The Faith of Peter, the Articles of Faith, and Christ Presented in the Temple (ST III q.36-37)

Orientation #

He refers back to a. 2 of q. 37, “about his name being Jesus,” and picks up at a. 3; he had put the one-sentence-of-faith question to some of them “the other day.” The verified sources place roughly twenty minutes on a. 3 and ten on a. 4. The previous class finished the Magi and began the question on the circumcision and the naming of Jesus.

The class, in order #

1. Our faith in one sentence (“with the brevity of wisdom”) #

Question: if you had to state the faith in one sentence, what would you say?

• Answer reached: “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God” — Peter’s confession, and John at the end of chapter 20: “These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.”
• It follows the order of the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke are represented by the animals with feet on the ground and stress the humanity; John is the eagle and stresses the divinity. The first three are also divided by the three anointings — kingship in Matthew, prophecy in Mark, priesthood in Luke.
• Same faith stated otherwise: “Jesus is Emmanuel” (God, then with us, because he has taken our nature); “the Word of God made flesh” — but this reverses the order. Peter’s and John’s order is the first one.

2. Fourteen articles or twelve (“the rule of two or three”) #

Point: the medieval divisions of the articles of faith both rest on the same division into divinity and humanity.

• Fourteen = seven and seven. On the divinity: one for God in his divine nature, one for each Person, and three for the three works of God — creation, sanctification, glorification. These match the Creed: “Creator of heaven and earth”; under the Holy Spirit the three things pertaining to this life (holy catholic Church, communion of saints, forgiveness of sins — the theme of grace); then glorification (resurrection of the body and life everlasting, two put under the one).
• Twelve = six and six. Begins again with an article on God, then, because of the connection of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, makes one article for the Trinity as a whole, and gets six by dividing creation and sanctification each into two. On the humanity the two lists are nearly the same, except that one separates the Incarnation from the Birth — he thinks those belong together, like suffering and death. Six and six is also nice with the twelve apostles.
• His own improvement: keep creation, sanctification and glorification as one each, but instead of three articles for the Persons (or one for the Trinity), make two: the distinction of Father and Son, and the distinction of the Holy Spirit from Father and Son. Reason: Father and Son are relative to each other, opposites, and very close (recall Thomas takes the Father first, then the Son, and of the Son’s three names treats image and word); and in the history of heresies some admitted the Son to be God as well as the Father while denying the divinity of the Holy Spirit — so that is a separable thing. Total: six.
• Theology follows the division into two more than into three: the divinity of Christ is treated in the Prima Pars, the humanity not until the Tertia Pars; and in the Secunda Secundae, on faith, he divides the articles into divinity and humanity. This matches Peter and John, though not the Father-Son-Spirit order of the Apostles’ Creed.
• Student: “Where is all this from?” — from the medieval treatment of the articles of the Apostles’ Creed, as expanded in the Nicene Creed; Thomas gives both the fourteen and the twelve in his little treatise on the articles of faith and the sacraments, written for a bishop who asked him.
• He calls this comparison of Creed and articles a good case of “the rule of two or three or both.”

3. Aside: no discourse in God (“intellectus defectivus”) #

He was reading that morning nine arguments why there is no discourse in God. Shakespeare defines reason as “ability for discourse” [ed.: discourse of reason] — yet calls reason godlike; the answer is that insofar as reason understands, it is like God who understands everything, at the end of the discourse. One argument he found apt: there is no defect in God, but discursiveness signifies an imperfection — reason is an intellectus defectivus, a defective intellect, which fits his years of teaching and watching his own mind. (“And you took money for this.”)

4. Why Christians and not Jesuits? (“because of the anointing of baptism”) #

Question: the first believers were called Christians — why from “Christ” and not from “Jesus”?

• Answer given in class: because we are anointed — not only the priest, and the last anointing, but there is anointing in baptism and in confirmation; Vatican II’s documents on bishops, priests and laity say each shares in Christ’s kingly, priestly and prophetic roles.
• Whereas “savior” would not fit: it would be strange to say we are saving people, or even ourselves — Christ saves us.
• Student objection: Christ says we can be mother, sister and brother to him, and with St. Paul we cooperate in his saving work, so we share in it. He answers by shifting to what we believe: we believe he is the Christ, the Son of God, the anointed one — and we ourselves are truly, if not as he was, anointed; but have you saved anybody?

