Christ Sitting at the Right Hand of the Father (Summa III, Q. 58)

Orientation #

He opens with an aside on Psalm 35 (36) — God’s justice above the mountains, truth above the clouds, mercy above the heavens — and Thomas’s remark on the gradation there. Then: “now we are to consider about the sitting of Christ,” i.e. Summa Theologiae III, q. 58, whose four articles he reads and comments on in order.

The class, in order #

1. The four articles and the word “session” (“Do we get the word session?”) #

The division of the question: (1) whether it belongs to Christ to sit at the Father’s right; (2) whether this belongs to him according to his divine nature; (3) according to his human nature; (4) whether it is private to Christ.

• He notes the English “session” (as of Congress) comes from this sitting.
• Translation quarrel: for proprium he says “private,” not “appropriate,” because “appropriate” is exactly what articles 2–3 are about (appropriation); “I scandalize people by translating… I’m kind of stubborn about that.”

2. Article 1, objections (“right and left are differences of bodily positions”) #

Three objections that Christ should not be said to sit at the Father’s right:

1. Right and left are differences of bodily position, but nothing bodily belongs to God, who is spirit (John 4). — Aside: political “right and left” he supposes came from the French seating.
2. If Christ sits at the Father’s right, the Father sits at the Son’s left, which is unfitting.
3. Sitting and standing are opposed, but Stephen sees “the Son of Man standing at the right hand of the Power of God” (Acts 7). Sed contra: Mark 16 (last chapter) — after speaking to them he was taken up into heaven and sat at the right of God.

3. Article 1, body: two senses of sitting (“in the name of sitting, we can understand two things”) #

Sitting means (a) rest or dwelling — Luke 24, “sit here in the city”; and (b) royal or judicial power — Proverbs 20, the king who sits in the seat of judgment scatters evil with his gaze. Both belong to Christ:

• As dwelling: he remains eternally in the Father’s beatitude, which is called his “right” — Psalm 15, “delights at thy right hand forever.” Augustine (On the Creed): “he sits” = “he dwells,” as we say a man “sat” three years in his own country.
• As power: he rules with the Father and has judicial power from him, as the man at the king’s right assists in ruling and judging. Augustine (another sermon on the creed): the right is that power which that man received from God, who will come to judge and who before came to be judged. He flags that Thomas draws on two different sermons of Augustine: “you must read him carefully, frequently.”

4. Article 1, replies (“who is not able to have a line drawn around him”) #

1. Damascene: we do not assign a local place to the Father’s right; right and left belong to things circumscribed — “who cannot have a line drawn around him.” (His own habitual rendering of circumscribere, as with drawing a line around happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics.) The Father’s right is the glory and honour of his divinity.
2. The second objection proceeds from a bodily reading. Augustine: taken carnally, Christ on the right would put the Father on the left. But in eternal beatitude everything is on the right, because there is no misery there. — He adds the human case: the king’s right-hand man does not make the king inferior by being on the left. The student point that right is a relative, impossible without a left (“no taller without a shorter”), is met by refusing the bodily sense. He notes that Thomas does not here call it a metaphor, and suggests it may rather be the way one takes a familiar perfection and removes its limitation; sometimes the metaphor lies on the side of that from which the name is taken rather than that to which it is applied — “it’s a difficult thing.”
3. Gregory (Homily on the Ascension): to sit belongs to one judging, to stand to one fighting or aiding. Stephen, in the labour of the fight, sees him standing as helping — “don’t just sit there, help me.” Mark describes him sitting after the Ascension, because after the glory of the Assumption he will be seen as judge at the end.

