Part 5756

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, Q[77], AA[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.

* Objection 1: * It would seem that Christ's entire soul did not enjoy blessed fruition during the Passion. For it is not possible to be sad and glad at the one time, since sadness and gladness are contraries. But Christ's whole soul suffered grief during the Passion, as was stated above (A[7]). Therefore His whole soul could not enjoy fruition.

* Objection 2: * Further, the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii) that, if sadness be vehement, it not only checks the contrary delight, but every delight; and conversely. But the grief of Christ's Passion was the greatest, as shown above (A[6]); and likewise the enjoyment of fruition is also the greatest, as was laid down in the first volume of the FS, Q[34], A[3]. Consequently, it was not possible