passage makes plain, Thomas, like the two preceding principles, accepts the doctrine iJf Christ's absolute sinlessness as an article following upon a genuine confession offaith. This comes in response to the two main fonts of his Christology: the revealed Word of God, which his commentary not only on I Pt 2:22 but also on2 Cor 5:21, Jn 8:46, and Heb 4: 15 attests;" and the professed decrees of the Christological councils, notably
Chalcedon, Constantinople II, and Constantinople ITl.69 . 2. The Relationship between Christ's Sinlessness and His Human Ajfectivity
Because sin has left in its wake a particularly disastrous and crippling affective human condition, the doctrine of Jesus' sinlessness plays a pivotal role in Thomas' discussion on
Christ's passions. Here again, in fact, Aquinas proves his ability to take an essentially abstract Christological dogma-the sinlessness of Christ-and mete out its concrete worth in an area of Christ's life that has little more than the testimony of the Gospels and the statement of Constantinople II (in its rebuttal to Theodore ofMopsuestia), viz., that Jesus was not "troubled by the passions of the soul nor the desires of the flesh,~' to serve as authoritative guideposts.7o The precise manner by which Aquinas squares the notion of sinlessness with the movements of passion in Christ shall be explored later in this study. Given the foundation for the tenet of Jesus' sinlessness, Aquinas was by no means th~ first to ground the analysis of Christ's human passions in the doctrine of his sinlessness; such a modus operandi belongs to the debate since its very inception. One [wds shades of it in Augustine, Jerome, and Leo the Great, and explicit traces of it in Damascene
68. For Thomas' thoughts on 2 Cor 5:21 ("he who knew no sin"), cf. STIlI, q. 15, a. 1 ad 4; a. 3 ad 2; and q. 46, a. 4 ad 3; for In 8:46 ("'Which of you shall convict me of sin?'''), cf. STIII, q. IS, a. I, . sed contra; for Reb 4:15 (,,[Christl was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin"), cf. STIlL q. 41, a. 1. In ST m. q. 40, a. 4, including the replies to the objections, Thomas grounds his belief in the sinlessness of Christ in a whole array of New Testament passages. 69. ForChaicedon, cf. DS 301, and DEC, p. 86; for Constantinople II and III, cf. DS 434 and 554, and DEC, pp.119 and 127. 70. In its twelfth anathema (DS 434; DEC; p. 119), Constantinople II condemns Theodore of Mop;suestia's view that, to quote the Council (which isolates certain elements of Theodore's position out of their original context), Christ experienced "troubling passions and desires of the flesh and became better by his progress in good works": "Theodorum Mopsuestenum. qui dixit alium esse Deum Verbum, et alium Christurn a passionibus animae et desideriis carnis molestias patientem ....Et sic ex profectu operum melioratum." For more on Thomas' exhaustive knowledge of Constantinople II's
teaching, cf. M. Morard, ''Une source de saint Thomas d' Aquin," pp. 21-56.
(whom Thomas follows especially closely in this regard), as well as in the 12th·century au· thors Hugh of St. Victor and Peter Lombard." Also of common practice in the medieval discussion on Christ's passions, which traces its roots to Damascene, is the comparison of Christ's sensitive affectivity to that of the first man in the state of original innocence, a comparison warranted by Jesus' total immunity to original sin.72 Briefly stated, exemption from all stain of original sin means that Christ's humanity, like Adam's in the state of original in· nocence, is spared the inordinate and preemptive movements of the sensitive appetite. Comparing a sinless Jesus to Adam in the state of integrity does not hold across the board, however, since those corporal afflictions displayed by Jesus, such as hunger, thirst, weariness, and death (cf. Mt 4:2; 11:19; Mk 4:38), Imce their origin to Adam's loss of in· tegrity through his first sin. On this point all the medieval writers agree, with Aquinas summing up the position well: "Sensible afflictions suffered in this life, such as hunger, thirst, death, and the like, ensue from original sin."73 Given this fact, Thomas, commenting on a
71. Cf. Augustine, De civ. Dei, Bk. )(N, ch. 9 (CCSL 48, p. 427); Jerome, In Math. N (on 26:37) (CCSL 77, p. 253); Leo, 7bmus ad Flav. (OS 294; DEC p. 79), and Ep. 35.3 ad Iulian Choen, (DS 299); Damascene, Defide orth., Bk.IIl, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 259·60); Hugh of St. Victor, De sacr. Christ. fidei, Bk.II, pI. I, ch: 7 (PL 176, 390-1); and Lombard, III Sent, d. IS, ch. I (ed. Call. · Bonav, pp. 92-8, esp. 95--6); For the 13~century authors, cf. Alexander of Rales, TIl Sent, d. 15, n. · 2,9, and 54 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 151-70); Qu. disp. 'a1)te. essetfrater', q. 16, disp. 2, memo 1 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 237-42); Albert,TTT Sent, d. IS, aa. 5-7; d. 17, a. 2; De incarn., tr. 4, q. 4; tr. 6, q. I, ... 1-2, and a. 5 (ed. Colon., pp. 210-25); and Bonaventure,!II Sent, d. IS, a. I, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 332-3); and Magister WiJIermus in W. Prltlcipe, "Quaestiones Concerning Christ II,"· p. 35, §§ 134. 72. Cf. Damascene, De fide orth., Bk. III, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 260); Hugh of St. Victor, Desacr. Christ. fidei, Bk.I!, pI. I, ch. 7 (PL 176, 389); and Lombard, III Sent, d. 16, ch. 2 (ed. Call. Bonav., p. lOS). Previous to Damascene, the comparison can also be found in Boethius, Liber contra Eutychen et Nestorium, ch. 8 (ed. and tran/i. [in English] H.F. Stewart, et ai., LQeb Classical Library [Cam, bridge, Mass.: Harvard University. Press, 1973], p. 123). For the 13th-century writers, cf. Alexander of Hales, Qu. disp. 'Ante essetfrater', q. 16 (De pass;bilitate an;mae Christi et Adae). disp. 1-4 (ed. · Quaracchi, pp. 224-74); Summa thoo/. (Summaha//. Bk.lIl, inq. I, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo I (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 4, pp. 58-{;2); Albert, De incarn, tr. 6, q. I, aa. 1-2 and 12 (ed. Colon., pp. 219-29); III Sent, II. IS, a. 6 ad I; and d. 16, aa. 3 and 5; and Bonaventure, Brevi!.. pI. 4, ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 249). 73. STili, q. I, a. 4 ad 2 (cf. as well STili, q;4, a. 6; q. 13, a. 3 ad 2; q. 14, aa. I and 3; and Lectura .: sutler Mattheum. ch. 8,lect. 3): "Poenalitates tamen quas sensibiliter in hac vita patimur, sicutfamem, · sitim, mortem et alia huiusmodi. ex peccato originali procedunt ... This position is certainly inspired
by Damascene, Defideorth., Bk.llI, chs. 20 and 28 (ed. Buytaert, p. 259-76). Cf. as well Lombard, III Sent, d. 16, ch. I (ed. Coli. Bonav., pp. 103-4); Alexander of Hales, III Sent, d. IS, n. 22 (ed. · Quaracchi, p. 158); Qu. disp. 'ante. essetfrater', q. 16. disp. 1, memo 2, n. 24 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 234); A1bert,!II Sent, d. IS, aa. 5 and 8; and Bonaventure, III Sent, d. IS, a. I, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 333).
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passage from Augustine, does not hesitate to acknowledge that Christ pulled his assumed humanity from the stock ofa corrupt and weakened nature (so that the sins of the human race could he satisfied): From the nature which [Adam] had corrupted should be assumed that whereby satisfaction was to be made for the whole nature .... [F]or. from a corrupt and weakened nature, he asswned that which was raised to such virtue and dignity.74
Part and parcel of the stock of a canupt and weakened human nature assumed by Christ are the passions, an idea first affmned by Augustine, though John Chrysostom, Boethius, and, most explicit of all, John Damascene maintain the same.7S The fact that Christ's passions follow upon the assumed elements of a canupt and weakened nature accoWlts for rather
bold assertions on Aquinas' part, as when he writes: "Christ came in the weakness of the flesh, which is manifested in the passions";76 and "There is nothing [in the Gospels] that bespeaks Christ's weaknesses more than we read about his passions."77 Thomas does not stop there; in commenting on Paul's declaration in Rm 8:3 that God sent his own Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh," the Master from Aquino fully states that it is "Christ's very passibility or passion that the Apostle calls sin."78 The
74. STIlI, q. 4, a. 6: "de natura per ipsum corrupta debuit asswni id per quod satis/actio erat implenda pro tota natura ... dum de natura corrupta et infirma assumpsit id quod in tantam virtutem et dfgnitatem est promotum." Cf. Augustine, De Trinitate, Bk. xm, 18 (CCSL 50A. p. 413). For similar remarks from Bonaventure, cf.· Brevi!, pt. 4. ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 248): "Christus assumsit non tantum hUmanam naturam, sed etiam defectus circa naturam. Asswnpsit ~nim poenalitates corporales, utfamen, sitim et lassitudinern. " 75. Cf. Augustine,Enarr. in Ps 87:3 (CCSL39, p. 1209); Chrysostom,ln Mall. homi/.. 74-5 (pC 58, 681-5); Boethius, Liber contra Eut. et Nest, ch. 8 (ed. Stewart, p. 123); and Damascene, De fide orth., cbs. 20, 23, and 28 (ed. Buytaert. pp. 259--76). For the medievals, cf. Lombard. III Sent. d. IS, ch. I; and d. 16, ch. 1 (ed. Can. Bonav. pp. 92-8 and 104); Magister Willermus in W. Principe, "Quaestiones Concerning Christ II," p. 35. § 14;Alexander of Hales, III Sent. d. 15, n. 9-10 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 154); Albert, III Sent, d. IS, aa. 2-3 and 7; De incarn., tr. 6. q. 1. a. 5 (ed. Colon. p. 224); and Bonaventure. BrevU. pt. 4. ch. 8 (ed. Quaraccbi, p. 248). wbo writes: "Assumpsit enim poenalitates corporales. ut famen. sitim et lassitudinem; assumsit etiam spirituales, ut IristWarn, gemitum et timorem . .. For Aquinas, cf. STIlI. q. 43. a. 1 ad 2, as well as the references noted below. 76. STIlI, q. 43. a. 1 ad 2: "Christus venerit in injirmilate carnis. quod manifestatur per passiones. " 77. Lect. super loan., ch. 11,lect. 5: "Nihil en;m inflrmius de Christo legimus quam eius passionem." Cf. as well STI-II, q. 85, a. 3 ad 4: "injirmitas communiter potest did omnis passio, inquantum de~ bilitat robur animae et impedit rationem . .. 78. Compo theo/., ch. 226: "Unde et ipsa Christi passibililas vel passio ab Aposlolo peccatum nominatur." In SrllI, q. 15, a. 1 ad 4. Aquinas concludes the same in commenting on 2 Cor 5:21: "God 'made Christ sin .. , on account of the passible and mortal body he assumed" (Deus 'fecit Christum peecatum' .propter corpus passibile et mortaI~ quod asswnpsit).
exact theological reasons for which Thomas opines that Christ's passions arise from what he pull~ from the stock of a corrupt and weakened human nature shall be examined at various points in this study. The medieval theological tradition, Aquinas certainly notwithstanding, therefore adheres to belief in a Christ who can be likened to Adam in the state of original integrity, yet also to a Christ who at the same time undergoes hardships not experienced by Adam before the Fall. Though this might appear on the surface to represent an inconsistent Christoiogy, whereby affinning elements of a corrup~ and weakened nature in Christ seems to sabotage or conflict with the doctrine of Jesus' sinlessness, such a position is nonetheless called for by the witness of the New Testament itself: "For our sake (God) made him to be sin who knew no sin" (2 Cor 5:21); "He committed no sin ... [while] he himself bore our sins in his body" (I Pt 2:22-24); and, "we have one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15). The "tenSion," as one may call it, that pervades scholastic Christology between a sinless Christ and a Christ who owns a real existential identification to sinful humanity originates therefore with Scripture. The tension is not without noted interest for this work, since, as just remarked, Christ's passions stand out in Aquinas' mind as the most manifest proof of his assumed "weakness of the flesh." The issue of Christ's passions marks the arena in which the enigma ofa sinless Christ likened to Adam in the state of original justice on the one side, and amortal and "psychologically wounded" Christ likened to Adam (and all humans) after the Fallon the other, is most keenly perceived. The early 6th-century figure Boethius formulates this point in a particularly punctilious fashion when he writes: Since" then, Christ n.ever sinned, it must be asked why he suffered death if he assumed the-body ofAdam before he sinned. But if [Christ] took on such condition of man as was Adam's after sin, it seems that even on Christ lay the necessity ofbeing both subject to sin and perplexed by passions.79 In order to resolve delicately yet coherently this quandary, medieval theologians introduced subsequent distinctions between what is incompatible with Christ's sinlessness and what accrues to his blameless "corrupt and mortal body," distinctions between the punishment
79. Boethius, Liber contra Eut. etNest. ch. 8 (ed. Stewart, p. 123): "Cum igitur Christus non peccaverit. quaerendum est cur senserit mortem. si Adae corpus ante quam peccaret adsumpsit. .Quod sf lalem staum suscepit horninis qualis Adac post peccatumfoit, videtur etiam Christo non defuisse necessitas. ut et delictis subic eretur et passionibus confunderetur. "
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of sin and the guilt of sin, between a condition of sin and the personal status ofheing a sinner.
One accordingly finds the differentiation between those defects that imply personal
fault, such as proclivities to evil and difficulty in doing good (pronitas ad malum et diffieultas ad bonum), or what Lombard calls "defects of guilt" (defectus culpae)," and those defects that arise from natural principles, such as hunger, thirst, death, pain, weariness, etc., and which imply a condition of sin without personal fault or guilt, or what Lombard.equates with "defects of punishmenf' (defectus poenae); as Aquinas writes: "the withdrawal of original justice has the character of punishment. ... Hence, death and all consequent bodily defects are punishments of original sin."81 Christ evidently takes on certain defects of punishment but not the defects of guilt. Distinctions are also made between inculpable defects that pertain only to certain individuals (e.g., blindness, cancer, etc.), which Jesus does not take on, and inculpable defects that belong to all hwnans (e.g., death, hunger, thirst, pain, weariness, etc.), which he does. 82 In effect, Thomas summarily consolidates
these distinctions into one bottom-line resolve of the conflicting tension between Jesus' sinlessness and his identification to the sinful lot of humanity by forging the following position: Christ assumed only those defects that involve no imperfection of grace, since defects that imply an imperfection of grace would have prevented him from "satisfying" for the sins of the human race.83 Christ cannot pay the penalty incurred by human sin, i.e., he can-
not adequately satisfy the order ofjustice, ifhe himself is separated from God "by being deprived of grace, or by being ignorant of God, or by having a disordered soul."84 Recapitulating his position in the Tertia~ Pars of the Summa, Thomas explains: Chrjst assumed human defects :91 order to satisfy for the sin of human nature; and for this' it was necessary for him to have the perfection of knowledge and grace in his soul. Thus, Cluist ought to have assumed those defects that foIlow upon the conunon sin ofthe whole nature, yet are not opposed to the perfection of knowledge and grace. And thus it was not fitting for him to assume all human defects or weaknesses.8S
In short, Christ assumed no' defect arising from the stock of a corrupt and weakened nature 80. The actual wording ''pronitas ad malum et difflcultas ad bonum" comes from Bonavenbne (III Sent, d. 15, a. I, q. 2 red. Quaracchi, p. 333]), an expression that resonates in Aquinas, STIII, q. 14, a. 4. In Lombard's words (III Sent, d. IS, ch. 1 red. Call. Bonav., p. 93]): "Assumpsit enim defectus poenae, sed non culpae. "Cf. as well Magister Willennus of the early 13th centwy, who writes: "aliud est difficultas bene agendi: hanc non assumpsit" CW. Principe, "Quaestiones Concerning Cluist II," p. 33, §2); and Alexander ofRales, III Sent, d. IS. n.54 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 168), who writes: '''Igno~ rantia et difficultas bene operandi detractabiles sunt ... fames vero et sitls el huiusmodi indetractabiles sunt; andAlbert,lIl Sent, d. IS. a. 5, and. 8 ad 5. 81. STI-II, q. 85, a. 5 (cf. III, q. 14, aa. 2 and 4): "subtratio autem originalis iustitiae habet rationem poenae ... Unde etiam mars et omnes dtifectus corporales consequentes sunt quaedam poenae origi~ nalis peccati. "Cf. as well Damascene, De fide orth., Bk ill, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 259-60); Alexan~ der ofRales, Summa theol. (Summa hal.), Bk. III, inq. I, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo 1, and memo 2, ch. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 58-66); Albert, III Sent. d. IS, a. 8 ad 5; De incarn.• 1r.4, q. 4 (ed. Colon., p. 210); and Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 15, a. 1, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 333). Hunger, fatigue, death, etc., ensue upon natural principles yet only after the introduction of sin into the world because the grace of orig~ inal justice allowed the first human being to enjoy a quality of life superseding the conunon order of nature; left to natural principles alone, the human body naturally corrupts, experiences hunger, fa~ tigue, etc.; as Thomas (STI-II, q. 85, a. 5) writes, "[the grace of originaI justice] held the whole body together in subjection to the soul without any defect. Wherefore, original justice being forfeited through the sin of our first parents ... (human nature) became subject to corruption through the disordering of the body" (totum corpus continebatur sub anima absque omni defectu. Et ideo, subtracta hac originali iustitia per peccatum primi parentis ... est corruptibilis ejJecta per deordinationem ipsius corporis). So long as he possessed the grace of original justice, then, Adam enjoyed a life free from hunger, pain, thirst, fatigue, death, etc. Cf. as well STI, q. 97, a. 1; and De ver., q. 25, a. 6. For more on all this, cf. M-M. Labourdette, "Aux origines du pecbe de l'homme d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin," RT85 (1985). pp. 357-98, at 367-9. 82. Cf. STITI, q. 14, a. 4; and Compo theol., ch. 226; Albert, III Sent, d. IS, a. 5; and Bonaventure, III Sent, d. IS, a. 1, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 333); cf. as well F. Cunningham, Christ and His Sacraments, pp. 164-5; and F. Rueno, La christologie de Thomas d'Aquin, p. 182.
that would have jeopardized Of subverted his perfect moral integrity, as consummate moral integrity represents a sine qua non requisite for his mission of redemption and satisfaction, not to mention his role as moral exemplar of the human race, or the role that Thomas calls :'the example of virtue" (exemplum virtutis).86 Jesus inherited only the infirmities of human nature that were possible for a sinless soul, since sin diminishes the efficacy of satisfaction (cf. Sir 34: 18-26). Since such defects as death, hunger, thirst, weariness, pain, and the like,
83. Cf. III Sent, d. 15, q. 1; STITI, q. 14, a. 4; and q. IS, a. 1; cf. as well G. Lafont, Structun:?s et methode, p."383; and R Cessario, The Godly Image: Chris,t and Salvation in Catholic Thought/rom Anselm to Aquinas (petersham, Mass.:' f?t. Bede's Publications, 1990), pp. 139-40. One finds shades of this position in Lombard, III Sent, d. 16;·ch. 2 (ed. colI. Bonav., p. 105); Alexander ofRales, Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater': q. 16, disp. 2, memo I, n. 35 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 238-40); and Albert, III Sent. d. IS, a. 6. 84. Compo theol., ch. 226: "Nullus igitur per hoc Deo satisfadt quod privatur gratia, vel quod ignorat Deum, vel quod habet inordinatam animam. .. 85. Q. 14, a. 4: "Christos defectus humanos assumpsit ad satisfaciendum pro peccato humanae naturae: ad quod n:?quirebatur quod haberet peritionem scientiae et gratiae in anima. Illos ergo defectus Christus assumere debuit, qui consequuntur ex peccato communi totius naturae, nec tamen repugnant perfectioni scientiae et gratiae. Sic igitur non fuil conveniens ut omnes defectus seu injirmitates humanas Q$sumeret. "Cf. Lombard, III Sent, d. IS, ch. 1 (ed. coil. Bonav., p."94). 86. STill. q. IS, a. I; cf. J.-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel p. ISS.
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collide in no way with Christ's moral integrity, or with his role as the example of virtue, one can ascribe them to Jesus, which the Gospels in fact clearly do. To avoid the ambiguity surrounding the notion of Jesus' sinlessness, an ambiguity called for by Scripture's seeming incongruous claim that he who "knew no sin" was "made to be sin" (2 Cor 5:21), it is therefore preferable in the discussion on the defects asswned by Christ to speak of Jesus' perfect moral integrity in place of his sinlessness. This allows for a clear separation between what he pulls from the stock of a corrupt and weakened nature on the one side and his uprightness of soul on the other; only those defects that are entirely compatible with perfect moral integrity enter into the package of elements that accrue to the corrupt and weakened nature assumed in the Incarnation. Quoting Damascene, Aquinas calls the defects that fall into this category, using the tenn "passion" in a deliberately ex~ tended sense, "indetractible passions," whereby "indetractible implies no defect ofknowl~ edge or grace. "87 3. Christ's Metaphysical Human Consubstantiality
"[W]hat is natural to man was neither acquired nor forfeited by sin."88 Few would deny that this locution stands out as one of Aquinas' most consequential anthropological statements, and it is one that reverberates in his Christology; this is conflrmed in the following passage, where Thomas, anticipating the objection that a sinless Christ misses out on a "natural" feature of human life, explains, in what emerges as the key medieval Christological text on the issue: . (Christ] ought not to have assumed the defect of sin .. , [For] the truth of human nature is not proved by sin, as sin does not belong to human nature, a nature that bas God for its cause.89
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He assumed the whole man and all man's attributes, except for sin. For this [sin] is npt natural, nor is it implanted in us by the Creator.90
Contrary to the position, then, that a fully human Jesus must be a Jesus who has personally experienced sin in his own life, Thomas retorts that sinlessness does not make Jesus any less of a true and full man, nor does it jeopardize the full realism of Christ's humanity, as sin in nowise belongs to the essence of human nature. For Aquinas, the doctrine of Jesus' sinlessness hannonizes readily with the doctriQ,e of his full human consubstantiality; the one in no way undermines the other. Many nonetheless insist that to be in full solidarity with the human race, Christ must experience every "natural" ,dimension of human life, one of the most evident of which is the personal experience of sin. To this, one must offer a distinction. The distinction is between the metaphysical sense of human nature and the existential or historical sense of human nature, or what Bonaventure calls humana natura Simpliciter and humana natura secundum statum.91 If one holds the existential human experience in mind (= humana natura secundum statum), whereby sin represents a permanent flxture of human life since the time of the original Fall, then one can affinn that sin is' hatural to human life. Aquinas however does not hold the common existential human experience in mind when he writes in the above passage that sin does not belong to human nature; here Thomas employs the tenn "nature" in its strictly metaphysical sense (= humana natura simpliciter), whereby sin does not pertain to the ontological essence of human nature; as he writes in his commentary on the Sentences. "[Christ] was like his brethren [cf. Heb 2: 17] only with respect to the essence of the species. -'92 It follows that Thomas' notion of Christ's sinless human consubstantiality should be understood to correspond primarily to the
Thomas' position on this issue is certainly inspired by Damascene, who himself writes: 90. Defide or/h., Bk. TIr, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 259): "Totum enim hominem et omnia quae hominis assumpsit, praeier peccatum. Hoc enim non naturale est, neque a conditore in nobis. "This text is re~ produced verbatim by Magister WiUermus in W. Principe, "Quaestiones Concerning Christ IT," p.
34, §S. The closest that any ofThomas' other predecessors comes to asserting the semblable in the discussion on Jesus' human affectivity is Albert, III Sent, d. IS, a. 6, sed contra 1: "tunc poenalUates de 87. STIlI, q. 14, a. 4 (cf. as welI Compo theol., ch. 226): "indetractibiles qUidem quia defectum scientiae et gratiae non important. "Cf. Damascene, De fide orth., Bk. TIl, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 259).' Alexander or Hales (Ill Sent, d. 15, n. 54 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 168]) holds the same position: "fames vera et sitls et huiusmodi indetractabiles sunt. " 88. STI, q. 98, a. 2: '~ea enim quae sunt naturalia homini, neque subtrahuntur, neque dantur homini per peccatum. " Cf. as well I-II, q. 85, a. 1: "primum igitur bonum naturae [i.e., principia naturae, ex quibus ipsa natura constituitur, et proprietates ex his causa/ae, sicut potentiae animae, et alia huiusmodij nee tollitur. nee diminuitur per peccatum . " . 89. STIlI, q. 15, a. I: "defectumpeccati assumere non debuit .., expeccato non demonstratur veritas humanae naturae: quia peccatum non pertinet ad humanam naturam, cuius Deus est causa."
veritate humanae naturae esse non possunt. " 91. Cf. Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 15, dub. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 341). Though Bonaventure makes little use of this distinction, it coheres with the thought ofAquinas, as wen as withAlbert (cf. De incarn., tr. 4, q. 4 [ed. Colon., pp. 209-10]). The distinction between the metaphysical sense and existential
or historical sense of human nature comes from M.-M. Labourdette ("AUK origines du peche de I'honnne," pp. 366-70). who elaborates onAquinas' understanding of the relationship between sin and hwnan nature. The historical sense of human nature is more Augustinian in origin, while the metaphysical sense of human nature takes its inspiration from Aquinas. For more oftbe same, cf. G. Cottier, DejO ethiques (Saint-Maurice, Switz.: Editions Saint Augustin. 1996), p. 21. 92. 111 Sent, d. IS, q. I, a. 2 ad 1: "Non enimfoitfr{ltribus sjmilis nisi in natura speciei."
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metaphysical sense of human nature, though in a derived or secondary sense it may be seen to pertain to the existential or historical meaning of human nature, since Jesus does take on various aspects of the existential dimension of human sin (e.g., death, hunger, fatigue, etc.). yet not all (e.g., proneness to evil, disordered movements of soul, etc.), To say that Aquinas' notion of Christ's hwnan consubstantiality refers primarily to the metaphysical sense of human nature devoid of sin underscores the positive spin that Thomas places on a sinless-yet fully human-Christ, since such a Christ is seen in the Dominican's eyes to illumine the true meaning of human existence. At the heart of Thomas' Christology lies the conviction that Jesus' humanity-because it is sinless-represents the supreme realization of all thai it means to be human; again, Thomas looks upon Christ as the exemp/um virtutis, or, as J.-P. Torrell puts it, "the model of all perfection.'>93 Put another way, if one takes human nature in an analogous sense, whereby a sinless human nature, understood in its metaphysical sense, captures one meaning, and a sinner's human nature, understood in its existential or historical sense, another, it is certainly the sinless human nature, i.e., the one that owns perfect moral integrity, which represents for Thomas the prime analogue. Focusing on the way in which the existential dimension of human nature participates in a derived manner in the fuller sense of human nature, and how Jesus' humanity reneges certain elements of this dimension, risks diverting attention away from this fact. Far from subverting his full human consubstantiality, then, the doctrine of Jesus' sinlessness in reality ensures the complete realism of his human nature. Because Christ's humanity is in no way tainted by moral corruption, Jesus attains the essence of what it means to be a true human being in a way unlike any other hwnan individual. Sin, not sinlessness, threatens to abate the g€!nuine human experience, with the result that Christ's humanity represents the most perfect realization of human nature. Seen in this light, the doctrine of Jesus' sinlessness stands out, so far as Aquinas is concerned, as the logical complement to the doctrine of the full hwnanity of Christ. D. THE PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMY AND CHRIST'S COASSUMED DEFECTS AND PERFECTIONS
sense of the economy of salvation). Adopting as its starting point Christ's economic mission of redemption, taken in its patristic sense, this principle detennines both the perfections and the ;defects or weaknesses that Christ assumes in view of his redemptive mission or . purpose; for this reason, this principle serves as the bedrock for Thomas' comments on Christ's assumed perfections in Tertia, qq. 7-13, and on his assumed defects in Tertia, qq. .14-15.94 Essentially, the principle of economy attempts to explore the reasoning behind the Son of God's decision, all in view of his salvific mission, on the one hand, to endow his human nature with supereminent spiritual gifts owing to his unique personal dignity as the Incarnate Word and as Savior of the human race, and, on the other, to divest himself of certain rights and privileges due to his divine dignity when taking on a human nature, a selfdivestiture known as the kenosis of the Incarnation. ' Both Christ's perfections and his defects comprise part of what Aquinas calls, inheriting the tenninology ofAlexander of Hales and Albert the Great (and, to a lesser extent, of Bonaventure), the coassumpta in Christ, which are to be distinguished from the incarnated assumpta, as Thomas writes in his prologues to Tertia, qq. 4 and 7: We must consider, first, what things were assumed (assumpta) by the Word of God. [qq. 4-6], and, second, what were coassumed (coassumpta) lqq. 7-1SJ ... .In considering those things that the Son of God coassumed in his human nature, we shall look, first, at what pertains to his perfections [qq. 7-13], and, second, at what belongs to his defects [physical defects in q. 14, and defects of sou! in q. ISps
Though Alexander of Hales is the frrst explicitly to introduce the assumpta/coassumpta distinction, G. Lafont maintains that this distinction is "undoubtedly" inspired by John Damascene; Lafont's claim is clearly corroborated by the following passage from the De fide orthodoxa: One must aclmowledge two appropriations [in Christ]: one that is natural and essential, and another that is personal and relative. The natural and essential one [= assumpta] is that by which the Lord in his love forman assumed our nature and all our natural attributes, becoming in nature and truth man....The personal one [= coas-
1. The Principle ofEconomy and the coassumpta At the heart of Aquinas' reflections on Jesus' human affectivity, and, indeed, on his full humanity, operates an axiom that one may call the principle of economy (in the 94. An electronic communication to me dated Feb. 6, 1999, from J.-P. Torrell and G. Emery helped shape the following analysis of the principle of economy in Aquinas' thought. 95. "[Pjrimo considerandum est: de his quae sunt a Verbo Dei assumpta,' secundo, de coassumptis ", Deinde considerandum est de coassumptis a Filio Dei in humana natura: et primo, de his quae pnlinent ad perfectio neon cundo, de his quae pertinent ad defectum. Cf. Alexander of Hales, Summa theol. (Summo halJ. Bk. III, inq. I, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 4, pp. 58-66); Albert. De incam., tr. 4-6; and Bonaventure, III Sent, d. IS, a. 1, q. 2 ad 1 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 333). Cf. as well G. Lafont, structures et methode, pp. 348-86. II
93. J.-P. Torrell, Maltre spirituel, pp. 489-93.
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sumpta] is when one assumes the person of another relatively, for instance, out of pity or love, and in his place utter words concerning him that have no connection with himsel£ It was in this way that [Christ] appropriated both our curse and our abandonment, and other such things as are not natural. %
In brief, the assumpta refer to what appertains to the essence of Christ's human nature, i.e., to Christ's taking on all that follows upon the essential elements of human nattrre, such as a body and a soul; the coassumpta concern the various effects o{sin, or defects, as well as the perfections, which qualify Christ's concrete or individuated humanity but which do not follow upon the essential elements of human nature, such as the defects of mortality and hunger or the perfections of the fullness of grace and knowledge. Though they detennine the existential condition of Christ's humanity, the coassumpta remain entirely accidental to the substantial union of the Word with a human nature; as L. Walsh explains: "[t]he Word could have taken on human nature without them; no binding logic requires them. "97 This helps explain why Thomas opines that Christ's coassumed defects were taken on vohmtarily and "not because they belonged to him ofhimself."98 Aquinas turns to the clear testimony of Scripture for support of Christ's coassWiled perfect10ns and defects. For the perfections, In 1:14-"the Word ... dwelt among us, fulI of ?race and truth"-is especially instructive, while several key passages serve as the groundIng for the defects or weaknesses taken on by Christ: "Surely he has borne our griefs and camed our sorrows" (Is 53:4); "He had to be made like his brethren in every respect" (Heb 2:17); "God '" sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rm 8:3); cf. as welI the "Hymn t<> the Philippians" in Phil 2:6-11. Aquinas recognizes that the Christ of the New Testament is one who ,is laden with both common defects and singular perfections.
9?. Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. Ill, ch. 25 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 269-70): "Oportet scire quod duae olkioses sunt (id est proprialitates): una natura/is et substantia/is, et a/tera personalis et habitudina/is: Naturalis igitur quidem et substantialis, secundum quam propter philantropian (id est amorem ' hominum) n.0minus et naturam nostram et naturalia omnia assumpsit, natura et veritate factus homo ... Personalzs autem. quando quis a/terius. Subinduit personam, propter habitudinem. misericordiam aio vel amorem, et pro ipso eos qui pro ipso fecit sermones nihil ei pertinentes; secundum quam et ma~ed~~lionem et derelictionem. nostram, et quae talia non entia naturalia, oikiosato (id est propria feclt). Thomas paraphrases thIS passage in STIlI, q. IS, a. I ad 1. Cf. G. Lafont, Structures et methode, p. 385, n. 3. 97. L. Walsh, "Introduction" to Summa the%giae, vol. 49, The Grace ofChrist (London: Blackfriars, 1974), pp. xvii-xxvii, at xviii. 98. ST III, q. 14, a. 4 ad 2: "delectus nostros dispensative assumpsit ... non quia ei secundum se competerent. "
2. The Tension between Christ's Coassumed Peifections and Defects in the Arena of His Human Affectivity
Though determined by the one principle of economy, the two genera of coassumptaperfections and defects-do collide at times in Aquinas' writings, as a certain tension arises from the interplay of two aspects of Christ's existential humanity that prima facie appear to gravitate to opposite poles: the one detennining the way in which Jesus must be seen to possess every supreme spiritual perfection as the fitting complement to his status as Savior of the human race and to his perfect ontological dignity as the divine Word; the other ascertaining the manner in which the kenotic nature of Christ's incarnate mission must bring him into full solidarity with the weaknesses and limitations of a human race lost to sin. In short, a dilemma inevitably f<>lI<>ws when <>ne affirms defects in Christ, which, at least at first sight, seem to subvert his perfective traits, a dilemma or tension of which Thomas indicates his awareness already in the Sentences, as when he offers the following Christological double take: It was necessary for Christ to become like his brethren in all things pertaining to their. salvation.... On the other hand, in other areas it was necessary for him to excel, since
he is the Savior of the human race. 99
The tension that results from trying to balance off a God-man endowed with supereminent gifts with a kenotic Christ in full solidarity with sinful humanity is most acutely perceived in the discussion on Christ's passions, where the perfections and defects come to a veritable tete-a-tete. Again, Thomas insists that Christ's passibility, as a defect, accrues to the stock of a C<>ITUpt and weakened nature; yet, corruptibility also causes a disordering <>fthe sensitive appetite, which in tum gives rise to disordered passion. If Christ's passibility counts as a defect in the genuine sense of the tenn, then it would seem to annul his commensurate sharing in the perfection of grace and virtue; if, however, one affirms that Christ's humanity was endowed with such supereminent gifts as perfect sinlessness, virtue, and grace, all of which necessarily preclude a disordered appetite and, hence, disordered pas~ion, then ostensibly one should ~e prevented from qualifying Jesus' passibility as a defect m the strict sense of the term. Aware of this tension, or incongruity, between perfections and defects in the arena of Christ's human affectivity. Aquinas attempts t<> supply a carefully nuanced and c<>herent
99. III Sent, d. 3, q. 5, a. 2 ad 1: "Christus fratribus per omnia assimilari debuit que necessaria erant ad eorum reparationem '.' In Aliis autem excel/ere debuit ut hominum Salvator. "
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resolution of it, as shall be examined in closer detail later in this study. Yet, one cannot deny as an inescapable element of Thomas' theology of Christ's passions the dilemma which ensues upon his incessant desire to affIrm, on the one side, Christ's full solidarity with the human race, epitomized by his coassumed defects, and, on the other, Christ's unique and unparalleled dignity as the Incarnate God and Savior, typified by his coassumed perfections. 3. Christ's Coassumed Defects: His Passions
Since passibility belongs to the package of coassumed defects, the coassumpta strike at the heart of Aquinas' analysis of Christ's human passions. That one can take Christ's passibility in abstraction from the notion of defect Aquinas seems to disallow when he places Christ's passions in the centerpiece of his examination of Christ's coassumed defects of soul in Tertia, q. 15, a maneuver further buttressed when he states later on in the Tertia Pars: "Christ came in the weakness of the flesh, which is manifested in the passions."IOO Coassumed defect and passibility are interchangeable in Aquinas' Christology. This may strike the reader as odd, since the coassumpta comprise the optional features of Christ's humanity, whereas the passions represent an otherwise necessary component of human life; as movements of the sensitive appetite, an appetite that belongs by nature to every human being, the passions necessarily accrue to the essential elements of human nature, or to the necessitas consequens materiam, i.e., to that which follows naturally-and, hence, necessarily-upon the union of soul and body. Thus, though no binding logic requires .the coassumpta, it would seem to undermine the realism of Christ's humanity to opine that the Incarnation is conceivable without such a necessary feature of human life as the passions. Aquinas himself adds to the perplexity by affirming, after the marmer of his . master Albert, that Christ's sensitive appetite belongs to the consequentia unionis, or to the elements of Christ's humanity that follow logically, and, hence, necessarily, upon the ontology of the human nature assumed in the union with the Word; by placing his remarks on . Christ's sensitive appetite in the midst of his analysis of the consequenh'a unionis in Tertia, . qq. 16-26 (cf. q. 18, a. 2), Thomas affirms that a sensitive appetite, and, with it, movement
100. STID, q. 43, a. I ad 2: "Christus veaerit in infirmitate carnis, quod manifestatur per passiones. "
cr. F. Ruella, La chris/%gie de Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 180-7.
of passion, belong necessarily to Christ's human nature. lot Assigning Christ's passions to the coassumpta rather th~ to the assumpta would, given such a structural arrangement, appear displaced. . The reasons for which Thomas holds that Christ's passions belong to the coassumpta rather than the assumpta shall be explored shortly below in the remarks on the "fittingness" of Jesus' human affectivity; for the moment, however, one should take note of the fact that Aquinas looks upon Christ's passions as defects, and, subsequently, as volwitarilyassumed in the package of the coassumpta. They are optional features of the Incarnation. The voluntary assumption of defects follows, for Aquinas, not only upon the notion of the coassumpta, but also upon the doctrine of Christ's absolute sinlessness; sinlessness spares Jesus the necessary inheritance of any and all effects of sin, so that those effects taken on are assumed entirely freely: Christ did not contract these defects as ifhe were taking on a debt due to sin; rather, by his own free will he took them on.... Christ's soul could have resisted undergoing these passions, especially by the Divine power. But ofhis own will he subjected him- . self to these passions of both body and soul. 102 Hardly novel, Thomas' thought here, as we have seen, hearkens back to Augustine and many of the Greek Fathers, as well as to the concurrent voice of the Scholastics, including Hugh of Sl. Victor, Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, and Bonaventure, all of whom affirm that Christ voluntarily assumed, and did not contract out of ne~ cessity (as all other humans do), such defects as mortality, hunger, thirst, weariness '" and passibility.IOJ 101. For mote on how the essential features of Christ's humanity are to be understood by Thomas . as logical consequences (cf. prologue to ST III, q. 16), cf. L.~B. Gillon, "La notion de consequence de I'union hypostatique dans Ie cadre de rna, qq. 2-26," Ang IS (1938), pp. 17-34; and C.E. O·Neill, "Introduction" to Summa theologiae vol. 50, The One Mediator (London: Blackfriars, 1965), pp. xxxxvii, at xxv-xxvi. Albert entitIes tractate 6 of his De incarn. as "De consequentibus unjonem ex partefinis," with the first question taking up the issue of Christ's passions (ed. Colon., p. 219). 102. STIII, q. 14, a. 3, and q. IS, a. 4 ad 1: "Christus non contraxit has defectus, quasi ex debito peecati eos suscipiens, sed ex propria vo/untate... anima Christi poterat quidem resistere passionibui. ut non ei supervenirent, praesertim virtute dlvina. Sed propria voluntate se passionibus subiiciebat, tam ;,co'rporal,fbus quam animalibus." Cf. as well Camp. theol., ch. 226. Augustine, Enarr. ;nPs 87:3 (CCSL 39, p. 1209); Hugh ofSt. Victor, De sacr. Christ. fidei, Bk. U, pt. I, ch. 7 (pL 176, 39()"1); De q!"'t. volun!. in Christo (PL 176,845-6); Lombard,IIl Sent. d. IS, th. 1 (ed. CoIl. Bonav., pp. 92-8, esp. 97); Alexander of Hales, Summa theol., (Summa hal.), Pars I. ~k. I, tr. 5, sect. 2, q. 3, ch. 3, a. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. I, pp. 312-3); Bk. Ill, inq. I, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, IDem. 1 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 4, pp. 58-62); Qu. disp.
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Because the coassumed defects represent optional and, hence, freely assumed features of the Incarnation, Thomas presumes that the Word elected to take. them on only because he'deemed them the "fitting" or "appropriate" (conveniens) means of determining the existential condition of his incarnate humanity. The notion of "fittingness" in Aquinas' Christology shall receive separate attention below; here, however, we shall give brief consideration to two of the principal motives, both of which are rooted in the thought of Peter Lombard, for which Thomas considers Christ to have fittingly taken on various defects, including passibility: first, to offer more expediently Of efficaciously satisfaction for the sins of the human race; and, second, to make Christ's humanity appear more credible to human eyes.
a. For Purposes ofExpediency in Satisfaction We have seen that, for Lombard, Christ asswned certain defects because they were expedient to the completion of his saving mission.IO' Taking hold of this insight and echoing its development in Albert, Aquinas identifies Christ's mission with the need for satisfaction for the sins of the human race; the purpose of the Incarnation was to offer satisfaction or atonement for human sin, and thereby procure redemption of the human race. lOS Hence, Christ assumed only those defects that efficaciously assisted-and did not hinder-his work of satisfaction or redemption; as Thomas writes in the Summa and the Compendium theo/agiae: [ChristJ assumed our defects economicallY in order to sa,tisfY for our sin, not because they belonged to him ofhimself.... [ChristJ took on certain defects by the free decision of his own wiIl, with a view to procuring our salvation. I06
104. Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, a. I (ed. Call. Bonav., pp. 93-4), which is repeated by Bonaventure in III Sent, d. 15, .. 1, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 332-3). 105. Cf. Albert, III Sent, d. 15, a. I, sed contra I; and aa. 5-6. For more on the notion of satisfaction in Aquinas, cf. R. Cessario, The Godly Image: Christ and Salvation in Catholic Thoughtfrom Anselm to Aquinas,' A Patfoort, uLe vrai visage de Ia satisfaction du Christ selon St. Thomas. Dne etude de la Somme Theologique," in Grdo sapientiae et amoris, pp. 247-65; J. Bracken. "Thomas Aquinas and Anselm's Satisfaction Theory," Ang. '62 (1985), pp. 501-30; D. Chardonnens, La satiifaction du Christ. Un aspect du mystere de la redemption selon Ia Somme tMologique de saint Thomas d' Aquin. Memoire de Hcence (Fribourg, Switz.: Faculty of Theology of the University ofFribourg, 1989); D.P. Jamros, "Satisfaction for Sin: Aquinas on the Passion of Christ," ITQ 56 (1990), pp. 307-8; 1. Riviere, "Sur les premieres applications du terme 'satisfaction' al'oeuvre du Cluist," Bull. Iitt. eccles. 25 (1924), pp. 285-97; 353-69; F. Bourassa, "La satisfaction du Christ," Sciences ecclesiastiques 15 (1963), pp. 351-81; B. Gherardini, "La 'satisfactio vicaria' in San Tommaso," Doctor communis 37 (1984), pp. 103-22; cf. as well B. Cata:o, Salut et redemption chez. S. Thomas d'Aquin. L'acte sauveur du Christ (Paris: Aubier, 1965); and 1.-P. Torrell,"Le sacerdoce du Christ dans la Somme de theologie," RT99 (1999), pp. 75-100. For the medieval development of the notion of satisfaction, as influenced especiallyby Anselm, cf. J. Riviere, Le dogme de la redemption au debut du moyen age (Paris: J Vrin, 1934), pp. 153-221, and 402-26. 106. STlII. q. 14, a. 4 ad 2, and Compo theol.. ch. 226: "defectus nostros dispensative assumpsit. ut pro peccato nostro satisfaceret, non quia ei secundum se competerent... sua voluntate dispensative ad
Aquinas' conviction that the coassumed defects more efficaciously assist Christ's mission of satisfaction or atonement follows upon his understanding of the order of divine justice, which requires payment, or satisfaction, for the debt incurred by human sin. Christ pays this debt by taking on those aspects of the debt (or punishment)--death, hunger, weariness, etc.-which at the same time pose no threat to his perfect moral integrity, as perfect moral integrity is also required for Christ's work of satisfac~on. Jesus takes on the existential condition of a' penitent sinner through his assumed defects, and th.ereby offers satisfaction for the debt imposed by sin (cf. Is 53:4), since release from the debt incurred by sin cannot take place without some form of penance. Thus, both Je~us' coassumed defects and his perfections anow for the most efficacious reparation or satisfaction of human sin. In a key passage from Tertia. q. 14, Thomas outlines the reasons for positing these two heads of satisfaction, the one of defects and the other of perfections, as they relate to the Incarnation: The penalties one suffers for another's sin are the matter, as it were, of the satisfaction for that sin. But...satisfaction would not be efficacious unless it proceeded from charity. It was therefore necessary for Christ's soul to possess perfect lrnowledge.an~ virtue, so that he would have the power of s,atisfying; yet, his body also had to be subject to weakness. so that he would not lack the matter of satisfaction. 107
To reiterate, Christ's coassumed perfections and defects represent two heads of the same coin of satisfaction; both are required for perfect satisfaction of human sin. If one should hold priority in Aquinas' Chlistology, however, it would be the perfections, since the Incarnation, which corresponds first and foremost to the reality of the hypostatic union, reflects the dignity of the Word and of Christ's rank: as universal Savior before the weak-
nostram salutem procurandam, a/iquos defectus suscepit. "Cf. as ,wen STIn, q. 14, a. 4, corpus; and . q. 15, a. 1. Though Thomas appeals to the need for satisfaction in III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 3, sol. 3, the . notion plays much more of a predominant role in his mature theology, especially in the Summa. . 107. STlII, q. 14, a. I ad 1 (cf. q. 15, •. 4; and CG IY, ch. 55): "satis/actio pro peccato alterius habet quidem quasi materiam poenas quos aliquis pro peccato alterius sustinet. Sed ... non enim esset satis/actio efficax nisi ex caritate procederet. Et ideo oportuit animam Christi perfectam esse quantum ad habitus scientiarum et virtutum, u.t haberetfacultatem satisfaciendi; et quod corpus elUS subiectum esset infirmitatibus. ut et satlsfactionis materia non deesset." For more on this, cf. B. Sesboiie and J. Wolinski, Le Dieu du salut, p. 492-6; and G. Lafont, Structures et methode, p. 358.
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nesses of the hwnan condition. In the case of Christ's mission of satisfaction, then, those perfections that complement his divine dignity and which assist in the work of salvation, viz., the perfections of grace, virtue, and knowledge, forge the larger framework within which the coassumed defects operate. Where they come into conflict, as in the arena of Jesus' human affectivity, the coasswned defects must cede to the precedence of the coassumed perfections; as Thomas writes in his commentary on the Sentences: Since [Christ] came to restore others, he had to be in possession of perfection, not of defects, since in such a case he would have been more in need of being reformed than of reforming others. Thus he possessed all grace, not all defects. \08
Later Aquinas will write iD the Summa, repeating the near unanimous opinion of his
Scholastic predecessors, beginning with Lombard, that: it was not fitting for [Cluist] to assume all human defects or weaknesses. For there are some defects that are incompatible with the perfection of knowledge and grace, such as ignorance, an inclination to evil, and difficulty in doing good '" Hence, it was not necessary for him to assume all [defects], but only those that sufficed to satisfy for the sins of the entire human nature. IOII b. For Purposes o/Credibility in the Incarnation
Peter Lombard, and Bonaventure after him, underscore the fact that the need for a credible incarnated human nature provides a suffi,cient motive for Christ's assumption of various defects; Le., in order to appear as a true and genuine human being, it was necessary for Cluist to assume certain defects, including passibility,110 In short, the economic or salvific purpose of the Incarnation can be achieved only to the extent that the human family views Christ as a fully credible human being; faith
108. IIISent. d. 15, q. 1, a. 2 ad 5: "quia alios reintegrare venerat. debuit aliis in peifectionibus poliar esse. non in defectibus. quia plus indiguisset ipse niformari quam reformare. Et ideo habuit omnem graliam. non tamen omnem defectum . .. 109. STIll, q. 14, a. 4, corpus and ad 2: "nonfoit conveniens ut omnes defectus seu infirmitates humanas assumeret. Sunt enim quidam defectus qui repugnant peljectioni scientiae et gratiae [cf. De Vel;' q. 26, a. 8, sed contra 3], sicut ignorantia, pronitas ad malum. et difficultas ad bonum [cf. Lombard, III Sent, d. IS, ch.1 (ed. Coli. Bonav., p. 94); Alexander of Hales, III Sent, d. IS, n. 54 (ed. Quarac' chi, p. 168); Albert, III Sent, d. 15, a. 5, and a. 8 ad 5; and Bonaventure, III Sent. d. 15, a. I, q. 2 (ed. ' Quaracchi, p. 333)] ". Et ideo non oportuit quod omnes assumeret, sed solum il/os qui sujjiciebant ad' ' satisfaciendum pro peccato totius humanae naturae." Thomas' position here remains consistent throughout: cf. III Sent. d. 15, q. 1. a. 2. sed contra 2: "quidam defectus sunt qui pelj'ectioni gratie repugnant. sicut ignorantia et difficultas ad bonum. ..
llO. Lombard,!II Sent, d. IS, ch. I (ed. Coli. Bonav., p. 94); and Bonaventure,III Sent, d. IS, a. I, q, I (ed. Quarrachi, p. 331). .
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in a God incarnate is little served if the human face cannot believe that Christ's humanity accurately reflects the truth of human nature. Aquinas endorses this view and makes it entirely his own by stressing that the success of the Incarnation depends in large measure upon the capacity of Christ's hwnan nature to appear as genuine in human eyes, a goal achieved only if Christ assumes certain deficient qualities that characterize all humans: It was fitting for the body assumed by the Son of God to be subject to human weak-
nesses and defects ... so as to affinn the faith in the Incarnation. For, as human nature is known to men only as it is subject to these bodily defects [i.e., death, hunger, thirst, etc.], if the Son of God had assumed human na~e without these defects, he would not have seemed to be a true man, nor to have true, but imaginary, flesh ....The weaknesses assumed by Christ did not impede but greatly advanced the end of the Incarnation ... [For] although [Christ's] weaknesses concealed his divinity, they made known his humanity. III
For Aquinas, then, Christ's humanity must, if it is to appear as genuine, possess at least some defects, since if Jesus experiences no hunger, fatigue, fear, or sorrow, doubt would loom over the status of his human nature. Put another way, a docetic take on christ's humanity might ensue if Jesus appears as too perfect a human individual, such as ifhe were immortal or immune not only to all pain and fatigue, but also to the affective susceptibilities associated with disagreeable passion. In this manner, the need for a credible humari Christ helps to temper or "tone down" the supereminent perfections that might have otherwise characterized Jesus' humanity. On the other hand, the need for a credible Savior-Christ also serves to bolster the fitting assumption of certain perfections in the Incarnation, since belief in a universal God-man Savior would likewise be jeopardized if Jesus owned too many defects, such as the lack of grace or personal guilt due to sin. In brief, the purpose of credibility in the Incarnation means that the human family must have no doubt thal Christ is at theosame time fully human and true divine Savior of the hmnan race. Hence, any perfection that appears to abbreviate his humanity or any defect that
111. STIlI, q. 14, a. 1, corpus and ad 4: "Conveniens fuisse corpus assumptum a Filio Dei humanis inftrmitatibus et defectibus subiacere ... propter fidem incarnationis adstruendam. Cum enim natura humana non aliter esse! nota hominibus 'nisi prout huiusmodi corpora/ibus defectibus suhiacet, Si sine his defeettbus Fi/ius Dei naturam humanam assumpsisset, videretur nonfuisse verus homo. nee veram carnem habuisse, sed phantast;cam ... Infirmilas assumpta a Christo non impedivit finem incarnationis. sed maxime promovit ... Et quamvis per huiusmodi infirmitates absconderetur eius divinitas. manifstabatur tamen humanitas.."
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undermines his redemptive role or his supreme dignity represents "unsuitable" features of . the Incarnation. 112 From this one can see how 'credibility helps to strike a balance between the perfections and defects in Christ, and Aquinas frequently turns to the purpose of credibility as an ilIuminating medium for probing the reality of Christ's human affectivity, 4. Christ's Coassumed Perfections: The Fullness of Grace
As we have seen, for Aquinas the need for expediency or efficacy in satisfaction leads not only to the coassumption of various defects, but also to the necessity of coassumed perfections, particularly those of grace and knowledge: Christ assumed human defects in order to satisfy for the sin of human nature, and for this it was necessary for him to have the perfection of knowledge and grace in his
soul,lll In addition to helping Christ better accomplish his work of satisfaction or atonement, the perfective elements of the coassumpta stand out in Aquinas' mind as the fitting existential complement to his ontological dignity as the divine Word; as God Incarnate, Jesus ought to possess the best of all supernatural gifts, or every supreme spiritual perfection, particularly. again, the perfections of grace and knowledge: "The fullness of all grace and knowledge· was due to Christ's soul of itself, from the fact of its being asswned by the Word of God";lJ 4 or, stronger yet: "What belongs by nature to the Son of God belongs by grace to the Son of . man. "115 Again, Thomas consistently maintains that all aspects of Jesus' hwnanity, including his weaknesses, become integrated into the divine being of the Word. Though one might perceive at times an excessive emphasis on Christ's perfections in Thomas' writings, pat;, ticularly in the discussion on Christ's perfect knowledge, one cannot fault Aquinas for fail: ing to remind his readers that the ontological excellence of Christ's humanity owes to the . fact that it follows upon the excellence of the hypostatic union itself. ' In Tertia, qq. 7-13, Thomas outlines what he adjudges to represent the three main categories of coassumed perfections in Christ: the perfection of grace (qq, 7-8), the perfec-
tion of knowledge (qq, 9-12), and the perfection owing to Christ'spowers of soul (potentia animpe) (q. 13). Of the three, only the first concerns us, since the perfection ofknowledge and the question on the power of Christ's soul stand outside the discussion proper on the affective dimension of Jesus' hwnanity. whereas Christ's possession of grace bears a direct relation to the moral quality of his life, which involves his affectivity. Thomas advances three reasons to explain why Christ possesses the perfection 'of grace; first, on account of the substantial union of his human nature with the divine Person of the Word; second, so that his hwnan operations of knowing and loving, i.e., his "psychology," may attain the same dignified status as that which the hypostatic union confers upon his ontology; third, on account of his role as Savior and head of redeemed hwnanity, and, hence, as the source of all grace. 116 These three types of grace merit the brief consideration we shall give them below. Do
The Grace of Union
The first type of grace in Christ is denominated the "gnice of union" (gratia unionis), or what Damascene calls the "anointing" of Christ's human nature.ll7 This grace stands for the gift itself of a divine Person, the Person of the Word, to a human nature, i.e.; to the humanity of Christ ("grace" itself most properly means "gift"); as Aquinas affirms: ''to be personally united to the Son of God is itself a gift bestowed on human nature."'" An uncreated and infinite grace as such, the grace of union represents the most perfect and noble realization of the reality of grace. In short, the grace of union denotes the hypostatic union itself, whereby God incarnates hlinself in a concrete human nature; as the scholar J.-H. Nicolas writes: "for this man Jesus, it is a grace to be the Word ... that is, the human nature personalized by the'Word."119 Because of the substantial nature of this union between the divine Word and the human nature of Christ, Aquinas at times speaks of this grace in terms of an eminently sublime "nearness" {propinquitas} to God:
116. Cf. STIlI, q. 7, a. 1; Lect. super loan., ch. 3,lect. 6; J.-H. Nicolas, Synthese dolgmatique, pp. 361-75; idem, Les prolondeurs de /a grace (paris: Beauchesne, 1969), pp. 232-330; J.wP. Torrell, Le
112. Cf. L. Walsh, "Introduction" to Summa theologiae, vol. 49, p. xxiii. 113. STIll, q. 14, a. 4: "Christus humanos delectus assumpsit ad satisjaciendumpro peccato hu- '. manae naturae: ad quod require batur quod perlectionem scientiae et gratiae haberet in anima. 114. STIlI, q. 14, a. 4 ad 2: "preniludo omnis gratiae et scientiae animae Christi secundum se debebatur, ex hoc ipso quod erat a Verba Dei assumpta. " 115. STIH, q, 10, a. I, argo 3; "llliud quod conveni! Filio De; per naturam, convenit Filio hominis per gratiam. II For the exact same wording in Bonaventure, cf. III Sent, d. 2, a. 3, q. 2, argo 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 52). cr. J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ enses mysteres, vol. I, p. 139.
, Christ en ses mysteres. vol. l,pp. 126-9; G. Lafont, Structures et methodepp. 368-71; and F. Ruello, " La christologie de Thomasd'Aquin, pp.157-80. ~17. Damas9ene, Defide orth., Bk. III, ch. 3 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 174-5): "Unetio Qutem deitas hu. "Cf. P. Parente, L '/0 di Cristo. pp. 284-5. 118. STIlI q. 7. a. 12: "uniri personaliter Filio Dei, quod est gratis concessum humanae naturae. .. Cf. as well STIlI, q. 2, a. 10; q. 6, a. 6; q. 7, a. II; and III Sent, d. 13, q. 3, aa. 1-2, 119. J.-H. Nicolas, Synthese dogmatique, pp. 363-4, at 364: "pour cet homme, c'estune grace d'etre Ie Verbe ... c'est-a-dire la nature humaine personnalisee par Ie Verbe." Cf. as well STIlI, q. 2, a. 10; G. Lafont, Structures et methode, pp. 366-71; and T. O'Meara, The%gian, pp. 133-4.
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The nearer a recipient is to the cause that exercises influence, the more it receives. Thus, the soul ofehrist, which is more closely united to God than all other rational creatures, receives the greatest outpouring of grace. 120
It stands to reason, in other words, that Jesus' soul should, as Damascene first pointed out, be the fust and full beneficiary of grace on account of the substantial union of his humanity with the divine Word. 121 And since this substantial union takes place between humanity and God in Jesus, the grace of union carries a paradoxical qualitY about it: it represents a singular gift' offered to Christ's human nature alone while at the same time representing the gift of God himself to the universal human family, via the hwnanity of ChriSt. 122 h. The Personal Grace
The second kind of grace, which is tenned ''personal'' (gratia personalis), denotes the created and sanctifYing grace (gratia gratumfaciens) owned by Christ. This grace accounts for the radical divinization of Christ's soul, as nothing intrinsic to the hypostatic union necessitates the sanctification of Jesus' humanity; Aquinas reminds us that Christ is good by essence in his divine nature, not in his human nature -Christ's soul is of a different nature
than that of his divine Person-which thereby requires the participation of grace in his human soul: Since the two natures [of Christ] remain distinct within the unity of Person, Christ's soul is not by its essence divine. Hence. it must be made divine by participation, which comes by way of grace. l2l
It is necessary to affirm habitual grace in Christ ." because of the dignity of his soul, ,as Christ had to know and love God in the most intimate way possible. 124
c. The Capital Grace The third type of grace, also created and sanctifying, Thomas calls the "capital grace" (gratia capitis) of Christ, or the grace as head, as it pertains to Christ's unique role as Savior of
the human race and head of redeemed humanity. 125 Whereas the grace ofnnion and the personal grace center on the very nature and dignity of the God-man himself, the capital grace focuses on Jesus' role in the mission of redemption, or on his relationship with the human race at large,' and on Christ not simply as an individual but as a mystical person united to all the members of his Body, the Church: [Christ had the fullness of habitual or sanctifying grace] on account of his relation to the human race, since, as man. Christ is the "mediator between God and man," as written in 1 Tm 2:5 .... Grace was in Christ not only as in an individual but also as in the head of the whole Church, to whom all are united as members to the head. con:stituting one mystical person.126 Possessing grace as a mystical person united to his members, Christ is the universal source and cause of all the graces given to his redeemed members. Perfection of grace in Christ's soul follows, in other words, upon the efficient causal role of his humanity, i.e., upon Jesus' role as unique mediator between God and the human family, "as upon the universal principle in the genus of those who possess grace."127 Redemption and the outpouring of grace are little achieved if Christ's soul remains in need of any degree of grace.
That this participation of grace should attain a superlative degree ofperfection follows from Christ's dignity as the Son of God, for his human soul must possess the ability to act in a way that corresponds to the Word's ontological rank; perfection of grace in Christ's soul, Thomas explains, allows Jesus to know and love God in a way commensurate with his di-
vine dignity: 120. STIlI, q. 7, a. 9 (cf. as well a. 1): "quanto aliquod receptivumpropinquiusestcausae influent;, abundantius recipit. Et ideo anima Christi, quae propinquius coniungitur Deo inter omnes creaturas rationales, recipit maximam injIuentiam gratiae eius. " 121. De fule orth., Bk. III, ch. 22 (ed. Buytaert, p. 264): "Sf enim vere unita est Deo Verba caro, ex summa existentiam magis autem in ipso exstitit, et hypostaticam (id est persona/em) ad ipsum habuit identitatem, qua/iter non peifecte dictata est omni sapientia et gratia?" 122. cr. J.-H. Nicolas, Les profondeurs, p. 232; and O. Pesch, Thomas von Aquin, p. 178. 123. STIlI, q. 7. a. 1 ad I: "quia cum unitate personae remanet distinctio naturarum, anima Christi non est per suam essentJam divina. Unde oportet quod fiat divina per participation em, quae est secundumgratiam." Cf. as well De ver., q. 29, a. 1 ad 5j and III Sent, d. 13, q. I, aa. 1-2.
124. STIlI, q. 7, a. 1: "necesse est ponere in Christo gratiam hahitua/em ... propter nobilitatem il/ius animae. cuius operationes oportebat propinquissime attingere ad Deum per cognitionem et amorem." 125. Cf. STIlI, q. 7, aa. I and 9; q. 8, aa. 1-6; q. 48, a. 2 ad I: De ver.. q. 29,a. 5; and III Sent, d. 13, q. 2, aa. 1-2. For more on Christ as head and source of all grace in Aquinas, cf. T.R Potvin, The Theology of the Primacy of Christ according to St. Thomas and Its Scriptural Foundations (Fribourg, Switz.: Editions Universitaires, 1973). pp. 27-35, and 226-49; J.-P. Torrell,Miiitrespiritue, pp. 1925; and E. llailleux,'''Le Christ et son Esprit," RT73 (1973), pp. 386-9. 126. STIll, q. 7. a. 1. and q. 19, a. 4: "Propter habitudinem iPSlUS Christi ad genus humanum. ChrisIus enim. inquantum homo, est ·'mediator Dei et hominum, 'ut dicitur l1rm ... /n Christo non solum fuil gratia sicut in quodam homine singuiari, sed sicut in capite totius Ecc/esiae, cui omnes uniuntur sicut capiti membra, ex quibur constituitur mystice una persona." 127. STIll, q. 7, a. 9: "Co'lferebatur ei gratia tamquam cuidam universali principio in genere habentium gratias. "Cf. J .-H. Nicolas, Synthese dogmatique, p. 365j and G. O'Collins. Christ%gy. A Biblica, Historica. and Systematic Study ofJesus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 273.
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Essentially, a grasp of basic causality allows one, so far as Aquinas is concerned, to see the connection between the perfection of grace in Christ's soul and Jesus' role as head of recreated humanity: since no effect caD exceed its cause, no one can possess grace more than Christ, who is himself the cause of all grace, "Just as fIre, which is the cause of heat in other hot things. is itself the hottest of all."128 P~t another way, since every effect must be proportioned to its cause, and since Christ is the cause of all grace, he must himselfbe proportioned to such an effect, i.e., he must possess all grace himself. as in fact In 1:16 suggests when it asserts, "from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grece," which Aquinas points out in Tertia, q. 8, a. 5, sed contra. L. Walsh succinctly sums up this point well when he writes: "By all the laws of causality the -Saviour must be superior to the saved."129
virtue, which in turn allows virtue to achieve a mode of action commensurate with the ontological change effected by this grace. In a word, grace alters the entire moral landscape of hum:an nature, including that of Christ. Given this fact, the more perfect the grace, the more perfect the virtue, and since Jesus owned grace to a superlative degree, so too did he possess virtue to a corresponding degree-"Christ possessed all the virtues most perfectly"132-which explains why in his analysis of Christ's grace in Jertia,. q. 7 Aquinas devotes the first article to Christ's possession of grace and the immediately ensuing article to his possession of virtue. The Christ of St. Thomas possesses without question the perfection of every possible grace, and subsequently he experiences the most perfect moral life conceivable, or the maximum disposition for doing. good (cf. Acts 10:38). E. THE "FITTINGNESS" (CONVENIENS) OF CHRIST'S HUMAN WEAKNESSES
d. The Perfection of Grace as the Foundationfor the Moral Quality ofChrfst'S Life
1. The Argument ofFittingness in Aquinas' Christ%gy
Christ's perfection in grace holds paramount importance for the moral quality of his life on account of the causal relation between grace and sound moral action: "Grace extends to all the effects of grace, which are the virtues, gifts, and the like."110 Because of this causal relation, Thomas uses the following tenet, stated in 'Jertia. q. 7, a. 9, as the springboard from which he launches all inquiries into the moral value of Christ's actions, including his affective acts: "Christ possesses [habitual or sanctifying] grace in the most perfect way" (Chris/us habuit gratiae plenitudinem). In effect, Christ's perfection of grace represents the . logical complement to the datwn of his sinlessness, since only the fullness of grace could have rendered Christ's soul sinless: "Christ's soul...was made just and holy by [grace1from the beginning of his conception; not, though, as ifit were sinful before then."131 Sinlessness too means that Christ necessarily possesses perfect virtue, since sin is contrary to virtue; as Thomas explains in Prima Secundae. q. 71, a. I, sin denotes an inordinate act and virtue an ordinate act. Aquinas holds to grace being the cause of sound moral action, or virtue, since, as an entitative habitus. i.e., as that which perfects the essence of the soul, grace enables the soul through its operational habitus. i.e., through the actions of its powers, .the virtues, to exe- .' cute on an entirely new level; grace attains the root source of
128. STIlI. q. 7, a. 9: "Sicut ignis. qui est causa caloris in omnibus calidis. est maxime calidus. .. 129. L. Walsh, "Introduction" to Summa theologiae. vol. 49, p. xxiii. 130. Cf. STIlI, q. 7, a. 9: "Se extendit ejus gratia ad omnes gratiae efJectus, qui sunt virtutes et '
dona et alia huiusmodi. .. 131. Cf. STTII. q. 7, a. 9, ad 2: "Anima Christi ... per eamfacta est iusta et sancta aprincipiosuae conceptionis: non quod antefueripeccatrix."
.
Directly correlated to the principle of economy is what one may caIl the principle or argument of fittingness. Aquinas opines that Christ chose to take on the coassumed defects because they were conveniens. i.e., "fitting for," or "suitable to," God's economic plan of salvation. Though the principle or argument of fittingness is employed throughout the whole of Thomas' Christology-G. Narcisse speaks of a "torrent of suitabilities" that runs throughout, with the Tertia Pars containing one hundred-eight uses of conveniens in reference to · Christ's ontology and psychology:""'it takes on a privileged and preeminent role in the discussion on Christ's human defects, including his passions: "It was fitting for the body assumed by the Son of God," Thomas writes, "to be subject to human weaknesses and defects."133 Here Aquinas again echoes the thought of Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, and Bonaventure, all of whom appeal to the notion of fittingness as · grounds· for Christ's assumption of human defects.l34
132. STIlI, q. 15, a. 2: "Christus perjectissime habuit omnes virtutes. " 133. STIlI, q. 14, a. 1: "Conveniens juisse corpus assumptum a Filio Dei humanis infirmitatibus et · defectibussubiacere. "The argument of fittingness figures into Thomas' first discussion on Christ's passions in III Sent. d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 1, as well as in Compo theol., ch. 226. Cf. G. Narcisse, "Les enjeux epistemologiques de I'argument de convenance," pp. 146-7. and his expanded work, Les i raisons de Dieu: Argument de convenance et esthetique theologique selon saint Thomas d'Aquin et '. Hans Urs von Balthasar (Fribourg, Switz.: Editions Universitaires, 1997). Cf. as wen R. Cessario,
, The Godly Image. p. 140. ; 134. Lombard, III Sent. d. 15, ch. 1 (ed. CoIl. Bonav., p. 95): "defectus nostros suscepit Christus ... ei conveniebat suscipere et nobis expediebat." Cf. Alexander of Hales, Summa theol. (Summa
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The argument of fittingness stands out as a classic example of the theological method ofSt. Thomas, by which the Dominican theologian penetrates the mystery of the Incarnation. '" Thoroughly grounded in and inspired by the dynamism of revealed truth, particularly the Pauline theme of keno tic Christology (cf. Phil 2:6-8), Thomas' Christology of fittingness follows upon an understanding of the economy of salvation whereby God remains absolutely free to redeem the human race by whatever means he chooses.1J6 Ifhe chooses the path ofincamating himself in a human nature endowed with physical and affective weaknesses and of ultimately suffering and dying on the cross, it is because, Aquinas concludes, . this represents in God's eyes the most "fitting" or "suitable" way of achieving such an end.
born in original sin, including suffering (or p3$sibility taken in a broad sense). The second reason, which has also been examined above, is for purposes of credibility in the Incarnation: since all humans possess such defects as mortality, hunger, fatigue, passibility, and the like, it was fitting for Christ to assume them, so as to increase credibility in the truth and integrity of his human nature. Third, defects of body and soul better selVe Christ's moral exemplarity, whereby he emerges as a more credible and viable model to imitate (this reason is invoked particularly in the discussion on the fittingness of Jesus' temptations and suffering and death, both of which involve his affectivity"'):
Aquinas takes a given of revealed fact-the weaknesses assumed by Christ-and attempts to show, to quote O. Pesch, its "coherence" (stimmigkeit) and its "what-it-means-to-us" im-
It was fitting for the body assumed by the Son of God to be subject to human weaknesses and defects ... in order to show us an example of patience by courageously bearing human passions and defects. 139
port, i.e., its "fittingness," and thereby provide what l-P. Torrell calls the "ostensive" and "exhortative" reasons for which Christ assumes certain defects. 137 Such an understanding of the Incarnation requires that, before the launching of any theological enterprise, one must first possess a radical and profound humility. To appreciate Thomas' position on Jesu~' human affectivity, one must therefore recognize that for him, it was fitting, i.e., more con- . sonant with God's economic plan of salvation, for Christ to take on human passibiIity. In Tertia, q. 14, a. 1, the Dominican Master outlines three principal reasons for which Jesus' assumed weaknesses can be considered fitting or consonant with God's economic plan of salvation. The first, which has been examined above, is for purposes of satisfaction: in order to satisfy efficaciously or atone for the sins of the human race, it was fitting for Christ to take on those defects that follow upon the common punishment due to all those
Bk.lII. inq. I. tr. I. q. 4. d. 3, memo 1 ad 7 (ed. Quaracchi. p. 61); and Albert, III Sent, d. 15.•. I. For Bonaventure. P A. Sepinski (La psych%gie du Christ, p. 26: n. 4) offers several references in which the argument of fittingness plays a leading role. 135. For more on this. cf. J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. I, pp. 34-8; idem. The Per- , son, pp. 156, and 265-6; O. Pesch. Thomas von Aquin, pp. 318-22; F. Ruello. La christ%gle de. . Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 52-5; R Garrigou-Lagrange.La synthese thomiste (paris: Desclee de Brouwer; 1947), p. 109; y. Congar. LaJai et 10 thealagie (Tournai, Belgium: DescMe, 1962), p. 172; F. Cun- : ningham. Christ and H"zs Sacraments, pp. 76-96; and E.-H. Weber, Le Christ selon saint Thomas ' d'Aquin, pp. 20-1. 136. Cf. M.-D. Chenu. Toward UnderstandingSt. Thomas, pp. 182-3; idem, La tMologie comme science, p. 92-9; G. Narcisse, "Les enjeux epistemologiques," pp. 158-66; R. Spiazzi, "Le passioni e la, passione di Cristo in San Tommaso d'Aquino;" Sacra Doctrina 37 (1992), pp. 5-34, at 8-12; andJ.- ,
hal.).
P. Torrell. Maitre spirituel, pp. 139-55. 137.
J.~P.
Torrell, The Person, p. 266; and O. Pesch, Thomas von Aquin, pp. 318-9.
2. Understanding Christ's Passions as Fitting (or Optional) Features ofthe Incarnation
Since fittingness presupposes that things could have been otherwise, as God was in nowise constrained to follow the route he did in redeeming the human race, one faces a dilemma when speaking ofthe fittingness of Christ's passibility, a dilemma which arises from the fact that the passions 'necessarily accrue to human nature. The "fittingness" of Christ's passibility does not square with the realization that, once having taken on a human nature, Jesus must necessarily undergo passion on account of natural principles. Once a true man, Jesus must by nature experience the pull of the sensitive appetite, he must by nature undergo move· ments of passion on account ofthenecessitas consequens·materiam (cf. Tertia, q. 14, a. 2), Le., on account of that which naturally follows upon the union of soul and body in human nature. It therefore seems meaningless to speak of the conveniens of a passibility in Christ . that could not have been otherwise. This problem has been noted above with respect to the ,. inclusion of Christ's passions among the coassumpta, i.e., among the optional features of · Jesus' humanity.
"138. STIIT,-q. 41, a. 1; q. 46. aa. 1-4 and 9-11; q. 47. a. 4; q. 50, a. 1; Contra err. Graec., VII, 2325; and Comp. theol., chs. 227-8. Cf; as well G. Narcisse, "Les enjeux epistemologiques," pp. 152, 61; and G. Lafont, Structures et melho-de, pp. 308 and 385. 139. STIlI, q. 14, a. 1: "Conveniens foisse corpW1 assumptum a Filio Dei humanis i-,ifirmitatibus et defectibus subiacere ... propter exemplum patientiae, quod nobis exhibet passiones et delectus hu· manos/or/iter tolerando. "Cf. as well Lect. super loan., ch. 12,lect. 5. Bonaventure (III Sent,.d. 15, - a. I, q. 1 red. Quaracchi, pp. 330-1» agrees with Thomas in looking upon moral exemplarity as a rea.~ son why Christ took on the "defects of nature."
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An attentive reading ofthe De veritate and the Compendium theologiae (and somewhat of the Summa) reveals that Aquinas' remarks on Christ's passibility append a precise can-. notation to the term "passibility," particularly in Jesus' case, which is not immediately ev-
ident to the modem reader, but which gives reason to his qualification of Jesus' passions as optional and fitting features of the Incarnation. Because of the historical context of the m<>- . dieval discussion on Christ's passions, viz., to counter the view of Hilary of Poitiers (and of the Aphthartodocetae in Darnascene's case) that sought to downplay or deny the chological reality of Christ's suffering and pain, passibilitas for Aquinas, as for Scholastics, equates primarily with the ability to suffer, or with the experience of an affeotive loss. Added to this is the prevalent medieval view, begun by Lombard, that passion belongs to the condition of punishment, or that true passion, as Thomas asserts, involves a '. change "from a natural state to a contrary one" because of its relation to the corruptibility , of the body (the relation between passibility and corruptibility will be examined in greater depth in the following chapter).'" For these reasons, "passibilitY' for Aquinas pertains first and foremost to the affective sufferings incurred by disagreeable passion (fear, anger, sorrow, etc.), since these passions come closer to attaining the true meaning of passion, and only secondarily or in a derived sense to the affective betterment that comes with agreeable passion (love, desire,joy, etc.): The character of passion is more fully observed when the affection fonows from something harmful than if it should follow from something agreeable, since passion implies an alteration of the patient from its natural state to a contrary one. This is why pain and sadness and fear and other such passions, which luive to do with evil, possess the character of passion more than joy and love and other passions that have to do with goOd. 141 Such reasoning explains Aquinas' appeal to Ps 87:3 ("My soul is filled with evils") as scriptural evidence for Christ's passibility of soul in Tertia, q. 15, a. 4. Thomas' identification of passibility primarily with an affective loss or with affective suffering also explains .
140. De Ver., q. 26, a. 8: ''passio importat quandam transmutationem patientis a sua naturali dis- , positlone in contrarlam dispositionem." Cf. Lombard, cf.IlI Sent, d. 15, ch. 1 (ed. ColI. Bonav., p. 93); De Ver, q. 26, a. 1;ST I-II, q. 85, a. 5; and H.~D. Noble, "Passions," DTC 11,2 (932), cols. 2211-
41,at2212. 141. De vet:, q. 26, a. 8: "Magis salvatur ratio pass/onis quando affectio sequitur ex nocivo si sequatur ex proflcuo, propter hoc quod passio importat quandam transmutationem patientis naturali dispositione in contrar;am dispositionem. Et inde est quod dolor et tristilia et timor et huiusmodi passiones quae sunt respectu mali hahent rationem passianis magis quam gaudium et alia huiusmodi quae sunt respectu boni. "
his association of the experience of the beatific vision with impassibility, since the direct vision of 90d will annul all experience of evil: After the resurrection, by the very fact that the soul will be glorified by the vision of God in full and open fruition, the body united to the glorified soul will be rendered glorious, impassible, and inunortal. 142 Subsequently, when Thomas assigns Christ's passions to the fitting coassumed features of his humanity, he deems not that Jesus could have been impassible as such, i.e., free from all movements of affectivity, but that Christ could have remained exempt from all disagreeable passion, or from experiencing those passions that follow upon the perception of some evil, such as sorrow, fear, anger, and the like. Given his sinless conception and onto~ logical dignity as the Incarnate Word, Christ was not obliged to undergo the appetitive movements that, as part and parcel of the condition of punishment, involve an affective loss. In this view, Christ's human passions logically emerge as optional components freely and fittingly assumed in view of the economic purpose of the Incarnation. It should be stressed that passibility considered as an essential element of human nature ': Thomas does not discount as a necessary feature of Jesus' humanity, i.e., as a feature of the , assumpta, as evidenced by his view that the sensitive appetite, the ontological grounding of the passions, represents a logical and necessary consequence of the human nature assumed in the union with the Word (cf. Tertia, q. 18, a. 2): "[Christ] had a sensitive appetite, . according to which passions could be in him."143 Passibility as such belongs to human nature, and one could no sooner renounce all movements of passion than renounce one's human nature itself; even in the state of original integrity or in the beatific vision, movements of passion are not absent, which Aquinas fully affirrils when he writes: In the frrst state and in the blessed ... there is no passion except with regard to good,
such as love, joy, and the like, but not sorrow or fear or anger or anything of the sort. 1M
142. Comp~, theal., ch. 231: ''post ressurectionem ex hoc ipso quod anima glorificata mt per visianem " Dei, et apertilm et plenamfruitionem. corpus"gloriosae animae unitum gloriosum redtktw; impassibileetimmortale. "cr. as well STL q. 97, a. 3; I-II, q. 85, a. 5 ad2; CGIV, ch. 86; and III Sent, d. 18,
a4.so1.2ad3. 143. De ver., q. 26, a. 8 ad 5: "habuit tamen appetitum sensitivum, secundum quem passiones ei inesse poterant. " " 144. De VeT., q. 26, a. 8, emphasis mi~e: "in primo statu et in beatis ", non est passio nisi respectu , boni, sicut amot; gaudium, et huiusmodi, non autem Iristitla vel timor aut ira vel aliquid tale. " Albert \ (In Sent, d. 15. aa. 6 and 11) agrees that the hwnan being will be passible in the resurrected state,
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For Thomas, the impassibility of preiapsarian man and of the blessed eliminates for them the experience of disagreeable passion alone, not all passion as such. The same would hold for Christ had he not taken on the defect of disagreeable passion, as implied by the following passage from the De veritate, where Aquinas in part follows closely the thought of Augustine:
ruptibility of the body, which shall receive significant attention in the following chapter.) Both reasons appear in the following passage from the Compendium the%giae.
Christ experienced not only passions with regard 10 good but also with regard to evil, for he had a pass/hle body.... Accordiug to Augustine, impassibility is spoken of in two ways: the first is the absence of emotions that occur against reason and disturb the mind; the second is the exclusion of all emotion.... [Q]nly the first kind [ofimpassibility] was in Christ,l.ci
In other words, the "power of Christ's divinity" could have miraculously impeded the experience of suffering associated with the passions of sorrow, fear, and the like; Christ could have suspended the nonnallaws ufnature on account of his divine power:
Christ possessed the ability to withstand these passions, not only on account of the uncreated power of his divinity, but also because of the beatitude of his souL ... 147
Whatever was natural in Christ as regards his human nature was completely subject to his will because of the power of his divinity. to which all nature is subject. 14S
Even without the defect of disagreeable passion, then, Christ would still have been passible by nature, an understanding that takes passibiIity in its secondary and derived-but no less real-sense, and Aquinas' sound metaphysics coupled with his belief in the full realism of the Incarnation allow for nothing less. Subsequently, the following assertion from the Summa, though it holds the e~perience of disagreeable passion primarily in mind, applies just as accurately to Christ's humanity in abstraction from the coassumed defect ofpassion:
The second and more important reason Aquinas advances to explain why Christ's passions comprise part of the freely assumed package of the coassumpta is that the direct visio Dei which he considers Jesus to have enjoyed throughout his entire lifetime precludes the experience of disagreeable passion. Given the properly impassible nature of the direct vision of God, one has every reason, Thomas believes, to opine that impassibility was owing to Christ's humanity; as the Master from Aquino explains: "His body should have been rendered impassible and inunortal by a redounding of glory from the soul into the body."'" If the visio Dei precludes all experience of evil, and if Jesus enjoyed this vision during his earthly life, it follows that he "should" have shared in the ensuing immunity from all affective suffering incurred by disagreeable passion (fear, anger, sorrow, etc.). Thus, the need to speak of the "fittingness" (or "optionality") of Christ's passibility. Because ofhis enjoyment of the visio Dei,and because of the power of his divinity, Christ had every right (.00 opportunity) to enjoy inununity from sorrow, fear, anger, and the like. " If, therefore, Christ renounced the impassibility that is proper to the direct vision of God and instead freely chose, as part of the coassumpta, to experience the sufferings and affective losses associated with disagreeable passion. it is because this, like a mortal body,
The affections of the sensitive appetite, [which] are prorerly called the passions ofthe sou1...were in Christ, even as all else pertaining to human nature.l% hI addition to the view that passibility represents an optional element of the Incarnation
because ofits status as a defect of human nature, and that the Word was free to take on or renounce any and all such defects, Aquinas holds two other reasons in mind for insisting that Christ's passions pertain strictly speaking to the fitting (or optional) coassumed features of his humanity. (There remains still another reason, viz., the notion of the natural cor-
state, for which reason he distinguishes between passibility "in natura secundum compositionem ex contrariis passibi/is" and passibility "ex natura corrupta corruptione vitii: et haec potentia non neces sario [in Christ] est. " 145. De ver., q. 26, a. 8, corpus and ad 4, emphasis mine: "In Christo non solumjueruntpassiones
" . " '
respectu boni, sed etiam respectu mali; habebat enim corpus passibile ... SecunduinAugustinum [cf. De civ. Dei, Bk. XIV, ch. 9 (CCSL 48, p. 428)J impassibilitas dupliciter dicitur: uno modo secundum" " quod prival affectiones
147. Comp." theol., ch. 231: "In Christo autem erat unde lis passionibus resisteretur, non solum virIus divina increata, sed etiam animae beatitudo .... " III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 3, sol. 1 !1d 1. 148. Compo theol. ch. 230: "Quidquid autem in Christo secundum humanam naturam erat naturale,
cr.
tatum eius voluntali subiacebat proptes divinitatis virtutem. Cui subileet tota natura. "This argument is repeated in STID, q. 15, a. 4 ad 1. 149. Compo theol., ch. 231: "Erat ut corpus impassibile et immortale r~deretur per redundantiam . anima in corpus. "
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was more "suitable" or fitting to his redemptive and economic mission. ISO In Thomas' mind, affirming the "fittingness" (or "optionality") of Christ's passibility follows upon the fact that the God-man could have entirely avoided the physical and affective sufferings that correspond to disagreeable passion. He chose to Wldergo that to which he would otherwise have been immune, as this was the more "appropriate" route to take. With this reasoning, . so thoroughly grounded in the principle of economy, in mind, Thomas affinns: In the first man there were certain passions, such as joy and love, which concern
good, but not fear or grief, which concern evil. The latter pertain to our present in~ tinnity, which Adam did not have but which Christ voluntarily assumed. lSI
F.
RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION
In his Christology, Aquinas seeks always to conceive of things from God's perspective, so as to offer coherence· to the divine logic revealed in the mystery of the Incarnation. Such a perspective accounts for the various foundational principles to which Thomas reverts in constructing his reflectiQllS on Jesus' human affectivity. These principles or dogmatic tenets are the following: first, Christ owns a human nature hypostatically united to the divine Person of the Word, with the result that the ultimate ontological basis of even the most human of elements in Christ, including his passions, is the divine being of the Word-in brief, one' cannot conceive of Christ's humanity in the concrete outside the hypostatic union; second, the realism of the Incarnation ensures that Jesns' full humanity, a humanity in no way abbreviated by its union to a divine Person, possesses everything essential pertaining to human nature, including a sense appetite, and its ensuing movements of passion; third, Christ re-.. mains absolutely.sinless, i.e., free from all stain of original and actual sin, and his assumed defects and weaknesses of nature in nowise subvert his perfect moral integrity; fourth, the existential condition of Christ's humanity is. in compliance with the principle of economy, or with the economic nature of his mission and purpose, determined by what are termed the , coassumpta, i.e., Christ's coassumed defects and perfections, such as mortality, passibility, and consummate grace; and, fifth, Thomas recognizes at work in the revealed mystery '.
ISO. This position ofAquinas is already forged in III Sent, d. IS, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 1. 151. De ver., q. 26, a. 8 ad 6: "In primo hominefuerunt aliquae passiones, ut gaudium et amor, quae sunt respectu bon;, non autem timor vel dolor. quae sunt respectu mali; et haec ad praesentem infir~ : mitatem pertinent, quam Adam non habuit, Christus autem voluntarie assumpsit"
of the Incarnation a certaib principle of fittingness, whereby those aspects ofChrist's humanity as ~is_ physical disabilities and passions are seen to represent fitting and freely assumed ways by which God enters into consubstantial so1idari~ with the human r~c~. These five Christological starting points color Thomas' entIre th~ology of Chri~t ~ p~s sions. as they are emploYed ubiquitously throughout. Thus, whether It concern C.hri~t s SInlessness or Christ's duality ofnatures united in the one Person of the Word, or the fittingness of Jesu;' physical and affective weaknesses. or the full integrity and realism o~his huma~ ity, or, fmally, the perfections coupled with the defects he owns on. acco~t ?~.hlS econ~m~c mission of salvation, Thomas' theology of Christ's passions holds mtelhglblhty only Wlthm !he framework provided by these dogmatic trademarks. This point mnst be retained through. out the remainder of this work.
CHAPTER 4
THE ONTOLOGICAL REALISM OF THE INCARNATION: CHRIST'S POSSESSION OF A PASSmLE SOUL
''Agere sequitur esse"-"action follows being"--or, stated another way, "such as a thing is, such is the way it acts" (unumquodque enim quale est, talia operaturp Representing his "golden rule" for human psychology, this philosophical principle acts as the navigational tool by which Aquinas will guide his reader through the chaunels of the affective dimension of human life, including Christ's. For Thomas, the passions, which represent a type of action or operation, will only follow upon a thing endowed with a passionate being or na, tore. Rocks and plants fail to exhibit emotions because their ontological substructures possess no inherent capability for them. Animals and humans, by contrast, display passion as
owing to a common nature endowed with a sensitive soul that gives rise to appetitive movements; the human mode of activity, actualized in, for example, the passions, is commensurate with and determined by the human ontological makeup.' If Christ for his part exhibits movements of passion, it is only because he possesses a sensitive soul grounded in the one sensate nature common to all humans: such as a sensate thing is, such is the way it acts in a sensate fashion. In contradistinction, then, to the method of modem psychology, which takes the inverse approach by begiuning with human action, be it the behavioral, social, physiological, or even properly psychical dimensions of human emotion as such, and from there returns to the being of human nature, Thomas insists that human psychology must first begin with human ontology-it must be grounded in a sound metaphysics of human nature; as he outlines in his prologue to the treatise on the human soul in Prima Pars, qq. 75-90 of the Summa: [In] our consideration of the souL.we shall treat first of what belongs to the essence of the soul; second, of what pertains to its faculties; third, of what belongs to its op~ erations. 3
I. STI-II, q. 55, a. 2 ad 1 (Thomas here uses passion as an example of such an action); cf. as well I, q. 89, a. I; III, q. 77, a. 3; Qu. disp. De virt. in comm, a. 9; CG I, ch. 100; III, chs. 35,42,57, and 69; De ver., q. 2. a. 6; and/II Sent, d. 3, q. 2, a. I. Also, inSTIll, q. 19, a. 2, sed contra, Thomas cites John Damascene's statement (Defide orth., Bk. II, ch. 23 red. Buytaer!. pp. 142-4]): "operation follows upon nature" (operatio sequitur naturam). 2. Cf. R. Goodwin, "Introduction," to On the Virtues in General in Selected Writings o/St. Thomas Aquinas (Macmillan: New York, 1965), pp. 72-3. 3. STI. q. 75, prol.: "consideratio circa animam .. ' primo considerabimus ea quae pertinent ad essentiam animae; secundo, ea quae pertinent ad virtutem sive potentias eius; tertio, ea quae pertinent ad operationem eius.· For more on the distinctive method ofAquinas' psychology compared to modem psychology, cf. E. Schockenhoff, Bonum hominis, pp. 175-8; S. Pfiirtner, Triebleben und sittlichiche Vollendung, pp. 77-120; and G. Siewerth, Die menschliche Willens/reiheit. Texte zur
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THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
This methodology, which observes the order ofAristotle's De anima and which is endorsed to varying degrees by the Christological psychologies ofAngus tine, John Damascene, Venerable Bede, Hugh of St. Victor, Peter Lombard, and, especially, Albert the Great, Thomas follows assiduously throughout his analysis both of human passion in general and of Christ's passions. Enhancing this is Aquinas' conviction that the ancient Church had followed the same approach in its struggle to defme the mystery of the Incarnation, a definition that Thomas believed to have been attained.' Because of its pronounced role in Aquinas' humanlChristological psychology, this methodology of metaphysics fIrst represents one of
Thomas' lasting contributions to the discussion on Christ's passions. With this in mind, we shall in this chapter give extensive considemtion to Aquinas' view on the ontological dimeusion of Christ's human affectivity, or on the passible nature of Christ's soul.
A. CHRIST'S SENSATE HUMAN NATURE 1. The "Animal" Side o/Christ's Humanity: His Possession o/a Sensitive Appetite
193
These remarks ~win f:wt their inspiration from John Damascene's anthropological Christology, as he wntes m hIs De fide orthodoxa: AU humans are composed of soul and body, and all take part in the nature of the soul
~d p.ossess the essence of the body.... The Word of God ... assumed aU' a body an mtelhgent and rational soul, and aU their properties.6
'.
Thomas' insi~tence upon Christ's possession of a rational soul holds paramount signifIc~ce for the Issue of Jesus' human affectivity, since, as the form of the body, the rational a ti' . I di or mteHectnal . f 'soul represents .. the principle of every human operation 0 rcon,mcung actIOns ~ sentIent af!'e~hV1ty. In humans, in other words, Thomas discerns a hierarchy of
tfu:ee ma!~ levels ~fltvmg operation (cf. ~rima, q. 78, a. I): vegitative actions (operations
of generatio~, nutritI~n, and growth), sentIent or animal exercises (actions of sense knowl-
edge and d~stre), and !?tel!ectnal acti~ti~s (operations ofintellectnal knowledge and desire). Th!S ttipart!te d!stmctlOn m levels ofhvmg operation is not unique to Aquinas, since it was of co~on usage by the early 13th-century authors, especially due to the by-then wide-
spread mfluence of Aristotle, WIth whot? it originates, and, by extension, QfNemesius of We have examined in detail Thomas' ubiquitous affirmation of the integrity and realism of Christ's full humanity. In the midst of his analysis of Christ's incarnated assumpta in Tertia, qq. 4-6, Aquinas, attending to his definition of the human being as a rational animal, delineates the two essential hylemorphic elements by which Christ's full humanity is composed: a body (representative of the animal or material side of human nature) and an intellectnal soul (signifYing the rational or formal aspect of human nature):
Emes~ and John D~.ascene. 7 In a word, the intellectual soul acts as the form of the human
?ody m th~ three distinct manners ofvegitative, sensitive (or animal), and intellectuallivmg .operatIOn..Ifthe human soul, which is fImdamentally one and is not composed of three d!stmct souls, !s te~ed mtellectual or rational, it is because the soul pulls its name from the most perfect o~eratlO? of the subject that it informs. Because Christ's soul is authentically
~w.nan, I.e., rational, It too subsumes the lower vegitative and sentient capacities of opera-
tIOn.
[I]t pertains to the essence of human nature to have a true body ... (Christ) must consequently have assumed a real body . ... [Further] since the body is proportioned to the soul as matter to its proper fonn, it is not true human flesh if it is not completed by a human, i.e., rational, soul. S
thomistischen Freiheitslehre mit einer Einfuhrung (Dusseldorf: L. Schwann, 1954), p. 11. For a discussion on the difficulties inherent in communicating a doctrine on the passions that is grounded in an extensive metaphysics of human nature to the modem philosophical audience, cf. A.O. Rotty, "Aristotle on the Metaphysical Status of Pathe," pp. 521-2, and 539-46. 4. For more on this view of Aquinas, cf. J.-P. Torrell,Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. I, p. 16. 5. STIlI, q. 5, aa. 1 and 4: "est ex ratione humanae naturae, ad quam pertinet verum corpus habere .. .[Cjonsequens est quod verum corpus assumpserit ... Cum enim corpus proportionetur anime sicut materia propriae formae, non est vera caro humana quae non est perfecta anima humana, scilicet rationali." Cf. STI, q. 76, a. I; and L. Ott, Fundamentals olGatholie Dogma, pp. 96-7.
6. IJe fide orlh., Bk. III, chs. 3 and 6 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 176-88): "omnes enim ex anima sunt eomposltl et corl!0re, et omnes naturam animae participant et substantiam corporis possident ... Dei Jierb~m ... ?mma assumpsit: corpus, an imam intellectualem et rationalem, et horum idiomata ... Thomas cites thIS passage in STIlI, q. 5, a. 4. 7. Cf. Aristotle, De anima, Bk. II, chs. 3-4 (414a28-415b28); Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 14 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, pp. 91-2); and Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. II, ch.l2 (ed. Buytaert pp. 118-9). For ~e 13th~cen~lIY authors in whom this distinction is found, Albert (De homine, q. 67: a. 2) had the most ImmedIate Influence on Thomas. though one also finds the distinction in John of La Rochelle Tract. de divis. multo potent. animae, Pt. 2, I (ed. Michaud-Quantin, pp. 70-2), in Bonaventure ~ent, d. 2: a. 2, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi,p. 47), and in the anonymous MagisterWiIlennus (cf. W. Principe, Quaestiones Conce~!Dg ChrISt II," p. 35, § 14). Alexander of Hales (Ill Sent. d. 15, n. 23 (ed. QuaracchI, p. 158]) dlstmgulshes between the vis rationalis and the vis sensualitatis. For more on the history of this distinction, cf. P. Michaud-Quantin, La psych%gie de l'activite chez Albert Ie Grand p. 85; and L. Mauro, "Umanita" della passione, pp. 60 and 76, n. 2. '
IIi
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THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
The fact that the powers of an animal soul are subsumed into Christ's human rational soul explains why in his analysis in Tertia, qq. 16-26 ofth~ consequentia unionis,. Le., of the features of Christ's humanity that can be considered lOgical consequences of his ontological union with the Word, Aquinas singles out the possession of a sensitive appetite--the immediate ontological grounding ofhwnan affectivity-and the ensuing opemtion of this appetite as two such logical consequences.' In the Dominican Mast~r's eyes, the sense appetite is commensurate with the animal side of human nature, or wlth the sensate level of human opemtion, and is thus considered an essential power or faculty of the human soul; it subsequently enters necessarily into the full humanity owned by Christ: The Son of God assumed human nature together with everything that pertains to the perfection of human nature. Now animal nature is included in human nature, as the species is included in its genus. Hence, it was necessary for the Son of God to have assumed together with the human nature that which belongs to the perfection of animal nature among which is the sensitive appetite, which is called sensuality. Consequently, ~ne must affirm that in Christ there was a sensitive appetite, or sensuality,9
If truly human, Christ must therefore possess a sensate human nature, i.e., a nature endowed like all animals with sense knowledge and sense appetite. How else, Aqumas querie; after the manner ~f Augustine, can one account for Christ's display of such passions as sorrow and anxiety in the Gospels (cf. Mt 26:37-38) unless he owns a filII sensate, af-
fective soul?" Here Aquinas' lucid metaphysics of human nature, coupled with his tacit anti-docetism, steers him clear of the pitfalls presented both by the Stoic suspicion ofhuman affect and by Hilary of Poitiers' antipathy toward the idea of affective susceptibility in Christ. To be sure, though all of Aquinas' Scholastic predecessors, beginning with Peter Lombard, alImn a sensitive appetite (or sensuality) in Christ, only Thomas emphasizes the perfect "animal" side of Christ's humanity-no one, in fact, save to some degree Albert, offers as clear a delineation of the role of animality in human affectivity as Aquinas. (This de" lineation stems again from Thomas' objective metaphysical regard for hwnan nature, by which the notion of "animal nature" is looked upon as an expression of the goodness of God's creative will and which stands in sharp contrast to the pejorative sense by which tb'e 17th-century rationalists speak of animal nature.) This objective appraisal of the ontologi" cal dimension of Jesus' human affectivity, whereby Aquinas dares to place Christ's "aniniaI nature" at the basis of his remarks on Jesus' human affectivity, could not better capture the Christological mindset of Aquinas since the very opening years of his theological careet; in his cOn:lnlentary on the Sentences, written twenty years previous to the Tertia Pars, the Dominican theologian advances this very argwnent: Christ possessed an the perfections of human nature. Thus, just as a rational will belongs to the perfection ofhuman nature if one considers what is proper to man, so too does a sensitive appetite belong to the perfection of human nature inasmuch as man is an animal. One must therefore affirm a sensitive appetitive part in Christ.if
By "sensitive appetite," a tenn inherited from Aristotle, Nemesius-Damascene, and one which sounds admittedly foreigu to the modern ear, Aquinas means the inclination by which a living thing ~ndowed with sense knowledge either tends to or desires that which the senses perceive as good and desirable (it is in the good perceived by the senses that the sensate level of existence finds its rest), or avoids what the senses perceive as hannful and undesirable. J2 S. Cf. STIII. q. IS, aa. 2-6; and q. 19, a. 2. This view of Christ's sense appetite following logically upon his possession of a human nature corresponds to the structural design of the treatise ~n ~he powers or faculties of the human soul in Prima, qq. 77-83, wherein a study on the sense appetIte IS placed (qq. S{)-Sl). . . . 9. ST III, q. 18, a. 2: "Filius Deus humanam naturam assumpsit cum omnibus quae pertm~nt ~d perfectionem ipsius naturae humanae. In humana autem natura includitur etiam natura amm~ils, sicut in specie includitur genus. Unde oportet quod Filius Dei assumpseri~ cum hun:~na na~a etlam ea quae pertinent ad perfectionem naturae animalis: inter quae est appetltus senslilvus, qUl sensuallias dicitur; et ideo oportet dicere quod in Christo foit sensuaUs appetitus sive sensu~itas." Cf. Expos. super lob ad litt, on 6:4: "Homo enim aliis animalibus similis est in natura sensitlva, unde ea quae naturam sensitivam consequuntur naturaliter adsunt homini sicut et alUs animalibus." Cf. as well Damascene, De}ide orth., Bk. III, ch. 25 (eel. Buytaert, p. 270); loP. Torrell, Le ~hrist en ses mysteres, vol. 2 (paris: Desclee, 1999), pp. 36{)-1; and P. Engelhardt, ''Thomas von AqUlD: Mensch und ChriSI in der Spannnng von Vernunft und Leidenschaft," Wort und Antwort 24 (19S5), pp. 134-41, al 137.
For an enlightening analysis ofthe passions being strictly speaking "animal" movements, cf. S. loughlin, "Similarities and Differences between Human and Animal Emotion in Aquinas's Thought," Thom 65 (2001), pp. 45-65.
10. STITI, q. 5, a. 3; Leet. super loan .. ch.1, 1eet. 7; and CGN, ch. 32. Cf.Augustine,Dediv. Quaest. 83, q. SO, n. 3 (CCSL 44A, pp. 236-7); and De eiv. Dei, Bk. XlV, ch. 9 (CCSL 4S, p.427). 11. III Sent, d. 17, a. 1, sot 2: "in Christo foerunt omnia que sunt de perfictione humane nature. Sicut autem de perftctione humane nature, in quantum homo est homo, est voluntas rationis. ita de perfeetione hominis. in quantum est animal, est appetitus sensibilis. Et ideo oportet appetitum sensitive partis in Christo ponere. ., 12. Cf. Arislotle, De anima, Bk. IT, ch. 3 (414bl-2): "If any orderofliving things has the sensory, it must also have the appetitive"; Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 15 (ed. Vemeke-Moncho. p. 93);
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THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
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THEOLOGY OF ST. mOMAS AQUINAS
To understand this, one must first consider Thomas' capital distinction, culled from Damascene, between human knowledge and human inclination or appetite, and the causal relation between the two." For Aquinas, one can speak of human knowledge in one of two ways: first, as sense knowledge, i.e., as knowledge gained through the senses (all animals possess this kind of knowledge), both the external and internal senses (the internal senses
are conunon sense, imagination, memory, and the estimative power); and, second, as intel~ lectual knowledge, i.e., as knowledge of an abstract or universal nature which can only appertain to a spiritual intellect or mind (no animal other than humans possess this kind of knowledge). These two forms of knowledge in turn give rise to two respective forms of elicited inclination, or appetite, both of which draw the human being to the thing known: the one to the thing known by the senses-the sensitive appetite-and the other to the thing known by the intellect-the will, or intellectual appetite.
Aquinas insists, in other words, that knowledge gives rise to or causes inclination or desire; a thing must first be /mown as desirable before it can be desired (a dark object placed before one must first be known as a piece of food rather than as a piece of granite before it can be desired to eat); as Thomas writes: "That which is desirable does not move the appetite unless it is apprehended [or known]."" The chief difference between knowing and desiring for the Dominican resides in the fact that, through knowledge, the objective reality of the outside world is received through the form of a represented image or idea into the subjective knower by way of intention, whereas, through desire or appetite, the subjective knower tends toward or is drawn to the objective reality that attracts it; knowledge takes the object in (e.g., the sense of sight perceives the piece of food placed before one), whereas appetite or desire goes out to the object (one moves to procure and consume the piece offood).Affectivity is characterized by a movement towards things (appetere means "to seek outside oneself"), while knowledge is characterized by a movement inward; as Thomas explains in his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics:
and Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. II, ch. 22 (ed. Buytaert, p. 132). Cf. as well Albert, De homine, q. 68, a. 1. 13. Cf. STI, q. 80, a. I; Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. II, ch. 22 (ed. Buytaert, p. 134). Cf. as well Bonaventure, Brevil, pt. 2, ch. II (ed. Quaracchi, p. 229); and II Sent, d. 24, pt. 2, dub. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 587); and CN. TsirpanIis, The Anthropology ofSaint John ofDamascus. . 14. De ver., q. 25, a. 1: "appetibile vero non movet appetiturn nisi apprehensum." F. Cunrungharn. ed. (The Christian Lifo [Dubuque, lA: Priory Press, 1959], pp. 79-82, at 82) explains that "the appetite is a blind faculty, dependent upon knowledge apprehended by the senses, imagination, practical reason, and memory."
[In the act of knowing] the object perceived is, so to speak, drawn to the knower, whereas in the operation of the appetitive power, the one that desires is inclined to the thing desired. 15
In brief, Aquinas opines that human beings incline to what is suitable and avoid what is harmful at the level of sense objects and at the level of intellectual or spiritual objects; at the first level, humans desire, for example, goods of food, drink, and sex, while at the intellectuallevel humans desire higher goods, such as justice, friendship, or conjugal love. It· is in the possession of these suitable goods whereby the human being fmds its rest and perfection: at the sense level it attains what the animal or the sentient side of human nature is made for, while at the intellectual level it attains what the rational or intellectual side ofhumanity is created for." Naturally, the task of the moral life consists in hannonizing these two modes of appetitive inclination, so that the pursuit of sense goods and the attainment of sentient perfection conform strictly to the pursuit oflmly rational goods and the eventual attainment of spiritual perfection and rest. Though a rational animal, the human being remains a unified whole, which disallows for a dichotomized or truncated approach to the moral life; one's animal or sentient actions do not remain: confined in an isolated arena dissociated from the rational and spiritual dimensions of human life, as if, for example, one's desire to obtain certain material possessions should be pursued in abstraction from the fact that the material possessions in question belong properly to someone else. We shall return to the subject of the morality of Christ's passions in the following chapter.
To grasp correctly Aquinas' notion of sense appetite, then, one must view it as a technical term referring to a specific power or faculty of the human soul and which lies at the root source of the sentient capacity for desire, or of the appetitive inclination to objects suitable to the sentient or animal dimension of human life.!' In short, since the actions of
15. Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. II, lect. 5: "res apprehensa quodammodo trahitur ad apprehendentem; operatio autem potentiae appetitivae est secundum quod appetens inclinatur ad appetibile. "Cf. as well STI-II, q. 40, a. I: "Matus enim ad res pertinet proprie ad appetitum "; API., n. 4 to STI-II, q. 22, a. 2, in Somme theo!ogique, vol. 2,Les passions de I'aime (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1986), p. 175; and M.P. Drost, "Intentionality in Aquinas' Theory of the Emotions," International Philosophical Quarterly31 (1991), no. 4. 16. Cf. E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy ofSt. Thomas, p. 236; S. Cantin, Treatise on theSoui,
trans. and expanded by H. DuLac and W. Baumgaertner (St. Paul, Minn.: College of St. Thomas, 1951), p. 58; and J. McEvoy, "Amiti., attirance et amour chez S. Thomas d'Aquin," RPL 91 (1993), pp.383-408. 17. One can recognize the foundation for Thomas' position on the sense appetite in Lombard, II Sent, d. 24, ch. 4 (ed. CoHo Bonav., vo1. I, p. 453): "Est enim sensua!itas quaedam vis animae inferior, ex qua est molus qui intenditur in corporis sensus, atque appetitus rerum ad
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THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
knowing and desiring are sharply distinct, one must posit distinct faculties that give rise to them. Because Aquinas discerns two forms of appetitive inclination-sensiti~e (or affective) and intellectual-which follow upon the two distinct modes of apprehensIOn, he holds to two distinct appetitive powers or faculties: a sensitive appetite and an intellectual appetite: We must admit that the intellectual appetite is a distinct power from the sensitive appetite .. ' [For] since what is apprehended by the intellect and what ~s a¥p~h~nded by sense are generically different, it follows that the intellectual appetite IS dlstmct from the sensitive appetite.
lS
Turning to Christ, the sense. appetite, as a power or facul~ of the soul, ~ust, if he is genuinely human, necessarily accrue to Jesus' soul. ThIS Aqu~as. affirms by.'nclu~g the sensitive appetite among the features of the consequentia um~nzs. That IS, IfC~st possesses true sense knowledge, he must subsequently own its ensumg appetlllv~ mch~a!lO~; Jesus owns, like all humans, an affective drawing towards things sUltable to hIS senllent h~e. The sentient or animal side of Christ's hmnanity is oriented to the rest or to th~ perfec!lOn dIrectly proportioned to it: the attainment of suitable se~se goods al1:d the aVOIdance of harmful sense evils. A sound ontology of Christ that WIshes to aVOId any and all shades of docetism allows for nothing less. An honest reading of the New Testament allows for no?,ing less as well, since in the Gospels one encounters a J~sus ,;"ho be~~s both an affecll~e aversion from harmful sense evils-he expresses great fear' over hIS Impendmg death m Mk 14:32-42 and par.-and an affective drawing toward sense goods--he "desires" to eat the Passover meal in Lk 22:15, a passage that educes the following comm~ntary from Aquinas' Summa contra Gentiles: "Since h~ger is the .desire for food, an~ ~mce on!~9he who possesses a sensitive soul hungers, Christ necessanly possessed a sensltIve soul.
