Torah of Yeshuah: JESUS CHRIST OUR SAVIOUR

Prayers to Our Lord , Jesus Christ

Ejaculations and Invocations Lord Jesus, Let Me Know Myself
We Adore Thee Commemoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Lord, Jesus Daily Offering to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Aufer a me cor lapideum (Take From Me My Heart of Stone) O Divine Heart of Jesus
Domine Iesu, noverim me (Lord Jesus, Let me Know Myself) O Indescribable Beauty of God Most High
Most Sweet Jesus, Redeemer O Father of Mercies
Prayer of St. Genesius O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
Tu es, Deus, omnia nostra (Thou Art, O God, Our All) Act of Reparation
Iesu Infans Dulcissime (Jesus, Sweetest Child) Prayers in honor of the Most Precious Blood
Commemoration of the Cross Lord Jesus Christ
By the Sign of the Cross Commemoration of the Most Holy Name of Jesus
O God, Who for Our Sake O Good Jesus
O God, Who Didst Will Bestow upon us
Hail, Holy Cross, Our Strength Psalter of Jesus
Prayer Before a Crucifix Seven Prayers of St. Gregory on the Passion of the Lord
O Good Cross O God, Who by the Passion of Thine Only-begotten Son
Save Me, O Holy Cross We Offer Thee, Lord Jesus
Prayer in honor of the Mysteries of the Risen Christ Act of Consecration, to Christ the King
I adore Thee, O Precious Blood
The Consecration Of Oneself To Jesus Christ, Incarnate Wisdom, By The Hands Of Mary
Prayers in Honor of His Holy Name

Prayer in Honor of the Most Holy and Adorable Name of Jesus Thirty-Three Petitions in Honor of the
Sacred Humanity

Hymns in Honor of God the Son

Iesu, dulcis memoria (Jesus, the very thought of Thee)
Iesu decus angelicum (O Jesus, Thou the Beauty Art)
Iesu Rex admirabilis (O Jesus, King Most Wonderful)
Iesu, dulcis memoria
Iesu, Dulcis Memoria is a celebrated 12th century hymn attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), Doctor Mellifluus. The entire hymn has some 42 to 53 stanzas depending upon the manuscript. Parts of this hymn were used for the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. The part below was used at Vespers.

Latin:  English:
Jesu, dúlcis memória,
Dans véra córdis gáudia:
Sed super mel et ómnia
Ejus dúlcis præséntia.

Nil cánitur suávius,
Nil audítur jucúndius,
Nil cogitátur dúlcius,
Quam Jésus Déi Fílius.

Jésu, spes pæniténtibus,
Quan píus es peténtibus!
Quan bónus te quæréntibus!
Sed quid inveniéntibus?

Nec língua válet dícere,
Nec líttera exprímere:
Expértus pótest crédere,
Quid sit Jésum dilígere.

Sis, Jésu, nóstrum gáudium,
Qui est futúrus praémium
Sit nóstra in te glória,
Per cúncta semper saécula. Amen. Jesus, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast!
Yet sweeter far Thy face to see
And in Thy Presence rest.

No voice can sing, no heart can frame,
Nor can the memory find,
A sweeter sound than Jesus' Name,
The Savior of mankind.

O hope of every contrite heart!
O joy of all the meek!
To those who fall, how kind Thou art!
How good to those who seek!

But what to those who find? Ah! this
Nor tongue nor pen can show
The love of Jesus, what it is,
None but His loved ones know.

Jesus! our only hope be Thou,
As Thou our prize shalt be;
In Thee be all our glory now,
And through eternity. Amen.
---Roman Breviary

Prayer Source: The Prayer Book by Reverend John P. O'Connell, M.A., S.T.D. and Jex Martin, M.A., The Catholic Press, Inc., Chicago, Illinois, 1954
Bernardine dei Busti wrote the office for the mass of the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, and it makes use of the beautiful 12th century hymn, Iesu Dulcis Memoria which speaks of His Name.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153 A.D.) had a deep devotion to the most Holy Name of Jesus and wrote the hymn "Iesu Dulcis Memoria" which is typically sung on the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus.
An indulgence of 5 years, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions, when this hym is recited daily in a month.
Iesu decus angelicum
This hymn is part of the hymn Iesu, Dulcis Memoria, which has some 42 to 53 stanzas depending upon the manuscript, and is attributed to St. Bernard (1090-1153). This hymn is used at Lauds for the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, which was formerly celebrated on the Sunday between the Circumcision and Epiphany, or failing such a Sunday, on January 2

IESU, decus angelicum,
in aure dulce canticum,
in ore mel mirificum,
in corde nectar caelicum. O JESUS, Thou the beauty art
of Angel worlds above!
Thy name is music to the heart,
enchanting it with love!
Qui te gustant, esuriunt,
qui bibunt, adhuc sitiunt;
desiderare nesciunt,
nisi Iesum, quem diligunt. Celestial sweetness unalloyed!
who eat Thee hunger still,
who drink of Thee still feel a void
which naught but Thou canst fill!
O Iesu mi dulcissime,
spes suspirantis animae!
Te quaerunt piae lacrimae,
Te clamor mentis intimae. O my sweet Jesus! hear the sighs
which unto Thee I send!
to Thee my inmost spirit cries
my being's hope and end!
Mane nobiscum, Domine,
et nos illustra lumine;
Pulsa mentis caligine,
Mundum reple dulcedine. Stay with us, Lord, and with Thy light
illume the soul's abyss;
scatter the darkness of our night
and fill the world with bliss.
Iesu, flos Matris Virginis,
amor nostrae dulcedinis,
Tibi laus, honor nominis,
regnum beatitudinis. Amen. O Jesu! spotless Virgin flower!
our life and joy! to Thee
be praise, beatitude and power,
through all eternity! Amen.
Latin sources: the Raccolta #116 (S. P. Ap., Nov. 22, 1934), Roman Breviary. Translation by Fr. Edward Caswall (1814-1878)
An indulgence of 5 years, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions, when this hym is recited daily in a month.
Iesu Rex admirabilis
Iesu, Rex Admirabilis is part of the hymn Iesu, Dulcis Memoria which is attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153). This hymn was used at Matins for the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, which is celebrated on the Sunday between the Circumcision and Epiphany, or failing such a Sunday, on January 2.

IESU, Rex admirabilis
et triumphator nobilis,
dulcedo ineffabilis,
totus desiderabilis. O JESUS, King most wonderful!
Thou Conqueror renowned!
Thou Sweetness most ineffable!
in whom all joys are found!
Quando cor nostrum visitas,
tunc lucet ei veritas,
mundi vilescit vanitas,
et intus fervet caritas. When once Thou visitest the heart,
then truth begins to shine;
then earthly vanities depart;
then kindles love divine.
Iesu, dulcedo cordium,
fons vivus, lumen mentium,
excedens omne gaudium
et omne desiderium. O Jesu! Light of all below!
Thou font of life and fire!
surpassing all the joys we know,
and all we can desire.
Iesum omnes agnoscite,
amorem eius poscite;
Iesum ardenter quaerite,
quaerendo inardescite. May every heart confess Thy name,
and ever Thee adore;
and seeking Thee, itself inflame
to seek Thee more and more.
Te nostra, Iesu, vox sonet,
nostri te mores exprimant;
te corda nostra diligant
et nunc, et in perpetuum. Amen. Thee may our tongues for ever bless;
Thee may we love alone;
and ever in out lives express
the image of Thine own. Amen.
From the Roman Breviary, see also the Raccolta; #117, (S. C. Ind., June 13, 1815; S. P. Ap., July 16, 1936). Translation by Fr. Edward Caswall (1814-1878)
An indulgence of 5 years, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions, when this hym is recited daily in a month.
Ejaculations and Invocations
My Jesus, mercy
From the Raccolta #70
An indulgence of 300 days, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions, when this invocation is devoutly recited every day for a month.
Sweetest Jesus, be not my Judge, but my Savior
From the Raccolta #71
An indulgence of 300 days, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions, when this invocation is devoutly recited every day for a month.
Jesus, my God, I Love Thee above all things.
From the Raccolta #72
An indulgence of 300 days
Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me
From the Raccolta #73
An indulgence of 500 days, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions, when this invocation is devoutly recited every day for a month.
O my Jesus, Thou who art very Love, enkindle in my heart that dicvine fire which consumes the Saints and transforms them into Thee
From the Raccolta #74
An indulgence of 300 days
Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, light of the world, I adore Thee; for Thee I live for Thee I die. Amen.
From the Raccolta #75
An indulgence of 300 days
Jesus, I live for Thee; Jesus, I die for Thee; Jesus, I am Thine in life and in death. Amen.
From the Raccolta #76
An indulgence of 300 days
O Jesus, life, eternal in the bosom of the Father, life of souls made in Thine own likeness, in the name of Thy love reveal Thy Heart and make It known!
From the Raccolta #77
An indulgence of 300 days
O Jesus, the friend of little children, bless the little children of the whole world.
From the Raccolta #78
An indulgence of 300 days
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God
From the Raccolta #79
An indulgence of 500 days when said before the Blessed Sacrament, even when It is reserved in the tabernacle. A plenary indulgence once a month when this devout homage is offered daily, on condition of confession, Communion and prayer for the intention of the Sovereign Pontiff.
Blessed be Jesus Christ and His most pure Mother!
From the Raccolta #80
An indulgence of 300 days
Jesus, for love of Thee, with Thee and for Thee.
From the Raccolta #81
An indulgence of 300 days
O Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on us!
Jesus, Son of the Virgin Mary, have mercy on us!
O Jesus, King and center of all hearts, grant that peace may be in Thy kingdom.
From the Raccolta #82
An indulgence of 300 days when said conjointly
O Jesus, with all my heart I cling to Thee
From the Raccolta #83
An indulgence of 300 days
O Jesus, be to me Jesus, and save me.
From the Raccolta #84
An indulgence of 300 days, a plenary indulgence on the usual conditions, for the daily and devout recitation of this invocation through one month
Christ Jesus, my helper and my Redeemer
From the Raccolta #85
An indulgence of 300 days, a plenary indulgence on the usual conditions, for the daily and devout recitation of this invocation through one month
Lord Jesus Christ, Thou only art holy, Thou only art the Lord, Thou only art the Most High.
From the Raccolta #86
An indulgence of 500 days, a plenary indulgence on the usual conditions, for the daily and devout recitation of this invocation through one month
O Jesus, grant that I may be Thine, wholly Thine, forever Thine
From the Raccolta #87
An indulgence of 300 days
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, grant us Thy peace.
From the Raccolta #89
An indulgence of 30 days, a plenary indulgence on the usual conditions, for the daily and devout recitation of this invocation through one month
All honor, laud and glory be, O Jesus, Virgin-born to Thee: All glory, as is ever meet, To Father and the Paraclete.
From the Raccolta #90
An indulgence of 500 days, a plenary indulgence on the usual conditions, for the daily and devout recitation of this invocation through one month
Grant unto us, Thy servants, O Lord Jesus Christ, to be protected at all times and in all places by the patronage of Blesses Mary, Thy Virgin Mother.
From the Raccolta #91
An indulgence of 300 days
O sweetest Jesus, hide me in Thy Scared Heart, permit me not to be separated from Thee, defend me from the evil foe.
From the Raccolta #92
An indulgence of 300 days
Lord Jesus, through Thine infant cries when Thou wert born for me in the manger;
through Thy tears when Thou didst die for me on the Cross;
through Thy love as Thou livest for me in the tabernacle,
have mercy on me and save me.
From the Raccolta #93
An indulgence of 300 days, a plenary indulgence on the usual conditions, for the daily and devout recitation of this invocation through one month
My dearest Jesus, teach me to be patient, when all the day long my heart is troubled by little, but vexatious crosses
From the Raccolta #94
An indulgence of 300 days
Lord Jesus, Let Me Know Myself
Written by St. Augustine; (354-430)
Lord Jesus, let me know myself and know Thee,
And desire nothing save only Thee.
Let me hate myself and love Thee.
Let me do everything for the sake of Thee.
Let me humble myself and exalt Thee.
Let me think of nothing except Thee.
Let me die to myself and live in Thee.
Let me accept whatever happens as from Thee.
Let me banish self and follow Thee,
And ever desire to follow Thee.
Let me fly from myself and take refuge in Thee,
That I may deserve to be defended by Thee.
Let me fear for myself, let me fear Thee,
And let me be among those who are chosen by Thee.
Let me distrust myself and put my trust in Thee.
Let me be willing to obey for the sake of Thee.
Let me cling to nothing save only to Thee,
And let me be poor because of Thee.
Look upon me, that I may love Thee.
Call me that I may see Thee,
And for ever enjoy Thee. Amen.
From the Raccolta #88
An indulgence of 500 days, a plenary indulgence on the usual conditions, for the daily and devout recitation of this invocation through one month
We Adore Thee
Shortly before his death in October of 1226, St. Francis wrote his Testament which contained his last thoughts concerning the order he founded. In it he urged his followers to remain faithful to the rules of the order and the prayer below is taken from this work. This prayer by St. Francis was inspired by the Antiphon: Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi; quia per sanctam Crucem tuam redemisti mundi, which was part of the Liturgy for Good Friday. This Antiphon has a long and venerable history as a prayer in and of itself. Pope St. Gregory the Great recommended it (Liber Responsalis, PL 78, 805) as did the monk Arnulphe (Documenta Vitae Religiosae, PL 184, 1177)
WE ADORE Thee, most holy Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all Thy churches that are in the whole world, and we bless Thee; because by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the World. Amen
Lord, Jesus
LORD Jesus,
BY Thine infant cries when Thou wast born for me in the manger,
BY Thy tears when Thou didst die for me on the Cross,
BY Thy love as Thou livest for me in the tabernacle,
Have mercy on me and save me.
From the Raccolta #93 (S. P. Ap., Jan. 20 1941)
An indulgence of 300 days, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions for the daily devout repetition of the invocation .
Aufer a me cor lapideum
Take From Me My Heart of Stone

AUFER a me, Domine, cor lapideum, aufer cor coagulatum, aufer cor incircumcisum; da mihi cor novum, cor carneum, cor mundum! Tu cordis mundator et mundi cordis amator, posside cor meum et inhabita, continens et implens, superior summo meo et interior intimo meo! Tu forma pulchritudinis et signaculum sanctitatis, signa cor meum in imagine tua: signa cor meum sub misericordia tua, Deus cordis mei, et pars mea Deus in aeternum. Amen. O LORD, take away my heart of stone, my hardened heart, my uncircumcised heart and grant to me a new heart, a heart of flesh, a clean heart! O Thou who purifieth the heart and loveth the clean heart, possess my heart and dwell in it, containing it and filling it, higher than my highest and more intimate than my most intimate thoughts. Thou who art the image of all beauty and the seal of all holiness, seal my heart in Thine image and seal my heart in Thy mercy, O God of my heart and the God of my portion in eternity. Amen.
From the Raccolta #88 (Apostolic Brief, Sept. 25, 1883; S. P. Ap. Dec. 17, 1932) & Manuale Christianum
Domine Iesu, noverim me
Lord Jesus, Let me Know Myself
Written by St. Augustine (354-430).

DOMINE Iesu, noverim me, noverim te,
Nec aliquid cupiam nisi te.
Oderim me et amem te.
Omnia agam propter te. LORD Jesus, let me know myself and know Thee,
And desire nothing save only Thee.
Let me hate myself and love Thee.
Let me do everything for the sake of Thee.
Humiliem me, exaltem te.
Nihil cogitem nisi te.
Mortificem me et vivam in te.
Quaecumque eveniant accipiam a te. Let me humble myself and exalt Thee.
Let me think of nothing except Thee.
Let me die to myself and live in Thee.
Let me accept whatever happens as from Thee.
Persequar me, sequar te,
Semperque optem sequi te.
Fugiam me, confugiam ad te,
Ut merear defendi a te. Let me banish self and follow Thee,
And ever desire to follow Thee.
Let me fly from myself and take refuge in Thee,
That I may deserve to be defended by Thee.
Timeam mihi, timeam te,
Et sim inter electos a te.
Diffidam mihi, fidam in te.
Oboedire velim propter te. Let me fear for myself, let me fear Thee,
And let me be among those who are chosen by Thee.
Let me distrust myself and put my trust in Thee.
Let me be willing to obey for the sake of Thee.
Ad nihil afficiar nisi ad te,
Et pauper sim propter te.
Aspice me, ut diligam te.
Voca me, ut videam te,
Et in aeternum fruar te.
Amen. Let me cling to nothing save only to Thee,
And let me be poor because of Thee.
Look upon me, that I may love Thee.
Call me that I may see Thee,
And for ever enjoy Thee.
Amen.
From the Raccolta #88 (Apostolic Brief, Sept. 25, 1883; S. P. Ap. Dec. 17, 1932)
An Indulgence of 500 days, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions for the daily recitation of this prayer
Iesu dulcissime, Redemptor
Most Sweet Jesus, Redeemer

This Act of Dedication of the Human Race to Jesus Christ carries a partial indulgence. If it is recited publicly on the feast of Christ the King, a plenary indulgence is granted.

IESU dulcissime, Redemptor humani generis, respice nos ante conspectum tuum humillime provolutos. Tui sumus, tui esse volumus; quo autem tibi coniuncti firmius esse possimus, en hodie sacratissimo Cordi tuo se quisque nostrum sponte dedicat. Te quidem multi novere nunquam; te, spretis mandatis tuis, multi repudiarunt. Miserere utrorumque, benignissime Iesu, atque ad sanctum Cor tuum rape universos. MOST sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down upon us humbly prostrate before Thee. We are Thine, and Thine we wish to be; but to be more surely united with Thee, behold each one of us freely consecrates himself today to Thy Most Sacred Heart. Many indeed have never known Thee; many, too, despising Thy precepts, have rejected Thee. Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to Thy Sacred Heart.
Rex esto, Domine, nec fidelium tantum qui nullo tempore discessere a te, sed etiam prodigorum filiorum qui te reliquerunt; fac hos, ut domum paternam cito repetant, ne miseria et fame pereant. Be King, O Lord, not only of the faithful who have never forsaken Thee, but also of the prodigal children who have abandoned Thee; grant that they may quickly return to their Father's house, lest they die of wretchedness and hunger.
Rex esto eorum, quos aut opinionum error deceptos habet, aut discordia separatos, eosque ad portum veritatis atque ad unitatem fidei revoca, ut brevi fiat unum ovile et unus pastor. Be King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinions, or whom discord keeps aloof, and call them back to the harbor of truth and the unity of faith, so that soon there may be but one flock and one Shepherd.
Largire, Domine, Ecclesiae tuae securam cum incolumitate libertatem; largire cunctis gentibus tranquillitatem ordinis; perfice, ut ab utroque terrae vertice una resonet vox: Sit laus divino Cordi, per quod nobis parta salus: ipsi gloria et honor in saecula! Amen. Grant, O Lord, to Thy Church assurance of freedom and immunity from harm; give tranquility of order to all nations; make the earth resound from pole to pole with one cry: Praise to the divine Heart that wrought our salvation; to It be glory and honor for ever! Amen.
Enchiridion Indulgentiarum & Raccolta #271
Prayer of St. Genesius
St. Genesius (d c 303) was an actor in Rome, who while taking part in a burlesque parody of baptism, was suddenly converted and then shortly thereafter martyred. His feast is August 25.
THERE is no King but Him whom I have seen. I adore and worship Him, and for His sake, even though I be slain a thousand times, I will always be His. Torments are not able to take Christ from my mouth, nor from my heart. Bitterly do I regret that I detested His Holy Name in holy men, and came so late, like a haughty soldier, to adoring the true King. Amen.
Acts of St. Genesius, Ruinart, p 284, from Liturgical Prayer, Its History & Spirit, Fernand Cabrol, OSB, P.J. Kenedy & Sons. 1921; p373.
Tu es, Deus, omnia nostra
Thou Art, O God, Our All
Written by St. Columbanus (c543-615)

UTINAM me illuc dignares adsciscere ad illum fontem, Deus misericors, pie Domine, ut ibi et ego cum sitientibus tuis vivam undam vivi fontis aquae vivae biberem, cuius nimia dulcedine delectatus sursum semper ei haererem et dicerem: <<Quam dulcis est fons aquae vivae, cuius non deficit aqua saliens in vitam aeternam!>>. O MERCIFUL God and good Lord, how I wish Thou wouldst admit me to that fountain where I, along with others thirsting after Thee, may drink from the living stream of living waters of the fountain of life. May I ever linger above, delighted by this water's great sweetness and say "How sweet is this fountain of living water from which never fails, water welling up to eternal life."
O DOMINE, tu es ipse iste fons, semper et semper desiderandus, semper licet et semper hauriendus. Nobis semper da, Domine, Christe, hanc aquam, ut sit in nobis quoque fons aquae vitae et salientis in vitam aeternam. Magna quidem posco, quis nesciat? Sed tu, rex gloriae, magna donare nosti et magna promisisti; nihil te maius, et te nobis donasti, te pro nobis dedisti. O LORD, Thou art Thyself this fountain, ever and always to be desired, ever and always to be consumed. O Lord Jesus Christ, give to us always this water that it may be for us the fountain of living water welling up to eternal life. Yes, indeed, I ask for a great thing, who does not know this? But Thou, King of glory, know how to give great things and have promised great things. For nothing is greater than Thee, and Thou hast given Thyself to us, given Thyself for us.
UNDE te rogamus, ut sciamus quod amamus, quia nihil aliud praeter te nobis dari postulamus; tu es enim omnia nostra, vita nostra, lux nostra, salus nostra, cibus noster, potus noster, Deus noster. Inspira corda nostra, rogo, Iesu noster, illa tui Spiritus aura, et vulnera nostras tua caritate animas, ut possit uniuscuiusque nostrum anima in veritate dicere: Indica mihi quem dilexit anima mea, quoniam vulnera caritate ego sum. THEREFORE we ask Thee, that we may know what we love, for we demand nothing else except Thyself to be given unto us. Thou art our all, our life, our light, our salvation, our food, our drink, our God. I ask Thee, Jesus, inspire our hearts with that breath of Thy Spirit and wound our souls with Thy love, so that each and every one of our souls may in truth say: "Show me that which my soul desires, for I am wounded by Thy love."
OPTO illa vulnera in me sint, Domine. Beata talis anima, quae caritate sic vulneratur; talis fontem quaerit, talis bibit, semper tamen sitit bibendo, semper haurit desiderando, quae semper bibit sitiendo; sic semper quaerit amando, quae sanatur vulnerando; quo salutari vulnere animae nostrae interiora Deus et Dominus noster Iesus Christus, pius ille salutarisque medicus, vulnerare dignetur, cui cum Patre et cum Spiritu Sancto unitas est in saecula saeculorum. Amen. I WISH for these wounds, O Lord. Blessed is such a soul which is wounded so by love. Such a soul seeks the fountain and drinks of it, but always desiring more, always drinking more, always thirsting for more of that which it drinks. Likewise, the more a soul loves, the more it seeks that which wounded it. The more it is wounded, the more it is healed. May our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, the loving and healing physician, wound the depths of our souls with this healing wound- who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is one forever. Amen.
Iesu Infans Dulcissime
Jesus, Sweetest Child

A prayer to the infant Jesus that meditates upon the events of His infancy.

V. Deus in adiutorium meum intende.
R. Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina. V. O God, come unto my assistance!
R. O Lord, make haste to help me!
V. Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto,
R. Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper, et in saecula saeculorum.
Amen. V. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.
Amen.
Pater noster... Our Father.....
I I
Iesu Infans dulcissime, e sinu Patris propter nostram salutem descendens, de Spiritu Sancto conceptus, Virginis uterum non horrens, et Verbum caro factum, formam servi accipiens, miserere nostri. Jesu, sweetest Child, who didst come down from the bosom of the Father for our salvation, who wast conceived by the Holy Spirit, who didst not abhor the Virgin's womb, and who, being the Word made flesh, didst take upon Thee the form of a servant, have mercy on us.
R. Miserere nostri, Iesu Infans, miserere nostri.
Ave Maria... R. Have mercy on us, Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Hail Mary...
II II
Iesu Infans dulcissime, per Virginem Matrem tuam visitans Elisabeth, Ioannem Baptistam Praecursorem tuum Spiritu Sancto replens, et adhuc in utero matris suae sanctificans, miserere nostri. Jesu, sweetest Child, who by means of Thy Virgin Mother didst visit Saint Elizabeth, who didst fill Thy forerunner, John the Baptist, with Thy Holy Spirit and didst sanctify him in his mother's womb, have mercy on us.
R. Miserere nostri, Iesu Infans, miserere nostri.
Ave Maria... R. Have mercy on us, Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Hail Mary...
III III
Iesu Infans dulcissime, novem mensibus in utero clausus, summis votis a Maria Virgine et a sancto Ioseph expectatus, et Deo Patri1 pro salute mundi oblatus, miserere nostri. Jesu, sweetest Child, who, enclosed for nine months in Thy Mother's womb, wast looked for with eager expectation by the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, and wast offered to1 God the Father for the salvation of the world, have mercy on us.
R. Miserere nostri, Iesu Infans, miserere nostri.
Ave Maria... R. Have mercy on us, Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Hail Mary...
IV IV
Iesu Infans dulcissime, in Bethlehem ex Virgine Maria natus, pannis involutus, in praesepio reclinatus, ab Angelis annuntiatus et pastoribus visitatus, miserere nostri. Jesu, sweetest Child, born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lain in a manger, announced by Angels and visited by shepherds, have mercy on us.
R. Miserere nostri, Iesu Infans, miserere nostri.
Ave Maria... R. Have mercy on us, Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Hail Mary...
Iesu, tibi sit gloria,
Qui natus es de Virgine
Cum Patre et almo Spiritu,
In sempiterna saecula. Amen. All honor, laud, and glory be,
O Jesu, Virgin-born, to Thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To the Father and to Paraclete. Amen.
V. Christe prope est nobis
R. Venite, adoremus. V. Christ is near to us.
R. Come let us adore Him.
Pater noster...... Our Father.....
V V
Iesu, Infans dulcissime, in circumcisione post dies octo vulneratus, glorioso Iesu nomine vocatus, et in nomine simul et sanguine Salvatoris officio praesignatus, miserere nostri. Jesu, sweetest Child, wounded after eight days in Thy circumcision, called by the glorious Name of Jesus, and at once by Thy Name and by Thy Blood foreshown as the Savior of the world, have mercy on us.
R. Miserere nostri, Iesu Infans, miserere nostri.
Ave Maria... R. Have mercy on us, Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Hail Mary...
VI VI
Iesu Infans dulcissime, stella duce tribus Magis demonstratus, in sinu Matris adoratus, et mysticis muneribus, auro, thure, et myrrha donatus, miserere nostri. Jesu, sweetest Child, manifested by the leading of a star to the Three Wise Men, worshiped in the arms of Thy Mother, presented with the mystic gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, have mercy on us.
R. Miserere nostri, Iesu Infans, miserere nostri.
Ave Maria... R. Have mercy on us, Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Hail Mary...
VII VII
Iesu Infans dulcissime, in templo a Matre Virgine praesentatus, inter brachia a Simeone amplexatus, et ab Anna prophetissa Israeli2 revelatus, miserere nostri. Jesu, sweetest Child, presented in the temple by Thy Virgin Mother, taken up in Simeon's arms, and revealed to Israel by Anna, a prophetess, have mercy on us.
R. Miserere nostri, Iesu Infans, miserere nostri.
Ave Maria... R. Have mercy on us, Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Hail Mary...
VIII VIII
Iesu Infans dulcissime, ab iniquo Herode ad mortem quaesitus, a sancto Ioseph in Aegyptum cum Matre deportatus, a crudeli caede sublatus, et praeconiis Martyrum Innocentium glorificatus, miserere nostri. Jesu, sweetest Child, sought by wicked Herod to be slain, carried with Thy Mother into Egypt by Saint Joseph, rescued from the cruel slaughter, and glorified by the praises of the martyred Innocents, have mercy on us.
R. Miserere nostri, Iesu Infans, miserere nostri.
Ave Maria... R. Have mercy on us, Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Hail Mary...
Iesu, tibi sit gloria,
Qui natus es de Virgine
Cum Patre et almo Spiritu,
In sempiterna saecula. Amen. All honor, laud, and glory be,
O Jesu, Virgin-born, to Thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To the Father and to Paraclete. Amen.
V. Christe prope est nobis
R. Venite, adoremus. V. Christ is near to us.
R. Come let us adore Him.
Pater noster...... Our Father.....
IX IX
Iesu Infans dulcissime, in Aegyptum cum Maria sanctissima et Patriarcha sancto Ioseph usque ad obitum Herodis commoratus, miserere nostri. Jesu, sweetest Child, who didst dwell in Egypt with most Holy Mary and the Patriarch, Saint Joseph until the death of Herod, have mercy on us.
R. Miserere nostri, Iesu Infans, miserere nostri.
Ave Maria... R. Have mercy on us, Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Hail Mary...
X X
Iesu Infans dulcissime, ex Aegypto cum Parentibus in terram Israel reversus, multos labores in itinere perpessus, et in civitatem3 Nazareth ingressus, miserere nostri. Jesu, sweetest Child, who didst return from Egypt to the land of Israel with Thy parents, suffering many hardships in the way, and didst enter into the city of Nazareth, have mercy on us.
R. Miserere nostri, Iesu Infans, miserere nostri.
Ave Maria... R. Have mercy on us, Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Hail Mary...
XI XI
Iesu Infans dulcissime, in sancta Nazarena domo, subditus Parentibus, sanctissime commoratus, paupertate et laboribus fatigatus, in sapientiae, aetatis et gratiae profectu confortatus, miserere nostri. Jesu, sweetest Child, who didst dwell most holily in the holy house at Nazareth, in subjection to Thy parents, wearied by poverty and toil, didst increase in wisdom, age, and grace, have mercy on us.
R. Miserere nostri, Iesu Infans, miserere nostri.
Ave Maria... R. Have mercy on us, Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Hail Mary...
XII XII
Iesu Infans dulcissime, in Ierusalem duodennis4 ductus, a Parentibus cum dolore quaesitus, et post triduum cum gaudio inter Doctores inventus, miserere nostri. Jesu, sweetest Child, brought to Jerusalem at twelve years of age, sought by Thy parents sorrowing and found with joy after three days in the midst of the Doctors, have mercy on us.
R. Miserere nostri, Iesu Infans, miserere nostri.
Ave Maria... R. Have mercy on us, Child Jesus, have mercy on us.
Hail Mary...
Iesu, tibi sit gloria,
Qui natus es de Virgine
Cum Patre et almo Spiritu,
In sempiterna saecula. Amen. All honor, laud, and glory be,
O Jesu, Virgin-born, to Thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To the Father and to Paraclete. Amen.
Die Nativitatis Domini et per Octavam:
V. Verbum caro factum est, alleluia.
R. Et habitavit in nobis, alleluia. For Christmas and its Octave:
V. The Word was made flesh, alleluia
R. And dwelt among us, alleluia.
In Epiphania Domini et per Octavam:
V. Christus manifestavit se nobis, alleluia.
R. Venite, adoremus, alleluia. For Epiphany and its Octave:
V. Christ hath manifested Himself to us, alleluia.
R. O come let us worship, alleluia.
Per annum:
V. Verbum caro factum est.
R. Et habitavit in nobis. Throughout the year:
V. The Word was made flesh.
R. And dwelt among us.
Oremus:
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, Domine caeli et terrae, qui te revelas parvulis; concede, quaesumus, ut nos sacrosancta Filii tui Infantis Iesu mysteria digno honore recolentes, dignaque imitatione sectantes, ad regnum caelorum promissum parvulis pervenire valeamus. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen. Let us pray:
Almighty and everlasting God, Lord of heaven and earth, who dost reveal Thyself to little ones; grant we beseech Thee, that we, venerating with due honor the sacred mysteries of Thy Son, the Child Jesus, and copying them with due imitation, may be enabled to enter the kingdom of heaven which Thou hast promised to little children. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
From the Raccolta #126 (S. C. Ind. Nov. 23, 1819; S. P. Ap. June 8, 1935). An Indulgence of 5 years, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions for the daily recitation of this prayer
Commemoration of the Cross
From the Liturgies for the Finding of the Cross and the Triumph of the Cross (Sept 14)
HE bore the Holy Cross, who broke the power of hell; He was girded with power, He rose again the third day. Alleluia
V. Tell ye among the nations, Alleluia.
R. That the Lord hath reigned from the tree. Alleluia.
Let us pray:
O God, who didst will that Thy Son should undergo for us the shame of the Cross, that Thou mightest drive away from us the power of the enemy: grant unto us Thy servants to be made partakers of the grace of the resurrection. Through our Lord...
R. Amen.
V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with thy spirit.
V. Let us bless the Lord.
R. Thanks be to God.
V. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
R. Amen.
Our Father ... (silently)
V. May the Lord grant us His peace.
R. And life everlasting. Amen.
By the Sign of the Cross
From the Roman Breviary. It recalls Phil. 3:18, "For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. "
BY the sign of the cross deliver us from our enemies, O our God.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
O God, Who for Our Sake
Ancient prayer from the first millennium
O GOD, who for our sake didst will Thy Son to undergo the torments of the Cross, that Thou mightest drive far from us the power of the enemy; grant unto us Thy servants that we may attain to the grace of His Resurrection. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
From the Raccolta #211
An Indulgence of 5 years, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions for the daily recitation of this prayer
O God, Who Didst Will
O GOD, Who didst will to hallow the standard of the life-giving Cross by the precious Blood of Thine only-begotten Son; grant, we beseech Thee, that they who rejoice in honoring the same holy Cross, may rejoice also in Thine ever-present protection. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
From the Raccolta #212, from the Roman Missal. (S. P. Ap., Feb. 7, 1935).
An Indulgence of 5 years, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions for the daily recitation of this prayer
Hail, Holy Cross, Our Strength
HAIL, O holy Cross, our strength.
Hail, O adorable Cross, our praise and glory.
Hail, O Cross, our help and refuge.
Hail, O Cross, consolation of all the mournful.

Hail, O Cross, our victory and hope.
Hail, O Cross, our defense and our life.
Hail, O Cross, our liberation and redemption.
Hail, O Cross, our sign of salvation and bulwark against the enemy.
May the Cross be for me always hope of my faith.
May the Cross be for me resurrection in my death.
May the Cross be for me triumph against demons.
May the Cross be for me mother of my consolation.
May the Cross be for me rest in my tribulations.
May the Cross be for me support in my old age.
May the Cross be for me healing in my illness.
May the Cross be for me protection in my nudity.
May the Cross be for me consolation in my life.
May the Cross be for me solace in all my difficulties.
May the Cross be for me balm in my tribulations.
May the Cross be for me medicine to my infirmities and protection against all my enemies. Amen.
Written by Saint Anselm
Prayer Before a Crucifix
This prayer was composed by St. Francis of Assisi. He used to pray this prayer at the foot of the Crucifix at San Damiano.
O MOST high, glorious God, illuminate the darkness of my heart. Grant me, O Lord, a correct faith, certain hope, and a perfect charity, sense and knowledge that I may carry out Thy Holy and true command. Amen.
A plenary indulgence on the usual conditions, if this devotion is said in front a figure of Christ crucified..
O Good Cross
A popular medieval prayer. It appears in Jacobus de Voragine's The Golden Legend (ca 1260) in the section on St. Andrew the Apostle. St. Andrew was crucified at Patras in Achaia and is often pictured with the X shaped cross upon which he was crucified. Tradition says that St. Andrew was being led out to his martyrdom, he saw the cross in the distance and cried out with the prayer below.
O GOOD CROSS, made beautiful by the body of the Lord, long have I desired thee, ardently have I loved thee, unceasingly have I sought thee, and now thou art ready for my eager soul. Receive me from among men and restore me to my Master, so that He, who redeemed me through thee, shalt receive me through thee. Amen.
Save Me, O Holy Cross
SAVE me, o holy Cross, who art consecrated with the body of Christ and ornamented as if by pearls from this union with his limbs; thou hast been made worthy to carry the price of our salvation and hast held up eternal life to us. O good Jesus, grant to me that through the reparation and mark of Thy holy Cross, Thou willst free me from the incursions of all my enemies, preserve me in Thy goodness, dismiss my sins, and grant me forgiveness: Thou who livest and reignest, God forever and ever. Amen.
We Offer Thee, Lord Jesus
WE OFFER Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, the merits of Mary, Thy mother and ours, as she stood beneath the Cross, in order that, by her tender intercession, we may obtain the happy fruits of Thy Passion and Death. Amen
From the Raccolta # 110. (S. P. Ap., Mar. 20, 1939)
An indulgence of 300 days. A plenary indulgence on the usual conditions, if this devotion is repeated daily for a month.
The Act of Consecration to Christ the King

O Jesus Christ, I acknowledge Thee as universal King. All that has been made, has been created for Thee. Exercise all Thy rights over me. I renew my baptismal vows, I renounce Satan, his pomps and his works: and I promise to live as a good Christian. And in particular do I pledge myself to labor, to the best of my ability, for the triumph of the rights of God and of Thy Church. Divine Heart of Jesus, to Thee do I offer my poor services, laboring that all hearts may acknowledge Thy Sacred kingship, and thus the reign of Thy peace may be established throughout the universe. Amen.

