Part II Chapter II §2: The Attributes of Christ According to His Humanity

§2: The Attributes of Christ According to His Humanity

SECTION 2 THE ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST ACCORDING TO HIS HUMANITY In consequence of the Hypostatic Union, Jesus Christ was more than an ordinary man. The divine element in Him, not as an inherent form (forma inhaerens) but per modum effectus, overflowed into His sacred humanity and conferred upon it an altogether unique dignity, (i) His will was distinguished by extraordinary ethical perfection or holiness; (2) His intellect commanded an unusual wealth of human knowledge ; (3) His entire manhood with all its essential and integral constituents was and is worthy of divine adoration.

Article 1: The Ethical Perfection of Christ’s Human Will — His Holiness

THE ETHICAL PERFECTION OF CHRIST’S HUMAN WILL, OR HIS HOLINESS All that we have said in a previous treatise1 of the ethical goodness or sanctity of God, applies to Christ in so far as He is God. In the present Article we are concerned only with the human holiness of our Lord, that 1 God: His Know ability, Essence, and Attributes, St. Louis 1911, pp. 251 sqq. 29Z is to say, the holiness of His created soul, or, more specifically, of one particular faculty of that soul, namely, His will. The formality of holiness, i. e., the character wherein exactly it consists, is “exemption from sin combined with rectitude of moral conduct.” 2 Bearing this definition in mind, we proceed to prove the holiness of Christ’s humanity in a systematic series of theses, in which we shall bring out (i) the negative element of holiness, i. e., sinlessness, and (2) its positive element, i. e., moral purity. Thesis I: Christ, as man, was exempt from original sin and concupiscence. This thesis is of faith in both its parts. Proof. Christ’s freedom from original sin is defined in the Decretum pro Iacobitis of Pope Eugene IV (1439) : Qui sine peccato concept tus, natus et mortuus humani generis hostem peccata nostra delendo solus sua morte prostravit 3 Freedom from original sin implies freedom from all the evil consequences thereof, especially from concupiscence (fomes peccati). “Si quis defendit Theodorum impiissimum Mopsuestenum, qui dixit, alium esse Deum Verbum et alium Christum a passionibus animae et concupiscentiis carnis molestias patientem, talis anathema sit,” says the Fifth General Council of Constantinople.4 2 Ibid. 4 Held A. D. 553. Cfr. Denzin3 Cfr. Deiuinger-Bgnnwart, Enchi- ger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 224. ridion, n. 711. a) That Christ was actually and by right free from original sin appears from all those Scriptural texts which in general terms aver His sinlessness and impeccability, or specially emphasize the fact that He appeared in the flesh for the purpose of expiating the inherited guilt which weighed upon the human race. Had He been tainted by original sin, He would not have been the “lamb unspotted and undefiled,” 5 por would He have been able to take away “the sin of the world/’ 6 for the sin of the world is original sin, and it is impossible to assume that He who was destined to take away original sin was tainted by it Himself. For this reason St. Paul, who repeatedly ascribes to the Godman genuine “flesh,” (f. e., a human nature), never calls this flesh “sinful.” Cf r. Rom. VIII, 3 : God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin, hath condemned sin in the flesh. In drawing a parallel 7 between Adam, the first man, who was “of the earth, earthly/’ 8 and Christ, the second Adam, who was “from heaven, heavenly/’ 9 the Apostle virtually excludes original sin from the Godman; else the parallel would be absolutely meaningless. &

UNITY IN DUALITY The Fathers regarded Christ’s freedom from original sin as a self-evident corollary flowing from His divine dignity and the origin of His human nature. As man no less than as God Christ is the natural Son of God, and to assert that He was conceived in original sin would be equivalent to affirming that the Divine Logos was tainted by sin. ” God alone is without sin,” says Tertullian, ” and the only man without sin is Christ, because Christ is God.” 10 Another argument may be formulated thus: Original sin can be transmitted in no other way than by natural, i. e., sexual generation. But Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of a virgin. Consequently He can not be tainted by original sin.11 b) If Christ was conceived without original sin, He must have been exempt from concupiscence (fomes peccati). This conclusion is so patent that even the heretics (Apollinarists and Monothelites, for instance) who denied Him intellect (vow) and a human will (fo’Ai^w), did not venture to charge Him with moral imperfection. ” If any one believe that the flesh of Christ lusted against the spirit,” exclaims St. Augustine, ” let him be anathema.” 12 The temptations of Christ recorded in 10* Solus Dtus sins ptccato, et solus homo tint ptccato ChristUs, quia tt Dtus Christus.* (Dt Anima, 41.) ll ” Non tnim in iniquitatt con’ ctptus est, quia non dt mortalitate conctptus tst. Ntc turn in ptccatis > mater tins in uttro aluit, quern virgo concepit, virgo ptptrit: quia fidt concepit, fidt susctpit. Ergo tcce Agnus Dei, Non habtt istt traductm dt Adam; carntm tantum suscepit dt Adam, ptccatum non assumpsit. Qui non assumpsit dt nostra massa ptccatum, ipst est qui tollit nostrum peccatum.* (St. Augustine, 7V. in loa., IV, c. i.) 12 * Quisquis credit, carnem Christi contra spiritum concupivisse, anathema sit” (Op. Imptrf., IV, Sacred Scripture were external occasions or suggestions which did not elicit consent or delectation, but were promptly repulsed (” Begone, Satan ! ”). ” God who, by becoming incarnate in the womb of the Virgin, had entered this world without sin, tolerated no contradiction in Himself. While it was possible, therefore, for Him to be tempted by suggestion, no sinful delectation ever entered His soul/’ 18 Thesis II: Christ was free from all personal sin. The truth embodied in this thesis is an article of faith. Proof. The actual sinlessness of our Lord (impeccantia) is unquestionably an article of faith. “Si quis dicit” says the Council of Ephesus, “et pro se obtulisse semetipsum oblationem et non potius pro nobis solis — non enim eguit oblatione, qui peccatum omnino nescivit, — anathema sit — If any one assert that Christ sacrificed Himself for Himself, and not for us alone, — for He who was absolutely free from sin had no need of sacrifice — let him be anathema.” 14 The Council of Chalcedon calls Him “like unto us in all things except sin.” 15 47.) Other Patristic texts in Pe- 1 4 Cone. Ephes. (A. D. 431), can. tavius, De Incarn., XI, 11. 10. Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, En> 13 St. Gregory the Great, Horn. chiridion, n. 122. in Ev., XVI (Migne, P. L., 15 * Per omnia nobis similem LXXVI, 1 135). Cfr. also St. absque peccato* Cone. Chalced. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, qu. 15, art. (A. D. 451). Cfr. Denzinger-Bann2; Suarez, De Incarn., disp. 34, wart, n. 148. sect. 2; De Lugo, De Myst. Incarn., disp. 26, sect. 4. Even without these plain ecclesiastical definitions the sinlessness of Christ would have to be received as a revealed dogma, because it is expressly taught in Holy Scripture. The prophet Isaias says of the coming Messiah: He hath done no iniquity, neither was there deceit in his mouth, 16 and the Archangel Gabriel declares to the Virgin Mary: “Quod nascetur ex te sanctum 17 vocabitur Filius Dei — The Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” 18 St. Paul declares that Christ “knew no sin,” and says 19 that, though He was “tempted in all things like as we are,” 20 He yet remained “without sin.* 21 In another place he describes our Lord as holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners.” 22 No man ever dared to challenge his accusers as Jesus did according to the testimony of the fourth Evangelist. John VIII, 46: Quis ex vobis arguet me de peccato? — Which of you shall convince me of sin? His whole life was so pure that thousands have attained to sainthood by following Him. In fact, there is no other way of being delivered from blindness of heart than by “endeavoring to conform one’s life wholly to the life of Christ.” 23 16 Is. LIII, 9. Cfr. 1 Pet. II, 22: Who did no sin, neither was guile 20 KCL0’ dfioidrrfra = similiter ac nos. found in his mouth.” 17 to yewtbfiepov iic aov Hyiov. 18 Luke I, 35. loHeb. IV, is. lutus, segregates a peccatoribus.’ (Heb. VII, 26.) 22 ” Sanctus, innocens, impel23 Thomas a Kempis, The ImitaCHRIST’S HOLINESS 213 Thesis III: Christ as man, was incapable of sinning. This proposition is fidei proximo,. Proof. In our Second Thesis we proved Christ’s sinlessness (impeccantia) . We now proceed to demonstrate His impeccability (impeccabilitas) , which the Vatican Council intended to define as an article of faith.24 Theologians are not fully agreed as to the true conception of Christ’s ” impeccability.” We may distinguish three leading opinions. ( 1 ) The shallowest one, least in harmony with Catholic belief, is that held by Anton Giinther, who, in order to safeguard Christ’s free-will, maintained that He was impeccable because God foresaw from all eternity that He would never actually sin.25 (2) Durandus, Scotus, and the Nominalists contended that our Lord’s impeccability was founded, not on an intrinsic quality of His will, but on an extrinsic disposition of Divine Providence by which His will, which was in itself capable of committing sin, was prevented from yielding to temptation. This is what is called the theory of external impeccability.26 Because of its consonance with the Scotistic doctrine of the impeccability of the Elect in Heaven,27 this rather unsatisfactory theory is extion of Christ, Ch. i. On the lectio Lacensis, VII, 560): ” Non ” Spiritual Sense of the Imitation * solum non peccavit, sed nec peccare see Brother Azarias, Phases of potuit. Thought and Criticism, pp. 89 sqq., 25 This is called impeccabilitas New York 1896. For the argu- consequens. raent from Tradition the reader is 26 Impeccabilitas externa. referred to the Patristic texts 27 Impeccabilitas beatorum. Cfr. quoted below in support of Thesis the dogmatic treatise on EschatolIII. ogy. 24 Cfr. Schema Constit. Vat. (ColUNITY IN DUALITY pressly secured against theological censure by a decree of Paul V. (3) The third opinion is that of Peter Lombard,28 adopted by St. Thomas,20 and championed by his entire school as well as by all Jesuit theologians. It holds that Christ is impeccable by virtue of an intrinsic quality of the will resulting from the Hypostatic Union of the two natures. This is called impeccabilitas interna. a) The Bible does not expressly teach the impeccability of our Divine Saviour, but the texts we have quoted in support of His sinlessness go far towards proving that He was incapable of sinning. The Fathers and the early councils of the Church unanimously uphold the impeccability of our Divine Redeemer and trace it to the Hypostatic Union. St. Cyril of Alexandria, e. g., says : ” All those who maintain that Christ was able to commit sin — I know not how — are foolish and destitute of reason.” 80 St. Augustine teaches that the Hypostatic Union makes it impossible for Christ to sin. ” It was by this [the grace of God] ,” he says, ” that a man, without any antecedent merit, was at the very moment of His existence as man so united in one person with the Word of God, that the very person who was Son of man was at the same time Son of God, and the very person who was Son of God was at the same time Son of man; and by the adoption of His human nature into the divine, the grace itself became in a way so natural to the man as to leave no room for the entrance of sin.” 81 Similarly St. Leo 28 Lib. Sent., Ill, dist. 12. 31 Enchiridion c. 40: ”… ut 20 S. Theol., 3a, qu. 15, art. 1. idem ipse esset Filius Dei qui filius 80 Anthropotn., c. 23. hominis et filius ho minis qui Filius the Great : ” For we should not be able to vanquish the author of sin and death, were it not for the fact that our nature was assumed and appropriated by Him whom sin cannot sully and death cannot claim.” 82 Fulgentius* teaching on this point is distinguished by extraordinary clearness. ” The Godhead cannot be overcome/’ he says, “therefore also the humanity of Christ remained without sin, because it was assumed into the Godhead, which of its very nature is incapable of committing sin.* 88 In conformity with the teaching of the Fathers the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680) defined: * Sicut enim eius caro Dei Verbi dicitur et est, ita et naturalis carnis eius voluntas propria Dei Verbi** dicitur et est; … Awmana eius voluntas deificata 85 non est perempta, sal vat a est autem magis secundum deiloquum Gregorium dicentem: ‘Nam illius velle, quod in Salvatore intelligitur, non est contrarium Deo, deificatum totum.’ ” 86 b) The theological reasons for Christ’s impeccability are trenchantly set forth by St. Thomas as follows : “Simpliciter loquendo Christus nunquant potuit peccare. Potest enim considerari ut viator vel ut comprehensor [scil. per visionem Dei: ac sic in naturae humanae sus- 88 Ad Trasam., Ill, 29: ” Deitas ceptione fieret quodammodo ipsa non potest superari; propterea utigratia Mi hotnini naturalis, quae nul- que etiam Christi humanitas sine lum peccatum possit admittere.” peccato permansit, quia earn in uni(Cfr. St. Augustine, De Corr. et tate personae divinitas accepit, quae Grat., XI, 30; De Praedest. Sanctor., naturaliter peccare non novit.* XV, 30). ^$i\7jfia ttitov tov Oeov A670V. 82 Ep. Dogmat. ad Flavian., c. 2: ^ $i\rjfia BewOtv, * Non enim superare possemus pec- 88 Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, Encati et mortis auctorem, nisi na- chiridion, n. 291. Other proofs can turam nostram ille susciperet et be found in Petavius, De Incarn., suam faceret, quam nec peccatum XI, 11; Vasquez, Comment, in S. contaminare nec mors potuit de- Th., Ill, disp. 61, c. 3; Suarez, De tinere*’ Incarn., disp. 35, sect. 2. 2l6 UNITY IN DUALITY beatificam] vel ut Deus. Ut viator quidem dux videtur esse dirigens nos secundum viam rectam; … secundum quod fuit comprehensor, mens eius totaliter est coniuncta fini… . Secundum autem quod fuit Deus, et anima et corpus eius fuerunt organum deitatis, … unde peccatum non poterat attingere ad eius animam, sicut nec Deus potest peccare” 87 Accordingly, the impeccability of Christ is based on these three grounds : ( I ) His mission as leader of the human race, (2) the fact that He always enjoyed the beatific vision, and (3) the Hypostatic Union of the two natures. Of these grounds the last is no doubt the strongest, in fact it is the only decisive one among the three. On this account the Fathers laid particular stress on the consideration that it would be just as reasonable to assume that the Godhead is capable of sinning as that the Logos should permit His human nature, which, in consequence of the Hypostatic Union, is entirely His own, to be tainted by even the slightest sin. Durandus tried to weaken the force of this conclusion by objecting that sin is no more repugnant to the infinite holiness of the Logos than death is repugnant to His eternity. But it is contrary to Christian sentiment to say that the Logos, by virtue of the Communication of Idioms, is fully as capable of committing sin as 87 Com, in Quatuor Libros Sent., Ill, dist. 12, qu. 2, art. 1. CHRIST’S HOLINESS 21? He is of suffering and dying. Passibility is no disgrace, but sin is. Being a mere malum poenae, passibility may even, for the purposes of salvation, become a bonum, and as such be assumed into and sanctified by the Hypostatic Union. Sin, on the other hand, being a malum culpae, is absolutely and under all circumstances repugnant to the holiness of God. Hence there is no parity between death and sin.88 c) But if Christ could not sin, how can He be said to have had a free will? And how was it possible for Him to take upon Himself suffering and death voluntarily in expiation of our sins? This is a serious difficulty; indeed De Lugo does not hesitate to call it one of the gravest problems of theology.39 Despite our inability fully to reconcile these two truths, we must uphold our Lord’s free will as staunchly as the reality of His human nature. Cfr. John X, 18: ” Sed ego pono earn [scil. animam] a meipso, et potestatem habeo 40 ponendi earn [scil. moriendi] et potestatem habeo iterum sumendi earn: hoc mandatum 41 accept a Patre meo — But I lay it [i. e., my life] down of myself, and I have power to lay it down [i. e., to die] ; and I have power to take it up again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” 42 St. Augustine teaches : ” The spirit of the Mediator showed how it was through no punishment of sin that He came to the 38 Cfr. Tepe, Instit. TheoL, Vol. Ill, pp. 582 sqq.; Janssens, De DeoHomine, I, pp. 666 sqq.; Franzelin, De Verbo Incarnato, thes. 43. 80 * Una ex gravissimis theologiae.* {De Myst. Incarn., disp. 26, sect. 2.) 40 i£ovffiap 42 Cfr. Is. LIII, 7.

