and He so deigned to become what before He was not, that He did not cease to be what He always was; so too God willed to have one person with man, so that although Christ God was not one and Christ man another, yet true God remained in the man, and true man remained in God; and thus in the one Christ there was the perfection of the divine and human natures, unconfused and equally undivided. CHAPTER XVIII. In Christ the things that were of the flesh or of the soul are not to be ascribed to the Godhead. The divinity in no way suffered-with or was made sorrowful. This is proved by the testimonies of Scripture. Now Christ's divinity was not then born in itself, when it was born for us in the flesh. The Word was an infant according to the flesh, and did not have the faculty of speech;
but the same Word, being God, could never be restrained by any silence, because He Himself is the eternal speech of the Father. The boy grew by increase of age, but because in God there is no age, the divine majesty did not grow in the growing boy. We know too that Christ advanced in wisdom according to the soul: but Christ as wisdom could not advance along with the advancing soul. And thus the same Christ both grew in His flesh and advanced in His soul; who nevertheless, both growing in His flesh and advancing in His soul, could neither advance with His soul nor feel the increases of age with His flesh. The same one, according to the assumed soul, was also God made sorrowful;
but He who felt sorrow in the soul could not feel sorrow with the soul. In His soul God willed His sorrow to be, and in His flesh God willed His suffering to be, because God, remaining wholly in the whole man, inseparable, was neither absent from the grieving soul nor forsook His flesh in the suffering; but in the sorrowing and suffering Christ, although the suffering and sorrowing humanity could not be separated from the Godhead, yet in the whole man being sorrowful the divinity was not made sorrowful, and in the whole man suffering the divine nature did not suffer-with; just as, the flesh dying, not only the Godhead but not even the soul of Christ can be shown to have died-with:
for it is one thing to say that God suffered in the flesh, another to declare Him to have suffered-with the flesh; one thing to say He was made sorrowful in the soul, and another to say He was made sorrowful with the soul. God suffered in the man, because there is one person of God and man; God did not suffer-with the man, because in the one Christ the substance of God and man is not confused. This can be proved by the evident testimonies of the Scriptures, so that it may be known that sorrow and suffering are thus to be reckoned to the whole Christ, in such a way that, the truth of the natural functions being shown, there be no confusion of God and man. Matthew relates that the Lord, as the time of the passion drew near, said to His disciples: 'Sit here, while I go yonder and pray';
'and taking Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to be sorrowful and to be heavy' (Matt. xxvi. 36). Mark, however, is known to have put it thus: 'And they come to a field whose name is Gethsemane, and He says to His disciples: Sit here while I pray: and He took Peter, and James, and John with Him, and began to be afraid and to be sore troubled' (Mark xiv. 32). CHAPTER XIX. In the recompense the just shall be as the angels of God. I am not unaware how greatly it now befits the duty of our engagement, that not only in words but also in effects the property of flesh and soul is to be shown in the Son of God:
for then the nature of the divine impassibility will shine forth, when what is proper to the soul, and what to the flesh, has become clear not only by reason but also by the authority of the divine Scriptures. Matthew thus says that Jesus was made sorrowful and heavy; Mark records that He was afraid and sore troubled. Let those, then, whom the assumption of a human soul in Christ displeases, say whether they judge sorrow, grief, weariness, and fear to be reckoned to the divinity or to the flesh. And if indeed they answer that these belonged to the flesh, then the divinity will be exempted from all kinds of sufferings, which was not a partaker of the sufferings of the flesh, although it was not absent even in the suffering from the flesh it had assumed;
but if they assert that Christ's Godhead was shaken by sorrow, grief, weariness, and fear, calling the Godhead passible, they will confess it to be equal to our souls. It remains then that they call it unequal to the angels, which they pronounce to be subject to suffering: for in this respect the angels are by far superior to our souls, because just as they are free from sins, so are they free from sufferings. This too the Lord promises as a recompense to those who worthily worship Him and live holily, saying: 'They shall be as the angels of God in heaven' (Matt. xxii. 30).
