The Judicial Power of Christ and the Last Judgment (Summa III, Q. 59)

Orientation #

He begins simply: “59 here. Then we ought to consider about the judicial power of Christ,” and lists the six articles. He notes Thomas defers the carrying out of the final judgment to eschatology, treating here only what pertains to Christ’s dignity. He ends the class — and with it the treatise — on Thomas’s own closing words that what has been said of the mystery of the Incarnation suffices for the present.

The class, in order #

1. The six articles and what is deferred (“more conveniently it will be treated”) #

The plan: (1) whether judicial power is attributed to Christ; (2) whether as man; (3) whether obtained by merit; (4) whether universal over all men; (5) whether a general future judgment is still to be expected; (6) whether it extends to the angels. The execution of the last judgment belongs to the treatise on the end of the world, “eschatology as they call it.”

2. Article 1: judgment appropriated to the Son (“three things are required”) #

Objections he calls good ones: judging pertains to lordship, which is the whole Trinity’s (Rom 14); Daniel 7 has the Ancient of Days — the Father, “eternity,” per Hilary — sitting in judgment; convicting pertains to the Holy Spirit (“He will convict the world of sin”). Sed contra: Acts 10, “constituted by God the Judge of the living and the dead.”

Three things required for judgment:

1. power of coercing the subjects (Ecclus. 7: do not seek to be judge unless able by power to break iniquities);
2. zeal of rectitude — judging from love of justice, not hatred (Prov. 3);
3. wisdom, by which the judgment is formed (Ecclus. 10, “the wise judge judges his own people”).

The first two are presupposed; the third gives judgment its form, since the reason of judgment is the law of wisdom or truth. Hence judgment is properly appropriated to the Son, the generated wisdom and truth of the Father. Augustine, On True Religion: the unchangeable truth is the law of all arts and the art of the omnipotent artist; we judge rightly only when we adhere to it; truth itself judges — “neither does the Father judge anyone… but gives all judgment to the Son.”

His own gloss: the argument is from the divine nature, from what is appropriated — wisdom to the Son, power to the Father, zeal of rectitude to the Holy Spirit. Parallel he draws: when Thomas treats order, he first says distinction belongs to order, then corrects himself — distinction is presupposed; order really consists in before and after. So here: power to judge is presupposed; judgment itself is an act of reason, tied to wisdom.

Replies: (1) the objection proves judicial power common to the whole Trinity, “which is true,” but by appropriation it is the Son’s. (2) Augustine, De Trinitate VI: eternity to the Father as having no beginning, the Son as the Father’s art; so authority of judging is the Father’s as principle of the Son, the ratio of judgment the Son’s — as the Father makes all through the Son as His art, He judges all through Him as His wisdom; Daniel 7 itself has the Son of Man coming to the Ancient of Days and receiving power, honour, kingdom. (3) Augustine on John: the Spirit convicts by diffusing charity in our hearts, casting out fear — so judgment belongs to the Spirit not as to the ratio of judgment but as to the effect of judging in men. He connects this to the second requirement: “you have to have charity before you can judge, but you judge by your wisdom.”

Aside: a student notes John’s “because he is the Son of Man” — he defers it to article 2.

3. Article 2: judicial power as man (“this pertains to the grace of the head”) #

Objections: judgment belongs to the Son as the law of first truth, i.e. as God; reward is eternal beatitude, and Augustine says the soul is made blessed by partaking of God, not of a holy soul; judging the secrets of hearts is God’s alone (1 Cor. 4; Jer. 17 — “I the Lord, examining hearts”). Sed contra: John 5:27, “He gave Him power to make judgment, because He is the Son of Man.”

Chrysostom’s reading: do not marvel that He is Son of Man — He judges not because He is man but because He is the ineffable Son of God, proved by the resurrection (“all who are in monuments will hear the voice of the Son of God”). Thomas answers otherwise: judicial power is committed by God to men over those subject to their jurisdiction (Deut. 1, “it is a judgment of God,” i.e. by whose authority you judge — he recalls the apostles); and Christ even in His human nature is head of the whole Church with all things under His feet. So John 5:27 means: not by the condition of human nature (else all men would have it, as Chrysostom objects), but by the grace of the head. He remarks on the boldness: “he seems to be disagreeing with the great Chrysostom there… seeing something that maybe Chrysostom didn’t know.”

