Aquinas, Summa III q.8, Articles 1-3: Christ as Head of the Church, in Body and Soul, and of All Men

Orientation #

He begins by recalling what has come before in the order of the questions: “we’ve had the grace of union, and we had the personal grace of Christ,” and now the grace of Christ as head of the Church (prev. lecture). He ends offering a break before going on to the next article. The previous class finished q. 7 a. 13 and previewed the eight articles of q. 8; the next continues q. 8 with the remaining articles on headship, including the devil and antichrist.

The class, in order #

1. Scriptural lesson: Thomas’s communion prayers and “my Father” (“Our Lord is a Thomist”) #

Point: Thomas’s prayers before and after communion are addressed to the Father, and this agrees with how Christ himself speaks of the bread from heaven.

• John 6: “Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread.” He reads the Greek: ho Pater mou (my Father), didosin humin ton arton (gives you the bread), ton alethinon (the true). So Thomas asks the Father for the bread, and thanks the Father afterward.
• John 3 (to Nicodemus), “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son”: “God” there stands for the Father, because he is not the Son of the Holy Spirit nor of the divine nature (“that’s going to get you in trouble”). Same as John 1:1, “the Word was toward God”: God stands for the Father.
• So the Father giving his Son (John 3) harmonizes with the Father giving him as bread from heaven (John 6).
• Aside: a student says “Our Lord is a Thomist”; he recalls John Paul II asked “Are you a Thomist?” answering the Pope has to be a Thomist; so Christ has to be a Thomist.

2. The prooemium of question 8 (“about this are asked eight things”) #

Point: the grace of Christ as head of the Church, after the grace of union and personal grace; eight articles.

1. whether Christ is head of the Church; 2. head of men as regards body, or only souls; 3. head of all men (he flags: “even those who are not in the church — what does that mean? That’s a good question”); 4. head of the angels; 5. whether the grace as head is the same as his habitual grace as individual man; 6. whether being head is private (unique) to Christ; 7. whether the devil is head of all evil; 8. whether antichrist is head of all evil.

• He notes articles 7-8 come in by “the same science of opposites”; “if you’re interested in the evil there, you’ll have some entertainment.”
• He notes the first article adds “according as he is man.”

3. Article 1: objections, sed contra, and the threefold likeness (“order, perfection, and virtue”) #

Point: Christ as man is head of the Church by likeness to the human head in three respects. Objections, as he reads them:

1. The head pours sense and motion into the members; but spiritual sense and motion (grace) are not poured into us from Christ as man, since Augustine (De Trinitate XV) says Christ as man does not give the Holy Spirit, only as God.
2. A head has no head; but God is the head of Christ (1 Cor 11:3). “How can the head have a head? It’s monstrous.”
3. The head is a particular member receiving influence from the heart; Christ is universal beginning of the whole Church. Sed contra: Ephesians 1, he gave him to be head over the whole Church. Response: the Church is one mystical body by likeness to man’s natural body with diverse members and diverse acts (Romans). In the human head three things:
4. Order: the head is the first part starting from above; hence every beginning is called a head. Latin caput also means chapter (the Summa Contra Gentiles chapters are caput or capitulum); English “heading.” Jeremiah 2 in his Latin text, “at every head of the way”; a student finds the English at Ezekiel: “at every head of the way thou hast set up a sign of thy prostitution” [ed.: the locus is uncertain in the recording]. “Head of the way” = its beginning, as “headwaters” of a river. Order means before and after; what is first is called head.
5. Perfection: in the head all the senses flourish, interior and exterior (smell, hearing, sight, taste, the interior senses), while the other members have only touch. Isaiah 9: the old and honorable one is the head.
6. Virtue/power: motion and governing of the other members comes from the head, because the sensing and moving power dominate there. Hence the ruler is head of the people (1 Kings 15: “when you were little in your eyes, you were made the head in the tribes of Israel”). Applied to Christ spiritually: (1) by nearness to God his grace is higher and before, though not in time, since all receive grace with regard to his (Rom 8:29, firstborn among many brothers); (2) fullness of all graces (John 1:14); (3) power of pouring grace into all members (John 1:16, of his fullness we have all received).

4. Article 1 replies: instrument, metaphor, heart (“one should not note a likeness as regards all things”) #

Ad 1: to give grace or the Holy Spirit belongs to Christ as God authoritatively (as original author, source); instrumentally as man, his humanity being an instrument of his divinity; so his actions, from the power of his divinity, were saving, causing grace by his merit and by a certain efficient power. Augustine denies only the authoritative giving. Instrumentally and as ministers (a living instrument) even other saints are said to give the Holy Spirit (Galatians 3). His example: the Pharisees objecting “only God can forgive sins”; as a priest now forgives sins as instrument of Christ, so then Christ in his human nature forgave as instrument of his divinity. Ad 2: in metaphorical speech one should not look for likeness in all things, else it would not be likeness but the very truth of the things. The natural head has no head because the human body is not part of another body; but a body by likeness (an ordered multitude) is part of another multitude: the domestic multitude is part of the city, so the paterfamilias, head of the household, has the ruler of the city above him as head. His examples: in the army the captain is head of his company but the colonel is head of the head (“it’s not like Thomas is inventing this distinction”); Romeo and Juliet, where the prince at the end calls Montague and Capulet to account (“see what God has found means to punish you”), Capulet being head of his daughter and the prince head of him. So nothing prevents God being head of Christ while Christ is head of the Church.

