Our Lord Jesus Christ
31. Our Lord's Body
1. Our Lord came in human nature to cleanse that nature from sin. Now, the stain of sin came to human nature from Adam. Hence, the Savior assumed flesh that derived from Adam. Christ as man was a true member of Adam's race.
2. Christ's flesh was "of the seed of David." In human terms, our Lord was called the son of Abraham, and the son of David. To Abraham and to David, more than to other partriarchs, promises of the Redeemer were made, and the promises called him the seed of Abraham, and also the seed of David.
3. The genealogy of our Lord is given in two of the Gospels. St. Matthew begins with Abraham, and traces the line to Joseph. St. Luke starts with our Lord, and works back. There are points in both lists that scholars discuss with some disagreement. Yet the genealogy as it stands is suitable for its purpose. The fact that St. Matthew follows the male line from Abraham to Joseph, who was not the father of our Lord, merely indicates the invariable Jewish custom of following the male line; yet the genealogy is sufficient, for Mary, like Joseph, was "of the house and family of David"; this is the important thing, and fully indicates the fulfillment of the prophecies that the Redeemer was to be of David's seed.
4. It was suitable that the Son of God should take flesh from a woman. He came to redeem all, and, as he himself was a man, it was right that the female sex should have a place in the work of Incarnation. Hence, the Redeemer was rightly born of a human mother.
5. In the begetting of Christ, the active principle of generation was the power of God, a supernatural power. The matter from which the body of Christ was conceived was the blood of the mother. Thus the conception of our Lord's body was supernatural in the fact that God directly produced it in Mary; it was supernatural also in the fact that it took place in a virgin; but it was natural in the fact that the Child was present in Mary's womb.
6. Through the medium of Mary's body, the body of Christ is related to Adam and to the patriarchs of his line. Christ's body was in the patriarchs in the way in which Mary's body was in them, and in the way in which all their descendants were in them. Now, a descendant is not in his ancestor as a definite part of that ancestor's substance. He is in his ancestor as in his true origin, but he is not a section of the ancestor's flesh or bone or blood or tissue.
7. Christ did not assume human flesh as subject to sin. He assumed human flesh cleansed from all infection of sin. {-Here we discern a reason for the fact of Mary's Immaculate Conception, namely, that the immediate source of Christ's body should be virginal and immaculate.-}
8. St. Paul (Heb. 7:6-9) says that Levi, the yet unborn great-grandson of Abraham, "paid tithes in Abraham" when Abraham paid tithes to Melchisedech. From this, some have falsely concluded that in Abraham our Lord paid tithes for the healing of the flesh from sin. But our Lord was not in his human ancestors in such a way as to make him inheritor of Adam's sin. He was a true child of Adam, but he was not descended by way of concupiscence and carnal or seminal power; he was conceived by the immaculate virgin under the immediate action of God's supernatural power.
32. The Conception of Christ
1. The whole Trinity effected the conception of our Lord's body. But in a special way the conception is attributed to the Holy Ghost. For Christ came because of God's great love for mankind. Scripture says (John 3:16): "God so loved the world as to give his only-begotten son." Hence, it is right that the conception of our Lord should be attributed to the Spirit of Love, that is, God the Holy Ghost.
2. We rightly say that Christ was conceived of the Holy Ghost. This suggests that the Holy Ghost is the active principle of the conceiving, and also that the One conceived is consubstantial with its active principle.
3. However, it is not right to say that the Holy Ghost is the father of Christ. St. Augustine (Enchir. xl) says, "Christ was born of the Holy Ghost, not as a son; he was born of Mary as a son." In his eternal personality, Christ is the Son of God by the eternal generation of the Father. He, therefore, is eternally the Son of God; he was not made the Son of God by becoming man under the active power of the Holy Ghost.
4. In the conceiving of Christ, the Blessed Mother had no active part to play beyond cooperating by giving consent that God's will should be accomplished in her. And Mary did cooperate in God's will and work: "Be it done to me," she said to the angelic messenger, "according to thy word."
33. The Mode of Our Lord's Conception
1. St. Gregory (Moral. xviii) says: "As soon as the angel announced it, as soon as the Spirit came down, the Word was in the womb . . . was made flesh." The body assumed by the Word must be a body perfectly formed. Nor was it formed previously to the Annunciation and held in readiness to be assumed. It was formed and assumed in the same instant, the instant in which Mary assented to the divine Will, saying, "Be it done to me according to thy word." In that instant, "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).
2. At the very instant that Christ was conceived, the rational and spiritual human soul animated his body. {-Recall St. Thomas's theory that the ordinary process of conception puts the conceived matter through two pre-human stages, vegetal and sentient. This, he here asserts, was not the case in the conception of our Lord.-}
3. Our Lord's body was not first conceived and afterwards assumed by the Word of God. It began to exist at the precise moment in which it was assumed.
4. Our Lord's conception, in its active producing principle, was entirely miraculous and supernatural.
34. The Perfection of Our Lord Before His Birth
1. The human soul of Christ was sanctified in the first instant of his conception by its union with the Word of God. From the first, Christ as man had the fullness of grace sanctifying both his body and his soul.
2. From the first instant of his conception, Christ had a perfect human nature with complete use of reason, that is, with perfect intellect and will.
3. Therefore, the sanctification of Christ's human nature included the complete conforming of his human will to the divine will; this act is meritorious; hence, Christ merited perfectly in the first instant of his conception. And this perfect merit is complete; God made man cannot possibly increase in merit.
4. From the first instant of his conception Christ's human nature was taken into the unity of Person. Therefore, from the first, Christ was a comprehensor, that is, he had perfect beatitude in the possession of the beatific vision of God.
35. The Nativity of Christ
1. The nativity, the being born, refers to Person rather than to nature. In an ordinary human birth, what is born is a person, not merely human nature. It is the person who has the nature that is born; it is the hypostasis that is born. So the Nativity of Christ is the birth of God the Son as subsisting in human nature; it is the birth of the Son of God as man.
2. The Son of God is eternally generated, or born, of the Eternal Father. In time, he is born as man of the Virgin Mother.
3. In its activation, the conception of Christ was God's own work. And the Nativity was effected without disturbing or violating the perfect virginity of Mary, even in the physical meaning of the word virginity. And yet Christ is true man as well as true God; he is truly Mary's Child; Mary is truly his mother.
4. Mary's Child is true God. She is the true mother of that Child. Therefore, Mary is to be called the Mother of God. It is heresy to deny this truth.