Three reasons it belongs to Him as man:

1. affinity with men — as God works through intermediate causes nearer their effects, He judges men through the man Christ, “that more sweet might be the judgment” (Heb. 4: a high priest who can suffer with our infirmities; go with confidence to the throne of grace);
2. the resurrection of bodies is wrought through the Son of Man, as souls are vivified through the Son of God;
3. Augustine: the judged must see the judge, and both good and bad are judged; the form of the servant is shown to both, the form of God kept for the good. His gloss: the bad cannot see Christ in His divine nature, for then they would be blessed.

Replies: (1) judgment pertains to truth as to its rule; a man imbued with truth judges as being in some way one with it, “a certain living law and justice” — “the spiritual one judges all” (1 Cor. 2); Christ’s soul is most united to and filled with truth (“full of grace and truth”), so judging all belongs most of all to it. His aside: in God wisdom and justice are the same thing — “our judges are not full of truth.” (2) To make souls blessed by partaking of Him is God’s alone; to bring men to beatitude as head and author of salvation is Christ’s (Heb. 2). (3) Knowing the secrets of hearts belongs per se to God alone, but from the refluxus of divinity to Christ’s soul it belongs to Him too (Rom. 2, God will judge the hidden things of men through Jesus Christ).

Asides: someone said “I want to be holy so I could be closer to Christ”; he replied it is the other way round — the closer to Christ, the holier. And on Our Lady: she must know each of us, since everyone asks her to intercede, whereas a particular saint may know only those attached to him; he recalls St Alphonsus quoting a theologian that the Mother of Christ received a kind of power of discretion over what we need; and the retort to Protestants, “God trusted Himself to the Blessed Mother — do you think you can trust yourself to her?”

4. Article 3: whether He obtained it by merit (“nothing prevents one and the same”) #

Objections: judicial power follows royal dignity (Prov. 20), which Christ had without merit as only-begotten (Luke 1); it belongs to Him as head, and the grace of the head follows the personal union, not merit (John 1); “the spiritual one judges all,” and man is spiritual by grace, which is not from merit (Rom. 11). Sed contra: Job 36 and Augustine — the judge will sit who stood under the judge, and will condemn the guilty who was Himself falsely made guilty.

The answer turns on one principle: nothing prevents one and the same thing being owed to someone from diverse causes — as the glory of the risen body was owed to Christ both from His divinity and the glory of His soul and from the merit of His humble passion. So judicial power belongs to the man Christ from the dignity of the divine person, from the fullness of habitual grace, and also from merit, by God’s justice that He be judge who fought and conquered for God’s justice and was unjustly judged (Apoc. 3, “I have conquered, and I sit on the throne of my Father”; Ps. 9, “who sits upon the throne and judges justice”). The three replies distribute the objections: the first proceeds from the union to the Word, the second from the grace of the head, the third from habitual grace — none of which excludes merit.

Asides: on Ps. 109 — He seems king by divine generation, but not priest by divine generation; “God can’t be a priest” in the divine nature. A student asks whether the objection denies merit altogether; he answers that without merit He would still have the power, “we’ll see what the master says.”

5. Article 4: over all human things (“whoever is committed the chief”) #

Objections: “Man, who has constituted me a judge or a divider over you?” (Luke 12); not all things are yet subject to Him (Ps. 109, enemies as footstool); Augustine, City of God XX — the divine judgment that good and bad are sometimes afflicted, sometimes prosper, held before the Incarnation too. Sed contra: John 5, the Father gave all judgment to the Son.

As God, evidently: as the Father made all things by His Word, He judges all by His Word. As man, three reasons:

1. the relation of Christ’s soul to the Word — if the spiritual man judges all insofar as his mind adheres to the Word, multo magis the soul of Christ, full of the truth of the Word. He calls this “a nice argument,” an a fortiori;
2. the merit of His death — “in this Christ died and rose, that He might have dominion over the living and the dead” (Rom. 14; all will stand before Christ’s tribunal; Dan. 7, all peoples, tribes and tongues serve Him);
3. comparison to the end: whoever is committed the chief is committed the accessory; all human things are ordered to beatitude, to which men are admitted or repelled by Christ’s judgment. His aside: “all idle words.”

