CHAPTER XXXII: QUESTION 47: THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF CHRIST'S PASSION
The efficient cause of Christ's passion must now be considered. (1) Was Christ an efficient cause? (2) Was the Father? (3) Were those who killed Him?
First Article: Whether Christ Was Slain By Another Or By Himself
It seems that Christ was not slain by another, for He said: "No man taketh My life from Me."[1784] But, on the other hand, He declared of Himself: "And after they have scourged Him, they will put Him to death."[1785]
Reply. There are two parts to this answer.
1) Christ was not the direct cause of His death, for He did not kill Himself, but His persecutors killed Him, as He Himself declared: "they will put Him to death."[1786]
2) But Christ was the indirect cause of His passion and death, because He did not prevent it when He could have done so.[1787] "This He was able to do: (1) by holding His enemies in check so that they would not have been eager to slay Him, or would have been powerless to do so; (2) because His spirit had the power of preserving His fleshly nature from the infliction of any injury.... Thus He is said to have laid down His life, or to have died voluntarily."[1788]
Similarly Christ could say: No man taketh away life from Me, that is, against My will, and this He manifested for "He preserved the strength of His bodily nature so that at the last moment He was able to cry out with a loud voice, and hence His death should be computed among His other miracles."[1789]
Second Article: Whether Christ Died Out Of Obedience
Reply. It is affirmed that out of obedience Christ gave Himself up to suffer.[1790] Hence the Apostle says: "He became obedient unto death."[1791] But this was most fitting: (1) because it was in keeping with divine justice that, "as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just";[1792] (2) So that Christ's passion and death should be the result of obedience; (3) so that Christ should be victorious over death and the disobedience of the devil, as the Scripture says: "An obedient man shall speak of victory."[1793]
Reply to first objection. Christ received a command from the Father to suffer. And so by dying He fulfilled all the precepts of the Old Law. He fulfilled all the moral precepts, for these are the result of His supreme charity and obedience; by the supreme sacrifice of Himself, all the ceremonial precepts; all the judicial precepts, by satisfying completely for so great a punishment. Thus Christ fulfilled all justice, and was obedient out of love for His Father, who commanded Him. In this we clearly see His supreme love both for God the Father,[1794] and for His neighbor, as St. Paul says: "He loved me, and delivered Himself up for me."[1795]
Third Article: Whether God The Father Delivered Up Christ To The Passion
The doctrine of this article, which is examined by St. Thomas, must be carefully considered. The holy Doctor begins by presenting three difficulties: (1) It seems wicked and cruel to hand over an innocent man to suffering and death. This objection is again brought up in these days by the liberal Protestants. (2) Christ delivered Himself to death;[1796] therefore it was not God the Father who did it. (3) Judas is accounted guilty for having delivered up Christ to the Jews. Therefore it seems that God the Father did not deliver up Christ to His passion.
Reply. Nevertheless the reply is in the affirmative, the Apostle saying: "He that spared not even His own Son but delivered Him up for us all."[1797] The following explanation is given.
Christ suffered voluntarily and out of obedience to the Father. Hence in three respects, God the Father delivered up Christ to the Passion: (1) because God eternally preordained Christ's passion for the liberation of the human race from sin;[1798] (2) inasmuch as God inspired Him with the will to suffer;[1799] (3) by not protecting Him from the Passion, but abandoning Him to His persecutors; hence Christ on the cross said: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?",[1800] because, as St. Augustine says,[1801] He had abandoned His Son to the power of His persecutors.
The earlier Protestants adulterated this doctrine when they said that the Father delivered up Christ by inspiring the Jews to put Him to death and urging them to it.
What is said in the article has its foundation in what St. Thomas teaches about the efficacy of the decrees of God's will.[1802] This divine will does not make our acts necessary, because God wills them to be accomplished freely, and He does not destroy but actualizes human freedom. Thus Christ freely and meritoriously suffered.
Reply to first objection. It would be cruel to hand over an innocent man to suffering and death against his will. "Yet God the Father did not so deliver up Christ, but inspired Him with the will to suffer for us. God's severity is thereby shown, for He would not remit sin without penalty... and His goodness in that... He gave us a satisfier." Wherefore the Apostle says: "God spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all."[1803]
Reply to second objection. "Christ as man gave Himself up by a will inspired of the Father." So also it is with victim souls, and for this reason it is imprudent to vow to become a victim soul except under special inspiration, or presupposing this as a condition.
Reply to third objection. "The Father delivered up Christ, and Christ surrendered Himself, from charity; but Judas betrayed Christ from greed, the Jews from envy, and Pilate from worldly fear." All these things make it increasingly clear for St. Thomas as for all posterity that the mystery of redemption is especially a mystery of love.
Fourth Article: Whether It Was Fitting For Christ To Suffer At The Hands Of The Gentiles
In the last three articles of this forty-seventh question, St. Thomas inquires how Christ's persecutors were the cause of His passion, and first whether it was fitting for Him to suffer from the Gentiles.