5. The filiation or sonship of Christ as a Subsistent Divine Relation in the Trinity is one and not multiple or manifold. If we speak of a new filiation or sonship of Christ with reference to the Blessed Mother, we do not mean to multiply filiations in the Son of God. We say that, in one way, there is only one real filiation in Christ, and this is in reference to the Eternal Father, and is itself eternal. Yet there is a temporal filiation of Christ with regard to his Mother.
6. Our Lord was born of Mary without opening her virginal womb. Therefore, Mary had no suffering, no pains or distress, in giving birth to her divine Son.
7. For two reasons it was fitting that Christ should be born in Bethlehem. First, he who was called by the prophets, "the seed of David," suitably chose to be born in the city of David, that is, Bethlehem, where David himself had been born. Secondly, the name Bethlehem is interpreted as "the house of bread," and hence it was a suitable birthplace for "the living bread which came down from heaven" (John 6:51).
8. We know that Christ was born at a fitting time, for he chose the time and he is the all-wise God. As we have noted elsewhere, the time of his coming was neither too soon, before man had learned by bitter experience the evil of the primal human rebellion against God, nor too late, when humbled pride must have sunk into despair.
36. The Manifestation of the New-Born Christ
1. The birth of Christ was not manifested at once to all mankind. Had Christ been so manifested, the redemption by the cross would have been hindered; for, as St. Paul says (I Cor. 2:8): "If they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory." Moreover, universal manifestation of the birth of the Savior would have lessened the merit of faith, which is "the evidence of things that appear not" (Heb. 11:1), and the reality of his human nature would have been more easily doubted.
2. Yet the Nativity had to be manifested, even as the Resurrection had later to be manifested, "not to all the people, but to witnesses preordained by God" (Acts 10:41). If the birth had been hidden from all, it could have profited none.
3. The birth of Christ was indeed made known "to those preordained." These witnesses of the Nativity, and of the divinity of the Child, represented all nations and conditions, for they were male and female, Jew and Gentile, namely, the shepherds, the Magi, Simeon, Anna.
4. Had God directly manifested the Redeemer's birth instead of using creatures (the angels, the star), it would have been easy for people to doubt that our Lord was true man. It was much better for us all that the birth was manifested in the way in which it actually was manifested.
5. Knowledge is given by means of things familiar to those who receive it. Now, the Jews were accustomed to the receiving of divine instruction through the ministry of angels. And the Gentiles were wont to observe the course of the stars. Hence, while spiritual-minded people like Anna and Simeon received the manifestation of Christ's birth by interior revelation, the more material or worldly people had to be taught by signs and wonders.
6. Christ's birth was first made known to the shepherds; these men represent the apostles and all the believers among the Jews. Then the birth was manifested to the Gentiles in the persons of the Magi. Finally it was again manifested to the Jews represented by the holy Simeon and Anna.
7. The star of the Nativity was not a regular part of the heavenly system; it was a newly-created star, and was not in the high firmament, but near the earth. For scripture (Matt. 2:9) says that "it came and stood over where the child was." Some have taught that this star was a power endowed with reason. Some have wondered whether it were not a visible manifestation of the Holy Ghost, like the dove that appeared in our Lord's baptism by John. Others again have believed that the angel who appeared in human form to the shepherds, appeared to the Magi in the form of the star. But it seems most just to say that the star of the Nativity was a newly-created heavenly body near the earth. Pope St. Leo says (Serm. De Epiph. xxxi), that the star must have been more bright and beautiful than the other stars, for its appearance instantly convinced the Magi that it had an urgent and important meaning.
8. The Magi were the "first fruits of the Gentiles." Their faith in Christ was a kind of forecast of the coming faith of all nations in the Incarnate Word. The Magi were inspired by the Holy Ghost to come and pay homage to Christ.
37. Legal Observances Regarding the Christ Child
1. Our Lord submitted to the circumcision: (a) to prove the reality of his human nature; (b) to lend approval to a ceremony divinely instituted; (c) to show his descent from Abraham who first received the law of circumcision; (d) to remove an obstacle that would prevent Jews from believing in him; (e) to give us an example of obedience; (f) to indicate that sin is to be cured by pain of sense; (g) to take up the burden of the ceremonial law that he might relieve others of it.
2. Our Lord was called Jesus by divine command (Luke 1:31). The name means Savior, and it signifies the gratuitous grace bestowed on Christ as man that through him all might be saved, that is, brought safe to heaven.
3. Our Lord was presented to God in ceremonious function in the Temple at Jerusalem. This was in fulfillment of the law (Exod. 13:2) which reads, "Sanctify unto me every first-born." The presentation was a kind of official consecration or dedication of the first-born to God. Our Lord was not bound by the ceremonial law requiring the presentation, for he is God as well as man, and his divine Person is not obligated by creatural regulations, even those of divine origin. But our Lord willed to be obedient to the law, for the benefit and edification of mankind.
4. And Mary was obedient, in imitation of her divine Son, to the ceremonial law. She submitted to the requirements of the Purification, although she had no need of purifying, since there was no conveying of original sin in the conception and birth of her Son. St. Luke (2:22) says that the days of Mary's purification "according to the law of Moses" were accomplished. St. Luke thus pointedly indicates that the requirement for the purification was on the part of the law, and not because of any need in Mary.
38. The Baptism of St. John the Baptist
1. St. John, called the Baptist because he performed the ceremony of baptizing with water, was not following, in this matter of baptizing, any prescription of the Old Law. He was introducing something new. And this baptism of penance conferred by St. John (son of Zachary and Elizabeth) was apt and suitable because: (a) St. John was to baptize our Lord and thus to sanctify the ceremony of baptism; (b) he was to make manifest the divinity of Christ when our Lord came to him to be baptized; (c) he was to prepare men for the true baptism, that is, the sacrament of baptism, by making them familiar with the ceremonial part of it; (d) he was persuading men to do penance publicly and ceremoniously so that they might thus prepare for the worthy receiving of the baptism of Christ.
2. The rite of St. John's baptism was from God. For John was divinely sent to baptize, as we know from the Gospel (John 1:33). But the effect of John's baptism was not supernatural. It had not the power to confer grace.
3. For grace comes to man only through Christ. Scripture (John 1:17) says: "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." The baptism of St. John the Baptist was a preparation for grace, but did not give grace.