5. Article 2, objections and body: three senses of “right” (“by the name of right, three things are able to be understood”) #

Objections that this does not belong to him as God: (1) as God Christ is the Father’s right (dextera), and to be someone’s right is not the same as to sit at it; (2) Mark 16 says he was assumed into heaven and sat — but he was not assumed as God (“it’s a good argument”); (3) as God he is equal to Father and Holy Spirit, so the Spirit would sit at their right and the Father at the Son’s, which is never found. Sed contra: Damascene — the right of the Father is the glory and honour of his divinity, in which the Son existed before the ages, consubstantial to the Father. (Aside: “consubstantial” is back in the new translation of the creed.) Body: three things under “right” — the glory of divinity (Damascene), the beatitude of the Father (Augustine), the judicial power (same Augustine); sitting signifies indwelling or kingly-judicial dignity. So to sit at the right is, together with the Father, to have the glory of divinity, beatitude, and judicial power unchangeably — which belongs to the Son as God. The preposition ad (“at”), being transitive, implies only personal distinction and order of origin, not a grade of nature or dignity.

• Digression on ad: why not say this of John’s Gospel, ho logos ēn pros ton theon — a “singular ad”; in logic they translate pros ti as ad aliquid. He does not know why Thomas is silent here — “maybe he just passed it along. Pass the buck.”
• Student trivia point: this article gives three senses (of “right”) because the first gave two (of “sitting”) — “that’s just noise.”

6. Article 2, replies and the student’s difficulty about appropriation (“appropriations are curious or peculiar”) #

Reply 1: the Son is called the Father’s right by appropriation, as he is called the Father’s power/virtue; but the right of the Father in the three foresaid meanings is common to the three persons.

• A student presses: an appropriation is something common to all three, yet said of one because it helps understand something of that one; so Thomas’s “but it is common to the three” seems to deny that this is an appropriation. He agrees the point is unclear — perhaps Thomas is speaking elliptically, or the student is putting more into the text than is there; “we have Article Four where we’re going to find out whether it’s private or not. It’ll be more clear at that point.” Left unresolved. Reply 2: the second argument refers to his human nature — as man Christ is assumed to divine honour; but that honour belongs to him as God by eternal origin from the Father, not by assumption. So he can sit in his divine nature too. Reply 3: the Father can in no way be said to sit at the right of Son or Spirit, since they draw origin from him and not the reverse; the Holy Spirit is properly said to sit at the right of Father and Son, though by a certain appropriation it is attributed to the Son, to whom equality is appropriated — Augustine: in the Father unity, in the Son equality, in the Holy Spirit the connection of unity and equality.
• Joke: “I thought God hates equality — but doesn’t he love his Son?”

7. Article 3: as man (“according as he is man, in the greater goods of God”) #

Objections: (1) the right is the glory and honour of divinity, which does not belong to Christ as man; (2) sitting at the right of the ruler excludes subjection, but as man he is subject to the Father (1 Cor 15); (3) the gloss on Romans 8 and Hebrews 1:3 makes the right mean equality with the Father, above all in place and dignity — but as man he is not equal to God, “not even equal to himself,” since “the Father is greater than I” (John 14). Sed contra: Augustine — that power which that man received from God, that he might come to judge, who before came to be judged. Body: ad designates an approach, a coming-together with a distinction, understood three ways:

1. agreement in nature, distinction of person — Christ as Son of God sits at the right, in equality with the Father;
2. by the grace of union, which reverses this (distinction of natures, unity of person) — so Christ as man is the Son of God and consequently sits at the right, “secundum quod” designating not the condition of the nature but the unity of the suppositum;
3. by habitual grace, more abundant in Christ than in all creatures — his human nature is more blessed than any creature and has royal and judicial power above all. Hence: if secundum quod designates the condition of nature, as God he sits in equality with the Father; as man, in the more potent goods of the Father above all creatures (greater beatitude and judicial power). If it designates unity of suppositum, then as man he sits by unity of honour, since we venerate the Son of God with the assumed human nature by the same honour.

• Example: the Eucharist — you honour that human nature as God, because of the divine person there.
• Aside (student): there is no feast for the session; he answers it would be understood in the Ascension — “so maybe it’s not appropriate for one of your sermons.”