2. Christ's Possession
0/ a Concupiscible and Irascible Appetite
Aquinas drives his understanding of the sense appetite deeper by recognizing the various manners in which sense knowledge perceives suitable or harmful objects, which in turn gives rise to multiple forms of sense appetite; in a key passage from the treatise on the passions in Prima Secundae Pars, Thomas maps out the complexity of the terrain:
Since the knowing power moves the appetite by presenting its object to it, there arise various movements in the appetitive power by reason of the diversity of known objects. The apprehension of good gives rise to one kind of movement in the appetite, while the apprehension of evil gives rise to another. In like manner various movements arise from the apprehension of something present and of something future, of something considered absolutely and of something considered as arduous, of something possible and. of something impossible. 20 From the diverse presentation of perceived goods and evils, Aquinas, following Nemesius and Damascene, delimits two principal and distinct ways by which hmnans and all animals either tend to or desire that which the senses deem as suitable and good (conveniens), or avoid that which the senses deem as harmful and evil (inconveniens): in a simple manner and in a difficult or arduous manner.'! For example, one can perceive a simple suitable object (such as a warm bath) which gives rise to an inclination towards the thing as relatively easy to attain, or one can perceive a difficult suitable object (such as an athletic victory) that
gives rise to an inclination towards the thing as arduous to attain. Conversely, one can sense a simple harmful or disagreeable object that gives rise to an aversion from the thing as relatively easy to avoid (such as spoiled food), or as arduous to avoid (such as an oppressive workload). Correspondingly, Aquinas opines that hmnan beings own two main sense appetitive inclinations, or two sense appetitive powers, which he deems Hspecies" of the one generic sensitive appetite: the concupiscible and irascible appetite:
The sensitive appetite is one generic faculty, and is called sensuality, but it is divided into two powers, which are species of the sensitive appetite: the irascible and the concupiscible....By the concupiscible the soul is inclined to seek what is simply suitable as deemed by the senses and to avoid what is injurious. The irascible allows an
corpus pertinentium." Cf. as well B. Wuellner. Dictionary o/Scholastic Philosophy (Milw~ukee, WI: Bruee Publishing Co., 1956), p. 8; and O. Lottin. Psychologie e/ morale. vol. 2, pp .. 579-80... 18. STI, q. 80, a. 2: "Necesse est dicere appetitum inte/lectivum esse aliam potentlam a sensltlVO ... Quia igitur est alterius generis apprehensum per i~tellectu~: et ,~pprehensum per sensum, consequem 'est quod appetitus intellectivus sit alia potentIa a sensltlVO. Cf. -?,e ver., q. 25, a.. 1. . 19. GG IV. eh. 32:
20. STI-II, q. 40, a. 2: "Quia vis cognitiva movet appetitivam, repraesentando ei suum obiectum; secundum diversas rationes obiecti apprehensi, subsequuntur diversi motus in vi appetitiva. Alius enim motus sequitur in appetitu ex apprehensione boni, et alius ex apprehensione mali; et similiter alius molus ex apprehensione praesentis et foturi, absoluti et ardui, possibilis et impossibilis." 21. Cf. Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 16 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, p. 95); and Damascene, De fide orth., Bk. II, ch. 12 (ed. Buytaert, p. 119). Thomas refers to these two passages in De ver.. q. 26, a. 4, argo 3.
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TIlE PASSIONS OF CIIRlST'S SOUL IN TIlE TIlEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
animal to resist that which'opposes what is suitable and which inflicts harm. Thus we say the object of the irascible is the arduous, because its tendency is to overcome and rise above obstacles.22
In brief, the human being posse~ses an animal inclination, frrst, to concrete sense objects that are absolutely or simply agreeable and easy to attain (or simply disagreeable and easy to avoid)-the bonum simpliciter--aod, second, to concrete sense objects that are agreeable yet more removed and difficult to attain (or disagreeable yet difficult to avo~d>:-the bon~m arduum. The bonum simpliciter, the simple good, corresponds to the concuplsClble appetite, the appetite of simple desire or tendency, whereas the bonum arduum, the difficult or arduous good, acts as the formal object of the irascible appetite, the appetite of su:uggled desire or tendency.2l That the concupiscible and irascible appetites emerge as distmct powers or faculties stems from the fact that the distinction in their formal objects-the bonum simpliciter versus the bonum arduum-warrants a distinction not only in operation but also in faculty." Through the powers of the concupiscible and irascible appetites, then, the one sensitive appetite allows the human being, acting upon hislher animal capacity for operation to tend to or desire two different kinds of objects or concrete sense goods. One may outline the entire appetitive apparatus endowed upon the human being in the following manner:
22. STI, q. 81, a. 2: ''Appetitus sensitivus est una vis in genere, quae sensualitas dicitur; sed dividitur in duas potentias, quae Bunt species appetitus sensitivi, scilicet in irascibilem et :on~upiscibi/em ... Una per quam anima simpliciter inclinatur ad prosequendum ea quae sunt convementta ~ecund~m sensum, et ad refugiendum nociva; et haec dicitur concupiscibilis. Alia vero per quam an~mal ~~,.s tit impugnantibus quae convenientia impugnant, et nocumenta inferunt; et haec vis vocatur lrascl~lllS: untie dicitur quod eius obiectum est arduum, quia scilicet tendit ad hoc quod superet contrana, et superemineat eis. "For other texts from Aquinas affirming the same, cr. Sent. Libri .Et~iC., Bk: II, leet 5; De malo, q. 11, a. 1 ad 6; Sent. Libri De sensu et sensato, leet 1, n. 11; Sent. Llbn De amma, Bk. 3 lect 14; Qu. disp. De anima, q. 13;- Super Libr. Dionys. De divinis nom, ch. 4, Ieet. 15; De ver., q. 25. a. 2; and III Sent, d. 26, q. 1, a. 2. cr. as well S. Loughlin, "Similarities and ~ifferenees ~etween Human and Animal Emotion in Aquinas's Thought," pp. 51-2; and M. Sarot, God, EmotIOn and COIporeality: A Thomist Perspective," Thorn 58 (1994), pp. 61-92. 23. For a development of this distinction, cf. E. Schockenhoff, Bonum hominis, pp. 183-6; L. Mauro, "Umanita" della passione, pp. 60-86; M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones, pp. 14-20; and R.~. Brennan, Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophic Analysis of the Nature ofMan (New York: MaclTIlllan, 1941), pp. 147-51. . 24. For more on this, cf. H.-D. Gardeil, Introduction to the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aqumas. III. Psychology, trans. J.A. Otto (St Louis: B. Herder, 1956), pp. 82-4; and M.-M. Labourdette, Les acutes humains, pp. 209-11.
}
l\
I t t ~
I
\ f II
PAUL GONDREAU
Human appetite
{
201
intellectual (will) = follows upon intellectual or rational knowledge
{ sensitive = follows upon sense knowledge
concupisclble = follows upon sense perception of the bonum simpliciter irascible = follows upon sense perception of the bonum arduum
Notably, Aquinas' distinction between concupiscible and irascible appetites does not originate with him. The immediate source of the distinction, whom Thomas quotes, is Nemesius and Damascene, though Albert, who also appropriates the terminology of Nemesius and Damascene, stands out as another proximate source (Albert's influence is clearly discernible in Thomas' description of the formal objects of the concupiscible and irascible appetites)." Additionally, the distinction is found in Avicenna's De anima, a work that Aquinas cites in his treatise on the passions in the Summa.26 E. Schockenboff, relying upon the studies ofM. Meier and S. Pfiirtner, returns further and sees Aristotle's use of smBvf1qm'Dv and Bvf1qm'Dv (which D. Kambouchner retraces to Plato) as the ultimate origin of the Scholastic distinction between concupiscibilis and irascibilis.27 Yet it is certainly Damascene and Nemesius who represent the principal sources. Due, in fact, to the widespread influence of
1 I 1
t
l
I
f
I 1 1
I
25. Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. IS (ed. Verbeke-Moncho. pp. 92-4); Damascene, De fide orth., Bk. II, chs. 12 and 22 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 117-33); Albert, De homine, qq. 66-7, and q. 68, a. 3. In De hom., q. 66, a. 1, and q. 67. a. 2, Albert writes: "concupiscibilis proprie loquendo est vis sensibilis animae cuius proprius finis est delectabile in sensu, et imperat motum ad consecutionem iIlius ... Dicendum quod arduum et altum in quantum huiusmod{proprium obiectum est irascibilis." Also, Bonaventure (Ill Sent, d. 15, a. I, q. I led. Quaracchi, p. 331]; cf. Brevil, pI. 2, ch. 9 led. Quaracchi, p. 227]) writes: "irascibilis ad sperandum a1"!iua, et concupiscibilis ad amandum bona. ". cr. as well P. Michaud-Quantin, La psychologie de I 'activite p. 79; G. Reilly, The Psychology ofSaint Albert, pp. 61-3; and O. Lottin, Psychologie et morale, vol. 2, p. 574. 26. Avicenna, De anima, Pt. I, ch. 5, in Avicenna latinus. Liber de anima seu sextus de naturalibus. Edition critique de la traduction latine medievale par S. van Riet, 2 vols. (Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1968-72), vol. 1, pp. 82-3: "[the sensitive appetite] habet duas partes: unam quae dicitur vis concupiscibilis, quae est vis imperans moveri ut appropinquetur ad ae quae putantur necessaria aut utilia, appetitu deiectamenti, aliam quae vocatur irascibilis, quae est vis imperans moveri ad repellendum id quod putatur nocivum aut corrompens, appetitu vincendi. "Thomas cites this work in his treatise on the passions in STI-II, q. 31, a. 3; and q. 46, a. 1. 27. E. Schockenhoff, Bonum hominis, p. 185, n. 61; M. Meier (for Aristotle}, Die Lehre des Thomas von Aquino, pp. 31-41; and S. Pfiirtner (for the scholastics), Triebleben und sittliche Vollendung,
202
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
PAUL GONDREAU
203
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Damascene and Nemesius in the late 12th- and early 13th-centuries, one fmds common acceptance of the distinction between the concupiscible and irascible appetites in severat. authors previous to Aquinas, which include: the late 12th-century anonymous work De sp'mtu et anima; John of La Rochelle, who wrote between 1233-39 and who held the FranCIScan chair of theology at the University of Paris for a time; and Vincent of Beauvais, who wrote circa 1250 and who in tum relied upon the thought of John of La Rochelle." Though Thomas nowhere offers an explicit treannent of Christ's possession of ~ concupiscible and irascible appetite, his remarks on Christ's sensitive appetite c.erta.mly Imply as much. If genuinely human-which Thomas' Christology at all times mam~s-JesllS must own a concupiscible and irascible appetite, since, as powers of the soul which follow upon the one generic sensitive appetite, the concupiscible and iras~ible appetites bel?ng by nature to every human being. Put another way, If-to repeat Tertla, .~. 18, a. 2,. yet m substitution of the terms concupiscible and irascible for the term sensll!ve--Christ assumed together with the human nature that which belongs to the perfection of ~imal.nature, among which is a concupiscible and irascible appetite, one must affirm that ill Christ there was a concupiscible and irascible appetite. Thomas in fact intimates as much in.his cor:;men~ on the Sentences, where he avers that anger and fear, both of which he qualifies as paSSIOns . 'ble power,.. were ".ill Christ ."29 of the rrasCl
B. THE PASSIBILITY OF THE HUMAN SOUL The significance that Christ's possession of a sensitive a~petite, or of a concupiscible and irascible appetite, holds for the discussion on his passIOns r.e~ldes m the ~act t~at, .for Thomas, the passions are the actions or operations of the senSItIve appetIte: pasSIOn IS a
movement of the sensitive appetite."" In other words, by observing his method ofbegimting with the soul's essence and then proceeding to the soul's powers or faculties followed by its operations, Aquinas, after carefully delineating the essence of Christ's sensate soul followed by the appetitive powers or faculties of this soul, has readied himself for the ensuing analysis of the appetitive operations of Jesus' sensate soul: the passions. (If Thomas does not actually follow this methodological order in the Tertia Pars-the remarks on Chris.t's sensitive appetite in q. 18, aa. 2-{) come after the treatise on Christ's passions in q. 15...,lt IS because, first, he presupposes a fantiliarity with the method of his treatise on the soul in the Prima Pars, a treatise that holds normative value for examining the ontology of Christ's soul as well, and, second, the overriding Christological themes that determine the structural order, or the ordo disciplinae, ofthe Tertia Pars take precedence over individual queries on Christ'l) To the observant reader, however, there is a distinct difference between the way in which Thomas speaks of passion in relation to general human affectivity (such as in Prima Secundae, qq. 22-48 and De veritate, qq. 25-26), and the way in which he uses passion in reference to Christ's human affectivity. For Christ, passion, though retaining the connotation ofa movement of the sensitive appetite, is used in a much more refined or restricted sense: it is a defect-<>r deficiency, or limitation-<>f soul (recall that the title of the treatise on Christ's passions in Tertia, q.15 is, "Of the defects of soul assumed by Christ"). This noti.on ~f passion as a defect of soul is virtually absent from Aquinas' writings on human pasSIon In general, where the tenn "defect"-deJe,ctus-rareIy appears;32 however, from
30. STI-II. q. 22, a. 3, sed contra (cf. as well q. 35, a. 1): "Passio est molus appetitivae virtutissensibilis." This is a citation of Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. II, ch. 22 (ed. Buytaert, p. 132). 31. The structural themes of the Tertia Pars are the fittingness of the Incarnation (qq. 1-3), foHowed
pp. 40-59. and 154-9. For Plato as the origin oOhis distinction, cr. Republic, 439-41; Iimaeus. 69; andD. Kambouchner, "Passions," p. 1082. . ' 28. De spiritu et anima, 2 (PL 40, 1782); John ofLaR~ch~Ile',,]}.act. de ~iVlS. m~lto potent. amma~, Pt 2, XLII (ed. Michaud-Quantin, pp. 118-9) (cf. W. Ptinclpe, Richard Flshacre s Use ofAverroes, pp. 350-1); and Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. nat., Bk 27, ~hs. 64--5 (ed. (kaz, cols. 1961-2). For more on the 12th- and 13th-century uses of the concuplsclble-lrasclble distinction, cf. P. Mlchaud-Quantm, Lapsych%gie del'activite, pp.85-7. .. .. . .. . . 29. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 2-3: "ira quedampassio VIS lrasclblizs .. ,fUll In Chnsto ... [PJasSlO quedam in vi irascibili ... hoc modo timor fuil in Christo ...
by the notion ofthe assumpta (qq. 4-6). to which correspond the coassumpta (qq. 7-15), where Thomas locates the "defecf' cfChrist's passions, followed by the consequentia unionis (qq. 16-26), where Aquinas situates Jesus' sensitive appetite, and, finally, the mysteries of Christ's life (qq. 27-59). Why Thomas places his treatise on Christ's passions among the coassumed defects rather than among the consequentia unionis shall be considered below. For an analysis of the notion of ordo disciplinae (the structural arrangement) in the Summa, cf. M.~D. Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, pp.300-1. 32. One does find passages in the treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars in which Thomas speaks of passion as a defect (cf. q. 22, a. I; q. 22, a. 2 ad I; q. 35, a. I; q. 42, a. 2 ad 3; q. 43, a. 2; and q. 44~ a. 4). yet such a scanty offering ofpassages among such an enonnous treatise which again comprises 27 questions of 132 total articles, hardly succeeds in pressing the point. The~e findings were gathered through the assistance ofR Busa, ed., Th. Aq. op. omnia cum hypo 'in CD-ROM
204
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SbUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
the Sentences to the Summa, the notion of passion as defect dominates every discussion on Christ's human affectivity, exemplified by Tertia, qq. 14-15, which alone employs seventy total uses of delectus. Thus, whereas Thomas' reflections on general human affectivity employ a broader and more inclusive sense of passibilitas, his treatise on Christ's passions opts for a narrower and more restrictive use ofpassibilitas. Thomas is not clear on why his use of passion, or passibilitas, differs in each case, nor does he once draw explicit attention to this difference. To gain a better grasp of the nature of this incongruity in Aquinas' thought, then, and of why the incongruity exists in the first place, and ultimately how it relates to Christ, we shall give consideration below to hoth senses of passion, i.e., to passion as a movement of the sensitive appetite and to passion as a defect of the soul. 1, Passion as a Movement o/the Sensitive Appetite
a. The Passions in General Attaching a precise definition to the term "passion" is, given the ambiguity of the term, no easy task-already Nemesius ofEmesa, penning the first authentic treatise on the passions between 390-400 A.D. in the De natura hominis, notes the difficulty: ''passio aequivoce dicitur." Nevertheless, after considering various meanings of passion, Nemesius, whose teaching on affectivity is inspired more by Aristotle than any other author, forges the following definition: "Passion is a movement of the sensitive concupiscible faculty in response to the perception of something good or bad."" After its appropriation and slight modification by Damascene, who would replace the unit "sensitive concupiscible faculty" (concupiscitivae virtutis sensibilis) with "sensitive appetitive faculty" (appetitivae virtutis sensibilis), since the former ignores the irascible appetite, this definition would become classic in the High Scholastic period, and serve as the one advanced by Aquinas: "Passion is a movement of the sensitive appetitive faculty in response to the perception of something good or bad."" Like Nemesius (and Damascene), Thomas recognizes other ways of under-
33. Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 15 (ed. Verbeke-Mancho, p. 93): "passio est malus concupiscitivae
virtutis sensibilis, in imaginatione bani vel mali." Cf. Aristotle, De anima, Bk. III, ch. 10 (433a17ft);
and De partibus animalium, Bk. II, ch. 4 (667a32ff). 34. Damsscene, De fide orth., Bk. II, ch. 22 (ed. Buytaert, p. 132): "Passio est motus appetitivae virtutls sen.,ibilis in imaginatione boni et mali"; cited in STI-II, q. 22, a. 3, sed contra (cf. as well De ver., q. 26, a. 3, sed contm 1; and III Sent, d. 26, q. 1, a. 1). These passages from Aquinss expose the errorofG. Blanco ("El concepto de pasi6n en Santo Tomas," Sapientia 2 [1948], pp. 128-46, at 133; cited in M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones, p. 21, n. 28), who claims: "en ninguno de sus escritos nos ha
dado el Santo Doctor [Aquinas] una definici6n propria de la pasion." Previous to Thomas, both
Alexander of Hales (III Sent, d. 15, n. 11 led. Quaracchi, p. 154]; Summa theol. [Summa hal), Bk. III, inq. I, IT. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo 1, argo 2 led. Quaracchi, vol. 4, p. 58]) and Albert the Great (De in-
PAUL GONDREAU
205
standing the term passion, such as the "broadly passive"-that h' h' . -or as that which occurs When something is received and s w .IC IS s~ply acted uponmost properly passion appertains to a movement of the seno~ethmg el.se IS taken away, yet includes these other broader senses of passion)' "Stricti SltI~appetIte (a moveme~t that sense appetitive part."35 . y spe ng, pasSIOn IS only m the
~quinas then goes on to add the important follOwing qualification to
pasSIOn: because the sensitive appetite acts in con 'unction'
.
the notlO~ ofhuman
sarily involves a bodily change or "ITansmulaf ,~ . h WIth the body, passIOn necest f" lOn, WIt out WhIch there can be no rno men 0 pasSIOn. PasSIOn, in other words, requires a bodily modification for its operatio:~-
!:1~Fs~~::~::~:;~:~::7:r;0r::,,~: ~~~i:;~~g~n~P!~~~:~;h~~~i:; !~t~ fact
ac 0 a power that uses a boddy organ depends not oni . very also on the disposition of that bo(lil H y on a power of the soul, but d d Y organ.... ence, the act of the sensitive appetit epen 5 not only on the appetitive power, but also on the disposition of the body. 36e
cam., IT. 6, q. I, a. 1, argo 1-2 led. Colon., p. 219]; De bono IT 3 well De incarn., IT. 4, q. 2, a. 2 led. Colon. p 208]) offe tl,.. ,q. 5, a. 1.led. Colon., p. 195]; cf. ss turesetmethode p 194'C Marmo "U " / . r IssamedefimtlOn,Cf,G.LafontStruc_ ,. •. • nOC au em etsz potest toll . E 'd' R d'Aquino sulle passioni dell 'anima "inD -. . . erarl. gI 10 amano e Tommaso II, 1 (SpoIeto, Italy: Centro italian~ di stu~~:'~~:{t e ~:. sulla ~adizione filosoflca medievale, vol. "Passio et 'passione' nella letteratura tomista R'fl 0 . e .l?evo. 991). pp. 281-315; and M. Laghi. Thomas 103 (2000). pp. 59-92. . 1 eSSlOm m mento allo Status Quaestionis, " Divus
35. De ver., q. 26, a. 3: "Passio proprie 10 uend . .. t mSl In appetitiva sensitiva. "For other texts affinning that the passions belong to 0 non Ethic., Bk. X. leet. 12; Qu. disp. De virt. in co sense ;~petIte, cf. ST I. q. 85, a. 2 ad 5; Sent. Libri PhYSic., Bk. VII, lect. 6' Super Libr. Dionys ;md.: ~. . ' Lect. srer loan., ch. 13, lett. 4; Sent. super 15, q. 2, a. 1, sol. 2; d. q. 1, a. 1; and d. 32 e 't:'s nom., c . 2,Iect. 4; CG!, ch. 89;III Sent, d. of passion, cf. STI, q. 97, a. 2; I-II. q. 22 a .q. I~~ 1. For texts affinnmg the vanous senses ver., q. 26, a. 1; II Sent, d. 19, q. I, a. 3; and 36;'a: ~f ::":~it:::er Metaph., Bk. V; Ieet. 20; De 8-23. For SImIlar thoughts in Alexander of Hales CC ('( h I (.' Manzanedo, Las paslOnes, pp. ' •. uumma t eo. "Summa hal Bk II!' 1 IT 1 q. 4, d. 3, memo 1 (ed. Quaracchi pp 59-60)' r.orAlbert 'D . ., . , rnq. , . , ~ ,., a I(e, d C l' 220) ',.and~ummatheol. parsII tr. 14 a 83 Inh' D' .,c •. emcarn., IT. 6 • q. 1•. oon"p, Wuellner offers 9 definitions oith~ te~ ''p~SSio~~'' IctlOnary o/Scholastic Philosophy, pp. 88-9, B.
t:e
26,
d.
es.
i 41'
i.
36. STH! q 17 a 7' "a~ ("Ius . . . untas, quod ~p~eti'rus'se~siti~: ~I v~::11VUS '~ hoc differl ab appetilu inlel/ectivo, qui dicitur volvirlutis utentis organo corporali de endel :,!:;~~orporalis, n~n au~em voluntas.. Omnis aulem actus gani disposilione ... Unde el actus ~n'Pet"1us sens 't~m. ex POlelnlladammae, sed ellam ex corporalis ord' . . 'Y. I IVI non so um ependet ex' 1'I' d' ;X hlSP4~sllldonDe c~rporis." One can detect shades of this position in Albert D:~::::~i~:1 s~ke~aITm J C, ,an e mcarn, tr. 6, q. I, a. I ad l' and a 2 (ed C ' , ., " . chologyo!SaintAlbert, pp. 59--{;0. ' . . olon., pp. 220-1); cf G. Reilly, ThePsy-
206
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE PAUL GONDREAU
TIlEOLOGY OF ST. TIlOMAS AQUINAS
Passion is properly found where there is bodily transmutation, whic~ is found in the act of the sensitive appetite....Now, the act of the intellectual appetite dO:s not require a bodily change. since this appetite is not exercised by means of a bOdtl.Y. organ. It is clear, then, that passion is more properly found in the act of the sensltIve appetite,37
The passions properly speaking are o~erations of the sensitive appetite that are accompanied by a modification of a bodtly organ.38 Passion more properly speaking is a movement of the, appetitiv.e power; and ~ore properly still, a movement of an appetitive power havmg a bodIly organ that 15 aecompanied by a bodt'1y mod'fi 1 cat'lOn.19
A uinas drives this insight further, as he looks to the bodily change ~r transmutation that q . passion as comprising the "material" element of passlOn, while. the actual accompames a _ th "£ 1" ect of passIOn' movement of the sensitive appetite itselfconstltutes e onna asp . In the passions of the soul, just as the movement of t~e appetitive power is the forI lement so is the bodily transmutation the matenal element. Both of these are so that the bodily change assumes a resemblance to and the very nature of the appetitive movement.40
:~n:allY pr~portionate,
207
between body and soul in human affectivity echoes the consensus opinion of many of his predecessors--including Augustine, Damascene, Lombard, and, especially, Albert, as well as Aristotle-no previous author describes the nature of this relation as that of a union between a fonnal appetitive component and a material bodily component, or that the psychical action of a passion is exercised by means of a bodily organ." For Aquinas, the passions are necessarily a psychosomatic affair, as they involve the entirety of human nature, including body and soul. That the passions or emotions carry both a psychical and a physiological element is readily verified by common experience: anger causes the face to become flushed and the heart rate to rise; fear induces one to tremble and one's face to pale, etc. In a word, only creatures endowed with bodies can experience acts ofpassion. By denoting the psychical element as the "fonnal" aspect of passion and the physiological element as the "material" aspect, then, Thomas affinns that what properly distinguishes passion from all other operations of the soui, or what detennines a psychical action as a specifically affective occurrence, is the movement of the sensitive appetite, while that which represents the subject matter of passion, or that out of which a passion is constituted and which remains within the emotion, is the bodily modification; the sensitive appetite represents the active element of a movement of affectivity and the bodily alteration its passive element." The
Hylemorphism-the essential union of the two substantial principles of m~tter and f~7 -stands therefore at the heart and center of Aquinas' theory o~ ~um~ passion, a porn .0 he retained as the hylemorphic dimension of human passiblhty Will ~~e larg~IY. In Thomas' tr~atise on Christ's passions.41 Though Aquinas' view on the mtlmate re ation
37
STI II 22 a 3' "Passio proprie invenitur ubi est transmutatio corporalis. quae ?uidem in"tu . dp;edtus sensilivi ... In actu autem appetitus intellectivi requiritur allquaJrans::::at:a'::;oralis, quia huiusmodi appetitus est orgam. Unde patet quo ratlO .. . roprie invenitur in actu appetltus sensltlVI. Bk II Iect. 5: "Passiones proprie dicantur operationes appetitus sensitivi, organ; corporalis." Cf. as well Bk. IV, leet. 17; Bk. VII, leet. I; an
~ib""
n~n
vi~~ ~licuius
no~
~;;ss~ms ~~glSthiC
qua~
su~t s;;~n~u: trans~uta~io~em
Bk. leet. 12. . . vIr . tutis'• et adhuc magis 39 X,STI-II q 41 a I: "Magispropriediciturpassiomotus appetltlvae . pro. ,., . l 'fit m aliqua transmutatlOne corprie motus appetitivae virtutis habentis organum cor?ora e, ~UI,: cu mm a 4 ad 4- De malo, q. 3,
porali." For otheprhtext.s affiBinknVIini ~~sa:::n~.g~\ d;s:.·8~~ ~~~~:~~f J. Cal~eras, La afectividad y a. 9' Sent. super YSlC., . , ., .'. .. 1951) 117ff I' . . Santo Tomas (Barcelona' Editonal LIbreria Reltglosa, , pp. . . a. I: "in passionibus est sicut formale ipse mom: appetitivae potentd,ae; . , q. , . t . m alten proportlOnatur. Unde secun um sicut autem materiale transmutatlO corpora LS, ?uorom unu t t "Cf as well I-II q.28 similitudinem et rationem appetitivi motus seqUItur corpora IS transmu a w . . " 5' 37 4' 48 a 2' and De ver., q. 26, a. 2, corpus and ad 5. . . a. ,q. ,a., q. .' A' '. ffi 'ng the hylemorphie dimension of human affectivity, cf. STI, 41. For other texts m qumas a Irml • I II 33 3 d 3' q. 38 a. 4 ad 3; q. 41, a. 1;
4eOcor;~~~egu':w
~nimae
r
q. 75, a. 2 ad I, and a. 4; q. 76, aa. 1-8, - ,q.
,a.
a
'.
'
q. 48, a. 3; III, q. 14, a. 1 ad 2; q. 15, a. 5 ad 3, and a. 6; q. 46, aa. 6 and 8; Sent. Libri De anima, I, 1; Qu. disp. De spirit. creat., a. 4; Camp. theol., ch. 231; Qu. disp. De anima, q. 9; CGII, chs. 57 and 72; andDe Ver., q. 26, a. 3. For more on Thomas'hylemorphism. cf. M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones, pp. 44-7; S. Pinekaers. "Les passions et la morale," pp. 383-4; K. White, "The Passions of the Soul"; L. Mauro, "Umanita" della passione, pp_ 47-9; E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy o/St. Thomas, pp. 187-99; H.-D. Noble, "Passions," eols. ~214-5, and 2223; J.P. Reid, "Introduction" to Summa theologiae, vol. 21, Fear and Anger, pp. xx-xxv, at XXi; and M. Corvez, Appendix 2 to Somme theologique, vol. I, Les passions de ['cime (edition "Revue desjeunes," Paris: Desclee, 1949), p. 259. Cf. as well J. Munoz, Psychologia philosophica (Santander: Sal Terrae, 1961). 42. Cf. Augustine. De div. Quaest. 83, q. 80, n. 3 (CCSL44A, pp. 236-7); Damascene, Defide orth., Bk.III, ch. 26 (ed. BUyiaert. p. 271); Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, ch. I (ed. Coli. Bonav., p. 93); Albert, De homine, q. 4; Summa theol., pars II, tr. 12, qq. 69 and 77; and Aristotle, De anima, Bk. I, ch. 1 (403a4-403b4). Also, one finds a similar position in Magister Willennus of the early 13th-century; cf. W. Principe, "Quaestiones Concerning Christ n," p. 38, §31. 43. Cf. M.-M. Labourdette, Les actes humains, p. 210; R Brennan, Thomistic Psychology, pp. 15162; E. BoganeIIi, "AJcuni aspetti della psicologia e fisiologia delle passioni secondo San Tommaso," Bol/ettino filosofico 1 (1935), pp. 56-{j8; F. Aroca, "Los estados prepasionales," Ciencia Tomista 26 (1936), pp. 196-212, at 205ff; and T. Centi, "Valore del trattato tomistico sulle passioni," Sapienza 13 (1961), pp. 395-410, at 406.
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THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST, THOMAS AQUINAS
movement of the sensitive appetite accounts, then, for the fact that a given experience of a raised heart rate and a flushed face results from feelings of anger rather than, say, strenuous exercise. The hylemorphic interplay between body and soul in the case of human affectivity goes further for Aquinas, as he posits a dynamic twofold kind of passibility, the first as that which takes on a predominantly physical or somatic character-the passion of the body (passio corporalis)-and the second as that which holds an especially psychical or affective priority-the passion of the soul (passio animalis): A passion of the body is attributed to the soul in two ways ....One way is when the passion begins in the body and ends in the soul, inasmuch as the soul is united to the body as its fonn; this is called a passion of the body.... The other way is when the passion begins in the soul and ends in the body, inasmuch as the soul moves the body; this is called a passion of the soul.44
By passion of the body, Thomas means the following: when the body undergoes some kind of physical hurt, as when pain is inflicted on the body, the soul is in like mauner affected through its substantial union with the body (Aquinas recounts a story from the life of Augustine, in which the Latin Father was unable to concentrate on his reading because of an acute toothache he was enduring): "The soul's whole essence is united to the body, so that. ..when the body undergoes passion ... the entire soul undergoes passion'145 and, "any suffering undergone by the body must in some way make the soul suffer.''''' By passion of the soul, Thomas implies the proper meaning of passion, viz., a movement of the sense appetite that involves a bodily modification, as the passions are exercised by means of a bodily organ, The significance that this distinction between the "body-first" passion and the "soulfirst" passion holds for Aquinas' Christology shall be explored later in this chapter, From the foregoing it should seem clear that what Aquinas and the Scholastics label a movement of the sensitive appetite does not precisely correspond to what the terms "passion" or "emotion," sti11less their adjectival forms "passionate" and "emotional," convey in modern English, where powerful intensity and vehemence of affectivitY are typically
44. De ver., q. 26, a. 2: "Dupliciter ergo passio corporis attribuitur animae .. , Uno modo ita quod passio incipiat a corpore et terminetur in anima secundum quod unitur corpori ut forma, et haec est quaedam passio corporalis ... Alia modo ita quod incipiat ab anima in quantum est corporis motOr. et terminetur in corpus. et haec dicitur passio animalis." For more on this distinction, cf. STU!' q. IS, a, 4; De Ver., q, 26, a, 9: III Sent, d, IS, q, 2, a, 3, sol. 2; M, Manzanedo,Laspasiones, pp, 21-36: and H,-D, Noble, "Passions; cols, 2212-4, 45. STill, q. 46, a. 7: "tota essentia animae coniungitur corpori, ita quod ... corpore patiente ... tota anima patiebatur." For Augustine, cf, Soliloquiorum, Bk, I, 12 (CSEL 89, p, 32); cited in STI-II, q, 37, a. 1, sed contra Cf. I.-H. Nicolas, Synthese dogmatique, pp. 406-7. 46. Compo theol.. ch. 232: "ut patiente corpore, et anima quodammodo patiatur. "
PAUL GONDREAU
209
implied. In this sense, "affective response" passio for Aquinas, as he looks more indiffere~ore accurately ~aptnres the connotation of sio denotes any degree ofaffiecti'" , I' , tly upon the notion ofpassion; for him pas.e mc mation towards 'tabl b' , harmful object) perceived by the senses Thou h tho ~ su~ ,e 0 ~ect (or avoidance ofa does-attain a stage of powerful intens ' ~ IS mC,lmation may-and many times e m~can 's eyes as a genuine "passion." emence, It need not to qualify in the Donotion ofpassion as defect bypas 'A ' rmore, as, we shall see When examining the . , S I O qumas means prnn 'I ffi' worse m response to something d' bl an yan a ectIVe change for the silion of an unsuitable form a senlsagrtheetathe, or t~e loss of a suitable form and the acqui. , s e a e English tenn " ti'" . at Ieast on Its own, impart (support for tho 'D d' emo on especIally does not on the cross is termed his "Passion" h IS Oun In the fact that Christ's own sufferin~ To arrive at a proper understaod'm'gW fl e ne~er ?emg called his "Emotion"), , , 0 paSSIOn m Aquin ' th h th celve of It as a technical Scholastic tenn :6 . as DUg t, en, one must conof the sensitive appetite in response to re e~ngdto any movement, no matter how slight . . a perceIve gnod or '1 ' conjunctIOn with a bodily modificati' d h' ,evI , a movement that works in , R on an w ICh reqUIres th' d'fi' tion; . Brennan insists that the term . IS rno I lCatton for its opera. '. paSSIOn must be understood " m meanmg '" [1,e"J vibrant with action and bioI 'al' 'fi as a strong term, vibrant ' oglC Slgnl ICance," and one that we share with al\ other animals," As such th being and the normal function ;fh e PasSIOns belong to the essential makeup of the human contempt for the passions as "sickn::~ ~~~~:::u'0~ are here far removed from the Stoic By definmg pasSIOn as a: "movement" of th .. . :'ectivity is characterized by a movement "tow': SenSltIV~,appetite, or by affirming that aflocal motion" in mind i e physI'cal di I ds thmgs, Thomas of course does not have sp acement in time and 1 . b d ' . ., eun erstood by the modem reader.48 By "move t" . p ace, as may pnmafacie tency to act, or, in this case, the passage fr thmen Aqum~ meaos the passage from poe wards some object to its actualm'cll'nat' tom ds sense appetIte's potential inclination to, IOn OWar a specifi b' ,h ' nothing other than this appetitive incr f ' c 0 ~ec~ WIt the passIOns being rna Ion put mto actual motion, That is, by classitying
iu:: ,is
47, R. Brennan, Thomistic Psychology, pp, 151-2 Cf as
'
'0
Ihe Philosophy o/St. ThomasA uin . ( ' ~eU H:G.. Well, e Dynamic Aspect a! ThomaAq. en urbe. 1966). q as Rome. PontIficla StudIOrum Universitas AS. EmotIOns
In
48, For support, cf A. Pie, D, 7 to STJ-II 22 ' the understanding ofE D'Arcy "Introduc .' ~', ,a. 3, In Somme the%gique, vol. 2, p. 176 contra Blackfriars, 1967), PP: xix-~ii, at XXvii~:X~ Summa Ihe%giae, vol. 19, The Emotions iondon:
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the passions as the operations of the sense appetitive power, Thomas relates, at least in this case, the notion of "operation" to that of"movement"-passion is the affective inclinationin-act that arises from the sense appetite as its facultative source." The specific type of inclination-in-motion, and, hence, the specific type of passion, will of course depend upon the formality of the object perceived: if it is a harmful or disagreeable object that is not yet present, such as the chance encounter with an unpleasant acquaintance, the affective inclination-in-motion will be one of aversion; if the harmful or disagreeable object is present and is being endured, such as the encounter itself of the unpleasant acquaintance, the affective inclination-in-motion will be one of sorrow; if it is a suitable or agreeable object that is difficult but possible to attain, such as the projected inheritance from a distant family member, the affective inclination-in-motion will be one of hope, etc. Though passion stands for the sense appetite "in act," this should not distract one from acknowledging, as the etymology of the term implies, the genuine "passive" character of passion. For Aquinas, the sensitive appetite represents a passive power since it is acted upon directly or affected by something external, specifically the sentient knowing powers, or, as K. White puts it, the sensitive appetite is "passive, for its nature is to be moved by what is apprehended in cognition"; the sense appetite is presented with the good (or evil) as known by the senses, particularly by the internal senses (the external senses cannot in themselves determine a thing as good or evil, since they are incapable of a judgment), and the sense appetite responds to this received data with its own movement of passion." To offer an example, the perception of a well-crafted chair by the sense of sight is determined as suitable and good to sit on by the internal senses (in this case, the common sense.and the imagination), and this information is in turn presented to the concupiscible appetite, which responds with a movement towards the chair as a desirable thing to rest on. The sensitive appetite must wait for the reception of processed data for its very act; it must wait to be acted upon by the internal senses in order to move. The passions, in other words, are a direct response to received infonnation, and without this reception, or this being acted upon, no
49. For this reason, L. Mauro ("Umanita" della passione, pp. 47-51, at 50) looks upon the passions as a "participation in the energy and dynamism oftbe sensitive appetite." 50. K. White, "The Passions of the Soul"; cf. De ver., q. 26, a. 1; S. Loughlin, "Similarities and Dif-
ferences between Human and Animal Emotion in Aquinas'S Thought," pp. 46-7 (including n. 4); H.D. Gardeil, Psychology, p. 83; S. Cantin, Treatise on the Soul, p. 58; and H.-D. Noble, "Passions," col. 2212 ..
211
m~vement ofpassion is ~ossible--the passions are strictly speaking "passive" responses. 51
This ~Iso means the ~asSlOns are pro~erly subjective experiences, since they are actions of a subject endowed WIth a sense appelJte being acted upon. Ever the observant psychologist (whose acute aw~reness of the conc~ete dispels the popular conception of Thomas as a purely abstr."ct .thmker), Aqum~ cl".'ms ~t a sa.tisfactory account of the passions must
take ~e subJec~lve. nature ?f pasSIOn mto faIT conSIderation, since it can lead to a disjoined
appraISal of objective realIty:
When a man is affected by a passion, things seem to him greater or lesser than they really are; thus, to a lover. what he loves seems better, and to him that fears what he fears seems more dreadful. 52 '
b. The Specific Movements of the Sensitive Appetite: The Eleven Types ofPassion
I ,
Not content wi~ a ge~eralized discussion on human passion only, Aquinas shifts his focus to the p.asSlons m partICular and to ascertaining a precise enumeration of the specific types of ~asslOn. To be sure, defining passion as a movement of the sensitive appetite does not on Its own attam the level o~ the specific passion, since a specific or concrete passion must f?llow upon one of the speCIfic powers of the sensitive appetite-the concupiscible or irasCIble power-not the generic se~se appetitive power only. With the defmition of passion as a n;t0:,ement of ~e sense appetite, then, one possesses nothing more than a generic desc~ption OfpasSlO? We must drive the analysis further to determine the particular ways in whICh a human bemg may be moved affectively. . In attempting to classify or list the specific passions, Thomas relies initially upon hist?ncal prec~dent.. T?e most established and best known list, which originates with Augustme, '."ho cItes V~II, as well as with Boethius, offers four passions, two in response to a perceIVed good~oy and hope (though Virgil and Augnstine propose desire instead of h~pe)-and two 1D respon.se to a perceived evil-sorrow and fear; in the Scholastic period thIS hst was reproduced m the late- 12th-centory Cistercian work De spiritu et anima,
~1. For~. Brezu:a? (Thomistic P~chology, p. 152), "passivity [in Thomas' usage] indicates an ac-
hve-react~ve condition of the organism, or a power of being acted upon in a manner that detennines the org~lsm t~ act." Cf. as wel1 R.S. Peters, "Emotion and the Category of Passivity." Proceedings ofthe Amtotehan SOciety 62 (1961 -62). 5~. STI-II,~. 44, a, 2: "homini ajJecto secundum aliquam passionem videtur aliquid vel maius vel mmus ~uam SIt, s~~ndum rei veritatem; sicut amanti videntur ea quae arnat, meliora, et timenti ea quae timet terrzbdlora. "
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as well as by Albert the Great and John of La Rochelle. 53 Because of its revered adherents, particularly Augustine, Boethius, and the ~uthor ~f the. D~ spiritu et ~nima,. all of ~ho~ Thomas cites this list is singled out by Aqmnas as Idenllfymg the four prmclpal passIOns (principales ;assiones) of the soul." Thomas also benefited from the list of specific passio.ns supplied by Nemesius and Dam~cene: )oy or pleas,ure, s~?"ow'. ~~er, !'ear, and desne (though, curiously, Damascene omits desrre), along With the specI~s or di~erent types of
sorrow (distress, anxiety, envy, and pity), of fear (dread, c~~st~rnation, panIC, wonder,. s:u-
por, and fright), and of anger (rage, resentment, and fury). Arist.otle too off~rs a quasl-hst of various passions, yet because this list does not serve as a preCls,e delmeatl~n of the specific passions and their divisions, it contributes little to Thom~' alfllS, for wh~ch reason he does not retain it.56 Also, Avicenna singles out by name the pasSIOns affear, pam, and anger,
53. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, Bk. VI, 733; Augustine, De civ. Dei, Bk. 14, chs. 3 and 8-9 (CCSL 48, pp. 417i6); Boethius, De consolo phil, 1,7 (CSEL 67, p. 20); De spiritu et anima, 20 and 46 (PL40, 795 and 813; in Three 1l"eatises on Man, pp. 212 and 254); Albert, De bono, tr. I, q. 6: a. I (ed. Colon., p. 79); and John of La Rochelle 7ract. de divis. multo potent. animae, PI. 2, L (ed. MlChaud-Quantm, p. 127), who cites the De spiri~ et anima. P. Michaud-Quantin (La psychologie de ['activite, pp. 98-111) notes that Albert adheres strictly to this four-part division of the passions, while adding a small analysis of anger in his Super Ethica. cr. as well M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones, pp. 12-3 and 40-3. 54. STI-II, q. 25, a. 4,sed contra, and cO/pus, q. 84, a. 4 ad 2; II-II, q. 141, a. 7 ad 3; De ver.,q.26, a. 5, sed contra 1 and 2. and corpus; and III Sent, d. 26, q. 1, a. 4. Cf. as well B. Wuellner. DIctionary oJScholastic Philosophy, p. 89. . . 55. Neroesius, De nat. hom., cbs. 16--20 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, pp. 95-104); and Damascene, De fide orth .. Bk. II, chs. 13-16 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 119-24). The corresponding Latin tenus are: voluptas (Nemesius) and faetilia (Damascene) for jOY?f pleasure, tri$titi~ for SO~~W, ira ~or anger, t',mar for fear and desiderativus for desire; for the speCIes of sorrow, acedlQ or aCldla for distress, anxletas for anxiety, invidia for envy. and misericordia for pity; for the sp.ecies of rear, ~esidia (N~mesius). an~ segnities (Damascene) for dread, erubescentia for constematlo~, verecundta for panIC, adml~atlO for wonder, stupor for stupor, and agonia for fright; for the species of anger,Jel for rage, mama for re~ sentrnen~ and Juror for fury. . 56. In Nic. Ethics, Bk. 11, ch. 5 (I 105b21-23), Aristotle writes: ''By passions I mean appetite, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, love, hatred, longing, emulation,. pity, and in g~eral the feelmgs .th~t are accompanied by pleasure or pain." In his commentary on thIS passage, Aqumas c~mpares ~lS Itst to his own in an overly favorable manner, cf. Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. n, lect. ~. Also, tnRh~t?nc, Bk. II, cbs. 2-11, Aristotle treats of these same passions for the purpose of allo~mg th~ rhetonc~an. to better understand the affective dispositions of his audience, and thereby help hun dehve~ convmcmg argu~ ment. Avicenna, in his De anima, Pt. Iv, ch. 4 (ed. S. van Riet, vol. 2, pp. 61-2), smgles ~ut the p~ sions of fear, pain, and anger: "Sed ex imaginatione et timore et dolore et ira principailter accldlt passio animae.
as well as wonder (admiralio), anxiety, sorrow (Iuctus), shame (verecundia), and even laughter (risus), yet this list is not retained as such by Aquinas." U.ltimately: however, Aquinas found a\l the preexisting catalogues of specific passions wantmg, and III a remarkably bold and original move he provides his own index of eleven types of particular passion, an index that appears at the very outset of Thomas ' career in the commentary on the Sentences, and which is later reproduced in the De veritate, the Prima Secundae Pars, .and, finally, the ~ommentary on the Nicomachean Ethics. The eleven passiOns Thomas cites are: love or like (amor), hatred or dislike (odium), desire (desiderium or ~o~,:,piscentia), aversion (aversio orfoga), joy (delectatio, gaudium, or laetitia), sorrow (trlSI~~a), hop: (S?es~, ~ourage .(a~dacia), despair (~esperatio), fear (timor), and anger (!Yo). Hardly mdlscnmmate, thiS hst represents Aqumas' systematic and logical identification of the various yet precise ways in which the sense appetite inclines in motion. That Thomas should spend a considerable amOlmt of attention on the concrete expressions of the affectiv~ dimension ofhmnan life stems, as shall be seen in the fo\lowing chapter, from the emphasiS that hiS moral theory places on the attainment of happiness or beatitude, since all hmnan mclinations, both natural and elicited (including the passions), are inherently related to the hmnan teleological quest for happiness; in brief, the affective responses to various sense stimuli play an integral role in allowing the hmnan being to realize the perfection of his or her nahue. For Aquinas, the list of eleven specific passions, or eleven types of inclinations-inmotion .of the sense appetite, corresponds to the eleven different formal distinctions in ob-
57. Avicenna, De anima, Pt. Iv, ch. 4 (ed. S. vanRiet, vol. 2, pp. 61-2): "Sed ex imaginationeet timore et dolore et ira principaliter accidit passio animae." In De anima, Pt. V. ch. 1 (ed. S. van Riet, vol. 2, pp. 73-4) Avicenna continues: "De proprietatibus autem hominis est ut, cum apprehenderit aliquid quod rarissimum est. sequitur passio quae vocatur admiratio, quam sequitur risus, sed cum apprehenderit aliquid quod est noxium, sequitur passio quae vocatur anxietas, quam sequitur lucius."
Interestingly, Aquinas no where in his writings on the passions mentions laughter or the relationship between risibility and affectivity. For shame, Avicenna explains in De anima, Pt. V, ch. 1 (ibid, p. 75): :t~on:o percipit alium percipere seJecisse aliquid ex his quae illicitum estJacere, sequitur passio anlmalls quae vocatur verecundia. "
58. III Sent, d. 26, q. I, a. 3; De ver., q. 26, a. 4; STI-II, q. 23, aa. 2 and 4; and Sent. Libri Ethic., Rk. II,lect. 5. J.-P. Torrell (The Person, p. 343) dates the composition of the commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics immediately after that of the Prima Secundae Pars. For a detailed study of these eleven pass~ons in Aquinas' writings, cf. E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy o/St. Thomas, pp. 27186; F. Cunningham, The Christian Life, pp. 91-11 0; M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones, pp. 26--35; M.-M. Labourdette, Les actes humains pp. 217-53; and B. Ziermann, Die menschlichen Leidenschaflen. Summa thealagica I-II, 22-48 (Heidelberg: F.R. Kerle, 1955). cr. as welI P. Engelhard~ "Mensch und Christ in der Spannung von Vemunft und Leidenscbaft; p. 137.
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215
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
ject of the sensitive appetite: "Passions differ. according to their acti~e causes;:;,the D~.. writes "which in the case of the passIOns of the soul, are therr objects. The dlmmican , , di &: art" fs verse fonns of passion, in other words, follow upon the v~se 10nn I.'es 0 . ense objects-the specific type of passion will depe~d upon the fonnahty of the object (VIZ., the good or the evil as known by the senses) perceIved.. ." The first fonnal distinction in object of the sense appetite that Thomas discerns IS, agam, the simply agreeable (or simply disagreeable}-the bonum simpliciter-and the agreeable yet difficult to attain (or the disagreeable yet difficult to avoid}-the bonum arduum. ThIs fundamental differentiation between the bonum simpliciter and the bonum arduum stands
as the basis for the distinction in appetitive inclination, or. powers: t,o repeat, th,e on~ senSl-
tive appetite is composed of two faculties, the concupl~Clble appetite and the rrasclble appetite In delineating the specific types of passion,Aqumas accordmgly first offers a clean partition between those passions that follow upon the co~cu~iscible appetite and those th~t emerge as movements of the irascible appetite; as he wntes m thePnma SecundaePars. Those passions that regard good or evil absolutely pertain to the concupiscible power
... whereas those passions that regard good or evil as arduo~s, or ~ dif!icult to obtain or avoid, pertain to the irascible power.... [Therefore], In ~o?slderm~ the pas-
sions of the soul in particular, we shall look. first, at the concuplsclble paSSIons, and.
second, at the irascible passions. 60
Within the group of concupiscible passions, Aquinas next recognizes a fonnal distinction in object between the simply agreeable and the simply disagre~able, or between sense goods and sense evils, from which ensue the passions that have the ,nmply agreeable (b~num ~'m pliciter) as their object and those that have the simply disagreeable (malum slmpizclter)
as their object. After this, Thomas identifies a threefold fonnal distinction in perception of the simply agreeable and simply disagreeable, a distinction that corresponds to what Aquinas tenns the three "different stages" (diversos gradus) by which one either inclines to or retreats away from these objects: a beginning (or initial attraction/disinclination) stage, an intennediate moving-forward (or moving-backward) stage, and an ending (or acquisition) stage. Attached accordingly to each stage under each· object considered as simply agreeable or simply disagreeable is a passion, which leads Thomas to posit six total concupiscible passions: love (or like), desire, joy (or pleasure), hatred (or dislike), aversion, and sorrow (since Latin employs no distinction between love and like, or hatred and dislike, one should take Aquinas' use of "love" (amor) and "hate" (odium) as denoting the sense of the English "like" and "dislike" as well): [In the concupiscible passions], good causes an initial inclination. aptitude, or connaturality, which pertains to the passion of love [or like]. and whose contrary, which regards the evil, is hatred [or dislike]. Secondly, if the good is not yet possessed, it causes the appetite to move towards the attainment of the good loved, and this pertains to the passion of desire; opposed to it, as it regards the evil, is the passion of aversian. Thirdly, when the good is obtained, it causes the appetite to rest, so to speak, in the good obtained, and this pertains to the passion of pleasure or joy; its contrary, which regards the evil. is sadness or sorrow.61
Under the irascible appetite; or the appetite of "struggled" desire, Thomas discerns, as with the concupiscible passions, a fonnal distinction in object between the agreeable yet difficult to attain (bonum arduum) and the disagreeable yet difficult to avoid (malum arduum). The object considered as agreeable yet difficult to obtain gives rise to two passions: hope, which is characterized by a movement towards the bonum arduum, and despair, the contrary of hope, which moves away from the bonum arduum (though the good owns in itself the force of attraction, one may retreat from the good considered as difficult to obtain, since it
is not perceived 59
ST I-IT q 23 a 4' "passiones differunt secundum activa, quae sunt obiecta passionum ani-
m~e." For ~ ~nal~si~ ~fthis, cf. M.-M. ~abourdette, Les actes humai~, pp. 211-2; R. Brennan, Thomi1!tic Psychology, pp. 155-8; and F. Cunningham, The Christian Life, pp. 82-6 .. Cf. as well G. Blais, Petit traite pra;ique des passions humaines (5th ed., Sherbro?ke, Quebec: Editions p~ulmes, 1967); P. Kutter, Die menschlichen Leidenschaflen (Stuttga;t-Berhn: Kreuz-Ver1~g, 1978), and P. M eau "La passion dans l'ame et dans l'appetit," Laval theologlque et phllosophlque 4 (1949), pp. 9-~~~ Fa; an analysis of the meaning of the tenn "object" (obiectum)q in Aquinas, cf. L. Dewan, '''OBIECTUM': Notes on the Invention ofa Word," AHDLMA 48 (1981), pp. 37-96. 60 srI-IT q 23 a 1, and q. 26, prot.: "Quaequmque ergo passiones respiciunt absolute bonum vel m~lum perlin~nt ~oncupiscibUem ... quaecumque vero passiones respiciunt bo~um vel ~alu~ .sub ratione an/ui, prout est aliquid adiplscibile vel fugibUe cum a/iqua diJ!l~ltate, !ertment a~ lra:Clbllem ... Consequenter considerandum est de passionibus animae in speclall; et pnmo de passlOmbus concupiscibilis; secundo de passionibus irascibilis." Cf. as well De ver., q. 26. a. 4; and I.-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel, " pp. 344-6.
:m
61. SrI-II, q. 23, a. 4: "Bonum ergo primo in potentia appetitiva causat quamdam inC/inationem, seu aptitudinem, seu connaturalitatem ad bonum, quod pertinet ad passionem amoris. cui per contrarium respondet odium ex parte mali. Secundo, si bonum sit nondum habitum, dat ei motum ad assequendum bonum amatum; et hoc pertinet adPQJsionem desiderii vel concupiscentiae; et ex opposito ex parte mali est fuga, vel abominatio. Tertio, cum adeptum fuerit bonum, dat appetilus quietationem quamdam in ipso bono adepto; et hoc pertinet ad delectationem vel gaudium, cui opponitur ex parte mali dolorvel tri1!titia." Cf. STI-I1, q. 23, a. 2; q. 25, a. 4; and De ver., q. 26, a. 4. For the difficulty in rendering amor and odium into modem English, cf. E. D'Arcy, note "a" to Summa theologiae, vol. 19, The Emotions, pp. 62-3.
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THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
THEOLOGY OF ST. TII0MAS AQUINAS
as an absolute good). The object considered as evil yet difficult to avoid causes two passions as well: fear, which involves a retreat away from the malum arduum, and courage, the contrary of fear, which consists in a movement towards the malum arduum, or in attacking the difficult evil (though the evil has in itself the force of repulsion, one may incline towards the evil considered as difficult to avoid, since it is not perceived as an absolute evil). There remains a fifth and final irascible passion-anger-which is unique in that it has no contrary passion. Anger consists in attacking or seeking to repel a present evil; it differs from courage inasmuch as the evil is present, rather than future (as in the case of courage), and it differs from sorrow inasmuch as the present evil is considered arduous or difficult, rather than absolute (as in the case of sorrow). The seeking to attack a present evil perceived as difficult or arduous explains why anger qualifies as a movement of the irascible rather than of the concupiscible appetite. Summing up the five affective movements ofthe irascible appetite, Aquinas subsequently writes:
PAUL GONDREAU
Aquinas does acknowledge other types of . the principal eleven, as they bring me pas~dlon, yet these he categorizes as "species" of re acOl ental chang t b (Thomas accepts for the most part the' . es 0 ear on the main eleven by Nemesius and Damascene includm' vgar;,ons sdPe~:es of sorrow, fear, and anger listed above '11 . , w o n er (admin ti ,\ h' h WI receIve considerable attention in th D " , 'Q .0/, W IC ,as a species offear acknowledging the possibility ofth . ~ ommlCan s treahse on Christ's passions)." supplies his doctrine with enough 1 eti·tuexdels ence of several other species ofpassions Aquinas . a to respond to th .. . , paSSIOns fails to account for all the t' 1 . e cntiOlsm that his index of eleven as he explicitly admits that the eleve:~o. IOna r'eact~ons that characterize human behavior sions that a human being may underg nnpcIP~dPasslOns do not include all the specific pas~ '· . o. rOVI mg then a q . k d . ofth e d Istmchon between all eleven . . 1 '. ' Utc an accessIble overview on the Nicomachean Ethics: pnncipa passIOns, Thomas writes in his commentary
B;
Thos~ passions that COncern good or evil absolutel . l'kY are found In the concupiscible appetIte. Three of these regard the good' I · · . OVe or I e which' I' . naluralIty of the appetite with the good loved' desire' . . Im~ les a certam con~e appetite towards the good loved; and· 0 ' h' : wh~ch ImplIes a movement of In the good loved. Opposed "to these ar t~ ~h w lch l~phes a repose of the appetite dislike, which is Opposed to Jove or like. e ~ee passions that regard evil: hatred or sire; and sorro~, which is opposed to .~ a~s10n or r~treat, which is opposed to deunder the aspect of difficulty bel t J thY' . os~ paSSIOns that concern good or evil t '1 ong 0 e Irascible viz:fi d . o eVl , hope and despair in regard to go d d ear an COurage In regard ite passion and has no opposite. 6s 0 ,an a 1 h IS anger, which is a compos_
The good that is difficult or arduous. considered as good, causes in us a tendency to it, which pertains to the passion of hope; whereas considered as arduous or difficult, it makes us withdraw from it, which pertains to the passion of despair. Similarly, the
arduous evil, considered as evil, causes one to avoid it, which pertains to the passion of fear; it also has the aspect of something to be inclined toward, as attempting something arduous in order to escape being subject to evil; and this tendency is called courage.... Anger is caused by a difficult evil already present ... [which leads to] a
tift ."
movement of attack on the hannful evil, which pertains to anger. 62
Through his observant and analytical examination of the precise ways in which the concupiscible and irascible appetites incline in motion, then, Thomas posits the existence of eleven main types of passion, a classification that, to repeat, he alone offers: "There are eleven dif~ ferent species of passion: six in the concupiscible and five in the irascible, under which all the passions of the soul are contained."63
STI-II, q. 23, aa. 2 and 3: "Bonum autem arduum, sive difficile, habet rationem ut in ipsum tendatur, inquantum est bonum quod pertinet ad passionem spei; et ut ab ipso recedatur, inquantum est arduum et difficile, quod pertinet ad passionem desperationis." Similiter malum arduum habet rationem ut vitetur, inquantum est malum,' et hoc pertinet ad passionem timoris. Habet etiam rationem ut in ipsum tendatur. sicul in quoddam arduum, per quod scilicet aUquid evadit subiectionem mali; et sic tendit in ipsum audacia ... Causatur enim ira ex malo difficili iam iniacente ... aut habet motum ad invadendum malum laesivum, quod pertinel ad iram." cr. as well De ver., q. 26, a. 4. 63. STI-II, q. 23, a. 4: "Sunt ergo omnes passiones specie differentes undecim, sex quidem in concupiscibili, et quinque in irascibtli, sub quibus omnes animae passiones continentur. " 62.
2 I7
Aquinas also ascertains a logical order between the '. . passIOn both originate and tenninat . th . ~asslOns. for hIm, the movements of ble passions intennediate affec" em e concup!sClble appetite, which makes the irasci. ..ve movements smce the b' t f th pellte-the simply agreeable (bonum s' I" :\ 0 ~ec 0 e concupiscible apImp leller/-represents both the I I erm nus a quo and
64. Cf. Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. II lect 5' De ver. Calveras, La afectividad y el cor:a6n ~e.;un San: 26,. a. 4 ad 6; and III Sent, d. 26, q. I, a. 3; and J. 8; Nemesius, De nat. hom ch 20 (ed Vi b k MO amhas, pp. 21-2; foradmiratio, cf. STilL q 15 a . eree- onco 103) d . , II,ch. 15 (ed. Buytaert, p. " 122). ' p. ; an Damacene, De fide orth., Bk.
11
65. Sent. Libri Ethic" Bk.II, lect 5'. "Quaecum .
. . . concupiscibili. Quae quidem '"'neet b ~ue passlOnes resp,clunt bonum vel malum absolute '~.l'" U om sunt tres sci/" t .. ' · Ice amor, qUllmportat quandam connaturalltatem appetitus ad bonum amatum t.J . J . ' ' e uesluenum quod' t E a,:,atum. t delectatio, quae impoNat quietem app rtu . 'b lmpor at mOlum appetitus in bonum dme ad malum, scilicet: odium amori. ave . . e Ism ~no amato,' quibus tria Opponuntur in orpassiones quae respiciunt bonum vel m'alu rslO bSlve!Uga deslderio; et tristitia delectationi. IIlae vero rd . . m su ratione cuiusda respectu bom et quintum est ira quae est p . m respectu a Ul; spes et desperatio asSEO composita, unde nec contrarium habet." SUn( In
218
mE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
the terminus ad quem of all sense appetitive inclinations-in-motion; the bonum simpliciter has, as the Master from Aquino explains, "the aspect of end, which is first in the order of intention and last in the order of execution."" Without an initial connaturalization to a simple good, or an initial aversion to a ~imple evil, there would arise no inclination to overcome obstacles faced once the aspect of difficulty or arduousness is added to the perceived good or evil (one can only hope in something one is first connaturalized to through love or like, or fear something one is first averse to through hate or dislike). Similarly, the appetitive inclination to a perceived good, or aversion to a perceived evil, whether simple or arduous, will always end either in the acquisition of that good, which results in joy, or in the succumbing to that evil, which results in sorrow (the despair one feels in the nnlikely acquisition of a prized object will end either in the joy of its acquisition or in the sorrow of its definitive removal, or the courage one feels in aggressively treating a serious illness will terminate either in the joy of the total remission of the illness or in the sorrow of the failed treatment). Because its object is more fimdarnenta~ immediate and absolute, the concupiscible faculty must represent the origin and term of every appetitive movement. Such is the position of Thomas Aquinas on the passions as movements of the sensitive appetite. Before proceeding to the notion of passion as defect, however, it would be helpful to provide the following two charts delineating the eleven species of passions; both charts are adaptations from A. Pie and M. Corvez in two recent French editions of the Summa:61
219
the concupiscible passions !he good object that is suitable to me: this is love or like It attracts me: this is desire I poss~ss i~: this is pleasure or joy ~he eVIl object that is not suitable to me: this is hatred or di I·k It repulses me: this is aversion sIe I am succumbing to it: this is sorrow the irascible passions ~~ good obj.ect is difficult but possible to attain: this i~ hope It IS ~po7'lbl? to attain: this is despair ~~ ~VlI object IS threatening me but possible to avoid: this is courage It IS unpossible to avoid: this is fear it is here, against me: this is anger
GOOD
EVIL
CONCUFSICIBLE
Joy
Sorrow
t
Hope
Desire'
Love or Like
Despair
r= r
IRASCIBLE
Courage AngJ
t t
M.version
CONCUPISCIBLE
Hate or Dislike
2. Passion as a Defect of the Soul
66. STI-II, q. 25. a. 2: "Obiecta concupiscibilis sun! bonum '" Bonum autem habet rationemfinis. qui quidem est prior in intentione, sed posterior in executione." For other texts affirming the same, cf. STI-'II, q. 25, a. 1; De malo, q. 4, a. 2 ad 1\; q. 8, a. 2, and a. 3 ad 22; q. 10, a. 1; Sent. Libri De sensu et sensato, leet. 1, n. 11; Sent. Libri De anima, Bk. 3, teet. 14; Super Libr. Dionys. De divinis nom, ch. 4, lect. 9; CG I, ch. 91; ill, ch. 151; De ver., q. 25, a. 2, COIpUS and ad 7; and III Sent, d. 26, q. 2, a. 3, sol. 3. Cf. as well E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy o/St. Thomas, pp. 238-40; L. Mauro, "Umanita" della passione, pp. 62-3; M. Manzanedo. Las pasiones, pp. 36-40; and M.-M. Labourdette, Les actes humains, pp. 214--6. 67. A. Pie, n. 5 to STI-II, q. 23, a. 4, in Somme theologique, vol. 2, p. 181, for the first chart; and M. Corvez, in Somme theologique, vol. I. Les passions de I'ame, p. 279, for the second.
"Christ came in .the weakness of the flesh, which is manifested in the passions."" With these words Aqumas alert.s ~ t? an aspect of human passion that receives little notice in his rem~ks on hm;'an affectlV!ty m genera~ but whjch emerges as who lly crucial to the dis~usslon on Christ's hwnan affectivity: passion is a "weakness" a "disab ·l·ty" "I' . hon .. a "deft f' "·t· d· . , I I , a Imlta, .ec :. I :~6a con Ilion of sinful flesh to undergo necessarily ... passions ... [Tjhis defect was m Christ. 9 More precisely, as formally psychical actions, passions are considered by Thomas to fall under the category of defects of the soul, whence originates the title ~f the quaestIO. d~,voted to Christ's passibility in the Tertia Pars: "Of the defects of soul asumed by Christ (De defectibus animae a Christo assumptis). Because most schOlarly
68. STIll, q. 43. a. 1 ad 2: "Christus venit in injirmitate carnis, quod manifestatur per passiones " 69. S~III, q. 14, a 2, sed contra: "conditio carnis peccati est quod habeat necessilatem sustinendi ... pasSlones ... [HJos defectusfoit in Christ[o},"
220
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF -ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
PAUL GONDREAU
studies on human affectivity in the thought of Thomas Aquinas have ignored the role of passion in Christ's humanity, the notion of passion as defect has all but eluded the attention of Thomist scholars.70 Yet, the concept of defect represents a whole other side to passibility that is no less fundamentalto the issue, and without it one fails to grasp the essence of Thomas' take on Christ's human affectivity, as it demarcates the proper context in which one examines Christ's passions. If the notion of passion as defect is virtually absent from Thomas' remarks on human passion in general, it is not altogether absent, as a perusal of Aquinas' writings reveals occasional, albeit inconspicuous, allusions to what shall come out into full exposure in the discussion on Christ's passions: [p]assion in its most proper sense [is] when a thing is said to be passive from its being drawn to the agent, and when a thing recedes from what is suitable to it. .. for when this change is for the worse, it has more of the nature of a passion than when it is for the better; hence, sorrow is more properly a passion than joy. 71
Passion pertains to defect, because it belongs to a thing inasmuch as it.is in potency.72 Every movement of the sensitive appetite is called a passion, especially those that denote some kind of defect. 73 Properly speaking, passion is a movement of an appetitive power that uses a bodily organ to produce a bodily modification. Most properly those movements are called passions that imply some hann or evil.74 Generally speaking, every passion can be called a weakness, insofar as it weakens the soul's strength and impedes reason. 75
221
implies. an alteration of the patient from its natural state to a contraryone. This is why pam and sadness and fear and other such passions that have to do with evil possess ~e character of passion more than joy and love and other passions that have to do WIth good.76 Anger and sorrow and alI these things signify passion and defect. 77 Passion involves a kind of defect in the one who undergoes it. 78
a. Affective Suffering Signifies the Proper Meaning ofPassion
As the above passages make plain, Aquinas looks to a kind of deterioration, Le., a "change from a ?atural state to a contrary one," or, as B. Wuellner puts it, "the experience of the loss
of a .smt;!ble form and enduring the presence of ~n unsuitable form," as essential to true pasSIOn. . In short, Thomas. see.s th~ n~gal!ve or dIsagreeable side of passion as capturing
th~ ?enume sense of affective mclmatlOn; only the negative passions come closest to attammg the true meaning of passion, since they involve the loss of a suitable and natural disposition. The primacy of disagreeable passion in Aquinas' psychological doctrine explains why, as O. Pesch observes, Thomas devotes more attention to sorrow in the Prima Secundae's treatise on the passions than to any other passion" IfTho~as regards disagreeable passion as preserving the proper sense of passion, or that dete~or~l!?n and the loss of a suitable and natural disposition strike at the core meaning of pasSIOn, It IS because of what the properly somatic or material dimension of passion implies. As ~een ab~ve, ~e psychical action or appetitive movement of a passion always entails a bodIly m?dIficatlOn, as the passions are exercised by means of a bodily organ. For this reason, Aqumas opInes on several occasions that the bodily change or transmutation accom-
[T]he character of passion is more fully observed when the affection follows from something hannful than when it follows from something agreeable, since passion
7~. De ver., q. 26. a. 8: "[Mjagis salvatur ratio passionis quando afJectio sequitur ex nocivo quam 70. Because of his study on Christ's passions, R. Spiazzi C'Le passioni e la passione di Cristo in San Tornmaso d'Aquino," Sacra Doctrina 37 [1992]. pp. 5-34, at 11-6) marks an exception to this. 71. ST I-II, q. 22, a. 1: "Hic estpropriissimus modus passion is. Nam pat; dicitur ex eo quod aliquk! trahitur ad agentem; quod autem recedit ab eo quod est sibi conveniens ... nam quando huiusmodi transmutatio fit in deterius, magis proprie habet rationem passionis, quam quando fit in melius; unde Iristilia magis proprie est passio quam /aetilia. " 72. ST I-II, q. 22, a. 2 ad 1: "Passio autem ad defectum pertinet; quia est liquius, secundum quod est in potentia. " 73. STI-II, q. 35, a. 1: "Omnis autem motus appetitus sensitiv; dicitur passio et praecipue illi qui defectum sonant. " 74. STI-II, q: 41, a. 1: "Proprie dicitur passio molus appetitivae virtutis habentis organum corporate, qui fit cum aliqua transmutatione corporali; et adhuc propriissime illi motus passiones dicuntur qui important aliquod nocumentum. " 75. STI-II, q. 85, a. 3 ad 4: "injinnitas communiter potest dici omnis passio, inquantum debilitat robur animae et impedit rationem."
sequatur ex projicuo, propter hoc quod passio importat quandam transmutationem patientis a sua natural; dispositione in contrariam dispositionem. Et fnde est quod dolor et Iristitia et timor et aliae huiusmodi passiones quae sunt respectu mali habent rationem passion is magis quam gaudium et arnor et alia huiusmodi quae sunt respectu boni. " 77. CG II, ch. 25: "ira aut tristitia cum haec omnia in passionem et defectum sonent. " 78. 1/ Sent, d. 19, q. I, a. 3, sed contra: "Passio aliquem defectum importat inpa/ienle." For other texts affirming the notion of passion as defect, cf. Super Libr. Dionys. De divinis nom., ch. 4, lect. 20; Qu. disp. De anima, q. 8; and III Sent, d. IS, q. 2, a. I, sol. 2. D~ ~r., q. 2~, a.~: «pa:~io im~~rtat quandam transmutationem patientis a sua naturali disposltlone In contrarzam dlSposltlonem. B. Wuellner, Dictionary o/Scholastic Philosophy, p. 89. Cf. ST I: q. 97, a. 2; De ver., q. 26, a. I; M.-M. Labourdette, Les actes humains. p. 210; H.-D. Noble, "Pass~o~s." col. 2212; M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones, p. 9; and K. White, "The Passions of the Soul." For SImIlar thoughts in Albert, cf. De incarn., tr. 6; q. 1, a. 1, and a. 2 cornus and ad I Ced Colon pp 220-1). ' r ", . Sl
7?:
80. O. Pesch, Thomas von Aquin, p. 228.
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TIlE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
panying a passion is directly proportionate to the psychical appetitive movement itself.'1 And since, as Thomas explains, "the appetite tends with greater force to repel that which is opposed to it," the disagreeable passions (particularly sorrow, fear, and anger), because they
represent affective movements of resistance against antagonistic sense evils, encompass greater bodily modifications than the agreeable passions-no affective movement effects greater bodily change than the disagreeable passions.82 With the disagreeable passions, then, the body has its natural disposition altered to a contrary or undesirable disposition io a way unlike that of the agreeable passion. As for the properly psychical side, the experience of negative passion involves as well the loss of an agreeable or favorable affective disposition; io short, since the human beiog has a natural disposition for the good, a change for the worse involves a greater degree of change in the human beiog. For Aquioas, this brings one full circle to the original or general sense of passion, whereby a patient or subject is passively acted upon io such a way that the patient, through its drawing towards something else, loses what it originally possessed. Since the experience of disagreeable or negative passion comes closest to attainiog the true meaning of passion, the notion of "suffering" best conveys what Thomas wishes to ex~ press by the termpassio (or passibilitaslpatior), inasmuch as suffering always comprises a loss and a change to a contrary or unsuitable disposition (Latin, which has only passio, passibilitas, and patior, has no way of distinguishiog between "suffering" and "passion" [or "passibility"]). Though passibilitas may be rendered as both "suffering" and "passibility" in English (or "to suffer" and "to undergo passion" in the case ofpatior), it is the fonner that properly corresponds to the primary meaniog of the term io Thomas' vocabulary, and, iodeed, in the language of all the medievals. This point has not been lost on erudite dictionaries of Scholastic tenninology, which list "the capacity to suffer," or "to suffer," as the primary meaning of, respectively, passibilitas and patior."
223
Once one has established the fact that suffering captures the primary and . f . .. proper meanmg 0 p~sl~n, It IS a sho~ .~d logical step t? arrive at the notion of passion as a defect. For, Aqumas IDSlstS. that the. mltial h~an condItion in the state of original justice excluded all forms of suffenng, partIcularly disagreeable passion:
~ince in the primitive state no evil was present or imminent, nor was any good wantl~g ... there was in Adam no.passio~ th~t regards evil, such as fear, sorrow, and the hke.; .. The human body was ImpaSSIble In the state of innocence with respect to the paSSIOns that alter the disposition ofnature.&4
Thom~s concludes from this, t~~ugh not without the support of an impressive contingent ?fpatristic and m~dleval authonties, that. any pr~sent experience of suffering, whether phyS~cal or psychologlc~l, such as hunger, thIrst, pam, death, or passion-must ultimately trace Its roots to the ongI?al sio of A~-it must b~long to the stock of the corrupt and weak8S ened human nature mcurred by sm. More preCIsely, Aquinas, inheriting the classification ~fLombard (who be~~ys ~e ~fluence of the Summa sententiarum), distinguishes between defects of the body, which mclude hunger, pain, death, etc., and "defects of the sonl " whICh compnse the passions. 86 As a defect of soul, the passions represent psychical cons~ quences or penalties of sin. In brief, because of the entrance of sin in the worId-and oni because of the entrance of sin in the world-the human being undergoes affective suffe;"
mg, and so expenences passion in its truest and most proper or primary sense Notabl
here Aqu~as' unders~ndingofpassion: or ofthe hunum condition in general, ~ws up:'; a theologICal perspectIve which recogmzes a distinct contrast between what is believed to represent the human station before the entrance of sin in the world-what one may call
"e~prime a la fois la souffrance, c'est-a-dire I'acte de patir, et la passion c'est-a-dire une emotl'on
d'ame."
81. STI-II, q. 37, a. 4; q. 44, a. 1; q. 48, a. 2; De ver., q.26, a. 2, and a. 3 ad 11; etc. 82. STI-II, q. 48, a. 2 (cf. as well q. 29, a. 3, corpus and ad 3): "corporalis transmutatio quae est in passionibus animae, proportionalur motu; appetitus. Manifestum est autem quod quilibet appetitus, etiam naturalis,/ortillS tendit in id quod est sib; contrarium." The references in the previous note indicate why sorrow, fear, and anger, effect the greatest bodily transmutation. 83. cr. Revised Medieval Latin Word-List from British and Irish Sources, ed. R.E. Latham (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 334-5; and R. Deferrari, A Latin-English Dictionary ofSt. Thomas Aquinas, pp. 758-64. M. Manzanedo (Las pasiones, p. 7) defines the Latinpassio first as "el acto de sufrir 0 soportar algfuI mal." For R. Brennan (Thomistic Psychology. p. 152), "[i]o a more profound sense, passivity means a capacity for suffering." M.-B. Schwalm (Le Christ d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin. Commentaires du De Incarnatione, p. 302), explains how the tenn passibilis
,
~4. ~TI, q. 95, a. ? corpus and ad 2; emphasis min~: "quia in primo statu nullum malum aderat nee
lmmmeba~, nee alzquod bonu~ aber~t ... omnes illae passiones quae respiciunt malum, in Adam non erant, ut tlm~r, et dolor, et hUlUsmod, .. ~ Corpus humanum in statu innocentiae erat impassibile quantum ad passlOnes quae removent dispositionem naturalem. " 85. Cf. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps 87:3 (CCSL 39, p. 1209); Cbrysostom, In Matt. homil, 74-5 (pG 58, 681-5); Boethms, Llber contra Eut. et Nest., ch. 8 (ed. Stewart, p. 123)' Damascene Dejide orth chs. 20, 23, and 28 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 259-76); Alexander of Rales, III Sent, d. 15: nn. 9-10 (ed: Quaracchl, p. 154); Summa theol. (Summa hat,) Bk, III, inq. I, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo 2, ch. 2 (ed. ~aracchl,p. 66), Albert, III Sent, d. 15, aa. 2-3 and 7; De incarn.. tr. 6, q. 1, a. 5 (ed. Colon., p. 224); onaventure, BreVlI., pt. 4, ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 248); and Aquinas STI-II q 85 a 5' ill q 1 4 ad 2' 4 6' 13 ' ,.. " , . , a. ,q. ,a. ,q. ,a. 3 ad 2; q. 14, aa. 1-4; Lect. super Matt.. ch. 8, Iect. 3; and CG IV ch 82 86i. Cf. Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, ch. 1 (ed. ColI. Bonav., pp. 93); and Summa sententiaru'"" ~h. ;7 ~ . 17~. 7~). Cf. ~e prevIOUS note for the references to Aquinas. Bonaventure also appropriates this dIstinctIon In BreVlI., pt. 4, ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 248). .
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THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
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TIffiOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
the prelapsarian state-and what accrues to human nature after the initial human rebellion against God-the so-called post-Iapsarian state. Though the following chapter shall consider in greater detail the precise method by which Aquinas arrives at this rather foreign, at least for the modem reader, understanding ofthe pre- and post-Iapsarian human condition, its impact on the notion of passion as a defect of the soul may be summarized in the following manner: the disagreeable passions do not correlate with what God initially intended the human family to experience, viz., a life that transcends affective suffering, no matter if one may intelligibly speak of these passions, as even Aquinas does (which we shall see innnediately below), as properly "natural" to the human station. Admittedly, Thomas has restricted or narrowed his use of passion when he refers to it as a defect of soul. Simply stated, ifAquinas' remarks on human affectivity in general focus for the most part on the whole definition of passion-the movement of the sensitive appetite in response to a perceived good or evil-his remarks on passion as a defect of soul (particularly, as we shall see, in the case of Christ) follow only halfofthis definition: the movement of the sensitive appetite in response to a perceived evil. Though essentially related, Aquinas' two senses of passion remain yet quite distinct: in reference to human affectivity in general, any appetitive inclination-in-motion to a sense object qualifies as an authentic
passion; in relation to passion as a defect of soul, only affective suffering, Le., an appetitive movement that results from the apprehension of a sense evil, attains the strict and proper meaning of passion. The following diagram attempts to schematize this very point:
{
perceived sense good
perceived sense evil = passion as defect 1
'. animal side of human nature irrespective of the effects of sin. Defects succeed sin • ~ot the essence of h~an nature-they are non-essential accouterments to human nature: S;ubse~uently, If sm IS a necessary prerequis.ite for the experience of true and proper pasSiOn, sm-and not nature-emerges ~s the prunary cause of the experience ofpassion in the proper sense of the term, a conclUSIOn that would appear incongruous with the fact that human nature is naturally passible. If passible by nature, in other words human nature should seem ofitselfori.ented to the experience of true and proper passion ~ithout any furtheranc~ ofsm, at least If, as Aquinas holds, nothing was gained nor lost in terms of nature by smnmg (cf. Prima, q. 98, a. 2). As it stands, Thomas' designation of passion as a defect o~ soul ap?~,,:,s to mamt~n that the proper expression of a natural element of human nature, VIZ., ~asslbllIty, ':"~. gamed through s~n. Prima facie it would appear contradictory, then, to deSignate passlbility as a defect, which equates it with a mere accessory of human nature
and a consequence of sin, while at the same time maintaining its status as an essential fea~e ?fhuman life and, subsequently, as a consequence of the goodoess of God's creative
will m nature.
b. Passion as a Consequence ofthe Natural Corruptibility of the Body
a:
To e f~reg~ing di1e~a Aquinas .offers two r~plies. First, though the primary sense of passIOn Implies suffenng, Thomas mSlsts, notwithstanding this, that passion as a simple n:o.v~ment of the sense appetite in response to perceived sense goods, i.e., agreeable passlbl~lty, doe~ belong to human nature as such irrespective of sin, as evidenced by his affirmatio~.that III the state of original innocence prelapsarian man experienced agreeable sense appetitive movements: Those passions that regard the present good, such as joy and love, or Which regard the future good to be possessed at the proper time, such as desire and hope .,. existed in the state of innocence. 87
1Wo Senses of Passion
sense appetite (in motion as a response to)
225
}
all passion 2
Classitying passion as a defect of soul leaves one, however, with an odd dilemma, at least when one juxtaposes this classification alongside the realization that passion belongs to the normal fimction of human appetite, an appetite that follows upon the essential elements
Second, though Thomas labels passion a defec.t or consequence of sin he does so in a strictly qualified sense, as he ackoowledges the meaningfulness. of speaki~g of such things as mortality and passibility (in the sense of suffering) as properly natural to the human
87. SrI, q. 95, a,. 2: "lllae vero passiones quae possunt esse bonipraesentis, ut gaudium et amor. vel quae suntfuturi boni in suo tempore habendi, ut desiderium et spes ... fuerunt in statu innocentia: Alexand~r of Hales (Qu. disp.
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condition, yet only in abstraction from the grace of original justice. Aqninas holds this view because of his understaoding of the makeup of the hmnan body: composed of material elements, the hmnan body is naturally and necessarily subject to what the Dominican Master terms "corruption"---<:orruption not as it is employed in common parlance todsy, but as a technical philosophical term implying destruction or division through the loss of the body's natural state and the production ofa contrary one: Conuption and defects in [the human being] are naturaI.. .. [For] since the very fonn [of the hUman being] has matter composed of contraries, from the inclination of matter there results conuptibility in the whole. In this sense man is naturally conuptible. 88
In a word, affective suffering, or passion in the proper sense, is a natural feature of the human condition on account of the corruptibility or alterability of the body; if the body is necessarily corruptible, i.e., subject to the loss of its natural condition in exchange for a contrary one, and if passion requires the corruptible body for its exercise, it follows that the movements of passion endure such corruption; they undergo such replacement of a natural disposition for a contrary one, and therefore "suffer." (At work here as wen isAquinas'notion, mentioned above, of what he terms "passion of the body" [passio corporalis), whereby any purely physical or somatic suffering ends in the soul, inasmuch as the soul is the form of the body.) Based upon the principles of human nature, or the necessitas consequens materiam, the material body owns a certain command or sway over the soul. Passion as a Consequence ofSin
Because of the natural corruptibility of the hmnan body, Thomas considers the necessary effects of corruptibility, such as death and passibility (since passion requires a bodily organ
Co
for its exercise), to represent natural occurrences as well. Put another way, Aquinas locates
Passion as a natural consequence of the materiality ofhmnan nature represents only part of the picture that Aquinas paints of hmnan affectivity; in fact, passion as a consequence of bodily corruption does not adequately explain why our Dominican friar designates passion as a "defect" (defectus), since defectus implies a lack or a privation of what should be preseut-defect implies sin. Relying again upon an elaborate theological method that recognizes a radical difference in the hmnan affective condition after the entrance of sin in the world, Thomas opines that even ifthe corruptibility of the body, and with it affective suffering or passibility, may be said to adhere to the natural disposition ofthe hmnan body, such a "natural condition" did not Originally belong to the prelapsarian state as it issued forth from the creative hand of God:
at the basis of human nature certain principles that result from the substaotial union of a soul with a material body, principles that account for the necessary consequences of the material corruptible body-the necessitas consequens materiam-including passibility: That the body is corruptible, that it grows weary, and that it has other defects of this kind [such as passibility] are necessary-consequences of its material makeup. For any body that is composed of contraries is necessarily subject to these sorts of defects. 89 Ifa certain defect exists in the disposition of the human body, it is because such a defect follows necessarily upon the matter as the conditions ofthe body require, in order to make it suitably proportioned to the soul and its operations .... This necessity results from the principles of human nature.90
88. STI-II. q. 85, a. 6: "corruptiones et defectus rerum sunt naturales ... Sed quia et ipsa [the fonn] habet materiam ex contrariis compositam, ex inc/inatione materiae sequitur corruptibilitas in toto. Et secundum hoc homo est naturaliter corruptibilis." Cf. as well STI, q. 89, a. 5; q. 98, a. 1; q. 164, a. 1; Super ad Hebr., ch. 9, lect. 5; In Epist. ad Romanos, ch. 5, lect. 3; De malo, q. 5, a. 5; Camp. theol., ch. 193; CG lV, chs. 52 and 84; II Sent, d. 30, q. 1, a. I; III Sent, d. 16, q. 1, a. 1; IV Sent, d. 4, q. 2, a. I, qc. 3; and d. 36, q. 1, a. 1 ad 2. Bonaventure (III Sent, d. 16, a. 1, q.3[ed. Quaracchi, p.35I]) also sees bodily corruption as belonging to the lege naturae. For a development of the natural corruptibility of human nature, cf. D. Chardonnens, L 'homme sous Ie regard de la providence, pp. 134-41. 89. Qu. disp. De anima, q. 8: "Hoc corpus sit corruptibile,fatigabile et huiusmodi defectus habeat, consequitur ex necessitate materie. Necesse est enim corpus sic commixtum ex contrariis, talihus subiacere defectihus. " 90. STI, q. 91, a 3, and ITr, q. 14, a. 2: "Sf aliquis defectus in dispositione humani corporis esse videtur. considerandum est quod taUs deftctus sequitur ex necessitate materiae ad ea quae requiruntur in corpore, ut sit debita proportio ipsius ad animam et ad animae operationes.... Haec autem necessitas causatur ex principiis humanae naturae." Cf. as well STUI, q. 15, a. 5 ad 2.
Although the conuption [of human affectivity] is against the state of nature as originally instituted, it is nonetheless a consequence ofthe principles of nature left to itself.9'
Since corruptibility and passibility are, given the necessitas consequens materiam, natural features of the human condition, nature alone cannot attain a life free from bodily corruption and affective suffering; rather, only a unique supernatural grace can procure incorruptibility and impassibility (or immunity to affective suffering), a grace that was in fact
91. De ver., q. 25, a. 7 ad 5: "huiusmodi curruptio quamvis sit contra statum naturae primitus inStitutae, est tamen consequens prinCipia naturae sibi relictae. "For an analysis of how the Greek Fathers hold almost unanimously to the view that suffering, including affective suffering, does not correspond to God's initial design for human nature, cf. I-C. Larchet, Dieu ne veut pas la soufJrance des hommes. Such a patristic view was certainly not lost on the likes of Aquinas, whose theology was so strongly indebted to the Fathers.
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~ven to prelapsarian man in the state of original justice; as Thomas writes, betraying the mfluence of Bonaventure, and ultimately of Augustine and John Damascene: The human body was inconuptible or incapable of being dissolved not by reason of any intrinsic force of immortality. but by reason of a supernatural power given by God to the soul, which enabled the body to be preserved from all conuption, so long as the soul remained subject to God . ... In [this] sense, man was impassible both in soul and body, just as he was immortal; for he could prevent passion as wen as death, so long as he refrained from sin. n The immortality and impassibility that man enjoyed in the original state did not result from the principles of nature but from the assistance of the Creator.~3
Aquinas, in other words, sees in the state of original justice no "natural" condition in the pure sense ofllie tenn; rather, he· recognizes a "supra·human" condition, to quote J.-P. Tor. reI!, a condition that exceeds the purely natoral plane, as it was shaped by the efficacy of a umque and unparalleled gift of grace: "The power ofpreserving the body," Thomas writes "Was not natoral to the human soul, but was the gift of grace"; and, "In the state of inno: cence, the human body was in itselfcorruptible, but it could be preserved from corruption by the soul [on account of graceJ. "" Passion understood as suffering is therefore natoral
92. STI, q. 97, aa. 1-2: "Non enim corpus eius erat indissolubile per aliquem immortalitatis vigorem in eo e.xistentem; sed inerat animae vis quaedam supernaturaliter divinitus data, per quam poterat corpus ab omni corruptione praeservare, quamdiu ipsa Deo subiecta mansisset ... Primo autem modo dicta passione erat impassibilis et secundum animam et secundum corpus, sicut immortalis. Poterat enim passionem prohibere, sicut et mortem, si absque peccato perstitisset. " Cf. ST I-II, q. 85. a. 6; De malo, q. 5. a. 5; Qu. disp. De anima, q. 8; De ver., q. 25. a. 7; and II Sent, d. 19. q. I. a. 3. 93. II Sent, d. 19, q. 1•. a.4: "lmmorlalitas ilia et impassibilitas quam homo habuit in primo statu, non inerat sibi ex suis principiis naturae, sed ex beneficia conditoris. " For Bonaventure (Brevil, pt. 2, ch. 10 [ed. Quaracchi, p. 228]): "(God) made for the rational soul a body so complelely obedient that it was free from all actual hostility or rebellion, all propensity to lust, all weakness, all mortal corw ruption; a body so confonned to the soul that as the soul, from innocence, was yet liable to fall into sin, so also the body. from impassibility, was yet liable to fall into suffering" (ac per hoc tale corpus constituit illi animae rationali, quod ita sibi esset obtemperans, ut nulla esset in eo pugna rebellionis, nulla pronitas libidinis, nulla imminutio vigoris, nulla corruptio mortis; ita etiam esset animae confonne, ut, sicut anima erat innocens, et tamen poterat cadere in culpam, sice corpus esset impassibile, et tamen possel cadere in poenam). Cf. Augustine. De Gen. ad litt, Bk. VI, ch. 25 (CSEL 2B,1, p. 197). Writing on the state ofman in paradise, Damascene (Defide orth., Bk. II, ch. 11 led. Buytaert, p. lOB» explains: "God meant that we should be free from passion" (Tales autem impassibiles voluit nos esse Deus). 94. STI, q. 97. a. 1 ad 3: "vis illapraeservandi corpus a corruptione non erat animae humanae naturalis, sed per donum gratiae"; and STI, q. 9B. a. I ad 1; emphasis mine: "corpus hominis in statu innocentiae, quantum erat de se, corruptibile erat; sedpotuit praeservari a corruptione per animan. "
229
body is naturally corruptible, yet the unique grace owing to the state of orig-
"J'-'._- allowed prelapsarian man to own total dominion over his "natural" condition, partictllrurly over the corruptibility of the body, and thus experience impassibility, or ex;",,nlI)I1()Q from affective suffering. Should this grace be removed, human nature would re"tum to the condition proper to it as a creatore composed of a material and corruptible body, as in fact transpired after the original Fall (cf. Gen 3:19: "You are dust, and to dust you shall return"): By original justice ... the whole body was held together by the soul without any defect With the withdrawal of original justice through the sin of our first parent, then, human nature .,. became subject to corruption on account of the disordering of the body....Once original justice is removed, the nature of the human body is left to itseIf[viz., to corruption].9S
The gift bestowed upon man in the first state that united the lower powers entirely to reason and the body to the soul was ... from the efficacy of original justice .... When this justice was removed by sin, man returned to the state suitable to him as according to his own natural principles.96 More than just a consequence of "natore," then, passibility (or affective suffering) is also and especially a consequence of sin; passibility ofitselftestifies to the fact that human nature, through sin, is now deprived of what it initially possessed, a point that shall be explored in much greater detail in the following chapter. 97 Notably, it is as a consequence of sin that
Cf. J.-P. Torrel1, n. 7 to STIli, q. 14, a. 3 ad 2, in Somme theologique, vol. 4, Le mystere de I'lncarnation (paris: Editions du Cerf, 1986), p. 125. 95. STI-II, q. 85, a. 5, corpus and ad 1: "Originalis iustitia, per quem ... totum corfJ!ls conlinebatur sub anima absque omni defectu. Et ideo, subtracta hac originali iustitia per peccatum primi parentis ... humana natura ... est corruptibilis effocta per deordinationem ipsius corporis ... Sic igitur. remota original; iustitia, natura corporis humani relicta est aibi. " Though Bonaventure asserts much the same thing in Brevil, pt. 3, ch. 4 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 234), he neglects to affinn that the body is left to its natural corruption: "sicut DeUs dederat homini secundum ordinem naturae corpus subiectum animae, propagabile sine /ibidine, vegetabile sine defectione, immutabile sine morte interveniente; sic, homine peccante, secundum ordinem iustitiaefactum est; ut subtraheret cuncta praedicta et infligeret opposita. " 96. De ver., q. 25, a. 7: "Quod enim homini in primo statu col/alumfuit ut ratio totaliter inferiores vires contineret, et anima corpus, fuit... ex virtute originalis iustWae ... Qua quidem iustitia per peccatum subiata, homo rediit ad statum convenientem sibi secundum principia sua naturalia. " Cf. De malo, q. 5, a. 5. 97. Thomas' view on the causal relation between sin and such defects as death and passibility belongs to his inherited tradition: cf. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps 87:3 (CCSL 39, p. 1209); Cluysostom, In Matt. hamil., 74-5 (pG 58,681-5); Boethius, Liber contra Eut. et Nest.• ch. 8 (ed. Stewart, p. 123); Damascene, Deflde orth., Bk.lII, chs. 20, 23 and 28 (ed. Buytaer!, pp. 259--76); Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, ch. 1; and d. 16, ch. 1 (ed. ColI. Bonav., pp. 92-8 and 104); Alexander of Hales, III Sent, d. 15, n. 22 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 158); Qu. disp. 'ante. essetfrater', q. 16, disp. 1, memo 2, n. 24 (ed. Quarac-
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Aquinas holds primarily in mind when he labels passion a "defect"; as he writes in two key passages from the Quaestio disputata De anima and the Tertia Pars:
The removal of original justice has the character of punishment, as does the withdrawal of grace. Therefore, death and all consequent bodily defects are punishments of original sin. 101
Corruptibility arises from those defects that belong not only to the human body as a result of the exigencies of matter, but mostly (maxime) as a consequence of original sin, which withdrew the help of grace.98
~]odil! defects, such as death, hunger, thirst. and the like, are the punishment of sm, Which was brought into the world by Adam, as Rm 5:12 attests. 102
of
The cause death and other bodily defects of human nature is twofold: the first is remote, and results from the material principles of the human body which is composed of contraries. But this cause was impeded by original justice. Therefore, the more immediate cause of death and other defects is the second one--sin-by which original justice was removed. 99
More specifically, Thomas distinguishes between the "stain of guilt or blame" (macula culpae) obtained by sin and the "state of punishmenf'-(reatus poenae) due to sin, or, more simply, between guilt and punishment, and sees in passibility a share in the latter. 1°O This distinction, which follows the insight that one may find oneselfpunished for something one is not guilty of (or vice versa), affords the advantage of drawing a causal connection between sin and passibility, without on the same score imputing a person as a "sinner" by the very fact that one experiences movements of passion; though a penalty of sin, passion does not de facto mean one is guilty of sin. (We saw in the case of Christ that this distinction safeguards his sinlessness, while leaving room for his sharing in the sinful condition of human nature.) IfAquinas assigns passibility to the punishment of original sin, it is because passibility results from the removal of the grace of original justice, a removal that itself constitutes the condition of punishment:
chi, p. 234); Albert, III Sent, d. 15, aa. 2-8; De incarn., tr.6, q. I, a. 5 (ed. Colon., p. 224); and Bonavenlure, III Sent, d. 15,a. I, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 333); and Brevil., pt. 4, ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 248). 98. Qu. disp. De anima, q. 8 ad 9; emphasis mine: "Corruptibilitas est ex defectibus qui consequuntur corpus humanum ex necessitate materie, ex maxime post peccatum, quod subtraxit auxilium gratiae. " 99. STIlI, q. 14, a. 3 ad 2: "Causa mortis et aUorum corporaUum defectuum in humana natura est duplex. Una quidem remota: quae accepitur ex parte principiorum materialium humani corporis, inquantum est ex contrariis compositum. Sed haec causa impediebatur per originalem iustitiam. Et ideo proxima causa mortis et aUorum defectuum est peccatum, per quod est subtracta originalis iustitia. " Cf. as well STIlI, q. I, a. 4 ed 2. 100. STIlI, q. 22, a. 3; cf as well I-II, q. 87, a. 6; Ill, q. 14, a. I; and q. 15, a. 5 ad 2. For Lombard (Ill Sent, d. 15, ch. I; and d. 16, ch. 2 led. ColI. Bonav., pp. 93 and 105]), the distinction is between the "defects of punishment" (defoctus poenae) and the "defects of guilt" (defectus culpae). Lombard here develops the thought of the Summa sententiarum, ch. 18 (pL 176, 78). Cf. as well Alexander of Hales, III Sent, d. 15, n. 23 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 158); Qu. disp. 'ante. essetfrater; 'q.I6, disp. 2, memo I, n. 37 (ed. Quaracchi,pp. 240-1); and Summa theol. (Summa hal., Bk.IlI, inq. I, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo
I ad I and ad 5 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 60).
23 I
~y qualitying passion as ~ consequence of the punishment of sin rather than of the guilt of sm, Aqumas proves that hIS use of defectus in relation to passibility adopts a highly technical s~nse of the term, whereby it siguifies ontological defect rather than, say, moral defect. That IS, rather than denoting moral or culpable deficiency, as the modem reader may spontaneously thmk when encountering the term, defect in reference to passion instead refers to an ontological deficiency, a non-culpable deficiency or limitation of nature, just as death and hung~r represent non-CUlpable deficiencies of nature. Even here, however, defect is used in a partIcul:rrly relative sense, i.e., relative to the state of original justice, or to what human narure enjoyed as a result of the unique grace of the original state. The consequences of bodIly corruplIon-
?as
101. SrI-II, q. 85, a. 5: "Subtractio autem originalis iustitiae habet rationem poenae, sicut etiam subtractio gratiae. Unde etiam mors et omnes defectus corporales consequentes sunt quaedam poenae originalis peccati." cr. Ill, q. 14, aa. 2 and 4. 102. STIlI, q. 14, a. 1: "defectus corporales, scilicet mors,fames, et sitis, et huiusmodi, sunt poena peccati, quod est in mundum per Adam introductum, secundum illud Rom. "
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All natural things were produced by the Divine art, and so may be considered God's works of art. Now every artist intends to grant his work the best disposition-not absolutely the best, but the best in relation to the end, even if this entails some defect. ... 103
TIrrough dexterous argumentation coupled with a highly technical yet coherent use ofterminology-which admittedly stands quite removed from the modem mindset-Thomas is therefore able to affmn that passion represents both a defect, i.e., a consequence of sin, and an essential feature of human nature, i.e., a consequence of the goodness of God's creative will. In this way, the Dominican can affirm an undeniable existentia1.fact, viz., that the human race finds its present condition circumvented by undeniable affliction and suffering, without in the same breath surrendering his faith in a providential God whose merciful love stands opposed to such affliction and suffering. By turning to a brief passage from the Secunda Secundae Pars of the Summa, one finds Aquinas explaining in a succinct yet penetrating manner these two heads of passibility, the one representing the nature of things and the other the consequences of sin (though Thomas here speaks of death, his remarks are equally valid for human passion): Death is both natural on account of the condition pertaining to matter, and penal on account of the loss of the divine favor preserving man from death. 1G4
Ultimately, what Aquinas wishes to underscore through his designation of passion as a defect of soul is the fundamental notion of affective vulnerability that results from living in a world beset with evils, evils that were nonexistent in the prelapsarian state. To be subject to the psycho-somatic impact of evils, especially sense evils, is in effect to live under the burden of sin, and ultimately under the burden of original sin. The present existential human condition inevitably involves affective or psychological "hurts," or what one may call1aesiones anirnae, just as it encompasses bodily hurts, or what Thomas terms laesiones cor-
103. STI, 9-91, a. 3: "Omnes res naturales productae sunt ab arte divina,' unde sunt quodammodo arti}iciata ipsius Dei. Quilibet autem arti/ex intendit suo operi dispositionem optimam inducere, non simpliciter, sed per comparationem adfinem. Et si taUs dispositio habet secum adiunctum aliquem defectum ... " In STHI, q. 85, a. I (cf. as well a. 4), Thomas affirms as "a good of nature" (bonum naturae humanae) the "principles by which a nature is constituted, and their consequent properties" (principia naturae, ex quibus ipsa natura constituitur, et proprietates ex his eausatae), a good ofnahlre that was "neither destroyed nor diminished by sin" (nee tollitur, nee diminuitur per peeeatum). Cf. as well ST I-II, q. 85, a. 6; and Qu. disp. De anima, q. 8. 104. STII-II, q. 164, a. 1 ad 1: "Mors est naturalis proptereonditionem materiae, et estpoenalis propter amissionem divini beneficii praeservantis a morte. "
233
pori~; f~r Aquinas, psychical or affective suffering parallels bodily suffering, as exemplified m his use o~the term "pain" (dolor) as an equivalent for "sorrow" (tristilia) in the treatIse on the pasSIOns m the Prima Secundae Pars. To be sure, such affective vulnerability holds not o~ly. for disa~eeabl~ passibility but also, one could say, for agreeable passibility, or the pasSlbllIty assocIated WIth sense goods, which implies its own affective inclination and consequent susceptibility to external objects. It is this susceptibility to affective move: ments, particularly as it follows upon the burden of sin or upon passion as defect that Aquinas wishes to affirm in the case of Christ's own existential human condition.105 '
C.
THE PASSIBILlTY OF CHRIST'S HUMAN SOUL (UTRUM ANIMA CHRISTI FUERIT PASSIBILlS)
We saw earlier that the medieval question of utrum anima Christi foeri! passiMlis-whether Chris:'s soul was passible-which Aquinas poses in Tertia, q. 15, emerges out of the general hlStoncal need to affirm the reality of Christ's suffering and pain in both body and soul. This need arose not only on account of the influence in the West-after the mid- 12th-century -{)f D~mascene.'s De fide. orthodoxa, whic~ took issue with the denial of Christ's bodily pasSlbllIty by Juhan ofHallcarnassus and Galanos, but also and especially on account of the longstanding Latin influence of Hilary of Poitiers' Christology, which, in its polemic with the Arians, denied the psychical (and almost physical) reality of Christ's passible suffering and pam. Though most of Aquinas' Scholastic predecessors, notably, Hugh of st. Victor, Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, and Bonaventure, alI come down, contra Aphthartodocetism and Hilary of Poitiers, unequivocally in favor of Christ's affective or psychical passibility, the Christological climate in Aquinas' day was still charged enough to offer a challenge to such a position. 106 Evidence for this is found in the case of Philip ofHarvengst (t1l83), whose Hilary-induced Christology argues for the view that impassibili~ was more natural to the humanity of Christ, and that a miracle alone gave him the capacIty to suffer: "When [Jesus] grieved and died grieving," Philip writes, "it was
105. Cf. I.-H. Nicolas, Synthese dogmalique, pp. 406-7. 106. Hugh ofSt. Victor, De sacr. Christ. fidei, Bk.ll, pt. I, ch. 7 (PL 176, 390-1); and De quat. vo/unto in Christo (PL 176, 842-6); Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, ch. I (ed. Coll. Bonav., p. 93), which betrays the thought of the Summa sententiarum, ch. 17 (PL 176, 75); Alexander of Hales, Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater', q. 16, disp. 2, memo I, n. 36 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 240); Summa theol., Bk. III, inq. I, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo I (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 59-60); Albert, III Sent, d. 15, a.2; De incarn., tr. 6, q. I, a. I (ed. Colon.,p. 220); and Bonaventure, IIISent, d. 15, •. I,qq. 1-2,.nd dub. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 33141); and Brevi!, pt 4, ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 248).
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above nature and by a miracle that he is said to have done these things."107 The question, then, of utrum anima Christi foerit passibilis was, given the failure to eradicate the lingering effects of Hilary's Christology, hardly a moot one for the 13th-century Scholastics, Thomas Aquinas among them. Following the esteemed Scholastic figures listed above, Aquinas of course offers an affirmative reply to the query of whether Christ's soul was passible. For him, the tenet of Jesus' complete humanity, supported by the witness of Scripture, requires nothing less than a full admission of passion in Christ; Jesus takes on a psychologically vulnerable condition, or an affective susceptibility to sense impression, epitomized by the reality of his suffering and pain. lOS That the historical backdrop provided, especially by the polemic with Hilary's problematic Christo logy, largely influences the way in which Aquinas frames his position on Christ's passibility is shown in the layout itself of the treatise on Christ's passions in Terlia, q. 15: after devoting an article to the issue of Christ's passibility, Thomas immediately passes to consideration of Christ's "sensible pain" (dolor sensibilis), even before examiningthe properly psychical or appetitive movements in Christ, such as sorrow, fear, and the like-a telling arrangement when one recalls that Terlia, q. 15 is entitled, "Of the defects of soul assumed .by Christ" (De defeclibus animae a Chrislo assumplis). The sarne arrangement exists in the Compendium theologiae, w~ere extensive attention is given to the passibility of Christ's body (chs. 226-31) before his passibility of soul (chs. 232-3). Though Thomas' position on Christ's assumption of a passible soul echoes the consensus opinion of his Scholastic predecessors, as well as the voice of certain patristic authorities, notably, Augustine and Damascene, his thought on the matter goes further than ~y previous writer (Alexander of Hales marks his closest rival). Two evident points suggest this. First the Master from Aquino brings to the table of Christ's passious an interest in gen~al
hum~ affectivity that, as we have seen, was unmatched by any thinker, secular or religious,
107. Philip of Harvengst, Epist. 25 (PL 203, 175-6): "quod vero doluit et dolendo mortuus esl, praeter naturam et per miraculumfactum esse dicat. "Previous to this, Philip (col. 175) writes: "Ta.ntaene injirmitatis lui! cara Christi, ut quemadmodum nos passione illata ex necessitate do/emus, Ita quoque ipse non do/ere non posset nisi miraculo praeter naturam divinilus operante. " Cf. X. Le Bachelet, "Hilaire (saint)," col. 2440; and G.P. Sijen, "La passibilite du Christ chez Philippe de Harveng," pp. 198-208. 108. Cf. L. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, pp. 173-4; P. Parente, L'lo di Cristo, pp. 28993; J.-H. Nicolas, Synlhpese dogmatique, pp. 406-7; F. Cunningham, Christ and His Sacraments. pp. 166-7; and A.M. Henry, The Historical and Mystical Christ, trans. A. Bouchard (Chicago: Fides Pub-
lishers, 1958), p. 105.
from antiquity through the High Middle Ages; the penetrating insight Aquinas offers into Christ's human affectivity reflects this unparalleled interes!.!09 Second, Thomas gives the subject of Christ's passions more attention than any other writer, as he insists on ret\ll'ning to the issue throughout his entire writing career: from the commentary on the Senlences (1252-56), to the De verilale (l256-59), where his independence of thought on the matter especially begins tn manifest itself, to the Compendium Iheologiae (1265-67), to his commentaries on the Gospels of Matthew and John (1269-72), and finally to the Terlia Pars of his crowning work, the Summa theologiae (l272-73), where he places the treatise on Christ's passions at the heart of his comprehensive Christology.llo That Thomas, as with Alexander of Hales before him, includes a systematic analysis of Christ's passious althe heart of his Summa Iheologiae, i.e., at the heart of his comprehensive overview of theology, sends the clear message that a theological synthesis worthy ofits name is incomplete without an adequate grasp of Jesus' human affectivity.1ll The exact location assigned to the treatise on Christ's passions in the Summa offers an additional insight into Aquinas' characteristic regard for Jesus' human affectivity, since only in the Summa does the treatise occur in a comprehensive Christology of Thomas' own
creation; that is, of all his works, the Summa alone, because of its literary genre, gives Aquinas the freedom to develop his theological intuitions in the precise manner he deems fit.1!2 As indicated above, the notion of passion as defect dominates the study on Christ's
109. Thomas' interest in general human affectivity as a preliminary step to Christ's is seen, again, not only in the Summa, where the treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars precedes the Christology of the Tertia Pars, but also in the De veritate, whose remarks on Christ's passions in q. 26, aa. 8-10 is prefaced by a detailed study on human affectivity in general in q. 25, aa. 1-7, and q. 26, aa. 1-7. It is seen as well in the commentary on the Sentences, where in the midst of his analysis of Christ's passions in III Sent, d. 15, qq. 1-2, Thomas inserts a long discourse on general human passion. . 110. J.-P. Torrell (ThePerson p. 339) dates the conunentruy on Matthew's Gospel (Lect. Super Malt.) at 1269-70, and the commentary on John's Gospel (Lect. super loan.) at 1270-72; Aquinas' remarks on Christ's passions in these works are located, for the fonner, in ,ch. 26, lect. 5, and, for the latter, ch. 11, leets. 5-6, ch. 12, lect. 5, and ch. 13, Ieet. 4. Thomas' analysis of Christ's passions in the De veritate differs both in method and in substance with respect to his own and other Sentence commentaries. In point of fact, the treatise on Christ's passions in the Tertia Pars more closely resembles that found in the commentary on the Sentences than does the De veritate's treatise. Ill. The treatise on Christ's passions in Alexander ofRales' Summa theol. (Summa hal.) is found in Bk. m, inq. I, tr. I, q.4, d. 3. memo 1-2 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 4, pp. 58-66). Albert's Summa theologiae offers no comprehensive Christoiogy, and, hence, no treatise on Chrisfs passions (thOUgh it does contain a small query on Jesus' love [dileetiol in pars I, tr. 16, q. 65). 112. Thomas' first comprehensive Christology comes in the commentary on the Sentences, which includes, of course, a discussion on Christ's passions; yet since here Aquinas simply follows the
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passions in the Summ~ (as it. does, in fact, in all his works), epitomized by the insertion of the ~atise on .Christ s passlOn.s among Christ's coassumed defects in Tertia, qq. 14-15. Ce~~y, A~umas could ha~e mcluded this treatise in the discussion on the consequentia unzonlS (Terna, qq. 16-26), I.e., among the logical consequences of Christ's human natur unit~ to the WO:d, since ksus' p:",sibility of soul necessarily results from his natural pos~ seSSIOn of a sensillve appellte. ThIS however would have required Thomas to direct the di _ cussion more along the lines of passion as a movement of the sensitive appetite in respon: to sense goods and evils, rather than along the lines of passion as a defect, or passion as : movement of the sensitive appetite in response to a perceived evil. If Thomas opts for the route of coassumed defect rather than of a necessary feature of Christ's humanity, it is in no sense to retreat .from ~ full avowal of Christ's natural and necessary passibility; rather, other reasons determme thIS. To understand these reasons, and what, therefore, the predominance of the notion of defect in relation to Christ's ~assions tells us ofAquinas' own Christo logy, we shall need a closer look, after WhICh pomt we shall proceed to a precise analysis of Thomas' reply to the question of utrum anima Christi foerit passibilis. 1. The Placement of the Treatise on Christ's Passions in the Structural Design of the Tertia Pars
In short, Aquinas approaches the issue of Christ's human passions from two angles, which though related, remain distinct enough to cause a dilemma in sitoating the treatise o~ Christ's passions within the overall structural design (or ordo disciplinae) of the Tertia Pars of the Summa. The first approach looks upon Christ's passions as part of the defects or weaknesses assumed in his humanity; this perspective readily complements the need to underscore the reality of Christ's suffering and pain in both body and soul. The second approach, which is truly unique to Aquinas (though inspired by Aristotelian ontology), stresses
fannat of Lombard's Sentences, little choice was afforded him as to where to insert the treatise on Christ's paSSions: Also, though the Compendium theologiae offers an extensive Christological section (cbs. 185-246), It by no means attempts to supply a comprehensive Christology. as it focuses for the most part on Christ's humanity only. For more on the Summa alone giving Thomas the freedom to develop his own characteristic th~ology, cf. M.-D. Chenu. Toward, Understanding Saint Thomas, pp.
