Aquinas on Christ's Baptism (ST III q.39 a.4–5): Why the Jordan, and Why the Heavens Opened

Orientation #

He opens by saying “I guess we left off in question thirty-nine, article four, whether Christ ought to be baptized in the Jordan.” He ends by announcing “After Article Six” [ed.: he has just finished a. 5; the number as he says it]. The previous class treated the first four articles of the question on Christ’s baptism (prev. lecture).

The class, in order #

1. Scholastic writing and a word-processor digression (“makes you kind of stop on each point”) #

Praise of Thomas’s scholastic manner: it “makes you kind of stop on each point,” where most writing is “mishmash,” a continuous thing — a student supplies “stream of consciousness.” Aside: he downloaded the Catena Aurea on Luke for Lent, was separating each Father (Chrysostom etc.) into his own paragraph instead of one block, and the paragraphs kept turning red with lines struck through them; his fix was to copy into another document and to break the work into twenty-four documents, one per chapter. A student suggests English spell-check attacking the Latin; another, a hidden editing command. “Computers don’t make life easier.”

2. Article 4, objections: Red Sea, the name “Jordan,” the waters turned back (“the truth ought to correspond to the figure”) #

1. The figure of baptism is the crossing of the Red Sea, where the Egyptians were submerged as sins are washed away in baptism; so Christ should have been baptized in the sea.
2. “Jordan” is interpreted descent, but in baptism one ascends rather than descends — Matthew 3, “being baptized, Christ at once ascended from the water.” His aside: “I know he’s going to say what’s in the name, like Shakespeare.”
3. At the Jordan the waters were turned back (Joshua 4; Psalm 113), but the baptized are not turned back, they proceed forward. Sed contra: Mark 1 — Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan.

3. Article 4, corpus: the Jordan as entry to the land of promise (“it leads us into the kingdom of God”) #

Through the Jordan the sons of Israel entered the land of promise; Christ’s baptism has before all others that it leads into the kingdom of God, signified by that land — John 3:5, unless one be reborn of water and the Holy Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom. Elias divided the waters of the Jordan and was taken up in the fiery chariot (4 Kings): passing through the water of baptism, through the fire of the Holy Spirit, there is entrance into heaven. So it was fitting Christ be baptized in the Jordan.

4. Which effect of baptism is more principal (“the more principal effect of baptism”) #

Reply to obj. 1: the Red Sea crossing prefigures baptism as taking away sins; the Jordan crossing prefigures it as opening the door of the celestial kingdom — “which is the more principal effect of baptism. That’s interesting, isn’t it? Surprise!” — since one usually picks up on the water as washing away sin. He applies the baby baptized that day: the gates of heaven open for her. Parallel cases put to the class:

• Confession: more to wash away sin or to give grace? A student answers in terms of being penitent; he presses: sin is not taken away by free will alone but chiefly through grace — we are not given grace through sin being taken away, but sin is taken away through grace being given. So grace is more principal. Confirmed by the old catechism’s definition, “an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace.”
• The Eucharist, sacrament of sacraments: one reading of the name takes eu as well and charis as grace (Latin bona gratia), an excess of grace; the antiphon O sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur, recolitur memoria passionis eius, mens impletur gratia — a fullness of grace.
• The philosopher: to remove error or to teach the truth? Teaching the truth is principal, and error is excluded by it. And through Christ alone is it fulfilled — hence more fitting the Jordan than the sea.

5. Descent and ascent: the name Jordan (“He gives grace to the humble”) #

Reply to obj. 2: in baptism there is ascent by progress in grace, which requires a descent of humility — James 4, “He gives grace to the humble”; to such a descent the name Jordan refers. “Nice way he has explained that.” Asides tied to humility: a piece on EWTN about Sister Faustina, emphasizing humility together with the mercy of God — “in our part humility is very, very, very necessary.” In the Magnificat the mention is of her humility rather than her charity; he who humbles himself shall be exalted. And in one division of the six mysteries of the humanity of Christ there are three articles of descent and three of ascent — the three of descent come first.

6. Waters turned back, and the ambiguity of metaphors (“the same thing can be a metaphor for something very good and for something bad”) #

Reply to obj. 3, from Augustine’s Sermon on the Epiphany: as the waters once were turned back, so now, Christ being baptized, sins are turned back. A double signification of the water. In Scripture the soul “flooded” is flooded with evil. Hence care with metaphors: the lion of the tribe of Judah and the devil as a lion seeking whom he may devour; fire for concupiscence and fire for charity. Alternatively the reverse flow signifies the river of blessing going up. “We’ll let Thomas get about that.” He names the most interesting thing of the article: the comparison between Jordan and Red Sea, and why one is more appropriate — more principal. A student notes all three synoptics say the heavens were opened; he has not checked John.