2l8 UNITY IN DUALITY death of the flesh, because He did not leave it against His will, but because He willed, when He willed, as He willed” 41 The difficulty of reconciling these two dogmas is well brought out by the following dilemma : In suffering for us, Christ, as man, either acted of His own free choice or not. If He was not free, His Passion lacked meritoriousness and therefore had no power to redeem us. If He was free, He was able to rebel against the commandment (mandatum) of the Father, i. e., to sin. Consequently, it is necessary to deny either His free-will or His impeccability. The Scholastics have suggested a variety of theories to escape this dilemma. Francis Amicus, S. J.,44 enumerates no less than eleven different solutions, of which the eleventh can be formulated in seven different ways. In spite of this embarras de richesse no really satisfactory solution of the difficulty has yet been found. We shall briefly review the more probable suggestions. a) One of the first attempts to solve the difficulty was made by Francis De Lugo (d. 1660). Though at first considered “singular,” it subsequently obtained considerable renown through the authority of Petavius, Pallavicini, Velasquez, Riva, and others. De Lugo held that neither the free-will of Christ nor the meritoriousness of His passion and death was affected by the ” commandment of the Father,” because this commandment was not a “precept”48 binding strictly under pain of sin, but purely a paternal ” wish,” 46 which the Son accepted of His own free choice, and which by this acceptance, 4S ” Demonstrovit spiritus Media- voluit/’ {De Trinit., IV, 13, 16.) torts, quam nulla poena peccati us- 44 Died 165 1. que ad mortem carnis accesserit, 45 Praeceptum, quia non earn deseruit invitus, sed 4e Beneplacitum. quia voluit, quando voluit, quomodo CHRIST’S HOLINESS with the consent of the Father, from a conditional became an absolute mode of redemption.47 This view seems to have been shared by St. Anselm.48 What are we to think of it? The rules of sound exegesis will hardly permit us to regard the mandatum Patris as a mere beneplacitum, because throughout the New Testament mandatum (oroA^) is employed as a technical term to describe a strict precept.49 Moreover, in enforcing the duty of obedience to God’s commands, Christ never once makes an exception in His own favor. On the contrary, He expressly declares: ” Si praecepta mea 80 servaveritis, manebitis in dilectione mea, sicut et ego Patris mei praecepta1 servavi, et maneo in eius dilectione — If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, as I also have kept my Father’s commandments, and do abide in his love.” 52 Our Divine Saviour Himself religiously practiced the virtue of obedience. Cf r. Phil. II, 8 : ” He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. Obedience, in the words of St. Thomas, * is a special virtue, and its special object is a precept, tacit or expressed.* 68 For these and other reasons De Lugo’s theory is combated by the Thomists,84 47 * Praeceptum illud et mandatum, quod Christo Pater edidisse dicitur, … non absolutum imperium videtur fuisse, sed simplex significatio consilii ac voluntatis suae, qua multa illi proponebat Pater ad humanam recuperandam salutem remedia: ex quibus quod vellet eligeret, adeo ut, quidquid ex omnibus capesseret, id sibi gratum esse ac placer e monstraret.’* (Petavius, De Incarn., IX, 8, 6.) 48 ” Non enim illi homini Pater, ut moreretur, cogendo praecepit, sed ille, quod Patri placiturum et homi16 nibus profuturum intellexit, hoc sponte fecit.** (Medit. de Redempt., XL) 40Cfr. Matth. V, 19, XXII, 36; John X, 18, XII, 49. 80 rAf ivroXdi fiov. tov Tarp6s fiov rAf ivroXds . 62 John XV, 10. 58 * Obedientia est specialis virtus et eius speciale obiectum est praeceptum taciturn vel expressum.* (5. Theoh, 2Z 2ae, qu. 104, art. 2.) 54Cfr. Billuart, De Incarn., diss. 18, art 4, f 1.

UNITY IN DUALITY the Scotists, and many Jesuit theologians, e. g., Suarez, Vasquez, Gregory of Valentia, Toletus, John De Lugo,15 Chr. Pesch, and Tepe. P) A second theory for solving the difficulty was excogitated by Ysambert,5* and adopted by Gregory of Valentia, Vasquez, and Lessius. Cardinal Franzelin regards it as equally probable with the one already discussed.67 It may be summarized as follows: The Father (or the Blessed Trinity) enjoined upon the Son a rigorous precept to die, but the manner of its execution (time, place, motives, circumstances, etc.) was left to the Redeemer’s own free decision. In other words : the ” commandment ” of the Father regarded only the substance of the atonement but left all accidental circumstances to the free determination of the Son. Or, in the technical language of the Schoolmen : While Christ’s death was of strict precept in genere, not so its execution in individuo. But does not this theory unduly restrict the free will of our Blessed Redeemer by limiting it to the mode and circumstances of the divine command? Ysambert and his followers met this objection by asserting that the innumerable circumstances surrounding its execution were so intimately bound up with the command itself that substance and accidents were really inseparable. Did not the holy martyrs, too, die freely for the faith, though they were condemned to death? Under the circumstances they could not have escaped martyrdom, yet it is accounted to them as a meritorious deed and they are rewarded for it. This explanation has the advantage that it does not do violence 65 Cardinal John De Lugo was a 56 Comment, in S. Theol., III, qu. brother of P. Francis De Lugo. 18, disp. 2, art. 6. Both were eminent theologians and it De Verbo Incarnato, thes. 44. members of the Society of Jesus. to the Biblical term mandatum (cvtoA^). Nevertheless it is not altogether convincing. To assert that our Lord enjoyed freedom of choice only with regard to the concrete circumstances of His death, is tantamount to admitting that He was not free to die or not to die. But Holy Scripture bases the value and meritoriousness of His death upon the substantia mortis as well as upon its modus.68 Consequently this theory does not do full justice to the sense of Scripture. In the words of De Lugo : ” Videtur non tribuendum Christo ad laudem, quod mortuus fuerit simpliciter et absolute … nec redemisse homines, quia mortuus, sed quia tunc vel libentius vel ex tions, however, Ysambert’s theory is not altogether devoid of probability. y) A third theory destined to reconcile free-will and impeccability in Christ is that of the early Schoolmen. They held that the human will of our Divine Saviour, though physically able to commit sin, attained impeccability by a continuous series of actual graces and was determined to a free though infallibly certain acceptation of the decree involving His death by one special grace of particular strength and effectiveness. Impeccability thus conceived, i. e., in consonance with free-will, is called confirmation in grace (confirmatio in gratia). We may suppose it to have been the happy lot of the Blessed Virgin also. St. Bonaventure explains the process thus: ” Determinate potentiae ad unum potest esse dupliciter, vid. per necessitatem naturae et per confirmationem gratiae. Si sit per necessitatem naturae, tunc tollit arbitrii libertatem ac per hoc tollit dignitatem meriti. Si autem sit determinatio per 58Cfr. Is. LIII, io ; Phil. II, 8; 59 De Mysterio Incarn., disp. 26, Heb. XII, 2. sect. 7. tali motivo mortuus fuerit. In spite of these objec222 UNITY IN DUALITY confirtnationem gratiae, quum talis confirmatio sitnul stet •cum libera voluntate, sic non tollit ab ipso opere bonitatem moris, quum sit voluntarium, ac per hoc nec qualitatem meriti. In Christo autem fuit liberum arbitrium determinatum ad unum non per necessitatem naturae, sed per confirmationem gratiae.” 60 Among the later Scholastics this particular theory was adopted by Molina,61 Suarez,82 Lessius, and Tanner. Its leading defenders at the present time are Cardinal Billot 88 and Chr. Pesch.64 Though it is sufficiently plausible, most other theologians reject this theory, (i) because it were preposterous to admit that it was physically possible for Christ, who was the Divine Logos, to commit sin, and (2) because to explain Christ’s impeccability otherwise than by the Hypostatic Union and the beatific vision, is equivalent to basing it on an inferior principle which might be applied to any saint. Against the former objection some advocates of this theory contend that, as the physical liberty of committing sin is an essential attribute of every rational creature, it cannot be a reprehensible defect, and therefore is not repugnant to the Hypostatic Union, provided, of course, that the necessary measures be taken to prevent the power to sin from ever effectuating a sinful act under any circumstances. Of such necessary measures, they add, * confirmation in grace * is the first and most effective. But this explanation is hardly tenable. It is far easier to refute the second objection. * Confirmation in grace * is really nothing else than a necessary effect of the Hypostatic Union, which postulates with metaphysical necessity that the human will of 60 Comment, in Quatuor Libros 62 De Incarn., disp. 37, sect 3. Sent., Ill, disk 18, art. 1, qu. 2, 63 De Verbo Incarn., thes. 28. ad 1. ttPraelect. Dogmat., Vol. IV, 01 Concord., disp. 53, membr. 4. pp. 180 tqq. Christ be endowed with intrinsic impeccability by all moral means at the command of an omnipotent God.65 8) There is a fourth theory which tries to harmonize the dogma of our Lord’s free-will with that of His impeccability by asserting that He could have obtained from His Heavenly Father at any time a revocation of, or a dispensation from the rigorous mandate which commanded Him to die for the salvation of mankind. This theory is based mainly on Matth. XXVI, 53 : ” An putas quia non possum rogare Patrem meum et exhibebit mihi mo do plus quam duodecim legiones angelorum? — Thinkest thou that I cannot ask my Father, and he will give me presently more than twelve legions of angels ? ” Though Pallavicini boasts of having publicly combated this opinion of his famous master De Lugo during the latter’s life-time in Rome, it has yet found many adherents, among them Maurus Hurtado, Carleton, Mayr, Legrand, and more recently Tepe.66 We are inclined to think that it effectively safeguards both the free-will and the impeccability of Christ. A precept remains in force so long as the lawgiver does not dispense from it. On the other hand, to employ De Lugo’s own words, “non potest maior libertas excogitari, quam ita acceptare mortem, ut posset non solum tunc, sed nunquam earn acceptare, … quia licet haberet praeceptum, poterat Christus impetrare facile ablationem praecepti!’ 67 65 For a refutation of the diffi- Molinists. We shall discuss this culties arising from the Saviour’s question more fully in our treaimpeccability as a result of the tise on Grace. Cfr. also Billuart, beatific vision, see Chr. Pesch, De Incar., diss. 18, art. 4, | 2; Praelect. Dogmat., Vol. IV, pp. 187 Gonet, De Div. Verbi Incarn., disp. sqq. As regards the nature and 21, art. 3, n. 85; Bellarmine, De properties of the efficacious graces Iustific, V, 11. which condition, and ultimately ef- 66 Instit. Theolog., Vol. Ill, pp. feet, the state of * confirmation in 599 sqq. grace,* they are differently ex- 67 De Myst. Incarn., disp. 26, plained by the Thomists and the sect. 8, n. 103. To this theory Velasquez, Chr. Pesch, and others oppose the following dilemma : ” Either the mandatum mortis was an unconditional or it was a conditional command; if it was unconditional, no dispensation was possible; if it was conditional, no dispensation was needed.” But, as De Lugo8 triumphantly shows against Velasquez, this argument proves too much and therefore proves nothing. Positive precepts, whether given to a community (as, e. g., monogamy) or to an individual (as, e. g., the command to Abraham to sacrifice his son), are never essentially irrevocable or indispensable.69 Thesis IV: The human nature of Christ, in virtue of the Hypostatic Union, was and is substantially sanctified by the increate holiness of the Divine Logos. This thesis is held by nearly all theological schools. Proof. By substantial sanctity we do not understand sanctifying grace,70 but that peculiar holiness which was effected in the human soul of Christ by its incorporation with the Divine Logos in the Hypostatic Union. The only school of theologians who demur to this thesis are the Scotists. They assert that the holiness of Christ was accidental, i. e., solely due to sanctifying grace.71 Because of this Scotistic opposition our thesis cannot be qualified as a theological conclusion, 68 Op. ext., sect. 9. Vol. Ill, pp. 599 sqq. 69 For a refutation of certain 70 Sane tit as accidentalis. other objections raised against this 71 Cfr., e. g., Fr. Henno, Theol. theory we must refer the student to Dogmat., disp. 14, qu. 1, art. 1 sq. G. B. Tepe, Institutiones Theol,, CHRIST’S HOLINESS 225 but is merely communis in the technical sense of the term. Under the rules which govern the Communication of Idioms,72 the ” increate sanctity ” of the Logos appears to be as intransferable as His immensity or omnipotence. Why, then, do Catholic theologians, who reject the Lutheran doctrine of ubiquity,78 make an exception in favor of the attribute of sanctity? We shall try to explain this seeming inconsistency. It is true that the divine sanctity of the Logos is no more capable of being transferred to a mere creature than any other divine attribute. On the other hand, however, the manhood united with the Logos, by the very fact of becoming “the second nature” of one of the Three Divine Persons, must be infinitely pleasing to God, and, consequently, infinitely holy, even in the hypothesis that it were not endowed with sanctifying grace. By virtue of the Hypostatic Union the man Jesus is the natural Son of God,74 in whom the Father must be infinitely well pleased. But He could not possibly be well pleased in one who lacked holiness.75 Consequently, the man Jesus, irrespective of His being or not being endowed with sanctifying grace, is substantially holy by virtue of His Hypostatic Union with the Logos, who is substantial sanctity. Thus holiness is the only divine attribute which is substantially communicable to a creature. 72 V. supra, pp. 187 sqq. Deus et homo. Et haec quid em 73 V. supra, pp. 194 sq. coniunctio hominis ad Deum est 74 V, supra, pp. 196 sqq. propria Iesu Christi … et gratis79 ” Alia vero coniunctio est ho- simum Deo facit, ita quod de ipso minis ad Deum non solum per af- singulariter dicatur: Hie est Filius fectum out in habit ationem [=sacct- meus dilectus, in quo mihi comdentaliter], sed etiam per unitatem placui.” (St Thomas Aquinas, hypostasis seu personae, ut sciL una Comp, TheoL, c. 222.) et eadem hypostasis seu persona sit 226 UNITY IN DUALITY But does not such a substantial communication of a divine attribute entail Monophysitic or Pantheistic assumptions? It does not. First, because sanctity in a human being involves only an ethical relation towards God, and, secondly, whereas the infinite sanctity of the Logos is held to be communicable to the creature, it is not held to be communicable in an infinite manner. For, as Suarez justly observes, ” the grace of union is infinite in its kind and renders human nature infinitely pleasing [to God], though not in an equal measure with Divinity. Divinity is pleasing in itself, humanity merely by its union with Divinity, and consequently Divinity is infinite in the strict sense of the term, whereas humanity is infinite only under a certain respect.” 76 a) That Jesus, as man, was substantially sanctified by his Hypostatic Union with the Divine Logos can be demonstrated from Sacred Scripture. Cf r. Luke I, 35 : ” Quod nascetur ex te sanctum, vocabitur Filius Dei — The Holy which shall be born of thee [Mary], shall be called the Son of God.” Here Christ’s divine sonship is given as the ontological reason why He was sanctified in the womb of His mother. It follows that the man Jesus was holy because he was the Son of God. Now, divine sonship depends upon the Hypostatic Union as an indispensable condition. Consequently, the Hypostatic Union 79 ” Gratia unionis est in suo ge- per unionem, unde ilia est infinito nere in fi nit a et reddit humanitatem simpliciter, haec secundum quid,” infinite gratam, licet non aeque at- (Suarez, De Incarn., disp. 22, sect. que est grata divinitas ipsa; quia 1, n. 22.) Cfr. Chr. Pesch, Praelect. haec est grata per essentiam, ilia Dogtnat., Vol. IV, pp. 240 sq. alone was sufficient to sanctify the humanity of Christ. St. Paul, referring to the Messianic Psalm XLIV, verse 8, compares Christ’s substantial sanctity with the anointment of His humanity with Divinity : ” Propterea unxit te Deus, Deus tuus,77 oleo exultationis prae participibus tuts — Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” 78 Origen comments on this text as follows : ” Just as the substance of an ointment is something different from its odor, so Christ is different from His fellows (i. e., the prophets and Apostles). And as a receptacle containing the substance of an ointment can nowise assume an evil smell, whereas those who go too far away from its odor can contract an evil smell (i. e., by sin), so it was utterly impossible for Christ, as the vessel in which the substance of the ointment was contained, to contract the odor of sin.” This interpretation of the forty-fourth Psalm is quite common. Thus St. Ambrose writes: “Deus est qui ungit, et Deus qui secundum carnem ungitur Dei Films, Denique quos habet unctionis suae Christus nisi in came participesf Vides igitur quia Deus a Deo unctus est; sed in assumptione naturae unctus humanae Dei Filius designatur.” 79 The same thought is expressed somewhat more tersely by St. Gregory of Nazianzus: ” God the Father anointed Christ with the oil of joy above all His fellows, when He united the human nature with the Godhead, in order to make them both into one.” 80 The argument for our thesis may be effectively condensed into the formula: Unio hypostatica = unctio substantialis = sanctificatio substantialis. 7T txpwi o Qf6s, 6 Ge6f aov. De Fide ad Gratian., I, 3 (Mighe, 78Hcb. I, 9. 7»Orig., De Princ, II, 6; Ambr., P. L.t XVI, 556). 80 Oral., V, sub fin. b) The name “Christ/’ though used in a figurative sense, admirably describes the essential constitution of the Godman. Xpwrros is derived from xpfo»t “to anoint,” and designates our Lord as the Anointed, unctus, in a special and pre-eminent sense. Describing as it does not merely the Son of God, nor yet merely the Son of man, but the Godman (dedvOpwiros) as such, ” Christ ” is truly a proper and personal name. In the Old Testament priests,81 kings,82 and prophets,88 were consecrated with holy oil, and thereby became accidentally “anointed of the Lord.” Christ, who unites in His Person the three offices of priest, king, and prophet, is alone of all men anointed with an anointment formally substantial, because the invisible ointment of the Divinity, namely, the Divine Substance itself, permeates and perfects His human nature in virtue of the Hypostatic Union. The Fathers are unanimous in interpreting the name ” Christ ” in this personal sense. ” We call ’ Christ ’ a personal name,” says, e. g., St. John of Damascus, ” because it is not assumed one-sidedly, but designates a twofold nature. For He Himself anointed Himself : as God, He anointed His body with His Divinity ; as man, He received anointment, since He is both God and man.” 84 The human nature thus substantially anointed with Divinity must needs be substantially holy. For, as Nazianzen puts it, “[Filius] dicitur Christus propter d%vinitatem; haec enim est unctio hutnanitatis, non sanctificans operatione, ut in aliis Christis, sed totius ungentis 8iCfr. Lev. IV, 3. 84 De Fide Orthodoxa, III, 3 82Cfr. Is. XLV, 1; Ps. CIV, 15. (Migne, P. G., XCIV, 990). 88 Cfr. 3 Kings XIX, 15 tqq. CHRIST’S HOLINESS praesentid, cuius effectus est, ut qui ungit dicatur homo et ut quod ungitur faciat Deum**5 Or, in the words of St. Augustine: In quo [scil. Verbo] et ipse Filius hominis sanctificatus est ab initio creationis suae, quando Verbum factum est caro, quia una persona facta est Verbum et homo. Tunc ergo sanctificavit se in se, hoc est, hominem se in Verbo se, quia unus Christus Verbum et homo, sanctificans hominem in Verbo.” 86 c) The Hypostatic Union does not, however, communicate to the soul of Christ formally and substantially that ” love which God has for Himself,” and which is a vital immanent act of the Divine Trinity and constitutes the innermost essence of divine holiness.87 God’s intrinsic essence is as incommunicable to creatures as the vital act by which He knows Himself.88 What is substantially and formally communicable is the so-called objective holiness of God, viz.: the dignity, majesty, and adorableness of the Logos, which mediately effects the moral sanctity of the man Jesus, making him not only sacrum (fepov), but sanctum (ayiov).69 On this ineffable and infinite dignity of the Godman is based both the adorability of Christ’s humanity and the infinite meritoriousness of all the free acts which His soul inspired. Does the sanctity of Christ’s human nature consist formally in the Personality of the Logos, or in His Divinity, or in both? This is a subtle problem, concern85 Or., 30, n. 21 (Migne, P. G., alt- und neutestamentlichen TheXXX VI, 132). ologie, Koln 1905. 86 Tract, in loa., 108, n. 3. Cfr. 87 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His Petavius, De Incarn., XI, 8 sq. On Knowability, Essence, and Attrithe meaning of the name Christ butes, pp. 423 sqq. cfr. Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. II, 88 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, op. cit., pp. I 222, Freiburg 1878; L. Janssens, 113 sqq. De Deo-Homine, Vol. I, pp. 637 80 Cfr. Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. sqq., Friburgi 1901; Ph. Friedrich, II, p. 160. Der Christ us-Name im Lichte der UNITY IN DUALITY ing which theologians are not agreed. The more common opinion (St. Thomas, Suarez, and De Lugo) is that the substantial sanctity of Christ’s manhood is formally communicated to it by the Personality of the Logos, which incorporates itself immediately and formally with His humanity in the Hypostatic Union. Others maintain that since the Person of the Logos is the possessor and bearer of His Divine Nature, the Divinity of the Logos must be regarded at least as the mediate forma sanctificans of His humanity. A third theory assumes that the Godhead, abstracted from its bearer, i. e., the Logos, is the immediate and formal forma sanctificans. But this absurd and impossible hypothesis involves the danger of degrading the Hypostatic Union to the level of a mere natural synthesis. Vasquez no doubt felt this, for he refrained from pushing his thesis * Formam sanctificantem esse ipsam deitatem 90 to its last conclusions. He based it on such Patristic expressions as ” deificatio ” and * unctio humanitatis per divinitatem, which Scheeben 91 interprets as follows : The phrases ” Deification ” and ” Anointment of humanity with Divinity ” describe the divine nature or substance of the Logos in the sense of St. Cyril, i. e., the divinely spiritual nature of the Logos as the formal principle of sanctification, without separating Personality and Nature, which are so intimately united in the Logos that both together penetrate and perfect His human nature.92 Thesis V: Besides the substantial sanctity resulting from the ” grace of union,” the human soul of our Lord also possessed an accidental holiness which, 90Disp. 41, c. 4, n. 23. 92Cfr. Tepe, Itutit. Theol., Vol. »i Dogmatik, Vol. II, p. 161. Ill, pp. 572 sqq. CHRISTS HOLINESS though not actually infinite, was by far the most perfect created in the present economy. This proposition is theologically certain. Proof. By accidental or created (in contradistinction to substantial) holiness we understand primarily the state of sanctifying grace.93 Being a creature, the soul of Christ was incapable of an actually infinite sanctity ; yet, by virtue of the Hypostatic Union, it was endowed with a superabundance of grace, greater than any other conceivable in the present economy. Theologians are at variance as to the degree of certainty to be attributed to our present thesis. Suarez holds it to embody an article of faith, or at least a doctrine which it is morally certain that the Church acknowledges as divinely revealed (fidei proximutn), while Vasquez, Petavius, and De Lugo94 regard it merely as a theologically certain deduction. All agree in attributing the moral necessity of the existence of superabundant grace in Christ, not to a positive decree of God, nor to the merits of Christ’s human soul, but to the Hypostatic Union. The soul of our Lord, in consequence of its personal union with the Logos, was endowed with the greatest measure of grace which in the present economy God can bestow on any creature. Though in its last analysis due to the ” grace of union,” and therefore supernatural in character, the plenitude of grace with which the soul of Christ was endowed was connatural to, i. e., a moral postulate of His nature. 93 Gratia habit u alts sxve soncti- ma tic text-books, on Grace, Actual ficans. It will be treated in the and Habitual. seventh volume of this series of dog- 94 De Myst. Incarn., disp. 16, sect. 5, n. 91. a) The Scriptural argument for our thesis is mainly based on John I, 14 sqq.: “Et Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis … plenum gratiae et veritatis… . Et de plenitudine eius nos omnes accepimus et gratiam pro gratia** — And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us … full of grace and truth … and of his fulness we all have received, and grace for grace/’ The ” Word Incarnate,” i. e., the Godman, is here described as ” full of grace ” 96 in specifically the same sense in which we are said to have received from His fulness “grace for grace.” In other words, there is no qualitative difference between the grace of the Giver and the grace of those who receive — the two are absolutely homogeneous. Now, the grace which man receives from his Redeemer is primarily sanctifying grace or justification. Consequently the soul of Christ must have been endowed with this same grace, and with such a fulness97 thereof that all who were redeemed by Him, severally and together (including the Blessed Virgin, who was so singularly endowed), can participate in, without ever exhausting it.08 It will not do to say that John 1, 14 could, without straining, be applied to the mere gratia unionis, i. e., substantial sanctification. The gratia unionis is not homogeneous with the gratia iustificatorum, and consequently cannot be the immediate fount from which the justified draw. Whenever the Bible speaks Koi 4k tov Tkripiifiaros airov *1 Plenitudo, T-/jp