8. Article 3, replies, and the care needed about “creature” (“Thomas says you shouldn’t be saying Christ is a creature”) #

Reply 1: Christ’s humanity by the conditions of its nature has not the glory of the divine nature, but has it by reason of the person to whom it belongs; Damascene adds that the Son, consubstantial with the Father, sits and is glorified with him in his flesh — one hypostasis, one adoration with his flesh by every creature. (Aside: “I think Mohammedans are going along with that. That’s no problem.”) Reply 2: as man he is subject to the Father where secundum quod means the condition of nature; on that reading he does not sit by equality, but he does sit as designating excellence of beatitude and judicial power above every creature in his human nature. Reply 3: equality with the Father pertains to the person assuming, not to the assumed nature; being in the greater goods of God, as implying excess over other creatures, belongs to the assumed nature.

• Occasioned by a question about the “Divine Praises” at Benediction: praise goes to humanity and divinity, but the human nature only as joined to the divine person.
• The subtle point: one may say the human nature of Christ is a creature, but not “Christ is a creature,” since “creature” names a hoc aliquid, a person — and this person is not a creature. Test case: “would you say my finger is a creature?” — there is one creature here, the suppositum.

9. Article 4: is it private to Christ? (“the much awaited question”) #

Objections: (1) Ephesians 2 — he revived us and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; being revived is not private to Christ. (He notes the text lacks the phrase “at the right,” and recalls Scripture’s “if we die with him we shall reign with him” — “why not sit with him?”) (2) Augustine: to sit at the right is to dwell in his beatitude, which belongs to many. (3) Apocalypse 3 — “who overcomes, I will give him to sit with me on my throne, as I have conquered and sit with my Father in his throne” (“it’s a pretty good argument”). (4) Matthew 20 — to sit at my right or left is not mine to give, but to those for whom it is prepared by my Father; said in vain unless prepared for someone. Sed contra: Hebrews 1 — to which of the angels has he said, “Sit at my right?” But angels are superior to other creatures; much less does it belong to others. Body: Christ sits at the right as by his divine nature equal to the Father and by his human nature in an excellent possession of divine goods above all creatures; both belong to Christ alone; therefore to no angel or man does it belong.

10. Article 4, replies: head and members, thrones, and who asks (“because he is our head”) #

Reply 1: because Christ is our head, what is given to Christ is given in him to us; as he is already revived, the Apostle says God revivifies us in him, though we are not yet raised but to be raised (Romans 8) — and in the same manner of speaking, that he will make us sit in heavenly places, namely in that our head sits there. He remarks this is a striking move: not “not quite equal,” but “because our head is there.” Reply 2: the right being divine beatitude, to sit at the right does not signify simply to be in beatitude, but to have beatitude with a certain lordly power, private and natural, which belongs to Christ alone. Yet every saint in beatitude may be said to be constituted at God’s right — Matthew 25, “put the sheep on the right.”

• Discussion: does that place the saints above the angels? Not by nature; some by grace — Mary is above the angels by grace, and some saints may be, not necessarily all. On 1 Corinthians (“we shall judge angels”) he reports Thomas’s answer, given to a questioner (Ray McLear): Paul says “we,” not “you” — so perhaps Paul will, not everybody; one explanation among others. Reply 3: “throne” signifies the judicial power Christ has from the Father, so he sits on the Father’s throne; other saints have it from Christ, so they sit on Christ’s throne — Matthew 19, “you shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes.” Hence the Apocalypse text is not the Father’s throne for us but Christ’s, a communicated power of judging. Reply 4: Chrysostom on Matthew — that place is inaccessible and unapproachable to all, not only men but angels, as Paul makes it special to the Only-begotten; the Lord answered by condescending to the asking, that they might ask only what was to stand before others. And the sons of Zebedee asked an excellence over others in sharing his judicial power: they asked the right and left of Christ, not of the Father.

11. Digression on rank among the saints (“Mary having the highest place”) #

He recalls Thomas’s discussion of who is greater, Peter (head of the Church) or John (whom Jesus especially loved): arguments both ways, and finally “maybe we shouldn’t try to decide this.” But Thomas is clear that Mary has the highest place, then the apostles, by their proximity to Christ; it is foolish to try to be equal to Mary or even to the apostles.