298-310; for the general relatIOn between Thomas' Christology and the structural design of the Summa, cf. A. Hayen. "La structure de la Somme theologique et Jesus," Sciences ecclesiastiques 12 (l9~0). PP: 59-82. For more on the Christology of the Compendium theologiae, cf. P. Glorieux, "La Chnstologte du Compendium theologiae." Sciences ecclesiastiques 13 (1961), pp. 7'i34~
integrity of the animal side of Christ's humanity, and thereby views Christ's passions . belonging to the perfection of his human nature, since the passions result from the posof a sense appetite. Essentially, the difference between the two approaches resides . the fact that, whereas the first regards passion as a consequence of sin, or as an optional !iccessory of human nature, the second considers passion as a consequence of nature, or as an essential feature of human life. Though not inherently irreconcilable, as the foregoing comments have shown-and, indeed, Aqninas will attempt to affirm both-the two perspectives differ enough to require Thomas to choose one of the two poles around which .; such issues of Christ's humanity are structured in the Tertia Pars with which to align the discussion on Christ's passions: either among the analysis of the coassumed defects (Tertia, qq. 14-15), or among the analysis of the consequentia unionis (Tertia, qq. 16-26)113 If the consequentia unionis seem at first sight to carry more logical appeal-at least from a modem perspective-particularly since this is where the Dominican theologian locates queries on Christ's possession of a sense appetite, on the operations of this appetite, and on Christ's "prayer according to his sensuaIity,"1I4 it would of course not be the selection of Aquinas, who instead settles on the analysis of the coassumed defects as the site for the treatise on Christ's passions. Although an awkward moment in Aquinas' Christology, several reasons account for this choice. First and foremost, historical precedence dictates it, as all the Scholastic writers, following the lead ofAugustine and John Damascene, identify Christ's passions with assumed defect; 115 this holds particularly for Alexander of Hales' Summa the%giae, where the trea-
113. One might also argue that the notion of the assumpta (lertia, qq. 4--6) would be another place to locate the treatise on Christ's passions, particularly since q. 5 purports to examine "the parts of (Christ's) assumed human nature" (De assumptione part/um humanae naturae). Yet, here Thomas restricts the analysis to a general consideration only of the essential principles of Christ's human nature, viz. the matter and form, or body and soul, that constitUte his humanity. The treatise would fit neither with q. 4, which examines "the mode of union on the part of the human nature" (De unione ex parte assumpti), nor with q. 6, which considers the "order of assumption" (De ordine assumptionis). The section on the mysteries of Christ's life in qq. 27-59 of the Tertia Pars focuses on the historical events of Jesus' life rather than on offering various analyses of special or abstract Christological issues. 114. Cf. STIlI, q. 18, aa. 2-6 (for Christ's possession ofa sense appetite); q. 19. a. 2 (for Christ's human operations, including those of his sense appetite); and q. 21, a. 2 (for Christ's prayer according to his sensuality [ut11lm Christo conveniat orare secundum suam smsualitatem]). 115. Augnstine, Enan: in Ps 87:3 (CCSL39, p. 1209); De ll-in .. Bk. XIII, 18 (CCSL 50A, p. 413); Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. III, chs. 20 and 28 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 259-60, and 274); Alcuin, Comm. in [oan., Bk. 5, ch. 27 (PL 100, 901); Hugh of SI. Victor, De sacr. Christ. fidei, Bk. II, pI. I, ch. 7 (PL 176,390--1); Summa sententiarum, ch. 17 (PL 176,75); Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, ch. I (ed. Coil.
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tise on Christ's passions occurs in the midst of the analysis of the coasstm;'ed elements of Christ's humanity.1I6 To ignore this traditional-and venerable-perspectIve would have required too radical of a departure for a theologian with as much sensitivity to the received tradition as Thomas Aquinas. To be sure, this traditional method could not be ignored, since Aquinas accepts as a given the applicability of defect to Christ's ~assions: If, therefore, he had placed the treatise on Christ's passions among th~ consequentia um~n~, Tho~~. would have found himself in the peculiar position of refemng at times to Christ s passlbllIty as a defect after having terminated his analysis of the coassumed defects. To avoid such clumsiness as weH as to add his voice to the consensus and esteemed opinion, Aquinas found it more ~xpedient to foHow Alexander of Hales' example in directing the dis~ussion on Jesus' human affectivity along the route of coassumed defect rather than of a lOgIcal consequence of the assumed human nature. Second, despite the appeal to examine Christ's passions within the c?n;ext.of the necessary consequences of his human nature, Aquinas clearly :egards Christ s disagreeable passibility of soul, or his affective suffering, as the crucial pomt oftheologIcal mterest; thIS view reflects the widespread medieval polemic with Hilary of Poitiers' Christology, or with the otherwise prevalent tendencies to glorify the humanity of Christ. The pri,,:cipal H~gh Scholastic interest in Christ's passibility centers exclusively on the realIty of hIS suffermg, or on his disagreeable passibility, with the subject of Christ's agreeable passibility sparking no real interest-only Abelard had previously expr~ssed initi~1 c~osity in the matter at least in terms of Jesus' "joy" (delectatio}.ll7 Aqumas gIves no mdication ofbreakmg ~ with this predominant Scholastic perspective. To the contrary, all .of~o~as' ~tings, capped by his treatise on Christ's passions in T~rtia, q. 15, hav~ as therr prmclpal objectIve the aim of underscoring in a theologicaHy sound and sophISticated marmer the realIty of Christ's suffering and pain in both body and soul, for which reas~n the ~otion ~fpassion as defect takes center stage. A brief perusal ofAquinas' works readIly venties this fact:
:m
Bonav., p. 93); Albert, III Sent, d. 15, aa. 2-8; De incarn., tr. 6, q. 1, a. 5 (ed. Colon., p. 224); and Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 15, a. 1, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 333); and Brevil., pl4, ch. 8 (ed. QUaracChl, p~ d 116. Alexander of Hales, Summa theol., (Summa hal.), Bk. III, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo 1-2 (e . Quaracchi, pp. 5!Hi6); cf. as wel1III Sent, d. 15, nu. 22-5 (ed. Quaracchi,pp. 158-9); Qu. disp. 'ante. essetfrater', q. 16, disp. 1, memo 2, n. 24 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 234). 117. Abelard, Sic et non, q. 82 (ed. Boyer and McKeon, pp. 298-9).
the commentaiy on the Sentences, the main argnment Thomas advances in support of 'UChri'st's passibility of soul maintains: Inasmuch as the soul is the form of the body. Christ's whole soul suffered on account of the suffering incurred by his bodily wounds. lIS In the De veritate, in two separate articles devoted to the reality of Christ's passibility, one finds the following position forged in the corpus of both articles: In Christ as subject to the condition ofinfinnity .. , there were not only passions with regard to good but also with regard to evil, for he had a passible body; hence, from the perception of something harmful the passion of fear or sorrow, etc., could naturaIIy arise in him.ll~ Pain is twofold, viz.. the injury, coupled with the perception of the experience of that injury. Though principaIIy in the body. the injury is also by extension in the soul, inasmuch as the soul is united to the body. The soul is united to the body by its essence, in which all the powers of the soul are rooted. In this sense, Christ's bodily injury affected his soul and aU its parts. I2O
The need to stress the psychosomatic reality of Christ's suffering and pain is perhaps most evident in the Compendium theologiae, where in the chapter entitled "Ofthe Passibility of Christ's Soul" (De passibilitate anime Christi), Aquinas' opening comments state: . Since the soul is the fonn of the body, any suffering undergone by the body must in some way make the soul suffer. Therefore, in that state in which Christ's body was passible, his soul was likewise passible. We may note that the suffering of the soul is twofold ... 121
118. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 1, sol. 3: "Coniungebatur [the soul] autem corpod ... secundum essentiam, in quantum est forma eius ... Unde anima Christi secundum essentiam tota patiebatur ex corporis lesi passione. " 119. De ver.. q. 26, a. 8: "in Christo secundum statum in/innitatis ... non solumfoeruntpassiones respectu boni, sed etiam respectu mali; habebat enim corpus passibile, et ideo ex imaginatione nocivi naturaliter passio timoris et tristitiae et huiusmodi in ea poterant esse. " 120. De ver., q. 26, a. 9: "Sunt enim duo in dolore, scilicet laesio et laesionis experimentalis perceptio,' laesio qUidem pnncipaliter est in corpore, sed consequenter in anima, in quantum corpori unitur. Unitur autem anima corpori per suam essentiam; in essentia vera animae omnes potentiae radicantur, et secundum hoc ilia laesio ad animam et ad omnes partes eius in Christo pertinebat. " 121. Comp. theol., ch. 232: "Quia vera anima est fonna corporis, consequens est ut patiente corpore, etiam anima quodam modo patiatur; unde pro statu ilia quo Christus corpus passibile habuit. etiam anima eius passibilis foil. Est autem considerandum quod duplex est anime passio ... "
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Finally, the same line of argumentation occurs in the treatise on Christ's passions in Tenia. q. 15, where the corpus of the question of utrum anima Christi foerit passiM/is opens with the statement: An embodied soul can undergo passion in two ways: through a passion of the body and a passion of the soul. It suffers with a bodily passion through bodily injwy.... In
Clearly, Aqninas entertains no intention of supplying an exhaustive account of Christ's pas-
sions, such as one finds vis-a-vis human passion in general in the Prima Secundae Pars. Nor will one fmd in Thomas' writings an analysis of Jesus' emotions such as the modem reader might understand by the term (even if Aquinas' grasp of the notion of passion as it relates to Christ holds much value for theologians writing on the matter still today, whose Christologies suffer from a vague appraisal of human emotion 12'). The historical context in which the Dominican theologian addresses the issue of Christ's passibility steers him in the precise direction he takes on the matter. The need to underscore the psychosomatic reality of Christ's suffering and pain explains in part, then, why the notion of passion as defect dominates all of Aquinas' remarks on Jesus' human affectivity; in short, since for Thomas (and' all the medievals) passibility in relation to Christ is interchangeable with affective suffering, passibility becomes a logical equivalent for defect, i.e., with a penalty for sin and an optional feature of the Incarnation. Aquinas holds several reasons in mind for why Jesus was not obliged to experience affective suffering, and why, therefore, he freely elected to take on the coassumed defect of passibility (these reasons were noted in the previous chapter): his sinlessness, which exempted him from the necessary inheritance of the condition of punishment, to which passibility (in the sense of affective suffering) belongs; the "power" of Christ's divinity, which could have miraculously impeded his experience of affective suffering; and Christ's enjoyment of the beatific vision, which of its very nature precludes the experience of affective suffering or disagreeable passion.
122. STIlI, q. 15. a. 4: "Animam in corpore constitutam contingit pati dupliciter: uno modo, passione corporali,' alia modo, passione animali. Passione quidem corporali patitur per corporis /aesionem ... " 123. Consider, e.g., the definition of emotion offered by D. Mohline (Emotional Wholeness: Connecting with the Emotions of Jesus (Shippensburg, PA: Treasure House, 1997], p. 4), which relies upon the definition ofC. Izard (Human Emotions [NY: Plenum Press, 1977], pp. 3ft): "While defining emotions is not easy, we could 'see' them as a basic motivational force that affects feelings, thoughts, and responses." Aquinas clearly has a more defined view on the matter.
In addition to these reasons, there remains a more fundamental explanation, related to tenet of Jesus' sinlessness, for why Christ could have remained immune to affective ij;jtf[ering, and why, therefore, Aquinas situates the discussion on Christ's passibility among coassumed defects rather than among the consequentia unionis: the fact that passibilemerges as a natural consequence of the materiality or corruptibility of the body. As seen above, Thomas sees a necessary correlation between bodily corruption and affective 8tJffering, or passibility in its primary sense; based upon the principles of human nature, or the necessitas consequens materiam, the sense appetite becomes subject to the loss of its natural disposition in exchange for a contrary one-the sense appetite is made to "suffer" on account of its natural union with a corruptible body. This, to repeat, captures the proper meaning of passion as a movement of the sensitive soul. From this one can say that the material body owns a certain command or sway over the soul, particularly the sensate soul. lt is precisely this command of the body over the soul, or this bodily corruption leading to affective suffering, that Thomas wishes to deny as a necessary prerequisite for Christ For, as seen above;Aquinas insists that the corruptibility of the body does not correspond to God's initial plan for the human being, as it did not belong to the original condition of prelapsarian man in the state of integrity; in this state, Adam owned, by virtue of a unique supernatural grace, supreme command over all the movements and components of his body (or at least all the bodily movements that involve corruption and suffering), by which reason he enjoyed immunity to the natural corruptibility of the body. For his part, the sinless Christ partakes in a grace analogous to that of original justice, and so "should" have enjoyed a comparable command over the body and immunity to bodily corruption: [Christ] took on human nature without sin and with the puritY that it had in the state of innocence. In this way, he could have assumed human nature without defects.124 Original justice, which Adam enjoyed in the state ofinnocence, gave the human soul power ... to preserve the body from all harm. Christ could have taken on this power had he wished. 125
124. STIlI, q. 14, a. 3: "Accepitenim naturam humanam, absquepeccato in illapuritate in quaerat in statu innocentiae. Et simili modo potuisset assumere humanam naturam absque defectihus." Cf. 1.P. Torrell, n. 7, to STIlI, q. 14, a. 3 ad 2, in Somme theologique, vol. 4, p.125. 125. STIlI, q. 13, a. 3 ad 2: "originalem iustitiam quam Adam habuit in statu innocentiae, quod anima hominis haberet virtutuem ... ipsum (the body] conservare absque nocumento. Et hanc etiam virtutem Christus assumere potuisset, si voluisset. "
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Given his sinlessness and sharing in a grace similar to that of prelapsarian man, Jesus had eveI?' nght to own. supreme command over his body, and thus enjoy immunity to bOdily COrruption and, most unportantly, to affective suffering (or passibility). Unlike all other humans after the fall, Christ was not obliged to be subject to the influence of the body over the soul or at I:ast th~se influences that result from bodily corruption. Thus, when Thomas assign; Christ s passIOns to the coassumed defects, or to the optional features of the Incarnation it is. not so much to suggest that Christ, had he wished, could have remained utterly un~f fected and unmoved affectively by his sense perception of the evils surrounding his existential condition like some c?ld and callous misanthrope, a position that seems admittedly odd (and, m fact, It was precIsely his supreme love for the human race that drove Christ to assume an enfeebled nature subject to defects); rather, Aquinas affinns that Christ's body had no a priori claim or influence over his soul, notably his sensate soul, since the experi~ ence of disagreeable passion (or affective suffering) requires the corruptibility ofthe body as a precondition, which in turn presupposes the body's command over the soul-a consequence of sin. To experience the effects of bodily corruption, such as passibility, Christ's . body had to be granted "pennission" to hold influence over his sensate soul, i.e., to have the redounding effect that is natural for a material body united to a sensate soul: "It was by the consent of the Divine will," Thomas writes, citing John Darnascene, "that the flesh was allowed to suffer what belonged to it."'26 Aquinas of course believes that Christ relinquished his rightful claim to supreme mastery over his body by freely asswrung the "defect" of a "passible" nature, i.e., a soul subject to the corruptible influence of the body, or a soul subject to its being altered from ·a naturel state to a contrary one. Here Aquinas echoes a time-honored view, rooted in the thought of Augustine, Damascene, and the Greek Fathers, and reproduced by all the medieval Scholastics, which opines that Christ voluntarily assumed, rather than contracted out of necessity, a passible nature, or a nature subject to defects.127 After this free act of as-
126. ST III. q. 14, a. 2: "beneplacito divinae voluntatis Christi carn; permittebatur agere et pati quae propria." Cf. Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. Ill, ch. 19 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 257-8), where the
monk from Damascus betrays the influence of Leo the Great's Tamus ad FLavianum (DS 294; DEC, p. 79). Cf. I. Biffi, I Misteri di Cristo in Tommasod'Aquino, pp. 132-4. 127. Augustine, De civ. Dei, Bk. XIV, ch. 9 (CCSL48, p. 427) (Thomas cites this passage in De ver., q. 26, a. 8, at the end of the COl]lUS): Enarr. in Ps 87:3 (CCSL 39, p. 1209): Damascene, Defide orth.. Bk. Ill, ch. 23 (ed. Buytaert, p. 266) (for other Greek Fathers, cf. I.-G. Larchet,Dieu ne veUl pas la souffrance des hommes, pp. 67-73, and 119); Hugh ofSt. Victor, De quat. volunt. in Christo (PL 176, 842-6); De sacr. Christ. fidei, Bk. II, pt. I, ch.7 (PL 176, 390-1); Summa sententiarum, ch. 17
•.. :' S!JIl1ption, i.e., after having taken on a corruptible body "composed of contraries" (compo: Siuo contrariorum), Jesus necessarily experiences the natural consequence of a corruptible "body: affective suffering, or disagreeable passion.l28 Put in tenns employed earlier in this itudy, Christ pulls his humanity from the stock of a corrupt and weakened nature, and suffers accordingly i.e., according to its natural issue. Lest one misconstrue from this, however, that the condition of a corruptible body subverts the doctrine of Jesus' sinlessness, Thomas, borrowing a distinction from Augustine and Lombard (as well as from Albert the Great), insists that bodily corruption belongs to the one condition or phase of human nature (arnong the three possible) that envelops only the punishments, rather than the guilt, of sin: Christ could have taken on the power [of preserving the body from all hann] had he wished. But as there are three states of rnan--innocence, guilt, and glory-[so did Christ take on elements of all three]. From the state of glory, he took on the beatific vision, and from the state of innocence he took on immunity to sin. From the state of guilt, he assumed the necessity of being subject to the punishments of this Iife.l29
In other words, rather than belonging to the "guilt of sin" (reatus peccati), Christ's passibiIity, as well as all the natural effects of his corruptible body, appertain to the
(PL 176, 75); Lombard, III Sent, d. IS, ch. I, and d. 16, ch. I (ed. Coli. Bonav., pp. 97 and 104); Alexander of Hales ,III Sent, d. IS, nn. 10 and 47 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. I 54-65); Summa theol.. Bk. III, inq. I, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo I, corpus and ad 7 (ed. Quaracchi,pp. 60-1); Qu. disp. 'ante. esSe/frater', q. 16, disp. 2, memo 2; and disp. 4, memo 3, n. 100 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 242-3 and 270-1); Albert, III Sent, d. 15, aa. 7 and IOj De incarn., tr. 6, q. 1,~. 6 (ed. Colon" p. 225); Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 15, a. I, q. 3; and d. 16, a. I, q. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 334-5 and 350-1); and Aquinas, STIII, q. 14, a. 3; q. IS, a. 4 ad I; Camp. theol., ch. 226; and III Sent, d.15,q. I, a. 3. For Thomas' thought, cf.I.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 1, pp. 103-4; and F. Ruella, La christ%gie de Thomas d'Aquin, p.182. 128. STIlI, q. 14, a. 2; q. IS, a. 5, ad I and ad 2. Cf. Albert, III Sent, d. IS, a. 11; and Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 16, a. I, q. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 351), who explains that Christ was necessarily passible "per modum naturalis composition is. " cr. L. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 173; and F. Cunningham, Christ and His Sacraments, p. 164. 129. STill, q. 13. a. 3 ad 2: "virtutem Christus assumere potuisset, si voluisset. Sed. cum sin! Ires status hominum, scilicet innocentiae, culpae et gloriae; SiCUI de slatu gloriae assumpsit comprehen-
sionem, et de statu innocentiae immunitatem a peccato, ita et de statu culpae assumpsit necessitatem subiacendi poenalitatibus huius vitae." Thomas offers the same position in Lect. super loan., ch. 3, lect. 5. Cf. Augustine, De div. Quaest. 83, q. 66, n. 3 (CCSL 44A, pp. I 54-5); and Lombard,lII Sent, d. 16, ch. 2 (ed. Call. Bon.v., p. lOS) (Lombard lists four phases: before sin, after sin but before grace, after grace, and glory); cf. as well Boethius, Liber contra Eut. et Nest., ch. 8 (ed. Stewart, pp. 1225); and Summa sententiarum, ch. 18 (PL 176, 78). Albert (De incarn, tr. 6, q. I, a. 5 [ed. Colon., pp. 224]) follows Lombard's division offour states. Bonaventure (III Sent, d. 16, a. I, q. 3 [ed. Quaracchi. p. 351]) opines that Christ assumed a condition "between" the present human state and that of originaijustice (inter nos et statum naturae institutaej.
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"punishment of sin" (poena peccati), or to the condition of punishment wrought by original sin-Christ accepts the penalties of sin without being guilty of sin.I3' Ifhe pulls his humanity from the stock of a corrupt and weakened nature, it in no sense comes at the expense of his perfect sinlessness, or of his consummate moral integrity, nor certainly of his perfection in grace.13I In short, Christ renounces perfect ontological integrity, not perfect moral integrity. "Defect" as an epithet for Christ's passibility, then, siguifies ontological or nonculpable deficiency, a deficiency or limitation of nature, rather than moral or culpable deficiency, such as a Stoic would mean by the term (Thomas explicitly rejects a Stoic interpretation of Christ's passions on several occasions 132). Only those defects or infirmities that are entirely compatible with a sinless soul enter into the corrupt and weakened nature assumed by Christ. These remarks complement what was noted in the previous chapter regarding the optional yet fittingly coassumed features of the Incarnation. With the two options, then, of where to locate the treatise on Christ's passions open to him-viz., among the coassumed defects of the Incarnation (the optional consequences of sin), or among the consequentia unionis (the logical and necessary consequences of na~ ture)-Aquinas for the above-mentioned reasons selects the route of coassumed defect. Certainly, inserting the treatise on Christ's passions among the conseguentia unionis would have afforded several advantages, the most evident being the opportunity to offer a comprehensive account of Christ's passions-including his agreeable or congenial passionswhich would have emerged as a fitting complement to the treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars. The notion ofthe conseguentia unionis would also have provided a more efficacious context in which to advance the point, dear to Aquinas, that the passious accrue to the perfection of Christ's humanity, as they represent necessary consequences of
the animal side of Christ's humanity, viz., his possession of a sensitive appetite. Given Aquinas' keen and unparalleled interest in human passion in general, it is somewhat surprising-and even regrettable-that Thomas did not pursue such a course. To be sure, to the first-time reader of the treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars, it would seem
only natural that the scope and depth of this study would translate into an account of Christ's passions of similar scope and depth in the Tertia Pars. Yet, for the reasons already noted Thomas reneges on this alternative-never disclosing if ever he harbored any great inter: est in the. agreeable ,or c~ngenial side of Christ's passibility. Though perhaps a problematic element m Thomas Christology for some, one must understand the historical context surrounding Aquinas' choice to restrict the discussion on Jesus' human affectivity along the lines of coassumed defect to appreciate its reasons. No matter the perceived limitatious ofAquinas' option, however, which may provide an
obst::c1e to accessibility for the modern thinker, one can at this point recognize that Thomas' qualIfication of Christ's passibility as a defect of soul stems from an extremely nuanced and hIghly complex Christology-and if this aspect of Aquinas' thought provides a challen?e to the modem theologian, it is precisely hecause the complexity of his perspective remalns far removed from the theological mindset of today. Though one finds, even in the treatise on Christ's passions in the Tertia Pars, a certain equivocal approach to the notion
of passi~n-sometimes ~assion refers to the movement of the sensitive appetite in response to perceIVed good or eVIl, or to what belongs to the perfection of human nature as such
whereas usually passion refers to affective suffering, or to the notion of passion as a defec~ and penalty for sin-hath senses are employed in a coherent and essentially reconcilable . manner. In the first case, Jesus necessarily takes on a passible nature, as passibility represents an essential feature of the animal side of his humanity; in the second, he voluntarily assumes passibility, since it involves susceptibility to a changed disposition for the worse
in response to the experience of a sense evil. If Aquinas wishes to retain both senses of Christ's passibility of soul, and we shall now see that his writings clearly show that he does
..
..
'
It IS, even m Its awkwardness, achieved not without careful precision and consistent reasoning. 2. The "Passion ofthe Body" (passio corporalis) in Christ The precise response that Thomas offers to the question of whether Christ's soul was pasSIble In Tertia, q. 15 employs the distinction, noteo above, between passion of the body (passio corporalis), or a bodily suffering that affects the soul, and passion of the soul (passio animalis), or a movement of the sensitive appetite as such. The notion of passion of the body opens the response, and, in fact, forms the crux ofAquinas' position. Ultimately, this notion culls its inspiration from Damascene's De fide orthodoxa, where the monk from
130. Cf.STlII, q.14,a.l; and q.15,a. 5 ad2. 131. Cf. STlII, q. 14, a. 4; and q. 15, a. 1; Camp. theol., ch. 226; arid III Sent, d. 15, q. 1. cf. as well Damascene, De fide orth., Bk. 1II, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 259); and Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, ch. 1 (ed. Call. Bonav., p. 94). 132. STlII, q. 15, a. 4 ad 2 (with objection); De ver., q. 26, a. 8 ad 2 and ad 9 (with objections); and III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 1 ad 2 (with objection). cf. L. Walsh, note "a" to Summa theologiae, vol. 49, The Grace a/Christ, pp. 200-1. .
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Damascus, betraying his polemic with the Aphthartodocetic denial of the passibility and corruptibility of Christ's body, writes: The one Christ ... truly suffered in that part which is naturally capable of passion.... For the soul, which owns a certain passibility, shares in the pain and suffering of a bodily cut, even if it is not itself cut. 133 As this passage from Damascene suggests, and as Thomas goes on to make clear, the notion of passion ofthe body, founded upon a profound and dynamic hylemorphism, recognizes that all physical injuries (or somatic passions) end in some kind of affective suffering by virtue of the soul's union with the body; specifically, for Christ it means the physical suffering he endured through bodily injury necessarily resulted by extension in affective or psychical suffering-since Christ's body was passible, so, Aquinas concludes, was his soul passible: An embodied soul can undergo passion in two ways: through a passion of the body and a passion of the soul. It suffers with a bodily passion through bodily injwy. For. since the soul is the fonn of the body, it follows that the soul and body have but one being. Thus, when the body is disturbed by any bodily suffering, the soul too must be indirectly disturbed, Le., insofar as it has existence in the body. Subsequently, since Christ's body was passible and mortal, his soul was of necessity likewise passible. 134
Here one can clearly detect the shadow of Hilary's Christology (and, more remotely, of Aphthartodocetism) standing over this argument, which gives reason to what may otherwise appear as a strange opening-and circuitous-response to the question of utrum anima Christi foerit passibiiis, viz., to see passibility as moving from the body into the soul by virtue of the hylemorphic union in human nature. In point of fact, Aquinas borrows this method of responding to the query of whether Christ's soul was passible from his master Albert the Great, though the pupil adds his own refinements by clarifYing that it is the soul's union with the body as between matter and form that accounts for the redounding effects
133. Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. ill, ch. 26 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 270-1): "Uno enim Christo ... pa-
of physical suffering on the sensate soul.135 The importance, moreover, that this maneuver holds in Aquinas' eyes, whereby he invokes Christ's passibility 6fbody as evidence for his passibility of soul, is shown in the fact that it forms, with only minor modifications, the substance of Thomas' position on the issue of Christ's passibility of soul in all his writings, from the commentary on the Sentences to the Summa. 13' If Aquinas looks primarily to Christ's physical passibility as evidence of his affective or psychical passibility, it is because, in his mind, this type of argument yields the most effective way of countering the dangers presented by Hilary's problematic Christology, the greatest of which is to sabotage the truth of Christ's redemptive accomplishment. That is Aquinas recognizes that the reality of Christ's suffering and pain, consequences of his cru: cifixion and death, belongs at the heart of the redemptive act; and, given the radical hylemorphic unity permeating Christ's body and soul, this suffering and pain cannot remain in Christ's body alone-it must attain his soul as well. Though Hilary too wishes to retain Christ's redemptive act, which he knows occurs through Christ's crucifixion and death, the Bishop of Poitiers remains yet unwilling to allow any kind of psychical impact from the physical pain endured; Christ's suffering and death was'purely and simply a physical or somatic event, which lacked even thepereeption of the physical pain, as if Christ's body was entirely anesthetized at the time of his Passion-he endured the physical injury but felt nothing. J37 Aquinas' insight thus stems from his recognition that Hilary's glorified Christology rejects the hylemorphic dimension of Christ's humanity, as it denies Jesus' affective or psychical suffering; by consequence, it denies the full reality of Christ's suffering and pain, and, subsequently, the reality of his redemptive accomplishment. Thomas' hylemorphic Christology reduces to an absurdity Hilary's attempt to affirm in the abstract the
135. In II! Sent, d. 15, a. 2, Albert opens his response-to the question ofAn anima Christifuit passibilis with: "Anima Christi et omnis anima in statu mortalitatis hUius, quamdiu coniuncta est corpori, passibilis est compatiendo corpori, et patiendo ex corpore ... Passio sensus d%ris ex dissolvente continuum corpus coniunclum animae ... Sive per agens violentum, ut in ictibus, et vulneribus, et huiusmodi: et hoc modo quaeritur hic de passione: et sic dicimus animam Christi compassam esse corpori." Alexander of Hales (Summa theol., [Summa hal.], Bk. ill, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo 1 ad 7 red. Quaracchi,p. 61]) and Bonaventure (III Sent, d. 16, a. 1, q. 1 red. Quaracchi, p. 346]) also opine
tiente quod passibile quidem ut aptum natum pati passum est '.. Nam anima quidem passibilis existens, corpore inciso, ipsa non incisa, condo/et et compatitur corpori. " 134. STIlI, q. 15, a. 4: "Animam in corpore constitutam contingit pati dupliciter: uno modo, passione corporali; alia modo. passione animali. Passione quidem corporali patitur per corporis/aesionem. Cum enim anima sitforma cmporis, consequens est quod unum sit esse animae et corporis. Et ideo, corpore perturbato per aliquam corpoream passionem, necesse est quod anima per accidens perturbetur, scilicet quantum ad esse quod habet in corpore. Quia igitur corpus Christifuit passibile et mortale, necessefuitut etiam anima eius hoc modo passibilis esset." cr. as well STill, q. 46, a. 7; M.-B. Schwalm, Le Christ d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 302-6; R. Spiazzi,
passionis inferrent ... [H}abens ad patiendum quidem corpus, et passus est, sed naturam non habens
sione di Cristo," pp. 16-8; and F. Ruella, La christologiede Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 184-7.
ad dolendum).
that Christ's passibility of soul was affected by his bodily suffering (though neither employ explicitly the notion of the "passion of the body').
136. Cf. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. I, sol. 3; De ver., q. 26, a. 9; and Camp. theol., ch. 232. 137. Again, Hilary (De Trinitate, Bk. X, chs. 23-4 [CCSL 62A, pp. 477-9]) writes: "(the Lord) felt the force of passion, but without its pain ... He had a body that could suffer, and it did suffer, but he had not a nature that could feel pain" (adferrent quidem haec inpetum passionis, non tamen d%rem
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reality of Christ's physical suffering and death on the cross, while denying in the concrete the psychical effects of this suffering; to retain the reality of Christ's bodily suffering, one must also retain his suffering of soul. In a word, the historical polemic surrounding the question of utrum anima Christi foerit passibilis places, because of its single-minded focus on the physical sufferings of Christ, the very truth of Christ's redemptive achievement in doubt; to resist this, Aquinas concedes the point, viz., that Christ suffered in body, but only because by this very concession he proves the counterpoint, viz., that Christ suffered in soul as wen, since physical suffering necessarily redounds into the soul. The soteriological significance of Jesus' human affectivity ever sits in the forefront of Thomas' mind. Aquinas does recognize that Christ's affective suffering (or passibility in its proper sense) may also have originated with a movement of the sensitive appetite in response to a perceived evil, rather than just having resulted from some physical injury: "The soul suf· own operatlOns, . " he wntes . In . the Summa. 138 fers with a passion of the soul on account 0 f Its Here, however, one can discern a distinct development of thought in Aquinas. In his commentary on the Sentences, the young Friar Thomas anows for the passibility of Christ's soul only on account of the passibility of his body, i.e., only because bodily suffering affects the soul to which the body is joined as matter to its form, and not because of the proper operations of his sensate soul as such. Given, in other words, the medieval identification of passibility with suffering, particularly in the case of Christ, Aquinas in this early work quite manifestly cannot bring himself to ascribe actual passibility to Christ's soul on account of his soul; i.e., he cannot affirm affective suffering in Christ that bears no inherent relation to the suffering he undergoes in his body: Since Christ's soul enjoyed beatitude on account of his divinity, only his body was passible. Hence, his soul was passible only with respect to the partthat was joined to his body, since the part of his soul that was joined to his divinity enjoyed perfect beatitude. 139
Aquinas begins to change his opinion on the matter already by the time he comes to writing the De veritate (the reason for this change shan be noted in the fmal chapter of this
138. STUI, q. 15, a. 4: "Passione autem animali pati dicitur anima secundum operationem quae est propria animae. II 139. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. I, sol. 3: "Quia beatitudo inerat illi anime ex divinitate, corpus autem eius erat passibile, ideo passibilitas inerat ilIi anime ex parte ilia qua coniungibilis erat corpori, beatitudo autem ex parte ilia qua divinitati coniungebatur. "
work). Here the Dominican theologian, though stin constrained by the tenet of Christ's enjoyment of the visio Dei, explicitly affIrms that Jesus' passibility of soul, i.e., his affective suffering, derives from the proper operations of his sensitive appetite or of his sensate soul, no matter if his "higher reason" experienced consunnnate beatitnde: Christ experienced not only passions with regard to good but also with regard to eviL. for from the perception of something hannful the passion of fear or sorrow, etc., could naturally arise in him ... .Ifwe are speaking about a passion of the soul [Le., the passion which is caused by the soul's perception of an object that moves the sensitive appetite], sorrow, which is properly a passion of the sout, can only be in that part of the soul whose object, when perceived and appetitive1y inclined toward, gives rise to sorrow. In Christ's soul no cause of sorrow could derive from the object of higher reason, i.e., from the eternal truths of which he was in perfect possession. Therefore, affective sorrow could not have been in the higher reason of Christ's soul. l40
In the Compendium theologiae, Thomas essentially repeats this position, though he adds that such disagreeable passions as sorrow and the like could have arisen from the perception of Christ's "imagination" and "lower reason," rather than simply from "that [certain] part of the soul" (in ilia sola parte animae), as Thomas puts it more vaguely in the De veritate: Since not only the imagination but also the lower reason, which is concerned with -temporal affairs, perceives objects as hannful to the body, Christ could experience the passion of sorrow, inasmuch as his lower reason perceived death and other bodily injuries as hannful and contrary to his natural appetite. 141
Finally, when he pens the Summa, Aquinas for the first fune explicitly qualifies Christ's passions as "defects of the soul" (defectibus animae), even though he had long been aware of such a classification since the time he had connnented on Lombard's Sentences; more importantly, the Dominican author, though still accepting the view that Jesus enjoyed
140. De ver., q. 26, aa. 8-9: "in Christo non solumfuerunt passiones resp'ectu boni, sed etiam respectu mali ... et ideo ex imaginatione nocivi naturaliter passio timoris et tristitiae et huiusmodi in eo poterant esse ... Loquendo vero de passione animali [passio anima/is quae causatur ex hoc quod anima a/iquid apprehendil ex quo appetttus movetur}, in illa sola parte animae potest esse tristitia quae est proprie prusio animalis, ex cuius obiecto tristitia contingit, per cuius apprehensionem et appetitum tristitia contingit. Ex obiecto autem superioris rationis in anima Christi nulla ratio tristitiae accidere poterat, scilicet ex parte aeternorum quibus peifectissime fruebatur; et ideo tristitia animalis in superiori ratione animae Christi esse non potuit." 141. Compo theol., ch. 232: "Non solum autem ymaginatio, sed etiam inferior ratio nociva corporis apprehendit; et ideo etiam ex apprehensione inferioris ration is, que circa temporalia versatur, poterat passio tristitie locum in Christo habere, in quantum scilicet mortem et aUam corporis lesionem inferior ratio apprehendebat ut noxiam et appetitui naturali contrariam . ..
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the direct visio Dei, harbors no further inhibitions about affirming a properly psychical source of affective suffering in Christ, i.e., about ascribing disagreeable passibility to Jesus on account of the proper operations of his sensitive appetite: The soul suffers with a passion of the soul on account of operations that are either proper to the soul or which belong more to the soul than to the body.... The affections of the sensitive appetite [to which such psychical suffering refers] are most properly called passions of the soul, and these were in ChriSt. 142
For the fIrst time in his career, then, Thomas unhesitatingly affirms that Jesus' affective suffering may begin or originate with his sensate soul. Because this properly psychical source of affective suffering characterizes the thought of the mature Aquinas, it would be useful to offer the following chart by way of illustration on the twofold cause of affective suffering:
Causes of affective suffering or passibility
{
body (=physical injury that affects the sensate soul as its fonn)
Holding in his power his own soul and body by virtue of his divinity, by a dispensation Christ experienced both ~eatitude in his soul and suffering in his body.143
Although Aquinas offers the distinction between Christ's higher reason and his affectivity as a way of affirming the fact that Jesus does indeed suffer affectively, and, hence, psychologically, the issue of Christ's beatified soul remains, as Thomas' change of opinion on the foregoing issue attests, problematic in the dispute over the nature of Christ's psychical passibility. In order more effectively to drive home the psychosomatic reality of Christ's suffering and pain, then, Thomas fInds it more expedient to proceed from bodily suffering and end in affective suffering rather than vice versa, since no sensible Christian would deny the physical suffering of Christ's crucifIxion, and neither, therefore, the consequences of this suffering on his soul, given the intimate union between his body and soul. Though the development ofAquinas' thought leads him to abandon altogether any mention of the beatific vision in his direct response to the question of utrum anima Christi Juerit passibilis in the Tertia Pars, since by this time he realizes its problematic poignancy in this precise matter, this does not prevent him from returning to Jesus' possession of the visio Dei later in the treatise on Christ's passions; to be sure, in his remarks on Christ's suffering on the cross in Tertia, q. 46, Thomas acknowledges Jesus' affective suffering in the fully appetitive sense even while affirming the joy of the visio Dei in his "higher reason" (superior ratio): Ifwe are speaking of the "whole soul" according to its faculties, i.e., of the proper passions of the powers, then [Christ] suffered in all his lower powers. For, in each of his soul's lower powers, which have temporal things as objects, Christ had reason to feel grief. But Christ's higher reason did not suffer on the part ofits object, which is God, who caused Christ's soul to experience not grief but delight andjoy.144
soul (=movement of the sense appetite in response to a perce~ved evil)
Asjust seen if the Dominican Master gives the priority to the bodily cause of affective suffering in th~ debate over Christ's passibility of soul (even in the Summa), it is because of the inherent opposition between the properly psychical cause of affective suffering and the tenet of Jesus' earthly possession of the direct vision of God; as Aquinas knows, the properly "beatifIc" nature of such a vision normally precludes the experience of disagreeable passion. Thomas resolves this difficulty by holding that a "divine dispensation" (dispensationem divinae) prevented the joy of Christ's "higher reason" (superioris rationis) from suppressing the capacity for affective suffering in his sense appetitive part:
142. STIll, q. 15, a. 4: "Passione autem animali pati dicitur anima secundum operationem quae est propria animae, vel est principalius animae quam corpus ... [PJropriissime dicuntur passiones animae affectiones appetitus Sensitii; quae in Christo fueront. "
251
143. De ver, q. 26, a. 8 ad 10: "Christus in sua potestate habens animam suam et corpus, propter virtutem divinitatis ex quadam dispensatione et habebat in anima beatitudinem, et in corpore passihililalem." Cf. Camp. theal., ch. 231.
144. STIlI, q. 46, a. 7: "Si vera intelligamus 'totam animam, secundum omnes potentias eius, sic 10quendo de passionibus propriis potentiarum, patiebatur qUidem secundum omnes vires in/eriores, quia in singu/is viribus in/erioribus animae, quae circa temporalia operantur, inveniebatur aliquid quod erat causa doloris Christi, sed secundum hoc superior ratio non patiebatur in Christo ex parte sui obiecti, scilicet Dei, qui non erat animae Christi causa doloris, sed delectationis et gaudii." We shall return to the issue of Christ's beatified soul in relation to his human affectivity at the end of this
study.
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3. The "Passion a/the Soul" (passio animalis) in Christ After opening his response to the question of whether Christ's soul was passible in Tertia, q. IS by distinguishing between passion of the body and passion of the soul, followed by
an analysis of the fust in Christ, Thomas moves to an examination of the second, i.e., to Christ's passions of the soul, or to his sense appetitive movements as such. Notably, the notion of the passion of the soul in Christ carries, at least in the Summa, a double entendre:
in one sense, it refers to Jesus' affective suffering as caused by the proper operations of his
o
sensitive appetite (or to the affective suffering that originates with his sensate soul) examined immediately above; in another, more properly metaphysical or ontological sense, it pertains to the movements of Christ's lower appetite as a natural feature of the full animal nature assumed in his humanity. Hence, if the first-and more developed-manner of responding to the question of utrum anima Christi foerit passibilis (viz., as a redounding effect from his bodily suffering) strikes, at least at first sight, a strange note with what One expects to find in the treatise on Christ's passions, his second argument fits a more predictable reading, particularly if one attends to Thomas' ontology of Christ's sensate soul: Christ's passibility of soul follows logically and naturally upon his possession of a sensitive appetite. Accordingly, Aquinas proves that his argument of Christ's bodily suffering ending in affective suffering is not offered as a way of circumventing the question of utrum anima Christi foerit passibilis, as if he intends to a!fum Christ's passibility of soul only in an indirect manner (as, in fact, is the case for his commeotary on the Sentences). Fully committed at this point in his career to his sound metaphysics of human nature, and inspired by the position forged by Augustioe (and to some extent by Damascene) in the celebrated Book XIV, chapter 9 of the De civitate Dei, Thomas now opines that the complete human nature subsumed in the Incamation involves not only a sensate soul with a sensitive appetite, but also the consequent movements of that appetite-the passions-"even as all else pertain-
ing to hwnan nature": The soul undergoes passion through its proper operations.... [And] the affections of the sensitive appetite are most properly called passions of the soul. These were in Christ, even as all else pertaining to human nature. Hence, Augustine says, ''The Lord himself, when he condescended to lead a life in the fonn of a slave, exercised these
passions in a human way when he judged they should be exercised. For the human affectivity of him who had a true human body and a true human soul was in no sense a deceptive lie. "14S
: This position on the passions belonging to the essential makeup of Christ's human nature, and, hence, to the normal function of his human appetite, is wholly unique to Aquinas (though it is grounded in the authors noted above). Thomas' achievement stands out all the more when juxtaposing it alongside Albert the Great's explicit rejection of the applicability of passion as a movement of the sense.appetite in response to a perceived good or evil to Christ (hoc modo iterum non quaeritur hie de passione).146 Though Thomas does not, as we have seen, arrive at his position until the twilight of his life, his earlier writiogs divulge occasional hints that such an ontological Christo-psychology was taking shape in the theologian's mind since the very inception of his career; for example, one finds in the commentary on the Sentences the following statement in a query on Christ's conception: It was necessary for Christ to become like his brethren in all things pertaining to their salvation. This involves the truth of human nature, viz., the essential aspects of that nature along with its natural prpperties and passions through which the work of re-
demption was to be accomplished. 147
145. STID, q. 15, "a. 4: «Passione autem animali pati dicUur anima secundum operationem quae est propria animae .. .[PJropriisime dicuntur passiones animae affectiones appetitus sensitivi; quae in Christo fuenmt, sicut et cetera quae ad naturam hominis pertinent. Unde Augustinus dicit [cf. De civ. Dei, Bk. XIV, ch. 9 (CCSL 48, p. 427)], 'Ipse Dominus informa semi agere vitam dignatus, humanilus adhibuit eas, ubi adhibeiJdas esse iudicavit. Neque enim in quo verum erat hominis corpus et verus hominis animus, falsus erat humanus affoctus. ,,, One also sees here an echo of John Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. III, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 259): "(Christ) assumed all the natural and indetractible passions. For he assumed the whole man and all man's attributes, except for sin" (omnes naturales et indetradibiles passiones hominis assump'sit. Totum enim hominem et omnia quae hominis assumpsit, praeter peccatum). Cf. as well Bk. III, ch. 26 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 270-1): "Uno enim Christo ... patiente quod passibile qUidem ut aptum natum pat; possum est. " 146. Albert, III Sent, d. 15, a. 2. To be fair, Albert lists Christ's passions as the first of the consequentia unionis in De incarn., tr. 6, wherein he also affirms that Christ's soul was "passible by nature," though not following upon the definition of passion as a movement of the sensitive appetite: "Dicitur enim pati secundum receptibile fonnae convenientis vel non convenientis quocumque modo. Et secundum hunc modum anima passibilis est per naturam. Et hoc modo foit passibilis anima Christi. " De incam., tr. 6, q. I, a. I (ed. Colon., p. 220). 147. III Sent, d 3, q. 5, a. 2 ad I; emphasis mine: "Christusfratribus per omnia assim#ari debuit que necessaria erant ad eorum reparationem. Huiusmodi autem sunt ea in quibus veritas humane nature consistit, scilicet partes essentiales eius et proprietates naturales et passiones quibus opus redemptionis explendum erato In aliis autem excel/ere debuit ut hominum Salvator. .. Also, in a query on Christ's impassibility after the resurrection in III Sent, d. 18, a. 4, sol. 2, Thomas affinns: "anima passibilis secundum naturam ... per operationem propriam. "
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In the De veritate, Thomas offers another allusion to the developing ontological regard for
Christ's human affectivity, as he writes, again showing that, in this matter at least, he follows Augustine as master: [Christ] had a sensitive appetite, which allowed him to have passions .... Christ experienced not only passions with regard to good but also with regard to evil, for he had a passible body....According to Augustine, impassibility is spoken orin two ways: the first is the absence of emotions that occur against reason and disturb the mind; the
second is the exclusion of all emotion.... Only the first kind [ofimpassihility] was in ChriSt.148
Aquinas' claim, "in Christ there were not only passions with regard to good but also '" ," stands out as one of his most significant statements on the issue of Christ's human affectivity, since it is the only passage in all his writings-besides, of course, his remarks on the
')oy" of Christ's possession of the beatific vision-where he explicitly affirms the experience of agreeable or congenial passion in Christ, i.e., affective movements that respond to the perception of some sense good, such as joy or love. Even so, this position remains confmed to the periphery in the De veritate, where instead the notion of passion as defect, or affective suffering, dominates, as evidenced by Aquinas' first direct response to the question of utrum passiones in Christo foerunt (q. 26, a. 8): "in Christ as subject to the condition ofinjirmity" (in Christo secundum statum injirmitatisj. If Thomas had given priority instead to the perspective presented by the statements just cited, one would expect to see as his first line of argument something like, "in Christ as subject to the essential condition of human nature .... " Even in the Tertia Pars not much is made of the position that Christ's passions belong to the perfection of his human nature beyond its simple mention, as Thomas leaves it much to the side in the rest of his treatise on Christ's passions-though later, in a query on Christ's prayer involving his affectivity, the Master from Aquino asserts that "[Christ] took on a true human nature with all its natural affections."'49 If Thomas little develops this ontological regard for the natural necessity of Christ's passibility of soul, it is because of the reasons noted above concerning the placement of the treatise on Christ's passions among the
148. De ver., q. 26, a. 8, corpus, ad 4, and ad 5: "habuit tamen appetitum sensitivum, secundum quem passiones ei inesse poterant... in Christo non solum fuerunt passiones resp~ctu b~ni, sed etiam respectu mali; habebat enim corpUs passibile ... Secundum Augustinum [cf. De em D~l, Bk. XJ~r, ch. 9 (CCSL 48, pA2S)] impassibilitas dupliciter dicitur: uno modo secundum quod prlva~ affectlOnes 'quae accidunt contra rationem et mentem perturbani, ' alio modo secundum quod excludzt omnem af fectum ... et sic solummodo in Christo Juit. " 149. STUI, q. 21. a. 2: "veram naturam humanam suscepisse cum omnibus naturalibus affectibus."
coassumed defects rather than among the consequentia unionis. Still, the fact that Aquinas weaves into the discussion on Christ's defects of soul an argument that essentially belongs in the analysis of the consequentia unionis should not go mmoticed, nor unappreciated, by the modern reader: Thomas, without alerting his reader, momentarily shifts the perspective in the midst of his response to the query of utrum anima Christi foerit passibilis from passion as defect, which comprises disagreeable passion as a consequence of sin, to passion as a movement of the sensitive appetite as such, which involves both agreeable and disagreeable passion as a necessary consequence of human nature. 150 This change in focus proves, despite its awkwardness, Aquinas' staunch determination-even ifit comes late in his career-to affirm the fact that Christ's passibility of soul, which appertains to his animal nature, represents an essential feature of his humanity; and the inclusion of the statement "Christ took a true human nature with all its natural affections" in the analysis of the consequentia unionis is meant to express just this. That is, the decision to insert the treatise on Christ's passions among the coassumed defects should not distract one into looking upon Jesus' passions merely as defects, as if they do not at the same time accrue to the perfection of his humanity-Christ's passions are as much an expression of God's creative will, which endowed his hmnan nature with an animal sense appetite, as they are a penalty for human sin. Put another way, with this shift in perspective, Aquinas shows that the entire definition of passion as a movement of the sensitive appetite in response to a perceived sense good or evil pertains as much to Christ's psychical experience·as does the second half of the definition, viz., an affective response to the perception of something harmful. Faithful, then, to the Christology of Aquinas, and following his division of the movements ofthe sensitive appetite into eleven specific types of passion, the following chart is offered as a way of outlining what Aquinas would see as demarcating the specific passions (excluding their various sub-species) in Christ:
150. That Aquinas intends this shift in perspective to underscore the "neutral" sense of passion, i.e., passion in its agreeable and disagreeable senses, is further supported by comparing Tertia, q. 15, a. 4 with De ver., q. 26, a. 9, and Compo theal., ch. 232. In these previous writings, Thomas refers to passion as a movement of the sensitive appetite only in direct relation to the disagreeable passion ofsorrow, and, thus, to passion as defect. In the Tertia Pars, however, no mention is made of sorrow or any other disagreeable passion when he states that Christ's passions are the proper operations of his sensitive appetite "even as all else pertaining to human nature," so that the reader will not think he means only disagreeable passion.
I H
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TIIE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
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The Passions in Christ
. The human appetites ofCbrist
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PAUL GONDREAU
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concupiscible. from which the passions oflove, hatred. des.re, aversion, joy. and sorrow irascible, from which the passions of hope, despair, courage, fear, and anger
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inality and independence of thought, Aquinas yet could not break entirely free from the limitations of the inherited tradition or from his own self-imposed constraints, and thus fails to follow his insights and achievements in the debate over Jesus' human affectivity through to their natural end.
D. RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION Observing an Aristotelian-inspired methodology whereby psychology ensues upon an established metaphysics of human nature, Thomas places at the basis of his analysis of Christ's passions a lucid ontology of Jesus' human soul. At the core of Christ's human soul Thomas
identifies, as with all humans, distinct animal capacities of operation, viz., sentient kn()W-
Finally, for all the distance he takes from his Scholastic predecessors, notably, Bonaventure (and to some extent Albert), on the issue of Christ's passions belonging to the perfection of his human nature, or from'the problematic Christology of Hilary of Poitiers, Aquinas yet does not raise the bar on the matter of Christ's passions nearly to the extent that he readily left open to himself. Though the historical context had narrowed the range of inquiry into Jesus' human affectivity, Aquinas reneges the chance to widen its scope and offer a comprehensive--
151. One obvious example is Aquinas' delineation-unique to him--ofpassion into eleven specific types, a delineation that he no where attributes explicitly to Christ.
ing and its concomitant counterpart, sentient desiring (or appetitive inclinations to goods p,erceived by the senses), and it is in the animal inclination to sense goods where Aquinas locates the affective domain of Christ's humanity. Put another way, st. Thomas, in language unique to him, acknowledges the complete integrity of the "animal" side of Christ's human nature, which includes a sensate soul owning, as one of its faculties or powers, a sense appetite, or an affective drawing towards things suitable to the sentient or animal dimension of human life. Thomas subdivides this sense appetite into the concupiscible and irascible, the first characterized by an affective tendency to suitable Sense goods that are immediate and easy to attain-the tendency of simple desir~the second by an inclination to sense goods that are more removed and difficult to attain-the tendency of struggled desire. From these two concupiscible and irascible appetites all the passions issue: six from the concupiscible appetit~love or like, hatred or dislike, desire, aversion, joy, and sorrow-and five from the irascible appetite-hope, despair, courage, fear, and anger. The ontological grounding for the passions, in other words, is the sense appetite-passion is a movement of the sensitive appetite which results in a bodily modification-and in these eleven passions Thomas, whose acute talent for psychological introspection dispels the popular conception of him as a purely abstract thinker, pinpoints the specific ways by which a human being inclines affectively in motion either towards objects perceived by the senses as suitable or away from objects perceived by the senses as harmful. Endowed with a concupiscible and irascible appetite, or with a full animal nature, Christ was necessarily subject to these eleven specific sense appetitive movements, or to these eleven passions. That Aquinas regards the reality of Christ's human affectivity as essential to a truly integral Christology is verified by the in-
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~
elusion of treatise on Christ'spassions at the heart of the only comprehensive Christology of Thomas own genume creatIOn: the Tertia Pars of the Summa. It is the curious locus in the Tertia Pars chosen for this treatise, however, which indicates that Tho~as' theology of Christ's p:,"sions is sustained by an eminently complex and ~fined co~ception of general human passIon: rather than situate the treatise on Christ's pasSlO~S, ,as his ontology of Christ's sensate soul leads one to expect, among the consequentia um~m~J or among the ne~essary consequences-and, hence, the essential features--of Christ,' human nature umted to the Word, Thomas decides to locate the treatise among Christ s coassumed defects, or among the analysIS of the fitting (or optional accessory) features of the Incamation. The reason for this stems from Aquinas' qualification of passion as a ?efect of human nature, or as a consequence or penalty of sin-even inasmuch as the Dommlcan Master also considers passion an essential element of human life, or a metaphysi-
Ii:
I: I'
I: I'.
:al con~~quence of God's creative will, s,ince it is a movement of the sense appetite. By
~efect, T~omas means not that the passIOns represent, as the Stoics believe, moral defiCI":,cles or inhe.rently bad actions, but instead ontolOgical or non-culpable deficiencies, a defiCIency ~r 1~ltal!~n of nature, as death and hunger are counted as defects. For Aquinas, ~asSl~n Sl~lfies pnmanly and most properly affective suffering (or disagreeable passibilIty), smce It mvolves the loss of a suitable disposition in exchange for a contrary one as a neces~ary consequence of the natural conuptibility of the material human body (passion is exercISed. by means ?fthe body). Yet God initially intended the human family to remain free ~~ bodily co.nuptlOn and affective suffering, and he offered a unique grace in the state of on~nal mte?nty to make :his attainable. That ~~ human being now endures bodily corruptIOn and Its correspondmg effects On pass,b,lIty testifies to the privation or removal, through sm, of the grace of original justice-though "natural" and a movement of the sense appetite, passi?n is in this view also a consequence and penalty of sin, passion is a defect (or, more preCIsely, a defect ?~sou~, si?ce it is fonnally a psychical action). Partaking in a ~ce analo.gous to th~t of ongmalJustice, the smless Christ had every right to own immumty to bodily conuption, and, hence, to affective suffering. Pulling instead his humanity fro~ the stock of a conupt and weakened nature, i.e., accepting the various penalties or punlShm~nts of sin, Jesus accordingly makes himself subject to the natural consequences of a conuptible body, among which is disagreeable passion.
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back to Augustine and Damascene. The notion of passion as defect also fits the need to underscore the reality of Christ's suffering and pain that had been so hotly contested throughout the Middle Ages, particularly in the 12th- and 13th-centuries, due to the longstanding influence of Hilary of Poitiers' glorified Christology. That Thomas tailors his response to the question of utrnm anima Christi fuerit passibi/is to affinn, contra the Hilary-induced camp, the psychosomatic reality of Jesus' suffering and pain is evidenced by the fact that in all his writings he !!uns primarily to the notion of Christ's passion of the body (passio corporalis) as the leading indication of Christ's passibility of soul. Grounded in a dynamic hylemorphism, Aquinas' notion of Christ's passion of the body means that the physical suffering Jesus endured through his bodily injuries redounded into his soul, thereby resulting in affective or psychological suffering. In the Summa, Thomas does momentarily break from the tradition and from the perspective provided by the notion of defect or disagreeable passion to give voice to the essential and indispensable side of Christ's sensate
soul, or to his conviction that passion also includes, as a consequence of nature (rather than simply sin), agreeable or congenial affective movements. In this way, the Dominican theologian affirms that Christ's passions belong to the perfection of his human nature and to the nonnal function of his animal sense appetite, irrespective of sin or of the corruptibility of the body.
For these reasons, then, Aquinas examines Chrisfs passions lUlder the rubric of defect
not least of which because this marks the traditional approach to the matter, datin~
.'
CHAPTER 5
"THE PASSIONS WERE IN CHRIST OTHERWISE THAN IN US": THE MORAL QUALITY OF JESUS' HUMAN AFFECTIVITY
After establishing the ontological fact that Christ possessed a passible soul, Aquinas moves without delay to a consideration of how, in a moral sense, Jesus lived with his human affectivity. The reason for this immediate shift in perspective stems from Aquinas' belief in the central role played by human passion in the moral life, or, to put the matter negatively, his refusal to confine the affective dimension of human nature to the margins of morality. This fact is verified both by the placement of the treatise on the passions in the midst of Thomas' moral part of the Summa (Prima Secundae, qq. 22-48) and by the structural design itself of the treatise on the passions, whereby an entire question of four articles devoted to the subject of the morality ofthe passions (q. 24) appears in the opening stages of this long treatise. I In brief, Thomas' moral theory allows for no dichotomized or truncated approach to human behavior, as if one's animal or sentient actions remain in isolation from the rational and spiritual side of human life; rather, the Dominican author, out of his respect for the integrity of creation and of his refusal to forfeit anything essential in human nature, insists that all elements of human operation, including those of a sensate nature (the passions), become integrated into the unified moral life of the entire human being. Because he defines the human being as a rational animal, Aquinas opines that proper human fulfillment can never be found in exclusion of the animal dimension of human life, as though, as the Stoics believe, the movements of the lower sense appetite are to be suppressed as such. 2 Thomas turns particularly to the case of Christ as providing the supreme example of how the passions become integrated harmoniously into the unified moral life-Christ is the model in whom moral excellence and human affectivity converge in a perfectly ordered way. In a word, sound moral conduct must go through-not around, apart, or in abstraction from-the passions, and it is Jesus who shows us how we should live with our passions in the most fully human way possible.
1. Thomas offers a summary ofSTI-II, q. 24, aa. 1-4 in his commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. II, lect. 5). 2. Commenting on Aquinas' opposition to the Stoic contempt for the role of the passions in the moral life, M. Spanneut ("Influences stoiciennes sur la pensee morale de S. Thomas d' Aquin," in The Ethics o[St. Thomas Aquinas: Proceedings ofthe Third Symposium on St. Thomas Aquinas'Philosophy, eds. L.J. Elders and K. Hedwig [Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 19841, pp. 50-79, at 58) writes: "L'opposition au stoi"cisme lui vient essentiellement de son realisme et de son respect pour la creation entiere ... L'interpretation est discutable. mais saint Thomas condamne Ie stoicisme parce qu'il est decide a ne jamais rien sacrifier de 1'homme."
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Aquinas recognizes such consurrunate order and balance in Christ's affective-morallifu that he finds he can best surrunarize it only by contrasting it with the general human eXpe_ rience, which knows only too well the effects of disordered affectivity: "The passions were in Christ otherwise than in us" (passiones aliter foerunt in Christo quam in nobis), St. Thomas writes.' Since this statement appears on every occasion in which Thomas addresses the issue of Christ's passibility (cf. preceding note), one senses the capital importance it holds for Aquinas' view on the morality of Christ's human affectivity. Nowhere, in fact, is the fundamental distinction hetween Christ's passions and ours, and, subsequently, the moral quality of Christ's affective life, more clearly delineated than in the following memorable passage from Tertia, q. 15: It is clear that the passions were in Christ otherwise than in us in three ways. First,
as regards the object, since in us these passions often tend towards what is illicit, but not so in Christ. Second, as regards the principle, since in us these passions frequently precede the judgment of reason; but in Christ all movements of the sensitive appetite arose under the control of reason ....Third, as regards the effect, since in us these movements, rather than remaining in the sensitive appetite, instead at times drag the reason down with them. In Christ this was not so, since by his interior self-mastery the natural movements of human flesh were so restricted to the sensitive appetite that his reason was in nowise impeded from doing the right thing. 4
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h' Christ's affectivity is even more evident in the De veritate where Aqw' t th . f , n a s opens IS response 0 e question 0 utrum passiones in Christo foerunt (q 26 a 8) w,·th d' the moral I'ty f Chri' . . . ,. a ISCourse on qua l o s t s pasSIOns In contradistinction to our own 6 Such cc fI tw firs . a maneu-
ver 0 urs. or . 0 reasons: . t" to underscore, as just noted, the essential place occu ied
a!'
by.the,rasSl?ns m the moral h~e; and, se.cond (and this is the most immediate reason, the obJecti~ns hsted ~y Thomas In hIS vanous works indicate), to clarifY the point, lest one
susc,,!,lIble to StOIC mfluences get the false impression, that affirming the passibili of Jesus soul does not mean the common human experience ofp . tr I ty Cbri , . asslon ans ates squarely mto . st s own expenence.' Aquinas also holds soteriological reasous in mind for clarifyi Without delay the mo~lquahty of Christ's passions, as we shall see. ng . As these remarks mtnnate, Aquinas' doctrioe on the moral quality of Christ's passions ISsues fr?~ a ~omplex and subtle system of thought, where both fundamental similarities and disSlmtlanties betwe~n Christ's human affectivity and our own pervade the entire a _ par~tu;'. Here the reader IS undoubtedly struck by the way in which Thomas' theolo ~f Chris~ s human passlOn~ rehes, ~ore so than in any other area, so heavily upon the an~o polog~cal elements of hIS doctnne on the passions. To gain a proper understanding of the morahty of Jesus' passions in the Christology of Aquinas then we must first . h D .., 1 . " exammet e ommlcan s genera teachmg on the role of the passions in the moral life developed at con-
The Dominican Master wastes little time in offering this particularly dense and weighty threefold distinction, which is unique to him (though one detects shared elements of it with Bonaventure), as it comes again on the immediate coattails of his affmnation of Christ's passibility of soul. 5 This concern to advance promptly to the moral implications of
I
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,[
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,
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3. STIlI, q. IS, a. 4. Cf. as well Lect. super loan., ch. 12, lect. 5: "passiones aliter sunt in nobis, et aliterfuerunt in Christo ",' Compo theol., ch. 232: "passiones aliter fuenmt in Christo quam in nobis" (also Compo theol., ch. 226: "huiusmodi defectus ... alia tamen ratione inveniuntur in ipso [Christ] et in nobis '); De ver., q. 26, a. 8: "passiones istae aliter sunt in -peccatoribus ... aliter in Christo homine"; andIII Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 1: "Set [Christ's passions] tamen aliter in ipso et in nobis." Cf. as well III Sent, d. 13, q. I, a. 2, sol. I ad 2. 4. STIII, q. 15, a. 4: "Sciendum tamen quod huiusmodi passiones aliter fuerunt in Christo quam in nobis, quantum ad tria. Primo quidem, quantum ad obiectum. Quia in nobis, plerumque huiusmodi passiones feruntur ad illicita, quod in Christo non fuit. Secundo, quantum ad principium. Quia huiusmodi passiones frequenter in nobis praeveniunt iudicium rationis; sed in Christo omnes motus sensitivi appetitus oriebantur secundum dispositionem rationis ... Tertio, quantum ad ejJectum. Quia in nobis quandoque huiusmodi molus non sistunt in appetitu sensitivo, sed trahunt rationem. Quod in Christo non fuit: quia molus naturaliter humanae carni convenien tes sic ex eius dispositione in appetitu sensitivo manebant quod ratio ex his nullo modo impediebatur facere quae conveniebant." Cf. F. Ruello, La christologie de Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 373-4. 5. In III Sent, d. IS, a. 2, qq. 2-3, and dub. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 338-42). Bonaventure supplies a threefold distinction in sorrow, anger, and fear, and how such distinctions apply to Christ Though
thes: distinctions conv~ only shades ofresemblance to Thomas' threefold difference between Chri t' passions and ours, AqUInas nonetheless inherited from Bonaventure more so than fro t~ s source (Albert offers a slight exception to this in III Sent d 15 a. 8 ad' I) such a tramti any 0 er f d':ffi .. " , pene ng manner ?mto 1. ~rentiating between the moral experience of Christ's affectivity and that of all human b sm. , s om 6. Als~, in the.c~apter ~evoted to Christ's passibility of soul in Compo theol., ch. 232 (De assibilitate ~mme. ChristO, A~umas examines the morality of Christ's passions though at the end~ d ft consideration of other ISsues. , n a er
7. In nearly all of hi~ ~tings on Christ's passibility of soul, Thomas shows an explicit awareness ~f, and .subsequent Wl1l1n~:ss to r~spond to, moral difficulties that a Stoic-induced thinker might C~v~ ;;s~ect to C!IDs~ s experIence of passions, particularly since the discussion centers on
;lth
ns s su enng (e.g., In his DeC01JSlantia sapientis, ch. 7 [in L. Annaei Senecae Opera omnia quae ;:ersunt,. ed.. ~;E. Ruhkopf (Augustae Tau~norum: Ex typis Iosephi Pomba, 1833), vol. I, p. 348], .. ~ca ~tes. Non est autem fortIOr neqUltia virtute; non polest ergo {aedi sapiens Qu d S1. la di ntSl mjirnuornonpotest.. .iniuria insapientem virum non cadit"l. cf STIlI q IS 4'" O,D e " , a. , argo 2 • ever., thq 26,.a 8,arg..2 and argo 9; and III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 1,/ .argo. 2 (where Thomas cites Seneca, ere?y counten,ng M. Jordan's claim that Thomas' conunentary on the Sentences offers "no 1" t ~ention of the Stoics at all"; cf. "Aquinas'S Construction,"p. 75, n. IS). For Aquinas' familiarie;P~~~ eneca, cf. M. Spanneut, "Influences stolciennes sur la pensee morale de S. Thomas d' Aqu'" 53 m, p. .
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siderable length inother parts of his writings, and afterward transpose this to the case of Christ, which builds upon and presupposes this general teaching. Our intention here, how_ ever, is to examine Thomas' teaching on the morality ofthe passions not exhaustively, but only as it relates directly to Christ.
A. THE ROLE OF THE PASSIONS IN THE MORAL LIFE 1. The Passions as the First Step towards Attaining Human Happiness "All human actions must be for an end ... [and] happiness is this last end ofman ....Forman's supreme perfection consists in happiness."-With these words Aquinas opens the moral part of his Summa theologiae.' By initiating the construction of his moral theory with a declaration on the human orientation to happiness or beatitude, St. Thomas shows how the notion of happiness represents the general backdrop to his entire motal theology; as the noted moral theologian S. Pinckaers explains, "[happiness] is the keystone to the whole moral edifice [of Aquinas' thought], as it determines its ultimate end and general orientation.'" Because of its directing role in Aquinas' moral theory, the notion of happiness provides the key to understanding the. role that human affectivity enjoys in the moral life. For Thomas, who follows the tradition established by Aristotle and the Fathers of the Church, all human actions, whether arising from elicited inclinations (which include, e.g., both decisions of free choice and movements of affectivity) or purely natural inclinations (which include, e.g., the tendency to preserve oneself in existence), proceed by way oforientation towards the attainment of happiness as towards the supreme goal of human life (happiness here signifies the supreme realization of all human capacities, or the consummate perfection of human nature, and as such marks the fulfillment of every human yearning for what is true and good)." In such a teleological vision, the passions emerge as integral and indispensable features of the moral life, since one's emotional disposition figures largely in determining whether the human thrust for the good has indeed been attained (as evidenced in the case of affective suffering, which stands opposed to the attain-
8. STI-II, q. 1, a. 1; q. 2, a. 1; and q. 3, a. 2: "Unde apar/e! quod ornnes actiones humanae propter finem sin! ... beatitudinem est ultimus finis hominis ... Est enim beatitudo ultima hominis peife.ctio. .. 9. S. Pinckaers. The Sources o/Christian Ethics. p. 18. 10. For more on the meaning of happiness in Aquinas' thought, cf. S. Pinckaers, The Sources a/Christian Ethics. pp. 5-12; and, for an even broader analysis of the notion, idem, Morality: The Catholic View, trans. M. Sherwin (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 2001), pp.65-81.
ment of happiness). Representing fundamental human experiences, the passions retain a crucial role in the drama of the human drive for moral excellence." Before anything else, then, the moral theorist must reconcile the human orientation to happiness with the undeniable fact that, in his or her concrete actions, the human being is subject to changes of emotional disposition. Accurate moral theory, or at least that which hinges on the notion of happiness (as it does for Aquinas), must take the passions into strict account and by no means confme human affectivity to the margins of moral action. The Dominican Master, in fact, could not more unmistakably advance the point that the passions represent a means to human happiness and perfection, i.e., that they move us toward our final goal, than by strategically placing the treatise on the passions innnediately after his treatises on happiness and the moral quality of human acts in the Prima Secundae Pars of the Summa. The message such a placement conveys should not be lost on the astute reader: the passions are a necessary first step in the acquisition of human happiness. And since human happiness consists ultimately in knowing and loving God, it follows that, for
II. That for Aquinas the moral-and spiritual-perfection of human nature requires the integration of the passions is a point well underscored by J.~P. Torrell, Maftre spirituel pp. 344-65; S. Pinckaers, The Sources a/Christian Ethics, pp. 223-5; and idem, "Les passions et la morale," RSPT74 (1990), pp. 379-91. Cf. as well E. Schockenhoff, Bonum hominis, pp. 172-201; H.-D. Noble, Les passions dans fa vie morale, 2 vols. (paris: P. Lethielleux, 1931-32); A. Solignac, ''Passions et vie spirituelle," DSp 12 (1984), eols. 339-57; G,S. Harak, Virtuous Passions: The Formation a/Christian Character (NY: Paulist Press, 1993), pp. 90ff; R.R. Baker, The Thomistic Theory ofthe Passions and Their Influence upon the Will (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1941); M.-M. Labourdette, Lea actes humains, p. 205; D.F. Cates, ChOOSing to Feel: Virtue, Friendship, and Compassion for Friends (Notre Dame, IN: University of Noire Dame Press, 1997), pp. 21-5; P. Engelhardt, "Mensch und Christ in der Spannung von Vemunft und Leidenschaft," pp. 135-9; idem, "Der Mensch und seine Zukunft. Zur Frage nach dem Menschen bei Thomas von Aquin," in De Frage nach dem Menschen. Aufriss einer philosophischen Anthropologie, eds. H. Rombach and M. Muller (FreiburgMunich: Alber, 1966), pp. 352-74; A.-D. Sertillanges, Laphilosophie morale de saint Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1946), p. 69; R. Garrigou~Lagrange, La synthese thomiste. p. 44; E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy. p. 271; P. Wadell, An Interpretation 0/Aquinas 'Treatise on the Passions, The Virtues, and The Gifts from the Perspective of Charity as Friendship with God (Diss. University of Notre Dame, 1985); C. Svorcik, "Die Theorie der Gefiihle (passiones) nach dem hI. Thomas von Aquin," Studien und Mitteilungen aus dem Benediktiner und Cistercienser Orden 23 (1902), pp. 16-30 and 243-59, at 21; A. Peindador, "Responsabilidad moral del acto pasional," Miscelanea Comillas 6
(1951), pp. 181-222; W.H. Principe, "Affectivity and the Heart in Thomas Aquinas' Spirituality," in Spiritualities of the Heart: Approaches to Personal Wholeness in Christian Tradition, ed. A. Calla-
han (New York: Pau1ist Press, 1990), pp. 45-{;3; G. Taylor and S. Wolfram, "Virtues and Passions," Analysis 31 (1970--71), pp. 76-83; T. O'Meala, "Virtues in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas," TS58
(1997), pp. 254-85; and O.H. Pesch, "Die bleibende Bedeutungder thomanischen Thgend1ehre. Eine theo1ogiegeschichtliche Meditation," FZPT21 (1974), pp. 35c)"'91.
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Thomas, our emotions mark the necessary first step in coming to know and love God; i.e., knowing and loving God should and must include our affectivity. K. White puts the matter quite well when he writes, "The intellectual vision of the greatest good [in which consists our last end] is also our greatest delight."" Aquinas was absolutely the first to suggest as much in a systematic work of moral theology, and his extensive analysis of the passions ad-
vances this point in a most remarkable manner. A first step in the acquisition of human happiness they remain, however, since the passions cannot fully satisfY the deepest yearnings of the human being, i.e., they cannot on their own attain our final goal. The ultimate fulfillment of the human thrust for perfection requires the overseeing command (or imperium, as Aquinas calls it) of reason, since reason corresponds to the highest and noblest quality of human life and represents that which is proper to human nature as such; reason acts as the rule and measure of all moral acts. I ' If they are to be genuinely integrated into the moral life and properly ordered to true human happiness, the passions must accordingly be strictly adjusted to conform to reason, which Aquinas affirms when he writes in the Prima Secundae Pars: It belongs to the perfection of the human good that the passions be moderated by reason, since the human good consists in reason as in its root. ... [Now] it pertains to virtue to conform the sensitive appetite to reason .... Moral virtue perfects the appetitive part of the soul by directing it to the good as defined by reason.14
2. The Passions as the Proper "Matter" of Moral Virtue As the foregoing passage maintains, moral virtue accomplishes the task of properly ordering the movements of appetitive sensibility unto the good of reason and, hence, towards the acquisition of the supreme goal of human life. This explains why the Dominican theologian, inspired by Aristotle (as well as by Nemesius of Emesa and Albert the Great), looks upon the passions as constituting the proper "matter" of the moral virtues: If by passion one means any movement of the sensitive appetite, it is plain that the moral virtues, which are about the passions as about their proper matter, cannot be without the passions [ef. Aristotle, Nic. Ethics, Bk. II, eh. 6 (1106b15-16): "Moral virtue ... is concerned with passions and actions"].lS
Aquinas, in other words, sees in the movements of passion the subject matter of moral virtue or that out of which the moral virtues are constituted and which remains within the mora{ virtues (while the formal-{}f properly distinguishing--element of moral virtue is the habitus of choosing as determined by right reason). When the movements of affectivity (the passions) arise, reaSon and will gain the opportunity to transform such movements into morally "good" actions, i.e., into acts that conform to the true human good, the good
of reason and will: fear of failure provides an aspiring swimmer the occasion to convert his fright into an exercise of the virtue of fortitude, and thereby perform at his optimum against stiff competition; delight in good food allows an individual to practice temperance while
being served a well-prepared dish, etc. Thomas, in fact, goes further, as he stresses ~at there simply is no moral virtue without passion, as the virtues are exercised in our affectIve movements (he singles out justice as the sale moral virtue without a passion as its subject matter"): without fear, one can experience no fortitude; without the pleasures afforded by 12. K.. White, "The Passions of the Soul," the very end ofthe article. cr. as well D. Gallagher, "Person and Ethics in Thomas Aquinas," Acta Philosophica 4 (1995), pp. 51-71, at 66-70; and idem "Desire for Beatitude and Love of Friendship in Thomas Aquinas," MS 58 (1996), pp. 1-47. 13. Cf. STI-II, q. 18, a. 5; q. 58, a. 2; q. 71, a. 6; and q. 90, a. I. Though Thomas' view on reason as the rule and measure of human morality is Aristotelian in inspiration, it accords with the Stoic view as well; cr. M. Spanneut, "Influences stoiciennes sur Ia pen~ee morale de S. Thomas d' Aquin," pp. 645. 14. ST I-II, q. 24, a. 3, and q. 59, aa. 3 and 4: "ad peifectionem- humani boni pertine! quod etiam ipsae passiones sin! moderatae per rationem. Cum enim bonum hominis consistat in ratione sicul in radice ... [PJerti1let ad virtutem, ut appetitus sensitivus rationi conformetur ,.. Virtus moralis perficit appetitivam partem animae, ordinando ipsam in bonum ralionis." Cf. Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. II, lect. 3: "Pertine! enim ad bonum ralionis, ut reguletur per eam appetitus sensitivus, cuius malus sunt passiones." For Aquinas' key text on proper human acts involving acts of reason, cf. STI-II, q. 1, a. 1. Cf. as well Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. II, eh. 27 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 152-4); L. Mauro, ... "Urnanita" della passione, pp. 116-8; and A. Pie, "St. Thomas Aquinas and the Psychology of Freud," pp. 20-34.
15. STI-II. q. 59, a. 5; emphasis mine: "Si vero passiones dicamus omnes malus appetitus sensitivi, sic planum est quod virtutes morales, quae sunt circa passiones sicut circa propriam materiam, sine passionibus esse non possunt." For the same affirmation, cf. Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. II, lect. 6; ~~. disp. De virt. in comm., a. 8; and a. 12 ad 16: .Virtus moralis nihil aliud est quam quaedam partrclpatio ralionis rectae in parte appetitiva." Cf. Albert, Super Ethica, Bk. II, lect. 5, sol. 1; Bk. III, lect. I (ed. Colon., pp.1I3 and 137); and De bono, tr. I, q. 5, a.1 ad4(ed. Colon., p. 74): "secundum autern quo¢ ordinatae sunt passiones a voluntate et ratione, cadunt in materiam virtutem." For N~eslUs (De nat. hom., ch. 31 [ed. Verbeke-Moncho, p. 126]), "the moral virtues are performed accordmg to passion" (etenim hae [morales virtutesJ secundum passione fiunt). cf. as well E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy, p. 271. 16. STI-II, q. 59, aa. 4-5; and q. 60, a. 3.
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sex, there can be no practice of chastity, etc. Following Aristotle,(perhaps too narrowly in this area), Thomas lists ten moral virtues that correspond to various types of passion." In short, Thomas sees the duty of the niorallife as consisting in harmonizing the two modes of human appetitive inclination-sensate (or animal) and intellectual (or rational)_ -so that the pursuit and attainment of what is suitable and desirable at the sentient level conform strictly to the pursuit and attainment of what is suitable and desirable at the rational or intellectual level. Though we share our passions with all other animals, we are not to live in response to them merely as animals; rather, we must brave them as rational animals, or as beings who enjoin such movements to be governed by and in close service to the life
of reason: "Considered in themselves," Thomas writes, "the passions are common to both man and animal, but as commanded by reason, they are proper to man."18 No human individual will find fulfillment, i.e., happiness, in a purely animal form of existence, as if attending to the tendencies of the animal or sense appetite alone will attain the true end of human life.
17. STI-II, q. 60, a. 5: fortitude (fortitudo; regulates the passions affear and courage unto the good of reason), temperance (temperantia; regulates the pleasures offood and sex unto the good of reason),
liberality (/iberalitas, regulates the simple desire for money unto the good ofreason), grandeur (magnificentia, regulates the passions of hope and despair with respect to money unto the good of reason), magnanimity (magnanimitas, regulates the passions of hope and despair with respect to honor unto the good of reason), philotomy (philotimia, regulates the simple love of honor unto the good ofreason), meekness (mansuetudo; regulates feelings of anger unto the good of reason), affability (affahilitas; regulates the pleasures one experiences in one's relations with others over serious matters unto the good of reason), truthfulness (veritas,' regulates the desire for honesty in one's relations with others over serious matters unto the good of reason), and eutrapelia (eutrapelia; regulates the pleasures one experiences in one's relations with others over playful or recreational matters unto the good of reason). Some of these virtues may be further subdivided into other virtues; e.g., temperance includes chastity, which regulates the pleasures of sex unto the good of reason, and abstinence, which regulates pleasures of eating unto the good of reason. These virtues, which emit a distinctly "Greek" aroma devoid of what a properly Christian ethos could provide (such as down playing the ostensibly excessive importance placed on money), Thomas pulls from various texts in Bks. II and N of Aristotle's Nie. Ethics. For other texts in Aquinas remarking the same, cr. Postilla super Psa/mos, on Ps 24:8; Sent. Lihri Ethic., Bk. III, lect 19; Qu. disp. De virt. in comm., a. 12 ad 26; and Lect. super Matt.. ch. 5, leet. 2. Cf. as well M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones, pp. 62-6. For the case of magoanimity and its role in Christian thought, cf. R.-A. Gauthier, Magnanimite: L'ideal de La grandeur dans La philosophie pai'enne et dans /a the%gie chretienne (paris: 1. Vrin, 1951). 18. STI-II, q. 24, a. 1 ad 1: "Istae passiones secundum se consideratae suntcommunes hominibus et animalibus a/iis; sed secundum quod a ratione imperantur, sunt propriae hominibus. "
3. The Commanding Role ofReason in the Moral Life '(';'ttl:hls point, it should be stressed that Aquinas' understanding of the "rational life," W,i~h,~et'y reason acts as the rule and measure of morality, stands in sharp contrast to the :ilianner in which rationalistic conceptions of morality, which dominate the contemporary : inindset, view the commanding role of reason in moral action. In the rationalistic perspee'.·live, moral action is restricted to the purely intellectual realm, as if the domain of the spirit operates independently of the domain of affectivity an? the flesh." .Her~ reason is adjudged to formulate its commands in a cold, dry, and mdifferent fashion, lITespectlve of (and many times in opposition to) the lower instinctu~l drives. As popula.rly ~onceived, reason formulates its commands through abstract and isolated conceptuaitzatlOns, afterward imposing these commands on the lower, animal side of human nature from above or from without, in much the same way that reason is seen to direct the empirical procedures of the technical sciences. Since movements of affectivity are seen to restrict, if not sabotage, the formulation of rational criteria and concepts, the rationalistic approach to morality harbors a fundamental distrust of sensibility, which it views as an insidious obstruction to the genuine expression of human freedom." Affective dispositions are judged lamentable because they move reason in a given direction. Nothing could be more foreign to the thought of Aquinas, who espouses a much richer and deeper sense of reason (ratio), and who looks upon sensibility (or the "animal" side of human nature) as reason's propitious companion on the path toward authentic human freedom and perfection, rather than as reason's inimical or injurious rival. Moral action involves the confluence of many elements, not simply reason moving the human being towards his or her·final goal in some kind of independent fashion. For Aquinas, reason directs the moral life not by cold, indifferent, and abstract calculated reasoning, but through an intimate synergy with the concrete inclinations of nature, be they purely natural inclinations, elicited inclinations of affectivity, or movements of the will; reason acts with the inclinations ofnatore, rather than simply reacting against or acting apart from such inclinations. The subject of moral action in the thought of Aquinas, in other words, is, as S. Pinckaers puts it,
0:
19. Though the rationalistic approach to morality receives its main inspiration from Descartes: it ~l timately begins with what S. Pinckaers (The Sources o/Christian Ethics, p. 240) tenns the "nommahst revolution" of William of Ockham, and its foundation can in fact be traced to Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 33, a. 1, q. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 715-8). 20. For more on this, cf. S. Pinckaers, The Sources o/Christian Ethics, pp. 234 and 335.
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"the integrated human peison," rather than the faculty of reason operating in its sep te realm detached from vital human experiences, or detached from the sphere of the ~ flesh." Subsequently, lh:e rule of re~on in the moral life equates not with judgme:: pose~ from WIthOUt, whIC.h .entaIl a kind of obediential submission on the part of the sense appelltes, but WIth detennmmg the sUItable mode of the inclinations of natnre (includin th . ). I' . g e pasSIOns m mora aclIon. Thomas: IiI fact, recognizes such synergy between sensibility and ~eas~n that he .fully affirms, desp~te Bonav~nture's resistance, that the concupiscible and rrasclble appelltes are able to partIcIpate aclIvely and consensually in moral action 0 count of reason's intimate penetration into the affective dimension of human nature ' ( : pomt shall be explained in greater detail shortly below). Therefore, when Aquinas .speaks of the imp~rium rationis, or the command of reason, over the movements of affectlVlty m the moral hfe, he is hardly advancing, as the modern reader ma?, spontaoeously understaod by the tenn,.a rationalistic or intellectualist theory of moral action. Rathe~ t?an seen as threatening to asphyxiate the tendencies of sensibility, the Im!,enu~ rallOnlS IS w:>derstood by Thomas to stifeguard the authentic expressions of the arumal SIde of human hfe. Better yet, because the human being is ordered to happiness as ~ final end, or to the supreme realization of every human yearning, and because all human aclI~ns ~mcludmg those of a sensate natnre) are inherently oriented to such an end, reason's eruprre I~ the moral life ensures that it is the integrated human person-and not the intellectna! SIde of the human being alone-that is led to the beatitude found in God himself. In the. final analysIs, then, the supremacy of reason in moral action signifies the manner by whICh God, through the assistaoce of grace and the light of faith, enables the huruan creatnre to attain its supreme perfection and fulfillment, and thereby become more like God himself. 22 Obviously, Thomas' view on the role of reason in the moral life remains a valuable conlribut~on to contemporary thought, since it confers greater dignity to the concrete emotional expe?ences o,rhuman individuals. More specifically, it better addresses the quest, so prevalent m today s culture, for the meaning of suffering, including affective suffering, in a
21. S. Pinckaers, The Sources a/Christian Ethics, p. 234. I am also indebted in these remarks on reason as the rule and measure of moral action to the seminar paper ofM. Paluch "L'ame du Christ etait-eUe soumise aux passions? (Summa theologiae, 3a, q. 15. a. 4)," presented o~ January 22 1997 at the University ofFribourg, Switzerland. ' , 22. For a c~aritying study on the rule and light of reason in the moral life, cf. L. S~ntis, "La lumiere dontnous falsons usage. La regie de fa raison et la loi divine seIon Thomas d'Aquin," RSPT 79 (1995), pp. 49-69; cf. as well l.-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel, p. 347; and STI, q. 12, a. 2.
that rationalistic approaches to morality cannot, since movements of affectivity remain to his moral vision. And by avoiding a rigorist split between sensibility and reason, life envisaged by Aquinas leaves sufficient room for the spontaneity and creativaccompany those human actions which arise from the inclinations of nature.
4. The Metaphysical Basisfor the Role ofthe Passions in the Life of Virtue examining in greater detail how reason's imperium concerns the movements of afmention ruust be made of the fact that foundational to Aquinas' entire vision of nok:immflon the passions as one of the ways in which the human being seeks to attain hapis his lucid hylemorphic metaphysics of human nature. If Thomas insists that the drive for moral excellence must encompass the integrated human person, which inli'eludes the affective inclinations of nature, it is because, at bottom, the Dominican Master )!:'.c:on,eeives of the human being as fundamentally one, i.e., as a unified composite of body and Thomas remains convinced, in other words, that what best corresponds to the intended ~,:"rd':r ofGiodin creation, or what is most aptly expressive of God's creative will, is a meta:'i.,hv:,ics of human nature that afflflns a substantial unity of body and soul (and, concomi, . nIDUlV. of sentient and intellectual parts). (Indeed, we have already seen how the passions, movements of the soulthat occur by means of a bodily organ, by their very nature epitomize the body-soul union of human nature.) Such a hylemorphic perspective explains why Aquinas offers constant points of convergence between movements of affectivity and movements of the will, such as between the passion oflove and spiritual love, or between emotional pleasure and spiritual pleasure." Given the substantial union between body and soul, it follows that sensibility is no less ''natural'' (i.e., essential) to the human station than is reason, and as a natural or essential feature of human life it cannot be categorically disregarded but must instead receive its rightful place in the moral life; as Thomas explains in his exposition on the· Book of Job: Man is similar to other animals in his sensitive nature; hence, reactions that follow upon the sensitive nature are present in man naturally, just as they are in other animals. And what is natural cannot be totally suppressed. 24
23. STI-II, q. 26, a. 3, and q. 31, aa. 3-5. 24. Expos. super lob ad litt., on 6:4: "Homo enim aliis animalibus simi/is est in natura sensitiva, unde ea quae naturam sensitivam consequuntur naturaliter adsunt homini sicut et aliis animalibus; quod autem naturale est non potest totaliter vitari." For an analysis of the human condition in
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In order to preserve the substantial unity of sensibility with reason as it plays itself out in
our concrete actions, Aquinas pushes the logic of this position further: siuce the order of uature corresponds to God's creative will, one must esteem the natural order as "good." And siuce movements of affectivity clearly belong to human nature as such, one must affirm the basic (metaphysical) goodness of the passions. Put another way, since humans own an affective-somatic condition by nature, it stands to reason that what is genuinely good for the human beiug must ultimately comprise the physical and sensate qualities of human conduct, even as all else that belongs to the essence of human nature: The good of anything depends on the condition of its nature.... [Since human nature owns a body], good human ogeration requires passion, as it is produced by means of the body."
Since human nature is a composite of body and soul and of intellectual and sentient parts, it pertains to man's good that the whole of human nature should be subject to virtue, i.e., that virtue should involve the intellectual part, the sensitive part, and the body.27 The [human] good will be all the more perfect the more it extends to things pertaining to man ....Accordingly. just as it is better that man should both will good and do it in his external acts, so too does it belong to the perfection of his moral good to be moved toward the good both by the will and by the sensitive appetite. 28
5. Reason ~ t'Limited" or "Political Rule" (principatus politicus) over the Sensitive Appetite
The "good" of which Aquiuas here speaks refers not only to metaphysical goodness, but also moral excellence, whereby the necessary role of passion in the moral life is afflITDed. For, what begins as a movement of affectivity must, given the substantial union of reason and
To repeat, Aquinas looks upon virtue, specifically moral virtue, as the medium by which the passions become iutegrated into the moral dimension of human life, or the medium by which human affectivity is ordered by reason to serve the supreme human good. For, as the rule
affect, be subsumed into the higher dimension of human existence, and so be integrated into the unified moral life ofthe entire human being." As human acts, the passions de [acto
and measure of the moral life, reason exercises supreme command over all the movements of the soul, including the passions. 29 Such command connotes what Aquinas wishes to ex-
share iu human freedom and morality. Aquinas, in fact, does not hesitate to insist that there is no moral perfection without the passions-the acquisition of human happiuess demands them-for moral excellence equates not with beiug moved by the will alone, but also by the lower appetites; in a word, without passion, we cannot live well, i.e., we cannot practice per-
press through his use of the term imperium rationis (literally, the "empire of reason"), though, for Thomas, the notion of imperium also includes the will's election, since reason
and will at all times work iu fundamental synergy-to be sure, the full title that Aquinas supplies in Prima Secundae, q. 24, a. 1 is imperium ration is et voluntatis, which demonstrates
fect virtue. It is not enough to say we are endowed with passion; we must also maintain
that we must live with our passions, in such a way that we neither repress nor ignore the passions as such nor allow the passions to dominate our lives. Passion sUbsequently amplifies the moral goodness of our acts, since it is better to do good in all the parts of our nature (it is better to love God with one's whole beiug, for example, rather than with only one's mind [cf. Mk 12:30]), which Thomas asserts in the following passages from the De malo and the Prima Secundae Pars:
.
Aquinas'exposition on the Book of Job, cf. D. Chardonnens, L 'homme sous Ie regard de la providence. Providence de Dieu et condition humaine selon I' Exposition litterale sur Ie livre de Job de Thomas d' Aquin, pp. 119-79; for an analysis of the notion of human passion in this work by Aquinas, cf. pp. 185-98. 25. STI-II, q. 59, a. 5 ad 3: "Bonum in unoquoque consideratur secundum conditionem suae naturae ... Ideo bona operatio Dei et angeli est omnino sine passione, sicut et sine corpore; bona autem operatio hominis est cum passione, sicut et cum cmporis ministerio. " 26. For more on this, cf. S. Pinckaers, "Les passions et la morale," pp. 381-6.
27. De malo, q. 12, a. 1 (cf. as well ad 5): "Quia natura hominis composita est ex anima et corpore et ex natura intellectiva et sensitiva, ad bonum hominis pertinet quod secundum se tatum virtuti subdatur, scilicet et secundum parterm intellectivam et secundum partem sensitivam et secundum corpus. " 28. STI-II, q. 24, a. 3: "istud bonum erit perfectius, quanta ad plura, quae homini conveniunt, derivari potest ... Sicut igitur melius est quod homo et velit bonum, et faciat exteriori actu; ita etiam ad perfectionem bani moralis pertinet quod homo ad bonum moveatur non solum secundum voluntatem, sed etiam secundum appetitum sensitivum. "Cf. as well In ad 2 Cor. ch. 9, lect. 1. 29. For a general discussion on the relationship between reason and passion, cf. M. Manzanedo. Las pasiones, pp. 48-58. For the submission of the inclination of the sensitive appetite to the will (and reason), cf. A. Stagnitta. L 'antropologia in Tommaso d 'Aquino: saggio di ricerca comparata sulle passioni e abitudini dell'uomo (Naples: E.D.I. Editrice. 1979), pp. 48-59; P. 1. Jakob, Passiones. Ihr Wesen und ihre Anteilnahme an der Vernufl nach dem hi. Thomas von Aquin (Modling bei Wien, Aus~ tria: st. Gabriel Verlag, 1958), p. 92; S. Manero. "Sobre las mutuas influencias de las pasiones y del voluntario libre," Revista de Filosofia 7 (1949), pp. 401-32; A. Del Cura, "Voluntad y apetito sensitivo en el hombre," Estudiosfilosoficos 12 (1963), pp. 439-67; and 13 (1964), pp. 540; L. Mauro, "Umanita, " della passione, pp. 92-8; and M.A. Janvier, Exposition de la morale catholique-Les passions (paris: P. Lethielleux, 1905).
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his refusal to sever intellect and will. 30 However, Aquinas, following Aristotie, holds th ~ason 's imp~rium over the sensitive appetite is not absolute, as the lower appetite retaU: 1~ own q~l.-autonomy, and, as ,such, o~s an innate capability of cooperating actively WIth ?,e.blddmg of reason ~d WlII..In this sense, the sensitive appetite contrasts with the body s lImbs, WhICh, possessmg no mdependence of their own, are entirely subject to th rule of reas?n. Appropriating the direct terminology of the Stagirite, the Dominican Mas~ ter labels this ~Ie of reason over the sense appetite as "political" (politicus) or "royal" (regails), I.e., lImIted yet free, as opposed to the "despotic" or "absolute" (despoticus) rule of re,,:,on over the body's limbs;" in a lengthy yet weighty text from the Prima Pars, Aquinas wntes:
this passage makes clear, though the inclination of the sense appetite to sentient objects to the higher rule of reason and will, its proper inclination is not suppressed as such, Thomas resorts to the analogy of differing political systems to clarify the point. The type »f!lOVernmental model that he discerns as best corresponding to theway reason holds sovlrl~rei.gnty, or imperium, over the sense appetite is what is today called constitutional monarin such a political system, citizens of the land submit to the supreme authority of the . jIlonarch, yet without relinquishing all their political rights and privileges (as they do in the .case of an absolutist monarchy). In a constitutional monarchy, royal authority remains re• strieted, with certain political decisions requiring the consent of the people (usually represented by a parliament}--the citizens, though subjects of the monarch, own the right to participate in governing affairs to a limited extent. Such a model illustrates the way reason
As the Philosopher says [cf. Politics, Bk. I, ch. 5 (I254b2-5)]: "We see in living
governs the sense appetite; though reason and will own supreme imperium, certain com-
c:eatures [i.e.~ the human being] both a despotic and a political [or limited yet free] ~md of rule. stnce the soul rules over the body with a despotic authority, whereas the tntellec~ rules ~v~ the appetite with a political or royal [i.e., limited] sovereignty." Despotic rule IS like that of a master ruling over his slaves; the slaves have no ability to oppose the orders of their master, since they have no freedom of their own. But when a sovereign governs free subjects, who, though subject to the rule of the sovereign, retain their own autonomy, by which they can stand up against the conunands of the sovereign, this is called a political or royal [i.e~, limited] sovereignty. From this we can see that the soul rules over the body with a despotic authority, since one's body parts cannot in any way resist the dictates of the soul; e.g., at the soul's bidding, both hands and feet, and whatever other body part is naturally moved on conunand are moved instantaneously. But the intellect or reason rules over the irascible and concupiscible appetites with limited sovereignty, since the sense appetite retains its own freedom, whereby it can oppose the commands of reason.l2
. mands of these higher powers, if they are to be fully executed, require the consent of the sense appetite, lis evidenced by the common experience of the ability of the lower appetites to rebel against such commands. For example, though reason may decree that the good of one's health requires the exclusion of certain foods, the sensitive appetite may on its own, upon the perception of unhealthy (yet appealing) foods, desire precisely what reason has interdicted; in such. a case, the sensitive appetite must approve of the (rational) decision to avoid unhealthy foods, since without this approval such a decision would never translate into actual practice. In this manner, one can see how the sense appetitive inclination participates in the governing affairs of reason and will in a limited yet no less active fashion.
30. Contrasting Aquinas' thought to rationalistic theories, S. Pinckaers (The Sources of Christian Ethics, pp. 340-1) writes: "For St. Thomas, freedom and will united to make a free choice. The co~r~ination between the practical judgment [i.e., reason] and the voluntary decision [i.e., will] was so •
mtimate that they were scarcely distinguishable ... [For rationalism, however,] interior bonds of in. terpenetration between reason and will were no longer pOSSible. Each faculty acted independently and di~ its own thing." Cf. as well M. Paluch, "Vame du Christ etait-elle soumise aux passions?" 31. Difficult to translate, the tenn principatus politieus would be rendered literally as "political soyerei~ty"; however. due to the a.nmiguities in modem English surrounding the term '~political," I. fol-
[owmg the lead ofR. Deferran (A Latin-English Dictionary oJS/. Thomas Aquinas, p. 837), have chosen to translate principatus po/iticus as the "limited rule" of reason over the sense appetite in order more accurately to -capture what A,quinas wishes to express by the tenn. 32. STI, q. 81, a. 3 ad 2: "Sicut Philosophus dicit, 'est quidem in anin,ali contemplari et despoticum principatum et politicum. Anima quidem corpori dominatur despotieo prineipatu, intellectus autem appetitui, politico et regali. ' Dicitur enim despoticus princlpatus quo a/iquis principatur servis, qui
non habent facultatem in aliquo r~istendi imperio praecipientis, quia nihil sui habent. Principatus autem politicus et regalis dicitur quo aliquis principafur liberis; qui etsi subdantur regimini praesidentis, tamen habent a/iquid proprium, ex quo possunt reniti praecipientis imperio. Sic igitur anima dominatur corpori despotico principatu, quia corporis membra in nullo resistere possunt imperio animae; sed statim ad appetitum animae movetur manus, et pes, et quodlibet membrum quod natum est moveri voluntario motu. lntellectus autem, seu ratio dicitur principari irascihili et coneupiscibili politico principatu; quia appetitus sensibilis habet aliquid proprium, unde potest reniti imperio rationis. "cr. as well Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 15 (ed. Verbeke-Mancha, pp. 92-3); Damascene, De fide orth., Bk. II, ch. 12 (ed. Buytaer!, p. 118); and, for more of the same inAquinas;STI-II, q. 9, a. 2 ad 3; q. 17, a. 7; q. 56, a. 4 ad 3; q. 58, •. 2; Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. X, Iect. 10; Qu. disp. De virt. in comm., a. 4; Sententia LibriPoliticorum, Bk. I, ch. 3; and De mala, q. 3, a. 9 ad 14; cf. as well Expos. super lob ad /itt., on 7:20; and De ver., q. 25, a. 4. For more on this distinction in Aquinas, cf. M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones, pp. 51-7; I.-P. Torrell. MaUre spirituel, pp. 349-53; and K White, "The Passions of the Soul."
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To drive home the point, Aquinas contrasts this limited or "political" rule of reason (principatus politicus) over sense appetite with a "despotic" type of imperium, i.e., With the style of goveming that allows for no freedom on the part of the sovereign's subjects since a despot governs in oppressive, absolutist tenns. Thomas, in fact, does not hesitate t~ compare this latter type of rule to a master's a\lthority over its slave. The despotic mOdel does, Aquinas asserts, correspond to a certain side of human nature, viz., the dominion that the soul holds over the body. That is, the soul rules over the body absolutely, as the limbs of one's body, which lack any genuine sense of autonomy, have no choice but to execute the soul's connnands. For example, when one decides to grip an object, the hand will in all cases cooperate without delay-the hand will never on its own reject such an instruction and remain in a closefisted position. That Aquinas recognizes the existence of a despotic type of sovereignty in human nature only helps better to underscore the relative autonomy he sees the sensitive appetite as enjoying, since the limited manner by which the lower appetite responds consensually to the connnands of reason clearly differs from the way the body's limbs respond "nonconsensually" to such commands. Human affectivity cooperates, in other words, with the bidding ofreason not automatically or "on conunand," but "actively" and integrally, or consensually. (Here Aquinas takes issue with Socrates' insistence that the dictates established by reason or knowledge de facto result in virtue, which seems to say that the sense appetite follows reason's imperium absolutely, or on simple command.")
""",iti've appetite, i.e., that the passions are themselves virtuous, as owing to the limited lutc,no,my enjoyed by the lower appetites. In his illuminating article on the matter, suggestively entitled "The Virtuous Passions: )rheAntllfopolog:y ofS!. Thomas," M.-D. Chenu notes how Aquinas' view on the relationbetween virtue and the sense appetites brings him into a direct confrontation with the . ". school of thought, notably with Bonaventure." The debate centers on the notion ,'i of whether virtue truly resides in the sense appetites, with Thomas offering a condensed , " version of his position in Prima Secundae, q. 56, a. 4, and a more complete account In hIS Quaestiones disputatae De virtutibus, a. 4 (Utrum irascibilis et concupiscibilis possint esse 36 • subiectum virtutis), which was written between 1271-72. . Though all sides agree that virtue resid~s primarily in th.. intel~ectual po;"e~-AquInaS maintains, citing Aristotle, that "'the princlpal act of moral virtue I~ chotce, .wh~ch IS ~ act of the rational power"'''-Bonaventure is wary of affinning that vrrtue, WhICh IS ahabIt of choosing (electio), resides in the passions (or the lower appetites). F~r th~ FranCIscan, to opine that virtue resides in th~ passions seems to ~duce vrrtue. to a~ u:ra~lOnal movement (a danger that Aquinas no less recognizes as needing to be aVOIded In Pnma Secundae, q. 58, a. 4 ad 3). According to Bonaventure, virtue can only "tame" the passions by a kind .of exterior imposition, or forced "submission to reason" (obtemperat rationi);38 the Franclscan, in other words, favors more of a "despotic" or absolute rule of reason over the
6. "Virtuous Passions": Moral Virtue Resides in the Sense Appetite
Aquinas' understanding of the active and consensual, rather than automatic or purely obediential, manner by which the lower appetitive powers execute the commands of reason leads the Dominican author to adopt a wholly unique position on the role of the passions in the practice of virtl!e; this position helps corroborate J.-P. Torrell's qualification of Aquinas' view on the virtuous life as "one of the most original pieces of the spiritual theology of Friar Thomas."" This unique teaching is that moral virtue actually resides in the
33. STI-II, q. 58, a. 2. For Socrates' view, cf. Plato,Protagoras, 352-61; and Aristotle, Nic. Ethics. II44bI0-30). For more on this in Thomas. cf. STI-II. q. 77, a. 2; and L. Mauro, "Umanitii" della passione, pp. 89-91. 34. J.-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel p. 349: "C' est ici peut-etre que nous allons rencontrer une des pieces les plus originales de la theoiogie spirituelle de £rere Thomas, sa doctrine des vertus." Cf. as well G. Lafont, Structures et methode, pp. 349-51.
