Summa III, Q.44 a.3–4: Christ's Miracles on Men and on Irrational Creatures

Orientation #

He opens with the customary prayer and says “we’re up to Article Three here in Question Forty Four,” i.e. Christ’s miracles about men; he then goes on to article 4 (irrational creatures) and, at the end, announces “Question forty-five. Before we take our break.” Verified sources confirm ST III q. 44, aa. 3–4 as the texts read. The preceding class ended by agreeing to cover articles three and four before moving to the Transfiguration.

The class, in order #

1. The four objections of a. 3 (“it seems unsuitably that Christ did miracles about men”) #

• Obj. 1 (which he calls “an ingenious argument”): the soul is worth more than the body; Christ did many bodily miracles but no miracles on souls — he converted unbelievers by admonishing and outward miracles, and never read to have made fools wise.
• Obj. 2: Christ worked by divine power, whose property is to operate all at once, perfectly, without aids; but the blind man of Mark 8 was led out of the village, treated with spittle and hands, saw “men like trees walking,” and only after a second imposition saw clearly. Aside: “I wish I didn’t need his Wheaties that morning.”
• Obj. 3: things that do not follow on one another need not be removed together; bodily sickness is not always from sin (John 9: “Neither did this man sin, nor his parents”). So the paralytic’s bodily cure — the lesser — seems no sufficient argument that he can forgive sins, the greater. He notes the reply in advance: “the lesser is more known.”
• Obj. 4: miracles were for confirming his teaching and witnessing his divinity, and no one should impede the end of his own work; yet he told some cured men to tell no one, while telling the man freed from demons to announce what the Lord had done.
• Sed contra: Mark 7, “He did all things well.”

2. The body of a. 3 (“ought to be proportioned to that end”) #

Short respondeo: means are proportioned to the end; Christ came to save men (John 3, not to judge but that the world be saved); therefore it was fitting that by miraculously curing certain men in particular he show himself the universal and spiritual savior of all.

3. Reply 1: the end of the miracles, not the miracles (“justification of the impious”) #

• Means differ from the end. The miracles were ordered to the salvation of the rational part, which consists in (i) enlightenment of wisdom and (ii) justification of the impious — and the first presupposes the second, since (Wisdom 1) wisdom does not enter an evil-willing soul nor dwell in a body subject to sins.
• Parallel he adds: in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle takes the moral virtues before the virtues of reason, and Thomas gives two reasons — the moral virtues are more known to us, and they dispose for the virtues of reason. “And this is true in the supernatural order too”: moral virtue is a necessary disposition for contemplative life (picked up with the novices).
• Justification suits only the willing: otherwise against the notion of justice, which involves rightness of will, and against human nature, which is led to the good by free judgment, not by force. “He’s not going to cure you if you don’t invite him to do so.”
• Likewise he poured wisdom into simple disciples (Luke 21, “I will give you a mouth and wisdom”), but interior enlightenment is not numbered among visible miracles — only the exterior act, that unlettered men spoke wisely and constantly (Acts 4: the Jews wondered, knowing them “without letters and idiots”). His text’s footnote glosses idiotae as simplices, rudes, imperiti; he adds that the Greek word means private, so an idiot lives in his own private world.
• These spiritual effects, though distinct from visible miracles, are still testimonies (Hebrews 2: signs, portents, powers, distributions of the Holy Spirit).
• But Christ did work miracles on souls as regards the lower powers: Jerome on Matthew 9 (“rising up he followed him”) — the brightness and majesty of his hidden divinity shone in his human face and drew men at first sight. He wonders whether the famous painting of this is Caravaggio’s.
• Jerome on Matthew 21 (cleansing the temple): the most marvelous sign of all, that one contemptible man with a whip drove out so great a multitude, fire and starlight radiating from his eyes. Origen on John: greater than water into wine, since there inanimate matter was subject, here the wills of thousands of men.
• John 18: they fell backwards — Augustine, one voice pushed back a crowd ferocious with hatred and terrible in arms, without any weapon, for God was hidden in the flesh. Luke 4, he passed through the midst; John 8, he hid himself — Augustine: not in a corner or behind a wall as if afraid, but making himself invisible by heavenly power.
• Conclusion: Christ changed men’s souls at will, both by justifying and infusing wisdom (the end of miracles) and by attracting, terrifying or stupefying them (the miracles themselves).
• Aside on Chrysostom: every time Christ was unrecognized — the garden, the road to Emmaus, the shore after the resurrection — shows Christ is recognized only when he wills, since he can veil himself; Judas knew his face and still needed the sign. A student asks whether we will have the same power in heaven; he answers with the game of “Guess who?” — your mother’s power over you “won’t be taken away.”