Replies: (1) judicial power follows royal dignity, but Christ, though constituted king, did not wish while on earth to administer His earthly kingdom (“My kingdom is not of this world”) nor exert judicial power over temporal things, having come to transfer men to divine things — Ambrose: well did He decline earthly things, who descended on account of divine things, nor deem to be arbiter of property disputes, He who has the judgment of the living and the dead and of their merits. (2) All are subject as regards the power received from the Father (Matt. 28), not yet as regards the execution, which will be fulfilled in saving some and punishing others. (3) Before the Incarnation these judgments were exercised by Christ as Word; His soul became partaker of that power by the Incarnation — in human nature He was not then inflicting punishments, “because human nature didn’t exist at that time.”

Aside: the Luke 12 dispute reminds him of “the squabble there among the grandchildren.”

6. Article 5: why a general judgment is still needed (“a judgment about a changeable thing”) #

Objections: after the last payment of rewards a final judgment is in vain — the good thief “today… in paradise,” the rich man buried in hell; Nahum (in another version), God will not judge twice in the same matter; merit and demerit belong to the body only as instrument of the soul, so no further bodily judgment is required. Sed contra: John 12, “the word I have spoken will judge you on the last day.”

The principle: a judgment about a changeable thing cannot be given perfectly before its consummation — as an action cannot be perfectly judged before it is completed in itself and in its effects, since many actions that look useful prove harmful (he links this to the integral part of prudence concerned with the bad that can come of seemingly good acts); so a man cannot be perfectly judged until life ends, since he can change good to bad, good to better, bad to worse (Heb. 9, to die once, after this judgment).

But though temporal life ends in itself, it depends secundum quid on future things in five ways: (i) his memory and fame among men, sometimes false; (ii) his sons, who are something of the father (Ecclesiasticus: his father is dead and he is as it were not dead — yet good men have bad sons and the reverse); (iii) the effects of his works — Arius’s deception breeding infidelity to the end of the world, the apostles’ preaching carrying the faith to now; (iv) his body, honourably buried, or left unburied, or incinerated; (v) the things in which he fixed his affection, some lasting longer than others. “Quite a collection of things he’s got.” All these fall under divine evaluation, so a perfect and manifest judgment cannot be had until the course of time ends.

Replies: (1) against the opinion that souls are neither rewarded nor punished until the judgment day — Paul’s “we have a good will to wander from the body and be present to the Lord,” now not by faith but by sight, which is to see God by essence, eternal life (John 17). After death man has an immutable status as to the soul, so the soul’s reward is not deferred; but other things pertaining to him unfold through the whole course of time, and though he neither merits nor demerits by these, they pertain to him as reward or punishment, so all must be brought to judgment at the end. He calls it “very interesting analysis.” (2) God does not judge twice in the same respect; according to diverse things He may. (3) The soul, changeable only per accidens on account of the body, receives its judgment at once on separation; the body remains subject to mutability to the end of time and so receives its own reward or punishment then.

Aside on novissimo die: “quite a day, the last day… the most new day.” And a story of a film with souls in hell, a woman standing up: “But I never took more than thirty percent.”

7. Article 6: judicial power over the angels (“not as regards the essential one”) #

Objections: angels were judged at the beginning of the world, some falling, some confirmed, and the judged need no second judgment; angels come with Christ to judge (Matt. 25) — a student extends this to the apostles, who also come with Him; angels are superior to other creatures, so Christ would judge all creatures, which belongs to divine providence alone (Job 34). Sed contra: “we will judge the angels” — and the saints judge only by Christ’s authority.

Three reasons it belongs to Him in His human nature:

1. nearness of the assumed nature to God — He took not angels but the seed of Abraham (Heb. 2), so Christ’s soul is fuller of the truth of the Word than any angel, and enlightens the angels (Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy ch. 7), hence has the right to judge them;
2. by the humility of His passion human nature merited exaltation above the angels (Phil. 2, every knee bending in heaven, earth and hell; Apoc. 7, all the angels standing around the throne);
3. by reason of things done about men, of whom Christ is spiritually head — angels are ministering spirits sent for those who receive salvation (Heb. 1:14).

