Summa III, Q. 25, Arts. 4–6 and Q. 26: The Cross, Mary's Hyperdulia, Relics of the Saints, and Christ the Mediator

Orientation #

He continues straight through q. 25 (cross, Mother of God, relics) into q. 26 on Christ the mediator, and closes by reading the proemium that follows q. 26 — “that’s where the break comes” — which divides the rest of the Tertia Pars fourfold. The previous class began q. 25 on the adoration of Christ, his flesh and his images (prev. lecture).

The class, in order #

1. The cross and latria: objections (“no pious son venerates the…”) #

Question: should the cross of Christ be adored with latria?

• Obj. 1: no pious son venerates the scourge by which his father was scourged or the wood on which he hung; he abhors it. Wisdom 2: “with the most ugly death we condemn him.”
• Obj. 2: Christ’s humanity is adored with latria because joined to the Son of God in person; the cross is not.
• Obj. 3: the nails, crown and lance were equally tools of the passion, and we do not give them latria.
• Sed contra: we give latria to that in which we place the hope of salvation; the Church sings “O cross, hail, unique hope” in passiontide — lex orandi, lex credendi.
• Aside on history: in the early Church there was a certain fear of the cross — “too horrible, too real” — and it was not publicly venerated for a couple of centuries; the Roman Dominican convent of St. Sabina is said to have one of the earliest depictions (third or fourth century), after crucifixion was outlawed, perhaps under Constantine (uncertain in class).

2. Two ways a senseless thing is venerated (“in so far as it represents the reasonable nature”) #

Honor or reverence (he notes Thomas now treats these as synonyms; earlier honor was reverence shown for excellence) is owed only to a rational creature. An insensible thing is honored only by reason of a rational nature, in two ways:

1. as it represents it — men venerate the image of the king;
2. as it is joined to it — his clothing. Both are venerated with the same veneration as the king. Modern parallel: the flag — respect to it is respect to the country, and burning it is disrespect to the country; hence military rules about never letting it touch the ground, “things that are absurd.” The true cross satisfies both: it represents the figure of Christ stretched on it, and it touched his members and was deluged with his blood. Therefore latria, the same adoration as Christ. Hence the Church speaks to the cross and praises it. A cross of any other matter (stone, wood) is venerated only in the first way, as image. Student: he did not see the first way at first; answer: the cross’s shape is an image of Christ physically stretched out, arms represented by the crossbeam. Aside: the story of the crucifix speaking to Thomas — Bene scripsisti de me, Thoma — and the statue at the Angelicum (Cardinal[?] site) between the two main buildings.

3. Replies on the cross (“to those who are saved… the power of God”) #

• Ad 1: in the cross, as regards the intention of the faithless, there is Christ’s disgrace; as regards the effect of our salvation there is his divine power, by which he triumphed — Colossians 2 (took the bond from the middle, affixed it to the cross, triumphing over principalities); 1 Corinthians 1:18, “the word of the cross is to those perishing stupidity, but to us the power of God.”
• Ad 2: the cross was not united to the Word in person, but united in some other way — namely the two ways of the article, representation and contact — and only for that is reverence shown it. Liturgical aside: kissing the cross (on Good Friday it is the corpus; the glorious cross is taken out and processed at the Easter Vigil, the corpus having been buried Friday).
• Ad 3: by reason of contact we adore not only the cross but all things that are Christ’s — Damascene, book 4: the most precious wood, sanctified by contact with the holy body and blood, is fittingly adored; also nails, clothing, lance, the sacred manger[?] (“sacred loaves” in the recording — likelier the crib/manger). But these do not represent Christ as the cross does; hence “the sign of the Son of Man shall appear in the heavens,” and the angel says “you seek Jesus… the crucified,” not “the lanced one.” So we venerate the image of the cross in any matter, but not images of nails.
• Student exchange: would contact alone suffice? Yes — but only the nails actually used, which touched his body and blood; any other nail neither touched nor represents. And a fragment of true cross would have contact though it is no image. Joke about relics of the true cross being more than there could have been — “there would have been multiplication of the loaves.”

4. The Mother of God: hyperdulia, not latria (“the Blessed Virgin is purely a rational creature”) #

“Thomas is getting in danger again.”