A plenary indulgence, under the usual conditions, once daily
Written by Father Chrysostom in 1903 with permission by Pope St. Pius X
Commemoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
COMING to Jesus and seeing that He was already dead, they did not break His legs, but one of the soldiers opened Jesus' side with a spear and immediately there came forth blood and water.
V. You shall draw waters with joy.
R. From the fountains of the Savior.
Let us pray:
O God, who in the Heart of Thy Son, wounded for our sins, dost mercifully lavish upon us the treasures of Thy love; grant, we beseech Thee, that with our devout homage we may also offer Him worthy reparation. Through our Lord...
R. Amen.
Daily Offering to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
LORD Jesus Christ, in union with that divine intention wherewith on earth Thou didst offer to God Thy praises through Thy Most Sacred Heart, and dost now offer them in the Sacrament of the Eucharist everywhere on earth even to the end of time, I most gladly offer Thee throughout this entire day, all my thoughts and intentions, all my affections and desires, all my words and deeds, in imitation of the most sacred Heart of the blessed and ever Virgin Mary Immaculate. Amen.
From the Raccolta #97. (S. C. Ind. Dec. 19, 1885; S. P. Ap., March 10, 1933).
An Indulgence of 3 years, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions for the daily recitation of this prayer
O Divine Heart of Jesus
O DIVINE heart of Jesus, grant, I pray Thee, eternal rest to the souls in purgatory, the final grace to those who are about to die this day, true repentance to sinners, the light of faith to pagans, and Thy blessing to me and to all who are dear to me. To Thee, therefore, O most merciful Heart of Jesus, I commend all these souls, and in their behalf I offer unto Thee all Thy merits in union with the merits of Thy most blessed Mother and of all the Angels and Saints, together with all the Masses, Communions, prayers and good works which are this day being offered throughout Christendom. Amen
From the Raccolta #261
An Indulgence of 500 days
O Indescribable Beauty of God Most High

Written by St. Bonaventure (1218-1274). This prayer appears in his writings for the Office of the Readings for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

O INEFFABILIS decor Dei excelsi et purissima claritas lucis aeternae, vita omnem vitam vivificans, lux omne lumen illuminans et conservans in splendore perpetuo multiformia lumina fulgentia, ante thronum divinitatis tuae a primaevo diluculo! O INDESCRIBABLE beauty of God most high and purest radiance of light eternal, Thou art life that gives life to all life, light that illuminates all light and preserves in perpetual splendor the myriad lights shining from the very dawn of time before Thy throne of divinity!
O AETERNUM et inaccessibile, clarum et dulce profluvium fontis absconditi ab oculis omnium mortalium, cuius amplitudo incircumscriptibilis, et cuius puritas imperturbabilis. O ETERNAL and inaccessible font, o clear and sweet spring flowing forth hidden from all mortal eyes, whose breadth and depth are unfathomable, Thy purity cannot be tainted.
EX quo fluvius procedit, qui laetificat civitatem Dei, ut in voce exsultationis et confessionis decantemus tibi cantica laudis, experientia teste probantes, quoniam apud te est fons vitae, et in lumine tuo videbimus lumen. Amen. FROM Thou procedeth the river that gladdens the city of God so that with a voice of exultation we proclaim Thy greatness and sing to Thee hymns of praise. For our experience shows that with Thee is the source of life and in Thy light we see light itself. Amen.
O Father of Mercies
O FATHER of mercies, from whom cometh all that is good, I offer my humble petitions unto Thee through the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy dearly beloved Son, our Lord and Redeemer, in whom Thou art always well pleased and who loves Thee so much. Grant me the grace of a lively faith, a firm hope and an ardent charity toward Thee and toward my neighbor. Grant me also the grace to be truly penitent for all my sins together with a firm purpose of never offending Thee again; so that I may be enabled to live always according to Thy divine good-pleasure, to do Thy most holy will in all things with a generous and willing heart, and to persevere in Thy love even to the end of my life. Amen
From the Raccolta #65 (S. C. Ind. April 21, 1818; S. P. Ap., March 23, 1936).
An Indulgence of 3 years
O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
O MOST SACRED Heart of Jesus, Thou didst reveal to the blessed Margaret Mary Thy desire to rule over Christian families; behold, in order to please Thee, we stand before Thee this day to proclaim Thy full sovereignty over our family. We desire henceforth to live Thy life, we desire that the virtues to which Thou hast promised peace on earth may flower in the bosom or our family; we desire to keep far from us the spirit of the world, which Thou hast condemned. Thou art King of our minds by the simplicity of our faith; Thou art King of our hearts by our love of Thee alone, with which our hearts are on fire and whose flame we shall keep alive by frequently receiving the Holy Eucharist. Be pleased, O Sacred Heart, to preside over our gathering together, to bless our spiritual and temporal affairs, to ward off all annoyance from us, and to hallow our joys and comfort our sorrows. If any of us has ever been so unhappy as to fall into the misery of displeasing Thee, grant that he may remember, O Heart of Jesus, that Thou art full of goodness and mercy toward the repentant sinner. And when the hour of separation strikes and death enters our family circle, whether we go or whether we stay, we shall all bow humbly before Thine eternal decrees. This shall be our consolation; to remember that the day will come when our entire family, once more united in heaven, shall be able to sing of Thy glory and Thy goodness forever. May the immaculate Heart of Mary and the glorious Patriarch Saint Joseph vouchsafe to offer Thee this our act of consecration and to keep the memory thereof alive in us all the days of our lives. Glory to the Heart of Jesus, our King and our Father! Amen.
From the Raccolta #705
An indulgence of 7 years. A plenary indulgence on the usual conditions, if they fulfill the usual conditions.
Act of Reparation
MOST sweet Jesus, whose overflowing charity for men is requited by so much forgetfulness, negligence and contempt, behold us prostrate before Thee, eager to repair by a special act of homage the cruel indifference and injuries to which Thy loving Heart is everywhere subject.
Mindful, alas! that we ourselves have had a share in such great indignities, which we now deplore from the depths of our hearts, we humbly ask Thy pardon and declare our readiness to atone by voluntary expiation, not only for our own personal offenses, but also for the sins of those, who, straying far from the path of salvation, refuse in their obstinate infidelity to follow Thee, their Shepherd and Leader, or, renouncing the promises of their baptism, have cast off the sweet yoke of Thy law.
We are now resolved to expiate each and every deplorable outrage committed against Thee; we are now determined to make amends for the manifold offenses against Christian modesty in unbecoming dress and behavior, for all the foul seductions laid to ensnare the feet of the innocent, for the frequent violations of Sundays and holydays, and the shocking blasphemies uttered against Thee and Thy Saints. We wish also to make amends for the insults to which Thy Vicar on earth and Thy priests are subjected, for the profanation, by conscious neglect or terrible acts of sacrilege, of the very crimes of nations who resist the rights and teaching authority of the Church which Thou hast founded.
Would that we were able to wash away such abominations with our blood. We now offer, in reparation for these violations of Thy divine honor, the satisfaction Thou once made to Thy Eternal Father on the cross and which Thou continuest to renew daily on our altars; we offer it in union with the acts of atonement of Thy Virgin Mother and all the Saints and of the pious faithful on earth; and we sincerely promise to make recompense, as far as we can with the help of Thy grace, for all neglect of Thy great love and for the sins we and others have committed in the past. Henceforth, we will live a life of unswerving faith, of purity of conduct, of perfect observance of the precepts of the Gospel and especially that of charity. We promise to the best of our power to prevent others from offending Thee and to bring as many as possible to follow Thee.
O loving Jesus, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mother, our model in reparation, deign to receive the voluntary offering we make of this act of expiation; and by the crowning gift of perseverance keep us faithful unto death in our duty and the allegiance we owe to Thee, so that we may all one day come to that happy home, where with the Father and the Holy Spirit Thou livest and reignest, God, forever and ever. Amen.
From the Raccolta, #256 (S. P. Ap., June 1, 1928 and March 18, 1932)
A partial indulgence is granted to those who recite this prayer. A plenary indulgence is granted if it is publicly recited on the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. This prayer was prescribed to be recited on this feast by Pope Pius XI .
Commemoration of the Most Precious Blood
THE blood of the Lamb shall be a token unto you, saith the Lord; I shall see the blood and shall pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you.
V. We beseech Thee, therefore help Thy servants.
R. Whom Thou hast ransomed with Thy Precious Blood.
Let us pray:
O Almighty and Eternal God, who didst appoint Thine only-begotten Son the Redeemer of the world and didst will to be appeased by His Blood; grant, we beseech Thee, that we may so honor this the price of our redemption, and by its power be so defended from the evils of this present life on earth that we may enjoy its fruit in heaven for evermore. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who livest and reignest with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever.
R. Amen.
Seven Offerings of the Precious Blood
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for the propagation and exaltation of my dear Mother the Holy Church, for the safety and prosperity of her visible Head, the Holy Roman Pontiff (omit if Chair is vacant) , for the cardinals, bishops and pastors of souls, and for all the ministers of the sanctuary.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Blessed and praised forevermore be Jesus Who hath saved us by His Precious Blood! Amen.
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for the peace and concord of nations, for the conversion of the enemies of our holy faith and for the happiness of all Christian people.
Glory be, etc. above
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for the repentance of unbelievers, the extirpation of all heresies, and the conversion of sinners.
Glory be, etc. above
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for all my relations, friends and enemies, for the poor, the sick, and those in tribulation, and for all those for whom Thou willest I should pray, or knowest that I ought to pray.
Glory be, etc. above
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for all those who shall this day pass to another life, that Thou mayest preserve them from the pains of hell, and admit them the more readily to the possession of Thy Glory.
Glory be, etc. above
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for all those who are lovers of this Treasure of His Blood, and for all those who join with me in adoring and honoring It, and for all those who try to spread devotion to It . .
Glory be, etc. above
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Thy Beloved Son and my Divine Redeemer, for all my wants, spiritual and temporal, for the holy souls in Purgatory, and particularly for those who in their lifetime were most devoted to this Price of our redemption, and to the sorrows and pains of our dear Mother, most Holy Mary . . .
Glory be, etc. above
Blessed and exalted be the Blood of Jesus, now and always, and through all eternity. Amen. 300 days Ind.
A HIDDEN TREASURE
Appearing to one of the sisters of her community shortly after her death, St. Teresa of Avila told the sister that she would be willing to return to a life of suffering on earth until the end of time if thereby she could merit that degree of glory with which God rewards one devoutly recited "Hail Mary." St. Paul speaks in like manner when he says: "The sufferings of this life are not to be compared with the glory to come."
If one short prayer is thus rewarded, what reward awaits those who offer to the Eternal Father, the Precious Blood of Jesus. "An offering," says Father Faber, is "More than a prayer." "In prayer we are the recipients, but when we make an offering God vouchsafes to accept something from us." In Our Lord's own words to Sister Mary Martha Chambon, Apostle of the Holy Wounds, " To offer to the Eternal Father the Sacred Wounds of Jesus is to offer Him His Glory, to offer Heaven to Heaven." Each time you offer to My Father the merits of My Divine Wounds," He said to her, "You gain an immense fortune . . . You must not remain poor, your Father is very rich."
If you and I, at this very moment, were standing on the threshold of eternity, we would see a limitless duration extending before us which our vision would fail to terminate. Looking on this endlessness the awful truth would come to us that the time of merit had passed forever. The saints realized this truth while yet in life, and we can see the vastness of their reward.
Those who have passed into eternity realize that there will be no further opportunities for additional merit, for time has passed forever. If regrets were possible in Heaven, unused opportunities would be the cause, for the blessed know what greater capacity for giving accidental honor to God they would have had if they had used all their opportunities. Because of God's mercy they have no regrets, but their status is sealed forever.
The position of the priest in heaven must be tremendous for he offers daily a Victim-of-Infinite-Worth; and yet each one of us can offer the same Victim in a different manner by sincerely saying:
"Eternal Father, I offer Thee the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus."
Just suppose that if you were to make the seven offerings each day. It would take only a few minutes of time, and yet the vast merit gained would last eternally.
What an investment!
Daily Offering of the Most Precious Blood
With a contrite and a pure and loving heart say:
MARY, Immaculate Mother of Jesus, offer, we beseech thee, to the Eternal Father, the Precious Blood of thy Divine Son, to prevent at least one mortal sin from being committed somewhere in the world this day (night).
"If every night, before we went to sleep," says Father Faber, "we begged our dear Lady to offer up to God the Precious Blood of her Divine Son for grace to hinder one mortal sin somewhere in the world, during that night, and then renewed the same offering in the morning of the hours of daylight, surely such an offering, and by such hands, could not fail to win the grace desired, and then each one of us might hinder numbers of mortal sins every year."
THE PRECIOUS BLOOD AND HEAVEN
Promises of Our Lord to Sister Mary Martha Chambon
Those who pray with humility and who meditate on My Passion, shall one day participate in the glory of My Divine wounds. Their members will receive from them a resplendent beauty and glory.
The more you shall have contemplated My Painful wounds on this earth, the higher shall be your contemplation of them glorious in Heaven.
The soul who during life has honored and studied the Wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ and has offered Them to the Eternal Father for the Souls in Purgatory will be accompanied at the moment of death by the Holy Virgin and the Angels; and Our Lord on the Cross, all brilliant in glory will receive her and crown her.
REFLECTIONS
Life is short-and death is sure,-
The hour of death remains obscure.
A soul you have-an only one
If that be lost all hope is gone.-
Waste not your time-while time shall last-
For after death-'tis ever past.-
The all-seeing God-your Judge will be-
Or heaven or hell-your destiny.
All earthly things-will fleet away.
Eternity-will ever stay.
Courtesy of Our Lady of the Rosary Library
I adore Thee, O Precious Blood of Jesus
"I adore Thee, O Precious Blood of Jesus, flower of creation, fruit of virginity, ineffable instrument of the Holy Ghost, and I rejoice at the thought that Thee came from the drop of virginal blood on which eternal Love impressed its movement; Thy were assumed by the Word and deified in His person. I am overcome with emotion when I think of Your passing from the Blessed Virgin's heart into the heart of the Word, and, being vivified by the breath of the Divinity, becoming adorable because Thee became the Blood of God."
-St. Albert the Great
Lord Jesus Christ
O LORD Jesus Christ, who descended from heaven to earth from the bosom of the Father, and didst shed Thy Precious Blood for the remission of our sins: we humbly beseech Thee, that in the day of judgment we may deserve to hear, standing at Thy right hand: "Come, ye blessed." Who livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen.
Commemoration of the Most Holy Name of Jesus
THOU shalt call his name Jesus; for He shall redeem His people from their sins, alleluia.
V. Blessed be the name of the Lord, alleluia.
R. Both now and forevermore, alleluia
Let us pray:
O God, who didst appoint Thine only-begotten Son to be Savior of the world and didst ordain that He be called Jesus, mercifully grant that we may come to see Him in heaven whose Holy Name we venerate on earth. Through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
O Good Jesus
O GOOD Jesu, according to Thy great mercy, have mercy on me. O most merciful Jesu, by that Precious Blood which Thou didst will to shed for sinners, I beseech Thee to wash away all mine iniquities and to look graciously upon me, a poor and unworthy sinner, as I call upon Thy holy Name. Therefore, O Jesus, do Thou save me for Thy holy Name's sake. Amen.
From the Raccolta #121. (S. C. Ind., Nov. 26, 1896; S. P. Ap., Dec. 17, 1932).
An Indulgence of 500 days
Bestow upon us
This ancient prayer appears in both the Roman Missal and the Liturgy of the Hours
Bestow upon us, O Lord, both an abiding fear and an abiding love of Thy Holy Name. For those to whom Thou teachest the depths of Thy love, never dost Thou fail to govern by Thy grace. Through our Lord. Amen.
Psalter of Jesus

"There is no other Name under heaven given to men whereby we may be saved." Acts 4:12
The Jesus Psalter is believed to have been composed in England by the Brigittine monk, Richard Whitford, who called himself "the Wretch of Sion". This devotion was near and dear to the hearts of English Catholics in the days of persecution. It was printed and sold separately as early as 1520, though no copy from that period is known to have survived. In the oldest manuscripts and books the text of the prayer was usually given in English with the various notes and instructions in Latin.

Begin by a devout bowing of the head or genuflection at the adorable Name of Jesus.
Part I
"At the Name of Jesus let every knee bow, of things in heaven, of things in earth, and of things in hell; and let every tongue confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father" (Phil 2:10,11)
First Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - have mercy on me.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - have mercy on me.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - have mercy on me.
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Jesus, have mercy on me, O God of compassion, and forgive the many and great offenses I have committed in Thy sight.

Many have been the follies of my life, and great are the miseries I have deserved for my ingratitude.

Have mercy on me, dear Jesus, for I am weak; O Lord, heal me, who am unable to help myself.

Deliver me from setting my heart upon any of Thy creatures, which may divert my eyes from continually looking up to Thee.
Grant me grace henceforth, for the love of Thee, to hate sin: and out of a just esteem of Thee, to despise worldly vanities.
Have mercy on all sinners, O Jesus, I beseech Thee; turn their vices into virtues and, making them true observers of Thy law and sincere lovers of Thee, bring them to bliss in everlasting glory. Have mercy also on the souls in Purgatory, for Thy bitter passion, I beseech Thee, and for Thy glorious name, Jesus.
O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
Second Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - help me.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - help me.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - help me.
--------------
Jesus, help me to overcome all temptations to sin and the malice of my ghostly enemy.

Help me to spend my time in virtuous actions and in such labors as are acceptable to Thee.

To resist and repress the motions of my flesh to sloth, gluttony, and impurity.

To render my heart enamored of virtue and inflamed with desires of Thy glorious presence.

Help me to deserve and to keep a good name, by a peaceful and pious living; to Thy honor, O Jesus, to my own comfort and the benefit of others.

Have mercy on all sinners, O Jesus, I beseech Thee; turn their vices into virtues and, making them true observers of Thy law and sincere lovers of Thee, bring them to bliss in everlasting glory. Have mercy also on the souls in Purgatory, for Thy bitter passion, I beseech Thee, and for Thy glorious name, Jesus.

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
Third Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - strengthen me.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - strengthen me.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - strengthen me.
--------------
Jesus, strengthen me in soul and body, to please Thee in doing such works of virtue as may bring me to Thy everlasting joy and felicity.

Grant me a firm purpose, most merciful Savior, to amend my life and atone of the years past:

Those years which I have misspent to Thy displeasure, in vain or wicked thoughts, words, deeds, and evil customs.

Make my heart obedient to Thy will; and ready, for Thy love, to perform all works of mercy.

Grant me the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which, through a virtuous life and a devout frequenting of The most holy sacraments, may at length bring me to Thy heavenly kingdom.

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
Fourth Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - comfort me.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - comfort me.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - comfort me.
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Jesus, comfort me and give me grace to place my chief, my only joy and felicity in Thee.

Send me heavenly meditations, spiritual sweetness, and fervent desires of Thy glory; ravish my soul with the contemplation of heaven, where I shall everlastingly dwell with Thee.

Bring often to my remembrance Thy unspeakable goodness, Thy gifts, and Thy great kindness shown to me.

And when Thou bringest to mind the sad remembrance of my sins, whereby I have so unkindly offended Thee, comfort me with the assurance of obtaining Thy grace by the spirit of perfect penance, purging away my guilt and preparing me for Thy kingdom.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
Fifth Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - make me constant
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - make me constant
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - make me constant
--------------
Jesus, make me constant in faith, hope, and charity with continuance in all virtues and resolution not to offend Thee.

Make the memory of Thy passion and of those bitter pains Thou sufferedst for me, sustain my patience, and refresh me in all tribulations and adversity.

Make me ever hold fast the doctrines of Thy holy Catholic Church and be a diligent frequenter of all holy duties.

Let no false delight of this deceitful world blind me, no fleshy temptation or fraud of the devil shake my heart:

My heart, which has forever set up its rest in Thee; and is resolved to give up all things for Thy eternal reward.

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
"Our Lord Jesus Christ humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross" Phil 2:8.

Hear these my petitions, O most merciful Savior, and grant me Thy grace so frequently to repeat and consider them, that they may prove east steps, whereby my soul may climb up to the knowledge, love, and performance of my duty to Thee and to my neighbor through the whole course of my life. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ... I believe in God ...
Part II
"At the Name of Jesus let every knee bow, of things in heaven, of things in earth, and of things in hell; and let every tongue confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father" (Phil 2:10,11)
Sixth Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - enlighten me with spiritual wisdom.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - enlighten me with spiritual wisdom.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - enlighten me with spiritual wisdom.
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Jesus, enlighten me with spiritual wisdom to know Thy goodness and all those things which are most acceptable to Thee.

Grant me a clear apprehension of my only good and discretion to order my life according to it.

Grant that I may wisely proceed from virtue to virtue till at length I arrive at the clear vision of Thy glorious majesty.

Permit me not, dear Lord, to return to those sins for which I have sorrowed and of which I have purged myself by confession.

Grant me grace to benefit the souls of others by my good example and to convert those by good council who have used me ill.

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
Seventh Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to fear Thee.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to fear Thee.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to fear Thee.
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Jesus, grant me grace inwardly to fear Thee and to avoid all occasions of offending Thee.

Let the threats of the torments which shall befall sinners, the fear of losing Thy love and Thy heavenly inheritance, ever keep me in awe.

Let me not dare to remain in sin, but call me soon to repentance: lest through Thine anger the dreadful sentence of endless death and damnation fall upon me.

May the powerful intercession of Thy blessed Mother and all the saints, and above all, Thy own merits and mercy, O my Savior, be ever between Thy avenging justice and me.

Enable me, O my God, to work out my salvation with fear and trembling; and may the apprehension of Thy sacred judgments render me a more humble and diligent suitor at the throne of grace.

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
Eighth Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace truly to love Thee.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace truly to love Thee.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace truly to love Thee.
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Jesus, grant me grace truly to love Thee for Thy infinite goodness and those great bounties I have received and hope forever to receive from Thee.

Let the remembrance of Thy kindness and patience conquer the malice and evil inclinations of my perverse nature.

Let the consideration of my deliverances and Thy gracious calls and continued protection through life shame me out of my ingratitude.

And what dost Thou require of me, for and by all Thy mercies, but to love Thee; and why, but because Thou art my only good?

O my dear Lord! my whole life shall be nothing but a desire of Thee: and because I truly love Thee, I will most diligently keep all Thy commandments.

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
Ninth Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to remember my death.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to remember my death.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to remember my death.
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Jesus, grant me grace always to remember my death and the great account I then must render; that so being kept continually disposed, my soul may depart out of this world rightly in Thy grace.

Then by the gracious intercession of Thy blessed Mother and the assistance of the glorious St. Michael, deliver me from the danger of my soul's enemies; and do thou, my good angel, I beseech thee, help me at the hour of death.

The, dear Jesus, remember Thy mercy; and turn not, for my offenses, Thy face away from me.

Secure me against the terrors of that day, by causing me now to die daily to all earthly things and to have my continual conversation in heaven.

Let the remembrance of Thy death teach me how to esteem my life; and the memory of Thy resurrection encourage me cheerfully to descend into the grave.

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
Tenth Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - send me here my purgatory.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - send me here my purgatory.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - send me here my purgatory.
--------------
Jesus, send me here my purgatory, and so prevent the torments of that cleansing fire, which, after this life, awaits unpurged souls.

Vouchsafe to grant me those merciful crosses and afflictions, which Thou seest are necessary to break off my affections from all things here below.

Since none can see Thee that loves any thing but for Thy sake, permit not my heart to find here any rest but a seeking after Thee.

Too bitter, alas! will be the anguish of a separated soul that desires, but cannot come to Thee, clogged with the heavy chains of sin.

Here then, O my Savior, keep me continually mortified in this world; that purged thoroughly by the fire of love, I may immediately pass into the everlasting possessions.

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
"Our Lord Jesus Christ humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross" Phil 2:8.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ... I believe in God ...
Part III
"At the Name of Jesus let every knee bow, of things in heaven, of things in earth, and of things in hell; and let every tongue confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father" (Phil 2:10,11)
Eleventh Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to fly evil company.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to fly evil company.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to fly evil company.
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Jesus, grant me grace to fly evil company; or if I chance to come among such, I beseech Thee, by the merits of Thy uncorrupt conversation among sinners, preserve me from being overcome by any temptations to mortal sin.

Make me, O blessed Lord, ten remember always with dread, that Thou art present and hearest; who wilt judge us according to our words and actions.

How, then, dare I converse with slanderers, liars drunkards, or swearers, or such whose discourse is either quarrelsome, dissolute, or vain?

Repress in me, dear Jesus, all inordinate affection for the pleasures of taste and of the flesh; and grant me grace to avoid all such as would excite the fire of these unhappy appetites.

May Thy power defend, Thy wisdom direct, Thy fatherly pity chastise me, and make me so to live here among men as may fit me for the conversation of angels hereafter.

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
Twelfth Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to call for help to Thee.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to call for help to Thee.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to call for help to Thee.
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Jesus, grant me grace in all my necessities to call for help to Thee and faithfully remember Thy death and resurrection for me.

Wilt Thou be deaf to my cries, who wouldst lay down Thy life for my ransom? or canst Thou not save me, who couldst take it up gain for my crown?

Whom have I to invoke but Thee, O my Jesus, whose own blessed mouth has pronounced, "Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will relieve thee "?

Thou art my sure rock of defense against all kinds of enemies; Thou art my ever present grace, able to strengthen me to fight and conquer.

In all my sufferings, therefore, in all my weakness and temptations, will I confidently call upon Thee; hear me, O my Jesus, and when Thou hearest, have mercy.

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
Thirteenth Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - make me to persevere in virtue.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - make me to persevere in virtue.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - make me to persevere in virtue.
--------------
Jesus, make me to persevere in virtue and a good life; and never to draw back from serving Thee till Thou bringest me to my reward in Thy kingdom.

In all pious customs and holy duties, in my honest and necessary employments, continue and strengthen, O Lord, both my soul and body.

Is my life anything but a pilgrimage upon earth towards the new Jerusalem, at which he that sits down or turns out of the way can never arrive?

O Jesus, make me always consider Thy blessed example, through how many and great pains and how little pleasure Thou pressedst on to a bitter death; because it is the way to a glorious resurrection.

Make me, O my Redeemer, seriously ponder those sever words of Thine, "He only that perseveres to the end shall be saved."

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
Fourteenth Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to fix my mind on Thee.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to fix my mind on Thee.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - grant me grace to fix my mind on Thee.
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Jesus, grant me grace to fix my mind on Thee; especially in the time of prayer, when I aspire to converse directly with Thee.

Control the wanderings of my mind and the affections of my heart; repress the power of my spiritual enemies who could then draw off my mind from heavenly things to thoughts and imaginations of vanity.

So shall I, with joy and gratitude, behold Thee as my deliverer from all the evils I have escaped, and as my benefactor for all the good I have received or can hope.

I shall see that Thou Thy very self art my only good; and that all other things are but means ordained by Thee to make me fix my mind on Thee, to make me love Thee more and more and be eternally happy.

O beloved of my soul, absorb all my thoughts here, that I may become worthy to behold Thee forevermore face to face in Thy glory.

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
Fifteenth Petition
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - give me grace to order my life to Thee.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - give me grace to order my life to Thee.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus - give me grace to order my life to Thee.
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Jesus, give me grace to order my life to Thee, heartily intending and wisely designing all the operations of my body and soul, for obtaining the reward of Thy infinite bliss and eternal felicity.

For what else is this world, but a school to discipline souls and fit them for the other? And how are they fitted for it but by an eager desire of enjoying God, their only end?

Break my forward spirit, O Jesus; make it humble and obedient; grant me grace to depart hence with a contempt for this world and with a joyful hope of coming to Thee in the next.

Let the memory of Thy passion make me cheerfully embrace all occasions of suffering here for Thy love; whilst my soul breathes after that blissful life and immortal glory, which Thou hast ordained in heaven for Thy servants.

O Jesus, let me frequently and attentively consider whatsoever I gain, if I lose Thee, all is lost; and whatsoever I lose, if I gain Thee, all is gained.

O blessed Trinity, one eternal God, have mercy on me.

V. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever world without end. Amen.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ...
"Our Lord Jesus Christ humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross" Phil 2:8.

Our Father ... Hail Mary ... I believe in God ..
Seven Prayers of St. Gregory on the Passion of the Lord

This was a very popular medieval prayer found in many Books of the Hours. Attributed to Pope St. Gregory the Great, there is an interesting legend attached to it. While St. Gregory was celebrating Mass, Christ Himself appeared during the Consecration as a sign of His True Presence in the Eucharist. In Books of the Hours, the prayer was invariably accompanied by a picture of St. Gregory genuflecting at the Consecration with Christ appearing on the Crucifix in front of the Altar

I I
O DOMINE IESU, adoro te in Cruce pendentem, coronam spineam in capite portantem. Deprecor te, ut tua Crux liberet me ab Angelo percutiente. Amen. O LORD JESUS, I adore Thee hanging on the Cross, wearing a crown of thorns upon Thy head. I beg Thee that Thy Cross may free me from the deceiving Angel. Amen.
Pater. Ave. Our Father. Hail Mary.
II II
O DOMINE IESU, adoro te in Cruce vulneratum, felle et aceto potatum. Deprecor te, ut vulnera tua sint remedium animae meae. Amen. O LORD JESUS, I adore Thee hanging wounded on the Cross, given vinegar and gall to drink. I beg Thee that Thy wounds may be the remedy of my soul. Amen.
Pater. Ave. Our Father. Hail Mary.
III III
O DOMINE IESU, rogo per illam amaritudinem Passionis tuae, quam in hora mortis sustinuisti, maxime tunc, quando anima sanctissima de benedicto corpore est egressa. Miserere animae meae in egressu suo de corpore meo, et perduc eam in vitam aeternam. Amen. O LORD JESUS, I ask by the bitterness of Thy Passion, which Thou didst undergo in the hour of Thy death, so much so when Thy most holy soul left Thy blessed body. Have mercy upon my soul when it leaves my body, and lead it to eternal life. Amen.
Pater. Ave. Our Father. Hail Mary.
IV IV
O DOMINE IESU, adoro te in sepulcro positum, myrrha et aromatibus conditum. Deprecor te, ut tua mors sit vita mea. Amen. O LORD JESUS, I adore Thee placed in Thy tomb, anointed with myrrh and aromatic spices. I beg Thee that Thy death may be my life. Amen.
Pater. Ave. Our Father. Hail Mary.
V V
O DOMINE IESU, adoro te descendentem ad inferos et tuos inde liberantem captivos. Deprecor te, ut illuc nunquam me patiaris introire. Amen. O LORD JESUS, I adore Thee descending into hell and freeing the captives from there. I beg Thee, that Thou mayest never permit me to enter there. Amen.
Pater. Ave. Our Father. Hail Mary.
VI VI
O DOMINE IESU, adoro te a morte resurgentem et in caelum ascendentem, sedentemque ad dexteram Patris. Deprecor te, ut illuc te sequi et tibi praesentari merear. Amen. O LORD JESUS, I adore Thee rising from the dead, ascending into heaven, and sitting at the right hand of the Father. I beg Thee that I may be worthy to follow Thee and be with Thee. Amen.
Pater. Ave. Our Father. Hail Mary.
VII VII
O DOMINE IESU, Pastor bone, iustos conserva, peccatores iustifica, omnibus fidelibus miserere, et propitius esto mihi misero et indigno peccatori. Amen. O LORD JESUS, O good Shepherd, preserver of the just, justifier of sinners, have mercy upon all the faithful and be gracious to me, a wretched and unworthy sinner. Amen.
Pater. Ave. Our Father. Hail Mary.
Precatio Prayer
OBSECRO te Domine Iesu Christe, ut passio tua sit virtus mea, qua muniar, protegar, et defendar. Vulnera tua sint mihi cibus et potus, quibus pascar, inebrier atque delecter. Aspersio Sanguinis tui sit omnium peccatorum meorum ablutio. Mors tua sit mihi gloria sempiterna. In his sit mihi refectio, exsultatio, sanitas, studium, gaudium, desiderium corporis et animae, nunc et in perpetuum. Amen. I BESEECH Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, that Thy Passion may be a strength to me by which I may be strengthened, protected and defended. May Thy wounds be to me food and drink by which I may be nourished, inebriated, and delighted. May the sprinkling of Thy Blood be to me an ablution for all my sins. May Thy death be eternal glory to me. In these may my refreshment, joy, health, zeal, delight, and desire of my body and soul, now and forever. Amen.
Alia Precatio Another Prayer
DOMINE Iesu Christe, Fili Dei vivi, pone Passionem, Crucem, et Mortem tuam inter iudicium tuum et animam meam, nunc et in hora mortis meae. O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, place Thy Passion, Cross, and Death between Thy judgment and my soul, now and in the hour of my death.
Largire mihi digneris gratiam et misericordiam, vivis veniam, defunctis requiem, Ecclesiae tuae pacem, cunctisque peccatoribus vitam et gloriam sempiternam. Qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum. Amen. Deign to grant me grace and mercy, pardon to the living, eternal rest to the dead, peace to Thy Church, and life and eternal glory to all sinners. Thou who livest and reignest forever and ever. Amen
From the Paradisus Animae (1670).
O God, Who by the Passion of Thine Only-begotten Son
Prayer from the Feast of the Most Holy Wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ, formerly celebrated in some calendars on the Friday after the Third Sunday of Lent.
O GOD, who by the Passion of Thine only-begotten Son, and by the shedding of His precious Blood through His five Wounds, didst restore human nature when it was lost by sin; grant us, we beseech Thee, that we who venerate on earth the Wounds suffered by Him, may be found worthy to obtain in heaven the fruits of that same Most Precious Blood. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
From the Raccolta, #202. From the Roman Missal. (S. P. Ap., Dec. 12, 1936).
An Indulgence of 5 years, A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions for the daily recitation of this prayer
The Consecration Of Oneself To Jesus Christ, Incarnate Wisdom, By The Hands Of Mary
By Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort
O ETERNAL and Incarnate Wisdom, most sweet and adorable Jesus, true God and true Man, only Son of the Eternal Father and of Mary ever Virgin, I adore Thee profoundly in the bosom and the splendour of Thy Father through eternity, and in the virginal womb of Mary, Thy most worthy Mother, at the time of Thine Incarnation.
I return Thee thanks for that Thou didst empty Thyself, taking upon Thee the form of a slave, to deliver me from the cruel slavery of the devil. I praise Thee and glorify Thee for that Thou didst willingly become subject in all things to Mary, Thy holy Mother, in order to make me through her Thy faithful slave. But alas, ungrateful and faithless that I am, I have not kempt the promises I made Thee so solemnly in my Baptism. Nay, I have utterly failed to do my bounded duty; I am no more worthy to be called Thy son nor Thy slave, and since there is nothing in me that does not provoke Thy rebukes and Thine indignation, I dare no longer approach alone unto Thy sacred and august Majesty. Wherefore I have recourse to the intercession of Thy most holy Mother, whom Thou hast given me to be my intercessor with Thee; and it is by this means that I hope to obtain from thee the grace of contrition, the pardon of my sings, and the gift of abiding wisdom.
For which reason I salute thee, O Mary Immaculate, living tabernacle of the Divinity, wherein the eternal Wisdom lies hidden to be adored by Angels and men. I salute thee, O Queen of heaven and Earth, to whose dominion is subject all that is less than God. I salute thee, O sure refuge of sinners, whose mercy faileth none; graciously hear my prayers for divine wisdom, and to this end receive the vows and oblations which my lowliness offers unto thee.
I, N., a faithless sinner, renew and ratify this day at thy hands my baptismal vows. I renounce Satan for ever and all his works and pomps, and I give myself wholly to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, to bear my cross after Him all the days of my life. And in order that I may more faithful to Him than I have hitherto been, I choose thee this day, O Mary, in the presence of the whole court of heaven for my Mother and my Mistress.
I deliver and consecrate to thee after the manner of a bond-slave, my body and my soul, my interior and exterior goods, and even the value of my good works, past, present and future, leaving thee the full and entire right to dispose of me and of all that belongs to me, without exception, according to thy good pleasure and the greater glory of God both in time and in eternity.
Accept, O gracious Virgin, this little offering of my bondage, in honour of and in union with that submission which the Eternal Wisdom willed to show toward thy Motherhood; as a mark of homage to that dominion which thou and thy divine Son have made over me, a wretched worm and a miserable sinner; in thanksgiving for the privileges with which the Most Holy Trinity has favoured thee. I protest that henceforth I wish, as thy true slave, to seek thine honour and to obey thee in all things.
O Mother most admirable, present me to thy Son, as His slave for ever, in order that, having purchased me through thee, He may receive me through thee. O Mother of mercy, procure for me the grace of obtaining true wisdom from God and of being set thereby in the number of those whom thou lovest, whom thou teachest, whom thou guidest, whom though dost sustain and protect as thy children and thy slaves.
O faithful Virgin, render me in all things so perfect a disciple, imitator and slave of the Incarnate Wisdom, Jesus Christ thy Son, that through thine intercession and example I may come to the fullness of His stature on earth and the plenitude of His glory in heaven. Amen.
From the Raccolta, #96
A plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and on the 28th Day of April.
(Pope Saint Pius X)
Prayer in Honor of the Most Holy and Adorable Name of Jesus
JESUS! O Name of Jesus! Sweet Name! Delightful Name! Consoling Name!
For what else is Jesus than Savior! Therefore, O Jesus, for Thy sweet Name's sake,
be to me a Jesus, and save me. Suffer me not to be eternally lost. O good Jesus!
Let not my iniquities destroy me, whom Thy bounty made. O sweet Jesus!
Recognize in me what is Thine, and efface all that is not Thine.
O sweet Jesus! Show mercy now in the time of mercy, and condemn me
not in the day of justice.
What profit to Thy Precious Blood, or what honor will my destruction
give Thy Holy Name, O Jesus!
"The dead shall not praise Thee, O Lord Jesus! Nor all they that go down to Hell."
Most amiable Jesus! Most meek, most loving Jesus! O Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!
Admit me to the number of Thy elect.
O Jesus, salvation of those who believe in Thee! Comfort of those who fly to Thee!
O Jesus, Son of the Virgin Mary! Give me grace, wisdom, charity, purity, and humility,
that I may love Thee perfectly, praise Thee, enjoy Thee, serve Thee,
and be glorified in Thee, with all those who call upon Thy Name,
Thy Holy Name, Thy Sweet name...Jesus. Amen.
O GOOD JESUS, according to Thy great mercy, have mercy on me.
O most merciful Jesus, by that Precious Blood which Thou didst will
to shed for sinners, I beseech Thee to wash away all mine iniquities
and to look graciously upon me, a poor and unworthy sinner, as I
call upon Thy Holy Name. Therefore, O Jesus, do Thou save me for
Thy Holy Name's sake.
O God, Who didst appoint Thine only-begotten Son to be the Savior
of mankind and didst command His Name to be called Jesus;
mercifully grant that we may enjoy the vision of Him in Heaven,
Whose Holy Name we venerate on earth. Through the same
Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Thirty -Three Petitions in Honor of the
Sacred Humanity
For Private Use Only.

O good Jesus, Word of the Eternal Father,
Convert me.
O good Jesus, Son of Mary,
Make me her child.
O good Jesus, My Master,
Teach me.
O good Jesus, Prince of peace,
Give me peace.
O good Jesus, my Refuge,
Receive me.
O good Jesus, my Pastor,
Feed my soul.
O good Jesus, Model of patience,
Comfort me.
O good Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
Make my heart like unto Thine.
O good Jesus, my Redeemer,
Save me.
O good Jesus, my God and my All,
Possess me.
O good Jesus, the true Way,
Direct me.
O good Jesus, Eternal Truth,
Instruct me.
O good Jesus, Life of the blessed,
Make me live in Thee.
O good Jesus, my Support,
Strengthen me.
O good Jesus, my Justice,
Justify me.
O good Jesus, my Mediator,
Reconcile me to Thy Father.
O good Jesus, Physician of my soul,
Heal me.
O good Jesus, my Judge,
Absolve me.
O good Jesus, my King,
Govern me.
O good Jesus, my Sanctification,
Sanctify me.
O good Jesus, Abyss of goodness,
Pardon me.
O good Jesus, Living Bread from Heaven,
Satiate me.
O good Jesus, the Father of the prodigal,
Receive me.
O good Jesus, Joy of my soul,
Refresh me.
O good Jesus, my Helper,
Assist me.
O good Jesus, Magnet of love,
Attract me.
O good Jesus, my Protector,
Defend me.
O good Jesus, my Hope,
Sustain me.
O good Jesus, Object of my love,
Make me love Thee.
O good Jesus, Fountain of life,
Cleanse me.
O good Jesus, my Propitiation,
Purify me.
O good Jesus, my Last End,
Let me obtain Thee.
O good Jesus, my Glory,
Glorify me. Amen.

