I. Heretical Teachings and the Church.

— The term "passibility" (capacity for suffer- ing), when appHed to our Divine Saviour, means bodily infirmity to a degree involving the possi- bility of death (defectus corporis), and in addi- tion thereto, those psychical affections which are technically called "^(^^v, passiones^ by Aristotle and St. Thomas. It is necessary to assume such physical defects and psychical affections in Christ in order to safeguard His human nature and the genuineness of the atonement. In other words, the passibility of Christ is a necessary postulate of His Passion.
a) To deny our Lord's liability to suffering and death, or the immeasurable richness of His soul-life while on earth, would be tantamount to asserting that Christ merely bore the semblance of a man and that His human actions were apparitional, — just what the Docetists as- serted. On the other side we have Monophysitism, the doctrine of one composite nature in Christ, which logically
1 " Propriissime dicuntur pas- sicut et cetera, quae ad naturam siones animae affectioncs appetitus hominis pertinent." (S. TheoL, 3a, sensitivi, quae in Christ o fuerunt, qu. 15, art. 4.)
72
PASSIBILITY OF CHRIST 73
leads to the heretical assumption of " Theopaschitism " — a worthy pendant to Patripassianism,^ — and to the equally heretical theory that Christ was absolutely incapa- ble of suffering. Towards the close of the fifth and the beginning of the sixth century, a Monophysitic sect under the leadership of Julian of Halicarnassus ^ and Gajanus,* maintained that the body of Christ was in- corruptible even before the Resurrection, or, more precisely, that it was not subject to decay { These sectaries " were named by their opponents Aphthartodocet/z, i. e., teachers of the incorruptibil- ity of the body of Christ, or Phantasiastce, i. e., teachers of a merely phenomenal body of Christ." ^ Julian was at least consistent, but his opponent Severus, Mono- physite Bishop of Antioch (512), contradicted his own fundamental assumption when He admitted the orthodox doctrine that Christ before His Resurrection shared in all the bodily sufferings and infirmities of human nature. The Severians were therefore called dapTo\dTpai or cor- rupticolcB.
b) Meanwhile, at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (A. D. 431), the Church had laid it down as an article of faith that "the Word of God suffered in the flesh, and was crucified in the flesh, and tasted death in the flesh, and that He is 'the first-born from the dead' [Col. I, 18] , as He is life and life-giver inasmuch as He is God." ^
2 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, The Divine Verbum passum carne et crucifixum Trinity, pp. 117 sq. carne et mortem carne gustasse,
3 About A. D. 476. factumque primogenitum ex mor-
4 A. D. 536. tuis, secundum quod vita est et
5 Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, vii-ificator ut Deus, anathema sit." p. 533. Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiri-
« "Si quis non confitetur, Dei dion, n. 124.
74 DUALITY IN UNITY
Carefully distinguishing between passibility and passion the Decretum pro lacobitis of Eugene IV, adopted by the Council of Florence, A. D. 1439, defined : " Deus et homo, Dei Filiiis et hominis filius, . . . immortalis et aeternus ex natura divinitatis, passibilis et temporalis ex condi- tione assuwrptae humanitatis. Firmiter credit [Ecclesia], . . . Dei Filium in assumpta humanitate ex Virgine vere natum, vere passum, vere mortuum et sepultum — God and man, Son of God and son of man, . . . immortal and eternal by virtue of [His] Divinity, capable of suffering and temporal by virtue of [His] assumed manhood. The Church firmly believes . . . that the Son of God in [His] assumed humanity was truly born of the Vir- gin ; that He truly suflfered, died, and was buried." "^ Though these and other ecclesiastical definitions profess- edly deal only with our Saviour's liability to suffering and death, they plainly include, at least by implication, the psychical affections which are the common lot of all men, and which necessarily accompany suffering and death. It is impossible to conceive of a genuine human soul devoid of spiritual and sensitive affections, or even of actual bodily suffering, without a corresponding affliction of the soul.
2. The Passibility of Christ's Human Na- ture Demonstrated from Divine Revela- tion.— The heretical doctrine that Christ was incapable of suffering is manifestly repugnant to Holy Scripture and Tradition.
a) One need but open the Gospels at almost any page to be convinced that, in His human na-
7 Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 708.
PASSIBILITY OF CHRIST 75
ture, Christ was subject both to the ordinary infirmities of the body and the human affections of the soul.