of a plenitude of grace, it always means created grace,9* whereas it defines the “grace of union,” which results in substantial holiness, as ” the fulness of the Godhead.” Cf r. Col. II, 9 : ” Quia in ipso inhabitat omnis plenitudo divinitatis 100 corporaliter — For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporeally.* Then there are a number of Scriptural texts in which Christ, as man, is said to be * anointed with Divinity ” (= gratia unionis), and also “with the Holy Ghost” (= gratia sanctificans) , the latter anointment evidently presupposing the former. Isaias says of the future Messias: ” Egredietur virga de radice I esse … et requiescet super eum Spiritus Domini, Spiritus sapientiae et intellects, etc. — And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse … and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, etc.”101 With this passage compare another by the same prophet: “Spiritus Domini super me, eo quod unxerit Dominus me — The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me,“102 and Acts X, 38: “Quomodo unxit eum Deus Spiritu Sancto10* et virtute — How God anointed him with the Holy Ghost, and with power.” Whenever Scripture says of an ordinary mortal that ” he was anointed with the Holy Ghost,” or “the Holy Ghost rests upon him,” the meaning is that the person in question was endowed with supernatural graces, of which the chief is sanctifying grace, both on its own account and because it is the condition and foun»9Cfr. Luke I, 28: And the 100 Tv rh r\i}pw/a rijs 0eo>ijangel being come in, said unto her rof. LMary]: Hail, full of grace. 101 Is. XI, 1 sqq. Acts VI, 8: “And Stephen, full 102 Is. LXI. 1 sqq. of grace and fortitude, did great 103 Impure? abrbv 6 Geo* wetwonders and signs among the peo* /tart &yl

dation of the ” seven gifts of the Holy Ghost.” Since the Bible employs the same terms in respect of our Divine Saviour,104 the soul of Christ cannot be conceived as devoid of sanctifying grace. In other words, our Lord possessed created or accidental in addition to substantial holiness. b) Among the numerous Patristic texts which theologians are accustomed to quote in support of this thesis, we can admit as really convincing only those that draw a clear-cut distinction between created holiness and the ” grace of union,” and expressly attribute both to the soul of our Lord. St. Cyril of Alexandria says : ” Christ sanctifies Himself, since as God He is holy by nature, but according to His humanity He is sanctified together with us, in that … He does not hesitate to call us His brethren.105 St. Chrysostom asserts both the existence and the superabundance of sanctifying grace in our Divine Redeemer. * The full measure of grace,” he says, ” has been poured out over that Temple [i. e., Christ] . For He doth not dispense grace according to measure. We have received of His fulness, but that Temple hath received the complete measure of grace. This is what Isaias meant when he said: [The Spirit of the Lord] shall rest upon him, etc. In Him is all grace, in men but a small measure, a drop of that grace. 106 St. Augus104 Cfr., e. g., Luke IV, 18: 105 Dial, De SS. Trinit., 6 (Migne, * Spiritus Domini super me, propter P. C, LXXV, 1018). quod unxit me — The Spirit of the ioe In Ps., 44, 2. The passage Lord is upon me, wherefore he hath in Isaias referred to by Chrysostom anointed me.” is XI, 2. tine beautifully expounds the Scriptural texts which we have adduced above as follows: “The Lord Jesus Christ Himself not only gave the Holy Spirit as God, but also received it as man, and therefore He is said to be full of grace 107 and of the Holy Spirit.108 And in the Acts of the Apostles it is still more plainly written of Him, ’ Because God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit.’ 109 Certainly not with visible oil, but with the gift of grace, which is signified by the visible ointment wherewith the Church anoints the baptized.” 110 St. Thomas Aquinas says: ” Necesse est ponere in Christo gratiam habitualem propter tria: primo quidem propter unionem animae Ulius ad Verbum Dei, … secundo propter nobilitatem Ulius animae, … tertio propter habitudinem ipsius Christi ad genus humanum. Christus enim, inquantum homo, est mediator Dei et hominum, ut dicitur 1 Tim. 2; et ideo oportebat quod haberet gratiam etiam in alios redundantem secundum Mud Io. 1, 16: De plenitudine eius omnes accepimus, et gratiam pro gratia” 111 Of these three reasons the first, which is based on the Hypostatic Union, is the most important: “Ex ipsa igitur unione naturae humanae ad Deum in unitate consequens est, ut anima Christi donis gratiarum habitualibus prae ceteris fuerit plena; et sic habitualis gratia in Christo non est dispositio ad unionem, sed magis unionis effectus.” 112 107 John I, 14. unxit eum Deus Spiritu Sancto 108 Luke XI, 52, IV, 1. (Act. 10, 38). Non utique oleo 109 Acts X, 38. visibili, sed dono gratiae, quod visi110 Aug., De Trinit., XV, 26, 46: bili significatur unguent 0, quo bap* Dominus ipse Iesus Spiritum S. tizatos ungit Ecclesia.* Other Pawon solum dedit ut Deus, sed etiam tristic texts quoted by Petavius, De accepit ut homo; propter ea dictus Incarn., XI, 6. est plenus gratid (Io. 1, 14) et m S. TheoL, 3a, qu. 7, art. 1. Spiritu Sancto (Luc. 11, 52; 4, 1). 112 Comp. TheoL, c. 214. For a Et manifestius de Mo scriptum est more elaborate treatment see in Actibus Apostolorum: quoniam Suarez, De Incarn., disp. 18, sect. 2. 16 c) In this connection theologians are wont to discuss the following questions: (

the soul of Christ in later life than at the moment of His conception. These considerations furnish us with a key to the proper interpretation of Luke II, 52 : ” Et Iesus proficiebat 114 sapientid et aetate et gratia 115 apud Deutn et homines — And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men.” He who from the very beginning possessed the fulness of created grace could not advance in interior holiness. Christ was equally holy as a babe and as an adult man. The exercise of virtue, therefore, could not merit for Him an increase of sanctifying grace, as is the case with us, but merely greater extrinsic glory for Himself and additional favors for us. The Fathers and theologians explain His advance in wisdom and grace not as an increase in, but merely as an outward manifestation of sanctifying grace.116 But why does Sacred Scripture say that He advanced in wisdom and grace, as He advanced in age, with God? 117 Because the works of wisdom which he performed, and His diligent co-operation with actual grace, by means of which His holiness gradually became manifest to His fellow-men, were meritorious and pleasing in the eyes of God. P) In the ordinary process of justification the infusion of sanctifying grace is accompanied by other supernatural prerogatives, viz.: the rpoiKOirrep, aliquis sapientiora et virtuosiora 11B x

three theological and the so-called moral together with the seven gifts of the Holy Now, it would be wrong to hold that th man soul of Christ enjoyed the state of grace itT the same sense as we do, only in a more perfect manner. The soul of our Blessed Redeemer, by virtue of the Hypostatic Union of the two natures, is in a class altogether by itself. Of the theological virtues Christ doubtless possessed charity. Not so faith and hope. There was no room in His soul for the theological virtue of faith, because He already enjoyed the beatific vision. * Christus a primo instanti suae conceptionis plene vidit Deum per essentiam* says St. Thomas, * et per hanc visionem beatificatn etiam omnia supernaturalia clarissime perspexit, unde in eo fides esse non potuit* 118 Nor could He exercise the virtue of hope, because the actual enjoyment of the beatific vision renders theological hope useless, nay impossible. One cannot hope to attain what one already possesses. Only with respect of such gifts of grace as He did not yet possess, e. g., His glorification by means of the Resurrection and Ascension, was Christ able, after a fashion, to exercise hope.119 Of the infused moral virtues Christ cannot possibly have practiced repentance (poenitentia), because it supposes forgiveness of sins. Our Divine Lord had no sins to be wiped out by contrition and penance. He was absolutely sinless and impeccable in His human as well as in His divine nature. As regards the other moral virtues, 118 S. TheoL, 3a, qu. 7, art. 3. 110 Cfr. St. Thomas, 5. Theol., 3a, qu. 7, art. 4. it is the common opinion of theologians that Jesus possessed them all, both natural and supernatural. Though inferior in character to the supernatural, the natural virtues, too, were His, because they serve to perfect human nature, and no ideal man is conceivable without them. It is of faith that the soul of Christ was endowed with the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, though, of course, “godliness ” in Him was not a servile fear (titnor servilis) but that filial reverence (timor filialis) which a good son bears towards his father. Cfr. Is. XI, 2 sq. : ” Et requiescet super eum spiritus Domini: spiritus sapientiae et intellectus, spiritus consilii et fortitudinis, spiritus scientiae et pietatis, et replebit eum spiritus timoris Domini — And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness; and he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord.” 120 y) Through the Hypostatic Union Christ not only received for Himself personally the plenitude of all graces but likewise the gratia capitis, i. e., the natural and supernatural headship of all creatures. Christ is ” full of grace and truth,” and ” of His fulness we have all received.” 121 Thus from the gratia unionis spontaneously flows the gratia capitis, in virtue of which our Lord is the natural and supernatural Head 120 On the gratiae gratis datae of L. Janssens, De Deo-Homine, Vol. Christ compare St. Thomas, 5”. I, pp. 341 sqq. Theol., 3a, qu. 7* art. 7-8. On the 121 John I, 14, 16. entire subject of this thesis cfr. of fallen men, of the angels, in fact of all rational creatures, nay even of inanimate nature.122 Where there is a head there must be members to constitute an organism. St. Thomas123 distinguishes a twofold relationship between the head and the body, distinctio and conformitas. Under the first-mentioned aspect the head is distinguished from the members of the body (i) by its dignity as the sole possessor of the five senses ; 124 (2) by its government as the ruler of the whole organism,125 and (3) by the vital influence it exercises over the entire body.126 The conformity of the head with the body manifests itself (1) by the unity of its nature 127 with that of the body, because head and members are homogeneous; (2) by the unity of order 128 which connects the members with the head and regulates their respective functions; (3) by the unity of continuity,129 in so far as the head is perfectly joined to its members. Both series of relations are organically interrelated and point each to the other. The dignity of the head supposes the existence of homogeneous members from among which it stands out. Again the head could not rule over the body were it not that the members are wisely ordained towards one another. Lastly, the exercise of the head’s influence depends on the existence of organic continuity by which the vital fluids are enabled to circulate freely through the organs. This allegory is based upon Sacred Scripture. Let us apply it to the Godman. 122 For a discussion of the subtle 123 De Verit., qu. 29, art 4. problem how the gratia capitis is 12* Dignitas. related to the gratia unionis, and 12s Gubernatio. whether or not it is objectively 126 Causalitas. identical with habitual grace, we 127 Unit as naturae. must refer the reader to Billuart, 128 Unitas ordinis. De Incarn., diss. 9, art. 4, and to 129 Unitas continuitatis. St. Thomas, S. Th., 3»»