V. Jesus, hear my prayer.
R. Jesus, graciously hear me.

Let Us Pray.
O Lord Jesus Christ, Who hast said, "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you," mercifully attend to our supplications, and grant us the gift of Thy Divine Charity, that we may ever love Thee with our whole hearts, and may never cease from praising Thee, Who livest and reignest world without end. R. Amen.
Prayer in Honor of the Mysteries of Jesus Risen
O MY blessed Jesus, I adore Thee, bright and beautiful in thy Resurrection: I adore thee in all the mysteries of thy Risen Life on earth, and in all the majesty and loveliness of thy most dear Soul and glorified Body, as seen and worshipped in heaven at this hour. I acknowledge Thee to be my Lord and my God; I bless Thee for Thy sweet victory over death, and for Thy faithful love in retaining Thy five holy Wounds, wherewith we sinners wounded Thee on earth. Grant, I beseech Thee, my dearest Jesus, that I may so often and so tenderly meditate upon Thee Risen and Glorified, that my heart may become daily more and more inflamed with love of thee, so that thy beauty may make the world dull and intolerable, and that I may thirst exceedingly with pure and disinterested love for the hour when Thou shalt admit me to behold Thee as Thou art, my dearest Lord, at this very moment on Thy throne in heaven; who livest and reignest, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
I believe in God, etc.
O Queen of Heaven and earth, Mother of God, Mother of mercy, conceived without stain of original sin, and gloriously crowned in heaven, I desire with all the love of my poor heart to congratulate thee on those wonderful delights which thou didst and which thou dost still enjoy in the glory and splendor of Jesus Risen from that first dawn when He appeared to thee in thy sorrows even to the present hour; and I beseech thee to accept this my devotion to thy maternal joys, and to obtain for me an increase of love to Jesus in this world, and in the world to come the never-fading light of His most blessed countenance. Amen.
Hail Mary.
O glorious and affectionate St. Joseph, Foster father of Jesus and Spouse of Mary, by the joy of thy meeting with Jesus in the place of departed spirits, and by the joy thou hast this honor in thy nearness to His risen beauty and most sweet splendor, present unto Him, I beseech thee, O my dear father and protector, this my devotion to the mysteries of His Risen Life; and as He spared thee the bitterness of His Sacred Passion, obtain for me the peace of His Resurrection and the gift of spiritual joy, that I may find no delight but in God, in Jesus, in Mary, and in thyself. Amen.
Our Father.
V. Pray for us, holy angels of God. Alleluia.
R. That we may be made worthy of the vision of Jesus Glorified. Alleluia.
O Eternal Father, Who, of Thine infinite goodness, didst give unto us Thine eternal and only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, and hast now raised His sacred humanity to the high places of heaven; grant, we beseech Thee, that by our devotion to the mysteries of His Risen and Glorified Life both on earth and in heaven, we may so please Thee, that by Thy clemency we may attain to the vision and enjoyment of Thee in the world to come; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who with Thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, God, world without end. Amen.
LET us PRAY.
O MOST blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who in various ways and places, during the forty days of thy Risen Life on earth, didst appear to Thy Mother and Thine Apostles; vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to manifest Thy Will to us on earth; so that by the help of Thy grace, following Thy divine vocation in this life, we may come to see Thee in unfading vision of thy glory in the life to come.
O Lord Jesus Christ, eternal Shepherd of thy chosen flock, desert not thy Church, which thou hast gathered out of the nations, and redeemed by thy Precious Blood; but for the sake of the joyful and glorious mysteries of Thy Risen Life, vouchsafe to grant unto Her in all lands an increase of the peace of Thy Resurrection, and the sevenfold gifts of thy Blessed Spirit, that She may grow in holiness before Thee, till Thou comest to judge the world; and we beseech Thee, for Her sake, to pour down most abundantly the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon Her and that by Thy clemency Thy flock may cometh to the blessed vision of Thy glory in heaven. Who livest and reignest, with the Father and the same Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.
Let us say one Our Father and one Hail Mary for the soul in purgatory most devoted to the mysteries of Jesus Amen.
Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh, Who redeemed man by His Death on the Cross, and Whose Divine mission is continued by the ministry of the Church. Without considering the numberless theological questions connected with Jesus Christ, we shall in the present article merely furnish a brief sketch of His life as it appears in the light of historical documents, premising, however, an explanation of the two words which compose the Sacred Name.
THE SACRED NAME. — The word Jesus is the Latin form of the Greek 'Ιησους, which in turn is the transliteration of the Hebrew Jeshua, or Joshua, or again Jehoshua, meaning "Jehovah is salvation". Though the name in one form or another occurs frequently in the Old Testament, it was not borne by a person of prominence between the time of Josue, the son of Nun and Josue, the high priest in the days of Zorobabel. It was also the name of the author of Ecclesiaticus of one of Christ's ancestors mentioned in the genealogy, found in the Third Gospel (Luke, iii, 29), and one of the St. Paul's companions (Col., iv, 11). During the Hellenizing period, Jason, a purely Greek analogon of Jesus, appears to have been adopted by many ( I Mach., viii, 17; xii, 16; xiv, 22; II Mach., i, 7; ii, 24; iv, 7 26; v, 5 10; Acts, xvii, 5 9; Rom., xvi, 21). The Greek name is connected with verb ιασθαι, to heal; it is therefore, not surprising that some of the Greek Fathers allied the word Jesus with same root (Euseb., "Dem. Ev." IV; cf. Acts, ix, 34; x., 38). Though about the time of Christ the name Jesus appears to have been fairly common (Jos., "Ant." XV, ix, 2; XVII, xiii, 1; XX, ix, 1; "Bel. Jud." III, ix, 7; IV, iii, 9; VI, v, 5; "Vit." 22) it was imposed on our Lord by God's express order (Luke, i, 31; Matt., i, 21), to foreshow that the Child was destined to "save his people from their sins." Philo ("De Mutt. Nom." 21) is therefore, right when he explains 'Ιησους as meaning σωτηρια κυριου; Eusebius (Dem., Ev., IV, ad fin.; P. G., XXII, 333) gives the meaning θεου σωτηριον; while St. Cyril of Jerusalem interprets the word as equivalent to σωτηρ (Cat., x, 13; P.G., XXXIII, 677). This last writer, however, appears to agree with Clement of Alexandria in considering the word 'Ιησους as of Greek origin (Paedag., III, xii; P. G., VIII, 677); St. Chrysostom emphasizes again the Hebrew derivation of the word and its meaning σωτηρ (Hom., ii, 2), thus agreeing with the exegesis of the angel speaking to St. Joseph (Matt., i, 21).
The word Christ, Χριστος, the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah, means "anointed" According to the Old Law, priests (Ex., xxix, 29; Lev., iv, 3), kings (I Kings, x, 1; xxiv, 7), and prophets (Is., lxi, l) were supposed to be anointed for their respective offices; now, the Christ, or the Messias, combined this threefold dignity in His Person. It is not surprising, therefore, that for centuries the Jews had referred to their expected Deliverer as "the Anointed" perhaps this designation alludes to Is., lxi, 1, and Dan., ix, 24-26, or even to Ps., ii, 2; xix, 7; xliv, 8. Thus the term Christ or Messias was a title rather than a proper name: "Non proprium nomen est, sed nuncupatio potestatis et regni" says Lactantius (Inst. Div., IV, vii). The Evangelists recognize the same truth; excepting Matt., i, 1, 18; Mark, i, 1; John, i, 17; xvii, 3; ix, 22; mark, ix, 40; Luke, ii, 11; xxii, 2, the word Christ is always preceded by the article. Only after the Resurrection did the title gradually pass into a proper name, and the expression Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus became only one designation. But at this stage the Greeks and Romans understood little or nothing about the import of the word anointed; to them it did not convey any sacred conception. Hence they substituted Chrestus, or "excellent" for Christus, or "anointed", and Chrestians instead of "Christians". There may be an allusion to this practice in I Pet., ii, 3; οτι χρηστος ο κυριος, which is rendered "that the Lord is sweet". Justin Martyr (Apol., I, 4), Clement of Alexandria (Strom., II, iv, 18), Tertullian (Adv. Gentes, II), and Lactantius (Int. Div., IV, vii, 5), as well as St. Jerome (In Gal., V, 22), are acquainted with the pagan substitution of Chrestes for Christus, and are careful to explain the new term in a favourable sense. The pagans made little or no effort to learn anything accurate about Christ and the Christians; Suetonius, for instance, ascribes the expulsion of the Jews from Rome under Claudius to the constant instigation of sedition by Chrestus, whom he conceives as acting in Rome the part of a leader of insurgents.
The use of the definite article before the word Christ and its gradual development into a proper name show the Christians identified the bearer with the promised Messias of the Jews. He combined in His person the offices of prophet (John, vi, 14; Matt., xiii, 57; Luke, xiii, 33; xxiv, 19) of king (Luke, xxiii. 2; Acts, xvii, 7; I Cor., xv, 24; Apoc., xv, 3),and of priest (Heb., ii, 17; etc.); he fulfilled all the Messianic predictions in a fuller and a higher sense than had been given them by the teachers of the Synagogue.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII, pp. 374-375
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
II. SOURCES. – The historical documents referring to Christ's life and work may be divided into three classes: pagan sources, Jewish sources, and Christian sources. In this article, we shall study the three in succession.
A. Pagan Sources. — The non-Christian sources for the historical truth of the Gospels are both few and polluted by hatred and prejudice. A number of reasons have been advanced for this condition of the pagan sources:The field of the Gospel history was remote Galilee; the Jews were noted as a superstitious race, if we believe Horace (Credat Judoeus Apella, I, Sat., v, 100); the God of the Jews was unknown and unintelligible to most pagans of that period; the Jews in whose midst Christianity had taken its origin were dispersed among, and hated by, all the pagan nations; the Christian religion itself was often confounded with one of the many sects that had sprung up in Judaism, and which could not excite the interest of the pagan spectator. It is at least certain that neither Jews nor Gentiles suspected in the least the paramount importance of the religion, the rise of which they witnessed among them. These considerations will account for the rarity and the asperity with which Christian events are mentioned by pagan authors. But though Gentile writers do not give us any information about Christ and the early stages of Christianity which we do not possess in the Gospels, and though their statements are made with unconcealed hatred and contempt, still they unwittingly prove the historical value of the facts related by the Evangelists.
We need not delay over a writing entitled the "Acts of Pilate", which must have existed in the second century (Justin, "Apol"., I, 35), and must have been used in the pagan schools to warn boys against the belief of Christians (Euseb., "Hist. Eccl.", I, ix; IX, v); nor need we inquire into the question whether there existed any authentic census tables of Quirinius. We possess at least the testimony of Tacitus (A.D. 54-119) for the statements that the Founder of the Christian religion, a deadly superstition in the eyes of the Romans, had been put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate under the reign of Tiberius; that His religion, though suppressed for a time, broke forth again not only throughout Judea where it had originated, but even in Rome, the conflux of all the streams of wickness and shamelessness; furthermore, that Nero had diverted from himself the suspicion of the burning of Rome by charging the Christians with the crime; that these latter were not guilty of arson, though they deserved their fate on account of their universal misanthropy. Tacitus, moreover, describes some of the horrible torments to which Nero subjected the Christians (Ann., XV, xliv). The Roman writer confounds the Christians with the Jews, considering them as a especially abject Jewish sect; how little he investigated the historical truth of even the Jewish records may be inferred from the credulity with which he accepted the absurd legends and calumnies about the origin of he Hebrew people (Hist., V, iii, iv).
Another Roman writer who shows his acquaintance with Christ and the Christians is Suetonius (A.D. 75-160). It has been noted that Suetonius considered Christ (Chrestus) as a Roman insurgent who stirred up seditions under the reign of Claudius (A.D. 41-54): "Judaeos, impulsore Chresto, assidue tumultuantes (Claudius) Roma expulit" (Clau., xxv). In his life of Nero he regards that emperor as a public benefactor on account of his severe treatment of the Christians: "Multa sub eo et animadversa severe, et coercita, nec minus instituta . . . afflicti Christiani, genus hominum superstitious novae et maleficae" (Nero, xvi). The Roman writer does not understand that the Jewish troubles arose from the Jewish antagonism to the Messianic character of Jesus Christ and to the rights of the Christian Church.
Of greater importance is the letter of Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan (about A.D. 61-115), in which the Governor of Bithynia consults his imperial majesty as to how to deal with the Christians living within his jurisdiction. On the one hand, their lives were confessedly innocent; no crime could be proved against them excepting their Christian belief, which appeared to the Roman as an extravagant and perverse superstition. On the other hand, the Christians could not be shaken in their allegiance to Christ, Whom they celebrated as their God in their early morning meetings (Ep., X, 97, 98). Christianity here appears no longer as a religion of criminals, as it does in the texts of Tacitus and Suetonius; Pliny acknowledges the high moral principles of the Christians, admires their constancy in the Faith (pervicacia et inflexibilis obstinatio), which he appears to trace back to their worship of Christ (carmenque Christo, quasi Deo, dicere).
The remaining pagan witnesses are of less importance: In the second century Lucian sneered at Christ and the Christians, as he scoffed at the pagan gods. He alludes to Christ's death on the Cross, to His miracles, to the mutual love prevailing among the Christians ("Philopseudes", nn. 13, 16; "De Morte Pereg"). There are also alleged allusions to Christ in Numenius (Origen, "Contra Cels", IV, 51), to His parables in Galerius, to the earthquake at the Crucifixion in Phlegon ( Origen, "Contra Cels.", II, 14). Before the end of the second century, the Λογος αληθης of Celsus, as quoted by Origen (Contra Cels., passim), testifies that at that time the facts related in the Gospels were generally accepted as historically true. However scanty the pagan sources of the life of Christ may be, they bear at least testimony to His existence, to His miracles, His parables, His claim to Divine worship, His death on the Cross, and to the more striking characteristics of His religion.
The reader may find it instructive to consult the following works on the views of pagan writers concerning Jewish and early Christian conditions: Meier, "Judaica, seu veterum scriptorum profanorum de rebus Judaicis fragmenta", Jena, 1832; Scmitthenner, "De rebus Judaicis quæcunque quæ prodiderunt ethnici scriptores Græcr et Latini", 1844; Goldschmidt, "De Judæorum apud Romanos conditione", 1866; Scheuffgen, "Unde Romanorum opiniones de Judæis comflatæ sint", Bedburg Programme, 1870; Gill, "Notices of the Jews and their Country by the Classic Writers of Antiquity", 1872; Geiger, "Quid de Judæorum moribus atque institutis scriptoribus Romanis persuasum fuerit", 1872; de Colonia, "La religion Chrétienne autorisée par les témoignages des anciens auteurs païens", 1750; Addison, "Essay on the Truth of the Christian Religion".
B. Jewish Sources. — Philo, who dies after A.D. 40, is mainly important for the light he throws on certain modes of thought and phraseology found again in some of the Apostles. Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, iv) indeed preserves a legend that Philo had met St. Peter in Rome during his mission to the Emperor Caius; moreover, that in his work on the contemplative life he describes the life of the Christian Church in Alexandria founded by St. Mark, rather than that of the Essenes and Therapeutae. But it is hardly probable that Philo had heard enough of Christ and His followers to give an historical foundation to the foregoing legends.
The earlist non-Christian writer who refers Christ is the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus; born A.D. 37, he was a contemporary of the Apostles, and died in Rome A.D. 94. Two passages in his "Antiquities" which confirm two facts of the inspired Christian records are not disputed. In the one he reports the murder of "John called Baptist" by Herod (Ant., XVIII, v, 2), describing also John's character and work; in the other (Ant., XX, ix, 1) he disappoves of the sentence pronounced by the high priest Ananus against "James, brother of Jesus Who was called Christ". It is antecedently probable that a writer so well informed as Josephus, must have been well acquainted too with the doctrine and the history of Jesus Christ. Seeing, also, that he records events of minor importance in the history of the Jews, it would be surprising if he were to keep silence about Jesus Christ. Consideration for the priests and Pharisees did not prevent him from mentioning the judicial murders of John the Baptist and the Apostle James; his endeavour to find the fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies in Vespasian did not induce him to pass in silence over several Jewish sects, though their tenets appear to be inconsistent with the Vespasian claims. One naturally expects, therefore, a notice about Jesus Christ in Josephus.
Ant. XVIII, iii, 3, seems to satisfy this expectation: — "About this time", it reads, "appeared Jesus, a wise man (if indeed it is right to call Him man; for He was a worker of astonishing deeds, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with joy), and He drew to Himself many Jews (and many also of the Greeks. This was the Christ). And when Pilate, at the denunciation of those that are foremost among us, had condemned Him to the cross, those who had first loved Him did not abandon Him. (For He appeared to them alive again on the third day, the holy prophets having foretold this and countless other marvels about Him.) The tribe of Christians named after Him did not cease to this day."
A testimony so important as the foregoing could not escape the work of the critics. Their conclusions may be reduced to three headings: First, there are those who consider the whole passage as spurious. To this class belong: Eichstädt, "Flaviani de Jesu Christo testimonii αυθεντια, quo jure nuper defensa sit quæst. I-VI", 1813-41; "Quæstionibus sex super Flaviano de Jesu Christo testimonio auctarium I-IV", 1841-45; Lewitz, "Quæstionum Flavianarum specimen", 1835; Reuss in "Nouvelle Revue de Théologie", 1859, 312 sqq.; Gerlach, "Das angebliche Zeugniss von Christo in den Schriften des Fl. Josephus", 1863; Höhne, "Ueber das angebliche Zeugniss des Josephus", 1871; Schürer, "Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes", I, Leipzig, 1901, 544-49; Farrar, art. "Jesus Christ" in "Encyclopædia Britannica", 9th ed. The principal reasons for this view appear to be the following; Josephus could not represent Jesus Christ as a simple moralist, and on the other hand he could not emphasize the Messianic prophecies and expectations without offending the Roman susceptibilities; again, the above cited passage from Josephus is said to be unknown to Origen and the earlier patristic writers; its very place in the Josephan text is uncertain, since Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, vi) must have found it before the notices concerning Pilate, while it now stands after them. But the spuriousness of the disputed Josephan passage does not imply the historian's ignorance of the facts connected with Jesus Christ. Josephus's report of his own juvenile precocity before the Jewish teachers (Vit., 2) reminds one of the story of Christ's stay in the Temple at the age of twelve; the description of his shipwreck on his journey to Rome (Vit., 3) recalls St. Paul's shipwreck as told in the Acts; finally his arbitrary introduction of a deceit practised by the priests of Isis on a Roman lady, after the chapter containing his supposed allusion to Jesus, shows a disposition to explain away the virgin birth of Jesus and to prepare the falsehoods embodied in the later Jewish writings.
A second class of critics do not regard the whole of Josephus's testimony concerning Christ as spurious but they maintain the interpolation of parts included above in parenthesis. To this class belong such scholars as Gieseler, "Kirchengeschichte", I, I, 81 sqq.; Hase, "Leben Jesu", n. 9; Ewald, "Geschichte des Volkes Israel", V, 181-86; Paret in Herzog, "Realencyk.", VII, 27-29; Heinichen, "Eusebii scripta historica", III, 2nd ed., 623 sqq.; Müller, "Christus bei Josephus Fl.", Innsbruck, 1895; Reinach, "Josèphe sur Jésus" in "Revue des Etudes juives", 1897, 1-18; "Revue biblique", 1898, 150-52. The reasons assigned for this opinion may be reduced to the following two: Josephus must have mentioned Jesus, but he cannot have recognized Him as the Christ; hence part of our present Josephan text must be genuine, part must be interpolated. Again, the same conclusion follows from the fact that Origen knew a Josephan text about Jesus, but was not acquainted with our present reading; for, according to the great Alexandrian doctor, Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Messias ("In Matth.", xiii, 55; "Contra Cels.", I, 47). Whatever force these two arguments have is lost by the fact that Josephus did not write for the Jews but for the Romans; consequently, when he says, "This was the Christ", he does not necessarily imply that Jesus was the Christ considered by the Romans as the founder of the Christian religion.
The third class of scholars believe that the whole passage concerning Jesus, as it is found today in Josephus, is genuine. Among the authors belonging to this class we may mention: Bretschneider, "Capita theologiæ Judæorum dogmaticæ e Flavii Josephi scriptis collecta", 1812, 59-66; Böhmert, "Ueber des Flavius Josephus Zeugniss von Christo", 1823; Schödel, "Flavius Josephus de Jesu Christo testatus" 1840; Mayaud, "Le témoignage de Josèphe", Strasburg, 1858; Langen in "Tübinger theol. Quartalschrift", 1865, i; Danko, "Historia revelationis divinæ N. T.", I, 1867, 308-14; Daubuz, "Pro testimonio Fl. Josephi de Jesu Christo", London, 1706; "Studien und Kritiken", 1856, 840; Kneller, "Fl. Josephus über Jesus Christus" in "Stimmen aus Maria-Laach", 1897, 1-19, 161-74. The main arguments for the genuineness of the Josephan passage are the following: First, all codices or manuscripts of Josephus's work contain the text in question; to maintain the spuriousness of the text, we must suppose that all the copies of Josephus were in the hands of Christians, and were changed in the same way. Second, it is true that neither Tertullian nor St. Justin makes use of Josephus's passage concerning Jesus; but this silence is probably due to the contempt with which the contemporary Jews regarded Josephus, and to the relatively little authority he had among the Roman readers. Writers of the age of Tertullian and Justin could appeal to living witnesses of the Apostolic tradition. Third, Eusebius ("Hist. Eccl"., I, xi; cf. "Dem. Ev.", III, v) Sozomen (Hist. Eccl., I, i), Niceph. (Hist. Eccl., I, 39), Isidore of Pelusium (Ep. IV, 225), St. Jerome (catal.script. eccles. xiii), Ambrose, Cassiodorus, etc., appeal to the testimony of Josephus; there must have been no doubt as to its authenticity at the time of these illustrious writers. Fourth, the complete silence of Josephus as to Jesus would have been a more eloquent testimony than we possess in his present text; this latter contains no statement incompatible with its Josephan authorship: the Roman reader needed the information that Jesus was the Christ, or the founder of the Christian religion; the wonderful works of Jesus and His Resurrection from the dead were so incessantly urged by the Christians that without these attributes the Josephan Jesus would hardly have been acknowledged as the founder of Christianity. All this does not necessarily imply that Josephus regarded Jesus as the Jewish Messias; but, even if he had been convinced of His Messiahship, it does not follow that he would have become a Christian. A number of posssible subterfuges might have supplied the Jewish historian with apparently sufficient reasons for not embracing Christianity.
The historical character of Jesus Christ is also attested by the hostile Jewish literature of the subsequent centuries. His birth is ascribed to an illicit ("Acta Pilati" in Thilo, "Codex apocryph. N.T., I, 526; cf. Justin, "Apol.", I, 35), or even an adulterous, union of His parents (Origen, "Contra Cels.," I, 28, 32). The father's name is Panthera, a common soldier (Gemara "Sanhedrin", viii; "Schabbath", xii, cf. Eisenmenger, "Entdecktes Judenthum", I, 109; Schottgen, "Horae Hebraicae", II, 696; Buxtorf, "Lex. Chald.", Basle, 1639, 1459, Huldreich, "Sepher toledhoth yeshua hannaceri", Leyden, 1705). The last work in its final edition did not appear before the thirteenth century, so that it could give the Panthera myth in its most advanced form. Rosch is of opinion ( (missing reference) )that the myth did not begin before the end of the first century. The later Jewish writings show traces of acquaintance with the murder of the Holy Innocents (Wagenseil, "Confut. Libr.Toldoth", 15; Eisenmenger op. cit., I, 116; Schottgen, op. cit., II, 667), with the flight into Egypt (cf. Josephus, "Ant." XIII, xiii), with the stay of Jesus in the Temple at the age of twelve (Schottgen, op. cit., II, 696), with the call of the disciples ("Sanhedrin", 43a; Wagenseil, op. cit., 17; Schottgen, loc. cit., 713), with His miracles (Origen, "Contra Cels", II, 48; Wagenseil, op. cit., 150; Gemara "Sanhedrin" fol. 17); "Schabbath", fol. 104b; Wagenseil, op.cit., 6, 7, 17), with His claim to be God (Origen, "Contra Cels.", I, 28; cf. Eisenmenger, op. cit., I, 152; Schottgen, loc. cit., 699) with His betrayal by Judas and His death (Origen, "Contra cels.", II, 9, 45, 68, 70; Buxtorf, op. cit., 1458; Lightfoot, "Hor. Heb.", 458, 490, 498; Eisenmenger, loc. cit., 185; Schottgen, loc. cit.,699 700; cf."Sanhedrin", vi, vii). Celsus (Origen, "Contra Cels.", II, 55) tries to throw doubt on the Resurrection, while Toldoth (cf. Wagenseil, 19) repeats the Jewish fiction that the body of Jesus had been stolen from the sepulchre.
C. Christian Sources. — Among the Christian sources of the life of Jesus we need hardly mention the so called Agrapha and Apocrypha (See AGRAPHA and APOCRYPHA). For whether the Agrapha contain Logia of Jesus, or refer to incidents in His life, they are either highly uncertain or present only variations of the Gospel story. The chief value of the Apocrypha consists in their showing the infinite superiority of the Inspired Writings by contrasting the coarse and erroneous productions of the human mind with the simple and sublime truths written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.
Among the Sacred Books of the New Testament, it is especially the four Gospels and the four great Epistles of St. Paul that are of the highest importance for the construction of the life of Jesus. The four great Pauline Epistles (Rom., Gal., I and II Cor.) can hardly be overestimated by the student of Christ's life; they have at times been called the "fifth gospel"; their authenticity has never been assailed by serious critics; their testimony is also earlier than that of the Gospels, at least most of the Gospels; it is the more valuable because it is incidental and undesigned; it is the testimony of a highly intellectual and cultured writer, who had been the greatest enemy of Jesus, who writes within twenty-five years of the events which he relates. At the same time, these four great Epistles bear witness to all the most important facts in the life of Christ: His Davidic dscent, His poverty, His Messiahship, His moral teaching, His preaching of the kingdom of God, His calling of the apostles, His miraculous power, His claims to be God, His betrayal, His institution of the Holy Eucharist, His passion, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, His repeated appearances (Rom., i, 3, 4; v, 11; vii, 2, 3, 32; ix, 5; xv, 8; Gal., ii, 17; iii, 13; iv, 4; v, 21; I Cor., vi, 9; vii, 10, xxi, xi, 25; xv, passim; II Cor., iii, 17; iv, 4; xii, 12; xiii, 4; etc.).
However important the four great Epistles may be, the gospels are still more so. Not that any one of them offers a complete biography of Jesus, but they account for the origin of Christianity by the life of its Founder. Questions like the authenticity of the Gospels, the relation between the Synoptic Gospels, and the Fourth, the Synoptic problem, must be studied in the articles referring to these respective subjects.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII, pp. 375-377
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
III. CHRONOLOGY. — What has been said proves not merely the existence of Jesus Christ, but also the historicity of the main incidents of His life. In the following paragraphs we shall endeavour to establish the absolute and relative chronology, i.e. we shall show first how certain facts connected with the history of Jesus Christ fit in with the course of universal history, and secondly how the rest of the life of Jesus must be arranged according to the inter-relation of its single elements.
A. Absolute Chronology. — The incidents whose absolute chronology may be determined with more or less probability are the year of Christ's nativity, of the beginning of His public life, and of His death. As we cannot fully examine the data entering into these several problems, the reader ought to compare what has been said on these points in the article CHRONOLOGY, BIBLICAL.
(1) The Nativity. — St. Matthew (2:1) tells us that Jesus was born "in the days of King Herod". Josephus (Ant., XVII, viii, 1) informs us that Herod died after ruling thirty four years de facto, thirty seven years de jure. Now Herod was made rightful king of Judea A.U.C. 714, while he began his actual rule after taking Jerusalem A.U.C. 717. As the Jews reckoned their years from Nisan to Nisan, and counted fractional parts as an entire year, the above data will place the death of Herod in A.U.C. 749, 750, 751. Again, Josephus tells us from that an eclipse of the moon occurred not long before Herod's death; such an eclipse occurred from 12 to 13 March, A.U.C. 750, so that Herod must have died before the Passover of that year which fell on 12 April (Josephus, "Ant." XVII, vi, 4; viii, 4). As Herod killed the children up to two years old, in order to destroy the new born King of the Jews, we are led to believe that Jesus may have been born A.U.C. 747, 748, 749. The enrollment under Cyrinus mentioned by St. Luke in connection with the nativity of Jesus Christ, and the remarkable astronomical conjunction of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in Pisces, in the spring of A.U.C. 748, will not lead us to any more definite result.
(2) Beginning of the Public Ministry. — The date of the beginning of Christ's ministry may be calculated from three different data found respectively in Luke iii, 23; Josephus, "Bel. Jud.", I, xxi, 1; or "Ant." XV, ii, 1; and Luke, iii, 1. The first of these passages reads: "And Jesus himself was beginning about the age of thirty years." The phrase "was beginning" does not qualify the following expression "about the age of thirty years," but rather indicates the commencement of the public life. As we have found that the birth of Jesus falls within the period 747-749 A.U.C., His public life must begin about 777-779 A.U.C. Second, when, shortly before the first Pasch of His public life, Jesus had cast the buyers and sellers out of the Temple, the Jews said: "Six and forty years was this temple in building" (John 2:20). Now, according to the testimony of Josephus (loc. cit.), the building of the Temple began in the fifteenth year of Herod's actual reign or in the eighteenth of his reign de jure, i.e. 732 A.U.C.; hence, adding the forty six years of actual building, the Pasch of Christ's first year of public life must have fallen in 778 A.U.C. Third, the Gospel of St. Luke (3:1) assigns the beginning of St. John the Baptist's mission to the "fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar". Augustus, the predecessor of Tiberius, died 19 August, 767 A.U.C., so that the fifteenth year of Tiberius's independent reign is 782 A.U.C.; but then Tiberius began to be associate of Augustus in A.U.C. 764, so that the fifteenth year reckoned from this date falls in A.U.C. 778. Jesus Christ's public life began a few months later, i.e. about A.U.C. 779.
(3) The Year of the Death of Christ. — According to the Evangelists, Jesus suffered under the high priest Caiphas (A.U.C. 772-90, or A.D. 18-36), during the governorship of Pontius Pilate A.U.C. 780-90). But this leaves the time rather indefinite. Tradition, the patristic testimonies for which have been collected by Patrizi (De Evangeliis), places the death of Jesus in the fifteenth (or sixteenth) year of Tiberius, in the consulship of the Gemini, forty-two years before the destruction of Jerusalem, and twelve years before the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles. We have already seen that the fifteenth year of Tiberius is either 778 or 782, according to its computation from the beginning of Tiberius's associate or sole reign; the consulship of the Gemini (Fufius and Rubellius) fell in A.U.C. 782; the forty second year before the destruction of Jerusalem is A.D. 29, or A.U.C. 782, twelve years before the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles brings us to the same year, A.D. 29 or A.U.C. 782, since the conversion of Cornelius, which marks the opening of the Gentile missions, fell probably in A.D. 40 or 41.
(4) Jesus died on Friday, the fifteenth day of Nisan. That Jesus died on Friday is clearly stated by Mark (xv, 42), Luke (xxiii, 54), and John (xix, 31). The few writers who assign another day for Christ's death are practically lost in the multitude of authorities who place it on Friday. What is more, they do not even agree among themselves: Epiphanius, e.g., places the Crucifixion on Tuesday; Lactantius, on Saturday; Westcott, on Thursday; Cassiodorus and Gregory of Tours, not on Friday. The first three Evangelists are equally clear about the date of the Crucifixion. They place the Last Supper on the fourteenth day of Nisan, as may be seen from Matt., xxvi, 17-20; Mark, xiv, 12-17; Luke, xxii, 7-14. Nor can there be any doubt about St. John's agreement with the Synoptic Evangelists on the question of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. The supper was held "before the festival day of the Pasch" (John, xiii, 1), i. e. on 14 Nisan, since the sacrificial day was computed according to the Roman method (Jovino, 123 sqq., 139 sqq.). Again, some disciples thought that Judas left the supper table because Jesus had said to him: "Buy those things which we have need of for the festival day: or that he should give something to the poor" (John, xiii, 29). If the Supper had been held on 13 Nisan this belief of the disciples can hardly be understood, since Judas might have made his purchases and distributed his alms on 14 Nisan; there would have been no need for his rushing into the city in the middle of the night. On the day of Christ's Crucifixion the Jews "went not into the hall, that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the pasch" (John, xviii, 28). The pasch which the Jews wished to eat could not have been the paschal lamb, which was eaten on 14 Nisan, for the pollution contracted by entering the hall would have ceased at sundown, so that it would not have prevented them from sharing in the paschal supper. The pasch which the Jews had in view must have been the sacrificial offerings (Chagighah), which were called also pasch and were eaten on 15 Nisan. Hence this passage places the death of Jesus Christ on the fifteenth day of Nisan. Again, Jesus is said to have suffered and died on the "parasceve of the pasch", or simply on the "parasceve" (John, xix, 14, 31); as "parasceve" meant Friday, the expression "parasceve of the pasch" denotes Friday on which the pasch happened to fall, not the before the pasch. Finally, the day following the parasceve on which Jesus died is called "a great sabbath day" (John, xix, 31), either to denote its occurrence in the paschal week or to distinguish it from the preceding pasch, or day of minor rest.
B. Relative Chronology. — No student of the life of Jesus will question the chronological order of its principal divisions: infancy, hidden life, public life, passion, glory. But the order of events in the single divisions is not always clear beyond dispute.
(1) The Infancy of Jesus. — The history of the infancy, for instance, is recorded only in the First Gospel and in the Third. Each Evangelist contents himself with five pictures: St. Matthew describes the birth of Jesus, the adoration of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, and the return to Nazareth. St. Luke gives a sketch of the birth, of the adoration of the shepherds, of the circumcision, of the purification of the Virgin, and of the return to Nazareth. The two Evangelists agree in the first and the last of these two series of incidents (moreover, all scholars place the birth, adoration of the shepherds, and the circumcision before the Magi), but how are we to arrange the intervening three events related by St. Matthew with the order of St. Luke? We indicate a few of the many ways in which the chronogical sequence of these facts has been arranged.
(a) The birth, the adoration of the shepherds, the circumcision, the adoration of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, the slaughter of the Innocents, the purification, the return to Nazareth. This order implies that either the purification was delayed beyond the fortieth day, which seems to contradict Luke, ii, 22 sqq., or that Jesus was born shortly before Herod's death. so that the Holy Family could return from Egypt within forty days after the birth of Jesus. Tradition does not seem to favour this speedy return.
(b) The birth, the adoration of the shepherds, the circumcision, the adoration of the Magi, the purification, the flight into Egypt, the slaughter of the Innocents, the return to Nazareth. According to this order the Magi either arrived a few days before the purification or they came on 6 Jan.; but in neither case can we understand why the Holy Family should have offered the sacrifice of the poor, after receiving the offeings of the Magi. Moreover, the firsr Evangelist intimates that the angel appeared to St. Joseph soon after the departure of the Magi, and it is not at all probable that Herod should have waited long before inquiring concerning the whereabouts of the new born king. The difficulties are not overcome by placing the adoration of the Magi on the day before the purification; it would be more unlikely in that case that the Holy Family should offer the sacrifice of the poor.
(c) As Luke ii, 39 appears to exclude the possibility of placing the adoration of the Magi between the presentation and return to Nazareth, there are interpreters who have located the advent of the wise men, the flight to Egypt, the slaughter of the Innocents, and the return from Egypt after the events as told in St. Luke. They agree in the opinion that the Holy Family returned to Nazareth after the purification, and then left Nazareth in order to make their home in Bethlehem. Eusebius, Epiphanius, and some other ancient writers are willing to place the adoration of the Magi about two years after Christ's birth; Paperbroch and his followers allow about a year and thirteen days between the birth and the advent of the Magi; while Patrizi agrees with those who fix the advent of the Magi at about two weeks after the purification . The text of Matt., ii, 1, 2, hardly permits an interval of more than a year between the purification and the coming of the wise men; Patrizi's opinion appears to satisfy all the data furnished by the gospels, while it does not contradict the particulars added by tradition.
(2) The Hidden Life of Jesus. — It was in the seclusion of Nazareth that Jesus spent the greatest part of His earthly life. The inspired records are very reticent about this period: Luke, ii, 40-52; Mark, vi, 3; John, vi, 42; vii, 15, are about the only passages which refer to the hidden life. Some of them give us a general view of Christ's life: "The child grew, and waxed strong, full of wisdom; and the grace of God was in him" is the brief summary of the years following the return of the Holy Family after the ceremonial purification in the Temple. "Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men", and He "was subject to them" form the inspired outline of Christ's life in Nazareth after He had attained the age of twelve. "When he was twelve years old" Jesus accompanied His parents to Jerusalem, "according to the custom of the feast"; "When they returned, the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem; and his parents knew it not." "After three days, they found him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them, and asking them questions." It was on this occasion that Jesus spoke the only words that have come down from the period of His hidden life: "How is it that you sought me? Did you not know, that I must be about my Father's business [or, "in my father's house"]?" The Jews tell us that Jesus had not passed through the training of he Rabbinic schools: "How doth this man know letters, having never learned?" The same question is asked by the people of Nazareth, who add, "Is not this the carpenter?" St. Justin is authority for the statement that Jesus specially made "ploughs and yokes" (Contra Tryph., 88). Though it is not certain that at the time of Jesus elementary schools existed in the Jewish villages, it may be inferred from the Gospels that Jesus knew how to read (Luke, iv, 16) and write (John, viii, 6). At an early age He must have learned the so-called Shema (Deut., vi, 4), and the Hallel, or Pss. cxiii-cxviii (Hebr.); He must have been familiar with the other parts of the Scriptures too, especially the Psalms and the Prophetic Books, as He constantly refers to them in His public life. It is also asserted that Palestine at the time of Jesus Christ was practically bilingual, so that Christ must have spoken Aramaic and Greek; the indications that He was acquainted with Hebrew and Latin are rather slight. The public teaching of Jesus shows that He was a close observer of the sights and sounds of nature, and of the habits of all classes of men. For these are the usual sources of His illustrations. To conclude the hidden life of Jesus extending through thirty years is far different from what one should have expected in the case of a Person Who is adored by His followers as their God and revered as their Saviour; this is an indirect proof for the credibility of the Gospel story.
(3) The Public Life of Jesus. — The chronology of the public life offers a number of problems to the interpreter; we shall touch upon only two, the duration of the public life, and the successive journeys it contains.
(a) Duration of the Public Life. — There are two extreme views as to the length of the ministry of Jesus: St. Irenaeus (Contra Haer., II, xxii, 3-6) appears to suggest a period of fifteen years; the prophetic phrases, "the year of recompenses", "the year of my redemption" (Is., xxxiv, 8; lxiii, 4), appear to have induced Clement of Alexandria, Julius Africanus, Philastrius, Hilarion, and two or three other patristic writers to allow only one year for the public life. This latter opinion has found advocates among certain recent students: von Soden, for instance, defends it in Cheyne's "Encyclopædia Biblica". But the text of the Gospels demands a more extensive duration. St. John's Gospel distinctly mentions three distinct paschs in the history of Christ's ministry (ii, 13; vi, 4; xi, 55). The first of the three occurs shortly after the baptism of Jesus, the last coincides with His Passion, so that at least two years must have intervened between the two events to give us the necessary room for the passover mentioned in vi, 4. Westcott and Hort omit the expression "the pasch" in vi, 4 to compress the ministry of Jesus within the space of one year; but all the manuscripts, the versions, and nearly all the Fathers testify for the reading Ην δε εγγυςτο πασχα ηεορτητων Ιουδαιων: "Now the pasch, the festival day of the Jews, was near at hand." Thus far then everything tends to favour the view of those writers and more recent commentators who extend the period of Christ's ministry a little over two years.
But a comparison of St. John's Gospel with the Synoptic Evangelists seems to introduce another pasch, indicated in the Fourth Gospel, into Christ's public life. John, iv, 45, relates the return of Jesus into Galilee after the first pasch of His public life in Jerusalem, and the same event is told by Mark, i, 14, and Luke iv, 14. Again the pasch mentioned in John, vi, 4 has its parallel in the "green grass" of Mark, vi, 39, and in the multiplication of loaves as told in Luke, ix, 12 sqq. But the plucking of ears mentioned in Mark, ii, 23, and Luke, vi, 1, implies another paschal season intervening between those expressly mentioned in John, ii, 13, and vi, 4. This shows that the public life of Jesus must have extended over four paschs, so that it must have lasted three years and a few months. Though the Fourth Gospel does not indicate this fourth pasch as clearly as the other three, it is not wholly silent on the question. The "festival day of the Jews" mentioned in John, v, 1, has been identified with the Feast of Pentecost, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Expiation, the Feast of the New Moon, the Feast of Purim, the Feast of Dedication, by various commentators; others openly confess that they cannot determine to which of the Jewish feasts this festival day refers. Nearly all difficulties will disappear if the festival day be regarded as the pasch, as both the text (εορτη) and John, iv, 35 seem to demand (cf. Dublin Review, XXIII, 351 sqq.).
