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It seems that Christ's entire soul did not, because simultaneous
sadness and joy are impossibilities; in fact, vehement sadness checks
every delight, and the converse is true.
Reply. Nevertheless, as St. John Damascene says in the
counter-argument of this article: "Christ's Godhead permitted His
flesh to do and to suffer what was proper to it. In like fashion...
His passion did not impede fruition [of mind]." St. Thomas
explains this in the body of the article as follows: "If it be
understood according to its essence, then His whole soul did enjoy
fruition, inasmuch as it is the subject of the higher part of the soul
to which it belongs to enjoy the Godhead.... But if we take the
whole soul as comprising all its faculties, thus His entire soul did
not enjoy fruition... because, since Christ was still upon earth,
there was no overflowing of glory from the higher part into the lower,
nor from the soul into the body. But since, on the contrary, the
soul's higher part was not hindered in its proper acts by the lower,
it follows that the higher part of His soul enjoyed fruition perfectly
while Christ was suffering."
Reply to first objection. It is indeed impossible to be sad and glad
simultaneously about the same object; but in Christ sadness and
fruition were not about the same object. Thus, though Christ was in
a way crushed by grief, He rejoices in His sorrow.[1783]
In the next three articles of this forty-sixth question, St.
Thomas considers the fitness of the Passion as regards time, the
place between two thieves, of whom the one on the right was converted,
but the one on the left died impenitent, just as on the Judgment Day
a distinction will be made among all human beings, inasmuch as the
elect will be on Christ's right hand, and the reprobates on His
left. In the last article of this question it is shown that Christ's
passion is not to be attributed to His divine nature, which is
incapable of suffering, but it is to be attributed to the person of the
Word incarnate, because of His human nature.
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