35. M.-D. Chenu, "Les passions vertueuses. L'anthropoiogie de saint Thomas," RPL 72 (1974), pp.
11-18. . h D 36. Thomas also treats the issue in III Sent, d. 33, q. I, a. 2, and q. 2, a. 4; between thIS text, t e .e virtutibus, and the Summa, there are no major differences in Aquinas' thought. B~naventure's PO~l tion is found in III Sent, d. 33, a. I, q. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 715-8). For the datlllg of the De .Vlrtutibus, cf. J.-P. Torrell, The Person, p. 336. For the wider context of the various controversI~s Aqumas tackled when writing on this issue in the De virtutibus and the Summa, cf. E.-H. Weber, L. homme en discussion a/'Universite de Paris en 1270. La controverse de 1270 al'Universite de Pans et son re. . . tentissement sur la pensee de S. Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: J. Vrin, 1970). 37. STI-II, q. 56, a. 4, argo 4; Qu. disp. Devirt. in comm., a. 4, argo 2; andAristotle,Nlc. EthICS, Bk; II, ch. 6 (II06a36); and Bk. VI, ch. 2 (II39a22-3): '''Principalis act.us virtutls morall' estelectlO, ut dicitur in Ethic. Sed electio est actus rationis. " Bonaventure also CItes thIS locution ofAristotle 10 1lI Sent, d. 33, a. I, q. 3, argo 4 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 716). For Thomas, cf. as wellIl Sent, d.. 3,~' q. I, a. 1; De ver., q. 24, a. 5; De malo, q. 4, a. 5: "rationale sit primo et per se~ublec~m :1~tutlS ; STI, q. 82,a. 3·, and I-II' q. 'I , a. 1: "Liberum arbitrium dicitur /acultas voluntatls et ratwnlS. Cf. L. Mauro, "Umanita" della passione, pp.86-8. 38. Bonaventnre, III Sent, d. 33, a. I, q. 3, ad 1 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 717; cf. as wcll ad4, and M.:D. Chenu, "Les passions vertueuses," pp. 14-6): "Alia vero est irascibilis et con~p~cl.blllS sensl~llz~, quae solummodo dicitur rationalis quia obtemperat rationi. Et in his non conSls~lt lzberta: arbltru, nec in his sicut in subiecto ponitur virtus cardinalis, licet perfrequentem assue/actlone.m al~quo mo~o illae potentiae non incongrue dicantur habUitari; ilia tamen habilitatio non est de Vlrtutzs essentla, sed potius sibi annexa." Chenu notes that this is also the position of Hugh of St. Cher and John
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concupiscible and irascible appetites, whereby these lower appetites become integrated' ~
~e practice of moral virtue by an obediential acquiescence rather than through a kind o~"
live participation. In Bonaventure's mind, reason acts against or apart from the inclin'Ii' ac; " . t · - '\ oflIi a ectiVlty, a View at, ash noted earlier, Wllliead to rationalistic conceptions of moral th
ory,. where~y moral action becomes restricted to the intellectual sphere, with reason fo; ulaling Its Judgments mdependently of the affective domain and imposing its commands on the sense appetite from above or from without. Not s.o f?r Aquinas, w~ose moral theory again builds upon a radical synergy of reason and senslblhty, and who VIews the sense appetite, as with all the inclinations of nature as reason's propitious companion on the path toward an authentic expression of human ~ ~om "."d perfection. For Thomas, reason and will must respect the restricted-yet authen_ llc-nghts of the concupiscible and irascible appetites to participate in the ruling affairs of r~ason's i"!perium, just as a constitutional monarch must respect the limited yet authentic nghts of hIS or her subjects to participate in the governing affairs of the state. Reason can-
not treat the lower appetites like a master treats a slave, i.e., without respect for its au. tonomous integrity, as if reason could beat the passions into submitting to the duty of virtue against their will, or as if reason could simply hand down its commands from above in an absolutist fashion, establishing its rule from without. Making his own, therefore, the Aristotelian notion of the limited autonomy of the concupiscible and irascible appetites, and finding support from an anonymous commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, Thomas does not hesitate to ascribe the seat of virtue to the passions: "It is necessary to posit some virtues in the concupiscible and irascible powers of the lower appetite."39 Since the sensitive appetite retains its own proper inclination and
of La Rochelle. Cf. as well WD. Hughes, "Virtue in Passion," appendix 2 to Summa theologiae, vol. 23, Virtue (London: Blackfriars, 1969), pp. 245-6). ' 39. Qu. disp. De virt. in comm., a. 4: "nihilominus in irascibili et concupiscibili quae sunt in inferiori appetitu, oportet ponere esse aliquas virtutes." Cf. STI-II, q. 56, a. 4: "Quod enim in irascibili et concupiscibili sint aliquae virtutes patel. " Also, in STI-II, q. 50, a. 3, Aquinas affinns that the concupiscible and irascible appetites may be the seat of habitus. M. Manzanedo (Las pasiones, p. 63) thus errs when he writes: "Las pasiones no pueden ser virtudes." In the anonymous commentary on Book III ofthe Nicomachean Ethics (in The Greek Commentaries ofthe Nicomachean Ethics oj Aristotle. In the Latin Translation oj Robert Grosseleste, Bishop a/Lincoln (1253), ed. H.P.F. Mercken [Leiden: B.J. Brill, 1973], p. 293), it is asserted, as cited by Thomas in De malo, q. 4, a. 5, argo 4, that "moral virtues are in the irrational parts of the soul" (virtutes morales sunt ifi irrationabilibus partibus anime). For more on the identification of virtue with passion in the thought ofAquinas, cf. E. Schockenhoff, Bonum hominis, pp. 198-200; and J.-P. Torrell Maitre spirituel, pp. 353--62.
ntaJ,elly, as evidenced by the fact that it may either rebel against or accord with the com-
of reason, one must conclude that, should the course of compliance with reason be the lower appetites possess their own capacity to cooperate actively with or parrather than simply submit obedientially to, the practice of virtue: "The irascible ld ~Ofi'CUI)is<:ible parts of the soul," Thomas writes in the De malo, "are the subject of cer-
virtues inasmuch as they participate in reason. '"'0 demonstrate his point, Aquinas appeals to the example of integrating one's concudesires into the practice ofthe virtue of chastity. Take, forinstance, two human perwho have chosen to live chastely, with one experiencing little or no pull from the incl"piscible appetite, while the other wages a constant struggle against the concupiscible In the latter case, the struggle arises from a clash between, on the one side, the in-
commands of reason, and, on the other, strong desires for sexual pleasure. For the undeniable difference in the quality of chastity between these two individualsA\(UUlalS'of a moral nature--resides not with reason and will, since both have chosen to live If I:haste:ly (i.e., both are chaste individuals); rather, the difference lies in the concupiscible ap%1: (..ti'te itself, as the lower appetite of the fIrst facilitates and assists the exercise of chastity, wh,ere'ls for the second it foils the practice of this virtue. From this Thomas concludes that sensitive appetite, if it facilitates and assists the exer.cise of virtue, represents the immediate principle or source of virtuous activity, and thereby renders the individual more perfectly virtuous. As a source itself of virtuous behavior, it follows that the sensitive appetite must own the "disposition" (dispositio) or the habitus of living virtuously, i.e., that moral virtue must reside in the lower appetites as in its subject: If the lower appetite is not perfectly disposed to follow the command of reason, the action that results from the lower appetite as from a proximate principle will not be perfect in goodness. For the action will involve a certain resistance on the part of the sensitive appetite [given the limited autonomy of the lower appetite]; from this a certain struggle between the lower and higher appetites ensues. Such a struggle is seen in the case of a man who has strong movements of concupiscence but who does not follow such movements because of the interdiction of reason. Therefore, whenever a man's actions concern the objects of the sensitive appetite, the goodness of the action requires
40. De malo, q. 4, a. 5: "irascibilis et concupiscibilis sunt subiectum aliquarum virtutum in quantum participant rationem. "
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that a certain ~sposition or perfe~tion be present in that appetite, by which it might obey reason wtth ease. We can thIS disposition virtue.41 ,
281
ities, but instead makes them execute the commands of reason through the exercise of their proper acts. VIrtue therefore ... orders the sensitive appetite to its proper reg-
ulated movements.43
For Thorn:"" then, the key notion centers on the fact that the lower appetites, possessin th.' own rela~lv~ antonomy, participate in the life of reason. This active participation! uJOtr from the mti~~t~ synergy (or :'ontological union," as Chenu calls it) that exists betweensr:' son ~d senslblhty, t~ the porn! of reason's very penetration into the sense powers them_ selves, by vlrlue of this penetratIOn, or what the Master from Aquino calls this "derivati , (derivatio) ?""m reason, the intellec.tual powers wholly influence, Iransfonn, and finalize':. very Operall?nS of th~ lower appelltes, thereby fostering their capacity for virtue: "Insofar as the sensitive appeltte obeys reason," Aquinas explains, "good and evil of reason ar . the passions es~entially rather than merely accidentally."42 Thomas therefore rejects ~: B.o!1~ventur~ VH~W that re~on does nothing more than tame or "domesticate" the caDell_ plsclble ~d rrasclble appelltes through a neutralization of the potentially subversive effects of aff~CtiVlty ou the practice of virtue; i.e., he discounts the theory that, given the inhereot capaCIty of the sense appetites to resist the commands of reason, it is reason's duty to suppres~ ~~ proper movements of these lower powers. For Aquinas, reason's penetration into senslblhtyhelps the concupiscible and irascible powers engage actively in the work of vrrtue, wh~r~by the~ desire themsel~es the good of reason and where they exercise their proper actlVlty Wlthm .the. arena of VirtuOUS duty. Aquinas makes plain the subtle yet sharp differences between his View and Bonaventnre's in the following passage: I~ is no~ the function of ~oral virtue to make the sensitive appetite altogether idle, SInce virtue does not depnve the powers subordinate to reason of their proper activ-
41. Qu. ~isp. De virt. in comm., a. 4: "Si appetitus inferior non esset in perfocta dispositione ad se~uend~m Imperium rationis, ~peratio, quae est appetitus injerioris, sicut proximi prinCipii, non esset '~ ~omtate perfecta,' esset emm cum quadam repugnantia sensibilis appetitus; ex quod quaedam tristltl~ consequeretur appetitui inforiori per quamdam violentiam a superiori moto; sicut accidit in eo qUl ha~etjortes c~n~pisce~tias, quas tamen non sequitur, ratione prohibente. Quando igitur oportet ope~at~nem hO~I?'S esse circa ea quae sunt obiecta sensibilis appetitus, requiritur ad bonitatem operatto~~ quo~ Sit In .appetitu sensibili aliqua dispositio, vel perfectio, per quam appetitus praedictus de facliz obedzat ratzoni,' et hanc virtutem vocamus." Cr. as well III Sent, d. 33, q. 2, a. 4, sol. 2. ~2.. ~TI-II, q. 24, a. 4 ad 1; emphasis mine: "Secundum vero quod appetitus sensitivus obedit rattom, ~am bonu','l e~ malum rationis non est ex passionibus eius per accidens, sed per se." Cf. as well ,?u. dIS!:. De Virt. In comm., a. 4 ad 13: "Virtutes istae sunt in irascibili quantum ad eorum derivattonem ; STI-II, q. 56, a 5 ad 1; and M.-D. Chenu, "Les passions vertueuses," pp. 14-6.
7. The Moral Neutrality of the Passions: Aquinas Replies to the Stoics 'A
43. STI-II, q. 59, a. 5: "virtus moralis [non] jaceret apjJetitum sensitivum omnino otiosum. Non autem ad virtutem pertinet quod ea quae sunt subiecta rationi, a propriis actibus vacent; sed quod exequantur imperium rationis, proprios actus agendo. Unde virtus ordinat...appetitum sensitivum ad motus proprios ordinatos. " 44. STI-II, q. 24, a. 2: "Stoici enim non discernebant inter sensum et intellectum, et perconsequens nec inter intellectivum appetitum et sensitivum; unde nec discernebant passiones animae a motibus vo/untatis, secundum hoc quodpassiones animae sunt in appetitu sensitivo, simplices autem motus voluntatis sunt in intellectivo; sed omnem ... motum appetitivae partis ... passiones autem dicebant motum progredientem extra limites rationis. Et ideo eorum sententiam sequens TUllius [cf. De Thscul. Quaest., III, ch. 4] omnes passiones vocat 'animae morbos.'" Cf. as well STI-II, q. 59, a.2; De malo, q. 12, a. 1; Sent. Libri De sensu et sensato, lect. 19, n. 13; and Expos. super lob ad litt., on 1:20. For more Stoic texts indicating a contempt for the passions, cf. Cicero, De finibus, III, 20; De Tuseu/.
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Though Aquinas' moral theory, particularly in the area of natural law and even of mOral vIrtue, owes much to Stoic philosophy, the Dominican theologian has little time for what on one occasion he denounces as the "unreasonable" Stoic disdain for the passions (hoc ir. rationabiliter dicitur), or the "excessively inhuman" (valde inhumanum) Stoic view that SOrrow never befalls the wise individual. ~s ~rom the start of his writing career, Thomas wages a. relentless, If at lImes tempered, cnlICIsm of the Stoic view on the passions, particularly smce the Stoics (represented by Cicero) reject the distinction that the Peripatetic school offers between the sensitive and intellectual appetites. 46 (IfAquinas' criticism of the Platonic view on the morality of the passions nowhere reaches the amplitude of his attack on the Stoic position, it is because of the ambivalence that Plato, who alternates between a nega-
Quaest, I. ch. 80; III, ch. 10; Iv, chs. 5-6; Seneca, De clem, 7; Moral Epistles, IX, epistles 5, 9 and 85; and Virgil, Aeneid, Bk. IV, 449; cf. as well J. Fillion-Lahille, Le "De Ira" de Sem'que et la philosophie stoicenne des passions (Paris: Klincksieck, 1984); 1. W. Stannard, The Psychology oJthe Passions in the Old Stoa (Diss. Univ. of Illinois, 1958); B. Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); M.U. Purkiss, "Desarrollo hist6rico de la doctrina sabre las emociones," Clencia Tomista 43 (1953), pp. 433-86; andA. Solignac, "Passions et vie spirituelle," cols.339-57. 45. ST I-II, q. 59, a. 3; and Leet. super loan., ch. II, lect. 5. For more on Aquinas' debt to Stoic thought, cf. M. Spanneut, "Influences stoi'ciennes sur la pensee morale de S. Thomas d' Aquin," pp. 50-:9; E.K. Rand, Cicero in the Courtroom a/St. Thomas Aquinas (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette UniversIty Press, 1946), pp. 26-54; G. Verbeke, The Presence a/StOicism in Medieval Thought; and R.A. Gauthier, "Introduction" to Ethique d Nicomaque, vol. 1 (Louvain, Belgium: Publications ~iversitaires de Louvain, 1958), pp. 243-4; cf. as well what was stated at the end of chapter two of thiS work (under the subheading "Marginal Sources") with respect to the influence of the Stoic author pseudo-Andronicus of Rhodes on Thomas' doctrine on human affectivity. 46. STI-II, q. 24, a. 2; and Cicero, De Thscul. Quaest, 1lI, ch. 10 (this work o[Cicero is devoted to showing how the goal of virtue is to overcome the woes of this life, such as fear of death, pain, illness, lust, fear, and other mental disturbances). For a sampling of other texts in which Aquinas criticizes the Stoic view on the passions, cf. STI-II, q. 22, a. 2, sed contra; q. 24, a. 3; q. 34, a. 2; q. 59, a. 2; II-II, q. 123, a. 10; 1lI, q. 15, a. 4 ad2; q. 15, a. 6 ad 2; 1lI, q. 46, a. 6 ad 2;InEpist. adRomano$, eh. 9, leet. I; Sent. Libri Ethic .. Bk. I, leet. 16; Bk.II, leet. 3; Lect. super loan., eh. 11, lect. 5; eh. 12, lect. 5; ch. 13,lect. 4; De malo, q. 8, a. 3 ad 18; q. 12, a. 1; Sent. Libri De sensu et sensato, lect. 19, n. 13; Sent. super PhYSiC., Bk. VII, leet. 6; Catena aurea in Matt., on Mt 5:20-21; Catena aurea in loan .. on In 13:21; Expos. super lob ad litt, on 1:20; on 3:1; and on 6:1-12; De Ver, q. 26, a.8 ad 2 and ad 9; and IVSent, d. 49, q. 3, a. 4. Cf. as well E.K. Rand, Cicero in the Courtroom oJSt. Thomas, pp. 51-2 (where Rand,notes that Thomas' censure of Cicero's view on the passions represents the "first direct criticism of Cicero" in the Summa); G. Verbeke, The Presence 0/ Stoicism in Medieval Thought, pp. 1-19; idem, "Saint Thomas et Ie stoicisme," MM I (1962), pp. 48-68, at 55-6; M. Spann~ut, "Influences stoiciennes sur la pensee morale de S. Thomas d' Aquin," pp. 50--6 (Spanneut supplIes an exhaustive list of references in Aquinas referring to Stoicism); D. Chardonnens, L 'homme sous Ie regard de la providence, pp. 188-98; and P. Lumbreras, PSicologia de las pasiones. Santo Tomas y Los ciasicos (Madrid: Ediciones Studium, 1958).
. tive and an optimistic view of the moral quality of the passions, displays on the matter. 47) .. Because Thomas defines passion as a psychosomatic phenomenon appertaining to the sense ~ appetite as such, and because the sensitive dimension of human nature possesses no inher::' ent moral worth, Aquinas adopts an objective or morally neutral appraisal of the passions, ;', best summarized by Aristotle's assertion that "the passions are neither virtues nor vices. "48 Since moral value corresponds only to reason and will, the passions considered in them-r' selves, i.e., considered as sensate realities rather than as intellectual ones, can be qualified . neither as morally good nor as morally evil, since moral worth refers to reason and will alone; what grants them moral value is their interaction with reason and will: Considered in themselves, i.e., considered as movements of the irrational appetite, the passions possess no moral goodness or wickedness, since this depends on reason. Considered, however, as subject to the command of reason and will, the passions do have moral goodness and wickedness .... Insofar [then] as the sensitive appetite obeys reason, good and evil of reason are in the passions essentially rather than merely accidentally.49
47. In Phaedo, 64-84, Plato argues that the wise individual seeks to be liberated and purged from bodily passions; yet in Phaedrus, 246-56, Plato uses the allegory of the charioteer to show that appetite (Le., affectivity) is essential to human life and must be integrated in a collaborative fashion into reason's command of the moral life. Thomas does offer a passing remark on the Platonic position in ST I-II, q. 34, a. 3. For more on the influence of Plato's thought on Aquinas, cr. RJ. Henle, Saint Thomas and Platonism: A Study on the Plato and Platonici Texts in the Writings ofSaint Thomas. It should be noted that Augustine opts for a decidedly positive reading of the Platonists' regard for the morality of the passions in De civ. Dei, Bk. IX, ch. 4 (CCSL47, p. 251). 48. Aristotle, Nic. Ethics, Bk.II, ch. 5 (1105b29) (cf. as well Bk. VI, ch. 13 [1144b27-29]), cited in SrI-IT, q. 59, a. 1, sed contra. For Thomas, cf. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 1, sol. 3 ad 2. It seems to me that, in insisting that reason is essential to any movement of passion, R. Roberts ("Thomas Aquinas on the Morality of Emotions," History oJPhiiosophy Quarterly 9 [1992], pp. 287-305, at 292-4) veers dangerously close to making the same error as the Stoics. For a response to Roberts' contention, cf. S. Loughlin, "Similarities and Differences between Human and Animal Emotion in Aquinas's Thought," pp. 45-65. 49. STI-II, q. 24, a. I, and a. 4 ad 1: "Si igitur secundum se considerentur, prout.scilicet sunt motus quidam irrationalis appetilus; sic non est in eis bonum vel malum morale. quod dependet a ratione. Si autem considerentur secundum quod subjacent imperio rationis et voluntatis, sic est in eis bonum vel malum morale ... Secundum vero quod appetitus sensitivus obedit rationi, iam bonum et malum ationis non est ex passionibus eius per accidens, sed per se. " Cf. Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 32 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, pp. 126-9); Damascene, De fide orth., Bk. II, eh. 24 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 144-7); and, for more texts in Aquinas, STI-II, q. 59, a. I; Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk.I, leet. 20; Bk. Ill, lect. 4-5; De ver., q. 24, a. 4 ad 9; I Sent, d. 33, q. 2, a. 4, qc. 2; and IV Sent, d. 49, q. 3, a. 4. For more on this in Aquinas, cf. M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones, pp. 58-62; D. Kambouchner. "Passions," p. 1082; M. Corvez, Appendix 2 to Somme theologique, p. 264; and P. Engelhardt, "Mensch und Christ in der Spanoung von Vernunft und Leidenschaft," pp. 138-9.
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Far from "diseases of the soul," then, the passions, as the matter of moral virtue, are ad-
Equipped with this capital distinction, Aquinas goes on to draft certain remarks regarding the morality of the passions noted for their balance and sobriety, and which cannot be overly appreciated when juxtaposing them alongside the realization that numerous Christian au. thors, inspired by Stoic writings or by a kind of "angelistic" anthropology, have openly suspected the passions of being inherently inimical to sound moral conduct;" in short, whereas the Stoics maintain that virtue consists in a total tranquillity and impassibility of soul, Thomas opines that virtue consists instead in the regulation of passion unto the good of reason, whereby reason establishes the suitable mode of expressions of passion:
judged by Aquinas to represent integral and essential elements i~ any exemplary human life. Human individuals can no sooner suppress movements of passIOn as such than suppress their own natures; as E. Gilson explains: "For the soul to be united to its body and to feel its organic modifications in a sensible way is no sickness. It is absolutely normal. The passions of the wise man are an integral part of his moral life."" With this in mind, Aquinas, in a maguificeot rejoinder to the Stoics, persists in proclaiming: "Virtue is not freedom from passion. "S6 In a key passage from his commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Thomas elaborates on this salient point:
It is disordered passion that leads to sin, not moderate passion .... Virtue overcomes disordered passion by producing moderate passion. 51
The Stoics say the virtues involve a kind of quiet and passionless state, since tlIey see how men become evil through pleasures and sorrows; accordingly, they hold that virtue consists in the total cessation of the changes that the passions cause. But they erred in wishing to exclude completely the passions of the soul from a virtuous individual. It belongs instead to the good of reason to regulate the sensitive appetite, of which the passions are the movements. Thus it appertains to virtue not to exclude all passion but only disordered passion. 57
Perfection of moral virtue does not completely annul the passions, but instead regulates them. S2
The passions of the soul, insofar as they ignore the order of reason, incline us to sin; but insofar as they are ordered by reason, they pertain to virtue. 53 Those passions that have a tendency to [sense1good are themselves good if they either tend to what is truly good or tum away from what is truly evil. By contrast, those passions that tum us from [what is truly] good and incline us to [what is truly] evil are themselves evil.s4
50. Again, G. Verbeke (The Presence o/Stoicism in Medieval Thought, p. 48) lists among those patristic authors who appropriate the Stoic notion of impassibility (apatheia) Clement ofAlexandria, Ori~
gen, Basil the Grea~ Gregory ofNazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom. And to offer just two examples of the same from the 12th-century, one need only consider the condemnation of the passions by William of St. Thieny (t1l4S) in his De nat. carp. et an. (PL ISO, 714), as well as the Stoic-inspired charge by Richard ofSt. Victor (t1l73) that the passions are nothing more than "sicknesses" of the soul in his De statu into hom., 1,9 and 34 (PL 196, 1122 and 1141). Cf. P. MichaudQuantin, La pychologie de I'activite, p. 101. 51. STI-II, q. 59, a. 5 ad 2 and ad 1; emphasis mine: "Passiones inordinatae inducunt ad peccandum, non autem si sint moderatae ... Virtus passiones inordinatas superat, moderatas autem productt. " 52. ST I, q. 95, a. 2 ad 3: "Perfecta virtus moralis non totaliter tollitpassiones, sed ordinat eas." 53. STI-I1, q. 24, a. 2 ad 3; emphasis mine: 'Passiones animae, inquantum sunt praeter ordinem rationis, inclinant ad peccatum,' inquantum autem sunt ordinatae a ratione, pertinent ad virtutem. " 54. ST I-Il, q. 24, a. 4 ad 2: "Passiones quae in bonum tendunt, si sit verum bonum, sunt bonae; et similiter quae a ~ro malo recedunt; e converso autem.passiones quae sunt per recessum a bono, et peraccessum ad malum, sunt malae."For other texts, cf. STI, q. 8t, a. 2; I-II, q. 17, a. 5; q. 18, a. 5; II-II, q. 123, a. 10; q. 125, a. I, corpus and ad I; III, q. 15, a. 4 ad 2; q. 46, a. 6 ad2; Sent. LibriEthic., Bk. II, Iect. 3; Bk. VII, Iect. 6; De rna/a, q. 10, a. I ad 2; and q. 12, a. 2 ad 1.
Notably, though Aquinas' perspective is culled in large part from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, particularly Bk. II, chs. 3-7, and somewhat from Albert the Great, it is especially Augustine's De civitate Dei from which Thomas' thought on the moral neutrality of the
55. E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy, p. 271. Cf. as well P. Engelhardt, "Mensch und Christ in der Spannung von Vemunftund Leidenschaft," p. 139; and A.-D. Sertillanges, La philosophie morale de saint Thomas d 'Aquin, p. 72. 56. STt-tl, q. 59, a. 2 ad 1; emphasis mine: "Virtutes non esse impassibilitates." Cf.Aristotle,Nic. Ethics, Bk. II, ch. 3 (1l04b25-26). 57. Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. II, Iect. 3 (cf. as well De rna/a, q. 12, a. I ad 13; and Sent. super Physic., Bk. ViI, lect. 6): "Stoici ut dicerent quod virtutes sunt quaedam impassibilitates et quietes. Quia en~m videbant quod homines fiunt mali per delectationes et tristitias, consequens esse putaverunt quod VlrIus in hoc consistat quod omnino transmutationes passionum cessent. Sed in hoc non bene dixerunt quod totaliter a virtuoso voluerunt excludere animae passiones. Pertinet enim ad bonum rationis: ut reguletur per eam appetitus sensitivus, cuius molus sunt p~siones. Unde ad ~irtut~m non pertmet quod exc/udal omnes passiones, sed solum inordinatas." TIus passage from Aqumas IS a co~mentary on Aristotle's statement in Nic. Ethics, Bk. II, ch. 3 (II 04b25) that, "some [probably SpeuslppuS1defme virtues as certain states of impassibility and rest." Aquinas' incessant drive to stamp out the effects of Stoicism as unique to him is clearly seen when one compares this citation to Albert's own commentary on the same passage from Aristotle (Super Ethica, Bk. II, lect. 2 ~ed. ~ol~n., p. 1?O]): "Virtutes quodammodo quietes et impassibililates sunt et quodammodo non. F~Cl~ em~ ~'rtus qUletem et impassibilitatem a passionum superabundantia, sed patitur moderate ab el~, lta sClbcet ~uod .sensus percipit et ratio non deducitur. "Cf. A. PIe, n. 3 to STIlI, q. 34, a. 1 ad 2, 10 Somme theolog1que, vol. 2, p. 234.
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passions draws its principal inspiration. 58 Here, in fact, there is general convergence be. tween the Aristotelian and Augustinian visions, as the Bishop of Hippo adopts a decidedly pro-Peripatetic position after offering an historical overview of the differences between the Aristotelians and the Stoics over the role of the passions in the moral life, an overview that stretches fr0n.' B,k. IX: chs. 4-5 to Bk. XlV, chs. 5-14 of the De civitate Dei." In many ways, Augnstme s posltlOn even completes the thought ofAristotle, which explains why in the two principle loci ofthePrima Secundae Pars where Aquinas discusses the morality of the passions-qq. 24 and 59-Thomas turns most often to these passages from the De civitate Dei as the authoritative source on the matter (cf. the sed contras of these questions). For Augnsttne (as for Albert), the passions are evil only if they counter the good of reason' if they cohere with reason, they are good and even laudable: "If the will is perverse," th~ Latin Father writes, "these movements [the passions] will also be perverse; but if it is upright, they will not only be blameless but even praiseworthy."" We shall see below the other invaluable lesson that Aquinas secured from these pages of Augustine's De civitate Dei concerning the role of human affectivity in the work of virtue. B. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEEN CHRIST'S PASSIONS AND HIS VIRTUE
Aquinas indicates the import that his position on the integral role of human affectivity in the exercise of virtue bears for his Christology when, near the beginning of his treatise on Christ's passions in Tertia, q. 15, he tersely states, in words that capture his position since the very inception of his writing career: "Christ possessed all the virtues most perfectly" (Christus perfectissime habuit omnes virtutes).'l The Dominican theologian situates this
58. For support, cr. M. Jordan, "Aquinas'S Construction," p. 79; and L. Mauro, "Umanitia," della passione, p. 14. For Albert, cf.De bono, tr. I, q. 5, a. I ad4 (ed. Colon., p. 74); Super Ethica, Bk. III, lect. I (ed. Colon., p. 137); andP. Michaud-Quantin, La psychologie de I'activiti!, pp. 94-5. 59. CCSL47, pp. 251-4, and CCSL 48, pp. 421-38. . 60. Augustine, De civ. Dei, Bk. XIV, ch. 6 (CCSL 48, p. 421; cited in STI-II, q. 59, a. 2, sed contra): "Si voluntas perversa est, perversos habebit has molus; si autem recta est, non solum incu!pabUes, verum etiam laudabiles erunt. " For his part, Albert writes in Super Ethica, Bk. III, lect. 1 (ed. Colon., p. 137): "Virtus moralis existit circa passiones et operationes et quod in utiisque, scilicet in passionibus et operationibus, quando sunt vo/untaria, sunt laudes, si sunt bona, et vituperia, si mala. " 61. STIlI, q. 15, a. 2. Cf. the opening remarks on Christ's coassumed perfections in STm, q. 7, a. 2, sed contra: "Christ was full of all virtue" (Christus fuit plenus omni virtute). In III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 2, sed contra 2 (cf. as well q. 2, a. 3, qc. 3, sed contra), Thomas maintains the same: ''No virtue nor its perfection was absent in Chrisf' (Nulla virtus defuit Christo, nee aliqua virtutis perJectio). Also, in De Ver., q. 29, a. 8, sed contra 1, Aquinas writes: "At the very instant of his creation Christ
, locution near the opening stages of his treatise on Christ's passions to show that, as the passions constitute the very matter ofthe moral virtues, Christ's perfection in virtue demarcates ; the clear perimeters of any discussion on Jesus' human affectivity; in brief, it is inconceivable to speak of Christ's passions in abstraction from his perfection in moralvirtue.
Further, it is no less inconceivable to speak. ofChrisfs perfect virtue in abstraction from his absolute sinlessness, since consummate virtue represents the logical complement to sinlessness: since sin is the contrary of virtue--"Sin denotes an inordinate act," Thomas explains, "while a virtuous act denotes an ordinate act"62-a sinless Jesu!? must equate with a perfectly virtuous Jesus. For Aquinas, then, any earnest discussion on Christ's human affectivity necessarily leads one into the arena of Christological singularity, since the critical difference between the moral quality of Jesus' passions and that ofall other humans resides in the tenet of Christ's absolute sinlessness. This explains why Thomas finds that the most enlightening way of describing the moral quality of Jesus' passions is by contrasting itin the threefold manner noted at the outset ofthis chapter-with the affective condition of the general human lot. This latter condition, of course, only too facilely attests to the disordering effects of sin and to the dominating influence of passion over the human spirit, as plainly evidenced, so Aquinas asserts, in the case of the affective pleasures associated with food, drink, and sex." That such affective disorder fails to pertain to Jesus' own station follows from his total immunity to sin, both original and actual; this point Thomas vigorously nnderscores by prefacing his treatise on Christ's passions in Tertia, q. 15 with two articles devoted solely to the notion of Jesus' absolute sinlessness, so as to indicate how this sinle88ness modifies the affective dimension of his humanity. To understand properly the nature of the relationship between Christ's passions and his exercise of virtue, then, and how it frames Aquinas' take on the threefold singnlarity of the
was most perfect in soul... There were therefore virtues in Christ not only habitually but also actually at the' first instant of his creation" (Christus in instanti suae creationis fuit perJectissimus secundum animam ", Ergo in Christo fuerunt virtutes in primo instanti suae creationis, non solum secundum habitum sed etiam secundum actum). 62. STI-II, q. 71, a. 1: "peccatum proprie nominat actum inordinatum, sicut actus vinutis est actus ordinatus." Cf. as well ST 11I, q. IS, a. I. 63. For a sampling of texts in which Aquinas affirms the domination of passion in the lives of most humans,cf.STI-II, q. 31,a.5ad I; q.34, a.1 ad I; q. 58,a. 2; q. 71,a.2ad3;q. 82,a. 4ad I; II-II, q. 95, a. 5 ad 2; Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. VII, lect. 11-4; De potentia Dei, q. 3, a. 6 ad 4; De ver., q. 5, a. 10 ad 7; II Sent, d. IS, q. I, a. 3 ad 4; and III Sent, d. 13, q. I, a. 2, sol. I ad 2. Cf. as well Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 17 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, pp. 96-101); and Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. II, ch. 13 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 119-21).
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moral quality of Christ's passions, we must first examine the way in which the passions bear the disordering consequences of sin, notably original sin, and how Jesus' humanity remains exempt from these consequences.
1. Christ's Immunity to the Effects of Original Sin on Human Affectivity When formulating his views on Christ's immunity to the effects of original sin on human affectivity, Aquinas recapitulates in a cursory fashion certain elements of his doctrine on original sin that he elsewhere develops at great length. Since this doctrine itself-the object of numerous scholarly studies-issues from a profound and highly developed and complex, yet no less coherent, system of thought, we can here present only in brief summary the Dominican friar's regard for the place that both general human affectivity and Christ's human affectivity occupy in that doctrine.64 However, since Thomas' perspective on the human station both before and after the initial sin of the first human parents proceeds from a theological anthropology that collides decidedly with modem assumptions, we must give brief consideration to the theological method by which Aquinas forges this perspective. Exposing such method will not only help elucidate why Thomas adopts what many today would consider an anomalous, if not obsolete, regard for the place of evil in human nature, but will also equip the reader with the necessary key into the entire theological enterprise of Aquinas."
a. The Theological Method ofAquinas In short, Aquinas' doctrine of original sin attempts to account sufficiently for the origin of evil in the world, and thereby explain why the human race finds its existential condition circumvented by undeniable misfortune, affliction, and disease. Rooted in a rich biblical
64. For a brief sampling of scholarly studies on Aquinas' doctrine of original sin, cr. M.-M. Labourdette, "Aux origines du peche de I'homme d'apres saint Thomas d' Aquin," RT 85 (1985), pp. 35798; idem. "Le peche originel dans la tradition de I'Eglise," RT 84 (1984), pp. 357-98; Labourdette's initial work, Le peche originel et les origines de /'homme (paris: Alsatia, 1953) (cr. as well the article devoted to Labourdette's elucidation of Aquinas' doctrine of original sin in volume 92,1 [1992] of the Revue thomiste. by T.D. Humbrech~ "Le peche originel selon Ie P. Labourdette," pp. 153-76); M. Leblanc, "Aspects du peche originel dans la pensee de saint Thomas d' Aquin," RT 93 (1993), pp. 567-600; J.-M. Dubois, "Transmission et remission du peche originel. Genese de la reflexion theologique de saint Thomas d' Aquin," REA 24 (1983), pp. 283-311; O. Magrath, "St. Thomas' Theory of Original Sin," Thorn 16 (1953), pp. 161-89; P. De Letter, "Original Sin, Privation of Original Justice," Thoml7 (1954), pp. 469-509; and T.C. O'Brien, "Introduction," notes and appendices to Summa thOologiae. vol. 26, Original Sin (Londori: Blackfriars, 1965). Cf. as well A.-M. Dubarle, Le peche origineL Perspectives theologiques (paris: Editions du Cerf, 1983). 65. For a thorough exposition of the theological method ofAquinas, c(. J.~P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses my.teres. vol. I, pp. 27-34.
and patristic tradition, an echo of which Aquinas, the consummate theologian, wishes at all times faithfully to transmit, Thomas works from the recognition that such evils-indeed, all
evils-represent alien accretions to the human condition; in Aquinas' mind, human nature initially issued from the creative hand of a loving and merciful God who wished that human life should be devoid of all suffering and pain, be it physical, affective, psychological, or spiritual. For Aquinas, then, the reality of evil originates not with God's creative handiwork, but with some calamitous, cataclysmic event that transpired after the dawn of human creation. This event, of course, the Dominican Master identifies with the fxrst human rebellion against the loving order of grace initially established by God, i.e., with the "original sin" of the first human parents. Methodologically, Thomas derives his position on the initial blissful "prelapsarian" existence of humanity followed by its tragic fall from grace and the concomitant invasion of all the evils that now assail the human being primarily from Scripture-the norm and ultimate authority of theology-particularly his reading, consistent with medieval thought, of Gen 1-3, as well as ofRm 5:12 ("As sin carne into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned"), and Wis 2:24-25 ("Through the devil's envy death entered the world")." Because Aquinas recognizes the radical and absolute marmer by which theology depends upon God's revealed truth, with the "Sacred Page" representing the primary or "incontrovertible" (ex necessitate arguendo) source of such truth, scriptural claims playa decisive role in determining what delineates an authentic confession of faith, with the councils and writings of the Church Fathers playing a privileged role in the definition of that faith (Thomas qualifies the patristic writings as offering "probable" [probabiliter] truth);67 in the unitary vision of Aquinas, all theological speculation, relying ultimately upon the revealed authority of God, burgeons forth from the authority of the Sacred Page-yet as "rightly understood," Thomas insists, "By the
66. In his first sed contra in the opening article of his analysis of original sin in both the Summa (Ill, q. 81, a. I) and the De malo (q. 4, a. I), Thomas, following Peter Lumbard's Glossa on Rm 5:1213 (PL 191, 1388), cites both Rm 5: 12 and Wis 2:24-25. For other Scriptural passages intimating the reality of original sin, cf. Ps 51:5; Eph 2:3; I Kgs 8:46; Eccles7:20; Job 14:4; Ps 143:2; 2 Chr 6:36; Prov 29:9; a.nd Ps 14:3; cf. as well B. Sesboiie, et aI, L'homme et son salut, vol. 2, "Histoire des dogmes" (paris: Declee, 1995), pp. 185-8. 67. STI, q. 1, a. 8 ad 2. That a confession offaith must include the doctrine of original sin Aquinas .flinns in STI..,II, q. 81, a. i (cf. as well De malo. q. 5, a. 4), where he insists that the Catholic faith "obliges" (secundum fidem catholicam est tenendum) one to believe in the existence of original sin (though not on the basis of the explicit witness of a conciliar decree).
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teaching of the Church."" The fusion of Scripture with a crystallized confession of faith (aided particularly by Augustine) accordingly provides the proper framework for Aquinas' theological reflection on the notion of original sin," a reflection buttressed by the clarifi_ cation of reason (through the assistance especially of Aristotle). This reflection then culminates in the use of a deductive method by which Thomas, after fashioning a distinctive anthropology, draws various logical conclusions concerning the role of evil in human nature_ Though much of Aquinas' speculative thought relative to the pre- and post-lapsarian human condition, as well as to Christ's own human station, involves considerable deductive reasoning, by which the Dominican derives a detailed or specified conception ofhurnan nature from the generalized principles inherent in the confession of faith regarding the state of original justice, it is imperative to recognize the vital and inseparable relationship that such reasoning retains with the sources of theological thought just listed; as J.-P. Torrel! writes: "[The theological method of Aquinas] shows us Thomas the theologian in the act of listening to and of transmitting the Christian givens, whose accessibility he opens to his reader."70 In Aquinas' mind, a synergetic and organic continuum runs directly from Scrip-
68. STII-II, q. 5, a. 3 ad 2: "faith adheres to all the articles of ruth through the medium of the First Tndh proposed to us in Scripture as rightly understood by the teaching of the Church" (omnibus articulis fidei inhaeretfides propter unum medium, scilicet propter veritatem primam propositam nobis in Scripturis secundum doctrinam Ecdesiae intelligentis sane), Cf. as well I, q. 1, a. 8 ad 2; In divinis nominibus, II, leet. 1; and In ad Rom, ch. 12, lect. 2. For more on this method in Aquinas, cf. B. Decker, "Schriftprinzip und Ergiinzungstradition in def Theologie des hI. Thomas von Aquin," pp. 191-222; J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 1, pp. 29-30; E. Menard, La Tradition. Revelation, Ecriture, Egliseselon saint Thomas d'Aquin (Bruges-Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1964); andA. Patfoort, "Autour de Scriptura sola chez saint Thomas d' Aquin," in KexaprroJpeVfJ. Melanges Rene Laurenlin (paris: Desclee, 1990), pp. 513-9. 69. Tbe principal works ofAugustine that influence Thomas'understanding of the pre- and post-Iapsarian human condition are De civilale Dei, Bks. XI-XIV (CCSL48, pp. 321-452); De Genesi ad lill., Bks. IX-XI (CSEL28,1, pp. 457-503); De nuplUs el eoncup., Bks. I-II (CSEL42, pp. 211-319); De peecal. meritis el remiss., Bks. I-II (CSEL 50, pp. 1-128); and De libero arbilrio, Bks. I-III (CCSL 29, pp. 211-321). Aquinas also turns to the writings of various other Latin and Greek Fathers (for an analysis of the Greek patristic understanding of God's original plan of creation [though irrespective of its impact on Aquinas] as excluding all suffering and evil, cf. J.-C. Larchet, Dieu ne veut pas la sou! france des hommes). Aquinas' understanding of the introduction of evil into the world is also strongly indebted to Anselm's works, De concepto virgin ale, cbs. 3-28 (ed. Schmitt, vol. 2, pp. 143-71), and De concordia praescientiae et praedestinationis et gratiae Dei cum libero arbitrio, q. 3, ch. 7 (ed. Schmitt, vol. 2, pp. 273-4). 70. J.-P. Torrel1, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. I, p. 33: "Elles nous montre Ie tbeologien Thomas en aete d'ecoute et de transmission du donne chretien, dont il faeiIite I'acces a ses lecteurs."
(Ufe to a confession of faith (or to a doctrinal formulation, aided by the patristic witness), to an anthropological conception (nourished by the truths established by the light of reason, especially philosophy, but also by the empirical sciences), and, finally, to deductive theological reasoning (which employs the same truths known by reason). Though difficult to reconeile with the modem perspective, which, inheriting the rationalism of the Enlightemnent, favors an antithetical relationship between revealed truths of faith and the rigorous proceedings ofreason, such a methodological procedure was for Aquinas (as for his medieval contemporaries) almost too self-evident to warrant justification, even if scholastic disagreements arose over the role of Greek philosophy in theological thought. Ever the synthetic thinker who holds to the fundamental unity of all truth, Thomas would consider nothing more unnatural in the search for truth than to sever any ofthe successive links between the givens of Scripture, a confession of faith, doctrinal definition, anthropological theorizing, and critical deductive reasoning, or to see any of these sequential elements as in themselves subversive of any of the others. The theological method employed by Aquinas explains, then, why the Dominican author looks upon the condition of prelap sarian man as normative in detennining a truly accurate anthropology, since this condition corresponds to God's initial-and continual (via Christ's redemptive accomplishments)--
h. The Affective Integrity ofPre/apsarian Man The paramount significance that the human condition owned by the first human being before the entrance of sin into the world holds for this stndy centers on the fact thatJesus' humanity, because it is sinless, closely resembles the state of prelapsarian man, relative particularly to the moral quality of the human affectivity of the prelapsarian state; as M.B. Schwalm writes: "The state of original justice in Adain as it issues from the hand ·of God offers the best idea of what Christ's own station was like, which stands above every
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movement and enticement of concupiscence."ll Thomas, in fact, affinns the correlation be-. tween the moral quality of Christ's passions and Adam's before the Fall in the Prima Pars of the Summa, where, following Augustine, he offers his description of the experience of passion in prelapsarian man in terms that bear a striking congruity to his remarks on Christ's passions cited at the outset of this chapter: Augustine says that in the first man, "there was undisturbed love of God," as well as other passions of the sou.... [Hence] those passions that regard the present good, such as joy and love, or which regard the future good to be possessed at the proper time,
such as desire and hope ... existed in the state of innocence, yet in a way otherwise than in us. For, in us the sensitive appetite, from which the passions arise, is not en~ rirely subject to reason. Accordingly, our passions at times both precede and impede the judgment ofreason; at other times, however, they issue from the judgment of reason, inasmuch as the sense appetite obeys reason to a certain extent. But in the state ofinnocence, the lower appetite was wholly subject to reason, so that the passions of the soul always issued as a consequence of the judgment ofreason.72
Here Thomas lays out his vision of the unique harmony or integrity of soul enjoyed by Adam in the idyllic state of original innocence, by which the higher intellectual powers restrained the sense appetite's limited autonomy to the extent that all movements ofaffectivity, strictly regulated by reason's limited or "political" rule (principatus politicus), were naturally directed to virtue. Aquinas, of course, founds this position on the total submission of sensibility to reason not only on the basis of the umnitigated harmony that pervades the entire paradisiacal state as recounted in Gen 2:7-25, but also and especially on the claim of Gen 3:7 (cf. as wen Gen 2:25): here one reads that the first man and woman became aware
71. M.-B. Schwalm, Le Christ d'apr" saint Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 294-5: "Vetat de justice originelle d' Adam au sortir des mains de Dieu peut Ie mieux nous donner quelque idee de celui du Chris't, superieur atout mouvement et atout attrait de concupiscence." 72. STI, q. 95, a. 2, sed eontra and corpus; ,emphasis mine: "Dicit Augustinus [cf. De eiv. Dei, Bk. XIv, ch. 10 (CCSL 48, p. 430)] quod in primo homine, 'amor erat inperturbatus in Deum, 'et quaedam aUae animae passiones ... Illae vero passiones quae possunt esse boni praesentis, ut gaudium et amor, vel quae sunt futuri boni in suo tempore habendi, ut desiderium et spes ." fuerunt in statu innocentiae; aliter tamen quam in nobis. Nam in nobis appetitus sensualis, in quo sunt passiones, non totaliter subest rationi. Unde passiones quandoque sunt in nobis praevenientes iudicium rationis, et impedientes; quandoque vera ex iudicio rationis consequentes, prout sensuaUs appetitus aliqualiter rationi obedit. In statu vero innocentiae inferior appetitus erat rationi totaliter subiectus. Unde non erant in eo passiones animae, nisi ex rationis iudicio consequentes." Cf. as well ST I-II, q. 85, a. 3. For more on how Aquinas' Christology builds upon the analysis of preiapsarian man in the Prima Pars. cf. G. Lafont, Structures et methode, p. 169.
of their nakedoess only after they had sinned, a claim that the Fathers of the Church, typified particularly by Augnstine, understand as implying the absence of a disordered concupiscible appetite in the prelapsarian state." At play here as well is Aquinas' understanding, which shall be examined more closely below, that absolute sinlessness necessarily precludes any trace of dishannony between the sense appetite and reason's imperium, since such a condition inevitably leads to a condition of venial sin. ill a word, Thomas understands that a life of consummate friendship and intimacy with God requires one to envision a life wholly ordered to God, and if the entirety of human life is to be ordered to God, then all the movements of the body and of the sensate soul must themselves be wholly ordered to
God. For this reason, Thomas holds that the prelapsarian state, benefiting from the grace of original justice, involves a condition of what M.-M. Labourdette calls the "three great types of submission": the submission ofthe soul to God, of sensibility to reason, and of the body to the SOU!.74 All three types of submission ultimately ensue as in a causal chain upon the soul's consummate union with God, since all three have as their united aim the safeguarding of the orientation of the entirety of human life to God, the supreme end of human life; as Thomas, again inspired by the Bishop of Hippo (and ultimately by Gen 2-3), explains in the Prima Pars: The rectitude of the first state consisted in reason being subject to God, the lower powers to reason, and the body to the soul. The first subjection was the cause of both the second and the third. In this way, so long as reason remained subject to God, the lower powers remained subject to reason, as Augustine says.7S
Since the animal appetite owns by nature its own limited autonomy, which prevents it from submitting to reason's imperium in a purely obediential or "despotic" manner, only a supernatural gift owing to the grace of original justice could allow reason to hold supreme mastery over what the forces of nature would otherwise preclude, viz., the radical rectification of sense appetite's total subjection to reason. Unmitigated psychological harmony be-
73. For more on this understanding ofGen 3:7 among numerous patristic authors, cf. P. Brown, The Body and SOciety: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1988). 74. M-M. Labourdette, "Aux origines du poch<: de I'homme," pp. 367-9, at 369. cr. as well D. Chardonnens, L 'homme sow Ie regard de laprovidence, p. 138. 75. STI, q. 95, a. 1: "Rectitudo primi status secundum hoc quot! ratio subdebatur Deo, rationi vero inferiores vires, et animae corpus. Primo autem subiecto erat causa et secundae, et tertiae. Quamdiu enim ratio manebat Deo subiecta, inferiora ei subdebantur, ut Augustinus dicit [cf. De eiv. Dei, Bk. xm, ch. 13 (CCSL48, p. 395)]. "Cf. Comp. theol., chs. 187 and 192.
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tween sensibility and spirit, in otber words, exceeds the efficacy of what nature alone c cause; natural principles alone cannot ensure that all the movements of the sensate soul an~ the body be ordered to God-only a special grace can do this: The gift bestowed upon man in the first state that united the lower powers entirely to reason and the body to the soul was not from the efficacy of any natural principles, but from the efficacy of original justice. 76 It is clear that the subjection of the body to the soul and of the lower powers to reason was not from nature; otheIWise, such subjection would have remained after sin.n
With his passions remaining free from any kind of moral disorder, by which his affective response to all sense stimuli accommodated reason's supreme command, Adam could in no sense be induced to action by some antecedent impulse of passion or by some alluring affective temptation, which would, however briefly, have obscured his reasoning capacity: Human law, which has been given by Divine order as according to man's proper condition, determines how humans should act in accordance with reason. This law was so powerful in the first state that nothing either besides reason or against reason could creep up on ~an without his being aware of it. 78
\c'l,ab,le of recapturing the hannony and unity, particularly between sensibility and reaas well as between body and soul, that it initially possessed: With the dissolution of the bond of original justice, which had united in a certain order all the powers of the soul, each power of the soul tends to its own proper movement?"
identifies the fracture of the union between sensibility and reason as a kind of "cor'rol,tiOn;· which, likened to the corruptibility of the body analyzed in the previous chapter, the loss of a natural disposition in exchange for a contrary one, or, in this case, the of reason's unified control of human affectivity in exchange for affective movements contrary to or disjoined from reason's preferred disposition. The sense appetite, in "other words, now inclines, as a consequence of original sin, to objects at times opposed to reason, an inclination that invites the experience of contrary affective dispositions, i.e., dispositions contrary to the true human good. This is readily verified by common human ex.perience, as individuals, for example, who fail to reign in their concupiscible appetites fmd themselves susceptible to affective states, via elicited desires for illicit sex, that are contrary to reason's preferred disposition; as Aristotle puts it, "the impulses of the" incontinent person move in contrary directions."8o Explaining this notion of the conuption of the soul, Thomas writes:
c. The Consequences of Original Sin on Human Affectivity
Again, the radical rectification and integrity of soul enjoyed by prelapsarian man depended strictly upon his spirit's total SUbjection to God. The subsequent removal of this SUbjection through the first sin involved an instantaneous withdrawal of all sequential gifts, including the umnitigated imperium of reason over sensibility. Disruption by sin at the top tung disintegrates the successive principles unifYing the first human being and ends in a condition of disorder. As a result, each descendent of Adam inherits a severed condition, utterly
76. De ver., q. 25. a. 7: "Quod enim homin; in primo statu collatum/uit ut ratio totaliter inforiores "ires contineret, et anima corpus, luit ... ex virtute originalis iustitiae. " 77. STI. q. 95. a, 1: "ManiJestum est au/em, quod ilia subiectio corporis ad animam. et inforiorum virium ad rationem non era! naturalis; alioquin post peccatum mansisset. " For similar remarks, cf. Augustine, De Gen. ad lilt.• Bk. VI. ch. 25 (CSEL28,I, p. 197); Damascene, Dejideorth.• Bk. II, ch. II (ed. Buytaert, p. 108); and Bonaventure, Brevi!, pI. 2, ch. 10 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 228). CF. as well forAquinasSTI. q. 97, aa. 1-2; q. 98, a. I ad I; I-II, q. 85, aa. 5-6; q. 89, a. 5 ad 3; Qu. disp. De anima. q. 8; II Sent, d. 19, q. I, aa. 3-4; and d. 21, q. I, aa. 1-3.
78. STI-IT, q. 91, a. 6: "hominis lex, quam sortitur ex ordinatlone divina secundum propriam conditionem, ut secundum rationem operetur. Quae quidem l~ fuil tam valida in primo statu, ut nihil vel praeter rationem vel contra rationem posset subrepere homini." For texts in Aquinas affinning the enticing leverage of those passions that arise outside of reason's imperium in the post-lapsarian condition, cf. STI-II, q. 74, a. 4 ad I; q. 77, aa. 6-8; cf. as well H.-D. Noble, "Passions," col. 2231.
The corruption of the soul should be considered after the manner of bodily corruption. The latter results from the fact that, when the principle that holds the individual contrary parts together is removed, these parts tend to whatever is suitable to their natures from which ensues the dissolution of the body. Similarly, when original justice, by which all the lower powers were hel.d together in total subjection to reason in the state of innocence, was removed, the individual lower powers were allowed to tend to what is proper to them: the concupiscible power to pleasure, the irascible power to anger, etc.... [Thus] corruption is said to be in the sensitive powers inasmuch as, being deprived of the unifying control of reason, these powers go out in their respective directions. 81
79. STI-IT, q. 82, a. 4 ad 1: "So/uto vinculo originalis iustitiae, sub quod quodam Online omnes vires animae continebantur, unaquaeque vis animae tendit in suum proprium motum. " Cf. Compo theol., ch. 192; and M.-M. Labourdette, "Aux origines du pecbe de l'homme," pp. 371-85. For Bonaventure, cf. Brevi!. pt. 3, ch. 4 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 233). 80. Aristotle, Nic. Ethics, Bk. I, ch. 13 (1102b21-2). 81. De ver., q. 25, a. 6: "Corruptio autem animae de qua loquimur, consideranda estadmodum c~r ruptionis corpara/is, quae quidem contingit ex hoc quod remoto continente singulae partes contran~e tendunt in id quod eis convenit secundum naturam, et sic fit corporis disso/utio,' similiter remota onginali iustitia, per quam ratio inferiores vires continebat in statu innocentiae omnino sibi subiectas,
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Though a genuine evil, inasmuch as it signals the privation of the grace of original justice a grace that God intended to remain a permanent fIxture of human life, this corruption of the sensitive appetite Aquinas nonetheless recognizes to represent, like the corruptibility of the material body, a "natural" feature of the human condition, or at least the natural condi_ tion of humanity in abstraction from what the grace of original justice endowed upon prelapsarian man: When [original] justice was removed by sin, man returned to the state suitable to him as according to his own natural principles ....Thus,just as man naturally dies and cannot be restored to immortality .. , so too does the concupiscible power naturally tend to what is pleasurable and the irascible power to what is arduous, even outside the order of reason. 82
Though Thomas rails to explain entirely why he views the corruption caused by the disharmony between sensibility and spirit to be part and parcel of the state of nature, one can supply the needed clarifIcation if one returns to the notion of the restricted autonomy enjoyed by the sense appetite, or to the notion ofthe limited rule (principatus politicus) that reason exerts over sensibility. In brief, the grace of original justice allowed for such a radically extensive penetration of reason into the sensitive appetite that every elicited movement of this appetite was assured of coinciding with the imperium of reason and will, i.e., that the rule of reason was itself in every movement of prelapsarian man's affectivity, thereby preserving Adam's radical rectification of soul. Natural principles alone cannot ensure that reason
should penetrate sensibility to the extent that the concupiscible and irascible appetites, owning limited autonomy, should not at any moment tend to their proper objects irrespective of reason's command. Based on natural principles alone, in other words, the lower appetites operate, proceeding from sense perception to appetitive inclination-in-motion, in their own
not reach the extent of annulling an eventual and inevitable coIlision between reason's imperium and the sense appetite's autonomous inclination. With the withdrawal of the grace of original justice, so too was the inherent and instinctive orientation to virtue that affectivity enjoyed in the prelapsarian state removed. Only the grace of original justice could ensure that all the movements of the sensate soul should remain wholly ordered to God, the supreme end of human life. This consequence of original sin on sensibility, whereby the inherent and instinctive orientation of the sense appetite to virtue (and ultimately to God) is removed, thereby engendering an eventual collision between inclinations of affectivity and reason's imperium, Aquinas labels "concupiscence" (though related, this term, which owns a distinguished patristic heritage, should not be equated with the concupiscible appetite)." In itselfthe term concupiscence sums up, at least for Thomas, the particular manner in which human affectivity bears the consequences of original sin, viz., "the disorder of the soul's powers ... [which] are [now] turned inordinately to mutable goods."84 Instead of the inherent orientation to virtue and to God it enjoyed in prelapsarian man on account of its total sharing in reason's empire through an all-encompassing derivatio from the intellectual powers, the animal appetite in fallen man loses some of this derivatio, and inclines to its own sentient object irrespective of the commands of reason; this requires one to strive assiduously at integrating the lower appetite into reason's imperium and, subsequently, into the exercise of virtue. Concupiscence, as a consequence of original sin, is then nothing other than the appetitive inclination to sentient objects regardless of whether they serve the natural and ultimate (i.e., rational) end of human life; put another way, concupiscence is, as Thomas explains, the affective capacity of the sensitive appetite to induce one to "exceed the bounds of rea50n."85 Concupiscence refers, then, to the general state of disorder, whereby the sensate
sentient spheres independent of the intellectual domain; and though reason, as noted earlier in this chapter, naturally penetrates sensibility in the exercise of virtue, this penetration does
83. Cf.A. Chollet, "Concupiscence," DTC3,I (1908), cols. 803-14; C. Gallagher, "Concupiscence," Thorn 30 (1966), pp. 228-59; and J.J. Mickler, A Scriptural, Historical and Theological Study oj the
Idea of Concupiscence as It Relates to Representative Theories of Original and Actual Sin in Convires inferiores singulae tendunt in id quod est eis proprium, scilicet concupiscibilis ~n delectationem, irascibilis in iram, et alia huiusmodi ... [Cjorruptio est in viribus sensitivis, in quantum continentia rationis privatae in diversaferuntur." cr. as well STI-II, q. 87, a 1; and q. 109, a. 7. 82. De ver., q. 25, a. 7: "Qua quidem [origina/is] iustitiaper peccatum sublata, homo rediit ad statum convenientem sibi secundum principia sua naturalia ... Sicut ergo naturaliter homo moritut; nee ad immorlaiitatem reduci potest ... ita naturaliter concupiscibilis tendit in delectabile et irascibilis in ard""um etiam praeter ordinem rationis. "For sin as an evil and a privation of what should be present, cf. SrI, q. 48, a. 5 ad I; De malo, q. 1, a. 2; q. 4, a. 2, sed contra 12:1; andP. De Letter, "Original Sin, Privation of Original Justice," pp. 469-509.
temporary Catholic Ethical Systems, Ph.D. Diss., Fordham University, 1983 (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Services, 1992). 84. STI-II, q. 82, a. 3: "inordinatio virium animae ... praecipue in hoc attenditur quod inordinate convertuntur ad bonum commutabile." cr. ST I-II, q. 85, a. 3; M. Blanc, "Aspects du pech6 originel," p. 588; and M.-M. Labourdette, "Aux origines du pech6 de I'homme," pp. 385-90. For basic agreement from Bonaventure, cf. Brevi!, pI. 3, cbs. 5--{; (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 234-6). 85. STI-II, q. 82, a. 3 ad 1: "transcendit limites rationis ... et taUs est concupiscentia originalis peccati." Cf. as well STI-II. q. 85, a. 3 ad 3; De malo, q. 4, a. 2 ad 7:1 ("concupiscentia contractaper originem nichil est aliud quam destitutio inforiorum virium a retinaculo iustitie originalis"); and II Sent, d. 30, q. 1, a. 3.
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soul (and the body) no longer remains wholly ordered to God As such, it adheres to thenat_ ural condition of humanity (though in abstraction from the prelapsarian state): "Concup_ iscence is natural," Thomas explains, "according to corrupted, i.e., fallen nature, but not according to nature as it was first instituted."" Accordingly. concupiscence stands at the root source of the inner battle between flesh and spirit. well known for its poignant Pauline depiction (cf. Rm 7:14-24; cf. as well Gal 5:16-17; Mk 14:38; 1 In 2:16; and Jm 1:14). and accounts for the fact that humans now find themselves easily prone to pursuing a purely animal fonn of existence, or to enslaving themselves, as Aquinas explains, to "the impulses of sensuality": The Apostle says [in Rm 7:23]: «I see in my members another law at war with the law of my spirit, making me captive to the law of sin. t. Now the law in the members is
concupiscence. 87 As a result of sin, man experiences in his lower sensitive appetite the disordered
movements of concupiscence, anger, and other passions. These movements follow not the disposition of reason; rather they resist reason, and frequently cloud reason and, as it were, lead it astray. This is the struggle of the flesh against the spirit that Scripture mentions [in Rm 7:23].88
When man turned from God, he became subject to sensual impulses, and this happens to each one individually in the very measure that he turns from reason; in this manner, he becomes, so to speak, like the beasts that are led by the impulses of sensual-
ity.89
86. De malo. q. 4, a. 2, sed contra 2:1 (cf. as well ad 2: 1): "concupiscentia est "aturalis secundum naturam corruptam, non autem secundum naturam institutam." Cf. Hugh of St. Victor, De sacr. Christ. fidei, Bk. I. pt 7. ch. 31 (PL 176. 302). Here Thomas takes his distance from Albert. who in De incarn., tr.4, q. 4 (ed. Colon., p. 210) intimates that concupiscence does not follow upon natural principles: "Illud dicitur in natura nostra plantasse quod consequitur ad naturam ex principiis componentibus, sf nihil prohibeat, sicut est sitis, fames et mars et alii defectus qui naturales dicuntur. Ignorantia vera et concupiscentia et peccatum et turbatio sunt defectus animae ratlonalis, cuius naturae est nulli defectu; subiacere. Unde illi non sunt plantali in natura. sed post seminati ab hoste maligno." 87. STI-II, q. 77, a 2, sed contra: "Dicit Apostolus: 'Video aliam legem in membris meis repugnantem legi mentis meae, et captivantem me in lege peccati. •Lex autem quae est in membris est concupiscentia. "Cf. as well STI-ll. q. 77. a. 2 corpus, aa. 1 and 3; and De malo, q. 3. a. 9. 88. Camp. theol., ch. 192: "Unde consecutum est ut homo sentiret in inferiori appetitu sensibili concupiscentie et ire et ceterarum passionum tnordtnatos motus, non secundum oniinem rationis sed magis ei repugnantes, et earn plerumque obnubilantes et quasi pertrahentes. Et hec est pugna carnis ad spintum de qua Scriptura loquitur." 89. STI-II, q. 91, a. 6: "Dum homo a Deo recessit. tncurrit in hoc quodferatursecundum impetum sensualitatis; et unicuique etiam partieulariler hoc contingit, quanta magis a ratione recesserit; ut sic quodammodo bestiis assimiletur, quae sensualitatis impetu fenmtur."
299
Part of t.he indelib~e corruption of original sin, concupiscence remains. so Aquinas insists al?ng WIth Augnstine. Peter Lombard, Albert the Great. and Bonaventure. a permanent reahty of the post-Iapsanan h~.an condition. and not even baptism neutralizes the interior di~cord between flesh and. ~pmt. Or between affectivity and reason; i.e .• not even baptism rem~tates the human condltlOn to a state whereby the integrated entirety of human life includmg the movements of the body and the sensate soul. is wholly ordered to God it 90 supreme end. All humans. saint and sinner alike. who have contracted a fallen nature ~us~ grapple with the disordered affective consequences of concupiscence as Aquinas affinn when he speaks ft th f • s . ,a er
e manner 0 Bonaventure, of the unforeseen or "antecedent" move-
ments of passlOn that all humans experience: "Both the virtuous and the sinner have not only foreseen b~t also sudden.passions. and not only regarding good but also regarding evil. ... ' The notio~ of concuplsc"."ce holds. such. sign~ficance in Aquinas' doctrine of original sin ~at the Dommlcan theologIan even l~entifies It with the "material" element of original
~m--:-afte~ he has extended the term to mclude the entire disorder among the soul's powers :Vh.'ch dIsorder may be called b.y the. common name of concupiscence.'''' That is. whiJ~ linkmg the formal ~pect of ongmal sm ~o the privation itself of original justice. Thomas corr~lates the matenal element WIth the dIsharmony or disorder in the human soul (for Augustine. Albert. an~ Bona~enture. ~oncupiscence is identified instead with original sin as such. rather than Wlth Just Its matenal aspect); as Aquinas explains in the De malo: In ~e sin of the first parent ther: was a fonnal element, viz., the turning away from an tmmutable good, and a matenaJ element, viz., the turning to a mutable good. Because the first parent turned away from an immutable good, he lost the gift of origi-
90. De ~~r., q. 24. a. 12; q. 25. a. 7. corpus and ad 5; Camp. theol.• ch. 224; De rna/a, q. 4. a. 2. sed contra 8.1, q. 4, a. 2, sed contra 10:1; q. 4, a. 2, sed contra 4:111; q. 4, a. 2 ad 10:1; q. 4, a. 2 ad 2:111; q. 4. a. 6 ad 4; STH-H. q. 155. a. 3. corpus and ad I; and III. q. 15. a. 2. Cf. Augustine. De nuptiis et conCUplScentlO, Bk. I. ch. 26. n. 29 (CSEL42. p. 241); Lombard. II Sent, d. 32. ch. I (ed. Coil. Bonav.• vol. I, ~p. 512-3); Albert, Quaestio de sensualitate et eius motibus. a. 4 (ed. Colon., vol. 25, 2, pp. 224-5). II Sent, d. 18. aa. 3-6; and Bonaventure. Brevi!, pt. 3. ch. 7 (ed. Quaracchi p.236). 91: De v~r., q. 26, a. 8: "habent [in iustis et peccatoresj tamen passiones non soium praevisas sed ;tlam subltas, et non. solum respe~tu boni sed ~tiam respe~tu mali." Bonaventure (III Sent, d. 15, a. . ' q. 2 [ed. Q~aracchl, p. 338]) opines that paSSIOn may at times arise outside the command of reason In bo~ th: virtuous ~d the sinner, which is unavoidable and unforeseen on account of impUlses tow~d SIn .(l.~ .., concupiscence): "Est in enim quaedam tristitia, quae est praeter ralionis imperium ... ~t lila trlStltla. es.t praeter ra~ionis imperium, quae consurgit ex quadam necessitate et surreptione, Slcut mo.tus przmE; et haec qUldem communis est sapientibus et insipientibus. et bonis et malis. ., ~;. S~I-.II,~. ~2, a. 3~ "omnis aut~m alia inordinatio autem aliarum virium animae se habet in pect~ orzgl~alz Slcut qUlddam matenale ... quae qUidem inordinatio communi nomine potest dici conCUplscentla." Cf. STI-II, q. 85, a. 5.
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nal justice, and because he turned inordinately to amutable good, his lower powers, which were initially intended to follow reason, were instead drawn down towards lower things. Subsequently, in Adam's descendants the higher part of the soul lacks the proper order to God, which it had by virtue of original justice, and the lower powers are not subject to reason but are turned toward lower things according to their own impulses, and even the body itself tends to corruption according to the tendency of the contraries of which it is composed .... [T]he privation of original justice is [therefore] the quasi-fannal element of original sin, and concupiscence is the quasi-material element.93
As this analysis of the consequences of original sin on human affectivity reveals, Aquinas, infonned by the theological method noted above, pursues a course that attempts to explain in a sophisticated and theologically coherent manner the reason each human individual experiences the following undeniable existential fact: the inner conflict between flesh and spirit, or the tension that arises between desires for intennediate sentient goods and desires for the ultimate rational good. Convinced that such a tension, because it serves to disrupt one's interior disposition in a way that leads to a life of psychological affliction and anguish, does not correspond to the rectified hannony of soul that God initially willed the human race to possess, Thomas maintains that only the first cataclysmic act of human rebellion against God, which he tenns original sin, could account for such a crippling affective condition. Though it fails to resolve all the quandaries or to satisfy exhaustively all the remaining issues that the inner conflict between flesh and spirit provokes, and though Thomas' position itself remains open to further scrutiny, the doctrine of original sin that Aquinas forges goes far in helping to understand that which remains an imposing psychological enigma.
93. De malo q. 4, a. 2: "In peccato primi parentis foit aliquidformale, scilicet aversio ab incommutabili bOl1O, et aliquid materia Ie, scilicet conversio ad bonum commutabile. Ex hoc autem quod aversus fuit ab incommutabili bono,. donum originalis iustWe amisit. ex hoc Vera quod conversus est inordinate ad commutabile bonum, inferiores vires que erigi debebant ad rationem. depresse sunt ad inferiora. Sic igitur et in his que ex eius stirpe oriuntur. et superior pars anime caret debito ordine ad Deum, qUi erat per originalem iustitiam, et inferiores vires non subduntur rationi, set ad inferiora convertuntur secundum praprium impetum, et ipsum etiam corpus in corruptionem tendit secundum inclinationem contrariorum ex quibus componitur ... [Cjarentia originalis iustWe est quasi formale in peccato originale, concupiscentia autem est quasi materiate. ,. Cf. as well De malo. q. 4, a. 4 ad 2: "concupiscentia est peccatum originale materialiter. ,. and STI-II, q. 82, a. 3: UEt ita peccatum originale materialiter quidem est concupiscentia,formaliter vera est defectus originalis iustitae. ,. For the originality or Aquinas' position vis-a-vis Augustine, Albert, and Bonaventure, cf. J.-M. Dubois, "Transmission et remission du p6che originel,' p. 294; and M.-M. Labourdette, "Aux origines du peche," pp. 382-5.
301
d. "Christ Received Human Nature in the Purity that It Possessed in the State ofInnocence" When ~ddressing the relationship between sin and Christ's human affectivity St. Thomas recogmzes, and seeks to account for, the radical moral difference between Jesus and the rest of the human family that Scripture attests, as in Heb 4: IS, "We have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin". That a confession of faith, in fact, requires one to hold to the absence of concupiscence, or of the dishannony between sensibility and reason in Christ, A~uin~ finds explicitly confirmed by the Second Council of Constantinople (553), whIch mamtalns that Jesus was not "troubled by the passions of the soul nor the desires of the flesh."" Little wonder, then, that Thomas should tum to the prelapsarian state as the most enlightening way of conceiving the place of sin in Christ's sensibility; J.-P. Torrell sums this point up well when he writes: "{fwe wish to know what Christ's passions were like, we should compare them not to what they are like in us, but to what they were like in the first Adam before sin."95 Without a doubt, for Aquinas all questions conceruing the morality of Christ's affective life must take as their statting point the indisputable ontological fact that Christ possesses without question the perfection of every possible grace, since only superlative grace could account for his sinlessness or radical harmony of soul, and, concomitantly, his perfection in virtue. (If the capacity for virtue follows directly upon the possession of sanctifying grace, it is because grace, an entitative habitus which perfects the soul's essence, acts as the root source of that which perfects the soul's powers or faculties, viz., virtue, which is an op96 erational habitus. ) As a consequence of his perfection in grace, Jesus experiences the most perfect moral life conceivable, and in the case of his affectivity, he enjoys the complete and consummate integration of passion in the exercise of moral virtue, thereby
94. In its twelfth anathema (DS 434; DEC, p. 119), the Second Council of Constantinople condemned Theodore of Mopsuestia's view that Christ experienced "troubling passions and desires of the flesh and became better by his progress in good works" (Theodorum Mopsuestenum. qui dixit alium esse Deum Verbum, et alium Christum a passionibus animae et desideriis carnis molestias patientem .... et sic ex prafectu operum melioratum). For more on Thomas' detailed Imowledge of Constantinople U's teaching, cf. M. Morard, "Une source de saint Thomas d'Aquin," pp. 21-56. 95. J.-P. Torren, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vQI. 1, p. 107: "si nous voulons savoir aquoi ressemblaient l~s passions chez Ie Christ, il ne faut pas raisonner apartir de ce qu' elles sont chez nous mais a partir de ce qu'elles etaient chez Ie premier Adam avant Ie peche." 96. Cf. STl-TI, q. llO, aa. 3-4; and ill, q. 7, a. 2.
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warranting a likening of Christ's affective station to that of the prel.apsari:m state. Like Adam, Jesus enjoyed a condition whereby his entire integrated hfe, mcluding the movements of his sensate soul and his body, were wholly ordered to God. We had earlier seen, however, that correlating the affective condition of prelapsarian man to that of Christ's humanity encounters some pointed difficulties, ifnot engende?n~ an outright tension in Christological thought: on the one hand, the assum.ed defect of Christ s passibility of soul, i.e., his affective suffering, issues from the corruption of fallen natiue;
on the other hand, Jesus' absolute sinlessness necessitates a re~emblanc~ to the moral lU-
tegrity ofAdam's affectivity, since Aquinas takes it as a. simple gIven that smlessn~s~ ?r perfection in virtue necessarily precludes the post-Iapsanan struggle between senSIbIlIty and reason (cf. Tertia, q. 15, a. 2). Previous to Aquinas, an impressive contingent ofpatns!!c and medieval authorities-including Boethius, John Darnascene, Hugh ofS!. Vict?r, Peter Lo~ bard, Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, and Bo?~v~ntiue-had recogm~ed the pernnence of identifying to varying degrees Christ's passIbIhty of soul WIth Adarn s m the ~tat: of innocence." Attempting for his part to give theological coherence to the general smll-
larities and dissimilarities between Jesus and prelapsarian man, Aquinas, as we have seen,
as the lower powers were completely subject to reason,a subjection that was removed by the sin of our first paren!."IOO Simply put, if ontologically the passible Christ resembles more fallen man by making himself subject to the sarne affective suffering to which all those who inherit a corrupt and weakened human natiue are subject, then morally speaking Jesus' pas-
sions more closely correspond to the passions of prelapsarian man, inasmuch as Christ's affective movements in no sense taint his radical harmony and integrity of soul, safeguarded by his perfection in grace and virtue; to let Aquinas express it (in terms that echo the thought of Lombard): "In Christ there was no defect of this life [including the passions] that is incompatible with the perfection ofgrace. "101 Aqninas fights to retain Christ's perfection in virtue and grace at all cost, and such perfection cannot suffer a defeat at the hands of his movements of affectivity, which two consequences of original sin-the inclination to evil and difficulty in doing good-would succeed in doing; as Thomas writes: The inclination to evil and difficulty in doing good are caused by a lack of grace or by imperfection, and would diminish praise of Christ, as if he were not perfect in virtue,102
adopts the Augustinian-Lombardian Christo-anthropological historical"chart, whereby
Christ is seen to take on from the sinful "phase" of human eXlsten.c~ the. pumshments of this life" (poenalitatibus huius vitae), while from the phase of ongmaiinnocence he as-
sumes one feature only: "immunity to sin" (~mmunitatem a peccato). ~8
.
.
I the end, it is this immunity to sin extracted from the state of ongmaiinnocence that mak:s the pararnount difference in Aquinas' vision ?f~e moral ~uality ~f Jesus' hum:m affectivity: "Christ received human nal!rre without sm, In the punty ~a~ It posses~ed m the state of innocence";" and, "[Christ shares in] the integrity of the ongmal state, masmuch
97. Boethius, Liber contra Eut. et Nest., ch. 8 (ed. Stewart, p. 123); Da?,ascene, Defide Or/h., Bk. III, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 260); HughofSI. Victor, Desacr. Christ. fidel, Bk. II, pI. I, ch. 7 (P~ 176, 389); Lombard,lII Sent, d. 16, ch. 2 (ed. Coll. Bonav., p. lOS); Alexander of Hales, Qu. d,sp. ante. essetfrater', q. 16, disp. 1-4 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 224-74); Albert, De mcarn., tr. 6, q. 1, aa. 1-2 and 12 (ed. Colon., pp. 219-29); III Sent, d. IS, a. 6 ad I; and d. 16, aa. 3 and S; and Bonaventure, Brevii.. pI. 4, ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 249). . 98. STIlI, q. 13, a. 3 ad 2. Cf. Augustine, De div. Quaest. 83, q. 66, n. 3 (CCSL44A, pp. IS4-S), and Lombard, III Sent, d. 16. ch. 2 (ed. ColI. Bonav., p. 105); cf. as well Summa sententlarum, ch. 18 (PL 176, 78); Albert, De incarn., tr. 6, q. I, a. S (ed. Colon., p. 224); and Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 16, a. I, q. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 3S1). . . . 99 STIII, q. 14, a. 3: "Accepit enim naturam humanam absque peccato in illapurl~ate m qua e~at .' . t ' " Cf as well STIlI q 31 a 7 ad 2' "Christ assumed flesh not tnfected by sm, in statu mnocen we.. .' " .
The problematic tension, then, that arises from the fact that Christ's human affectivity shares both similar and dissimilar traits with the affectivity of prelapsarian man is best resolved, so Aquinas' thought implies, by employing the distinction between ontological defect (or natural limitation) and moral integrity: ontologically, Christ's human affectivity is
dissimilar to that of prelapsarian man, since Jesus assumes, along with such things as hunger and mortality, the defect of passion as a consequence of the corruption of fallen human nature, while morally his passions are similar to Adam's in the state of innocence, since Jesus undergoes movements ofpassion that accord with consummate moral integrity.
like unto the flesh of man before sin" (Christus assumpsit carnempeccato non infectam. sicutfoerat caro hominis ante peccatum). 100. Compo theal., ch. 224: "Hoc autem videtur ad integritatem primi status pertinuisse ut inferiores vires tota/iter ration; subderentur: que quidem subiectio per peccatum primi parentis est sublala. " 101. De ver., q. 26, a 8. sed contra 3; emphasis mine: "In Chris'tojuenmt defectus huius vitae qui perfectioni gratiae non repugnant." Cf. Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, ch. 1 (ed. ColI. Bonav" p. 94). Thomas' position here remains consistent throughout: cf. III Sent, d. 15, q. 1, a. 2. sed contra, Compo theol., ch. 226; and STIII, q. 14, a. 4. 102. III Sent, d. 15, q. 1, a 2: "imporial pronitas ad malum, difficultas ad bonum, et huiusmodi, que ex carentia gratia vel imperfectione contingunt. Ex hoc enim laus Christi minueretur, si perJectus in vir/utwus nonJuisset." Cf. as well STIII, q. 14, a. 4; Lombard, III Sent, d. IS, ch. I (ed. Coil. Bonav., p. 94); Alexander of Hales, III Sent, d. IS, n. S4 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 168); Albert, III Sent, d. IS, a. S, and a. 8 ad S; and Bonaventure, III Sent, d. IS, a. 1, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 333).
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Christ assumes a human nature subject to certain non-culpable ontological weaknesses, or to certain aspects of natural corruption;.he does not assume a human nature subject to sin, or to moral corruption and culpable defect.IO' If ontologically the passible Christ is weak, then morally the affective Jesus is incomparably strong; indeed, Thomas even avers on one
occasion that "Christ was more perfect in soul than the first man in the primitive state."I04 Aquinas insists upon a Christ whose sensibility, along with the entirety of his body and soul, remains wholly ordered to God at all times. Aquinas would also, had he explicitly addressed the issue, offer as a resolution of the tension between Jesus' affective similitude and dissimilitude to prelapsarian man the distinction between corruption and infection that he supplies in the De veritate. "Corruption and infection of original sin differ in the sense that infection refers to guilt and corruption to punishment. "I" Applying this distinction to Jesus, one would say that Christ assumes a corrupt passibility of soul but not an infected passibility of soul. For these reasons, then, it can be appreciated why Aquinas appropriates without hesitation John Damascene's assertion that Christ experienced only "indetractible human passions" (indetractibiles passiones hominis), i.e., passions that imply no moral defect, Of, as Thomas says, "no defect of grace. "106 Subsequently, in order to preserve his perfection in grace and virtue, Jesus must forego the effects of original sin that sabotage the moral integrity of human affectivity; Jesus must forego, in other words, concupiscence: "There was no conflict of appetites in C1u1st, or rebellion of the flesh against the spirit."I07 The reason for this stems from the fact that inordinate movements of affectivity that arise antecedently to and against reason's imperium-all a result of concupiscence--are impossible to avoid on account of the limited yet disordered autonomous inclina tion of the sensitive appetite that belongs to the
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't:;~~:;~:~:;, h~ condi~~n; as the scholar J.-H. Nicolas explains: '''Concupiscence' ;1 peccabIi1ty, [as It IS marked by] apronounced positive propensity to sin."I08 In , De ve:-itate., Thomas i~ most explicit on this point., as he asserts, along with Bonaventure, that mordmate affective movements that arise without reason's prescience and which he labels "venial sins," are impossible to avoid entirely for those born into ori~nal sin: A movement of concupiscence sometimes anticipates the deliberation of reason, with the movement that tends to something illicit on account of the corruption of nature constituting a venial sin. In the state of corrupt nature, it is not within the power of free choice to avoid all sins ofthis sort, since they escape the act offree choice.... This happens be:ause the lower powers are not entirely subject to reason as they were in the state ofmnocence....Because of the corruption of human affectivity, man cannot avoid all venial sins.... Since the human being cannot avoid having movements of concupiscence that arise in complete antecedence to the act of free choice it is impossible to avoid all venial sins .109
'
For Aquinas, then, Jesus' perfection in grace and virtue precludes any such positive propens.ity. to sin, ~hich involves the inevitabililJ; of slight sins, whereby the animal appetite's IUDIted yet dIsordered autonomous mclmation to its proper sentient object eventually collides ~ith the dictates ?f reason. It should be noted that Thomas of course does not espouse a ca~U1slIc understandmg of morality, so that when he asserts that the state of corrupt nature mvolves the inevitability of venial sins, he holds not so much particular acts of choosing as such in mind, as if rational choice remains isolated in its intellectual sphere in
J08. J:-!l.' Nicolas, Synthese dogmatiq~e, p. 411; emphasis mine: "Ia 'concupiscence' presuppose Ia peccabl1tte ... accentuee par une propenslon positive au pech6" Cf. STI-II, q. 74, a. 3 ad 2; and Compo theol., eh. 224. 109. De ver., q. 24, aa. 12-13; emphasis mine: "Motus enim concupiscentiae interdum detibera-
103. STlII, q. 31, a. 7 ad 1: "Christ did not assume the flesh of the human race subject to sin, but cleansed from all infection of sin" (Chrisius non assumpsit carnem human; generis subiectam peccato, sed ab omni infectione peccati mundatam). 104. De ver., q. 26, a. 8, argo 6: "Christus fuit perfec~ior secundum animam quam homo in primo statu. " 105. De ver., q. 25, a. 6: "Corruptio et infectio peccati originalis hoc modo differunt quod infectio pertinet ad culpam, corruptio ad poenam. " 106. Damascene, Defide orth., Bk.l1I, eh. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 259); cited in III Sent, d. IS, q. 1, a. 2; Camp. theol., eh. 226; and STIlI, q. 14, a. 4, where Aquinas includes all of Christ's assumed defects in the category of Damscene's "indetractibiles passiones" that "defectum gratiae non important. " 107. Compo theol., ch. 232: "Non tamen erat contrarietas appetitum in ipso [Christ], vel rebellio carnis ad spiritum. "
ti~nem ration is praevenit, qui quidem molus in illioitum tendens ex corruptione naturae, peccatum vemale est; et ita post statum naturae corruptae non est in potestate tiberi arbitrii omnia huiusmodi peccata vitare, quia eius actum effugiunt ... Quod quidem contingit ex hoc quod inferiores vires non sunt totatiter rationi subiectae, situt erant in statu innocentiae ... [Hlomo non posse omnia peccata venialia vitare ... Quia non potest facere quin aliquis molus concupiscentiae totaliter actum /iberi arbitrii praeveniat. non potest omnia peccata venialia vitare. " In ST I-II, q. 109, a. 8, Thomas writes: "man cannot abstain from all venial sin on account of the comJption of his lower appetite of sensuality" (non autem potest homo abstinere ab omni peccato veniali propter corruption em inferioris app'etitus sensualitatis). Bonaventure pens in Brevil, pt. 3, ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 237): "The senses now
[I.e., after the Fall] resist reason, whether we like it or not, and inevitably we commit some venial sins ~hrough the reactions of impulse" (Nunc autem quia rationi repugnat sensualitas, velimus nolimus; l~eo necesse habemus committere aliquod veniale peccatum per primos molus). For a detailed analySIS ofthe historical development of this position in Thomas' 12th- and 13th-century predecessors, as well as in Aquinas himself, cf. O. Lottin, Psychologie et morale, vol. 2, pp. 540-89.
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abstraction from the rest ofhwnan nature; rather, A~uinas holds in mind a gener";l ~tate o~ condition of disorder that effectively thwarts the mtellectual powers from attal~mg the . proper teleological end ofhwnan life: God. For the Dominican Master, moral ~cl1on hap~ pens not in the intellectual sphere alone; it happens in fundsmental synergy WIth the rest ofhwnan nature, including the body and the sensate soul, and if that body and sensate soul are disordered, the intellectual soul cannot remain unaffected morally by such disorder. In Thomas'view, then, the general state of disorder in the hwnan body and sensate soul undermines the human orientation to God. Though this state of disorder may not on its OWn succeed in turning one away from Godfolly, it will eventually sabotage one's relationship with God "venially," or impede one from God partially. Put another way, any kind of disorder prevents the entirety of hwnan life from being ordered to God, and the state of not being entirely oriented to God, which is equivalent to not being wholly united to God, is what St. Thomas means by venial sin. That is, the state of not being wholly ordered to God or united with God equates with the state of venial sin. Thomas' moral theory is therefore much broader than a casuistic one, which for its part focuses in a rather narrow fashion on individual acts of choosing. Given the foregoing comments, one can see how an authentically sinless Jesus must have no personal knowledge of the inner struggle between flesh and spirit, or of the invasion of sin via the disordering of the soul's powers, into the moral sphere ofhwnan affectivity. If ~ly sinless, Jesus must enjoy a kind of integrity whereby all the movements of his body and soul (including his sensate soul) are wholly ordered to God: WIthout such an unmitigated orientation to God, Jesus would be in a state of disorder, or m a state of not be~g wholly ordered to God, and, eventually, in a state of (venial) sin. Accordingly, one must IDsist that the focus of Jesus' spirit was in no way clouded by sin, for which reason Thomas asserts that "Christ had no evil desires whatsoever." 110 Spared from the debilitating effects of a sense appetite that owns a disordered autonomy, Jesus enjoyed absol~te harmony of soul, or radical psychological rectification, in which his entire affective h~e was o~che~ !rated by the imperium of reason. This means that, unlike all other human bemgs, C~st d not have to strive assiduously either at subjecting his animal appetite to reason's duectJon or at integrating his passions into the exercise of virtue-this occurred readily and instinctively:
?i
110. STIII, q. 7, a. 2 ad 3: "Concupiscentias autempravas Christus omnino non habuit."
In [Christ] the lower appetite was so perfectly subject to reason that it moved only in accordance with the order of reason, that is, insofar as reason regulated or allowed the lower appetite to proceed in its proper movement. .. .In Christ the lower appetite was moved according to the judgment of reason, to the extent that he pennitted each of his lower powers to be moved by its own impulse, in keeping with what was suitable for Christ. lll
, The profound unity endowed upon Jesus was not, of course, meant only for the relation between his sensibility and reason; it comprised the integrated entirety of his human nature, body and soul, since before the severing effects of original sin, Adam enjoyed unparalleled hylemorphic unity. Again, in the state of original innocence, all the movements of both body and soul were wholly ordered to the unified end of hwnan life: God. The Christ of Aquinas enjoys this same undivided orientation to God, or this same consUD1IDate union between body and soul, and thus a freer and more dynamic psychosomatic interchange (which lends greater force to the notion of the passion of the body in Christ examined in the previous chapter); as Thomas writes in his conunentary on the Sentences: Christ possessed perfect hylemorphic imion, so that what he undetWent on account of the greatness of his soul corresponded in equal measure to his body united to it. 112
Developing the thought of Damascene, Aquinas recognizes such a profound hylemorphic unity of operation in Christ that he opines that even his bodily members in some sense observed the imperium of reason and will, since, again, the movements of his body (in addition to all the movements of his sensate soul) were wholly ordered to God: In the man Jesus Christ there was no movement of the sensitive part that was not ordered by reason. Even his purely natural and bodily operations were in some sense voluntary, inasmuch as it was by his will "that his flesh vias allowed to function according to its proper nature." Much more, therefore, is there a unity of operation in Christ than in any other man.1l3
Ill. Compo theol., chs. 224 and 232: "Sic enim inferior appetitus in eo rationi subiciebatur ut ad nichil moveretur nisi secundum ordinem rationis, secundum scilicet quod ratio ordinabat vel permi/tebat appetitum inferiorem moven proprio motu .... In Christo movebatur secundum iudicium rationis, in quantum permittebat unicuique inferiorum virium moveri proprio motu, secundum quod Christum decebat. " 112. III Sent, d. IS, q. 2, a. 3, qc. 3, sed contra 2: "Christus/uit optime complexionatus, quod patet ex hoc quod habuit nobilissimam animam. cui correspondet equa/itas complexionis in corpore. " 113. STIlI, q. 19, a. 2: "In homine Iesu Christo nul/us erat motus sensitivae partis, qui non esset ordinatus a ratione. Ipsae etiam operationes naturales et corporales aliqualiter ad eius voluntatem pertinebant, inquantum voluntatis eius erat 'ut cora eius ageret et pateretur quae sunt sibi propria' [cf.
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Since the disorder among the soul's powers accrues to the properly natural condition of human nature, the absence of this disorder (i.e., the absence of concupiscence) in Chtist could only result from a divine gift of grace-a grace that allowed Jesus' state of soul to exceed the normal laws of nature. Put another way, if the inclination of Christ's concupisci_ ble and irascible appetites accorded with reason's imperium with unparalleled ease and Was inherently and instinctively directed at all times to virtue, which the tenet of Jesus' consummate grace and virtue requires, it was by a unique supernatural grace that this was accomplished, To be spared the inner struggle between flesh and spirit demands nothing less, since natural principles alone cannot ensure that all the movements of the sensate soul should be ordered to the good of reason, and ultimately to God. This grace, however, was not strictly speaking identical with, even if analogous to, the grace of original justice as such, since Christ's assumption of various ontological defects or penalties of sin (hunger, thirst, death, passibility, etc.) precludes such an inference. One may instead denominate this unique grace as one of moral integrity (as opposed to the grace of original justice, which confers ontological integrity), since its primary import was to preserve the blamelessness and purity of Jesus' soul, even while allowing Christ's humanity to take on as many natural limitations as a life of consummate moral integrity can accommodste. In short, any defect that implies a moral deficiency, like concupiscence, Jesus foregoes, while any defect that is inherently reconcilable with moral integrity, he assumes. And since, as seen earlier in this study, Christ's mission of satisfying for the sins of the human race accounts for his sinlessness,114 the unique grace safeguarding Jesus from the disorder among the soul's powers pertains as such to the capital grace of Christ, the grace empowering Christ to act as universal Redeemer and Savior. This unique grace belongs as well to the package of gifts owing to Christ's personal grace, the grace that requires the sanctifying grace in Jesus' soul to match his inherent dignity as the divine Word; in this case, his sanctifying grace must make it possible for his purity and integrity of soul to complement rightfully the divine sanctity of the Word.
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e. Christ's Spontaneous Appetitive Inclinations: Valuntas nt natura and valuntas sensualitatis It is important to realize that Aquinas does not opt for a rationalistic take (in the modem sense) on the integration of affectivity into Christ's moral life, as if the unmitigated imperium ofreas?n suppresses the proper spontaneity or inclination of Jesus' sense appetite, only to allow It to move when automated to do so "on command" in a cold, restricted, plaoned, and calculated maoner, or as if Christ's reason imposes its rule on his sensibility from above or from without. Thomas' vision, which again refuses to assign moral virtue the task of forcing the passions into a simple obediential submission to the rule of reason, recognizes a much richer relationship between Jesus' sensibility and his reason. Though Christ's concupiscible and irascible appetites, which, restrained from tending to their own sentient objects outside of reason's empire, do not possess the disordered autonomy that they do in the post-Iapsarian condition, the limited autonomy that rightfully belongs to them by nature is by no means annulled in Jesus. Whether one is speaking, as in the case of Christ, of a limited autonomy of the sensitive appetite that remains peifectly ordered to the rule of reason, or, as in the case of all other humans, of a limited autonomy of the lower appetite that is fundamentally disordered, whereby it inclines to its proper object irrespective of the good of reason, it is still a relatively autonomous sensitive appetite retaining"its proper spontaneity that is at issue. It is only si,!!ul or disordered affective spontaneity, not affective spontaneity as such, that Aquinas excludes from Christ's life; otherwise, God would have endowed a sensitive appetite, which owns a limited autonomy by its very nature, on Chtist partly in vain. The exclusion of a sinful spontaneity, rather than a spontaneity as such, from Christ's sense appetite Thomas affirms when he states at the beginning of his writing career: It is not true that every sudden movement of the sensitive appetite is a venial sin, but only when such a movement tends to an illicit object, which was in no way the case for Christ. !IS
Though Aquinas again fails adequately to explain himself on this matter, one may infer the following if one combines his general teaching on the place of passion in the moral life with his Christology: like in prelapsarian man, reason so radically and extensively penetrated into Christ's sensitive appetite that every movement of this appetite was transformed
Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. Ill, ch. 19 (ed. Buytaert, p. 257)]. Et ideo multo magis est una operatio in Christo, quam in quocumque alio homine." 114. Cf. STlII, q. 14, a. 4; q. IS, a. I; Camp. theol., ch. 226; and III Sent, d. IS, q. I; cf. as well G. Lafont, Structures et methode, p. 383; and R. Cessario, The Godly Image, pp. 139-40.
115. III Sent, d. 15, expositio textus: "Nee tamen est vernm quod omnis subitus molus sensualitatis sit peeeatum veniale, set tune tantum quando est in illicitum tendens; quod in Christo nullatenus foil . .,
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and finalized by reason (in all other human beings, there is no gnarantee that every movement of affectivity will be finalized by reason). By virtue of a unique grace, Christ's affectivity instinctively and innately followed the good of reason, which ensured that every passion worked towards its natural end, this end being happiness (for the natural end of the passions is, given the hylemorphic and synergetic unity in human nature, the natural end of human life itself). Therefore, through a complete and unmitigated derivatio (or penetration) from reason, Christ's lower appetites, participating actively at all times in the work of virtue, were fully operative in the exercise of their proper movements; as Aquinas writes in the Compendium theologiae: "Christ permitted each of his lower powers to be moved by its own impulse, in keeping with what was suitable for him."!l6 The difference between Christ and all other human beings, then, resides in the degree of reason's penetration into sensibility: for Christ, the penetration is complete and radically integral as owing to a unique grace; for all other humans, the penetration is never complete or perfect as owing to the principles of nature, which leaves the lower appetites able, by virtue of their limited autonomy, to incline to objects that may conflict with reason's imperium. Christ's sense appetite does preserve its limited autonomy and spontaneity, yet because of the unmitigated derivatio from reason, this autonomy never conflicts with reason '8 imperium. To grasp best the kind of moral integrity or purity that accrues to Christ's affective condition, then, one should look upon the matternegatively, viz., as a condition that preeludes any sinful movement of affectivity, or one that foregoes disordered passion. 117 The total penetration of reason into sensibility allowed Jesus' concupiscible and irascible appetites to be drawn to sentient objects without in any way transgressing reason's imperium; as Thomas maintains in the Tertia Pars: "Christ's flesh naturally desired food, drink, sleep, and other such things with his sensitive appetite, after the manner and order of right reason.,,118 Aquinas, however, is left with an awkward dilemma relative to one particularly poignant scene from the Gospels-the agony Jesus endured in the Garden ofGethsemane-in which
Jesus expresses a natural and spontaneous appetitive inclination to preserve his life in a way that prima facie seems to counter the claim that Christ's affectivity was at all times perfectly ordered to the rule of reason. In an attempt to resolve this dilemma, Aquinas employs the capital distinction, culled from Damascene, between a spontaneous appetitive inclination of nature, or what Thomas terms voluntas ut natura (BtAqOl\" in Greek), and a more deliberated or reflective appetitive inclination, or voluntas ut ratio (PODAtt01q). Ultimately, the distinction originates with the Koine Greek of the New Testament itself, specifically when Jesus prays in the Garden, "Father, if you will (fJoDk.) it, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will (Be A'II'6.), but yours be done" (Lk 22:42; cf. Mt 26:39, and Mk 14:36) (English terminology has no way of distingnishing between these two senses of willing, which explains why both are rendered as "to will'V" The first author to draw explicit reference to the distinction between OtA'I01q and PODA'IOlq in a systematic Christological work is Maximus the Confessor (though Nemesius of Emesa, in analyzing the act of choice, had intimated the distinction in a strictly anthropological context)Y' Relying directly upon Maximus' writings, and somewhat on the thought of Nemesius, Damascene pens the following: "BtA'Imq andpovA'I01q are two different things ... BeA'I01\" is the natural and vital appetite of nature, [while] PODA'Imq, which is a kind of BtA'IOl\", is the rational appetite for some thing";!2! from this the monk from Damascus affirms a "natural fear" (timor naturalis) in Jesus, while disa!1owing for a "reflective fear" (timor cogitationis) in him.!21 Inspired by Damascene, Peter Lombard in the 12th century distingnishes between rational affect and sensitive affect, whereby Christ's
"fear of his suffering and death" issued from his sensitive rather than rational affect. 123 Aquinas also sees in Hugh of St. Victor's attribution of a "will of pity"
119.
For the classic study on this distinction in the New Testament,
cr. P. Joiion, "Les verbes
BOYAOMAI et ElEA!} dans Ie Nouveau Testament," RSR 30 (1940), pp. 227-38. 120. Maximus the Confessor, Opusc. I ad Marinum (pO 91, 12-28); Disput. cum Pyrrho (pO 91, 309); and Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 32 (De electione) (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, p.127). 121. Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. II, ch. 22 (ed. BUylaert, pp. 135-40): "aliud quidem est thelisis,
116. Compo thea!., ch. 232: "permiUebat unicuique inferiorum viriwn moveri proprio motu, secundum quod Christum decebat." Cf. as well Leet. super loan., ch. 12. tecto 1: "ratio Christi permiserit agere animae et viribus inferioribus quae eis propria sunt. " 117. cr. M. Paluch, "L'ame du Christ etait-e11e soumise aux passions?" 118. STIlI, q. 15. a. 2 ad 2; emphasis mine: (fEt hoc modo [concupiscit secundum modum et ordinem ration is] caro Christi, concupiscentia appetitus sensitivi, naturaliter appetehat escam et potum et somnum, et alia huiusmodi quae secundum rationem rectam appetuntur. "
aliud vero bulisis ... Quare theUsis (id est voluntas) quidem est ipse naturalis et vitalis appetitus omnium naturae constitutivorum ... Bulisis (id est voluntas) autem est qualitativa naturalis thelisis (id est voluntas), scilicet rationalis appetitus alicuius rei. " 122. Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. III, ch. 23 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 265...j). 123. Lombard,lll Sent, d. 17, ch. 2 (ed. Coli. Bonav., pp. 106-7): "in nobis duplexestaffoctus, men-
tis _scilicet et sensualitatis ... Affectu autem rationis id volehat quod voluntate divina, scilicet pati et morl; sed affectu sensualitatis non volebat, immo refugiebat. " Lombard grounds his thought here somewhat in the Summa sententiarum, ch. 17 (PL 176, 76).
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(voluntas pietatis) to Christ an equivalent for voluntas ut n~tu~a.l24 ~ong the 13th:~en tury Scholastics, Alexander ofRales reproduces Damascene s ddferentiatlOnbetween natural fear" and "reflective fear," while Albert affirms that Jesus' prayer In the Garden concerns his oratio ut est natura.'" The first to appropriate explicitly Damascene's distinction between (JeJ.qrnr; and fJovAq01r; in reference to Christ is Bonaventure, who offers the 126 distinction in Latin as, respectively, valuntas naturalis and voluntas deliberationis. Building upon these precedents, especially Damascene, Aquinas wastes little time i~ laying hold of the distinction, as he writes already in his Sentence commentary, showmg his preference for his own Latin rendering of the Greek terminology: "In Christ there was both a voluntas ut natura, which equates with (JtAq01r;, and a voluntas ut ratio, which corresponds to
fJovAq01r;. "127 . . • In short the distinction between voluntas ut natura and valuntas ut ratio IS warranted by virtue a/eqUivocal manners of expressing what one "wants" or "wills"; specifically. the Christological dilemma stems from Jesus' declared "will ((JtAql'a) n.ot to follow through with his suffering and death, a dilemma that gave root to the monothehte controv~rsy of the 7th century (the denial of Christ's human will), culminating in its condemnalIo~ by the Third Council of Constantinople (68-8 I) after its vigorous contestatIOn by Maxlmus the ConfessorP' To resolve the Christological quandary of a seeming clash of "wills" between
Jesus and the Father in Gethsemane, which again presents a serious challenge to Aquinas' view that Jesus, being spared the inner struggle of flesh against spirit, enjoyed unmitigated harmony of soul, the Master from Aquino offers the following exegesis (here Thomas clarifies the difference between willing ut natura and willing ut ratio, in what represents his most significant text on the matter): Christ allowed all the powers of the soul to function according to their proper nature. It is clear that the will of sensuality (voluntas sensuaJitatis) naturally recoils from physical pain and bodily injmy. In like manner, the will as nature (voluntas ut natura)
rejects what is contrary to nature and what is evil in itself, such as death and the like. However, the win of reason (voluntas rationis) may at times choose these things in relation to an end, as when a man's will of sensuality, considered absolutelY, recoils from being burned, but which the will of reason may choose for the sake,ofhealth .... Hence, Christ clearly could will something other than what God willed by his will of sensuality and by his will as nature; but by his will considered as reason, Christ always willed the same as God, which appears from what he says in Mt 26:39: "Not as will, but as you will".... Christ willed to fulfill the divine will, yet not by his will of sensuality, nor by his will as nature, which responds to objects considered absolutely rather than to objects considered in relation to the divine wilJ. 129
More than mere semantic double-talk, this passage attempts to articulate the subtle yet crucial distinction between the spontaneous inclination ofthe will (voluntas ut natura), or what C. O'Neil terms, "the will acting by natural instinct," and a fully elected choice that follows
124. Hugh orst. Victor, De quat. vo/unt. in Christo (PL 176, 841). For Thomas' view that Hugh's Voluntas pietatis equates with vo/untas ut natura, cf. IiI Sent, d. 17, a. 1, sol. 3 ad 6; a. 3, sol. 4 ad 2;
and STIll, q. 18, a. 3 ad 3. . . 125. Alexander of Hales, Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater', q. 16, dlsp, 2, memo 4, n. 50 (ed. Quaracchl, p. 247): "unde timor naturalis fuit in eo. Est alius timor ralionis, ~t ~ste non fuit ... " Alexander also distinguishes between Christ's sorrow ut est natura and ut est ratIo In Summa theol. (Summa h~l.), Bk. Ill, inq. I, tr. 5, q. I, memo 2, ch. I, a. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 4, pp. 20()"1). Cf. as well Qu. d,sp. 'ant. essetfrater, 'q. 16, disp. 3, memo 3-4, num. 72-7; and disp. 4, ~em. 2, nu~.;6 (ed. Quaracch~, pp. 258-60, and 268-9). Albert writes in reference to Lombard's not~on of~hrist s affectu se~suab tatis in III Sent, d. 17, a. 7: "Oratiofuit ralionis ut est natura, et COnluncta In eadem substantIa cum sensuali affectu. "
.
. "
126. Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 17, a. 1, q. 1, sed contra 3 (ed. Quaracchl, p. 366). voluntas s.ecun-
dum Damascenum dividitur prima divisione in thelesim et bulesim, hoc est in naturalem et deb~era tivam; istae duae differentiae constat quodfuerunt in Christo." For more of the same, cr. BreVlI, pt.
4, ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 249). 127. Aquinas, III Sent, d. 17, a. 1, sol. 3 ad 1: "Thelesis, secund~mDamc:scen~m, est.vol~n~as nat-
uralis ... bullisis autem est appetitus rationalis ... Tamen utraque lStarum In ChrlSt~ full, SClbcet vo~ untas ut natura, que est thelesis, et voluntas ut ratio, que est bullisis." Thomas CItes Damascene s
distinction as well in III Sent, d. 17, a. I, qc. 3, argo 3; and STIll, q. 18, aa. 3-4.· . 128. For more on monothelitism, the heresy denying a human will in Jesus, and on Constantl~ople III in relation to Jesus' prayer in the Garden, cf. F.-M. Lethel, "La prie:e de Jesus a. Getbsemam dans la controverse monothelite," in Maximus Confesseur. Actes du SymposIUm sur Maxlme Ie Confesseur,
eds. F. Heinzer and C. SchOnbom (Fribourg, Switz.: St. Paul, 1982), pp. 207-14. Cf. as well idem, Theologie de I 'agonie du Christ. La liberte humaine du Fils de Dieu et son importance soteriologique
mises en Iumiere par Saint Maxime Ie Confesseur (paris: Editions du Cerf, 1979), along with the important review of this work by M. Doucet in Science et Esprit 35 (1983), pp. 53-83; and J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 2, pp. 358-9. 129. STIII, q. 18, a. 5: "[PJermittebat omnibus viribus animae agere et pati quaepropriae. Manifestum est autem quod voluntas sensualitatis refugit naturaliter dolores sensibiles et corporis laesionem. Similiter etiam voluntas ut natura repudiat ea quae sunt naturae contraria, et quae sunt secundum se mala, puta mortem et alia huiusmodi. Haec tamen voluntas quandoque per modum rationis eligere poleSt ex ordine ad finem: sicut etiam in aliquo puro homine sensualitas eius, et etiam voluntas absolute considerata, refugit ustionem, quam voluntas secundum rationem eIigit propter finem sanitatis ... Unde patet quod Christus, secundum voluntatem sensualitatis, et secundum voluntatem ratioriis quae consideratur per modum naturae, aliud poterat velie quam Deus. Sed secundum voluntatem quae est per modum rationis, semper idem volebat quod Deus. Quod patet ex hoc ipso quod dicit, 'Non sicut ego yolo, sed sicut tu' ... Chri'stus volebat ut voluntas Patris impleretur: non autem per voluntatem sensualitati's, neque per voluntatem quae consideratur per modum naturae, quaefertur in aliqua obiecta absolute considerata, et non in ordine ad divinam voluntatem. "Thomas forges essentially the same argument in III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 3, sol. 2. Cf. as wel1 De ver., q. 26, a.
9 ad 7; andLect. super Mati., ch. 26, lect. 5.
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upon the reflective deliberation of reason (voluntas ut ratio), or what O'Neil calls; "the will as modified by judgment."I30 Commenting on a passage from the Prima Pars, J.-P. Torrell offers the following clarification of this distinction: "the [one power of the intellectual] will has two acts: the pure and simple willing of the good before any kind of qualification, and the choosing of a certain particular good. "131 In other words, the will as nature (voluntas ut natura) pertains to the inclination of the will to its proper object-the good in itself-prior to any specification of the good, whereas the will as reason (voluntas ut ratio) relates to the will's actual choice of a particular good which reason, through its comparison of the particular goods presented to it, has determined is best to favor. Transposing this twofold act on the part of the will to the case of Jesus, Aquinas subsequently writes: "If we are speaking of the will in act, we must distinguish in Christ a will as according to nature, which is called etAq(Jlq, and a will as according to reason, which is called /lOVAq(Jlq. "132 Thus, what Jesus spontaneously, naturally and instinctively "wants" or desires is to spare his life"Father, remove this cup from me"-yet what he actually chooses after careful deliberation, i.e., what he wills "deep down" as based upon the judgment of his reason, is to fulfill the Father's will-"not my will, but yours be done." By willing ut natura, i.e., by desiring the good in the form of the preservation of his life previous to any reasoned consideration, Jesus prays to have the cup removed from him, while by willing ut ratio, i.e., by choosing something in view of procuring a certain end (in this case, the redemption of the human race), Christ at length embraces the Father's cup.
130. C. O'Neil, translation of STIII, q. 18, a. 3 in Summa theo!ogiae, vol. 50, The One Mediator (London: Blackfriars, 1965), p. 73. For a detailed analysis of the nuanced distinction between voluntas ut natura and voluntas ut ratio in Aquinas' thought, cr. R.-A Gauthier, "Saint Maxime Ie Confesseur et la psychologie de l'acte humain," pp. 51-100; T. Alvira, Naturaleza y tibertad: estudio de los conceptos tomistas de voluntas ut natura y voluntas ut ratio (pamplona, Spain: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 1985); M. Gigante, "Thelesis e Boulesis in San Tommaso," Asprenas (Naples) 26 (1979), pp. 265-73; and E.-H. Weber, Le Christselon saint Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 189-90. Cf. as well R. SPlazzI, "Le passioni e la passione di Cristo," pp. 20-3. _ 131. J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 2, pp. 358-61, at 360: "Ia volonte a deux actes: Ie vouloir pur et simple du bien, anterieur atoute autre qualification, et Ie choix en vue de quelque bien precis; et cela ne porte aucune atteinte au fait qu'il s'agit d'une seule et meme puissance.': The passage from the Prima Pars of the Summa in question is q. 83, a. 4; here Thomas compares thIS twofold act on the part of the will to the two ,acts of the intellect: to understand or grasp (intelligere) a fundamental axiomatic truth, and to reason discursively (ratiocinari). 132. STIlI, q. 18, a. 3; emphasis mine: "si vero loquamurde voluntate quae est achfS, sic distinguitur in Christo voluntas quae est ut natura, quae dicitur 8tJ.11(fl( , et voluntas quae est ut ratio, quae dicilur po6J.1]au;. H
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Tho~as introdu;es ano~er consequential. term in the passage cited above to help explain th~ reall~ of Jesus ago~ m the. Garden: voluntas sensualitatis, which translates literally as 'the wIll of sensuality' but w~ch ,,:pre~ents an equivalent form of "sense appetite." Like
~e vo~untas ut natura, or .the Will as mclmed to the good prior to any specification or dehberatio?, t~e sen~e appetite, or voluntas sensualitatis, owns an instinctive repulsion from sense evIls, .mcluding, of course, the perception of impending violent death. In this manner, Jesus expenences a repugnance to his death both on the part of his intellectual will (voluntas ut.natura) and on the part of his affectivity (voluntas sensualitatis), or, as J.-P. Torrell ~xp~am~, a repugnance to that which is "perceived as naturally opposed to the spontaneons mclmation to the good and to the human fulfillment which characterizes the will be it in the form ~fthe se~itive appetite or the intellectual appetite."I3' Aquinas himself is most clear o~ this pomt m the Compendium theologiae where, in a chapter entitled "On the Prayer . of~hrist" (De oratione Christi), he explains, this time using "lower appetite" (appetitus infenor) or "lower part" (pars inferioi) as a substitute for voluntas sensualitatis: In saying, "Remove this cup from me," Christ indicates the natural movement of his l~wer appetite, whereby all naturally recoil from death and desire to preserve their hfe. In saying, "not my will, but yours be done," he expresses the movement of his higher reason, which considers all things in relation to the ordinances of divine wisd~m.... Since prayer manifests desire ... [when] Christ prayed that the Father's will mIght be done, he was expressing his absolute desire, whereas in praying that the cup might be removed from him, he expressed not what he desired absolutely but what he desired in his lower part. 134 '
Accordingly, Jesus' repUlsion from death corresponds to the natural instinctive affective aversion to death, or to the inclination to preserve oneself in existe~ce that all creatures possess; his aversion to death does not pertain to a fully elicited appetitive movement as such."' Christ's natural and spontaneous repulsion from death in no case involves rebellious
133. J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 2. p. 360: "elles [passion and death] etaient pen'lIes comme naturellement contraires ala ten dance spontanee au bien et al'epanollissement humain qui caractensent la volonte aussi bien comme sensible que comme appetit intellectuel." 134. Compo theol.; ch. 233: "In hoc enim quod ait 'transeat a me calix iste, , molum inferioris appetitus et naturatis designat, quo naturaliter unusquisque refugit mortem et appetit vitam; in hoc ~ute~ quo~ dicit 'verumptamen non sicut ego volo, sed sicut tu vis, , exprimit motum superioris ratroms omma considerantis prout sub ordinatione divine sapientie continentur .., Cum enim oratio sit desideri~ expositiva ... simpliCiter oravit Chrisius ut Patris voluntas f/ieret, non autem quod calix ab eo translret, quia nee hoc simpliciter voluit sed secundum inferiorem partem. " 135. Cr. STllI, q. 14, a. 2 ad 1; q. 15, a. 7; and q. 21, a. 2.