(b) Journeys of Jesus during His Public Life. — The journeys Jesus made during His public life may be grouped under nine heads: the first six were mainly performed in Galilee and had Capharnaum for their central point; the last three bring Jesus into Judea without any pronounced central point. We cannot enter into the disputed questions connected with the single incidents of the various groups.
(i) First Journey. — December, A.U.C. 778 - Spring, 779. (Cf. John, i, ii; Matthew, iii, iv; Mark, i; Luke, iii, iv.) Jesus abandons His hidden life in Nazareth, and goes to Bethania across the Jordan, where He is baptized by John and receives the Baptist's first testimony to His Divine mission. He then withdraws into the desert of Judea, where He fasts for forty days and is tempted by the devil. After this He dwells in the neighbourhood of the Baptist's ministry, and receives the latter's second and third testimony; here too He wins His first disciples, with whom He journeys to the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee, where He performs His first miracle. Finally He transfers His residence, so far as there can be question of a residence in His public life, to Capharnaum, one of the principal thoroughfares of commerce and travel in Galilee.
(ii) Second Journey. — Passover, A.U.C. 779 - about Pentecost, 780. (Cf. John, ii-v; Mark, i-iii; Luke, iv-vii; Matt., iv-ix.) Jesus goes from Capharnaum to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover; here he expels the buyers and sellers from the Temple, and is questioned by the Jewish authorities. Many believed in Jesus, and Nicodemus came to converse with Him during the night. After the festival days He remained in Judea till about the following December, during which period He received the fourth testimony from John who was baptizing at Ennon (A.V. Aenon). When the Baptist had been imprisoned in Machaerus, Jesus returned to Galilee by way of Samaria where He met the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well near Sichar; He delayed two days in this place, and many believed in Him. Soon after His return into Galilee we find Jesus again in Cana, where He heard the prayer who pleaded for the recovery of his dying son in Capharnaum. The rejection of Jesus by the people of Nazareth, whether at this time as, St. Luke intimates, or at a later period, as St. Mark seems to demand, or again both now and about eight months later, is an exegetical problem we cannot solve here. At any rate, shortly afterwards Jesus is mostly actively engaged in Capharnaum in teaching and healing the sick, restoring among others Peter's mother-in-law and a demoniac. On this occasion He called Peter and Andrew, James and John. Then followed a missionary tour through Galilee during which Jesus cured a leper; soon he again taught in Capharnaum, and was surrounded by such a multitude that a man sick of the palsy had to be let down through the roof in order to reach the Sacred Presence. After calling Matthew to the Apostleship, He went to Jerusalem for the second pasch occurring during His public life, it was on this occasion that He healed the man who been sick for thirty-eight years near the pool at Jerusalem. The charge of violating the Sabbath and Christ's answer were the natural effects of the miracle. The same charge is repeated shortly after the pasch; Jesus had returned to Galilee, and the disciples plucked some ripe ears in the corn fields. The question became more acute in the immediate future; Jesus had returned to Capharnaum, and there healed on the Sabbath day a man who had a withered hand. The Pharisees now make common cause with the Herodians in order to "destroy him". Jesus withdraws first to the Sea of Galilee, where He teaches and performs numerous miracles; then retires to the Mountain of Beatitudes, where He prays during the night, chooses His Twelve Apostles in the morning, and preaches the Sermon on the Mount. He is brought back to Capharnaum by the prayers of the centurion who asks and obtains the of his servant.
(iii) Third Journey. — About Pentecost, A.U.C. 780- Autumn, 780. (Cf. Luke, vii, viii; Mark, iii, iv; Matt., iv, viii, ix, xii, xiii.) Jesus makes another missionary tour through Galilee; He resuscitates the son of the widow at Naim, and shortly afterwards receives the messengers sent by John from his prison in Machaerus. Then follows the scene of the merciful reception of the sinful woman who anoints the feet of the Lord while He rests at table in Magdala or perhaps in Capharnaum; for the rest of His missionary tour Jesus is followed by a band of pious women who minister to the wants of the Apostles. After returning to Capharnaum, Jesus expels the mute devil, is charged by the Pharisees with casting out devils by the prince of devils, and encounters the remonstrances of His kinsmen. Withdrawing to the sea, He preaches what may be called the "Lake Sermon", consisting of seven parables.
(iv) Fourth Journey. — Autumn, A.U.C. 780- about Passover, 781. (Cf. Luke, viii, ix; Mark, iv-vi; Matt., viii, ix, x, xiii, xiv.) After a laborious day of ministry in the city of Capharnaum and on the lake, Jesus with His Apostles crosses the waters. As a great storm overtakes them, the frightened Apostles awaken their sleeping Master, Who commands the winds and the waves. Towards morning they meet in the country of the Gerasens, on the east of the lake, two demoniacs. Jesus expels the evil spirits, but allows them to enter into a herd of swine. The beasts destroy themselves in the waters of the lake, and frightened inhabitants beg Jesus not to remain among them. After returning to Capharnaum he heals the woman who had touched the hem of His garment, resuscitates the daughter of Jairus, and gives sight to two blind men. The second Gospel places here Christ's last visit to and rejection by the people of Nazareth. Then follows the ministry of the Apostles who are sent two by two, while Jesus Himself makes another missionary tour through Galilee. It seems to have been the martyrdom of John the Baptist that occasioned the return of the Apostles and their gathering around the Master in Capharnaum. But, however depressing this event may have been, it did not damp the enthusiasm of the Apostles over their success.
(v) Fifth Journey. — Spring, A.U.C. 781. (Cf. John, vi; Luke, ix; Mark, vi; and Matt., xiv.) Jesus invites the Apostles, tired out from their missionary labours, to rest awhile. They cross the northern part of the Sea of Galilee, but, instead of finding the desired solitude, they are met by multitudes of people who had preceded them by land or by boat, and who were eager for instruction. Jesus taught them throughout the day, and towards evening did not wish to dismiss them hungry. On the other hand, there were only five loaves and two fishes at the disposal of Jesus; after His blessing, these scanty supplies satisfied the hunger of five thousand men, besides women and children, and remnants filled twelve baskets of fragments. Jesus sent the Apostles back to their boats, and escaped from the enthusiastic multitudes, who wished to make Him king, into the mountain where He prayed till far into the night. Meanwhile the Apostles were facing a contrary wind till the fourth watch in the morning, when they saw Jesus walking upon the waters. The Apostles first fear, and then recognize Jesus; Peter walks upon the water as long as his confidence lasts; the storm ceases when Jesus has entered the boat. The next day brings Jesus and His Apostles to Capharnaum, where He speaks to the assembly about the Bread of Life and promises the Holy Eucharist, with the result that some of His followers leave Him, while the faith of His true disciples is strenghened.
(vi) Sixth Journey. — About May, A.U.C. 781- Sept., 781. (Cf. Lk., ix; Mk., vii-ix; Matt., xiv- xviii; John, vii.) It may be owing to the enmity stirred up against Jesus by His Eucharistic discourse in Capharnaum that He began now a more extensive missionary tour than He had made in the preceding years of His life. Passing through the country of Genesar, He expressed His disapproval of the Pharisaic practices of legal purity. Within the boarders of Tyre and Sidon He exorcized the daughter of the Syrophenician woman. From here Jesus travelled first towards the north, then towards the east, then south-eastward through the northern part of Decapolis, probably along the foot of the Labanon, till He came to the eastern part of Galilee. While in Decapolis Jesus healed a deaf-mute, employing a ceremonial more elaborate than He had used at any of His previous miracles; in the eastern part of Galilee, probably not far from Dalmanutha and Magedan, He fed four thousand men, besides children and women, with seven loaves and a few little fishes, the remaining fragments filling seven baskets. The multitudes had listened for three days to the teaching of Jesus, previously to the miracle. In spite of the many cures performed by Jesus, during this journey, on the blind, the dumb, the lame, the maimed, and on many others, the Pharisees and Sadduces asked Him for a sign from heaven, tempting Him. He promised them the sign of Jonas the Prophet. After Jesus and the Apostles had crossed the lake, He warned them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees; then they passed through Bethsaida Julias where Jesus gave sight to a blind man. Next we find Jesus in the confines of Cæsarea Philippi, where Peter professes his faith in Christ, the Son of the living God, and in his turn receives from Jesus the promise of the power of the keys. Jesus here predicts His passion, and about a week later is transfigured before Peter, James, and John, probably on the top of Mt. Thabor. On descending from the mountain, Jesus exorcizes the mute devil whom His disciples had not been able to expel. Bending his way towards Capharnaum, Jesus predicts His Passion for the second time, and in the city pays the tribute-money for Himself and Peter. This occasions the discussion as to the greater in the kingdom of heaven, and the allied discourses. Finally, Jesus refuses His brethren's invitation to go publicly to the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.
(vii) Seventh Journey. — Sept., A.U.C. 781- December, 781. (Cf. Luke, ix-xiii; Mark, x; Matt., vi, vii, viii, x, xi, xii, xxiv; John, vii-x.) Jesus now "steadfastly set His face to go Jerusalem", and as the Samaritans refused Him hospitality, He had to take the east of the Jordan. While still in Galilee, He refused the discipleship of several half-hearted candidates, and about the same time He sent other seventy-two, two by two, before His face into every city and place whither He Himself was to come. Probably in the lower part of Peraea, the seventy-two returned with joy, rejoicing in the miraculous power that had been exercised by them. It must have been in the vicinity of Jericho that Jesus answered the lawer's question, "Who is my neighbour?" by the parable of the Good Samaritan. Next Jesus was received in the hospitable home of Mary and Martha, where He declares Mary to have chosen the better part. From Bethania went to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles, where he became involved in discussions with the Jews. The Scribes and Pharisees endeavoured to catch Him in the sentence which they asked Him to pronounce in the case of the woman taken in adultary. When Jesus had avoided this snare, He continued His discussions with the hostile Jews. Their enmity was intensified because Jesus restored sight to a blind man on the Sabbath day. Jesus appears to have His stay in Jerusalem with the beautiful discourse on the Good Shepherd. A little later He teaches His Apostles the Our Father, probably somewhere on Mt. Olivet. On a subsequent missionary tour through Judea and Peraea He defends Himself against the charges of Pharisees, and reproves their hypocrisy. On the same journey Jesus warned against hypocrisy, covetousness, worldly care; He exhorted to watchfulness, patience under contradictions, and to penance. About this time, too, He healed the woman who had the spirit of infirmity.
(viii) Eighth Journey. — December, A.U.C. 781-February, 782. (Cf. Luke, xiii-xvii; John, x, xi.) The Feast of Dedication brought Jesus again to Jerusalem, and occasioned another discussion with the Jews. This is followed by another missionary tour through Peraea, during which Jesus explained a number of important points of doctrine: the number of the elect, the choice of one's place at table, the guests to be invited, the parable of the great supper, resoluteness in the service of God, the parables of the hundred sheep, the lost groat, and the prodigal son, of the unjust steward, of Dives and Lazarus, of the unmerciful servant, besides the duty of fraternal correction, and the efficacy of faith. During this period, too, the Pharisees attempted to frighten Jesus with the menance of Herod's persecution; on his part, Jesus healed a man who had drospy, on a Sabbath day, while at table in the house of a certain prince of the Pharisees. Finally Mary and Martha send messengers to Jesus, asking Him to come and cure their brother Lazarus; Jesus went after two days, and resuscitated His friend who had been several days in the grave. The Jews are exasperated over this miracle, and they decree Jesus must die for the people. Hence He withdrew "into a country near the desert, unto a city that is called Ephrem".
(ix) Ninth Journey. — February, A.U.C. 782- Passover, 782. (Cf. Luke, xvii-xxii; Mark., x, xiv; Matt., xix-xxvi; John, xi, xii.) This last journey took Jesus from Ephrem northward through Samaria, then eastward along the border of Galilee into Peraea, then southward through Peraea, westward across the Jordan, through Jericho, Bethania on Mt. Olivet, Bethphage, and finally to Jerusalem. While in the most northern part of the journey, He cured ten lepers; a little later, He answered the questions raised by the Pharisees concerning the kingdom of God. Then He urged the need of incessant prayer by proposing the parable of the unjust judge; here too belong the parable of the Pharisee and Publican, the discourse on marriage, on the attitude of the Church towards the children, on the right use of riches as illustrated by the story of the rich young ruler, and the parable of the labourers in the vineyard. After beginning His route towards Jerusalem, He predicted His Passion for the third time; James and John betray their ambition, but they are taught the true standard of greatness in the Church. At Jericho Jesus heals two blind men, and receives the repentance of Zacheus the publican; here He proposed also the parable of the pounds entrusted to the servants by the master. Six days before the pasch we find Jesus at Bethania on Mt. Olivet, as the guest of Simon the leper; Mary anoints His feet, and the disciples at the instigation of Judas are indignant at this seeming waste of ointment. A great multitude assembles at Bethania, not to see Jesus only but also Lazarus; hence the chief priests think of killing Lazarus too. On the following day Jesus solemnly entered Jerusalem and was received by the Hosanna cries of all classes of people. In the afternoon He met a delegation of Gentiles in the court of the Temple. On Monday Jesus curses the barren fig tree, and during the morning He drives the buyers and sellers from the Temple. On Tuesday the wonder of the disciples at the sudden withering of the fig tree provokes their Master's instruction on the efficacy of faith. Jesus answers the enemies' questions as to His authority; then He proposes the parable of the two sons, of the wicked husbandmen, and of the marriage feast. Next follows a triple snare: the politicians ask whether it is lawful to pay tribute to Caesar; the scoffers inquire whose wife a woman, who has had several husbands, will be after ressurection; the Jewish theologians propose the question: Which is the first commandment, the great commandment of the law? Then Jesus proposes His last question to the Jews: "What think you of Christ? whose son is he?" This is followed by the eightfold woe against the Scribes and Pharisees, and by the denunciation of Jerusalem. The last words of Christ in the Temple were expressions of praise for the poor widow who had made an offering of two mites in spite of her poverty. Jesus ended this day by uttering the prophecies concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, His second coming, and the future judgement; these predictions are interrupted by the parable of the ten virgins and the talents. On Wednesday Jesus again predicted His Passion; probably it was on the same day that Judas made his agreement with the Jews to betray Jesus.
(4) The Passion of Jesus. — The history of Christ's Passion comprises three parts: the preparation for the Passion, the trial of Jesus, and His death.
(a) Preparation for the Passion. — Jesus prepares His disciples for the Passion, He prepares Himself for the ordeal and His enemies prepare themselves for the destruction of Jesus.
(i) Preparation of the Apostles. — Jesus prepares His Apostles for the Passion by the eating of the paschal lamb, the institution of the Holy Eucharist, the concomitant ceremonies, and His lengthy discourses held during and after the Last Supper. Special mention should be made of the prediction of the Passion, and of the betrayal one of the Apostles and the denial by another. Peter, james, and John are prepared in a more particular manner by witnessing the sorrow of Jesus on Mt. Olivet.
(ii) Preparation of Jesus. — Jesus must have found an indirect preparation in all He did and said to strengthen His Apostles. But the preparation that was pecularly His own consisted in His prayer in the grotto of His Agony where the angel came to strengthen Him. The sleep of His favoured Apostles during the hours of His bitter struggle must have prepared Him too for the complete abandonment He was soon to experience.
(iii) Preparation of the Enemies. — Judas leaves the Master during the Last Supper. The chief priests and Pharisees hastily collect a detachment of the Roman cohort stationed in the castle of Antonia, of the Jewish temple-watch, and of the officials of the Temple. To these are added a number of the servants and dependents of the high-priest, and a miscellaneous multitude of fanatics with lanterns and torches, with swords and clubs, who were to follow the leadership of Judas. They took Christ, bound Him, and led Him to the high-priest's house.
(b) Trial of Jesus, — Jesus was tried first before an ecclesiastical and then before a civil tribunal.
(i) Before Ecclesiastical Court. — The ecclesiastical trial includes Christ's appearance before Annas, before Caiphas, and again before Caiphas, who appears to have acted in each case as head of the Sanhedrin. The Jewish court found Jesus guilty of blasphemy, and condemned Him to death, though its proceedings were illegal from more than one point of view. During the trial took place Peter's triple denial of Jesus; Jesus is insulted and mocked, especially between the second and third session; and after His final condemnation Judas despaired and met his tragic death.
(ii) Before the Civil Court. — The civil trial, too, comprised three sessions, the first before Pilate, the second before Herod, the third again before Pilate. Jesus is not charged with blasphemy before the court of Pilate, but with stirring up the people, forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and claiming to be Christ the king. Pilate ignores the first two charges; the third he finds harmless when he sees that Jesus does not claim royalty in the Roman sense of the word. But in order not to incur the odium of the Jewish leaders, the Roman governor sends his prisoner to Herod. As Jesus did not humour the curiosity of Herod, He was mocked and set at naught by the Tetrarch of Galilee and his court, and sent back to Pilate. The Roman procurator declares the prisoner innocent for the second time, but, instead of setting Him free, gives the people the alternative to choose either Jesus or Barabbas for their paschal freedman. Pilate pronounced Jesus innocent for the third time with the more solemn ceremony of washing his hands; he had recourse to a third scheme of ridding himself of the burden of pronouncing an unjust sentence against his prisoner. He had the prisoner scourged, thus annihilating, as far as human means could do so, any hope that Jesus could ever attain to the royal dignity. But even this device miscarried, and Pilate allowed his political ambition to prevail over his sense of evident justice; he condemned Jesus to be crucified.
(c) Death of Jesus. — Jesus carried His Cross to the place of execution. Simon of Cyrene is forced to assist Him in bearing the heavy burden. On the way Jesus addresses his last words to the weeping women who sympathized with His suffering. He is nailed to the Cross, his garments are divided, and an inscription is placed over His head. While His enemies mock Him, He pronounces the well-known "Seven Words". Of the two robbers crucified with Jesus, one was converted, and the other died impenitent. The sun was darkened, and Jesus surrendered His soul into the hands of His Father. The veil of the Temple was rent into two, the earth quaked, the rocks were riven, and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose and appeared to many. The Roman centurion testified that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. The Heart of Jesus was pierced so as to make sure of His death. The Sacred Body was taken from the Cross by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, and was buried in the new sepulchre of Joseph, and the Sabbath drew near.
(5) The Glory of Jesus. — After the burial of Jesus, the Holy women returned and prepared spices and ointments. The next day, the chief priests and Pharisees made the sepulchre secure with guards, sealing the stone. When the Sabbath was passed, the Holy women brought sweet spices that they might anoint Jesus. But Jesus rose early the first day of the week, and there was a great earthquake, and an angel descended from heaven, and rolled back the stone. The guards were struck with terror, and became as dead men. On arriving at the sepulchre the holy women found the grave empty; Mary Magdalen ran to tell the Apostles Peter and John, while the other women were told by an angel that the Lord had arisen from the dead. Peter and John hasten to the sepulchre, and find everything as Magdalen has reported. Magdalen too returns, and, while weeping at the sepulchre, is approached by the arisen Saviour Who appears to her and speaks with her. On the same day Jesus appeared to the other Holy Women, to Peter, to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, and to all the Apostles excepting Thomas. A week later He appeared to all the Apostles, Thomas included; later still He appeared in Galilee near the Lake of Genesareth to seven disciples, on a mountain in Galilee to a multitude of disciples, to James, and finally to His disciples on the Mount Olivet whence He ascended into heaven. But these apparitions do not exhaust the record of the Gospels, according to which Jesus showed Himself alive after His Passion by many proofs, for forty days appearing to the disciples and speaking of the kingdom of God.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII, pp. 377-382
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
IV. THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. — The surpassing eminence of the character of Jesus has been acknowledged by men of the most varied type: Kant testifies to His ideal perfection; Hegel sees in Him the union of the human and the Divine; the most advanced sceptics do Him homage; Spinoza speaks of Him as the truest symbol of heavenly wisdom; the beauty and grandeur of His life overawe Voltaire; Napoleon I, at St. Helena, felt convinced that "Between him [Jesus] and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison" (Montholon, "Récit de la Captivité de l'Empereur Napoléon"). Rousseau testifies: "If the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a god." Strauss acknowledges: "He is the highest object we can possibly imagine with respect to religion, the being without whose presence in the mind perfect piety is impossible". To Renan "The Christ of the Gospels is the most beautiful incarnation of God in the most beautiful of forms. His beauty is eternal; his reign will never end." John Stuart Mill spoke of Jesus as "a man charged with a special, express, and unique commission from God to lead mankind to truth and virtue". Not that the views of the foregoing witnesses are of any great importance for the theological student of the life of Jesus; but they show at least the impression made on the most different classes of men by the history of Christ. In the following paragraphs we shall consider the character of Jesus as manifested first in His relation to men, then in His relation to God.
A. Jesus in His Relation to Men. — In His relation to men Jesus manifested certain qualities which were perceived by all, being subject to the light of reason; but other qualities were reserved for those who viewed Him in the light of faith. Both deserve a brief study.
(1) In the Light of Reason. — There is no trustworthy tradition concerning the bodily appearance of Jesus, but this is not needed in order to obtain a picture of His character. It is true that at first sight the conduct of Jesus is so many-sided that His character seems to elude all description. Command and sympathy, power and charm, authority and affection, cheerfulness and gravity, are the some of the qualities that make the analysis impossible. The make-up of the Gospels does not facilitate the work. At first they appear to us a bewildering forest of dogmatic statements and moral principles; there is no system, no method, everything is occassional , everything fragmentary. The Gospels are neither a manual of dogma nor a treatise on casuistry, though they are the fountain of both. No wonder then the various investgators have arrived at entirely different conclusion at the study of Jesus. Some call Him a fanatic, others make Him a socialist, others again an anarchist, while many call Him a dreamer, a mystic, an Essene. But in this variety of views there are two main concepts under which the others may be summarized: Some consider Jesus an ascetic, others an aesthete; some emphasize His suffering, others His joyfulness; some identify Him with ecclesiasticism, others with humanism; some recognize in Him the prophetic picture of the Old Testament and the monastic of the New, others see in Him only gladness and poetry. There may be solid ground for both views; but they do not exhaust the character of Jesus. Both are only by-products which really existed in Jesus, but were not primarily intended; they are only enjoyed and suffered in passing, while Jesus strove to attain an end wholly different from either joy or sorrow.
(a) Strength. — Considering the life of Jesus in the light of reason, His strength, His poise, and His grace are His most characteristic qualities. His strength shows itself in His manner of life, His decision, His authority. In His rugged, nomadic, homeless life there is no room for weakness or sentimentality. Indecision is rejected by Jesus on several occasions: "No man can serve two masters"; "He that is not with me, is against me"; Seek first the kingdom of God", these are some of the statements expressing Christ's attitude to indecision of will. Of Himself He said: "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me"; "I seek not my own will, but the will of him that sent me." The authority of the Master does not allow its power to be questioned; He calls to men in their boats, in their tax-booths, on their homes, "Follow me", and they look up into His face and obey. St. Mathew testifies, "The multitude...glorified God that gave such power to men"; St. Mark adds, "the kingdom of God comes to power"; St. Luke says, "Thou hast given him power over all flesh"; the Book of the Acts reads, "God anointed him...with power"; St. Paul too is impressed with "the power of our Lord Jesus". In His teaching Jesus does not argue, or prove, or threaten, like the Phrarisees, but He speaks like one having authority. Nowhere is Jesus merely a long-faced ascetic or a joyous comrade, we find Him everywhere to be leader of men, whose principles are built on a rock.
(b) Poise. — It may be said that the strength of Christ's character gives rise to another quality which we may call poise. Reason is like the sails of the boat, the will is its rudder, and the feelings are the waves thrown upon either side of the ship as it passes through the waters. The will-power of Jesus is strong enough to keep a perfect equilibrium between His feelings and His reason; His body is the perfect instrument in the performance of His duty; His emotions are wholly subservient to the Will of His Father; it is the call of complying with His higher duties that prevents His austerity from becoming excessive. There is therefore a perfect balance or equilibrium in Jesus between the life of His body, of His mind, and of His emotions. His character is so rounded off that, at first sight, there remains nothing which could make it characteristic. This poise in the character of Jesus produces a simplicity which pervades every one of His actions. As the old Roman roads led stright ahead in spite of mountains and valleys, ascents and declivities, so does the life of Jesus flow quietly onward in accordance with the call of duty, in spite of pleasure or pain, honour or ignominy. Another trait in Jesus which may be considered as flowing from the poise of His character is His unalterable peace, a peace which may be ruffled but cannot be destroyed either by His inward feelings or outward encounters. And these personal qualities in Jesus are reflected in his teaching. He establishes an equilibrium between the rightousness of the Old Testament and the justice of the New, between the love and life of the former and those of the latter. He lops off indeed the Pharisaic conventionalism and externalism, but they were merely degenerated outgrowths; He urges the law of love, but shows that it embraces the whole Law and the Prophets; He promises life, but it consists not so much in our possession as in our capacity to use our possession. Nor can it be urged that the poise of Christ's teachhing is destroyed by His three paradoxes of self-reliance, of service, and of idealism. The law of self-sacrifice inculcates that we shall find life by losing it; but the law of biological organisms, of physiological tissues, of intellectual achivements, and of economic processes shows that self-sacrifice is self-realization in the end. The second paradox is that of service: "Whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister: and he that will be first among you, shall be your servant." But in the industrial and artistic world, too, the greatest men are those who have done most service. Thirdly, the idealism of Jesus is expressed in such words as "The life is more than the meat", and "Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." But even our realistic age must grant that the reality of the law is its ideals, and again, that the world of the idealist is impossible only for the weak, while the strong character creates the world after which he strives. The character of Jesus therefore is the embodiment of both strength and poise. It thus verifies the definition given by such an involved writer as Emerson: "Character is centrality, the impossibility of being displaced or overset...The natural measure of this power is the resistence of circumstances."
(c) Grace. — But if there were not a third essential element entering into the character of Jesus, it might not be attractive after all. Even saints are at times bad neighbours; we may like them, but sometimes we like them only at a distance. The character of Christ carries with it the trait of grace, doing away with all harshness and want of amiability. Grace is the unconstrained expression of the self-forgetting and kindly mind. It is a beautiful way of doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, therefore opens all hearts to its possessor. Sympathy is the widst channel through which grace flows, and the abundance of the stream testifies to the reserve of grace. Now Jesus sympathizes with all classes, with the rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, the happy and the sad; He moves with the same sense of familiarity among all classes of society. For the self-righteous Pharisees He has only the words, "Woe to you, hypocrites"; he disciples, "Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Plato and Aristotle are utterly unlike Jesus; they may speak of natural virtue, but we never find children in their arms. Jesus treats the publicans as His friends; He encourages the most tentative beginnings of moral growth. He chooses common fishermen for the corner-stones of His kingdom, and by His kindliness trains them to become the light of the world and the salt of the earth; He bends down to St. Peter whose character was a heap of sand rather than a solid foundation, but He graciously forms Peter into the rock upon which to build his Church. After two of the Apostles had fallen, Jesus was gracious to both, though He saved only one, while the other destroyed himself. Women in need are not excluded from the general graciousness of Jesus; He receives the homage of the sinful woman, He consolves the sorrowing sisters Martha and Mary, He cures the mother-in-law of St. Peter and restores the health of numerous other women of Galilee, He has words of sympathy for the women of Jerusalem who bewailed His sufferings, He was subject to His mother till He reached man's estate, and when dying on the Cross commanded her to the care of His beloved disciple. The grace of the Master is also evident in the form of His teaching: He lays under contribution the simple phases of nature, the hen with her chickens, the gnat in the cup, the camel in the narrow street, the fig tree and its fruit, the fishermen sorting the catch. He meets with the lightest touch, approaching sometimes the play of humour and sometimes the thrust of irony, the simple doubts of His disciples, the selfish questions of His hearers, and the subtlest snares of his enemies. He feels no need of thrift in His benefits on the few as abundantly as the vastest multitudes. He flings out His parables into the world that those who have ears may hear. There is a prodigality in this manifestation of Christ's grace that can only be symbolized, but not equalled, by the waste of seed in the realm of nature.
(2) In the Light of Faith. — In the light of faith the life of Jesus is an uninterrupted series of acts of love for man. It was love that impelled the Son of God to take on human nature, though He did so with the full consent of His Father: "For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son" (John, iii, 16). For thirty years Jesus shows His love by a life of poverty, labour, and hardship in the fulfillment of the duties of a common trademan. When His public ministry began, He simply spent Himself for the good of His neighbour, "doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil" (Acts, x, 38). He shows a boundless compassion for all the infirmities of the body; He uses His miraculous power to heal the sick, to free the possessed, to resuscitate the dead. The moral weaknesses of man move His heart still more effectively; the woman at Jacob's well, Mathew the publican, Mary Magdalen the public sinner, Zacheus the unjust administrator, are only a few instances of sinners who received encouragement from the lips of Jesus. He is ready with forgiveness for all; the parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates His love for the sinner. In His work of teaching He is at the service of the poorest outcast of Galilee as well as of the theological celebrities of Jerusalem. His bitterest enemies are not excluded from the manifestations of His love; even while He is being crucified He prays for their pardon. The Scribes and Pharisees are treated severely, only because they stand in the way of His love. "Come to me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you" (Matt., xi, 28) is the message of His heart to poor suffering humanity. After laying down the rule, "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John, xv, 13), He surpasses as it were His own standard by dying for His enemies. Fulfilling the unconscious prophecy of the godless high-priest, "It is expedient for you that one man should die for the people" (John, xi, 50), He freely meets His sufferings which He could have easily avoided (Matt., xxvi, 53), undergoes the greatest insults and ignominies, passes through the most severe bodily pains, and sheds His blood for men "unto remission of sins" (Matt., xxvi, 28). But the love of Jesus embraced not only the spiritual welfare of men, it extended also to their temporal happiness: "Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt., vi, 33).
B. Jesus in His Relation to God. — Prescinding from the theological discussions which are usually treated in the theses "De Verbo Incarnato", we may consider the relations of Jesus to God under the headings of His sanctity and His Divinity.
(1) Sanctity of Jesus. — From a nagative point of view, the sanctity of Jesus consists in His unspotted sinlessness. He can defy His enemies by asking, "Which of you shall convince me of sin?" (John, viii, 46). Even the evil spirits are forced to acknowledge Him as the Holy One of God (Mark, i, 24; Luke, iv, 34). His enemies charge Him with being a Samaritan, and having a devil (John, viii, 48), with being a sinner (John, ix, 24), a blasphemer (Matt., xxvi, 65), a violator of the Sabbath (John, ix, 16), a malefactor (John, xviii, 30), a disturber of the peace (Luke, xxiii, 5), a seducer (Matt., xxvii, 63). But pilate finds and declares Jesus innocent, and, when pressed by the enemies of Jesus to condemn Him, he washes his hands and exclaims before the assembled people, "I am innocent of the blood of this just man" (Matt., xxvii, 24). The Jewish authorities practically admit that they cannot prove any wrong against Jesus; they only insist, "We have a law; and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God" (John, xix, 7). The final charge urged against Christ by His bitterest enemies was His claim to be the Son of God.
The positive side of the sanctity of Jesus is well attested by His constant zeal in the service of God. At the age of twelve He asks His mother, "Did you not know, that I must be about my father's business?". He urges on His hearers the true adoration in spirit and in truth (John, iv, 23) required by His Father. Repeatedly He declares His entire dependence on His Father (John, v, 20, 30; etc.); He is faithful to the Will of His Father (John, viii, 29); He tells His disciples, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me" (John, iv, 34). Even the hardest sacrifices do not prevent Jesus from complying with His Father's Will: "My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, thy will be done" (Matt., xxvi, 42). Jesus honours His Father (John, ii, 17), and proclaims at the end of His life, "I have glorified thee on the earth" (John, xvii, 4). He prays almost incessantly to His Father (Mark, i, 35; vi, 46; etc.), and teaches His Apostles the Our Father (Matt., vi, 9). He always thanks His Father for His bounties (Matt., xi, 25; etc.), and in brief behaves throughout as only a most loving son can behave towards his beloved father. During His Passion one of His most intense sorrows is His feeling of abandonment by His Father (Mark, xv, 34), and at the point of death He joyfully surrenders His Soul into the hands of His Father (Luke, xxiii, 46).
(2) Divinity of Jesus. — The Divinity of Jesus is proved by some writers by an appeal to prophecy and miracle. But, though Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament to the letter, He Himself appears to appeal to them mainly in proof of His Divine mission; He shows the Jews that He fulfills in His Person and His work all that had been foretold of the Messias. The prophecies uttered by Jesus Himself differ from the predictions of the Old Testament in that Jesus does not speak in the name of the Lord, like the seers of old, but in His own name. If it could be strictly proved that they were made in virtue of His own knowledge of the future, and of His own power to dispose of the current of events, the prophecies would prove His Divinity; as it is they prove at least that Jesus is a messenger of God, a friend of God, inspired by God. This is not the place to discuss the historical and philosophical truth of the miracles of Jesus, but we know that Jesus appeals to His works as bearing witness to the general truth of His mission (John, x, 25, 33, 38), and also for the verity of some particulr claims (Matt., ix, 6; Mark, ii, 10, 11; etc.) They show, therefore, at least that Jesus is a Divine legate and that His teaching is infallibly true.
Did Jesus teach that He is God? He certainly claimed to be the Messias (John, iv, 26), to fulfill the Messianic descriptions of the Old Testament (Matt., xi, 3-5; Luke, vii, 22-23; iv, 18-21), to be denoted by the current Messianic names, "king of Israel" (Luke, xix, 38; etc), "Son of David" (Matt., ix, 27; etc), "Son of man" (passim), "he that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Matt., xxi, 9.etc). Moreover, Jesus claims to be greater than Abraham (John, viii, 53, 56), than Moses (Matt., xix, 8-9), than Solomon and Jonas (Matt., xii, 41-42); He habitually claims to be sent by God (John, v, 36, 37, 43; etc), calls God His Father (Luke, ii, 49; etc), and He willingly accepts the titles "Master" and "Lord" (John, xiii, 13, 14). He forgives sin in answer to the observation that God alone can forgive sin (Mark, ii, 7, 10; Luke, v, 21, 24; etc). He acts as the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt., xii, 8; etc), and tells St. Peter that as "Son" He is free from the duty of paying temple-tribute (Matt., xvii, 24, 25). From the beginning of His ministry he allows Nathanael to call Him "Son of God" (John, i, 49); the Apostles (Matt., xiv, 33) and Martha (John, xi, 27) give Him the same title. Twice He approves of Peter who calls Him "the Christ, the Son of God" (John, vi, 70), "Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt., xvi, 16). Four distinct times does He proclaim Himself the Son of God; to the man born blind (John, x, 30, 36); before the two assemblies of the Jewish Sanhedrin on the night before His death (Matt., xxvi, 63-64; Mark, xiv, 61-62; Luke, xxii, 70). He does not manifest His Divine Sonship before Satan (Matt., iv, 3, 6) or before the Jews who are deriding Him (Matt., xxvii, 40). Jesus does not wish to teach the evil spirit the mystery of His Divinity; to the Jews He gives a greater sign than they are asking for. Jesus, therefore, applies to Himself, and allows others to apply to Him, the title "Son of God" in its full meaning. If there had been a misunderstanding He would have corrected it, even as Paul and Barnabas corrected those who took them for gods (Acts, xiv, 12-14).
Nor can it be said that the title "Son of God" denotes a merely adoptive sonship. The foregoing texts do not admit of such an interpretation. St. Peter, for instance, places his master above John the Baptist, Elias, and the Prophets (Matt., xvi, 13-17). Again, the Angel Gabriel declares that the Child to be born will be "the Son of the most High" and "Son of God" (Luke, i, 32, 35), in such a way that He will be without an earthly father. Mere adoption presupposes the existence of the child to be adopted; but St. Joseph is warned that "That which is conceived in her [Mary], is of the Holy Ghost" (Matt., i, 20); now one's being conceived by the operation of another implies one's natural relation of sonship to him. Moreover, the Divine Sonship claimed by Jesus is such that he and the Father are one (John, x, 30, 36); a merely adopted sonship does not constitute a physical unity between the son and his adoptive father. Finally if Jesus had claimed only an adoptive sonship, He would have deceived His judges; they could not have condemned Him for claiming a prerogative common to all pious Israelites. Harnack (Wesen des Christentums, 81) contends that the Divine Sonship claimed by Jesus is an intellectual relation to the Father, springing from special knowledge of God. This knowledge constitutes "the sphere of the Divine Sonship", and is implied in the words of Matt., xi, 27: "No one knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him". But if the Divine Sonship of Christ is a mere intellectual relation, and if Christ is God in a most figurative sense, the Paternity of the Father and the Divinity of the Son will be reduced to a figure of speech. (See THEOLOGY, sub-title Christology.)
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII, pp. 382-385
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Holy Name of Jesus. — We give honour to the Name of Jesus, not because we believe that there is any intrinsic power hidden in the letters composing it, but because the Name of Jesus reminds us of all the blessings we receive through our Holy Redeemer. To give thanks for these blessings we revere the Holy Name, as we honour the Passion of of Christ by honouring His Cross (Colvenerius, "De festo SS. Nominis", ix). At the Holy Name of Jesus we uncover our heads, and we bend our knees; it is at the head of all our undertakings, as the Emperor Justinian says in his law-book: "In the Name of Our Lord Jesus we begin all our consultations". The Name of Jesus invoked with confidence (1) brings help in bodily needs, according to the promise of Christ: "In my name They shall take up serpents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover". (Mark, xvi, 17,18.) In the Name of Jesus the Apostles gave strength to the lame (Acts, iii, 6; ix, 34) and life to the dead (Acts, ix. 40). (2) It gives consolation in spiritual trials. The Name of Jesus reminds the sinner of the prodigal son's father and of the Good Samaritan; it recalls to the just the suffering and death of the innocent Lamb of God. (3) It protects us against Satan and his wiles, for the Devil fears the Name of Jesus, who has conquered him on the Cross. (4) In the Name of Jesus we obtain every blessing and grace for time and eternity, for Christ has said: "If you ask the Father anything in my name he will give it you." (John, xvi, 23) Therefore the Church concludes all her prayers by the words: "Through Our Lord Jesus Christ", etc. So the word of St. Paul is fulfilled: "That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth" (Phil., ii, 10).