THE ” GRATIA CAPITIS i. As God, Christ is the Lord rather than the Head of His creatures. As man, He is first and above all the Head of His Church, which, in the words of Suarez,180 consists of men and is partly militant here on earth, partly triumphant in Heaven. This is an article of faith clearly expressed in many passages of Holy Scripture, especially in the Epistles of St. Paul. Cfr. Eph. I, 22 sq. : ” Et omnia subiecit sub pedibus eius, et ipsum dedit caput supra omnem ecclesiam,1*1 quae est corpus ipsius182 — And he hath subjected all things under his feet, and hath made him head over all the Church, which is his body.” Col. I, 18: ” Et ipse est caput corporis ecclesiae,lzz qui est principium, primogenitus ex mortuis, ut sit in omnibus ipse primatum tenens — And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; that in all things he may hold the primacy.” Christ is the mystic Head of the human race and of His Church in a threefold manner, (i) As the most perfect man who can possibly exist, He excels all His fellowmen by His infinite dignity,134 and consequently is the Head of humankind in a higher sense even than Adam.185 (2) In virtue of the Hypostatic Union Christ is by His very nature the King of kings and Lord of lords,186 the Ruler of all men. (3) Lastly He is pre-eminently our Head, because of the supernatural influence 137 which He exer180 Comment, in 5. Theol. S. 132 r6 ffupa avrov, Thomae Aquinatis, III, disp. 23, 133 if K€

24J UNITY IN DUALITY cises over those who are actually or potentially united with Him as members of His mystic body.188 To ascertain the extension of the true Church it is necessary to distinguish, as theologians commonly do, between actual and potential membership. Unquestionably all those human beings are in vital communion with Christ as their mystic Head, who are actually united with Him either by the heavenly light of glory ,13* or by sanctifying grace, or at least by internal faith. The Godman Jesus Christ is truly the head and fountain of all graces for the elect in Heaven, for the poor souls in Purgatory, and for all just men as well as all believing sinners on earth. These four classes together constitute the Church. The elect in Heaven behold Him in His transfigured humanity, which to the faithful on earth remains hidden under the species of bread and wine.140 He operates in all through faith or charity, thus binding together the members of the militant with those of the suffering and the triumphant Church into one mystic body, called ” Communion of Saints.” 141 So far theologians are quite unanimous. But they differ when it comes to determining the line which divides the actual members of the Church from those who are merely potential Christians. Apostates and overt heretics can not be actual members of the Church, because they have voluntarily severed the arteries which 188 Cfr. John I, 16, XV, i sqq., 189 On the lumen gloriae see XVII, 21 sqq.; Eph. IV, n sqq.; Pohle-Preuss, God: His Knowability, i Cor. X, 16 sq., XII, 12 sq. Cfr. Essence, and Attributes, pp. 101 sqq. Cone. Trident., Sess. VI, cap. 16 140 Cfr. John VI, 57; 1 Cor. X, (Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, 16 sq. n. 809) : ” Quum enim ills ipse 141 On the Communion of Saints Iesus tamquam caput in membra et see J. P. Kirsch, The Doctrine of tamquam vitis in palmites in ipsos the Communion of Saints in the Aniustificatos iugiter virtutem influat, cient Church (tr. by J. R. M’Kee), etc.’* London 191 1. THE ” GRATIA CAPITIS connected them with the mystic Head. But what about covert heretics? Can they be considered actual members of the Church? Suarez says no; Bellarmine replies in the affirmative.142 With regard to the heathen, theologians are pretty generally agreed that they belong to the Church potentially (in potentia), because Christ died for them also, and though they have not the true faith, they receive actual graces through His merits. Even the unborn infants are potential members of the Redeemer’s mystic body, for the reason that, at least mediately, through the prayers of their parents and those of the Church, they are brought under His influence. Christ cannot, however, be called the Head of the reprobate sinners in hell. He is their rigorous Lord and avenging Judge, but not their Head, because, being irrevocably cut off from His mystic body, they are no longer capable of being His members. It is a matter of debate among divines whether or not Christ was also the Head of the human race in Paradise. The Thomists deny,143 whereas the Scotists and Suarez 144 affirm it, either absolutely or hypothetically, each according to his individual attitude with respect to the predestination of the Incarnation.145 2. The question whether or not Christ by virtue of the gratia capitis is also the Head of the Angels, is answered in the negative by some of the Fathers and Scholastics, who maintain that between Christ as man and the angelic spirits there is lacking that homogeneity of nature and that influence of grace which constitute the essential characteristics of a head in the supernatural 142 Cfr. Palmieri, De Romano 144 Comment, in S. Theol., Ill, Pontifice cum Prolegom. de Ecclesia, disp. 23, sect. 1, n. 5. pp. 47 sqq., 2nd ed., Prati 1891. 145 For a discussion of this point 143 Cfr. Billuart, De Incarn., diss. we must refer the student to Sote9, art 2, I 3. riology. sphere. As Christ became incarnate solely for man’s sake, they say, the graces He merited are applicable to men only, the supernatural state of grace and glory enjoyed by the Angels being a gratuitous gift of the Blessed Trinity.148 In the opinion of Billuart, however, with which we are inclined to agree, it is little less than temerarious to deny that, in a certain sense at least, the Godman is also the Head of the angelic hosts. Christum esse caput angelorum aliquo modo, puta quoad externam gubemationem, sicut Papa dicitur caput Ecclesiae he says,147 ” non videtur posse negari sine errore, turn propter apertissima s. Scripturae testimonia et s. Patrum, turn quia esset negare Christum esse principem ac Dominum angelorum atque totius Ecclesiae triumphantis, quae ex hominibus et angelis constat.” In matter of fact Christ’s headship over the Angels can be rigorously demonstrated by a threefold argument. First, He is by dignity the Head not only of men, but of all creatures, which as such owe Him homage, obedience, and adoration, as the Apostle testifies in Heb. I, 6: ” Et quum iterum introducit primogenitum in orbem terrae, dicit: Et adorent eum omnes angeli — And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith: And let all the angels of God adore him.” Again, since that which is more perfect rules over that which is less perfect, there is every reason to assume that the Angels are subject to Christ even qua man. While the infernal spirits tremble with fear and rage because they are compelled to serve Christ, the blessed Angels 140 Thus Gabriel Bid, Driedo, angelorum, explicant hominum esse Soto, and others. Suarez comments caput secundum humanitatem, anon this opinion as follows: * Cut gelorum vero secundum divinitasententiae videntur favere multi Pa- tern * (/. c). tres, qui ubicumque Paulus dicit 147 De Incarn,, diss. 9, art. 3. Christum esse caput hominum et gladly do His bidding and are proud to acknowledge Him as their Ruler and Lord. Cfr. Matth. IV, 11: “And behold angels came and ministered to him.” 148 It is somewhat more difficult to decide whether the Godman is the Head of the angelic hosts also from the third point of view, i. e., as the source of grace. Theologians disagree on this question. One group holds with Scotus that all graces without exception, and consequently also the grace bestowed upon the Angels, are exclusively attributable to Christ and His merits. Another, under the leadership of St. Thomas, defines the grace of Christ purely as redemptive grace in which the Angels do not share. But even in the Thomistic hypothesis Christ retains such a far-reaching accidental influence of grace over the Angels that He can still be called their Head. For even if He had not merited for them the full state of grace and glory which they enjoy, He would yet undoubtedly be in a position to communicate to them an accidental increase of light and happiness from the infinite thesaurus of His grace. When the angelic intellect turns towards the luminous soul of the Godman, it is flooded with light and enriched with prolific concepts. This truth is entirely independent of the theory of the three ” hierarchic acts 99 (illuminare, purgare, and perficere) which Pseudo-Dionysius attributes to the Angelic intellect.149 Since, however, the Angels, unlike the members of the human race, are not of the same species with Christ, De Lugo finds the ultimate cause of our Lord’s headship over them in the two prerogatives of His infinite dignity and exalted dominion. 1*8 Si7]k6povv clvt$. Cfr. De St Thomas, Comment, in Quatuor Lugo, De My st, Incarn., disp. 30, Libros Sent., Ill, dist. 13, qu. 2, sect. 1, n. 7. art. 2. 149 De Cael. Hier., VII, 3; cfr. 246 UNITY IN DUALITY 3. As regards the third and last category of creatures, viz.: those which constitute the material universe, the infinite dignity and supreme dominion of the Godman undoubtedly give Him a natural claim to rule as pritnogenitus omnis creaturae et primatum tenens over the entire universe. Inasmuch, however, as the title of ” headship ” connotes a certain willingness, docility, and manageableness on the part of the subject members, it is more appropriate to call Christ the Lord than the Head of material creatures. And the same principle applies to His headship over the demons and reprobate sinners in hell. He is their Lord rather than their Head. The devils, who are intelligent creatures, will not obey Him; the irrational brutes and matter, being destitute of reason, can not obey Him. Both serve Him under compulsion. Some theologians hold that Christ’s humanity exercises’a physical influence over all creatures without exception. But this theory rests on false assumptions and is philosophically untenable. For, as Suarez pertinently observes/’ hoc non pertinet ad dignitatem assumptae hu~ manitatis nec est necessarium ad manifestationem nominis Christi” 150 It will be sufficient to say, therefore, that Christ, as man, ranks infinitely above the created universe, and that all creatures are subject to Him and compelled to do His bidding. Cfr. Matth. VIII, 27: ” The winds and the sea obey him.” 151 Readings: — Bougaud-Currie, The Divinity of Christ, pp. 66 sqq., New York 1906. — * L. Atzberger, Die Unsiindlichkeit Christi, Miinchen 1883. — K. Hennemann, Die Heiligkeit Jesu als Beweis 160 Comment, in Quatuor Libros L. Janssens, De Deo-Homine, Vol. Sent., Ill, disp. 23, sect. 1, n. 9. I, pp. 374 sqq.; Franzelin, De 151 On the gratia capitis cfr. St. Verbo Incarn., thes. 41; Stentrup, Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, qu. 8; also Soteriologia, thes. 169 sqq. seiner Gottheit, Wurzburg 1898. — Wilhelm-Scannell, A Manual of Catholic Theology, Vol. II, pp. 149 sqq., 2nd ed., London 1901. — W. Humphrey, S. J., The One Mediator, pp. 238 sqq., London

Article 2: The Human Knowledge of Christ

THE HUMAN KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST Having dealt in a previous treatise with the divine knowledge of Christ, qua Logos (i. e. God),1 we may here confine ourselves to a consideration of His human knowledge. The nature and extent of Christ’s human knowledge is one of the most difficult problems in Christology. While the Church in her controversies with various heretics was repeatedly compelled to concern herself in a special manner with the will of our Divine Lord, she never had any particular occasion to decide the questions that have arisen in regard to His intellect. The Hypostatic Union is the source and fountainhead of all the prerogatives and graces with which the soul of Jesus is endowed. It goes without saying that these prerogatives and graces are the highest and noblest of which a creature is capable. Since, however, no creature can ever become God, (this would involve a contradiction), the humanity of Christ is not God. The Hypostatic Union did not result in an apotheosis of the assumed manhood, but only in what is technically termed Oco-iroirjcTis. The mystery enveloping the Hypostatic 1 Pohle-Preuss, God: His Knowdbility, Essence, and Attributes, pp. 327 sqq. Union makes it difficult for us to find the correct mean between these two extremes. It is probably due to this circumstance that certain theologians2 have left the beaten track of traditional teaching in this important question. There can be no doubt that the universal and constant teaching of Catholic theologians in matters of faith constitutes the best source of certainty. Generally speaking, man is capable of a threefold knowledge: ( i) that derived from the beatific vision of God, (2) infused knowledge, and (3) acquired or experimental knowledge, derived from sense perception and experience. The first kind of knowledge (scientia beat a) is a prerogative of the elect in Heaven, who participate in the divine knowledge of the Blessed Trinity through the medium of the so-called lumen gloriae. Acquired or experimental knowledge is conditioned by the present constitution of human nature and therefore peculiar to man as a wayfarer. The supernatural gifts of faith and grace do not dispense him from dependence on the material world. Midway between these two species stands the knowledge infused by God (scientia infusa). This kind of knowledge is connatural to the angelic intellect, and theologians commonly hold that it was conferred as a supernatural gift on Adam and Solomon. 2 This group comprises the school unquestioned loyalty to the Church, of Gunther, the Modernists, H. e. g., Klee and Laurent. Schell, and also a few divines of CHRIST’S HUMAN KNOWLEDGE 249 The soul of Christ simultaneously possessed all three kinds of knowledge, as we shall now proceed to demonstrate. Thesis I: From the first moment of its existence in a human body the soul of our Lord Jesus Christ enjoyed the beatific vision of vGod. If the soul of Christ on earth was constituted in the possession of the beatific vision, and of such knowledge of God and the created universe as that vision implies, then His state, in this respect, was not so much that of a wayfarer, but rather the status termini proper to the elect in Heaven. Hence the theological axiom: * Christus erat viator simul et comprehensor* Modernistic theologians contend that this axiom involves a contradiction, or at least that the simultaneous possession of these two kinds of knowledge is incompatible with the life and passion of our Lord in His capacity as Mediator between God and man. To escape this alleged contradiction they deny Him the visio beata. As Sacred Scripture and Tradition teach nothing definite on the matter and the Church has never put forth a formal definition, this denial does not involve heresy; but it runs counter to a theological conclusion which, supported as it is by the unanimous consent of older theologians and the belief of the faithful, may be regarded as certain. Suarez says : ” I regard the contrary opinion as erroneous, nay even as bordering on heresy (proximam haeresi), because the testimony of Sacred Scripture in connection with the teaching of the Fathers and the consensus of all Googfe