Then indeed, when according to the testimony of blessed Paul this corruptible and mortal shall so be clothed with incorruption and immortality that corruption cannot possess incorruption—corruption which consists not only in sin but also in the weakness which is known to have befallen the transgressor from the penalty of sin. For the Apostle attests that we shall then be wholly without sin and weakness, and says: 'Then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your contention? O death, where is your sting? Now the sting of death is sin' (1 Cor. xv. 54, 55, 56).
Therefore, death being swallowed up in victory, there will be no corruption of soul or flesh, since when all iniquity has been removed from us, no weakness will remain. Concerning such ones indeed Isaiah says: 'They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee from them' (Isa. xxxv. 10). Of these too John speaks in the Apocalypse: 'They shall neither hunger nor thirst, nor shall the sun fall upon them, nor any heat' (Rev. vii. 16); and, to show that they shall obtain this grace by the gift of Christ, he adds in what follows: 'For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall rule them, and shall lead them to the fountains of the waters of life, and the Lord shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.'
Since, then, such today is the blessed security and gladness of the angels, wholly ignorant of sufferings, so that they are shaken by no fall of sin, by no assault of weakness; let those at last look back (or come to their senses) into what abyss of blasphemy they are hurled down, who, subjecting the divinity of Christ to human sufferings, endeavor to demonstrate the Lord of angels, in the substance which He has from the Father, to be inferior to the angels. Is it then false, what He Himself says: 'The servant is not greater than his lord' (John xiii. 16)? CHAPTER XX. The objection is met concerning what David says: 'You have made Him a little less than the angels.' Do they think this is to be objected, what David says of the Son of Man: 'Lord, what is man, that You are mindful of him?'
'or the son of man, that You visit him? You have made him a little less than the angels' (Ps. viii. 5, 6). But let them notice that Paul the apostle refers this passage to the understanding of human death, in such a way that he assigns this lessening not only to the nature of the humanity, but even excepts the divinity of Christ from fellowship with suffering and death. For thus he speaks to the Hebrews: 'But Him who was made a little less than the angels, we see, namely Jesus, on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that without God He might taste death for all' (Heb. ii. 9);
but here the Apostle did not divide Christ, but showed in the one Christ what substance was passible and mortal, and what remained impassible and immortal. Without God, then, that man tasted death, as far as concerns the condition of the flesh, but not without God, as far as pertains to the assumption of the Godhead; because that impassible and immortal divinity, when in the truth of the form of a servant it deigned both to suffer voluntarily for us and to die, just as in the death of the flesh alone it was immortal, so in the sufferings of the whole man it remained altogether impassible. CHAPTER XXI. Sorrow and similar affections pertain to the soul.
But now it must be shown by us that the suffering of sorrow, grief, weariness, and fear pertains properly to the substance of the soul: so that in that very point in which those ungrateful to the grace of Christ desire to subject His divinity to suffering, it may appear what is proper to each nature, and in this
the wondrous and unconquered clemency of the Lord may be the more recognized, when we shall have proved that the substance of soul and flesh was for this reason assumed by God together with their sufferings, that just as, the state of the divine impassibility being kept safe, He is known by the voluntary assumption of death in His flesh to have slain our death, so by the voluntary assumption of sorrow and fear He may be known to have assumed a rational soul with its sufferings, that He might deign to free our souls from all sufferings. Let us therefore show that the sorrow of Christ pertained neither to the substance of the divinity, nor to that of the flesh, but to that of the soul.
And that this may be known by an unimpaired manifestation, let us attend to what He said to the disciples almost at the very time of the passion, so that He might demonstrate in Himself the true substance of the soul no less by function than by name. 'My soul,' He says, 'is sorrowful even unto death' (Matt. xxvi. 38). But who would doubt that sorrow can neither fall upon the divinity nor pertain to the function of the flesh? For it is proper to the soul to fear, to desire, to be sorrowful, to rejoice, as the text of David's song also shows, saying: 'Why are you sorrowful, my soul, and why do you disturb me?' (Ps. xli. 12). The soul is made sorrowful, it itself is disturbed.