The stor>' of His life confirms and completes the prophetic picture of the " man of sorrows " painted by Isaias.* He " was hungry " » and " thirsted." "^^ He was " wearied " " and fell " asleep." " He shed His blood and died. On many occasions He manifested distinctly human emotions. Standing before the tomb of His friend Lazarus, for example, He " groaned in the spirit and troubled himself . . . and . . . wept." " Finding in the temple " them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money," He, who was ordinarily so meek, became inflamed with holy anger and drove them out with a scourge.^* His eyes rested with tender regard on the pious youth who was able to say that he had ob- served the commandments of God from his boyhood.^' He rejoiced ^* and sorrowed,^^ He marvelled ^^ and was oppressed with fear and heaviness.^®
St. Paul explains the reason for all this in Heb. H, 16 sq. : " Nusquam enim angelos apprehendit, sed semen Abrahae apprehendit; unde debuit per omnia fratribus siniilari,^° ut misericors fieret et fidelis pontifex ad Deum, ut repropitiaret delicto popidi-^ — For nowhere doth he take hold of the angels : but of the seed of Abraham he taketh hold. Wherefore it behooved him in all things
8 Is. LIII, 3 sqq. 16 John XI, 13.
9 Matth. IV, 2. 17 Matth. XXVI, 37 sq.
10 John XIX, 28. 18 Matth. VIII, 10.
11 John IV. 6. 19 Mark XIV, 33: " Et coepit
12 Matth. VIII, 24. pavere et taedere (eicffa/*/3«V^ai
13 John XI, 33 sqq. icai aZruwvelv) ■"
Kjohn 11^ 15. 20icaro iravra Toij eWeX^ts
15 Mark X, 21: 6 ^ 'Irfffoii Ofwiud^vai. ifi^XsTf^as avTv ^dxriaey aiiroy. 21 cfj rb TKaaKecBai. toj d/iop-
Tias Tov \aMv.
76 DUALITY IN UNITY
to be made like unto his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God, that he might be a propitiation for the sins of the people."
b) The Patristic teaching on this point agrees with that of Sacred Scripture in every detail, except that the Fathers formally exclude from the human nature of Christ all physical and moral de- fects, which Holy Scripture does rather by im- plication.
a) St. Ambrose says that Christ must have felt and acted like a man because He possessed a human nature : " Unde valde eos errare res indicat, qui carnem hominis a Christo aiunt esse susceptam, affectum [autem] ne- gant, . . . qui hominem ex homine tollunt, quum homo sine affectu hominis esse nan possit." ^^ St. Leo the Great points out that the hypostatic Union of the two natures in Christ postulates the co-existence of contrary proper- ties : " Impassibilis Deus non dedignatiis est esse homo passibilis, et immortalis mortis legihus subiacere." ^^
^) The only dissenting voice is that of St. Hilary (d. 366), who in his principal work, De Trinitate, writ- ten for the purpose of defining and scientifically estab- lishing the Christological teaching of the Church against Arianism,^* seems to have taught that Jesus was abso- lutely insensible to pain and suffering. St. Hilary was accused of heresy by Claudianus Mamertus (d. about
22 7n Ps., 61, n. s. tatel is a sustained and intensely
28 Serm,, 22, c. 2. Cfr. St. Au- enthusiastic plea for the faith of
gustine, De Civil. Dei, XIV, 9, 3. the Church. In the domain of early
24 Cfr. Bardenhewer-Shahan, Pa- ecclesiastical literature it is certainly
trology, pp. 404 sq. " The entire the most imposing of all the works
work [Hilary's treatise De Trini- written against Arianism."
THE TEACHING OF ST. HILARY -jy
474) >" a"d the charge was repeated by Berengar and Baronius. Erasmus did not scruple to reckon Hilary among the Docetae, and a recent writer, Dom Lawrence Janssens, O.S.B., who has subjected the text to careful scrutiny, arrives at practically the same conclusion.-* The vast majority of Catholic divines, however, headed by Peter Lombard,-^ defend St. Hilary against the charge of heresy and interpret his writings in accordance with the orthodox teaching of the Church. There is a third group of theologians, chief among them William of Paris and Petavius,-^ who hold that St. Hilar}''s original teach- ing, in his work De Trinitate, was false, but that he tacitly retracted it in his Commentary on the Psalms.