A special lover of the Holy Name was St. Bernard, who speaks of it in most glowing terms in many of his sermons. But the greatest promoters of this devotion were St. Bernardine of Siena and St. John Capistran. They carried with them on their missions in the turbulent cities of Italy a copy of the monogram of the Holy Name, surrounded by rays, painted on a wooden tablet, wherewith they blessed the sick and wrought great miracles. At the close of their sermons they exhibited this emblem to the faithful and asked them to prostrate themselves, to adore the Redeemer of mankind. They recommended their hearers to have the monogram of Jesus placed over the gates of their cities and above the doors of their dwelling (cf. Seeberger, "Key to the Spiritual Treasures", 1897, 102). Because the manner in which St. Bernardine preached this devotion was new, he was accused by his enemies, and brought before the tribunal of Pope Martin V. But St. John Capistran defended his master so successfully that the pope not only permitted the worship of the Holy Name, but also assisted at a procession in which the holy monogram was carried. The tablet used by St. Bernardine is venerated at Santa Maria in Ara Coeli at Rome.
The emblem or monogram representing the Holy Name of Jesus consists of the three letters: IHS. In the Middle Ages the Name of Jesus was written: IHESUS; the monogram contains the first and last letter of the Holy Name. It is first found on a gold coin of the eight century: DN IHS CHS REX REGNANTIUM (The Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings). Some erroneously say that the three letters are the initials of: "Jesus Hominum Salvator" (Jesus Saviour of Men). The Jesuits made this monogram the emblem of their Society, adding a cross over the H and three nails under it. Consequently a new explanation of the emblem was invented, pretending that the nails originally were a "V", and that the monogram stands for "In Hoc Signo Vinces" (In This Sign you shall Conquer), the words which, according to a legendary account, Constantine saw in the heavens under the Sign of the Cross before the battle at the Milvian bridge (312).
Urban IV and John XXII are said to have granted an indulgence of thirty days to those who would add the name of Jesus to the Hail Mary or would bend their knees, or at least bow their heads when hearing the Name of Jesus (Alanus, "Psal. Christi et Mariae", i, 13, and iv, 25, 33; Michael ab Insulis, "Quodlibet", v; Colvenerius, "De festo SS. Nominis", x). This statement may be true; yet it was only by the efforts of St. Bernardine that the custom of adding the Name of Jesus to the Ave Maria was spread in Italy, and from there to the Universal Church. But up to the sixteenth century it was still unknown in Belgium (Colven., op. Cit., x), whilst in Bavaria and Austria the faithful still affix to the Ave Maria the words: "Jesus Christus" (ventris tui, Jesus Christus). Sixtus V (2 July, 1587) granted an indulgence of fifty days to the ejaculation: "Praise be to Jesus Christ!" with the answer: "For evermore", or "Amen". In the South of Germany the peasants salute each other with this pious formula. Sixtus V and Benedict XIII granted an indulgence of fifty days to all as often as they pronounce the Name of Jesus reverently, and a plenary indulgence in the hour of death. These two indulgences were confirmed by Clement XIII, 5 Sept., 1759. As often as we invoke the Name of Jesus and Mary ("Jesu!", "Maria!") we may gain an indulgence of 300 days, by decree of Pius X, 10 Oct., 1904. It is also necessary, to gain the papal indulgence in the hour of death, to pronounce at least in mind the Name of Jesus.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII, p. 421
Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Incarnation, the mystery and the dogma of the Word made Flesh. In this technical sense the word incarnation was adopted, during the twelfth century, from the Norman-French, which in turn had taken the word over from the Latin incarnatio (see Oxford Dictionary, s. v.). The Latin Fathers, from the fourth century, make common use of the word; so Saints Jerome, Ambrose, Hilary, etc. The Latin incarnatio (in: caro, flesh) corresponds to the Greek σαρκωσις, or ενσαρκωσις, which words depend on John (i, 14) και Λογος σαρξ εγενετο, "And the Word was made flesh". These two terms were in use by the Greek Fathers from the time of St. Irenaeus – i.e. according to Harnack, A. D. 181-189 (cf. lren., "Adv. Hær." III, l9, n. i.; Migne, VII, 939). The verb σαρκουσθαι, to be made flesh, occurs in the creed of the Council of Nicæa (cf. Denzinger, "Enchiridion", n. 86). In the language of Holy Writ, flesh means, by synecdoche, human nature or man (cf. Luke, iii, 6; Rom., iii, 20). Suarez deems the choice of the word incarnation to have been very apt. Man is called flesh to emphasize the weaker part of his nature. When the Word is said to have been incarnate, to have been made Flesh, the Divine goodness is better expressed whereby God "emptied Himself . . . and was found in outward bearing (σχηματι) like a man" (Phil. ii, 7); He took upon Himself not only the nature of man, a nature capable of suffering and sickness and death, He became like a man in all save only sin (cf. Suarez, "De Incarnatione", Præf. n. 5). The Fathers now and then use the word ενανθρωπησις, the act of becoming man, to which correspond the terms inhumanatio, used by some Latin Fathers, and "Menschwerdung", current in German. The mystery of the Incarnation is expressed in Scripture by other terms: επιληψις, the act of taking on a nature (Heb., ii. 16): επιφανεια, appearance (II Tim., i, 10); φανερωσις εν σαρκι, manifestation in the flesh (I Tim., iii, 16); σωματος καταρτισμος, the fitting of a body, what some Latin Fathers call incorporatio (Heb., x. 5); κενωσις, the act of emptying one's self (Phil., ii, 7). In this article, we shall treat of the fact, nature and effects of the Incarnation.
I. THE FACT OF THE INCARNATION implies three facts: (1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ; (2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ; (3) The Hypostatic Union of the Human with the Divine Nature in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ.
(1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ. — We presuppose the historicity, of Jesus Christ — i.e. that He was a real person of history (cf. JESUS CHRIST); the Messiahship of Jesus; the historical worth and authenticity of the Gospels and Acts; the Divine ambassadorship of Jesus Christ established thereby; the establishment of an infallible and never failing teaching body to have and to keep the deposit of revealed truth entrusted to it by the Divine ambassador, Jesus Christ; the handing down of all this deposit by tradition and of part thereof by Holy Writ; the canon and inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures — all these questions will be found treated in their proper places. Moreover, we assume that the Divine nature and Divine personality are one and inseparable (see TRINITY). The aim of this article is to prove that the historical person, Jesus Christ, is really and truly God, — i. e. has the nature of God, and is a Divine person. The Divinity of Jesus Christ is established by the Old Testament, by the New Testament and by tradition.
A. Old Testament Proofs of the Divinity of Jesus presuppose its testimony to Him as the Christ, the Messias (see MESSIAS). Assuming then, that Jesus is the Christ, the Messias promised in the Old Testament, from the terms of the promise it is certain that the One promised is God, is a Divine Person in the strictest sense of the word, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of the Father, One in nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Our argument is cumulative. The texts from the Old Testament have weight by themselves; taken together with their fulfilment in the New Testament, and with the testimony of Jesus and His apostles and His Church, they make up a cumulative argument in favour of the Divinity of Jesus Christ that is overwhelming in its force. The Old Testament proofs we draw from the Psalms, the Sapiential Books and the Prophets.
(a) Testimony of the Psalms. — Ps. ii, 7. "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee." Here Jahweh, i. e., God of Israel, speaks to the promised Messias. So St. Paul interprets the text (Heb., i, 5) while proving the Divinity of Jesus from the Psalms. The objection is raised that St. Paul is here not interpreting but only accommodating Scripture. He applies the very same words of Ps. ii, 7 to the priesthood (Heb., v, 5) and to the resurrection (Acts, xiii, 33) of Jesus; but only in a figurative sense did the Father beget the Messias in the priesthood and resurrection of Jesus; hence only in a figurative sense did He beget Jesus as His Son. We answer that St. Paul speaks figuratively and accommodates Scripture in the matter of the priesthood and resurrection but not in the matter of the eternal generation of Jesus. The entire context of this chapter shows there is a question of real sonship and real Divinity of Jesus. In the same verse, St. Paul applies to Christ the words of Jahweh to David, the type of Christ: "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son". (II Kings, vii, 14.) In the following verse, Christ is spoken of as the first-born of the Father, and as the object of the adoration of the angels; but only God is adored: "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. . . Thy God, O God, hath anointed thee " (Ps. xliv, 7, 8). St. Paul refers these words to Christ as to the Son of God (Heb., i, 9). We follow the Massoretic reading, "Thy God, O God". The Septuagint and New Testament reading, ο θεος, ο θεος σου, "O God, Thy God", is capable of the same interpretation. Hence, the Christ is here called God twice; and his throne, or reign, is said to have been from eternity. Ps. cix, 1: "The Lord said to my Lord (Heb., Jahweh said to my Adonai): Sit thou at my right hand". Christ cites this text to prove that He is Adonai (a Hebrew term used only for Deity), seated at the right hand of Jahweh, who is invariably the great God of Israel (Matt., xxii, 44). In the same psalm, Jahweh says to Christ: "Before the day-star, I begat thee". Hence Christ is the begotten of God; was begotten before the world was, and sits at the right hand of the heavenly Father. Other Messianic psalms might be cited to show the clear testimony of these inspired poems to the Divinity of the promised Messias.
(b) Testimony of the Sapiential Books. — So clearly do these Sapiential Books describe uncreated Wisdom as a Divine Person distinct from the First Person, that rationalists have resort to a subterfuge and claim that the doctrine of uncreated Wisdom was taken over by the authors of these books from the Neo-Platonic philosophy of the Alexandrian school. It is to be noted that in the pre-sapiential books of the Old Testament, the uncreated Logos, or ρημα, is the active and creative principle of Jahweh (see Ps. xxxii, 4; xxxii, 6; cxviii, 89; cii, 20; Is., xl, 8; lv, 11). Later the λογος became σοφια, the uncreated Word became uncreated Wisdom. To Wisdom were attributed all the works of creation and Divine Providence (see Job, xxviii, 12: Prov., viii and ix; Ecclus., i,1; xxiv, 5 to 12; Wis., vi, 21; ix, 9). In Wis., ix, 1, 2, we have a remarkable instance of the attribution of God's activity to both the Logos and Wisdom. This identification of the pre-Mosaic Logos with the Sapiential Wisdom and the Johannine Logos (see LOGOS) is proof that the rationalistic subterfuge is not effective. The Sapiential Wisdom and the Johannine Logos are not an Alexandrian development of the PIatonic idea, but are a Hebraistic development of the pre-Mosaic uncreated and creating Logos or Word.
Now for the Sapiential proofs: In Ecclus., xxiv, 7, Wisdom is described as uncreated, the "first born of the Most High before all creatures", "from the beginning and before the World was I made" (ibid., 14). So universal was the identification of Wisdom with the Christ, that even the Arians concurred with the Fathers therein; and strove to prove by the word εκτισε, made or created, of verse 14, that incarnate Wisdom was created. The Fathers did not make answer that the word Wisdom was not to be understood of the Christ, but explained that the word εκτισε had here to be interpreted in keeping with other passages of Holy Writ and not according to its usual meaning, — that of the Septuagint version of Gen., i, 1. We do not know the original Hebrew or Aramaic word; it may have been the same word that occurs in Prov. viii, 22: "The Lord possessed me (Heb., gat me by generation; see Gen., iv, 1) in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning, I was set up from eternity." Wisdom speaking of itself in the Book of Ecclesiasticus cannot contradict what Wisdom says of itself in Proverbs and elsewhere. Hence the Fathers were quite right in explaining εκτισε not to mean made or created in any strict sense of the terms (see St. Athanasius, "Sermo ii contra Arianos", n. 44; Migne, P. G., XXVI, 239). The Book of Wisdom, also, speaks clearly of Wisdom as "the worker of all things . . . a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God . . . the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness." (Wis., vii, 21-26.) St. Paul paraphrases this beautiful passage and refers it to Jesus Christ (Heb., i, 3). It is clear, then, from the text-study of the books themselves, from the interpretation of these books by St. Paul, and especially, from the admitted interpretation of the Fathers and the liturgical uses of the Church, that the personified wisdom of the Sapiential Books is the uncreated Wisdom, the incarnate Logos of St. John, the Word hypostatically united with human nature, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father. The Sapiential Books prove that Jesus was really and truly God.
(c) Testimony of the Prophetic Books. — The prophets clearly state that the Messias is God. Isaias says: "God Himself will come and will save you" (xxxv, 4); "Make ready the way of Jahweh" (xl, 3); "Lo Adonai Jahweh will come with strength" (xl, 10). That Jahweh here is Jesus Christ is clear from the use of the passage by St. Mark (i 3). The great prophet of Israel gives the Christ a special and a new Divine name "His name will be called Emmanuel" (Is., vii, 14). This new Divine name St. Matthew refers to as fulfilled in Jesus, and interprets to mean the Divinity of Jesus. "They shall call his name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us." (Matt., i, 23.) Also in ix, 6, Isaias calls the Messias God: "A child is born to us . . . his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Strong One, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace." Catholics explain that the very same child is called God the Strong One (ix, 6) and Emmanuel (vii, 14); the conception of the child is prophesied in the latter verse, the birth of the very same child is prophesied in the former verse. The name Emmanuel (God with us) explains the name that we translate "God the Strong One." It is uncritical and prejudiced on the part of the rationalists to go outside of lsaias and to seek in Ezechiel (xxxii, 21) the meaning "mightiest among heroes" for a word that everywhere else in Isaias is the name of "God the Strong One" (see Is., x, 21). Theodotion translates literally θεος ισχυρος; the Septuagint has "messenger". Our interpretation is that commonly received by Catholics and by Protestants of the stamp of Delitzsch ("Messianic Prophecies", p. 145). Isaias also calls the Messias the "sprout of Jahweh" (iv, 2), i. e. that which has sprung from Jahweh as the same in nature with Him. The Messias is "God our King" (Is., 1ii, 7), "the Saviour sent by our God" (Is., 1ii, 10, where the word for Saviour is the abstract form of the word for Jesus); "Jahweh the God of Israel" (Is., lii, 12): "He that hath made thee, Jahweh of the hosts His name" (Is., liv, 5)".
The other prophets are as clear as Isaias, though not so detailed, in their foretelling of the Godship of the Messias. To Jeremias, He is "Jahweh our Just One" (xxiii, 6; also xxxiii, 16). Micheas speaks of the twofold coming of the Child, His birth in time at Bethlehem and His procession in eternity from the Father (v, 2). The Messianic value of this text is proved by its interpretation in Matthew (ii, 6). Zacharias makes Jahweh to speak of the Messias as "my Companion"; but a companion is on an equal footing with Jahweh (xiii, 7). Malachias says: "Behold I send my angel, and he shall prepare the way before my face, and presently the Lord, whom you seek, and the angel of the testament, whom you desire, shall come to his temple" (iii, 1). The messenger spoken of here is certainly St. John the Baptist. The words of Malachias are interpreted of the Precursor by Our Lord Himself (Matt., xi, 10). But the Baptist prepared the way before the face of Jesus Christ. Hence the Christ was the spokesman of the words of Malachias. But the words of Malachias are uttered by Jahweh the great God of Israel. Hence the Christ or Messias and Jahweh are one and the same Divine Person. The argument is rendered even more forcible by the fact that not only is the speaker, Jahweh the God of hosts, here one and the same with the Messias before Whose face the Baptist went: but the prophecy of the Lord's coming to the Temple applies to the Messias a name that is ever reserved for Jahweh alone. This name occurs seven times (Ex., xxiii, 17; xxxiv, 23; Is., i, 24; iii, 1; x, 16 and 33; xix, 4) outside of Malachias, and is clear in its reference to the God of Israel. The last of the prophets of Israel gives clear testimony that the Messias is the very God of Israel Himself. This argument from the prophets in favour of the Divinity of the Messias is most convincing if received in the light of Christian revelation, in which light we present it. The cumulative force of the argument is well worked out in "Christ in Type and Prophecy", by Maas.
B. New Testament Proofs. — We shall give the witness of the Four Evangelists and of St. Paul. The argument from the New Testament has a cumulative weight that is overwhelming in its effectiveness, once the inspiration of the New Testament and the Divine ambassadorship of Jesus are proved (see INSPIRATION; CHRISTIANITY). The process of the Catholic apologetic and dogmatic upbuilding is logical and never-failing. The Catholic theologian first establishes the teaching body to which Christ gave His deposit of revealed truth, to have and to keep and to hand down that deposit without error or failure. This teaching body gives us the Bible; and gives us the dogma of the Divinity of Christ in the unwritten and the written Word of God, i. e. in tradition and Scripture. When contrasted with the Protestant position upon "the Bible, the whole Bible and nothing but the Bible" — no, not even anything to tell us what is the Bible and what is not the Bible — the Catholic position upon the Christ-established, never-failing, never-erring teaching body is impregnable. The weakness of the Protestant position is evidenced in the matter of this very question of the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The Bible is the one and only rule of faith of Unitarians, who deny the Divinity of Jesus; of Modernistic Protestants, who make out His Divinity to be an evolution of His inner consciousness; of all other Protestants, be their thoughts of Christ whatsoever they may. The strength of the Catholic position will be clear to any one who has followed the trend of Modernism outside the Church and the suppression thereof within the pale.
(a) Witness of the Evangelists. — We here assume the Gospels to be authentic, historical documents given to us by the Church as the inspired Word of God. We waive the question of the dependence of Matthew upon the Logia, the origin of Mark from "Q", the literary or other dependence of Luke upon Mark; all these questions are treated in their proper places and do not belong here in the process of Catholic apologetic and dogmatic theology. We here argue from the Four Gospels as from the inspired Word of God. The witness of the Gospels to the Divinity of Christ is varied in kind.
(α) Jesus is the Divine Messias. — The Evangelists, as we have seen, refer to the prophecies of the Divinity of the Messias as fulfilled in Jesus (see Matt., i, 23; ii, 6: Mark, i, 2: Luke, vii, 27).
(β) Jesus is the Son of God. — According to the testimony of the Evangelists, Jesus Himself bore witness to His Divine Sonship. As Divine Ambassador He can not have borne false witness.
Firstly, He asked the disciples, at Caesarea Philippi, "Whom do men say that the Son of man is?" (Matt., xvi, 13). This name Son of man was commonly used by the Saviour in regard to Himself; it bore testimony to His human nature and oneness with us. The disciples made answer that others said He was one of the prophets. Christ pressed them. "But whom do you say that I am? "(ibid., 15). Peter, as spokesman, replied: "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God" (ibid., 16). Jesus was satisfied with this answer; it set Him above all the prophets who were the adopted sons of God; it made Him the natural Son of God. The adopted Divine sonship of all the prophets Peter had no need of special revelation to know. This natural Divine Sonship was made known to the leader of the Apostles only by a special revelation. "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven" (ibid., 17). Jesus clearly assumes this important title in the specially revealed and altogether new sense. He admits that He is the Son of God in the real sense of the word.
Secondly, we find that He allowed others to give Him this title and to show by the act of real adoration that they meant real Sonship. The possessed fell down and adored Him, and the unclean spirits cried out: "Thou art the Son of God" (Mark, iii, 12). After the stilling of the storm at sea, His disciples adored Him and said: "Indeed thou art the Son of God "(Matt., xiv, 33). Nor did He suggest that they erred in that they gave Him the homage due to God alone. The centurion on Calvary (Matt., xxvii, 54; Mark, xv, 39), the Evangelist St. Mark (i, 1), the hypothetical testimony of Satan (Matt., iv, 3) and of the enemies of Christ (Matt., xxvii, 40) all go to show that Jesus was called and esteemed the Son of God. Jesus Himself clearly assumed the title. He constantly spoke of God as "My Father" (Matt., vii, 21; x, 32; xi, 27; xv, 13; xvi, 17, etc.).
Thirdly, the witness of Jesus to His Divine Sonship is clear enough in the Synoptics, as we see from the foregoing argument and shall see by the exegesis of other texts; but is perhaps even more evident in John. Jesus indirectly but clearly assumes the title when He says: "Do you say of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? . . . the Father is in me and I in the Father." (John, x, 36, 38.) An even clearer witness is given in the narrative of the cure of the blind man in Jerusalem. Jesus said: "Dost thou believe in the Son of God?" He answered, and said: "Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said to him: Thou hast both seen him; and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said: I believe, Lord. And falling down, he adored him." (John, ix, 35-38.) Here as elsewhere, the act of adoration is allowed, and the implicit assent is in this wise given to the assertion of the Divine Sonship of Jesus.
Fourthly, likewise to His enemies, Jesus made undoubted profession of His Divine Sonship in the real and not the figurative sense of the word; and the Jews understood Him to say that He was really God. His way of speaking had been somewhat esoteric. He spoke often in parables. He willed then, as He wills now, that faith be "the evidence of things that appear not" (Heb., xi, 1). The Jews tried to catch Him, to make Him speak openly. They met Him in the portico of Solomon and said: "How long dost thou hold our souls in suspense? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly" (John, x, 24). The answer of Jesus is typical. He puts them off for a while; and in the end tells them the tremendous truth: "I and the Father are one" (John, x, 30). They take up stones to kill Him. He asks why. He makes them admit that they have understood Him aright. They answer: "For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man makest thyself God" (ibid., 33). These same enemies had clear statement of the claim of Jesus on the last night that He spent on earth. Twice He appeared before the Sanhedrim, the highest authority of the enslaved Jewish nation. The first times the high priest, Caiphas, stood up and demanded: "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us if thou be the Christ the Son of God " (Matt., xxvi, 63). Jesus had before held His peace. Now His mission calls for a reply. "Thou hast said it" (ibid., 64). The answer was likely — in Semitic fashion — a repetition of the question with a tone of affirmation rather than of interrogation. St. Matthew reports that answer in a way that might leave some doubt in our minds, had we not St. Mark's report of the very same answer. According to St. Mark, Jesus replies simply and clearly: "I am" (Mark, xiv, 62). The context of St. Matthew clears up the difficulty as to the meaning of the reply of Jesus. The Jews understood Him to make Himself the equal of God. They probably laughed and jeered at His claim. He went on: 'Nevertheless I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven" (Matt., xxvi, 64). Caiphas rent his garments and accused Jesus of blasphemy. All joined in condemning Him to death for the blasphemy whereof they accused Him. They clearly understood Him to make claim to be the real Son of God; and He allowed them so to understand Him, and to put Him to death for this understanding and rejection of His claim. It were to blind one's self to evident truth to deny the force of this testimony in favour of the thesis that Jesus made claim to be the real Son of God. The second appearance of Jesus before the Sanhedrim was like to the first; a second time He was asked to say clearly: " Art thou then the Son of God? " He made reply: "You say that I am." They understood Him to lay claim to Divinity. " What need we any further testimony? for we ourselves have heard it from his own mouth" (Luke, xxii, 70, 71). This twofold witness is especially important, in that it is made before the great Sanhedrim, and in that it is the cause of the sentence of death. Before Pilate, the Jews put forward a mere pretext at first. "We have found this man perverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cwsar, and saying that he is Christ the king" (Luke, xxiii, 2). What was the result? Pilate found no cause of death in Him! The Jews seek another pretext. "He stirreth up the people . . . from Galilee to this place" (ibid., 5). This pretext fails. Pilate refers the case of sedition to Herod. Herod finds the charge of sedition not worth his serious consideration. Over and again the Jews come to the front with a new subterfuge. Over and again Pilate finds no cause in Him. At last the Jews give their real cause against Jesus. In that they said He made Himself a king and stirred up sedition and refused tribute to Caesar, they strove to make it out that he violated Roman law. Their real cause of complaint was not that Jesus violated Roman law; but that they branded Him as a violator of the Jewish law. How? "We have a law; and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God (John, xix, 7). The charge was most serious; it caused even the Roman governor "to fear the more." What law is here referred to? There can be no doubt. It is the dread law of Leviticus: "He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, dying let him die: all the multitude shall stone him, whether he be a native or a stranger. He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord dying let him die " (Lev., xxiv, 17). By virtue of this law, the Jews were often on the very point of stoning Jesus; by virtue of this law, they often took Him to task for blasphemy whensoever He made Himself the Son of God; by virtue of this same law, they now call for His death. It is simply out of the question that these Jews had any intention of accusing Jesus of the assumption of that adopted sonship of God which every Jew had by blood and every prophet had had by special free gift of God's grace.
Fifthly, we may only give a summary of the other uses of thee title Son of God in regard to Jesus. The angel Gabriel proclaims to Mary that her son will "be called the Son of the most High" (Luke, i, 32); "the Son of God" (Luke, i, 35); St. John speaks of Him as "the only begotten of the Father" (John, i, 14); at the Baptism of Jesus and at His Transfiguration, a voice from heaven cries: "This is my beloved son" (Matt., iii, 17; Mark, i, 11; Luke, iii, 22; Matt., xvii., 3); St. John gives it as his very set purpose, in his Gospel, "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (John, xx, 31).
Sixthly, in the testimony of John, Jesus identifies Himself absolutely with the Divine Father. According to John, Jesus says: "he that seeth me seeth the Father" (ibid., xiv, 9). St. Athanasius links this clear testimony to the other witness of John "I and the Father are one" (ibid., x, 30); and thereby establishes the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. St. John Chrysostom interprets the text in the same sense. A last proof from John is in the words that bring his first Epistle to a close: "We know that the Son of God is come: and He hath given us understanding that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son. This is the true God and life eternal" (I John, v, 20). No one denies that "the Son of God" who is come is Jesus Christ. This Son of God is the "true Son" of "the true God"; in fact, this true son of the True God, i. e. Jesus, is the true God and is life eternal. Such is the exegesis of this text given by all the Fathers that have interpreted it (see Corluy, "Spicilegium Dogmatico-Biblicum", ed. Gandavi, 1884, II, 48). All the Fathers that have either interpreted or cited this text, refer ουτος to Jesus, and interpret "Jesus is the true God and life eternal." The objection is raised that the phrase "true God" (ο αληθινος θεος) always refers, in John, to the Father. Yes, the phrase is consecrated to the Father, and is here used precisely on that account, to show that the Father who is, in this very verse, first called "the true God", is one with the Son Who is second called "the true God" in the very same verse. This interpretation is carried out by the grammatical analysis of the phrase; the pronoun this (ουτος) refers of necessity to the noun near by, i. e. His true Son Jesus Christ. Moreover, the Father is never called "life eternal" by John; whereas the term is often given by him to the Son (John, xi, 25; xiv, 6: I John, i, 2; v, 11-12). These citations prove beyond a doubt that the Evangelists bear witness to the real and natural Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ.
Outside the Catholic Church, it is today the mode to try to explain away all these uses of the phrase Son of God, as if, forsooth, they meant not the Divine Sonship of Jesus, but presumably His sonship by adoption — a sonship due either to His belonging to the Jewish race or derived from His Messiahship. Against both explanations stand our arguments; against the latter explanation stands the fact that nowhere in the Old Testament is the term Son of God given as a name peculiar to the Messias. The advanced Protestants of this twentieth century are not satisfied with this latter and wornout attempt to explain away the assumed title Son of God. To them it means only that Jesus was a Jew (a fact that is now denied by Paul Haupt). We now have to face the strange anomaly of ministers of Christianity who deny that Jesus was Christ. Formerly it was considered bold in the Unitarian to call himself a Christian and to deny the Divinity of Jesus; now "ministers of the Gospel" are found to deny that Jesus is the Christ, the Messias (see articles in the Hibbert Journal for 1909, by Reverend Mr. Roberts, also the articles collected under the title "Jesus or Christ?" Boston, 19m). Within the pale of the Church, too, there were not wanting some who followed the trend of Modernism to such an extent as to admit that in certain passages, the term "Son of God" in its application to Jesus, presumably meant only adopted sonship of God. Against these writers was issued the condemnation of the proposition: "In all the texts of the Gospels, the name Son of God is merely the equivalent of the name Messias, and does not in any wise mean that Christ is the true and natural Son of God" (see decree "Lamentabili", S. Off., 3-4 July, 1907, proposition xxxii). This decree does not affirm even implicitly that every use of the name "Son of God" in the Gospels means true and natural Sonship of God. Catholic theologians generally defend the proposition whenever, in the Gospels, the name "Son of God" is used in the singular number, absolutely and without any additional explanation, as a proper name of Jesus, it invariably means true and natural Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ (see Billot, "De Verbo Incarnato," 1904, p. 529). Corluy, a very careful student of the original texts and of the versions of the Bible, declared that, whenever the title Son of God is given to Jesus in the New Testament, this title has the inspired meaning of natural Divine Sonship; Jesus is by this title said to have the same nature and substance as the Heavenly Father (see "Spicilegium", II, p. 42).
(γ) Jesus is God. — St. John affirms in plain words that Jesus is God. The set purpose of the aged disciple was to teach the Divinity of Jesus in the Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse that he has left us; he was aroused to action against the first heretics that bruised the Church. "They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us" (I John, ii, 19). They did not confess Jesus Christ with that confession which they had obligation to make (I John, iv, 3). John's Gospel gives us the clearest confession of the Divinity of Jesus. We may translate from the original text: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was in relation to God and the Word was God" (John i, 1). The words ο θεος (with the article) mean, in Johannine Greek, the Father. The expression προς τον θεον reminds one forcibly of Aristotle's το προς τι ειναι. This Aristotelian way of expressing relation found its like in the Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and Alexandrian philosophy; and it was the influence of this Alexandrian philosophy in Ephesus and elsewhere that John set himself to combat. It was, then, quite natural that John adopted some of the phraseology of his enemies, and by the expression ο λογος ην προς τον θεον gave forth the mystery of the relation of Father with Son: "the Word stood in relation to the Father", i. e., even in the beginning. At any rate the clause θεος ην ο λογος means "the Word was God". This meaning is driven home, in the irresistibIe logic of St. John, by the following verse: "All things were made by him." The Word, then, is the Creator of all things and is true God. Who is the Word! It was made flesh and dwelt with us in the flesh (verse 14); and of this Word John the Baptist bore witness (verse 15). But certainly it was Jesus, according to John the Evangelist, Who dwelt with us in the flesh and to Whom the Baptist bore witness. Of Jesus the Baptist says: "This is he, of whom I said: After me there cometh a man, who is preferred before me: because he was before me" (verse 30). This testimony and other passages of St. John's Gospel are so clear that the modern rationalist takes refuge from their forcefulness in the assertion that the entire Gospel is a mystic contemplation and no fact-narrative at all (see JOHN, GOSPEL OF SAINT). Catholics may not hold this opinion denying the historicity of John. The Holy Office, in the Decree "Lamentabili", condemned the following proposition: "The narrations of John are not properly speaking history but a mystic contemplation of the Gospel: the discourses contained in his Gospel are theological meditations on the mystery of salvation and are destitute of historical truth." (See prop. xvi.)
(b) Witness of St. Paul. — It is not the set purpose of St. Paul, outside of the Epistle to the Hebrews, to prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The great Apostle takes this fundamental principle of Christianity for granted. Yet so clear is the witness of Paul to this fact of Christ's Divinity, that the Rationalists and rationalistic Lutherans of Germany have strived to get away from the forcefulness of the witness of the Apostle by rejecting his form of Christianity as not conformable to the Christianity of Jesus. Hence they cry: "Los von Paulus, zurück zu Christus"; that is, "Away from Paul, back to Christ" (see J¨licher, Paulus und Christus", ed. Mohr, 1909). We assume the historicity of the Epistles of Paul; to a Catholic, the Christianity of St. Paul is one and the same with the Christianity of Christ. (See PAUL, SAINT). To the Romans, Paul writes: "God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin" (viii, 3). His Own Son (τον εαυτου υιον) the Father sends, not a Son by adoption. The angels are by adoption the children of God; they participate in the Father's nature by the free gifts He has bestowed upon them. Not so the Own Son of the Father. As we have seen, He is more the offspring of the Father than are the angels. How more? In this that He is adored as the Father is adored; the angels are not adored. Such is Paul's argument in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Therefore, in St. Paul's theology, the Father's Own Son, Whom the angels adore, Who was begotten in the today of eternity, Who was sent by the Father, clearly existed before His appearance in the Flesh, and is, in point of fact, the great "I am who am", — the Jahweh Who spoke to Moses on Horeb. This identification of the Christ with Jahweh would seem to be indicated, when St. Paul speaks of Christ as ο ων επι παντων θεος, "who is over all things, God blessed for ever" (Rom., ix, 5). This interpretation and punctuation are sanctioned by all the Fathers that have used the text; all refer to Christ the words "He who is God over all". Petavius (De Trin., 11, 9, n. 2) cites fifteen, among whom are Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Augustine, and Hilary. The Peshitta has the same translation as we have given. Alford, Trench, Westcott and Hort, and most Protestants are at one with us in this interpretation.
This identification of the Christ with Jahweh is clearer in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Christ is said to have been Jahweh of the Exodus. "And all drank the same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ)" (x, 4). It was Christ Whom some of the Israelites "tempted, and (they) perished by the serpents" (x, 10); it was Christ against Whom "some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer" (x, 11). St. Paul takes over the Septuagint translation of Jahweh ο κυριος, and makes this title distinctive of Jesus. The Colossians are threatened with the deception of philosophy (ii, 8). St. Paul reminds them that they should think according to Christ; "for in him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead (πληρωμα της θεοτητος) corporeally" (ii, 9); nor should they go so low as give to angels, that they see not, the adoration that is due only to Christ (ii, 18, 19). "For in Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations or principalities or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him" (εις αυτον). He is the cause and the end of all things, even of the angels whom the Colossians are so misguided as to prefer to Him (i, 16). The cultured Macedonians of Philippi are taught that in "the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father" (ii, 10, 11). This is the very same genuflexion and confession that the Romans are bidden to make to the Lord and the Jews to Jahweh (see Rom., xiv, 6; Is., xiv, 24). The testimony of St. Paul could be given at much greater length. These texts are only the chief among many others that bear Paul's witness to the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
C. Witness of Tradition. — The two main sources wherefrom we draw our information as to tradition, or the unwritten Word of God, are the Fathers of the Church and the general councils.
(a) The Fathers are practically unanimous in explicitly teaching the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The testimony of many has been given in our exegesis of the dogmatic texts that prove the Christ to be God. It would take over-much space to cite the Fathers adequately. We shall confine ourselves to those of the Apostolic and apologetic ages. By joining these testimonies to those of the Evangelists and St. Paul, we can see clearly that the Holy Office was right in condemning these propositions of Modernism: "The Divinity of Christ is not proven by the Gospels but is a dogma that the Christian conscience has evolved from the notion of a Messiah. It may be taken for granted that the Christ Whom history shows us is much inferior to the Christ Who is the object of Faith" (see prop. xxvii and xxix of Decree "Lamentabili"). (α) St. Clement of Rome (A. D. 93-95, according to Harnack), in his first epistle to the Corinthians, xvi, 2, speaks of "The Lord Jesus Christ, the Sceptre of the Might of God" (Funk, " Patres Apostolici", T¨bingen ed., 1901, p. 118), and describes, by quoting Is., iii, 1-12, the humiliation that was foretold and came to pass in the self-immolation of Jesus. As the writings of the Apostolic Fathers are very scant, and not at all apologetic but rather devotional and exhortive, we should not look in them for that clear and plain defence of the Divinity of Christ which is evidenced in the writings of the apologists and later Fathers. (β) The witness of St. Ignatius of Antioch (A. D. 110-117, according to Harnack) is almost that of the apologetic age, in whose spirit he seems to have written to the Ephesians. It may well be that at Ephesus the very same heresies were now doing havoc which about ten years before or, according to Harnack's chronology, at the very same time, St. John had written his Gospel to undo. If this be so, we understand the bold confession of the Divinity of Jesus Christ which this grand confessor of the Faith brings into his greetings, at the beginning of his letter to the Ephesians. "Ignatius . . . . to the Church . . . which is at Ephesus . . . . in the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ Our God (του θεου ημων)." He says: "The Physician in One, of the Flesh and of the Spirit, begotten and not begotten, who was God in Flesh (εν σαρκι γενομενος θεος) . . . Jesus Christ Our Lord" (c. vii; Funk, I, 218). "For Our God Jesus Christ was borne in the womb by Mary" (c. xviii, 2; Funk, I, 226). To the Romans he writes: "For Our God Jesus Christ, abiding in the Father, is manifest even the more" (c. iii, 3; Funk, 1, 256). The witness of the Letter of Barnabas: "Lo, again, Jesus is not the Son of man but the Son of God, made manifest in form in the Flesh. And since men were going to say that the Christ was the Son of David, David himself, fearing and understanding the malice of the wicked, made prophecy: The Lord said to my Lord . . . . . Lo, how David calls Him the Lord and not son" (c. xiii; Funk, I, 77). In the apologetic age, Saint Justin Martyr (Harnack. A. D. 150) wrote: "Since the Word is the first-born of God, He is also God" (Apol. I, n. 63; P. G., VI, 423). It is evident from the context that Justin means Jesus Christ by the Word; he had just said that Jesus was the Word before He became Man, and used to appear in the form of fire or of some other incorporeal image. St. Irenaeus proves that Jesus Christ is rightly called the one and only God and Lord, in that all things are said to have been made by Him (see "Adv. Haer.", III, viii, n. 3; P. G., VII, 868; bk. IV, 10, 14, 36). Deutero-Clement (Harnack, A. D. 166; Sanday, A. D. 150) insists: "Brethren, we should think of Jesus Christ as of God Himself, as of the Judge of the living and the dead" (see Funk, I, 184). St. Clement of Alexandria (Sanday, A. D. 190) speaks of Christ as "true God without any controversy, the equal of the Lord of the whole universe, since He is the Son and the Word is in God" (Cohortatio ad Gentes, c. x; P. G., VIII, 227).
To the witness of these Fathers of the Apostolic and apologetic age, we add a few witnesses from the contemporary pagan writers. Pliny (A. D. 107) wrote to Trajan that the Christians were wont before the light of day to meet and to sing praises "to Christ as to God" (Epist., x, 97). The Emperor Hadrian (A. D. 117) wrote to Servianus that many Egyptians had become Christians, and that converts to Christianity were "forced to adore Christ", since He was their God (see Saturninus, c. vii). Lucian scoffs at the Christians because they had been persuaded by Christ "to throw over the gods of the Greeks and to adore Him fastened to a cross" (De Morte Peregrini, 13). Here also may be mentioned the well-known graffito that caricatures the worship of the Crucified as God. This important contribution to archaeology was found, in 1857, on a wall of the Paedagogium, an inner part of the Domus Gelotiana of the Palatine, and is now in the Kircher Museum, Rome. After the murder of Caligula (A. D. 41) this inner part of the Domus Gelotiana became a training-school for court pages, called the Paedagogium (see Lanciani, "Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome", ed. Boston, 1897, p. 186). This fact and the language of the graffito lead one to surmise that the page who mocked at the religion of one of his fellows has so become an important witness to the Christian adoration of Jesus as God in the first or, at the very latest, the second century. The graffito represents the Christ on a cross and mockingly gives Him an ass's head; a page is rudely scratched kneeling and with hands outstretched in the attitude of prayer; the inscription is "Alexamenos worships his God" (Αλεξαμενος σεβεται τον θεον). In the second century, too, Celsus arraigns the Christians precisely on this account that they think God was made man (see Origen, "Contra Celsum", IV, 14; P. G., XI, 1043). Aristides wrote to the Emperor Antonius Pius (A.D. 138-161) what seems to have been an apology for the Faith of Christ: "He Himself is called the Son of God; and they teach of Him that He as God came down from heaven and took and put on Flesh of a Hebrew virgin" (see "Theol. Quartalschrift", Tübingen, 1892, p. 535).
