Aquinas on Christ's Teaching: Why Christ Preached First to the Jews and Why He Did Not Fear Offending the Pharisees (ST III q.42 a.1-2)

Orientation #

He opens by looking back at last week’s treatment of why Christ willed to be tempted (four reasons, with the three temptations answering lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride of life, and the beasts, birds and fish of the commentary) as a specimen of fides quaerens intellectum (prev. lecture). He then reads the prologue to the question on the doctrina Christi and its four articles, and says the next three questions will be about miracles. The following class continues with Christ’s manner of teaching — publicly, in veiled speech, and in writing.

The class, in order #

1. Theology as belief seeking understanding (“fides quaerens intellectum”) #

The point: theology takes what the Gospel says and asks why. From Anselm, or originally Augustine. You read in Matthew or Luke that Christ was led out by the Spirit to be tempted, and you believe it; the theologian asks why Christ willed to be tempted — and Thomas, with the Fathers, gives about four reasons. The same shape governs today’s article: why should he have limited himself to preaching to the Jews?

2. The prologue: four articles on Christ’s teaching (“about this, he says four things are asked”) #

1. Whether Christ ought to have preached only to the Jews or also to the Gentiles; 2) whether in teaching he ought to have avoided disturbing the Jews; 3) whether he ought to have preached publicly or occulte; 4) whether by the spoken word only or also by the written. The time when he began to teach is not asked here, having been treated with his baptism — he began at the age when a man is mature, though he could have taught earlier.

• Aside on occulte: Thomas accuses the Latin Averroists of “talking to boys in corners” — “come out here and face me and answer my arguments.”

3. The three objections of article 1 (“I am not sent except to the sheep”) #

1. Isaiah 49: it is little that my servant should rouse the tribes of Israel — I have given you as a light to the Gentiles, to the ends of the earth; Christ gave light and salvation through his teaching, so it seems too little to preach only to the Jews.
2. Matthew 7: he taught as having power; but power in teaching shows most in instructing those who have heard nothing, as the Gentiles — whence Paul (Romans 15) preached where Christ’s name was unknown, not building on an alien foundation. He notes it “kind of answers itself”: if Christ could preach through Paul, that is more powerful.
3. Instruction of many is more useful than of one, and Christ did instruct some Gentiles (the Samaritan woman and others) — so much more the multitude of Gentiles. Sed contra: Matthew 15, “I am not sent except to the sheep that were perishing of the house of Israel”; and Romans 10, how can they teach unless they be sent.

• Aside: modern scriptural scholars say “Paul really changed things — it’s really his religion.”

4. Thomas’s four reasons in the body (“the things that are from God are ordered”) #

It was suitable that the preaching of Christ and of the apostles be shown first to the Jews alone:

1. To show that his coming fulfilled the promises made of old to the Jews and not to the Gentiles — Romans 15, Christ was a minister of circumcision, confirming the promises made to the fathers.
2. To show his coming to be from God, “because the things that are from God are ordered” — his famous phrase; the order requires that teaching be proposed first to the Jews, who were nearer to God in faith and the worship of the one God, and transmitted through them to the Gentiles. Comparison: in the celestial hierarchy the divine illuminations come down from the higher angels to the lower. So Thomas enlightens us, and Monsignor Dionne helps us understand Thomas, and it comes down to us. Jerome on Matthew: he does not say he is not sent to the Gentiles, but that first he is sent to Israel; Isaiah 66, I will send from those who were saved to the Gentiles, and they will announce my glory to the nations.
3. To take from the Jews the matter of calumny. Jerome on Matthew 10:5 (“go not in the way of the Gentiles”): lest they have a just accusation that they rejected the Lord because he was sent to the Gentiles.
4. “A very interesting reason”: Christ by the victory of the cross merited power and dominion over the Gentiles — Apocalypse 2, who conquers, to him I will give power over the nations, as I received from my Father; Philippians 2, because obedient to death on the cross, every knee shall bend. So before the Passion he did not preach his doctrine to the Gentiles; after it, “go teach all nations.” Hence John 12: when the Gentiles wished to see Jesus with the Passion imminent, he answered with the grain of wheat that must die to bear fruit — “it’s kind of funny that that text only comes because Christ didn’t seem to give them the full welcome,” and this casts light on it. Augustine: he speaks of himself as the seed killed in the infidelity of the Jews, multiplied in the faith of the peoples.