UNITY IN DUALITY Catholic doctors is sufficient to produce certainty.”8 One may think this censure too rigorous, but it is hard to escape the force of the argument formulated by such a cautious and unprejudiced theologian as Petavius: “Nemo hactenus bond fide christianus, i. e. catholicus scriptor exstitit,” he says, “qui de Christo aliter existimaret quant eutn numquam, ex quo vivere coepit, divino aspectu caruisse; nec hodie quisquam est, rudis licet literarum et idiota, qui si utcumque quid Christus sit noverit, non idem de eo rogatus respondeat/’ 4 A further motive for adhering to the traditional teaching is that the Scholastics and later theologians, though fully cognizant of the difficulties which prompt modern writers to reject the older view, never swerved from the path mapped out by the Fathers. Proof. — a) To construct a solid Scriptural argument we must find texts which treat expressly of the human knowledge of Jesus ; such as merely prove His divine knowledge,5 or can be interpreted by the Communication of Idioms,6 are manifestly inconclusive. Some divines7 appeal to John III, 13: “Nemo ascendit in coelum, nisi qui descendit de coelo, Filius hominis qui est in coelo — No man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven.” To * be in heaven,* they say, means to * be constituted in the possession of the beatific vision.* But this interpretation is by no means cogent. 8 De Incarn., disp. 25, sect. x. 8 E. g., John XII, 26, XIV, 3, De Incarn., IX, c. 4, n. 8. XVII, 24. 6 For example, Matth. XI, 27; 7 Prominent among them CardiLake X, 22. nal Billot. By virtue of the Communication of Idioms the ” Son of man ” is as much * in heaven * as the ” Son of God,” because both are identical with the Divine Person of the Logos.8 A more apposite text is John I, 17-18: “Quia lex per Moysen data est, gratia et Veritas per Iesum Christum facta est. Deum nemo vidit unquam, unigenitus Filius, qui est in sinu Patris, ipse enarravit — For the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Though this passage refers primarily to the divine vision of the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, the Evangelist seems to include also the human vision of His soul. Had he meant only the divine vision of the Logos as such, “He who declares the Father ” would be either a mere automaton or at best a prophet enlightened by Revelation. In the former hypothesis Christ would rank beneath Moses, in the latter assumption He would certainly not surpass that inspired Jewish law-giver, because without divine inspiration it is impossible for any prophet to declare the mysteries of God. But what the Evangelist wishes to accentuate in the above quoted passage is precisely that Christ’s superiority over Moses is not merely one of degree, but essentially different, as different as the Old Testament is from the New. Wherein does this essential difference consist? “He who declares,” i. e., the Son of man as such, really saw God. Consequently the soul of Christ was constituted in the possession of the beatific vision. 8 Cfr. Chr. Pesch, Praelect. Dog- burg! 1909; L. Janssens, De Deomat., Vol. IV, 3d ed., p. 139, Fri- Ho mine, Vol. I, pp. 4x0 sq. St. Thomas Aquinas9 successfully appeals to John VIII, 55: ” Et non cognovistis eum [scil. Patrem], ego autetn novi eum.10 Et si dixero quia non scio eum, ero similis vobis mendax. Sed scio eum 11 et sermonem eius servo — You have not known him [i. e., the Father] , but I know him. And if I shall say that I know him not, I shall be like to you, a liar. But I do know him, and do keep his word. In this passage the phrase * I know him ” describes a clear, intuitive knowledge of the Father, and consequently of the entire Trinity ; but such knowledge is impossible except through the beatific vision. Now our Divine Saviour claims this knowledge not only’ as God, but also as man, for it is only as man that He can “keep the word” of His Heavenly Father and say of Himself, as He does in the verse immediately preceding : ” If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father that glorifieth me.” 12 b) The Patristic texts that can be adduced in confirmation of our thesis are too meagre to allow us to speak of a strict argument from the writings of the Fathers. St. Augustine in his allegorical explanation of the resuscitation of Lazarus observes that Lazarus lying in the tomb and wrapped in a shroud is a figure of our earthly knowledge of God, whereas Lazarus released from his grave and restored to life symbolizes the knowledge of God which we are to enjoy in Heaven.18 He adds that this simile applies to all men with the sole exception of Christ, who enjoyed the beatific vision as a wayfarer here on earth.14 • S. TheoL, 3a, qu. o, art. 2. 12 John VIII, 54. 10 olfa aMv. is Cfr. 1 Cor. XIII, 12. 11 olda aMv, I* Lib. 83 QuaesU, qu. 65 : * Ipse CHRIST’S HUMAN KNOWLEDGE 253 Pope St. Leo the Great teaches : * Quum simplex et incommutabilis natura deitatis tota sit semper in sua essentia nec damnum sui recipiens nec augmentum et sic naturam assumptam beatificans, ut gloriUcata in glorificante permaneat.” 15 The only ecclesiastical writer who has treated this question ex professo is St. Fulgentius of Ruspe. He holds that the soul of Christ, because of its divine dignity derived from the Hypostatic Union, must necessarily have been constituted in the possession of the beatific vision : ” Caveamus ne, quum anima Christi totum Patrem nosse non creditur, ipsi uni Christo ex aliqua parte non solum Patris, sed etiam sui et Spiritus S. cognitio denegetur; perquam vero durum est et a sanitate fidei alienum; ut dicamus animam Christi non plenam suae deitatis habere notitiam, cum qua naturaliter creditur habere personam.” 19 Had St. Fulgentius contented himself with explaining, as St. Thomas did several centuries later, that the soul of Christ on earth saw, but did not adequately comprehend the Blessed Trinity, — because no creature can have an adequate comprehension of the Godhead, — he would deserve to be called, in respect of Christology, ” a Scholastic before the days of Scholasticism.” But he grossly exaggerates when in the process of his argument he identifies simple vision with adequate comprehension, — a proceeding which has scandalized more than one later theologian.17 Fulgentius himself appears to have realized that he had overshot the mark, since he says further on : ” Possumus plane dicere, anisolus in came non tantum in monu- 16 Ep. 14 ad Ferrand., n. 26. mento non est oppressus, ut aliquod 17 E. g., Petavius {De Incarn., peccatum in eo inveniretur, sed nec VI, 3, 1 sqq.), Thomassin {De Inlint e is implicatus, ut eum aliquid earn., 1. VII), Ruiz {De Scientia later et aut ab itinere retardaret,” Dei, disp. 6, sect. 2), and Stentrup !•£/>. 25 ad Iulian, (Christologia, thes. 72). 254 UNITY IN DUALITY mam Christi habere plenam notitiam deitatis suae; nescio tamen, utrum debeamus dicere quod anima Christi sic suam deitatem noverit, quemadmodum se ipsa deitas novit, an hoc potius dicendum est, quia novit quantum ilia, sed non sicut ilia? … Anima vero ilia ab ipsa deitate, quant plene novit, accepit ut noverit/’ 18 Needless to add, this distinction does not sufficiently safeguard the dogma of God’s absolute incomprehensibility.1* For the rest, we may claim the authority of the Fathers in favor of our thesis at least in so far as they teach: (i) That Christ made no intrinsic advance in either His divine or His human knowledge20 any more than in holiness or grace, and (2) that His human intellect did not admit of ignorance in the strict sense of the term, as claimed by the Agnoetae. Of these two propositions the first postulates, while the second favors the doctrine that the human soul of our Lord enjoyed the beatific vision.21 Since the Fathers base these two propositions on the Hypostatic Union, they must have held that Christ was constituted in the possession of the beatific vision at the instant of His conception, i. e., the creation of His soul. c) As the reader will have inferred, the argument for our thesis rests mainly on theological grounds, and these grounds are very weighty indeed.

measure of our Lord’s human knowledge in the same way in which it is the principle and measure of His created holiness. Though the beatific vision is not a metaphysically necessary effect of the gratia unionis, the moral claim which the soul of Christ has to that vision is so strong that the burden of proof rests entirely with those who deny it. It is unthinkable that the soul of Christ should not from the very beginning of its existence have known the Logos with whom it was united in the most intimate manner conceivable, i. e., by Hypostatic Union. And if Christ’s sacred humanity was endowed with the sublimest of all gifts in the order of grace, viz.: personal communion with the Godhead, it could not possibly have been deprived of the lesser gift of beatific vision in the light of glory. The soul of our Lord was constituted in the full possession of created sanctity and the perfection of grace,22 and consequently was elevated to the highest summit of accidental grace, which is the beatific vision of the Divine Essence. It is a theological axiom that ” Glory is grace consummated.” 28 ” The man Jesus,” says Kleutgen, ” is true God by virtue of the Hypostatic Union, because by this union His humanity is elevated, not to a higher degree of divine resemblance, but to the personal being of the Son of God. The Hypostatic Union, therefore, is not, like the beatific vision of God, a consummation of sanctifying grace. It is something far superior to both. Consequently grace cannot be the cause but must be an effect of the Hypostatic Union… . This is the only correct conception of the relation between grace and the Hypostatic Union, and it naturally leads us to conceive 22 V. supra, pp. 207 sqq. 28 * Gloria est consummata gratia.* 256 UNITY IN DUALITY of grace in Christ as in the state of consummation. For grace was not given to Christ, qua man, to enable Him to attain to a certain predestined dignity, but because He had already attained to the highest dignity which it is possible for us to conceive. Grace in its consummation is precisely the light of glory which elevates the soul to the vision of Go