• Obj. 1: same honor to the king’s mother as to the king — 3 Kings, the throne of the king’s mother set at his right hand; Augustine’s sermon on the Assumption, “the throne of God, the tabernacle of Christ, is worthy to be where He is.”
• Obj. 2: Damascene, book 4: the honor of the Mother refers to the Son.
• Obj. 3: she is joined to Christ more closely than the cross is, and the cross gets latria.
• Sed contra: she is a pure creature.
• Body: latria is owed to God alone and not to a creature venerated for itself. Insensible creatures are not capable of veneration in themselves; a rational creature is capable of veneration according to itself. Hence to no pure rational creature is latria owed. The Blessed Virgin being purely a rational creature, she is owed dulia, but more eminently as Mother of God — not any dulia but hyperdulia.
• Ad 1: not equal honor to the king’s mother, but a similar honor by reason of a certain excellence; the authorities mean that.
• Ad 2: her honor refers to the Son because she is honored on account of the Son, but not as an image’s honor refers to the exemplar, since the image considered in itself is in no way to be venerated.
• Ad 3: the cross considered in itself is not capable of honor; the Blessed Virgin in herself is. “That was quick work.”

5. Digression: the Marian century, and Joseph next (“she would have been thought to be another…”) #

De Koninck (involved in the definition of the Assumption) asked why these were defined so late: so great are these mysteries and so elevated is she in them that, defined earlier, she would have been thought another Person of the Trinity. Parallel: why the Trinity is not prominent in the Old Testament — it would have been taken polytheistically. So there is a gradual unfolding of the mysteries. De Koninck also thought mysteries of Joseph would come now that Mary is properly honored; Joseph is not her equal but is the only saint besides Mary singled out with his own litany — of the six litanies noted in Christian Iconology[?], two on Christ, one Mary, one Joseph, one all the saints. Patron of a holy death.

6. Relics of the saints (“the bodies which… pertain to the nature of man himself”) #

• Obj. 1: adoring relics of the dead looks like the Gentiles’ error of honoring dead men, and one must not give occasion of error.
• Obj. 2: stupid to venerate an insensible thing. Aside: Heraclitus — “corpses are more fit to be cast out than dung.”
• Obj. 3: a dead body is not the same species as the living one — a man only equivocally, as Aristotle says of the eye of the dead; so not the same in number either.
• Sed contra: the book On Ecclesiastical Dogmas — bodies of the saints and especially relics of martyrs, as members of Christ, should be adored; whoever holds otherwise is a follower of Eunomius or Vigilantius.
• Body (Augustine, City of God): if a father’s clothing or ring is dearer to children the greater their affection, in no way are their bodies to be spurned, which are more closely joined and pertain to the nature of the man himself. So one who loves someone venerates what remains of him — body, parts, even clothing. The saints we hold as members of Christ, sons of God, friends and intercessors; their relics, especially their bodies — temples and tools of the Holy Spirit, to be configured to Christ’s body in the resurrection — are to be venerated with fitting honor. And God himself honors these relics by working miracles in their presence. He calls that reply “a good way of” putting it.
• Stories: St. Francis de Sales exhumed for his cause, found largely incorrupt, his foot raised to St. Jane Frances de Chantal as she went to kiss it — “like reaching out to shake someone’s hand” (joke: “maybe he was just trying to kick her”). And St. Hugo[?], his confirmation/baptism name, known for singing hymns to the Blessed Virgin, killed for it, whose body in the church went on singing.
• Ad 1: this was Vigilantius’s[?] argument (he says “Gelasius,” whose words Jerome brings in) — “near the rite of the Gentiles… a little dust in a small vessel closed in a precious cloth, kissing.” Jerome, Epistle to Riparius: we neither adore relics, nor sun, nor moon, nor angels with latria; we honor the relics of the martyrs that we may adore him whose martyrs (witnesses) they are; we honor servants that the honor of the servants may redound to God. So we do not fall into the Gentiles’ error.
• Ad 2: we adore the senseless body not on account of itself but on account of the soul once joined to it, which now enjoys God, and on account of God whose ministers they were.
• Ad 3: not the same in number as when it lived, by diversity of form (the soul), but the same by reason of the matter, which will be united to its form again.