• Asides, prompted by a statue of St. Joseph in the room (moved indoors for the cold): he would rank Joseph after the Blessed Mother, and John the Baptist perhaps after the apostles; the rule of prayer is the rule of faith — in the churches of St. Paul there was always a side chapel to Mary and one to Joseph; St. Teresa of Avila, sorry that Joseph’s feast fell in Lent, celebrated alone in her cell with a drum and a horn; the Enchiridion of Indulgences has six litanies — three of Christ (Sacred Heart, Precious Blood, Holy Name), one of Mary, one of Joseph, one of All Saints.
• He ends: “take a little break now, if it’s appropriate between two questions.”

His words #

• “session” / “sitting” — the English word for this article’s subject, as in a session of Congress.
• “private” [ed.: proprium, usually "proper"] — his deliberate rendering in a. 4, refused as “appropriate” because appropriation is the topic of aa. 2–3.
• “to have a line drawn around him” [ed.: circumscribed] — his habitual rendering, as with drawing a line around happiness in the Ethics.
• “the right” (dextera) — three meanings: glory of divinity (Damascene), beatitude of the Father (Augustine), judicial power (Augustine).
• “ad” — a transitive preposition implying personal distinction and order of origin only; compared with pros ton theon (John 1) and pros ti / ad aliquid in logic.
• “secundum quod” (“according as”) — either the condition of the nature or the unity of the suppositum.
• “suppositum” / “hoc aliquid” — what “creature” properly names; hence “Christ is a creature” is not to be said.
• “appropriation” — what is common to the three persons but said of one because it helps understand something of that one (a student’s formula, which he accepts as the difficulty).

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 58, aa. 1–4 (whole question, objections, sed contra, body, replies)

Mentioned (within those articles or by him)

• Psalm 35/36 (justice above the mountains, mercy above the heavens) — opening aside
• John 4 (God is spirit); John 14 (“the Father is greater than I”); John 1 (ho logos ēn pros ton theon)
• Acts 7 (Stephen sees the Son of Man standing); Mark 16 (assumed into heaven, sat at God’s right)
• Luke 24 (“sit here in the city”); Proverbs 20 (the king in the seat of judgment); Psalm 15 (“delights at thy right hand”)
• 1 Corinthians 15 (subject to the Father); 1 Corinthians (“we shall judge angels”); Romans 8 (twice); Hebrews 1 and 1:3; Ephesians 2; Apocalypse 3; Matthew 19, 20, 25
• Damascene, De fide orthodoxa IV; Augustine, two sermons on the Creed, and De Trinitate (inferred) for unity/equality/connection; Gregory, Homily on the Ascension; Chrysostom on Matthew
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (circumscribing happiness); Enchiridion of Indulgences

His questions #

• Do we get the word “session” from this? — Yes, as in a session of Congress.
• Should proprium be translated “appropriate” or “private”? — “Private,” since appropriation is what aa. 2–3 treat.
• What two things can be understood by “sitting”? — Rest or dwelling, and royal or judicial power.
• If Christ is at the Father’s right, is the Father at his left? — No; taken carnally it would follow, but in beatitude all is on the right, since there is no misery there.
• Why does Thomas not call this a metaphor? — Left open; perhaps it is a perfection taken with its limitation removed, the metaphor lying on the side from which the name is taken.
• Why three meanings here when article 1 gave two? — Three of “the right,” two of “sitting”; “that’s just noise.”
• Is Thomas denying that the Son’s being the Father’s “right” is an appropriation? — Unresolved; he suspects Thomas speaks elliptically and defers to article 4.
• May we say Christ is a creature? — No; “creature” names a suppositum, and this person is not a creature; at most the human nature is.
• Is the session private to Christ? — Yes; equality with the Father and excellence over all creatures belong to him alone.
• Will the saints sit above the angels? — Not by nature; some by grace, as Mary is, but not necessarily all.
• Is there a feast of the Session? — No; it is understood in the Ascension.