ARTICLE VIII

In the Eighth Article We Ask: WERE THERE ANY SUCH PASSIONS IN CHRIST?

Difficulties:

It seems that there were not, for

1. According to Augustine every agent is nobler than a patient. But nothing created is nobler than the soul of Christ. There would therefore not be any passion in the soul of Christ.

2. According to Macrobius "it is characteristic of the strength of the purified soul to have no experience of passions, not to conquer them." But Christ had the virtues of the purified soul in the highest degree. There were therefore no such passions in Him.

3. According to Damascene passion is "a movement of the appetitive soul because of a surmise about good or evil." But in Christ there was no surmise, for that implies ignorance. There was therefore no passion of soul in Christ.

4. According to Augustine passion is "a movement of the soul against reason." But no movement in Christ was against reason. Consequently there was no passion of soul in Christ.

5. Christ was not made less than the angels as to His soul but only as to the infirmity of His body. But there are no passions in the angels, as Augustine says. Then neither were there any in the soul of Christ.

6. Christ was more perfect in soul than man in the first state. But man in the first state was not subject to these passions, because as Augustine says, "it is a part of the infirmity of our present life to undergo emotion of this kind even in every one of our good works." But there was no infirmity in the first state. Then neither were there such passions in Christ.

7. According to Augustine pain is "the feeling of dissolution and destruction." But in Christ there neither was the feeling of destruction and dissolution (because, as Hilary says, He had "the violence of punishment without the feeling of punishment" , nor was there actual dissolution and destruction in Him (because from the highest good there can be no loss). Consequently there was no pain in Christ.

8. Where the cause is the same, the effect is the same. But the cause of the absence of passion in the bodies of the blessed will be that they are purified from the "fuel of sin" and united to glorious souls. Now since this was verified in Christ's body, it therefore seems that there could be in Him no pain of a bodily passion.

9. No wise man grieves or is saddened except at the loss of his own good. For the reason why evil itself is lamentable is that it takes away good. But man's good is virtue, for only by this is he himself made good. Therefore, since that good was not taken away in Christ's case, there was no sadness or grief in Him.

10. According to Augustine "when we refuse consent to what happens to us against our will, our state of will is sadness." But in Christ nothing happened that He Himself did not will. The passion of sadness or grief was therefore not in Christ.

11. No one is reasonably saddened or grieved except for some injury. But, as Chrysostom proves, no one is injured except by himself; and a wise man does not do that. Consequently, since Christ was most wise, there was no sadness in Him.

To the Contrary:

1'. It is written in Mark (14:33): "(Jesus) began to fear and to be heavy and to be sad."

2'. Augustine says that an upright will "has these movements . . . not only without blame but also laudably." But there was an upright will in Christ. Then these movements were in Him.

3'. In Christ there were the deficiencies of this life which are not inconsistent with the perfection of grace. But such passions are not inconsistent with the perfection of grace but are rather caused by grace, as Augustine brings out: "These movements, these emotions come from the love of good and from holy charity." Such passions were therefore in Christ.

REPLY:

The passions in question are in sinners in one way; in the just, both the perfect and the imperfect, in another way; in Christ as man in another; and in the first man and the blessed in still another. They are not in the angels or in God at all, because in them there is no sense appetite, of which such passions are movements.

For the clarification of the statements quoted it should be borne in mind that such affections of the soul can be distinguished on four different grounds, all concerned with whether these affections have the character of passion more or less properly:

(1) According to whether a person is affected with a passion of the soul by something contrary or harmful or by something suited and advantageous. The character of passion or suffering is more fully kept when the affection follows from something harmful than if it should follow from something advantageous, because passion implies an alteration of the patient from its natural state to a contrary one. This is why grief and sadness and fear and other such passions which have to do with evil possess the character of passion or suffering more than do joy and love and other emotions that have to do with good, though in these latter also the character of passion is kept inasmuch as the heart is dilated or stimulated by such things or is in any way modified from its ordinary state, so that it can happen that a man dies from such emotions.

(2) According to whether the passion is entirely from the outside or is from some internal principle. The character of passion is better preserved when it is from without than when it is from within. It is from without when the passion is suddenly stirred up from the chance meeting with something suited or something harmful. It is from within when the passions are caused by the will itself in the manner explained, in which case they are not sudden, since they follow the judgment of reason.

(3) According to whether a thing is transformed completely or not. We do not so properly say that a thing which is altered to some extent but is not completely transformed suffers, as we say this of one which is completely transformed to the contrary. We more properly say, for example, that a man suffers an illness if his whole body is ill than if a disease attacks some particular part of it. Now a man is completely transformed by such emotions when they do not stay in the lower appetite but carry along the higher appetite as well. When, however, they remain in the lower appetite alone, then the man is changed by them only as it were in part. In this case they are called "propassions," while in the first case "passions."

(4) According to whether the transformation is slight or intense. Slight transformations are less properly called passions. Thus Damascene says: "Not all passive movements are called passion, but those which are more vehement and become sensible; for those which are slight and insensible are not yet passions."

It should therefore be noted that in men in this present life, if they are sinners, there are passions with regard to good and with regard to evil, not only foreseen but also sudden and intense ones and frequently even complete. These men are accordingly called in the Ethics "followers of passion." In the just, on the other hand, the passions are never complete, because in such men reason is never led by passions. In the imperfect they are vehement, whereas in the perfect they are weak, with the lower powers kept in check by the habit of the moral virtues. Yet these do have not only foreseen but also sudden passions, and not only regarding good but also regarding evil.