the author of our salvation, but in the hardships and pains He endured from the manger to the Cross.” It has been objected that if a passible Saviour was able to merit for us the glory of the Resurrection, there is no reason why the beatific vision should not come to us through the merits of a Redeemer who Himself lacked this prerogative. There is no parity between the two cases. Christ’s mediatorial office, which was incompatible with a glorified life in the body, made it necessary for Him to postpone His bodily transfiguration until after the Resurrection. The beatific vision, however, did not interfere with the possibility of our Lord’s agonizing passion and death, and, on account of His dignity and mission as the caput gratiae, had to be His from the very moment of His conception. Hence Aquinas justly argues : ” Homo est in potentia ad scientiam beatorum, quae in Dei visione consistit et ad earn ordinatur sicut ad finetn… . Ad hunc autetn finem beatitudinis homines reducuntur per Christi humanitatem, secundum illud (Heb. 2, 10) : ’ Decebat eum, propter quern omnia et per quern omnia, qui multos filios in gloriam adduxerat, auctorem salutis eorum per passionem consummari! Et ideo oportuit quod cognitio beata in Dei visione consistens excellentissime Christo homini conveniret, quia semper causam oportet esse potiorem causato.” 27 But how are we to reconcile Christ’s life and suffering on earth, especially the agony of His sacred Passion, with the beatitude essentially involved in the immediate vision of God? Some theologians attempt to solve this difficulty by saying that the human soul of our Lord was filled with beatific joy in its upper, while sadness and pain and sorrow afflicted its lower region.28 But 27 5. TheoL, 3a, qu. 9, art. 2. a. 1699 ab Innocentio XII (Den28Cfr. Prop. 13 Fenelonii damn. zinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. this theory hardly deserves serious consideration. Joy and sadness, happiness and sorrow, may co-exist in the spiritual soul of man, if they are due to different motives and directed towards different formal objects. The blessed martyrs exulted in the midst of cruel tortures. However, we must draw a sharp distinction between spiritual joy and bodily pain on the one hand, and spiritual joy and spiritual pain on the other. Spiritual joy is compatible with bodily pain,29 but the simultaneous co-existence of spiritual joy and spiritual affliction has always been regarded as a most difficult problem in Christology. The fact that theologians generally have ranged it among the inscrutable mysteries rather than recede from their position, is a strong proof of the vital importance which they attach to the doctrine we are expounding. Among the manifold solutions that have been offered probably the most widely known is that of Melchior Canus. Canus draws a real distinction between the action of the intellect (actus intellectus = visio) and the action of the will (actus voluntatis = gaudium) in the visio beatifica, and holds that Jesus on the cross continued to enjoy the vision of God, though without the beatitude ordinarily attending it.80 This not altogether unlikely explanation had been adumbrated by St. Ambrose 81 and was adopted by Greg1339) J Inferior Christi pars in cruce non communicavit superiori sua involuntarias perturbationes* 20 Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, qu. 15, art. 5, ad 3: ” Virtute divinitatis Christi dispensative sic beatitude- in anima continebatur, quod non derivabatur ad corpus, ne eius passibilitas et mortalitas tolleretur; et eadem ratione delectatio contemplationis sic retinebatur in tnente, quod non derivabatur ad vires sensibiles, ne per hoc dolor sensibilis tolleretur* 80 Cfr. De Locis Theol., XII, 13: * Sicut per tot am vitam Dominus gloriam animae quasi premebat, ne in corpus efflueret, sic saltern in cruce retinuit l=repressit] gaudium, quod suapte natura ex clara Dei notitia prodiret/’ Si In Luc, 1. 10, n. 56: “Pro me doluit, qui pro se nihil habuit quod doleret et sequestrate delectatione divinitatis aeternae, taedio meae in fir mi tat is afficitur.” CHRIST’S HUMAN KNOWLEDGE 259 ory of Valentia, Salmerori, and Maldonatus. But it hardly satisfies the enquiring mind. The intuitive vision of God is so inseparably connected with beatitude that, so far as we know, neither can exist apart from the other. A way out of the difficulty is offered by the theory that the will of the Elect reacts differently, (1) towards the uncreated Good and (2) towards created good. Besides the essential happiness which flows from the beatific vision, the Elect in Heaven also enjoy a species of accidental happiness derived from the spiritual contemplation of created goodness. Like their respective objects, these two operations are numerically and formally distinct, though in the blessed state both rigorously exclude sorrow and sadness. Yet, the incompatibility of joy and sadness is due to a natural rather than an essential contrariety. There is at least no ontological reason why the soul of Christ, though in the full enjoyment of the beatific vision, should not have been plunged into sadness and sorrow at contemplating the innumerable sins of mankind and the painful way of the Cross. A miracle of divine omnipotence may have temporarily suspended the natural, though not essential, nexus between essential and accidental beatitude.82 y) A third argument is related to the problem concerning the origin of the Messianic and divine consciousness of Christ. Our Saviour must have been fully conscious of His Divinity and Messiahship from the very beginning, else there would be reason to doubt the infallibility of His testimony to the truths of salvation, especially to His own 82 Cfr. Chr. Pesch, Praelect. DogmaU, Vol. IV, 3rd ed», pp. 146 sqq. 26o UNITY IN DUALITY divine Sonship and Divinity, and the meritoriousness of the atonement. If we deny that Christ was constituted in the possession of the beatific vision from the first moment of His existence, we shall find it difficult to determine in what manner and at what time His soul attained to an infallible consciousness of its Messiahship and personal union with the Godhead. We shall have to face this dilemma: Either Christ’s human consciousness was originally and inseparably bound up with His Messianic and divine consciousness, or there was a time when His self-conscious soul was not yet aware of its being constituted in the possession of the Messianic dignity and the Hypostatic Union with the Divine Logos. In the first assumption there existed no other, surely no safer or more direct way of attaining to divine consciousness than the beatific vision of God, which would include the contemplation of the Logos and the Hypostatic Union. Any other means of communication inferior to this one would have compelled the soul of Christ to walk in the obscurity of faith with regard to its own Divinity, and for thirty-three long years firmly to hold it as a mere truth of faith, not as a matter of intuitive knowledge. Such an assumption is hardly compatible with Christ’s repeated assertion (which sharply differentiates Him from all the prophets) that he testified only to that which He had Himself seen.88 Let it not be objected that He testified as man to what He had seen as God; for it is not the Divine Logos that speaks and testifies in such passages as John III, II sqq., Ill, 27 sqq., VIII, 38, etc., but the man 88 Cfr. John I, 17, III, 11 sqq., merous other passages of similai III, 27 sqq., VIII, 38 sqq., and nu- tenor. Jesus, and He speaks and testifies as one who understands perfectly what He has seen. Even Schell, probably the ablest defender of the new theory, admits that * faith had no room in Christ, but its place was taken by a most penetrating knowledge.* 84 This ” penetrating knowledge,” freed from the limitations of faith, must be conceived as intuitive vision, for intuitive vision alone annuls faith. To hold that Christ’s human consciousness awoke before His divine consciousness, or to assert with the Modernists that ” Christ did not always possess the consciousness of His Messianic dignity,” 85 is equivalent to saying that the soul of the Redeemer had to learn the fact of His Messiahship from elsewhere, since, according to this theory, it never enjoyed the beatific vision on earth. From what source could such knowledge have come? Not from- a study of the prophets who had clearly predicted our Lord’s Messiahship and Divinity, for Holy Scripture tells us that Jesus without any schooling knew ” His Father ” at the age of twelve, and had a thorough command of Sacred Scripture. He did not receive this knowledge by divine illumination from within. Apart from the beatific vision, in what could such illumination have consisted except enlightened faith? But faith, no matter how enlightened, does not see or know ; it gropes in the dark amid doubts and temptations. Consequently, the divine consciousness in the human soul of our Saviour can have been derived from no other source than the beatific vision. As this divine con84 Dogmatik, Vol. Ill, i, 183, Christus. Apologie seiner MessianiiPaderborn 1892. tat and Gottheit gegenuber der 85Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, En- neuesten unglaubigen Jesus-Forchiridion, n. 2035. The best refu- schung, Vol. I: “Das Bewusstsein tation of this Modernist error is by Jesu,” Paderborn 191 1. Hilarin Felder, O. M. Cap., Jesus UXITY IX DUALITY soocsnes* h nncrnateh* tip with Christ’s human cwoAckftwoe**, which reaches back to His childhood, nay to the very instant of His conception,, the divine cooiCM«i»ne*% of our Lord and the beatific vision with which He was endowed, mtirt have had their inception at precisely the same moment.5* dj Of considerably less importance than the questions just discussed are the Scholastic speculations regarding the extent of Christ’s knowledge of God and the created universe, as included in the visio beatified. It is of faith that God is absolutely incomprehensible to the created intellect even in the state of glory.7 The aoul of Christ was a finite creature, and therefore the beatific knowledge which it enjoyed, no matter how highly it may be rated, cannot have been equivalent to an adequate comprehension of the Divine Essence. The true doctrine of the Church on this point was trenchantly defended by St. Thomas against Fulgentius,38 Alcuin,33 and Hugh of St. Victor.40 Est impossible, says the Angelic Doctor, ” quod aliqua creatura comprehendat divinam essentiam, eo quod infinitum non comprehenditur a •« Cfr. Concil. Colon, a. i860, tit. 0, cap. 19 (Cottectio Lac en tit, t. V, p. 308)1 ” Puisst in anima Chrittl praeter scientiam acquit it am 0ttam scientiam infusam, imo et vishnem beatorum, et quidem inde ab ortu, tnagno consensu docent theohgi,” — The embarrassment of modern Protestant theology through it! false conception of the Messianic consciousness of Christ, is well described by A. Seitz, Das Evangelium vom Gottessohn, pp. 194 sqq., Freiburg 1908. Cfr. also H. Felder, Jesus Christus, Vol. I: Das Bewusstsein Jesu, pp. 144 sqq., Paderborn 191 1, and F. G. Hall, The Kenotic Theory, New York 1898. 87 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His Knowobility, Essence, and Attributes, pp. 107 sqq. 88 V. supra, pp. 253 sq. 89 De Trinit., II, 12. 40 Opusculum de Scientia Animae Christu finito. Et ideo dicendum est quod anitna Christi nullo tnodo comprehendit divinam essentiam.” 41 Justly, therefore, did the Council of Basle reject the proposition of Augustine of Nazareth, that “the soul of Christ sees God as clearly and intensely as God sees Himself.” 42 This decision also affords us a key for the solution of the question whether or not the soul of our Lord was endowed with the scientia simplicis intelligentiae, i. e., a knowledge of those things which are possible to God’s omnipotence, but never realized. To affirm this proposition would be to attribute to the human soul of Christ an adequate comprehension of the Divine Essence itself.48 The affirmative opinion is therefore quite generally rejected. Theologians are agreed, however, that Christ had a knowledge of all those things which fall under the scientia visionis, i. e., all really existing things, past, present, and future, including the most hidden cogitations of the human heart.44 This eminent though finite mode of knowledge safeguards the creatural character of the soul of Christ and corresponds to His twofold capacity of Head of the present economy and Judge of the living and the dead.46 Thesis II: Besides the scientia beata, the soul of Christ from the moment of its conception also possessed a knowledge immediately infused by God (scientia infusa). Proof. Beatific knowledge is the immediate or intuitive vision, through the lumen gloriae, of 41 S. Theol., 3a, qu. 10, art. i. comprehendere divinam virtutem et 42 ” Anima Christi videt Deum per consequent divinam essentiam.’ tarn clare et intense, sicut Deus 44 Luke IX, 47. Cfr. W. Huravidet seipsum.” (Sess. XXII.) phrey, “His Divine Majesty/’ pp. 43 Cfr. St. Thomas, 5. Theol, 3a, 268 sqq. qu. 10, art. 2: “Hoc enim esset 45 Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, L’MTY IS DUALITY God and His creatures as mirrored in His Essence. Infused knowledge is a knowledge of those creatures in themselves. Infused like beatific knowledge is independent of the senses, though it cannot dispense with intellectual concepts ( species intelligibiles ). A* distinct from acquired or experimental knowledge, infused knowledge is connatural to the Angels, whereas man can enjoy it only as a preternatural prerogative of grace,44 St Augustine calls it ” evening knowledge ” (coynitio vespertine) in contradistinction to the “morning knowledge” (cognitio matutina) by which the Angels intue all things natural and supernatural immediately in the Divine Essence. Infused knowledge, therefore, differs widely from our ordinary knowledge, which depends on sense perception and intellectual concepts abstracted from phantasms. When granted to a human soul (as it was granted, for instance, to Adam and Solomon), infused knowledge adapts itself to the specific nature of the recipient. St. Thomas says of the infused knowledge of Christ : ” Et ideo sicut in angelis secundum eundem Augustinum ponitur duplex cognitio, una scti. matutina, per quam cognoscunt res in Verbo, et alia vesqu. to, art. j J ” Unusquisque intel- est, ut dicitur lo, 5, 27; et ideo ltd ut er talus in Vtrbo cognoscit anima Christi in Verbo cognoscit nun quidem omnia timplicittr, ted omnia exitttntia secundum quodtanto plura, quonto ptrftetiut vidtt cumque tempus, et etiam hominum Vtrbum. Nulii tamtn intttlectui cogitatus, quorum est index.** On btalo dtttt, quin cognoscat in Vtrbo the viewf of St. Bonaventure with omnia quae ad iptum sptctant. Ad regard to this question see L. JansChristum auttm tt ad eius digni- sens, De Deo-Homine, Vol. I, pp. tattm sptctant quodammodo omnia, 444 sqq. inquanlum ei subitcta sunt omnia, 40 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God the AuIpse etiam est omnium index con- thor of Nature and the Supernatititutut a Dto, quia Pilius hominis ural, pp. 207 sqq. pertina, per quam cognoscunt res in propria natura per species sibi inditas [=infusas], ita praeter scientiam divinam et increatam est in Christo secundum eius animam scientia beata, qua cognoscit Verbum et res in Verbo, et scientia infusa sive indita, per quam cognoscit res in propria natura per species intelligibiles humanae menti proportionates” 47 This passage effectively refutes Schell’s objection that ” the body is merely an external additament designed to create the semblance of a human nature. A spirit who incidentally happens to have a body, even though he animates this body as his substantial form, is at most a compound of angel and man.” 48 The unity and harmony of the inner life of the soul is no more disturbed by the possession of two higher modes of cognition than by the coexistence of sense and intellect. For the soul even after its separation from the body attains to heavenly beatitude in two ways: primarily through the vision of God, and secondarily through a twofold knowledge of the objects which are distinct from God, first as mirrored in the Divine Logos, and secondly as they are in themselves. After the resurrection of the flesh man will possess a third kind of knowledge, i. e., an experimental knowledge which depends on sense impressions (see Eschatology). Why should these three modes of knowledge be incompatible in Christ? We do not propose this thesis as theologically certain. But whoever admits that the soul of Christ was constituted in the possession of the beatific vision from the moment of its creation, cannot consistently deny that it was also endowed with infused knowledge. A denial of the latter proposition would not, however, incur 47 5*. Theol., 3a, qu. 9, art. 3. 48 Dogmatik, III, 1, m. theological censure, because we are dealing with a speculative deduction and not a revealed truth. The case would be otherwise were one to assert that the human soul of Christ possessed neither beatific nor infused, but only acquired or experimental knowledge. This would be repugnant to the Catholic faith. The Church has always held against Nestorius, Leporius, and the Agnoetae, that the human nature of Christ was endowed with the highest wisdom and absolutely exempt from ignorance and error. It is the common teaching of theologians that our Lord’s human knowledge was both beatific and infused. a) While our thesis cannot be rigorously demonstrated from Sacred Scripture, it derives a high degree of probability from such texts as Is. XI, 2 : “Requiescet super eum Spiritus Domini, spiritus sapientiae et intellectus … consilii … scientiae — And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and … of knowledge.” St. Thomas comments upon this manifestly Messianic passage as follows : ”… sub quibus comprehenduntur omnia cognoscibilia; nam ad sapientiam pertinet cognitio omnium divinorum; ad intellect um autem pertinet cognitio omnium immaterialium; ad scientiam autem pertinet cognitio omnium conclusionum, ad consilium autem cognitio omnium agibilium.” 40 “The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him” means that 49 S. TktoL, 3*, qu. ix, art z. Christ shall be constituted in the possession of all knowledge and that His knowledge shall be infused.60 The human knowledge of Christ is relatively infinite in extent, i. e., it is the highest and most complete knowledge which it is possible for any creature to have in the present economy, and consequently, both with regard to natural and supernatural things, it is the ideal of all knowledge. This conclusion is confirmed by the words of St. John the Baptist as recorded in John III, 34 : ” Quern enitn misit Deus, verba Dei loquitur; non enim ad mensuram51 dat Deus spiritum — For he whom God hath sent, speaketh the words of God : for God doth not give the spirit by measure.” St. Fulgentius commentates this text as follows: “Ipse enim est qui dat, ipse est qui accipit; et quia potens est ab mensuram dare, ideo non potuit ad mensuram accipere. In forma enim Dei manens Spiritum dat, formam servi accipiens Spiritum accepit; sed quia ipse ad mensuram dat, ideo non ipse ad mensuram accepit; ipsum enim, quern ad mensuram dat, totum accepit:9 52 Whether Col. II, 3 can be quoted in support of our thesis is more than doubtful.53 b) Ecclesiastical Tradition favors the proposition that the soul of Christ had an inerrant knowledge of all things past, present, and future, and that this knowledge positively excluded igno50 Cfr. John I, 14, II, 25, VII, 15. 58 Cfr. St. Thomas, 5. Theol., 3a, 51 4k fUrpov. qu. 9, art 3. 52E/>. 14 ad Ferrond. 18 ranee. But it is not so decisive on the question whether this knowledge is derived from the scientia beata, or the scientia infusa, or both. Though the main point of contention between the Agnoetae and the Church has not yet been fully cleared up,64 the history of this heretical sect justifies certain important conclusions. a) A sort of Agnoetism was propagated by the Arians,” and also by the Nestorians,6* but the name of Agnoetae 57 is commonly applied to a sixth-century sect, whose chief tenet is supposed to have been that Christ was ignorant58 of certain things, especially the day of judgment.59 It is, however, uncertain whether the subject to which they attributed this ignorance was the human nature of our Lord or a fictitious Monophysitic compound of Divinity and humanity. Whereas the Monophysite opponents of Themistius, e. g., Timothy and Theodosius, represent Agnoetism as consistently Monophysitic, the Severians and Nicephorus Callistus60 understood them as attributing ignorance to the sacred humanity of Jesus. In any case it is certain that the champions of Catholic orthodoxy against the Agnoetae rigorously excluded all error and ignorance from 54 Cfr. Fr. Schmid in the Inns- 57 They are also called Themisbruck Zeitschrift fur katholische tians, from their founder, ThemisThtologie, 1895, pp. 651 sqq. For tius, a Monophysite deacon of Alexa well documented sketch of the andria. Agnoetae and their condemnation 68 dyvoiat ignorantia. the student is referred to J. Lebre- 59 Cfr. Mark XIII, 32. ton, Let Origines du Dogme de la 60 Cfr. Nicephor. Callist, Hist. Trinity, pp. 458 sqq., Paris 1910. Eccles., XVIII, 50: ot kclI \4yovffi 65 E. g., Eudoxius of Constanti* rbv Qebv ASyov irdvra fikp yivthcnople. . K€iv* irdfiiroWa Sk dypoelp r^v ME. g„ Theodore of Mopsuestia ^viayAin\v avrio kclO* ifiroffraffiv and Nestorius himself. i.vBpWKbri\ra, the human soul of Christ by ascribing to it a relative omniscience in regard to all actually existing things, due to its Hypostatic Union with the Logos. Agnoetism they regarded as a positive heresy. The most prominent and the ablest among these champions of Catholic orthodoxy was Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria,61 who, according to Photius,62 taught that ” Neque humanitas Christi 68 in unam inaccessibilis et substantiate sapientiae hypostasim admissa quidquam ut rerum praesentium ita futurarum poterit ignorare.** … Quicumque enim vel divinitati ipsius vel humanitati ignorantiam adscribit, numquam certissimae temeritatis crimen effugiet.” 65 St. Sophronius calls Themistius ” ignorantiae pater et genitor atque seminator nefandissimus.*** Pope St. Gregory the Great in two letters extolled Eulogius as a brave and clever champion of the Catholic faith. * De doctrina vestra contra haereticos, qui dicuntur Agnoitae” he says, ” fuit valde quod admiraremur, quod autem displiceret, non fuit… . Ita autem doctrina vestra per omnia latinis Patribus concordavit, ut mirum mihi non esset, quod in diversis Unguis Spiritus non fuerit diversus… . Res autem est valde manifesto, quia quisquis Nestorianus non est, Agnoita esse nullatenus potest.” 67 The last sentence is very important. In point of fact, though of Monophysitic origin, Agnoetism is ultimately reducible either to Arianism, which denies the Divinity of Christ, or to Nestorianism, which rejects the Hypostatic Union. If Christ were a mere creature, as the Arians hold, He would necessarily be subject to 61 Died 608. Cfr. Bardenhewer- wapdvTwv oCrta 8) oidh T