(b) Witness of the Councils. — The first general council of the Church was called to define the Divinity of Jesus Christ and to condemn Arius and his error (see ARIUS). Previous to this time, heretics had denied this great and fundamental dogma of the Faith; but the Fathers had been equal to the task of refuting the error and of stemming the tide of heresy. Now the tide of heresy was so strong as to have need of the authority of the universal Church to withstand it. In his "Thalia", Arius taught that the Word was not eternal (ην ποτε οτε ουκ ην) nor generated of the Father, but made out of nothing (εξ ουκ οντων γεγονεν ο λογος); and though it was before the world was, yet it was a thing made, a created thing (ποιημα or κτισις). Against this bold heresy, the Council of Nicaea (325) defined the dogma of the Divinity: of Christ in the clearest terms: "We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, generated of the Father (γεννηθεντα εκ του πατρος μονογενη), that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, True God of True God, begotten not made, the same in nature with the Father (ομοουσιον τω πατρι) by Whom all things were made" (see Denzinger, 54).
(2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ. — The Gnostics taught that matter was of its very nature evil, somewhat as the present-day Christian scientists teach that it is an "error of mortal mind"; hence Christ as God could not have had a material body, and His body was only apparent. These heretics, called doketæ included Basilides, Marcion, the Manichaeans, and others. Valentinus and others admitted that Jesus had a body, but a something heavenly and ethereal; hence Jesus was not born of Mary, but His airy body passed through her virgin body. The Apollinarists admitted that Jesus had an ordinary body, but denied Him a human soul; the Divine nature took the place of the rational mind. Against all these various forms of the heresy that denies Christ is true Man stand countless and clearest testimonies of the written and unwritten Word of God. The title that is characteristic of Jesus in the New Testament is Son of Man; it occurs some eighty times in the Gospels; it was His Own accustomed title for Himself. The phrase is Aramaic, and would seem to be an idiomatic way of saying "man". The life and death and resurrection of Christ would all be a lie were He not a man, and our Faith would be vain. (I Cor., xv, 14). "For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Tim., ii, 5). Why, Christ even enumerates the parts of His Body. "See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have" (Luke, xxiv, 39). St. Augustine says, in this matter: "If the Body of Christ was a fancy, then Christ erred; and if Christ erred, then He is not the Truth. But Christ is the Truth; hence His Body was not a fancy' (QQ. lxxxiii, q. 14; P. L., XL, 14). In regard to the human soul of Christ, the Scripture is equally clear. Only a human soul could have been sad and troubled. Christ says: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Matt., xxvi, 38). "Now is my soul troubled" (John, xii, 27). His obedience to the heavenly Father and to Mary and Joseph supposes a human soul (John, iv, 34; v, 30; vi, 38; Luke, xxii, 42). Finally Jesus was really born of Mary (Matt., i, 16), made of a woman (Gal., iv, 4), after the angel had promised that He should be conceived of Mary (Luke, i, 31); this woman is called the mother of Jesus (Matt., i, 18; ii, 11; Luke, i, 43; John, ii, 3); Christ is said to be really the seed of Abraham (Gal., iii, 16), the son of David (Matt., i, 1), made of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom., i, 3), and the fruit of the loins of David (Acts, ii, 30). So clear is the testimony of Scripture to the perfect human nature of Jesus Christ, that the Fathers held it as a general principle that whatsoever the Word had not assumed was not healed, i. e., did not receive the effects of the Incarnation.
(3) The Hypostatic Union of the Divine Nature and the Human Nature of Jesus in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ. — Here we consider this union as a fact; the nature of the union will be later taken up. Now it is our purpose to prove that the Divine nature was really and truly united with the human nature of Jesus, i. e., that one and the same Person, Jesus Christ, was God and man. We speak here of no moral union, no union in a figurative sense of the word; but a union that is physical, a union of two substances or natures so as to make One Person, a union which means that God is Man and Man is God in the Person of Jesus Christ.
A. The Witness of Holy Writ. — St. John says: "The Word was made flesh" (i, 14), that is, He Who was God in the Beginning (i, 2), and by Whom all things were created (i. 3), became Man. According to the testimony of St. Paul, the very same Person, Jesus Christ, "being in the form of God [εν μορφη Θεου υπαρχων] . . . emptied himself, taking the form of a servant [μορφην δουλου λαβων]" (Phil., ii, 6, 7). It is always one and the same Person, Jesus Christ, Who is said to be God and Man, or is given predicates that denote Divine and human nature. The author of life (God) is said to have been killed by the Jews (Acts, iii, 15); but He could not have been killed were He not Man.
B. Witness of Tradition. — The early forms of the creed all make profession of faith, not in one Jesus Who is the Son of God and in another Jesus Who is Man and was crucified, but "in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, Who became Man for us and was crucified". The forms vary, but the substance of each creed invariably attributes to one and the same Jesus Christ the predicates of the Godhead and of man (see Denzinger, "Enchiridion"). Franzelin (thesis xvii) calls special attention to the fact that, long before the heresy of Nestorius, according to Epiphanius (Ancorat., II, 123, in P. G., XLII, 234), it was the custom of the Oriental Church to propose to catechumens a creed that was very much more detailed than that proposed to the faithful; and in this creed the catechumens said: "We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of God the Father . . . that is, of the substance of the Father . . . in Him Who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made Flesh, that is, was perfectly begotten of Mary ever Virgin by the Holy Spirit; Who became Man, that is, took perfect human nature, soul and body and mind and all whatsoever is human save only sin, without the seed of man; not in another man, but unto himself did He form Flesh into one holy unity [εις μιαν αγιαν ενοτητα]; not as He breathed and spoke and wrought in the prophets, but He became Man perfectly; for the Word was made Flesh, not in that It underwent a change nor in that It exchanged Its Divinity for humanity, but in that It united Its Flesh unto Its one holy totality and Divinity [εις μιαν . . . εαυτου αγιαν τελειοτητα τε και θεοτητα].' "The one holy totality", Franzelin considers, means personality, a person being an individual and complete subject of rational acts. This creed of the catechumens gives even the Divinity of the totality, i. e. the fact that the individual Person of Jesus is a Divine and not a human Person. Of this intricate question we shall speak later on.
The witness of tradition to the fact of the union of the two natures in the one Person of Jesus is clear not only from the symbols or creeds in use before the condemnation of Nestorius, but also from the words of the ante-Nicaean Fathers. We have already given the classic quotations from St. Ignatius the Martyr, St. Clement of Rome, St. Justin the Martyr, in all of which are attributed to the one Person, Jesus Christ, the actions or attributes of God and of Man. Melito, Bishop of Sardis (about 176), says: "Since the same (Christ) was at the same time God and perfect Man, He made His two natures evident to us; His Divine nature by the miracles which He wrought during the three years after His baptism; His human nature by those thirtv years that He first lived, during which the lowliness of the Flesh covered over and hid away all signs of the Divinity, though He was at one and the same time true and everlasting God" (Frag. vii in P. G., V, 1221). St. Irenaeus, toward the close of the second century, argues: "If one person suffered and another Person remained incapable of suffering; if one person was born and another Person came down upon him that was born and thereafter left him, not one person but two are proven . . . whereas the Apostle knew one only Who was born and Who suffered" ("Adv. Hær.", III, xvi, n, 9, in P. G., VII, 928). Tertullian bears firm witness: "Was not God really crucified? Did He not realiy die as He really was crucified?" ("De Carne Christi", c. v, in P. L., II, 760).
II. THE NATURE OF THE INCARNATION. — We have treated the fact of the Incarnation, that is, the fact of the Divine nature of Jesus, the fact of the human nature of Jesus, the fact of the union of these two natures in Jesus. We now take up the crucial question of the nature of this fact, the manner of this tremendous miracle, the way of uniting the Divine with the human nature in one and the same Person. Arius had denied the fact of this union. No other heresy rent and tore the body of the Church to any very great extent in the matter of this fact after the condemnation of Arius in the Council of Nicaea (325). Soon a new heresy arose in the explanation of the fact of the union of the two natures in Christ. Nicaea had, indeed, defined the fact of the union; it had not explicitly defined the nature of that fact; it had not said whether that union was moral or physical. The council had implicitly defined the union of the two natures in one hypostasis, a union called physical in opposition to the mere juxtaposition or joining of the two natures called a moral union. Nicaea had professed a belief in "One Lord Jesus Christ . . . true God of true God . . . Who took Flesh, became Man and suffered". This belief was in one Person Who was at the same time God and Man, that is, had at the same time Divine and human nature. Such teaching was an implicit definition of all that was later on denied by Nestorius. We shall find the great Athanasius, for fifty years the determined foe of the heresiarch, interpreting Nicaea's decree in just this sense; and Athanasius must have known the sense meant by Nicaea, in which he was the antagonist of the heretic Arius.
In spite of the efforts of Athanasius, Nestorius, who had been elected Patriarch of Constantinople (428), found a loophole to avoid the definition of Nicaea. Nestorius called the union of the two natures a mysterious and an inseparable joining (συμαφειαν), but would admit no unity (ενωσιν) in the strict sense of the word to be the result of this joining (see "Serm.", ii, n. 4; xii, n. 2, in P. L., XLVIII). The union of the two natures is not physical (φυσικη) but moral, a mere juxtaposition in state of being (σχετικη); the Word indwells in Jesus like as God indwells in the just (loc. cit.); the indwelling of the Word in Jesus is, however, more excellent than the indwelling of God in the just man by grace, for that the indwelling of the Word purposes the Redemption of all mankind and the most perfect manifestation of the Divine activity (Serm. vii, n. 24); as a consequence, Mary is the Mother of Christ (Χριστοτοκος), not the Mother of God (Θεοτοκος). As is usual in these Oriental heresies, the metaphysical refinement of Nestorius was faulty, and led him into a practical denial of the mystery that he had set himself to explain. During the discussion that Nestorius aroused, he strove to explain that his indwelling (ενοικησις) theory was quite enough to keep him within the demands of Nicaea; he insisted that "the Man Jesus should be co-adored with the Divine union and almighty God [τον τη θεια συναφεια τω παντοκρατορι θεω συμπροσκυνουμενον ανθρωπον] "(Serm., vii, n. 35); he forcibly denied that Christ was two persons, but proclaimed Him as one person (προσωπον) made up of two substances. The oneness of the Person was however only moral, and not at all physical. Despite whatsoever Nestorius said as a pretext to save himself from the brand of heresy, he continually and explicitly denied the hypostatic union (ενωσιν καθ υποστασιν, κατα φυσιν, κατ ουσιαν), that union of physical entities and of substances which the Church defends in Jesus; he affirmed a juxtaposition in authority, dignity, energy, relation, and state of being (συναφεια κατ αυθεντιαν, αξιαν, ενεργειαν, αναφοραν, σχεσιν); and he maintained that the Fathers of Nicæa had nowhere said that God was born of the Virgin Mary (Sermo, v, nn. 5 and 6).
A. Nestorius in this distortion of the sense of Nicæa clearly went against the tradition of the Church. Before he had denied the hypostatic union of the two natures in Jesus, that union had been taught by the greatest Fathers of their time. St. Hippolytus (about 230) taught: "the Flesh [σαρξ] apart from the Logos had no hypostasis [ουδε . . . υποσταναι εδυνατο, was unable to act as principle of rational activity], for that its hypostasis was in the Word" ("Contra Noet.", n. 15, in P. G., X, 823). St. Epiphanius (about 365): "The Logos united body, mind, and soul into one totality and spiritual hypostasis" ("Hær.", xx, n. 4, in P. G., XLI, 277). "The Logos made the Flesh to subsist in the hypostasis of the Logos [εις εαυτον υποστησαντα την σαρκα]" ("Hær.", cxxvii, n. 29, in P. G., XLII, 684). St. Athanasius (about 350): "They err who say that it is one person who is the Son that suffered, and another person who did not suffer ... ; the Flesh became God's own by nature [κατα φυσιν], not that it became consubstantial with the Divinity of the Logos as if coeternal therewith, but that it became God's own Flesh by its very nature [κατα φυσιν]." In this entire discourse ("Contra Apollinarium", I, 12, in P. G., XXVI, 1113), St. Athanasius directly attacks the specious pretexts of the Arians and the arguments that Nestorius later took up,and defends the union of two physical natures in Christ [κατα φυσιν], as apposed to the mere juxtaposition or joining of the same natures [κατα σχεσιν]. St. Cyril of Alexandria (about 415) makes use of this formula oftener even than the other Fathers; he calls Christ "the Word of the Father united in nature with the Flesh [τον εκ θεου πατρος Λογον κατα φυσιν ενωθεντα σαρκι] ("De Recta Fide", n. 8, in P. G., LXXVI, 1210). For other and very numerous citations, see Petavius (111, 4). The Fathers always explain that this physical union of the two natures does not mean the intermingling of the natures, nor any such union as would imply a change in God, but only such union as was necessary to explain the fact that one Divine Person had human nature as His own true nature together with His Divine nature.
B. The Council of Ephesus (431) condemned the heresy of Nestorius, and defined that Mary was mother in the flesh of God's Word made Flesh (can. i). It anathematized all who deny that the Word of God the Father was united with the Flesh in one hypostasis (καθ υποστασιν); all who deny that there is only one Christ with Flesh that is His own; all who deny that the same Christ is God at the same time and man (can. ii). In the remaining ten canons drawn up by St. Cyril of Alexandria, the anathema is aimed directly at Nestorius. "If in the one Christ anyone divides the substances, after they have been once united, and joins them together merely by a juxtaposition [μονη συναπτων αυτας συναφεια] of honour or of authority or of power and not rather by a union into a physical unity [συνοδω τη καθ ενωσιν φυσικην], let him be accursed" (can. iii). These twelve canons condemn plecemeal the various subterfuges of Nestorius. St. Cyril saw heresy lurking in phrases that seemed innocent enough to the unsuspecting. Even the co-adoration theory is condemned as an attempt to separate the Divine from the human nature in Jesus by giving to each a separate hypostasis (see Denzinger, "Enchiridion", ed. 1908, nn. 113-26).
(2) The condemnation of the heresy of Nestorius saved for the Church the dogma of the Incarnation, "the great mystery of godliness" (I Tim., iii, 16), but lost to her a portion of her children, who, though dwindled down to insignificant numbers, still remain apart from her care. The union of the two natures in one Person was saved. The battle for the dogma was not yet won. Nestorius had postulated two persons in Jesus Christ. A new heresy soon began. It postulated only one Person in Jesus, and that the Divine Person. It went farther. It went too far. The new heresy defended only one nature, as well as one Person in Jesus. The leader of this heresy was Eutyches. His followers were called Monophysites. They varied in their ways of explanation. Some thought the two natures were intermingled into one. Others are said to have worked out some sort of a conversion of the human into the Divine. All were condemned by the Council of Chalcedon (451). This Fourth General Council of the Church defined that Jesus Christ remained, after the Incarnation, "perfect in Divinity and perfect in humanity . . . consubstantial with the Father according to His Divinity, consubstantial with us according to His humanity . . . one and the same Christ, the Son, the Lord, the Only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures not intermingled, not changed, not divisible, not separable" (see Denzinger, n. 148). By this condemnation of error and definition of truth, the dogma of the Incarnation was once again saved to the Church. Once again a large portion of the faithful of the Oriental Church were lost to their mother. Monophysitism resulted in the national Churches of Syria, Egypt, and Armenia. These national Churches are still heretic, although there have in later times been formed Catholic rites called the Catholic Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian rites. The Catholic rites, as the Catholic Chaldaic rite, are less numerous than the heretic rites.
(3) One would suppose that there was no more room for heresy in the explanation of the mystery of the nature of the Incarnation. There is always room for heresy in the matter of explanation of a mystery, if one does not hear the infallible teaching body to whom and to whom alone Christ entrusted His mysteries to have and to keep and to teach them till ihe end of time. Three patriarchs of the Oriental Church gave rise, so far as we know, to the new heresy. These three heresiarchs were Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Cyrus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, and Athanasius, the Patriarch of Antioch. St. Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, remained true and delated his fellow patriarchs to Pope Honorius. His successor in the see of Peter, St. Martin, bravely condemned the error of the three Oriental patriarchs, who admitted the decrees of Nicaea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon; defended the union of two natures in one Divine Person; but denied that this Divine Person had two wills. Their principle was expressed by the words, εν θελημα και μια ενεργεια, by which they would seem to have meant one will and one activity, i. e. only one principle of action and of suffering in Jesus Christ and that one principle Divine. These heretics were called Monothelites. Their error was condemned by the Sixth General Council (the Third Council of Constantinople, 680). It defined that in Christ there were two natural wills and two natural activities, the Divine and the human, and that the human will was not at all contrary to the Divine, but rather perfectly subject thereto (Denzinger, n. 291). The Emperor Constans sent St. Martin into exile in Chersonesus. We have trace of only one body of Monothelites. The Maronites, about the monastery of John Maron, were converted from Monothelism in the time of the Crusades and have been true to the faith ever since. The other Monothelites seem to have been absorbed in Monophysitism, or in the schism of the Byzantine Church later on.
The error of Monothelism is clear from the Scripture as well as from tradition. Christ did acts of adoration (John, iv, 22), humility (Matt., xi, 29), reverence (Heb., v, 7). These acts are those of a human will. The Monothelites denied that there was a human will in Christ. Jesus prayed: "Father, if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from me: but yet not my will, but thine be done," (Luke, xxii, 42). Here there is question of two wills, the Father's and Christ's. The will of Christ was subject to the will of the Father. "As the Father hath given me commandment, so do I" (John, xiv, 31). He became obedient even unto death (Phil., ii, 8). The Divine will in Jesus could not have been subject to the will of the Father, with which will it was really identified.
(4) Thus far we have that which is of Faith in this matter of the nature of the Incarnation. The human and Divine natures are united in one Divine Person so as to remain that exactly which they are, namely, Divine and human natures with distinct and perfect activities of their own. Theologians go farther in their attempts to give some account of the mystery of the Incarnation, so as, at least, to show that there is therein no contradiction, nothing that right reason may not safely adhere to. This union of the two natures in one Person has been for centuries called a hypostatic union, that is, a union in the Divine Hypostasis. What is an hypostasis? The definition of Boethius is classic: rationalis naturæ individua substantia (P. L., LXIV, 1343), a complete whole whose nature is rational. This book is a complete whole; its nature is not rational; it is not an hypostasis. An hypostasis is a complete rational individual. St. Thomas defines hypostasis as substantia cum ultimo complemento (III:2:3, ad 2um), a substance in its entirety. Hypostasis superadds to the notion of rational substance this idea of entirety; nor does the idea of rational nature include this notion of entirety. Human nature is the principle of human activities; but only an hypostasis, a person, can exercise these activities. The Schoolmen discuss the question whether the hypostasis has anything more of reality than human nature. To understand the discussion, one must needs be versed in scholastic Philosophy. Be the case as it may in the matter of human nature that is not united with the Divine, the human nature that is hypostatically united with the Divine, that is, the human nature that the Divine Hypostasis or Person assumes to Itself, has certainly more of reality united to it than the human nature of Christ would have were it not hypostatically united in the Word. The Divine Logos identified with Divine nature (Hypostatic Union) means then that the Divine Hypostasis (or Person, or Word, or Logos) appropriates to Itself human nature, and takes in every respect the place of the human person. In this way, the human nature of Christ, though not a human person, loses nothing of the perfection of the perfect man; for the Divine Person supplies the place of the human.
It is to be remembered that, when the Word took Flesh, there was no change in the Word; all the change was in the Flesh. At the moment of conception, in the womb of the Blessed Mother, through the forcefulness of God's activity, not only was the human soul of Christ created but the Word assumed the man that was conceived. When God created the world, the world was changed, that is. it passed from the state of nonentity to the state of existence; and there was no change in the Logos or Creative Word of God the Father. Nor was there change in that Logos when it began to terminate the human nature. A new relation ensued, to be sure; but this new relation implied in the Logos no new reality, no real change; all new reality, all real change, was in the human nature. Anyone who wishes to go into this very intricate question of the manner of the Hypostatic Union of the two natures in the one Divine Personality, may with great profit read St. Thomas (III:4:2); Scotus (in III, Dist. i); (De Incarnatione, Disp. II, sec. 3); Gregory, of Valentia (in III, D. i, q. 4). Any modern text book on theology will give various opinions in regard to the way of the union of the Person assuming with the nature assumed.
III. EFFECTS OF THE INCARNATION. — (1) On Christ Himself. — A. On the Body of Christ. — Did union with the Divine nature do away, with all bodily inperfections? The Monophysites were split up into two parties by this question. Catholics hold that, before the Resurrection, the Body of Christ was subject to all the bodily weaknesses to which human nature unassumed is universally subject; such are hunger, thirst, pain, death. Christ hungered (Matt., iv, 2), thirsted (John, xix, 28), was fatigued (John, iv, 6), suffered pain and death. "We have not a high priest, who cannot have compassion on our infirmities: but one tempted in all things like as we are, without sin" (Heb., iv, 15). "For in that, wherein he himself hath suffered and been tempted, he is able to succour them also that are tempted" (Heb., ii, 18). All these bodily weaknesses were not miraculously brought about by Jesus; they were the natural results of the human nature He assumed. To be sure, they might have been impeded and were freely willed by Christ. They were part of the free oblation that began with the moment of the Incarnation. "Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith: Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest not; but a body thou hast fitted to me" (Heb., x, 5). The Fathers deny that Christ assumed sickness. There is no mention in Scripture of any sickness of Jesus. Sickness is not a weakness that is a necessary belonging of human nature. It is true that pretty much all mankind suffers sickness. It is not true that any specific sickness is suffered by all mankind. Not all men must needs have measles. No one definite sickness universally belongs to human nature; hence no one definite sickness was assumed by Christ. St. Athanasius gives the reason that it were unbecoming that He should heal others who was Himself not healed (P. G., XX, 133). Weaknesses due to old age are common to mankind. Had Christ lived to an old age, He would have suffered such weaknesses just as He suffered the weaknesses that are common to infancy. Death from old age would have come to Jesus, had He not been violently put to death (see St. Augustine, "De Peccat.", II, 29; P. L., XLIV, 180). The reasonableness of these bodily imperfections in Christ is clear from the fact that He assumed human nature so as to satisfy for that nature's sin. Now,to satisfy forthe sin of another is to accept the penalty of that sin. Hence it was fitting that Christ should take upon himself all those penalties of the sin of Adam that are common to man and becoming. or at least not unbecoming to the Hypostatic Union. (See Summa Theologica III:14 for other reasons.) As Christ did not take sickness upon Himself, so other imperfections, such as deformities, which are not common to mankind, were not His. St. Clement of Alexandria (III Paedagogus, c. 1), Tertullian (De Carne Christi, c. ix), and a few others taught that Christ was deformed. They misinterpreted the words of Isaias: "There is no beauty in him, nor comeliness; and we have seen him, and there was no sightlinesss" etc. (liii, 2). The words refer only to the suffering Christ. Theologians now are unanimous in the view that Christ was noble in bearing and beautiful in form, such as a perfect man should be; for Christ was, by virtue of His incarnation, a perfect man (see Stentrup, "Christologia", theses lx, lxi).
B. On the Human Soul of Christ. (a) In the Will. — (α) Sinlessness. — The effect of the Incarnation on the human will of Christ was to leave it free in all things save only sin. It was absolutely impossible that any stain of sin should soil the soul of Christ. Neither sinful act of the will nor sinful habit of the soul were in keeping with the Hypostatic Union. The fact that Christ never sinned is an article of faith (see Council, Ephes., can. x, in Denzinger, 122, wherein the sinlessness of Christ is implicit in the definition that he did not offer Himself for Himself, but for us). This fact of Christ's sinlessness is evident from the Scripture. "There is no sin in Him" (I John, iii, 5). Him, who knew no sin, he hath made sin for us" i. e. a victim for sin (II Cor., v, 21). The impossibility of a sinful act by Christ is taught by all theologians, but variously explained. G¨nther defended an impossibility consequent solely upon the Divine provision that He would not sin (Vorschule, II, 441). This is no impossibility at all. Christ is God. It is absolutely impossible, antecedent to the Divine prevision, that God should allow His flesh to sin. If God allowed His flesh to sin, He might sin, that is, He might turn away from Himself; and it is absolutely impossible that God should turn from Himself, be untrue to His Divine attributes. The Scotists teach that this impossibility to sin, antecedent to God's revision, is not due to the Hypostatic Union, but is like to the impossibility of the beatified to sin, and is due to a special Divine Providence (see Scotus, in III, d. xiii, Q. i). St. Thomas (III:15:1) and all Thomists, Suarez (d. xxxiii, 2), Vasquez (d. xi, c. iii), de Lugo (d. xxvi, 1, n. 4), and all theologians of the Society of Jesus teach the now almost universally admitted explanation that the absolute impossibility of a sinful act on the part of Christ was due to the hypostatic union of His human nature with the Divine. (β) Liberty. — The will of Christ remained free after the Incarnation. This is an article of faith. The Scripture is most clear on this point. "When he had tasted, he would not drink" (Matt., xxvii, 34). "I will; be thou made clean" (Matt., viii, 3). The liberty of Christ was such that He merited. "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him" (Phil., ii, 8). "Who having joy set before him, endured the cross" (Heb., xii, 2). That Christ was free in the matter of death, is the teaching of all Catholics; else He did not merit nor satisfy for us by His death. Just how to reconcile this liberty of Christ with the impossibility of His committing sin has ever been a crux for theologians. Some seventeen explanations are given (see St. Thomas, III, Q. xlvii, a. 3, ad 3um; Molina, "Concordia", d. liii, membr. 4).
(b) IN THE INTELLECT. — The effects of the Hypostatic Union upon the knowledge of Christ will be treated in a special article (see KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST).
(c) SANCTITY OF CHRIST. — The Humanity of Christ was holy by a twofold sanctity: the grace of union and sanctifying grace. The grace of union, i. e. the Substantial and Hypostatic Union of the two natures in the Divine Word, is called the substantial sanctity of Christ. St. Augustine says: "Tunc ergo sanctificavit se in se, hoc est hominem se in Verbo se, quia unus est Christus, Verbum et homo, sanctificans hominem in Verbo" (When the Word was made Flesh then, indeed, He sanctified Himself in Himself, that is, Himself as Man in Himself as Word; for that Christ is One Person, both Word and Man, and renders His human nature holy in the holiness of the Divine nature) (In Johan. tract. 108, n. 5, in P. L., XXXV, l916). Besides this substantial sanctity of the grace of Hypostatic Union, there was in the soul of Christ, the accidental sanctity called sanctifying grace. This is the teaching of St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and of the Fathers generally. The Word was "full of grace" (John, i, 14), and "of his fullness we all have received, and grace for grace" (John, i, 16). The Word were not full of grace, if any grace were wanting in Him which would be a perfection fitting to His human nature. All theologians teach that sanctifying grace is a perfection fitting the humanity of Christ. The mystical body of Christ is the Church, whereof Christ is the Head (Rom., xii, 4; I Cor., xii, 11; Eph., i, 20; iv, 4; Col. i, 18: ii, 10). It is especially in this sense that we say the grace of the Head flows through the channels of the sacraments of the Church — through the veins of the body of Christ. Theologians commonly teach that from the very beginning of His existence, He received the fullness of sanctifying grace and other supernatural gifts (except faith, hope, and the moral virtue of penance); nor did He ever increase in these gifts or this sanctifying grace. For so to increase would be to become more pleasing to the Divine Majesty; and this were impossible in Christ. Hence St. Luke meant (ii, 52) that Christ showed more and more day after day the effects of grace in His outward bearing.
(d) Likes and Dislikes. — The Hypostatic Union did not deprive the Human Soul of Christ of its human likes and dislikes. The affections of a man, the emotions of a man were His in so far as they were becoming to the grace of union, in so far as they were not out of order. St. Augustine well argues: "Human affections were not out of place in Him in Whom there was really and truly a human body and a human soul" (De Civ. Dei, XIV, ix, 3). We find that he was subject to anger against the blindness of heart of sinners (Mark, iii, 5); to fear (Mark, xiv, 33); to sadness (Matt., xxvi, 37): to the sensible affections of hope, of desire, and of joy. These likes and dislikes were under the complete will-control of Christ. The fomes peccati, the kindling-wood of sin — that is, those likes and dislikes that are not under full and absolute control of right reason and strong will-power — could not, as a matter of course, have been in Christ. He could not have been tempted by such likes and dislikes to sin. To have taken upon Himself this penalty of sin would not have been in keeping with the absolute and substantial holiness which is implied by the grace of union in the Logos.
C. On the God-Man (Deus-Homo, θεανθρωπος). — One of the most important effects of the union of the Divine nature and human nature in One Person is a mutual interchange of attributes, Divine and human, between God and man, the Communicatio Idiomatum. The God-Man is one Person, and to Him in the concrete may be applied the predicates that refer to the Divinity as well as those that refer to the Humanity of Christ. We may say God is man, was born, died, was buried. These predicates refer to the Person Whose nature is human, as well as Divine; to the Person Who is man, as well as God. We do not mean to say that God, as God, was born; but God, Who is man, was born. We may not predicate the abstract Divinity of the abstract humanity, nor the abstract Divinity of the concrete man, nor vice versa; nor the concrete God of the abstract humanity, nor vice versa. We predicate the concrete of the concrete: Jesus is God; Jesus is man; the God-Man was sad; the Man-God was killed. Some ways of speaking should not be used, not that they may not be rightly explained, but that they may easily be misunderstood in an heretical sense (see COMMUNICATIO IDIOMATUM).
(2) The Adoration of the Humanity of Christ. — The human nature of Christ, united hypostatically with the Divine nature, is adored with the same worship as the Divine nature (see ADORATION). We adore the Word when we adore Christ the Man; but the Word is God. The human nature of Christ is not at all the reason of our adoration of Him; that reason is only the Divine nature. The entire term of our adoration is the Incarnate Word; the motive of the adoration is the Divinity of the Incarnate Word. The partial term of our adoration may be the human nature of Christ: the motive of the adoration is the same as the motive of the adoration that reaches the entire term. Hence, the act of adoration of the Word Incarnate is the same absolute act of adoration that reaches the human nature. The Person of Christ is adored with the cult called latria. But the cult that is due to a person is due in like manner to the whole nature of that Person and to all its parts. Hence, since the human nature is the real and true nature of Christ, that human nature and all its parts are the object of the cult called latria, i. e., adoration. We shall not here enter into the question of the adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (see HEART OF JESUS, DEVORION TO THE). (For the Adoration of the Cross, CROSS AND CRUCIFIX, THE, subtitle II.)
(3) Other Effects of the Incarnation, such as affected the Blessed Mother and us, will be found treated under the respective special subjects. (See GRACE; JUSTIFICATION; IMMACULATE CONCEPTION; MARY, THE BLESSED VIRGIN.)
Fathers of the Church: ST. IRENAEUS, Adversus Haer.; ST. ATHANASIUS, De Incarnatione Verbi; IDEM, Contra Arianos; ST. AMBROSE, De Incarnatione; ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA, Antirrheticus adversus Apollinarium; IDEM, Tractatus ad Theophilum contra Apollinarium; the writings of ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN, ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, and others who attacked the Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites, and Monothelites.
Scholastics: ST. THOMAS, Summa Theologica, III, QQ. 1-59; ST. BONAVENTURE, Brevil., IV; IDEM, in III Sent.; BELLARMINE, De Christo Capite Tolius Ecclesia, Controversiae., 1619; SUAREZ, De Incarnatione, DE LUGO, De Incarnatione, III; PETAVIUS, De incarn. Verbi: Theologia Dogmatica, IV.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII, pp. 706-716
Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Resurrection is the rising again from the dead, the resumption of life.
I. RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. — The fact of Christ's Resurrection, the theories opposed to this fact, its characteristics, and the reasons for its importance must be considered in distinct paragraphs.
A. The Fact of Christ's Resurrection. — The main sources which directly attest the fact of Christ's Resurrection are the Four Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul. Easter morning is so rich in incident, and so crowded with interested persons, that its complete history presents a rather complicated tableau. It is not surprising, therefore, that the partial accounts contained in each of the Four Gospels appear at first sight hard to harmonize. But whatever exegetic view as to the visit to the sepulchre by the pious women and the appearance of the angels we may defend, we cannot deny the Evangelists' agreement as to the fact that the risen Christ appeared to one or more persons. According to St. Matthew, He appeared to the holy women, and again on a mountain in Galilee; according to St. Mark, He was seen by Mary Magdalen, by the two disciples at Emmaus, and the Eleven before his Ascension into heaven; according to St. Luke, He walked with the disciples to Emmaus, appeared to Peter and to the assembled disciples in Jerusalem; according to St. John, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalen, to the ten Apostles on Easter Sunday, to the Eleven a week later, and to the seven disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. St. Paul (I Cor., xv, 3-8) enumerates another series of apparitions of Jesus after His Resurrection; he was seen by Cephas, by the Eleven, by more than 500 brethren, many of whom were still alive at the time of the Apostle's writing, by James, by all the Apostles, and lastly by Paul himself.
Here is an outline of a possible harmony of the Evangelists' account concerning the principal events of Easter Sunday: (1) The holy women carrying the spices previously prepared start out for the sepulchre before dawn, and reach it after sunrise; they are anxious about the heavy stone, but know nothing of the official guard of the sepulchre (Matt., xxviii, 1-3; Mark, xvi, 1-3; Luke, xxiv, 1; John, xx, 1). (2) The angel frightened the guards by his brightness, put them to flight, rolled away the stone, and seated himself (not upon, επ αυτου, but) above (επανω αυτου) the stone (Matt. xxviii, 2-4). (3) Mary Magdalen, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome approach the sepulchre, and see the stone rolled back, whereupon Mary Magdalen immediately returns to inform the Apostles (Mark, xvi, 4; Luke, xxiv, 2; John xx, 1-2). (4) The other two holy women enter the sepulchre, find an angel seated in the vestibule, who shows them the empty sepulchre, announces the Resurrection, and commissions them to tell the disciples and Peter that they shall see Jesus in Galilee (Matt., xxviii, 5-7; Mark, xvi, 5-7). (5) A second group of holy women, consisting of Joanna and her companions, arrive at the sepulchre, where they have probably agreed to meet the first group, enter the empty interior, and are admonished by two angels that Jesus has risen according to His prediction (Luke, xxiv, 10). (6) Not long after, Peter and John, who were notified by Mary Magdalen, arrive at the sepulchre and find the linen cloth in such a position as to exclude the supposition that the body was stolen; for they lay simply flat on the ground, showing that the sacred body had vanished out of them without touching them. When John notices this he believes (John, xx, 3-10). (7) Mary Magdalen returns to the sepulchre, sees first two angels within, and then Jesus Himself (John, xx, 11-l6; Mark, xvi, 9). (8) The two groups of pious women, who probably met on their return to the city, are favored with the sight of Christ arisen, who commissions them to tell His brethren that they will see him in Galilee (Matt., xxviii, 8-10; Mark, xvi, 8). (9) The holy women relate their experiences to the Apostles, but find no belief (Mark, xvi, 10-11; Luke, xxiv, 9-11). (10) Jesus appears to the disciples, at Emmaus, and they return to Jerusalem; the Apostles appear to waver between doubt and belief (Mark, xvi, 12-13; Luke, xxiv, 13-35). (11) Christ appears to Peter, and therefore Peter and John firmly believe in the Resurrection (Luke, xxiv, 34; John, xx, 8). (12) After the return of the disciples from Emmaus, Jesus appears to all the Apostles excepting Thomas (Mark, xvi, 14; Luke, xxiv, 36-43; John, xx, 19-25). The harmony of the other apparitions of Christ after His Resurrection presents no special difficulties.
Briefly, therefore, the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by more than 500 eyewitnesses, whose experience, simplicity, and uprightness of life rendered them incapable of inventing such a fable, who lived at a time when any attempt to deceive could have been easily discovered, who had nothing in this life to gain, but everything to lose by their testimony, whose moral courage exhibited in their apostolic life can be explained only by their intimate conviction of the objective truth of their message. Again the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by the eloquent silence of the Synagogue which had done everything to prevent deception, which could have easily discovered deception, if there had been any, which opposed only sleeping witnesses to the testimony of the Apostles, which did not punish the alleged carelessness of the official guard, and which could not answer the testimony of the Apostles except by threatening them "that they speak no more in this name to any man" (Acts, iv, 17). Finally the thousands and millions, both Jews and Gentiles, who believed the testimony of the Apostles in spite of all the disadvantages following from such a belief, in short the origin of the Church, requires for its explanation the reality of Christ's Resurrection, fot the rise of the Church without the Resurrection would have been a greater miracle than the Resurrection itself.
II. Opposing Theories. — By what means can the evidence for Christ's Resurrection by overthrown? Three theories of explanation have been advanced, though the first two have hardly any adherents in our day. (1) There is the theory of those who assert that Christ did not really die upon the cross, that His supposed death was only a temporary swoon, and that His Resurrection was simply a return to consciousness. This was advocated by Paulus ("Exegetisches Handbuch", 1842, II, p. 929) and in a modified form by Hase ("Gesch. Jesu", §112), but it does not agree with the data furnished by the Gospels. The scourging and the crown of thorns, the carrying of the cross and the crucifixion, the three hours on the cross and the piercing of the Sufferer's side cannot have brought on a mere swoon. His real death is attested by the centurion and the soldiers, by the friends of Jesus and by his most bitter enemies. His stay in a sealed sepulchre for thirty-six hours, in an atmosphere poisoned by the exhalations of a hundred pounds of spices, which would have of itself sufficed to cause death. Moreover, if Jesus had merely returned from a swoon, the feelings of Easter morning would have been those of sympathy rather than those of joy and triumph, the Apostles would have been roused to the duties of a sick chamber rather than to apostolic work, the life of the powerful wonderworker would have ended in ignoble solitude and inglorious obscurity, and His vaunted sinlessness would have changed into His silent approval of a lie as the foundation stone of His Church. No wonder that later critics of the Resurrection, like Strauss, have heaped contempt on the old theory of a swoon.
(2) The Imposition Theory. — The disciples, it is said, stole the body of Jesus from the grave, and then proclaimed to men that their Lord had risen. This theory was anticipated by the Jews who "gave a great sum of money to the soldiers, saying: Say you, His disciples came by night, and stole him away when we were asleep" (Matt., xxviii, 12 sq.). The same was urged by Celsus (Orig., "Contra Cels.", II, 56) with some difference of detail. But to assume that the Apostles with a burden of this kind upon their consciences could have preached a kingdom of truth and righteousness as the one great effort of their lives, and that for the sake of that kingdom they could have suffered even unto death, is to assume one of those moral impossibilities which may pass for a moment in the heat of controversy, but must be dismissed without delay in the hour of good reflection.