The objections to St. Hilary's teaching seem to us to rest on hermeneutical rather than dogmatic grounds. The supposition that he retracted his previous teaching in his Commentary on the Psalms is altogether gratui- tous. It will be far juster to interpret the ambiguous phrases in his work De Trinitate in the light of certain perfectly orthodox expressions which occur in the Trac- tatiis super Psalmos. Had Hilary believed that the human nature of Christ was absolutely insensible to pain and suffering, he would surely not have written: " Hunc igitur ita a Deo percussum persecute sunt, super dolorem vulnerum dolorem persecutionis huius addentes; pro nobis enim secundum Prophetam dolet." ^'
25 " Nihil doloris Christum in pas- His example was followed by St. sione sensisse," was the way in Bonaventure (in h. /.). St. Thomas which he formulated Hilary's teach- Aquinas {in h. I.), the Maurist Con- ing. {De Stattt Animae, II, 9.) stant {Opp. S. Hilarii, Praef.. sect.
2i" Mentem S. Hilarii ab Aph- 4, { 3, n. 98 sqq.), and lately Sten-
thartodocetarum excessu non tanto- trup (.Christologia, I, thes. 56).
pere distare." {Christologia, p. 552, 28 Cfr. De Incarn., X, 5.
Friburgi 1901.) 29 7n Ps.. 68, n. 23. Cfr. In Ps..
27 Liber Sent., Ill, dist. 15 »q. 53, n. 4-7; 54, n. 6.
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How, then, are we to interpret the incriminated passages in the treatise De Trinitate? Let us examine the text. It reads as follows (X, n. 13) : "Homo lesus Christus, unigenitus Deus, per carneni et Verhum iit hominis Hlius ita et Dei Filius, hominem j/erum secundum similitu- dinem nostri hominis, non deficiens a se Deo sumpsit; in quo quamvis ictus incideret out vulnus descenderet aut nodi concurrerent aut suspensio elevaret, afferrent qui- dem haec impetum passionis, non tamen dolorem pas- sionis inferrent. . . . Passus quidem est Dominus lesus, dum caeditur, . . . dum moritur; sed in corpus Domini irruens passio nee non fuit passio nee tamen naturam passionis exseruit, dum . . . virtus corporis sine sensu poenae vim poenae in se desaevientis excepit. . . . Caro ilia, id est panis ille de coeiis est; et homo ille de Dea est, habens ad patiendum quidem corpus et passus est, sed naturam non habens ad dolendum. Naturae enim propriae ac suae corpus illud est, quod in coelestem gloriam conformatur in monte, quod attactu suo fugat febres, quod de sputo suo format oculos."
The orthodoxy of these equivocal and awkward phrases has been defended on a twofold plea. Some have contended that St. Hilary, in speaking of " Christ," meant the " Person of Christ," i. e., the Divine Logos, and that, consequently, in referring to the " nature of Christ " he had in mind the " nature of the Logos," i. e., Christ's Divinity, which in matter of fact can be subject neither to "dolor passionis" nor " sensus poenae." Others have attempted to solve the difficulty by pointing out that St. Hilary's controversial attitude against the Arians led him to insist on the Divinity of Christ so vigorously as to accentuate unduly the a-priori excellence of His humanity and its special prerogatives over or-
THE TEACHING OF ST. HILARY 79
dinary human nature.^*^ According to the first theory, the passage : " Virtus corporis sine sensii poenae vim poenae excepit " would convey the perfectly orthodox meaning: "Virtus divina corporis [t. e., Verb urn ex- istens in corpore] sine sensu poenae fuit." The phrase " naturam non habens ad dolendum" would likewise be unexceptionable if natura were taken in the sense of natura divina. With regard to the second theory we may remark: St. Hilary undoubtedly teaches that there is an important difference between the sacred humanity of Christ and the ordinary human nature common to all men by virtue of their descent from Adam. He holds that the human nature of our Lord was different from, and superior to, ordinary human nature, and he attributes this difference to Christ's miraculous gener- ation " from the Holy Ghost and the Virgin." ^^ While he fully admits the reality and passibility of Christ's manhood, St. Hilary asserts the existence of a threefold essential difference between the Godman and all other human beings, viz.: (i) It was impossible for Christ to be overcome by bodily pain, (2) He was under no obliga- tion to suffer, and (3) His suffering did not partake of the nature of punishment.'-
In the light of these considerations it cannot be truth- fully asserted that St. Hilary sacrificed the dogma of the passibility to his exalted conception of the majesty of the Godman. W^e must, however, admit that he did not succeed in finding the right via media between the doc-
30 This peculiarity can be traced larius'\ removere a Christo dolorem, also in his other writings. sed tria quae sunt circa dolorem: &l De Trinit., X, 15, i8. /. dominium doloris, , . . i. meri- 32 Cfr. St, Thomas, Commentum turn doloris, ... 3. necessitatem in Quatuor Libros Sent., Ill, dist. doloris . . . Et secundum hoc sal- ts: " Solutio Magistri consistit in vuntur tria difficilia, quae in verbis hoc, quod simpliciter noluit [S. Hi- eius videntur esse."