Therefore the Savior Himself too, to show that this disturbance is to be reckoned not to the flesh but to the soul, thus consoles His disciples, when they were made sorrowful over His future departure: 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it fear' (John xiv. 1). To the same ones He again speaks thus: 'Now I go to Him who sent me, and none of you asks me: Where are you going? but because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart' (John xvi. 5). Who would dare assign to the flesh or to the divinity that which the Lord says pertains properly to the function of the heart? For when He said above: 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it fear,' where by the name of heart He properly demonstrated the human soul, and then said:
'Sorrow has filled your heart,' so that He might more evidently show that both sorrow and joy pertain to the soul; again the Apostle says: 'Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she gives birth has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she has borne the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And you therefore now indeed have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one shall take from you.' Behold, in man, sorrow, dread, and joy are properly reckoned to the heart, that is, to the soul.
For this reason the Apostle also says: 'Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us everlasting consolation and good hope in grace, console your hearts and confirm them in every good work and word' (2 Thess. ii. 15). But where can consolation be applied, except where sadness can creep in? Which, because they pertain properly to the soul, therefore it is written of Christ: 'For He began to be sorrowful and heavy; and He began to be afraid and sore troubled.' And He Himself says: 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death.' And: 'Now is my soul troubled.' CHAPTER XXII. Joy in the soul of Christ. Desire. Christ took on infirmities, that in us He might perfect virtue.
In Christ there is the power of laying down and taking up the soul. The Savior demonstrated joy also in His soul, when He said to the disciples concerning Lazarus: 'Lazarus our friend is dead: and I am glad, for your sakes, that I was not there, that you may believe' (John xi. 14). The substance of man indeed rejoiced in Christ, which by natural fellowship already had joy over the raising of Lazarus: at the same time so that the disciples too might understand true God in the man, whom they had known not to be hidden even from things set far off. And that Christ might demonstrate in Himself all the functions of the soul, He willed desire too not to be alien to His soul, saying to the disciples: 'With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer' (Luke xxii. 15).
No one can reckon all these things either to the nature of the flesh or to the substance of the Godhead, since the flesh can neither live by itself, nor feel, nor be sorrowful, nor desire, nor fear, nor grieve. The Godhead fears nothing, since it is lord of all; is sorrowful in nothing, since nothing of suffering is brought upon it; fears in nothing, since there is in it no natural weakness; desires nothing, since it can do all things and possesses all things. All these things, therefore, Christ endured in the soul which He had assumed, that He might demonstrate in Himself the true and whole substance of the man He had received, with its infirmities; and by the infirmities which He took on behalf of the weak, that He might perfect the virtue which He bestowed on the weak.
He who also for this reason had the flesh of man mortal, that He might confer on mortals the full grace of immortality; and He assumed the soul of man with its infirmities without sin, that He might expend medicine upon our souls; for just as, Isaiah being witness, 'He was wounded for our iniquities' (which was proper to the flesh: seeing that the soldier struck with a lance the side of one already dead), so 'He was weakened for our sins' (Isa. liii. 5) (which is of the soul, whose infirmities He assumed for us). Having the fullest power of laying down and taking up this soul, He said: 'Therefore does the Father love me, because I lay down my life, and take it up again: no one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself:'
'I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again: this commandment I received from my Father' (John x. 17, 18). I ask in this place of those who say that in Christ there was in no way a human soul, what substance they believe to be named by the word 'soul' here? whether that of the divinity, or of the flesh? or what substance in Christ claims for itself the power of laying down the soul? For if they attribute this power to the divine substance, so that they say the flesh is named by the word 'soul' which the divinity was about to lay down in the passion (that we may for the moment argue according to their will), if the divinity says of the flesh: 'I have power to lay down my soul';
then while it names the flesh by the word 'soul,' it without doubt assigns to the flesh also all the infirmities, when it says: 'My soul is troubled'; when it says: 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death.' Since, then, Christ did not say: 'I am sorrowful even unto death,' but said: 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death'; nor did He say: 'I am troubled,' but: 'My soul is troubled'; He surely showed these to be sufferings of the flesh, but taught thoroughly that His own divinity is altogether impassible. But if perhaps they attribute this power to the substance of the flesh, as though the flesh had said of the divinity:
'I have power to lay down my soul,' does it so delight them to diminish the divine substance of Christ, that they subject it to the power of His flesh, so that it itself should obey the flesh, when the flesh ought to have served it? CHAPTER XXIII. The divinity alone has full power. That voice, then, by which it was said: 'I have power to lay down my soul,' is to be believed to be that of the whole man. For just as the whole one delivered Himself up, and the whole man offered Himself, of whom the Apostle says: 'Walk in love, as Christ also loved us and delivered Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness' (Eph. v. 2), so the whole man laid down his soul, when the soul departed on the cross, the flesh dying;
which flesh, however, the divinity did not forsake even in death, just as neither did it abandon the soul in hell; concerning which the prophet also had said: 'You will not leave my soul in hell' (Ps. xv. 10). Since, then, the man Christ received such great power that when He willed He might lay down His soul, and when He willed He might take it up again; how great power could the divinity of Christ have, to which to will is ever the same as to be able? For in this place the truly impassible and unconquered divinity utterly destroyed all the fabrications of heretical falsehood. For if the power of the one speaking was intact, the weakness of the one suffering was voluntary; and the will which comes from power certainly preserved the natural truth of both the divinity and the humanity.