(3) The Vision Theory. — This theory as generally understood by its advocates does not allow visions caused by a Divine intervention, but only such as are the product of human agencies. For if a Divine intervention be admitted, we may as well believe, as far as principles are concerned, that God raised Jesus from the dead. But where in the present instance are the human agencies which might cause these visions? The idea of a resurrection from the grave was familiar to the disciples from their Jewish faith; they had also vague intimations in the prophecies of the Old Testament; finally, Jesus Himself had always associated His Resurrection with the predictions of his death. On the other hand, the disciples' state of mind was one of great excitement; they treasured the memory of Christ with a fondness which made it almost impossible for them to believe that He was gone. In short, their whole mental condition was such as needed only the application of a spark to kindle the flame. The spark was applied by Mary Magdalen, and the flame at once spread with the rapidity and force of a conflagration. What she believed that she had seen, others immediately believed that they must see. Their expectations were fulfilled, and the conviction seized the members of the early Church that the Lord had really risen from the dead.
Such is the vision theory commonly defended by recent critics of the Resurrection. But however ingeniously it may be devised, it is quite impossible from an historical point of view. (a) It is incompatible with the state of mind of the Apostles; the theory presupposes faith and expectancy on the part of the Apostles, while in point of fact the disciples' faith and expectancy followed their vision of the risen Christ. (b) It is inconsistent with the nature of Christ's manifestations; they ought to have been connected with heavenly glory, or they should have continued the former intimate relations of Jesus with His disciples, while actually and consistently they presented quite a new phase that could not have been expected. (c) It does not agree with the conditions of the early Christian community; after the first excitement of Easter Sunday, the disciples as a body are noted for their cool deliberation rather than the exalted enthusiasm of a community of visionaries. (d) It is incompatible with the length of time during which the apparitions lasted; visions such as the critics suppose have never been known to last long, while some of Christ's manifestations lasted a considerable period. (e) It is not consistent with the fact that the manifestations were made to numbers at the same instant. (f) It does not agree with the place where most of the manifestations were made: visionary appearances would have been expected in Galilee, while most apparitions of Jesus occurred in Judea. (g) It is inconsistent with the fact that the visions came to a sudden end on the day of Ascension.
Keim admits that enthusiasm, nervousness, and mental excitement on the part of the disciples do not supply a rational explanation of the facts as related in the Gospels. According to him, the visions were directly granted by God and the glorified Christ; they may even include a "corporeal appearance" for those who fear that without this they would lose all. But Keim's theory satisfies neither the Church, since it abandons all the proofs of a bodily Resurrection of Jesus, nor the enemies of the Church, since it admits many of the Church's dogmas; nor again is it consistent with itself, since it grants God's special intervention in proof of the Church's faith, though it starts with the denial of the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, which is one of the principal objects of that faith.
(4) Modernist View. — The Holy Office describes and condemns in the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh propositions of the Decree "Lamentabili", the views advocated by a fourth class of opponents of the Resurrection. The former of these propositions reads: "The Resurrection of our Saviour is not properly a fact of the historical order, but a fact of the purely supernatural order neither proved nor provable, which Christian consciousness has little by little inferred from other facts." This statement agrees with, and is further explained by the words of Loisy ("Autour d'un petit livre", p. viii, 120-121, 169; "L'Evangile et l'Eglise", pp. 74-78; 120-121; 171). According to Loisy, firstly, the entrance into life immortal of one risen from the dead is not subject to observation; it is a supernatural, hyper-historical fact, not capable of historical proof. The proofs alleged for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are inadequate; the empty sepulchre is only an indirect argument, while the apparitions of the risen Christ are open to suspicion on a priori grounds, being sensible impressions of a supernatural reality; and they are doubtful evidence from a critical point of view, on account of the discrepancies in the various Scriptural narratives and the mixed character of the detail connected with the apparitions. Secondly, if one prescinds from the faith of the Apostles, the testimony of the New Testament does not furnish a certain argument for the fact of the Resurrection. This faith of the Apostles is concerned not so much with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as with His immortal life; being based on the apparitions, which are unsatisfactory evidence from an historical point of view, its force is appreciated only by faith itself; being a development of the idea of an immortal Messias, it is an evolution of Christian consciousness, though it is at the same time a corrective of the scandal of the Cross. The Holy Office rejects this view of the Resurrection when it condemns the thirty-seventh proposition in the Decree "Lamentabili": "The faith in the Resurrection of Christ pointed at the beginning no so much to the fact of the Resurrection, as to the immortal life of Christ with God."
Besides the authoritative rejection of the foregoing view, we may submit the following three considerations which render it untenable: First, the contention that the Resurrection of Christ cannot be proved historically is not in accord with science. Science does not know enough about the limitations and the properties of a body raised from the dead to immortal life to warrant the assertion that such a body cannot be perceived by the senses; again in the case of Christ, the empty sepulchre with all its concrete circumstances cannot be explained except by a miraculous Divine intervention as supernatural in its character as the Resurrection of Jesus. Secondly, history does not allow us to regard the belief in the Resurrection as the result of a gradual evolution in Christian consciousness. The apparitions were not a mere projection of the disciples' Messianic hope and expectation; their Messianic hope and expectations had to be revived by the apparitions. Again, the Apostles did not begin with preaching the immortal life of Christ with God, but they preached Christ's Resurrection from the very beginning, they insisted on it as a fundamental fact and they described even some of the details connected with this fact: Acts, ii, 24, 31; iii, 15,26; iv, 10; v, 30; x, 39-40; xiii, 30, 37; xvii, 31-2; Rom., i,4; iv, 25; vi, 4,9; viii, 11, 34; x, 7; xiv, 9; I Cor., xv, 4, 13 sqq.; etc. Thirdly, the denial of the historical certainty of Christ's Resurrection involves several historical blunders: it questions the objective reality of the apparitions without any historical grounds for such a doubt; it denies the fact of the empty sepulchre in spite of solid historical evidence to the contrary; it questions even the fact of Christ's burial in Joseph's sepulchre, though this fact is based on the clear and simply unimpeachable testimony of history (cf. Lepin, "Christologie. Commentaire des Propositions XXVII-XXXVIII du Décret du Saint Office 'Lamentabili'", Paris, 1908).
D. Character of Christ;s Resurrection. — The Resurrection of Christ has much in common with the general resurrection; even the transformation of His body and of His bodily life is of the same kind as that which awaits the blessed in their resurrection. But the following peculiarities must be noted: (1) Christ's Resurrection is necessarily a glorious one; it implies not merely the reunion of body and soul, but also the glorification of the body. (2) Christ's body was to know no corruption, but rose again soon after death, when sufficient time had elapsed to leave no doubt as to the reality of His death. (3) Christ was the first to rise unto life immortal; those raised before Him died again (Col., i, I8; I Cor., xv, 20). (4) As the Divine power which raised Christ from the grave was His own power, He rose from the dead by His own power (John, ii, 19; x, l7-18). (5) Since the Resurrection had been promised as the main proof of Christ's Divine mission, it has a greater dogmatic importance than any other fact. "If Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain" (I Cor., xv, 14).
E. Importance of the Resurrection. — Besides being the fundamental argument for our Christian belief, the Resurrection is important for the following reasons: (1) It shows the justice of God who exalted Christ to a life of glory, as Christ had humbled Himself unto death (Phil., ii, 8-9). (2) The Resurrection completed the mystery of our salvation and redemption; by His death Christ freed us from sin, and by His Resurrection He restored to us the most important privileges lost by sin (Rom., iv, 25). (3) By His Resurrection we acknowledge Christ as the immortal God, the efficient and exemplary cause of our own resurrection (I Cor., xv, 21; Phil., iii, 20-21), and as the model and the support of our new life of grace (Rom., vi, 4-6; 9-11).
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XII, pp. 789-792
Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
CHRISTOLOGY. — Christology is that part of theology which deals with Our Lord Jesus Christ. In its full extent it comprises the doctrines concerning both the person of Christ and His works; but in the present article we shall limit ourselves to a consideration of the person of Christ. Here again we shall not infringe on the domain of the historian and Old-Testament theologian, who present their respective contributions under the headings JESUS CHRIST, and MESSIAS; hence the theology of the Person of Jesus Christ, considered in the light of the New Testament or from the Christian point of view, is the proper subject of the present article.
The person of Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Son or the Word of the Father, Who "was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man." These mysteries, though foretold in the Old Testament, were fully revealed in the New, and clearly developed in Christian Tradition and theology. Hence we shall have to study our subject under the triple aspect of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Christian Tradition.
(A) Old Testament. — From what has been said we understand that the Old Testament is not considered here from the viewpoint of the Jewish scribe, but of the Christian theologian. Jesus Christ Himself was the first to use it in this way by His repeated appeal to the Messianic passages of the prophetic writings. The Apostles saw in these prophecies many arguments in favour of the claims and the teachings of Jesus Christ; the Evangelists, too, are familiar with them, though they appeal less frequently to them than the patristic writers do. Even the Fathers either state the prophetic argument only in general terms or they quote single prophecies; but they thus prepare the way for the deeper insight into the historical perspective of the Messianic predictions which began to prevail in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Leaving the statement of the historical development of the Messianic prophecies to the writer of the article MESSIAS, we shall briefly call attention to the prophetic predictions of the genealogy of Christ, of His birth, His infancy, His names, His offices, His public life, His sufferings, and His glory.
(1) References to the human genealogy of the Messias are quite numerous in the Old Testament: He is represented as the seed of the woman, the son of Sem, the son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the son of David, the prince of pastors, the offspring of the marrow of the high cedar (Gen., iii, 1-19; ix, 18-27; xii, 1-9; xvii, 1-9; xviii, 17-19; xxii, 16-18; xxvi, 1-5; xxvii, 1-15; Num., xxiv, 15-19; II Kings, vii, 1-16; 1 Par., xvii, 1-17; Jer., xxiii, 1-8; xxxiii, 14-26; Ezech., xvii). The Royal Psalmist extols the Divine genealogy of the future Messias in the words: "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee" (Ps. ii, 7).
(2) The Prophets frequently speak of the birth of the expected Christ. They locate its place in Bethlehem of Juda (Mich., V, 2-14), they determine its time by the passing of the sceptre from Juda (Gen., xlix, 8-12), by the seventy weeks of Daniel (ix, 22-27), and by the "little while" mentioned in the Book of Aggeus (ii, 1-10). The Old-Testament seers know also that the Messias will be born of a Virgin Mother (Is., vii, 1-17), and that His appearance, at least His public appearance, will be preceded by a precursor (Is., xl, 1-11; Mal., iv, 5-6).
(3) Certain events connected with the infancy of the Messias have been deemed important enough to be the subject of prophetic prediction. Among these are the adoration of the Magi (Ps. lxxxi, 1-17), the slaughter of the innocents (Jer., xxxi, 15-26), and the flight into Egypt (Osee, xi, 1-7). It is true that in the case of these prophecies, as it happens in the case of many others, their fulfilment is their clearest commentary; but this does not undo the fact that the events were really predicted.
(4) Perhaps there is less need of insisting on the predictions of the better known Messianic names and titles, seeing that they involve less obscurity. Thus in the prophecies of Zacharias the Messias is called the Orient, or, according to the Hebrew text, the "bud" (iii; vi, 9-15), in the Book of Daniel He is the Son of Man (vii), in the Prophecy of Malachias He is the Angel of the Testament (ii, 17; iii, 6), in the writings of Isaias He is the Saviour (li, 1; lii, 12; lxii), the Servant of the Lord (xlix, 1), the Emmanuel (viii, 1-10), the Prince of peace (ix, 1-7).
(5) The Messianic offices are considered in a general way in the latter part of Isaias (lxi); in particular, the Messias is considered as prophet in the Book of Deuteronomy (xviii, 9-22); as king in the Canticle of Anna (I Kings, ii, 1-10) and in the royal song of the Psalmist (xliv); as priest in the sacerdotal type Melchisedech (Gen., xiv, 14-20) and in the Psalmist's words " a priest forever" (cix); as Goel, or Avenger, in the second part of Isaias (lxiii, 1-6); as mediator of the New Testament, under the form of a covenant of the people (Is., xlii, 1; xliii, 13), and of the light of the Gentiles (Is., xlix).
(6) As to the public life of the Messias, Isaias gives us a general idea of the fulness of the Spirit investing the Anointed (xi, 1-16), and of the Messianic work (Iv). The Psalmist presents a picture of the Good Shepherd (xxii); Isaias summarizes the Messianic miracles (xxxv); Zacharias exclaims, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion", thus predicting Christ's solemn entrance into Jerusalem; the Psalmist refers to this same event when he mentions the praise out of the mouth of infants (viii). To return once more to the Book of Isaias, the prophet foretells the rejection of the Messias through a league with death (xxvii); the Psalmist alludes to the same mystery where he speaks of the stone which the builders rejected (cxvii).
(7) Need we say that the sufferings of the Messias were fully predicted by the prophets of the Old Testament? The general idea of the Messianic victim is presented in the context of the words "sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not" (Ps. xxxix); in the passage beginning with the resolve "Let us put wood on his bread" (Jer., xi), and in the sacrifice described by the prophet Malachias (i). Besides, the series of the particular events which constitute the history of Christ's Passion has been described by the prophets with a remarkable minuteness: the Psalmist refers to His betrayal in the words "the man of my peace . . . supplanted me" (xl), and Zacharias knows of the "thirty pieces of silver" (xi); the Psalmist praying in the anguish of his soul, is a type of Christ in His agony (Ps. liv); His capture is foretold in the words "pursue and take him" and "they will hunt after the soul of the just" (Ps. lxx; xciii); His trial with its false witnesses may be found represented in the words "unjust witnesses have risen up against me, and iniquity hath lied to itself" (Ps. xxvi); His flagellation is portrayed in the description of the man of sorrows (Is., lii, 13; liii, 12) and the words "scourges were gathered together upon me" (Ps. xxxiv); the betrayer's evil lot is pictured in the imprecations of Psalm cviii; the crucifixion is referred to in the passages "What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands?" (Zach., xiii), "Let us condemn him to a most shameful death" (Wisd., ii), and "They have dug my hands and my feet" (Ps. xxi); the miraculous darkness occurs. in Amos, viii; the gall and vinegar are spoken of in Ps. lxviii; the pierced heart of Christ is foreshadowed in Zach., xii. The sacrifice of Isaac (Gen., xxi, 1-14), the scapegoat (Lev., xvi, 1-28), the ashes of purification (Num., xix, 1-10), and the brazen serpent (Num., xxi, 4-9) hold a prominent place among the types prefiguring the suffering Messias. The third chapter of Lamentations is justly considered as the dirge of our buried Redeemer.
(8) Finally, the glory of the Messias has been foretold by the Prophets of the Old Testament. The context of such phrases as "I have risen because the Lord hath protected me" (Ps. iii), "My flesh shall rest in hope (Ps. xv), "On the third day he will raise us up" (Osee, v, 15, vi, 3), "O death, I will be thy death" (Osee, xiii, 6-15a), and "I know that my Redeemer liveth" (Job, xix, 23-27) referred the devout Jewish worshipper to something more than a merely earthly restoration, the fulfilment of which began to be realized in the Resurrection of Christ. This mystery is also implied, at least typically, in the first fruits of the harvest (Lev., xxiii, 9-14) and the delivery of Jonas from the belly of the fish (Jon., ii). Nor is the Resurrection of the Messias the only element of Christ's glory predicted by the Prophets. Ps. lxvii refers to the Ascension; Joel, ii, 28-32, to the coming of the Paraclete; Is., Ix, to the call of the Gentiles; Mich., iv, 1-7, to the conversion of the Synagogue; Dan., ii, 27-47, to the kingdom of the Messias as compared with the kingdom of the world. Other characteristics of the Messianic kingdom are typified by the tabernacle (Ex., xxv, 8-9; xxix, 43; xl, 33-36; Num., ix, 15-23), the mercy-seat (Ex., xxv, 17-22; Ps. lxxix, 1), Aaron the high priest (Ex., xxviii, 1; xxx, 1; 10; Num., xvi, 39-40), the manna (Ex., xvi, 1-15; Ps. lxxvii, 24-25), and the rock of Horeb (Ex., xvii, 5-7; Num., xx, 10-11; Ps. civ, 41). A Canticle of thanksgiving for the Messianic benefits is found in Is., xii.
The Books of the Old Testament are not the only source from which the Christian theologian may learn the Messianic ideas of pre-Christian Jewry. The Sibylline oracles, the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Psalms of Solomon, the Ascensio Moysis, the Revelation of Baruch, the Fourth Book of Esdras, and several Talmudic and Rabbinic writings are rich depositories of pre-Christian views concerning the expected Messias. Not that all of these works were written before the coming of Christ; but, though partially post-Christian in their authorship, they preserve a picture of the Jewish world of thought, dating back, at least in its outline, centuries before the coming of Christ.
(B) New Testament. — Some modern writers tell us that there are two Christs, as it were, the Messias of faith and the Jesus of history. They regard the Lord and Christ, Whom God exalted by raising Him from the dead, as the subject of Christian faith; and Jesus of Nazareth, the preacher and worker of miracles, as the theme of the historian. They assure us that it is quite impossible to persuade even the least experienced critic that Jesus taught, in formal terms and at one and the same time, the Christology of Paul, that of John, and the doctrines of Nicæa, of Ephesus, and of Chalcedon. Otherwise the history of the first Christian centuries appears to these writers to be quite inconceivable. The Fourth Gospel is said to lack the data which underlie the definitions of the first oecumenical councils and to supply testimony that is not a supplement, but a corrective, of the portrait of Jesus drawn by the Synoptics. These two accounts of the Christ are represented as mutually exclusive: if Jesus spoke and acted as He speaks and acts in the Synoptic Gospels, then He cannot have spoken and acted as He is reported by St. John. We shall here briefly review the Christology of St. Paul, of the Catholic Epistles, of the Fourth Gospel, and the Synoptics. Thus we shall give the reader a complete Christology of the New Testament and at the same time the data necessary to control the contentions of the Modernists. The Christology will not, however, be complete in the sense that it extends to all the details concerning Jesus Christ taught in the New Testament, but in the sense that it gives His essential characteristics taught in the whole of the New Testament.
(1) Pauline Christology. — St. Paul insists on the truth of Christ's real humanity and Divinity, in spite of the fact that at first sight the reader is confronted with three objects in the Apostle's writings: God, the human world, and the Mediator. But then the latter is both Divine and human, both God and man.
(a) Christ's Humanity in the Pauline Epistles. — The expressions "form of a servant", "in habit found as a man", "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Phil., ii, 7; Rom., viii, 3) may seem to impair the real humanity of Christ in the Pauline teaching. But in reality they only describe a mode of being or hint at the presence of a higher nature in Christ not seen by the senses, or they contrast Christ's human nature with the nature of that sinful race to which it belongs. On the other hand the Apostle plainly speaks of Our Lord manifested in the flesh (I Tim., iii, 16), as possessing a body of flesh (Col., i, 22), as being "made of a woman" (Gal., iv, 4), as being born of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom., i, 3), as belonging according to the flesh to the race of Israel (Rom., ix, 5). As a Jew, Jesus Christ was born under the Law (Gal., iv, 4). The Apostle dwells with emphasis on Our Lord's real share in our physical human weakness (II Cor., xiii, 4), on His life of suffering (Heb., v, 8) reaching its climax in the Passion (ibid., i, 5; Phil., iii, 10; Col., i, 24). Only in two respects did Our Lord's humanity differ from the rest of men: first in its entire sinlessness (II Cor., v, 21; Gal., ii, 17; Rom., vii, 3); secondly, in the fact that Our Lord was the second Adam, representing the whole human race (Rom., v, 12-21; I Cor., xv, 45-49).
(b) Christ's Divinity in the Pauline Epistles. — According to St. Paul, the superiority of the Christian revelation over all other Divine manifestations, and the perfection of the New Covenant with its sacrifice and priesthood, are derived from the fact that Christ is the Son of God (Heb., i, 1 sq.; v, 5 sq.; ii, 5 sq.; Rom., i, 3; Gal., iv, 4; Eph., iv, 13; Col., i, 12 sq.; ii, 9 sq.; etc.). The Apostle understands by the expression "Son of God" not a merely moral dignity, or a merely external relation to God which began in time, but an eternal and immanent relation of Christ to the Father. He contrasts Christ with, and finds Him superior to, Aaron and his successors, Moses and the Prophets (Heb., v, 4; x, 11; vii, 1-22; iii, 1-6; i, 1). He raises Christ above the choirs of angels, and makes Him their Lord and Master (Heb., i, 3; 14; ii, 2-3), and seats Him as heir of all things at the right hand of the Father (Heb., i, 2-3; Gal., iv, 14; Eph., i, 20-21). If St. Paul is obliged to use the terms "form of God", "image of God", when he speaks of Christ's Divinity, in order to show the personal distinction between the Eternal Father and the Divine Son (Phil., ii, 6; Col., i, 15), Christ is not merely the image and glory of God (I Cor., xi, 7), but also the first-born before any created beings (Col., i, 15), in Whom, and by Whom, and for Whom all things were made (Col., i, 16), in Whom the fulness of the Godhead resides with that actual reality which we attach to the presence of the material bodies perceptible and measurable through the organs of our senses (Col., ii, 9), in a word, "who is over all things, God blessed for ever" (Rom., ix, 5).
(2) Christology of the Catholic Epistles. — The Epistles of St. John will be considered together with the other writings of the same Apostle in the next paragraph. Under the present heading we shall briefly indicate the views concerning Christ held by the Apostles St. James, St. Peter, and St. Jude.
(a) The Epistle of St. James. — The mainly practical scope of the Epistle of St. James does not lead us to expect that Our Lord's Divinity would be formally expressed in it as a doctrine of faith. This doctrine is, however, implied in the language of the inspired writer. He professes to stand in the same relation to Jesus Christ as to God, being the servant of both (i, 1): he applies the same term to the God of the Old Testament as to Jesus Christ (passim). Jesus Christ is both the sovereign judge and independent lawgiver, who can save and can destroy (iv, 12); the faith in Jesus Christ is faith in the lord of Glory (ii, 1). The language of St. James would be exaggerated and overstrained on any other supposition than the writer's firm belief in the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
(b) Belief of St. Peter. — St. Peter presents himself as the servant and the apostle of Jesus Christ (I Pet., i, 1; II Pet., i, 1), who was predicted by the Prophets of the Old Testament in such a way that the Prophets themselves were Christ's own servants, heralds, and organs (I Pet., i, 10-11). It is the pre-existent Christ who moulds the utterances of Israel's Prophets to proclaim their anticipations of His advent. St. Peter had witnessed the glory of Jesus in the Transfiguration (II Pet., i, 16); he appears to take pleasure in multiplying His titles: Jesus Our Lord (II Pet., i, 2), our Lord Jesus Christ (ibid., i, 14, 16), the Lord and Saviour (ibid., iii, 2), our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (ibid., i, 1), Whose power is Divine (ibid., i, 3), through whose promises Christians are made partakers of the nature of God (ibid., i, 4). Throughout his Epistle, therefore, St. Peter feels, as it were, and implies the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
(c) Epistle of St. Jude. — St. Jude, too, introduces himself as the servant of Jesus Christ, through union with whom Christians are kept in a life of faith and holiness (1); Christ is our only Lord and Saviour (4), Who punished Israel in the wilderness and the rebel angels (5), Who will come to judgment surrounded by myriads of saints (14), and to Whom Christians look for the mercy which He will show them at His coming (21), the issue of which will be life everlasting. Can a merely human Christ be the subject of this language?
(3) Johannean Christology. — If there were nothing else in the New Testament to prove the Divinity of Christ, the first fourteen verses in the Fourth Gospel would suffice to convince a believer in the Bible of that dogma. Now the doctrine of this prologue is the fundamental idea of the whole Johannean theology. The Word made flesh is the same with the Word Who was in the beginning, on the one hand, and with the man Jesus Christ, the subject of the Fourth Gospel on the other. The whole Gospel is a history of the Eternal Word dwelling in human nature among men.
The teaching of the Fourth Gospel is also found in the Johannean Epistles. In his very opening words the writer tells his readers that the Word of life has become manifest and that the Apostles had seen and heard and handled the Word incarnate. The denial of the Son implies the loss of the Father (I John, ii, 23), and "whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him and he in God" (ibid., iv, 15). Towards the end of the Epistle the writer is still more emphatic: "And we know that the Son of God is come: and he hath given us understanding that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son. This is the true God and life eternal" (ibid., v, 20).
According to the Apocalypse, Christ is the first and the last, the alpha and the omega, the eternal and the almighty (i, 8; xxi, 6; xxii, 13). He is the king of kings and lord of lords (xix, 16), the lord of the unseen world (xii, 10; xiii, 8), the centre of the court of heaven (v, 6); He receives the adoration of the highest angels (v, 8), and as the object of that uninterrupted worship (v, 12), )He is associated with the Father (v, 13; xvii, 14).
(4) Christology of the Synoptists. — There is a real difference between the first three Evangelists and St. John in their respective representations of our Lord. The truth presented by these writers may be the same, but they view it from different standpoints. The three Synoptists set forth the humanity of Christ in its obedience to the law, in its power over nature, and in its tenderness for the weak and afflicted; the fourth Gospel sets forth the life of Christ not in any of the aspects which belong to it as human, but as being the adequate expression of the glory of the Divine Person, manifested to men under a visible form. But in spite of this difference, the Synoptists by their suggestive implication practically anticipate the teaching of the Fourth Gospel. This suggestion is implied, first, in the Synoptic use of the title Son of God as applied to Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Son of God, not merely in an ethical or theocratic sense, not merely as one among many sons, but He is the only, the well-beloved Son of the Father, so that His son-ship is unshared by any other, and is absolutely unique (Matt., iii, 17, xvii, 5; xxii, 41; cf. iv, 3, 6; Luke, iv, 3, 9); it is derived from the fact that the Holy Ghost was to come upon Mary, and the power of the Most High was to overshadow her (Luke, i, 35). Again, the Synoptists imply Christ's Divinity in their history of His nativity and its accompanying circumstances; He is conceived of the Holy Ghost (Luke, 1, 35), and His mother knows that all generations shall call her blessed, because the mighty one had done great things unto her (Luke, i, 48). Elisabeth calls Mary blessed among women, blesses the fruit of her womb, and marvels that she herself should be visited by the mother of her Lord (Luke, i, 42-43). Gabriel greets Our Lady as full of grace, and blessed among women; her Son will be great, He will be called the Son of the Most High, and of His kingdom there will be no end (Luke, i, 28, 32). As new-born infant, Christ is adored by the shepherds and the Magi, representatives of the Jewish and the Gentile world. Simeon sees in the child his Lord's salvation, the light of the Gentiles, and the pride and glory of his people Israel (Luke, ii, 30-32). These accounts hardly fit in with the limits of a merely human child, but they become intelligible in the light of the Fourth Gospel.
The Synoptists agree with the teaching of the Fourth Gospel concerning the person of Jesus Christ not merely in their use of the term Son of God and in their accounts of Christ's birth with its surrounding details, but also in their narratives of Our Lord's doctrine, life, and work. The very term Son of Man, which they often apply to Christ, is used in such a way that it shows in Jesus Christ a self-consciousness for which the human element is not something primary, but something secondary and superinduced. Often Christ is simply called Son (Matt., xi, 27; xxviii, 20), and correspondingly He never calls the Father "our" Father, but "my" Father (Matt., xviii, 10, 19, 35; xx, 23; xxvi, 53). At His baptism and transfiguration He receives witness from heaven to His Divine Son-ship; the Prophets of the Old Testament are not rivals, but servants in comparison with Him (Matt., xxi, 34); hence the title Son of Man implies a nature to which Christ's humanity was an accessory. Again, Christ claims the power to forgive sins and supports His claim by miracles (Matt., ix, 2-6; Luke, v, 20, 24); He insists on faith in Himself (Matt., xvi, 16, 17), He inserts His name in the baptismal formula between that of the Father and the Holy Ghost (Matt., xxviii, 19), He alone knows the Father and is known by the Father alone (Matt., xi, 27), He institutes the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist (Matt., xxvi, 26; Mark, xiv, 22; Luke, xxii 19), He suffers and dies only to rise again the third day (Matt., xx, 19; Mark x, 34; Luke, xviii, 33) He ascends into Heaven, but declares that He will be among us till the end of the world (Matt., xxviii, 20).
Need we add that Christ's claims to the most exalted dignity of His person are unmistakably clear in the eschatological discourses of the Synoptists? He is the Lord of the material and moral universe; as supreme lawgiver He revises all other legislation; as final judge He determines the fate of all. Blot the Fourth Gospel out of the Canon of the New Testament, and you still have in the Synoptic Gospels the identical doctrine concerning the person of Jesus Christ which we now draw out of the Four Gospels; some points of the doctrine might be less clearly stated than they are now, but they would remain substantially the same.
(C) Christian Tradition. — Biblical Christology shows that one and the same Jesus Christ is both God and man. While Christian tradition has always maintained this triple thesis that Jesus Christ is truly man, that He is truly God, and that the Godman, Jesus Christ, is one and the same person the heretical or erroneous tenets of various religious leaders have forced the Church to insist more expressly now on the one, now on another element of her Christology. A classified list of the principal errors and of the subsequent ecclesiastical utterances will show the historical development of the Church's doctrine with sufficient clearness. The reader will find a more lengthy account of the principal heresies and councils under their respective headings.
(1) Humanity of Christ. — The true humanity of Jesus Christ was denied even in the earliest ages of the Church. The Docetist Marcion and the Priscillianists grant to Jesus only an apparent body; the Valentinians, a body brought down from Heaven. The followers of Apollinaris deny either that Jesus had any human soul at all, or that He possessed the higher part of the human soul, they maintain that the Word supplies either the whole soul in Christ, or at least its higher faculties. In more recent times it is not so much Christ's true humanity as His real manhood that is denied. According to Kant the Christian creed deals with the ideal, not with the historical Jesus; according to Jacobi, it worships Jesus not as an historical person, but as a religious ideal; according to Fichte there exists an absolute unity between God and man, and Jesus was the first to see and teach it; according to Schelling, the incarnation is an eternal fact, which happened to reach in Jesus its highest point, according to Hegel, Christ is not the actual incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth but the symbol of God's incarnation in humanity at large. Finally, certain recent Catholic writers distinguish between the Christ of history and the Christ of faith, thus destroying in the Christ of faith His historical reality. The New Syllabus (Proposit, 29 sq.) and the Encyclical "Pascendi dominici gregis" may be consulted on these errors.
(2) The Divinity of Christ. — Even in Apostolic times the Church regarded a denial of Christ's Divinity as eminently anti-Christian (I John, ii, 22-23; iv, 3; II John, 7). The early martyrs, the most ancient Fathers, and the first ecclesiastical liturgies agree in their profession of Christ's Divinity. Still, the Ebionites, the Theodotians, the Artemonites, and the Photinians looked upon Christ either as a mere man, though singularly enlightened by Divine wisdom, or as the appearance of an æon emanating from the Divine Being according to the Gnostic theory; or again as a manifestation of the Divine Being such as the Theistic and Pantheistic Sabellians and Patripassians admitted; or, finally, as the incarnate Word indeed, but the Word conceived after the Arian manner as a creature mediating between God and the world, at least not essentially identical with the Father and the Holy Ghost. Though the definitions of Nice and of the subsequent councils, especially of the Fourth Lateran, deal directly with the doctrine concerning the Most Holy Trinity, still they also teach that the Word is consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and thus establish the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate. In more recent times, our earliest Rationalists endeavoured to avoid the problem of Jesus Christ; they had little to say of him, while they made St. Paul the founder of the Church. But the historical Christ was too impressive a figure to be long neglected. It is all the more to be regretted that in recent times a practical denial of Christ's Divinity is not confined to the Socinians and such writers as Ewald and Schleiermacher. Others who profess to be believing Christians see in Christ the perfect revelation of God, the true head and lord of the human race, but, after all, they end with Pilate's words, "Behold, the man".
(3) Hypostatic Union. — His human nature and His Divine nature are in Jesus Christ united hypostatically, i.e. united in the hypostasis or the person of the Word. This dogma too has found bitter opponents from the earliest times of the Church. Nestorius and his followers admitted in Christ one moral person, as a human society forms one moral person; but this moral person results from the union of two physical persons, just as there are two natures in Christ. These two persons are united, not physically, but morally, by means of grace. The heresy of Nestorius was condemned by Celestine I in the Roman Synod of A. D. 430 and by the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, the Catholic doctrine was again insisted on in the Council of Chalcedon and the second Council of Constantinople. It follows that the Divine and the human nature are physically united in Christ. The Monophysites, therefore, believed that in this physical union either the human nature was absorbed by the Divine, according to the views of Eutyches; or that the Divine nature was absorbed by the human; or, again, that out of the physical union of the two resulted a third nature by a kind of physical mixture, as it were, or at least by means of their physical composition. The true Catholic doctrine was upheld by Pope Leo the Great, the Council of Chalcedon, and the Fifth Ecumenical Council, A.D. 553. The twelfth canon of the last-named council excludes also the view that Christ's moral life developed gradually, attaining its completion only after the Resurrection. The Adoptionists renewed Nestorianism in part because they considered the Word as the natural Son of God, and the man Christ as a servant or an adopted son of God, thus granting its own personality to Christ's human nature. This opinion was rejected by Pope Adrian I, the Synod of Ratisbon, A.D. 782, the Council of Frankfort (794), and by Leo III in the Roman Synod (799). There is no need to point out that the human nature of Christ is not united with the Word, according to the Socinian and rationalistic views. Dorner shows how widespread among Protestants these views are, since there is hardly a Protestant theologian of note who refuses its own personality to the human nature of Christ. Among Catholics, Berruyer and Günther reintroduced a modified Nestorianism; but they were censured by the Congregation of the Index (17 April, 1755) and by Pope Pius IX (15 Jan., 1857). The Monophysite heresy was renewed by the Monothelites, admitting only one will in Christ and thus contradicting the teaching of Popes Martin I and Agatho and of the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Both the schismatic Greeks and the Reformers of the sixteenth century wished to retain the traditional doctrine concerning the Word Incarnate; but even the earliest followers of the Reformers fell into errors involving both the Nestorian and the Monophysite heresies. The Ubiquitarians, for example, find the essence of the Incarnation not in the assumption of human nature by the Word, but in the divinization of human nature by sharing the properties of the Divine nature. The subsequent Protestant theologians drifted away farther still from the views of Christian tradition; Christ for them was the sage of Nazareth, perhaps even the greatest of the Prophets, whose Biblical record, half myth and half history, is nothing but the expression of a popular idea of human perfection. The Catholic writers whose views were derogatory either to the historical character of the Biblical account of the life of Christ or to his prerogatives as the God-man have been censured in the new Syllabus and the Encyclical "Pascendi dorninici gregis".
For Christology consult the following:
Patristic Works: ATHANASIUS, GREGORY NAZIANZUS, GREGORY OF NYSSA, BASIL, EPIPHANIUS wrote especially against the followers of Arius and Apollinaris; CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, PROCLUS, LEONTIUS BYZANTINUS, ANASTASIUS SINAITA, EULOGIUS OF ALEXANDRIA, PETER CHRYSOLOGUS, FULGENTIUS, opposing the Nestorians and Monophysites; SOPHRONIUS, MAXIMUS, JOHN DAMASCENE, the Monothelites; PAULINUS OF AQUILEIA, ETHERIUS, ALCUIN, AGOBARDUS, the Adoptionists. See P. G. and P. L.
Scholastic writers: ST. THOMAS, Summa theol., III, QQ. I-lix; IDEM, Summa contra gentes, IV, xxvii-lv; In III Sentent.; De veritate, QQ. xx, xxix; Compend, theol., QQ. cxcix-ccxlii; Opusc., 2; etc.; BONAVENTURE, Breviloquium, 1, 4; In III Sentent.; BELLARMINE, De Christo capite totius ecclesioe controvers., I, col. 1619; SUAREZ, De Incarn., opp. XIV, XV; LUGO, De lncarn., op. III.
Positive Theologians: PETAVIUS, Theol. dogmat., IV, 1-2; THOMASSIN, De Incarn., dogm. theol., III, IV.
Recent Writers: FRANZELIN, De Verbo Incarn. (Rome, 1874); KLEUTGEN, Theologie der Vorzeit, III (Münster, 1873); JUNGMANN, De Verbo incarnato (Ratisbon, 1872); HURTER, Theologia dogmatica, II, tract. vii (Innsbruck, 1882); STENTRUP, Proelectiones dogmaticoe de Verbo incarnato (2 vols., Innsbruck, 1882); LIDDON, The Divinity of Our Lord (London, 1885); MAAS, Christ in Type and Prophecy (2 vols., New York, 1893-96); LEPIN, Jésus Messie et Fils de Dieu (Paris, 1904). See also recent works on the life of Christ, and the principal commentaries on the Biblical passages cited in this article.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIV, pp. 597-601
Nihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
DEVOTION TO THE HEART OF JESUS. — The treatment of this subject is divided into two parts: (I) Doctrinal Explanations; (II) Historical Ideas.
I. DOCTRINAL EXPLANATIONS. — Devotion to the Sacred Heart is but a special form of devotion to Jesus. We shall know just what it is and what distinguishes it when we ascertain its object, its foundations, and its proper act.
(1) Special object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. — The nature of this question is complex and frequently becomes more complicated because of the difficulties arising from terminology. Omitting terms that are over-technical, we shall study the ideas in themselves, and, that we may the sooner find our bearings, it will be well to remember the meaning and use of the word heart in current language.
(i) The word heart awakens, first of all, the idea of a material heart, of the vital organ that throbs within our bosom, and which we vaguely realize as intimately connected not only with our own physical, but with our emotional and moral, life. Now this heart of flesh is currently accepted as the emblem of the emotion and moral life with which we associate it, and hence the place assigned to the word heart in symbolic language, as also the use of the same word to designate those things symbolized by the heart. Note, for instance, the expressions "to open one's heart", "to give one's heart", etc. It may happen that the symbol becomes divested of its material meaning that the sign is overlooked in beholding only the thing signified. Thus, in current language, the word soul no longer suggests the thought of breath, and the word heart brings to mind only the idea of courage and love. But this is perhaps a figure of speech or a metaphor, rather than a symbol. A symbol is a real sign, whereas a metaphor is only a verbal sign; a symbol is a thing that signifies another thing, but a metaphor is a word used to indicate something different from its proper meaning. Finally, in current language, we are constantly passing from the part to the whole, and, by a perfectly natural figure of speech, we use the word heart to designate a person. These ideas will aid us in determining the object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart.