7. Q. 26 a. 1: mediator proper to Christ alone (“the middle are united in the middle”) #

• Obj. 1: Moses, Deuteronomy 5:5 — “I was at that time a middle between you and God”; prophet and priest are not proper to Christ.
• Obj. 2: what belongs to good and bad angels is not proper to Christ. Good angels are middles (Dionysius, Divine Names ch. 4); demons too — immortality in common with God, passibility of soul and misery in common with men (Augustine). “Leaves us much, doesn’t it?”
• Obj. 3: Romans 8, the Holy Spirit interpellat for us with unutterable groans — he pauses on how to render interpellare (interrupt, break in, interpose, come between); “intercedes” is settled on.
• Sed contra: 1 Timothy 2:5, “one is the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
• Body: the office of mediator is properly to join those between whom he stands, for the extremes are united in the middle. To unite men to God perfectly belongs to Christ, through whom men are reconciled (2 Cor 5: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself); hence Christ alone is the perfect mediator, in that by his own death he reconciled the race — and Paul adds “who gave himself a redemption for all.” Nothing prevents others being called mediators secundum quid, as cooperating to that union, either by disposing men or as living tools.
• Ad 1: prophets and priests of the old law are mediators in those two ways, announcing beforehand and prefiguring the true mediator; priests of the new law as living tools (ministri) of the true mediator, in his place, dispensing the saving sacraments. Joke on “vice-president.”
• Ad 2: Augustine, City of God bk. 9: good angels cannot rightly be called mediators, since they have with God both beatitude and immortality and share neither with mortal miserable men — so they are further from men than set between. Dionysius calls them middles by grade of nature (below God, above men), and they exercise the office not chiefly or perfectly but in the same two ways, ministerially and dispositively — “angels came and ministered to him” (Matthew 4:11). The demon has immortality with God and misery with men, and sets himself in the middle as immortal and miserable, not letting men pass to immortal blessedness but leading them to immortal misery — the bad middle who separates friends, malus medius. Christ has beatitude with God and mortality with men, and set himself between so that, passing from mortality, he might make mortals immortal, and from the miserable make the blessed, never having left his beatitude. “That’s beautifully said, isn’t it? Make a nice sermon on that.” (Locus discussed: City of God bk. 9, chapter uncertain in class.)
• Ad 3: the Holy Spirit, equal to God in all things, cannot be a middle; only Christ, equal to the Father in divinity but less than the Father in humanity (referred to the creed of St. Athanasius). Gloss on Galatians 3: mediator is not the Father or the Holy Spirit; the Spirit is said to intercede because he makes us call upon God.

8. Q. 26 a. 2: mediator according as he is man (“distant from both extremes”) #

• Obj. 1 (from Augustine, Contra Felicianum): one is the person of Christ, and he is Son of both God and man, not Son of God as man; so neither should he be mediator only as man.
• Obj. 2: as God he agrees with Father and Spirit, and on that ground cannot be mediator as God (gloss on 1 Tim 2: as the Word he is not the middle, being equal to God); so neither as man, because of his agreement with men. His joke: “maybe you’ve got to be a monophysite to get really in the middle.”
• Obj. 3: he mediates by taking away sin, and taking away sin belongs to him as God. He remarks: his humanity does take away sin as a tool.
• Sed contra: Augustine, City of God bk. 9 — not because he is the Word is Christ mediator, for the Word is most immortal and most blessed, far from mortals’ miseries; he is mediator as man.
• Digression on Thomas and the Fathers: why Thomas is called alter Augustinus (as Hugh of St. Victor was); Cajetan’s word that Thomas seems to have inherited the mind of all the Fathers because he so venerated them; and Thomas’s three words on docility — read the words of the master carefully, frequently, and with reverence — “you need all three.”
• Body: two things in a mediator — (i) the notion of middle, (ii) the office of joining. A middle must be distant from both extremes; and one joins by bringing over to one what pertains to the other. Neither can belong to Christ as God: as God he does not differ from Father and Son in nature or power of dominion, nor do Father and Spirit have anything not the Son’s to be brought over. Both belong to him as man: as man he is distant from God in nature and from men in the dignity of his grace and glory; and as man it belongs to him to join men to God by giving precepts and gifts, and men to God by satisfying and calling upon God for them. So most truly mediator as man.
• Ad 1: take away the divine nature and you take away the unique fullness of graces which is his as Only-begotten of the Father (John 1 — “my favorite Gospel”), by which he is set above all men and nearer to God.
• Ad 2: as God he is equal to the Father in all things, but in human nature he excels other men; hence mediator as man, not as God.
• Ad 3: authoritatively to remove sin belongs to him as God, but to satisfy for the sin of the human race belongs to him as man, and by this he is mediator.
• His own reaction: “I think I would have kind of goofed that up myself — I would have had the two together somehow.” A student presses that he would not have that excellence over other men were he not God; he grants “there’s something about God in there, but still.”
• Aside: is there a feast of the Divine Mediator? Suggestions: the Incarnation/Christmas, Good Friday. If the old calendar had Mary Mediatrix of All Grace, why not Christ — “you started something new.” And his campaign for St. Gertrude the Great, whose feast date the room could not settle (11th or 16th of November).

