Article 8 — Whether there were such passions in Christ

Eighth, it is asked whether there were such passions in Christ. (Parallel texts: ST III.15.4-9; In II Sent., d. 15, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 3; a. 2 exposition of text; In III Sent., d. 13, q. 1, a. 2, qa. 1, ad 2; d. 15, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 3; d. 33, Exposition litt,: Commentary on Matthew, ch. 26; Commentary on John, ch. 12, lect. 5; ch. 13, lect. 4; Compendium theologiae, ch. 232.)

Obj. 1: It seems not, for according to Augustine in On the Trinity 12, (It is actually Augustine, De Gen. ad litt. bk. 12, ch. 16 (PL 34:467) ut dicitur supra q. 10, a. 6.) every agent is more powerful than its patient; but no creature is more powerful than the soul of Christ; therefore no passion could exist in the soul of Christ.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, according to Macrobius it belongs to the courage of a purified soul to ignore passions, not to conquer them; (Comment. in somn. Scipionis I c. 8,9) but Christ had the virtues of a purified soul more than any other; therefore, there were not such passions within him.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, according to Damascene passion is a movement of the appetitive soul at the suggestion of good or evil; (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 22 (PG 94:940D); cf. above: a. 3.) but there was no suggestion in Christ since this pertains to ignorance; therefore there was not any passion of the soul in Christ.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, according to Augustine, passion is a movement of the soul against reason; (Cf. Augustine, City of God, bk. 8, ch. 17 (PL 41:242).) but in Christ there was no movement against reason; therefore there was not any passion of the soul in Christ.

Obj. 5: Furthermore, Christ was not made less than the angels with regard to his soul, but only with regard to the weakness of the flesh; but there are no passions in the angels, as Augustine says in the City of God; (Augustine, City of God, bk. 9, ch. 5 (PL 41:261).) therefore neither were they in the soul of Christ.

Obj. 6: Furthermore, Christ was more perfect with respect to his soul than man was in his first condition; but man in his first condition was not subject to these passions, for as Augustine says in the City of God, (Augustine, City of God, bk. 9, ch. 5 (PL 41:261).) it pertains to the weakness of this present life to suffer passions of this kind even in any of our good deeds. However, there was no weakness in our first condition; therefore neither were these passions in Christ.

Obj. 7: Furthermore, no wise man is grieved or saddened except at the loss of his own good: it is for this reason that evil causes sadness, that it deprives of the good; (Augustine, Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Charity, ch. 12 (PL 40:237; CCSL 46).) but a man's good is virtue, for by this alone is a man made to be good; therefore, since this good was not taken away in Christ, there was not sorrow or pain in him.

Obj. 8: Furthermore, according to Augustine in the City of God, (Augustine, City of God, bk. 14, ch. 6 (PL 41:409).) when we do not consent to what happens to us against our will, the state of such a will is sadness; but in Christ nothing happened which he did not will; therefore the passion of sadness or of pain was not in Christ.

Obj. 9: Furthermore, according to Augustine, pain is a feeling of division or corruption; (Augustine, On Free Will, bk. 3, ch. 23 (PL 32:1305).) but the feeling of division or corruption was not in Christ, since as Hilary says, he had the violence of punishment without the feeling of punishment; (Cf. De Trin. X n. 23 (PL 10, 362), vide etiam Petrum Lomb. Lib. Sent. III d. 15 c. 3.) and neither was there in him any division or corruption, since there cannot be any loss from the highest good; therefore, there was not any pain in Christ.

Obj. 10: Furthermore, wherever there is the same cause there is also the same effect; but there will not be the same passion in the bodies of the blessed, since they will be purified from evil inclination and united to glorified souls; therefore, since this would have been the case in Christ's body, it seems that the pain of bodily passion could not be in him.

Obj. 11: Furthermore, no one is reasonably saddened or pained except because of some injury; but as Chrysostom proves, (Liber quod nemo laedatur nisi a seipso (PG 52, 459) Aniano interprete (?)) no one is injured except by himself, which indeed does not pertain to the wise man; thus, since Christ was the most wise, there was no sadness in him.

On the contrary (1) is what it says in Mark 14:33, Jesus began to be greatly distressed and troubled and full of sadness. (textus conflatus ex Marci 14:33 et Matth. 26:37.)

Furthermore (2), Augustine says (Augustine, City of God, bk. 14, ch. 6 (PL 41:409); cf. ST I-II.59.2, s.c.) that the upright will not only have these movements without blame, but also as worthy of praise; but there was an upright will in Christ; therefore these movements were in him.

Furthermore (3), the defects of this life that are not opposed to grace were in Christ; but such passions are not opposed to the perfection of grace, rather they are caused from grace, as is clear from Augustine in the City of God, (Augustine, City of God, bk. 14, ch. 9 (PL 41:414).) these movements, these feelings come from the love of the good and from holy charity; therefore, such passions were in Christ.

I answer that it must be said that these passions are in sinners in one way; in the just, both the perfect and the imperfect, in another way; yet in another way in the man Christ; and still another way in the first man and in the blessed; however, there are none at all in God and the angels, for there is no sensitive appetite in them to which the passions of such movements belong.