7. Article 5, objections: need Christ have heaven opened? (“Christ always was in heaven”) #

1. Heaven is opened to one who needs to get in, who is outside heaven; but Christ was always in heaven — John 3, “the Son of Man who is in heaven.” (His own guess: “maybe his body is not glorified yet.”)
2. The opening is either bodily or spiritual. Not bodily: the celestial bodies are impassible and unbreakable — Job 37, “you have made the heavens, which are most solid.” Not spiritual: before the eyes of the Son of God the heavens were not closed.
3. For the faithful heaven is opened through the Passion — Hebrews 10, confidence in the entry of the saints by the blood of Christ; those baptized with Christ’s baptism who died before the Passion could not enter. So heaven should rather have been opened at the Passion. “That’s interesting objection” — at the Passion the accounts mention earthquakes, opened tombs, the veil split, not opened heavens. Sed contra: Luke 3:21, Jesus baptized and praying, the heaven was opened. Aside prompted by “heavens opened”: Stephen the first martyr saw the heavens opened and Christ standing at the right hand, not sitting — even the liturgy mixes this up; the Fathers say he stands to assist the martyrs, whereas sitting signifies teaching and contemplation: Homo sedens fit sapiens, “the man sitting becomes wise” — a teacher of his rendered it “the man sitting makes wisdom,” “his Latin is even worse than mine.”

8. Article 5, corpus: three things shown in Christ’s baptism (“those three very good reasons”) #

Christ willed to be baptized so as to consecrate by his own baptism the baptism we were to receive; hence at his baptism were shown the things belonging to the efficacy of ours — three:

1. The chief power from which baptism has efficacy is the power of heaven; heaven opens to show that a heavenly power sanctifies baptism. (He links it back to the martyr, given heavenly power to undergo martyrdom.)
2. The faith of the Church and of the baptized works for baptism’s efficacy — the baptized profess the faith, and baptism is called the sacrament of faith; by faith we look on celestial things exceeding sense and human reason. “It’s like revelation. Pull back the heavens.”
3. Through Christ’s baptism entry to the heavenly kingdom is opened to us, cut off for the first man through sin; so the road to heaven is now clear to the baptized — again applied to “this little one.”

9. Sitting, standing, and papal ceremony (digression) (“it’s a sense of judgment”) #

Standing is for action or passion, sitting for contemplating — and also for judgment: hence the priest sits to hear confessions, since he makes a judgment. Isabella of Spain’s confessor (Cardinal Cisneros) insisted: “here you kneel, I sit.” The present Holy Father receives heads of state seated, on a raised dais, as a sovereign; Catholic heads of state kneel and kiss the ring. Formerly one kissed the pope’s toe, his foot on a cushion in slippers — “then he could give a good kick.” The toe of the statue of Peter in the basilica is worn down from kissing.

10. Prayer after baptism (“Jesus, being baptized and praying”) #

Still in the corpus: after baptism daily, continuous prayer is needed to enter heaven, because although sins are forgiven there remains the fomes of sin (“couldn’t translate that in English”) fighting inwardly, and the world and demons attacking outwardly. Hence Luke 3 joins the two, baptized and praying, and then heaven opens. He notes Augustine and Thomas tie prayer to hope, and here baptism to faith — so faith and hope. Further: that heaven is opened to believers through baptism is by virtue of Christ’s prayer — Matthew 3:16, “opened to him the heavens,” i.e. to all on account of him, as an emperor granting a favour to a petitioner says, “I give this benefit not to that one but to you,” on account of you. A student recalls Cardinal Ratzinger observing that in Luke only, at the baptism and at the transfiguration, the heavens open while Christ is praying — a revelation of what his prayer is and does.

11. Article 5, replies: human dispensation, unfolding not rupture (“what is bodily opened is open to all”) #

• To obj. 1, Chrysostom on Matthew: as Christ was baptized according to a human dispensation though he did not need baptism, so by a human dispensation the heavens opened to him; according to his divine nature he was always in the heavens. “So perfectly stated” — it is to instruct us.
• To obj. 2, Jerome on Matthew: the heavens were opened not by a separation of the elements but by an unfolding, unsealing, uncovering — spiritually, as Ezekiel at the beginning of his volume records the heavens opened, meaning something is revealed. Chrysostom’s argument: if the creature of the heavens had been ruptured, he would not have said “were opened to him,” since what is bodily opened is open to all; and Mark 1:10, Jesus coming up out of the water saw the heavens opened — so the opening refers to Christ’s vision. Some refer it to a bodily vision: such splendour about Christ that the heavens seemed opened; others to an imaginative vision formed by divine power in Christ’s imagination; it can also be an intellectual vision, insofar as Christ saw that baptism was now sanctified and heaven opened to men — which he saw beforehand as to come, but now the water actually has that power.
• To obj. 3: by the Passion heaven is opened to men as by a common cause, but the cause must be applied to each one in order to enter, which comes about through baptism — Romans 6:3, whoever are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in his death. All the sacraments get their efficacy from Christ’s death, but the effect is applied through the sacraments, so the opening of heaven is more fittingly mentioned at the baptism than at the Passion. Or, per Chrysostom on Matthew, at the baptism the heavens were only opened; after the Passion the gates were no longer needed — heaven was never closed, and the angels did not say “Open the gates” but “Take away the gates.” The obstacles were wholly removed by the Passion; in the baptism the road by which men could enter was made known.