4. The baptism of St. John the Baptist was properly given to others besides our Lord, for this ceremony existed not only to manifest Christ on the occasion of his being baptized by John; it existed also to prepare men by penance for the receiving of Christian baptism.
5. Therefore, even after St. John had baptized Christ and had professed his own faith in him, he continued to baptize. And he made his ceremonial baptism of penance a means of sending people to Christ. For, as St. Bede the Venerable says, the forerunner of Christ (that is, St. John the Baptist) could not properly cease from his work until Christ was made fully manifest.
6. Of course, those who were baptized by John needed to be baptized again with Christian baptism. John's baptism was not a sacrament; it did not confer grace nor imprint a character. John the Baptist said, "I baptize with water" (John 1:26); he declared himself, and implicitly his baptism, much less than Christ and His works. Our Lord instituted the sacrament of baptism "of water and the Holy Ghost," and laid upon all the necessity of receiving it. Scripture tells us that the apostles (Acts 19:1-5) administered the sacrament of baptism to those who had already received the baptism of John.
39. The Baptizing of Christ by St. John the Baptist
1. Our Lord needed no baptism of any kind. But he received the baptism of St. John, ordering the Baptist to proceed when he humbly and reverently expressed astonishment that Christ should come to him for baptism (Matt. 3:13-15). Christ was baptized, say the fathers, to sanctify the waters that they might henceforth be worthily used for cleansing from sin in Christian baptism. And as our Lord was to make baptism a required sacrament, so now he set an example to men by receiving the outward form and figure of the reality that was to be.
2. Our Lord was baptized by St. John the Baptist to show his approval of the rite of baptism and to sanctify it.
3. It was fitting that our Lord, at the age of thirty, received the baptism of John. The age of thirty seems to have a certain perfection. Joseph, the son of Jacob, was thirty when he was made ruler of Egypt. David was thirty when he began to reign. Ezechiel was thirty when he began to prophesy. And now, our Lord at the age of thirty begins his public ministry with the receiving of John's baptism. Perhaps the perfection of thirty is in the fact that it is the product of three times ten, and suggests the perfect fulfillment of the Law (that is, the Ten Commandments) by a living faith in the Holy Trinity. In these two things the perfection of Christian life consists.
4. It was through the River Jordan that the Chosen People passed when they came into the Promised Land. It was fitting that our Lord should sanctify these waters by being baptized in them. Thus he consecrated an element for use in that sacrament which enables a man to pass into the eternal land of promise, that is, heaven.
5. At Christ's baptism by John, the heavens were opened. Scripture says (Luke 3:21): "Jesus being baptized and praying, heaven was opened." There is rich signification here, for the true baptism which Christ was to institute opens heaven to mankind in three ways: (a) by exercising heavenly power; (b) by bestowing heavenly faith; (c) by giving an entrance to heaven. And the prayer of Christ at this time suggests the continual need of prayer in those who receive the sacrament of baptism so that what that sacrament confers may not be rendered ineffective by subsequent sin.
6. When our Lord was baptized by John, "the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape, as a dove upon him" (Luke 3:22). The visible coming of the Holy Ghost indicated what Christian baptism was to bring invisibly to the soul of the recipient. For Christian baptism was to be, not in water only, but in the Holy Ghost (Matt. 3:11).
7. The dove that came upon Christ when he received the Holy Ghost at his baptism by John was a real dove divinely created for this purpose. It was not an illusory image of a dove. But this real dove was not an incarnation of the Holy Ghost. It only indicated visibly the invisible coming of the Eternal Spirit upon Christ as man.
8. And the Eternal Father gave sensible manifestation of our Lord's divinity on the occasion of Christ's baptism by John. For there was an audible voice from heaven which proclaimed, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17). Here the Father's audible words, the manifestation of the Holy Ghost in the dove, and the bodily presence of Christ the Son of God, are sensible manifestations of the Three Divine Persons in whose name the Christian sacrament of baptism was to be conferred: "Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28:19).
40. Our Lord's Life
1. Our Lord came to teach men essential truth (John 18:37). Hence, his life was not passed in solitude. In his public ministry, he associated with all sorts and conditions of men. He came to save sinners, and he sought them out. He came that through him men might have access to God, and therefore he made himself accessible to men.
2. Our Lord did not discourage the many with whom he dealt by an austerity of manner, or by exacting extremely hard penances of them. He did not make himself an oddity. He truly became "all things to all men" (I Cor. 9:22), that he might win all; that is, he was moderate, and wholly virtuous, and recollected, but he was not cold or rigidly aloof. Nor were his great penances performed in the public eye: he fasted forty days alone in the desert; his long nights of continuous prayer were spent upon a solitary mountain. Hence, there was nothing in the presence of our Lord to frighten poor sinners, or make them think he would demand too much of them, or repel them with overpowering dignity of manner.
3. Our Lord is God and master of all; he might, had he so chosen, have had all that people call "advantages of wealth and position." But he came to teach us by his life as well as by his words. Now, the life of a wealthy man, or a man of social or civic power, is a life of many cares. He who is to preach God's word has not time for such things. Christ impressed upon his disciples the need of their being free from material concerns as they went about their apostolic work (Matt. 10:9). If the disciples had been wealthy men, as St. Jerome remarks, people would have suspected them of seeking to promote some profitable scheme instead of seeking to save men's souls. Our Lord, by his voluntary poverty, merited spiritual wealth for mankind; he proved to all the world that his Godhead prevails in the spreading of his Church, not his worldly possessions or the power of money.
4. Christ conformed his conduct to the ceremonial and judicial precepts of the Old Law. Thus he showed his approval of this Law, which came from God. He obeyed it to fulfill it in every sense; that is, to meet its requirements, and to bring it to an honorable end, after which its requirements would no longer bind the consciences of men. The prophetic and figurative meanings of the Old Law emerged into factual reality in Christ. He therefore did not break violently with the Old Law, but completed it. He said that he came, not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17).