4. Reply 2: the gradual cure and the mystery of the Incarnation (“his own flesh was efficacious”) #

• Christ saves not only by divine power but through the mystery of the Incarnation. (Aside: how would you make an English word of incarnation? “Fleshment.”)
• Hence he often added something of his human nature: Luke 4, laying hands on each — Cyril: though as God he could drive off all sickness by a word, he touched them, showing his own flesh efficacious to give remedies, “like a tool of his divinity.”
• Mark 8, spittle and hands: the hand shows the operation, the spittle the word proceeding from the mouth — so the divine word joined to operation works marvels. John 9, clay from spittle: because the Word was made flesh, and to signify that he who healed the blind was he who formed man from earth — “that’s a very subtle thing” (Chrysostom).
• Generally Christ did the most perfect works: Chrysostom on John 2, his miracles were more beautiful and more useful than what comes about through nature; and he gave perfect health in an instant — Matthew 8, Peter’s mother-in-law got up and served them. (“Now the woman that’s famous like that… she just said sit down and we’ll serve you. But no, she got up and she waited on them.”)
• The exception, the blind man of the objection: on account of his unfaithfulness (Chrysostom); or, as Bede says, he who could have cured by one word cured bit by bit to show the magnitude of human blindness, which returns to light hardly and by steps, and to show his grace aiding the single steps of perfection. He connects this to “I believe, help my unbelief.”
• Added detail: Christ first led him outside the village and then told him not to return — the village where he could work no miracles for unbelief.
• Aside: his first day in Fr. Boulay’s class, sitting in the front row to get the concentrated French.

5. Reply 3 and the digression on “perfect” (“something is not perfect if it does not reach its end”) #

• God’s works are perfect (Deuteronomy 32), and nothing is perfect that has not reached its end.
• Digression on the three senses of perfect in Aristotle, Metaphysics V [he says “the fifth book of Wisdom,” the book of words used equivocally in wisdom]:

1. having all its parts — a man missing an arm, a book missing pages;
2. having the whole power of its kind — Homer taught all the Greeks how to make a plot (as Hegel — he first says “Kierkegaard” and corrects himself — points out); Mozart, who had every instrument in his head, against Chopin, who said “all I got is the piano,” and against Beethoven, who “doesn’t understand the human voice the way Mozart does”;
3. having reached its end — St. Ignatius: when he gets to see the Father, “then I will know him.”

• He notes that right after this Aristotle distinguishes how creatures are perfect from how God is perfect — God universally perfect, all the perfections of the genera found in him simply; Aristotle saw it, and Thomas confirms it in commenting.
• Asides on “too good to be true” as a rhetorical likelihood: Summa Contra Gentiles III (the part showing that in seeing God as he is all desire is satisfied, satiate as in the Communion prayer); Thackeray’s Vanity Fair — “who in this world ever gets what he wants? Or having gotten it, is satisfied”; and the Jesuit’s chief demonstration of immortality, that you can’t get enough of a good thing.
• Back to the reply: since the end of outward curing is the cure of the soul, Christ does not heal a body without healing the soul — Augustine on John 7, “the whole man he made healthy on the Sabbath.” To the paralytic specially, “your sins are dismissed,” because (Jerome on Matthew) many bodily debilities come about on account of many sins; so sins are dismissed first, the cause of the debility removed. John 5, “sin no longer, lest something worse happen”; Chrysostom, sickness is apt to arise from sin. And Chrysostom on Matthew: forgiving sin is greater, since the soul is worth more than the body, but it is not manifest to the senses, so he does the less manifest-greater by the more manifest-less.
• Aside: HIV rates in the Philippines (one in 22,000) against Thailand, offered as an illustration of propter peccata plura evenire corporum debilitates.

6. Reply 4: “Go and announce the glory of God” #

The prohibition is not contrary to the command: we are taught to prohibit what we wish to be praised for, but what refers to God’s glory we should not prohibit but rather enjoin. “Those words are significant” — the glory of God, not “go and announce what a great guy I am. That’s a politician.”

7. The four objections of a. 4 (“miracles about irrational creatures”) #

• Obj. 1: brutes are nobler than plants, yet he did a miracle on a plant (the fig tree dried up) and none on brute animals. (“Thanks if I cured my cat.”)
• Obj. 2: pain is not inflicted except for guilt, and the fig tree had no guilt in bearing no fruit out of season — “it’s just not fair.”
• Obj. 3: air and water lie between heaven and earth; he did miracles in the heavens (at his death) and on earth (the earthquake), so he should have divided the sea like Moses, stopped the river like Joshua, or made thunders in the air as on Sinai and as Elias did. He notes the cloud at the Transfiguration, and that Elias and Moses “will come back here in the next question.”
• Obj. 4: miracle-working belongs to governance, which presupposes creation; so it was unfitting that he use creation, as in multiplying the loaves.
• Sed contra: Wisdom, God “disposes all things sweetly.”
• Corpus: miracles are ordered to making the power of his divinity known for men’s salvation; it belongs to that power that every creature be subject to him, so he had to work miracles in every genus of creature.