• Leo XIII: the scholastics help us understand Scripture both in their commentaries and in their theological treatises — “it’s nice to go from here to the Gospels and back again.”

5. Digression: enlightening others as likeness to God (“inequality of creatures”) #

Tied to reason 2. Thomas explains the inequality of creatures so that creatures might be like God not only in being perfect themselves but in perfecting others; to perfect others you must have inequality. Two equals have only small talk; a beginning student and a man somewhat advanced in knowledge — “that’s a good, good thing.” Whoever enlightens another is like God, who enlightens every man coming into the world; if we were all self-taught, no one would be like God in this respect. We cannot enlighten everybody, but we might enlighten one or two. (An aside about a man who wanted to go to California to teach where his brother was is left unfinished.)

6. Reply to objection 1, and to objection 2: power exercised through others (“not of less power, but of more”) #

Reply 1: Christ was a light for the salvation of the Gentiles, but through the disciples whom he sent to preach — order again. A student presses on how the objection runs; he grants the point raised by “Father,” that it shows more of his power to instruct the nations through the apostles than by himself alone, and adds that it is not only order but likeness to God in enlightening others. Reply 2: it is not of less power but of more to do something through others; the divine power is most shown in that he gave his disciples such power in teaching that Gentiles who had heard nothing of Christ were converted — hence the Acts of the Apostles. Christ’s power in teaching is observed (a) in the miracles confirming his teaching — “that’s why the next three questions are about miracles”; (b) in the efficacy of persuading; (c) in the authority of the speaker, “I however say to you,” as having dominion over the law; (d) in the rectitude he showed in his way of living, living without sin.

7. On persuasion (“to teach, to delight, to bend”) #

The sacred preacher speaks so as to teach, to delight (delectat, as Augustine has it), and to bend (flectat). Persuasion means literally “through the sweet.” Persuasion is found first in music, then in fiction, then in rhetoric — so music is the most persuasive thing there is. Examples: the recruiting band that gets the young man into the army like a Pied Piper; in Portugal the shopkeepers turned on rock and roll as the American tourist buses opened, and all the boys skipped the shrine — “perversion of persuasion”; the Nazi Nuremberg rally film, Hitler descending through the clouds, shown throughout the war to keep the people in a frenzy, “enough to make a Nazi of you”; German and French cavalry marches that get the martial spirit going (“it feeds my delusions of grandeur” — asked if he had ever had a vision, “do delusions of grandeur count?”); Hitler and Wagner. Poetry’s names come from music: ode means a song, tragedy a goat song, sonnet means song. Aristotle’s definition of tragedy: a likeness of an action serious, complete and of some magnitude, in sweetened language (hēdysmenōi). The Gospels are more persuasive than the Summa, not more argumentative — as the temple guards said, “no man ever spoke thus,” having gone to get dirt on him.

• Asides: it is the feast of St. Catherine of Siena, and Pius V (a Dominican pope) tomorrow — two Dominican saints back to back; Catherine’s “I am who am, and you are she who is not”; her tomb and Pius V’s; Santa Maria sopra Minerva, its chapels and Thomas’s, popes elected there; Fra Angelico, blessed, his paintings in the Florence monastery, one in each cell — his angels look like a superior being, not “funny ditty stuff.”

8. Reply to objection 3: why some Gentiles were admitted (“lest the hope of salvation be precluded”) #

As Christ ought not from the beginning to communicate his teaching to Gentiles indifferently, reserving it to the Jews as the firstborn people, so he ought not to repel the Gentiles altogether, lest their hope of salvation be precluded — the theological virtue of hope again, as in one of the reasons for the temptation (that we might approach him as one himself tempted; he corrects himself from “miracles” to “temptation”). Some Gentiles were admitted in particular on account of the excellence of their faith and devotion. The Samaritan woman: she announced what he had said and converted the townsmen, who then came out and said they believed because of him, not because of her — “you don’t find anything among the Jews hardly like that.” St. Ephraim (a doctor of the church) on her, against those who condemn her as a harlot: a harlot would have kept her mouth shut out of shame; he makes her a type of consecrated virginity — her husbands had successively died, so she was reckoned cursed, and she arranged with a man to pass as married while consecrating her virginity to God; that was the secret, so that when he told her “the man you are with is not your husband,” she said he had told her everything. “I know I am not explaining this the way anybody else does, but I have reason.”