5. q. 37, a. 3, objections: Christ’s presentation in the temple (“unsuitably that Christ was offered in the temple”) #

1. Exodus 13 commands the consecration of every firstborn “that opens the womb”; but Christ went forth from the closed womb of the Virgin and so did not open it.
2. What is always present to someone cannot be presented to him; Christ’s humanity was always present to God, joined in unity of person.
3. Christ is the chief victim (hostia), to which the offerings of the old law are related as figure to truth; but no other victim should be offered for a victim — yet his parents had to offer.
4. Among the legal sacrifices the lamb was foremost, the daily sacrifice (Numbers); hence Christ is called the Lamb of God. So a lamb, rather than a pair of turtledoves or two doves, would have been fitting.

• Sed contra: the authority of Scripture, which testifies that this was in fact done.
• Aside on the Latin: hostia translated “victim” or “host”; columba is dove, turtur the turtledove.

6. The body of a. 3: two precepts about offspring (“Christ willed to be under the law”) #

Christ willed to be under the law, to redeem those under the law, and that the justifications of the law be spiritually fulfilled in his members. The law has two precepts about newborns:

1. General, for all: when the mother’s days of purification were completed, a sacrifice for son or daughter — for the expiation of the sin in which offspring are conceived and born, and as a consecration of the child, since then first he was presented in the temple; hence something for a holocaust and something for sin.
2. Special, about the firstborn of men and beasts (Exodus 13): God claimed every firstborn in Israel because, in the liberation of the people, the firstborn of the Egyptians were struck from man down to the beasts while the firstborn of the Israelites were preserved. In this Christ is prefigured, “the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8). Luke alone records both being observed of him.

• Why Luke: they say Luke emphasizes the priesthood, and the temple comes in more often in him — at the end of his Gospel they return to the temple praising and thanking God, which the other Gospels lack, and likewise at the beginning of Acts.
• The Anaxagorean way of naming. Anaxagoras said everything is said of everything; asked why we call this a dog and not a tree, he said we call it by what it has most of. We speak of a “market economy” though government influences it; Thomas calls the Psalms a book of prayer and praise though there is prophecy in it; John “emphasizes divinity,” the others humanity, though both are in both. A thing is named from what it has most of, absolutely or in comparison with others — “things are not cut off sometimes as sharply” as elsewhere.
• Luke’s text divides the same way: first the firstborn precept (“they took him to Jerusalem to offer him to the Lord… every male opening the womb shall be called holy”), then the general one (“that they might give the victim… a pair of turtledoves or two doves”).
• Aside: columba in the Song of Songs is translated “dove”; English poets have fun because dove rhymes with love — a man would not call his sweetheart “pigeon.”

7. Replies to the first two objections (“open the virginal womb, not opened before”) #

• Ad 1 (from Gregory of Nyssa): the precept of the law is fulfilled in the only incarnate God in a singular way, otherwise than in others. He alone, ineffably conceived and incomprehensibly brought forth, opened the virginal womb which was not opened before by marital union, reserving inviolably after the birth the sign of her chastity. So “opening the womb” designates that nothing entered or went out before; and “male” is said pointedly, because he contracted nothing of what is born of woman, holy in a unique way, who by the newness of his immaculate coming forth did not touch the contagions of earthly corruption.
  • Student asks what the answer is; suggests: he obeys the spirit, not the letter. He himself puts it as: the phrase is a way of indicating that this is the one before all the rest, the first one out — and he certainly is the firstborn. The point is the uniqueness of his birth.
• Ad 2: as the Son of God was not made man for his own sake, and was not circumcised in the flesh for his own sake, but that through grace he might make us gods and that we might be spiritually circumcised — so for our sake he was offered to the Lord, that we might learn to present ourselves to God. And this was after his circumcision, to show that no one is worthy of the divine sight except him who is circumcised from his vices.
• Asides: his brother’s joke, “when they brought you back from the hospital I said get him out of here”; and the “rough school of knocks” — a friend calling his doctoral thesis “a backhanded way of proceeding,” and Kasurik laughing in his face when he asked whether force is an efficient cause (“Duane, I thought you were smarter than that”). Other men would have been crushed. People are too touchy nowadays — you get sued for hate speech.