8. Replies of a. 4 (“in the same day, they were made with men”) #

• R1: brute animals approach very nearly to men in their genus — made on the same day — so, many miracles having been done on human bodies, none were needed on brutes, especially since as regards sensing nature the account is the same for men and land animals. Fish, living in water, differ more and were made on a different day; hence the miracles of the copious catch (Luke 5, John 21) and the coin in the fish’s mouth. The swine driven into the sea was not a divine miracle but the demons’ work by divine permission. Aside: this is why St. Benedict allows fish and fowl but not four-footed beasts — monastic “meat” means four-footed things.
• R2: Chrysostom on Matthew — do not ask how justly the fig tree was dried up out of season; that is “the ultimate madness,” since in such things there is neither guilt nor punishment. Look at the miracle and admire its doer; the creature did no injury to its owner, since the Creator uses creatures by his judgment for others’ salvation. Hilary: an argument of divine goodness — where he wished to give an example of salvation he exercised his power on human bodies; where he would set forth the form of his severity toward the contumacious, he indicated future punishment by a tree. Chrysostom: and by the fig tree, the moistest tree, “which has the most sap,” so the drying might appear the more. He compares the wheat gathered into the barn and the chaff burnt.
• R3: he did work fitting miracles in water and air — Matthew 8, he commanded the winds and the sea and there was a great tranquility; it was not fitting that he who came to recall all things to peace should disturb air or divide waters. (The quotation from “the apostle” here is garbled — [unclear in recording].) In his passion he divided the veil, showing the mysteries of the law; the monuments were opened, showing he gives life to the dead through his death; the earth moved and the rocks broke, showing that stony hearts are softened by his passion and the whole world to be changed for the better.
• R4: the multiplication of the loaves was not by creation but by addition of extraneous matter converted into bread. Augustine on John: as he multiplies from a few grains in nature, so in his hands he multiplied the five loaves. Closing aside on his own garden — the broccoli already up, the beans not yet.

His words #

• “Fleshment” — his attempted English word for incarnation, “the word is made flesh.”
• “idiotes / idiotae” — glossed in his text as simplices, rudes, imperiti; from the Greek for private, so an idiot “lives in his own private world.”
• “the fifth book of Wisdom” — the book of Aristotle devoted to words used equivocally in wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics V].
• “propter peccata plura evenire corporum debilitates” — many bodily debilities come about on account of many sins.
• “the virtues of reason” — [ed.: the intellectual virtues].
• “propinquant” — the brutes “approach very nearly” to man in genus.
• “satiate” — the satisfying of all desire in the vision of God, as in the Communion prayer.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 44, a. 3 (objections, sed contra from Mark 7, corpus, four replies) — with Wisdom 1, John 3, Luke 21, Acts 4, Hebrews 2, Jerome on Matthew 9 and 21, Origen on John, Augustine on John 18, Luke 4, John 8, Cyril on Luke 4, Chrysostom on Mark 8/John 2/Matthew, Bede on Mark 8, Deuteronomy 32, John 7, John 5, John 9.
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 44, a. 4 (objections, sed contra from Wisdom, corpus, four replies) — with Luke 5, John 21, Matthew 8, Chrysostom and Hilary on Matthew, Augustine on John.

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (moral virtues taken before the virtues of reason), with Thomas’s two reasons.
• Aristotle, Metaphysics V (inferred) — three senses of “perfect,” then creaturely vs. divine perfection.
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles III (the vision of God satisfying all desire).
• Rule of St. Benedict (abstinence from four-footed beasts) — as he reports it.
• Thackeray, Vanity Fair; Shakespeare, Hamlet (a passing pun on “brute”/Brutus).

His questions #

• Why did Christ work bodily miracles rather than miracles on souls? Because miracles are proportioned to their end: curing particular bodies shows him universal and spiritual savior; the healing of souls is the end of the miracles, not itself a visible miracle.
• Why does wisdom presuppose justification? Because wisdom does not enter an evil-willing soul; and as in Aristotle’s order of virtues, moral virtue disposes for the virtues of reason — true in the supernatural order too.
• Why does Christ not justify men against their will? Because that would be against justice, which involves rightness of will, and against human nature, which is led to the good by free judgment, not force.
• Why did the blind man of Mark 8 get cured by stages and by spittle? Because Christ saves through the mystery of the Incarnation, his flesh being the instrument; and to show the magnitude of human blindness and the steps by which grace leads us.
• What are the senses of “perfect”? Having all one’s parts; having the whole power of one’s kind; having reached one’s end — God being universally perfect, having the perfections of all genera simply.
• Why cure the body to prove power over sin, when forgiving sin is greater? Because forgiving sin is not manifest to the senses; he does the more manifest lesser thing to demonstrate the greater and hidden one.
• Why did Christ sometimes forbid and sometimes command publishing a miracle? We should forbid what is told for our own praise, and enjoin what refers to the glory of God.
• Why no miracles on brute animals? Because brutes are nearest to man in nature and made on the same day, so miracles on human bodies suffice; fish, made on a different day, did receive miracles.
• Was the fig tree punished unjustly? To ask how justly it was dried is “the ultimate madness”: there is neither guilt nor punishment in plants; the miracle signifies severity toward the contumacious.
• Did the multiplication of loaves involve creation? No — extraneous matter was converted into bread, as nature multiplies from a few grains.
• Do we have the power to veil ourselves in heaven, as Christ did? Left open; he answers only by the joke of “Guess who?” and that a mother’s power over you “won’t be taken away.”