In evidence of what was said it should be known that such feelings of the soul can be distinguished by four differences, and they possess the notion of passion more or less properly according to this distinction. The first is that someone is affected with a passion of the soul by what is contrary or harmful, or else by what is agreeable and profitable; and the notion of passion is better preserved when the feeling follows from what is harmful rather than from what is beneficial; because of the fact that passion implies a certain change in the one suffering it from its natural disposition to the contrary disposition. Thus, pain, sadness, fear, and other such passions that have a relation to evil possess the notion of passion more than joy, love, and other such passions which have a relation to the good; nevertheless, the notion of passion is also maintained in these, inasmuch as the heart is expanded or inflamed by these, or else disposed in some way other than its normal disposition; hence, it happens that some die from such emotions. The second distinction is that a passion is wholly from the outside, or else it is from some interior principle; nevertheless, the notion of passion is better preserved when it is from the outside rather than from the inside. It is from the outside when the passion being suffered is roused up from an encounter with something agreeable or harmful, but from within when these passions are caused from the will itself in the manner that was described above; in this case they are not suffered since they follow upon the judgment of reason.

The third distinction is when something is either completely transformed or else not completely: for we do not say that something properly suffers which is changed to some extent, though not totally, as we do for what is totally transformed to its contrary; for we more properly say that a man suffers sickness if his entire body should be sick than if the sickness should only happen to some part of it. However, a man is completely transformed by such feelings when they not only stand in the lower appetite, but they also draw the higher appetite to themselves. But when they are in the lower appetite alone, then a man is changed partially, and so they are called propassions, (Words of Jerome, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, bk. 1, ch. 5 (PL 26:39C); cf. Peter Lombard, Sentences, bk. 3, d. 15, ch. 2; Glossa ordinaria above Matthew 5:28.) whereas the first are called passions. The fourth distinction is when the change is either feeble or intense: for feeble changes are less properly called passions; hence Damascene says in On Faith 3, (It is actually John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 22 (PG 94:941B).) not all passive movements are called passion, but only those that are more vehement and flow into sensation; for those that are small and insensible are not yet passions.

Therefore, it must be known that within men in this current state of life, if they are sinners, there are passions that regard both the good and the evil, which are not only foreseen, but at times are also sudden and intense, and frequently complete; thus, they are called followers of the passions in the Ethics. (Aristotle, Ethics 1.3, 1095a4.) But they are never complete in the just, since reason within them is never led by passions; nevertheless, they are vehement in the imperfect, though only weak in the perfect, the lower powers having been checked by the habits of the moral virtues; yet they have not only foreseen passions, but also sudden ones, and not only with respect to the good but also with respect to evil.

But within the blessed, within man in his first condition, and within Christ according to the condition of his weakness, such passions are never sudden, since no movement rises up in the lower appetite on account of the perfect obedience in them of the lower powers to the higher ones, unless because of a command of reason; hence, Damascene says in On Faith, (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 3, ch. 20 (PG 94:1084A).) what was natural in the Lord did not precede his will; for he hungered willing it, he feared willing it, and so on. One must think similarly regarding the blessed after the resurrection and regarding men in the first condition.

But there is this difference, that in Christ not only where there passions with regard to the good, but also with regard to evil; for he possessed a passable body, and so from the imagination of what was harmful, the passions of fear, sadness, and the like were naturally able to exist in him. But there cannot be the apprehension of anything as harmful in man's first condition and among the blessed; thus there is no passion in them except what regards the good, such as love, joy, and the like; but not sadness, fear, anger, or anything of such kind.

Thus we grant that there were true passions in Christ: hence Augustine says in the City of God, (Augustine, City of God, bk. 14, ch. 9 (PL 41:415).) Christ took on these movements into his human soul when he willed, thanks to a most fixed dispensation, just as he became man when he willed.

Reply Obj. 1: To the first it must be said that the agent does not have to be superior to the patient simply speaking, but only in a certain respect, namely insofar as it is an agent; and so nothing prevents the object of Christ's soul from being superior to it inasmuch as it is active, and the soul of Christ has some passive potency.

Reply Obj. 2: To the second it must be said that according to Augustine in the City of God, (Augustine, City of God, bk. 9, ch. 4 (PL 41:258).) there was a disagreement among the Stoics and the Peripatetics regarding this, which nevertheless seemed to be more about words than about the reality. For the Stoics said that passions of this kind are in no way in the soul of the wise man; but they called the wise man the one who is perfect in virtues, having, as it were, the virtue of a purified soul. But the Peripatetics say that these passions of the soul happen also to the wise, though moderated and subject to reason. (Augustine, City of God, bk. 9, ch. 4 (PL 41:259).) However, Augustine proves from the admission of some Stoic that the Stoics also held that these passions were in the soul of the wise man, but sudden and without being approved or assented to; they did not even call them passions, but rather appearances or fantasies of the soul. Thus, it is clear that in reality the Stoics did not say anything different than the Peripatetics, but that there was only disagreement in words, for what the Peripatetics called passions, the Stoics called something else.