8. Replies to the third and fourth (“that the figure might be joined to the truth”) #

• Ad 3: for this very reason he willed the lawful victims to be offered for himself, who was the true victim — that the figure might be joined to the truth and the figure be approved through the truth, against those who deny that the God of the Law was preached by Christ in the Gospel. It should not be thought, as Origen says, that the good God made his own son subject to the law of his enemy, which he had not himself given. — Students identify the heresy: Marcion, almost a Manichaean idea, the God who punishes as the bad God.
• Ad 4: Leviticus 12 commanded that those able offer a lamb for son or daughter together with a turtledove; those not wealthy enough offered two turtledoves or two doves. The Lord, who being rich was made needy for us, that by his poverty he might make us rich (2 Corinthians), willed the victim of the poor to be offered for him — just as at his birth he was wrapped in linens and laid where the animals rest.
• The birds also fit the figure: turtur is a talkative bird (avis loquax) — signifies preaching and the confession of faith; chaste — chastity; solitary — contemplation. Columba is mild and simple — mildness and simplicity (“wise as serpents, simple as doves”); a congregating bird — the active life. Both are given to moaning (gemendi) — the present weeping of the saints: the solitary turtledove the tears of private prayer, the congregating dove the public prayers of the Church. “So you pray privately, you’re a turtur, and you pray in the church, you’re a columba.” Both are offered double, that holiness be not only in soul but also in body — as in “O God, my God… my flesh pines, my soul thirsts.”
• Aside on birds: a pigeon is technically a rock dove, which dwells in rock, which is why pigeons thrive in cities; pulli in the text are the young doves.
• “So you’re getting in Thomas all you want to know about Christ.”

9. q. 37, a. 4: was it fitting that the Mother of God be purified? (“came to be purged in the temple”) #

Objections:

1. Purgation is only from uncleanness; there was no uncleanness in the Blessed Virgin.
2. Leviticus 12: the woman who, having received seed, brings forth a male is unclean seven days, and is not to enter the holy place until the days of her purification are fulfilled. But the Virgin brought forth a male without male seed.
3. Purgation from uncleanness comes only through grace; the sacraments of the old law did not confer grace — and she had with her the Author of grace.

• He remarks on “that great respect that Thomas takes up all these things… he never flinches” — an intelligent and a loving consideration.
• Sed contra: Scripture, “when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled.”
• Body: as the fullness of grace was from Christ to his mother, so it was fitting that the mother be conformed to the humility of the Son, for God gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). As Christ, not bound to the law, willed circumcision and the other burdens (onera) of the law — to give an example of humility and obedience, to approve the law, and to take away occasion of calumny from the Jews — so for the same reasons the mother willed to fulfil observances to which she was not obliged. (He counts: “two of those four virtues again.”)
• Ad 1: though she had no uncleanness (she did not have original sin), she willed to fulfil the observance not from need but from the precept of the law — and the evangelist pointedly says “according to the law,” since she in herself did not need purification.
• Ad 2: Moses seems to have spoken pointedly, excepting from uncleanness the Mother of God, who did not bring forth having received male seed; so she was plainly not obliged, but observed the purification voluntarily, for the reasons Christ was circumcised.
• Ad 3: the legal sacraments did not purge from the uncleanness of guilt, which comes about through grace, but prefigured that purgation; they purged by a certain fleshly purgation from the uncleanness of a certain irregularity, as said in the Second Part. The Blessed Virgin contracted no such uncleanness either, and so did not need purging.

10. The textual puzzle in Luke (“when the time for their purification”) #

Point: the received Greek reads “their purification” and does not name Mary, which scholars puzzle over.