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movements of passion that resist the imperium of reason; Jesus has an aversion to death, not a fully elicited affective desire not to follow through with his death, a subtle yet capita! difference which Thomas utilizes when he writes, this time employiog the tenn "natural will" (voluntas naturalis) to signify both the will as nature (voluntas ut natura) and the sensitive appetite: "Neither the natural will nor the will of sensuality rejected the reason for which the divioe will and Christ's will of reason desired the passion."!" The iotroduction, then, of the terms voluntas ut natura and voluntas sensualitatis provides a key into understanding the kind of spontaneity Christ's appetitive powers, sense appetite included, retains in the thought of Aquinas. The critical foundation for this spontaneity is expressed in the maxim, cited above, that "Christ allowed all the powers of the soul to function accordiog to their proper nature": Neither Christ's divine will, nor his rational will, rejected or impeded the movement either of his human natural will or of his sensuality. For it pleased both Christ's divine will and his rational will that his natural will (vo/untas naturalis) and his will of sensuality (voluntas sensualitatis) should operate in confonnity to their own natures. 137
For Jesus, this "proper function accordiog to nature" implies that his sense appe~te be ~ble to operate spontaneously, or as an impulse of affectivity relative to its own senllent object. In the Garden, Christ undergoes an instinctive affective impulse towards the natural good, or, more precisely, away from the natural evil, before any kind of awarene~s on the p"". of his reason i.e. before the imperium of reason had discerned which specIfic gOOd-VIZ., the salvati~n orthe human race-should be elected or chosen. Even such an instinctive impulse of affectivity would however have been fioalized by reason, or by a free-wil~ed choice ut ratio (as confinned by Jesus' decision to embrace his violent fate), as all affect!~e move-
ments in Christ operated in harmony with reason's imperium in a way that never.lllvolved a genuine clash of flesh against spirit; again, all the movements of Jesus' sensate soul were
wholly ordered to God. The spontaneous impulse of affectivity on the part of his lower appetite therefore posed no real threat to Jesus' radical iotegrity and rectification of soul; as Aquioas writes in the Compendium theologiae:
Christ's soul could desire something in its higher part that it shunned in its lower part, and yet there was no conflict of appetites in Christ, or rebellion of the flesh against the spirit.138
Admittedly, this position does not resolve all the problems, and, in my opinion, represents one of the elements of Thomas' theology of Christ's human affectivity that remaios open to further scrutiny. For, if the penetration of reason into Christ's sensibility was so radically extenSive that every movement of his affectivity was instinctively and innately oriented to reason's imperium, it remains unclear how this holds true for the instinctive impulse of affectivity that Jesus experienced in the Garden ofGethsemane, even if this impulse occurred before his reason had determined what was best to choose. It is not out of the question that the penetration of reason into Christ's sensibility leaves sufficient room for an iostinctive
. impulse of affectivity that, no matter its initial inclination to its own sentient object, becomes forthrightly subsumed and finalized by reason, since such a phenomenon is not per se opposed to the condition where reason enjoys a complete and uncontested empire over the entire soul. For all its noted accomplishments, however, Thomas' doctrine on the moral quality of Christ's human affectivity leaves this matter unsettled.
2. Christ's Passions as Integral to His Consummate Virtue Though Aquinas declines to advance an elaborate analysis of the relationship between Christ's passions and his virtuous conduct, preferring to offer rather generalized tenets (such as Christ possessed all the virtues ''to the most perfect degree possible" [secundum perfectissimum gradumJ in Tertia, q. 15, a. 2), or to give cursory recognition of the threefold singularity of the moral quality of Christ's passions noted at the outset of this chapter (and which shall be examined below), it is not difficult to reconstruct a detailed position on the matter if one combines the various elements of Thomas ' teaching eX3mined above. Because Aquinas, compared especially to the Stoics but also to the Franciscan camp (represented by Bonaventure), opts for a decidedly more optimistic take on the role of passion in
136. STIlI, q. 18, a. 6: "neque voluntas naturalis, neque voluntas sensualitatis repu.diabat illam ra: tionem, scilicet qua divina voluntas, et voluntas ralionis humanae in Christo ~slOnem voleb~t. For more on the meaning of the term voluntas naturalis, cf. J.-P. Torrell, Le ChrISt en ses mysteres,
vol. 2, pp. 360-1. . 137. STIlI, q. 18, a. 6: "nee vo/untas divina, vel voluntas ralionis in Christo, refuglebat ~ut ret~ abat malum vo/untatis naturalis humanae et malum sensualitatis in Christo. Placebat emm Christo secundum voluntatem divinam, et etiam secundum voluntatem ralionis, ut vo/untas naturalis in ipso, et voluntas sensualitatis secundum ordinem suae naturae mQverentur. "
138. Camp. theal.. ch. 232: "Poterat igitur contingere quod secundum inferiorem partem anima Christi refugiebat a/iquid quod secundum superiorem optabat. Non tamen erat contrarietas appetitum in ipso [Christ]. vel rebellio carnis ad spiritum. "
PAUL GONDREAU
319
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
318
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
allife whereby he attributes to the passions greater integrity and an authentic~l1y ac~:o~d co~sensual participation in the exercise of virtue,. his ChriS~OIO~bY ext~nsl~n concludes to a greater optimism and a higher esteem for the mtegral ro e 0 e pasSlOns m
th
Jesu;:
~~~~!f~:~t~~st's own affective example played an inestimable ~ie in hel~:g
inas: understanding ofthe dynamic relationship between moral exce ence an . e shap~ A~d thereby delivered the decisive deathblow to the Stoic contempt for passlOn~~~~:"as confirms throughout his entire writing career. Here, in fact, A,!"mas follows the method first employed by Augustine in his De civitate Dei~ where, at the pmn';"le ?f~'S~O: . r fthe passions the Bishop of HIPPO, the master po eIDlC1S '. 0 discourse on the mora '{ of Jesus as tho' ultimate and irrefutable rejoinder to the StOlC pou~.the affecnve examp e.o tr tate on John's Gospel, which Aquinas cites in his Catena sltlOn (he does the same m a ac db h' d' stinctive meta aurea).'39 Thomas first reproduces this tactic (complemente y ~s oW;; I 1261-64: physics of human nature) in his exposition on the B?ok of Job, wntten etween . the Stoics sa that sorrow does not happen upon a wise or virtuous .individual. ..Y~t, the experien~e both of delight and joy in suitable things and of ~~m and ~orr:wb~~ hannful thin s is natural to sensate nature; reason cannot remove .IS exp~nenc , instead mod:rates it so that sorrow does not cause rea~on to lose Its rect1tu!ec~~~ a view follows upon the witness of sacred Scripture, whIch a~ests tOl!~rrow who possesses the perfection of virtue and the fullness of wIsdom.
Cicero says in the 1Usculan Disputations that the passions are certain diseases of the souL.But anger is a passion of the soul. Therefore, all anger is evil.. .. On the other hand, anger was in Christ, in whom there was no sin, as 1 Pt 2:22 states. Hence, not all anger is sin.141
Finally, this same Augustinian-inspired stratagem occurs in two additional passages: first, in the commentary on In II :33-35 (where Jesus exhibits deep sorrow and tears over the death of Lazarus), in which Thomas, the Magister in Sacra Pagina, asserts: "The Lord willed to be sorrowful to show that, contrary to the Stoics, one should at certain times feel sorrow"; 142 and, second, in the analysis of the morality of the passions in Prima Secundae, q. 59, where Aquinas writes: Christ possessed perfect virtue. Yet there was sorrow in him, for Mt 26:38 reports him saying, "My soul is sorrowful even unto death." Therefore, sorrow [and all movements of passion] maybe compatible with virtue. 143
As these passages indicate, Aquinas secures as much inspiration from the affective occurrences surrounding Jesus' own life in the development of his teaching on the integral role of passion in the exercise of virtue as he takes from AristotIe's writings (though, of course, Aristotle has considerably more to say on the subject). That the sinless and supremely virtuous Christ should himselfbe subject to movements of passion makes therefore a decided impact on Aquinas, a fact that should not be abstracted from the Dominican's conviction that
_"" . I of Christ in his polemic with the Stoics in the Aquinas next turns to the ""ectlve examp e . J' h of an er written about 1270, where the Dominican theologian uses esus s ?w g ~es:~~ient proof that the Stoics erred in their exclusion of anger and all pasSlOn from the life of virtue:
. . L 48 426-7)' cf. M. Jordan, "Aquinas's Con139. Augustine, De civ. ~.., Bk. XIV, ch. 9 (C~S(CCs'l~6 p. 479), on Jn 13:21, in which Jesus is struction," pp. 90-5. In ~1~ Tract" in loh. LX, n. ti 'teso "May the arguments of the philosotroubled in spirit over hiS Impendmg betrayal" ~uguba ne wn tho soul befall the wise man" (pereant . h S . 1 . h who deny that d,stur ances 0 f e . . phers [I.e., t e tOles pens, . .' d erturbationes animorum). Aqumas Cites argumenta philosophorum. qUl negant In sap,entem ca ere p ' . C tenaaw-eain[oan"onJn 13:21. d th15 passage In a . , 3'1' "St" 'm dixerunt tristitiam in sapientem non ca ere .. ' 140.. Expos. super lob ad 1m., on .. OlCl ~m . udeat et de nocivis doleat et Est autem naturale sensibili naturae ut et conven~entl~s d~~C~~~;::rf;itiam ratio a sua rectitudine tristetur: hoc igitur ratio au/erre non p~u:st sed SIC m~ ;:;; e quae tristitiam in Christo ponit, in quo non divertat. Concordat. etw,m ha[ec .op~m~.s~~r~ ~~~do::n~ns L 'homme sous Ie regard de la proves/ omnis virtutis et sapzentlae p emtu o. ". . '. 0 'd P 195-6', for the dating of this work by Aqumas, cf. Ibid., p. I . lence,p.
141. De malo, q. 12, a. 1, argo 12, and sed contra 4: "Sicut Tullius dicit in III De Tusculanis queslionibus [ch. 10], passiones sunl quidam morbi anime ... Sed ira est quedam passio anime. Ergo omnis ira est mala ... Sed contra irafoil in Christo; in quo tamen nullumpeccatumfuit, utdicitur I Petri II Ergo non omnis ira est peccatum." This last comment is directed primarily at the Stoics, as shown in the fact that the entire corpus of this article is devoted to refuting the Stoic view on the passions. For the dating of the De malo, cf. J.-P. Torrell, The Person, p. 336. 142. Lect. super loan., ch. 11, lect. 5: "Sed Dominus tristan votui/, ut signijicet tibi quod aliqunado debeas contristari, quod est contra Stoicos. "Cf. as well ch. 13, leet. 4: "the Stoics say that the soul's disturbance or any passion never befall the wise man ... But this is clearly false, since Jesus, who is the wisest individual to ever live, was troubled [cf. Jn 13:1]" (Stoid, dicentes, quod huiu.smodi turbatio et huiusmodi passiones in sapientem non cadunt ... Sed horumfalsitas manifeste (apparet ex hoc quod Jesus, qui est summa sapientia, turbatur). 143. ST I-II, q. 59, a. 3, sed contra: "Christus fuit perfectus virtute. Sed in eo fuit tristitia; dicit enim: '1ristis est anima mea usque ad mortem. 'Ergo tristilia polest esse cum virtute. "The corpus of this article goes on to revisit Augustine's take on the Stoic view of the passions. The same maneuver occurs inSTIll, q. 46, a. 6 ad2, where Thomas turns to the example of Christ's supreme pain or sorrow as a sufficient retort to the Stoics, ''who held there was no sorrow in the soul of a wise man" (arg. 2: Stoici posuerunt tristitiam in animum sapientls non cadere).
320
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
PAUL GONDREAU
TllEOWGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
virtue (or holiness) and passion are not inherent adversaries, or from Thomas' consequen_ tial remark that "the moral virtues ... cannot be without the passions. "144 In short, for Sl Thomas (as for Augustine), Christ, in his human passions, fully discloses the tmth of human affectivity.145 From this one can appreciate the high stakes involved, at least for Aquinas, in examining the relationship between Jesus' passions and his moral excellence. The core of this relationship stems, of course, from the fact that, as that which provides the very subject matter out of which the moral virtues are constituted, the passions remain indispensable elements in the human drive for moral excellence, and one could no sooner exclude them from virtuous conduct than eliminate virtue itself: "Perfection of moral virtue does not completely annul the passions," Thomas writes, "but instead regulates them."'" As with all humans, then, Jesus' own passions supplied him with the necessary platform for the exereise of moral virtue: his fear of suffering and death (Mk 14:32-42) helped him to endure his crueifixion with fortitude; the indignation he felt at his disciples (Mk 10: 14) allowed him to exercise meekness towards them, etc. Indeed since moral virtue "cannot be without the passions," Christ's life without passion would have been simply devoid of moral virtue, thereby making it meaningless to speak of perfect virtue in Jesus. For Aquinas, a perfectly virtuous Jesus-i.e., a fully human Jesus-implies by necessity a fully "passionate" Jesus, a Christ wholly subject to his sense appetitive movements, not a pallid passionless God-man that the Stoics (nor even Hilary of Poitiers) would prefer to see-nor that the Gospels refuse to present. It is, then, as a man subject to the movements of passion that Aquinas has in mind when he dubs Christ "the example of virtue" (exemp/um virtutis) in Tertia, q. 15, a. 1. From this one can appreciate how Thomas' view on the relationship between Jesus' perfection in virtue and his passibility of soul succeeds in underscoring that Christological tenet which Aquinas holds sO dear to his theological sensitivities: the complete manhood of Christ.
144. STI-II, q. 59, a. 5; emphasis mine: "virtutes morales '.' sinepassionibus esse nonpossunt." 145. J. Pieper (Guide to Thomas Aquinas, p. 131) argues the sa~e vis-a.-vis t~e i~f1uence oft~e doctrine of the Incarnation on Thomas' general anthropology. In thIS sense, Aqumas thought pomts toward the position advanced by Vatican Council II in its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium etspes, §22 (DEC, p. 1081): "It is only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word that the mystery of man truly becomes clear ." Christ, the new Adam, fully d~sdoses .man to h~~elf' (Reapse nonnisi in mysterio Verbi incarnati mysterium hominis vere claresclt... Chrzstus, novlsslm~s Adam ... hominem ipsi homini plene manifestat). For support, cf. P. Engelhardt, "Mensch und Chnst in der Spannung von Vemunft und Leidenschaft," p. 139; and L. Mauro, "Umanita" della passione,
. 146. STI, q. 95, a. 2 ad 3: "Perfecta virtus mora/is non totaliter toII'zt passlOnes, s ed or,d'mat eas. "
p. 8.
321
Where the integration of Jesus' passions into the exereise of moral virtue excels over all humans, of course, is in the degree to which these passions participate in the imperium Be~ause of the radically extensive pe.netra~on of reason into Christ's sensibility, owmg to hIS Immumty to the effects of ongmal sm on human affectivity, Jesus experi-
"}"f.,....." :.
'ences no ~ovement of?te sensitive appetite (i.e., no passion) that was not instinctively ordered to virtue and ultimately finalized by reason. Put another way, Christ possessed no
neutral passIOn as such, i.e., no passion that remained unrelated to the good of reason or to the ultimate end of human life, with the result that every passion that Jesus experienced became de/acto the occasion for an act of virtue, as implied by Thomas' statement: "In the man Jesus Christ there was no movement of the sensitive part that was not ordered by reason."J47 To repeat, for Aquinas it is inconceivable to speak of Christ's passions in abstraction from his perfection in moral virtue. Furthermore, since the sensitive appetite is not simply forced to submit to the rule of rea-
son like a slave to its master, but instead, given its limited autonomy, cooperates actively or consensually with reason's imperium in the exercise of virtue, which leads Thomas to conclude that the lower appetite emerges as a source itself of virtuous conduct, it follows
that Christ's concupiscible and irascible appetites acted as the immediate principle or source of his virtuous life; his passions marked the first step by which his human nature inclined towards the attainment ofits supreme perfection (i.e., human happiness). Able to operate in the ,:"ay fully proper and natural to them, Christ's lower appetites, participating in the work of vIrtue through the exercise of their proper acts, at all times necessarily assisted him in the practice of moral virtue. Christ's passions were, in other words, themselves virtuous, and as such they rendered him a more perfectly virtuous individual. Moreover, since the passions can, as shall be examined below, actually increase the goodness and praiseworthiness of one's virtuous deeds, particularly when they facilitate the efforts of the will to execute more promptly and expeditiously the commands of reason, Christ's virtuous life was more perfect and praiseworthy in the very measure that it involved his affectivity. Such is the moral dignity of th,e affective dimension of Christ's life to which Aquinas' thought, even if insufficiently expressed, logically infers.
In terms of sources, Aquinas' position draws from a rich pool of patristic and medieval authors who affirin the hannonious coexistence of passion and consummate virtue in Christ.
147. STUI, q. 19. a. 2: "In homine Iesu Christo nul/us erat matus sensitivae partis, qui non esset ordinatus a ratione. "
322
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
THEOLOGY OF
~T.
THOMAS AQUINAS
PAUL GONDREAU
b 'Augustine the fact that the sinless Jesus is the same Jesus ~ho regularly As seen a ove, lor th s' . that passlOn and VIrtue dis I. s "true human affection" suffices to disprove e tOIC view " . . Pm: t d rsarles 148 For Jerome Christ's experience of "true sorrow 1D no way eren. ve was "d'omma . ted" by'thiS or any other passion.149 John. Damascene phes that hisasoul d" opines tur I
lDl~
ar~
teIT~r
;;0: n:t
d
"hich Jesus experienced attest to hIS assume
na
a
that :'the fear .and an subject to sin. "150 According to Hugh of St. Victor, ." . Chri t h xhibits "true compassion" and and mdetracbble passl~ns the Christ "who was WIthout sm IS the same s w. 0 e , fear and sorrow" While "true assion "151 Peter Lombard asserts that Jesus expenenced 'true . , p : . g "innnunity to all sin."I" For Alexander of Hales, Christ s perfecthe samutue bme urowned Ithnat his passions were at all times "supremely ordered. "153 Finally, AIbon m v e ens . di f him from the rt the Great holds that Christ's passions never succeeded m strac mg . of virtue while Bonaventure insists that Jesus' passions always the , h of his soul 154 Though none 0 ese VIews 1tates of reason ofAquiru:. (save for Bonaventure's notion of
~t
:~ercise
::
rfesthPecte~ ddl.~-
an~i~~~o~:~~:~~e ~:~~:n
;=io~~~~:itting ~bedientiallY or despotically to the rule of reason), and although al\
(CCSL 48 427) and :Iract in Ioh. LX, n. 3 (CCSL 148. Augustine, De civ. Dei, Bk. X!V, ?h. 9 er' ~homi~is corpus ~t verus hominis animus, 36, p. 479), on 1n 13:21: "Neque emm, m qu: v::mphil:sophorum, qui negant in sapientem cadere falsus era! humanus affectus ... Pereant argu e
323
suffice to invalidate the Stoic virtue-passion antithesis, no author assigns the matter more thought or committed deliberation that St. Thomas. Finally, complementing Aquinas' view on the relationship between Christ's passions and his consummate virtue is his weighty remark that "Christ possessed the gifts of the Holy Spirit to a supereminent degree."'" For, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are nothing other than the "instincts of the Holy Spirit" (instinctus Spiritus Sancti), or, as S. Pinckaers puts it, "the inspirations received from the Holy Spirit," whose aim is to strengthen, assist, complete, and perfect the virtues, both moral and intellectual.'" In Thomas' mind, the virtues stand in need of assistance and completion because, reliant upon reason, they perfect the powers of the soul, including the sensitive appetite, in a natural sense only; they cannot perfectthe soul's powers supernaturally. Since grace alone accomplishes this, the sanctitying grace (gratia gratum/aciens) received into the human soul brings with it the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which in turn supematuralize the faculties ofthe soul, including the lower appetites. The gifts accordingly correspond to the way in which the Holy Spirit interiorly moves the human soul, through its powers, "to obey readily" (ad prompte obediendum) the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and thereby lead the soul to God, the ultimate end and true good of human life.'S7 Specifically, the gift that Thomas identifies as perfecting or supernaturalizing the sensitive appetite, or that which makes the animal appetite amenable to the motion of the
perturbationes animorum. "
'37) (CCSL 77 p.253): "Dominus, ut veritatem adsumpti probaret 149. Jerome, In Math. IV (?n 26. . ~sio in animo filius dominaretur." hominis. vere quidem contnstatus Slt sed, n~ p23 ( d B ytaert p. 266): "Voluntaire enim naturalia
150. Damascene, De fide orth., Bk: III, ~. t e. U t aCTo~ia naturalium est, et indetractibiliurn volens suscipere dignatus est. Quare zpse tImor e pavor e 0
passionum,etnonsubiectarumpeccato:" . Bk II t 1 ch 7 (PL 176, 390-1): "Sedquiacaro 151. Hugh of St. Victor, ,D,e sacr.. Christ. fi~el, . . ~a:O qu~e sine peccato erat pateretur, infir-
Petu:
peccatrix a poena peccatl llberarl non potu! , nESI .. Quomodo enim in Christo . tIS' et mortalitatis in carne pasSI'b'i'/ . l l ~. • • ?"assumpta rettnwt potestate ... mllalem
vera compasslO fUlt, Sl vera pasSIO non fult. 6 ch. 2 (ed. Coll. Bonav., pp. 98 and 105): "Habuit enim 152. Lombard,IIISent, d. I~, ?~. 2, .andd. 1 h' .. D 'mostatu accepit [Christ] immunitatem Christus verom timorem et tnstltlam tn natura omlnlS ... e pYl peccati." , 16 d' 2 mem 7 (ed Quaracchi, p. 253): 153. Alexander of Hales, Qu. disp. 'ant. esset!ra~er, q. '. 1SPfi'u,:t summ'a ordinatio .. Cf. as well . fi · · d' t . mo m Ipsa passlOne "passio in Christo non Ult mar, mao a, 1m 1 4 d 3 mem 1 ad 4 (ed. Quaracehi, p. 60). Summa theol. (Summa hal.), Bk. III, mq. 1, tr. ,q: ' . 'st "n·ussarp"ensquamphilosophi ... Sapid IS 8 d l' "Christus emm non e m 154. Albert,IIISent,. ,a. a . d d d c'turde,nexus ab aequalitate et aequitate. . . . t' epassionis se non e U I ':1 0' •• d ens emm tangllur et patltur ra lOn d C I 222): "In Christo autem fuit disposltlO a "Cf. as well, De incarn., tr. 6, q. I, a. 2 ad 6 de . to ,?nB"oPn'aventure III Sent d. 15 a. 2, qq. 2-3 (ed. . d d ednonadlmmo erae. " ' . It trlstandum et gau en u~, ~ d' Christojuittristitia tantum isla tertia modo, qUlQ de nu 0 Quaraeehi, pp. 338-40): DICO ergo,. quo m . . do dicit molum detestationis cum inquietatristatus fuil, nisi secundum quod dl~tab.at el ;atlo ... ~obat'one mentis; et hoc modo fuit in Christo tione et perturbatione partis sensualzs sme a lqua per ur I affectio irae. "
i
155. STnI, q. 7, a. 5: "in Christofueruntexcellentissime dona." For more on Thomas' view on the gifts of the Holy Spirit in Christ, cf. E.-H. Weber, Le Christ selon saint Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 184-7. 156. S. Pinekaers, "L'instinct de l'Esprit au coeur de l'ethique cmetienne," in Novitas et veritas vitae. Aux SOurces du renouveau de la morale chretienne. Melanges offerts au Professeur Servais c Pinckaers a I'occasion de son 65 anniversaire, ed. C.-J. Pinto de Oliveira (Fribourg, Switz.: Editions Universitaires, 1991), pp. 213-23, at 217: "ce que nOllS appelons les dons sont des souffles, des inspirations reyues de I 'Esprit-Saint." Aquinas' treatise on the gifts of the Holy Spirit is found in ST III, q. 68; cf. as well II-II, q. 19, a. 9 ad 4; In, q. 7, a. 5 ad 1; and Expositio super Isaiam ad litteram, ch. 11. For illuminating studies on the notion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in Aquinas' thought, cf. J.-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel. pp. 274-85; M.-J. Nicolas, "Les dons du Saint-Esprit," RT92 (1992), pp. 141-52; J.M. Muiiuz Cuenca. "Doctrina de santo Tomas sobre los dones del Espiritu Santo en fa Suma teo16gica," Ephemerides canneliticae 25 (1974), pp. 157-243; and S. Pinckaers, The Sources o[Christian Ethics, pp. 224-6. 157. In STII-II, q. 19, a. 9, Thomas explains that "the gifts of the Holy Spirit ... make the soul's powers amenable to the motion of the Holy Spirit, just as the moral virtues make the appetitive powers amenable to the motion of reason" (dona Spiritus sancti ... potentiarum animae, qUibus redduntur bene mobiles a Spiritu sancto, sicut virtutihus moralibus potentiae appetitivae redduntur bene mobiles a ratione). Cf. STI-II, q. 68, aa. 1-3;1n ad Rom. ch. 8, lect. 6; In ad Gal, ch. I, lect. 4; S. Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, p. 13; J.-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel p. 276; and M.-M. Labourdette, "La vie thoologale selon saint Thomas. L'affection dans la foi," RT60 (1960), pp. 364-80.
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TIlE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE PAUL GONDREAU
TIlEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Holy Spirit, is the gift of the fear of the Lord (Aquinas even likens this gift to the virtue of temperaoce).'58 That Christ possessed this particular gift Aquinas fully believes, since Scrip_ ture explicitly aflinns as much in a messianic prophecy from Isaiah that Thomas, exhibit_ ing both his rich grounding in Scripture and his regard for the Bible as the norm of theology, naturally attributes to Christ: "And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord" (Is 11 :3).'59 Supremely endowed, then, with the gift offear, Jesus was assisted and strength_ ened by the Holy Spirit to an unparalleled degree in the integration of his affecllve movements into the exercise of virtue; by an inner prompting or inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Jesus' concupiscible and irascible appetites were supematuralized and properly ordered to God, thereby completing and perfecting those moral virtues whose task consisted in conforming Jesus' passions to the rule of reason (it must be acknowledged, however, that Aquinas, despite consecrating an entire article in the Summa to Christ's possession of the gift of fear, leaves his remarks minimally formulated on this point). Jesus' temperance, meekness, affability, chastity, magnanimity, and his other moral virtues were all strengthened by the gift of the fear of the Lord that he possessed to a supereminent degree.
3. The Soteri%gica/ Significance of Christ's Perfection in Virtue Before examining in detail the threefold singularity of the moral quality of Christ's passions, we must briefly consider the soteriological significance of the foregoing analysis, or the import that the consummate integration of Christ's passions in the imperium of reason holds for the rest of the human family Jesus came to redeem. That this matter takes precedence over all other theological inquiries into Christ's human affectivity Aquinas aflinns in his opening remarks in Tertia, q. 15, a. I; here, Thomas maintains that Christ combined both passibility of soul and perfection in virtue, first, "in order to satisfy for us" (ut pro nobis satisfaceret), and, second, "so that he might become an example of virtue to us" (ut n.obis fleret exemp/um virtutis). Two distinct avenues of Christological insight, each apprecIates
in itS own way what Christ's supreme self-mastery over his affective moyeme.n~s me~s
325
each one of us, it is certainly a :eflection of how Thomas had personally turned to Christ and come to value the personal Impact that Jesus' humanity had on his own salvation.
a. The Need for Satisfaction As seen earlier in this study, Aquinas, echoing the thought of Peter Lombard and Albert the ?reat.(as well as ~onaventure), identifies the aim of Christ's mission with the need for satISfaction for the sms of the human race: the purpose of the Incarnation was to offer satis-
faction or ~tonement for, h~an sin, and thereby procure redemption of the human race, 160 Not~bly, smce Tho~as InSIstS that the order of divine justice requires payment, or satis~actio.n, for the debt mcurred by human sin, he believes that no truly acceptable act of satIsfactIOn can be offer~~ by one who is guilty of the very offense for which one is attempting to atone; as the DOmInICan explams, extracting his position Once again from the authorita-
tive wituess of Scripture:
Sin in no way works our satisfaction; rather, it impedes the power of satisfaction since, as it is written in Sir 34: 19, "the Most High approves not the offerings of th~ wicked."161
Becau.se it annuls the efficacy of satisfaction, sin--or, better yet, a disordered soul-has no place. m the humanity assumed by Christ: "No one offers satisfaction to God," Thomas asserts m the Compendium theologiae, "by his soul being in a state ofdisorder. "162 To atone adequately for hum"? sin, then, J~sus must experience a life of consummate virtue, whereby he expenences. nO:hm? of the. dIsordered autonomy of the sense appetite, or whereby he
~ow~ not the mc!matIon. of~ls lower appetite to its proper object irrespective of reason's Impenum.; as Aqumas wntes m the Summa: "It was necessary for Christ's soul to possess
p.erfect ~Irtue: so that h~ would bave the power of satisfying."!6J Christ's redemptive miss~~n rehes ~tri~tly o~ hIS possessIOn of a supremely ordered soul, or on his owning a sensItive appellte m radIcal and fundarnental synergy with the intellectual powers of his soul.
for us and each indicates the place that Christ occupies in Friar Thomas' own spmtual hfe. For, ifAquinas deliberately accentuates the concrete meaning that Jesus' moral life has for
160. Cf. Lombard, 1II Sent, d. 15, a. 1 (ed. Coli. Bon.v., pp. 93-4); Albert,lII Sent, d. 15, a. 1, sed contra 1; and aa. 5-6; and Bonaventure. III Sent, d. 15, •. 1, q. 2 (ed. Qu.racchi, pp. 332-3). Forstudles on the notion of Christ's satisfaction in Aquinas. Cf. chapter three. n. 105. ~ 61. STUI, q. 15, a. 1: "peccatum nihil operatur ad satis/actionem: quinimo virtutem satis/actionis zmpedit; quia, ut dicitur Eccli. 34: 19, 'dona iniquorum non probat Altissimus." 162. Compo theol., ch. 226; emphasis mine: "nullus igitur per hoc Deo satis/acit ... quod habet inordinatam animam. " 158. STI-II, q. 68, a. 4 ad 1 and ad 5; d. as well II-II, q. 19. 159. STIII, q. 7, a. 6, sed contra:"Et replebit eum spiritus timoris Domini."
163. STIlI: q. 14,~. 1 ad I (cf. q. 15, a. 4):
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THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
The soteriological upshot from this is that the human race stands redeemed of its sins before God because Jesus enjoyed total harmony of soul, i.e., because Jesus'affective movements were instinctively ordered to virtue and were at all times nltimately finalized by reason. Without Christ's possession of a radical rectification of soul as following upon a sensitive appetite being perfectly ordered to the rule of reason, there would be no possibility of human salvation. Such are the stakes involved in discussing the moral integrity of Christ's human affectivity for Aquinas. Speaking of the ordeal of Christ's passion, i.e., of his suffering and death (though in a way that holds equal validity for Christ's general passibility of soul), Thomas explicitly affirms the soteriological significance of Jesus' human affectivity when he writes: "Christ's passion ... considered as part of his very flesh, acts by way of satisfaction, inasmuch as by it we are liberated from the debt of punishment."'" Through their conversion to Christ, Christians accordingly share in the redemptive fruits of a Christ who himself attained a life of supremely ordered passion-the human race is liberated from its sins precisely because, as the Second Council of Constantinople again states, Jesus was "not troubled by the passions of the soul nor the desires of the flesh. "165 In Aquinas' mind, no Christian can deny such a paramount cause-effect relation.
PAUL GONOREA
327
chant for the expression "Christ's·action is our instruction "167 :fi th . which occurs in his Commentary on John's Go I" , o r or e potent assertion, leads us to God "'68 Ifth . d' I spe '. The humanzty o/Christ is the way that . e prunor la place of Christ's exe I 'ty' A . , verified anywhere, however, it is in the Summa the Christol:~ an '~ qumas. thought is ,,!l'cal section of whICh Thomas opens by pointing out that the Wo d b · ' "169 r ecame man so as to glve us an example f . ht duct. From this Aquinas goes on to highlight the wa Christ is 0 ng c?nevery major aspect of Jesus' life: Jesus allowed himself~o be circ~~~~;~:~en :,s~uss:g
r::i~i~~~~ ~oS~ic I~w "~ order t~ provide an example of humility and o~~Ji:c~,.17~ 0 be aptized so that h,s example might incite us to seek baptism'"171 he 'al Iowed hi mseIf to e tempted ''" nJ, . , temptations";m he prayed to ~~: F:~: ~~e us an exam?le on how to overcome the devil~s Christ wished t d h' ffi' In order to gIve us an example of praying'" 173 , • 0 un ergo IS Sil enng and death" to give us an exam I .' mIllty, perseverance, justice, and all the other virtues exhibited in his Pp:s~ioon~~~~e~ceh' hrtu, In so,
b. "In Order to Give Us an Example"
brose, Augustine andLeotheGrea~c( B Stud D' S ancienne (paris:, 'Editions du Cerf. 1989).' er, leu auveur. La redemption dans la/oi de l'i£glise
The second-and, to the modem reader, more immediately accessible-manner by which Christ's consununate moral excellence bears significance for the human family is again that of providing for us a model of all perfection. This theme of Christ's exemplarity, which takes its inspiration from I Pt2:21 ("Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps") and which is rich in patristic elaboration, Aquinas quite highly esteems; J.-P. Torrell, in fact, does not hesitate to insist that "Christ's exemplarity is always in the forefront of Master Thomas' mind."'66 This is readily verified by Thomas' pen-
167. . STIlI q 40 a 1 ad 3' "Gh . " . fu'It nostra instructio." For a detailed srudy ofth· h~'" .', ns I actw preSSIOn, w lch occurs 17 tImes inAquinas'works cf R S h " . ". IS exstructio, "pp. 103-31. Cf as well J _p T< II U'''' " ~ enk, Omms Chnstl actlO nostra est inund Christ in der Spannu~g von ve~u~ft:~ Le.~ltre f;l~el, pp. 155-6; P.. Engelhardt, "Mensch in Tommaso d'Aquino pp. 391-3' and J -J Lat I e~~c a , p~'. 1~9~1.; I. Blffi, I Misteri di Cristo 168 L t .,.' '" our, lmago Del mVlSlb,lzs, "pp. 261-3. . ec. super loan ch 7 lect 4' empha'1S . "Ch" Deum. " Cf as well ch .,6 l~c; 5' ':As' CShri,ml~eth: rlstl humanitas sit nobis via tendendi in ., .. man, st IS e way' '1 am th '(J 146) Christ, he leads us to the Father as a way leads to its end F . . e way . n : ; and as the through those things which Christ did in hi fl h" (8 .. , or we obtain the fruit ofthe resurrection
:.!~s~"'tv:;' (:; e~4:~~:t secundum quod ~st ~hrist:'":'::C~~a~~:;e;:o~c":,~~~ ;;;;::n~~ ~:~ q 2 Prol' "ChriPt' th h Chnstus m carnesuagesSlt, consequimur resurrectionis/ructum l • STI q , •• S IS e urnan way that leads us to G d" (Gh ' . .~" .
164. STIlI, q. 48, a. 6 ad 3 (cf. as well a. 2): "passio Christi ... consideratur in ipsa carne Christi, agU per modum satisjactionis, inquantum per eam liberamur a reatu poenae. " 165. Cf. T. O'Meara, Theologian. p. 134; and M. Jordan, "Aquinas's Construction," pp. 94-7. 166. J.-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel, pp. 156-7: "I' exemplarisme christique est sans cesse present a la reflexion de Maitre Thomas.'Cr. as well pp. 489-93, where Torrell supplies a sizable sampling of texts, particularly from Thomas' Scriptural commentaries, in which the theme of Christ as the model of all perfection predominates; and Torrell, "Imiter Dieu comme des enfants bien-aimes." La conformite aDieu et au Christ dans l'oeuvre de saint Thomas," in J.-P. Torrell, recherches thomasiennes (paris. J. Vrin, 2000), pp. 325-35. In Le Christ en ses mysteres vol. 1, p. 24, Torrell explains how the notion of Christ's virtuous exemplarity in Aquinas takes its patristic inspiration especially from Am-
nobis tendendi in Deum)' and III q 9 a 2' "M tta°. thr~sto qUI secu,ndum quod homo via est Ch' .. ' . ' • .. an a IDS e end ofbeatttude by th h . f 16;.stS~~ri hun~ aU~~finem ~eat~tudi~is homines reducuntur per Christi humanitate~)~mamty 0 raeb . " ,~. ,a. , emphas.ls ml.ne:. quantum ad rectam operationem, in qua nobis exem lum se ~tuel pUlti5Jban,sdanLd thcr~ ~Oltlowmg cltati?ns are an adaptation ofJ.-P. Torrell's analysis in Marfre spir,. , e fins en ses mysteres, vol. I. p. 217.
~:~ili:~i~~t~::;i:~~~::::;;u"::.~' circumcisionem et alia legis onera subire, ad demonstrandum ~:~.adSr~~s~:!~ ~·~f.a! ~::qPh;~iS mine: d"Christus3 baptizari voluit, ut nos exemplo suo induc1 .,a.,ana.a 3 d
172. STIII,q.41 a l'emphasism'n' "Gh' '.. instrueret, qualite; diaboli tentation~ e~inca~':s~ tentan volUll ... propter exemplum, ut scilicet nos
!~!d/:In. q. 21, a. 3:
"Christus ad hoc uti voluit oratione ad Patrem, ut nobis daret exemplum
174. STIlI q 46 a 3'" h d d' b' tiae et ca t , . '." p~r oc .e It no IS exemplum obedientiae, humilitatis, constantiae, iustie erarum vlrtutum In passwne Christi ostensarum. "
328
PAUL GONDREAU
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
329
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
"by his entire manner ofliving," Thomas wri~es, "the ~rd gave us an example of perfection in all that relates to salvation."I7S So also m order to mstruct us o? how the ~Sl~ns relate to salvation did Christ enjoy a life of unblemished integratIOn of passIOn ~n the impen'um of reason: "Christ offers the example for affective living," Aquinas proclaIms in his commentary on the Gospel ofJohn.l76 . . . . One can see, then, the concrete worth that Jesus' human exp~n~ce, mcludmg hIS passions, 'holds for the disciple of Christ. For Thomas, it is of capital nnpo.rtance that Jesus should stand innnune to the consequences of original sin on human affectmty, and thereby enjoy total harmony of soul, since this allows the Christian to fashIOn hiS or .her affecllve ft Christ's own example--the Christian can know for certam how to nse above the 1'"' ueaer ." 'J' struggle with a disordered sense appetite. In finding a source of mSp11'lltIOn ~ esus Consunnnate integration of passion in the exercise of virtue, the follower of Christ can seek to imitate Christ's own affective example (cf. Heb 12:3).177 Yet this kind of Christological exemplarity, called moral exemplarity, represents not the onl~ way by which Jesus supplies the model for Christi~ life! there remams a. deep~r kind of Christological exemplarity-termed ontologICal-which, ill fact, holds loglcalpnority over Christ's moral exemplarity.l7' When Aquinas states, in other words, th~t Christ's manner ofliving is meant to provide us with an example, the ~xamplehe holds m mmd IS not only moral, but also ontological. Ontological exemplanty pertams to the fact that,
175' STilI q 40 a 2 ad I' "Dominus in sua conversattone ex;emplum perfectionis dedit in omnibus
qua~ per se ~~rtin'en't ad saiutem. "For other texts affinning Christ's exemplarity, cf. ST III, q. 50, a, 1; q. 51, a. 1; Leet. super loan., ch. 13,lect. 3; ch. IS,teets. 2-3; Leet. super Matt.,
ch.~, teet. 2; In
ad Cor.. ch. ll, leet. I; and CG IV, ch. 55. Cf. as well the splendid passage from Thomas sermon on the Creed, In Symbolum 4, cited in J.-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel, p. 158. . " 176. Leet. super Ioan., ch. 13, leet. 1: "proponit Christi, exemplu~ dan/IS, ajJectu".', . 177. For more on the imitation of Christ in the theology of Aqumas, cr. L.-~. Gtl!,on. Chnst ~nd Moral Theology, trans. C. Williams (New York: Alba House, 1967); P.
since all grace comes through Christ's active human mediation, which makes grace strictly speaking "Christian" rather than simply divine, grace ontologically confonns one to the human Christ 179 Pauline in inspiration (cf. Rm 8:29: "Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be cOliformedto the image of his Son"), this notion of Christ's ontological exemplarity means that Christ, through his grace, gives his disciples the power from within to reproduce his own experience, including the harmonious integration ofpassion in the imperium of reason; the members of Christ's body share in the life ofthe head. That Jesus recaptures the radical harmony of soul which prelapsarian man had originally enjoyed means that the first crucial stage in restoring the human station to that which God initially willed-and continues to will-the human race to possess has been attained; for, Aquinas remains convinced that the crippling affective condition which results from the inner conflict between flesh and spirit, or from the tension that arises between desires for intennediate sentient goods and desires for the ultimate rational good, does not correspond to God's design-either initial or current-for human nallue. Through an ontological confonnity to Christ, the human condition of the baptized believer is restored to God's initial design for . human nature, even if this restoration of a supremely ordered affectivity will be fully realized only in the full presence of God. Thomas' position is not without its potential misconceptions, however, since one might object that Aquinas' endeavor to sustain a Jesus immune to concupiscence, or a Jesus of radical rectification of soul, adopts an essentially glorified, if not naive, Christology, since such a view only succeeds in erecting an impenneable divide between the singular human condition ofJesus and the existential experience of the rest of the humanfamily-as if the fact that "the passions were in Christ otherwise than in us" turns Jesus into some kind of a side "freak" show. Subsequently, Aquinas' claim that Christ enjoys consummate mora! integrity in order to give us an example of virtue seems untenable, since; at least in tenns of the moral quality of his passions, little instructional benefit can be gained from a Jesus whose affectivity abstains from an otherwise nonnal and universal feallue of human life. To be sure, since the disordered autonomy of the sense appetite, which represents the root source of the inner struggle between flesh and spirit, follows upon the nallual human condition, i.e., upon nallual principles, it would seem that the unique grace Jesus owned which perfectly
d~ ~01ntet. Attache-tol au
Christ! L'imitation du Christ dans la vie spirituelle selon S. Tho~as d. Aq~I~, ~ources 12 (1989), ~p. 64-74' A Valsecchi "L'imitazione di Cristo in san Tomrnaso d Aqumo, mMlscellanea Carlo Flgini, e.h.. Colomb~, et al. (Venegono Inferiore: Ed. "~a Scuola cattolic~" 1964), pp. 175-2?3; L.T. Somme, Fils adoptifs de Dieu par Jesus-Christ (pans: J. Vnn, 1997); ,demo ed;; Thomas d 'Aqum, la divinisation dans Ie Christ (Geneva: Editions Ad Solem, 1998); L. Scheffczyk, Ole Bedeutung der Mysterien des Lebens Jesu fUr Glauben und Leben des Christen," pp. 17-34; idem, "Die SteHung des Thomas von Aquin in der Entwicklung der Lehre von d~n Mysteria Vitae Christi," ~p. ~7?; G. Re, II cristocentrismo della vita cristiana (Brescia: Morcelhana, 1968); J.-P. Torrell, Maitre spmtuel, pp. 489--93' and T. O'Meara, Theologian. pp. 127-9. _ ., 178. For more on this distinction, cr. J.-P. Torrell. Maftre spirituel, ~. 152; ~nd H. Bouesse. 'De la causalite de I'humanite du Christ," pp. 148-51. For suggestive texts mAqumas, cf. STIlI, q. 19, a. I, corpus and ad 2; q. 48, a. 6; q. 56, a. I, corpus and ad 3; q. 62, a. I ad 2; and I-II, q. 112, a. I ad I.
G.
179. Cf. M.-M. Labourdette. "Aux origines du peche," p. 376. n. 30; and J.-P. Torrell. Maitre spir-
ituel. p. 152.
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ordered his sense appetite to the rule of reason emerges in the final analysis as a s.ubversion of the natural integrity of Christ's humanity. In other words, one may se~ the uD1q~e grace exempting Jesus from concupiscence as impeding what h,: should 0~elWlse ha~e nghtfolly owned by nature, and therefore as a violation of that whlCh nature mtended his lower appetites to possess. . ..' . . . However as seen earlier in this study, Aqumas IDSIStS that, metaphyslCally speaking, sm in nowise b:longs to the essence of human nature; to repeat, "what is natural to man was . d nor forfeited by sin."!" The human being gained nothing nel'ther acqmre . in terms k ofna" ture by sinning, and not even the disordered autonomy of the sense appellte ~ar s an acquisition" or inheritance of nature in the .strict sens~. To hOl.d that Jesus mlsse.s out on a "natural" feature of human life by foregomg concupiscence IS therefore to eqUivocate on the use of the term "nature." Aquinas, turning to the authority of Damascene, resolutely advances this very point when he writes, explaining why Christ "ought not to have assumed the defect ofsin," a defect that would have included the disorder among the soul's powers: The truth of human nature is not proved by sin, as sin does not belong to human nature, a nature that has God for its cause; rather, sin is contrary to nature, and has been "planted in us by the devil," as Damascene says. lSI
Furthermore, by distinguishing between the material body and the rationa.l soul, Aquinas is able to recognize that the term "natural" in reference to the human stallon may be understood in two different manners, depending on whether one focuses on the body or on the soul. I82
180. STI, q. 98, a. 2: "ea enim quae sunt naturalia homini, neque subtrahuntu~ nequ~ d~~tur he. . tu m .. . Cf. as well I-II"q 85" a I'. prtimum iaitur bonum naturae [z.e., natumlmperpecca o· .pnnClp'Q . t rae ex quibus insa natura constituitur, et proprietaus ex his causatae, sicut potentzae amm.ae, et. ~ La ' r . 'ghtful comme ntary on thIS posrtIon hUiusmodi] nec tollitur, nec diminuitur per peccatum. "F· or an mSI of Aquinas, cf. I. Pieper, Guide to Thomas Aquinas, pp. 122-4~ rver18 1 STIlI q 15 a.l: "de/ectumpeccatiassumerenondebwt ... expeccatonondemonstratu , naturae: ., . ad humanam naturam, CUlUS . Deus estcausa, sed quia peccatum non pertmet itas .humanae magis est contra naturam, 'per seminationern diaboli' introductum ut Damascenus [cf. De fide orth., Bk. III, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 259)] dicit." 182. The two principal texts offering this distinction areSTI-II, q. 85, a. 6, and II-II, q. 164, a. 1 ~ 1. For more on this distinction in Aquinas, cf. D. Chardonnens, L 'homm~ sow Ie regard d~,/~pn:VI J In anuence, pp. 134-60.Cf , as well N .A . Luyten, "L'homme dans la conception . de 1S. Thomas, S Th -"LRPL thropologie de saint Thomas, pp. 35-53, at 46-8; B. Bazan, "La corpo~hte se on ' .. oma~, , 81 (1983) 369-409 at 394-400' E.-H. Weber, La personne humame au XlII' Slecle. L avenement chez' parlsiens de modeme de l'homme (paris: J. Vrin. 1), ?-119; and C.-I. Pinto de Oliveira, "Homme et femme dans l'anthropologie de Thomas d AquIn, m Hu-
l~;~aitres
l'a~ception
19~ ~p.,~
331
If one holds the material, i.e., naturally corruptible, body primarily in mind, then the disordered autonomy of the sense appetite, which englobes concupiscence, does result from the properly natural condition of humanity: "Arguing on the side of matter," Aquinas writes, "man is naturally corruptible as regards the nature of his matter left to itself."!83 However, if, as Thomas says, "one argues on the side of the fonn ef human nature" (procedit ex parte!ormae), i.e., on the side ofthe rational soul, then a disordered sense appetite is not natural to the human condition, since the rational soul, "by virtue of its incorruptibility is proportioned to the end of everlasting beatitude."!" Aquinas, in other words, speaks readily of a "natural aptitude" (aptitudo naturalis) that the human being, as rational, has for eternal happiness and incorruptibility, even if natural principles alone cannot procure such an end;18s and since concupiscence, or the disorder among the soul's powers, is a form of corruption, concupiscence staods as a per se impediment to eternal beatitude and incorruptibility. Pushing this logic further, since reason corresponds to what is most proper, highest, and most noble in the human being as a human being (cf. Prima Secundae, q. I, a. I), and since "the fonn is the principle of a thing's being,"'86 it is more natural, i.e., more proper, that the human being should be incorruptible, and thereby spared the disorder among the soul's powers, than that humans should be corruptible, and thereby subject to disordered autonomous movements of the sense appetite; this, of course, was the case at the dawn of human existence, when God did not abandon the human being to the nature ofthe material body left to itself. It is because of its inherent opposition to the proper end of human life, then, that a disordered autonomous sense appetite, concupiscence included, does not belong to the state of "pure (graced) nature," a state that Jesus and prelapsarian man possessed, as they were endowed with a unique grace making the natural aptitude for eternal beatitude and
main al'image de Dieu. La theologie et les sciences humaines face au probleme de l'anthropologie, ed. P. Buhler (Geneva: Labor et fides, 1989), pp. 165-90. 183. STI-II. q. 85, a. 6: "procedit ex parte materiae ... homo est naturaliter corruptibi/is secundum naturam materiae sibi relictae. "Cf. STU-II, -q. 164, a. 1 ad I; and De malo, q. 5, a. 5. 184. STI-U, q. 85, a. 6: "anima rationalis, secundum suam incorrnptibilitatem, proportionata est suo fini, qui est beatitudo perpetua. " 185. De malo, q. 5, a. 5: "natural principles are incapable of providing this [eternal beatitude and immortality]; but a certain natural aptitude for it belongs to man by reason of his soul, and its fulfillment comes from a power above nature" (ad quem prestandam nature principia non sufficiunt; set aptitudo quidem naturalis ad eam convenit homini secundum animam, complementum autem eius est ex supernaturali virtute). For more on eternal beatitude as the proper end of human nature, cf. SrI-II, q. 2, a. 7; q. 5, aa. 3-4; and CG Iv, ch. 19. 186. De malo, q. 5, a. 5: "Nam cum/onna sitprincipium e.ssendi."
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incorruptibility readily attainable. That is, because c?ncupisce~c.e is. a kind of corruption,.as it induces humans to follow impulses in contrary directIOns; It IS directly repugnant to the natural aptitude of the human soul for eternal beatitude and incorruptibility. Inciting a war amongst our interior members, concupiscence is a burden on the soul, and God out of his goodness wished that human beings should be inrmun~ to this war, i.~., that h~ans .sho.u1d be incorruptible, a desire realized at the outset by a umque grace owmg to ongrna~ J~stice. (If God did not endow human nature in the first place with a body that, as a body, IS inherently incorruptible, it is because, as Thomas states, '~nature knows of no bod~ composed of elements which, according to the nature of matter, IS mcorrupttble :.. [an~l mde~d, nature would choose an incorruptible matter if it could."!") Aquinas explams thiS well III the following passage from the De malo, in which he employs the tenn "contemplation" (contemp/atio) as an equivalent for eternal beatitude: The rational creature [i.e., the human being] excels all other creatures in that he is capable of the highest good, which consists in the vis~on ~nd enjo~ent of God, although the principles of his own nature cannot attain thIS e~d WIthout the help of divine grace... Man is composed of soul and body and of an mt~nectual and. sensate nature, a composition that, ifleft to its own nature, burdens and Impedes the mt~l!ect so that it cannot freely arrive at the heights of contemplation. By the help of ongmal justice the human spirit was subject to God in such a way that the low~r powers and even the body itself were totally subject to reason, and reas~n w~ n~t Impeded from tending to God .... But owing to original sin, this help of origmal J~stlce w~s ~emoved . [For] the [natural] movement of things that pertains to defects [m the ongmal state ~ was] prevented by God out of the abundance of his goodness.
..
Based then on the soul's natural aptitude for eternal beatitude and incorruptibility, one can se~ ho~ consummate hannony and integrity of soul is more "natural" to the human
condition than the interior struggle of flesh against spirit; a perfectly· ordered soul more closely resembles the proper human condition than a soul that suffers the disordering effects of sin--owning a propensity to sin as owing to concupiscence is more "animal" than "rational." SUQsequently, without concupiscence, Jesus can in no sense be considered any less of a human being. To the contrary, because he is sinless, i.e., because he is immune to the disorder of his animal appetite, Jesus is morefully human in the "natural" sense of the tenn than any person stained by sin. Far from subverting the doctrine of his full human consubstantiality, then, the tenet of Christ's inrmunity to concupiscence in reality bolsters the complete realism of Jesus' human nature. Sin, not sinlessness, threatens to abate the properly "natural" dimension of the human condition; J.-H. Nicolas, commenting on this aspect of Aquinas' Christology, puts it succinctly when he writes: "The one who is the most truly human is not the sinner, but he who has in himself triumphed over sin."!" The Jesus ofradical rectification of soul therefore represents the supreme realization of all that it means to be human-i.e., "naturally" human. Jesus emerges as the one case in human history where the movements of passion are most fully and genuinely "human." Aquinas, therefore, in no sense intends the fact that "the passions were in Christ otherwise than in us" to serve as a roadblock to general appreciation of the affective example of Christ, as if the threefold singularity of Jesus' passions, which shall now be examined, sets him wholly apart from the rest of the human family, which testifies tp a distinctly different existential affective condition. If this were the case, it would be absurd for Aquinas to look upon Christ as the supreme example of virtue after which we should imitate our lives. By holding up Jesus as the model of all perfection and as the source of human instruction the Master from Aquino betrays his desire to underscore the accessibility of Christ's affedtive example, not its remoteness or its disconnected otherness. Thomas' appreciation of the so!eriological dimension of Christ's human affectivity requires nothing less.
C. 187. De malo, q. 5, a. 5: "non potest invenir; corpus ex elementis compositu~ quod secu~du": nat~ uram materie sit incorruptibile "; ST I-II, q. 85, a. 6: "quin potius natura ellgeret matenam .11ic~r ruptibilem, sf posset." For more on this, cf. D. Chardonnens, L 'homme sous Ie regard de fa provldence, pp. 128-31. . d 188. De malo, q. 5, a. 1: "Creatura ergo rationalis in hoc preeminet omm creature, quo. ca~ax. e~t summi bani per divinam visionem et fruitionem, licet ad hoc consequendum natu:e propn~ prmClpIa non sufjiciant, set ad hoc indigeat auxilio divine gratie ... Est entin homo comp~sltus ex an~ma et corpore et ex natura intellectuali et sensibili: que quodammodo si su~ n~ture rell~quantu,: mtellectum aggravant et impediunt ne libere ad summum fastigium contemplatlOms pervemre. pOSSIl. Hoc autem auxilium foil originalis iustitia, per quam mens hominis sic subdere~r Deo ut e~ subderentur totaliter inferiores vires et ipsum corpus, neque ratio impediretur quommus posset m Deum ten~ere ... Hoc autem auxilium originalis iustitie subtrahitur per peccatum originate ... "; q. ~,a. 5 ~d 1~:. "'.ot~ rerum qui ad earum defectum pertinent, ali~~~ndo a Deo :o~tuntur ex .abundantla b.omtat~ ~p'SlUS. _ That this last phrase concerns the incorruptibIhty of the ongmal state IS continned m the mitial ob jection to this reply.
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THE THREEFOLD DISTINCTION IN THE MORALITY OF CHRIST;S PASSIONS
The foregoing analysis of the relationship between Jesus' human affectivity and his consummate virtue allows for a proper grasp of the threefold distinction in Christ's passions that Aquinas identifies as demarcating the singular quality of Jesus' affective-moral life.
189. J~-H. Nicolas, Synthese dogmatique, p. 411: "Le plus vraiment homme n'est pas Ie pecheur, mais celui qui a triomphe en soi du peche."
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THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Though Thomas is not altogether clear on how these three uniq.ue features. of J~sus' affective-morallife differ specifically from each other (upon suffiCIent reflection, m fact,.oue might view them as commingled variations on the same the~e), nor wb~ each on precisely 7 signifies, the wider context of his thought allows for a rehable exposition of this element of his theology of Christ's passions.
1. The Object of Christ's Passions: Jesus' Affective Tendency to Lawful Sense Objects The first unique feature of Christ's affectivity that Thomas lists is passion with respect to object: It is clear that the passions were in Christ otherwise than in us in the, fi~~ ~ay as re-
gards the object, since in us these passions often tend towards what IS tlllClt, but not 80 in ChriSt.l90
This qualification of Christ's passibility according to object, which occurs o~ly in the Summa, issues from Aquinas' view that the wound of concupi,scence, or ~e warpm~ of the limited autonomy of the sensitive appetite to the point that It tends to ItS ?wn object r:ardless of its conformity to the good of reason, can have no place m a smless and pe.virtuous Christ. Recall that the object of the sensitive .appetite is that erceived as suitable or harmful to the senses, with the formally different manne~ by whic senses perceive an object as suitable or harmful giving rise to the. eleven species pas: sions Endowed with its post-Iapsarian limited autonomy, whereby It owns a ~a~1 mde pend~nce of operation, the sense appetite may, within its own sentient sphere, I~clmefus to its proper object apart from reason's imperium. This effectively precludes any ~md.o necessarily instinctive affective orientation to the good ofr ason: The anunal appellte, mother 7 words tends to the sentient object as sentient, from which eliCIted moveme.nts may ens~e, whic~ from the standpoint of reason, mayor may not be good; the. concuplscl?le appeti~~ may incline one, for example, to avoid physical discomfort: an ~vOldance that IS ~pprop . ate if the discomfort serves no greater good but inappropnate If the discomfort IS assocIated with some kind of needed medicinal corrective.
~ectly ~e
whlc~ ~ o~
335
With Jesus, however, the terrain of sense appetitive inclination-in-motion was distinctly different. Rather than tending to sentient objects as sentient, Christ's concupiscible and itascible appetites, at least with respect to the elicited movements they gave rise to, inclined instead to sentient objects as harmonious with reason ~ imperium, or as ordered to God. By disallowing for movements of affectivity toward "illicit" objects in Jesus, Aquinas affirms that the elicited movements of Jesus' sense appetite were always regulated by the rule of reason (though, again, this should not be taken to mean that Jesus' affective life followed a kind of rationalistic order, whereby his sense appetite moved only when commanded to do so by reason in a cold, calculated, and "automated" manner). Thomas, in other words, discerns a radically extensive penetration of reason into Christ's affectivity, by which his sense appetite was entirely transformed and finalized by reason. Subsequently, Jesus' passions were instinctively and innately oriented to the good of reason and to the exercise of virtue (and ultimately to God), thereby preserving his radical rectification of soul. Christ experienced no elicited movement of affectivity, i.e., no passion, as a result of the chance encounter with a sense object deemed desirable or avoidable by the internal senses without further ado, i.e., irrespective of reason's imperium. Contrary to how one may look at times upon the movements of passion in all other humans, then, one must in the case of Jesus consider at all times more than just the sentient object in order to ascertain the kind of elicited movement of affectivity, or passion, it engenders; one must also consider the sentient object's compatibility or incompatibility with a higher object: the good of reason. Christ's passions inclined him affectively only to lawful objects. Though Aquinas offers no further elaboration as to the object of Christ's passions, which does little to assist the reader in grasping its significance, such a claim does logically cohere with his view on Jesus' immunity to the consequences of original sin on human affectivity. The tenet of Christ's singular affectivity according to object thereby helps account in a meaningful manner for the superlative moral integrity that a genuine confession of faith must ascribe to Christ.
2. The Principle of Christ's Passions: Jesus' Affective Movements Never Preceded the Judgment ofReason Taking his cue from Augustine, Aquinas affirms that the second way by which Christ's passions differ from all other human passions is by way of "principle" or "source" (principium):
190 STIlI q 15 a 4' "Sciendum tamen quod huiusmodi passiones aliter fueru1it in Christ~ quad~ . ,.. . . Q ;. b' l quehulUsmo I in nobis, quantum ad tria. Primo qUidem, quantum a~.?biectum. uta m no ~it e,;;: three-fold dispassiones/eruntut ad illicita, quod in Christo nonfur. For a co~enta~ ~~ e end~ in pp 307tinction in Christ's passions, cf. M.-B. Schwalm, Le Christ d'apres samt mas qu, . 9. as well, 1. Biffi, I Misteri di Cristo, pp. 132-5.
cr.
It is clear that the passions were in Christ otherwise than in us ... in the second way as regards the principle, since in us these passions frequently precede the judgment of reason; but in Christ all movements of the sensitive appetite arose according
PAUL GONDREAU
337
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
336
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
e ordinance of reason. Hence, Augustine writes: "Even the Lo~ himself, when
to th
d bu an life in the fonn of a slave, had no sm whatever, and
h~C~::~:::s~ ~:si:ns :hen he judged they should be exercised. For there was
!o false human affection in him who had a true human body and a true human
soul."191 . . of thou ht can be traced throughout Aquinas' entire writing cae Notably, a c.OUSlsteng: , .g n ver "preceding" the judgment of reason (where, to reer on thiS Issue of st s:~:lOn: d~tinctly synergetic and ricb significance is at issue): refpeat,
th=l;:t~~reC~:;e:diuZ::
theologiae, written again about five years previous to
lone re ., th osition" the Tertia Pars, one fmds Thomas maintammg e same P . I
d th . dgtnent of reason In Christ they never
:e~:~:~:j~;::u:;;:a:::'~~th:;'~iS lower appetit.e. '~hi~~ ~ the su~~~ of the passions, was moved just so far as reason decreed that It 5
OU
e move .
Earlier in the De verilale, written about fifteen years before the Tertia par~~d .about five years after the Sentence commentary, Thomas writes essennally the same mg.
passion may suddenlY arise when one encounters somethin~ sUita~l~~:::s~:~:~ In Christ ." such passions are never sudden, seemg tha '. . I h armful . . . . , b h' h vement anses m the ower ct obedience of the lower powers to t e 19, er, no mo erfie P . f 1~
appetite except by a dictate 0 reason.
In us the lower powers are not perfectly subject to reason. Thus, at times passions of sorrow can arise outside the command of reason. so that virtue must restrain it and render it virtuous. although at times they may prevail against reason. In Christ, how~ ever. at no time did feelings of sorrow arise except by a dictate of higher reason, as his reason allowed his sensuality to undergo sorrow only in a way appropriate to his nature. Hence, Christ's sorrow never subverted reason, and he experienced sorrow only, so to speak, voluntarily, rather than by necessity.l94 This last statement from the commentary on the Sentences, whereby Thomas affirms that Jesus owned total willful command over his movements of passion, coheres with the overwhelming voice of the received tradition, including Augustine, John Damascene, Alcuin, Hugh ofS!. Victor, the Summa sententiarum, Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Albert the
Great. and Bonaventure. 195 One can also detect the clearly ascertainable influence of Bonaventure in this last passage cited; in his own commentary on the Sentences, the Franciscan asserts that "no sorrow arose in Christ except by a dictate of reason," a dictate that
precludes in all cases "sorrow that arises outside the command of reason" as in an "unforeseen" (surreptione) manner.196
a. Antecedent Passions and Consequent Passions In brief, Aquinas' identification of the unique principle or source of Christ's affective movements, whereby no passion "precedes" (praevenire) the judgment ofreason, presupposes the distinction the Dominican theologian elsewhere develops between what he tenns "an-
Ultimately, the position established in the foregoing passages is offered initially'in the
commentary on the Sentences:
h'
siones aliter juenmt in Christo quam
d"
191. STIlI, q. 15, a. 4: "Sciendum ~a"'.e? quod .un::~~~~:d%assiones frequenter in nobis praevein nobis ... Secunda, quantum ad prmclprum. QUla "f' elllUS oriebantur secundum disponiunt judicium rationis; sed in ~hrist~ ?mnes ~n~l~: ~ ch.9 (CCSL 48, p. 427)], 'Quam sitionem ralionis. Unde Augustmus d,Cit .[cf. De ~'V. ;." ~ hu;"'ananr sed nullum habens omnino ob rem etiam ipse Dominus informa servl age~edv!tam.t l~nqa e enim in q~o verum erat hominis cor'b . b' dhibendas esse IU lcaVl. lYe u , . ' d peccatum adhl ult eas, U 1 a .n. tus m This text from Augustine IS also cite
m0tz:s
pus et verus hominis animus, fa/sus erat humanus aJJec .m STIlI IS a.6ad3·andDever.,q.26,a.8. , ,q., , . I
.
. ;0(0 'udicium ralionis prevemuni ... In Ch r.., 192. Compo theol., ch. 232: 'iud?n ~~bis e~:.m ~ eru=~:~tum movebatur inferior appetitus, qui est lCrum ra loms ... ." autem numquam preveniebant . tu t' ordinabat eum debere moven. .' I passioni sub,ec/US, quan m ra b' 't tu occursu alicuius convenientis vel nOClVl .. · n 193. De ver., q. 26, a. 8: ',pasSIO su Ito conCl a 0 uod propter perfectam oboedientiam in Christo .. ' huiusmodi pasSl ones numquam sunt su I ae. ~t .q appetitu inferiori nisi secundum dicta· eis in!eriorum virium ad superiores nul/us motus exsUrgl In men rationis,"
'.0
;.;X
194. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2. a. 2, sol. 1: "In nobis inftriores vires non sun! peifecte subiecte rationi, et ideo quandoque preter ordinationem rationis insurgunt in nobis passiones tristitie, quas quidem virtus refrenat in virtuosis, set in aliis etiam rationi prevalent. Set in Christo numquam surgebat motus Iristitie nisi secundum dictamen superioris rationis, quando scilicet dictabat ratio quod sensualitas tristaretur secundum convenientiam naturae sue. Et ideo in eo neque fuit tristitia rationem pef1!enens, neque foil necessaria set voluntaria quodammodo. " 195. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps 87:3 (CCSL 39, p. 1209);De civ. Dei, Bk XlV, ch. 9 (CCSL48, p. 427); Damascene, Defide orth., Bklll, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 260); Alcuin, Comm. in loan., Bk. 5, ch. 27 (PL 100, 901); Hugh of St. Vicror, Desacr. Christ. fidei, Bk II,pt. I, ch. 7 (PL 176, 390-1); Summa sententiarum, ch. 17 (pL 176, 75); Lombard,IIlSent, d. IS, ch. I (ed. Coli. Bonav., pp. 92-8);Alexander of Hales, Summa theol., Pars I, Bk. I, tr. 5, sect. 2, q. 3, ch. 3, a. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. I, pp. 3123); Qu. disp. 'ante. essetfrater', q. 16, disp. 2, memo 2; and disp. 4, memo 3, n. 100 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 242-3 and 270-1); Albert, III Sent, d. IS, aa. 7 and 10; De incarn, tr. 6, q. I, a. 6 (ed. Colon., p. 225); and Bonaventure, III Sent, d. IS, a. I, q. 3; and d. 16, a. I, q. 3 (ed. Quaracchi; pp. 334-5 and 350-1). 196. Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 15, a. 2, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 338): ."Est in enim quaedam tristilia, quae est praeter rationis imperium ... Et ilia Iristitia est praeter rationis imperium. quae consurgit ex quadam necessitate et surreptione, sicut motus primi ". Dico ergo, quod in Christo fuit tristitia tantum isto tertio modo, quia de nullo tristatus foil, nisi secundum quod dictabat ei ratio. "
338
THE PASSIONS OF CIlRlST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
tecedent" passions and "consequent" passions; as he explains in the De malo, pointing out the negative impact of antecedent passion on moral choice on the one hand, and the positive influence of consequent passion on the moral life on the other: The passions may be related to the judgment of reason in two ways: first, antecedently, whereby the passions always impede the judgment of reason, since the soul can best judge the truth, especially in a certain tranquillity ofspirit. ...The second way is consequently. inasmuch as a passion arises to cany out the judgment of reason. In this maMer, the passions do not impede the judgment of reason, a judgment that has already transpired, but instead help execute the judgment of reason more promptly, and in this way the passions are useful to virtue,197
IfAquinas adopts a pessimistic regard for antecedent passions, it is because, as movements of affectivity that arise in an unforeseen or unpredictable manner by preceding the judgment of reason, they can only succeed in clouding, sometimes entirely, the eye of the spirit, and thereby subvert the imperium of reason. This follows not only from the nature of affective inclination, vigorous and powerful in its ability to draw one to the desirable object, but also from the bodily modification that accompanies a passion, which enhances the obscuring capacity of antecedent-passions; one may, for example, experience a sudden onset of fear about one's health while engaged in some harmless activity, and the more the fear induces the body to sweat, the heart rate to rise, etc., the more difficult it becomes to judge clearly ifthere is a rational basis for such fear. Obviously, since one has little control over the occurrence of antecedent passion, one bears, at least before the intervention of reason and will, little responsibility for them; Aquinas will even say that an antecedent passion abates the seriousness of one's sin, since "an act is a sin
PAUL GONDREAU
339
insofar as it is in us and is voluntary....In this respect, [antecedent] passion diminishes sin inasmuch as it diminishes its voluntariness."198 ' Ultimately, concupiscence, which ensues upon the disordered autonomy of the sensitive appetite, accounts for the fact that certain passions arise previous to any kind of rational judgment or deliberate choice. (To avoid misconceptions due to a rationalistic reading it is perhaps better to state that concupiscence gives rise to passions outside of reason's i'mperium, or, which manipulate and taint reason.) Since the sensate soul is disordered, whereby the lower appetites operate relatively autonomously in their own sentient spheres under the limited sovereignty (principatus politicus) of reason, this sensate soul may give rise to antecedent affective movements prior to any prescient awareness of reason or free choice of the will; as Thomas explains: It comes to pass sometimes that the movement of the sensitive appetite is aroused . suddenly as a result of the perception of sense imagination; such a movement occurs without the command of reason, though reason could have prevented it had it foreseen it. Hence. the Philosopher says that reason rules over the irascible and concupiscible appetites not by a despotic sovereignty, which is that of a master over his slave, but by a political or royal sovereignty, which concerns free subjects who are not completely subject to the sovereign's command. 199
Naturally, since Jesus' sense appetite was perfectly ordered to the rule of reason and to God, Christ could experience no elicited movement of passion that did not accord with the imperium of reason and will. Jesus enjoyed a radically extensive penetration of reason into his sensibility, which effectively precluded the possibility of the onset of antecedent or un-
198. STI-II, q. 77, a. 6: "actus enim intantum est peccatum, inquantum est voluntari~s, et in nobis existens ... Secundum hoc passio minuit peccatum, inquantum minuit voluntarium . .. Cf. STI-II, q. 10, a. 3 ad 2; q. 24, a. 3 ad 3 ("passio tendens in malum praecedens indicium rationis, diminuit peccatum"); q. 77, a. 7, and a. 8 ad 3; De malo, q. 3, a. II; q. 3, a. 13 ad 5 ('"Impulsio quae est ex passione diminuit peccatum. quia est quasi ab exteriori',; q. 7, a. 6; De ver., q. 26, '!-. 7; and II Sent, d. 24, q. 3, a. 2 ad 3. Cf. as well, J. Barad, "Aquinas on the Role ofEmotion,"p. 403; H.-D. Noble, "Passions," 197. De malo, q. 12, a. 1: "Passiones dupliciterse possunt habere ad iudicium rationis: uno modo antecedenter, et sic necesse est ut semper omnis huiusmodi passio iudicium rationis impediat. quia anima maxime potest iudicare veritatem in tranquillitate quadam mentis ... Alio modo consequenter, quia scilicet postquam ratio diiudicavit ... tunc passio insurgit ad exequendum. et alie huiusmodi passiones non impediunt iudicium rationis quod iam precessit, set magis adiuvant ad promptius exequendum, et in hoc sunt utiles virtuti." For the same position, cf. STI-II, q. 24, a. 3 a~ 1; and q. 77, a. 6, and De ver.. q. 26, a 7 (where Aquinas identifies this twofold relation with the will rather than with reason); cf. as well De ver., q. 24, aa. 12-13; and Albert, Qu. de sensual et eius mot., a. 3 (ed. Colon., pp. 223-4). For an analysis of antecedent and consequent passions in Aquinas, cf. J.A. Barad,
"Aquinas on the Role of Emotion in Moral Judgment and Activity," Thorn 55 (1991), pp. 397-413, at 407-10; M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones. pp. 72-4; and D.F. Cates, Choosing to Feel, pp. 21-7.
cols. 2226-31; M. Manzanedo, Las pasiones, pp. 72-3; and R. Baker, The Thomistic Theory of the Passions and Their Influence upon the Will. For Thomas' predecessors affinning the sernblable, cf.
Augustine, De vera refig., ch. 14, n. 27 (CSEL 77, p. 20); De Trin., Bk. I, 12 (CCSL 50A, p. 372); Lombard, IISent, d. 24, ch. 9 (ed. Coil. Bonav., p.457);Albert, Qu. de sensual. eteius mot., a. 2 (ed. Colon., pp. 221-3); II Sent, d. 21, a. 4; d. 24, a. 9; and Bonaventure, Brevi!., pI. 3, ch.8 (ed. Quar.cchi, p. 237). 199. ST I-II, q. 17, a. 7: "Contingit autem etiam quandoque quod motus appetitus sensitivi subito concitatur ad apprehensionem imaginationis. vel sensus; et tunc ille molus est praeter imperium rationis; quam vis potuisset impediri a ratione, sf praevidisset. Unde Philosophus [cf. Politics, Bk. I, ch. S (1254b2-5)] dicit quod 'ratio praeest irascibili et concupiscibili, non principatu despotlco, qui est domini ad servum, sed principatu politiCO aut regali. qui est ad liberos, qui non totaliter subduntur imperio. "
340
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
foreseen passions in his life: "Christ's passions," .Thom~ writes, "never pr~c~de~ the judg. ment of reason. "200 In a word, Aquinas categoncally dIsallows for any hmltation .on the penetrating influence of Christ's reason and will, since, i~ being spare~ the obscunng effects of sin on the human soul, Jesus only inclined to certam senllent ~bJ~cts ,,:,hen they cohered with rational goods. Rather than undergo a life tom from withm, m which ~e lower appetites incite movements independ.ently. of re~on's influence, Jesus. ~xpenenced a supremely ordered life where all his actions, mcludin~ mo~ements of affeCtiVIty, proceeded from on high (thus, the experience of consequent pasSIOn!, I.e., where a~ his powers worked in fundamental synergy with reason's imperium; as Aqumas explams: All the mo~ements of Christ's sensitive appetite arose according to the ordinan~e ofreason."~Ol In tlllS s~nse. Thomas' remarks on the consequent passibility of prelapsanan man. are directly pertinent to the condition of Christ: "In the state ofinnocence, the lower appellte was whol~y subject to reason, so that the passions of the soul always issued as a consequeoce of the Judgment
of reason. "202
.
It should be noted that, with this last statement, Thomas does not conceive of ~esus as
a kind of Cartesian rationalist, whereby his reason intervenes at each moment he wlshe~ to undergo a movement of affectivity, leaving him with.a kind of "cerebral" ~e of aff~ctlve life. Nor does Aquinas advance a casuistic interpretation of the moral quahty,of Jesus passions as if the focus were on the specific or individual movemeots of Jesus senslllve appetit~ and on how Jesus' reason reacted to each of these individual move,?ents. Rather, Aquinas holds in mind a whole state of soul where all the movements of h,s sensate soul are iustinctively ordered to reason, and thereby entirely oriented to God: ~ecause ofthe radically extensive penetration of reason into his sensibility, Jesus' affec.tiVlty was abl~ to participate wholly and actively in his rational life, with the result that hiS lower appelltes were ofthemselves able to stop short of eliciting passions that ,,:,ould have opposed the ~ood
ofreasan. Jesus could therefore experience spontaneous affectIve movements that Imtlated
200 C
341
with his sensitive appetite, yet which would have gone no further if they conflicted with reason (as in the case of his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane), or which would have terminated in full passions if they cohered with reason (such as when be became incensed at the money-changers in the Temple). Only in this latter sense may one say Jesus experi-
enced "antecedent passions," provided one understand that the penetration of reason into Jesus' sensibility ensured that it was ouly those spontaoeous movements of affectivity which cohered with the good of reason that were the passions of his life whose origin was in the sense appetite as such. Such passions could still be counted as "consequent passions," inasmuch as they mark the consequences of the complete penetration of reason into his sensibility. Morally speaking, Thomas holds that consequent passions may increase the goodness
of one's virtuous deeds on two scores. First, when a consequent passion arises by way of a redounding effect from the will onto the sensitive appetite, it indicates a greater tenacity and detennination on the part of the will to accomplish the virtuous deed in question, and, hence, it attests to the will's greater moral goodness (as when a person has resolved to help the poor and, upon witnessing firsthand the living conditions of the impoverished, is filled with pity for their plight). Second (and here Thomas takes his cue from Gregory the Great), a consequent passion may increase the goodness and praiseworthiness of an act when it arises from a deliberate command of reason in order to facilitate the efforts of the will to execute more promptly and expeditiously the virtuous deed in question (as when a legal authority, needing help to overcome his hesitation in taking requisite punitive measures, incites himself to anger over the manner in which the criminal act in question disrupted the order ofjustice). 203 Sununarizing this twofold manner by which a consequent passion may increase the good-
ness of a virtuous deed, Aquinas writes: [A consequent passion increases the goodness of an act in two ways.] First, by way of redundance, since when the higher part of the soul is intensely moved to something, the lower part foHows it. Thus, the passion that results as such a consequence in the sensitive appetite is a sign of the intensity of the will, and so indicates greater moral goodness. Secondly, by way of choice, as when a man, by a judgment of reason,
th 1 ch 232' "In Christo autem numquam preveniebant iudicium rationis. "Bonaven-
tur." II;;:'t, ;~5, a."2, d~b. 3 red. Quaracchi, p. 342]) also eliminates fear in Christ that precedes the j~dgment of reason: "iste [fear] est in triplici differentia: quida"! e~t sensu~lltat,: pr~evementl~
rationem, quidam sensualitatis subiacentis rationi, ?ui~am vera est 'PSlUS partis ratlonaLIs ... [FJul! in eo [Christ] timor media modo, non primo vel tertlO. _ .. 201. STIlI, q. IS, a. 4: :'in Christo omnes motus sensitivi appetitus oriebantur secundum dISPOSltionem rationis. " Cf. as well De ver., q. 26, a. 8. .. . b' 202. STI. q. 95, a. 2: "In statu vera innoc~ntiae ~nfe:i~r ~pl!etitus erat ratl~?' totallter su lectus. Unde non erant in eo passiones animae, niSI ex ratlOnlS lUd,clO consequentes.
203. Cf. Gregory the Great, Moralia in lob, Bk. V, ch. 45, n. 83 (CCSL 143, p. 280). For more on this notion in Aquinas, cf. H.~D. Noble, "Passions," col. 2223; and M. Corvez, Appendix 2 to Somme theologique, vol. I, Les passions de l'clime, p. 266. We had also seen how the goodness ofa virtuous act is amplified when it involves the active participation of the sense appetites.
342
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
PAUL GONDREAU
~:eration of the sensitive appetite; in this way a passion of the soul Increases the
343
Doses to he affected by a passion in order to be more promptly assis~d by the co-
goodness of an action. 204
. the fact that Christ's passions always proceeded from a For these reasons, then, and glVen. . J 'irtuous life was more perfect and fund tal ergy with reason's lmperzum, esus v . amen syn that it involved his affectivity. Jesus was more pratseworthy 10 the very measure d . hope' etc 0, thao ifhe remained a stiff of a stOIc, and praiseworthy ill showmg anger" esrre, .
perf~ct
unm:qV~!::=~:v:~~~;s:e:,o:~;:;o~g~:~f consequent passions. Since one fshoffiUldt~rs movements 0 a ec IVthe responsibility for the occurrence of consequent Phass', ons . ; such f mortal sin-inasmuch as . rna also increase the malice of an act-even to t e porn 0 a
~uch
errone~us. ~oral jud~;;'~!::~~~i:d,~::
!en passions issue from a defective or choice ofthe will: "A consequent pass~on does ~ot dnm;'.': ~ ~':iicates the int!sity ~fthe . 't 0 ratberisasignofltssenousness,masmuc . Id' sinful act "205 Needless to say, this "malicious" side of consequent paSSlOn w, towar s e . . . h th I f Aquinas has no pertinence to the affective life of Christ lIT t e eo ogy 0 .
m~lrleases ~
b. The Absence of the "Affective Spark to Sin" (fomes peeeati) in Christ
f the antecedent passion (i.e., the passion that preempts reason's im~ At the root source 0 . t . th the High Medieval scholastics, identifies as the perium) is w~t Aquinas, conslsten;: the affective spark to sin. Closely related to the fomes peccati, or,what one may trans a e ~ rtains to the innate affective proclivity to sen~otiongoods of concup,sc."nce, thet~tesi;;::~~!~ goods. Historically, this Scholastic term orighent that are lITcompa, ew
. "u.
0 modo er modum redundantiae, quia scilicet cum superior pars 204. STI-IT, q. 24, a. 3 ad 1. n . P . t. pars ,.n.'erior' et sicpassio existens con'd eqUltur malum ems e lam ~~. animae intense movetur m a zqw s ... I tal.s. el sic indica! bonitatem moralem '( est signum mtensloms vo un I. . . . . sequenter In appetllu senSI IVO .. do scilicet homo ex iudicio rationis eligit afficl alrmaiorem. Alia modo pe: modum eiectloms, etitu sensitivo: et sic passio animae addit ad bonip qua passione ut promptms operetur, coo erant PPL.b . Eth,.c Bk IY. leet 13' De malo, q. 3. a. 11; . ." Cf STII II 158 a 8 ad 2. S ent. 'ri .,., . , lalemacllO",s. . - ,q. ,. , dIVS I d 50 q 2 a 4 sol.3ad2. o
/'
q:a;;
q. 12, a 1, corpus and a:.4.:~e ;:~2;::'c:~~;:ens n:: di~in:it ~e~c~U:m, sed magi~ auget, vel 205. ST I-II, q. 77, a.. s .mquantum SCI'/.cel demonstrat intensionem voluntatlS ad actum . d" a 'us I potius est signum magmtu InIS el , / t e atum' quanta enim motus voluntatis est vel · "Cf STI-II sio quae est ex va untate auge p c c . 25 5. d lIS I d pecca I . . , . 'J' to a 2 ad 2' De ver., q. ,a., an en,. hementior adpeccandum, tanto gr~Vlus peccat I' q. E'~' .. 'p 409-10' and H.-D. Noble, "Pas2 26, a. 2. Cf. as well J. Barad, "Aqumas on the Ro e or mo lon, p . , , sions," col. 2230.
inates, as already seen, with William of Champeaux (t 112 I), ifnot earlier.20' The later 12thcentury usage of the termfomes peccati by Peter Lombard, whose inclusion of it among the effects of original sin in Book Two of the Sentences will bring it to the attention of the 13thcentury Scholastics, adds the influence of John Damascene, who speaks of the presence of a "law of sin" in the human being; this law, the monk from Damascus affmns, signifies '~he concupiscence aod the sudden unforeseen movements of the bOdy aod of the irrational part of the SOUL"'07 After Lombard, who fails to include the notion of the fomes peccati in his. discussion on Christ's hmnan affectivity, the appropriation of the term for Christological purposes was quick to follow: the unidentified Magister Willermus of the early I3'th century excludes the affective spark to sin from Christ, as does Alexander of Hales, for whom Christ experienced no sudden or instaotaoeous movements of affectivity that would have upset his harmony of souL 208 For Albert, Christ's hmnan station contrasts with that of all other hmnao beings, since the "weak flesh" of all other humaos is beset with the "sustaining force of the affective spark to sin."20' Finally, Bonaventure asserts that Christ in nowise assumed the "defect" of "the affective spark to sin Or the propensity to evil."210 Aquinas, therefore, is hardly alone in his categorical exclusion of the fames peccati from Christ's humanity, as when he writes in the Compendium theologiae: "In no sense
206. For an overview of the 12th-century development of the termfomespeccati, cf. O. Lottin, Psy_ chologie et morale, pt. 3, vol. 4, pp. 22-74. Here Lottin traces the term to the Liber pancrisis of William of Champeaux, after which one finds the term in Hugh ofAmiens' Quaestiones theologicae, written between 1123-30, and in Robert Pullus' Sententiarum tibri octo; written before 1138. 207. Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. W, ch. 22 (ed. auytaert, p. 359): '''Lex' autem 'peccati,' scilicet immissio per legem quae est in membris, scilicet per corporis concupiscentiam et subreptionem et motum et irrationalem partem animae" Cf. Peter Lombard, II Sent, d. 30, chs. 8-9 (ed. ColI. Bonav., vol I, pp. 499-501); ef. aswel! Lombard's commentaIy on Rm 7:20 (pL 191, 1424). One could also see the notion of the fomes peccatias incipient in the thought of Gregory ofNazianzus, Oratorio, 40, 12 and 21 (pG 36, 373 and 385). Albert gives an extensive analysis of the fames peccati in Summa Iheo., pars II, tr. 17, qq. 108 and II L 208. Magister WilIennus (in W. Principe, "Quaestiones Concerning Christ II," p. 33, §3): "Primo de lomite dico quod in fomite duo sunt, poenalitas et pronitas ad peccandum. Pronitatem ad peccandum non assumpsit [Christ] nec potuit assumere." Alexander of Hales, Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater', q. 16, disp. 3, memo 3, n. 73 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 259): "sic anima Christi nunquam ad servum convertebatur, quia nunquam caro per motum suum dOminabatur in eo,' non enim fuit fomes in sensuatitate vel st" ulus in carne. "Cf. as well Summa theol., (Summa hal.), Bk. III, inq. 1, tr. 1. q. 4, d. 3, mem. 2, ch. 2 (ed Quaracern, p. 66). 209. Albert, III Sent, d. 17, a. 4: "sicut est in nobis in qUibus voluntas infirmitatis carnalis confortatur ex fomite, et quandoque ex reliquiis peccatorum: in Christo autem non fuit tatis confortatio. " 210. Bonaventure,!!! Sent, d. 15, a. I, q. 2, sed contra 3 (ed. Quarscchi, p. 332): 'James elpronilas ad malum non est culpa, "qUia potest esse in nobis, Omn; culpa deleta; sed Christus talem defectum nec habuit nec habere potuit, guia non potui! peccare. "
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THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGy OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
did Christ possess the rebellion or disobedience of ~e lower ~ower.s agains~ reason, which is called the affective spark to sin. "211 Still, there IS a way m whlCh Aqum~ makes the Christological usage of the fomes peccati entirely his own, as he elevates the dISCUSSIon to an unprecedented level by consecrating an entire article of hi~ Summa theologiae to the question of whether Christ possessed the affective spark t~ ~m (utrum In Christo foent fomes peccati). 212 Aquinas' writings on the issue do betray a distmct development o.f.thought; since previous to the Summa, Thomas' remarks on the role of the fames peccatl m Jesus life e~ceed nothing more than a cursory recognition that Christ's consUD1ffiate state of soul eliminates any trace ofthe affective spark to sin. 213 Ye~ the ~act that the qu~ry on whe~h:r Christ possessed the fomes peccati appears as the second article m the treatise on Christ s passions in Tertia, q. 15 evinces the capital significance ~~t the notIOn holds for the marure Aquinas and for his theology on Jesus' human affectiVIty. . . In Aquinas' eyes, the proper avenue for understanding the ~eahty of the fo":e~, pec~ati is to view it through the lens of concupiscence, since the affective spark to sm IS nothmg other" than a "habitual" fonn of concupiscence: The affective spark to sin is nothing other than ~ ce~in inordin~te, yet ~abitual or non-actual, concupiscence of the sensitive appetite,. sm~e conc~plsce.nce l~ act constitutes a sinful movement. Sensual concupiscence 15 said to be mordmate masmuch as it resists reason, which it does by inclining us to evil and making it difficult for us to do good. 2 ]4
211. Compo theal., ch. 224: "rebellio vel inobedientia inferiorum virlurn ad rationem, ~~e dic~tur fames peccati· qui in Christo nullatenus foit." Cf. as well ST ill, q. 15, a. 2, set! contra ( In Chnsto
nonfoit/ome; peccati'?; q. 15, a. 4 ad 3; q. 18, a. 2 ad 2; q. 27, a. 3, corpus and ad 1; De V~r., q.26, a. 8, argo 8; and III Sent, d. 17, a. 1, sol. 2 ad4. For a comm:ntary on thIS aspect ofAqumas thought, cf. M.-B. Schwalm, Le Christd'.pres saint Thomas d'Aqum, pp. 292-301. . . 212. STIlI, q. IS, a. 2. Though Magister Willennus had preceded thIS move ~fA~U1?aS by offenng his own query entitled, "Utrum Christus assumpserit fomltern et Ignarantlam (m W. ~nnclpe "Quaestiones Concerning Christ II," p. 33, §§I-2), the brevity of this query and the fact that It occurs in a minor, relatively obscure work supports the originality of Aqumas on the Issue. ~omas also dl~ cusses the fomes peccati in relation to Christ when analyzing the presence of the affective spark to sm in the Blessed Virgin in STIlI, q. 27, a. 3. .. .. . " 213. II/Sent, d. 17, a. 1, sol. 2 ad4: "quantum ad corruptionemfamltls, que In ChrlSto nonfult. n.e ver., q. 26, a. 8, argo 10: "in corparibus beatorum non er!t ali~ua passio propter hanc ~a~am, qUla scilicet erunt a fomite depurata et animabus gloriosls umta; cum ergo hoc fo~rzt In corp~re Ch rlSl . t' ... "Com'" ch. 224'• "rebellio vel inobediemia inferiorum virium ad rationem, que dlC1" theol. , , itur fomes peccati,' qui in Christo nulla tenus foit. " . . . . .. . 214. STITI, q. 27, a. 3: 'James nihil aliud est quam inordmata CO~cup'l~centlQ senslb,l,s ap!,etlt": habitualis- tamen: quia actualis concupiscentia est motus peccatl. D,cltur autem concup,scentl
345
The affective spark to sin is called habitual concupiscence, not in a positive manner, but in a privative manner on account of the withdrawal of original justice. Hence, the movement that follows from the natural power itself need not always be a sin.21S The affective spark to sin always inclines to evil ... and is a habitus, or acts like a habitus, for concupiscence.216
As these passages make plain, the association of the affective spark to sin with concupiscence implies that the fomes peccati, like concupiscence, issues from the corruption of human nature wrought by original sin, or from the emancipation of the lower appetites from reason's unmitigated imperium, or from their inherent Ollentation to God, the ultimate end of human life; as Thomas writes in the Prima Secundae Pars: "The continual corruption of sense affectivity is to be understood as referring to the affective spark to sin."217 Accordingly, the notion of the fomes peccati retains intelligibility only in immediate connection with the disordered autonomy that the sense appetite owns in the post-lapsarian state. In fact, by designating the affective spark to sin as a kind of "habit" (habitus), or, more precisely, as a COITIlpt habitus, Aquinas implies that. the fomes peccati is a permanent dispOSition on the part of the sensitive soul; in this case, it refers to the disposition on the part of the sensitive appetite for autonomous action in resistance to reason's impen·um.218 The fomes peccati, in other words, is a technical Scholastic term referring to nothing other than the disordered autonomy of the sensitive appetite "lying in wait," i.e., waiting to exert its disordered independence. This explains the choice of Latin terminology to refer to this per-
sensualitatis esse inordinata, inquantum repugnat rationi; quod quidem jit, inquantum inc/inat ad malum, vel difficultatem facit in bono. "
215. De malo, q. 7, a. 3 ad 17: "fomes non dicitur concupiscentia habitualis positive set privative, per remotionem scilicet originalis iustitie; unde matus qui sequitur ex ipsa potentia naturali, non oportet quod semper sit peccatum. "Cf. as well De malo, q. 4, a. 2 ad 4: 1 (and a. 6 ad 16): "Concupiscentia secundum quod pertinet ad originale peccatum non est concupiscentia actualis set habitualiso " 216. De Yer., q. 16, a. I, sed contra 3: "Fames semper inclinat ad malum ... Sed/omes est habitus vel per modum habitus se habens: ipsa enim concupiscentia." 217. STI-IT, q. 74, a. 3 ad 2: "Perpetua corruptio sensualitatis est intelligenda quantum ad fomitem" For more on the/omes peccati in Aquinas' thought, cf STI-IT, q. 91, a. 6; In ad Romanos, ch. 7, lect. 2 and 4; De malo, q. 1, a. 5 ad 20; Expos. super lob ad litt.. on 4:19-21; and II Sent, d. 30, q. I, a. 3. Cf. as well D. Chardonnens, L 'homme SOU8 Ie regard de la providence, pp. 142-4. 218. Cf. STI-II, q. 82, a. 1 ad. I, where Aquinas explains how one may consider original sin as a corrupt habitus; for an explanation, cf M.-M. Labourdette, "Aux origines du pech6 de I'homme," p.
381. For the notion of habitus in general in Aquinas' though~ cf. STI-II, qq. 49 54; and R Cessario,
The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991),
pp.34-44.
346
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. TIlOMAS AQUINAS
manent disposition of the sensitive appetite, since etymologically to,!,es liter~lly means ''that Wh'Ie.le h ~ eds a fire, "or "kindling" in tillS " "tinder" or "spark";219' . Instance, . . It I' refers . to the spark ignited by the animal appetite's preemptive propensity or POSltiV~ mc ~ation to illicit sentient goods itrespective of the rule of reason. The fomes peccatz IS a kind of affective ignition switch that places the concupiscible and irascible appetites on a consta~t "state of alert," always ready to be instantaneously mClted, by ~irtue of the lower appetite s autonomous inclination to its own object, to desire some sentlent. good dlsc~nnected fr~m
347
In Christ's case, the fomes peccati, like concupiscence, stands out as obviously itreeoncilable with his assumed station, since, to repeat, Jesus "received human natine in the purity that it possessed in the state of innocence." This explains Thomas' resolute stance on the matter, as expressed. in the Compendium theologiae: "In no sense did Christ possess the rebellion or disobedience of the lower powers against reason, which is called the affective spark to sin"; and, "There was no conflict of appetites in Christ, or rebellion of the flesh
the good of reasOD; it is the affective "hot coal" waiting, while it snnmer~,. to ~duce or k~n
against the spirit. "223 Put another way, since Christ was immune to any defect or conse-
dIe the sensitive appetite into a fully flaming sinful movement of appelilion, Just as a hve coal remains ready to flare up at any time. The fomes peccati subs~quently emerges as t~e
quence of sin that is incompatible with perfection in grace, an example of which is the "inclination to evil and difficulty in doing good" (pronitas ad malum et difjicultas ad bonum),224
root source of concupiscence, or as the ultimate grounding of~e dlsor~er amo~g the soul ~ powers. In this manner, the affectiv~ spark to sin, ~ kind of conCUplscence In potency,
and since the affective spark to sin corresponds precisely to this "inclination to evil and dif-
holds a priority in natine and causahty over concupiscence. . Further it is because of the innate positive propensity of the sense appelit,: to unlaw~l goods that it becomes difficult to do good, or to perform virtue. To be sure, smce It quahties as a type of habitus, or as a permanent modification of one's mora~ character, thejomes peccati renders us corrupt individuals inclined to dishann~ny. ~qumas cle~r1y s~esses, however, that the affective spark to sin is not identifiable With sm as such, slDce. sm only comes with a fully elicited inordinate movement itself, not with the,~ere pr?cllVlty the inordinate movement; as Thomas again explains (cf. supra), only, concUpIS~e?Ce zn act (actualis concupiscentia) constitutes a sinful movement," ~oreover, the DomlIl~can Master maintains that the stronger the habitus of virtue in one's hfe, ~e closer ~ne amves at extin ishing the affective spark to sin: "The more perfect the vlrtues :rre ~ someone, the
:0
we~er the affective spark to sin becomes."22o Non~th~less, ,a total ~xtmct~on ~fthefomes eccati is impossible, since, accruing to natural pnnclpl~s" It remams an mdehble feat~e ~fthe post-lapsarian condition: "The affective spark to SIll.'S. neve: complete~y removed 1D
ficulty in doing good," it follows that the package of defects assumed by Christ must exclude the fames peccati: "Death and other such punishments," Thomas writes, "do not of themselves incline us to sin. Hence, though Christ assumed such punishments, he did not as-
sume the affective spark to sin."225 Jesus accordingly experiences no sinful affective inclination. Furthennore, since the fomes peccati marks the root source of concupiscence, which itself involves the inevitability of slight sins, the fames peccati makes it impossible to avoid even venial sin. (Again, what is involved here is a condition of disorder on the part of the sensate soul that, because of the synergy between sensibility and reason, does not leave the intellectual soul unaffected morally. To repeat, the state of not being wholly ordered to God, even on the part of the sensate soul, equates with a state of venial sin.) To retain the doctrine of Jesus' sinlessness, one must necessarily preclude from Christ's life the base inclination to illicit goods engendered by the affective spark to sin. Interestingly, the precise form of arguroent Aquinas advances in Tertia, q. 15, a. 2 to disprove the presence of the affective spark to sin in Christ does not proceed, as one might expect' in the manner just evoked, viz., along the lines of Jesus' perfect sinlessness and of
this life" Aquinas insists, "since, though the guilt of ongmal sm passes, Its effects ~e main. '~I As a result, the affective spark to sin provides a perpetual need for moral punfi. • 222 cation and growth m virtue.
a. 6 ad 16; De ver., q. 25, a. 7, empus and ad 5; and Albert, Qu. de sensual. et eius mot., a. 3 ad4 (ed. Colon., p. 224).
222. Cf. De ver., q. 25, a. 7 ad 5. For the same idea, cf. Guy of Orehelies of the early 13th-century (in W. Principe, "Quaestiones Concerning Christ II," p, 27, §33); and Bonaventure, Brevil., pt. 3, ch. 7 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 236). 219. Cf. R. Deferrari. A Latin-English Dictionary. p.408. if< t t 's debilitalur in 220. STIlI. q. 15. a. 2: "quanto virtusfuerit magis in aliquo pe ecta, an 0 magi . II' . h ·t· --ansit ellim})e,,:; STI-II. q. 74. a. 3 ad 2: lomitem, qui nunquam totahter to ltur m ac VI a." 4 ca~ originate reatu, et remanet actu. "Cr. as well STI-n. q. 89. a. 5 ad I; De malq q. ,
visfomitis ,..
221
223. Comp. theol., ch. 224: «rebellio vel inobedientia in/eriorum virium ad ration em, que dicitur fomes peccati; qui in Christo nullatenus foil": Compo theol., ch. 232: «Non tamen erat contrarietas appetitum in ipso [Christ], vel rebellio carnis ad spiritum." cr. P. Parente, L'Io di Cristo, p. 292. 224. Cf. III Sent, d. 15, q. 1, a. 2; and STIII, q. 14, a. 4. 225. STilI, q. 27, a. 3 ad l:'«Mors et huiusmodipoenalitates dese non inclinantadpeccatum. Unde etiam Christus. licet assumpserit huiusmodi poenalitates, fomitem tamen non assumpsit. "
348
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE PAUL GONDREAV
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
his resemblance to prelapsarian man's integrity of soul. Thomas instead appeals to the tenet-and only to this tenet--
son, in a man who possesses, as does Jesus, moral virtue "to the most perfect degree possible," i.e., in a man whose affectivity accords perfectly with the imperium of reason. Untainted moral virtue and the fames peccati are mutually exclusive. One cannot pretend, in other wor$, that Jesus exercises moral virtue "to the most perfect degree possible" at the same time that he experiences, as caused by the fames peccati, an affective inclination to sin and a difficulty in doing good; virtue without blemish inclines one not to sin but wholly to rational goods, and makes it supremely easy, rather than difficult, to do good or to perform virtue.226 Formulating his decisive response to the question of utrum in Christo fuerit fames peccati, Aquinas thus writes the following: Moral virtue, which is in the irrational part of the soul, makes this part ofthe soul subject to reason, and the more perfect the virtue, the more the irrational part of the soul becomes subject to reason .... But there belongs to the very nature of the affective spark to sin an inclination ofthe sensitive appetite to what is contrary to reason. From this it follows that the more perfect the virtues are in someone, the weaker the affective spark to sin becomes. Thus, since Christ possessed the virtues to the most
349
p~rfect degree possible, in no sense was the affective spark to sin present I·n.
hlm.227
Aquinas finishes this article by extending his reductio ad absun-'um 1m'e of . highr ht th . k th .. u, reasonmg to Ig e ns at posltmg the fames peccati in Christ poses to human salvation' it . ~bSur~ to Suppose ~at a Christ who experiences the base propensity to unlawful obje~ts .:: I~cltef::; ~e affective spar~ to sin can be the same Christ who adequately satisfies for the sms ~ e uman race. Agam, Jesus can sallsfy or atone for the debt incurred by human . only Ifhe owns co~ununate moral integrity-"it was necessary for Christ's soul to ~~~ sess perfect vIrtue m order to ha.ve ~e power of satisfying"228_a moral inte .ty th! de facto excludes the fames peccatl: "thIS defect" Thoma 't' c gn ." . , s wn es m relerence to the fomes peccati, cannot be ordamed to satisfaction, but instead inclines to what is contr t t lsfacnon. "229 ary 0 sa . ,,":ccordingly, when~quinas distinguishes Christ's passions from ours according to their pnnClple ~r source, or masmuch as they never arose outside of reason's i . 230 h grounds hIS thought ultimately in the belief that the affective spark to sin W:~:~:-IY ab~ sent m .Je~us. For, the fames peccati-the innate affective propensity to sin-incites the COtCUPlsclble and. irascible appetites to tend to illicit sentient objects irrespective of the m e of reason, ~hlch leads to the onset of antecedent passions. The absence of this innate prop~nslty to sm account~, then, for Jesus' immunity to antecedent passions. In a word, Jesus movements ofpasslOn never received the "J'ump start" that they d ' . th fth 0 m us, gIven e pres~nce 0 e fomes peccati, as Thomas implies when he writes in his commentary on J?hn s Gospel that there was no passion in Christ which "arose from an improper cause" (msurgunt ex causa indebita).231
22~. ~T rr,r, q.
15, a. 2: "Virtus autem mora/is, quae est in irrationali parte animae, eam facit esse
~at~~m ~ublectam,. et tanto magis quanto perfectiorfuerit virtus ... Ad rationem autem fomitis pertinet
me ,?a~,O s~nsuabs appetitus in id quod est contra rationem. Sic igitur patet quod, quanto virtus fuerit :agls m abquo p~rfe:cta, tanto magis debilitatur in eo vis fomitis. Cum igitur in Christo fuerit virtus ecundum peljectlsslmum gradum, consequens est quod in eo fames peccati non fuerit " 228. STIll, q. 14, a. 1 ad 1: ~'opo:tuitanimam Christiperfectam esse quantum ad h~bitus virtutum, ut haberetfacu/tatem satlsfaclendi."
~291: STdIII, q. 15, a. 2: "Cum etiam iste defee/us non sit ordinabilis ad satisfaciendum sed potius me mat a contrarium satisfactioni."
226. Cf. F. Cunningham, Christ and His Sacraments, p. 166.
~~O: To avoid the .confusion ~t stems from a ra~onalistic reading ofAquinas, it is better to say that lit nst never ~xpenenced pa~slons ~at arose outside of reason's imperium than to claim, as Thomas' 23era1words Imply, that Christ was Immune to passions that preceded the judgment of reason. 1. Lect. super loan., ch. 11, lect 5.
350
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
PAUL GONDREAU
351
THEOWGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
c. Christ's Temptations Of evident propinquity to the discussion on the morality of Christ's passions, and particularly on Jesus' exemption from the affective "jump start" (thefomes peccati) that gives rise to the antecedent passion, is the issue of Christ's temptations; this propinquity Aquinas affirms by inserting a cursory remark on Jesus' temptations in his analysis ofthe role of the fames peccati in Christ's life in Tertia, q. 15, a. 2 ad 3. The relationship between Christ's passions and his temptations presents Aquinas with adilemma. On the one hand, afomes-peccati free Jesus would have experienced nothing of what Thomas terms the "temptation of the flesh," i.e., the inner source oftemptation that results from the disordered autonomous pull of the sensitive appetite to its own desirable object irrespective of reason's imperium: "The'passion of concupiscence [Le., the antecedent passion) is called a temptation of the flesh."232 On the other hand, the reality of Christ's temptations represents a matter of undeniable scriptural record (cf. Mt 4:1-11, and par.; Heb 2:14, and 4:15), a record that Aquinas, the Magister in Sacra Pagina, wishes at all cost to uphold; this is evidenced by the fact that in the treatise on Christ's temptations in the Summa (Tertia, q. 41), the sed contra of every article cites the pertinent Gospel passages as the authoritative and definitive rejoinder to those who wish to deny the reality of Jesus' temptations. Subsequently, Aquinas must, given the hard evidence of the Gospels, render theological credibility to the reality of Christ's temptations without in any way encouraging his reader to look upon these temptations as feigned masquerades, even despite the apparent absence of the "temptations of the flesh" in Jesus, to which we shall return . immediately below. Aquinas, of course, will go to great lengths to render theological coherence to the problematic, ifnot embarrassing, reality of Jesus' temptations because of the paramount importance this event plays in God's plan of salvation. The Dominican Master wastes little time in outlining what he sees as the soteriological significance of Christ's temptations, as his first article in the treatise on Christ's passions in. the Tertia Pars supplies the reasons for which Jesus subjected himself to the devil's temptations, all of which concern our salvation: first, "to strengthen us against temptation" (ut nobis contra tentationes auxiliumferret); second, "to warn us, so that none, however holy, may consider himself safe or exempt from temptation" (propter nostram cautelam, ut nullus quantumcumque sanctus, se aestimet securnm
et immunem a tentatiane); third, "to give us an example on how to overcome the devil's temptations" (propter exemp/um, ut scilicet nos instrueret, qualiter diaboli tentationes vincamus); and, fourth, "to inspire us to trust in his mercy" (ut nobisfiduciam de sua misericordia largiretur). Clearly, Thomas recognizes immense spiritual profit to be gained from Jes~s' temptations, a profit that draws upon both the moral and ontological exemplarity of Christ's suprem.e self-mastery noted earlier, which is now complemented by his mastery over the seduchve assaults of the devil. The spiritual needs of the reader are ever in the scope of the pen of the Master from Aquino, for whom the very purpose of theology is to assist one in procuring salvation.233 The position Aquinas adopts on Christ's temptations owes to the contributions of several patristic and medieval writers, at the same time that it is fed primarily by the New Testament accounts of Jesus' experience of temptation coupled with the Genesis version offue temptation of prelap sarian man. Primary among the patristic sources is John Damascene's De fide orthodoxa, whose method of comparing Jesus' temptations to Adam's in the state of original innocence Aquinas appropriates. From Damascene's work Thomas first learned of the capital distinction between the temptation that originates from an exterior source, as from the devil in the case of prelapsarian man, and the temptation that issues from an internal source, as from disordered movements of affectivity; for Damascene, Christ's temptations, like Adam's, could have arisen only "from without": The wicked one made his assault [on Christ] from without, rather than by inward thoughts. in the same way that he assaulted Adam. For it was not by inward thoughts, that Adam was,assailed, but by the serpent. 2J4
Another important patristic source for Thomas' theology of Christ's temptations is Gregory the Great, who makes the consequential observation, similar to Damascene's, that Jesus was tempted "only by suggestion," rather than by an inner movement of disordered affectivity.'" For the medievals, Alexander of Hales, who follows both Damascene and Gregory the Great, as well as Hugh of St. Victor (and Peter Lombard), advances the weighty distinction between temptation "from the enemy" (ab haste), or what Hugh of St. Victor
233 STI, q. 1, aa. 1,4, and 5. 234 Damascene, De fide orth., Bk. III, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert, p. 260): "Igilur perniciosus quidem extrorsum immittebat, non per intelligentias, quemadmodum et Adae; etenim illi non per intelligentias, sed per serpentem."