• Aside: Angelo in Measure for Measure, who smiles at others’ talk of temptation and then falls worse than anybody.

9. Article 2, objections: ought he to have preached without offending the Jews? (“without offending them”) #

1. Augustine, On the Christian Struggle (agone): in the man Jesus Christ the Son of God gave us an example of right life; but we ought to avoid offense not only of the faithful but of the faithless — 1 Corinthians 10, be without offense to Jews and Gentiles and the Church of God.
2. No wise man ought to do what impedes the effect of his work; by disturbing the Jews the effect of his teaching was impeded — when he reproved the Pharisees and scribes they began to press him hard and attack his words, plotting against him and seeking something from his mouth to accuse him. He notes Peter’s first sermons in Acts: he does not come right out with “Christ is the Son of God” but says God raised him up — going light on them, leading them gradually, without denying that Christ rose by his own power.
3. The Apostle: do not scold an old man but beseech him as a father; the priests and princes were the seniors of that people, so they ought not to have been argued against harshly — “brood of vipers” and the like; John the Baptist’s words are pretty rough too. Sed contra: Isaiah 8, Christ would be a stone of offense and a rock of scandal to the two houses of Israel; Luke 2, a sign of contradiction; “I have not come to bring peace but the sword” — “that’s one of my favorites; so much for those pacifists.” He preached on that, once just before 9/11 in Canada: “what we need is a good war.”

10. The body of article 2 (“the salvation of the multitude preferred to the peace of any one man”) #

1. The salus of the multitude is to be preferred to the peace of any single man — “that’s a tough saying,” and applies in the practical order.
2. Therefore when some by their own perversity impede the saving of the multitude, one ought not to fear their being offended; the preacher or teacher ought not to be afraid of offending them, in order to provide for the salvation of the multitude. (“Don’t worry about offending the bishops; tell the people what they need to do.”)
3. The scribes, Pharisees and princes did very much impede the people’s salvation: they fought against Christ’s teaching, through which alone salvation is possible, and by their depraved morals corrupted the life of the people. Conclusion: notwithstanding the offense given them, the Lord publicly taught the truth they hated and upbraided their vices — “whitened sepulchers.” Matthew 15: when the disciples said the Jews hearing this word were scandalized, he said, let them be, they are blind leaders of the blind, and both fall into the pit. Also the lawyers’ “you offended us too” — “woe to you.”

11. The three replies (“more should the scandal be sustained than the truth left”) #

Reply 1: a man ought to be without offense to all in this sense, that he gives no one, by deed or word done in a less right way, an occasion of ruin — a student notes that this is the definition of scandal. But if scandal arises from the truth, the scandal is rather to be sustained than the truth abandoned, as Gregory says. Illustration: De Koninck, asked to write a defense of the beer industry against those who called drinking alcohol sinful (the Church teaching moderation), put a version of this Thomas quotation on the opening page — the truth ought not to be dismissed on account of scandal. Reply 2: by publicly reproving the scribes and Pharisees, Christ did not impede but promoted the effect of his teaching, because once their vices were known to the people, the fewer would be turned from Christ by their words. Reply 3: the Apostle’s word is to be understood of those seniors who are old not only in age or authority but in goodness of morals — Numbers 11, gather me seventy men from the seniors of Israel whom you know to be such. If the authority of the old is turned into a tool of malice by public sin, they are to be manifestly and bitterly reproved, as Daniel says to the two elders of Susanna: inveterate dierum malorum, “O thou that art grown old in evil days.” A student: “should be said to some of our elder statesmen” — “some get worse as time goes on.”