Christ declared of Himself: "The Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to be mocked, and scourged, and crucified, and the third day He shall rise again."[1804] But it was fitting that in this way the effects of Christ's passion should be prefigured in what He suffered. The effect of Christ's passion was that many Jews were baptized[1805] and by the preaching of these Jews, the effects of Christ's passion were transmitted to Gentiles. Therefore it was fitting that Christ begin His suffering from the Jews and afterward, the Jews betraying Him, that His passion be accomplished by means of the Gentiles. In other words, the wicked Jews betrayed Him to the Gentiles to be scourged, and afterward the good and converted Jews, by their preaching, transmitted the effects of the Passion to the Gentiles.
Reply to first objection. Christ upon the cross prayed for His persecutors. Therefore Christ willed to suffer from both, so that the fruits of His petition might benefit both Jews and Gentiles.
Reply to second objection. Christ's passion on His part was the offering of a sacrifice out of supreme love for the human race; but on the part of His persecutors it was a most grievous sin.
Reply to third objection. "The Jews, who were subjects of the Romans, did not have the power to sentence anyone to death." What is meant here is the "power of the sword."[1806]
Fifth Article: Whether Christ's Persecutors Knew Who He Was
In this article St. Thomas has in mind to reconcile the various texts of Sacred Scripture. On the one hand, Christ said: "Now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father,"[1807] and in the parable of the wicked husbandmen, these said: "This is the heir, come let us kill him."[1808] St. Matthew makes the additional comment farther on: "And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard His parables they knew that He spoke of them."[1809] On the other hand, Christ said: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."[1810] St. Paul, too, remarks: "If they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory,"[1811] and St. Peter, likewise, says to the Jews: "I know that you did it through ignorance, as did also your rulers."[1812]
St. Thomas solves the difficulty by distinguishing between the elders and the common people, and also for the elders by distinguishing between Christ's Messiahship and His Godhead. He says: "According to St. Augustine[1813] the elders, who were called rulers, knew, as did also the devils, that He was the Christ promised in the Law: for they saw all the signs in Him, which the prophets said would come to pass; but they did not know the mystery of His Godhead. Consequently the Apostle says that, if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. It must, however, be understood that their ignorance did not excuse them from crime, because it was, as it were, affected ignorance. For they saw manifest signs of His Godhead, yet they perverted them out of hatred and envy of Christ, and they would not believe His words, whereby He avowed that He was the Son of God"[1814]
St. Thomas, however, goes on to remark: "But those of lesser degree, namely, the common folk, who had not grasped the mysteries of the Scriptures, did not fully comprehend that He was the Christ or the Son of God. For although some of them believed in Him, the multitude did not; and if they were inclined to believe sometimes that He was the Christ, on account of the manifold signs and force of His teaching,[1815] nevertheless they were deceived afterward by their rulers so that they did not believe Him to be the Son of God or the Christ."[1816] This article seems to be the expression of most sublime wisdom and penetration.
The replies to the first, second, and third objections confirm what is said in the body of this article.
Reply to the third objection. It says: "Affected ignorance does not excuse from guilt, but seems rather to aggravate it; for it shows that a man is so strongly attached to sin that he wishes to incur ignorance lest he avoid sinning. The Jews therefore sinned not only as crucifiers of the man Christ, but also as crucifiers of God."
Sixth Article: Whether The Sin Of Those Who Crucified Christ Was Most Grievous
Here, too, the question is how to reconcile these words of Christ, namely, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,"[1817] with the following text: "Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers."[1818]
There are three conclusions. (1) "The rulers of the Jews knew that He was the Christ, and if there was any ignorance in them, it was affected ignorance, which could not excuse them. Therefore their sin was most grievous, on account of the kind of sin, as well as from the malice of their will. (2) The Jews also of the common class sinned most grievously as to the kind of their sin; yet in one respect their crime was lessened by reason of their ignorance. (3) But the sin of the Gentiles, by whose hands He was crucified, was much more excusable, since they had no knowledge of the Law."
Reply to first objection. "The excuse made by our Lord: ‘they know not what they do,'[1819] is not to be referred to the rulers among the Jews, but to the common people."
Concerning the reply to the second objection, Cajetan says: "It is a matter of dispute here whether Judas sinned more grievously or the rulers of the Jews, ... and we must say that Judas sinned more grievously. For he was raised above them, inasmuch as he was an apostle. And he not only had seen Christ's miracles, but had also worked miracles in Christ's name, having received this power from Christ, just as the other apostles had.[1820] And he confessed Jesus to be the Christ,[1821] approving of Peter's answer who, in the name of all the disciples, said: "Thou art Christ';[1822] and, in short, above the malice that he shared in common with the rulers, his ingratitude was the greatest, and he added to this kind of sin the baseness of betrayal."[1823]
Thus we have sufficiently examined the causes of Christ's passion.
Footnotes
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