41. The Temptation in the Desert
1. Temptation is a test or trial. In special, it is an invitation or an allurement to sin which tests or manifests the moral fiber of one who experiences it. Temptation is either: (a) external only, and then it is an invitation or suggestion from without, with no tendency whatever, in the person tempted, to respond to it; or (b) internal, and then it is a weakness, passion, or tendency in the person tempted. Now the temptation of Christ in the desert (Matt., chap. 4) was entirely external. Our Lord's human nature was perfect and without unruly tendencies, and his Person is divine. The temptation of Christ was a test or experiment on the part of the devil. The devil wished to know for sure whether this man Christ was God Incarnate; for the divinity of Christ had been manifested to the demons only in so far as Christ willed it to be made known to them. Satan suspected; he wished to be sure. In making his proposals or temptations, Satan twice employed the phrase, "If thou be the Son of God . . ." It is interesting to note that our Lord, in rebuffing the tempter, did not tell him what he was so eager to know. Now, our Lord endured what may be called the indignity of the temptation in the desert, for good reasons: (a) to bear, at least outwardly, all that his followers have to endure; (b) to show us, and warn us, that not even perfect sanctity is immune from the assaults of the devil; (c) to set us an example of prompt and unhesitating rejection of temptation; (d) to show up, for our benefit, the devil's method of assault, namely, first suggesting something apparently good or at least harmless ("make these stones bread"), and moving quickly on to what is most vile, even to devil-worship; (e) to assure us that all temptation can be successfully resisted, and to make us turn to him with confidence in our own temptations.
2. Christ's temptation in the desert shows us another of the devil's wiles, namely, his preferring to tempt a man when the man is alone, that is, away from where his ready help lies. Thus a man forgetful of God or negligent of prayer puts himself into a desert place where temptation lurks. Seen from Satan's angle, the world of virtue and grace-inspired works is a desert where he has nothing; he is envious of those who dwell in abundance there; he envies that abundance which cannot ever be his; he strives to tempt pious souls, therefore, and to make their lives a real desert.
3. We need penance to make us strong against temptations. Our Lord permitted Satan to approach him only after his hard penance of fasting forty days. Herein is a plain lesson for us.
4. The order of the three temptations proposed by Satan shows us his strategy and teaches us to avoid his snares. No one falls suddenly into the deepest evildoing; Satan is too shrewd to suggest to a decent person the indecency of the viler sins, until he has prepared the way for that suggestion by lesser matters. Satanic wiles begin with something of which one may say, "Why not? What harm is there in it?" Having won a first concession, the devil cleverly pursues his advantage until the grossest evils are possible.
42. The Preaching of Christ
1. Christ's preaching, and that of his apostles, was, first of all, to the Jews. Thus: (a) he fulfilled the promise of God to the patriarchs; (b) he preached first to believers in God who were apt instruments for conveying his teaching to the "races" or "Gentiles"; (c) he thus deprived the Chosen People of any show of justice in their act of rejecting him; (d) he was ready, after the Resurrection, to extend his mission to include the Gentiles, and to send his apostles "to all nations."
2. Our Lord spoke to the Jews, not only kindly and placatingly, but with occasional sternness and words of sharp reproach. Some of the Scribes and Pharisees, leaders of the people, showed much pride and malice in their attitude towards God made man, and kept others from hearing and heeding his teaching. When our Lord rebuked them, it was not through pique or resentment, but because of his love for their souls as well as the souls they were influencing.
3. Christ spoke openly to the people. He brought essential truth to all men, not hiding its light "under a bushel," or uttering it in occult words. Even when he "spoke in parables," he explained the parables to his disciples, who would convey their meaning to all who were willing to hear.
4. Our Lord wrote no books or documents. He left that task, in so far as divine Wisdom wills to have it done, to writers inspired by God for the work. Christ spoke to people, and impressed truth in the hearts of his willing hearers.
43. The Miracles of Christ: In General
1. Our Lord performed many miracles to prove his teaching true, and especially to manifest the leading truth of all his teaching, namely, that he himself is true God as well as true man. Thus he could say to the people (John 10:37, 38): "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though you will not believe me, believe the works: that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."
2. The miracles of Christ, like all miracles, are works of divine power. For a miracle is, by definition, a work that surpasses all power of creatures. Christ is God, and can directly exercise the divine power in working miracles; as man, Christ is the instrument through which the miracles are wrought.
3. St. John says (2:11) that the changing of water to wine at Cana was the first of the miracles wrought by our Lord. Christ was then about thirty years of age, and was about to enter upon his public ministry. St. John Chrysostom says that it would not have been fitting for Christ to work miracles when he was young, before he was ready to begin his public life; for then men would have crucified him before his time.
4. Our Lord said (John 5:36): "The works which the Father hath given me to perfect . . . give testimony of me, that the Father hath sent me." The miracles of Christ are a full proof of his divinity: (a) by their very nature as miracles wrought for the purpose; (b) by their manner, as wrought under Christ's own authority; (c) by the fact that Christ plainly adduced them in proof of his divinity, calling people's attention to them as irrefutable evidence.
44. Miracles of Christ: In Particular
1. It was fitting that our Lord should cast out demons or devils by a miracle. Miracles are arguments for the faith which Christ brought to men; He rightly released, by the miracle of expelling evil spirits, persons whose thralldom to demons prevented them from accepting the faith.
2. Our Lord wrought miracles in the heavenly bodies, as in the darkening of the sun at the hour of crucifixion (Luke 23:44, 45). This was a striking proof of his Godhead, the central truth of the faith which his miracles make manifest.
3. Our Lord showed his divine power and his saving mission to men by his miracles wrought on human beings. Scripture tells (Mark 7:37) how the people welcomed these miracles, and cried out in praise of them: "He hath done all things well; he hath made both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak."
4. Our Lord worked miracles on irrational earthly creatures, as when he caused the fig tree to wither away, changed water into wine, made the earth tremble and quake as he died on the cross. All these things were done for man's benefit. It was right that man should be made aware of our Lord's divinity by means of miraculous signs of his absolute control over every kind of creature: spirits, heavenly bodies, men, irrational earthly beings.
45. The Transfiguration
1. In St. Matthew's Gospel (chap. 17) we read that our Lord was transfigured in the sight of his apostles Peter, James, and John. "And he was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun, and his garments became white as snow." Thus the three apostles had a glimpse of such glory as would come to them after their life of fidelity to God, through hardships and trials. Our Lord had told the apostles of his coming Passion before he gave them this encouraging experience of seeing the Transfiguration. Christ as man had the glory of the beatific vision from the first instant of his existence in Mary's womb. But he was not to have the "overflow of heavenly glory into his body" until his Resurrection from the dead.
2. In the Transfiguration, our Lord showed by way of anticipation the clarity of his bodily glory. This was the essential clarity of true heavenly glory, here manifested in a new mode, that is, as miraculously produced. In the glory following the Resurrection, the clarity of the glorified body is not a miracle; it belongs to the glorified body as such.