• The class checks: the Greek does say “their”; the Vulgate has the singular eius; Thomas in the Catena puts in “Mary,” taking the eius to refer to her — whether quoting from memory or from a variant text. The translation before them prints the scriptural quotation in italics but Mary’s name in roman — making explicit what is implicit. Someone suggests the Stuttgart critical Vulgate, and wonders what the Nova Vulgata does, since for the New Testament it follows better Greek manuscripts while often respecting the Vulgate. One explanation offered for the plural: husband and wife are two in one flesh. He notes the ordinary gloss he has says nothing about it. Left as a curiosity.
• Aside: the old ceremony of “churching of women,” a blessing after childbirth before the mother returned to church.

His words #

• “brevity of wisdom” — the one-sentence statement of the faith.
• “the rule of two or three or both” — sometimes a thing is well divided into two, sometimes three, sometimes both (Creed vs. articles of faith).
• “Anaxagorean way of naming” — naming a thing from what it has most of, absolutely or by comparison; Anaxagoras’ dog-not-tree.
• intellectus defectivus — reason as a defective intellect; discursiveness signifies imperfection.
• hostia — rendered “victim” or “host.”
• turtur / columba / pulli — turtledove / dove (pigeon = rock dove) / the young birds.
• avis loquax — talkative bird, the turtledove; signifies preaching and confession of faith.
• gemendi — moaning, groaning; the present weeping of the saints.
• onera — the burdens of the law which Christ willed to undergo.
• reserato — opened; the womb “not opened before.”

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 37, a. 3 (objections 1-4, sed contra, body, replies) — with Gregory of Nyssa in ad 1, Origen in ad 3.
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 37, a. 4 (objections 1-3, sed contra, body, replies) — James 4:6 in the body.
• Exodus 13 (consecration of the firstborn); Leviticus 12 (purification, lamb or two birds); Luke 2 on the presentation and purification (inferred); Romans 8 (“firstborn among many brethren”); 2 Corinthians (rich made poor).

Mentioned

• John 20, end of the Gospel: “that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.”
• Peter’s confession; the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.
• Thomas’s short treatise on the articles of faith and the sacraments, written for a bishop (inferred: De articulis fidei).
• Summa Theologiae I (divinity of Christ), Secunda Secundae on faith, and a reference back to “the Second Part” in ad 3 of a. 4.
• Numbers (the daily lamb); John the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God”; Ezekiel’s living creatures; Song of Songs (columba); Psalm “O God, my God… my flesh pines”; Acts of the Apostles; Thomas’s Catena Aurea; Vatican II documents on bishops, priests and laity; Shakespeare on reason.

His questions #

• If you had to state in one sentence what our faith is, what would you say? — “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God,” as Peter confesses and John writes.
• Why is the Apostles’ Creed divided into three, but the articles of faith into fourteen or twelve? — Both divide by divinity and humanity; the fourteen gives seven each, the twelve six each; he prefers six and six, with two articles for the Persons rather than three or one.
• Why are we called Christians rather than Jesuits? — Because we are truly anointed — in baptism, confirmation, orders, last anointing — and share Christ’s kingly, priestly, prophetic roles; but we are not saviors.
• If Christ went forth from a closed womb, how did he “open the womb”? — “Opening the womb” signifies that nothing entered or went out before, and that he is the first one — the uniqueness of his birth, with her chastity inviolate.
• Why present to God one who was always present to God in unity of person? — He was offered for our sake, not his own, that we might learn to present ourselves to God — and after circumcision, since only the vice-circumcised are worthy of the divine sight.
• Why should other victims be offered for the true victim? — That the figure be joined to the truth and approved by it, against those who deny that the God of the Law is preached in the Gospel (Marcion).
• Why turtledoves and not a lamb? — He willed the poor man’s victim, being made needy for us; and the birds fit the figure — contemplation and preaching, the active life, private and public prayer.
• Was it fitting for the sinless Mother to be purified? — Yes: not from need but from the precept, to be conformed to her Son’s humility, to show obedience, approve the law, and remove occasion of calumny.
• Why does Luke say “their purification,” without naming Mary? — Left open; the Greek has “their,” the Vulgate eius, and Thomas in the Catena supplies “Mary.”