ignorance and error; the same would follow from the Nestorian assumption that He was a person distinct from the omniscient Logos. It was for this reason, no doubt, that long before the time of Themistius the African bishops compelled the Gallic monk Leporius, who had incurred suspicion, to abjure Agnoetism as heretical. Among other things in which Leporius had gone astray is the question of the human knowledge of Christ. He states that when he had heard Christ charged with ignorance, he had always considered it a sufficient answer to say that the Lord was ignorant ” secundum hominem,” but now he anathematized this opinion.68 Since, according to ecclesiastical Tradition, the relative omniscience of Christ, as man, has its source, principle, and measure in the Hypostatic Union, it follows that it must have begun simultaneously with the Hypostatic Union, i. e., at the moment of His conception.69 P) The Fathers differed in their interpretation of Mark XIII, 32 : But of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father. As long as it was necessary to combat the Arian heresy that the Logos was subject to ” ignorance ” because He was a creature, the Fathers confined themselves to de68 Cfr. Leporius, Libell, Emend., n. 10 (Migne, P. L., XXXI, 1229): “Nunc non solum dicere non praesumo, verum etiam priorem anathematieo in hac parte sententiam, quia diet non licet, etiam secundum hominem tgnorasse Dominum prophetarum.” 69 On the Agnoetism of the Protestant Reformers cfr. Bellarmine, De Christo, IV, 1-5; on the false teaching of Gtinther, J. Kleutgen, Theologie der Vorzeit, Vol. Ill, pp. 244 sqq., Munster 1870; on the view defended by H. Schell, L. Janssens, De Deo-Homine, Vol. I, pp. 418 sqq., Freiburg 190 1; on the errors of the Modernists see the Syllabus of Pius X (Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 2032 sqq.) and Fel* der, Jesus Christus, Vol. I. fending Christ’s divine nature against the charge of ignorance, and some passages in their writings create the impression that they did it at the expense of His sacred humanity. Leontius Byzantinus in his controversies with the Agnoetae went so far as to admit that the testimony of the earlier Fathers 70 was practically worthless in consequence of their having made this mistake. Eulogius excused them on the plea that “If sundry Fathers have admitted ignorance in the humanity of our Saviour, they have not set it down as an article of faith, but [made this admission] merely to reject the folly of the Arians, who shifted all human attributes to the Divinity in order to prove that the Divine Logos is a creature.” 71 Petavius 72 takes a similar view, while Suarez,78 Kleutgen,74 and Stentrup,75 vigorously defend the orthodoxy of the early Fathers. Some of the Fathers explain Mark XIII, 32 in a mystic sense, referring Christ’s ” ignorance ” to His mystic body, I e., the Church.76 Others hold that when Christ said he did not know the day of judgment, He meant that He had no knowledge which He was free to communicate (scientia communicabilis) ,77 nor any knowledge derived from His human intellect, abstracting from the Hypostatic Union.78 Of these three interpretations the second and third are simple and natural, whereas the first strikes one as factitious. It is perfectly consonant with the economy of salvation as proclaimed by our 70 Notably Athanasius, Basil, 75 Christologia, thes. 73. Gregory Nazianzen, and Cyril of 7«Thus Origen, Gregory the Alexandria. Great, etc. 71 In Photius’ Cod., 240. 77 This theory is held by St. 72 De Incarn., XI, 1. Hilary, St. Augustine, and others. 73 In Summam Theol., Ill, qu. 78 Thus Gregory Nazianzen, John 10, art. 2. Damascene, and others. 74 Theologie der Vorseit, Vol. Ill, pp. 258 sqq. 2J2 UNITY IN DUALITY Lord on other occasions,™ that the determination of the time of the last judgment should be reserved to the official sphere of the Father, and that the Son had consequently no right to reveal it.80 On the other hand it is obvious that the humanity of Christ, being a creature, could not of itself know the hidden counsels of Providence, though our Lord no doubt possessed this knowledge by and through the Hypostatic Union, because He was the ” Son of man ” and destined to be the Judge of the living and the dead.81 c) The theological argument for our thesis is based on the fact that, though a true man, Christ was not a mere man, but the Godman. As Godman He had a formal claim to the most perfect knowledge of which His soul was capable.82 As a wayfarer He cannot have been less perfect than Adam, who was endowed with infused knowledge,83 nor less wise than Solomon, whose mind was directly enlightened by God. 78 Cfr. Matth. XX, 23; Acts I, 7. 80Cfr. St. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps., 36, Serm. I, 1 : ” Quia vero Dominus noster Iesus Christus magister nobis missus est, etiam Filius hominis dixit se nescire ilium diem, quia in magisterio eius non erat, ut per eum sciretur a nobis.* 81 Cfr. Gregory the Great, Ep., X, 39 : * In natura quidem humanitotis novit diem et horam iudicii, ted tamen hunc non ex natura humanitatis novit,” — Additional arguments in Kleutgen’s Theologie der Vorueit, Vol. Ill, pp. 256 sqq.; Chr. Peach, Praelect. DogmaU, Vol. IV, pp. 157 sqq. — On the exegetical interpretation of Mark XIII, 32, see A. Seitz, Das Evangelium vom Gottessohn, pp. 251 sqq., Freiburg 1908; W. T. C. Sheppard, O. S. B., ” The ’ Kenosis ’ according to St. Mark,” in the Irish Theological Quarterly, Vol. V (1910), No. 19; J. Lebreton, Les Origines du Dogme de la TrinitS, pp. 447-458. 82 St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, qu. 9, art 3. 83 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God the Author of Nature and the Super* natural, pp. 207 sqq. St. Paul teaches that Christ was from the very instant of His conception elevated to the headship of the angelic creation,84 and that it was therefore congruous that His soul should know the purely spiritual beings subject to His rule not per species alienas, but per species proprias infusas, though of course only in so far as this angelic mode of knowledge is supernaturally communicable to a human soul.85 Thesis III: The soul of Christ likewise possessed a progressive experimental or empiric knowledge (scientia acquisita). This thesis may be said to voice the common teaching of theologians. Proof. Besides the divine knowledge which Jesus, qua man, enjoyed by virtue of the beatific vision, and besides the angelic knowledge infused immediately into His human soul, He also possessed acquired knowledge, L e., that specifically human knowledge which is gained through sense perception and the natural use of reason. This kind of knowledge was not, it is true, indispensable to the perfection of His intellect. But along with the state which was His by virtue of the beatific vision, Christ had also assumed what theologians call the wayfaring state, namely that in which men are constituted during their mortal lives here upon earth, while on 84 V, supra, pp. 243 sq. distinction between scientia infusa 85 Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, per se and per accident, and the qu. 11, art. 4. On the extent of controversies incident thereto, see this infused knowledge cfr. Suarez, De Lugo, De Myst. Incarn., disp. De Incarn., disp. 27 sq.; on the 21, sect. 1. the way to their heavenly home.86 As a wayfarer He was entitled to the mode of knowledge appropriate to the state of earthly pilgrimage. Although by virtue of the scientia beat a and the scientia infusa Christ knew everything that experience could teach Him, still He was after a fashion able to ” learn,” that is, to become acquainted with what He already knew, as it were from a different point of view, i. e., that of human experience. Such a knowledge, though limited in value, is not without its usefulness. As the ” morning knowledge” of the Angels by no means renders their inferior “evening knowledge” valueless, though the two differ only in mode and origin but not in content, so the acquired knowledge of Jesus may have added new and valuable momenta to what He already knew from other sources. Was not His personal experience of actual suffering something totally different from the concept of His Passion previously existing in His human intellect? Cfr. Heb. V, 8: ” Et quidem quum esset Filius Dei, didicit87 ex its, quae passus est, obedientiam — And whereas indeed He was the Son of God, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered.” a) That our Lord really possessed acquired knowledge can be proved from the fact that He was a perfectly organized man, equipped with all the natural faculties of a human being, both sensitive and intellectual. His nature demanded experimental knowledge. To deny this would savor of Docetism.88 86 Cfr. W. Humphrey, S. J., The 88 The Docetae held that the saOne Mediator, p. 262. cred humanity was fictitious and 81 ifiaBer. apparitional. V, supra, pp. 41 sqq. Basing his argument on the Aristotelian and Scholastic distinction between the intellectus agens and the intellectus possibUis,89 St. Thomas argues out this point as follows: “Nihil eorum, quae Deus in nostra natura plantavit, defuit naturae assumptae a Dei Verbo. Manifestum est autem, quod in humana natura Deus plantavit non solum intellectum possibUem, sed etiam intellectum agentem. Unde necesse est dicere, quod in anima Christi fuit non solum intellectus possibUis, sed etiam intellectus agens. Si autem in aliis Deus et natura nihil frustra faciunt, … multo minus in anima Christi aliquid fuit frustra. Frustra autem est, quod non habet propriam operationem… . Propria autem operatio intellectus agentis est facere species intelligibiles actu, abstrahendo eas a phantasmatibus [= process of abstraction]. Sic igitur necesse est dicere, quod in Christo fuerint aliquae species intelligibiles per actionem intellectus agentis in intellectu possibili eius receptae: quod est esse in ipso scientiam acquisitam, quam quidem experimentalem vocant.”90 Expressed in modern terms this means: The human soul of Christ, like any other human soul, acquired universal ideas by abstracting intellectual concepts from sensible phantasms. St. Luke tells us 91 that Jesus * advanced in wisdom,* which, when applied to natural experience, must be understood not merely of a gradual outward manifestation, but of real inward increase.92 ” Quomodo proficiebat sapientia Dei?” asks St. Ambrose, and answers: ” Doceat te ordo verborum. Profectus est aetatis et profectus sapientiae, sed humanae est. Ideo aetatem ante praemisit, ut secundum hominem 89 On the Aristotelian theory of 90 S. Theol., 3a, qu. 9, art. 4. abstraction as developed by the 81 Luke II, 52: trpoi^wre

crederes dictum; aetas enim non divinitatis, sed corporis est. Ergo si proficiebat aetate hominis, proficiebat sapientid hominis, sapientia autem sensu proHcit” 9Z St. Thomas says : ” Tarn scientia infusa animae Christi quam scientia beata fuit effectus agentis infinitae virtutis, qui potest simul totum operari; et ita in neutra scientia Christus profecit, sed a principio earn perfectam habuit. Sed scientia acquisita causatur ab intellectu agente, qui non simul totum operatur, sed successive; et ideo secundum hanc scientiam Christus non a principio scivit omnia, sed paulatim et post aliquod tempus, scil. in perfecta aetate: quod patet ex hoc quod Evangelista simul dicit eum profecisse scientia et aetate” •* b) As appears from the last sentence of the preceding quotation, the Angelic Doctor holds that there was a true advance in the experimental knowledge of Christ, and that this knowledge gradually increased until it had exhausted all those objects which can be known by means of the intellectus agens. In order to show the possibility of such a “natural omniscience” (which is not omniscience in the strict sense of the term) sundry theologians have had recourse to more or less fantastic theories. Suarez, De Lugo, and among modern writers Tepe, adopted the theory of a scientia per accidens infusa, which St. Thomas had taught in his youth but retracted in the Summa Theological* Others, like Cardinal Cajetan, held that the natural experimental knowledge of Christ was brought to the highest state of perfection by the successive presentation to His senses (through the ministry of angels) of all the various objects that go to make up the physical uni98 Dt Incarn., VII, 71. 85 Cfr. also S. Theol., 3a, qu. 12, 94 S. Theol,, 3a, qu. 12, art. 2, art. 1. ad 1. MS. Theol., 3a, qu. 9, art 4. verse (fish, birds, brute beasts, the stars, etc.). Durandus, Marsilius, Gabriel Biel, and Cardinal Toletus took middle ground between these two extremes. They maintained that the knowledge which our Lord gained by the exercise of His natural faculties, though ineffably perfect, was not and never became absolutely infinite. It seems indeed sufficient to hold that Christ represents the unattainable ideal of all empirical knowledge and natural science. What Adam and Solomon were unable to learn by natural means and knew only by virtue of the scientia per accidens infusa, was part of the connatural perfection of Christ and acquired by Him gradually in proportion to His advance in age. This theory safeguards the dignity of the Divine Logos and at the same time does full justice to the dogma of the genuinity of the human nature of Jesus. Experimental knowledge is comparatively less perfect than either beatific or infused knowledge, but even though finite, it perfects and ennobles its possessor.97 Readings : — W. Humphrey, S. J., The One Mediator, pp. 252 sqq., London s. a. — J. Kirschkamp, Das menschliche Wissen Christi, Wiirzburg 1873.— H. Felder, 0. M. Cap., Jesus Christus, Vol. I, Paderborn 191 1.— J. M. Harty, ” The Modern Kenotic Theory,” in the Irish Theological Quarterly, Vol. I (1906), Nos. 1 and 2. — For the history of the ” Kenotic problem ” consult E. J. Hanna, “The Human Knowledge of Christ” in the New York Review, Vol. I (1905-6), Nos. 3 and 4; Vol III (1008), Nos. 4 and 5. — Lepicier, De Incarn. Verbi, Vol. I, pp. 395 sqq.^- M. Lepin, Jesus Messie et Fils de Dieu, 2nd ed., Paris 1905. (English tr., Christ and the Gospel, Philadelphia 1910).— J. Kleutgeri, S. J., Theologie der Vorzeit, Vol. Ill, pp. 244 sqq., Minister 1870. — Bellarmine, Controversiae de Christo, 1. IV, c. 1-5. — J. Lebreton, Les Origines du Dogme de la TrinitS, Note C, pp. 447 sqq., Paris 1910. — F. J. Hall (Anglican), The Kenotic Theory, pp. 176 sqq., New York 1898. — M. Waldhauser, Die Kenose und die moderne prot. Christologie, Mainz 1912. 97 Cfr. Vasquez, III, disp. 45, c. Homo, 1. IV, sect. 2, c. 1 ; Tepe, 2; Theoph. Raynaud, Christus Deus- Ins tit. Theol., Vol. Ill, pp. 564 sqq.

Article 3: The Adorableness of Christ’s Humanity

THE ADORABLENESS OF CHRIST’S HUMANITY I. Preliminary Notions. — Worship is reverential respect paid to another. It requires two numerically distinct beings : a person who exhibits respect and another person, or a thing, to whom or to which it is exhibited. There are as many ways of paying respect and homage as there are perfections which call for worship. The worship due to God is called adoration (cultus latriae). That worship to which creatures are entitled by reason of such supernatural excellences as they may possess in the order of sanctification and union with God, is called cultus duliae. Corresponding to the unique excellence of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mother of God, there is a special worship, which, to distinguish it from the inferior cult due to lesser saints, is called hyperdulia. Adoratio (Gr. irpoaKvvrfms) , in the usage of the Church and of Scholastic theology, is a generic term, denoting sometimes latria, sometimes dulia. The true sense must in each instance be determined from the context. To render divine worship to a creature is idolatry and a most grievous sin. These different forms of worship admit* of other distinctions, according as they are directed to a prototype or a mere ectype. By a prototype we understand the original and proper possessor of adorable prerogatives or excellencies. A prototype in this technical sense is always a person, never an object. Worship rendered to a prototype is called absolute (cultus absolutus). Absolute worship may again be subdivided into absolute latria and dulia. When exhibited to an ectype, — which is always an object, never a person, — worship is called relative (cultus relativus). Relative worship may also be subdivided into latria and dulia. Relative latria is the worship rendered, e. g., to an image of Christ or of the Blessed Trinity; relative dulia is the worship rendered to a relic, the picture of a saint, a flag, etc. A distinction of special importance lies between the material and the formal object of worship. By the material object of worship we understand the person or thing honored ; its formal object is the immanent reason or motive for which honor is rendered. Since there can be no worship without some reason, material and formal object are always bound up together. The connexion between the two may be either (1) per modum identitatis, as in the case of Almighty God, in whom nature and adorability coincide; or (2) per modum unionis physicae, as in the case of the humanity of our Lord, which becomes adorable by its Hypostatic Union with the Logos ; or (3) per modum unionis moralis, as in the case of images and relics of saints, which owe their character as objects of worship to the relation 2&) UNITY IN DUALITY they bear to their respective prototypes. Worship per modum unionis moralis is always strictly relative. A kind of subdivision of the formal object of worship is the so-called obiectum tnanifestativum, which plays such an important part in the beautiful devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. By obiectum manifestativum we understand a formal object of worship which, though in itself rather remote, is particularly effective in its appeal to the worshipper. A beggar who kisses the hand of his benefactor does so for the reason that the goodness and liberality of the almsgiver manifest themselves in a special manner through that particular organ of the body. Such veneration is at bottom nothing else than veneration of the benefactor himself. So we may prefer to adore God as our benefactor rather than as the Supreme Being, because His mercy touches our hearts and gives concrete expression, as it were, to the adorability of His Divine Majesty. Similarly, we adore the Five Wounds of our Divine Saviour, because they manifest His infinite love for us in a special manner ; but the real and ultimate object of our worship is the Godman as such.1 2. The Dogma. — The divine worship which we render to the Logos as such (Aoyo* wrap™?) is identical with adoration of the one true God. The only two questions which can concern us here l Cf r. Franzelin, De Verbo Incarn., thes. 45 ; Billuart, De Incarn., diss. 23, art. 1. are these : Are we justified in adoring Christ as the Word Incarnate ( Aoyos ZvaapKo?) ? and are we in duty bound so to adore Him? These questions resolve themselves into three others, namely: (1) Is the Godman (i. e., Christ in both His natures) entitled to divine adoration (latria) ? (2) Must we also adore the man Jesus, i. e., the concrete sacred humanity of Christ ? (3) Is it permissible to render divine worship {latria) to the several members of Christ’s sacred humanity, in particular to His Sacred Heart? We shall answer these questions in three distinct theses. Thesis I: Christ as the Godman is entitled to divine worship. This thesis embodies a truth which is of faith. Proof. To adore Christ in a different way as man than as Son of God would be to countenance the heresy of Nestorius that there are two persons in the Godman. The Council of Ephesus (A. D. 431) formally defined the true relation of the two natures by adopting the eighth anathematism of St. Cyril, to wit : “Si quis audet dicer e assumptum hominem coadorandum Deo Verbo … tarnquam alterum cum altero* … ac non potius una supplicatione 3 veneratur Emmanuel, … iuxta quod Verbum caro factum est, anathema sit — If anyone dare to assert that the man assumed 2&$ irepov h Mpy. « iiltg. irpoffKvtrfjni. into the Divine Logos must be adored as a Person distinct from the Logos … and that Emmanuel is not worshipped by one and the same act, … according as the Word was made flesh, let him be anathema.” This same truth was still more clearly defined by the Fifth Council of Constantinople (A. D. 553) : “Si quis in duabus naturis adorari dicit Christum, ex quo duas adorationes introducunt separatim Deo Verbo et separation homini,4 vel si quis … non una adoratione Deum Verbum incarnatum cum propria ipsius came5 adorat, … talis anathema sit — If any one say that Christ is adored in two natures, separately as the Divine Word and separately as a man, or if any one do not adore God the Word Incarnate together with His own flesh by one act of worship, … let him be anathema.,, 6 Hence it is an article of faith that the Godman as such is entitled to the same worship as the Divine Logos. a) The Biblical argument for this thesis rests partly on the divine adoration rendered to our Lord by the magi,7 the man born blind,8 etc., and partly on Christ’s positive claim to divine worship, which is echoed by His Apostles. He Himself commands “all men [to] honor the Son as * l$lgL T ©e A.6y

they honor the Father.” 9 St. Paul says: “Let all the angels of God adore Him,” 10 and lays it down as a divine precept that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. 11 b) The Fathers base the doctrine of the unica adorch Ho due to the Godman on the fact that He was the Son of God and true God after His Incarnation as well as before. The Divine Logos became man in virtue of the Hypostatic Union, consequently the man Jesus is true God and worthy of divine adoration. As St. Cyril told Nestorius: “We do not adore a man who is the bearer of a God,12 but God made man.” 18 Even Theodoret of Cyrus,14 who was suspected of Nestorian leanings, confesses: “After (as before) the Incarnation 15 we adore the one Son of God,16 our Lord Jesus Christ, and call those infidels 17 who think otherwise.” Thesis II: Because of its Hypostatic Union with the Logos, the humanity of our Lord is entitled to divine worship in itself, though not for its own sake. This proposition, though not an article of faith, is generally held to be a revealed truth (fidei proximum saltern). 9 John V, 23. i2$co6pop Mpwrop, lOHcb. I, 6; cfr. Ps. XCVI, 7. is ivav$pwirt