Three respects follow: (a) the dispensation of what is done through them, which comes about through the man Christ, whom the angels serve and from whom the demons asked to be sent into the pigs; (b) accidental rewards of good angels — joy over one sinner doing penance (Luke 15) — and accidental punishments of demons, tortured here or shut in hell (“What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”); (c) essential reward and punishment of angels, which was done by Christ as Word from the beginning of the world. His summary: accidental rewards and punishments belong to Him as man, not the essential ones, which are tied to the divine nature — and that is the reply to objection 1.

Replies (2): though the spiritual one judges all, he is judged by truth itself (Augustine, On True Religion); so angels judge as spiritual, yet are judged by Christ as truth itself. (3) Christ has judgment not only over angels but over the administration of every creature: Augustine, De Trinitate III — the lower are ruled by God through the higher, and all must be ruled by Christ’s soul, which is above every creature; “God did not subject to the angels the future orb of the earth,” but to Him of whom we spoke. Nor did God constitute another over the earth, “because one and the same is God and the man, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

8. Closing (“the things said suffice”) #

Thomas ends: of the mystery of the Incarnation, for the present, what has been said suffices. He notes Aristotle ends a book the same way — “this is enough for the time.” His advice: read the Gospels again, then come back and read this again, back and forth. “Words and things, things and words.”

His words #

• appropriation — judicial power is common to the whole Trinity but attributed to the Son because wisdom is appropriated to Him.
• ratio of judgment — the reason/definition/form of judgment, i.e. the law of wisdom or truth by which one judges; distinguished from the effect of judging and from the authority of judging.
• grace of the head — the grace Christ took in human nature as head of the whole Church; the true sense of “because He is the Son of Man.”
• living law and justice — the man imbued with truth judges as one in some way with truth itself.
• refluxus (“reflux of divinity”) — the overflow to Christ’s soul whereby He knows and judges the hidden things of hearts.
• secundum quid — how a man’s temporal life, ended in itself, still depends on future things (fame, sons, effects, body, affections).
• novissimo die — the last day; he glosses it “the most new day.”
• accidental vs. essential reward/punishment — of angels and demons; Christ as man judges the accidental, as Word the essential.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 59, aa. 1–6 (whole question, objections, bodies, replies)

Mentioned (as cited within the question)

• Scripture: Rom. 14; Dan. 7; John 5:27, 12, 17; Acts 10; Ecclus. 7, 10; Prov. 3, 20; 1 Cor. 2, 4; Jer. 17; Heb. 1:14, 2, 4, 9; Deut. 1; Luke 1, 12, 15, 16; Matt. 25, 28; Ps. 9, 109; Apoc. 3, 7; Job 34, 36; Phil. 2; Rom. 2, 11, 14; Nahum; Ecclesiasticus
• Augustine, On True Religion; De Trinitate III and VI; Tractates on John; City of God XX; On the Words of the Lord
• Chrysostom, commentary on John; Hilary; Ambrose; Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy ch. 7; St Alphonsus (aside)

His questions #

• Why is judicial power attributed to the Son rather than to the Father, the Spirit, or the whole Trinity? It is common to the whole Trinity, but appropriated to the Son because the form of judgment is wisdom, and He is generated wisdom and truth.
• Which of the three requirements for judgment gives judgment its form? Wisdom; power and zeal of rectitude are presupposed, as distinction is presupposed to order rather than constituting it.
• Does judicial power belong to Christ as man? Yes — not by the condition of human nature, but by the grace of the head; against Chrysostom.
• Why must the judge be seen in His human nature? Because both good and bad are judged and must see the judge, and the bad cannot see the form of God.
• Did Christ obtain judicial power by merit? Yes, also by merit — since nothing prevents the same thing being owed from diverse causes, alongside the divine person, the grace of the head, and habitual grace.
• Does His judgment extend to all human things? Yes, by the fullness of truth in His soul, by the merit of His death, and because all human things are accessory to beatitude.
• Why a general judgment if each soul is judged at death? Because a man’s life still depends on later things — fame, sons, the effects of his works, his body, his affections — and the body remains changeable till the end of time.
• Does Christ’s judicial power reach the angels? Yes, as to accidental rewards and punishments by His human nature; the essential ones He effected as Word from the beginning of the world.