Summa III, Q.32 a.4 & Q.33 aa.1–2: Mary's Role in Conceiving Christ, the Body Formed and Given a Soul in an Instant

Orientation #

He opens not with the Summa but with a short text of Thomas on the articles of faith and the sacraments, then takes up Summa III, q. 32, a. 4, and goes on into q. 33, aa. 1–2. He says at the end “take a little break now.”

The class, in order #

1. Thomas’s five divisions of the seven sacraments (“he does it by five divisions”) #

He quizzes the class: how many divisions does Thomas use to reach the seven sacraments? Guesses are two or three; the answer is five, four into two and one into three.

1. Sacraments for the good of the individual’s spiritual life (five) vs. those for the common good (two).
2. Within the first group: those ordered to the good vs. those ordered against sin.
3. The first part of that into three, on the analogy of the plant soul — generation, growth, nourishment.
4. The against-sin part into confession (penance) and last anointing.
5. The common-good pair into matrimony and orders.

2. Confession vs. last anointing, and the parallel distinctions (“pray for us sinners… and at the hour of our death”) #

Point: a single distinction — care of the soul alone vs. care that reaches the body too — recurs in several places.

• Confession cures the soul of sin; last anointing can act upon the body as well, if that is necessary for the salvation of the soul. He calls it a hard distinction to see.
• Example, from experience: a dying person whose mind wanders cannot simply be given communion; his grandmother, whose mind wandered constantly in the hospital, “came out of it” when the priest came — the priest said this often happens. So the body needs strengthening: a twofold thing.
• The Hail Mary: the first half praises Mary, the second half asks. “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death” — the special need at that hour is singled out, corresponding to the two sacraments.
• Posterior Analytics vs. Shakespeare: logic is addressed to reason alone, the emotions, senses and imagination taking no delight in it and serving as reason’s tool; great fiction appeals to senses, imagination and emotions as well as reason.
• Matrimony vs. orders: parents generate, nourish and instruct — body and soul both (they generate the body, not the soul). The priest as such is not charged with feeding us, so he is directed to the soul.
• Aside: he suggests the love of man and woman might furnish another such distinction.

3. q. 32, a. 4, the objections: did the Virgin do anything actively? (“she did something actively in the conception”) #

1. Damascene (De fide orthodoxa III): the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin, purging her, giving her a power susceptible of the Word of God, and likewise a generative power. Since by nature, as every woman, she already had the passive generative power (Aristotle’s teaching), what was added must be an active generative power.
2. Averroes (“the commentator” — he remarks Thomas really deserves that title) on De Anima II: all the powers of the living soul are active; the generative power in male and female pertains to the living soul; therefore both operate actively.
3. The woman supplies the matter from which the body is naturally formed; nature is an intrinsic principle of motion; therefore there is some active principle in that matter. He comments: “that’s an old mistake about matter.”

Sed contra: the active principle in generation is called the ratio seminalis; but Augustine (De Genesi ad litteram X) says Christ’s body was taken from the Virgin as bodily matter only, through divine formation, not according to any seed-like human thing.

4. His reply: active principle in the matter? (“in which they are deceived”) #

Some (a student notes the footnote names Bonaventure and Alexander of Hales) say she acted both by a natural and a supernatural power. The natural claim rests on putting an active principle in every natural matter, “otherwise it would not be natural.”

• His answer, following Thomas: they are deceived; a transmutation is natural from an intrinsic principle passive as well as active (Physics VIII: heavy and light bodies have a passive principle of natural motion, not an active one). Matter cannot act for its own formation, since it is not in act; and nothing moves itself unless divided into a moving and a moved part, which happens only in animate things.
• Student question: where does the opinion come from? He does not know exactly, but Thomas argues against it already in Physics I; in Physics II Aristotle makes both matter and form nature, in different senses, so a thing can be natural by reason of its matter. Example: the heavenly bodies moved by separated substances — the motion is natural because of a natural aptitude, a passive principle, in them.