12. Common cause and proper cause: charity and humility (“charity is the common cause”) #

He generalizes the third reply. Question: should Mary’s exaltation be attributed to charity or to humility? He pauses over the Magnificat — “he has regarded not the charity but the humility.” Answer on the model of the third reply: charity is the common cause of all merit, but a particular virtue informed and commanded by charity has a special connection with a particular reward; since “he who humbles himself will be exalted,” the exaltation is attributed to humility as the proximate cause peculiar to it, while charity is the common cause of all this promotion. Test case: Thomas is said to have been given a gift of chastity so as not to be troubled in his studies; Benedict had to jump into the bramble bush to quell temptation — “this was probably the first Thomas was thinking if he landed in the bramble bush.” Was Thomas rewarded for charity or for chastity? Charity as the common root of all merit (nothing is merited without charity), but the particular gift is a reward for chasing the woman out and being strong.

His words #

• “mishmash” / “stream of consciousness” — non-scholastic continuous writing, as against Thomas making you stop on each point.
• “Jordan is interpreted descent” — the etymology on which obj. 2 turns.
• “more principal effect” — opening the kingdom, as against washing away sin.
• eu + charis, “well” + “grace,” Latin bona gratia — his offered reading of “Eucharist” beside Thanksgiving.
• fomes of sin — “couldn’t translate that in English”; what remains after baptism and fights inwardly [ed.: usually “tinder”/“fomes peccati”].
• “unfolding, open up, unseal, unfasten, uncover” — his renderings for the opening of the heavens, as against “separation of the elements.”
• “common cause” vs. “proximate cause / the one that’s peculiar to this” — the Passion vs. baptism; charity vs. humility.
• Homo sedens fit sapiens — “the man sitting becomes wise”; a teacher’s rendering, “the man sitting makes wisdom.”
• “Christendom” / “Christensen” — ASR garble for Chrysostom throughout.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 39, a. 4 (whether Christ ought to be baptized in the Jordan) — objections, sed contra, corpus, three replies.
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 39, a. 5 (whether the heavens ought to have been opened at Christ’s baptism) — objections, sed contra, corpus, three replies.
• Scripture quoted within these: Matthew 3 and 3:16; Mark 1 and 1:10; Luke 3:21; John 3:5 and John 3; Joshua 4; Psalm 113; 4 Kings (Elias); Job 37; Hebrews 10; James 4; Romans 6:3; Ezekiel, beginning.
• Authorities cited within: Augustine, Sermon on the Epiphany; Jerome on Matthew; Chrysostom on Matthew.

Mentioned

• Catena Aurea on Luke (his Lenten reading).
• O sacrum convivium (Eucharistic antiphon), attributed to Thomas.
• The Magnificat.
• Acts of the martyrdom of Stephen (not cited by book).

His questions #

• Why the Jordan rather than the Red Sea? Because the Red Sea figures the washing away of sin, the Jordan the opening of the kingdom — the more principal effect.
• In confession, is it more to wash away sin or to give grace? Grace is more principal: sin is taken away through grace being given, not the reverse.
• For a philosopher, is it more principal to remove error or to teach the truth? To teach the truth; error is excluded by that.
• If baptism is an ascent, why is it named from “descent”? Because ascent by grace requires the descent of humility — “He gives grace to the humble.”
• Why were the heavens opened at the baptism rather than at the Passion? The Passion is the common cause; baptism applies it to each one, so the effect is named where it is applied.
• Was the opening of the heavens bodily or spiritual? Not a rupture of the elements but an unfolding/revealing, referred to Christ’s vision — bodily, imaginative, or intellectual, as various authorities take it.
• Did the others see the heavens opened? “Maybe not” — Mark says Jesus saw them opened, and what is bodily opened is open to all.
• Is Mary’s exaltation (or Thomas’s gift of chastity) attributed to charity or to the particular virtue? Charity as common cause of all merit; the particular virtue as proximate cause with a special connection to that reward.
• Do all the gospels say the heavens were opened? The three synoptics do; John he had not checked (left open).