8o DUALITY IN UNITY
trine of the Arians on the one hand and that of the Aphthartodocetse on the other, and that he failed to give due emphasis to the Scriptural and ecclesiastical teach- ing with regard to the nature and extent of our Lord's capacity for suffering. Thus, while he certainly erred, he may be said to have erred on a minor point. He had before him the ideal Christ, as He might have ap- peared among men, in the full consciousness of His divine dignity and without any obligation to suffer. The historic Christ of the Gospels, whose Divinity he was called upon to defend against powerful and sagacious foes, St. Hilary manifestly overrated. His theory may be briefly stated thus: The entire life and suffering of our Lord was a continued miracle. It was as if the suppressed energy of the Divine Logos were constantly seeking an outlet. The passibility which duty and ne- cessity imposed on Jesus Christ became actual passion only by dint of His unceasing consent. His capacity for suffering was abnormal, unnatural, miraculous. The normal condition of His sacred humanity manifested itself when he walked upon the waters, when he penetrated locked doors, when He was transfigured on Mount Tabor, and so forth.^^ This sublime con- ception of Christ led St. Hilary to lose sight of the soteriological character of His mission. The Incarna- tion of the Son of God was dictated by practical reasons and required for its consummation a painful atonement which in-solved His death on the cross. The passibility of Christ must, therefore, be held to be wholly natural and spontaneous. A supernatural or artificial passi- bility, based upon an unbroken chain of miracles, could not have accomplished the purposes of the Redemption.
88 Cfr. St. Hilary, De Trinit., X, 23, 35.
CHRIST'S PASSIBILITY 8i
Bardenhewer can scarcely be accused of undue severity when he says that the teaching of St. Hilary " makes a very sharp turn around the headland of Docetism." '*
3. The Limitations of Christ's Passi- BiLiTY. — In view of the express teaching of Sacred Scripture and the Church, Catholic the- ologians circumscribe the dogma of Christ's pas- sibility with certain well-defined Hmitations, by excluding from His human nature all those de- fects of body and soul which would have been unbecoming to a Godman. They draw a sharp distinction between passiones universales sive irreprehensihiles,^^ i. e., defects which flow from human nature as such, and passiones particiilares sive reprehensihiles,^^ which are due to particular or accidental causes.
Passiones universales are, for instance, hunger and thirst, fatigue and worry, pain and mortality, joy and sorrow, fear and disgust, hope and love. The pas- siones or defect us particiilares are partly of the body, such as malformation, deafness, blindness, leprosy, and consumption; and partly of the soul, such as feeble- mindedness, idiocy, revengefulness, and concupiscence.^^
34 Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrol- defectus sunt, qui . . . causantur in ogy, p. 410. Cfr. A. Beck, Die aliquibus hominibus ex quibusdam Trinitatslehre des hi. Hilarius von particularibus causis, sicut lepra et Poitiers, Mainz 1903; Idem, Kirch- morbus caducus et alia kuiusmodi, liche Studien und Quellen, pp. 82 qui quidem defectus quandoque can- sqq., Amberg 1903. santur ex culpa hominis, puta ex in-
35 ira.6r\ adtd^XrjTa. ordinate victu, quandoque autetn ex
36 iradri SidfiXrira, defectu virtutis formativae: quorum
37 Cfr. St. Thomas, 5. Theol., 3a, neutrum convenit Christo, quia et qu. 14, art, 4: " Quidam out em caro eius de Spiritu S, concepta
82 DUALITY IN UNITY
As the body of Christ was exempt from all so-called natural defects, so His soul must have been immune from those psychic defects which arise from, or have any connection with, sin. That is to say, our Divine Re- deemer was not only absolutely exempt from every sinful affection, such as concupiscence, excessive anger, etc.; but He was at all times completely master of His soul. No unfree motiis primo-primi, not to speak of other soul-affections, were able to surprise or overpower Him. St. Jerome expresses this truth in a phrase which has become technical : " The soul of Christ knew no passiones {irdOr] in the strict sense of the term) but only 'TrpoirdOeiaL, propassiones." ^^ Since, however, the term passio in the writings of the Fathers is sometimes ap- plied to the Godman, its use cannot be said to be ob- jectionable.^^
The Scriptural and Patristic texts already given *** leave no doubt that Christ actually assumed the ordinary defects and affections of human nature. Regarding the diseases and weaknesses of the body in particular, St. Thomas gives three reasons why it was proper that the Saviour should share them. The first is that He came into the world to make satisfaction for the sins of men ; the second, that without these defects there would have been room to doubt the genuinity of His human nature ; and the third, in order to give us an example of pa-
est . . . et ipse nihil inordinatum (Cfr. St. Thorn., S. Theol,, 3a, qu.
in regimine vitae suae exercuit." iSi art. 7, ad i).