The supernatural claim: mothers require not only matter (menstrual blood) but a seed mixed with the male seed; since no resolution of seed occurred in the Virgin, on account of her most integral virginity, the Spirit supernaturally supplied an active power. Against it (De Caelo II — he notes Thomas says simply De Caelo, though the Greek title can mean the universe, hence De Caelo et Mundo): each thing is on account of its own operation, so nature would not have distinguished male and female sexes unless their operations differed; in generation the operations distinguished are agent and patient; therefore the whole active power is on the man’s side. Confirming case: in plants, where both powers are mixed, there is no distinction of male and female — though he adds a caution, “don’t take this as a grain of salt,” since there is some such distinction there. Further: the Virgin is Christ’s mother, not his father; had she acted actively she would be his father, and if the given power did nothing it was given in vain. Conclusion: she did nothing actively in the conception, only administered the matter — but she did act before conception, preparing the matter to be apt, as the lower art prepares matter and the higher induces the form.

5. Replies to the three objections of a. 4 (“that conception had three privileges”) #

• To 1: the conception had three unique things — without original sin, not of a mere man but of God and man, and of a virgin. Damascene’s three clauses match: “purging her” = preserving her from conceiving with original sin (not her own conception); “power susceptible of the Word” = that she might conceive the Word; “generative power” = that remaining a virgin she could generate, passively, as other mothers do from the man’s seed.
• To 2: the woman’s generative power is imperfect relative to the man’s; as in art (Physics II) the lower art disposes matter and the superior induces the form, so she prepares the matter and his active power forms it.
• To 3: for the transmutation to be natural, only a passive principle in the matter is required.

6. q. 33 introduced, and the first objections against instantaneous formation (“forty-six years the temple was built”) #

The four articles: whether the body was formed in the first instant; whether animated then; whether assumed by the Word then; whether the conception was natural or miraculous. He warns pro-life people to be careful about taking Thomas’s “yes” for their own purposes. Objections to a. 1:

1. John 2: forty-six years to build the temple; Augustine (De Trinitate IV, and Eighty-three Questions) fits this number to the perfection of the Lord’s body — as many days as years. So not formed in the first instant.
2. Formation requires local motion of the Virgin’s most pure bloods to the place of generation, and no body moves in place in an instant, the time of motion being divided with the mobile (Physics VI).
3. That matter could not be blood and flesh in the same instant, as matter would be under two forms at once; so there is a last instant of blood and a first of flesh, and between any two instants there is a middle time.
4. The augmentative power requires a determinate time; so does the generative, both being powers of the living soul; Christ grew over time (Luke 2: he progressed in age and wisdom); so his formation took time too.

Sed contra: Gregory, Moralia XVIII — the angel announcing and the Holy Spirit coming at once, at once the Word in the womb, the Word was flesh. He admires the concision, as in Aristotle’s Prior Analytics.

Asides in this segment: reading Latin all the time shapes one’s English word order (he notices it in a student’s thesis, and in Albert’s Latin renderings of Greek order, being read Wednesday nights); Aristotle’s syllogism about illumination is formally correct — illumination takes no time, locomotion takes time, therefore illumination is not locomotion — but the minor premise about light may be mistaken, light traveling at about 186,000 miles a second; Thomas is cautious about the heavenly bodies’ apparent incorruption (change might take longer than many men’s lives to be noticed) but not about light; a student compares the telephone ringing in Florida.

7. The puzzle of the last instant (“the last instant in which it is not a cat”) #

He pauses on objection 3 as a famous argument reaching back to the Greeks and up to Hegel. What is not a cat becomes a cat: there is a last instant of not-cat and a first instant of cat. If the same instant, it both is and is not a cat — which Hegel would admit. If not the same, there is time between; in that time it is either cat (so the later instant was not the first) or not-cat (so the earlier was not the last). Hence change looks like a contradiction. The same difficulty arises in theology about the Eucharist: a last instant of wine and a first instant of Christ’s blood — identity would be heretical, separation impossible. Aristotle’s solution: there is no last instant in which it is not a cat, only a first instant in which it is. A student links it to Zeno’s arrow; he says it is related but a different problem. He mentions a French treatment, “Paradoxe du devenir par contradiction” [ed.: title as he gives it], not sure whether it exists in English, and remarks how this shows the importance of natural philosophy for theology — “it’s an old friend.”