For natural power would without doubt have been lacking, if there had been any infirmity whatsoever in the divinity of Christ. But how could the humanity have possessed the power of suffering, if the divinity could not possess full impassibility? Let it therefore be acknowledged that where the power is naturally full, there can be no infirmity of suffering; for the power of Christ, by which He remained immortal when the dying Christ laid down His soul in the flesh, itself remained without sadness, even while Christ endured in His soul, out of His own power, a voluntary sadness. And that man had the power of laying down His soul precisely because the divine power took Him up into the unity of His person. But what power is full, save the divinity alone? Of which it is said:
Whatsoever He willed, He did (Ps. 113:12); and to whom it is said: For it is in Thy power to be able whenever Thou wilt (Wis. 12:18). Therefore in Him alone is full power worthily believed to exist, in whom to be able is naturally as great as to will, and to will as great as to be able. CHAPTER 24. That there was a true soul in Christ. Furthermore, Christ deigns to show that He assumed a true soul, both by the name and by the deed, saying: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his soul for his friends (John 15:13).
Whence Peter, knowing that the soul of Christ was named by its own and substantial word, lest anyone should suppose that flesh was perhaps being designated by the Lord under the name of soul, desiring to follow the virtue of that perfect imitation which he was afterward to receive, when the Lord said: Whither I go thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow afterward, replied: Lord, why cannot I follow Thee now? I will lay down my soul for Thee (John 13:36-37). Assuredly he showed that Christ would lay down His soul for him, since he said that he would follow Him in this, that he too would lay down his soul for Christ. For because Peter did not share with Christ a common nature of divinity, he could not say to Him concerning the divinity: I will lay down my soul for Thee.
Again, if Peter had known that Christ had laid down only His flesh for him, he too could have said: I will lay down my body for Thee, just as Paul properly signifies the body when he says: If I deliver my body to be burned (1 Cor. 13:3). But because Peter knew that Christ would lay down His soul for us, therefore he showed that he wished to follow the Lord in this, in which he demonstrated the affection of laying down his soul for Him, so that the very thing which he knew Christ had laid down for him, this he too might likewise lay down for Christ.