3. Our Lord chose as witnesses to the Transfiguration, not only the three apostles, but Moses and Elias who appeared visibly.
4. As at the baptism of Christ by St. John, so here on the mountain of Transfiguration, the voice of God the Father proclaimed the divine Sonship of Christ. The baptism of Christ by John foretold the true baptism which brings grace; the Transfiguration foretold the triumph of grace in glory. Both grace and glory are available to man, but only through the Son of God who became man. Hence it is notably suitable that the divinity of Christ should be divinely proclaimed on these two occasions: the baptism by John, and the Transfiguration on the mount.
46. The Passion of Christ
1. If man was to be redeemed at all, it was necessary that God's plan for human redemption be carried out. This plan involved the suffering of God-made-man in his human nature.
2. The plan of God for man's redemption is most wondrous in every respect. Yet God could have willed to redeem mankind in some other way than by the Passion of Christ.
3. Still, there was surely no way more suitable for man's redeeming than the way of Incarnation and Passion. For here man sees how much God loves him; man has perfect and most noble example of all the virtues; man has grace made available through Christ's merits; man beholds the evil conqueror of his race subdued and vanquished by One who is truly man.
4. For many nobly symbolic reasons it was suitable that our Lord, dying for us by his own will, should have chosen the death of the cross. This mode of death was the most feared, and was considered the most degrading. To show that the upright man need fear no mode of death; to indicate that no mode of death can sully the innocent; to give full and final evidence of his love for mankind and his hatred for sin, our Lord chose the death of the cross. And since he died for all, he chose to die in the open, on an eminence, with arms outstretched to all mankind.
5. Christ did not endure all forms of human suffering. He was not, as we have seen, subject to internal ailments, to sickness or disease. His bodily suffering was externally caused. And by dying on the cross, he excluded other modes of fatal suffering, such as burning or drowning. Yet, in one sense, our Lord did endure all human suffering: (a) all types of human beings had part in afflicting him: men, women, Jews, Gentiles, friends, acquaintances, strangers, rulers, servants; (b) he endured abandonment, calumny, misrepresentation, blasphemy, insults, mockeries, despoliation even of his garments, sadness, weariness, fear, wounds, scourgings; (c) he suffered in all members of his body, and in all his bodily senses.
6. Christ's suffering was the greatest of all suffering, the keenest pain. The prophet Jeremias (Lam. 1:12) foretold this fact in the cry: "O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow." The external pains of the scourging, the crowning with thorns, and the crucifixion, were manifestly extreme. And the sadness of his perfect soul over the sins of men was the greatest distress ever humanly experienced. Our Lord's body was most perfect, and therefore most acutely sensitive to pain. And he did not permit study or consideration on the part of reason to allay the bodily pangs in any manner. For our Lord suffered voluntarily to win for man the greatest benefits; he measured his sufferings to accord with their fruits. Thus our Lord's pain in his Passion was the very greatest, the most intense, of pains.
7. When the body is ready by suffering to be torn from the soul, the soul itself suffers. For the soul in its essence is in the body and in every part of the body. And, since the faculties or powers of the soul are rooted in its essence, these powers suffer too in the suffering of the soul. Hence, Christ, during his Passion, suffered in his whole soul.
8. Yet, despite the fact that our Lord truly suffered in his whole soul, that soul had, throughout the Passion, the uninterrupted enjoyment of the beatific vision. There is no conflict here. Things do not block each other out unless they meet on a common plane. Thus, though love and hatred are opposites, a man may love God wholeheartedly and, at the same time, hate sin wholeheartedly. For love and hatred are not here on the same plane; they are not directed to the same thing. Hence, the wholehearted suffering of Christ did not come into conflict with the higher function of reason which was uninterruptedly fixed in wholehearted fruition of the beatific vision.
9. The time of Christ's suffering was divinely arranged, and hence was most wisely chosen. Our Lord did all things in their proper season.
10. The same thing must be said of the place in which Christ willed to suffer. There is a manifest fitness in our Lord's choice of Jerusalem, the city of the great temple with its divinely prescribed sacrifices, as the place for his perfect sacrifice.
11. Our Lord who willed to be "reputed with the wicked" (Isa. 53:12) was crucified between two thieves. It belonged to the perfection of his suffering, which was the greatest, that he should bear the insult and obloquy of being publicly executed with an ordinary group of criminals as though he were one of them. The cross of Christ, with an unrepentant sinner on one side, and a converted sinner on the other, shows the divinely innocent judge of mankind on the judgment seat between "those on the right, and those on the left," the saved and the rejectors of salvation, as the case will be on the last day.
12. The Passion of Christ was the suffering and death of our Lord as man. We cannot say that the Godhead suffered and died. It is perfectly true that he who died is God. But he is also man, in the unity of the divine Person of the Son. It is the divine Person in his human nature that suffers and dies. The Godhead lives, both in the body of the dead Christ on the cross, and in the separated soul of Christ in Limbo.
47. The Effecting Cause of the Passion
1. The persecutors of our Lord, intending to slay him, inflicted upon him what was sufficient to cause his death. Hence, these executioners actually caused his death. But our Lord could have prevented the executioners from harming him; by his divine power he could have rendered them unable to do what they did, or he could have prevented their action upon him from having any effect. He did neither. Therefore, he died by his own will. Our Lord says (John 10:18): "No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself." That is, no man can take Christ's life against Christ's will. Thus, the effecting cause of Christ's Passion is, directly and actively, the action of human persecutors and executioners; indirectly and essentially, the effecting cause of the Passion is the will of our Lord himself to suffer and die for us.
2. Our Lord died as man; he died out of obedience to God. St. Paul says (Phil. 2:8): "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross." The obedience of Christ atones for the disobedience of sinful man. St. Paul (Rom. 5:19) says: "As by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just." The obedience of Christ enters into the cause of the Passion.
3. Our Lord suffered voluntarily out of obedience to the Eternal Father who delivered him up to suffering. Now, our Lord as God is one with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and exercises the one and undivided will of the Trinity. But as man he obeys this same will, which is appropriated to the Father. He obeys willingly, making his human will conform perfectly to the divine Will. With all this in mind, it is accurate to say that Christ was delivered to his executioners by the Eternal Father, of whom St. Paul says (Rom. 8.32), he "spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." This delivering of Christ to suffering enters into the cause of the Passion.