38 Cfr. St. Jerome, In Matth., 5, 80 Cfr. De Lugo, De Incarn.,
28: "Inter TriOos et irpondOeiav disp. 22, sect, i, sub fin. St. John
«. e. inter passionem ct propas- of Damascus, e. g., says: " Chris-
sionem, hoc interest, quod passio turn omnes naturales et tninime re-
reputatur in vitiunt." Jn Matth., 26, prehensibiles passiones hominis as-
37: " Ne passio in animo illius do- sumpsisse," {De Fide Orth., Ill,
minaretur, per propassionem coepit 20.)
contristari; aliud est enim contri- 40 Supra, pp. 74 sqq. stari et aliud incipere contristari,"
CHRIST'S PASSIBILITY 83
tience." In fallen man these defects are punishments for sin. Not so in Christ, who was absolutely free from guilt. This truth is technically expressed in the phrase : " He assumed poenalitates which involved no guilt."
4. A Famous Theological Controversy. — The foregoing explanation will enable the stu- dent to form a correct opinion regarding the merits of the famous controversy which arose during the hfetime of St. Bernard of Clairvaux between the Premonstratensian Abbot Philip of Harvengt *" and a certain Canon named John.
John correctly defined the passibility of our Divine Saviour as spontaneous and natural, though voluntarily assumed, whereas Philip, on what he believed to be the authority of St. Hilary,*' held that impassibility was the normal condition of the Godman, and His actual surrender to weakness and suffering must be explained by a series of miracles. It was in fasting for a period of forty days, in walking upon the waters, and by other similar miracles, according to Philip's theory, that Christ manifested His normal nature; the hun- ger He is reported to have felt after His fast,** and His ordinary dependence upon the law of gravitation were wholly abnormal and miraculous phenomena. But this theory is opposed to the plain words of St. Paul *^ and
41 S. TheoL, 3a, qu. 14, art. i. 3a, col. 187 sq., Innsbruck 1906.
42 (+ 1 183). He is also called Cfr. also Berliere, Philippe de Har-
Philippus Bonae Spei, from his ab- vengt, Bruges 1892.
bey of Bonne Esperance in the 43 Cfr. supra, pp. 76 sqq.
Hennegau. For a short sketch of 44 Cfr. Matth. IV, 2: " postea
his life and a list of his writings esuriit."
see Hurter, Nomenclator Literarius 45 Cfr. Heb. II, 17; IV, 15. Theologiae Catholicae, vol. II, ed.
84 DUALITY IN UNITY
to the express teaching of the Church and the Fathers.** That these natural defects were voluntarily assumed did not make them unreal or unnatural, because their as- sumption was coincident with the moment of Christ's voluntary Incarnation,*^ which implied His passion, and consequently also passibility for the sublime purpose of the atonement.*^
Readings : — St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, qu. 14, 15. — G. Patiss, S. J., Das Leiden unseres Herrn Jesu Christi nach der Lehre des hi. Thomas, Ratisbon 1883. — * J. Rappenhoner, Die Korper- leiden und GemUtsbewegungen Christi, Diisseldorf 1878. — Fr. Schmid, Quaestiones Selectae ex Theologia Dogmatica, qu. 6, Paderborn 1891. — G. A. Miiller, Die leibliche Gestalt Jesu Christi, Graz 1909.
46 Cfr. St. Athanasius, De Incarn. young man." Hence the conciliar Verhi (Migne, P. G., XXV, 132): phrase: " Passibilis ex conditione " Pro corporis proprictate esurivit.'' assumptae huntanitatis." St. Augustine, De Pecc. Mer. et 47 Cfr. Heb. X, 5 sqq. Rem., II, 2g: " Inasmuch as in Him 48 Cfr. Phil. II, 7: " Semetipsum there was the likeness of sinful evinanivit, . . . et habitu inventus flesh, He willed to pass through the ut homo — Christ . . . emptied him- changes of the various stages of life, self, . . . being made in the like- beginning even with infancy, so that ness of men." On the Aphthartodo- it would seem as if that flesh of cetae consult J. P. Junglas, Leon- His might have arrived at death by tins von Bysans, pp. 100 sqq., Pa- the gradual approach of old age, if derborn 1908. He had not been killed when a