And that all darkness of perverse opinion may be utterly dispelled by the most clear light of catholic truth, let us be instructed by the words of John, who, exhorting the faithful to the imitation of Christ, enjoins that what he had known to be done in the Head should be done in the members. In this, he says, we know the love of God, because He laid down His soul for us, and we also ought to lay down our souls for the brethren (1 John 3:16). To lay down one's soul, therefore, is proper to love; but where love is not, the body is said to be delivered, the soul is not said to be laid down, as the Vessel of election, full of love, altogether testifies: If I deliver my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
He shows that without charity the body can be delivered, but the soul cannot be laid down; but where he strives to signify the purity of his love, thus he writes to the Thessalonians: We were affectionately desirous to impart to you not only the Gospel of God, but also our own souls (1 Thess. 2:8). And to show that this belonged to charity, he added: because ye were become most dear to us. Therefore also Peter, who had pledged that he would lay down his soul for the Lord—that we might recognize that the office of laying down the soul consists in love—Christ first invites to the confession of love; and that He might afterward grant to His lover the faculty of laying down his soul, He thus at length questions him: Simon son of John, lovest thou Me more than these? He says to Him:
Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. And when he had said this also a second time, He says to him the third time: Simon son of John, lovest thou Me? (John 21:15,17). And when Peter, being asked the third time, had rendered a threefold testimony of his love, immediately the Lord granted to Peter the faculty of laying down his soul for Him, saying: Verily, verily I say unto thee, when thou wast younger, thou didst gird thyself and walk whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee and lead thee whither thou wouldest not (John 21:18). And immediately the evangelist added, saying: This He spake, signifying by what death he should glorify God; and when He had said this, He says to him: Follow Me.
Behold how Peter wished both before to follow Him, when he desired to lay down his soul for Him, just as he afterward was counted worthy to follow Him by the right path of love, when for Him he laid down his soul in his passion. CHAPTER 25. That in Christ there were true infirmities, human indeed, but voluntary. The body of Jesus is not said to have been laid in the tomb, but Jesus, because the divinity was there. Wherefore, since it has been proved by the manifest testimony of the Scriptures that love is absent where the body alone is laid down, but that charity is present where the soul together with the body is laid down, Christ, born of the Virgin, must be believed to be full God and full man, that is, a rational soul and flesh.
And as the truth of the catholic faith holds, let us believe that in one and the same Christ, according to the true substance of the flesh, there was a voluntary and true hunger, when hungering He came to the fig tree; a voluntary and true thirst, when He asked to drink from the Samaritan woman, or when He said upon the cross that He thirsted; a voluntary and true weariness, when, wearied by the journey, He sat upon the well; a voluntary and true wound, when His side was pierced by the soldier's lance; a voluntary and true death, when with bowed head He gave up His spirit upon the cross; a voluntary and true burial, when Joseph and Nicodemus, having taken Him down from the wood, laid Him in the tomb.
For all these infirmities of the flesh, voluntary indeed, yet true, Christ had, because He assumed the nature of human flesh not in phantasy but in truth. And He had these passions in His flesh voluntarily for this reason: that in the truth of the flesh the divine power—which could neither ever suffer nor die—might conquer infirmity and death, and raise up His flesh to perpetual life and virtue. Which Paul thus attests with truthful mouth: Christ rising from the dead dieth no more; death shall no more have dominion over Him. For in that He died to sin, He died once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God (Rom. 6:9-10).
But who does not know that Christ died and was buried neither in soul nor in divinity, but in the body alone? Which John clearly shows in these words: After this, he says, Joseph of Arimathea (because he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews) besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave leave. He came therefore and took the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus also came, who at the first had come to Jesus by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. They took therefore the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the manner of the Jews to bury (John 19:38-40).
Behold, having made the distinction of divinity, flesh, and soul, insofar as it pertains to the property of substance, he says that the body of Jesus alone was taken down from the cross, embalmed with spices, and wrapped in linen cloths; but on account of the unity of the person—since God did not abandon, either in death or in the tomb, the man whom He had assumed from the womb of the Virgin—therefore John, continuing, added: Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, wherein no man had yet been laid. There therefore, on account of the Preparation of the Jews, because the tomb was nigh at hand, they laid Jesus (John 19:41-42).
Truly the aged evangelist, full of the divine Spirit, spoke in such a way that, first showing what in Christ had died and been buried, he said that the body of Jesus was received and bound in linen cloths with the spices. And because what God hath joined together man doth not separate (Matt. 19:6), therefore he says not that the body of Jesus, but that Jesus was laid in the sepulchre; for he knew that God, the receiver of the whole man, was wholly present with His flesh in the tomb, wholly with His soul in hell, wholly in the world, wholly in heaven, wholly through the unity of nature in the Father from whom He proceeded, wholly through the omnipotence of His divinity in every creature which He made. CHAPTER 26. The unity of the person of Christ from the words of the Apostle.