4. The fruits of the Passion came first to the Jews, and passed on to the Gentiles, for Christ died for all. And, in the Passion itself, it was fitting that the Jews should hand Christ over to the Gentiles (the Roman soldiers) for the completing of the work.
5. The persecutors of Christ did not know who he was. Surely, the learned rulers and leaders of the people knew he must be the Messias, for they saw in him the signs foretold by the prophets. But they did not clearly know that he is God. They would not even acknowledge what they did see; they turned away from Christ and his claims in anger, hatred, and envy; hence, their ignorance was not innocent. The common people did not even know that our Lord was the Messias. While they saw signs and wonders, and many did believe, yet the bulk of the people allowed their teachers and leaders to argue them out of accepting our Lord. This ignorance of the persecutors enters into the cause of the Passion.
6. The sin of Christ's executioners was the more grievous by reason of the malice that marked their terrible deed. Yet even their culpable ignorance was some mitigation of their crime, and our Lord made reference to it when he prayed: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). The Gentiles who had part in the Passion did not know the Law, and were therefore much more excusable than the Jews.
48. The Efficacy of the Passion of Christ
1. Christ as man suffered voluntarily to redeem mankind. He suffered for justice, and therefore grace came to him as merited, and this merited grace overflows into the members of Christ, the children of his Church, and indeed all men. Thus Christ by his Passion merited salvation for his members.
2. Because he suffered willingly, out of love and obedience towards God, our Lord gave back to God more than enough to compensate for the offenses of the whole human race. Hence, the Passion is a superabundant atonement for the sins of mankind. Scripture says (I John 2:2): "He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but for those of the whole world."
3. A sacrifice is something acceptable to God, offered to appease him and to manifest his supreme dominion over all things. The sacrifice offered by our Lord in the Passion was the most perfect sacrifice possible.
4. And the Passion was our redemption. To redeem a man is to secure his release from captivity. Man was a captive of sin, which is the bondage of the devil; man lay also under the bondage of God's offended justice. Now, the Passion of Christ dissolved both bonds, releasing man from the thrall of sin and Satan, and atoning to God for man's rebellion against him. Therefore, the Passion is truly a work of redemption.
5. God in Trinity is the first cause of our redemption. But the immediate cause is Christ. The life of Christ (or his blood, which makes life possible), is the price paid to redeem us. Our Lord voluntarily paid this price. Hence, in the sense of immediate action and payment, our redemption was accomplished by our Lord alone. Thus Christ alone is our Redeemer.
6. The principal effecting cause of man's salvation is God. And the humanity of Christ is the instrument of the Godhead in working out man's salvation. All that Christ as man does and suffers for us, is truly done by him instrumentally; that is, as carrying out the effectiveness rooted in, and proceeding from, the Godhead. Now, what Christ does and suffers for us is called his Passion. Therefore, the Passion of Christ is the effecting cause of man's salvation.
49. Actual Effects of the Passion of Christ
1. The first effect of the Passion is the delivering of man from sin. The Passion renders human sin forgivable. It furnishes a medicine which cures sin in those who take that medicine rightly. A man's individual responsibility for his acts, and his sins, is not taken away; nor is free will nullified. But the Passion removed the barrier of original sin which made heaven inaccessible to mankind, and merited the grace man needs to raise him out of actual sins and set him in the sure way to heaven. These graces man obtains through the faith by the use of the sacraments and prayer which have efficacy because of the Passion and its merits.
2. The Passion delivered man from the power of the devil. It made sin forgivable, and, through the forgiveness of sin, man can be reconciled with God and put in the way to heaven. Thus Satan is defeated, and no man need longer remain in his power. Satan overreached himself in conspiring to bring about the death of our Lord, for that death meant Satan's own defeat.
3. The Passion freed men from the punishment due to sin. Christ paid superabundantly on man's behalf. Henceforth, if a man deserve such punishment, it is his own personal and individual doing, his own actual sinning. And even such actual sin can be forgiven, and its punishment cancelled, by the forgivability of sin established by the Passion.
4. The Passion reconciled man with God. St. Paul (Rom. 5:10) says:
"We are reconciled to God by the death of his Son." The Passion, in addition to its delivering of man from the thralldom of sin, is a most pleasing sacrifice to God. So pleasing indeed, and so powerful is this sacrifice, that God is appeased by it for every human sin if the sinner makes himself one with Christ and complies with his will and his institution for removing sin and gaining grace.
5. Original sin closed the gates of heaven to all mankind. And serious actual sin also closes heaven to the sinner. Now, the Passion atoned for original sin, and so opened heaven to the whole race, and made it possible, on Christ's terms, for a man to get there. As for the personal sinner, the Passion, by making actual sin forgivable, opens heaven to the truly repentant.
6. Christ humbled himself in his Passion, and so merited to be exalted. Says scripture (Phil. 2:8, 9): "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him." Christ was exalted as man in the Resurrection, the Ascension, the placing at the right hand of God, the receiving of the homage of all rational creatures, who are to bow the knee at the mention of his name.
50. The Death of Our Lord
1. Christ died: (a) to satisfy for man who was under sentence of death by reason of the first sin; (b) to prove that he is true man; (c) to deliver man from the fear of death; (d) to teach us to die spiritually to sin; (e) to instill in us the firm hope of rising from the dead.
2. When our Lord died, the divinity or Godhead was not separated from the body on the cross and later in the tomb. For what is bestowed by God's grace is never taken away except through fault; scripture says (Rom. 11:29): "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." The human nature, and thus the flesh of Christ, was united hypostatically or personally with the Word of God, and this union remained permanently; it could not be disrupted by the death of Christ as man.
3. And therefore also, the Godhead or divinity was not separated from the human soul of Christ during its hours of the soul's separation from the sacred body.
4. Yet it is not correct to say that Christ was man during the period of his death; for a man means a living man, and Christ during this space of time was not living but dead. His soul did not then animate the body, for he had truly died. Christ remained really dead from the moment his soul left the body on the cross until the moment it revivified the body for the Resurrection.
5. The body which hung dead upon the cross was buried in the tomb. This was the same body which had undergone the Passion, and which was to rise glorious and immortal. For the body of Christ, living and dead, was identically the same body. It was not, indeed, totally the same, for there is a difference between a body living and the same body dead. But, apart from this difference, the body in the tomb, and the body which suffered the Passion, and the body glorified at Resurrection was the same body.