232. ST I-II, q. 77. a. 6, sed contra: "Passio ipsa concupiscentiae vocatur tentatio carnis. "
235 . Gregory the Great, Homiliarum in Evangelia, Bk. I, hom. 16, n. 1 (PL 76, 1135): "Tentari [Ch nst] ergo per suggestionem potuit, sed eius mentem peccati delectatio non momordit."
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THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
terms temptation from an external (exterius) source, and temptation "from the flesh" (a carne), or what the Victorine calls temptation that arises from an internal (intenus) disordered affective pull; Jesus underwent only the former, i.e., temptation ab haste.'" Alexan_
der further delineates, after the manner of Gregory the Great, three successive phases in the temptation from without, with only the first phase pertaining to Christ: first, there is the initial exterior assault, followed by the interior appeal, and, finally, there ensues the complete consent to or acceptance of the temptation.'" Bonaventure for his part, inspired both by the late- 12th-century anonymous work Meditationes de humanae conditione and by I Jn 2:16, which lists "the world" (in mundo) and "the concupiscence of the flesh" (concupiscentia carnis) as two forces antithetical to God, posits the following threefold source-origin of temptation in his Breviloquium: "all temptation originates with one of these three: the
world, the flesh, or the devil. ''238 To resolve the dilemma that Christ's experience of temptation imposes upon the theologian, Aquinas builds upon the distinctions supplied by his distinguished predecessors. With Bonaventure and the author of the Meditationes de humanae conditione, Thomas
236. Alexander of Hales, Summa theal., (Summa hal. Pars II, Bk. II, inq. 2, tr. 2, sect. 2, q. 1, a. 3, II (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 153-4): "dividuntur tentatio quae est a carne et'tentatio quae est ab hoste,' ten(atio enim quae est ab hoste dicitur exterior; quae vero interior. a carne. Est tamen quaedam ab hoste interior; et ilia tentatione nonfu;t tentatus Christus." For this distinction of Alexander in relation to temptation in general, cf. Pars II, Bk. II, inq. 2, tr. 2, q. I, ch. 7 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 174-84). Hugh of St. Victor writes in De sacr. Christ. fidei, Ble. I, pt. 7, ch. 9 (PL 176, 290): "Porrosciendum est duo esse tentationum genera, unum exterius, alterum interius. Exterior tentatio est quando nobis extrin~ secus malum sive visibiliter sive invisibiliter faciendum suggerltur. Interior tentatio est quando ex motu pravae delectationis intus animus ad peccandum sollicitatur. "cr. Peter Lombard, II Sent, d. 21, ch. 6 (ed. Coli. Bonav., p. 437). 237. Alexander of Hales, Summa theo!. (Summa hal.), Pars n, Bk. II, inq. 2, tr. 2, sect. 2, q. 1, a. 3, n (ed. Quaracchi, p. 154): "Cum enim sint tres gradus tentationis, sicut dicit B. Gregorius quod diaholus pulsat exterius, palpat interius, trahit ad consensum ... Primus gradus tantum erat circa Christum, scilicet pulsare." Gregory himself writes in Hom. in Evang., Bk. I, hom. 16, n. 1 (PL 76, 1135) (cf.Moral, Bk.IX, ch. 28, n. 44 [CCSL 143, p. 487]; andBk. Xv, ch. 15, n. 19 [CCSL 143A,pp. 75960]): "Sed sciendum nobis est quia tribus modis tentatio agitur. suggestione, delectatione et consensu." Cf. as well Alexander, Summa theo!., Pars I, Ble. II, inq. 2, tr. 3, sect. 2, q. 3, ch. 4, a. 2 ad 5 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 271); and Albert, Summa theol., pars II, tr. 7, q. 28, memo 3, sol. 238. Bonaventure, Brevi/., pt. 3, ch. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 232): "tria attenditur omnis tentatiQnis origo, sive a mundo, sive a carne, sive a diabolo . .. This threefold source of temptation is found in the anonymous work Medit. de hum. condit. (full titleMeditation~ piissimae de cognitione de humanae conditione), ch. 12 (pL I 84,503-4), a work which is dated at c. 1190 by E. Gilson, The Mystical Theology a/Saint Bernard, trans. A.H.C. Downes (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1940), p. 4. Albert the Great also offers various manners of understanding temptation in Summa theol., pars II, tr. 7, q. 28; }mem.I.
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th maintains that temptation originates from three distinct sources' "from the fl h fr Id dfr '". .. . es, om e wor ,an om th: deVIl. 239 EqUIpped WIth this threefold distinction, and appropriating Alexander o:Hales vIew that Jesus was tempted only ab haste, rather than from within (a ca:ne), Aquillas pens the following as a way of successfully navigating through the complIcated waters of Christ's temptations: Although Christ underwent no internal assault on the part of the affective spark to sin (fo"!es peccati), he did sustain an external assault on the part of the world and the devIl. 240
Thomas expands on this in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, where, like Alexander of Hales, he follows Gregory the Great's division of temptation into three distinct phases or degrees, and applIes only the first phase to Christ: Gregory holds that t~mptation. owns three degrees: the suggestion, the delight, and the c~nsent. The first IS from Without (ab extrinseco), and can be without sin. The second IS from within (ab intrinseco), and this is where the sin begins. The sin then rea~hes p~rfection with the consent. Only the first degree and not the other two could be In ChriSt. 241
~q~inas is intransigent in his stance that Christ faced no internal temptation a carne or ab mtrinsec~ (the reader should take note that, as J.-P. Torrell observes, the term "flesh" [carol here slgnl~es. not hum~ nature as such, but that which opposes the spirit and which is the s.ource of sm m the ~~ulIne sense'''). ~fT~om.as insists upon Christ's SUbjection to temptation ab haste alone, It IS, as the fore?omg cItations make plain and as already suggested, be-
cause the temptatlOn from wlthm and the affective spark to sin, or, more gener-
239. STIlI, q. 41, a. 1, argo 3: '''Iriplex est tentatio: scilicet a carne, a mundo, a dlaholo." Cf. as well II Sent, d. 21, q. I, a. 1. 24? STIII, q. 1.5, a. 2.ad 3: "li~et non sustinuerit impugnationem interiorem exparte/omitis, sustinUl! tame~ extenorem ImpugnatlOnem ex parte mundi et diaboli. " Cf. as wen Thomas' commentary on the ~plstle to the Hebrews, In Hebraeos. ch. 4, tect. 3. For more on Aquinas' analysis of Christ's ~mptations:,~f. B. Prete, "~a te~tatione di Ges~ nella henneneutica delia 'Summa Theologiae' (p. , q. XLI), In Tommaso d 'Aquino nel suo settlmo centenanario: atti del Congresso Internazionale ~ Problemi di te~logia (Naples: Edizioni Domenicane Italiano, 1976), pp. 169-86; J.-P. Torrell, Le nst en ses mysteres, vol. I, pp. 224-42; and T. Weinandy,ln the Likeness o/Sin/ul Flesh. An Essay on the Humanity a/Christ (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), pp. 98-9. ~:\ Lect. super Matt., eh. 4, Iect. I: "Gregorius dicit [ef. Hom. in Evang.. Bk I, hom. 16, n. 1 (PL PP: 7~~ Moral,BklX,.eh. 28, n. 44 (CCSL 143, P: 487); and Bk xv, eh. 15, n. 19 (CCSL 143A, 0)], quod est triplex tentatlOms gradus, SCIlIcet per suggestionem delectationem et consensumP' b . ' . nma a extnnseco est, et potest esse sine peccato,' secunda est ab intrinseco, in qua incipit ;:e peccatum; quae quidem peTjicitur per consensum. Primus gradus potui! esse in Christ, non alii. " 2. I-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 1, p. 239.
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ally, the disorder among the soul's powers (concupiscence) are causally related; on this point Thomas leaves little room for dispute: Temptation that comes from the flesh cannot be without sin, since sensual delight and concupiscence cause such a temptation. 243 The affective spark to sin assails us from the inside, while the world and the demons assail us from the outside. 244 Temptation that arises from an internal source, i.e., from the corruption of the flesh. is called temptation of the flesh.24S
Temptation from within, then, involves a disordered and sinful movement of the sensitive appetite, whereby the lower appetite, emancipated from reason's unmitigated imperium, tends in a disordered, autonomous, and antecedent manner to unlawful goods; this disordered inclination draws one by an act of appetitive complicity to the illicit good in question, thereby inducing-or "tempting"-one's reason and will to consent to the alluring yet inordinate pull of the sense appetite. To show that Christ experienced no such temptation, Thomas turns to his theology of the affective condition of prelapsarian man, since consummate integrity of soul had provided the fIrst human being with complete command of his affective movements, effectively precluding any chance of his being tempted to sin by a disordered movement of affectivity as by an antecedent impulse of passion obscuring his reasoning capacity: "In the fIrst state nothing either besides reason or against reason could creep up on man without his being aware of it. "246 Sharing in an analogous integrity of soul and supreme self-mastery· and command of his lower appetites, Christ, who, Aquinas affIrms, "had no evil desires whatsoever,"2" enjoyed the same inununity to the tempting deceptions of antecedent impulses of affectivity (this conclusion is readily complemented by modem exegetical studies, which see, though certainly not to the extent that Thomas does, a parallel between Adam's temptations and Jesus' temptations as recounted by Luke24').
243. STIlI, q. 41, a. 1 ad 3: 'Tentatio autem quae est a carne, non potest esse sine peccato: quia haec tentatiofit perdelectationem et concupiscentiam~" cr. De malo, q. 3, a. 3 ad 8. 244. STill, q. 39, a. 5: 'James peccati nos impugnans interius, et mundus et daemones qui impugnan! exterius.
I}
245. II Sent, d. 21, q. 1. a. 1 (cr. as well a. 2): "Hoc autem est vel a principio intrinseco. scilicet ex corruptione carnis, et sic dicitur tentatio a carne. " 246. STI-n, a. 91, a. 6: "in primo statu, ut nihil vel praeter rationem vel contra rationem possel subrepere homini." cr. M.-M. Labourdette, "Aux origines du peche de I'homme," p. 371. 247. STilL q. 7, a. 2 ad 3: "Concupiscentias autem pravas Christus omnino non habuit. " 248. Cf. A. Feuille~ "Le recit Iucanien de 1. !entation (Lc 4, 1-13)," Biblica 40 (1959), pp. 613-31;
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Jesus could in no sense be assaulted unawares by an interior affective movement. By consequence, he, like Adam, endured no temptation a carne or ab intrinseco. The only type of temptation that remains a possibility for Christ is temptation ab hoste, i.e., temptation from the devil or from the world, since only this kind of temptation can transpire without sin: "Temptation that comes from the enemy," Aquinas maintains, "can be without sin, since it occurs merely by suggestion from without. "249 Even here, however, Thomas refuses to see Jesus as a passive victim who faced unawares the advances made by the devil; rather, Jesus himself instigated the face-off with Satan, so as to initiate actively battle with the devil, and thereupon defeat the power of Satan's sinister seduction: Christ exposed himself to the temptations of the devil of his own free will ." And so it was that Christ went out into the desert, as onto a field of battle, to be tempted there by the deviJ.2so
Following Gregory the Great, Thomas insists that temptation ab hoste, whether for Christ or for any human individual, takes primarily the form of a "suggestion" (suggestio), whereby an illicit yet alluring good is presented either by the devil or by the world in hopes of convincing-"by way ofpersuasion" (per modum persuadentis)-the individual to freely choose it: ''The devil is the cause of sin," Aquinas writes in the Prima Secundae Pars, "only by persuasion, or by proposing the desirable object."2S1 Aquinas, manifesting his talent for performing psychological and spiritual introspection into concrete human actions, recognizes a fairly sophisticated manner by which this "persuasion" ab hoste can take place: either visibly, as when Adam was tempted "through the likeness of a serpent" (in specie serpentis), or invisibly, as "by a kind of impression made on the internal or external sense
idem, "L' episode de la tentation d' apres I' evangile selon saint Marc (I, 12-13)," Estudias Biblicas 19 (1960), pp. 49-73; andJ.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 1, p. 231. 249. STUI, q. 41, a. 1 ad 3: "Tentatia autem quae est ab hoste,potest esse sine peccato: quiafit per so/am exteriorem suggestionem." For more on temptation from without in Aquinas' writings, cf. In ad Romanos, ch. 7,lect. 2; De malo, q. 3, a. 3 ad 8, and ad 14; Camp. theol., ch. IS9; and II Sent, d. 21,
q. 1, a. 2. 250. STill, q. 41, a. 2 (cr. as well a. 1 ad 2): "Christus propria voluntatesediabolo exhibuitad tentandum ". Et inde est quod Chrisfus in desertum exivit, quasi .ad campum certaminis, ut ibi a diabolo tentaretur." cr. Lect. super Matt., ch. 4,lect. 1. 251. STI-II, q. SO, a. 1: "Diabolus sit causa peccati ... solum per modum persuadentis velproponentis appetibile. "De malo, q. 3, a. 3 ad 13 (cf. as well corpus) states: "The devil makes sin available to man in the manner of one persuading" (Diabolus dat homini peccatum per modum persuadentis). Cf. as well II Sent, d. 21, q. 1, a. 3. As for the suggestive mode oftemptation ab hoste, Thomas writes in ST ill, q. 41, a. 4: "The temptation that comes from the enemy takes the fonn of a suggestion. as Gregory says" (Tentatio quae est ab hoste, fit per modum suggestion is, ut Gregorius dicit [cf. Hom. in Evang., Bk. I, hom. 16, n. 1 (PL 76,1135)]).
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vitae), or what Thomas tenns "the inorinate desire for greatness."'" All three temptations, in other words, involve some kind of affective desire, whether it be, as Thomas writes in his commentary on Matthew's Gospel, the desire for "gluttonous behavior" (gula) relative to the first temptation, the desire for "honor or greed" (ambitione vel avaritia) operative in the second temptation, or the desire for "vain glory" «nani gloriae) with respect to the last temptation. 2S6 Sustained by the total command of his lower appetites, and recognizing the disordered nature of all three types of desire, Jesus, of course, rejects all three manners of enticement. Aquinas attributes immense symbolic meaning to this rejection, since, with Ambrose, the Dominican theologian sees in the three temptations "the matter of every kind of sin";257 accordingly, in overcoming the devil's three assaults, Jesus symbolically rejects sin in its entirety. Thomas also lays hold of the importance that Christ's temptations bear on his messianic mission. In addition to his position on the soteriological significance of Christ's temptations outlined earlier, the Dominican holds that the prophetic nature of Christ's mission requires that Jesus give the outward appearance of a preacher "cleansed and perfect in virtue" (purgatus et in virtute perfeetus) , which his fasting in the desert and subsequent success over the devil's wiles succeeded in accomplishing. 258 Aquinas also insists that the devil, not knowing for certain whether Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God on account of the weaknesses of his assumed human nature, sought to tempt (or "test") Jesus in order to ascertain his identity as God's true Son and messiah.'" Looking at the temptations as a means of
powers" (Thomas denies that the devil can work directly on the ~uman mind), either while one is awake or asleep.'" It is through this inward assault on the mternal sense powers that the devil attempts to exploit the disordered autonomous inclinatio~ of the s~nsitive appetite which all humans born into original sin possess, since by presenting some Image to the mtemal senses, Satan hopes to rouse a passion that will tng one to commit the prospective sin (recall that the sensitive appetite ismoved only by that which the internal senses first perceive as desirable): It may happen that the rousing of a passion helps the imagination t? deem as worthy of being pursued that which is placed before it, since the one lDf1uenc~d by a
passion is inclined to see as good that which the passion inclines one to. In this way. the devil induces us inwardly to sin.2S3
Notably, Aquinas recognizes that the manner by which Satan attacks the affec~ve dimension of human life through a kind of persuasion, inasmuch as he attempts to enlist the sense appetite's complicity in his tempting maneuvers, was certainly operative in his assault on Jesus. In the first temptation recounted by Luke's Gospel-"If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread" (Lk 4:3)-Satan appeals to Jesus' concupiscible appetite by presenting the image of a "desirable objecf' (appetibUe), ~iz., bread to be con-
verted'from stone to his internal senses; in this manner, he hopes to mduce Jesus, hungry
from having fasted, to indulge in what Aquinas calls the "lust of the fl~sh" (eamis oble~ta tio)254Jesus' other two temptations in the desert also implicate Christ's lower ~ppelites, particularly if one relates them, as does Aquinas, to the passage III ~ Jn 2: 16, which reads, "all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life." Jesus' second temptation-"To you I will give all the authority and the glory [of the kingdoms ofthe woild)" (Lk 4:6)-appeals to the "concupiscence of the ~yes" (concupiscientia ocu[orum), or to the covetous desire for imagined pleasures assocIated with money and material possessions. The third temptation---:?fyou are .th~, Son of God, throw yourself down from here" (Lk 4:9)-concerns the pnde of hfe (superblOm
252. De malo, q. 3, a. 4: "persuasio interior diaboli ;,. solum per impression,em .q~an~am in vires sensitivQS interiores aut exteriores. ' cr. De ver.. q. 9. a. 1, argo 1. For more on thIS dIstinction between visible and invisible persuasion as it relates to the notion of temptation ab hoste, cf. 1.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres. vol. I, pp. 238-9. . . , . _~ 253. ST I-II, q. 80, a. 2: "Contingit etifsm ex hoc quod pasSIO est conclta~a ut ld quod propo~'tur ',:'. imaginationi, iudicetur prosequendum,' quia ei qui a passione detinetur, vldetur esse bonum ld ad):., quod per passionem inclinatur. Et per hunc modum interius diabolus inducit ad peccandum." For th~ ,~,~ same position. cr. De malo. q. 3, a. 4 (cf. as well q. 3, a, 3 ad 4), _'~ 254. STIlI, q.41, a.4ad4; Thomas appropriates this term from Ambrose, In Luc. N,on4:35 (CCSL~ 14, p. ll8).
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255. STI-II. q. 77, a. 5: "Alia est concupiscentia animalis, eorum scilicet quae per sensum earn is sustentationem aut delectationem non ajJerunt, sed sunt delectabilia secundum apprehensionem imaginationis, aut alicuius huiusmodi acceptionis, sicut sunt pecunia, omatus vestium, e/ alia huiusmodi,' et haec quidem animalis concupiscentia vacatur concupiscentia oculorum .... Appetitus autem inordinatus boni ardui perrinet ad superbiam vitae,' nam superbia est appetitus inordinatus excellentiae." Cf. Lect. super Matt., ch. 4, lect. 1. 256. Leet. super Matt., ch. 4, lect. 1. 257. STIlI, q. 41, a. 4 ad 4, citation of Ambrose, In Luc. IV, on 4:35 (CCSL 14, p. U8): "in tribus praemissis esset omnium materia delictorum." cr. as well In Hebr., ch. 4, lect. 3. 258. STIlI, q. 41, a. 3 ad I: "Christ showed himself as being in conformity with those to whom he preached. Now. no one should assume the office of preacher unless he is already cleansed and perfect in virtue ... Thus. immediately after his baptism Christ adopted an austere fonn of life in order to teach us the need of taming the flesh before passing on to the office of preacher." (Christus se comunem exhiberet illis quibus praedicavit. Nullus autem debet assumere praedicationis offiCium, nisi priusfuerit purgatus et in virtute pelj'ectus ... Et ideo Christus statim post baptismum austeritatem vitae assumpsit, ut doceret post carnem edomitam oportere alios ad praedicationis officium transire.) 259. STIlI. q. 41, a. 1 ad 1: "since they [the demons] observed in him certain signs of human weakness. they did not know for certain that he was the Son of God. for which reason (the devil) wished to tempt him" (quia in eo quaedam signa humanae infirmitatis videbant, non pro certo eognoscebant
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means of verifying Jesus' identity (even if they serve at the same time as an attempt to induce Jesus to sin), one can appreciate how the elements of messiahship supply the terrain for the devil's temptations; Satan seeks to invite Jesus to exchange a messianic mission according to the plan of God for a messianic role in service of egoistic advancement. More specifically, by enlisting Jesus' concupiscible desires in his seductive tactics, the devil attempts to entice Jesus into assuming the role of a temporal and politicalmessiab who prefers selfish'''gluttonous behavior," "honor or greed," and "vain glory" over abnegating obedience and submission to the will of God characteristic of spiritual messiahship. It is therefore the very messianic identity itself of Jesus that is at issue in his temptations. Aquinas' recognition that Christ's temptation in the desert symbolizes the experience of a broader and more inclusive temptation to sin (whereby Jesus is seen to reject sin in its entirety) takes on added significance whenjuxtaposed alongside modem exegetical findings."" Though most exegetes accept the certainty that Jesus underwent some kind of authentic temptation, they doubt whether it transpired in the literal fashion in the desert as recounted by the Gospels.''' Rather, they see in the temptations in the desert a reflection of the manner by which Jesus described to his disciples, through the use of generic or symbolic imagery, what his experience of "every temptation" ("dv,a "",paopov) (Lk 4:13) throughout his entire life was like; i.e., the Gospel temptation accounts denote, to quote A. Feuillet, "a synthesis of the diverse forms that diabolicaUemptation can take on [for Jesus].",.2 Though Thomas does not exclude the possibility that Jesus' temptations transpired in the literal manner related by the Evangelists, neither does his thought require such a reading. By leaving
eum esse Filium Dei, et ideo eum (entare voluerunt). For the notion of temptation as signifying a kind f''test'' or "verification,"·cf. J.~P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. I, pp. 227-8. 260. For a more thorough analysis of this issue, cr. l-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysferes, vol. 1, pp.235-7. 261. cr., for example, J. Dupont, Les (entations de Jesus au desert (Bruges-Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1968), pp. 104-6; lA. Fitzmyer, The GospelAccording 10 Luke, I-IX, "Anchor Bible," vol. 28 (Gardeu City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), p. 509; P. Grelot, "Los tentations de Jesus," NRT 1I7 (1995), pp. 501-16; A. Feuillet, "La personnalite de Jesus entrevue a partir de sa soumission au rite de repentance au precurseur," pp. 47-8; J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology. The Proclamation ofJesus (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, (971), pp. 70-4; P. Pokorny, "The Temptation Stories and Their Intention," NTS20 (1974), pp. 115-27, at 121; and B. Rey, Les lenlalions el Ie chou de Jesus (paris: Editions du Cerf, 1986). 262. A. Feufllet, "Le licit lucanien de la tentation," p. 620: "celles-ci [ie., the three temptations of Luke's Gospel] sont done aux yeux de I'evangeliste une synthese des diverses formes que peut revetir la tentation diabolique." For support, cf. 1. Dupont, Les Umtations deJesus au desert, pp. 113-5, 128, and J. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According 10 Luke, I-IX, p. 509.
leaving the door open to a hermeneutic supported by the majority of modem biblical scholars, Aquinas provides a credible account of Jesus' temptations in a way that accurately cor- . responds to the New Testament witness-as interpreted in the light of modem biblical s~es. This is evident not only in his recognition of the symbolic nature of Christ's temptatIOns (whereby Jesus rejects sin in its entirety), but also in his insistence that all Jesus' temptations come ab hoste, a claim easily reconcilable with every Gospel passage alluding to some kind of temptation endured by Jesus: Jesus is tempted not only by the sinister wiles of the devil but also by the conniving traps arranged by the Pharisees (Mk 8:l!, 10:2; Mt 22:35; Lk 10:25), as well as by the misguided advice of Peter (Mk 8:33, and par.), or by the contorted intentions of Judas (Lk 22:3), Or by the thought of the violent harm his executioners wonld inflict upon him (Mk 14:33-36, and par.), or by the torments and jeers of the passers-by at his crucifIxion (Mt 27:40), etc. All such temptations came ab hoste, i.e., from a perceived external enemy to Jesus. By employing the distinction between temptation ab hoste and temptation a carne or ab intrinseco, then, Aquinas attempts to affirm the full realism of Jesus' seduction to sin at the hands both of the devil and of the world (where the world signifies, e.g., the Pharisees, the passers-by at the crucifixion, etc.), while at the same time preserving Christ's radical rectification of soul. Still, one may wonder if the notion of temptation ab hoste does full justice to the authentic experience of Jesus, since one is only truly tempted, Christ notwithstanding, by that which one is genuinely drawn toward, which Thomas himself fully avers when he asserts that essential to the devil's seductive methods is the proffering of a "desirable object" (appetibile). Aquinas propounds the view, in other words, that the devil's tempting influences proceed nowhere without the presentation of an object which, though illicit according to reason and the higher human good, is yet perceived by the senses as desirable and good-and desirability, or appetibility, implies an already initiated affective inclination to the object in question. If, therefore, Jesus recognized the deSirability of the objects proffered by the devil, and the realism of his temptations requires that he did, it stands to reason that he was, even at the opening stages of the assault, affectively inclined to goods that were in reality unlawful. Such an affective inclination to unlawful goods seems to undermine Jesus' supposed immunity to temptation from within, or telllPtation a carne. Anticipating this objection to Aquinas' explanation of the reality of Christ's temptations, the scholar J.-H. Nicolas offers the following weighty response: To experience in one's sensibility or in one's spontaneous will a certain object as good, as desirable, is in no sense an evil, since this is in conformity with the sponta:" neous movement of nature towards its own good. The evil begins to creep in at
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the moment desire arises, as desire incites the deliberated will to choose against the
sirable, or to experience an initial and spontaneous attraction to something like worldly
person's total good, which is his rule. For this reason, one must affirm the rather subtle yet well-founded following distinction: to experience a good as desirable, and to desire this good. One can acknowledge the first in Jesus, and thereby give greater force and truth to the fine explanation that st. Thomas offers in clarifying the reasons for temptation in the life of Christ.263
power and glory, quite another for Jesus to undergo an elicited movement that ensues upon this inclination, whereby he actually wants and chooses the worldly power and glory proffered to him. In this manner, Christ authentically underwent and still refused his temptations, thereby safeguarding his sinlessness (in which case the sin, or the "evil of fault" [malum culpae), is only on the part of the tempter); he did not, however, undergo and accept or consent to his temptations, which implies sin in both the tempter and the tempted.'" That Jesus' spontaneous impulses of affective inclination to the devil's suggestions were in fact forthrightly subsumed and finalized by reason is confirmed by the unequivocal outcome of the devil's seduction: Jesus' resolute refusal to bend to Satan's persuasion. Contrary, then, to the popular impression that genuine temptation must involve a full appetitive struggle, which presumes that only those who are morally weak and fallen can experience true temptation, Thomas insists that a full appetitive struggle is not necessary for a genuine temptation; a purely spontaneous impulse of affectivity, whereby one experiences a good as desirable yet nothing more, suffices for this. To be sure, because Jesus more clearly perceived the great evil at stake in his temptations, one can conclude that his temptations attained a greater degree of intensity than those of any other human debilitated by sin. Certainly, Aquinas supplies not the final word or resolves every quandary that arises from the issue of Christ's temptations. Yet, he has provided a penetrating perspective on the reality of the experience of temptation not only in Jesus' life but also in the lives of all humans. Because Aquinas' account of Jesus' temptation provides valuable insight intu the experience of temptation of all humans, J.-P. Torrell does not hesitate to qualifY Thomas' analysis of Christ's passions as "a small chef-d'oeuvre of spiritual theology as well as a brief digest of the history of salvation."'" Aquinas' discussion on Christ's temptations, in fact, proves again how thoroughly Scriptural in inspiration and orientation the Dominican's theology remains, since at all points he takes great pains to maintain a delicate yet informative balance between both the similar and dissimilar traits between Jesus' experience of temptation and the temptations of all other humans wounded by sin,which the locution ofHeb 4:15 requires: "We have a high priest who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin."
Nicolas' capital distinction between experiencing a good as desirable in a spontaneous manner and desiring a good in a fully elicited sense corresponds to the differentiation noted above between, on the one side, voluntas ut natura and voluntas sensualitatis, and, on the other, voluntas ut ratio. To repeat, Christ could undergo an instinctive inclination of both his intellectual and lower appetites to the natural good in a purely spontaneous manner; such affective impulses immediately became, thanks to the radically extensive penetration of reason into his sensibility, subsumed and finalized by the imperium of reason, as only a fully elicited movement of the sense appetite irrespective of the rule of reason is precluded by Jesus' consummate self-mastery. The instinctive spontaneity of Jesus' concupiscible and irascible appetites fully respected his reason's supreme imperium, and, hence, his hannony of soul. Again, the Christ of St. Thomas enjoys an integrated life whereby all the movements of his body and sensate soul, even in the midst of temptation, are wholly ordered to God, the supreme end of human life. Accordingly, if the desirability of stone turned into bread captivated Jesus' attention, it was by a purely instinctive or spontaneous impulse of affectivity that he was inclined to such a thought, since in no sense did he have an elicited desire to turn the stone into bread; as Thomas again states, "the sin begins with the interior delight," or, as Nicolas puts it, "the evil begins to creep in at the moment desire arises." There was no moment when actual desire for the alluring objects in question arose. It is one thing for Jesus to aclmowledge as de-
263. J.-H. Nicolas, Synthese dogmatique, pp. 407-8; emphasis his: "Eprouver en soi-meme--en sa sensibilite ou en sa volonte spontanee--cetobjet comme bon, comme desirable, n'estnullement mauvais, puisque cela est confonne au mouvement spontane de la nature ver son bien. Le mal commence as'insinuer quand nait Ie desir, qui sollicite la volonte deliberee achoisir contre Ie bien total de fa personne, qui est sa regIe. II faut done etablir une distinction, assez subtile, mais fondee, entre: eprouver un bien comme desirable, et desirer ce bien. On peut admettre Ie premier en Jesus, et cela donne pluS de force et de verite aux belles raisons que donne S. Thomas pour expliquer Ie pourquoi de la tentation dans la vie du Christ."
264. Cf. SrI, q. 48, a. 5 ad 3. For the distinction between undergoing yet refusing a temptation and undergoing and accepting a temptation, cf. J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. I, pp. 235-42. 265. J.-P. Torrell, Le Christen ses mystiires, vol. I, p. 233: "Cet article /Tertia, q.4l, a. 4 on th~ .'order and mode' (ordo et modus) ofehrist's temptations] est un petit chef-d'oeuvre de theologie spmtuelle en meme temps qu'un condense de l'histoire du salut."
362
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
3. The Effects o/Christ's Passions: Jesus', Affective Movements Never Impeded the Use 0/ Reason TI:e third and ~al manner by which Aquinas contrasts the morality of Christ's passions
363
In us the passions ... occasionally exceed the bounds of reason. In Christ, however they never exceeded the moderation detennined by reason; rather, his lower appetite, which is the subject of the passions, was moved just so far as reason decreed that it should be moved. 269
WIth Our own IS according to the effects of passion: It is clear that the p~sio~s were in Christ otherwise than in us ... in the third way as r~gards th.e ef!ect, SInce ,ID us these movements, rather than remaining in the sensitive appetite, Instead at times drag the reason down with them. In Christ this was not so, since by his interior self-mastery the natural movements of human flesh were so restricted to the sensitive appetite that his reason was in nowise impeded from doing the right thing.266
As with the previous distinction of Christ's passions according to their principle or source one can l~cate the foundation for this view on the effects of Jesus' passions differing fro~ our OWn III Tho,mas' previo,:s writings. In his commentary on the Sentences, Aquinas sketches the rudimentary outlme of this position when he writes: This [Le., the virtuous use of passion] was most amply the case in Christ, since his lower powers were perfectly obedient to his higher powers. Thus, no passion ever rebelled against the command ofreason.267
Aquinas develops this view in the De veritate, where he explains in a query on Christ's passibility of soul:
Aquinas' corrunentaries on Ma.tthew and John's Gospels also offer brief remarks regarding what the Summa terms the "effects" of Christ's passions: Christ's lower powers were always entirely subject to reason, and when he willed it, he allowed his lower powers to function according to their nature. 270 The movements of Christ's sensitive appetite always observed the order and imperium of reason. 271
Among his contemporaries, Aquinas is virtually alone in giving attentive detail to the singular effects characterizing Christ's passions, an attention that corresponds to the efforts Thomas displays in his treatise onthe passions in the Prima Secundae Pars at examining the effects of each of the eleven passions. Both Alexander of Hales, who affirms that Christ did not experience "difficulty from his affective part," and Albert the Great, who opines that Christ's paSsions never succeeded in "distracting him from the exercise of virtue," sup-
ply little more than a hint at what Aquinas more fully expounds.'" If there is a lone exception, however, it would be Bonaventure, who quite unequivocally excludes from Jesus' experience not only sorrow that causes the reason to be "inordinately disquieted," but also anger that either "troubles the mind for a time but does not blind it," or anger that "exces-
sively disquiets and clouds the mind."'" Providing a proper analysis of the singular A man is completely transfonned by the passions when they do not remain in the l0v.:er .appetite alone but ~g down the higher part as well. When, however, they remam m the lower appetite alone, the man is changed by them only as it were in part. 268
This p~sitio? becomes more lucid still in the Compendium theologiae, where Thomas, approachmg h,s statement in the Summa, writes: ~66. ~TIII, q.. IS, a. 4: "Sciendum /amen quod huiusmodi passiones aliter fueru.nt in Christo quam In n.ob18 ... :~rtlO, quantum ad effectum. Quia in nobis quandoque huiusmodi motus non sistunt in appetlt~ SenSltlVo, sed trahunt rationem. Quod in Christo non fUi/: quia motus naturaliter humanae carm ~onve~ientes sic ex eius dispositione in appetitu sensitivo manebant quod ratio ex his nullo
modo lmped,ebatur facere quae conveniebant. " 267.. Il~ Se~t~ d. ~5, q: 2, a. 1, sol. 3 ad 2: "In Christo autem amplius fuit. Quia enim fuit peifecta obed,entla Vlrlum mfenorum ad superiores, ideo nulla passio in eo surgebat nisi ex ordine rationis. " 268. De ve~, q. ~6, a. 8: ."~nc a.ut~m totaliter homo per huiusmodi affectus transmutatur quando ?on ~ol~m slstunt m appetltu mfenon, sed trahunt ad se et superiorem; quando vera in solo appetitu mfenon sunt, tunc homo immutatur eis quasi secundum partem. "
269. Compo theo!., ch. 232: "In nobis enim ... interdum modum rationis excedunt; in Christo autem numquam ... modum a ratione t(lXatum excedebant, sed tantum movebatur inferior appetitus, qui est passioni subiectus, quantum ratio ordinabat eum debere moveri. " 270. Lect. super Matt., ch. 26,-lect. 5: "in Christo ... immo suberant totaliter inferiores vires rationi, et quando volebat, permittebat agere inferiores vires secundum quod eis erat naturale. " 271. Lect. super loan., ch. II,lect. 5: "omnis motus appetitus sensitivifuit in eo [Christ] secundum modum et imperium rationis. " 272. Alexander ofRales, Summa theol. (Summa hal.), Pars I, Bk. II, inq. 2, tr. 3, sect. 2, q. 3, ch. 4, a. 2 ad 5 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 271) (cf. as well Bk. III, inq. I, tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo I ad 4 [ed. Quaracchi, vol. 4, p. 60]): "Christus ... non tamen assumpsit ignorantiam ex parte inteJlectus aut difficultatem ex parte affectus." Albert, III Sent, d. IS, a. 8 ad 1 (ct: as well a. 9): "Chrisius enim non est minus sapiens quam philQsophi ... Sapiens enim tangitur et patitur ratione passionis, sed non deducitur deflexus ab' aequalitate et aequitate." Cf. as well Albert, De incarn., tr. 6, q. I, a. 2 ad 6 (ed. Colon., p.222): "In Christo autemfuit dispositio ad tristandum et gaudendum, sed non ad immoderate." 273. Bonaventure, III Sen, d. 15, a. 2, qq. 2-3 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 338-40): "Illa vero tristitia est contra rationis judicium rectum, in qua ratio subiicitur sensualitati nec tantum turbatu!; sed etiam perturbatur ... Dico ergo, quod in Christo ... de nullo tristatus fui!, nisi secundum quod dictabat ei
364
TIlE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN TIlE
PAUL GONDREAU
365
TIlEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
effects of Christ's passions, or at least his passions of sorrow and anger, is of evident concern to Bonaventure as well.
a. The Obscuring Influence ofPassion With this distinction in Christ's passions according to their effects, Aquinas attempts to
place his finger on another common experience that all humans face in their affective lives: the fact that in their issue the passions frequently overstep the bounds of reason, sometimes
even "blinding" the capacity to reason entirely. If the passion according to "effect" differs from what we have seen Aquinas term the antecedent passion, it is because the antecedent passion focuses on the movements of affectivity that arise before the judgment of reason, whereas the passion as effect concerns what occurs after the onset of passion, either before or after the intervention of reason and will; for example, if a person experiences a sudden onset of fear about one's health, the antecedent passion corresponds to the sudden, unforeseen origin of such fear, while the passion as effect considers the manner in which such fear may obscure one's reasoning capabilities, such as inducing one to adopt irrational theories regarding the competency of modem medicine to provide effective medical care. Additionally, the passion according to effect differs from the consequent passion, insofar as the consequent passion relates to the origin or cause of a given passion, viz., reason's imperium, whereas the passion as effect centers on the effects or consequences of a given passion on the reasoning capacity of the human spirit. The term that dominates Aquinas' remarks on the passion according to effect is impedire, which denotes the ability of passion to impede or obscure the use of reason. Thomas notes that the risk for a given passion impeding reason's imperium rises concomitantly with the higher the degree of vehemence or intensity carried by the passion: "The stronger a passion is, the greater hindrance it is to the man who is affected by it."2" Here Aquinas' hylemorphism figures significantly; for, inasmuch as the bodily modification accompanying each passion-again, a passion is exercised by means of a bodily organ-is directly proportionate to the psychical appetitive movement itself, a greater intensity of appetitive movement will lead to a greater onset of bodily agitation, which in turn poses
a greater hindrance to reason, since, as Thomas explains, "the mind or reason '" is impeded in its acts when the body itself is disquieted."'" Aquinas turns to the passion of anger as "most manifestly" verifying such a fact: since "of all the passions anger causes the body the greatest amount of disquiet ... anger is the most manifest obstacle to the judgment of reason."276 Driving further the effusive interplay between passion, bodily agitation, and reasoning capability, Thomas delineates three specific manners by which a passion and its ensuing bodily change can impede the use of reason: by "distraction" (distractionis), by being "opposed to reason" (ratione contrarietatis), and by its "restraining" or "limiting" (ligationem) force (though this delineation appears specifically in Aquinas' analysis of bodily pleasure, the fact that it is reproduced in the discussion on human passion in general in Prima Secundae, q. 77 confirms its valid applicability to all the passions): Bodily pleasures [or passions] impede the use of reason in three ways. First, by distracting the reason, since we attend much to what gives us pleasure [or to what we are affectively drawn toward]. And when we fix our attention finnly on something, we become unable to give our attention to other things, either partially or completely. Hence, if the bodily pleasure [or passion] is great, it impedes the use of reason either entirely or at least considerably by focusing the soul's energies on the given pleasure [or passion]. Secondly, by being opposed to reason, since certain pleasures [or passions], especially the excessive ones, are contrary to the order of reason....Thirdly, by the power of restraint or limitation, inasmuch as a bodily pleasure [or passion] is followed by a certain bodily modification.... And such bodily agitation impedes the use of reason, as seen in the case of drunkards, whose use of reason is limited or impeded.277
275. STI-II, q. 48, a. 3: "mens vel ratio ... quarum actus impediuntur corpore perturbato." For texts affinning the direct proportionality between the bodily change and the appetitive movement of a pas-
sion, cf. ST I-II, q. 37, a. 4; q. 44, a. 1; q. 48, a. 2; De ver., q. 26, a. 2, and a. 3 ad 11; etc. 276. STI-II, q. 48, a. 3: "ira maximefacit perturbationem corporalem ... ira inter caeteras passiones manifestius impedit iudicium rationis. " cr. Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. IV,lect. 13; and Bk. VII, tect. 6. 277. STI-II, q. 33, a. 3: "Deleetationes corporales impediuntusum rationis triplici ratione: primo
ratio ... Hoc [anger] autem potest esse in triplici differentia: quia ... -aut tangit oculum mentis ad tempus turbando, sed non exeaecando; aut oculum mentis attingit ipsum perturbando et obnubilando ... Modo dicit motum detestationis cum inquietatione et perturbatione partis sensualis sine aliqua per, turbatione mentis,' et hoc modo foit in Christo afJectio. irae. " 274. STI-II, q. 44, a. 2 ad 2: "Quanto aliqua passio estfortior, tanto magis homo secundum ipsa m afJectus impeditur. "
quidem ratione distraetionis. ad ea in quibus delectamur multum attendimus. Cum autem intentio fortiter inhaeserit alicu; rei, debilitatur circa alias res. vel totaliter ab eis revocatur; et secundum hoc, si delectatio corporalis fuerit magna. vel totaliter impediet usum rationis, ad se intentionem animi attrahendo. vel multum impediet. Secundo ratione contrarietatis; quaedam enim delectationes, maxime superexeedentes. sunt contra ordinem rationis ." Tertio modo secundum quamdam ligationem, inquantum scilicet ad deleetationem corporalem sequitur quaedam transmutatio corporalis ... Huiusmodi autem corporales perturbationes impediunt usum rationis, sicut patet in vinolentis, qui habent usum rationis ligatum vel impeditum." For the same, cf. STI-II, q. 77, aa. 1-2; and, for a less lucid
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THEObOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Not surprisingly, this threefold obstruction of reason leads to adverse consequences for moral decision making. Impaired in its ability to exercise rationally appropriate behavior through the distracting, the opposing, and the restraining influence of passion, the will becomes unable to choose freely, and, hence, to exercise properly, virtoe; the wi1~ in other words, is induced by passion to commit what Aquinas terms the "sin of weakness" (peccatum ex infirmitate; cf. Prima Secundae, q. 77, a. 3). Depending on whether the inducement to sin by passion arrives before or after a judgment of reason, the sin of weakness will, ifbefare, be either lessened in its seriousness or entirely excused, or, if after, increase in seriousness, perhaps even to the point of qualifying as a mortal sin. 218 By discounting the impeding or obscuring force of passion from the affective-moral life of Christ, then, Aquinas underscores the fact that Jesus' reason and will, given the tenet of his sinlessness and perfection in grace and virtue, could in no case be impaired in their capacity for sound moral action. In a word, the ability of passion to impede or obscure the use of reason presupposes the disorder among the soul's powers (cf. Prima Secundae, q. 77, a. 3), a disorder that Christ's integrity of soul precludes. By consequence, Jesus was never "blinded" by passion, as his affectivity never usurped control of the spirit by overstepping the bounds of reason; Christ's imperium of reason and will was neither distracted, nor opposed, nor restrained by the influence of passion. 279 Thomas affinns, in other words, that Jesus' supreme self-mastery extends to envelop the entire duration of his movements of passion, both before and after the direct intervention of his reason; Christ retained rational control of his affectivity both before and after his passions had been fully elicited. In this
manner, then, the passions were in Christ "otherwise than in us as regards the effect."
h. Christ's
367
Aquinas follows his qualification of Christ's passions "as regards th fti t" ·th h . tin ti b d ee ec WI t edis-
con, orrowe from Jerome, between what he terms "propassion" and "passion": [B]y his interior self-mastery, the natural movements of [Christ's] h fl h tri t d th ', uman es were so ,res c e, to e sensitive appetite that his reason was in nowise impeded from do1Og the nght thing. Hence Jerome says that "0 L d' d f h' ' ur or, 10 or er to prove the truth o. IS assumc:d ,manhood, is truly sorrowful, yet his soul is not dominated by a assl~n; r~~her, It I~ by a propassion that it says, 'he begins to be sorrowful' [crtMt 26.37]. Accordlllgly, a perfect passion is understood to dominate the soul . _ son whereas . b ' . , I.e., rea , a propasslon egms III the sensitive appetite but extends no further.280
We had e,,:,l~er seen that the term propassion originated not with Jerome but with Ori en ;Vho us~d m a purely ~thropological context; from Origen the term passed to Did g u~ 'the Blmd of Alexandria, who was the first to apply it to Christ, and from whom J ym borro.wed this usage."J Also, John Damascene expresses the near equivalent to the ~=~ tologlCal use of propasslOn when he writes:
!;
our natural passions were in hannony with nature ,and above nature in Christ ... [T]he d thY WIn III the Lord.282 . an over e
w~re. above nature because that which was natural did not assume comm
By ~e mid-13th ce~tury, the Christological appropriation of the term propassion had attame. a d~gree of wIdespread usage, thanks in large part to the influence of Peter Lombard who, msplred by Jerome (and somewhat by the Summa sententiarum), ascribes ProPassio~
'~Propassions"
To explain further how Christ's passions contrast with ours as regards the effect, or how Jesus never found himself the victim of the impeding or obscuring influence of passion,
account, Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. II, lect. 10; Bk. VI, lect. 4; andBk. X, lect. 7. cf. as well H.-D. Noble, "Passions," col. 2222; and L. Massara, "La 'delectatio' dans la psychologie de Saint Thomas d' Aquin," Archives de Philosophie 41 (1964), pp. 186-205. 278. STI-II, q. 77, aa. 6-8. cf. as well STI-II, q. 10, a. 3 ad 2; q. 24, a. 3 ad3; q. 72, a. 5; De malo, q. 3, a. 11; q. 3, a. \3 ad 5; q. 7, a. 6; q. 10, a. 2 ad 2; De fer., q. 25, a. 5; q. 26, a. 7; II Sent, d. 24, q. 3, a. 2 ad 3; d. 26, a. 2; Augustine, De Vera. reZig., ch. 14, n. 27 (CSEL 77, p. 20); De Trin., Bk. I, 12 (CCSL 50A, p. 372); Lombard, II Sent, d. 24, ch. 9 (ed. Coli. Bonav., p. 457); Albert, Qu. desensual. et eius mot., a. 2 (ed. Colon., pp. 221-3); II Sent, d. 21, a. 4; d. 24, a. 9; and Bonaventure, Brevil, pt 3, ch. 8 (ed. Quaraeehi, p. 237). 279. Cf. M.-B. Schwalm, Le Christ d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin, p. 311.
280 . .STUI,~ ..15, a. 4: "[MJotus naturaliter humanae carni convenientes sic ex eius dispositio . appet,tu sensltlvo manehant quod ratio ex his nullo modo impediehatur facere . ne m UndeHieronymus dicit [cf. In Math. IV (on 26:37)(CCSL 77 p 253)] d 'D q~ae convemebant. itatem ads t" b h .. ,. quo ommus noster. ut ver. ump I pro . aret ~m.mlS, vere.1uidem contristatus sit sed. ne passio in animo illius domm~retu~:erpro1!as~lOne": d,cltur quod coeperit contristan" '; utpassio perfecta intelligatur quando ~m~o. I est ratlOnl,. d~mmatur; p'ropas~io autem, quando est inchoata in appetitu sensitivo, sed u/:,~s non se extend,t. Thomas eIther cites or paraphrases this text from Jerome in STnI q IS 6 ro ' a.? a~ 1; q. ~6, a. 7, argo 3; and Cat. aur. in Matt.• on Mt 5:27-28, For more on th~ ~oti~:'of p paSSIOn In Aq~tna~, c~ J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 1, pp. 106-7' and M-B ~~hwalm, Le ChrISt d apres saint Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 309-12. ,. . I. Cf. Dldymus ofAlexandria, Commentary on the Psalms text XVIII 10 I'n A G h" Lo h . t%gied "c . '" . esc t;; c ns1.2 1141 u o)m(mf.entalre sur les p's~ur:zes", p. 135; and Origen, Se/ecta in Psalmos, on 4:5 (pG ll44 c . as well Gesche, IbId., pp, 150--81, and 191-8). , 282. Damascene, De fide orth., Bk. III, ch. 20 (ed. Buytaert p 260)' "natural t . fecu~dum naturam, et super naturam, /uerunt in Christo ... ;SJ~ er ~aturam es nos rae passlones bant In Domino voluntatem naturalia. "In STIlI q 46 a 7 rp3 A ' I au:em, non prae~ede sius (E,' X d , . , . , argo qumas a So cites pseudo-D1ony_ approa~:tht. a Ioa~. EVd~n~. ~G 3, 1117]) as offering passing comments on Christ's passions that e propasslOn lstinction proposed by Jerome.
Ps
368
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
to Christ as a way of preserving the perfect rectitude of his soul's spiritual faculties. "3 The early- 13th-century Magister Willermus, as well as an anonymous author of the same period, qualify Christ's movements of affectivity as propassions (Willermus calls them ''protopassions") for the same reason as Lombard.2M For Alexander of Hales, Christ experienced only propassions rather than passions in order to ensure the proper ordering of his entire affectivity to God.'" Albert the Great also designates Jesus' sorrow and fear as propassions, since these affective movements never exceeded the bounds of moderation."6 Finally, BonaventUre, citing Jerome and Lombard, insists that Christ's passions merit the appellation propassion, or "incomplete passion," as they never succeeded in obstructing his higher reasoning powers. 287 Aquinas for his part accepts Jerome's introduction of propassion into Latin Christology, but makes significant use of it only near the end of his career (Thomas nowhere
283. Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, ch. 2 (this chapter is devoted to Christ's "propassione et passione timoris vel tristitiae 'J. (ed. ColI. Bonav.• p. 99): "AjJicitur enim quis interdum timore vel tristitia, ita ut
mentis intellectus non inde moveatur a rectitudine vel Dei contemplatione, et tunc propassio est. AUquando vera movetur et turbatur; et tunc passio est. " The Summa senten/iarum, ch. 17 (PL 176, 75) mentions Jerome's distinction. but gives little development of it. Cf. as well Sententiae divinitatis, tr. rv, ch. 3, 2 (ed. Geyer, p. 77*). 284. Magister Willennus (in W. Principe, "Quaestiones Concerning Christ II," p. 37, §23) writes: "Benedicitur 'coepit' quia ibifuit primus matus passionis, non secundus. et primus ille matus dicitur 'protopassio 'J scilicet prima passio. "The contemporary anonymous author (in Principe, ibid., p. 39, §6) explains: "Sed aliter palest did et meUus quod Christus dolorem habuit interiorem. sed duplex est dolor: dolor passia et dolor propassio; dolor passio quae perturbat rationem in nobis vel inclinat voluntatem in malum, sed dolor propassio ubi neutrum praedictorum accidit, fd est, neque /urbatio rati'onis neque inclinatio voluntatis in malum. " 285. Alexander of Hales, Summa theol. (Summa hal.), Pars II, Bk. II, inq. 2, tr. 2, sect. 2, q. I, a. 3, n ad 1 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 154): "Est alius timor, qui dicitur propassio, non dico passia, quae est perturhatae mentis: ta/is enim non poterat convenire Christo, sed propassio, et hoc modo as.sumpsit ipse nostram injirmitatem quae nostrae redemption; competebat." Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater', q. 16, disp. 3, memo 1-2, nn. 66-70 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 254-8): "Dieo quod in Christo ... foit propassio ... quando scilicet huiusmodi immoderatio venit non cum cautela in parte inferior;: nulla talis immoderatio Juit in anima Christi, et haec immoderatio 'passio' appellatur ... Ex summa ergo ordinatione animae ad Dominum suum ex parte ajJectiva,facillima vita est. " Cf. as well Alexander, III Sent, d. 15, nn. 9-11 and 31-2 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 154 and 161). 286. Cf. De incarn., tr. 6, q. 1, a. 2, argo 6 and ad 6 (ed. Colon., pp. 221-2): "Christus autem trislitiam et timorem, ut dicunt Sancti, non habuit nisi secundum propassionem ... In Christo autemfoit dispositio ad tristandum et gaudendum, sed non ad immoderate." For more of the same, cf. Albert, III Sent, d. IS, a. 9. 287. Cf. Bonaventure, IJ[ Sent, d. IS, a. 2, q. 3, and dub, 4 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 34()"'2): "Quodam etiam modo [of passion] non foit, videlicet prout dicit perturbationem oculi mentalis ... Dieendum quod propassio secundum generalem nominis sui acceptionem dicitur esse passio diminuta ... propassio dicit passionem partis sensualis, vel virtutis natura/is ... Et ita timor in Christo de morte futura potuit esse in parte sensuali, ut merito secundum Hieronymum et Magistrum possit et debeat dici propassio. "
369
speaks of pro~assion in relation to general human affectivity only). For example, though Thomas explOIts the term to his great advantage in the treatise on Christ's passions in the Summa, his analysis of Christ's human affectivity in the commentary on the Sentences fails to mention propassion, despite the fact that his reproduction of Lombard's text includes the term."8 To find, in fact, the only substantive remarks on the notion of propassion previous to the Summa, one must tum to the De veritate (1256-59) and the commentary on Matthew's Gospel (1269-70).289 In the De veritate, Aquinas, cued by Jerome and Lombard writes the following in a query on Christ's passibility of soul: ' A man is completely transfonned by the passions when they do not remain in the lo~er. appetite alone bu~ drag down the hi~her part as well. When, however, they remam. In the lower appetite alone, the man IS altered by them only, as it were, in part. In thIS latter sense they are called propassions, while in the first sense passions. 290
In his co~mentary on Matthew's G~spel, Thomas offers the distinction between propassion and paSSIOn as a proper hermeneutIc of Mt 26:37, which reports: "And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, Jesus began to be sorrowful and to be sad."291 That is recognizing, along with Jerome, the difference between beginning to be sorrowful and ac~ tuQlly being sorrowful, Aquinas holds that the notion of propassion more accurately reflects the "initiated" experience of sorrow that Matthew reports-"Jesus began to be sorrowful": I~ is to be observed that sorrow can occ~ either as a passion or as 3' propassion. A passl~n ~nsforms one, whereas a propassIon does not transform one. For, when passions anse In us and cause the reason to be altered, such passions are complete, but when they do not cause the reason to be altered, they are called propassions. Since Christ's reason was in no way altered, he experienced only propassions rather than passions, which is what the Evangelist means when he says that Jesus "began to be sorrow ful.'>292
288. Aquinas, III Sent, d. 15, expositio textus. 289. Thomas also mentions propassion in the following texts, yet without expounding upon the sense
of the tenn (verified by R. Busa, ed., Th.Aq. Op. omnia cum hypo in CD-ROM): Lect. super [oan., ch. 13, lect. 4; Cat. aur. in Matt., on Mt 5:27-28 (this is a citation of Jerome); and Expositio super Isaiam ad litteram, ch. 42, leet. O. 290. De ver., q. 26, a. 8: "Tunc autem totaliter homo per huiusmodi afJectus transmutatur quando non so/urn sistunt in "appe titu inferiori, sed trahunt ad se et superiorem; quando vero in solo appetitu inferior; sunt, tunc homo immutatur eis quasi secundum partem, unde sic dicuntur propassiones, primo autem modo passiones. " 291. Vulgate: "Et adsumpto Petro et duobus jiliis Zebedaei coepit contristari et maestus esse. " 292. Leet. super Matt., ch. 26,lect. 5: "Ideo notandum quod quandoque tristitia accidit secundum passionem, aliquando secundum propassionem. Secundum passionem, quando aliquid patitur et immutatur: sed quando patitur, et non immutatur, tunc habet propassionem. Sed quandoque huiusmodi
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A1J these passages, along with the foregoing text from the Tertia Pars, make plain, Thomas' Christological appropriation of the term propassion centers on the key terms "transformation" (immutare), "domination" (dominari), and "perfect passion" (passio perfecta) or "complete passion" (passio completa). In Aqninas' mind, a passion is only perfect or complete, i.e., full-blown, when it prevails over the human psyche by eclipsing reason and transfonning the entire psychological disposition of the human person. This view, of course, follows upon Thomas' understanding that the concupiscible and irascible appetites, emancipated from reason's supreme control or from their inherent orientation to God, tend to their own sentient objects in a disordered and autonomous manner; and since this inclination may, via the passions, attain a degree of vigorous vehemence and intensity, accompanied by the corresponding and proportionate bodily alteration, it is only natural that the entire human soul should, given the substantial unity of human nature, be "carried away" by such affective drawing power, or that the loss of rational control should mark the proper culmination stage of the full-blown passion. Hence, Aquinas' assertion that the perfect passion udominates the soul," or that it "alters the reason" and "completely transforms one." Since Christ's consummate integrity of soul precludes any movement of affectivity that disrupts or troubles the mind, or which induces the loss of rational control, one must de {acto dismiss the perfect or full-blown passion from the experience of Jesus; instead, one must ascribe to him those movements of affectivity that remain in their proper sentient do-
main, leaving the imperium of reason intact: the propassions, or what one may call "fIrststage" passions.'93 All Christ's passions are propassions, if by propassion one means such "first-stage" passions, i.e., passions that attain the level of fully elicited movements of affectivity (= first stage) but which do not perturb the imperium of reason and will (= second stage), or movements of the sensitive appetite that respect the bounds of reason, and,
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thus, the: sphere of virtuous activity.294 Unmitigated command of the lower appetites which the Christ of Thomas Aquinas enjoys, requires nothing less. Thus, when Aquinas' claims that a ?rop:,"sion remains in the lower appetite alone, he does not hold a "spatial" containment III mllld (as would Bonaventure, who again severs the synergy between reason and s.e~se appetite by claiming that reason acts against or apart from the inclinations of affectiVIty); rather, he me~ a movement that does not su~ceed in perturbing or manipulating reason. Nor by propassIOn does Thomas mean a partIal or merely initiated movement of the sensate soul; a propassion is a fully elicited movement of the sensitive appetite. Of course, Aquinas typically attributes ''passions of the soul" (passiones animae) to ~?rist without. qualification, which indicates that he does not always hold to the strict deflnItion of pasSIOn as that which overtakes the command of reason or which dominates the so~l, ~ut also u~es passion to signify at times what he states pertains to propassion only. If he ~nsIsts upon lntroduc.ing the distinction in the first place, it is to avoid the potential confuSIOn that the connotation of the tenn "passion" (passio), at least in reference to the moral excellence of Christ's life, may engender. Thomas' Christological use of propass ion, how-
ever, by no means represents an attempt to downgrade or cheapen the affective dimension of Christ's humanity, as ifhe experienced only "half passions." Nor does Aquinas wish to
deny the fact that ~e intense ?,,;,sions .of Jesus' l!fe affected his entire interior disposition, or that ~e spontaneIty of Christ s pasSIOns was hmdered. One should not intetpret the term propasslOn as the Thomist equivalent for the Stoic ideal of the virtuous man who is unswayed in any manner by his affective disposition. For the Dominican theologian, Jesus does undergo full-blown passions, but only if one clearly understands that such "full-blown" passions, no matter their intensity and vehemence, strictly hannonize with reason's iml!erium as a result of reason's complete penetration into his sensibility; as J.-H. Nicolas puts
It:
In a human person who is perfectly "upright," i.e., completely ordered interiorly to God, the passions are no less alive and intense, even if they are intrinsically subject to and consonant with reason.29S
sunt in nobis, ita quod ratio immutatur, et tunc passiones sunt completae: quando autem ratio non immutatur, tunc est propassio. Sed in Christo numquam luit ratio immutata; ideo fuit propassio, et non passio. Unde signanter dicit Evangelista 'coepit tristari. ... Earlier in this passage Thomas cites Jerome, who himself explains (In Math. N [on 26:37] [CCSL 77, p. 253]): "It is one thing to be sor, rowful and another to begin to be sorrowful" (Aliud est enim contristari et aliud incipere contristari). 293. For more on propassion in Thomas, cf. l-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. I, pp. 1067; L. Ott, Fundamentals o/Catholic Dogma, p. 174; F. Cunningham, Christ and His Sacraments, p. 167; and M. Paluch, "L'ame du Christ etait-elle soumise aux passions?"
294. One can find the foundation for this sense of propassion in Alexander of Hales, Summa theol., (Summa hal.), Bk. III, inq. 1 tr. I, q. 4, d. 3, memo 2, ch. 1, •. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 63): "propassionem, quae attenditur in sensualitate praeter perturbationem rationis." 29~. J:-H. Nicolas, Synthese dogmatique, p. 407: "En une personne humaine parfaitement 'droite'
(= mterieurement ordonnee, et tout ordonnee aDieu) les passions ne sont pas moins vives et intenses mais eUes sont intrinsequement soumises et consonantes a la raison." Cf. as well F. Cunningham: Christ and His Sacraments, pp. 165-7.
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Subsequently, though moved interiorly by passion, even intense passion, Jesus never experienced the eclipsing of bis reasoning capabilities, or the debilitation of his capacity to maintain a virtoous control of his animal urges. Full-blown passion in this latter eclipsing, debilitating sense secures no voice in the Christology ofAquinas, which, in the final analysis, categorically refuses to compromise, even minimally or even if convenience should beg it, the tenet of Jesus' radical rectification of soul. To understand properly the notion of propassion, then, one must view it in a negative sense, i.e., as that which affirms that Jesus' imperium of reason was in no sense perturbed or manipulated by the passions.
D.
RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION
By examining the relationship between Jesus' human affectivity and his moral life, this
chapter has considered the most crucial, not to mention, given its numerous consequential distinctions, the most refined, aspect of Aquinas' theology of Christ's human passions. In many ways, Thomas' theology of the morality of Christ's passions, though the beneficiary of a distinguished patristic and medieval instruction, bears the imprints of his own originality and thought, not least of which because Aquinas assigns the matter a degree of committed deliberation that no previous writer can match. Without a doubt, by ascribing to the passions an authentically integral, active, and consensual participation in the exercise of virtoe, despite the contrary opinion of his Franciscan colleague Bonaventure and certainly of the Stoics, Aquinas opts for a decidedly optimistic view on the role of passion in the moral life; by extension, this concludes to a greater optimism and a higher esteem for the integral role of the passions in Jesus' moral life. Such optimism ultimately issues from Thomas' basic conviction, inspired by a metaphysics which posits a substantial unity between sensibility and reason, that the passions represent a necessary first step in the attainment of human happiness, in which consists the proper perfection of human nature (and since human happiness consists ultimately in lmowing and loving God, it follows that lmowing and loving God should and must include our affectivity). The medium by which the passions move us toward our ultimate end, or the means by which they are rendered rationally appropriate expressions of behavior, is moral virtue, since the passions represent the proper "matter," as Aquinas terms it, of the moral virtues. If this is verified anywhere for Thomas, it is in the case of Christ, whose
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in"'.'n.troy~rtibl~ harmonious fusion of passion and virtue provides the decisive defeat of any StOIcmsprred v.ew that suspects the passions of being inherently inimical to the moral life; sound moral conduct must go through-not around, apart, or in abstraction from-the pas_ sions. For the Dominican theologian, one cannot speak of Jesus' virtue, or at least his moral virtue, in abstraction from his being subject to movements of passion. The glue that unites Thomas' entire vision of Christ's affective-moral life is the tenet of
Jesus' radical rectification of soul, by which Aquinas esteems him the man of consummate virtue, or, to quote Thomas, the man with "the greatest possible degree of virtue." Spared by a ~que grace from the crippling effects of original sin on human affectivity, specifically the disorder among the soul's powers (concupiscence) or the affective propensity to sin (the fomes peccati), Jesus enjoyed a moral integrity characterized by a radically extensive penetration of reason into his sensibility, whereby every movement of his affectivity was instinctively and innately oriented to the exercise of virtue. Basic to this view is Aquinas' understanding that the lower appetites, as owing to the consequences of original sin and to the natural corruptibility of human nature, possess a limited autonomy that is fundamentally
disordered; i.e., in the post-Iapsarian condition, the sense appetite, after having lost the instinctive and innate orientation to virtue it initially enjoyed by virtue of the grace of original justice, tends to its own sentient object irrespective of reason's imperium. Sharing in a grace analogous to that of original justice, Jesus takes on a sensitive appetite that, although possessing the limited autonomy and proper spontaneity owing to itby nature, operates at all times in total and fundamental synergy with reason's imperium, so that every passion was perfectly ordered to the role ofreason; the entirety of Jesus' life, including all the movements of his sensate soul, were wholly ordered to God. In this manner, Christ's concupiscible and irascible appetites facilitated and assisted his exercise of virtue, and thereby acted as the immediate principle or source of his virtuous conduct. The impact that Christ's supreme self-mastery has on human salvation Thomas no less underscores: because he enjoys total harmony of soul, Christ can adequately atone or offer satisfaction for human sin, as well as provide an example of virtue for Christians to imitate both through their actions and through their sharing in the grace that conforms them ontologically to the image of the very one after whom they are striving to model their lives. Christ is a model both from
without and from within, inasmuch as we imitate him as we imitate anyone else, and inasmuch as he changes us interiorly by his grace.
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Concretely, Aquinas' stance on Christ's moral integrity leads him to identify three singular features of Jesus' affective-moral life, which, given the disordered autonomy of the sensitive appetite in the post-lapsarian state, contrast with our own: passions with respect to object, passions with respect to the principle or source, and passions with respect to their effects. As for the first, Christ's sense appetite elicited only those passions whose object was inherently aligned with higher rational goods. Regarding the unique principle or source of Christ's passions, Thomas opines that Jesus never experienced the onset of "antecedent"
or unforeseen passions, i.e., passions that precede the judgment of reason; rather, his lower appetites engendered only "consequent" passions, or passions that issue as a result ofreason's commanding imperium (though this should not be taken to mean that Jesus' reason enjoyed a rationalistic-i.e., cold, calculated, and planned-rontrol of his affectivity). Aquinas does affinn that Christ's sensitive appetite retains an instinctive inclination to its own sentient object as a purely spontaneous impulse of affectivity (as opposed to an elicited movement of affectivity). Owning such harmony of soul, Jesus was preserved from the experience of two disordered affective realities: elicited movements of passion outside the sanction of his reason and will, and temptations "from within" (a carne or ab intrinseco), i.e., temptations arising from disordered interior movements of affectivity. Finally, as for the unique effects of Christ's passions, Aquinas insists that Jesus' reasoning capabilities were in no way impeded or obstructed by the distracting, opposing, or restraining influence of passion. Christ's passions always respected the bounds of reason, for which reason Thomas at times labels them "propassions." In a word, Jesus experienced no passion that did not de facto become the occasion for an act of virtue, so that Christ's virtuous life was more perfect and praiseworthy in the very measure that it involved his affectivity. Though it does not resolve every issue on the matter, St. Thomas' thought on the moral quality of Christ's passions succeeds in providing a highly nuanced and resounding defense of what many would consider an inherent impossibility: the coexistence of movements of passion, even intense ones, and moral perfection.
CHAPTER 6
AQUINAS ON THE SPECIFIC PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL: THE CASE OF JESUS' SENSIBLE PAIN, SORROW, FEAR, WONDER, ANGER-AND THE VISIO DEI
After examining the general nature and moral quality of Christ's passibility of soul, Aquinas shifts his attention to Christ's specific passions in the Tertia Pars. The analysis of Jesus' particular passions, in fact, forms the quantitative bulk of the treatise on Christ's passions in Tertia, q. IS; whereas Thomas condenses his comments on Jesus' possession ofa passible soul andthe moral quality of this soul into two articles (aa. 2 and 4), the Dominican theologian dedicates a separate article to each passion he investigates in Christ: sensible pain (a. 5), sorrow (a. 6), fear (a. 7), wonder (a. 8), and anger (a. 9). Aquinas then completes the treatise by appending an article on the relation between Jesus' affective suffering and his direct possession of the visio Dei (a. 10). With an examination of Thomas' account of each of these passions in Christ, which represents the proper aim of this chapter, we shall accordingly bring this study on Aquinas' theology of Christ's passions to a close. The Master from Aquino's extensive introspection into the concrete or specific nature of Christ's human affectivity stands out as a signature trait of his Christological thought, as this introspection reflects the unparalleled interest he evinces in the specific passions of the soul (again, the index of eleven types of passion that he first supplies in his Sentence commentary and which receives substantial development in the Prima Secundae Pars of the Summa represents a novel achievement in the history of anthropological thought). Aquinas shows his singular concern to advance a proper theological analysis of Christ's specific passions at the very outset of his career, as his commentary on the Sentences devotes a separate quaestiuncula to the passions of sorrow, anger, fear, and sensible pain in Christ.' This expands considerably the scope of Lombard's text, which, in echo of Damascene's De fide orthodoxa, offers nothing more than cursory queries on Christ's fear, sorrow, and sensible pain.2 Thomas' analysis surpasses as well the Sentence commentaries of both Alexander of
1. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 1-3; and a. 3, qc. 1-3. 2. Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, chs. 1-2,4, and d. 17, ch. 3 (ed. Coli. Bonav., pp. 93-111); and Damascene, Defide orth .. Bk. III, chs. 20, 23, and 26 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 259-72). Cf. as well Summa sententiarum, ch. 17 (pL 176. 75); and Sententiae divinitatis, tr. IV, ch. 3,7 (ed. Geyer, pp.88*-9*). It is noteworthy to remark that Damascene restricts his analysis of Christ's specific passions to fear, sorrow, and sensible pain (especially fear) after he had earlier, following Nemesius, given consideration to four specific passions accruing to the general human experience: joy, sorrow, fear, and anger (cf. Defide orth.. Bk. II, chs. 13-6 led. Buytaert, pp. 119-24], aud Nemesius, De nat. hom., chs. 17-20 led. Verbeke-Moncho, pp. 96-104]).
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Hales and Albert the Great, as the former submits passing remarks only on Christ's specific 3 passions, while the latter assigns one brief article to Christ's assumptionoffea: and so?,ow.
hum"'.' action in direct teleological reference to the quest for happiness. That Christ's own suffenng and de~th re.store~ t~e human family to the possibility of attaining true happiness b~trays the sotenologlcal slgruficance that an analysis of Jesus' disagreeable passibility entails.
Only Bonaventure's commentary on the Sentences displays a comparable mterest m the theological import of Jesus' particular passious, as he ascribes a separate quaestio to Christ's
~s alread~ ~een, the. objective.ofascribing theological credibility to the psychosomatic reahty of Christ s suffenng and pa~ is conson"'.'t with the general medieval trend to respond to the WIdespread mfluence of HIlary ofPOltters' problematic Christology which' 't 1 . ·th th Ari d ' th ' • In 1 s po ernlc WI • e.. ans, emes e psychical (and almost physical) reality of Christ's dis-
sorrow, fear, sensible pain, and anger.4 Outside the commentaries on the Sentences, only Alexander of Hales betrays an interest in Christ's particular passions (Albert the Great's De incamatione fails to provide separate queries on specific pas~ions in Christ), as the Fran-
ciscan theologian examines Christ's sorrow, fear, and anger in the Christological section of
agreeable passlb1hty (we s~w earlier how Hilary's views engendered a heated controversy
his Summa theoiogiae;S this precedent would exert an evident impact on Aquinas' own Summa the%giae, even if the Dominican's remarks extend considerably the scope ofanaly-
thatruns throughout ~e enltre course ofthe Middle Ages)6 Aquinas' thought reflects as well theunpact m.the ~tin Wes~ after the mid· 12th-centwy, ofDarnascene's Defide orthodoxa, ,:,hlch, directing.lts comn:e~ts to the Aphthartodocetic denial of Christ's passibility of body,
sis. One will immediately notice, however, that the list of particular passions in Christ ex-
l~lts ~e analYSIS of Christ s pasSIOns to the disagreeable passions of sorrow, fear, and sen-
amined by Aquinas is by his own account manifestly incomplete, as it bypasses eight ot~er
slbl.e pam only., One c~. ~so locate the tendency to promote a Christological regard that as. SOCtat~s. Christ s passlblhty of so~lwith his affective suffering or disagreeable passion in the "':'tings of Augustine.' Boethlus, and even John Chrysostom.' With the historical perspecti~e thus overwhelmmgly m favor of equating Christ's passibility with his affective s~ffenng, It w~ only natural that this would become the classic model by which them me-
passions (out of the index of eleven he supplies), including all the agreeable or congemal
passions: love or like, hatred or dislike, desire, aversion, joy, hope, courage, and desparr. As already mentioned this glaring omission remains a regrettable drawback to Aquinas' account of Christ's p~ssions. since it fails to render complete justice to the subject of Jesus' human affectivity, as well as to bring to a fitting theological completion the slndy.on the eleven passions that the treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae P~rs, WIth Its d~s tinguished degree of depth and scope, provides. Even so, one must recogmze that the ~nn cipal objective of the treatise on Christ's passions in Tertia, q. 15, or of ~e medIeval
dlev~ theologian ponders the nature of Jesus' human affectivity, including his partiCUlar passlODs.
. Aquina:: give~ no indicatio~ of breaking ranks with this model; to the contrary, it informs ~s e:-ery dl~cussl0n on Christ s passlOns, particularly that found in Tertia, q. 15. Sustain~ ~g hIS ".'Ieglance to the t;aditional model is Thomas' added conviction, already examined m s~~,l.e~t detaIl, that dls~greeabl.e passion or affective suffering "has more the nature of
discussion on Christ's passibility of soul in general, is not to supply an exhaustive, or at least comprehensive, account of Christ's passions, nor certainl~ t~ offer ~ analysis ~f Jesus' emotions in the modem, congenial sense of the tenn; rather, It IS to ascnbe theologtca~ cred-
ibility to the psychosomatic reality of Christ's suffering and pain, and, hen~e, to reslnct the focus to the negative side of Christ's affectivity, or to his being subject to disagreeable pas· sion. Restricting the analysis to Christ's affective suffering reflects as well the emphasIS
passlOD ,I.e., that the negative paSSIOns, or those movements of the sensitive appetite which ensu.e up~n the per~eption of a sense evil, come closest to attaining the 1rue meaning of pasSIOn, SInce they Involve the loss of a suitable and natlrral disposition in exchange for a
that Aquinas' moral teaching places on the notion of happiness, since, opposed to happmess.
contrary one (recall that Aquinas identifies the original sense of passion with the notion of apat~ent or subject being. passively acted upon in such a way that the patient, through its draWl?g tow".'"ds somet~mg else, loses what it originally possessed). In short, affective suffenng SIgnIfies the pnmary and proper meaning of passion, for which reason it best cap.
suffering takes on an immediately indispensable role in any moral theory that places all
3. Alexander of Hales ,III Sent, d. 15, nn. 7-13, and 28-9 (ed. Quaraccbi, pp. 153-60); and Albert, III Sent, d. 15, a. 8. . 4. Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 15, a. 2, qq. 2-3, and dub. 3-4; and d. 16, a. 1, q. 1 (ed. Quaracchl, pp. 338-47).
5. Alexander of Hales, Summa theal. (Summa hal.), Bk. III, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo 2, ch. 1, aa. 2-5 (ed. Quaraccbi, pp. 63-6).
.
6. For the medieval debate over Hilary's position, cr. chapter one, n. 43. 7. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps 87:3 (CCSL 39, p. 1209); Boethius, Liber contra Eut. et Nest., ch. 8 (ed. Stewart, pp. 123-5); and John Chrysostom, In Matt. homil., 74-5 (pG 58, 681-5).
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stures the medieval sense of passio, or passibilitas. Thomas, adhering both to this primary sense of passion and to the Scholastic affiliation ofJesus' passibility with affective suffer-
ing, therefore examines Christ's passions under the rubric of defect, or more precisely, defect of the soul (to use the terminology of Alexander of Hales, and, before him, of Peter Lombard-and ultimately of the Summa sententiarum). S Hence, the predominantly "negative" regard by which Aquinas examines Christ's par-
ticular passions, inasmuch as he gives consideration only to the disagreeable passions in Jesus, i.e., the passions whose object is perceived as something hannful to the sentient dimension of human life: These specific disagreeable passions or "defects of soul" that
Thomas examines in Christ include pain, sorrow, fear, anger, and, in a move original to him (though it occurs only in the Summa), "wonder" (admiratio), as Thomas designates admiratio as a type or species of fear. Though the Dominican Master could have inserted the
other three disagreeable passions-hatred or dislike, aversion, and despair-into his treatise on Christ's passions, he declines the opportunity to do so; again, Thomas quite deliberately and consdously pens an abbreviated analysis of Jesus' human affectivity, thereby leaving the door open to consideration of other passions in Christ, particularly his congen-
ial passions. One suspects that an additional reason accounting for Aquinas' abridged version of Christ's passions centers on a certain reluctance to penetrate the human psychology
PAUL GONDRBAU
suffering), which, appearing in the m'd t fth . Tertia, qq. 27-59 follows I'n a mo ISO edanalysls of the mysteries of Christ's life in , re pronounce malll1er th tho . f h e au nty 0 sacred Scripture and the Fathers of the Church Though the ddt' . eucIVemetodofTer 15dr . · IogIcal conclusions concerning the sp CI.fi . r la, q. aws vanous eral Christo logical princi les centen: IC nature of Christ's human affectivity from gencalled that, as clarified in ~e previous ~ ~ the n~lOn of the coassumpta, it should be rec ap er, suc . a method maintains a radically vital and inseparable link with all the Aquinas' theology of Jesus' h:::rancesafliof St~~olashC theologIcal thought; to recapitulate, . . ec IVlty ensues upon a syn fl' tween, 1D successive order the livin ·tn fS . . erge IC corre ailon besustaining definition OfChnstolOgi;a~oc:no Cl~npt;n:e, a vib~t confessionoffaith and and the patristic voice) a sound anthro I . ell umm~ted e~peclally by Church teaching · ' po oglCa conception (aIded b th truth . bYthe lIght of reason, particularly Aristotelian hiloso h y e .. s establIshed reasonmg (which employs the same truths ~ P y), and, finally, cntlcal d~duchve ments establish the broader theolOgical co t t ~ reas?n). Such methodologIcal ele-
'7
On Christ's passions in Tertia, q. IS, a trea:s:~e~ro~u~:~I!~!ei~I~O~gesdias the treatise agram.
of the Incarnate Word to the same, or at least comparable, extent by which he delves the mysteries of the general human psychological condition. That Aquinas does not forge a greater departure from the received tradition by actually walking through the door that he had left open for himself, thereby pushing his intuitions regarding human affectivity to their Christologicallimit, remains an inadequacy in his Christological thought that the modern theologian must acknowledge; however, this should not detract from an appreciation of the
Tertia Pars, Q. 15
otherwise noteworthy achievements that his account of Christ's specific passions accom".of the defects of soul assumed by Christ"
plishes, as the following comments shall attempt to corroborate. In terms of theological method, Aquinas' treatise on Christ's passions in Tertia, q. 15,
set within the context of speculative theology, observes a distinctly deductive reasoning process, though it is later supplemented by the related yet more descriptive q. 46 (on Christ's
A. 1: "Whether there was sin in Cluist"
~.
i:
::wWhhethther there was the affective spark to sin (fomes peccati) in Christ"
.. e er there was Ignorance in Christ" A. 4: "Whether Christ's soul was passible"
8. In Summa theal. (Summa hal.), Bk. III. inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo 2, ch. 1 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 62), Alexander of Hales entitles his treatise in which he includes the analysis of Christ's passions De defectibus ex parte animae. Cf. Lombard, III Sen~ d. 15 ch. 1 (ed. Coli. Bonav., p. 93); and Summa sententirarum, ch. 17 (pL 176,75). Cf. as well Bonaventure, Brevil. pt. 4, ch. 8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 248). For an overview of Thomas' take on these passions in Christ, cf. I. Biffi. I Misteri di Cristo, pp. 1328.
379
A. 5: ::Whether Chr!st experienced genuine sensible pain" A.6. Whether Christ experienced sorrow" A. 7: "Whether Christ experienced fear" A. 8: ::Whether Christ experienced wonder (admiratio) " A. 9. Whether Christ experienced anger" A 10' "Wh th Chri .
..
e er
st at the same tIme suffered and enjoyed the vision of God"
380
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
A. CHRIST'S EXPERIENCE OF SENSIBLE PAIN 1. Sensible Pain as a Passion of the Soul The first passion Aquinas examines in Christ is his "sensible pain" (dolor sensibilis), which
may strike, at least at first sight, an odd note with what one expects to find beginning an analysis of the specific "defects of sour' assnmed by Christ (again, Tertia, q. 15 is entitled De defectibus animae a Christo assumptis). Such a query would seem better situated in Ter· tia, q. 14, which purports to examine "tbe defects of the flesh assumed by Christ in his hwnan nature" (De defectibus corporis quos Christus in humana natura assumpsit). That a query on Christ's sensible pain should appear in the treatise on Christ's passions stems, in
fact, from Aquinas' designation of pain (dolor) as a "passion of the soul" (passioanimae),
381
Pain should not be counted am tb . I bong e passlOns.ofthe soul, since it involves Dothing on the part ofth jury that does not gOe ~;on~~;~:';'~1 perception, for pain is the feeling of an in-
By the time he comes to writing tb C d' alerting his reader, has manifestly c~an 0::r:~ ,u'!' .theologiae, however, Thomas, without
influences the soul; because of the clos: rela~ op~m::- on:e extent to whi~h sensible pain 1 e een e ~xtemal and mternal senses, an appetitive movement of sorrow may ulti pain: rna e y ensue upon the experience of sensible
0;
ie~ri~~ ~~e;e:~:~:~Da:l~fa:~~:~er:u ~ody. su~ered. ~nd
hi: when bodily injury is an injury as hannful from wh' h . ~ lII~agInation subsequently perceives such bodily pain is not feit.12 IC anses Intenor sorrow, which can occur even when
a designation that occurs in the opening article of the treatise on the passion of sorrow in
the Prima Secundae Pars (qq. 35-39).' With pain qualified as a passion of the soul, Thomas readily inserts a query on Jesus' sensible pain in the midst of the discussion on Christ's pas-
sions in Tertia, q. 15. Placing a query on Christ's sensible pain before the analysis of the pas· sions proper of Jesus' soul also reflects Aquinas' concern to address without delay the soteriological significance of Christ's passibility, a significance that Hilary of Poitiers' Chris·
As this passage indicates the key to Th
' h .
..
~oined evil that causes pcrln is perceive~~a;o~t~~ ~f pOSItIon hinges o~ ~h~ way the con-
lD this later work the Do .. M ecomes most explIcIt 10 the Summa' with an external ~ense pe::~: on~:e~~u~s~~e::l~ h~I!S that p~in no longer ~riginate~ perception: e am an mternal psychical sense
tology clearly fails to recognize, as we shall see in closer detail shortly below.
Still, Aquinas' inclusion of sensible pain among Jesus' passions of the soul squarely collides with his initial position as stated in the commentary on the Sentences; here the Do-
PaiD can arise fro~ a ~ofoJd perception: either from the perception of an external :~r:.7; or from the Intenor perception of the mind or of the [internal sense] imagina-
minican theologian sees Christ's sensible pain extending nowhere beyond his external senses: Only in the sense of touch does
ODe
experience pain as caused by an injury to the
body.... Pain is therefore in the senses as in its subject, whereas sorrow is in the appetite. Sorrow is a passion of the soul, whereas pain is more a passion of the body.IO
Tbis leads Th '. d omas, msPlrre wholly by Augustine, to claim boldly that pain "occurs l'n the soul," s·lDce even a pure y physical' . . th
for genuine pain to ensue (just as, c:~~~qllIre~ . e c~rrespon~ing Psychical. perception
::;J:'d, I~~nurrceed m an an).esthelIzed part of
the body involves no interior psychical perc~p'
,
,nopalD.
Later in the De ven'tate, Aquinas draws this reasoning out further by flatly rejecting the pos· sibility of identifying pain as a passion of the soul:
9. ST I-II, q. 35, a. 1: "Utrum dolor sit passio animae. " 10. III Sent. d. 15, q. 2, a. 3, sol. 1-2: "in solo tactu est dolor, qui aecidit ex lesione temperamenti ipsius corporis ... Unde dolor est in sensu sicut in subiecto. set tristitia in appetitu. Ex quo patet quod tristitia est passio animaiis, set dolor est magis passio corporalis." For an analysis of Thomas' remarks on Christ's sensible pain in the Sentence commentary, cf. F. Ruella, La christoiogie de Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 184-7; for the Summa, cf. M.-B. Schwalm, Le Christ d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin, pp.313-9.
11. Dever., q.26,a.4ad4: "dolor non debet com t .. . . parte animae nisi apprehensionem tantum,' est eni:~o~rz mter amma~ p~slones, q~ia nihil ~abet ex parte Corporis. "This discrepancy in Tho ' '. sensus iaesloms, quae qUldem laeslO est ex as brought to my attention by the remarks ofmM MPOSL'tibon edtween the De veritate and the Summa was 248 .- . a OUf ette Les actes h ' I~. Compo theol., ch. 232: "sensibilis dolor in Christo uit c' . umams, p~. .-9. Slcut a sensu sentitur noxia ita etiam inter' " fi orpore patlente. Et qUlQ leslO corporis interior tristitia etiam cum 'dolor in corpo::::::'~!~~:~; .~m ut nocivam apprehendit, unde sequitur 13. STI-II, q. 35, •. 2: "deleetatio et dolo d f' h' hensione exterioris sensus, vel ex apprehe:S:ne Ufn/::'i:~&::i::~~~;~:c~:";;~~~:::;:~:r~~:~?,pre-
0;
382
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
PAUL GONDREAU
383
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Pain is said to be physical when the cause of the pain is in the body, as when we suffer an injury to the body, But the actual movement of pain always occurs in the soul, since "the body cannot feel pain unless the soul does too," as Augustine says."
From here it is a short jump to the position that sensible pain involves an affective movement-"sensible pain is in the sensitive appetite," Thomas exclaims in the Tertia Pars 1Si.e., that pain equates with a passion of the soul, since, again, affective inclination necessarily follows the internal sense 'perception of a good- or an evil. We are here far removed from Aquinas' earlier assertion in the De veritate, viz, that "pain is the feeling of an injury that does not go beyond the body." For the mature Aquinas, pain no longer denotes mere bodily suffering, but also interior or affective suffering; indeed, Thomas uses the tenn pain almost interchangeably with sorrow (tristitia) in the treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars, since both pain and sorrow ensue upon the "union" (coniunctio) with a sense evil, 'along with the accompanying perception of this union. 16 In reality, then, pure physical pain does not exist, since every kind of pain or somatic suffering, Christ's notwithstanding, necessarily shoulders a psychical or affective (Le., sense appetitive) element.
Aquinas arrived at the view that sensible pain entails a passion of the soul through the weighty influence not only of Augustine, but also of John Damascene, Albert the Great, and Bonaventure. As for the monk from Damascus, this Greek Father, in his polemic with
the Aphthartodocetic denial of the passibility and corruptibility of Christ's body, intimates that sensible pain terminates as a passion of the soul: The one Christ ... truly suffered in that part which is naturally capable of passion.... For the soul, which owns a certain passibility, shares in the pain and suffering of a bodily cut, even if it is not itself cut.]7
Aquinas found more in the commentary on the Sentences of his master Albert the Great; in his remarks on Christ's passibility of soul, Albert explicitly identifies sensible pain with a proper passion (though he does not actually label it a passion "of the soul"): Christ's soul as well as every soul in this mortal state is, given its union with body, passible and suffers with the body when the body suffers....The passion of sensible pain that results from bodily dissolution is continuous with the body's union with the soul. Passion includes suffering a violent action, a blow, a wound, or any other related action, and in this way we say Christ's soul suffered with ~is body.]8
As for Bonaventure, the Franciscan theologian argues along much the same lines as Albert, while insisting that sensible pain includes an internal or psychical sense perception: Christ experienced the true passion of pain; for, as his flesh was passible and was pierced by nails, and as he possessed the ability to perceive the pain, his soul suffered with his bodily injury. Since, therefore, there were tWo kinds of pain in Christ, viz., true injury and the true perception of the injury, there can be no doubt that Christ experienced the true passion of pain.]9
Of further assistance to Aquinas in arriving at the position that pain qualifies as a genuine
passion was his own staunch hylemorphic adherence to the fundamental unity of human nature, whereby what happens in the body affects the soul. As seen earlier in this study regarding the "passion of the body" (passio corpora/is), any suffering undergone on the part of the body necessarily redounds, given the union between body and soul as between matter and form, onto the sensate soul, and thus terminates in affective or psychical suffering.
This holds especially for Christ, who owned an unparalleled degree of union between body and soul-"Christ possessed perfect hylemorphic union," Thomas writes in his commentary on the Sentences, "[and] the greater the union, the more bodily pain is felt''2°-and
14. STI-II, q. 35, a. 1 ad 1: "Dolor dicitur esse corporis. quia causa d%ris est in corpore, pula cum patimur aliquod nocivum corpori. Sed motus doloris semper est in anima; nam 'corpus non potest dolere nisi dolente anima.' utAugustinus dicit [cf. Enarr. in Ps 87:3 (CCSL 39, p. 1209)]." For Augustine, cf. as well Deciv. Dei. Bk. XIV, cbs. 7-8 (CCSL48, pp. 421-5); and De Gen. ad litt.• Bk. VIII, ch. 14 (CSEL 28,1, p. 253). In Prima Secundae. q. 35, Thomas discusses the close relation between pain and sorrow, and Augustine is his most-eited source. 15. STIlI. q. IS, a. 6: "dolor sensibilis est in appetitu sensitivo." 16. Cf. STI-I1, q. 35, aa. 1 and 3. In III Sent, d. IS, q. 2, a. 3, sol. 2, Thomas states: "in a broad sense sorrow and pain are identical" (tristWa. large loquendo, dolor dicitur). though previous to this claim he is clear that sorrow is a passion of the soul whereas pain is not. 17. Damascene, Deflde orth.• Bk. III, ch. 26 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 270-1): "Uno enim.Christo ." pa-
tiente quod passibile quidem ut aptum natum pali passum est ." Nam anima quidem passibilis existens. corpore inciso. ipsa non incisa, condolet et compatitur corport. ..
18. Albert, III Sent. d. IS, a 2: "Anima Christi et omnis anima in statu mortalitatis huius. quamdiu coniuncta est corpori. passibi/is est compatiendo corpori. et patiendo ex corpore ... Passio sensus doluris ex dissolvente continuum corpus coniunctum animae ... Sive per agens violentum. ut in ictibus, et vulneribus. et huiusmodi: et hoc modo quaeritur hic de passione: et sic dicimus animam Christi compassam esse corpori. " 19. Bonaventure, III Sent. d. 16, a, I, q. 1 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 346): "vera doloris passiojuit in Christo. In ipso enim juit caro passibilis et perjorabi/is, foit etiam virtus sentiendi. secundum quam anima compatitur corpori laesio. Quonjam ergo haec duo verom dolorem jaciunt, scilicet vera laesio et veros loesionis sensus, et haec duo verefuerunt in Christo; indubitanter tenendum est. quod in Christo juit vera d%ris passio. " 20. III Sent. d. IS, q. 2, a. 3, qc. 3, sed contra: "Christus foil optime compiexionatus ... Sel quanto homo habet meliorem complexionem. tanto magis sentit iesiones corporis. ..
PAUL GONDREAU 384
385
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
. d h' .th a constitution that was most acutely suswhose miraculous co~ceptlon. e~~owe him'":.. would eventually opine that sensible ce tible to the sensatlOu of pam. From ere q~mas pa~n is actually in the sensitive appetite as a passIOn of the soul.
2. The Christ%gical Impact: The Reply to Hilary of Poitiers
. . ft swered a remaining underlying question: what u~The foregomg analys.s has yet Ie unan f ., n the psychical ramifications of senS'" t for Aquinas' change 0 op.mon 0 . 1 timateIy acCOun s . th Christological issue, and more precise y ble pain? The answer ~dou~tedly cen~rs ~~ clalofthe psychosomatic reality of Christ's ers on Aquinas' polem.c w.th Hllary of pOI' th " e fpassion" the Bishop of Poitiers again d in' "He [the Lord] fe t e ,orce 0 , h C · suffienng an pa . '''22 h rt' A inas sometime before penning t e omasserts, "but without its. pam · hI~ sOl' ' quos"ti'o~ viz that "pain is the feeling of an in· theo IOgl, 'ae reahzed that 18 ear ler p '" . pendmm , " 1 does not suffice as a response to H'l 1 ary. jury that does not go beyond the body, . not ?n y t with the Bishop of Poitiers 'probd t alarmingly-stands m tac.t agreemen . . . . d h' h Thomas wishes for at all major pomts m but also-an mOS t~e reality of Christ's sensible pain goes belematic :iew. If Hilary is to be disprov: his wntmg career, then one must argu . . enetrates the lower appetitive part of the yond his body; one must hold that au~hen~,:am ~erstood the redounding hylemOlphic efsoul as well (which, so Thomas must ave er~ its o~ succeed in achieving). We have, fects of the body's suffering o~ the.so~~do:';;'ue:ing his human psychology, whereby, in then, an example of Aqumas Cm,;st gy d' the body the Dominican author sets the .. h' r osition on pam not excee mg, .' 15 rev.smg .s ear .er p h t h knows will bear fruit later m Tertia, q. stage in the Prima Sec.unda~ Pa~s for.w ~ sible pain qualifies as a genuine passion when it comes to refutmg Htlary. argumg h ~ ~en affective impact of Christ's sensible pain of the soul. (That Hilary's denial Ofth; psyc ;ca :ysis of Jesus' sensible pain is confIrmed marks the general backdrop for th~ umma s an which cites Hilary.) This insight into what by the first objection hsted 1D ~ertza, q. 15, a,S, ell for Thomas' change of opinion, noted constitutes a proper reply to Htlary accounts as w
ili:
t
d with a most perfect constitution, since it was fash21. STIlI, q. 46, a. 6: "Christ's bod~ ~as endowe end in Christ the sense of touch was most sensiion ed miraculously by the Holy Sptnt ... Consequ ius cum corpus eius fuerit formatum p tive" (Nam et secundum corpus er~t op~ime .com :i::vi ' it sensus tactus). Cf. as well III Sent, miraculose operatione Spiritus Sanctt. ." et Ideo rn eo m gu
t·
q. 2, a. 3, sol. 3. .. 23 (CCSL 62A p.477): "adJerrent quidem haec inpetum pas22. Hilary, De Trmltate, Bk. X,. ch: . ,,' sionis, non tamen dolor em passwms mferrent.
earlier in this study, on the issue ofthe proper psychical source of Christ's affective suffering; again, the Dominican author moves from disallowing any affective suffering in Christ that originates with the proper operations of his sensate soul to affirming the exact contrary position. Accordingly, by inserting a query on Jesus' sensible pain in the treatise on Christ's passions in the Tertia Pars, Aquinas indicat~s that the only adequate response to Hilary, and the only sound way to frame the discussion on Christ's passibility of soul, is by affirming the intimate union between physical suffering and affective or psychical suffering. The issue of Christ's sensible pain, in other words, holds the key to responding effectively to the medieval debate surrounding Christ's passibility of soul." This explains what may at fIrst sight appear as an awkward maneuver in terms of structural order, viz., the decision to launch the analysis of Jesus' particular passions in Tertia, q. 15 with a query on Christ's sensible pain. Adding a sense of urgency to Aquinas' change of opinion regarding the affective impact of sensible pain is the Dominican's recognition that the soteriological significance of Christ's suffering is ultimately at stake in the debate with Hilary, since Christ's redemptive act relies strictly upon the reality of the suffering and pain, both physical and affective or psychical, endured in the crucifixion; one cannot retain the redemptive accomplishment of Christ without at the same time embracing the full reality of the suffering and pain through which that accomplishment is realized. This, Aquinas understands, marks the real danger of Hilary's Christology. Specifically, Thomas turns to the Prophet Isaiah to expose the inherent incompatibility of a Hilary-induced Christology with the truth of the Christian faith regarding Christ's soteriological accomplishment: "Is 53:4 states [in the person of Christ], 'Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our pain [or sorrow].'"'' That Thomas should turn to an Old Testament passage for Scripllnal evidence testifYing to the reality of Christ's sensible pain stems, again, from the allegorical hermeneutic, consistent with the prevailing exegesis of his medieval day, by which Aquinas sees all of Scripllne, particularly the Psalter and the
23. That Thomas understood this when he wrote the Compendium theologiae is intimated by the fact that in this work Aquinas offers extensive attention to the passibility of Christ's body (chs. 22631) before examining the passibility of his soul (chs. 232-3). 24. ST III, q. 15, a. 5, sed contra: "Isaia dicitur, 'Vere languores nostros ipse tuiU. et dolores nostros ipse portavit. "'Though he lacks his later refined position, Thomas in any case perfonns the same maneuver at the beginning of his career by citing the same passage in III Sent. d. 15, q. 2, a. 3, qc. 1,
sed contra.
386
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINA
prophetic writings, as instrumental in revealing the human experience of Christ-in Thomas' eyes, there is no qualitative difference between what the Gospels relate about Jesus' life and what Isaiah announces prophetically ahout Christ's human experience. Given, therefore, Isaiah's manifest affirmation of the reality of Christ's sensible pain as an integral element to the act of redemption, one has little choice but to reject the position that seeks in any way to downplay or truncate the full reality of Jesus' suffering. Notably, Aquinas' surmise that Hilary's Christology poses an inherent threat to belief in the redemptive accomplishment of Christ finds inspiration from Bonaventure; whose following comments indicate in
It is clear from what has ~een said in the Second Part [cf. Prima Secundae 35 1.,3, and 7] that true senSIble pain requires both bodily irtiury a d th ' q. , aa. ttor;:t that injury. Now Christ's body could be injured, since~t w:s s;:;i~~rca: mo , as stated above [cf. Tertia q 14 aa 1 2] Ch '
a magnificent manner the high soteriological stakes involved in the discussion over thepsy~ chosomatic reality of Jesus' suffering and pain: There can be no doubt that, as the Gospels testify and as the Catholic faith holds, Christ experienced the suffering of true pain....Christ suffered not only the cruelest pain in the flesh but also the bitterest tonnent of soul. 25
The fault, then, for Hilary, so far as Aquinas sees it (at least by the time he pens the Compendium theologiae), lies in the Latin Father's failure to appreciate the fact that pure physical pain, i.e., pain which does not affect the lower appetitive part of the soul, has no existence in reality. Without affective feeling or perception, or without what Thomas tenns a "movement of the soul" (motus animae), there is no genuine pain. For the Dominican theologian, true bodily pain requires not only a somatic injury but also the internal perception-on the part of the soul-of that injury, along with the ensuing sense appetitive
movement; there exists an intrinsic causal relation between somatic injury, its internal sense perception, and disagreeable affectivity. To say "Jesus' sensible pain" is to say his affective or sense appetitive pain. To deny the psychical or affective feeling of pain in Christ, or the full realism of Jesus' external and internal pain, is therefore tantamount to denying the reality itself of the physical pain inflicted by the crucifixion. From here the bottom falls out
on any credible belief in the reality of the crucifixion, and, hence, in Christ's act of re~ demption, by which the human race is saved.
387
i~~:;~;~~~:~~t~!;'i~~~~l~~~~:~~~~~:'~~~~:~~~i~~~:~:~:~::!~~
Though the successful retort to Hilary would not bec fu . one can see at work throughout Thomas' entire writi~me lIy crystallIzed until the Summa, the pitfalls presented by Hilary's view Th' ; career the pOlDt:d deSIre to counter ism itself of Christ's crucifixion such ~ ;s c~m~ y.w.ay of e?,ph.aslS. on the stark real-
the Sentences (thou h
.'
w en e omllllCan wntes III hIS commentary on
g not WithOut a clearly forced benigna interpretatio of Hilary's posi-
tion):
Christ'sbodyunderw ttru " . h' f en e InJury, SInce he was crucified with nails which affected IS sense 0 touch. One must therefore say that there was true pain i~ Christ Th' , how one should in the end understand the statement of Hilary. 27 • IS IS Later in the De veritate and in the C
d'
h
dompen '~m t eologiae Thomas insists the same: "In o y lDJury an true feelmg of the inj [~ ]. h' . . suffered the greatest amount of bodily pain "28 F' II· ury.... or lD IS passIOn Chnst Christ there was true b dil . .
pain must involve a psychical or fully affective el~~e~~, c;:~:::~:~: r:~~~n:u~~~!c~~
To preserve the reality of Christ's redemptive accomplishment, Aquinas thus advances, in what amOtUlts to his definitive reply to Hilary, a reductio ad absurdum in Tertia, q. 15, a. 5. Here Thomas essentially argues that any denial of the internal sense perception of a
25. Bonaventure,III Sent, d. 16, a. 1, q. 1 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 346), and Brevil, pt. 4, ch. 9 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 250): "Dicendum, quod absque dubio, sicut Evangelium dicit, etfules cathoUca sentit, vera do~ loris passio juit in Christo ... Christus et acerbissima passione passus est in carne et amarissima compassus est in anima. "For Albert, cf. III Sent, d. 15, aa. 10-11. For more on the reality of Jesus' anguish and suffering in Bonaventure, cf. Z. Hayes, "The Life and Christological Thought of 8t. Bonaventure," p. 64.
26. STIII,q.15,a.5: "Sicutpatetexh' . S d . sibilis requintur laesio corporis et se~s::~:e l~ ~cu~ a Parte dicta sUnt, ad veritatem doloris senpassibile et mortale ut supra habitum eol "eecs~n:,~t' .orpus a~tem Christi laedi poterat, quia erat '" . H4 Ue.,KI el sensus laesionis c . C'L" ' haberet omnes potentias naturales. Unde nulli db' d b ' . ' um ~mma flnstl peifecte 27. III Sent dIS q 2 a 3 sol I' "H ~ u. lUm e et esse qum m Chnsto fumt verus dolor. " vnue cum m corpore Chr' t"fo t I' . continui per clavos, et fomt ibi verus tactus d . 1S I. m vera eslO, qUia luit divisio Qua/iter autem exponenda sint verba Hyla;ii e"nnfie,cess~~atetu°P,?rtet dicere quod foerit ibi verus dolor. 28 D ' ne«lce r. . ever., q. 26, a. 8 ad 9, and Comp theol ch 231' '" Ch . . sensus laesionis ... in passione Christus' :'. . ~n nsto fUlt vera laesio corporis et verus maximum cmpons dolorem sustinuit, " ,
•
,.,.
J
"
388
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Christ's passion and death in Terlia, q. 46 his fullest remarks on how the realism of Christ's redemptive act eradicates any grounds for a Hilary-inspired Christology: Speaking generically, [Christ] endured all human suffering ... as regards the parts of his body....For, he suffered in all his bodily senses: in touch ... in taste ... in smell ... in hearing ... and in sight ....Christ's suffering involved true sensible pain as a result of his bodily injuries. His suffering also involved internal pain, or sorrow, which arises from the perception of something hurtful. Christ suffered these two kinds of pain to the maximum degree possible iri this life. 29
B.
CHRIST'S EXPERIENCE OF SORROW
Given the intimate kinship between sensible pain and sorrow, Aquinas finds it a natural transition to proceed next to an analysis of the passion of sorrow (tristitia) in Christ in Tertia, q. 15, a. 6. Like the reality of Christ's sensible pain, Thomas regards Jesus' experience of sorrow as a matter of revealed fact, and, hence, as a matter of faith; specifically, his view on Jesus' sorrow is fed by two Gospel passages: Mt 26:38 ("My soul is sorrowful even unto death''), a passage that is invoked in both the commentary on the Sentences and the Summa;30 and Jn 11 :35, where Jesus weeps over the death of Lazarus ("And Jesus wep!"), a text that Thomas appeals to in the Sentence commentary as evidence of sorrow in Christ: "Weeping is a sign of sorrow, and Christ wept according to Jn II :35. He therefore experienced sorroW."3! For Aquinas, such events retain sense only if they conclude to Christ's possession of a sensitive appetite; as he explains in a passage directed against the Arians in his commentary on John's Gospel: "Sorrow compels one, contra Arius, to affirm a sensitive part in Christ's sou1."32
29. STIII, q. 46, aa. 5-6: "Secundum genus passus estomnempassionem humanam ... quantum ad corporis membra ... Fuit etiam passus secundum omnem sensum corporeum; secundum tactum ... secundum gustum ... secundum olfactum ... secundum auditum ... secundum visum ... [I]n Christo patiente Jui! veros dolor et sensibilis. qui causatur ex corporali nocivo; et dolor interior, qui causatur ex apprehensione alicuius nocumenti, qUi tristitia dicUur. Uterque autem dolor in Christo fui! maximus inter dolores praesentis vitae." One can recognize some consistency in Thomas' position by comparing this passage with III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 3, sol. 3. For a commentary on this passage from the Summa, cf. l-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 2, pp. 327-30. 30. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 1, sed contra,' and STIlI, q. 15. a. 6, sed contra. The Vulgate version reads: "Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem." 31. III Sent, d. IS, q. 2, a. 2, qc. I, sed contra: "Fletus est signum tristitie. Set Christusflevit, loan. Xl. Ergo ipse tristis lui!." Thomas affinns the same in his commentary on this passage in Lect. super loan., ch. 11, tect. 5. Cf. as well De ver, q. 26, a. 8, corpus and ad 10. 32. Lect. super loan., ch. I,tect. 7: "tristitia cogit in Christo ponere partem animae sensitivam, contraArium. "
389
. No matter the cle"," testimonyofthese Scriptural passages, however, attributing the pasSIon of sorrow to Christ meets WIth some fairly stalwart challenges, particularly from the StoIC camp. That the me~eval polemic with the Stoic ideal of the man of consummate virtue not only presents the mam o~stacle to affirming sorrow in Christ, but also influences the overall ~~er by :vhI~h A~um~s steers his remarks on this passion in Jesus, is confirmed by the pnnclpal objection lIsted In the analysis of Christ's sorrow in both the co tary On t~e Senlences and the Summa. J3 To be sure, the widespread infiltration of StOi:;;~~oso phy Into most pOckets of .medieval Christo logical psychology is shown in the fact that . f h' Thomas alludes to the StOIC challenge of positing sorrow in Christ . Chri I . I '. . m vanous 0 IS nOllsto oglca wntings, Including the exposition On the Book of Job and the Pn' S d P 34In h . rna ecun. a~ . ars. . sort, the StOICS opine that sorrow cannot befall the wise or virtuous IndiVIdual: SIllce sorrow implies the submission to an evil, whereas the wise man, owning e, succumbs .not t~ evil but only to the good." Of seeming support to the Stoic s~preme VIew, .a~, mdic~ted by Aqwnas, IS ~o less an autho'rity than sacred Scripture, as Prov 12:2 I states. Nothmg that befalls the Just man can make him sorrowful "36 Add d t thO . Th' '" . eOiSIS omas o.wn ~ecogmtion, ,::hlch Comes in ~is conunentary on John's Gospel, that sorrow severely disqulets reason- of a~l the affections or passions of the sensitive appetite, sorro,:" ~:;ns the greatest f?rce ofdis~bance""Sorrow is the chief source of the soul's disqUIet -and ~e ~a,: In the prevIOUS chapter that Jesus' perfection in virtue strictly precludes the di.sqweting force of passion. Furthermore, in the Secunda Secundae Pars of the S~~ma and m the mal~, Aq~nas, citing Damascene, identifies "oppressi~e sorrow" (tristltia aggravans) WIth the sm of .sloth" (acedia).38 For these reasons, then, affirming sor-
."n:u
I?e
33. III Sent, d. IS, q. 2, a. 2, qc. I, argo 2; and STIlI, q. IS, a. 6, argo 2. 34. Expos.superlobadlitt" on 3:1; andSTI-II q 59 a 3 CfaswellSTIII q 46 6 2 35 Cf S III , . '" . , . • a. • argo . '. : T ,q. 15, a. 6, argo 2; III Sent. d. 15, q. 2, a. 2. qc. 1, argo 2; and Seneca. De constantia saplentlS, ch. 7 (e~. Ru~~p~,. p. 34~): "Non est autemfortior nequitia virtute; nonpotest ergo laed; sapiens ... Quod Sl laedl mSl mjirmwr non potest ... iniuria in sapientem virum non cadit." 36. Vulgate: "Non contristahit iustum quidquid ei acciderit'" cited in ST III "q IS a 6 2 37 L l h ' , . " , argo . ,: eet. super oan., c . 13, lect. 4: "Inter omnes afJectiones seu passiones a'P.'Petitus sensitivi Ir,'stltlama" . hab Et'mde est quod turbatio animi praeeipue dicitur tristitia." , Cf. glS vim commo( IOms et... STI-II, q. 37, a. 2.
38.
STII-II,~. 35, a. I:
"Acedia, secundum Damascenum [cf. Defid orlh .. Bk. II. ch. 14 (ed. Buy-
~ert, p. 121)], est quaedam tristitia aggravans. '" Cf. De maio, q. II, a. 1. Cf. as well Gregory Moralia
In lob,
Bk. XXXI, ch. 45, n. 87 (CCSL 1438, p. 1610); and J.-P. Torrell, Maitre spirituel, p~. 355-6.