• Scripture calls God metaphorically fire (light, changing things, subtlety) and also water (life, “my soul is thirsting for God”), though in Greek philosophy fire (hot, dry) and water (wet, moist) are opposites; no contradiction, because the likeness is not in every way. Likewise fire can be a metaphor for something bad, and the lion stands for the devil “seeking whom he may devour” as well as for the lion of the tribe of Judah. Ad 3: the head has a manifest eminence over the outside members, the heart a hidden influence; so the Holy Spirit, who invisibly vivifies and unites the Church, is compared to the heart, and Christ to the head according to his visible nature, by which a man is put over other men. He adds the Holy Spirit is sometimes called the soul of the Church.

5. Article 2: head of men as regards their bodies (“but chiefly as regards the soul”) #

Point: Christ is head of men as regards body too, but secondarily and through the soul. Objections: (1) the body is not capable of spiritual sense and motion; (2) in body we have things in common with brutes, so he would be head of brute animals, which “does not fit” (inconveniens; he notes Aristotle in Ethics I says with the truth all things fit, so “does not fit” is stronger than English “inconvenient” — it means false); (3) Christ drew his body from other men (Luke 3, Matthew 1 genealogies), but the head is first. Sed contra: Philippians 3, he reformed the body of our humility, configuring it to the body of his clarity (he sees the resurrection involved here). Response: the human body has a natural order to the rational soul as its form and its mover; as form, the soul gives life and the properties of the human body according to species; as mover, the body serves the soul as instrument. The humanity of Christ has power of flowing in as joined to the Word, to which the body is united through the soul. So the whole humanity of Christ flows into men as regards soul and body, chiefly soul, secondarily body: (a) the members are put forward as arms of justice to the soul existing through Christ (Rom 6:13); (b) the life of glory is derived from soul to body (Rom 8, he who raised Jesus will vivify our mortal bodies). His gloss: the body is ruled by Christ because it serves the soul in its operations, and it is glorified through the soul.

• Student exchange: does this relate to the Eucharist, the two species and body and soul? A student cites a prayer, “sanctify our bodies with your holy body, purify our souls with your blood”; he ties it to the Old Testament prohibition on eating blood because the life of the animal is in the blood; also Psalm 62 (his numbering), “for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts,” and the banquet applied to the Eucharist or the last state of man. “In harmony with what he’s saying there.” Ad 1: spiritual grace does not arrive at the body first and chiefly but in second place and as instrument. Ad 2: the brute’s body has no relation to a rational soul as the human body does (aside on “the dog book” claiming dogs think and have some free will). Ad 3: though Christ drew the matter of his body from other men, all men draw the immortal life of the body from him (1 Cor 15, as in Adam all die, so in Christ all are vivified) — to be revisited at the resurrection.

6. Article 3: head of all men, in five grades (“not only according as they are in act”) #

Point: taking the whole time of the world, Christ is head of all men, but by different grades of actual or potential union. Objections: (1) a head relates only to members of its body; unbelievers are in no way members (“a branch cut off from the vine”); (2) Eph 5:25-27, a glorious Church without stain or wrinkle (ruga; “I’ve got a wrinkled soul… got to be ironed out”), but many faithful have the stain and rust of sin; (3) the sacraments of the old law are shadows to Christ’s body (Col 2:17), and the fathers served them (Heb 8), so they do not pertain to Christ’s body. Sed contra: 1 Tim 4:10, savior of all, most of all the faithful; 1 John 2, propitiation not for our sins only but for the whole world (students settle on “expiator”); to save and expiate belongs to Christ as head. Aside: the words of consecration, pro vobis and pro multis, versus “all men.” Response: the natural body’s members all exist together (simul); the mystical body’s do not — neither in being of nature (the Church is constituted of men from the beginning of the world to its end) nor in being of grace (of those alive at one time, some lack grace they will later have). So members are taken not only in act but in ability; some in ability that will never be reduced to act, some that will. Actual union has three grades: faith, charity of the way, glory (his rendering “the thoughtlier” is ASR for glory). Five grades in all:

1. united in act through glory (he: the Church triumphant);
2. in act through charity (he: souls in purgatory, and people in this life with charity);
3. in act through faith only (he: perhaps unformed faith);
4. in potency not yet reduced to act, but to be reduced, by divine predestination;
5. in potency never to be reduced to act — living men not predestined, who leaving this world wholly cease to be members, since the ability can no longer be reduced to act.