6. St. Augustine (De Trin. iv) says that the one death of Christ in the body saved us from two deaths, that is, the death of the body and the death of the soul. We are, of course, to die a bodily death, but now it is not a victory over us: "Death is swallowed up in victory" (I Cor. 15:54). And the death of Christ destroys in us the necessity of dying in sin and being plunged into the endless death of eternal torment.
51. The Burial of Our Lord
1. Our Lord was buried for good reasons: (a) to establish beyond all question the fact of his death; Pilate made very sure of the fact of death before permitting the body to be taken from the cross and buried; (b) to make possible the glorious Resurrection from the grave, and thus to give hope and promise to mankind of the glory in store for those that do Christ's will; (c) to indicate that we should be spiritually buried with our Lord, and hidden safe away from the rule of sin.
2. The body of our Lord was wrapped in burial bands, embalmed with a hundredweight of spices, and laid in a new grave which was hewn out of a rock. The burial was a work of reverence and love; it honored the sacred body, and was praiseworthy in all who took part in it. Such a burial put beyond all question any thought that Christ might not be truly dead.
3. There was in the perfect body of Christ no weakness that could result in decomposition or putrefaction, even after death. And scripture says (Psalm 15:10): "Nor wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption." There was, therefore, no dissolution of parts, no crumbling into elements, of the body of Christ in the tomb.
4. St. Augustine (De Trin. iv) says that thirty-six hours elapsed from the evening of our Lord's burial to the dawn of the Ressurec-tion. The sacred body was in the tomb one day and two nights. As each part of a day was reckoned a day according to prevailing Jewish usage, we say that our Lord's body was in the tomb for three days.
52. The Descent Into Hell
1. The name hell stands for an evil of penalty, as well as for an evil of guilt. At the time of our Lord, the souls who were held from heaven (since heaven was still closed to mankind) for the penalty due to original sin, and, in some cases at least, for penalty for their own sins which were not so grave as to demand eternal punishment, were in a place and state that is called hell. This was not the hell of the souls who had willfully rejected God by mortal sin and were suffering everlasting penalty. This was a place and state of those who were waiting for the redemption; this place and state is called, in scriptural language, by the name of hell; to this hell, the soul of our Lord went or "descended" when it departed from the body upon the cross.
2. Therefore, our Lord did not descend locally into the hell of lost souls and demons. But he spread his power there to put the reprobates to shame for their belief and wickedness. And to the hell which we rather call limbo, he brought the hope and promise of glory. On those souls in Limbo who were detained there solely for original sin, he shed the glory of his Godhead.
3. Since, during the hours of our Lord's being dead, neither his soul nor his body was separated from the divine Person of the Son, we must say that wherever his soul or his body was, there was the whole Christ.
4. It seems that our Lord's soul was in limbo (or hell, as it is called) from the moment of his death on the cross to the moment of the Resurrection.
5. Christ descended into limbo, and released from its penalty the adult persons whose only reason for being detained was original sin. These he glorified by his Godhead. Thus the holy fathers were delivered from hell.
6. Christ's descent into the hell of limbo means no deliverance of any soul from the hell of the lost. For the souls in the hell of the lost either had no faith in Christ, or, if they had faith, they had no conformity of charity in his Passion. The lost are confirmed in evil, unchangeably unrepentant; there is no cleansing them from sin, for their will is fixed in sin.
7. The infants held in limbo by reason of original sin were not released by our Lord's descent, for they had not the use of reason and could not be united to Christ's Passion by faith and charity. The infants were not, of course, in any distress or pain.
8. Christ's descent into limbo did not liberate souls from purgatory, except, perhaps, in such cases as could have, through the descent, a personal application to them of satisfaction for their personal faults. The descent itself was not to make satisfaction, but to bring release "to them that were sanctified," that is, the holy fathers who were sanctified by faith and charity, and were detained only by original sin, and not their personal sins.
53. The Resurrection
1. Christ rose from the dead: (a) to manifest the divine Justice which exalts the humbled; (b) to instruct and establish us in the faith, for the Resurrection is the central truth of our faith; (c) to give us firm hope of our own resurrection; (d) to teach us to rise from the death of sin to newness of life; (e) to complete the work of our salvation, and, after enduring evil, to rise triumphant to lasting good.
2. Christ rose on the third day. He delayed the Resurrection long enough to establish the fact that he had truly died. Yet he did not delay it so long that men might fail to see it as the unquestionable proof of his Godhead. Besides, the third day commends to our notice the perfection of the number three which, as Aristotle says, is the number of everything that has beginning, middle, and end. And, mystically, since Christ's one death destroyed our two deaths, the number three is significant. The third day also indicates the three epochs of mankind in their relation to God: before the Law, under the Law, and now under grace.
3. Christ was the first to rise from the dead, to die no more. Those who had been miraculously restored to life in the Old and the New Testament, had to die again eventually. Not so with Christ who "is risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep" (I Cor. 15:20); "Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more; death shall no more have dominion over him" (Rom. 6:9).
4. Scripture speaks of Christ (Acts 2:24) "whom God hath raised up." Yet our Lord himself says (John 10:18): "No one taketh my life from me; but I lay it down, and I take it up again." There is no conflict or contradiction here. Christ is God, and when he causes his own Resurrection it is God who raises him up. It is perfectly accurate, then, to say that Christ himself is the cause of his Resurrection from the dead.
54. The Risen Christ
1. Christ retained his own true body in and after the Resurrection. Had this not been a true body, or had it not been the body in which Christ suffered, the Resurrection would not have been real but only apparent.
2. The body of Christ was glorified in its rising. The saints shall rise in bodily glory; Christ's Resurrection is the cause and the exemplar of their rising; hence, his body is much greater in glory than theirs; our Lord merited this glory by his Passion. Our Lord possessed in his soul the glory of the beatific vision from the first moment of his existence as man; yet the glory of the beatific vision was divinely prevented from overflowing into the body of Christ until after He had endured the Passion and Death for our salvation. But once that work for us was done, the glory of his soul inundated his body.
3. Flesh, blood, bones, and all the other constituents of a human body were in the body of Christ as he rose in glory. It was a complete and perfect body. Our Lord, speaking after his Resurrection to the disciples who thought he was a phantom, said: "A spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me to have" (Luke 24:39).
4. Our Lord kept in his glorified body the marks of his wounds: (a) as an everlasting testimony of his victory; (b) as a proof that he is the same Christ who suffered and was crucified; (c) as a constant and concrete plea on our behalf to the Eternal Father; (d) as a means of upbraiding the reprobates on the last day, showing them what he did for them, thus reminding them of what they had wickedly despised and rejected.