390
PAUL GONDREAU
THE pASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
391
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
row in Christ requires, at least for the scholastic of Thomas' day, a theological position of
sophisticated and astute penetration. For Aquinas, such a position. follows upon the g~neral
conception of the passion of sorrow that he develops tn the treatise on the passIons m the
Prima Secundae Pars. 1. The Human Passion ofSorrow Again, Thomas devotes more attention to sorrOW (tristilia) in the treatise on the passi~ns than any other passion: five total questions (Prima Secundae, qq. 35-39) that compnse twenty-five articles. This, of course, coheres with Aquinas' vi.ew that the.disa~-eeable p~s
sions, particularly sorrow, more closely attain the true meamng of passlOn, smce the dISagreeable passions involve the loss ofa suitable disposition in exchange for a contrary one: "sorrow above all [the other passions]," Thomas explains, "burdens the soul by reason of its union with a present evil. ,,39 Aquinas, as we know, distinguishes the passions according to their objects. The object:-and, hence, distinguishing trait-of sorrow, which the foregoing citation makes clear, IS the immediate presence of an absolute or simple sentient evil (malum simpliciter), or the succumbing of the sensitive appetite to that which the senses perceive as simply ha:nrrul or disagreeable (inconveniens) in itself. In brief, sorrow represents the affectlve reaction to a conjoined evil; as Thomas states, appropriating the thought of Nemesius of Emesa and John Damascene:
sentient good (bonum simpliciter).42 Since it succumbs to a present evil, sorrow marks the ending or acquisition stage of the inclination of the sense appetite to its sentient object (as distinguished from the initial inclination stage and the intennediate stage of moving forward). Though the conjoined evil causes both sorrow and pain, Thomas discerns. a difference between these two passions, since in the case of sorrow the conjoined evil opposes flrst and foremost the inclination of the sense appetite, whereas for pain the present evil antagonizes initially the health ofthe body. What properly characterizes the passion of sorrow in contradistinction to pain, in other words, is the inward perception of a present evil (such as the realization that a cut on one's arm will prevent one from engaging in a required physical activity), as opposed to the external perception ofa bodily injury (such as the actual feeling by the sense of touch of the cut on the ann); the passion of pain derives from the perception of the external senses (i.e., from the body), whereas the passion of sorrow originates with the perception of the internal senses (i.e., with the mind or with the internal sense power imagination, where the tenn imaginatiOn is used not as common parlance employs it, but instead as denoting a special faculty of the sensate soul which retains and preserves internal sense images fonned from the data gathered from the external senses43). Aquinas sums this up well when he writes in the Summa, evincing again the development of his thought since the writing of the De veritate: Inward and outward pain agree in one point and differ in two. They agree inasrt;Luch as both are movements of the appetitive power. But they differ ... both on account of the cause, which is a conjoined evil, and on account of the perception of the conjoined evil. For, the cause of outward pain is a conjoined evil that is repugnant to the body, whereas the cause of inward pain [i.e., sorrowJ is a conjoined evil that is repugnant to the appetite. Further, outward pain arises from the perception of the [external]
Sorrow regards the evil that is present. ...Thus. inasmuch as the object is the cause of 40 a passion. the conjoined evil is properly speaking.the cause ofsOITOW or pain. With the absolute evil, or malum simpliciter, as its object, sorrow is thus seen by Thomas to represent a passion of the concupiscible appetite (the appetite of simple tendency).41 Given the nature of its object, the passion of sorrow emerges as the contrary of the p~sl0n of joy or pleasure, the object of which is the immediate presence of an absolute or SImple
39. STI-II. q. 37, a. 4: "prae omnibus tristitia. quae aggravat animum ex malo praesenti." Cf. O. Pesch, Thomas von Aquin, p. 228. 40. ST I-II, q. 36. a. 1 (cf. as well a. 2): "tristilia respicit m~l~~ coniunctu.m ... Sic erg~ eo mod?, quod obiectum est causa passionis, magis proprie est causa trlstzt~? vel dolons malum c~munctum. Cf. Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 16 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, p. 95): rursus expectatum quzdem malum timor est, praesens vero malum tristitia est." Damascene repeats this in -?~f!de orth., Bk. II. ch. 12 (ed. Buytaert, p. 119): "expectatum malum timorem, praesens vero Institlam.·Cf. as well M.-M. Labourdette, Les actes humains, p. 248. 41. STI-IT, q. 23, a. 4; q. 25, a. 4; Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. II, lect. 5; De ver., q. 26, a. 4. corpus and ad 6; and III Sent, d. 26, q. I, a. 3.
42. STI-II. q. 35. a. 3: "Since the objects of pleasure and sorrow or pain, viz. a present good and a
present evil, are contrary to one another, it follows that pain and pleasure are contrary to one another" (Unde cum obiecta delectationis et tristitia. seu d%ris, sint contraria, sciliut bonum praesens et malum praesens, sequitur quod d%r et delectatio sint contraria). Cf. G. Barzaghi. "Lapassio tristitiae secondo S. Tommaso. Un esempio di analisi realista: Sacra Doctrina 36 (1991). pp. 56-71. at
57-60.
43. For more on the faculty of imagination in Aquinas. cf. STI. q. 78, a. 4; Qu. disp. De anima, q. 13; De ver.. q. 10. a. 3; and S. Cantin. Treatise on the Soul. pp. 54-5.
392
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
senses, especially the sense of touch, while inward pain [i.e., sorrow] arises from an interior perception, either on the part of the imagination, or on the part of reason. 44 Thomas understands that a conjoined evil may befall one in many ways; for example, the conjoined evil may concern one directly. such as the,death of a family member, or it may concern one indirectly, such as the death of a friend's family member. For this reason, Aquinas, following strictly the thought of Nemesius and Damascene, delimits four different types or species of the passion of sorrow (though one could certainly point to other types of sorrow as well): "pity" (misericordia), which pertains to sorrow over another's misfortune; "envy" (invidia). which corresponds to sorrow over another's good fortune that is yet considered a misfortune for oneself; "anxiety" (anxietas) or "distress" (angustia), which signifies the kind of sorrow that excessively depresses or burdens the soul; and "extreme distress" (acedia), which relates to the most severe form of an oppressive or burdensome sorrow, as it engenders an excessive bodily alteration, such as the deprivation of speech. 45 This notion of the soul's "depression" or "heaviness" (aggravatio) Aquinas singles out as the principal consequence of all forms of sorrow; by depressing or burdening the soul due to the imposing repugnance of the conjoined evil, sorrow impedes the soul from engaging in other actions, as the energies of the soul become intensely concentrated on the affective evil at hand. 46 Because of the burdensome nature of sorrow, Aquinas opines that whatever helps alleviate one's affective burden represents a remedy for sorrow: specifically, the Master from Aquino, somewhat following Augustine, lists both somatic remedies-tears and sighs, sleep or rest, and bathing actions-and psychological remedies-<:onsolation from friends and contemplation ofthe truth-as that which assuages sorrow. 47 Morally speaking, Aquinas recognizes that sorrow on its own is morally neutral, since, considered in itself as a sensate reality (Le., as a passion) rather than as an intellectual
PAUL GONDREAU
action, sorrow can be qualified neither as m all or y good nor as morally evil. Only through its interaction with reason and will d . I oes sorrow assume moral worth Th' bal da' . 1S anced appra1sa of the passion of sorrow forges th r. Stoic objection that sorrow has no place~n li~o~fn~it only for Thomas' ~esponse to the fense of the presence of sorrow in ehri t th '11 rtue, b~t also for hIS eventual dee place ~n the Tertia Pars. Though this passion may frequently succeed' d~ .at .WI misfortune OCcurs only because mov:::Ue:~lll~ting one s r~asonIng capabilities, such moral periurn: "All the passions of the soul" Th 0 sorr~w a:ti~es elude or escape reason's tm.of sorrow, "should be regulated aceo'd' °tmasth wntes m hIS remarks on the mo.rat impact th h r mg 0 e rule of reasbn "48 C tr t th . ' . on, ary 0 e Stoics, en, w 0, in failing to distinguish the sensif fective ev~l necessarily implicates the will '~~~:;;e(jte ~om the wlll, maintain that an afequates WIth moral evil, to be sure th D' .. as opmes that not all affectlve sorrow Testaments to prove sorrow's i;ter e (j' oml~lhcanh a~thor appeals to both Old and New h I'e ac On W1t t e mtellectual or "tu I d' . uman he may serve a useful moral aim' "Mt 5 " , spm a unenslOn of they shall be comforted' Th e . . . 5 states, Blessed are they that mourn, for . erelOre SOrrow IS an honorable g dOl 49 d" Eccl 7:5, 'The heart of the wise is wh th' . 0 0 ; an, According to ful. "50 ere ere IS mournIng .... ' Therefore sorrow is USe-
0:
tru:
tha;
Aquinas presses on, ever advancing his meta h SICS . . since the sense appetite belongs to the essence ~f of an mtegrated ~uman nature: uman nature, Sorrow III most cases emerges as the natural and appro riat h ' Endowed, in other words with ?fce li~ um~n relsponse to the succwnber ofa sent,ient evil. . , e ng aOlma nature that is su t 'bI h scep I e to t e affective Impact of Sense objects the hum b' disagreeable affectivity'than he s~ul~~~ can nho. sooner expect to avoid all movements of ISOwn IS very human nature:
h
Given the presence of some saddening or ainful b' .. " experiences sorrow or pain on account ofihis r 0 ~ect,. It IS a ~ood SIgn If a person ;hese~t evil. For, If such a person does not experience sorrow or pain it would m he does not consider it something hannful e;th e~e~ he does not feel the evil, or the presence of an evil, then it is a go d 0 flo w Ie are c1~arly not good. Given , 0 mg or sorrow or pam to ensue upon it....
tit.
44. STI-II, q. 35, a. 7 (cf. as well a. 2): "Dolor exteriur et interior in uno conveniunt, et in duobus differunt. Conveniunt quidem in hoc quod uterque est molus appetitivae virtutis. Sed differunt ... secundum causam, quae est ... malum coniunctum,. et secundum apprehensionem. Causa enim downs exterioris est malum coniunctum quod repugnat corpori; causa aulem interioris doWris est malum coniunctum quod repugnat appetitui. Dolor etiam exterior sequitur apprehensionem sensus, et specialiter tactus; dolor aulem interior sequitur apprehensionem interiorem. vel imaginationis scilicet, vel etiam rationis. " 45. STI-II, q. 35, a. 8. cf. Nemesius,De nat. hom, ch. 18 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, p. 101); and Damascene, De fide orth .. Bk. II, ch. 14 (ed. Buytaer!, p. 121). 46. STJ-II, q. 37, aa. 1-4. Cf. E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy. pp. 282-3; and G. Barzaghi, "La passio tristitiae secondo S. Tommaso," pp. 61-4. 47. STI-II, q. 38, aa. 1-5. Cf. Augustine, Confessions. Bk. IY, ch. 7, and BklX, ch. 12 (CSEL 33, pp. 73 and 222); and So/iloquiorum. Bk. I, 12 (CSEL 89, pp. 32-3).
393
a;
48. STI-II,q.39,a.2adl: "Omnespassionesani l . 49. STI-II, q. 39, a. 2, sed contra: "Dicitur Mattm~; re!J!l a~l debentsecu~dum regulam rationis." Ergo tristitia est bonum honestum .. ., eatl qUl /ugent, quomam ipsi consolabuntur: " 50 . . . . ~TI-II. q. 39, a. 3, sed contra: "Sed sicut dicitur Eccles tristitia est utilis. .. ., 'Cor sapientum ubi tristilia ... 'Ergo
PAUL GONDREAU
394
395
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
[T]he goodness of [human] na~re is sh~wn i~ ~e fact that nature shuns what the senses perceive as a harmful object causmg pam.
Furthennore sorrow may not only stand out as the appropriate affective response to the
presence of ~ sentient evil, it may ~lso ~ark .the approprl,ate ~:ra: res;~~~t::~:ti:!: one expresses sorrow over one's sms (m WhlC~ case o~e
8 W1
,g=)
~ this manner the
reason has chosen to avoid the action over which one ee1s sorro· , oid passio~ of sorrow indicates the rectification of one's soul, and can even help on~ ~v th committing future sins; as Aquinas explains in his commentary on the Sentences an m e
Prima Secundae Pars: One can choose to undergo sorrow when it is ordered to some good, as in the case
of sorrowful contrition that leads to salvation.
52
Interior sorrow sometimes arises from the perception o~ an evil ?y the right judgw ment of reason, which a well disposed will that detests evll ~en .re{;cts .... Sorro for sin [in such a case] is therefore useful in helping a man aVOid SIn.
2, Utrum in Christo fuerit tristitia
~orrowdriin ~ere
o~ J~:~~~~a:i~;~~~~; begi~~ tdevel?t~: ~~~::ro;::
t Aquinas' position on the presence of Chri , 'sth(aslwell , ) '£ t the theologian's desrre to ve hIS eo ogy generalized discussion.; Aquinas to at least in terms of Jesus.' hu.D.?an aff~CtiVlty, ,~hat was ear le~:m~ou hout his entire
~~:er~: ae~~re
without being convinced that sorrow was a very real affective occurrence in the concrete historical life of Jesus (we saw earlier how Thomas appeals to Mt 26:38 and Jn 11 :35 to demonstrate as much)," There is nonetheless a clear development of thought between the manner by which the young Aquinas discusses sorrow in Christ and the way the mature Dominican theologian handles the issue (though both manners of response are truly unique to Aquinas), since the question of how Jesus experienced sorrow remains open for debate. In the commentary on the Sentences, Thomas supplies a distinctly metaphysical explanation for why Jesus underwent sorrow; this explanation issues from Thomas' ontology of Christ's sensate soul, whereby Jesus' sorrow, buttressed by the exigencies detennined by the soterio\ogical principle, is seen to follow upon the sense appetite assumed by Christ (though the doctrine of Jesus' enjoyment of the visio Dei manifestly tempers the following position):
"concreteth0rhe.xlst~nblal c~s~:~~~:::eo~ ~~~esus'
Aquino's dictat:his position on ad th G 1 writing career lets e Istonca even th' " Christ· for him it is simply inconceivable to re e ospe s , thlS and the 0 er passIons In , ,
39 aa 1-2' "Supposito aliquo contristabili vel doloroso, ad bonitatem per/inet quod 51 . STI- II,q. " . Q d . n tristaretur vel non doleret non posset aliquis de malo praesenti tristetur vel doleat. uo /en.l"! nOugnans et utrumque istorum est malum " 'I t" t vel quia non reputare Sl bl rep , esse mSl qUla ve non sen ~re ' ; 't raesentia mali, sequatur tristitia vel dolor ... manifeste. Et ideo ad bomta/em pertmet ut, s.~ppos; ~:"sus sentit et natura refugit iaesivum, quod attestantur bonitati naturae, ex qua provem quo ' rem causal dolo '1"5 2 2 sol 1 ad 3: "Potest lamen eligi tristitia, in quantum ad aliquod bonum 52. III Sent,. d ,q., a., . ordinat, sicut tristilia penitentis ~d sa!ut~m." / . /'/' cogn,'/,'o mali quandoque quidem est per rec39 2-3' "In mterZOrl vero rlS l la, 58. ST I- II,q. , aa. . .' m bene dis ositam detestantem malum ... Et tum iudicium rationis; et recusatlO mall est per volunt~~e . :: "Cf G Barzaghi "La passio ideo tristitia de peccato uti/is est ad hoc quod homo J<+glat pecca m. ., , tristitiae secondo S. Tommaso," pp. 64-9.
This question [about sorrow in Christ] inquires into sorrow inasmuch as it is a passion of the soul in the sensitive part. And since Christ voluntarily assumed our nature in order to redeem us, so was it necessary for him to assume such things [as sorrow] that pertain to the end of our salvation. Thus, though the blessed are glorified by a certain glory that redounds from the higher powers onto the lower ones, and from the soul onto the body, such was not the case for Christ. The glory he enjoyed on account of the beatific vision did not impede the passibility of his soul, since passibility is a part of human nature. Accordingly, the joy that was in his beatified higher part did not re-. dound onto the lower part, thereby pennitting his lower powers to experience things contrary to joy, like sorrow. 55
54. Thomas shares this attitude with Bonaventure, who in III Sent. d. 15, a. 2, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 338) opens his own reply to the question of sorrow in Christ: "Absque dubio ... textus etiam evangelicus confirmat. in Christo fuit vera tristilia." For more on sorrow in Christ in Aquinas' thought, cf. M.-B. Schwalm, Le Christ d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 319-24; F. Ruello, La christologie de Thomas d'Aquin, p. 183; and G. Remy, "La dereliction du Christ," RT98 (1998), pp. 39-93. 55. II! Sent, d. IS, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 1: "Hic queritur de tristitia sec",ndum quod est passio animalis in
parte sensitiva. Et ideo dicendum, quod quia Christus voluntarie assumpsit naturam nostram, ut per eam nos redimeret, ideo talem assumpsit qualem oportuit esse ad jinem redemptionis nostre. Unde quam vis in aliis beatis per quandam redundantiam ex glorificatione superiorum vinum glorificentur etiam inferiores et ex gloria anime descendat gloria corporis, tamen in Christo non lUi! sic, quia gloria eius, que inerat ei secundumfruitionem Dei, non impediebat passibilitatem anime eius secundum quod erat pars humane nature. Et similiter letitia, que inf!rat in superiori parte per fruitionem, non redundabat in inferiores. Et ideo, cum accidebat aliquid contrarium delectationi inferiorum partium, erat de eo Iristitia." One can see shades of this in Albert, III Sent, d. 15, a. 8, ad qc. ad 3: "Tristilia et timor plantata sunt in natura nostra: quia licet actus timendi et tristandi consecuti sunt ex peccato, tamen potentia timend;, et ordo ad timorem, est ex modo constituenti naturam corporis ex contrariis: et sic non est de aliis qUibusdam defectibus, ut statim patebit. "
396
TIlE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
The same line of reasoning extends to the De veritate, where again the tenet of Christ's en~ joyment of the beatific vision continues to temper Thomas' remarks on the presence of sorrow in Jesus' soul. Here there is a change in perspective, however, since by now the Dominican, while continuing to reject the intrinsic relation between sensible pain and the soul's passibility, nonetheless believes that Christ's affective suffering may originate with the proper operations of his sensate soul (which he had again earlier rejected in the commentary on the Sentences): From the perception of something harmful the passion of fear or sorrow, etc., could naturally arise in Christ. .. .If we are speaking about a passion of the soul, sorrow, which is properly a passion of the soul, can only be in that part of the soul whose object, when perceived and appetitively inclined toward. gives rise to sorrow. In Christ's soul no cause of sorrow could derive from the object of higher reason, i.e., from the eternal truths of which he was in perfect possession, Therefore, affective SorroW could not have been in the higher reason of Christ's soul. S6
In the Summa, Aquinas, while continning to hold to the doctrine of Jesus' earthly enjoyment ofthe visio Dei (and, hence, to a special divine dispensation allowing Jesus to suffer affeetively), is by now fully convinced that sensible pain involves a movement of the lower appetite; this leads him to advance the view that links Jesus' experience of sorrow with his physical suffering and pain. In this marmer, affIrming, as must any right-minded Christian, the physical reality of Jesus' painful torture and death leads one in the sarne breath to affirm affective torture, i.e., the sorrow that necessarily accompanies it-Christ's somatic passibility and his passibility of soul are two heads of the sarne coin: "Just as Christ could experience true pain," Thomas can finally write at the end of his career, "so too could he undergo true sorrow."57 Lest one misconstrue from this, however, that Christ's sorrow and his sensible pain are one and the same thing, Aquinas carefully points out-thereby justifying his assigning a separate treatise to Jesus' sorrow-that, whereas sensible pain is caused by a somatic injury (or union with a bodily evil), sorrow originates with an internal perception of a sense evil by the imagination or by the mind:
56. De ver., q. 26, aa. 8-9: "et ideo ex imaginatione nocivi naturaliter passio timoris ettristitiae tl huiusmodi in eo poterant esse ." Loquendo vera de passione animali, in illa sola parte animae Potest esse tristitia, quae esl proprie passio animalis, ex cuius obieclo, tristitia conlingil, per cuius apprehensionem el appetttum tristitia cantingit. Ex abiecto autem superioris rationis in anima Christi nulla ratio tristitiae accidere poterat, scilicet ex parte aeternorum quibus peifectissime fruebatur; et ideo tristitia animalis in superiori ratione animae Christi esse non potuit, " 57. STIlL q. 15, a, 6: "sicut in Christo potuit esse verus dolor, ita in eo potuit esse vera tristilia,"
PAUL GONDREAU
397
By the power of a divine dispensati th' , . to Christ's mind, so as not to redo~d 0 e JOY of dl\'~~e contemplation was confined out his sensible pain. Now, just as sensib~!O ~e ~e~sltlve po~~rs. and thereby block s sorrow, though with a difference I' t' pam Ib . m the sensItive appetite, so also is . .. nmOlveoro aect·theob· t d O ' IS an In]UIYperceived by the sense of touch . ~~c an , motive of pam yet the object and motive of SOrrow is an ' 'tas w~~n a perso~ IS phY~lcally wounded; the imagination perceives, as stated in the ~e~m~ p ann or eVl,1 that eIther the mind or 2-3 and 7]. In this manner one is saddened ov~nth art [cf. Pnma Secundae, q. 35, aa. Christ's soul for its part c~uld perceive intern ~ lo~s of &race Or the loss of money, self, such as his passion and death to th a eVl s at we:e hannful either,to himor sins of the Jews that killed him : e~s. ~uch as the ~lnS of his disciples or the pain, so too could he undergo ~e s~C;~w~r y, Just as Chnst could e~perience true
r
A
~~ this passage makes plain, Aquinas identifies the ob' ect of Chri ' Jo.med evil (inconviens) perceived internally b th .~ d . st s. so~Ow-the COnWith the evil of his impending crucifixion d : e min. or th~ ImagInatIOn-precisely inescapable torture and death that awaited~' ~~~ or With the mternal realization of the ';;. ~ s~ullS sorrowful even unto death" (Mt 26:38). Thomas could have added h perceived as a direct personal loss to him:~~ °su~~ :vlls In Christ's .life. that were internally Jesus loved an~ over Whose death he wept cin 1I;3~)~e death ofblS friend Lazarus, whom The foregomg passage additionally reveal A . , . . . . so~ow in Jesus' life: the conjoined evil that, ra~r:s :dentlficatlOn of ~other source of celVed as perilous to others viz th. . d ecUy harmful to himself, was perlow Jews who condemned Wm t~ d e t~~om:,,"tted by hIS closest disciples Or by his felbetrayal, which, according to Jn 13 .;~ ~add e:~nt ex~~ple of the former would be Judas' sus clared, 'I tell you solemnly, One o'f y~u wi~;betr: : ,:~~s was troubled in spirit and dey me. An ex~ple of Jesus' Sorrow over the sins of his fellow Jews is whe h the agent of God's peace' "Wh J n dre wept over Jerusalem's fatlure to believe in him, . en esus ew near and saw the city he wept over it, saying, 58.. STrn" q 15 . contem latio . . , a' 6· . "Delect ato10 d'IVlnae . . . retmehatur in mente Christi quod non d . b Pd' ms Ita per dlspensatlOnem dlvlnae virtutis erlva atur a vIres sensit· t h d lVas, u per oc olor sensibi/is excIuderetur. Sicut autem dolor sens,'b,o/,'s t" es In appetltu sensitiv '( t t . .. cundum motivum sive obiectum. Mam ob' tum . 0, I a e nstltla; sed est differentia se. ' lec et motivum doloris t l . Slcut cum aliquis vulneratur. Ob,'ectum a u t . es aeslO sensu tactus percepta' . em et motlvum tristitiae t . ' prehensum, sive per rationem sive per irna' r ' . es nOClvum seu malum interius ap~ aliquis tristatur de amissione gratiae vel ; : : l~nemp SIC~t zn Secun~ Parte habltum est; sicut cum dere aliquid ut nocivum et quantum ad . mae. .otult autem amma Christi interius apprehen, se, SICUt pasSIO et mors eiusjiu 't t peccatum discipulorum vel etiam /r.Jaeorum oct " I, e quantum ad alios, sicut uu< OCCI entlUm lpsum Et 'd . . C . . ' vents dolor, Ita in eo potuit esse vera tristilia. .. . I eo, SICut zn 'hnsto potui! esse 59. Vulgate: "Cum haec dixisset Jesus turb tu .. amen dico vobis: Quia unus ex vobis. tr~det :e, ~"est spmtu; et pratestatus est, et dixit: 'Amen,
398
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
'Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes '" because you did not know the time of your visitation'" (Lk 19:41-44).60 In the Compendium theoiogiae, Thomas explains in better detail how Jesus could undergo sorrow on account of evils that were perceived either as directly harmful to himself; such as his torture and death, or as harmful to others, but which, through love, were felt as a direct personal loss, such as the sins of his disciples: We affim that Christ experienced the passion of sorrow. Given the fact that not only the imagination but also the lower reason, which is concerned with temporal affairs, perceives Objects as hatntful to the body, Christ could experience the passion of sorrow, inasmuch as his lower reason perceived death and other bodily injuries as bannful and contrary to his natural appetite. Furthennore. since love makes two persons, as it were, one, a person can experience sorrow not only on account of objects perceived by the imagination or by the lower reason as harmful to himself, but also on account of objects he perceives as hannful to those whom he loves. Thus Christ experienced sorrow on account of his awareness of the perils of sin or of punismnent that threatened those whom he loved out of charity. Accordingly, Christ grieved-for others as well as for himself. 61
The foregoing passages prove how the soteriological needs of his reader remain ever in Thomas' sight, since he points to those causes of sorrow in Jesus' life that directly concem our salvation, inasmuch as they center on the central mystery of the Christian life: Christ's passion and death. Aquinas enhances the spiritual import of Jesus' sorrow by focusing on his love, since "perfection of human salvation" (perfectio humanae salutis), as Aquinas puts it, consists in the love of God, which results directly from the love that God first shows the human race through the suffering and death of his only Son (cf. Tertia, q. 46, a. 3). The soteriological component of Jesus' sorrow extends to Thomas' description of the moral quality of this passion in Christ, which he holds was defined by a harmo-
PAUL GONDREAU
~ous cooperation between reason and sensibili . th. virtue for Christians to imitate both thr h th . ty, IS allows Jesus to be an example of g elf exercise of virtue (= moral exemplarity)ou thr own attempts to integrate SOrrow into the th· , and ough their shari . th em to the Image of the virtuous "sorrowful" Chri (_ ng m e grace that confurms a cursory summary of the moral r f ,st - ontologICal exemplarity)., Offering tinction examined in the previous ;~:p1ttyerOAJe~us so~ow by revisiting the threefold dis. Ii ' qumas wntes which b . h a, q. 15,a. 6 (Utrum in Christofiuerit trist'#.1 t '. rmgs t e corpus of Terlua/ 0 a concluslOn: Just as Christ could experience tru . sorrow ditt:ered from ours, howev:r::~h~Ot=~eC~Uld' he un~ergo true sorrow. His were speaklllg of the passions of Christ' 1. ays mentioned above When we s sou 10 general [cf. q. 15, a. 4].62
Sp~cifi~all~, this means that Jesus' experience of s . object, Its smgular principle or Source and it' orrow Was demarcated by Its singular row responded at all times only to p;rceiv ~ smflar eff~ts. As for the object, Christ's SOrwith the good of reason' the sin of J d 'be eVI s (= objects) that were inherently aligned h' h' ' u as etrayal for example . t b 'add ' w~ a perceIVed evil over w IC It was rationally appropriate for J of Christ's sorrow stands fur the fact tha~;~: 0 e s ene~. The umque principle Or source or unforeseen sorrow, i.e., sorrow that arises us .never expe~enced the onset of "antecedent" or perium, including his sorrow' over his impe:crr: to or.~ut.sIde of reason's commanding img the death of Lazarus. Instead, Jesus e . m CruC1 1X10n and death, or his ,sorrow over . xpenenced only "coDseq t" ISSUes from the detennining J'udgm t f uen sorrow, or sorrow that en 0 reasOn (though ago J ' . sequent sorrow should not be unde to d . . . '. m, esus expenence of conelicited the passion of SOrrow only rshom a ratIOnalIstIc sense, as if his sense appetite reason); already in his commen'.~' w ethn aSeutomated to do so by a calculated command of -..u)' on e ntences Aquinas affi th d . consequent sorrow in Jesus, in exclusion of all :fi f olls e pre ommance of onns 0 antecedent sorrow: In us the lower powers are not perfectly sub' ect to . of Sorrow can rise up outside the com d~ f reason. Thus,. at tImes the passion and make it virtuous, though at f ~an 0 rea~on, S? that Virtue must restrain it Imes 1 may prevaIl agamst reason. In Christ, how-
60. Vulgate: "Et ut appropinquavi~ videns civitatemfievit super ilIam, dicens: 'Quia si cognovisses et tu, et quidem in hac die tua, quae ad pacem tibi, nunc autem abscondita sunt ab oculis luis ... eo quod non cognoveris tempus visitationis tuae. " 61. Compo theol., ch. 232: "Et hanc etlam passionem tristitie dicimus in Christo juisse. Non solum autem ymaginatio, sed etiam inferior ratio nociva corporis apprehendit; et ideo etiam ex apprehensione inferioris ratlonis, que circa temporalia versatur; poterat passio tristitie locum in Christo habere. in quantum scilicet mortem et aUam corporis lesionem inferior ratio apprehendebat ut noxjam et appetitui naturali contrarjam. Contingit autem ex amore qui jacjt duos homines quasi unum, ut aliquis tristitiam patiatur non, solum ex hiis que per ymaginationem vel per inferiorem rationem apprehendtt ut sibj nociva, sed etiam ex hiis q'ue apprehendit ut noxia aliis quos amat. Unde ex hoc tristiliam Christus patiebatur quod aliis, quos ex caritate a.mabat, pericuium imminere cognoscebat cuJpe vel pene, untie non solum sibi, sed etiam alUs doluit. "
399
62. STm,q. 15' " a 6' ". t' C"- . SICU In rtrlsto potuit esse ve d I . . tamen modo quam in nobis est secundu '11 . rus 0 or; zta m eo potuit esse vera tristitia' alio 'L •• ' • , m I a tria quae sunt . , Ct!rlSt, passione loqueremur. " asslgnata supra, cum communiter de
400
THE PASSIONS OF CHRlST'S SOUL IN THE PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
ever, his movements of sorrow arose only according to the dictates of higher reason, inasmuch as his reason decreed the appropriate manner by which his sensuality could undergo sorrow.63
As for the singular effects of Christ's sorrow, by this Aquinas implies that Jesus' reasoning abilities were in no way impeded or obstructed by the distracting, opposing, or restraining influence of sorrow in his life; i.e., the occurrence of sorrow did not divert Jesus, the man of consummate virtue and grace, from exercising his virtuous duty, nor did it bring him into conflict with the dictates of his reason, nor, finally, did it debilitate his capacity to maintain a virtuous rational control over his animal urges. Given the limited influence of the effects of Jesus' sorrow, Thomas, citing Jerome and following Peter Lombard (as well as Alexander of Hales), qualifies this affective occurrence in Christ's soul as a "propassion"; Christ did not experience the perfect passion of sorrow; rather, he experienced only the initial stage of sorrow, i.e., the propassion of sorrow. Hence. it is written in Mt 26:37: I<Jesus began to be sorrowful and to be sad." "For it is one thing to be sorrowful and another to begin to be sorrowful," as Jerome says on this text. 64
63. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, sol. I: "In nobis inferiores vires non sunt perjecte subiecte rationi, et ideo quandoque preter ordinationem rationis insurgunt in nobis passiones tristitie, quas quidem virtus refrenat in virtuosis, set in aliis etiam rationi prevalent, Set in Christo numquam surgebat motus tristitie nisi secundum dictamen superioris rationis, quando scilicet dictahat ratio quod sensualitas tristaretur secundum convenientiam nature sue." For his part, Bonaventure, whose entire remarks on Christ's sorrow focus on the moral side of this query, writes in III Sent, d. 15, a. 2, q. 2 (ed, Quaracchi, p, 338): "Est in enim quaedam tristitia, quae est praeter rationis imperium; et est tristilia, quae est contra rationis iudicium rectum; et est tristitia, quae est subiecta rationis imperiO et iudicio. Et ilIa tristitia est praeter rationis imperium, quae consurgit ex quadam necessitate et surreptione, sicut motus prim;,' et haec quidem communis est sapientibus et insipientibus, et bonis et malis, Ilia vero tristilia est contra rationis judicium rectum, in qua ratio subiicitur sensualitati nec tantum turbatur, sed etiam perturbatur. Ilia autem est secundum rationis imperium et iudicium, quando quis tristatur, ratione dictante et suadente, ipsum tantum et taUter super aliquo debere tristari. Dico ergo, quod in Christo foit tristilia tantum isto tertia modo, quia de nullo tristatus foil, nisi secundum quod dictabat ei ratio." Cf. as well Bonaventure, Comm. in Iohan., XI, 56, and XIII, 28 (ed. Quaracchi, pp_ 404 and 429); and Comm. in Ev. Luc., XXII, 54 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 556). 64, Srlrr, q. IS, a. 6 ad I: "Tristitia removetur a Christo secundum passionem perfectam; fuit tamen in eo initiata, secundum propassionem, Unde dicitur Matt., 'Coepit con'tristari et maestus esse. "Aliud est enim contr;stari et aliud incipere contristan, 'ut Hieronymus [cf. In Math. IV (on 26:37) (CCSL 77, p. 253)) ibidem dicit." Cf. Lombard, III Sent, d. 15, ch. 2 (ed. Coli. Bonav., p.98): "Habuit enim Christus verum timorem et tristitiam in natura hominis, sed non sicut nos, qui sumus membra eius, Nos enim causa peccati nostr; his defectibus necessaria subiacemus, et in nobis sunt isti defectus secundum propassionem et passionem; sed in Christi nonnisi secundum propassionem "; and Alexander of Hales, Summa theol. (Summa hal.), Bk. III, inq. I, tr. I, q. 4, d.3, mem. 2, ch. 1, a. 2 (ed Quaracchi, p. 63): "propassionem, quae attenditur in sensualitate praeter perturbationem rationis, et hoc modo foil in Christo tristltia, "
40 I
~~i:C~:!fna~:r~~f C~st's s6orrow as a propas~ion, which Occurs in the reply to the first , q.
, a , serves as the sprmgboard from which A
.
d I'
.
~eC:~~g objection-reply, his explicit rejoinder to the Stoic challenge ~~;~:iti~~:~;o~ ~~re arefcerta~n secondary objects that pertain to the human body, or exterior objects
are ,0 servIce ~~ the bod~. The soul of the wise man may accordin I ex erience sorrow m th~ senSItive appetite on account of his perception of certai! ~vilt thou h g not to the pomt where hIS reason would be disquieted This'is ho t' d stand the say' [. P 1221 . W we are 0 un er" ~ng In rr.: : ] that "nothing that befalls the just man can make him sorro:vful, dSince nothmg that happens to him can disrupt his reason Hence Christ expenence sorrow as a propassion rather than as a passion.65 . ,
CI~arly, Aquinas does not reject altogether the Stoic view on sorrow as h
d
h
~~~i~:~hi:::~~:I~Oy:~;:~~h ?i~quie.ts the mind has n~ place i~ the l~f~oOn;~::..:s:
fro
' mlUlcan IS careful not to discount outright th' . m the affective experience of the wise man either Wh t 1IS passion Thomas understand~ it, .is the capital distinction be~ee~ ~u::e:~:se :;~~~:i~~17se, ~ movements of the Wlll; smCe the Stoics fail to make this distinct" th ty an any movement of SOrrow as a de facto source of disru tion of ~:n, ey erroneously d~em as a movement of the will towards a perceived evil.lquinas disa!a::o:ru~:_~e;~~~~i:" th~ a pe~.on may suffer .the effects of sentient evils, or the effects of ~hat he tenns "sec~ ~~e: :::~ dthat pe~am tfohthe human body," in a way that remains restricted to the sen0 uman nature (this, to repea,t 'IS not to be conceived of as a kind f tial unenSlOn . reaso~).s~ace~:n:n;s,~~~ ~ffiuteatis_ an affiffiect.ive movement ~at fails to manipulate or taint . f , c ve su ermg (or sorrow) mcurred b th ~on~oi~ed sense evil. may fail ~o eclipse the imperium of reason and ~~::~~~t;~~~in~ ~'~~:t: P:,?p:::~:~~ent domam..Such move~ents of SOrrow Aquinas again terms initial or g P of sorrow, l,e., propasslOns, as they do not reach the level of the sec-
:ill,
:~·ex~~:!~~~~:· 6o:~~: «qu~edam secundaria hominis bon~ quae pertinent ad ipsum corpus, vel
tum ad appetitum se':sitivu:e:~:~::u:;;;c;:;:::s:~:~ :~est m a,nimo sapientis esse tristitia, quan-
:~:~:~;;'~~~~i:a:~7;::'::::~~n:;~:.:~:~: :::;~I::~Z~~~~r.~:::;::~~;F::~ ~~;:::;;
Christo, secundum propassionem non secundum . .. : secun um oc tnstUIa fuu In in Lect. super loan., ch. 13, lect. passzonem. Aqumas offers the identical argument
4.
PAUL GONDREAU
402
403
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
.
ond-stage pasSlOll of sorro:". or
the full-blown passion that perturbs reason's imperium,
ments of affectivity.
.
though they remain fully ehClted ~ove difli b tween the first-stage passion (1.e., the Since the Stoics fail to recognIze a erence e. hat they view as a movement of ropassion) and the second-stage or full-blown ?aSSlal°nty'~epresent a propassion only, or a P . h' ium of reason may m re 1 . . th si sorrow disrupt~ng t e lmper ntl the Stoics unfairly and falsely reject e pes fIrst stage passlOn of sorrow. Subseque y, h . n of sorrow and sound moral con. 1 tionship between t e pasSlO h bility for a hannomous re a . eadil ommodate feelings of sorroW w en ·, f irtue can qUlte r Y ace . . I duct For Aquinas, the heo v . b' h they do in the case of the Wlse Ul. . th' . . ti I ropasslOn stage w lC . h' these latter remain m elI 1m a P hri tho Th'omas echoing Albert, affinns 1D 15 re· I . th ase ofC st· I S , . I dividual and certam y m e c . h' tary on the Sentences (though, cunous y,
marks on Christ's sorrow already ill t ~ co~en without appropriating the term propasslOn).
1ed such as when the disturbance of the To be troubled m~ans be~g totally tro: disrupts its order. But this is not the case d lower powers attams the hlghe~ powers ti Christ 66 for certain wise men, nor was It the case or .
· ., ion and death in the Tertia Pars of the Summa, Thomas Later in his treatIse on ChrIst s pass . . 'th his own doctrine on moral VIrtue. .. further by supplementmg It WI d h Id that develops this pOSItion f th oral virtues it is absur to 0 . t th proper matter 0 em, . f'rtu Since passion constitu es e . ., tl' concilable with the exerClse 0 VI e, · hie passIOn IS lnheren Y lITe fth oral d sorrow,orany lsagreea . ' ., th tvirtue itself(atleastinthe case 0 em as this would be tantamount to mam~m1Ug a ture of moral virtue-viz., to regulate the virtues) cannot attain to virtue. That IS, the ~ery;a sions to their initial propassion stage)reslnct e pas. t acts that conform to the ultimate passions unto the good of reason (or£ to rm the pasSIOns m 0 'b-requires that one be able to trans ~ I . in the face of the Stoic challenge, to attn end of human life. This allows the eo o~:; t d to identify it, as does Augustine, as a eservedly the passIOn of sorrow to s , an unr t ue h' H fully praiseworthy feature of IS 1 e: q 64 "a 2] , moral virtue fixesAthed d Part [cf Prima Secun dae,. As stated in the Secon . . d t exceed the rule of reason. n mean in the passions ". so that the passIons 0 no
since the Stoics' saw no use in sorrow. they accordingly believed it to be wholly opposed to reason. and consequently that the wise man should completely avoid it. In actual fact, however. some sorrow is praiseworthy, as Augustine proves, such as when it proceeds from a holy love. like when a person is saddened over his own or others' sins ....Thus. Christ experienced the greatest degree of sorrow, yet not exceeding 'the rule of reason. 67 Finally. noticeably absent from Thomas' remarks on Christ's sorrow-from the commentary on the Sentences to the Summa-is mention of the passion of pity (misericordia); this passion the Dominican theologian again classifies as a spedes of sorrow in the Prima Secundae Pars, as it signifies sorrow over another's misfortune. The Gospels amply attest to such an affective occurrence in the life of Jesus, with no less than twenty-five such references: Jesus is "moved with pity" (misericordia molus) over the misfortune of a widow (Lk 7:13); he has "compassion" (miseroo eslj for theshepherdless crowd (Mk 6:34); he experiences "pity" (miseroo) over the plight of two blind men (Mt 20:34); etc." That Aquinas should, after having explicitly affirmed the inherent relation between pity and sorrow as between a species and its genus, omit from his account of Christ's sorrow one of Scripture's most commonly reported emotional experiences in Jesus remains, for a thinker whose theology is rooted so strongly in the witness of Scripture, an undeniable drawback to an otherwise remarkable analysis of the passion of sorrow in the soul of Christ. It is another example of Thomas' reluctance to apply to the same degree his obvious talents for appraising the general condition of human affectivity to the psychology of Christ, no matter his impressive accomplishments on Jesus' experience of the passion of sorrow.
C. CHRIST'S EXPERIENCE OF FEAR Aquinas next turns his attention to the passion of "fear" (timor) in Christ's soul in Tertia, q. 15, a. 7 (Utrum in Christofoerit timor). For the Dominican theologian, one Scriptural pas-
STIll, q. 46, a. 6 ad 2: "Medium autem in passionibus virtus moralis constituit, ut in Secunda
es~ quando ut eius ordo turbetur. Et hoe non est m a"qu" "'P""'"
d 2' "Perturbari dicitur ex toto turbari, et ho.c
66. III Sent, d. IS, q. 2, a. 2, s.o1. 1 a . 't batio inJerioris partis ad supertorem perv~;.' . Albert who writes in III Sent, d. 15, a. 8 ad 1: nee in ChristoJuit." One can see shades 0 IS m t rhatio {quia perturbatio dieit dejleetionem titia turbatio sit in viro sapiente, .tamen non e~t per u . ns quam philosophi. " Cf. as well Albert, · ~. Ch istus emm non est mmus saple , ~;re~'foiit disp,osil'ia ,ad ,tristandwi)i et g''''' tionis ab aequ~tate . r6 ( d Colon., p. 222): "In Christo a incarn .• tr. 6, q. 1, a. 2 ad e. " dendum, sed non ad immoderate.
habitum est ... ut scilicet passio non excedat regulam rationis. Et quia Stoid reputabant quod tristitia esset ad aliquid utilis, ideo credebant quod totaliter a ratione discordaret, et per conquod totaliter esset sapienti vitanda. Sed secundum rei veritatem tristilia aliqua laudabilis est, 4~:'i:;~~;':;~~~t~f~;CiV. Dei, Bk. XlV, ch. 8 (CCSL48. pp. 425-6)], quandoscilicetprocedit $, utpote cum aliquis tristaturde peecatis propriis vel alienis ". Et ideo Christus ". astristitiam, maximam quidem quantitate absoluta. non tamen excedentem regulam rationis. .. ,m,osameargument in relation to moral virtue in general, cf. STI-II. q. 59. a. 3. For the other Gospel references to Jesus' pity or compassion, cf. chapter one, n. 8.
404
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL rn THE
PAUL GeNDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
sage in particular leaves little doubt as to the reality of this affective occurrence in the life, : of Jesus, a passage that Thomas cites as evidence for Christ's fear in the Sentence commentary, the De veritate, and the Tertia Pars. "Jesus began to fear and to he greatly troubled" (Mk 14:33)." As with Christ's sorrow, however, the issue of Jesus' fear does not escape pointed objection, and, indeed, if we take our cue from the objections listed by Aquinas, it becomes evident that a heated historical dispute over the presence of fear in Christ's life surrounded this query. On the opposing side stands the witness of certain Scriptural texts, such as Pray 28:1: "The just, bold as a lion, shall be without fear."70The rea-
soning of this passage finds seeming agreement from Augustine, who claims that "a sign of perfection is when fear, which is the root cfall evil desire, is entirely absent."7l Finally, the eminent Hilary of Poitiers, whose massive impact on medieval Christology has been duly noted, explicitly denies the presence offear in Christ's soul, and the Bishop of Poitiers does not-hesitate to denounce as ''unreasonable'' the view that posits this affective occurrence in Jesus' life: I would ask those who think this way if it stands to reason that the one who, in casting out all fear of death from the apostles and in exhorting the apostles to the glory of martyrdom, should himself fear death,72
To adequately respond to these objections, Aquinas first turns to a consideration of the passion of fear itself, whereby he offers in condensed form what he develops at considerable length in the Prima Secundae Pars.
40~
!,s of no. small interest to the Domin~ca~,Master either-"after sorrow," Thomas writes, . fear chIefly has the character of passlOn. 13 More precisely, Aquinas examines this passion ~ a t~ta~ of four que.stions comprising sixteen articles in Prima Secundae, qq. 41-44.14 Distingmshmg the passIOllS ac~ording to their objects, Thomas, following Nemesius and Darnascene (who, along wlthAristo!le-andAvicenna_hOld that "the expectation of some evil gIVes rise to .fear"15), locates the proper object of fear with the future evil perceived as difficult to aVOId [malum. arduum}. Fear, in other words, consists in an appetitive movement aw~y fr~m an Imp.ending, yet-to-come malum arduum, which classifies it as a passion of the uasclble appetite (the appetite of struggled tendericy), and situates it opposite the pasSIon of hope, which is characterized by a movement toward the good perceived as difficult {bonum arduum)yet possible to attain: A passion of the' s?ul is dete~ined in type by its object.. .. Fear has a special object, a~ does hope: For,J?st as th~ object of hope is a future good, which is difficult yetpos~ ~Ible to. obtaIn, SO?S the obJ~c~ of fear a fu~re evil, which is difficult yet seemingly ImpOSSIble ~ avOld ....Fear IS In no sense In the concupiscible appetite, since it regards the evtl not absolutely but as difficult or arduous, and as almost unavoidable.76
Sinc~ both fear. and sorrow react to a sense object perceived as harmful
(inconviens),
~qumas recognIzes. a close lInk between these two passions, a link that will figure lar el
1~ the que? on C!'rlst's fear. The principal difference between sorrow and fear stems ;o~ either the unmedlate presence of the sense evil (say, the actual death ofa loved one due to
1. The Human Passion o/Fear Though the passion of sorrow receives the most attention in the treatise on the passions, the passion of fear, because of its passive character and the intense bodily alteration it induces,
69. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 3, sed contra; De ver., q. 26. a. 8, sed contra Ii and STIlI, q. 15, a, ' 7, sed contra. The Vulgate version of this passage reads: "Coepit Iesus taedere et pavere. " For more . on Thomas' position on Christ's fear, cf. M.-B. Schwalm, Le Christ d 'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 324-30; and F. Ruella, La christologle de Thomas d'Aquin, p.184. 70. Cited in STIlI, q. 15, a. 7, argo 1; the Vulgate version reads: "Justus, quasi leo confidens, absque terrore erit. .. 71. Augustine, De div. Quaesl. 83, q. 36, n. I (CCSL44A, p. 54), cited in III Senl, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 3, argo 2: "signum perfectionis est nullus timor, quia et radix est omnium malorum cupidUas. " 72. Hilary,De 1Yinitale, Bk. X, ch. 10 (CCSL62A, pp. 466-7), cited inSTJII, q. 15, a. 7, argo 2: "interrogo eos qui hoc ita existimant, an ratione subsistat, ut morl timuerU qui, omnem ab apostolis terrorem mortis apel/ens, ad gloriam eos sit martyrii adhortatus. "
73. ST I-II, ~. 41, a. 12: "post tristitiam. timor magis rationem obtinet passionis." 74..For A~Ulnru:, ~n fear, cf. A. Zimmennann, "Gedanken des Thomas von Aquin fiber defectus naturails und timor, ill Thomas vonAquin. Werk und Wirkung im Licht neuerer Forschungen ed A Z1mmennann (BerlinlNew York: Walter de Gmyler, 1988), pp.43-52. ' . . 7.5. Nemesius, De nat. hom, ch. 16 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, p. 95): "rursus expectatum quidem malum Illnor esl. "Damascene repeats this in Defide orlh., Bk. II, ch. 12 (ed. Buytaert p 119)' "ex'n eca I /u I' "CfA' , .. r m rn~ urn tlmorem. . .nstotle,~hetoric; Bk. II, ch. 5 (l382a21). In De anima, Pt. V, ch. 1 (ed. S. van Riet, vo~. 2, p. 75), AVlcerma writes: "Aliquando etiam accidit homini passio anima/is ex hoc quod pulat allquidfuturum sibi nociturum, et hoc'vocatur timor. 76. STI-II, q. 4.1, a. 2, corpus and ad 3: "Passiones animae recipiunt speciem ex obiectis ... Timor a~t~m ha~~t sl!e~lale ~biectum.. si~t et spes. Sicut enim obiectum spei est bonumfuturum arduum posslbde adlp,lscl, Ita O?,e.ct~~ tlmOrlS est malum futurum dijJicile cui resisti non potest ... timor nullo rno.do est In concuplSclbzl,: non enim respicit malum absolute, sed cum quadam dijJicultate vel arduttate, .ut e~ resisti vix possit. "Cf. as well STI-IT, q. 42, a. 3; and g. 42, a. 5: "obiectum timoris est malum ImmIne~ q~od non de Jacili repe//i potest." Relying upon the thought of Damascene, Alexan~er~Hales wntes 1~ Summ~ ;'h.eol. (Summa. hal.), Bk. III, ing. I, tr. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo 2, ch. I, a. 3, g. (ed. Quaracchl, p. 64). timor naturalls per modum sensualitatis in apprehensione Juturi mali per sensum. " II
406
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
an illness, which gives rise to sorrow), or the absent-yet-impending presence of the sense evil (the projected death of the loved one due to a tenninal illness, from which arises fear):
"Fear is caused in us," Thomas writes in the Compendium' theologiae, "when we consider as future those things whose presence engenders sorrow.'m In a key text from the Prima Se· cundae Pars, Aquinas spells out in greater detail the precise manner in which fear and sorrow differ from each other, as he lays emphasis on the fact that the impending evil which elicits fear must, if genuine fear is to arise, be perceived as "difficult to avoid" and not simply as impending or as yet to come:
407
as "near at hand" (mal~m prop,inquum!, which helps incite an active imagination." In brief, the more one can Imagme the unpending evil as foreboding, along with the (imagined) con. c~mltant c.lfcmnst~ces, the greater th~ fear; as E. Gilson explains: "The feeling that we are WI!hout friends, WIthout resources, WIthout power in the face of peril always contributes
to ~cre~e f~ar."8~ Feru: :nore than any o~er pas~ion, then, involves an.'d is stoked by a per~ son s subJecti;e diSposl~lOn and fluctuations, whIle responding less to objective reality; the example A~umas .suppl~es conc~ms a person who, upon flnding himself situated precari~ ously at a frightenmg hmght, panICs through the arousal of his imagination and subsequently plunges off:
Sorrow and fear agree in that both regard evil, yet they differ in two ways. The 'p~son .tha~ fall~ from a plank placed at a great height suffers from a disturbance Of~lS Imagmatlon, masmuch as he fears the faU that he pictures through his imagi~ nation. 82
First, because sorrow responds to a present evil, whereas fear reacts to a future evil. Secondly, because sorrow, which is in the concupiscible power, regards the evil absolutely, whether the evil be small or great; whereas fear,
which is in the irascible power, is concerned with the evil that owns an additional air of arduousness or difficulty.... Consequently, not all things that
cause us to experience sorrow when they are present cause us to fear when they are yet to coine, but only those things that are difficult."
Because fear responds to a future evil, i.e., an object whose immediacy eludes the perceptive powers of the external senses, fear relies more upon the perception of the internal senses, specifically the imagination, than upon the external senses; as Thomas writes, and here he depends heavily on the writings of Aristotle: "Fear is a passion that arises from the
imagination of an imminent evil. ... [Hence] whatever removes the imagination of the future evil removes the fear also. "79 There exists, in other words, a highly vibrant and dynamic re~ lationship between the passion of fear and the imagination, enhanced by the fact that, though the object of fear remains a future reality, its disagreeable presence is perceived
Feeding the c~njuring power of th~ imagination, which in nun helps engender a greater s~nse of fear, IS the fact that the object of rear-the impending malum arduum-offers a
~lun chance for escape; as Thomas writes: "The Philosopher says that we only fear a thing
If ~ere IS some hope of avoiding it. "83 That is, since, to quote Aquinas, "the appetite tends ~~h. greater fo:ce to r~pel ~at which is opposed to it, "84 and since there remains the posslbllrty of evading the ImmlOent malum arduurn, the imagination retains in the case of fear ~e~ter maneuver~bi1ity in .its operation, an~, hence, a greater causal role in the type of fear mClted. Thomas, 1TI fact, dIscerns, along WIth Nemesius and Damascene several kinds or types of fear-viz., fe~ which induces slowness to act (segnities), sham~ over a deed yet to be ?on.e (erubescentia), shame 0:rer a deed already accomplished (verecundia), wonder (ad'~"ratlO), stupor (stupor), and fright (agonia)-all of which pertain in some manner to the l~agm~d amval of the malum arduum. 85 Though a person's reasoning capabilities may pe:-Ist dun~g the onset of fear, a greater intensity of fear usually disrupts the soul to the pomt of debIlItating the mind's deliberation on what constitutes rationally appropriate be.
havlOr: 77. Camp. theol., ch. 232: "Ex hiis enim que tristitiam presentia ingerunt, timor in nobis causatur dumfutura estimantur." Cf. Aristotle. Rhetoric, Bk. II, ch. 5 (1382a21). 78. STI-II. q. 42, a. 3 ad 2: "Tristitia et timor in uno conveniunt. quia utrumque est de malo: differunt autem in duobus. In uno quidem, quia tristitia est de malo praesenti, timor de malo futuro. In alio vero, quia tristilia, cum sit in concupiscibili, respicit malum absolute: unde potest esse de quocumque malo, sive parvo sive magno. Timor vero, cum sit in irascibili. respicit malum cum quadam arduitate seu difficultate ... Et ideo non omnia timemus quae suntfutura de quibus tristamur cum sunt praesentia, sed aliqua. quae scilicet sunt ardua." cr. as well STI-II, q. 41. a. 2 ad 3; and q. 42, a. 2 ad 3. 79. STI-II, q. 42, a 4 and a. 2: "timor est passio quaedam consequens phantastam imminentis mali ... illud quod removet foturi mali phantasiam. excludit etiam timorem. " Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric. Bk. II, ch. 5 (l382a21), cited in STI-II, q. 42, a. 2: "Fear may be defined as a pain or disturbance due to the imagining of some destructive or painful future evil." For Thomas, cf. as well De ver., q. 26, a. 8; and III Sent. d. IS, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 3 ad 3.
80.. .STI~II, q. 43, a" 1: "obiectum timoris est aestimatum malum futurum propinquum cui resist; de /acrll non polest. "Cf. as well STI-II, q. 42, a. 5. 8!. E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy, pp. 284-5. ~2.. S~I-II, q. 44, a. 4 ad 2: "Illi qui cadunt de trabe in alto posita patiuntur perturbationem imagmatlOms, propter timorem casus imaginati. " 83 .. STIlI, q .. 15, a. 7: "Philosoph"" dicit [cf. Rhetoric, Bk. II, ch. 5 (1383a5'-6)J quod timor non est nlSl ubI est alzqua spes evadendi." cr. as well STI-II, q. 42, a. 2. 84. STI-II, q. 48, a. 2: "appetitus, etiam naturalis,fortius tendit in id quod est sibi contrarium " Cf as well STI-II, q. 29, a. 3, corpus and ad 3; and q. 37, a. 4. . . 85. STI-II. q. 41, a. 4; Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 20 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, p. 103); and Damascene, Defide orth" Bk. I~ ch. 15 (ed Buytaert, pp. 121-2).
PAUL GONDREAU
408
409
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
. a hindrance it is to the man affected by it. couThe stronger the passIon. the greater . t the point that it disquiets the reasequently, when fear is intense ". and mcreases ~ 86 son, it impedes action even on the part of the sou.
2. Utrum in Christo juerit timor .. . Christofuerit timor in . offers to the quesllOn of utrum In The precise response th~tAqumas . al sis of the passion of fear, and thereby Tertia q. 15 relies heavtly upon the foreg~~g an'y as well as the input of Aristotle (and empl~ys significantly his own insights on IS pass~on fthe soul represents a natural and In short fear as a passIon 0 , h somewhat of Damascene) . • ~ d d ith a sensate or animal nature, e nonnal occurrence in the life of Jesus, Slllce, en owe w s of his ability to perceive or to could-and did-experienc~ the affihectivhi~ cO~:~~gen:d death), in the same way he un.' ding sense eV1ls (sue as 5 su I' . imagme Impen . inent evils became present rea lties: derwent sorrow when those same unm tiCD
Just as sorrow is caused by the percep
of a resent evil, so also is fear cause? by
.' t~ arrival of the fu_ture evil is entIrely
the perception of a fu.ture .evil. I~ the ~;:p:s the Philosopher says, we only fear a certain, it does not give nse to ~r~ when there is no hope of escape, the thing if there is some hope of avoldmg It. O~' b it engenders sorroW rather than evil is seen as something already present, w ereF~rst inasmuch as the sensitive apfi be considered in two ways. I .., d thr gh fear. Thus, earm~y b d'l ' 'rythroughsorrowifitispresent,an ou petite naturally shrinks ~o~ 0 I y~: t erienced fear, just as he did sorrow. Secfear if it is yet to come; 10 thiS way, s ~xp ertainty about a future occurrence, as ondly, fear may be con~idered ~hhen th~~~:~:g what it is; in this second way there 87 when we fear a sound In the mg t, no was no fear in Christ, as Damascene says.
'F
If Thomas (along with Damascene) excludes from Christ's life the kind offear that arises when the imagination conjures up images based upon the perception of unknown or mystifying occurrences (such as nocturnal noises), it is because the Master from Aquino holds to the tenet of Christ's perfection in knowledge, which thereby excludes all forms of ignorance in Jesus (cf. Tertia, q. 15, a. 3), or, in this case, the nescience of such mysterious or uncertain occurrences that may otherwise induce fear in a person. Jesus knew all future occurrences. What Damascene, in fact, identifies as a sine qua non condition for the experience of such fear-uruinous thinking" (perditione cogitationum), "lack of faith" (incredulitate), and "ignorance of the hour of death" (ignorlmdo mortis horamJBs-stands in marked opposition to the kind of psychological integrity that Aquinas believes Christ enjoyed. Nonetheless, the insistence that Jesus could experience no fear on account of the uncertainty about a future occurrence provides an example of Thomas' tendency at times to attribute to Christ's psychology what more properly pertains to a glorified and exalted state, . not the state of one who, to quote Heb 5:8, "learned obedience through what he suffered." In terms of development of thought, one can readily recognize how the way in which the young Friar Thomas affirms the reality of Jesus' fear in his commentary on the Sentences differs from the marmer in which the mature Aquinas, as articulated in the foregoing passage from the Summa, speaks of the presence of fear in Christ's soul; though the two agree in substance, the former lacks not only the more lucid grasp of the passion offear that the latter exhibits, which weakens its overall Christological force of argument, but also $e conviction, as we have seen, that Jesus' affective suffering originates with the proper opemtions of his sensate soul (though even here Thomas inclines toward an ontological insistence upon the natural issuance of fear in the sensitive appetite possessed by Christ): Fear is a passion in the irascible power, which arises when the sensible appetite flees from something perceived as hannful. Christ experienced such fear in the same way that he experienced sorrow and anger, viz., as a dictate of his reason and of his
" Ii ua assio est fortiOr, tanto magis homo secundum 86 STI-II, q, 44, a, 2 ad 2, and a, 4: Qua~to afuq }/ortis tantum increscat quod rationem per", . iP;am affectus impeditur. Et ideo quando tlmo: er~. turbet impedit operationem etiam ex parte ammae, h sione mali praesentis, ita etiam timor 'TIII q,15 a.7: "Sicut tristitia causatur ~ appre en I'futuri si omnimodam certitudinem 87 . S " I'fu 'A prehenslO autem ma ~ , 1 d causatur ex apprehensione ma ~ tun P. h d' 'I [cf Rhetoric Bk II, ch, 5 (1383a5-6) quo habeat, non inducit timore: Unde Philosop ~s IClehenditur mal~m ut'praesens : et sic magis causat timor non esl nisi ubi est a/lqua spes evadendl, app" '-1eraY" quantum ad duo. Uno modo. quantum ad , ,' "t esens ' ' 'I r timor potest conSl",' , efugit oris laesionem, et per tristmam Sl Sl pra ,. tristitiam quam timorem, SIC 19l u hoc quod appetitus sensitivus naturallter ~ ji CtO~PChr"sto sicut et tristitia, Alio modo potest con. . ji Et h c modo timor UI m . I"tu tristitia oriuntur, ut puta limor, ira et hUiusmodl); and De ver., q, 26, a. 8: "from the perception of etpertimoremslslt utura. 0 . d tus. 'cutquandonoctetimemusexa lquo som , : siderari secundum incertitudinem!uturt a ve~ . Sl fu't' Christo ut Damascenus dicit : something harmful the passion offear or sorrow, etc., could naturally arise in Christ" (et ideo ex imag. . EI tumadhoc,tlmornon 1 m , "J , inatione nocivi naturaliter passio timoris et tristitiae et huiusmodi in eo poterant esse). ignorantes qUld hoc Sit, quan II Cf as well Comp. theol., ch. 232: ust as 88. Damascene, De fide orth., Bk. III, ch. 24 (ed. Buytaert, p. 266) . orth Bk III, ch. 24 (ed. Buytaert, p. 266)]th' tho assl'ons that proceed from sorrow, such as ., . d'dh erience eo erp . rienced sorrOW, so also I e exp . Ch' t ji 'I tristilia ita etiam et aUe passJones que like" (.'Situt autem zn rlS 0 UI ' anger. and the
PAUL GONDREAU 411
410
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
h' trary to adjoined Godhead, whereby his sensitive appetite retreats from w at 15 con
it. 89 .
Though not explicitly
.
the historical event in the life of Jesus that
ment!One~~ ~~u:as;'oth in the Sentence commentary and, espe-
stands behind his comm~nts on s s ear . th Garden ofGethsemane, wherein Jesus cially, in the Tertia Pars IS, of course ~e a~on~~o ~owever even if Thomas does cite Mk expresses his fear over hIS approac ng e: ;oubled") in'the sed contra. he involves the
14:33 ("Jesus began to fear. and to be. great;o of Jesus' fear no further. This marks ~ reargument with greater existential vigor explicit elements of this ep!Sode m his th~o grettable omission, as it woul~ have eqmppef thiS eality of this passion in Jesus. Aquinas by aligning it with the only ex!Stent rec~rd 0 e r Chrl'St'S prayer in the analysis of the . th 1i . P an entire treanse on I does insert later m e ertza ars Ch . t conveniat orare secundum suam sensua . . ( 21 a 2' Utrum YIS 0 • consequentia unzonzs ~'. ' . . . Christ's rayer in the Garden in the prevlous query itatem); however, exphcIt allUSIOns to 1 P as in fact one finds occurring, after the on Jesus' fear would have been mos~ we com~, . ' f J ~'human affectivity in the Com· manner ofDarnascene and Lombard, m th~ ana YSIS 0) 9~S . . I . (ef h 233' De oratzone ChrISti.
f;,.
pendium theo ogzae
. c '.;
the uestion of utrum in Christo juerzt timor
The main thrust of Aqumas response to
.q
only when the possibility of escaping
in the Tertia Pars centers on the fact that fear&: anses fuj's element of fear it is because he
. '1' IfTh mas opts to ,ocus on 'th the impendmg eVI exists. . o. 'b'lity of eluding the suffering and death at the ground and prayed that, if it were knows that Jesus could wellimagme the POSSI ; II . dhi "And oingalittlefarther,Jesus,e on th . awalte m: g m him" (Mk 14:35).92 Thomas insists that when ere !S.no poSSible, the hour might p~ss fro h' '1 so that it seems present rather than lmhope of avoiding a perceived appr~ac ,~g eVI 'I Iy retains a glimmer of hope that his
pending, fear will not ensue; yet, SlUce esus c ear
awaited fate may yet be avoided, he naturally experiences fear in accordance with the ontological makeup of his sensate nalltre,just as he experienced sorrow when the hope of escaping these evils vanished. Aquinas also sees the timing of Jesus' agony in the Garden, viz., a few shor! hours before the outbreak of his suffering and crucifixion, as a result of the fact
that fear becomes more acute and intense when the imminent evil appears "near at hand" (malum propinquum) rather than far removed. Fear ensues as well upon the perception that one has been deserted by one's friends, an experience of which Jesus himself expresses: "And he carne and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, 'Simon, are you asleep? Could .you not keep watch for one hour?'" (Mk 14:37)." Further, since fear relies so heavily upon the conjuring power of the imagination, the onset of intense fear in Christ was bound to ensue upon his prescience of all fulltre events (Thomas again excludes all forms of ignorance
in Jesus), whereby he could internally visualize in a fairly lucid manner the excruciating na· lltre of the physical torment that lay in store for him (cf. Lk 22:43-44: "In his anguish he prayed even more earnestly, and his sweat fell to the ground like flowing drops ofblood")94
Hence, through the experience of fear Jesus "naturally retreats," to use Aquinas' terminology from both the Sentence commentary and the Summa, from his bodily pain and death, i.e., from that which is repugnant to the good of his sensate animal nalltre. This retreat re-
calls the Dominican's remarks, examined in the previous chapter, on Cluist's natural and spontaneous aversion to death (voluntas ut natura, which pertains to the intellectual will, and voluntas sensualitatis, which concerns the sense appetite). There is a key difference,
however, between Cluist's instinctive aversion to death and his affective fear over the same: whereas Jesus' desire to have his life spared ("Father, remove this cup from me") pertains to a purely instinctive and spontaneous impulse of affectivity, his fear over his suffering and death ("Jesus began to fear and to be greatly troubled") concerns afolly elicited movement of the sensitive appetite, i.e., it concerns a passion in the proper sense of the term, since his fear does not involve a direct clash with the Father's will. The distinction in objects, in other words, between the two affective movements-the one as a purely instinctive impulse and the other as a fully elicited passion-helps illustrate the difference between
"
'0
uedam m vi irascihili que consurgit ex hoc quod ap--
89. III Sent, d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 3: . pasSl q Et sic loquimur hic de timore. Unde diCenpetitus sensibilis refugit aliquod nOClvum appreens;m. modum sicut et de tristitia et ira dictum est, dum quod hoc modo timor fuit in Christo, p~~ e.un .em. te a etitus sensibilis refugiebat ea que . in q~antum scilicet et dictamine r?tionis ethridl.vl~ltafitls ~dl;: S~n~:nce commentary reflects the posi. "Th mas' VIeW on C st s ear m sibi erant contrana. a 111 S t d 15 n. 31 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 160-1). tion of Alexander of Hales. en,. '. . ' t" 20-3 0 Cf R Spiazzi, "Le passioni e la pasSIone dl Cris °B' PP'ert . 267-9)' "De Domini oratione" 9 . .' h Bk rn ch 24 (ed. uyta , p p . , II 91. Cf. Damascene, De fide ort.. . " D' and Lombard, III Sent. d. 17, ch. I (ed. Co . (cf as well Bk. III, ch. 23 red. Buytaer!, pp. 265-7 '. I t
93. Vulgate: "Et venit, invenit eos dormientes. Et aft Petro: Simon, dormis? non potuisti una hora vigilare? "
94. Vulgate: "Etfactus in agonia,prolixius orabat. Et/actus est sudor eius, sicut guttae sanguinis decurrentis in terram."
412
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Christ's instinctive aversion to death and his passion of fear over the same: the object of Jesus' instinctual desire to avoid his fate is the preservation of his life (a sense good), an object that stands in the way of what the Father conunands, while the object of his passion of fear is his approaching torture and death (a sense evil), an object that, in fact, accords with the Father's will. For this reason, Aquinas has little difficulty in ascribing the fu\1y elicited movement affear to Christ's soul, without at the same time feeling the need to reintroduce the voluntas ut natura and voluntas sensualitatis distinction in Tertia. q. 15, a. 7. In this
manner, Thomas' thought, even without sufficient explicit insistence, offers a credible theological account ofthe timorous experience of the Jesus of the Gospels, who certainly undergoes more than a simple "instinctive retreat" at the thought of the horrifyingly tortuous execution that he knew loomed before him. Despite the intense quality of Christ's ful1y elicited passion of fear, which typical1y disrupts the soul to the point of debilitating the mind's ability to maintain a rational control over one's affective movements, Thomas goes on in his reply to the first objection to insist (along with Bonaventure) that in no sense did Jesus' fear impede his reasoning capabilities, or disturb the unmitigated imperium of reason and wi1\ that ruled his soul. os Echoing the thought of Lombard and citing once again Jerome, Aquinas qualifies Christ's fear as a propassion, i.e., as an initial or first-stage passion offear that remains in its proper sentient domain and which fails to reach the level of the second-stage passion of fear, the level that eclipses or manipulates and taints reason." This too readily coheres with what the New Testament transcribes, no matter if the distinction between propassion and passion comes long after the redaction of the Gospels, since the Evangelists give no indication that Jesus' experience of fear undermined the supreme self-mastery he displays at al1 times throughout the entire New Testament. This qualification of Christ's fear as a propassion only is key as we\1 to what we know is Aquinas' chief concern to stress the soteriological significance of Christ's
PAUL GONDREAU
sensualitatis praevenientis rationem. quidam sensualitatis subiacentis rationi, quidam vero est ipsius partis rationalis ... Secundus vero est naturae corruptae, sed tamen ordinatae. Quoniam ergo in Christo. quam vis esset defectus passibilitatis, non tamen foil defectus inordinationis et vitiositatis; hinc est. quodlui! in eo timor medio modo. non primo vel tertio. "For more on this aspect ofBonaventure's thought, cf. P.A. S6pinski, La psychologie du Christ, p. 194. 96. Lombard writes in III Sent, d. 15, ch. 2 (ed. ColI. Bonav., p. 98): "Habuit enim Christus verum; timorem et tristitiam in naturfl hominis, sed non sicut nos, qui sumus membra eius. Nos enim . peccati nostr; his defectibus necessaria subiacemus, et in nobis sunt isti defectus secundum sionem et passionem; sed in Christi non nisi secundum propassionem. "cr. Jerome, In 26:37) (CCSL 77, p. 253).
J3
human affectivity: since Jesus undergoes th . serves his radical rectification of soul he e :passlon of fear only, which thereby pre,human race, as well as provide an ex' ~an:. quately satisfy or atone for the sins of the striving to master their feelings of 'ear~P ebo I virtue for those disciples of Christ who are .. m a a anced and reas d, . . ·h W It the qualification of Jesus' fear as a r '. . one I.e., vIrtuous, manner. characteristic hermeneutic fashion th t 'fS ~ opasslOD ill mmd, Thomas can claim, in his be without fear" (Prv 28:1), this m~st ~~an :;ture holds that "the just, bold as a lion, shall of fear, i. e., the fear that overtakes the . . t It;S the second-stage or full-blown passion son, rather than thepro>pcJssion or first,mta'Penum ~ reason" which never befalls the just perti· . • -s ge passIOn of fear F A · CIS enunently reconcilable with the careful d' . or qUlnas, such a hermeneuclaims that "Jesus beuan to fear and t b wolr rng ofMk 14:33, whereby the Evangelist 0' 0 e great y troubled": The just man is said to be "without fear" iuas passion that causes ODe to turn a fr· : much as such fear refers to a perfect kind of fear, but only the propas:~~ o;:a~~al.goo~s. Christ e~perienced not this ~t "Jesus began to fear and to be greatl ~oub~s IS,-:' y. the text [m Mk 14:33] says plies a kind ofpropassion.97 Y ed, whIch, as Jerome explains, im-
This same line of reasoning lies at the heart ofA . • qumas that "a sign of perfection is when fear wh· h. h reply to the assertion of Augustine lC (this statement comes in an ob;ection't th IS t e root of evil desire, is entirely absent" , 0 e presence offear in Chri t 1· h tary on t h e Sentences). CQDcedin the . t . s on y m t e commena defect ofsoul the Dominican;' I ~om thfuat :ear does mdeed indicate imperfection or . fChri ' 0 oglan, re smg to surrender h' 11 . ~sm 0 st '8 psychosomatic suffering and ain '. . IS a egtance to the realImply moral imperfection Or defect or re P t' maIntaInS that, In effect, not all fear need a tains to Christ, whose assumption ~f vaJ"es"; r. source of evil desire. This certainly persuch disagreeable passions as fear and e ects.ofbody and soul, from which ensue way undermine, his perfection in grace and vi~~alU Strict~y compatible with, and in no feet despite his assumption of certain ont I . I'd e~us retams an Immunity to moral dee fr· 0 Oglca e.ects The otha f bl' merge omAqulnas'replytothisloc t· fr A .'. rnolcea eleatureto to his initial position in the comment~ ~onth o~ ugustme IS how the young Thomas, true n e entences, uses Augustine's authority to un-
an
the°:"
95. In II! Sent, d. 15, a. 2, dub. 3 (ed Quaracchi, p. 342), Bonaventure holds that Christ's fear at all times remained under the finn control of his reason: "iste [fear] est in triplici differentia: quidam est·
4
STilI, q. IS, a. 7 ad I: "Iustus dicitur esse 'abs ue terrore 's
:fu~;::~::~::~~a~v~e~rt~e~nt~e;,m~h:o~m~inem
quo~
';,U~du~
a bono est t' '. quod terror importat perEt ideo dicitur quod 'C:e~;~~lS. t szc tzmor nOn luit in Christo. sed exponit " esus pavere et taedere, 'quasi 'secun-
PAULGONDREAU
415
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
414
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
d'fy" that Christ's affective suffering could derscore the position tha: he would laterthmo ~ . VI\h the proper operations of his sensate originate only with bodIly suffenng, ra er an WI soul: . rfi' . e imperfection implies the experiAll fear denotes some kind of tmpe ectIo~. sme Christ's soul attained the highest f k' d ofhann Though the actions 0 f • ehce 0 some ID. .' ld t d go injury; and it was on account ofhts degree of perfection, hIS body cou ye un er . 'Ii 9& body that he could suffer imperfections and expenence ear.
.. th sence of fear in COOst is "unIn reply to Hilary of Poitiers' insist~nc~ th: p~~:~~: of~~~~ers' exclamation as erroneous reasonable," Aquinas, ratherthanldismfilsds c:nstolOgy offers the following benigna interor as a further testament to hIS g on e ,
pretatio: . . th
Ythat he excludes sorrow, viz. as re. the truth orhis human nagards the riecessity of fearing. However, m or. er to pro~~ ture, he voluntarily assumed fear, just as he dId sorroW.
Hilary excludes fear from Chnst In
e sa~e ~a
. akes the occasion ofthis benigna interpretatio of HiAs this passage makes plam, Thomas t . d ~ Chri' stology as well as to advance what h' d' ti ctive brand of anlI- oce"C , . . feature of Christ's passibility: The need forJesus to lary to sel1 IS own IS n he perceives as another sotenologlc~1 b . D Christ's humanity to accurately . true and genume human emg, or or 1 appear m our eyes as a . £. 'th' Christ which is required for human sa vath of human nature smce 1al In , full d ref1 eet th e tru ' t h th human family views Jesus as a yeretion, can be achieved only to the, exte~t a~atHilary's remarks aim at nothing more than ible human being. After suggestmg, en, f Christ's fear Thomas clearly departing from an aflinnation of the. free;Wllled narur;'h~ oint that Je;us' free'~i\led subjection to di~ the plain sense of HIlary s text, adds f : f t th t Christ needed to incarnate himselfm agreeable passibility is itself eVIdence 0 t e ac a a fully integral and credible human nature. D. CHRIST'S AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF WONDER
. . 'D Thomas proceeds next in Terlia, q. 15, a. 8 to Remaining WIth the theme of Christ sear, t' Christ (Utrum in Christo jiterit adan analysis of the passion of wonder or amazemen m d 2- "Omnis timor ex aliqua imperjectione est, quia ex imper98. III Sent, d. 15,. q. ~, a. 2, .sol. 3 a . 'led; Christus autem. quamvisfuerit secundum ani,!,amperfectione est quod abqUld ab aJtquo POSSlt ' . t'd ex parte ista impeifectionem patlebatur et fectissim us, tamen ledl poterat ex parte corpoYls, e l eo timere poterat. " ,," d excludit a Christo timorem quo excludit tristitiam, scil99. STIll,q. 15,.a. 7 ad::-: Hl~arlusdeo mO 0 d comprobandam veritatem humanae naturae, volunicet quod necessltatem tlmendl. S~ .t~me~: a tarie timorem asswnpsit sicut et trzstztlam.
miratio), a passion that the Dominican theologian classifies as a species or kind of fear (though, as we shall see, Aquinas holds another conception of admiratio in mind in this article as well). For this query, which occurs only in the Summa, Aquinas takes as his theological springboard the following key Scriptural text: "Upon hearing him [the Centurion], Jesus marveled (miratus est), and said to those who followed him, 'Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I fonnd such faith'" (Mt 8: 10).100 Notably, Thomas alone raises the subject of Christ's admiratio for discussion; no author previous to him gives explicit consideration to the issue (save for passing references to it by Augustine and Alexander of Hales), and prior to the Summa, Thomas nowhere hints at a particular ihterest in the matter, except for a briefremark in the Summa contra Gentiles and in his commentary on John's Gospel.101 If Aquinas initiates this inquiry into Christ's admiratio in the Summa in the first place, it is because, as the objections listed to this article indicate, opinions on Christ's power-and perfection in knowledge and virtue had evidently led to exaggerated views whereby it was denied that Jesus could experience wonder (this includes even Thomas' own stated position previous to the Summa}.I" That Aqninas affinns the experience of wonder in Christ, despite (as shall be noted below) the problems this encounters, therefore testifies to what was referred to earlier as the Dominican's existential Christology, i.e., to the fact that Thomas lets the historical events surronnding the life of Jesus as reconnted in the Gospels (in this case Mt 8:10) dictate his position on Christ's passions. It testifies as well to Thomas' theological method, whereby the authority of Scripture establishes the nonn for aU theo-
100. Vulgate (cited in STIlI, q. 15, a. 8, sed contra): "Audiens autem lesus miratus est, et sequen-
tibus se dixit: Amen dicD vobis, non inveni tan tam fidem in Israel. " 101. Leci. super loan., ch. 1,lect. 7: "sicut tristilia cogit in Christo ponere partem animae sensitivam, contra Arium, ita admiratio cogit ponere in ipso partem animae intellectivam, contra Apollinarem." One finds the same wording in CG IV. ch. 33. Cf. Augustine, De Genesi contra Manich., Bk. I, ch. 8,14 (CSEL91,p. 80)(cited inSTIII. q. 15, a. 8); andDediv. Quaest. 83, q. 80, n. 3 (CCSL 44A, pp. 236-7) (paraphrased in STIlI, q. 5, a. 3). Cf. as well Alexander of Rales, III Sent. d. 15, n. 54 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 168): "ChriStus solum ilium habuit qUi est admiratio. "For an analysis of Christ's admiratio in Aquinas' thought, cf. M.~B. Schwalm, Le Christ d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 3308. 102. The first objection in STIlI. q. 15. a. 8 alleges that wonder is opposed to Christ's perfection in knowledge, as ''wonder pertains only to the ignorant" (admirari non est nisi ignorantis). The second objection focuses on Aristotle's assertion in Nic. Ethics, Bk. IV, ch. 3 (1 I 25a2) that "the high-minded man is not given to wonder:' a problematic position in view of Christ's perfection in high-mindedness (Christusjuit maxime magnanimus). The last objection centers on Christ's perfection in power, , since ''no one wonders at what he himself can do. yet Christ could do all the great things there are to do" (nullus admiratur de eo quod ipse facere potest. Sed Christus facere potuit quidquid magnum
, erat in rebus).
416
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
logical reflection. Again, Thomas never projects his.own preconceived understanding onto the theological matter at hand; rather, he allows the revealed words of Scripture to determine his thinking, as even the casual glance at any of his commentaries on Scripture makes abundantly clear. Aquinas' analysis of Christ's admiratio points additionally to the untested limits to which he was willing to drive his position on the integrity and reality of Christ's passibility of soul. The reader of the treatise on Christ's passions in the Tertia Pars may find it strange, of course, that Thomas should hold up Jesus' "wonder" (admiratio) as an example of a "de~ fect of soul" in Christ, i.e., as one of the disagreeable passions to which Jesus was subject, to be grouped along with other such passions as sorrow, fear, anger, and the like. It might also seem strange to consider the experience of Jesus in Mt 8:10 as a genuine example of a disagreeable affective occurrence in the first place (we shall see, in fact, that Aquinas, aware of this oddity, offers an alternative regard for Christ's wonder). One may even consider the qualification of "wonder" as a passion or as an affective phenomenon as itself suspect. To be sure, admiratio stands out as the only passion examined in Cluist that garners minimal treatment in the treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars, for the obvious reason that, as a specific kind offear, it fails to represent one of the eleven main types of passion. In the treatise on Christ's passions, then, the query on Jesus' admiratio owns an anomalous air. Yet, it remains no less a significant contribution, and one that, like the previous passions, requires a familiarity with Aquinas' background perspective on this specific passion, a perspective that, however brief, can be culled from the Prima Secundae Pars ofthe Summa. 1. Wonder or Amazement (admiratio) as a Passion of the Soul
Aquinas -discusses the passion of wonder or amazement (admiratio) in two principal loci in the treatise on the passions in the Prima Secundae Pars: the first surfaces in the analysis of the passion of joy or pleasure (delectatio), wherein Thomas examines admiratio as a cause of pleasure (q. 32, a. 8: Utrum admiratio sit causa delectationis); the second appears when the Dominican theologian delineates the various species of fear, among which he places admiratio, in q. 41, a. 4. This latter classification, which frames (or appears to frame) the ensuing Christological query in Tertia, q. 15, follows upon Thomas' strict adherence to the thought of Nemesius and Damascene (as well as Albert the Great), all of whom look upon wonder as a species of fear: ''Wonder is the kind of fear," Damascene writes, ''that
PAUL GONDREAU
417
arises fro~ someth~n~ imagined as great. "103 Building upon this locution, Aquinas proposes
th~ followmg descnption of wonder as a type of fear: "When a person considers some great evil, whose outcome cannot be judged, there follows wonder. "104 It is in this sense that wonder emerges as a passion of the soul. However, Th?mas, betraying an equivocal usage of admiratio, recognizes that wonder need not always Issue from the perception of something hannful: Whereas fear reacts ~nly to evil, wonder responds to fonnidable and unusual thing~, whether good or eVI~ .... [Hence] not every kind of wonder is a species of fear, but only that wonder which ensues upon a great evi1.105
Notably, the "o:~er". ~d of,:,onder to which this passage alludes Aquinas earlier identifies as a type of desrre ; speCIfically, wonder equates with the desire for knowledge as the following key text, which echoes the thought of Aristotle, makes clear: ' Wonder is a kind of desire for lrnowledge, a desire that OCCUrs when a man sees an effect whose ~ause is either unlrnown to him, or is beyond his lmowledge or faculty of understanding. Co~s~quently, wonder is a cause of pleasure, inasmuch as it includes a hop~ for ob~atnlng the knowledge that one desires to have .... Wonder gives pl~asure ... Since by It a person learns something new, viz., that the facts are something other than what one used to think.I06
This kind ?fwonder also qUldi~es as a passion of the soul (specifically, as a type of desire), although Its mhe~ent aSSOCIatIOn with knowledge, or, more precisely, with intellectual knowledge, explams why prima facie it may seem unusual to classify it as an affective
~03 .. D~asc~ne, Defide ~rth., Bk. II, ch. 15 (ed. BuyIaert, p. 122): "admiratio est timor ex magna Ima~matlOne. Cf. ~em~s1Us.'De,~at. hom, ch. 20 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, p. 103): "kataplexis autem est timor ex magna Imagmatlone. Thomas offers this definition of admiratio in STI-II q 41 a 4 argo 1; :md.II~, q. 15, a. 8, argo 2. Albert for his part favors the Damascene-Nemesian udde~st~din~ of admlratlO mDe bono, tr. 3, q. 5, a. 2 ad 42 (ed. Colon., p. 202). 1?4. STI-II, q. 41, a. 4: "cum scilicet aliqUis considerat aliquod magnum malum cuius exitum conslderare non sufficit. Et sic est admiratio. " 105. STI-II: q. ~1, a..4, argo 4 a~d ad 4: "Timor non est nisi de malo. Sed admiratio et stupor sunt de magn~ e~ msollto, slve bono Slve malo ... non quaelibet admiratio et stupor sunt species timoris s~d admlratlo quae ~t de magna malo." Compare this to Avicenna, De anima, Pt. V, ch. 1 (ed. S. v~ ~Iet, vo1. 2, p. 73); De proprietatibus autem hominis est ut, cum apprehenderit aliquid quod rarisSlmum est, sequitur passio quae vacatur admiratio. " ~06. ~TI-II,~. 3~. a. 8, corpus and ad 1: "Est autem admiratio desiderium quoddam sciendi, quod m homzn~ contln.g!t ex hoc quod videt ef(e~tum et ~gnorat causam, vel ex hoc quod causa talis efJecIus exce~zt COgnztlOnem aut facuit~tem '~~ZUS. Et ~deo admiratio est causa deiectationis, inquantum ha~et adzunctam sp,em con~eq~endl cogmtlonem elUS quod scire desiderat.. Admiratio est delectahilis ... mquantum admlrans alzquld novum addiscit, scilicet ta/em esse quem non aestimabat " Cf. Ari _ totie,Rhetoric. Bk. I. ch. 11 (1371031-3). . . s
418
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
movement. Adding to this dilemma is Thomas' assertion in the commentary on John's Gospel that admiratio, because of its link with intellectual knowledge, represents a "passion of the rational or intellectual soul" (though no such mention is made in the Summa; indeed, that the Summa issues its comments on wonder in the treatise on the passions suggests a different view).I07 For this reason, wonder as a desire for knowledge of an unknown cause differs considerably from the passion of wonder as fear, which for its part ensues upon the internal sense knowledge supplied by the imagination. The two kinds of wonder also disagree in tenns of object: the passion of wonder as desire has as its object knowledge of a hidden cause of an observed effect (a kind of bonum simpliciter), which designates it a passion of the concupiscible appetite (if, in fact, Aquinas sees it as a passion of the sensitive appetite); the passion of wonder as fear owns the imagined great evil as its object (a type of malum arduum), and therefore belongs to the irascible appetite. By the first passion, an adolescent may yearn to understand the cause of seasonal changes in weather, and take pleasure in knowing the reason once it is ascertained; by the second, a person diagnosed with a tenninal illness may suffer the uncertainty of the eventual outcome of prescribed trealmeot, fearing the consequences of an unsuccessful result. 2. Utrum in Christo fuerit admiratio When Thomas comes to affinning wonder in Christ in Tertia, q. IS, a. 8, he focuses almost, exclusively on the agreeable passion of wonder, or wonder as a desire for knowledge of a hidden cause: "Wonder concerns what is new and unexpected" (admiratio est de aliquo novo et insolito), as the Master from Aquino asserts in the opening line of the corpus, after which point he examines the various types of knowledge in Christ Only in the second objection does he cursorily acknowledge wonder as a type of fear in the Damascene-Nemesian sense, to which Aquinas responds, in an obvious attempt to deflect attention away from this disagreeable side of wonder: "Christ did not wonder at the Centurion's faith [in Mt.
107. Lect. super loan., ch. 1, lect. 7: "Admiratio autem est passio animae rationalis et int.el/"cliy"'; cum sit desiderium cognoscendi causam occultam e/fectus visi. " In STI-II, q. 22, a. 3 ad 3, following Augustine (De civ. Dei, Bk. IX, cb. 5 [CCSL47, p. 254]), aflinns tbat the tenn reference to intellectual operations employs an equivocal use of the tenn, since such operations nify simple acts of the will having similar effects [to passion] but without passion" (significant plicem actum voluntatis cum similitudine e/fectus, absque passlone). Thus, intellectual actions resemble passion but in the strict sense they are not movements of passion; cf. STI-II, q. 32, a. 4 2; De malo, q. 8, a. 3; and De ver., q. 25. a. 3, corpus and ad 7.
PAULGONDREAU
419
8: 10] as if it was great with r . ers."108 espect to hImself, but because it was great with respect to othThe reason that Aquinas concentrates on th I' ~ agreeable rather than disagreeable sense of '. IS rea lzatlOn no matter the h . gO'illg cItatlOn, that wonder as a kind f' (. ' enneneuhc of the forewh 0 lear I.e. the fear that U 'de Ose outcome Cannot be J'udged") d ' const rs some great evil Jes . M 8 oes not accurately reflect th ffi . us 1D t : 10, which reports' "Upo h . h' e a ectlVe experience of followed him, 'Truly, I say to ;ou no~e:an?g 1m, Jesus marveled, and said to those who n a desire for knowledge of an unkn~wn ca: 1D Is~ael ?ave I found such faith. ' .. Wonder as for the Centurion's impressive show off; .~e ~r, In thIS case, the desire to mow the reason Aquinas confinns this by earlier claim' al .), hett,::rconfonns to the plain sense ofMt 8'10 on John' G mg m t e ,ertia Pars as well . h' . . d.' as 1D IS commentary s ospel, that Jesus' admiratio as ahum . II ' expresse mMt 8'10 p h' an tnte ectuaI soul-over and b h' . " roves IS possession of a ove IS possessIOn of a sensitive soul:
admiratio undoubtedly stems from h'
This position [of the heretic Apollinarius th . tellectual soul] runs contrary to the Go at Chnst had. a sensitive soul but no inveled,asMt8:lOattests Yet ' . spel account, whIch relates how Jesus mar. . . . . ., expenencmg wonder requires re asonmg, SInce It implies a companson of cause and effect. i e wh its cause, we seek to Irnow it, as ~~;d' ~~ w; see an effect while being ignorant of ill e Irst book of the Metaphysics. !09 This [view of Apollinarius] is plainl f l ' . cred Scripture, which attributes ce~' a ~~' SInce It c~nflicts with the authority of savinity, nor to his sensitive soul nor to ~~ ~n1: to Christ that cannot belong to his di~ asrecountedinMt8'1Q For: ~o d .IS es ,.suchas Christ's experience of wonder , n er IS a paSSIOn that arises fr . Iectual soul, since it " pertains to the - 1 ' kn om a rational or intel,n: Th c. ueSlre to ow the hidden c if b eJJe~t. erelore,just as SOrrow forces one to ffi . ause 0 an 0 'Served Christ, so too does the experience of d a Inn, contra Anus, a sensitive soul in . an mte . IIectual soul in Christ. no won er compel One to post A IUS, 1 ,contra polIinar-
STIlI, q. 15, a. 8 ad 2: "Christus non admtrabatur defid .. 'g11'o q'UOi'tum ad ipsum, sed quia erat magna quantum ad It. e ~~nturlOnzs ea ratione, quod esset q 5 a 4· " R ' a os. aec POSttlO adversatur narrationi e t . , '. ssemi,eotl'm, . Admiratio autem absque ratio vange lCae, quae commemorat eum "
7:7::;;
420
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
PAUL GONDREAU
To accom~lish this, Aquinas turns to the elaborat
Observing this line of reasoning, then, Thomas places the view of wonder as a desire for knowledge of a hidden cause at the basis of his remarks on Christ's admiratio in Tertia, q. 15, a, 8. Admittedly, this marks an awkward moment in the analysis of Christ's passions, not least of which because, by looking upon Jesus' wonder as a kind of desire, Thomas takes a momentary respite from the perspective of Christ's affective suffering, or of his assumed "defects of soul," that otherwise dictates Tertia, q. 15. (The unannounced and unexpected nature of this respite is underscored by the fact that the placement of this query immediately after the analysis of Christ's fear implies that Aquinas will examine Jesus' wonder under the rubric offear.) Further, even if one opines that the desire for unobtained knowledge technically qualifies as a "defect" of the soul-"wonder pertains only to the ignorant," Thomas assertslt1-one is still left with the dilenuna of reconciling this "defect" , with Christ's perfection in knowledge: "Christ was igoorant of nothing," Aquinas vigorously proclaims. liZ Moreover, the fact that Thomas remains vague on whether admiratio as
a kind of desire for knowledge represents a genuine passion of the sensitive appetite or merely an operation of the intellectual soul that reserobles a passion adds to the awkwardness of Tertia, q. 15, a. 8 (though he does affirm in the cO/pus that Jesus' wonder represents an "assumed affection" [assumpsit hunc affectum]). Consequently, the fact that, in the face of such poigoant incongruities, Aquinas refuses to remain silent on the issue of Christ's admiratio indicates that the issue was of pressing concern to the Dominican Master; this was : no doubt occasioned by the Christological tendencies of his medieval day to reject the possibility of admiratio in Christ, given the prevalent views concerning Cluist's onmiscience.. To be sure, Aquinas' determination to give theological credibility to the issue ofJesus' wonder does not remove the dilemma that such an affective occurrence directly conflicts with the tenet of Christ's perfection in knowledge. That is, if Thomas wishes to affirm that Christ's wonder, as Mt 8:10 relates it, sterns from Jesus' desire to know the hidden cause (viz., the Centurion's faith) of an observed effect (viz., the Centurion's show of trust in Jesus), the Dominican theologian must do this in such a way that does not contradict his oth-
. ,
he forges earherin the Tertia Pars (qq. 9-12), a theol~ theology of Christ s knowledge that bnef summary. Thomas posits three kinds of human gy that w." shal~ present here only in vme and uncreatedknowledge which owe t h' d.knowledge ill Chnst (apart from his di-
cm:
human soul, since this soul beiongs to t? ISh IVIne nature and which cannot serve his Chalcedonian definition of faith d s s ot ~r nature, a nature that, according to the ture): beatific knowledge, infused :o:fe~es no ~lXtur~ or confusi~n with his divine na-
The first two types of knowledge-b t'fi ge, d~ acqUIred or expenmental knowledge 113 . ea 1 lC an mfused-r d . sees It, to affirm the tenet that Christ' de f ,espon to the need, as Thomas di .. s gree 0 knowledg t . emus match hIS unsurpassable gmty as God incarnate. By his beatific kn 1 ~o~iders Jesus to have enjoyed, Christ 's m~~ edg~, a result of the visio Dei that Aquinas attains m himself. 1l4 This beatific knowledge b h' h to the very essence of God as he is mind, remains properly ineffable or .' y w I? G~d dIrectly unites himself to the human ~ince no intelligible concept can cont~~:~:e:~~~e, I.e., beyond conceptualization as Such, mtel.l ect to the knowledge gained from the light~; e~sence. To a~pt or proportion Christ's ,g ory of the VlSID Del, or to translate his beatific knowledge into properly conce tual must be given to Christ· by this infuser kn (~r d'usable"! knowledge, infused knowledge eeptualize in a manner ;uitable to hl's h owe. ge, Christ can, as Aquinas affirms COD. . uman mmd the sup d ' . reme egree of knowledge he possesses, even If mfused knowledge is strictI edge, since it is obtained not from s y speakmg a properly angelic form of know1edge, that is, refers not to human ~~set~penence but.directly from God. Infused knowlwrites: w e ge m the strict sense of the term. Thomas thus
.
We must admit that Christ's soul possessed an infused 1m
I' o~ledge, whereby the Word ns s sou, Impnnted on the soul of Christ
of Gad. which Was personally united to Ch . t'
erwise intransigent stance on Christ's supreme omniscience.
For an overview of this matter, cf. J.-P. Torrell "St Th ,. . I' "Somas d Aqum et la SCience du Christ: ~ thomasiennes. Etudes reVUes et augm rS e (pa .amme de theologie," in J.·P. Torrell te ~Iypulblished in Saint Thomas au xxe siecl C ~n es ans. J. Vrin, 2000), Pp. 198-213 (origi~ ed. S-T. Bonino [paris: Editions SL Pa:i 1~9~]que du centenaire de la Revue thomiste (1893~:~:;:;;:;~:V~~O:~l.e~I' pp. 135-49; J.-I{ Nicolas Synth' ' ~p. 394-409), at 199-203; idem, Le Christ en tf: . .e Ie lo~ Posizionifonda:nentali~~ v;;::~q~e, ~P. 3?5-4?3; D. Ols, Le cristolo_ Edltnce Vatlcana, 1991), pp. 152-79' dF C ~ a ottrma ~l S. Tommaso (Vatican exposition ofAquinas' theory o~ ~:m . kunnmgh~, Christ and His Sacraments, 19re'es 'ifR.~n01~/e,dg~ trans. B. Wall and M R Adam an(N nowledge zn general, cf. J. Maritain, The '. son ew York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938),
'\:;::,~~;~r~ des Questions 9-12 de la Tertia Pa 'd
111. STUI, q. 15, a. 8, argo 1: "admirari non est nisi ignorantis." Cf. as well STI-II, q. 32, a. 8, I.
112. STIlI" q. 15. a. 8 ad 1: "Christus nihil ignoret."
421
STIlI, q. 9, a 2· andq 10
,
"
aa.
1-4 Cf·
.
.
. J.-H. NIcolas, Symhese dogmatique, pp. 384-92.
422
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
intelligible species ... in the same way that the Word of God imprinted intelligible
species on the angelic mind at the beginning of creation.... Apart from his divine and uncreated knowledge, Christ's soul possesses a beatific knowledge, whereby he
knows the Word and all things in the Word. Christ also possesses an infused or imprinted knowledge, whereby he knows things in their proper nature by intelligible species proportioned to the hUman mind,lIs
However, lest Christ's human mind be created either superfluously or entirely in vain, his mind must retain its proper human function, viz., to advance in knowledge through the acquisition of ideas culled from sense data or sense experience. For this reason, Aquinas attributes a kind oflmowledge to Christ that he tenns "acquired" or "experimental" (scientia acquisita experirnentalis). With acquired or experimental knowledge, Christ knows things from the proper operation of his human intellect, i.e., he'lmows things in a way that corresponds to the manner in which the human mind is meant naturally to function; without ac-
quired knowledge, Jesus would know things only from the light of beatific glory, which eludes the natural aptitude ofthe human mind, and from an infused grace from God, which also exceeds the proper capacity of the human mind, since it is a form of angelic knowledge: Christ possessed acquired knowledge, which is a distinctively human form of knowledge ... .Infused knowledge, on the other hand, is attributed to the human soul on account of a light infused from on high, a manner of knowing that is proportioned to the angelic nature. And beatific knowledge, by which the very essence of God is seen, is proper and connatural only to GOd. 116
PAUL GONDREAU
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~oughhis existential exp~rien~es:1i7 ~or Aquinas, in other words, it is not inconsistent, proVIded one make the foregomg dlstmctlOns, to maintain that Christ owns every perfection in
knowledge--and tha~ he therefore "receives no knowledge by the teaching of any man"ll8 -whtle at the sarne lIme. atImm~g that Jesu~ learns new things and advances in knowledge through the proper functIon of hIS human mmd. For the issue of Christ's admiratio which
presuppo.ses a certain degree Qfimperfection in knowledge. this means Jesus can~o as to
p~rfect- hIS h~an ~tellect~leam "new and unexpected" things through the operation of hIS human mmd, whtle havm~ already known these (and all things) through his infused and beatific kno~ledge;as he wntes m the reply to the first objection of Tertia, q.15, a. 8: "Although Christ was Ignorant of nothing, new things could still occur to his experimental knowledge, th~reby causing him to. wo~der."1l9 Formulating his full response to the question of utrum m Chrzsto jUerzt admlratlo, then, Thomas writes in the corpus: Prop.erly speaking, wonder concerns what is new and unexpected. Yet, there could be nothmg n~w or unexpected with respect to Christ's divine knowledge, nor with re~ spect to hI~ human knowledge. by which he knew things either in the Word or by infused .speCles. However, new and unexpected things could Occur to his acquired or expenmental. knowledge, :vh;re~y' new things happened to him each day. Thus, if we are speakmg abou! Christ s dIvme knowledge;his beatific knowledge. or his infu~ed knowledge, Christ had no sense of wonder: But if we are speaking about his acqUlre~ knowledge, Christ could experience wonder, and, indeed, he assumed this affec~on f~r?Uf i~struction, i.e., in order to teach us that we should wonder as he himself did. It IS m tlns sense that Augustine writes: "That the Lord wondered means that we ~o should wonder, since we need to be so moved. Hence, all these emotions are not SignS of a disturbed mind. but of a master teaching. "120
Complementing the omniscience that stems from Christ's beatific and infused knowledge, then, is Christ's acquired or "imperfect" knowledge, whereby Jesus grows in knowledge
115. SrflI, q. 9, a. 3; emphasis mine: "Et ideo oportet in Christo ponere scientiam inditam, inquantum per Verbum Dei, animae Christi sibi personaliter unitae, impressae sunt species intelligibiles ". sicut etiam per Verbum Dei impressae sunt species intelligibiles menU angelicae in principia creationis ... Praeter scientiam divinam increatam, est in Christo, secundum eius animam, scientia beata, qua cogniscit Verbum et res in Verba: et scientia indila sive infusa, per quam cognoscit res in propria natura per species intelligibiles humanae menti proportionatas." Commenting on Christ's infused. knowledge, F. Cui:mingham (Christ and His Sacraments, p. 157) explains: "By his infused knowl- . edge, Christ knows all things except the essence of God"; cf. ibid., and III, q. 11, aa. 1-6. . 116. STIlI. q. 9. a. 4: "est in Christo scientiam acquisitamfuisse. Quae proprie est scientia secundum modum hU11Janum ... Scientia autem infusa atlribuitur animae humanae secundum lumen desuper infusum; quo modus cognoscendi est proportionatus' naturae angelicae. Scientia vero beata, per' quam ipsa Dei essentia videtur, est propria et connaturalis soli Deo." Cf. as well STIlI, q. 12, aa. 4; and Lect. super loan., ch. 4, lect. I.
ll~. Cr..a.M. M~tera, La s~ienza acquisita del Cristo. Dottrina di San Tommaso d'Aquino. MemoU'e de hc~nce (Fnbourg, ~Wltz.: Faculty or Theology of the University ofFribourg, 1995); J.-P. Torrell, Le ChrISt en ses mysteres. vol. I, pp. 145-8; F. Cunningham, Christ and His Sacraments pp 1~8-9; L. Wa1~h, note "a" to Summa theologiae, vol. 49, The Grace o/Christ. pp. 96-7; and i-H: Nicolas, Synthese dogmatique, pp. 377-80. I I 8.. ~TIII, q. 12, a. 3, sed contra: "Christus non accepit aJiquam scientiam per doctrinam alicuius hommls. " 119..STIll,~..15, a.. 8 a~ 1: "Licet Christus nihil ignoret, poterat tamen de novo aliquid occurrere expenmentalz elUS sClentlae, ex quo admiratio causaretur. ., 120. STIli, q. 15, a. 8: "Admiratio proprie est de aJiquo novo et insolito.In Christo autem non pot~rat esse aliquid novum et insolitum quantum ad scientiam divinam; neque etiam quantum ad sci· entuzm huma~am. q~a .cognosceb.at res in Verbo;, vel qua cognoscebat res per species inditas. Potuit tamen esse all~~ld S~bl novum et insolitum se~ndum scientiam experimentalem, secundum quam sibi · ~oterant q~oll.dle aIzqua nova occurrere. Et ideo, sf loquimur de Christo quantum ad scientiam div· mam et sCienti~m ~eatam. ve~ etiam in/us~m. non fuit in Christo admiratio. Si autem loquamur de eo quantum ad sCientlam·expenmentalem, SiC admiratio in eo esse potuit. Et assumpsit hunc affectum
424
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
With this reply, Aquinas betrays the evident difficulties involved in making Christ's experience of wonder fit in with his overall position on Christ's knowledge; in short, Thomas ascribes "new and unexpected" knowledge to Christ to the furthest extent possible without at the same time jeopardizing the tenet of his perfection in knowledge. If, therefore, he opines that Christ experienced wonder "for our instruction" rather than so much for his own benefit, it is because Jesus, endowed with infused and beatific knowledge, had no need to learn "new and unexpected" things in the strict sense; he expressed wonder only to prow vide the human family' with an example to imitate. It should be noted that this view of Aquinas, even if reserved, marks a significant advancement not only from his earlier position, but also from the position of his contemporaries. By his own admission in the Summa (quamvis aliter alibi scripserim), Thomas' doctrine on Christ's growth in acquired knowledge, which underwent considerable development until the very -day he ceased writing, conflicts with what he writes in his commentary on the Sentences, where he denies (along with Alexander of Hales, Albert, aod Bonaventure) acquired knowledge in Christ."1 Naturally, Aquinas' earlier refusal to concede Christ's growth in humao knowledge explains in part his silence on the issue of Jesus' admiratio before the writing of the Summa (while the rejection of acquired knowledge in Christ by his contemporaries explains their own enduring silence on the same). What i~ duced Thomas to change his mind were the following three factors: first, the compellmg WItness of Lk 2:52 ("And Jesus increased in wisdom, in age, and in grace before God and men")122; second, his evident concern to uphold the dignity of God's creation, including
ad nos tram instruetionem, ul scilicet doceat esse mirandum quod etiam ipse mirabatur. Unde Au~ gustinus dicit [cf. De Genesi contra Manich., Bk. T, ch. 8, 14 (CSEL. 91.' p. 80)], 'Quod miratur Do"!i~ nus, nobis mirandum esse signifieat, quibus adhuc opus est sic maven Omnes ergo tales motus elUS non perturbati animi signa sunt, sed docentis magisterium. " 121. For Thomas' earlier position, cf. III Sent, d. 14, a. 3, sol. 5, corpus and ad 3; and d. 18, a. 3 ad 5. For his change of opinion, cf. STID, q. 9, a. 4. Cf. Alexander of Hales, Summa thool. (Summa bal.), Bk.lII, inq. I. tr. 3. q. 2. ch. 5 (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 4, pp. 170-1); III Sent. d. 13, n. 10 (ed. Quaracchi. p. 131); Albert, III Sent, d. 13, a. 10; and d. 14; and Bonav nture, III Sent, d. 14, a. I,.qq. 1-2; 7 and a. 3, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 318-23). For a detailed analysts of the change m !h0mas tho~gh! ' right up until the very end of his career, cf. l-P. Torrell, "S.Thomas d'Aquin et la sCience du Christ; pp. 207-10. For the singular achievement of Thomas' position relative to his predecessor~, cf. ~.T: Ernst Die Lehre der hochmittelalterlichen Theologen von der vollkommenen Erkenntms Christl (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1971), pp. 170-203; and P. Kaiser, Das Wissen Jesu Christi in der lateinischen (westlichen) Theologie (Regensburg: Pustet, 1981), pp. 150--67. 122. STIlI, q. 12, a. 2, sed contra: "Dicitur Lk 2:52, quod 'Iesus projiciebat sapien/ia, et aelate, et gratia apud Deum et homines. '" cr. l-P. Torrell, "St Thomas d' Aquin et la science du Christ," pp. 202-3.
PAUL GONDREAU
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the iniegrity of Christ's human intellect-"nothing implanted in our nature by God" Thomas writes, "was lacking in the human nature assumed by the Word of God"'23. and third, his opposition to the Latin Averroist notion of monopsychism (the theory positi;g on~ ~tellectw:l soul for all humans) prevalent at the University of Paris in Thomas' day.'" It l~ ImperatI~e. to realize, then, that Aquinas' remarks on Christ's admiratio demonstrate his smgnlar wIlhngne~s and det~rmination, particularly near the end of his life, to uphold the fulln:ss and mtegrlty of Christ's human affectivity within the limits allowed by his ChristologlCal psychology.
