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Objection 1: It would seem that Christ did not suffer in His whole
soul. For the soul suffers indirectly when the body suffers, inasmuch
as it is the "act of the body." But the soul is not, as to its
every part, the "act of the body"; because the intellect is the act
of no body, as is said De Anima iii. Therefore it seems that
Christ did not suffer in His whole soul.
Objection 2: Further, every power of the soul is passive in regard
to its proper object. But the higher part of reason has for its object
the eternal types, "to the consideration and consultation of which it
directs itself," as Augustine says (De Trin. xii). But Christ
could suffer no hurt from the eternal types, since they are nowise
opposed to Him. Therefore it seems that He did not suffer in His
whole soul.
Objection 3: Further, a sensitive passion is said to be complete
when it comes into contact with the reason. But there was none such in
Christ, but only "pro-passions"; as Jerome remarks on Mt.
26:37. Hence Dionysius says in a letter to John the Evangelist
that "He endured only mentally the sufferings inflicted upon Him."
Consequently it does not seem that Christ suffered in His whole
soul.
Objection 4: Further, suffering causes pain: but there is no pain
in the speculative intellect, because, as the Philosopher says
(Topic. i), "there is no sadness in opposition to the pleasure
which comes of consideration." Therefore it seems that Christ did
not suffer in His whole soul.
On the contrary, It is written (Ps. 87:4) on behalf of
Christ: "My soul is filled with evils": upon which the gloss
adds: "Not with vices, but with woes, whereby the soul suffers with
the flesh; or with evils, viz. of a perishing people, by
compassionating them." But His soul would not have been filled with
these evils except He had suffered in His whole soul. Therefore
Christ suffered in His entire soul.
I answer that, A whole is so termed with respect to its parts. But
the parts of a soul are its faculties. So, then, the whole soul is
said to suffer in so far as it is afflicted as to its essence, or as to
all its faculties. But it must be borne in mind that a faculty of the
soul can suffer in two ways: first of all, by its own passion; and
this comes of its being afflicted by its proper object; thus, sight
may suffer from superabundance of the visible object. In another way a
faculty suffers by a passion in the subject on which it is based; as
sight suffers when the sense of touch in the eye is affected, upon
which the sense of sight rests, as, for instance, when the eye is
pricked, or is disaffected by heat.
So, then, we say that if the soul be considered with respect to its
essence, it is evident that Christ's whole soul suffered. For the
soul's whole essence is allied with the body, so that it is entire in
the whole body and in its every part. Consequently, when the body
suffered and was disposed to separate from the soul, the entire soul
suffered. But if we consider the whole soul according to its
faculties, speaking thus of the proper passions of the faculties, He
suffered indeed as to all His lower powers; because in all the soul's
lower powers, whose operations are but temporal, there was something
to be found which was a source of woe to Christ, as is evident from
what was said above (Article 6). But Christ's higher reason did
not suffer thereby on the part of its object, which is God, who was
the cause, not of grief, but rather of delight and joy, to the soul
of Christ. Nevertheless, all the powers of Christ's soul did
suffer according as any faculty is said to be affected as regards its
subject, because all the faculties of Christ's soul were rooted in
its essence, to which suffering extended when the body, whose act it
is, suffered.
Reply to Objection 1: Although the intellect as a faculty is not
the act of the body, still the soul's essence is the act of the body,
and in it the intellective faculty is rooted, as was shown in the
FP, Question 77, Articles 6,8.
Reply to Objection 2: This argument proceeds from passion on the
part of the proper object, according to which Christ's higher reason
did not suffer.
Reply to Objection 3: Grief is then said to be a true passion, by
which the soul is troubled, when the passion in the sensitive part
causes reason to deflect from the rectitude of its act, so that it then
follows the passion, and has no longer free-will with regard to it.
In this way passion of the sensitive part did not extend to reason in
Christ, but merely subjectively, as was stated above.
Reply to Objection 4: The speculative intellect can have no pain or
sadness on the part of its object, which is truth considered
absolutely, and which is its perfection: nevertheless, both grief and
its cause can reach it in the way mentioned above.
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