55. The Manifestation of the Risen Christ
1. Christ rose from the dead and was manifested to "witnesses preordained of God" (Acts 10:40). These witnesses were to make his Resurrection known to others.
2. No human eye was privileged to see our Lord in the first moment of his Resurrection. An angel was the herald of his rising glorious from the dead.
3. After the Resurrection, our Lord did not live constantly with his disciples. But he appeared to them repeatedly, and thus he proved two needful facts: the truth of the Resurrection itself, and the glory of the Risen Lord. Had our Lord lived with the disciples as he had lived with them before his Passion, it might be thought that he rose to the same life as before.
4. On the very day of the Resurrection, our Lord appeared "in another shape" to the two disciples who were journeying to Emmaus (Mark 16:12; Luke 24:13-16). After the Resurrection, Christ appeared in his own shape to some who were well disposed to believe in him, and in another shape to those who were prone to doubt. The two disciples on the way to Emmaus said that they "had hoped that it was he who should have redeemed Israel" (Luke 24:21). Their hope was, as their very words show, a thing of the past. Our Lord therefore showed himself to these disciples as he was in their own minds, that is, as a stranger.
5. Christ proved the truth of his Resurrection to his disciples, "to whom he showed himself alive after his passion, by many proofs, for forty days, appearing to them, and speaking to them of the kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3). Thus Christ strengthened the faith of the disciples, and supplied them with argument to use in carrying out their mission.
6. Our Lord's proofs of his Resurrection were perfectly adequate. He made use of the testimony of the angels, and of the scriptures. He showed that he had a true and solid body, not an apparent body, and he identified this body by the marks of his wounds. In his risen body, he ate and drank with his disciples, heard them and spoke to them, and discoursed on the scriptures. Throughout the appearances to his disciples, our Lord manifested the reality of his body and also the reality of his human soul, for he used the soul-faculty of intellect-he reasoned. Finally, our Lord showed his power and glory by entering through closed doors, and by disappearing suddenly from the presence of his disciples.
56. Causal Power of the Resurrection
1. Aristotle says (Metaph. iv): "Whatever is the first in any order, is the cause of what comes after it." The Resurrection of Christ was first in the order of rising from the dead: "The first fruits of them that sleep" (I Cor. 15:20). Christ's Resurrection is thus the cause of our bodily resurrection which will take place on the last day.
2. Christ's Resurrection is also the cause of the resurrection of our souls from the death of sin. The divine power which appears in the bodily Resurrection of Christ extends to human souls. St. Paul (Rom. 4:25) says that our Lord "rose again for our justification." And again he says (Rom. 6:4): "Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life."
57. The Ascension
1. Our Lord as man arose from the dead to an everlasting life. As soon thereafter as his divine wisdom chose, he ascended from the perishable earth to the deathless glory of heaven.
2. Christ as man ascended, by the divine power, into heaven. As God, he is everywhere, and there is no place to which he can or need ascend. Hence, Christ as man ascended into heaven, and not as God, even though Christ is God.
3. Our Lord ascended into heaven, primarily by the divine power, which is his own as God; secondarily, by the power of the glorified soul which moves the glorified body at will.
4. "He ascended above all the heavens" (Eph. 4:10). The glorified body of our Risen Lord shines with greater glory than any other body. In place of dignity, it ranks highest.
5. Our Lord as man ascended into heaven to take his place, not only above all bodies, but above all spiritual creatures as well. "God set him above all Principality, and Power, and Virtue, and Dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come" (Eph. 1:21).
6. Our Lord prepared the way for us to ascend to heaven. And his Ascension awakens in us faith, hope, charity, and reverence. Hence we can say that his Ascension is a cause of our salvation.
58. Our Lord at the Father's Right Hand
1. To sit means to abide, to stay. It also means to occupy the throne of judgment. In both meanings of this word, it belongs to Christ to sit at the right hand of the Father, that is, to abide in the Father's glory, and to reign together with the Father.
2. It belongs to Christ as God to have, equally with the Father, the identical divine glory, beatitude, and power. This is "sitting at the right hand of the Father." The phrase does not indicate a secondary place, nor a place merely next to the Father. It means that Christ as God rules in absolute equality with the other two divine Persons.
3. And it belongs to Christ as man to sit at the Father's right hand, in the sense that Christ's humanity is dowered with the Father's gifts beyond all other creatures.
4. As God, Christ is equal with the Father, and one with him in substance; as man, Christ excels all creatures in possessing divine gifts. On both scores, Christ alone holds just title to the place at the Father's right hand.
59. Our Lord's Power as Judge
1. Christ, by testimony of scripture (Acts 10:42) is appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. Now, a judge must have, in addition to jurisdiction, a zeal for justice; he must be wise; he must know truth. The Son of God is wisdom itself eternally begotten; he is Lord and lover of justice; hence he has perfect qualifications for the function of a judge. St. Augustine (De Vera Relig. xxxi) says: "The Father judges no man, but has given all judgment to the son." Of course, speaking simply, the judicial power is in the Trinity. For reasons here indicated, it is appropriated to the Son.
2. Even as man, our Lord has power and right to judge. Scripture says (John 5:27) that the Father "hath given him power to do judgment because he is the Son of man."
3. The judicial or judiciary power belongs to Christ as man because of his divine personality, the dignity of his headship, and the fullness of his habitual grace. This power also belongs to our Lord by reason of his merit. For he who fought for God's justice, and won through to victory, though unjustly condemned, should, by divine justice, now be the judge.
4. Since, as scripture says (John 5:22), "the Father hath given all judgment to the Son," it is evident that our Lord is judge with reference to all human affairs.
5. A judgment takes place when a man dies. Scripture says (Heb. 9:27): "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment." There will be another and general judgment when all human lives (and the effects of these lives that continue after the lives themselves are ended) will be perfectly and publicly judged. This judgment will take place on the last day. And Christ our Lord and God will be the judge.
6. Our Lord will also be judge of the angels. Christ has the authority to judge the angels; indeed, he delegates the authority to the apostles, and St. Paul (I Cor. 6:3) says that the apostles will exercise the delegated authority. In the beginning, Christ as the Word of God judged and sentenced the rebel angels. But there are accidental rewards and punishments to be meted to good and to bad angels; for these the judicial power is vested in our Lord as God Incarnate.