Nonethel.ess, one must acknowl~dg~ the deficiencies 'in Thomas' Christological psychology, particularly as they ~urface 1~ hIS comments on Christ's admiratio in Tertia. q. 15, a. 8. For the modem theolOgian, the unage of Christ that Aquinas presents relative to the knowledge of Jesus-perhaps the most hotly contested element of Thomas' Christology-~tar:~s at ObVlOU,~ odds WI~ the conception of Jesus fonnulated by the various Christologles from. below that .do.m.mate co?temporary theological currents. Without entering into the ma~er m great detail, It IS SuffiCIent to mention some of the typical problems that issue from thIS aspe~t of Thomas' thought in order to illustrate its tenuousness:125 first, with the presence of an Infused knowledge, whereby the Word supplies Christ's human intellect with the mtelligible species by which it knows all things, Jesus' human mind is effectively render.ed superfluous, or at leas~ useless; second, since infused knowledge is a properly angehc form of~owledge, Christ's human mind, as Aquinas conceives of it, becomes nothing oth:r than a SImple ~lone ofan angelic intellect; third, by positing an infused knowledge in Christ, one,~ay lOgically conclude, as has in fact been concluded (though certainly contrary to Thomas. mtentlOn), that Jesus, whIle ahve on earth, knew all things that a human mind can ~ow, mcluding the most advanced elements of quantum physics, or of nuclear engineenng, or of marine biology, etc.;I26 fourth, Thomas' theory of Christ's knowledge is
123. STIlI, q. 9, a. 4: "nihil eorum quae Deus in nostra natura plantavit defuit humanae naturae assumptae a Verbo Dei. " 124. This is the position ofl-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol.' I, p. 145. For more on Thomas' :~bate with monopsychism, cf. Torrell, The Person, pp. 191--Q; and idem, Maitre spirituel pp. 342125. For a detailed discussion on this matter, cr. J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres vol 1 pp 138-48; and idem, "St. Thomas d'Aquin et 1a science du Christ," pp. 200-l. '" . : 126. In a. me~orable passage from "St. Thomas d' Aquin et la science du Christ," p. 201, n. 2, J.-P. Ton:ell wntes: Ev~one recalls the celebrated assertions of the Salmanticenses: according to them
Christ must ~e. cons1der:d not only the greatest dialectician, philosopher, mathematician, doctor, moral or polItical theonst, but also the greatest orator, musician, painter, fanner, seaman, etc., cf.
and
PAUL GQNDREAU 426
427
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN 1.'HE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
purely and simply a glorified reading of the New Testament, as Scripture nowhere affirms such a view on Christ's perfection in human knowledge, etc. Furthennore, even ifhis position is not inconsistent, Aquinas in the :ery least expre~ses a hesitancy, as seen in his own vacillations, when he ~ss~ t~at Christ ~t the same ~me learns "new and unexpected" things through the operatIOn afhis human mtnd. and re~e~ves "no knowledge by the teaching of any man." This double take c,?mes aCI?SS most Vlslbly when Thomas, without a hint of embarrassment, states that, by. acqUIred know~edge Christ's human intellect knew whatever is knowable by the operanon of the agent mtellect" (though Aquinas does add that this perfection in acqoired knowledge was relative to Jesus' age, with the result that, as I.-P. Torrell writes, "The .inf~t Jesus reaso~ed In a, way different from the adult he would become");127 or that, agam, Although Christ was IgnOrant of nothing, new things could still occur to his experimental knowledge, ther~by causing him to wonder" (though J.-P. Torrell has argned ~at one ~ay ":,ders~,~ th,S lack of ignorance to involve only that which concerns Jesus redempti,,:,e missiOn). One cannot avoid the impression that Aquinas remained undecided as to whIch way better corresponds to the truth of Jesus' knowledge. What these remarks indicate, then, is that, far from a fixed doctrine, Aquinas' the?I?' of Christ's human knowledge was very much a work in progress, whereby the DomInICan Master continued to refine his position until the very end of his life, even to the point ofaeknowledging his own errors (and even at the end he must have ~een aware of the weaknesses of his final position). With this in mind, one would not m any .sense be breakmg faith with the spirit of Aquinas by admitting that, if Thomas had for hIS nme made great strides in affirming and elucidating the reality of Christ's admiratio, he snll had far to go in this endeavor at least from a modem theological perspective. Without a doubt, st. Thomas has pro~ided his readers with an insightful yet purely initiatory introspection into
Cursus theologicus, tr. XXI, De incarnatione, disp. 22, dub. 2, n. 29, vol. 15 (paris, 1880), pp. 32021." .. ( 127. STIll, q. 12, a. I: "per scientiam acquisitam seivit omnia illa quae poss.unt ~em p~r ac IOnem intelleetus agentis.· Cf. q. 12, a. 2 ad 1 for Thomas' assertion that Jesus'perf~cti~~ In ~q~lred ~owl. edge was relative to his age (secundum hane scientiam Christus no~ a p:mclplo ~elVlt omma, .set!, paulatim etpost aiiquod tempus), to which J.-P. TorreIl ("S. Thomas d AqUl~ et la SCl~ce d~ Chris p. 203) responds: "Autrement dit, I'enfant Jesus raisonnait autrement que 1 adulte qu ~evlendra. TIlI q 15 a. 8 ad 1: "Licet Christus nihil ignoret, poterat tamen de novO aIzquzd occu,?,ere , 128 • S ,., " l' PT 11 "s Th d'A um et experimentali eius scientiae. ex quo admiratio causaretur. CI. J.- . lorre, . omas q , la science du Christ," pp. 208-10.
y
7,
the experience of wonder in Jesus. For, holding that Christ experienced wonder "for our instruction" only rather than for his own benefit is hardly the most one can say on the subject. E_ CHRIST'S EXPERIENCE OF ANGER
The last passion Aquinas examines in Christ-anger-is perhaps the most intriguing, if for no other reason than the minimal (if almost nonexistent) attention it has received in the history of Christological thought, despite the fact that it represents the passion that the Gospels most attribute to Jesus.'" To open his analysis of Christ's anger in Tertia, q. is, a.9 (as well as in his Sentence commentary), Thomas, betraying again his theological method by which he looks upon Scripture as the norm of all theological reflection, turas to one such Gospel reference as evidence of the occurrence of this passion in Jesus' life: "In 2:17 affirms that Jesus [in driving the money-changers out of the Temple] fulfilled the words of Ps 68: \0: 'Zeal for your house has consumed me. ",,30 The theologian who deserves credit for initiating full theological introspection into Christ's anger is Thomas' Franciscan colleague at the University of Paris, Alexander of Hales (in the De malo Thomas falsely attributes the explicit appropriation of anger in Christ to Damascene), whom Bonaventure follows in this respect. 131 In his commentary on the Sentences, Bonaventure underscores the significance that this passion holds in his eyes by placing the examination of Christ's anger second on the list of specific passions to be examined in Christ, i.e., after the analysis of Jesus' sorrow, a maneuver that Aquinas reproduces in his own Sentence commentary.132 Perhaps more than with Christ's other passions, a large and formidable line of resistance looms over the attempt to respond affinnatively to the query of utrum in Christo fuerit ira,
129. Cf. chapter one, n. 7 for the thirty references to Jesus' anger found in the Gospels. 130. STm, q. 15, a, 9, sed contra: "loan. diciturde eo esse imp/etum quod in Psalrno legitur, 'Zelus domus tuae comedit me. ," Cf. as well III Sent, q. 2, a, 2, qc. 2, sed contra. Strangely,Aquinas is silent on Christ's anger in his commentary on In 2: 17 in his Leet. super loan. 131. Alexander of Hales, Summa theol. (Summa hal.), Bk. III, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 4, d. 3, memo 2, ch. 1, a. 5 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 65-6); III Sent, d. 15, nn. 6 and 28 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 152-60); and Bonaventure, III Sent, d. IS, a. 2, q. 3 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 339-40). In De maio, q. 12, a. 1, sed contra 4, Thomas asserts: "Damascenus dicit in III libro feh. 20 of Deflde orth.1 quod ira/uit in Christo." Buytaert's critical edition ofBurgundio of Pisa's Latin version ofDamascene's work does not bear this out; cf. pp. 259-60. Also,Augustine offers a passing reference to Christ's anger in De div. Quaest. 83,
q. 80, n. 3 (CCSL44A, pp. 236-7): "we read from the Evangelists that Jesus was amazed, angry, sorrowful,joyful, and that he experienced countless other emotions" (evangelistis narrantibus legimus: Et miratus est Iesus et iraoo et contristatus et exhilaraOO et multa alia innumerabilia). 132. Aquinas, III Sent. q. 2," 2, qc. 2.
428
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
PAUL GONDREAU
particularly because of the blinding power of this passion-with Aquinas himself fully acknowledging that anger impedes the use of reason more than any other passion.'" In this sense, the remarks from Gregory the Great's Morals on the Book ofJob, an immensely influential work throughout the entire Middle Ages, express well the nature of the problem; here, Gregory suggests that no person can escape the morally disruptive force of anger (for which reason Alexander of Hales excludes anger as a passion from Christ): "When anger is a vice it blinds the mind's eye," Gregory writes,."and when it is zealous it disturbs it."134
Related to Gregory's assertion is the Aristotelian notion that anger represents the vice opposed to the moral virtue of meekness, a virtue that, like all others, Christ possessed to a su-
perlative degree. 13S Further, as with Jesus' sorrow, a heated debate with the Stoics surrounds the discussion on Christ's anger, as the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca insists that no wise or virtuous person allows himself to become angry. Various passages from Scripture also
I"
offer rather caustic remarks regarding anger, such as Jas 1:20, which Thomas cites as the first objection to affirming anger in Christ in Tertia, q. 15, a. 9: ''The anger of man works not the justice ofGod."l37 To mount a credible theological defense of the experience of anger in Christ's life, Thomas must therefore contend with some fairly stalwart objections. As with the previous
133. STI-II, q. 48, a. 3: "of all the passions, anger is the most manifest obstacle to the judgment of reason" (ira inter caeteras passiones mani/estius impedit iudicium rationis). Cf Albert, Super Ethica,
Bk.lII, lect. 3 (ed. Colon., p. 153); and P. Engelhardt, "Mensch und Christ in der Spannung von Vernunft und Leidenschaft," p. 140. 134. Gregory, Moralia in lob, Bk. V, ch. 45, n. 82 (CCSL 143, p. 279): "Ira quippe per vitium ocu· lum mentis excaecat, ira autem per zelum turbat. "Thomas cites this passage both in III Sent, q. 2, a 2, qc. 2, argo 2; and in STili, q. IS, a. 9, a'll. 3. Cf. Alexander of Hales, III Sen( d. 15, nn. 6 and 28 ' (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 152--60): "Dicendum quod ira per zelum, vel est ut actus, et sic erat in Christo, . vel ut passio, et sic non erat in Christo, quoniam ira passio est cum perturbatione ... Ira per zelum sumitur ut actus vel ut passio. Ut actus, erat in Christo quando elecit ementes et vendentes de tern· plo; ira-passio in nobis est." ' 135. Cf. Aristotle, Nic Ethics, Bk. Iv, ch. 5 (1l25b26-1l26blO); Bk. VII, ch. 6 (l149a241-149b26); and Rhetoric. Bk.lI, ch. 2 (1378a31-1380a5). Thomasrefers to Nic. Ethics, Bk. N, ch. 5 in III Sent, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 2, argo I; and in STlll, q. 15, a. 9, argo 2. Cf. as well STII-II, q. 157, a. 1: and Sent. Libri ' Ethic., Bk. N,lect. 13. 136. Seneca, De constantia sapientis, ch. 9 (ed. Ruhkopf, p. 351): "Caret autem ira sapiens, quam' excitat iniuriae species; nec aliter careret ira, nisi et iniuria ." For more on Seneca's position, cf 1.' Fillion·Lahille, Le "De Ira" de Seneque et la philosophie stoi'cienne des passions. Aquinas refers the Stoic view on anger in STII-II, q. 158, a. 1 ad 1; Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. IV,lect. 13; and De q. 12, a. I, argo 12, and corpus. For the problems that Seneca poses for the issue of Christ's p",,,ions: cf.ll! Sent, d. IS, q. 2, a. 2, qc. I, argo 2; andDever., q. 26,-a. 8, argo 9. III Sent, d. IS, nn. 6 and 28 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 152-60); and Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrater; 2, mem. 7 (ed. Quaracchi. p. 251). For more on Aquinas' familiarity with Seneca, cf. M. Sp'mneu~ "Influences stoiciennes sur la pensee morale de S. Thomas d' Aquin," p. 53. 137. Vulgate: "Ira enim viri iustitiam Del non operatur."
429
passions in Christ, Aquinas begins this defense b t . f ~ ~Ing to the more detailed analysis of anger that he develops in the Secunda P guiding light for explaining the reality of ~;:u~, an;er~mma, which will in turn provide a
1. The Human Passion ofAnger
P~oviding the reader with a marvelous study on the emotion . , dicate that he gave extensive reflection t t h i ' of a.nger, Aqumas writings inits moral worth. He devotes a total of ~ s passl~n, both. fo~ Its aff~ctive quality and for study of anger in the treatise on the pas . ree ~ue~hons. compnsmg SIxteen articles to the the treatise on the virtues in the Secun;~o;: In ~ e 7;'ma ~ecundae Pars (qq. 46-48). In Aquino assigns more attention to the m raJ cu~. ae f ars 0 the Summa, the Master from eating an entire question of eight articles~ th~u~ lty o( anger than any other passion, dediity of anger as well in one uestion com 0 IS Issue q..158) ..Thomas examines the moralvarious passages in the co!mentary on ~~~o~{~v~artlCles In the De malo (q. 12), and in this amplified approach to the relationsh' b t e s lcomachean Ethics. 138 The reason for stems from the traditional identifi ti IP. e ween anger and the moral life undoubtedly of the capital sins or vices. 139 ca on, gomg back to Gregory the Great, of anger as one . Although sympathetic to the classification of an er '. . Independence and balance of thought b . . . g as a capital Vice, Aqumas proves tral. Aware, in other words that an y mSlstmg that anger is on its own morally neuI' , ger represents a passion or t a movement of the will Thomas c full fu , a sensa e rea lty rather than , are y re ses to equate anger with sin as such: hiS
It is not always a sin to be angry [since] a passion of the sensitive appeti~~' is good ~~er ~;~perly Sreaking is a passion, and when it rejects the order of reason. 140 en 1 IS regu ated by reason, and evil
To buttress this line of reasoning, Thomas rem' ds h' .IS reader that anger constitutes. the of anger unto the good of reason and no virtu ess~ l.~., ?tat meekness regulates feehngs , e can eXist If ItS very subject matter is entirely
proper subject matter of the moral virtueofmee:
Cf. especially Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk.lY.lect. 13; and Bk VII I 6 Gregory, Moralia in lob, Bk. XXXI ch 45 nn 87 8 ,ect.. a. 4; II-II, q. 158, a. 6; and Lombar~ lISen; d '42 - h (6 C( ~L ~43B, pp. 1610--1). Cf. STI-II, STII-II. q. 158, a. 1, sed contra and a 2. tq d'''''.p",1Si<me.m. , . . ,"" .... Cl non semper est malum' . . :- ualn Passio autem appetitus sensitivi intantum es .." lra prop~le nomlordinem rationis exc1udat est mala" Cf D I t bona, mquantum ratlOne reg· Lab,our,de~:e, Les actes humains, p. 253.' ' . e ma 0, q. 12, a. 2 ad I; and M.-M.
C
430
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN TIlE
PAUL GONDREAU
431
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
eradicated. Put another way, since virtue strikes the mean between the extremes of excess and defect the virtue of meekness involves not the total absence of anger (the extreme of defect), b~t instead the mean of anger, i.e., anger ordered to reason. From this,Aquinas, in a splendid passage from his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, identifies the virtu-
ous (or "meek") individual not as the one who, in typical Stoic fashion, stands immune to all movements of anger, but the one who shoulders his anger, once it has arisen, in a rationally appropriate manner:
v~ngean:e: ~hich it desires to have, and the other object under the aspect of evil, the lDJunous person, on whom it seeks vengeance. 144
VIZ.,
As this pas.sage makes clear, anger involves the confluence of several passions both agreeable and dlsagreeabl-"Anger is both pleasant and unpleasant," J.P. Reid wri~es "exhilarati?~ and d~sturbi.ng"14S-which include the following: sorrow, since anger r;acts to a con]omed evIl; deSIre, as anger entails the affective longing for retribution; hope, inasmuch as anger longs for vengeance as a future good difficult to obtain; and pleasure which arises
The praiseworthy man is the one who is angry about the right things, at the right
people, and in due moderation, since he is angry as he should be, when he should be, and as long as he should be. 141 As a passion, anger is defined, in agreement with the thought of Aristotle (as well as of Nemesius, Damascene, and Albert), as the desire to avenge an "unjust slight" (iniusta parvipensio) committed against oneself (as iIlustrated in the case of a person who becomes angry when charged an unfair price).142 This definition of anger leads Thomas to look upon
this affective movement as the most complex of all the passions, since it is composed of a twofold inclination, the one toward vengeance (a good) and the other in retreat frum the person or thing that has perpetrated the unjust slight (an evil). Anger, in other words, differs from all other passions by owning both a good object, viz., the perceived possibility for
vengeance, and an evil or harmful object, viz., a perceived enemy-"Anger tends toward vengeance as toward a good," E. Gilson explains, "and sets itself against an adversary as against an evil. ")43 To let Aquinas express it: The movement of anger tends in two directions: first, to vengeance itself, which it desires and hopes for as being a good, and which causes pleasure; and, second, to the person on whom it ~eeks vengeance, as to something evil, since it is perceived as c~n trary and harmfuL ..Hence. anger regards one object under the aspect of good, VIZ.,
141. Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. IV, lect. 13: "I/le igitur qui irascitur in qUibus rebus oportet et etiam quibus personis oportet et insuper medio modo se habet in modo irascendi, quia irascitur sicut oportet et quando oportet et quanto tempore oportet, talis homo laudatur. "Cf. STII-II, q. 158, a. 1; and De malo, q. 12, a. 1. 142. STI-JI, q. 46, aa. 1-2; q. 47, aa. 1-2; and De malo, q. 12, a. 2. Damascene, Defide orth., Bk.. II, ch. 16 (ed. Butyaer4 p. 122), citing Nemesius (De nat. hom .• ch. 19 [ed. Verbe~e-Moncho, p'.1 02]). ' calls anger the "desire for vengeance" (ira est et desiderium vindictae). Cf. Anstotle, RhetOriC, Bk. II, ch. 2 (l378a31-2); Albert, De bono, tr. 3, q. 5, a. 2 ad 43 (ed. Colon.,p. 206; cf. P. Michaud-Quantin, La psychologie de l'activite. p. 98). For an analysis of Aquinas' vie,,:s on anger, cf. D.F. Cates, Choosing to Feel, pp. 20-1; and J.G. Milhaven, Good Anger (Kansas CIty, MO: Sheed and Ward, : 1989). 143. E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy, p. 285.
when one .entertains the notion of eventual vengeance. 146 Aquinas insists, however, that the~e pass.IOns do not enter into the composition of anger as its constituent parts; rather,
theIr r~lation to ~ger stands as th~t of cause to effect-these passions playa role in eng~ndenng the pasSIOn of anger, not 10 composing it. 147 Anger, then, shares more in common
WIth both the con~up~scible and irascible passions than any other movement of affectivity, although the pas~l~n Itself belongs to the iras.cible appetite, since both the vengeance anger
seeks and the eVil It attacks are perceived as difficult or arduous.148 .D.eserving of particular attention is the close relation between sorrow and anger: "Only ~ lD]ury that causes aneta ~el sorrow," Thomas explains, "moves a person to anger '" ~mce the vengean~e of anger IS soug.h~ as a remedy for the sorrow in question. "149 Anger, III oth~r wo~ds, anses only when an lOjUIY, specifically the conjoined evil (in.conviens) of an unjust slIght, has occurred, and the immediate presence of an evil, which the anger
144. STI~II, q. 46. a. 2: "Et sic motus irae tendit in duo: scilicet in ipsam vindictam quam appetit e~ sperat ~ICU~ quoddam. bonum, unde et de ipsa delectatur,' tendit etiam in ilium de quo quaerit vindlCtam, Slcut '~ contranum et nocivum, quod pertinet ad rationem mali ... Ira respicit unum obiectum secundum ratlonem boni, scilicet vindictam quam appetit; et aliud secundum rationem mali scilicet hominem nocivum de quo vult vindicari. " ' 145. J.P. Reid, note "c" to Summa theologiae. vol. 21, Fear and Anger. p. 93. 146. STI-II, q. 46, a. I; and q. 48, a. 1. Cf. M.-M. Labourdette, Les actes humains, p. 252. 147. STI-II, q. 46. a. 1 ad 3; and a. 3 ad 3: "Anger is said to be composed of sorrow and desire not as though they were its parts, but because they are its causes" (Ira dicitur componi ex tristUta et desiderio. non sicut ex partibus, sed sicut ex causis). 148. STI-II, q. 46, a. 3. 14~. ST~-I!,.q. 47, a.~. and q. 48, a. 1: "nihil movet ad iram nisi nocumentum quod contristat ... cui qUldem tnstmae remedIum adhibetur per vindictam." In Compo theol.• ch. 232, Thomas writes: ''when . we e~peri~nce sorrow over that which is harmful to us, we become angry at it" (dum aliquo ledente ~ con~rlstatl sumus, contra eum irascimur). Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric, Bk. n. ch. 2 (1378a31); and Nic. . EthICS, Bk. VII, ch. 6 (1149b2Q-1); Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 19 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho, p. 102); and Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. II, ch. 16 (ed. Butyaert. p. 122). For the same in Aquinas, cf. ST I-II, q. 46, a. 2, argo 3, and a. 3 ad 3; q. 47, a. 1; II-II, q. 158, a. 2 ad 3; Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. IV,lect. 13; Bk. VII, Iect. 6; and De malo, q. 12, a. 2 ad 5.
432
PAUL GONDREAU
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
433
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
attempts to correct, always induces sorrow; a person suffers the (sa?dened) los~ of a large
sum of money, for example, through investment, and as a result be7om~ angry :V son who had offered faulty fmancial advice. Thomas will exploIt thIS close link between anger and sorrow in the analysis of Christ's anger. Since anger involves an element of justice, inasmuch as it seeks to avenge what one perceives as an Wljust slight-"Vengeance is an act ofjusti~e," Thomas ~teslS0-and ~ince justice relates to human reason, the passion of anger reqmres, so Aqumas asserts, a Judgment of reason for its elicitation: lth the per-
writes, "[for which reason] anger is the most manifest obstacle to the judgment of rea· of anger, therefore, a distinctly paradoxical air, sOD. "154Th • ere hangs over teh paSSIOn whe~by I~ ~merg~s as both the greatest affective ally and adversary of reason, which Aqulllas, cltmg Aristotle, attempts to articulate in the following passage: . As stated in the Ethics, "Anger'listens to reason to some extent," since reason denounces the injury inflicted; yet anger "listens not perfectly" to reason, since it does not observe the rule of reason in meting out vengeance. Anger therefore requires an act of reason, while at the same time impeding reason. ISS'
Anger is a desire for vengeance, yet vengeance requires assigning punishment in due measure for the injury committed ... .And since judging and i.nferring pertain to reason, anger in some sense requires an act of reason. 151
As this pas~age intimates, anger, though acting as the arm of justice, may issue from a
Here Aquinas takes his inspiration from Nemesius and Damascene (and somewhat from Ar-
of so~e perceived unjust slight, no matter the objective status of the action in question.
istotle), who dub anger "reason's courage" and the "vindicator of des~e."152 In short, ru;tger
always involves the attitude that the matter at hand should be otherwIse, or that the gl~e~ maltreatment is undeserved, which, as such, implies a rational judgment. To be sur~, It IS because of anger's strict reliance upon reason that this passion can boast of a ce~m ~o bility and inasmuch as it attempts to act as the arm of justice through exacting retnbutlOn (for ~hich reason M.-M. Labourdette calls anger the ':appetit~ for justice""'), it enjoys a more immediate capacity for integration into the practIce of VIrtue: . Certainly, anger can also-more so, in fact, than an7 other pasSlOD~ct as a hmdrance
to the practice of virtue and the judgment of reason. This occurs as a partIcular result of the
turbulent bodily modification that accompanies movements of anger, WhlC~ are. ~,lca1ly mtense: "Of all the passions, anger causes the body the greatest amount of dIsquIet, Thomas
skewed deSIre for vengeance--"Vengeance may be desired both for good and for ill "
Aquinas explains 1S6-since hwnan individuals all too easily consider themselves the vic~s That 18, because of the acute subjective dynamics involved in feeling slighted, which is en-
hanced bY?,e ~eeply vested interest that accompanies such occurrences, the affective purSUIt of retnbution often exceeds the judgment of reason, and thereby breaches the bounds of sound moral conduct: "If a person desires vengeance in any way contrary to the order of reason," Thomas writes, "then the desire of anger will be sinful, and is called vicious anger. "157 Ra.the~ than execute. the order ofjustice, then, sinful anger works directly against the order ofJustice-"The object of sinful anger," Aquinas asserts in the De malo "is unjust vengeance, which is ... contrary to the duty of justice"158-and may, because dfits vehem~nce, . lead to other vices. This allows one to agree with Gregol}' the Great's classrficahon of anger as a capital vice. 159 Nonetheless, the crucial point remains that, as Aquinas insists, the desire for vengeance may respond.to the. duty of virtue and to authentic moral concern, inasmuch as it helps to
subdue genume evIl and to restore the order of justice. The Dominican theologian does
150. STI-II, q. 46, a. 7: "vindictam ad iustitiampertinet." . ' 151. STI-II, q. 46. a.4: "Ira est appelitus vindictae. Haec autem co//ationem.iml!0rtat.poe~ae zn- " jligendae ad nocumentum sib; ilIalum ... Conferre autem et sy//ogizare est ra/loms. Et zdeo lr~ est : quodammodo cum ratione." Cf. as well Sent. Li.bri Ethic., Bk. ~II, lect. 6; De malo. q. 12, a. I, and III Sent, d. 15. q. 2, a. 2, sol. 2 ad 3. For how ammals can expenen:e anger, cf. ~TI-~I. ~. 46. a. 4 ad 2; and a. 7 ad 1 (where Thomas discusses how human anger can ans~ from the lmagma~lOn as ~e~l). 152. Nemesius, De nat. hom., ch. 19 (ed. Verbeke-Moncho. p. 102): Ira vero est audacla r:;entls vzndex desiderii." Damascene cites this in Defide orth., Bk. II. ch. 16 (ed. Butyaert, p. 123): Est au/em ira fd quod audax est mentis, vindex concupiscentiae." Cf. Aristotle. Nic. Ethics, Bk. VII, ch. 6 (1l49a25-1l49b3). . 153. M.-M. Labourdette, Les actes humains, p. 252. Cf.A. Pie, n. 5 toSTI-II. q. 46, a. 6, In theologique, vol. 2, p. 290; and E. Gilson. The Christian Philosophy, p. 285.
154. STI-II, q. 48. a. 3: "ira maxime facit perturbationem corporalem .. ' ira inter cae/eras passiones manifestius impedit iudicium rationis." For more on the effects of anger in Aquinas, cf. Sent. Libri Ethic., Bk. IV. Iect. 13; and Bk. VII, Iect. 6. 155. STI-II, q.46, a. 4 ad 3: "Sicutdicturin Ethic. [cf. Bk. VII, ch. 6 (1l49a25-1149b3)] 'ira audit
aliqualiter rationem, •sicut nUntiantem quod iniuriatum est ei, 'sed non peifecte audit, 'q~ia non obrependendo vindictam. Ad iram ergo requiritur aJiquis actus rationis, et additur impedimentum rationis." Cf. De malo, q. 12, a. 2. 156. STII-II, q. 158, a. 1: "potest enim vindicta et bene et male appeti. " 1~7. ST II-II, q. 158, a. 2: "Si autem a/iquis appetat quod flat vindicta qualitercumque contra ordmem rationis ... erit appetitus irae vitiosus; et nominatur ira per vitium." Cf. De malo, q. 12, a, 1-. 1~8 .. D~ m.alo. q. 12. a. 3: "obiectum ire secundum quod est peccatum est vindicta iniusta que mchzl alzud est quam nocumentum illalum proximo contra iustitie debitum. "
s~rvat regulam rationis in
. 159. STII-II, q. 158, a. 6; and De malo, q. 12, a. 5.
434
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
not hesitate, in fact, to designate such desire as "praiseworthy": _"It is praiseworthy to desire vengeance as a corrective of vice and to preserve the good ofjustice."160 The desire for vengeance therefore is not, so far as Thomas sees it, inherently maligned, as if it correlates only with some kind of primitive and obsolete fonn of retributive justice which bears little if any relation to a superior class ofjustice. Yet, to qualify as virtnous and praiseworthy, the desire for vengeance must strictly adhere to the dictates of reason; if this happens, one may, with Gregory the Great, designate it as "zealous anger" (ira per zelum): "If a person desires vengeance in accordance with the order of reason," Aquinas writes, "the desire of anger is praiseworthy and tenned 'zealous anger. "'161 Even zealous anger, however, hinders "some~ what" (aliqualiter) the order of reason, since rational judgment cannot prevent the onset of the vehemence of the somatic side of anger; on this point, Thomas is quite clear, though he recognizes that zealous anger, while obscuring reason somewhat, does not obstruct it en~ tirely, thereby leaving intact its essential goodness: Anger that acts in accordance with reason is ,good and is called zealous anger....This anger, though it impedes somewhat the judgment of reason in the execution of its act, does not cancel out the rectitude of reason. l62
2. Utrum in Christo fuerit ira
Aided both by the weighty witness ofScriptnre (specifically the episode of the expulsion ofthe money-changers from the Temple in In 2: 17), and by his neutral regard for the sense appetitive status of anger (inasmuch as it is not always a sin to be angry), Aquinas has lit-
160. STII-II, q. 158, a. 1 ad 3:
ira per zelum ... Haec autem ira, etsi in ipsa executione actus iudicium rationis aliqualiter impediat, non tamen rectltudinem rationls tollit." Cf. De malo, q. 12, a. 1 ad 4.
435
~e~!~~;~f~~~~:~~ the~eality of affective anger to Christ's. life. (This contrasts with
Even S
b" 10 . uenced by Seneca, dentes the paSSIOn of anger in ChriSt.163) one can, y companng the commentary th S tect a noticeable development of thought in AqUi~':.s :n t~~~e:a~:: ::eh::rtia Pars, del 0,
~hh~:h~;;;~i~f;~~~~i~:' ~:~~::: ~~~~~;:;;:::~~~d"::~' ~~~:gp~~i::~~:a:"nrg:e~":as:i .. ,
w en e wntes:
angeri~ a passion of the irascible power, which arises when the sensible a etite tend to
eradl~ate what is perceived as contrary to that which is wished for
!Pdesired I~
~ger anses from the command of reason or from ordered reason then it is a zeal~us
~?d ?ffuanlger, and such anger was in Christ If, however. anger is disordered 1
IS sm
,then such anger was in no way in ChriSt.I64
as When •
~n the Summa, Aquinas, while continuing to situate the notion of zealo uttressed now by the authority ofAugustine-at the core of the
u~ anger-
~:~iderablY to refle.ct his evolved understanding of the passi:a~~~~ie~~~;:s~:,:%~
cI:se~yg;~~qthuates w~th anfaffective desire !or vengeance, while at the sa~e time relating e pasSIOn 0 sorrow, predominates:
As ~tated in the Second Part (cf. Prima Secundae. q. 46, a. 3 ad 3' .47 a.3' . a. 1. Secund~ Secundae. q. 158, a. ~ ad 3], anger is an effect ofs~rr~w. For. ~~~:8~ ?~rsonthexpenences sorrow. there arIses a desire in the sensitive part to fight off the IllJUry at has been done to himself or to another Hence ang' . d f . " er IS a pasSIOn compose 0 sorrow and the deSIre for vengeance. Now, it was earlier shown that Christ
436
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S
souL IN THE
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
PAUL GONDREAU
437
As for the desire for vengeance, sometimes
could experience sorrow [cf. q. 15, a. 6]. k g ance outside the order of reason; . h ersonseesvene . h this may be smful, as w en a ~ . er could not be in Christ. Sometimes, ow-
it, rather than to succumb to it (which concerns sorrow). Observing the foregOing logic, Thomas thus writes in the Compendium theologiae: "Just as Christ experienced sorrow, so also did he experience the other passions that proceed from sorrow, such as fear, anger, and the like."'" For Aquinas, an avowal of the reality of Christ's sensible pain leads straight to a confession of his sorrow, his fear, his anger, etc. And since the reality of Christ's sensible pain sits at the heart of the Christian mystery of the redemption from sin, the reader cannot , help but see Thomas' recognition that to retain human salvation, one must retain all that 'plays an essential role in the defining act of that salvation: not only Jesus' sensible pain, but
such anger, which is known as ,VICl?US an~n' and is even praiseworthy, as when a perever, the desire for vengeance 1~ W1tho~e o;der of justice, and such anger is. called son desires vengeance accordmg to, h' tate on In 2'17] that "He who IS CODA f e says [m lstrac '. d zealous anger. For, ugus 10 d desires to correct all the perverSIons he sees, an _ sumed by zeal for the house of ~ b ars them." This was the kind of anger ex 'fthey cannot be corrected, he Sighs and e 1 . 165 perienced by Christ.
A
forefront remarks . at edthe to exploit toof thehis fullest the . as' decision to place the link between SorroW and danger . . h rt, qum f e a tacncal move eSlgn
on Christ's anger represents,? cours .',
ecific assions with his sensible pam; m s
0
logic of beginning the analySls ofChrist s s~ ~l door to Jesus' other disagreeable pasthe reality of Christ's sensible pam o:;::,ns t t;au; Christ's physical suffering compels one
tha~~:s the reality of Christ's sensible pain, blatant
sions since the acknowledgment of
rea 1 :om this suffering: sorrow, fear, and anger.
to as;ent to Jesus' experience of all Tha t is J'ust as no sensible Chrisllan c
Y'fix' (and a central tenet of the Chrislian Ion 'I , Christ, since sorrow necessan y accom~ th Chri tian deny sorrow m . . mith), so neither can e s. uence And just as no sensible Chrisnan can d'I.spanies sensible pain as its affective co~seq 'fuer can one reject the presence of fear m pute the experience of sorrow m Christ, sOt~el f the same harmful object that engenders Jesus' life, since fear arises from the percep IOn 0 ards the erceived harmful object as yet sorrow, with the sole difference bemg that f~ar~~~ concern~ sorrow). Finally, the s~me ob-
' . h' tortuous and exposed for all to see m IS
CruCI
to come rather than as immediately pres~nt
~f
carnes:~~ W
money-ch~gers
into an affirmation of Jesus' expenence of
ligation affirming Christ's sorrow violent expulsion of the anger-blatant and exposed for all to see I hannful object that causes sorrow, With the from the Temple-since anger reacts to the same.. d hannful ob;ect and seeks to avenge
. that anger attacks the percelVe sole difference bemg
J
also his sorrow, his fear, his anger, and the rest.
Since Aquinas adopts the Gregorian appellation of "zealous anger" or righteous indig_ nation as an accurate depiction of the virtuous and praiseworthy type of anger, or the anger (or desire for vengeance) that observes the dictates of reason, it should COme as no surprise that the Dominican theologian qualifies Christ's affective desire for vengeance as zealous anger; in the Case ofIn 2:17 (cf Mt 21:12-13, and par., in the synoptics), Jesus, motivated by the desire to rectifY the order of divine justice by avenging the gross injustices that the commercial transactions transpiring in the Temple perpetrated against God, becomes manifestly moved to severe anger, all in accordance with his reason's imperium and supreme self-mastery, and expels the money-changers from the Temple's precincts by physical force. Commenting on this element of Aquinas' thought, M.-B. Schwalm writes: "(Jesus') anger against the money-changers in the Temple is a reasonable anger founded upon a zeal for the house of God."'" Thomas, of course, could have chosen any number of Gospel references . attesting to anger in Christ to illustrate his point: out of anger Jesus reproved the hypocrisy of the Scnbes and Pharisees, who in their unjust practices had abused their religious authority (cf. Mt 23:15; Mk 3:5; etc.); his ire arose in response to his desire to rectifY the injustice commined by his disciples' attempt to prevent children from approaching him (cf. Mk 10:14); etc. Indeed, more than any other passion, anger readily assists in and accords with Jesus' mission of salvation, which consists in reestablishing the order of divine justice that human sin has perverted.
. es ira est effectus tristitiae. Ex tristitia en~~ 165. STIli, q. 15, a. 9: "Sicut i~ Secund~ ~ars d~~::, a ~etitus repellendi illatam iniuriam vel SI~1 alicui illata consequitur in eo, c,rca S~~SI"V~~s~tia et a:;'etitu vindictae. Dictum est aute; qU~/~;:' vel aliis. Et sic ira est passlO com~os a.ex indictae quandoque est cum peccato: qua~ 0 SCI • Christo tristltia esse potuit·1ppetltus e~~m v (" nis Et sic ira in Christo esse non po~~t; hoc emm ali uis vindictam quaerit sibl absque or, ,~e ra la. · est sine peccato, tmmo est Iaudablbs: pu~a cum tus dic;tur ira per vitium. Quandoque vero Et hoc vocatur tra per zelum. Dicit emm/u. 166. Compo theal, ch. 232: "Sicut autem in Christo fUit Iristitia, ita etiam et alie passiones que ex aliquis appetit on In 2: 17] quod .'zelo1domu.; tristitia oriuntur, ut pula timor, ira et huiusmod,:" Cf. Leet. super loan., ch. II, leet. 5. gustinus Tract. inquae AO • . ' et si emendare non possll, to eral e g . ui omnia(cr. perversa videt ' CUpit emen d are, 167. M.-B. Schwalm, Le Christ d'apres saint Thomas d'AqUln, p. 307: "Sa colere contre les trafi_ qira fuit in Ch rls. to. " quants du Temple est nne coiere raisonnable fondee sur Ie zeie de la maison de Dieu."
~ails app::~tiae
vindict~mhseX,cu:d~~;~~~e3~,I;. ~05),
~~i~~~~ t:~:
PAUL GONDREAU
438
439
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
. _ d indeed, anger can even accord . .. t always a sm to be angry an, d did t tim In a word, smce It IS no . h Ids that Jesus could an a es with virtuous and praiseworthy bebvlOr-~omas ~Ious (or virtuous) in nature; in crackexperience movements of anger, whlCh was m':~~:mple (cf. Jn 2:15), Jesus was acting in ing a whip to drive the money-changers fro . key difference however, in the case of manner There remams a ' . , ) b tructs a laudahle and exempIary . I ger (or righteous indignation 0 s whose zea ousfan Chri'st's zealous anger in no way Jesus'. unlike in all other humans, . I) th· erium 0 reason, h somewhat (though no~ entl.r: y e Imp tl whereas Aquinas agrees with G~egory t e ed the ey.e of hiS spmt. Subsequen y, . d' e " the Dominican InsISts that I udo c . "disturbs the mm s ey , . . d Great's assertIon that zealous anger f .ginal sin on human affectivrty, un erChrist who was immune to the moral effect.s 0 don f the imperium of reason. (Here , th! 'thstood any dlsor enng 0 . f I went a zealous anger a Wl d' lify the Gregorian notion 0 zeaho Thomas disagrees with Bonaventure, v.: opts t~ IS':'cts 168) In his reply to the third obous anger from Christ's life because of ItS obscurmg e c:es Gregory), Thomas accordingly . . f ~ tia q 15 a. 9 (an objecMn that, agam, JectlOn 0 J.er
,.
,
writes: ut to im ede mutually each other, so that In us it is natural for the faculties of the so '.Pn of the other is correspondingly . intense the opera 10 if the operation of one power IS • f even when it is regulated by reason, weakened. This is why any m~ve~ent °so:~g;~, Christ, however, by a disposition of lauds the eye of contemplation In the . . ded by another, Hence ... the c fac Ity of the soul was notlmpe . ]69 the divine power ... one ,u . ' eded the act of reason in hIm, . of the lower part m nowise Imp passions
· 340) ThoughAlexanderofHalesq~l. 2 q 3 (ed Quaracch" p . , 152-60) it is agam, d 15,a." 168 Bonaventure,IJI Sent,. . 6 d 28 (ed, Quaracchi. pp. " . I us in III Sent, d. 15, on. an ifies Jesus' anger as zea 0 Christ experiences anger. . sion that, according to Alexander, I rd' em potentiae animae mutua se not as a pas "[ b' secundum natura em 0 m, , ( , STIli 169. ' q. 15, a. 9 ad 3: n nO . rs,potentlae operat,'ofiuerit intensa a/tenus opera lO;.._...Ait n,". pediunt: ita scilicet quod, CU,m um~am si sit secundum rationem moder.atus: utcumque Ex hoc procedU quod motus Irae: etl, moderationem divinae VlrtutlS ... " " ontemp/antis. Sed m Christo, per " It 'mpediebant actum ratlOms. ~;: :~:~:e~atur. Et ideo ... passim:e~;;~eri:r: f;~~~~~a~~, ~~1. 2 ad 2. Cf. Gregory. Mor~~ia ' offers virtually the same argument tn en, 'nture (JII Sent d, 15. a. 2, q. 3 [ed. Quaracc 1, ch 45 n. 82 (CCSL143, p. 279).Bonave 'tyofsP'iritorhis supreme rational co."'.tr01,1.0; Bk. v:, . , . ' disturbed hiS serem , . d" 1M d diCit a es that Christ's anger m nOWIse ., without disturbing hiS mm \' a ~ it "disquieted and troubled the senslt1~ partartis sensualis sine aliqua perturb~tl?ne . detestationis cum inquietatio ne ~t ~e~r;atlOne:e on this in Bonaventure. cf. FA. Sepmski, hoc modo lui! in Christo affectlO Ira e/. or rna chologie du Christ, p, 194.
t:
Though one may be tempted here to view this as another example ofAquinas' penchant for projecting a properly glorified "extra-biblical" experience onto Jesus, whereby Christ is influenced by anger in a way that only he can know, it bears recalling that, for Thomas, Jesus' sinlessness (a biblically based doctrine) necessarily translates into a singular moral experience of passion. To be sure, there emerges nothing from Aquinas' statements on Christ's anger that counters the image of the irascible Jesus that the New Testament relates. To the contrary, St. Thomas supplies an impressive and penetrating account of the passion of anger in Jesus' life that agrees in substantial measure with what the Evangelists recount. Though the Gospels refer to feelings of anger-that passion that wreaks the greaiest havoc on the imperium of reason-in Jesus more than any other passion, on no occasion in Scripture
does Jesus' supreme self~mastery and virtuous control appear to have been even momen~ tarily suspended or disrupted by the onset of this passion. We owe, in fact, Aquinas considerable credit for having the courage necessary forge ahead with a discussion on an emotion in Jesus that remains, even ifc1early attested to in the Gospels, a matter of no small uneasiness. To pen his remarks on Christ's anger, Aquinas had to contend with the weight
to
of Scripture, Stoic philosophy, and certain patristic authorities (especially Gregory the
Great), not to mention common human experience, all of which come down severely on the passion of anger because of its entanglement with sin. Even with historical precedent to support him, Thomas needed no less a degree of personal detennination to bequeath to us what we now find transcribed in Tertia, q. 15, a. 9. If this detennination was aided by the Dominican's obediential regard for the Sacred Page, we would be remiss to mention that his desire to underscore not only the integrity of Christ's human nature, but also of human nature in general, to which anger (and all sensate movements) belongs by essence, also played a key role in the fonnulation of his response to the question of utrum in Christo fiterit ira. In his reply to the second objection of Tertia, q. 15, a. 9, Aquinas turns to the distinction between vicious anger and zealous anger to clarify the point that Aristotle's categorization of anger as the vice opposed to the virtue of meekness implies vicious anger only,
not zealous anger. That is. Aristotle attempts to single out the affective desire for vengeance that acts contrary to the order of reason (and, thus, contrary to the duty of justice) as the
anger that subverts the virtue of meekness; the Stagirite's comment holds no validity for zealous anger, or the anger that acts as the arm ofjustice. This type of anger, which is a desire for retribution as a corrective of vice and as a preservation of the order of justice, is 1trictly reg1111ated by reason. Hence, it is invalid to infer from the presence of anger in Christ Jesus owned a vice, or that he did not possess consummate meekness:
PAUL GONDREAU
440
441
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
f hich is opposed to meekness, not It is the anger that oversteps the boun~:. ~ond;by reason since meekness holds the anger that is regulated and kept WI In Dun ,
the mean in anger,no
. . . J 1·20 ("The anger of man works not the As for Scripture's negative appraIsalh~f :gt~r 1~ o~s n~ted in the previous chapter, between justice of God"), Thomas reverts to IS. 5 me 1 1'. how the kind of anger that this Scripantecedent passion -and consequent pasSlOD~e:~P ~~ion of anger only, or anger that ari~es, turnl passage c~ndemns conce~s the ant:mandi~ imperium of reason. This passage .auns as in a subversIve manner, outsIde the ,co f g. the anger that issues from a Judgnot at censnring ~e consequentpasslOn ~e";'!~~~~e~ommand to rectify, through retribument of reason, aJ~d~ent ~at mth~olvd~St. t. in mind one can "affirm the passion of . the order of JustlCe. Wtth 18 IS mc lOn '. . . tton, . Christ while still upholding the veraCIty of Jas 1.20. consequent anger m . . fi t by preceding reason, whereby it drags A man can experience anger m two ways. rs., 'd to operate as a principal agent. It . . d' this way anger IS sal ying that "the anger of man works not reason mto operation, an m , d th e sa. . hen anger folis in this way that we should understan fGod"Buttheotherwayapersonexpenencesan gerlsw. h·cb . t' the JUs Ice 0 :. on's instrument. Such an operation, w 1 lows reason, servmg. as It were, as reas 171 pertains to justice, is attributed not to anger but to reason.
.' . th moral im lications of Jesus' experience of anger As should by thIS pornt appear ObVlO~S, ,e I is this passion in Christ, a striking imdominate nearly the entirety o~ Aq~tn~ ana ~s ks on Christ's other passions. This . es thiS With hIS preVIOUS remar .' presslOn when one compar. f defending Jesus' consummate exercise of VIrtue stems, of course, from the eXIgency a " stands out as the greatest obstacle to against the objection that, o~ all the p~ss10ns, ang~r that his endeavor, so vitally crucial moral perfection. More preCIsely, Aqu~nas ~ec~~lz:~ ce of Christ's human affectivity to his thought, to underscore the sotenolog1ca Signt lcan
J
." ditur ordinem rationis mansuetudini opponitur, n~n . 170 STIlI, q. 15, a. 9 ad 2. Ira quae transgre t" em "am mansuetudo medium tenet In . d d dium reducta per ra wn . lVI .~ autem ira quae est mo erata, a me t ·n III Sent d IS q 2 sol. 2 ad 1. ' ~.all th same argumen 1 ,.. . , . ira."Thomasadvancesvl1.u y e.. . h . Quandoqueenimpraevenitrattonem,. 171. STIli, q. 15, a. 9 ad I: "ira dupllclte: s~a~:ti~: d~;:~:~perari; nam operatio attribuitur prin- , et trahit eam secum ad operand~m. ~t ~n P if> ,. viri iustitiam Dei non operatur.' Quandoque vera cipali agenti. Et secundum hoc mt~l~lgltur quod zr~. Et tunc operatio, quae est justitiae, non atira sequitur rationem, et est quasI mstrumentum IpslUS. , tribuitur irae, sed rationi. "
meets its stiffest challenge from the experience of anger in Jesus. For Thomas needs to show that Christ preserved his moral integrity while influenced by feelings of anger for two reasons: first, so that Jesus could adequately atone or satisfy for the sios of the hnrnan race, a tenet necessarily voided ifhis anger had ioterfered with his supreme self-mastery; and, second, so that the human race could see concretely how this emotion is integrated into the moral life, since it is in the area of anger, more than with any other passion because of its ability to handcuff one spiritnally, where Christ's disciples stand most in need of an affective model ofvirtne to imitate. It bears repeating that it is virtually impossible to separate Aquioas the dogmatic theologian from Friar Thomas the spmtnai writer, for whom again the very aim of theology is to lead one to salvation. For the Dominican, the stndy oftheology is spiritnal at its very core.
F. CHRIST'S PASSIONS AND HIS ENJOYMENT OF THE VISION OF GOD Aquinas terminates his treatise on Christ's passions with a query entitled "Whether Christ at the same time suffered and enjoyed the vision of God" (Tertia, q. 15, a. 10: Utrum ChrisIUs fuent simul viator et comprehensor). Literally, the issue centers on Christ's ability to tend, as a viator, Le., as an inhabitant of this earthly existence, to the eternal beatitude that awaits in the next life, while at the same time already possessing, as a comprehensor, eternal beatitnde through the fuji vision of God io his soul. 172 Put another way, this question aims at examining the way io which Christ could undergo both affective suffering as a result of his passible soul and supreme joy or beatitude as a consequence of the direct visio Dei his soul enjoyed. The poignant relevance that the tenet of Christ's earthly enjoyment ofthe beatific vision bears for Jesus' human affectivity explains why Thomas closes his treatise on Christ's passions with such a query-and why one finds allusions to this tenet in every major work in which he outlines his theology of Christ's hnrnan affectivity, from the commentary on the Sentences to the Summa. 17) We have seen, in fact, how the imposing nature of the tenet of Christ's beatified soul nrged the young Aquinas io his commentary on the Sen-
172. One finds the tenns viator and comprehensor already in Alexander of Hales, III Sent, d. 15, n. 54 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 170): "Concedo quod secundum quod comprehensor nul/am sustinuit passionem, sed in quantum viator fUi!. " Cf. as well Qu. disp. 'ant. essel/rater, , q. 16, disp. 3, memo 5 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 261). Bonaventure appropriates this tenninology in Brevil., pt. 4, ch.8 (ed. Quaracchi, p. 249): "simul debuit esse [Christ] viator et comprehensor. " 173. Cf. III Sent, d. IS, q. 2, a. I, sol. 3; a. 2, sol. I; and a. 3, sol. 2; De ver., q. 26, aa. 9-10; Compo theol., cbs. 231-2; STIlI, q. IS, a. 5 ad 3; a. 6; a. 10; and q. 46, aa. 7-8.
PAUL GONDREAU 442
443
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
t h 'tate in ascribing full passibility of soul to Christ, or affective suffering that orig:~:~: ~t:~~e proper operations of his sensitive appetite; although the dilemma posedt?Y this tenet is less pronounced in the Summa, Thomas continues to betray an acute senSllVity to it in this work as well.
L
b d th
bumin issue in Aquinas' Scholastic day since the time of Peter ?m
a:.'
es
e ~u -
tioerneAdofthWeha~;~;i~:;:I~~~~O:a:~!~::!e;:;~~:~:~{.,:~~:::~:d:~~fthe~:':;': n . th h II ffinn in varymg manners e con-
. . of Hales, Albert the Gr~at, and Bo~aventur~ Ofo~~:t':soul along with passible suffering . comitance of supreme JOY m the hlghethrP I ' ffi s particularly in the Tertia Pars of in the lower part, Aquinas of aU these- eo Oglans.o er, . dil 17' . th t fined theological explanatIOn of this emma. hIS be noted that Aquinas' position of the visio Dei marks again one of the. most hotly conteste ;'::e doctrine of Christ's Outside of Thomist circles, few ChristIan theologIans t?day .d 't t all And
~~~~:ing::~~i/~ould
:nIChris~ ~~;~k;~~~~~:
::~~t~~:~~:;i~:!:cth~:i~:e~~~~!;:~:ti:! :~:~:~~;n~::O!~~:~;
ars have sufficiently done, weshall treat th;,.mat~~tyrto
. . b J P 11 11· Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 2,pp. 330--9. For 174. This contentIon In conflrme? y l~·l o~ m fHales III Sent, d. 15, D. 54 (ed. Quaracchi, p. the position of the other scholas~cs, c. . exan er 0 6-7. and dis. 3, memo 2 and 4-5 (ed. 170); Qu. disp. 'ant. essetfrate. ~6(:SP' 2'h~etB~ inq'l tr.5 :. I memo 2, ch. I. a. 2 (ed. Quaracch~, pp. 246-61); Summa t eo. mm: 4~ D~ in~arn:, tr. 6,~. I, ~a. s.:.9 (00. Colon.,pp. 226-
a 7:r
k.
Quaracchl,pp. 200-1);Albe~:IlS;nt.
d'2~3 (;d: Quaracchi, pp. 355-9); and Erevil., pt. 4, ch. 8 (ed.
8); Bonaventure, III Sent, d. ,a., qq. ffi t" of Christ's affective suffering in the lower part Quaracchi, pp. 248~). On~ finds ~h~ s~e a ::e~on rt of his soul in the early 13th-century author of his soul along with beatific fruition In the g pa . ehri t II "p 37 §23) and in an. anony. Pri· "Q fones Concenllng s,·, , Magister Willermus (Ill .W. nClpe, ua~ I 13th century (in Principe, ibid., p. 39, §5). Lombard sets mOllS quodlibetal question also from the ear y C II B n v 105) when he affinns, in the midst the stage for this issue in III Sent, d. 16, .c~. 2 ~d~ t t~o~ ~:;'the perfect contemplation of God" of his analysis of Christ's ~uman affectivIty, lo~fied n~ase of human existence. Cf. C. Trottmann, La (Dei perfectam contemp/atwnem) fro~ the ~ d'fi ~t· r Benoit XII (Rome: Ecole fran~aise de vision beatiflque des disputes SCOlastlqUes a sa e lnl ton pa
d.·
Rome, 1995).
..
I
that the doctrine ofCbrist's earthly enjoyment
The most consequential work on the poob ems . J P: Torrell "S Thomas . .. .. volvesforThomas'theoryonChrist'sknowledgeremalns .-. , . d Chri t'" J _p Torren Recherches thomasienne. pp. 198-213 (cf. p. 204, .ofthe .vlslODel ~n d' Aqum et la SCience u s , m . . , 175
In hrief, Aquinas' belief in a Christ who is simul viator et comprehensor represents the Dominican's attempt at synthesizing two opposing medieval theological trends: on the one side, the push to affIrm the perfection of all knowledge in Christ, which forthe 13th-century Scholastics means that Jesus, in his earthly life, enjoys the direct visio Dei along with its concomitant supereminent joy;- and, on the other side, the need to underscore, contra Hilary of Poitiers, the psychosomatic reality of Christ's suffering and pain, which, again, in~ forms the entire Scholastic debate on Christ's passibility of soul. Psychosomatic suffering and supereminent joy do not make good bedfellows, paiticularly in Aquinas' system of thought, where the hylemorphic notion of redundantia, or the redounding effects of the soul's experiences onto the body and of the body's affairs onto the soul, plays a significant role; as the Dominican author explains in the Compendium theologiae and in the Tertia Pars: Christ's body should have been rendered impassible and immortal by a redounding of glory from the soul onto the body.... (For] according to the natural relation between the soul and the body, glory redounds from the soul's glory onto the body.116
Given the glory of the beatific vision that occurred in the higher part of Christ's soul, and its "nonnal" redmmding effects onto the lower powers of the soul and even onto the body, it would seem nonsensical to affirm the reality of psychosomatic suffering (including dis-
where Torrell confirms the fact that Christ's passibiIity presents the greatest obstacle to the tenet of Christ's beatific knowledge);.TorrelI offers a condensed version of this position in his Le Christ en ses mysteres. La vie et l'oeuvredeJesus selon saint Thomas d'Aquin, vol. 1, pp. 135-49, and vol. 2, pp. 330-9, where TorreIl analyzes ST III, q. 46, a. 8. For other works examining the issue, cf. D. 01s, ''Plenitude de grace et vision beatifique. Une voie peu frequentee pour etabHr la Vision b6atifique du Christ durant Sa vie terrestre," Studt tomistici 40 (1991), pp. 315-29; M.-l. Nicolas, "Voir Dieu dans la 'condition charneIle, ", Doctor communis 36 (1983), pp. 384-94; J.-H. Nicolas, Sjmthese dogmatique, pp. 408-9; P. Parente, L'lo di Cristo, pp. 277-83; lA. Riestra, Experiencia mistiea y vision bedtljica en Cristo segUn Santo Tomas (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1991); and J. Galat, "Le Christ terrestre et la vision," Gregorianum 67 (1986), pp. 429-50. Cf. as well O. Pesch, Thomas von Aquin, pp. 335-8; and F. Ruello, La christologie de Thomas d'Aquin, pp. 183-7,268-73, and
374-7. 176. Compo theol., ch. 231, and STIlI, q. 14, a. 1 ad 2: "eratut corpus impassibileetimmortale redderetur per redundantiam gloriae anima in corpus ... secundum naturalem habitudinem. quae est inter animam et corpus, ex gloria animae redundat gloria ad corpus." Aquinas invokes this notion of redundantia in Christ's case at the very inception of his career in III Sent. d. 15, q. 2, 3. I, sol. 3 ad 3, and a. 2, sol. 1. It next appears in De ver., q. 26, a. 10. For Aquinas' understanding of how the visio Dei involves perfect repose (perfecta quietatione) and consummate, unchanging beatitude, cf. Compo theol.. ch. 149. Cf. as wel1 J.-P. Torrell, "La vision de Dieu "per essentiam" selon saint Thomas d' Aquin." in J.-P. Torrell, Recherches thomasiennes. pp. 177-97 (ariginally published in Mierologus
5 [1997], pp. 43-68).
PAUL GONDREAU 447 446
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Christ suffered in all his lower powers, if we are speaking °hfthhehPro:r p::~o~~::s . F r in each of his soul's lower powers. W Ie ave mp hISo~:~;sP~~~~· h~'reason to feel grief. B1;1t Christ's higher reason di~ not suffer?D ~e ~rt of its object, which is God•. who caused Christ'~ soul to ~xpenence not gnef but ~elight and joy.... [Thus] while Christ was a vialor, hIS glory dId not redound from the higher part onto the lower part, nor from ?is soul o.n~ hIS body. T~ ~e t~~nl~~~;
since the higher part of Christ's soul was not unpeded III Its prop~r. ac Y . part, it follows that the higher part of his soul enjoyed perfect fruItion even whIle he
was suffering. t82
This position does not differ substantially from what Aquinas had already established in the De veritate, where one reads: Because of the divine power of the Word, the order of nature was subject to. his will. It was therefore possible that the redounding from the soul onto the bO! or ~ce v;7~ or from the higher powers onto the lower or vice ve~a. ~ho~ld ~ot e p :~~~'~ie: therefore evident that since there was most complete JOY m hIS hIgher reas. d' h' of the fact that his s~ul was enjoying the fruition of God, that joy re~ame m 1~ higher reason and did not flow over into the lower powers of the soul or mto the.bo:;; ~ h ' he cou"ld not have experienced pain or suffering .... Similarly•.the pam a ~a::~:~ body on accoWlt of the bodily injury and in the essen~e ~fhlS soul as the fonn of the body and in his lower powers, was not ~ble to reach h1s hIgher ~8~son, and thereby impede. however slightly, its action ofbemg turned towards God.
. bl matic from a modern theological perspective, whereby one may Although admIttedly pro e h logically dichotomized Christ, the notion of simu/ viwlsh to see m these passages .a p.syc o. . A . as' mind an eminently coherent afor et comprehensor in Christ III reahty secures 1D qUID 8 ( f a 8 ad 2): "sic loquendo de passionibus propriis potentiarum, 182. ST III, q. 46, aa. 7 and c..' . ' uia in singulis viribus inferioribus animae, quae patiebatur quidem secundum .omn~s Vlres l;I~rlo;,es~~ erat causa doloris Christi, sed secundum hoc r circatemporaliaoperantur,mvemebatu rqu q. b' CI' scz'/z'ceIDe; qui non eratanimae Christi . . I' btu 'nChristoexpartes uro le l" , superlOr ratlo non pa Ie a r l Ch . I ·alor. nonfiebat redundantia glorza a f . t gaudii cum rIsto era Vl , . d / causa dolorlS, sed e ecta IOms e , ... . S d quia nee e converso superior pars animae superiori parte in inferiorern. nee: ~b amm,a m c0'1!~' ';rem consequens est quod superior pars an, diebatur circa id quod est slbr proprzum per lnJerz , rmpe " " imae perfecte fruebatur, Chrzsto patrente. d' . . lulem "erbi eius voluntati subiectus erat orda 26 10' 'Nam propter zvmam VIr n, / 183. De ver., q. ,a. . t dicta redundantiasive ex anima in corpus ve naturae' unde poterat hoc contingere ut nonfie~e prae S· rgopatel quod cum in ra, "b "b 'n 'nferlOres vel e converso... IC e , e converso, sive ex supenon us Vlrl us ~ l . o'Fernlz'onem anima Deo fruebatur; ipsum . ' udium m quantum per elUS ... tione ~up~non es~et ~um,?,um ga. b' on derivabatur ad inferiores vires animae neque ad cor: gaudlum m superlOn ratIone pe~s~te at, et n . t Similiter dolor. quia erat ex laesione corpons pus: alias nu/lus dolor n~c pas,SlO m eo es~e potuls;e~~forma corpori;, et in inferioribus viribus, non in ipso corpore et essentla .ammae ~ecun um qu; odper actum suum in Deum convertitur, ut per poterat pervenire ad supenorem ~atlOn~m se~n um qu hoc ipsa conversio aliquatenus ImpedJretur.
and sound raison d'etre, provided one grasp the fundamentals of his philosophical psychology, whereby the ~~higher reason" and the "lower powers" of the soul retain logically-and really-distinct objects. (It should be recalled that, though composed of different "parts," the soul remains radically unified and, as a spiritual and indivisible entity, its division is not to be understood in a material sense.) As mentioned at several points in this study, the object of the lower powers is sentient reality, or singular objects perceived directly by the senses, whereas the object of higher reason is intelligible reality as such, or that which the intellect perceives under the common formality ofb,eing-the mind can attain to 'the knowledge of being in its most extensive sense (whence the capacityofthe human intellect to be elevated to the immediate beatific knowledge of God, since God's essence is identifiable with pure being).z84 Given this formal distinction in object between the higher reason and the sensitive powers, and the diverse operations that ensue from this difference in object, nothing precludes the theologian from holding that Christ's mind can perceive one thing, viz., the very essence of God, through its own proper act, while his lower powers can perceive another thing, viz., sense evils (or sense harm), through their own proper acts. IRS With Christ's mind and his lower sentient powers operating in their proper respective capacities in response to their own respective objects, Jesus is able, so Thomas affinns, to attain a simul viator et comprehensor type of existence. Supporting the tenability of the state of simul viator et comprehensor is the fact that it is analogous to the experience of many Christian mystics, who frequently speak metaphorically of several "chambers" or the soul and ofa deepest part of the soul (e.g., Teresa of Avila refers to the experience of tranquillity and love in the higher part of her soul at the same time that the lower part of her soul suffers the effects of physical turmoil). 18' If, then, the tenet of simultaneous joy and affective suffering in Christ's soul poses a serious challenge to Aquinas, it is not because such an occurrence entangles one in a web of philosophical or psychological inconsistencies; rather, it is because of the notion of re-
184. For the object of the higher reason, cf. STI, q. 84, a. 2; q. 86, aa. 1-2; Ill, q. 46, a. 7 ad 4; De ver., q. 10, aa. 5--6, and 11; and S. Cantin,1reatise on the Soul, pp.92-7. 185. Cf. STIII. q. 15, a. 10 ad I; q. 46, a. 8 ad I; Dever., q. 26, a. 10 ad 9, and ad 10; III Senl, d. 15, q. 2, a. I, sol. 3 ad 3; and a. 3, sol. 2, corpus, ad 3, and ad 5. 186. This isJ.-P. Torrell's point in "S. Thomas d'Aquin et la science du Christ," pp. 204-5; repeated in Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 2, pp. 337-8. Torrell adds that even Freud's psychoanalysis maintains a distinction between the subconscious and the conscious, where certain things that occupy the subconscious remain undetected by the conscious; as Torrell asks: "Why could there not also be in Christ's soul a supraconscious that was habitually inaccessible to him?" For Teresa ofAvila's remarks, cf. Interior Castle, 4th Mansion, ch. 1.
PAUL GONDREAU
448
449
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
oper:~i::
~!~;; ~::~~:r;;::a: ~~;:';:o~~
dundanlia, or of the effects that the ::o:e lower powers, as well as of~he effects th ds that ~e supereminent joy ofthe visio Dei h ers of the. soul. Thomas reah~es, m ot ~ wor t ~n account of the proper operations of the customanly annuls all affective suffenng n? . di t the fuJI vision of .. h hereby the sensItive appeltte, respon ng 0 sensltive powers as suc ,w f ffi . . (this would require the perception of sense God elicits only movements 0 a ectlve JOY d' ffi t fthe conobje~ts in the beatific vision), but ins:dlon acc~~!r~f~~~:,~~: :~:ll:~ ~~ the body. summate joy of the higher reason?n e .o~erp 10 onto the aff:ctive and bodily parts of Though this notion ofaredundantia ofspmtual g ry h" fhuman nature that the human being marks a logical consequence of the hylemo~ IC VIew ~ m Augustine and .. fA' 'th ught its initial msplrahon comes 0 is so charactensltc 0 qumas ~ , ( f I Cor 15'42-58) where St. Paul affmns that from Aristotle, as wellas from Scnpture '\ual 10 ;0 the b~dy (cf. as well 2 Cor 12:2g the resurrecte~ state wlll commumcate spIn th n~rmative value of the notion of reduno 4).187 For Aqumas there can be no dO~~ as: e d 'oy of the full vision of God nonnally dantia, or of the fact that the effects 0 . e g ~ry an I) the dilemma this poses for the case redound onto .the rest of ~e ~=: :~t::~e:'~~~: ~~ven to Christ as the means by which of Jesus, Aqumas appeal s 0 e v fth h condition was effecthe nonnal redundantia of.a beatifiedI ~oul o~~o !:I;:i~ ~fn::S:: ofThomas' thought: tively thwarted; as J.-H. NlcolllS exp ams m IS . . the vision can itself only concern the higher Although the beatitude accompanymg . " . th th "parts" of the soul
:~:i~:l:::i~d!::~~'~~sii~:Ya::c~~:r~~~:::rs~n, a:~ it~~~ not inconceivable (if yet mysterious) for this repercussion to have been Impeded.
cr. Augustine,Ep.
.
14 (pL33 439), which Thomas cites profusely
188, ad DlOseornm, ch · 3 , n·T)'; 26 a' 10' etc)· andAristotie, Nie. Ethics, 15 a. 10 arg 2. De,er., q. , . , ., (cf., e.g., STI-II, q. 3,a.. ,q., .' 11 '1l'S4b13 which reads, "pain is driven out both by the Bk. VII, ch. 14 (1l54a&--1l54b34, espelcla Y 'f't b s~ong") which Aquinas cites, e.g., in III Sent, 187.
For Aquinas, then, the divine dispensation conferred upon Christ in no way altered the actual vision itself that Jesus enjoyed at all moments of his earthly life; rather, it merely blocked the redounding effects of the vision on the lower powers of the soul, thereby leaving intact the ahility to undergo affective suffering (or disagreeable passion) on the part of his concupiscible and irascible appetites. Thomas, of course, sees little difficulty in attributing such a singular dispensation to Christ, if only because Christ's status as the divine Word equips him with a unique power over the movements of his humanity, including the redundantia, that no pure human being can possess; as Aq4inas explains in the Compendium the%giae, it was by Christ's divine power that he possessed "the free pleasure of preventing the natural redundance from his higher parts onto his lower ones ... which is impossible in other men"189; or, as he again asserts in the De veritate. "Because of the divine power of the Word, the order ofnature was subject to [Christ's] will." Christ's condition is absolutely unique because his subsistent reality is the divine Person of the Word and because of his status as universal Savior; hence, the viability of suspending the nonnallaws of nature in the case of Christ when required to do so. Supporting this position is the fuct that the Latin notion of dispensatio equates with the Greek sense of the economy (or oikonomia) ofsalvation, or of God's arrangement for the redemption of the human race; in this case, it is the divine Person of the Word who orchestrates the state of simultaneous suffering and beatific joy in Jesus to allow for the accomplishment of human salvation. For all this, it must be noted that Thomas' suspension of the normal laws governing human psychology, whereby the bridge linking the higher and lower powers of the soul is effectively severed in order to allow for simultaneous suffering andjoy in Christ's soul, remains an "invention," to use J.-P. Torrell's tenn, of the Master from Aquino's own making. 190 Evidence for this is seen in the manner by which Aquinas exploits for his own theological aims John Damascene's locution that "Christ's divine will permitted each of his
3'111
contrary pleasure and by any chance p easure I I e . d. 15, q. 2. a. 3, sol. 2 ad 5~ STIlI, q. ~6, a. 8'4:: ,~il ~~~'vrai que la beatitude attachee ala vision eUe- . 1188. J.-H. Nicolas, Synthese dogma~que, ~. . . d I' arne etant toute spirituelle: c' est par 'retenmeme ne peut interesser q~e l~ p~e ~~~~e~~:lI: se rep~d sur toute la personne, et it n'est pas tissement' dans les autres parties. e) q etentissement ait etc empeche." For basic agreement, inconcevable (quoique fort mysteneux que ce r ,. 9 cf. M.-B. Schwalm,Le Christ d'apres saint Thomas d 'Aqum, pp. 316- . :
189. Compo theal., ch. 231; emphasis mine: "unde poterat naturalem redundantiam a superiorihus partibus in in/eriores pro suo libUo impedire ... quod in aliis hominibus esse non potest, " J90. J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 2, pp. 332-9, at 337. Though, as already mentioned, all Thomas' contemporaries accept the tenet of Christ as simul viator et comprehensor, no others are as driven as Aquinas to reconcile the metaphysical dilemma of this tenet; for a comparison, cf. Bonaventure, III Sent, d. 16, a. 2, q. 2 (ed. Quaracchi, pp. 356-7); and Albert, III Sent, d. 15, a. 4
(both passages are cited in TorrelI, ibid.).
450
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
powers [or natures] to exercise its proper function."191 In reality, Damascene's phrase per~ tains to nothing more than a general assertion concerning Christ's two natures, since it stands as an equivalent to Leo the Great's celebrated anti-monopbysitic axiom, "Each fonn [or nature] accomplishes in concert with the other what is appropriate to it, the Word performing what belongs to the Word, and the flesh carrying out what belongs to the f1esh."'92 Thus,
what Damascene affirms in a general manner concerning the integrity of Christ's hwnan nature,Thomas applies to the particular case of Christ's human soul-the fact that he is simul viator et comprehensor-which in fact remains foreign to the theological mindset of the monk from Damascus. More specifically, Aquinas sees in Damascene's assertion that Christ permitted each of his natures to exercise its proper function the much more precise view that the effects of the beatific joy of Christ's higher reason were not permitted to redound onto the lower powers of his soul, or that the effects of the suffering of the lower powers of his soul were not permitted to attain the beatific joy of his higher reason. This no doubt signif-
icantly alters the original meaning of Damascene's phrase, and it is a reading that Aquinas was the first to offer. Further, and more to the heart of the problem, the difficulty remains that the Christ of
Thomas Aquinas neither suffers in his whole soul nor is free from the coexistence of two extreme psychological states: supreme and ineffable spiritual joy and unspeakably intense affective suffering. Even if coherent, the doctrine of Christ as simul viator et comprehensor remains highly problematic, not least of which because it is difficult to reconcile with the image of Jesus presented by the Evangelists, who, as J.-P. Torrell remarks, "describe Jesus' agony in quite strong terms that hardly leave one suspecting of the joy that could have felt the effects of his sufferings."'" This witness of the Gospels explains why modem
Biblical exegesis favors an image of Jesus that is closer to the man who "leamed obedience
451
through what he suffered" (Heb 5:8) than to the Christ who experienced a beatified soul
Since the ~ery moment of his conception. To be sure, Aquinas himself endures considerable
headache m making ~is doctri~e fit :vithin his overall account of Christ's human passions, as he must momentarily lay asIde hIS posItion on human passion in general (inasmuch as
~e nOti?n ofredundantla SIts at the heart of this position) to advance his view on Christ as slmul vIator et compr~hensor. Further, it is certainly the comprehensor side of Christ, perhaps more th~ anythm?" e~se? that prevents Thomas from pushing his intuitions on Jesus'
human affectiVIty to therr lImIts, or from analyzing Christ's passions with the sarne kind of
depth of scope and attention to detail that he perfonns on human passion in general in the Prima Sec:undae Pars. Certainly, those Thomist scholars who acknowledge the difficulties lOheren~ In Aquinas' position and who are sympathetic to the sensibilities of the modem
theol~gIan know the embarrassment that accompanies discussion on Christ's beatific knowl~dge m gen~r:u an~ o~ Christ's simultaneous experience of intense affective suffering and
meffable spmtual JOY m particular.
. For ~ese reason~, one must seek a possible alternative view, provided such an altemativ~, whIle sw;end~nn~ th~ theory of Christ's beatific knowledge, does not forsake the so-
ten.ologl~ eXIgencIes mlnnslc to Thomas' doctrine of Christ's earthly enjoyment of the full V~1O Del. The schol:u: J.-P. To~ell offers such an alternative view in a way that remains faIthful both to the spmt ofAqumas, who himself continued to express hesitation on the matter to the very end of his writing career, and to the letter of the Master from Aquino. Torrell attempts to transpose Thomas' view on the special knowledge that belongs to the prophets to ~e ~::e of Jesus ~ a way of supplanting the need for beatific and infused knowledge in Christ. Aft~r pomting out that the causal exigency of Christ's enjoyment of the visio Deiwhereby ~hri.st must .first himself enJoy the full vision of God before he can lead the human
race to thlS V1slOn~ls satisfie~ by the resurrected state of Jesus rather than by his entire
e~y stat~ (the~e IS ~o need, ill other words, to attribute a glorified condition to Jesus' hu-
mamty dunng hIS entIre earthly existence if what characterizes his glorified resurrected 191. Damascene, Defide orth., Bk. III, ch. 19 (ed. Buytaert, p. 257), cited in STIlI, q. 46, a. 6 (and for the first time in III Sent, d. 2, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 2, sol. 2): "divinae valuntatis permittebatur pati oJr erari quae propria." 192. Leo the Great, Tomus ad Flavianum (DS 294; DEC, p. 79): "Agit enim utraque forma cum alterius communione quod proprium est. Verbo scilicet operante quod Verb; est et carne exsequente quod carnis est." As already seen, the equivalent of Leo's axiom appears all throughout Damascene's De fide orthodoxa, Bk. III, chs. 19-20, the chapters dedicated to Christ's human energy and passions. We owe this insight into Thomas' "reconfiguration" of Damascene's statement to J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 2, pp. 335-9. 193. J.-P. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 2, p. 338: "Pour ne rien dire des trente annees de la vie terrestre et aller d'emblee au moment crucial,les evangelistes decrivent l'agonie de Jesus en des tennes tres forts qui ne laissent guere soup90nner la joie qu'il aurait pu ressentir de ses souffrances."
1?4.. Cf. J.-P. !orrell. "s. Thomas d'Aquin et la science du Christ," pp. 404-8; with a condensed verm.~e Chnst en ses myste~, vol. I, pp. 143-4; cf. as well idem, Recherches sur fa theorie de la prophet.. au Moyen Ag~ (Fnbourg; Editions Universitaires, 1992), pp. 205-29 ("Le traite de 1a SIOn
prophebe de S. Thomas d Aqum et la theologle de la revelation"). For Aquinas' treatise on prophecy cf. STII-II, qq. 171-178. '
PAUL GONDREAU
452
453
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
,
G. RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION
t) Torrell looks to the revealed knowledge
state meets this same soteriological req~re~e~ {human knowledge one can suppose was offered to the prophets as analogous to t e m 0 , 't partake in a special "light" (lumen Possessed by 'Christ. h h t as Thomas mSlS s, h ed To explam, t e prop. e 5, mOW the divinely revealed realities they ar~ c. arg propheticum) which pe~ts them to t 'th a human mode of knowing; by a sillnlar,yet
Aquinas concludes his treatise on Christ's passions in the Tertia Pars with an analysis of the particular passions in Christ, viz., his sensible pain, sorrow, fear, wonder, and anger. By using the historical events surrounding Jesus' life as transcribed in the Gospels to launch his comments on these particular movements of affectivity in Christ, Thomas evinces his particular determination to ensure that his theology of Christ's passions secure its properly ex· ,istential feature, Consistent with the medieval trend of equaling Christ's passibility with his affective suffering, Thomas bypasses Christ's other passions, notably his agreeable or congenial passions (e,g" love or like, desire, hope, etc,), which shows that the principal ob· jective of this analysis is to offer theological credibility to the psychosomatic reality of Jesus'. suffering and pain, or to the negative side of Christ's affectivity. In no sense does Aquinas intend to advance a comprehensive account of Christ's passions, such as one finds,
to impart in a way that IS fully c~n~~nan ,,7:sus one could say, is permitted to lmow (~ a vastly superior kind ofprophettc hgh~ that'characterizes infused knowledge) all thlDgS fi to call this a "Christic" rather than than III the angehc m e 11 human way rather • . ' . 195 Torre pre ers .
that concern hIS redempttve mIsSIOn" th Oust a prophet since he IS the greatest "prophetic" light to indicate that Jes~s I~m~re than~llness of God's revelation, brings the of all the prophets and the one who, ill 0 e~g the t "Christic light" also implies that , ' rfi ti and completton; e erm "th' prophetic lme to ItS pe ec on 1 d h b' tually throughout his entire hfe, some mg Jesus possessed this light permanent y an a I of a supreme degree of lumen propheticum that cannot be said of the prophe~s, , ) th With this plausible (m my estunatton eory "n to human salvation, the doctnne enlightening Christ's mind to know all th~gs p~~~n~:., advantage this holds for a theol· of Christ's beatific knowl~ge b,ecom : s dl~p~:athe ~sence of a beatified "higher reason" IS ObVIOUS, WI th de~". of his soul without recourse ogy of Jesus' human ,affectlVlty b ' d to suffer to every pu_ (superior ratiO), Christ can .e sal h i ' who goes this route, in other words, can ~eThe t eo ogIan fChri' t's human passions while aVOldto a special divine dispensatw. fA 'nas' account 0 s "1' f lain all the superior elements 0 qUI , d to rescue the disagreeable passlbl Ity 0
ing the entanglemen~ ~d ~ubt1e nuan~e~or~~~rr~uCh a course, because it is viable, IS to be
for example, with respect to human passion in general in the Prima Secundae Pars. . The order by which Thomas examines the particular passions in Christ-beginning with
his sensible pain and then proceeding to his sorrow, followed by his fear, then his wonder, and finally his anger--{)bserves a strategic plan purposefully designed to offer· the most
convincing rejoinder to those who wish to dispute the reality of such affective occurrences
.
internal sense perception, which necessarily leads to an affective movement), Thomas sew
Christ from the ovemdmgJoy ofthe VISI nt that the New Testa!I1ent ascribes to Je~, parpreferred, since the acut~ ~gU1sh and to~e 1 an experience of unadulterated aff"."ttve suf· ticularly at the end of hIs hfe, ~eems to unP ~ Th 't theologian, equipped WIth such a . thJ:ou hout christ's entrre soul, and t e on:ns. fenng g h 'thout apology or hesItatIOn,
position, can affinn as muc
Wl
in Jesus' life; these disputants include, principally, those influenced both by Hilary of Poitiers' glorified Christo logy and by the Stoic disdain for passion, though others are also implicated, By opening with a consideration of Christ's sensible pain, which Aquinas qual· ifies near the end of his career as a passion of Jesus' soul (as all physical pain involves an . cures a point on which all believing Christians must concur: the fact that the redemptive act . of Christ is accomplished through his tortuous crucifIXion and death, i.e" through his sen· sible suffering and pain, Absolute certitude on this stark reality allows Aquinas to escort his reader along an ensuing a priori chain, whereby one fmds oneself affirming the reality of
.
all Jesus' other disagreeable passions that arise from his sensible suffering and pain: sorrow, fear, and anger. For sorrow necessarily accompanies sensible pain as its affective conse~ , quence, while fear and anger respond to the same harmful object that engenders sorrowiffear regards the perceived harmful object as yet to come, sorrow regards it as immediately
present, and if sorrow succumbs to the presence of the perceived hannful object, anger in~ stead seeks to attack and avenge it. In Aquinas' mind, then, the avowal of Christ's sensible pain leads straight to a confession of his sorrow, his fear, his anger, etc. Jesus experienced over the imagined hann that his impending tortuous crucifixion and death would en~ homas stateS: "In Christ ". there was . L n ch 6 lect. 2 . even T . 'bl ecies 195. Interestingly. tnLec:, super oa, " • imilaritytotheprophets,msofarasseDSt esp . ense lrnowledge.And in thiS respect he had some 5 futu hidden things." (In Christo autemfUlt ... ~ould be fanned in Christ's imagination to p~ese~t am~/::ilitudinem cum prophetis, inquantum j~ cognitio sensitiva; et secund~m hane ha~Ult al~~cies sensibiles, quibus futura vel occulta prae imaginat;a ne Christi forman pOterant a lquae sentaretur),
454
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
tail; he felt sorrow when all hope of escaping this fate vanished; and he was moved to anger
over the injustices perpetrated by his perceived adversaries. In other words, since all Jesus' disagreeable passions fonn part of the package of the suffering and pain he endured in order
to liberate the human race from its bondage to sin, such passions are indispensable elements in the mystery of human salvation, thereby underlining the soteriological import of all Christ's affective movements. In his analysis of Jesus' particular passions, Thomas draws upon the extensive introspection he performs into all eleven passions of the human soul in the Prima Secundae Pars; this allows him to look objectively upon Christ's own passions as movements that are in themselves sensate phenomena, and, hence, morally neutral-Aquinas at all points refuses to .equate the passions with sin as such (or, more generally, with movements of the will)-even inasmuch as the remarks on Christ's specific passions recapitulate what the Dominican theologian earlier delineates relative to the moral quality of Jesus' human affectivity. An anomalous air, however, hangs over the query on Christ's "wonder" or admiratio, since Aquinas examines this affective reality not as one of Christ's disagreeable
passions, but instead as a kind of desire in Jesus. Although wonder may be classified as a specific kind of fear-a classification that supplies Thomas with the seeming pretext for inserting a query on Christ's admiratio in a treatise on Jesus' disagreeable passions-it also
qualifies as a kind of desire for knowledge of the hidden cause of an observed effect, and it is this second sense that Aquinas attributes to Christ. If Thomas executes such an awkward maneuver in Tertia, q. IS, it is because Jesus' admiratio adheres closely to a matter of no small importance to the Dominican Master, viz., afftrming Christ's growth in acquired knowledge, the widespread denial of which by all of Thomas' contemporaries and even by the young Aquinas himselfled to a predominantly skeptical regard for the possibility of admiratio in Christ. Finally, Aquinas closes his treatise on Christ's passions with an examination of the manner in which the supereminent joy resulting from Christ's enjoyment of the direct visio Dei in no way suppressed Jesus' capacity for affective suffering on the part of his sensitive powers, given the special divine dispensatio he enjoyed. As with Thomas' position on Christ's admiratio, this view on the simultaneous experience of supreme joy and
affective suffering in Christ, though coherent, meets with obvious objections from a modem theological perspective, objections that may turn to Aquinas' own change of opinion on
455
the .matter for ~uppo~. J:iowe:ver. if one seeks an alternative view that still retains the imposmg theologIcal pnnclples mherent in Thomas' doctrine on Christ as simul viat t preh."nsor, one can appreciate the value that even this doctrine holds for ~{ee /;:ms!gmficance ofh!s theology of Christ's human passions.
ger
GENERAL CONCLUSION
Thomas Aquinas has bequeathed to his reader an impressive and profound regard for the full humanity of Christ in general and of his hmuan affectivity in particular in a way that few theologians have had the determination to do in the history of Christian thought. In the eyes ofAquinas, one simply fails to grasp the essence of Christ's humanity, and, indeed, the heart of the mystery of the Incarnate Word, if one ignores the affective element of Jesus' life; this
is most clearly intimated by Thomas' inclusion of a treatise on Christ's passions at the core of his comprehensive Christology of his crowning work, the Summa theologiae. Not content to leave the tenet of the Incarnation, or the dogma of God having become man, in the abstract, Aquinas insists upon thrashing out the concrete implications of the manhood of God, with Christ's human passions representing one such example ofthese implications. In terms of the historical context in which he writes, Thomas formulates his theology of Christ's human passions at a time when theological interest in the affective dimension of Christ's humanity was reaching its peak, particularly as a response to the perceived deficiencies inherent in Hilary of Poitiers ' denial of Christ's affective suffering. Aquinas' analysis of Christ's human passions also ensues upon his longstanding dispute with the Stoics, whose contempt for the affective dimension of human life leads these ancient philosophers-
cussion a fresh perspective that in many respects emerges as uniquely his own. The most evident example of this is the manner by which Thomas' lucid Aristotelian-inspired metaphysics of human nature allows him to lay emphasis on the integrity of the full "animal" nature of Christ's humanity, to which accrues the affective dimension of Jesus' life. In brief, Aquinas maintains that the passions (or, more fundamentally, the affective inclination to objects perceived by the senses) represent an essentia! feature of human life, as they follow necessarily upon the animal or sensate side of human nature; such an ontological concep-
tion of the passions explains why Thomas, contra the Stoics, opines that the passions are
458
THE PASSIONS OF CHRIST'S SOUL IN THE
PAUL GONDREAU
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
459
not inherent moral malignancies, but instead morally neutral occurrences that belong to the complete humanity of all, including the humanity of Christ.
To be sure, Aquinas' theology of Jesus' human affectivity benefits from an introspective interest he alone holds in human passion in general, epitomized by his massive treatise on the passions found in the Prima Secundae Pars of the Summa (the largest treatise of this work), In this treatise, which is without historic parallel, Thomas brings his genius to bear on the subject of human affectivity in as nearly an exhaustive a manner as possible. and this readily translates into a regard for Christ's passions of corresponding depth and insight.
witnesses firsthand not only the undeniable fact th t th
human life b t a l '
a
'
e pasSIOns are natural occurrences in
worth , u so ~d more Importantly the morally responsible and spiritually praiseh y marmer by whICh one should live with one's passions If th" St ' t £ ' ' IS Image s atters the OIC can empt . or paSSIOn, then no less does it counter the view that a Jesus c _ nsum mate psychol~glCa1 harmony and moral integrity has little to offer a human famit With Its own disordered proclivities of affectivity. Here then Aqul'n th y beset v' 't" , , as, more an any pre10US wn er, mstructs hIS reader on the moral value not only of Chri t' ' b of all h ' s s passlOns ut also
of
Still, the Dominican Master in many ways turns his back on the door he opened for himself, as he refuses to advance a comprehensive account of Christ's passions that would have
Th uman pa.sSIODs; because he holds a properly theological interest in the passions h omas re~ogmzes no more, enl.ightening or instrumental means to _understanding th~
acted as a fitting complement-and rightful Christological cuhnination-to his study on human passion in general. Though the historical polemic with Hilary of Poitiers' denial of the psychosomatic reality of Christ's suffering and pain explains in large part Aquinas' rather restrictive approach to the subject of Christ's passions (whereby he focuses entirely on the suffering or disagreeable side of Jesus' affectivity), other reasons also account for this restriction, the most evident being the tenet of Christ's earthly enjoyment of the direct visio Dei, whereby it is believed that Jesus' soul shared in the consummate beatitude attached to the visio Dei, This causes Thomas considerable difficulty, particularly in the early part of
uman paSSlOns than by consldenng them in the light of the Incarnation as the humani ' : Chns; conveys the fulln:ss Of, God's ~evelation, Profound in its d~pth of analyst;: ~umas theology of Christ s passlOns dehvers a rich message that has since his da celved too httle appreciation. , y , re-
his career, in reconciling the full psychological ramifications of Christ's disagreeable passion (or affective suffering) with the beatitude of this vision, Another distinctive element (though it remains consistent with the received tradition)
that Thomas brings to the discussion on Christ's passions is his take on the unique moral quality of Christ's passions, a quality that follows upon the doctrine of Jesus' sinlessness and perfection in virtue and grace, Equipped with a lucid and singular regard for the affec-
tive condition of prelapsarian man and for the ensuing effects of original sin on the human station, Aquinas forges a position whereby Jesus is seen to enjoy a radical hannony of soul, or where Jesus' entire affective life is understood to be orchestrated by the imperium, or
supreme command, of reason. Thomas outlines this position not only when he addresses the general nature of Christ's passions, but also when he examines the specific passions exhibited by Jesus (Aquinas' detailed analysis of Christ's particular passions stands out as an additional siguature trait of his theology of Jesus' human affectivity), Ultimately, the Master from Aquino seeks to present an image of a passible Christ that emerges as fully human and as a true model and exemplar for all of humanity to imitate; in Christ the human race
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Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina. Turnbout, Belgium: Typographi Brepols, 1953-. Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum. Vois. 1-70. VieIllla: Academia Litteranun Caesarae Vindobonensis, 1866-. Vols. 71-. Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaflen, 1964-. Gregory the Great. Moraiiain lob. CCSL 143-143 A and B. Ed. M. Adriaen. Turnbout, Belgium: Typographi Brepols, 1979-85. Hilary of Poitiers. De Trinitate. CCSL 62-62A. Ed. P. Smulders. Turnbout, Belgium: Typographi Brepols, 1979-80.. Hugh of St. Victor. De sacramentis Christianae fidei. PL 176. Cols. 17-618. _ _ De quatuorvoluntatibus in Christo. PL 176. Cols. 841-6.
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Jerome. Commentoriorum in Mattheum. CCSL 77. Eds. D. Hurst and M. Adriaen. Turnhout, Belgium: Typographi Brepols, 1969. John Blund. Tractatus De anima. Ed. D.A. Callus and R.W. Hunt. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. John Damascene. De fide orthodoxa. Versions ofBurgundio and Cerbanus. Ed. E.M. Buytaert. St. Bonaventure, N.Y,-Louvain-Paderbom: Franciscan Institute-E. Nauwelaerts-F. Schoningh, 1955. John of La Rochelle. Tractatus de divisione multiplici potentiarum animae. Ed. Pierre Michaud-Quantin. Paris: J. Vrin, 1964. Nemesius ofEmesa. De natura hominis. Critical edition of Burgundio of Pis a's Medieval Latin translation: Nemesius d'Emese De natura hominis. Traduction de Burgundio de Pise. With an Introduction on the Anthropology of Nemesius. Eds. G. Verbeke and J.R. Moncho. "Corpus latinum commentariorum in Aristotelem graecorwn. Suppl. I" Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975. Critical edition of original Greek text: Nemesii Emeseni De natura hominis. Ed. Moreno Morani. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1987. Patristic florilegium. Doctrina patrum de incarnatione verbi. Ein griechisches Florilegium GUS der Wende des 7. und 8. Jahrhunderts. Ed. Franz Diekamp. 2nd edition. Miinster: Aschendorft', 1981. Patrologia cursus completus. Ed. J.P. Migne. Series I (PG). 162 vols. Paris, 1857-66, with subsequent reprints; Series II (PL). 221 vols. Paris, 1844-64, with subsequent reprints. Peter Abelard. Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos. CCCM II. Ed. E.M. Buytaert. Turnhout, Belgium: TypographiBrepols, 1969. _ _ Sic et non. In Peter Abailard, Sic et Non: A Critical Edition. Eds. Blanche Boyer and Richard McKeon. Vol. 3. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. Peter Lombard. Magistri Petri Lombardi Sententiae in IV libris distinctae. 2 vols. Ed. Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas. "Spicilegium Bonaventurianum 4-5." Grottaferrata (Rome): Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 197181. The English translation of this work by Becket Soule (as well as an introduction to Lombard's theology by the same author) is nearing completion. Philip of Harvengst. Epistola 25. PL 203. Cols. 174-9. Pseudo-Andronicus of Rhodes. Pseudo-Andronicus de Rhodes "IlEPI IlAeDN." Edition critique du texte grec et de la traduction latine medievale. Ed. A. Glibert-Thirry. "Corpus latinum commentariorurn in Aristotelem graecomm. Supp!. 2." Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1977. Sources chretiennes. Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1942-. Thomas Aquinas. Compendium theologiae. Vol. 42. Rome: Leonine edition, 1979. Contra errores Graecorum. Vol. 40A. Rome: Leonine, 1969. De enle el essentia. Vol. 43. Rome: Leonine, 1976. De principiis naturae. Vol. 43. Rome: Leonine, 1976. De rationibus fidei ad Canlorem Antiochenum. Vol. 40B. Rome: Leonine, 1967.
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Expos~~osuper Isaiam ad litteram. Vol. 28. Rome: Leonine, 1969. EXPOSIlIO super lob ad litteram. Vol. 26. Rome: Leonine 1965 Glo~sa con~n~a super Evangelia (Catena aurea). Ed. A. Guari~nti. 2 vols. RomeTunn: Manett!, 1953. In Episto!am ad Romanos. Vol. 13. Parma edition, 1862. The Leonine edition (vol. 32) of th18 work 18 neanng completion. In Epistolam ad Hebraeos. Vol. 13. Parma edition, 1862. Lectura super Ioannem. Vol. 10. Panna edition, 1870. Lectura super Mattheum. Vol. 10. Parma edition, '1870. Opera omnia. Rome: Leonine, 1882-. Opera omnia. Parma edition. 25 vols. 1852-73. Opera omnia. Vives edition. 34 vols. Paris, 1871-72. Poslilla super Psaln:os. Vol. 14. Parma edition, 1863 (Psalms I-51). For Psalms 52-54: P.-A. Uccelh. S. Thomae Aquiniltis in Isaiam prophetam, in tres psalmos DaVId, In Boellum de Hebdomadlbus el de Trinitale ex:positiones Rome' P -A U celli, 1880. . '" c-
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cntlcal texts of the Leonine edition.
Sententia Libri De anima. Vol. 45,1. Rome: Leonine, 1984. Sententia Libri De sensu et sensato. Vol. 45, 2. Rome: Leonine 1985 Sententia Libri Ethicorum. Vol. 47,1-2. Rome: Leonine, 1969.' . Sententia Libri Politicorum. Vol. 48A. Rome: Leonine, 1971. S~ntent~a super Metaphysicam. Ed. R.M. Spiazzi. Rome: Marietti, 1950. The Leonme ed,tion (vol. 46) is nearing completion. Sententia super Physicam. Vol. 2. Rome: Leonine, 1884 (the Latin text of Aristotle produced in this edition is not the one Aquinas knew).
Summa contra Gentiles. Vols. 13-15. Rome: Leonine, 1918-30. Summa theologiae. Vols. 4-12. Rome: Leonine edition, 1888-1906. Super Llbrum Dionysii De divinis nominibus. Vol. 15. Rome: Parma edition n:.0m~,:Aqui~atis Op,:ra ?mnia cum hypertextibus in CD-ROM Ed. Roberto Busa. 2 ed!t1~n. MIlan: Editona Elettronica Editel, 1996. Electronic database of Index Thomlstlcus: S. Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia. 7 vols. Ed. Roberto Busa Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Fromann-Holzberg, 1974-80. .
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The City of God (De civitate Dei). Trans. Marcus Dods. New York: Modem LIbrary, 1950. . Eighty-Three Different Questions (De diversis quaestionibus 83). Trans: Da~ld L. Mosher. "The Fathers of the Church." Washington, D.C.: Cathohc UmvefSlty of America Press, 1982. The Trinity (De 1Hnitate). Trans. Stephen McKenna. "The Fathers of the Church." Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1963. Expositions on the Book ofPsalms (Enarrationes in Psalmos). Ed. AC: Coxe. Vol. 8 of A Select Library ofNicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Chrzstlan Church. First Series. Ed. P. Schaff. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989. Tractates on the Gospel of John, 55-III, and 112-24 (In Iohannis Evangelium. Tractatus CXXIV). Trans. J.W. Rettig. "The Fathers ofthe Church 90 and 92." Washington, D.C.: Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 1994-95. AJso, Lectures
or Tractates on the GospelAccording to St. John. Trans. J. Gibb and J. Innes. Vol. 7 of A Select Library ofNicene and Post-NiceneFathers of the Christian Church. First Series. Ed. P. Schaff. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989: 447-52. Saint Augustine on Genesis. Two Books on Genesis against the Manichees, and On the Literal Meaning of Genesis: An Unfinished Book (De Genesi contra Manichaeos and De Genesi ad litteram). Trans. R.J. Teske. "The Fathers of the . Church 84." Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1991. Bible. Revised Standard Version. Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of Amenca, 1946. Boethius. Aga~nst Eutychus and Nestorius (Liber contra Eutychen et Nestorium). In Boethlus. Trans. H.F. Stewart, et al. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973: 73-129. Bonaventure. The Breviloquium. Vol. 2 of The Work! ofBonaventure. Trans. Jose de Vinck. Paterson, NJ.: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1963. What Manner of Man? Sermons on Christ by St. Bonaventure. Trans. Z. Hayes. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1974. Gregory the Great. Morals on the Book ofJob (Moralia in lob). 3 Vols. Trans. J.H. Parker, J.G.F. and J. Rivington. Oxford: J.H. Parker, 1844-50. Hilary of Poitiers. On the Trinity (De Trinitate). Trans. E. W. Watson, L. Pullan, et a1. In A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series. Eds. P. Schaff and H. Wace. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989. Vol. 9: St. Hilary ofPoitiers and John ofDamascus: 40--233. Hugh ofS!. Victor. On the Sacraments ofthe Christian Faith (De sacramentis Christianae fidei). Trans. Roy J. Deferrari. Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America 1951. ' John Damascene. On the Orthodox Faith (Defide orthodoxa). Trans. Frederic H. Chase, Jr. "The Fathers of the Church." New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1958. Also, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Trans. SD.F. Salmond. In A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Second Series. Eds. P. SchaffandH. Wace. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989. Vol. 9: St. Hilary of Poitiers and John ofDamascus: 1-10 1. Nemesius of Ernesa. On the Nature ofMan (De natura hominis). In Cyril ofJerusalem and Nemesius of Emesa. Trans, William Telfer. "Library of Christian Classics 4." Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1955: 224-453. Thomas Aquinas. Compendium ofTheology (Compendium theologiae). Trans. Cyril Vollert. St. Louis, Missouri: B. Herder, 1947. Aquinas on Being and Essence (De ente et essentia). Trans. A. Maurer. 2nd edition, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1968. De principiis naturae ad /ratrem Sylvestrum. Trans. RA. Kocourek. St. Paul Minn.: North Central Publishing Co., 1948. Also, Selected Writings ofSt. Thom'; Aquinas: The PrinCiples of Nature. Trans. Robert P. Goodwin. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Educational, 1965.
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The Literal Exposition on Job (Expositio super lob ad litteram): A Scriptural Com-
mentary Concerning Providence. Trans. Anthony Damico. "Classics in Religious Studies 7." Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989. Catena aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out ojthe Works ojthe Fathers by St. Thomas Aquinas. Ed. John Henry Newman. 4 vols. Southampton, England: st. Austin Press, 1997 (first published in 1841-45 by J.H. Parker, Oxford). Commentary on the Gospel oj St. John (Lectura super loannem). Part I. Trans. . J.A. Weisheipl. Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1980. Questions on the Soul (Quaestio disputata De anima). Trans. J.H. Robb. MIlwaukee, Wise.: Marquette University Press, 1984. On Evil (Quaestiones disputatae De malo). Trans. Jean Oesterle. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995. On the Power oJGod (Quaestiones disputatae De potentia). Trans. English Dominican Fathers. Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1952. On Spiritual Creatures (Quaestio disputata De spiritualibus creaturis) .. Trans. M.C. Fitzpatrick and J.J. Wellmuth. Milwaukee, WI.: Marquette Umverslty Press, 1949. Truth (Quaestiones disputatae De veritate). Trans. Robert W. Mulligan (vol. I), James V. McGlynn (vol. 2), and Robert W. Schmidt (vol. 3). Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1952-54. . On the Virtues in General (Quaestiones disputatae De virtutibus). Trans. J.P. ReId. Providence Rhode Island: Providence College Press, 1951. Also, Selected Writings oj St. Tho';'as Aquinas: On the Virtues in General. Trans. R.P. Goodwin. Indianapolis, IN: Babbs Merrill Educational, 1965. Aristotle~ De anima in the version oJWilliam oJMoerbeke and the Commentary oj St. Thomas Aquinas (Sententia Libri De anima). Trans. K. Foster and S. Humphries. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1951; reprinted Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1994. Commentary on Aristotle:S Nicomachean Ethics (Sententia ~ibri Ethico~m). Trans. C.l. Litzinger. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1964; revIsed and repnnted, Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1993. Commentary on the Metaphysics oj Aristotle (Sententia super Metaphysicam). Trans. J.P. Rowan. 2 vols. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1961; repnnted Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1995. Commentary on Aristotle~ Physics (Sententia super Physicam). Trans. R.I. Blackwell, et al. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1963; reprinted Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1999. "Commentary on Aristotle's Politics" (Sententia Libri Politicorum). Trans. E.L. Fortin and P.D. O'Neill. In Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook. Ed. R. Lerner. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963.
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Summa Contra Gentiles. 4 vols. Trans. A.C. Pegis, J.F. Anderson, v.J. Bourke, and C.I. O'Neil. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975. Summa Theologica (Summa theologiae). 3 vols. Trans. Fathers of the English Do-
minican Province. New York: Benziger Brothers, 194~. Also, Summa theologiae. 60 vols. Trans. Dominican Fathers. London: Blackfriars,1964-75. The Collected Works a/Thomas Aquinas on CD-ROM "Past Masters Humanities Database." Charlottesville, Virginia: Intelex Corp., 1994. Electronic database of
most existing English translations of Aquinas. 3. WORKS ON AQUINAS' THEOLOGY OF CHRIST'S HUMAN AFFECTIVITY
Siffi, Inos. I Misteri di Cristo in -Tommaso d'Aquino. Vol. 1. "Biblioteca di Cultura Medievale 339." Milan: Jaca Books, 1994. Esp. ch. 2, section 11.9: "La passibilita di Cristo e il suo significatog": 132-40.
Cunningham, Francis, ed. Christ and His Sacraments. Dubuque, Iowa: Priory Press, 1958. Esp. ch. 4, section 6: "The Imperfections of Christ's Human Nature": 163-9. Engelhardt, Paulus. "Thomas von Aquin: Mensch und Christ in der Spannung von Vemunft und Leidenschaft." Wort und Anlwort 24 (1985): 134-41. Gondreau, Paul. The Passions in Christ: A Study on the Psychology ojJesus. Memoire de licence. Fribourg, Switz.: University ofFribourg, 1992.
Hennessey. R.J. Introduction, notes and appendices to Summa theologiae. Vol. 48. The Incarnate Word. London: B1ackfriars, 1976. Henry,A.M. The Historical and Mystical Christ. "Theology Library 5." Trans. A. Bouchard. Chicago: Fides Publishers, 1958. Esp. "Theological Reflections 9: The Strength and Weakness of Christ": 104-5. Heris, C.-v. Introduction, notes and appendices to Somme theologique. Vols. 1-3. Le Verbe
Incame. Edition "Revue des jeunes." Paris: Desclee, 1927. Murphy, Richard T.A. Introduction, notes and appendices to Summa theologiae. Vol. 54. The Passion oJChrist. London: Blackfriars, 1965. Nicolas, Jean-Herve. Synthese dogmatique. De la Trinite ala Trinite. Fribourg, Switz.: Edi-
tions Universitaires, 1985. Esp. pt. 2, section 2. subdivision 3: "Les abaissements du Verbe incame durant sa vie terrestre": 404-11. O'Neill, Coleman E. Introduction, notes and appendices to Summa theologioe. Vol. 50. The One Mediator. London: Blackfriars, 1965. Ott, Ludwig. Fundamentals oJCatholicDogma. Trans. P. Lynch. 2'" edition. Rockford, IlI.: Tan Books, 1974. Esp. bk. 2, section 2, ch. 2: "The Defects or the Passibility of Christ's Human Nature": 173-4. Gennan original: GrundrifJ der k.atholischen Dogmatik. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1952.
Paluch, Michal. "L'ame du Christ etait-elle soumise aux passions? (Summa the%giae, 3a, q. 15, a. 4)." Seminar paper presented on January 22, 1997 at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
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THEOLOGY OF ST. mOMAS AQUINAS
Parente, Pietro, L'Io di Cristo. 3" edition. Rovigo: Istituto Padano di Arti Grafiche, 1981. Esp, pt. 3, chs. 9-11: "Le passioni di Cristo"; "Cristo e I'amore"; and "Cristo e il dolore": 289-307. Parsons, Samuel, and Albert Pinheiro. Introduction, notes and appendices to Summa thea/agiae. Vol. 53. The Life of Christ. London: Blackfriars, 1971. Potter, Roland. Introduction, notes and appendices to Summa thealagiae. Vol. 52. The Childhood of Christ. London: Blackfriars, 1972. Ruella, Francis. La christologle de Thomas d'Aquin. "Theologie historique 76," Paris: Beauchesne, 1987. Esp. pt. 1, ch. 3, section II: "Les defauts assumes par Ie Christ"; "Les passions de l'ilme assumees par Ie Christ." 180-7. And Appendix V "J" and "K." 373-7. Schwalm, M.-B. Le Christ d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin. Coinmentaires du De Incarnatione (Tertia pars Summae Theologiae). 2nd edition by Pierre Coquelle. Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1939. Esp. ch. 8: "La sensibilite et les passions dans Ie Christ." 30344. Spiazzi, Raimondo. "Le passioni e la passione di Cristo in San Tommaso d'Aquino," Sacra Doctrina 37 (1992): 5-34. Synave, P. Introduction, notes and appendices to Somme theologique. Vol. 3. La vie de Jesus. Edition "Revue desjeunes." Paris: Desclee, 1928. Torrell, lean-Pierre. Le Christ en ses mysteres. La vie et I 'oeuvre de Jesus selon saint Thomas d'Aquin. 2 vols. "Jesus etJesus-Christ 78-79." Paris: Desclee, 1999. Esp. 101-8,224-42,327-39, and 358-61. Introduction and notes to Somme theologique. Yol. 4. Le mystere de I'incarnation. Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1986. Walsh, Liam G. Introduction, notes and appendices to Summa theologiae. Vol. 49. The Grace of Christ. London: Blackfriars, 1974. Weber, Edouard-Henri. Le Christ selon saint Thomas d'Aquin. "Jesus et Jesus Christ 35." Paris: Desc\ee, 1988. Esp. pt. 4, ch. 2: "L'activite volitive chez Ie Christ," 189-90, and 197-8.
4.
WORKS ON AQUINAS' THOUGHT ON GENERAL HUMAN AFFECTIVITY
Alvira, Tomas. Naturaleza y fibertad: estudio de los conceptos tomistas de valuntas ut natura y voluntas ut ratio. "Publicaciones de la Facultad de Filosofica 44." Pamplona, Spain: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 1985. Aroca, F. "Los estados prepasionales." Ciencia Tomista 26 (1936): 196-212. Baker, Richard R. The Tlwmistic Theory ofthe Passions and Their Influence upon the Will. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1941. Barad, Judith A. "Aquinas on the Role of Emotion in Moral Judgment and Activity." Thom 55 (1991): 397-4\3. Bartolomei, T. "Natura e fonne del sentimento sensibile e spirituale." Divus Thomas (Piacenza) 47 (1944): 236-66.
471
Barzaghi: Gi~eppe. "La passio tristitiae secondo S. Tonnnaso. Un esempio di analisi realISta. Sacra Doctrina 36 (1991): 56-71. Bednarski, !elix. "La psycho~yse de l'agressivitee ala lumiere de la psychosynthese de . samt Thomas d'Aqum." Ang 58 (1981): 389-419. "Yis concupiscibilis et irascibilis in luce psychologiae profundi." In De h . . Stud· h d· h I amme. . la 0 ler:za~ ant ropo ogiae. Congressus Thomisticus Intemationalis. "Bibhotheca Ponhficlae Academiae Romanae S. Thomae Aquinatis 8-9." Rom . Officium Libri Catholici, 1970-72. Vol. 2: 60-4. . e. Blais, Gerard. Petit traite pratique des passions humaines. 5th edition. Sherbrooke Q _ ·· PauI·mes, 1967. , ue bec: Edthons
Blanco, Guill~nno. "~I con~epto de pasion en Santo Tomas." Sapientia 2 (1948): 128-46. Boganelh, E. Alcum aspettl della psicologia e fisiologia delle passioni secondo San Tommaso." Bollettinofilosofica 1 (1935): 56-68. Brennan, Robert E. Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophic Ana/ysis of the Nature of M. ~;w York: Macmillan, 1941. Esp. ch. 6: "The Passions and Actions of Man": I:;~ Calveras, Jose. La afectividad y el corazon segUn Santo Tomas. Barcelona: Editorial Libreria Religiosa, 1951. Cantin, Stanislas. Treatise on the Soul. Trans. and expanded by H. DuLac and W. Baumgaertner. St. Paul, Minn.: College of St. Thomas, 1951. French original: Precis de psych%gie thomiste. Quebec: Editions de I'Universite Laval 1948 Cates, Diana Fritz. Choosin~ to Feel: Virtue, Friendship, and Comp~ssion·for Friends. . Notre Dame, IN: Umversity of Notre Dame Press, 1997. Esp. 16-30. Centl, T. "Valore d~1 ~ttato tomistico sulle passioni." Sapienza 13 (1961): 395-410. Chardonnens, Dents. L nomme sous Ie regard de la providence. Providence de Dieu et COD~it~o~ h~aine selo~ I' Exposition litterale sur Ie livre de Job de Thomas d' Aquin. Blbhotheque thomlste 50." Paris: J. Vrin, 1997. Esp. 185-98. Chenu, M.-D. "Les passions vertueuses. L'anthropologie de saint Thomas." RPL 72 (1974).
ll-18.
.
Corvez, Maurice. Introduction, notes and appendices to Somme theologique. Vol. 1. Les . passions de I 'lime. Edition "Revue des jeunes." Paris: Desclee 1949. Cottier, Georg.es. '''Libido' de Freud et 'appetitus' de saint Thomas." in L'anthropologie desamt Thomas. Ed. N.A. Luyten. Fnbourg, Switz.: Editions Universitaires 1974. 91-123. ' . Cunningham, Francis, ed. The Christian Life. Dubuque, Iowa: Priory Press, 1959. Esp. ch. 3: "The Passions of Man": 78-111. D'Arcy, Eric. Introduction and notes to Summa theologiae. Vol. 19. The Emotions London: Blackfriars, 1967. . Introduction and notes to Summa the%giae. Vol. 20. Pleasure. London: Blackfriars, 1975.
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