8. Thomas’s body of a. 1 and his replies (“was in an instant, for a twofold reason”) #

Three things in the conceiving: (i) locomotion of the blood to the place of generation — a preamble, necessarily successive, since parts of a body enter a place successively; (ii) the formation of the body, in which the notion of conception chiefly consists; (iii) growth to perfect size — consequent on conception, necessarily successive, since it involves locomotion and proceeds from the soul operating in a formed body, which operates only in time. The formation was instantaneous for two reasons:

1. The infinite power of the agent, the Holy Spirit: the greater the agent’s power the more quickly it disposes matter, so an infinite agent disposes matter to a suitable form in an instant.
2. On the part of the Person: it was not fitting that he assume a body except one formed; if some time of conception preceded perfect formation, the whole conception would not be attributed to him — and it is attributed only by reason of the assumption. He calls this second argument “kind of subtle,” noting Thomas reasons from what we say by faith (the Son of God is said to be conceived) and only then adds fittingness. Replies: (1) Augustine in both places speaks not of formation alone but of formation together with the time up to birth — nine months, and he recalls that Augustine works with 276 days, nine months plus six days, six being a perfect number; he cannot recall how 46 is multiplied to reach it. (2) The locomotion is a preamble, not comprehended under the conception. (3) No last instant can be assigned in which the matter was blood, but a last time, continuous — not with something intervening — with the first instant in which Christ’s flesh was formed; and that instant was the term of the time of the local motion. (4) Growth comes through the growing power of the one who grows, but formation through the generative power of the father, working in the seed by a formative power derived from the father’s soul; Christ’s body was not formed from man’s seed but by the Holy Spirit’s operation, so its formation befitted the Holy Spirit, while its growth followed his own soul’s growing power, conformed in species to ours — and from this the truth of his human nature is shown.

9. q. 33, a. 2: animated in the first instant? (“simul caro, simul caro animata”) #

Objections:

1. Leo, Epistle to Julian: Christ’s flesh was of no other nature than ours, nor breathed upon by any other soul in the beginning; in other men the soul is not poured in at the first instant of conception. He glosses: on Thomas’s way of speaking, at that first moment there is not yet an organic body, a body composed of tools, so not yet the proper matter of a human soul.
2. The soul, like any natural form, requires a determined quantity in its matter — the principle Aristotle uses in Physics I against Anaxagoras. Christ’s body then had less quantity than other bodies have when animated; if it grew continuously thereafter, he would have been born earlier (against Augustine’s nine months in the womb, De Trinitate IV) or been larger at birth than other infants (against Leo’s Epiphany sermon, that the boy Jesus was in no way distinguished from what is commonly found in a human infant). A student notes March to Christmas is “nine months and six days.”
3. Where there is before and after there are many instants; De generatione animalium: in man’s generation first he is living, then animal, then man. He explains: a fertilized egg has cell division and growth as a plant does, no sensation; then the sense powers; finally disposition for the rational soul — and the Church has never said exactly when the rational soul is infused.

Sed contra: Damascene III, simul caro, simul Dei Verbo caro, simul caro animata anima rationali et intellectuali — he struggles for the English: not “at the same time” but “together”: together flesh, together the flesh of the Word of God, together flesh animated by a rational and intellectual soul.

Body: for the conception to be attributed to the Son of God, as we confess in the Creed (“conceived of the Holy Spirit”), the body when conceived must have been assumed by the Word; but the Word assumed a body by means of the soul, and the soul by means of its spiritual, understanding part; therefore in the first instant of conception the body was animated by the rational soul. He remarks he had never thought of this, and that Thomas is now using the Creed’s words twice. A student asks whether this makes Christ less human; “make him more human, really.”