In the blessed, however, and in man in the first state, and in Christ as subject to our infirmity, such passions are never sudden, seeing that because of the perfect obedience of the lower powers to the higher no movement arises in the lower appetite except at the dictate of reason. Thus Damascene says: "In our Lord natural tendencies did not precede the will; for he hungered willing it, he feared willing it, etc." And the same is to be understood of the blessed after the resurrection and of men in the first state. But there is this difference: in Christ there were not only passions with regard to good but also with regard to evil; for He had a passible body, and therefore from the imagining of something harmful the passion of fear and of sadness and the like could naturally arise in Him. But in the first state and in the blessed there cannot be the apprehension of anything as harmful; and therefore there is in them no passion except with regard to good, as love, joy, and the like, but not sadness or fear or anger or anything of the sort.

We therefore concede that there were true passions in Christ. Hence Augustine says: "For a very definite providential purpose Christ took these movements upon Himself in His human soul when He willed, just as He became man when He willed."

Answers to Difficulties:

1. It is not necessary for the agent to be more noble than the patient absolutely, but it suffices that it be so in a certain respect: in so far as it is an agent. Thus nothing prevents the object of Christ's soul from being nobler than His soul in so far as the object is active and the soul of Christ has some passive potentiality.

2. According to Augustine there was a dispute on this question between the Stoics and the Peripatetics which seemed, however, to be more one of words than of fact. The Stoics, who called wise a man perfect in virtue, having the virtue of a purified soul, said that such passions were not found in the soul of a wise man at all. The Peripatetics, on the other hand, say that these passions of the soul do occur even in a wise man, but under control and subject to reason. Now Augustine proves from the admission of a certain Stoic that even the Stoics held that such emotions were in the soul of a wise man, but sudden and without being approved or consented to; and they did not call them passions but appearances or phantasies of the soul. From this it is clear that the Stoics really did not hold anything different from the Peripatetics, but that there was disagreement only in words, because what the Peripatetics named passions the Stoics called by another name.

Following the opinion of the Stoics, Macrobius and Plotinus say that passions are not found together with the virtue of a purified soul, not because there are no sudden movements of passion in those who have this kind of virtue, but because they neither draw reason along with them nor are so vehement as to disturb seriously one's peace of mind. In agreement with this the Philosopher says that cravings in the temperate are not strong as they are in the self-controlled, though in neither is reason drawn to consent.

Or it can be said (and this is better) that, since these passions arise from good and evil, they should be distinguished on the basis of the difference in goods and evils. For there are certain natural goods and evils, such as food and drink, health or sickness of body, and others of the sort; and some not natural, such as wealth, honors, and the like. With these latter civic life is concerned. Now Plotinus and Macrobius distinguish the virtues of the purified soul from political virtues. From this it appears that they place the virtues of the purified soul in those who are entirely removed from civic affairs, giving their time exclusively to the contemplation of wisdom. In them, as a consequence, certain passions do not arise from civic goods and evils; yet they are not immune to those passions which arise from natural goods and evils.

3. Whatever is caused by a weak cause can be caused also by a stronger one. Now a certain judgment is a stronger cause for arousing the passions than a surmise. Damascene accordingly set down that minimum which can cause passion, giving us to understand by this that a stronger passion is caused by a stronger cause.

4. According to Augustine impassibility is spoken of in two ways: (1) as doing away with emotions that occur against reason and disturb the mind, and (2) as excluding all emotion. In the passage quoted passion is understood as opposed to the first sort of impassibility, not as opposed to the second. Only the first sort was found in Christ.

5. In His intellective soul Christ was superior to the angels. Nevertheless He had sensitive appetite, according to which passions could be in Him, and the angels did not have this.

6. In the first man there were certain passions, such as joy and love, which have to do with good, but not fear or grief, which have to do with evil. The latter are a part of our present infirmity which Adam did not have but Christ voluntarily assumed.

7. In Christ there was a true injuring of the body and a true feeling of the injury. In His divinity He is the highest good from which nothing can be taken away, but not in His body. The statement of Hilary, moreover, was afterward (as some say) retracted by him.--Or it can be said that he asserts that Christ did not have the feeling of punishment, not because He did not feel the pains, but because that feeling did not go so far as to affect His reason.

8. By the very fact that a soul has been glorified, the body united to it in the ordinary course of events is made glorious and incapable of suffering injury. Thus Augustine says: "God made the soul of so potent a nature that from its complete happiness, which is promised to the saints at the end of time, there will overflow into man's lower nature, the body, not the happiness which is proper to one capable of enjoying and understanding, but the fullness of health, namely, the vigor of incorruptibility." But having in His power His own soul and body in virtue of His divinity, by a dispensation Christ had both happiness in His soul and passibility in His body, since the Word allowed to the body what is proper to it, as Damascene says. It was therefore a singular occurrence in Christ that from the soul's fullness of beatitude glory did not overflow into the body.

9. The Stoics called the good of man only that by which men are said to be good, the virtues of the soul. Other things, such as those which pertain to the body or to external fortune, they did not call goods but conveniences. These latter the Peripatetics called goods, but the least goods, and virtues they called the greatest goods. The difference was merely one in terminology. Just as from the "least goods" of the Peripatetics, so also from the "conveniences" of the Stoics there arise certain movements in the soul of the wise man, though not such as to disturb reason. It is not true, then, that sadness can arise in the soul of the wise man only from the lack of virtue.

10. Although the injuring of His body did not occur in Christ with His reason unwilling, yet it did occur against the appetitive tendency of sensuality. In this way there was sadness there.

11. Chrysostom is speaking of an injury by which someone is made miserable, i.e., one by which he is deprived of the good of virtue. But the passion of sadness does not arise exclusively from such an injury, as has been said. The conclusion therefore does not follow.