Thus, according to the thought of the Stoics, both Macrobius and Plotinus (Comment. in somn. Scipionis I c. 8,9.) say that passions do not exist together with the virtue of a purified soul, not because there are no sudden movements of the passions in such virtuous men, but because they neither drag reason, nor are they so vehement that they disturb much one's peace of mind; which is also in agreement with what the Philosopher says in the Ethics, (Aristotle, Ethics 7.9, 1152a1.) that desires in the temperate man are not strong as they are in the continent man, even though in neither of them is reason drawn to consent. Or it can be said in a better way that when such passions arise from good and evil, they must be distinguished according to the difference between goods and evils. For some goods and evils are natural, such as food, drink, bodily health or sickness, and the like; but some are not natural, such as riches, honors, and the like, about which civil life is concerned. However, Plotinus and Macrobius set the virtues of the purified soul against the political virtues, from which it is clear that they place the virtues of the purified soul in those who are completely removed from civil life, being free for the contemplation of wisdom alone. So in them no passions follow from civil goods or evils; yet they are not immune from those passions which follow upon natural goods or evils.

Reply Obj. 3: To the third it must be said that whatever is caused by a weak cause can also be caused by a stronger cause: but a fixed judgment is a stronger cause than a suspicion for exciting the passions; thus Damascene held it to be the least from which a passion could be caused, and thus making us to understand that from a stronger cause something is caused more strongly.

Reply Obj. 4: To the fourth it must be said that according to Augustine in the City of God, impassibility is spoken of in two ways: in one way inasmuch as it removes the emotions, which move against reason and disturb the mind; (Augustine, City of God, bk. 14, ch. 9 (PL 41:415).) in another way inasmuch they exclude every emotion. Thus, passion is understood in the previously mentioned authority inasmuch as it is opposed to the first impassibility, but not as being opposed to the second, for in this way it existed only in Christ.

Reply Obj. 5: To the fifth it must be said that Christ was superior to the angels with respect to his intellectual soul; yet he had a sensitive appetite, according to which passions were able to exist in him, but which the angels do not have.

Reply Obj. 6: To the sixth it must be said that there were certain passions in the first man, such as joy and love, which concern the good, but not fear and pain, which concern evil; and these pertain to our present weakness, which Adam did not have, but which Christ assumed voluntarily.

Reply Obj. 7: To the seventh it must be said that the Stoics called a man's good only that by which men are said to be good, namely the soul's virtues; but other goods such as bodily things and what pertain to external fortune they did not call good but conveniences, yet which the Peripatetics called good, although the least, (Cf. Augustine, City of God, bk. 9, ch. 4 (PL 41:258).) whereas they called virtues the greatest good. But this difference was only with respect to the names used. For just as from the least goods according to the Peripatetics certain movements arise in the soul of the wise man that do not disturb reason, so it is also the case for the Stoics with regard to the convenient goods. And so it is not true that sadness can arise in the soul of the wise man from a defect of virtue alone.

Reply Obj. 8: To the eighth it must be said that although there was no bodily injury in Christ without his reason willing it, yet this was contrary to his sensitive appetite, and so there was sadness there.

Reply Obj. 9: To the ninth it must be said that in Christ there was both a true injury to the body and a true injury of sensation; for he himself is the highest good with respect to his divinity, from which nothing can be subtracted, and not only with respect to the body. But the words of Hilary, as some say, (William of Auvergne as referred to by Bonaventure In III Sent., d. 16, a. 1, q. 1.) were also retracted by him later on. Or one can respond (Cf. Aquinas, In III Sent., d. 15, exposition of text.) that he said Christ did not have the feeling of pain, not because he felt no pain, but because that feeling did not go so far as to transform his reason.

Reply Obj. 10: To the tenth it must be said that from the fact that the soul is glorified, the body united with it is, according to the ordinary course of events, rendered glorious and unable to suffer injury; thus Augustine says in the Letter to Dioscorus, (Augustine, Epistulae, letter 118, "To Dioscorus," ch. 3, para. 14 (PL 33:439).) God made the soul of such great power that from its abundant blessedness, which is promised to the saints at the end of time, there will overflow to the lower nature, that is the body, not that blessedness which is proper to one who enjoys and understands, but a fullness of health, that is the vigor of incorruptibility. But Christ, having in his own power both his soul and body, possessed because of his divinity and due to a certain dispensation both blessedness in his soul and incorruptibility in his body, with the Word permitting to the body what is proper to it, as Damascene says. (Cf. John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 3, ch. 15 (PG 94:1060).) Thus, it was unique to Christ that glory did not overflow into the body from the soul's abundant blessedness.

Reply Obj. 11: To the eleventh it must be said that Chrysostom is speaking of the injury by which one is made to be miserable, namely that by which one is deprived of the good of virtue; but the passion of sadness does not exclusively arise in the wise man from such an injury, as has been said, and so the conclusion does not follow from such an argument.