Proof. Let us first determine the state of the question. There is a large distinction between the two propositions : ‘The humanity of Christ is adored in itself,” and “The humanity of Christ is adored for its own sake.” The former proposition means that the human nature of Christ is the immediate terminus or object of divine worship (obiectum materiale, sed particle) ; the latter, that it is its motive or formal object. To assert the latter would be false and blasphemous, because the sacred humanity of Christ is essentially a creature. The adorability of Christ’s human nature does not rest upon a Monophysitic deification, but simply and solely on the Hypostatic Union. Christ’s humanity did not exist apart from the Logos, but was assumed into the latter as a quasi-part. Whatever belongs to a person substantially (as in this case the humanity of Christ), is worthy of the same specific veneration as the person himself. The veneration exhibited to a monarch, e. g., is not limited to his soul, but extends to his body, and is in both respects a cultus absolutus, directed primarily to the royal personage and only in a secondary manner to whatever essentially belongs to that personage. Hence John Wiclif was wrong in asserting that the sacred humanity of our Lord is entitled to relative worship only. The union of Divinity and humanity in the Godman creates more than a mere moral bond. The malicious insinuation of the Jansenist Council of Pistoia (1794), that “direct adoration of the manhood of Christ is equivalent to rendering divine honors to a creature,” was formally condemned by Pope Pius VI.18 18 ” Falsa, captiosa, pio ac debito praestito et praestando detrahens et cultui humanitati Christi a fidelibus iniuriosa.” (Bull ” Auctorem FtCHRIST’S HUMANITY ADORABLE 285 a) That the sacred humanity of our Lord is a fit material object of divine adoration (obiectum materiale partiale) can be proved from Sacred Scripture and the unanimous teaching of the Fathers. Cfr. Apoc. V, 12: “The lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and benediction.” The Fathers adduce the following reasons: a) If we were not permitted to adore the sacred humanity of our Redeemer directly, i. e., in itself, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, i. e., the Divine Logos, since the Incarnation would be deprived of the worship of latria; for the Incarnate Word exists only as Godman. This argument is made much of by St. Athanasius, who says among other things : ” We by no means adore a creature; this is an error of the heathen and the Arians. But we do adore the Lord of the creature, the God-Logos made flesh. For although the flesh is of itself something created, it has become the body of God. But in adoring this body we do not separate it from the Logos, nor do we detach the Logos, when we wish to adore Him, from His flesh… . Who, then, is so foolish as to say to the Lord : ’ Depart from Thy body, that I may adore Thee ’ ? * 19 St. Epiphanius expresses himself in similar language. * Let no one say to the Only-begotten : Put away Thy body, that I may adore Thee,20 but adore the Only-begotten One with the dei,” quoted by Denzinger-Bann- 20 d^s rb ffwfW,t tva owart, Enchiridion, n. 1561.)

body,1 the Uncreated One with the temple which He assumed at His descent” 22 0) The assertion of the Apollinarists that those who worship the sacred humanity of our Lord adore a man and mere flesh,21 is a shameless calumny which St. Athanasius thus indignantly repels in the first of his Two Books Against Apollinaris : ” Again you say : ’ We do not adore the creature/ Ye fools! Why do you not consider that the created body of the Lord must receive more than the veneration which is due to the creature? For it has become the body of the increate Logos, and you adore Him whose body it is. [This body], therefore, is adored with due divine worship, because God is the Logos whose body it is. Thus the women … embraced his feet and adored. They held the feet, but adored God.” 24 y) Since the sacred humanity of Christ is in itself adorable, we must also render divine worship to His body and blood as really and truly present in the Holy Eucharist. In an explanation of Psalm XCVIII, 5 St. Ambrose remarks: “Per scabellum terra intelligitur, Per terram autem caro Christi, quam hodie quoque in mysteriis [sc. Eucharistiae] adoramus et quam Apostoli in Domino Iesu adorarunt. Neque enim di7risus est Christus, sed unus!i% St. Augustine expounds the same text as follows : ” Adorate scabellum pedum eius. Fluctuans converto me ad Christum, quia ipsum quaero hie, et invenio quomodo sine impietate adoretur terra … et scabellum pedum eius. Suscepit enim de terra terram, quia caro de terra est et de came Mariae carnem 21

suscepit. Et quia in hac ipsa came hie ambulavit et ipsam carnem nobis manducandatn ad salutetn dedit — nemo autem Mam carnem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit — inventum est, quemadmodum adoretur tale scabellum pedum Domini et non solum non peccemus adorando, sed peccemus non adorando” 29 8) The worship we render to the sacred humanity of our Lord is not idolatry, because we do not adore mere flesh, but flesh hypostatically united with the Divine Logos. St. John Damascene develops this thought with an acuteness which might almost be termed Scholastic. * The flesh is not to be adored in its own nature/’ he says, * but it is adored with the Incarnate Logos, not indeed for its own sake, but for the sake of its Logos, with whom it is hypostatically united. For we do not profess that it is the naked, simple flesh which is adored, but the flesh of God, or God made flesh.” 27 b) It is, however, a matter of debate among divines whether the sacred humanity of Christ considered in itself, i. e., without regard to the Hypostatic Union, besides latria is also entitled to the worship of dulia, or, more specifically, hyperdulia, directed solely to His created perfections, e. g9J sanctifying grace and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.28 The Thomists29 take the affirmative side. Suarez, who agrees with them, says that Christ’s title 29 In Ps„ 98, 5. Schwetz, Theol. Dogmat., t. II, 2nd 27 1?* Fide Orth., IV, 3. For ed., pp. 62 sqq., Vindobonae 1880. additional Patristic evidence consult 28 V, supra, Article 1. Vasquez, In S. Theol., Ill, disp. 95 20 Cfr. Billuart, De Incarn., diss. gq.; Petavius, De Incarn., XV, 3 sq.; 23, art. 3. to the worship of hyperdulia is based upon the innumerable and exalted creatural prerogatives, both natural and supernatural, of His sacred humanity.30 But this theory is open to the grave objection81 that such an inferior species of worship might easily lead to a disparagement of Our Lord’s divine dignity. The theoretical truth that our Lord is entitled to various kinds of worship does not justify us in actually exhibiting to Him a cultus which, at its lowest, sinks below the level of latria, to which His sacred humanity has a strict claim. No good Catholic would dream of honoring the Sovereign Pontiff merely in his capacity of Bishop or Cardinal, though these titles and the dignity corresponding to each are no doubt included in the papal prerogatives. Similarly, though Christ’s sacred humanity is endowed with certain prerogatives which in themselves are entitled to no more than hyperdulic worship, we do not worship Him merely with the veneration which we exhibit, e. g., to His Blessed Mother, because to render Him this lower kind of worship would be equivalent to denying Him the strictly divine adoration to which He also has a right, just as the recognition of an adoptive sonship in the man Jesus consistently leads to a denial of His natural Sonship.32 Billuart is therefore guilty of a sophism when he says: * Humanitas sic praecisa potest amari et laudari, ergo et adorari (scil. hyperdulia).33 To consider Christ’s created pre80 ” Si Christus ut homo praecise adoretur propter dignitatem et excellentiam, quam eius humanitas habet ex vi unionis, ilia adoratio non erit perfecta latria, sed inferior … et proprie hyperdulia dicitur.” (De Incarn., disp. 53, sect. 2, n. 7.) 81 Emphasized especially by Vasquez (In S. TheoL, III, disp. 96, c. 4), De Lugo (De Myst. Incarn,, disp. 35, art. 3), Chr. Pesch (Praelect Dogmat., Vol. IV, 3rd ed., pp. 114 sqq.). 82 V. supra, pp. 196 sqq. 88 De Incarn., disp. 23, art. 3. rogatives abstractly for themselves, to admire, to love and to praise them, is not the same as to render them the worship of hyperdulia. Since it is impossible to separate these prerogatives from the Person of the Logos and to argue that, if Christ’s sacred humanity, which is endowed with so many graces, existed in a separate human person apart from the Logos, it would be entitled to a higher degree of hyperdulic worship than the Blessed Virgin Mary, is dogmatically inadmissible for the reason that the sacred humanity with all its prerogatives is inseparably (axupwTok) united to the Person of the Logos. St. Thomas seems to admit that we may render to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the worship of dulia side by side with that of latria. ” Adoratio humanitatis Christi/’ he says, ” dupliciter potest intelligi: uno modo, ut sit eius sicut rei adoratae, et sic adorare carnetn Christi nihil est aliud quam adorare Verbum Dei incarnatum… . Alio modo potest intelligi adoratio humanitatis Christi, quae fit ratione humanitatis Christi perfectae omni munere gratiarum, et sic adoratio humanitatis Christi non est adoratio latriae, sed adoratio duliae, ita scil. quod una et eadem persona Christi adoretur adoratione latriae propter suam divinitatem et adoratione duliae propter perfectionem humanitatis.” 84 This passage has been variously interpreted. Franzelin understands St. Thomas as teaching that the sacred humanity of Christ is simply the obiectum manifestationis of the only kind of worship which we are permitted to render Him, vis.: latria5 Chr. Pesch holds that in the opinion of the Angelic Doctor the worship of latria virtually includes that of dulia and hyperdulia respectively, but that 84 5”. Theol., 3a, qu. 25, art. 2. 35 Franzelin, De Verbo Incarn., thcs. 45, coroll. 2, the permissibility of the former does not argue the permissibility of the latter.86 But such interpretations seem unwarranted. Medina, Billuart, L. Janssens, and others explain the passage literally, so that for once we find ourselves compelled, with all due reverence, to deviate from what on the face of it appears to be the teaching of the Angelic Doctor. At the present time there is a special reason for taking a different view of the question than did Aquinas. Despite the innumerable hyperdulic excellencies proper to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Church regards the worship paid to this particular organ of our Lord’s human body as exclusively latreutic. Thesis III: The sacred humanity of Christ as a whole, and its several members, especially His Sacred Heart, are entitled to divine adoration (latria). This thesis embodies a well-established theological conclusion. Proof. The adorability of Christ’s human nature in its totality is entirely due to its Hypostatic Union with the Logos. This applies a fortiori to its constituent parts, such as, e. g., His soul, His Precious Blood, the Five Wounds of His Sacred Body, all of which are inseparably united with the Logos. a) Devotion to any one of these parts, therefore, properly takes the form of adoration (cultus latriae). Though immediately directed to these separate parts or organs, the formal object or motive of such adoration is the Godhead itself, or, concretely, the Divine Logos, who is hypostatically united with Christ’s sacred huziPraelect. Dogmat., Vol. IV, p. 1x5. manity, both in its totality and in its several parts. The Acts of the Nicene Council, which were cited by the Council of Ephesus, though their authenticity is not entirely beyond doubt, contain this passage: ” Confitemur D. N. Iesum Christum … totutn adorabilem etiam cum corpore, sed non secundum corpus adorabilem, … totus quippe ergo Deus etiam cum corpore, non secundum corpus; totus adorandus etiam cum corpore, non propter corpus.” 87 Upon this principle is based the devotion to the Sacred Heart, inaugurated by Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque, of Paray-le-Monial in Burgundy (d. 1690). Blessed and nurtured by the Roman Pontiffs, this devotion has spread over the Christian world and proved a rich source of blessings. Though opposed by the Jansenists, it was officially approved in 1765, and soon became immensely popular. On August 26th, 1850, Pope Pius IX raised the Feast of the Sacred Heart to the rank of a festival of the Universal Church, and at the dawn of the twentieth century, the immortal Leo XIII, by a solemn act of consecration performed in all the churches of the universe, dedicated the entire human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Jansenistic Council of Pistoia referred to the adoration of the Sacred Heart as ” novel, erroneous, or at least dangerous,” but Pope Pius VI, in his dogmatic Bull ” Auctorem Fidei” (1794), denounced this opinion as ” false, venturesome, pernicious, offensive to pious ears, and injurious to the Apostolic See.” 88 In the same Bull the insinuation that the faithful adore the Heart of 87 Cfr. Hafdouin, ConciL, Vol. I, stoUcam Sed em iniuriosa.” (Denp. 1639. zinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 88 ” Falsa, temeraria, perniciosa, 1562.) piarum aurium offensive, in Apo2Q2 UNITY IN DUALITY Jesus apart from the Godhead was condemned as ” captious and injurious to the faithful worshippers of the Sacred Heart,” who, in the words of the Pontiff, adore this organ of our Lord’s human body ” as the Heart of the Person of the Logos, with which it is inseparably united.” 8» The dogmatic reasons alleged in these pontifical decisions fully coincide with those we have adduced in confirmation of our Second Thesis. The Sacred Heart is the material and partial, though not the formal object, of divine adoration (latria). In other words, we worship it in itself, but not for its own sake. The sole formal object and motive of adoration is its Divinity, due to the Hypostatic Union. It may be asked: What particular motives prompt the Church to urge the faithful to worship the Sacred Heart of Jesus in preference to other organs of His body? She must have special reasons for doing this, since not every devotion that is dogmatically unobjectionable is recommended for general adoption. We can conceive of devotions which, though dogmatically correct, might even cause disedification and scandal. The worship of any special organ of our 89”… quasi fideles cor Iesu unitum est: … captiosa, in fideles adorarent cum separatione vol prae- cordis Iesu cultores iniuriosa” cisione a divinitate, dum Mud ado- (Const. ” Auctorem Fidei,” in Denrant ut est cor lesut cor nempe zinger-Bannwart’s Enchiridion, n, personae Verbi, cut inseparabiliter 1563O DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART 293 Lord’s sacred Body does not hinge entirely on the question whether that particular organ is adorable in itself, but primarily on the question whether the worship rendered to it is apt to manifest our Lord’s condescension and love for humankind, and to bring Him nearer to us. From this point of view it may safely be asserted that no organ of our Saviour’s body is so apt to serve as obiectum manifestativum as the Sacred Heart, regarded as the material seat of Christ’s theandric love for mankind. In the languages of all nations, and particularly in that of the Sacred Scriptures of both the Old and the New Testament, the heart is the symbol of love.40 The teaching of the Church was misinterpreted by Camillus Blasius, an auditor of the Rota, who published a shallow dissertation at Rome in 1771 under the title Dissertatio de Festo Cordis Iesu. He claimed that the symbolic, not the material Heart is the object of our adoration, which is tantamount to saying that the Church proposes to the worship of the faithful an intangible metonymy, a substanceless metaphor, an abstract symbol. Can this be possible? It is true that the Sacred Congregation of Rites, in the decree by which it instituted the Feast of the Sacred Heart (February 6th, 1765), employed the phrase: * [Hoc cultu] symbolice renovari memoriam illius divini amoris, quo unigenitus Dei Filius humanam suscepit naturam.* But this phrase 40 The circumstance that modern raent. Cfr. Leroy, De SS. Corde physiology assigns the ganglia as Iesu eiusque Cultu, pp. 22 sqq., the scat of love as a sensitive af- Leodii 1882. fection, does not impair this argu294 UNITY IN DUALITY must be interpreted in accordance with the petition of the Bishops of Poland, to which the decree was a reply. In that petition we read : ” En res, quatn Iesus colendam proponit, nimirum cor suum sacrosanctum, non tantum ut est symbolum omnium interiorum affectionum, sed ut est in se* 41 The matter was cleared up beyond a peradventure by Pope Pius VI in his Bull * Auctorem Fidei”: . Mud adorant [fideles]” he says, ” ut est cor Iesu, cor nempe personae Verbi, cui inseparabiliter unitum est ad eum modum, quo exsangue corpus Christi in triduo mortis sine separatione a divinitate adorabile fuit in sepulcro.” 42 Surely it was not the ” symbolic ” Heart that was ” inseparably united with the Person of the Logos,” any more than it was the ” symbolic ” body of the Saviour that reposed for three days in the tomb.48 The Church has solemnly approved the worship of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and sanctioned it liturgically by the incorporation of special prayers in her Breviary and Missal. Hence Catholics are no longer free to reject this admirable devotion as incorrect or inadmissible. All good Christians will hail with joy and join in the adoration of that Divine Heart which beats for us in undiminished love both in Heaven and on our altars. Amid the spiritual afflictions of bur cold and unbelieving age nothing is so well 41 Cfr. N. Nilles, De Rationibus 48 On the divergent opinions held Festorum SS. Cordis Iesu et Puris- by different theologians in regard sitni Cordis Mariae, 4th ed., pp. 120 to the proximate object of the worsqq., Ratisbon 1885. ship of the Sacred Heart, cfr. Chr. 42 Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, En- Pesch, PraelecL DogmaU, Vol. IV, chiridion, n. 1563. pp. 124 sq. justified as the ardent petition: “Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us !” Readings: — Wilhelm-Scannell, A Manual of Catholic Theology, Vol. II, pp. 117, 2nd ed., London 1901. — S. J. Hunter, S. J., Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II, pp. 497 sqq., 2nd ed., s. a. — * L. Leroy, De SS. Corde Iesu eiusque Cultu, Leodii 1882. — J. Jungmann, S. J., Die Andacht sum hi. Her sen Jesu und die Bedenken gegen dieselbe, 2nd ed., Freiburg 1885. — N. Nilles, S. J., De Rationibus Festorum SS. Cordis Iesu et Purissimi Cordis Mariae, 2 vols., 5th ed., Ratisbon 1885. — Idem, The Devotion to the Sacred Heart (tr. by W. H. Kent, O. S. C), London 1905. — H. J. Nix, S. J., De Cultu SS. Cordis Iesu Notiones quaedam Theologicae, 2nd ed., Aug. Vindel. 1886. — W. Humphrey, S. J., The One Mediator, pp. 272 sqq., London s. a. — J. V. Bainvel, La Devotion au Sacre-Coeur de Jesus, Doctrine, Histoire, 3rd ed., Paris 191 1. — J. de Gallifet, S. J., The Adorable Heart of Jesus, 3rd ed., London 1908.