9. The proemium to what follows (“that’s where the break comes”) #

After the union of God and man, and the things that follow upon the union (just finished), it remains to consider what the incarnate Son of God did and underwent in the human nature united to himself — a fourfold consideration: (1) his entry into the world, (2) the course of his life in this world, (3) his exit from this world, (4) his exaltation after this life. He notes the first three correspond to the division of Matthew, the Gospel of Christ as man (represented by the man). Question he raises: where is the exaltation after this life shown in the New Testament? Mainly the Apocalypse; glimpses in St. Paul (the bright light) and St. Stephen (“I see the heavens open and the Son standing at the right hand”), but seen more fully in the Apocalypse. Closing aside: the Ghent altarpiece panel of the Lamb standing on the altar bleeding into the chalice, with all the saints and angels swinging incense — inspired by the Apocalypse; a large reproduction hung in one of their houses in Germany.

His words #

• latria — adoration owed to God alone.
• dulia / hyperdulia — veneration owed to creatures; hyperdulia to the Blessed Virgin as Mother of God, “not just any dulia.”
• honor or reverence — here synonyms; earlier, reverence shown to someone because of their excellence.
• representation vs. contact — the two titles by which an insensible thing is venerated (image of the king vs. his clothing).
• lex orandi, lex credendi — the Church’s song as an argument in the sed contra.
• “Bene scripsisti de me, Thoma” — the crucifix’s word to Thomas.
• secundum quid — how others than Christ may be called mediators.
• ministri / living tools — instruments of the true mediator, as the priests of the new law.
• dispositive — the other way of secondary mediation, by disposing men.
• interpellat — Romans 8 of the Spirit; he weighs “interrupt/interpose/come between” and settles on “intercedes.”
• malus medius — the bad middle, the demon, who separates friends.
• alter Augustinus — title given Thomas (as to Hugh of St. Victor).

Texts #

Read in class

• Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 25, a. 4 (adoration of the cross), a. 5 (the Mother of God), a. 6 (relics of the saints)
• Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 26, aa. 1-2 (Christ the mediator)
• Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 27, proemium (fourfold division of what follows)

Mentioned

• Wisdom 2; Colossians 2; 1 Corinthians 1:18; 3 Kings (throne of the king’s mother); Deuteronomy 5:5; Romans 8; 1 Timothy 2:5; 2 Corinthians 5; Galatians 3 with the gloss; Matthew 4:11; John 1
• John Damascene, De Fide Orthodoxa bk. 4 (on the precious wood; on the honor of the Mother)
• Augustine, sermon on the Assumption; City of God (bk. 9 on angels and on Christ as mediator; chapter uncertain in class); Contra Felicianum
• Liber de ecclesiasticis dogmatibus; Eunomius and Vigilantius; Jerome, Epistle to Riparius
• Dionysius, On the Divine Names ch. 4
• Aristotle, on the eye of the dead (a man only equivocally); Heraclitus on corpses
• Creed of St. Athanasius; Cajetan on Thomas and the Fathers

His questions #

• Should the cross of Christ be adored with latria? Yes — it both represents Christ crucified and touched his body and blood, so it is adored with the same adoration as Christ.
• Why the cross and not the nails or the lance? They have contact and are venerated on that title, but they do not represent Christ; only the image of the cross is venerated in whatever matter.
• Is the Mother of God to be adored with latria? No — she is a pure rational creature, venerable in herself, and latria is God’s alone; she receives hyperdulia.
• Why were the Marian dogmas defined so late? De Koninck: so elevated are those mysteries that earlier definition would have made her seem another Person of the Trinity.
• Should the relics of the saints be adored? Yes, with fitting honor, for the sake of the soul that enjoys God and of God whose ministers they were; God himself honors them by miracles.
• Is the dead body the same in number as the living? Not by form, since the soul is gone; the same by reason of the matter, which will be united to its form again.
• Is it proper to Christ alone to be mediator of God and men? Only Christ is the perfect mediator, having reconciled men by his death; others are mediators secundum quid, dispositively or as living tools.
• Are the good angels mediators? Not properly, since they share with God both beatitude and immortality and share neither with men; middles only by grade of nature and ministerially.
• Is Christ mediator as he is man or as he is God? As man — only as man is he distant from both extremes and able to bring over what is one’s to the other, satisfying for sin.
• Where in the New Testament is Christ’s exaltation after this life shown? Mainly in the Apocalypse; only glimpsed in St. Paul and St. Stephen.