10. Replies of a. 2, and the digression on quantity (“that quantity has a certain latitude”) #

• To 1: the beginning of the soul’s infusion can be taken as to the disposition of the body — and in that respect the beginning is no different in Christ than in other men, the soul being poured in as soon as the body is formed — or as to time, and since Christ’s body was formed perfectly earlier in time, it was animated earlier. Our formation simply takes longer. Aside on the acorn: it is the seed of an oak, not yet strictly an oak tree.
• To 2: he first expounds Aristotle against Anaxagoras — Anaxagoras held flesh, blood and bone are inside everything in infinitely small pieces; Aristotle argues if the parts can fall below any size, so can the whole; but in nature the whole does not fall below any size, so neither do the parts. He notes physicists sometimes wonder why elementary particles have a definite size. Contrast from geometry (Elements IV, inferred): a square inscribed in any circle and a circle in any square, on and on, with no least — “turtles all the way down.” Illustrations of the same infinite regress: a birthday card picturing a postman bringing a card picturing a postman; Brother Augustine shrinking a photo of Brother Stephen and placing it in Stephen’s own arms, and that image again containing another. Thomas’s reply: the soul requires a suitable quantity, but that quantity has a latitude (Aristotle himself says so), saved in a greater and a lesser; the quantity at first animation is proportioned to the perfect quantity reached by growth, so larger men have greater quantity at first animation — “I don’t know if that’s true, but okay.” Christ at perfect age had not a mediocre but a middling quantity, proportioned to the quantity other men’s bodies have when animated, though less than at the very beginning of his conception; yet that small quantity was not too small to preserve the notion of an animated body, since small men’s bodies are animated at such quantity. Aside: Brother Augustine, the largest in his family, weighed fourteen pounds at birth — “we all felt sorry for his mother.”
• To 3: what the Philosopher says holds in the generation of other men because the body is successively formed and disposed, receiving first an imperfect soul when imperfectly disposed, then a perfect one; but Christ’s body, by the infinite power of the agent, was perfectly disposed in an instant, and so at once received the perfect form, the rational soul.

His words #

• “Natural Hearing” — his rendering of Aristotle’s Physics, used interchangeably with “the physics.”
• “ratio seminalis” — “the seed-like ratio,” the active principle in generation.
• “the commentator” — Averroes; he jokes that Thomas really deserves the title.
• “De Caelo” — he notes Thomas’s short title, versus the fuller De Caelo et Mundo; the Greek can mean “the universe.”
• “administers the matter” — the woman’s whole contribution to generation.
• “organic body” — “a body composed of tools.”
• “simul” — rendered “together,” not “at the same time.”
• “mediante” — “by means of” (the Word assumes a body mediante anima).
• “Niggard truth” — Shakespeare’s phrase in the sonnets, “stingy truth,” applied to Thomas’s economy.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 32, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 33, prologue and a. 1 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 33, a. 2 (objections, sed contra, body, replies)
• Damascene, De fide orthodoxa III (quoted twice, including the simul passage)
• Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram X; De Trinitate IV; Eighty-three Questions
• Gregory, Moralia XVIII; Leo, Epistle to Julian and Sermon on the Epiphany
• John 2:20 (forty-six years); Luke 2:52 (progressed in age and wisdom)

Mentioned

• Thomas, On the articles of faith and the sacraments, to a bishop (name uncertain in recording)
• Aristotle, Physics I (against Anaxagoras; against active principle in matter), II (nature as matter and form; the two arts), VI (time of motion divided with the mobile), VIII (passive principle in heavy and light bodies; self-motion)
• Aristotle, De Caelo II; De generatione animalium; Posterior Analytics; Prior Analytics
• Averroes on De Anima II
• Euclid, Elements IV (inferred) — inscribed squares and circles
• A French study, “Paradoxe du devenir par contradiction” (title as he gives it)
• Bonaventure and Alexander of Hales (named by a student from the footnote as the “some say”)

His questions #

• How many divisions does Thomas use to reach the seven sacraments? — Five: four into two, one into three.
• Did the Blessed Virgin do anything actively in the conception of Christ’s body? — No; she administered the matter only, though she acted beforehand in preparing it.
• Must an active principle be in the matter for a transmutation to be natural? — No; a passive intrinsic principle suffices, since matter too is nature.
• If she had an active power, what would follow? — That she was Christ’s father; and if the power did nothing, it was given in vain.
• Was the body of Christ formed in the first instant of conception? — Yes, by the infinite power of the Holy Spirit and because only so can the whole conception be attributed to the Word assuming.
• Is the last instant in which a thing is not a cat the same as the first instant in which it is? — Neither; there is no last instant of the negative, only a first instant of the positive.
• Was the body animated by a rational soul in the first instant? — Yes, since the Word assumes a body by means of a rational soul, as the Creed’s “conceived of the Holy Spirit” requires.
• When is the rational soul infused in ordinary human generation? — Left open; the Church has never said exactly when.
• How is Augustine’s forty-six related to the 276 days? — Left open; he cannot recall the multiplication.