• Asides in this stretch: “what about treating an older man with some respect? I’m an old man, I’m 74”; the picture of Pope Benedict with a beer stein, though he is said to keep his mind clear and drink little; George III drank only wine, loved to putter like a farmer, had a plain German wife and about fifteen children, favoured Handel, adored Bach, and was much impressed in 1764 by the eight-year-old Mozart at the organ — “the three greatest composers” — and twenty years later lost his mind; the Hanoverians’ anglicization, the first speaking little English; Nathaniel Greene, son of a Quaker businessman with no time for book learning, reading Horace, Caesar and a little Euclid in the forge shop; Lincoln learning several books of Euclid without formal education; George Washington surveying at sixteen (the Red Fox Inn, Middleburg, Virginia) — “there’s some things to admire in these men.”

He closes: “We’ll do another article here before we take our break. To the third.” (Article 3 not begun.)

His words #

• fides quaerens intellectum — belief seeking understanding; his definition of theology, from Anselm, “or from Augustine, I guess, originally.”
• doctrina Christi — Christ’s teaching; the title of the question.
• occulte — hiddenly, as against publicly (article 3).
• “the things that are from God are ordered” — his rendering of Thomas’s quae a Deo sunt, ordinata sunt.
• calumny — unjustified accusation; the “matter of criticizing him” taken from the Jews.
• delectat / flectat — to delight, to bend; with “teach,” the three offices of the sacred preacher.
• persuasion — literally “through the sweet”; found first in music, then fiction, then rhetoric.
• hēdysmenōi — “in sweetened language,” from Aristotle’s definition of tragedy.
• salus of the multitude — the safety or salvation of the many, preferred to one man’s peace.
• scandal — “an occasion of ruin” given by deed or less right word.
• inveterate dierum malorum — “O thou that art grown old in evil days” (Daniel, to the elders of Susanna).

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 42, prologue (four articles)
• Summa Theologiae III, q. 42, a. 1 — objections, sed contra, body, three replies
• Summa Theologiae III, q. 42, a. 2 — objections, sed contra, body, three replies
• Quoted within: Isaiah 49; 66; 8; Matthew 7; 15; 10:5; Romans 15; 10; Apocalypse 2; Philippians 2; John 12; 1 Corinthians 10; Numbers 11; Daniel (Susanna); Jerome on Matthew; Augustine (the grain of wheat; On the Christian Struggle); Gregory on scandal
• Aristotle’s definition of tragedy (inferred: Poetics)

Mentioned

• Thomas’s commentary on the temptation (beasts, birds, fish) (prev. lecture)
• Acts of the Apostles (Peter’s first sermons)
• Luke 2 (sign of contradiction)
• Ephraim on the Samaritan woman
• Leo XIII on the scholastics and Scripture (inferred: Aeterni Patris)
• Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
• De Koninck’s defense of the beer industry

His questions #

• What is theology? — Belief seeking understanding: you believe Christ was tempted, and then ask why he willed it.
• Why should Christ have limited himself to preaching to the Jews? — Four reasons: to show the old promises fulfilled, to show his coming is from God since what is from God is ordered, to remove grounds of calumny, and because dominion over the Gentiles was merited on the cross.
• Is it less powerful to work through others than by oneself? — No: more; the divine power shows most in giving the apostles power to convert Gentiles who had heard nothing of Christ.
• In what is Christ’s power in teaching observed? — In the miracles, the efficacy of persuading, the authority of the speaker, and the rectitude of his life.
• What is the most persuasive thing there is? — Music; then fiction, then rhetoric.
• Why were some Gentiles admitted, like the Samaritan woman? — Lest hope of salvation be precluded, and on account of the excellence of their faith and devotion.
• Ought Christ to have preached to the Jews without offending them? — No: the salvation of the multitude is preferred to the peace of any one man, so the teacher must not fear offending those who block it.
• Should the truth be left when scandal arises from it? — No: the scandal is rather to be sustained than the truth abandoned.
• Do the seniors deserve gentle treatment? — Only those old in goodness of morals; authority turned to malice by public sin is to be reproved manifestly and bitterly.