• Student: Thomas in his commentary on Matthew, on the final judgment, says some will have a discussion of merits and demerits and others none — those who never joined him go straight, “bang.” Ad 1: unbelievers are members in ability, which ability is founded first and chiefly in the power of Christ, sufficient for the salvation of the whole human race (he recalls Thomas: “one drop is sufficient”), secondarily in free will (“free judgment” in the Latin). Ad 2: the Church without stain or wrinkle is the end reached through Christ’s passion, in the state of the fatherland, not of the road, where “if we say we have no sin we seduce ourselves” (1 John 1). Some sins, the mortal ones, are lacked by those who are actual members through charity; those subject to mortal sin are members only in ability, except imperfectly through unformed faith, which unites to Christ secundum quid and not simpliciter, since charity is the form of faith. Faith without works is dead (James 2), yet these get from Christ a certain act of life, to believe, as a dead member moved somewhat by a man. Aside: he has not yet used secundum quid / simpliciter in the confessional — “we’re going to unite you simpliciter.” Ad 3: the holy fathers did not hold the legal sacraments as things but as images and shadows of future things; the motion toward an image as image and toward the thing is the same (Aristotle, On Memory and Reminiscence: from a picture you go to the person pictured). So the ancient fathers, in observing the legal sacraments, were borne toward Christ by the same faith and love as we; they pertain to the same body. He points to the prophets alongside the apostles in the Te Deum.

His words #

• “grace of union,” “personal grace,” grace “as head of the church”: the three graces of Christ in order of treatment.
• caput: head; also chapter (capitulum), “heading”; “head of the way” = beginning, as “headwaters.”
• order: before and after; what is first is called head.
• perfection: all senses flourishing in the head, the other members having only touch.
• virtue: power; motion and governing from the head.
• authoritatively vs. instrumentally: as original author/source vs. as instrument (humanity as tool of divinity).
• living instrument: a minister; even saints “give the Holy Spirit.”
• head of the head: colonel over captain; ruler of the city over the paterfamilias.
• “does not fit” / inconveniens: stronger than English “inconvenient”; means false, since with the truth all things fit.
• body of our humility / body of his clarity: Philippians 3 as read.
• arms of justice: the members serving the soul (Rom 6:13).
• simul: together, at once, of the natural body’s members.
• in act vs. in ability [ed.: potency]: actual vs. potential membership.
• “the thoughtlier”: ASR for glory, the third grade of actual union.
• state of the fatherland vs. state of the road [ed.: patria / via].
• secundum quid vs. simpliciter: unformed faith unites in a respect, charity simply.
• free judgment: his note on the Latin for “free will” [ed.: liberum arbitrium].
• ruga: wrinkle. pro vobis / pro multis: words of consecration.
• expiator / propitiator: renderings of 1 John 2.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 8, prooemium; a. 1 (objections, sed contra, response, replies); a. 2 (whole); a. 3 (whole)
• John 6 (in Greek), John 3:16, John 1:1
• 1 Cor 11:3; Eph 1; Jeremiah 2 / Ezekiel (locus uncertain), “head of the way”; Isaiah 9; 1 Kings 15; Rom 8:29; John 1:14, 16; Gal 3; Phil 3; Rom 6:13; Rom 8; 1 Cor 15; Eph 5:25-27; Col 2:17; Heb 8; 1 Tim 4:10; 1 John 2; 1 John 1; James 2 Mentioned
• Augustine, De Trinitate XV
• Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles (chapters as caput); commentary on Matthew, on the final judgment; “one drop is sufficient” (attributed by him to Thomas, locus unstated)
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I; On Memory and Reminiscence
• Luke 3, Matthew 1 (genealogies); Psalm 62 (his numbering); the Te Deum; Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet; Thomas’s prayers before and after communion

His questions #

• How are you to understand the word “God” in John 3:16? As standing for the Father, since Christ is not Son of the Holy Spirit or of the divine nature.
• Head of all men — even those not in the church; what does that mean? Answered in a. 3: head of all across the whole time of the world, by five grades of actual or potential union.
• How can the head have a head? Metaphorical likeness need not hold in all respects; an ordered multitude is part of a larger one, as household under city.
• What does “head of the way” mean? The beginning, as headwaters of a river.
• To give grace belongs to Christ as God, not as man? As God authoritatively, as man instrumentally, his humanity being the instrument of his divinity.
• If God is like fire and like water, opposites, how can he be both? Metaphors are not alike in every way; like fire in light and subtlety, like water in life.
• What about the body of the dog? The brute’s body has no relation to a rational soul, so the likeness fails.
• Is Christ the head of all men, or only of those in the church? Of all, taking the whole time of the world, but according to diverse grades.
• What unites one to Christ secundum quid and not simpliciter? Unformed faith, charity being the form of faith.