(ii) The question lies between the material, the metaphorical, and the symbolic sense of the word heart; whether the object of the devotion is the Heart of flesh, as such, or the love of Jesus Christ metaphorically signified by the word heart; or the Heart of flesh, but as symbol of the emotional and moral life of Jesus, and especially His love for us. We reply that worship is rightly paid to the Heart of flesh, inasmuch as the latter symbolizes and recalls the love of Jesus, and His emotional and moral life. Thus, although directed to the material Heart, it does not stop there: it also includes love, that love which is its principal object, but which it reaches only in and through the Heart of flesh, the sign and symbol of this love. Devotion to the Heart of Jesus alone, as to a noble part of His Divine Body, would not be devotion to the Sacred Heart as understood and approved by the Church, and the same must also be said of devotion to the love of Jesus as detached from His Heart of flesh, or else connected therewith by no other tie than that of a word taken in the metaphorical sense. Hence, in the devotion, there are two elements: a sensible element, the Heart of flesh, and a spiritual element, that which this Heart of flesh recalls spiritual element, that which this Heart of flesh recalls and represents. But these two elements do not form two distinct objects, merely co-ordinated they constitute but one, just as do the body and soul, and the sign and the thing signified. Hence it is also understood that these two elements are as essential to the devotion as body and soul are essential to man. Of the two elements constituting the whole, the principal one is love, which is as much the cause of the devotion and its reason for existence as the soul is the principal element in man. Consequently, devotion to the Sacred Heart may be defined as devotion to the adorable Heart of Jesus Christ in so far as this Heart represents and recalls His love; or, what amounts to the same thing, devotion to the love of Jesus Christ in so far as this love is recalled and symbolically represented to us by His Heart of flesh.
(iii) Hence the devotion is based entirely upon the symbolism of the heart. It is this symbolism that imparts to its meaning and its unity, and this symbolism is admirably completed by the representation of the Heart as wounded. Since the Heart of Jesus appears to us as the sensible sign of His love, the visible wound in the Heart will naturally recall the invisible wound of this love. This symbolism also explains that the devotion, although giving the Heart an essential place, is but little concerned with the anatomy of the heart or with physiology. Since, in images of the Sacred Heart, the symbolic expression must dominate all else, anatomical accuracy is not looked for; it would injure the devotion by rendering the symbolism less evident. It is eminently proper that the heart as an emblem be distinguished from the anatomical heart: the suitableness of the image is favourable to the expression of the idea. A visible heart is necessary for an image of the Sacred Heart, but this visible heart must be a symbolic heart. Similar observations are in order for physiology, in which the devotion cannot be totally disinterested, because the Heart of Flesh toward which the worship is directed in order to read therein the love of Jesus, is the Heart of Jesus, the real, living Heart that, in all truth, may be said to have loved and suffered; the Heart that, as we feel ourselves, had such a share in His emotional and moral life; the Heart that, as we know from a knowledge, however rudimentary, of the operations of our human life, had such a part in the operations of the Master's life. But the relation of the Heart to the love of Christ is not that of a purely conventional sign, as in the relation of the word to the thing, or of the flag to the idea of one's country; this Heart has been and is still inseparably connected with that life of benefactions and love. However, it is sufficient for our devotion that we know and feel this intimate connection. We have nothing to do with the physiology of the Sacred Heart nor with determining the exact functions of the heart in daily life. We know that the symbolism of the heart is a symbolism founded upon reality and that it constitutes the special object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, which devotion is in no danger of falling into error.
(iv) The heart is, above all, the emblem of love, and by this characteristic, the devotion to the Sacred Heart is naturally defined. However, being directed to the loving Heart of Jesus, it naturally encounters whatever in Jesus is connected with this love. Now, was not this love the motive of all that Christ did and suffered? Was not all His inner, even more than His outward, life dominated by this love? On the other hand, the devotion to the Sacred Heart, being directed to the living Heart of Jesus, thus becomes familiar with the whole inner life of the Master, with all His virtues and sentiments, finally, with Jesus infinitely loving and lovable. Hence, a first extension of the devotion is from the loving Heart to the intimate knowledge of Jesus, to His sentiments and virtues, to His whole emotional and moral life; from the loving Heart to all the manifestations of Its love. There is still another extension which, although having the same meaning, is made in another way, that is by passing from the Heart to the Person, a transition which, as we have seen, is very naturally made. When speaking of a large heart our allusion is to the person, just as when we mention the Sacred Heart we mean Jesus. This is not, however, because the two are synonymous but when the word heart is used to designate the person, it is because such a person is considered in whatsoever related to his emotional and moral life. Thus, when we designate Jesus as the Sacred Heart, we mean Jesus manifesting His Heart, we mean Jesus manifesting His Heart, Jesus all loving and amiable. Jesus entire is thus recapitulated in the Sacred Heart as all is recapitulated in Jesus.
(v) In thus devoting oneself to Jesus all loving and lovable, one cannot fail to observe that His love is rejected. God is constantly lamenting that in Holy Writ, and the saints have always heard within their hearts the plaint of unrequited love. Indeed one of the essential phases of the devotion is that it considers the love of Jesus for us as a despised, ignored love. He Himself revealed this when He complained so bitterly to St. Margaret Mary.
(vi) This love is everywhere manifest in Jesus and in His life, and it alone can explain Him together with His words and His acts. Nevertheless, it shines forth more resplendently in certain mysteries from which great good accrues to us, and in which Jesus is more lavish of His loving benefactions and more complete in His gift of self, namely, in the Incarnation, in the Passion, and in the Eucharist. Moreover, these mysteries have a place apart in the devotion which, everywhere seeking Jesus and the signs of His love and favours, finds them here to an even greater extent than in particular acts.
(vii) We have already seen that devotion to the Sacred Heart, being directed to the Heart of Jesus as the emblem of love, has mainly in view His love for men. This is obviously not that it excludes His love for God, for this included in His love for men, but it is above all the devotion to "the Heart that has so loved men", according to the words quoted by St. Margaret Mary.
(viii) Finally, the question arises as to whether the love which we honour in this devotion is that with which Jesus loves us as Man or that with which He loves us as God; whether it is created or uncreated, His human or His Divine Love. Undoubtedly it is the love of God made Man, the love of the Incarnate Word. However, it does not seem that devout persons think of separating these two loves any more than they separate the two natures in Jesus. Besides, even though we might wish to settle this part of the question at any cost, we would find that the opinions of authors are at variance. Some, considering that the Heart of Flesh is connected with human love only, conclude that it does not symbolize Divine love which, moreover, is not proper to the Person of Jesus, and that, therefore, Divine love is not the direct object of the devotion. Others, while admitting that Divine love apart from the Incarnate Word is not the object of the devotion, believe it to be such when considered as the love of the Incarnate Word, and they do not see why this love also could not be symbolized by the Heart of flesh nor why, in this event, the devotion should be limited to created love only.
(2) Foundations of the devotion. — The question may be considered under three aspects: the historical, the theological, and the scientific.
(i) Historical foundations. — In approving the devotion to the Sacred Heart, the Church did not trust to the visions of St. Margaret Mary; she made abstraction of these and examined the worship in itself. Margaret Mary's visions could be false, but the devotion would not, on that account, be any less worthy or solid. However, the fact is that the devotion was propagated chiefly under the influence of the movement started at Paray-le-Monial; and prior to her beatification, Margaret Mary's visions were most critically examined by the Church, whose judgment in such cases does not involve her infallibility but implies only a human certainty sufficient to warrant consequent speech and action.
(ii) Theological foundations. — The Heart of Jesus, like all else that belongs to His Person, is worthy of adoration, but this would not be so if It were considered as isolated from this Person and as having no connection with It. But it not thus that the Heart is considered, and, in his Bull "Auctorem fidei", 1794, Pius VI authoritatively vindicated the devotion in this respect against the calumnies of the Jansenists. The worship, although paid to the Heart of Jesus, extends further than the Heart of flesh, being directed to the love of which this Heart is the living and expressive symbol. On this point the devotion requires no justification, as it is to the Person of Jesus that it is directed; but to the Person as inseparable from His Divinity. Jesus, the living apparition of the goodness of God and of His paternal love, Jesus infinitely loving and amiable, studied in the principal manifestations of His love, is the object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, as indeed He is the object of the Christian religion. The difficulty lies in the union of the heart and love, in the relation which the devotion supposes between the one and the other. Is not this an error long since discarded? If so, it remains to examine whether the devotion, considered in this respect, is well founded.
(iii) Philosophical and scientific foundations. — In this respect there has been some uncertainty amongst theologians, not as regards the basis of things, but in the matter of explanations. Sometimes they have spoken as if the heart were the organ of love, but this point has no bearing on the devotion, for which it suffices that the heart be the symbol of love, and that, for the basis of the symbolism, a real connection exist between the heart and the emotions. Now, the symbolism of the heart is a fact and every one feels that in the heart there is a sort of an echo of our sentiments. The physiological study of this resonance may be very interesting, but it is in no wise necessary to the devotion, as its foundation is a fact attested by daily experience, a fact which physiological study confirms and of which it determines the conditions, but which neither supposes this study nor any special acquaintance with its subject.
(3) The proper act of the devotion. — This act is required by the very object of the devotion, since devotion to the love of Jesus for us should be pre-eminently a devotion of love for Jesus. It is characterized by a reciprocation of love; its aim is to love Jesus who has so loved us, to return love for love. Since, moreover, the love of Jesus manifests itself to the devout soul as a love despised and outraged, especially in the Eucharist, the love expressed in the devotion naturally assumes a character of reparation, and hence the importance of acts of atonement, the Communion of reparation, and compassion for Jesus suffering. But no special act, no practice whatever, can exhaust the riches of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. The love which is its soul embraces all and, the better one understands it, the more firmly is he convinced that nothing can vie with it for making Jesus live in us and for bringing him who lives by it to love God, in union with Jesus, with all his heart, all his soul, all his strength.
II. HISTORICAL IDEAS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DEVOTION. — (1) From the time of St. John and St. Paul there has always been in the Church something like devotion to the love of God, Who so loved the world as to give it His only-begotten Son, and to the love of Jesus, Who has so loved us as to deliver Himself up for us. But, accurately speaking, this is not the devotion to the Sacred Heart, as it pays no homage to the Heart of Jesus as the symbol of His love for us. From the earliest centuries, in accordance with the example of the Evangelist, Christ's open side and the mystery of blood and water were meditated upon, and the Church was beheld issuing from the side of Jesus, as Eve came forth from the side of Adam. But there is nothing to indicate that, during the first ten centuries, any worship was rendered the wounded Heart.
(2) It is in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that we find the first unmistakable indications of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Through the wound in the side of the wound Heart was gradually reached, and the wound in the Heart symbolized the wound of love. It was in the fervent atmosphere of the Benedictine or Cistercian monasteries, in the world of Anselmian or Bernardine thought, that the devotion arose, although it is impossible to say positively what were its first texts or were its first votaries. To St. Gertrude, St. Mechtilde, and the author of the "Vitis mystica" it was already well known. We cannot state with certainty to whom we are indebted for the "Vitis mystica". Until recent times its authorship had generally been ascribed to St. Bernard and yet, by the late publishers of the beautiful and scholarly Quaracchi edition, it has been attributed, and not without plausible reasons, to St. Bonaventure ("S. Bonaventurx opera omnia", 1898, VIII, LIII sq.). But, be this as it may, it contains one of the most beautiful passages that ever inspired the devotion to the Sacred Heart, one appropriated by the Church for the lessons of the second nocturn of the feast. To St. Mechtilde (d. 1298) and St. Gertrude (d. 1302) it was a familiar devotion which was translated into many beautiful prayers and exercises. What deserves special mention is the vision of St. Gertrude on the feast of St. John the Evangelist, as it forms an epoch in the history of the devotion. Allowed to rest her head near the wound in the Saviour's she heard the beating of the Divine Heart and asked John if, on the night of the Last Supper, he too had felt these delightful pulsations, why he had never spoken of the fact. John replied that this revelation had been reserved for subsequent ages when the world, having grown cold, would have need of it to rekindle its love ("Legatus divinae pietatis", IV, 305; "Revelationes Gertrudianae", ed. Poitiers and Paris, 1877).
(3) From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, the devotion was propagated but it did not seem to have developed in itself. It was everywhere practised by privileged souls, and the lives of the saints and annals of different religious congregations, of the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carthusians, etc., furnish many examples of it. It was nevertheless a private, individual devotion of the mystical order. Nothing of a general movement had been inaugurated, unless one would so regard the propagation of the devotion to the Five Wounds, in which the Wound in the Heart figured most prominently, and for the furtherance of which the Franciscans seem to have laboured.
(4) It appears that in the sixteenth century, the devotion took an onward step and passed from the domain of mysticism into that of Christian asceticism. It was constituted an objective devotion with prayers already formulated and special exercises of which the value was extolled and the practice commended. This we learn from the writings of those two masters of the spiritual life, the pious Lanspergius (d. 1539) of the Carthusians of Cologne, and the devout Louis of Blois (Blosius; 1566), a Benedictine and Abbot of Liessies in Hainaut. To these may be added Blessed John of Avila (d. 1569) and St. Francis de Sales, the latter belonging to the seventeenth century.
(5) From that time everything betokened an early bringing to light of the devotion. Ascetic writers spoke of it, especially those of the Society of Jesus, Alvarez de Paz, Luis de la Puente, Saint-Jure, and Nouet, and there still exist special treatises upon it such as Father Druzbicki's (d. 1662) small work, "Meta Cordium, Cor Jesu". Amongst the mystics and pious souls who practised the devotion were St. Francis Borgia, Blessed Peter Canisius, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, and St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, of the Society of Jesus; also Venerable Marina de Escobar (d. 1633), in Spain; the Venerable Madeleine St. Joseph and the Venerable Marguerite of the Blessed Sacrament, Carmelites, in France; Jeanne de S. Mathieu Deleloe (d. 1660), a Benedictine, in Belgium; the worthy Armelle of Vannes (d. 1671); and even in Jansenistic or worldly centres, Marie de Valernod (d. 1654) and Angélique Arnauld; M. Boudon, the great archdeacon of Evreux, Father Huby, the apostle of retreats in Brittany, and, above all, the Venerable Marie de l'Incarnation who died at Quebec in 1672. The Visitation seemed to be awaiting St. Margaret Mary; its spirituality, certain intuitions of St. Francis de Sales, the meditations of Mère l'Huillier (d. 1655), the visions of Mother Anne-Marguerite Clément (d. 1661), and of Sister Jeanne-Bénigne Gojos (d. 1692), all paved the way. The image of the Heart of Jesus was everywhere in evidence, which fact was largely due to the Franciscan devotion to the Five Wounds and to the habit formed by the Jesuits of placing the image on their title-page of their books and the walls of their churches.
(6) Nevertheless, the devotion remained an individual or at least a private devotion. It was reserved to Blessed Jean Eudes (1602-1680) to make it public, to honour it with an Office, and to establish a feast for it. Père Eudes was above all the apostle of the Heart of Mary; but in his devotion to the Immaculate Heart there was a share for the Heart of Jesus. Little by little the devotion to the Sacred Heart became a separate one, and on 31 August, 1670, the first feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated with great solemnity in the Grand Seminary of Rennes. Coutances followed suit on 20 October, a day with which the Eudist feast was thenceforth to be connected. The feast soon spread to other dioceses, and the devotion was likewise adopted in various religious communities. Here and there it came into contact with the devotion begun at Paray, and a fusion of the two naturally resulted.
(7) It was to Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), a humble Visitandine of the monastery at Paray-le Monial, that Christ chose to reveal the desires of His Heart and to confide the task of imparting new life to the devotion. There is nothing to indicated that this pious religious had known the devotion prior to the revelations, or at least that she had paid any attention to it. These revelations were numerous, and the following apparitions are especially remarkable: that which occurred on the feast of St. John, when Jesus permitted Margaret Mary, as He had formerly allowed St. Gertrude, to rest her head upon His Heart, and then disclosed to her the wonders of His love, telling her that He desired to make them known to all mankind and to diffuse the treasures of His goodness, and that He had chosen her for this work (27 Dec., probably 1673); that, probably distinct from the preceding, in which He requested to be honoured under the figure of His Heart of flesh; that, when He appeared radiant with love and asked for a devotion of expiatory love -- frequent Communion, Communion on the First Friday of the month, and the observance of the Holy Hour (probably June or July, 1674); that known as the "great apparition" which took place during the octave of Corpus Christi, 1675, probably on 16 June, when He said, "Behold the Heart that has so loved men . . . instead of gratitude I receive from the greater part (of mankind) only ingratitude . . .", and asked her for a feast of reparation of the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, bidding her consult Father de la Colombière, then superior of the small Jesuit house at Paray; and finally, those in which solemn homage was asked on the part of the king, and the mission of propagating the new devotion was especially confided to the religious of the Visitation and the priests of the Society of Jesus. A few days after the "great apparition", of June, 1675, Margaret Mary made all known to Father de la Colombière, and the latter, recognizing the action of the spirit of God, consecrated himself to the Sacred Heart, directed the holy Visitandine to write an account of the apparition, and made use of every available opportunity discreetly to circulate this account through France and England. At his death, 15 February 1682, there was found in his journal of spiritual retreats a copy in his own handwriting of the account that he had requested of Margaret Mary, together with a few reflections on the usefulness of the devotion. This journal, including the account and a beautiful "offering" to the Sacred Heart, in which the devotion was well explained, was published at Lyons in 1684. The little book was widely read, even at Paray, although not without being the cause of "dreadful confusion" to Margaret Mary, who, nevertheless, resolved to make the best of it and profited by the book for the spreading of her cherished devotion. Moulins, with Mother de Soudeilles, Dijon, with Mother de Saumaise and Sister Joly, Semur, with Mother Greyfié, and even Paray, which had at first resisted, joined the movement. Outside of the Visitandines, priests, religious, and laymen espoused the cause, particularly a Capuchin, Margaret Mary's two brothers, and some Jesuits, among the latter being Fathers Croiset and Gallifet, who were destined to do so much for the devotion.
(8) The death of Margaret Mary, 17 October 1690, did not dampen the ardour of those interested; on the contrary, a short account of her life published by Father Croiset in 1691, as an appendix to his book "De la Dévotion au Sacré Cœur", served only to increase it. In spite of all sorts of obstacles, and of the slowness of the Holy See, which in 1693 imparted indulgences to the Confraternities of the Sacred Heart and, in 1697, granted the feast to the Visitandines with the Mass of the Five Wounds, but refused a feast common to all, with special Mass and Office, the devotion spread, particularly in religious communities. The Marseilles plague, 1720, furnished perhaps the first occasion for a solemn consecration and public worship outside of religious communities. Other cities of the South followed the example of Marseilles, and thus the devotion became a popular one. In 1726 it was deemed advisable once more to importune Rome for a feast with a Mass and Office of its own, but, in 1729, Rome again refused. However, in 1765, it finally yielded and that same year, at the request of the queen, the feast was received quasi officially by the episcopate of France. On all sides it was asked for and obtained, and finally, in 1856, at the urgent entreaties of the French bishops, Pope Pius IX extended the feast to the universal Church under the rite of double major. In 1889 it was raised by the Church to the double rite of first class. The acts of consecration and of reparation were everywhere introduced together with the devotion. Oftentimes, especially since about 1850, groups, congregations, and States have consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart, and, in 1875, this consecration was made throughout the Catholic world. Still the pope did not wish to take the initiative or to intervene. Finally, on 11 June, 1899, by order of Leo XIII, and with the formula prescribed by him, all mankind was solemnly consecrated to the Sacred Heart. The idea of this act, which Leo XIII called "the great act" of his pontificate, had been proposed to him by a religious of the Good Shepherd from Oporto (Portugal) who said that she had received it from Christ Himself. She was a member of the Drost-zu-Vischering family, and known in religion as Sister Mary of the Divine Heart. She died on the feast of the Sacred Heart, two days before the consecration, which had been deferred to the following Sunday. Whilst alluding to these great public manifestations we must not omit referring to the intimate life of the devotion in souls, to the practices connected with it, and to the works and associations of which it was the very life. Moreover, we must not overlook the social character which it has assumed particularly of late years. The Catholics of France, especially, cling firmly to it as one of their strongest hopes of ennoblement and salvation.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII, pp. 163-167
Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Parables. — The word parable (Hebrew mashal; Syrian mathla, Greek παραβολη) signifies in general a comparison, or a parallel, by which one thing is used to illustrate another. It is a likeness taken from the sphere of real, or sensible, or earthly incidents, in order to convey an ideal, or spiritual, or heavenly meaning. As uttering one thing and signifying something else, it is in the nature of a riddle (Heb. khidah, Gr. αινιγμα or προβλημα) and has therefore a light and a dark side ("dark sayings", Wis., viii, 8; Ecclus., xxxix, 3); — it is intended to stir curiosity and calls for intelligence in the listener, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" Matt., xiii, 9. Its Greek designation (from παραβαλλειν to throw beside or against) indicates a deliberate "making up" of a story in which some lesson is at once given and concealed. As taking simple or common objects to cast light on ethics and religion, it has been well said of the parable that "truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors." It abounds in lively speaking figures, and stands midway between the literalism of mere prose and the abstractions of philosophy. The derivation of the Hebrew word is unknown. If connected with Assyrian mashalu, Arabic matala, etc., the root meaning is "likeness". But it will be a likeness which contains a judgment, and so includes the "maxim" or general proposition bearing on conduct (Greek "gnomic wisdom"), of which the Book of Proverbs (Meshalim) is the chief inspired example. In classic Latin, the Greek word is translated collatio (Cicero, "De invent.", i-xxx), imago (Seneca, "Ep. lix."), similitudo (Quintil., "Inst.", v, 7-8). Observe that παραβολη does not occur in St. John's Gospel nor παροιμια (proverb) in the Synoptics.
Likeness and abstraction enter into the idea of language, but may be contrasted as body and spirit, standing as they do in a relation at once of help and opposition. Wisdom for the practice of life has among all nations taken a figurative shape, passing from myth or fable into the contracted sayings we term proverbs and arriving in the Greek schools of philosophy at ethical systems. But system, or technical metaphysics, does not appeal to the Semite; and our Sacred Books were never written with a view to it. If, however, system be not made the vehicle of teaching, what shall a prophet employ as its equivalent? The image or comparison remains. It is primitive, interesting, and easily remembered; and its various applications give it a continual freshness. The story came into use long before the system, and will survive when systems are forgotten. Its affinity, as a form of Divine speech with the "Sacrament" (μυστηριον) as a form of Divine action, may profitably be kept in mind. Neither can we overlook the points of resemblance which exist between parables and miracles, both exhibiting through outward shows the presence of a supernatural doctrine and agency.
Hence we may speak of the irony which must always be possible in devices adapted to human weakness of understanding, where heavenly secrets are concerned. Bacon has said excellently well, "parables are serviceable as a mask and veil, and also for elucidation and illustration" (De sap. vet.). Of Scripture parables we conclude that they illustrate and edify by revealing some Divine principle, with immediate reference to the hearers addressed, but with more remote and recondite applications in the whole Christian economy to which they belong. Thus we find two lines of interpretation, the first dealing with Our Lord's parables as and when they were spoken-let this be termed critical exegesis; and the second bringing out their significance in the history of the Church, or ecclesiastical exegesis. Both are connected and may be traced to the same root in Revelation: yet they are distinct, somewhat after the fashion of the literal and mystical sense in Scripture generally. We cannot lose either out of sight. The parables of the New Testament refuse to be handled like Æsop's fables; they were intended from the first to shadow forth the "mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven", and their double purpose may be read in Matt., xiii, 10-18, where it is attributed to Christ Himself.
Modern critics (Jülicher and Loisy) who deny this, affirm that the Evangelists have deflected the parables from their original meaning in the interest of edification, suiting them to the circumstances of the primitive Church. In making such accusations these critics, following the example of Strauss, not only reject the witness of the Gospel writers, but do violence to its text. They overlook the profoundly supernatural and prophetic idea on which all Scripture moves as its vital form--an idea certified to us by the usage of our Lord when quoting the Old Testament, and admitted equally by the Evangelists and St. Paul. That they run counter to Catholic tradition is manifest. Moreover parables thus detached from a Christological significance would hang in the air and could claim no place in the teaching of the Son of God. A valid exegesis will therefore be prepared to discover in them all not only the relevance which they had for the multitude or the Pharisees but their truth, sub specie sacramenti, for "the Kingdom", i.e., for Christ's Church. And on this method the Fathers have expounded them without distinction of school, but especially among Westerns, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory the Great, as their commentaries prove.
Of the proverb not an ill definition might be that it is a closed or contracted parable: and of the parable, that it is an expanded proverb. An instance, hovering on the verge of both, occurs Matt., xi, 17: "We have piped to you, and you have not danced; we have lamented, and you have not mourned." The words were taken from some child's game, but they are applied to St. John the Baptist and to Our Lord, with a gnomic moral, "Wisdom is justified by her children." In a myth or allegory, fictitious persons, gods and men, are introduced; and the significance lies within the story, as in Apuleius, "Eros and Psyche". But a parable looks at life as it is lived, deals in no personifications, and requires to be interpreted from without. Fable is marked by giving speech and thought to irrational or inanimate objects; parable as our Lord employs it never does so. Examples or "histories with a moral" have at least a core of reality-the instances occurring in Scripture and allowed by critics are such as Esther, Susanna, Tobias; but a parable need not quote individual persons, and except in the doubtful case of Lazarus, we shall not light upon instances of this kind among the stories told in the Gospels. A type consists in the significance given by prophecy to a person or his acts, e.g., to Isaac as the lamb of sacrifice, and the symbolical deeds of Ezechiel or Jeremias. But the parable brings in no types directly or in its immediate sense, and no determined persons. Metaphor (Lat. translatio) is a vague term, which might be applied to any short parabolic saying but does not fit the narrative of an action, such as we mean by a parable in the New Testament. The Socratic myth which adorns the "Gorgias", "Phaedo", and "Republic", is confessedly a fable, whereas in our synoptic Gospels whatever illustrations we meet are chosen from daily occurrences.
The Hebrew genius, unlike that of the Hellenes, was not given to myth-making; it abhorred the personifications of nature to which we are indebted for gods of the elements, for Nereids and Hamadryads; it seldom pursued an allegory to any length; and its "realism" in treating of landscape and visible phenomena strikes most forcibly on the modern imagination. Theism was the breath of its nostrils; and where for a moment it indulges a turn for ancient folklore (as in Is., xiii, 21) it is far removed from the wild Pantheon of Greek nature worship. In the parables we never come across enchanted stones or talking beasts or trees with magical virtues; the world which they describe is the world of every day; not even miracles break in upon its established order. When we consider what Oriental fancy has made of the universe, and how it is depicted in cosmogonies like that of Hesiod, the contrast becomes indescribably great. It is in the world which all men know that Christ finds exemplified the laws of human ethics, and the correspondences on which His kingdom shall be carried to its Divine consummation. Seen with purged eyes nature is already the kingdom of God.
No language is more concrete in its presentation of laws and principles, or more vividly figured, than that which the Old Testament affords. But of parables strictly taken it has only a few. Jotham's apologue of the trees choosing a king (Judges, ix, 8-15) is more properly a fable; so is the scornful tale of the thistle and the cedar in Lebanon which Joas of Israel sent by messengers to Amasias, King of Juda (IV Kings, xiv, 8-10). Nathan's rebuke to David is couched in the form of a parable (II Kings, xii, 1-4) so the wise woman of Thecua (II Kings, xiv, 4); so the Prophet to Achab (III Kings, xx, 39); and the song of the vineyard (Is., v, 1-8). It has been suggested that chapters 1-3 of Osee must be construed as a parable, and do not contain a real history. The denunciation of woe on Jerusalem in Ezech., xxiv, 3-5, is expressly named a mashal, and may be compared with the Gospel similitude of the leaven. But our Lord, unlike the Prophets, does not act, or describe Himself as acting, any of the stories which He narrates. Hence we need not take into account the Old Testament passages, Is., xx, 2-4;2 Jer., xxv, 15; Ezech., iii, 24-26, etc.
That the character of Christ's teaching to the multitude was mainly parabolic is clear from Matt., xiii, 34, and Mark, iv, 33. Perhaps we should ascribe to the same cause an element of the startling and paradoxical, e.g., in His Sermon on the Mount, which, taken literally, has been misunderstood by simple or again by fanatical minds. Moreover, that such a form of instruction was familiar to the Jews of this period cannot be doubted. The sayings of Hillel and Shammai still extant, the visions of the Book of Enoch, the typical values which we observe as attaching to the stories of Judith and Tobias, the Apocalypse and the extensive literature of which it is the flower — all betoken a demand for something esoteric in the popular religious preaching, and show how abundantly it was satisfied. But if, as mystical writers hold, the highest degree of heavenly knowledge is a clear intuition, without veils or symbols dimming its light, we see in our Lord exactly this pure comprehension. He is never Himself drawn as a visionary. The parables are not for Him but for the crowd. When He speaks of His relation to the Father it is in direct terms, without metaphor. It follows that the scope of these exquisite little moralities ought to be measured by the audience whom they were designed to benefit. In other words they form part of the "Economy" whereby truth is dispensed to men as they are able to bear it (Mark, iv, 33; John, xvi, 12). Since, however, it is the Lord that speaks, we must reverently construe His sayings in the light of the whole Revelation which furnishes their ground and context. The "real sense of Scripture", as Newman points out in accord with all the Catholic Fathers, is "the scope of the Divine intelligence", or the scheme of Incarnation and Redemption.
Subject to this Law, the New Testament parables have each a definite meaning, to be ascertained from the explanation, where Christ deigns to give one, as in the sower; and when none such is forthcoming, from the occasion, introduction, and appended moral. Interpreters have differed importantly on the question whether everything in the parable is of its essence (the "kernel") or anything is mere machinery and accident (the "husk"). There is an obvious negative rule. We must not pass over as unmeaning any detail without which the lesson would cease to be enforced. But shall we insist on a correspondence at all points so that we may translate the whole into spiritual values, or may we neglect whatever does not seem to compose a feature of the moral to be drawn? St. John Chrysostom (In Matt., lxiv) and the School of Antioch, who were literalists, prefer the latter method; they are sober in exposition, not imaginative or mystic; and Tertullian has expressions to the like purpose (De Pudic., ix), St. Augustine, who holds of Origen and the Alexandrians, abounds in the larger sense; yet he allows that "in prophetic narrations details are told us which have no significance "(De Civ. Dei, XVI, ii) . St. Jerome in his earlier writings follows Origen; but his temper was not that of a mystic and with age he becomes increasingly literal. Among modern commentators the same difference of handling appears.
In a problem which is literary as well as exegetical, we must guard against applying a hard and fast rule where taste and insight are required. Each of the parables will need to be dealt with as if it were a poem; and fulness of meaning, refinement of thought, slight but suggestive hints and touches, characteristic of human genius, will not be wanting to the method of the Divine Teacher. In the highest criticism, as Goethe warns us, we cannot divide as with an axe the inward from the outward. Where all is living, the metaphor of kernel and husk may be often misapplied. The meaning lies implicit in the whole and its parts; here as in every vital product the ruling spirit is one, the elements take their virtue from it and separately are of no account. As we move away from the central idea we lose the assurance that we are not pursuing our own fancies; and the substitution of a mechanical yet extravagant dogmatism for the Gospel truth has led Gnostics and Manichaeans, or latter-day visionaries like Swedenborg, into a wilderness of delusions where the severe and tender beauty of the parables can no longer be discerned. They are literary creations, not merely hieratic devices; and as awakening the mind to spiritual principles their intent is fulfilled when it muses on the deep things of God, the laws of life, the mission of Christ, of which it is thus made intimately aware.
St. Thomas and all Catholic doctors maintain that articles of faith ought to be deduced only from the literal sense of Scripture whenever it is quoted in proof of them but the literal sense is often the prophetic, which itself as a Divine truth may well be applicable to an entire series of events or line of typical characters. The Angel of the Schools declares after St. Jerome that "spiritual interpretation should follow the order of history". St. Jerome himself exclaims, "never can a parable and the dubious interpretations of riddles avail for the establishment of dogmas" (Summa I-II:10; St. Jerome, In Matt., xiii, 33). From a parable alone, therefore, we do not argue categorically; we take it in illustration of Christian verities proved elsewhere. It was this canon of good sense which the Gnostics, especially Valentinus, disregarded to their own hurt, and so fell into the confusion of ideas miscalled by them revelation. Irenaeus constantly opposes church tradition or the rule of faith, to these dreamers (II, xvi, against the Marcosians; II, xxvii, xxviii, against Valentinus). In like manner, Tertullian says, "Heretics draw the parables whither they will, not whither they ought", and "Valentinus did not make up Scriptures to suit his teaching, but forced his teaching on the Scriptures." (See De Pudic., viii, ix; De Praescript., viii; and compare St. Anselm, "Cur Deus homo", I, iv. )
We learn what the parables signify, on this showing, from "the school of Christ"; we interpret them on the lines of "apostolic and ecclesiastical tradition" (Tert., "Scorp.", xii; Vinc. Lerin., xxvii, Conc. Trid., Sess. IV). The "analogy of faith" determines how far we may go in applying them to life and history. With Salmeron it is allowed to distinguish in them a "root", the occasion and immediate purpose, a "rind ", the sensible imagery or incidents, and a "marrow", the Christian truth, thus conveyed. Another way would be to consider each parable as it relates to Christ himself, to the Church as His spiritual body, to the individual as putting on Christ. These are not different, still less contrary elucidations; they flow out of that great central dogma, "The Word was made flesh". In dealing on such a system with any part of Holy Writ we keep within Catholic bounds; we explain the "Verbum scriptum" by the "Verbum incarnatum". To the same principle we can reduce the "four senses", often reckoned as derivable from the sacred text. These medieval refinements are but an effort to establish on the letter, faithfully understood, implications which in all the works of genius other than scientific, are more or less contained. The governing sense remains, and is always the standard of reference.
There are no parables in St. John's Gospel. In the Synoptics Mark has only one peculiar to himself, the seed growing secretly (iv, 26); he has three which are common to Matthew and Luke: the sower, mustard seed, and wicked husbandman. Two more are found in the same Gospels, the leaven and the lost sheep. Of the rest, eighteen belong to the third and ten to the first Evangelist. Thus we reckon thirty-three in all; but some have raised the number even to sixty, by including proverbial expressions. An external but instructive division parts them into three groups: those delivered about the Sea of Galilee (Matt., xiii); those on the way up to Jerusalem (Luke, x-xviii); those uttered during the final stage of Our Lord's life, given in either Gospel; or parables of the kingdom, the Christian's rule; the judgment on Israel and mankind. In various ways commentators follow this arrangement, while indicating more elaborate distinctions. Westcott refers us to parables drawn from the material world, as the sower; from the relations of men to that world, as the fig tree and lost sheep: from the dealings of men with one another, as the prodigal son; and with God, as the hidden treasure. It is clear that we might assign examples from one of these classes to a different heading without violence. A further suggestion, not unreal, brings out the Messianic aspect of the parables in St. Matthew, and the more individual or ethical of those in St. Luke. Again the later chapters of St. Matthew and the third Gospel tend to enlarge and give more in detail; perhaps at the beginning of our Lord's ministry these illustrations were briefer than they afterwards became. We can surely not imagine that Christ never repeated or varied His parables, as any human teacher would under various circumstances. The same story may well be recorded in different shapes and with a moral adapted to the situation, as, e.g., the talents and the pounds, or the king's son's marriage and the unworthy wedding guest. Nor ought we to expect in the reporters a stereotyped accuracy, of which the New Testament nowhere shows itself to be solicitious. Though we have received the parables only in the form of literature, they were in fact spoken, not written — and spoken in Aramaic, while handed down to us in Hellenistic Greek.
Although, according to most non-Catholic writers, Sts. Matthew and Luke are founded upon St. Mark, it is natural to begin our exposition of the parables in the first Gospel, which has a group of seven consecutively (xiii, 3-57). The sower with its explanation, introduces them; the draw net completes their teaching; and we cannot refuse to see in the number seven (cf. St. John's Gospel) an idea of selected fitness which invites us to search out the principle involved. Men favourable to what is known as an "historic and prophetic" system of exegesis, have applied the seven parables to seven ages of the Church. This conception is not foreign to Scripture, nor unfamiliar in patristic writings, but it can scarcely be pressed in detail. We are not qualified to say how the facts of church history correspond, except in their general features, with anything in these parables; neither have we the means of guessing at what stage of the Divine Economy we stand. It may be enough to remark that the sower denotes the preaching of the Gospel; the tares or cockle, how it meets with hindrances; the mustard seed and the leaven its noiseless yet victorious growth. From the hidden treasure and the pearl of price we learn that those who are called must give up all to possess the kingdom. Finally, the draw net pictures God's judgment on His Church, and the everlasting separation of good and bad.
From all this it appears that St. Matthew has brought the parables together for a purpose and he distinguishes between the "multitude", to whom the first four were chiefly addressed, and the "disciples", who were privileged to know their prophetic significance. They illustrate the Sermon on the Mount, which ends with a twofold comparison, the house on the rock typifying Christ's Church, and the house on the sand opposed to it. Nothing can be clearer, if we believe the Synoptics than that our Lord so taught as to enlighten the elect and to leave obstinate sinners (above all, the Pharisees) in their darkness (Matt., xiii, 11-15; Mark, iv, 11-12; Luke, xiii, 10). Observe the quotation from Isaiah (Matt., xiii, 14; Is., vi, 9, according to the Septuagint) intimating a judicial blindness, due to Israel's backslidings and manifest in the public troubles of the nation while the evangelists were writing. Unbelievers or Modernists, reluctant to perceive in the man Christ Jesus any supernatural powers, look upon such sayings as prophecies after the event. But the parable of the sower contains in itself a warning like that of Isaias, and was certainly spoken by Christ. It opens the series of His Messianic teachings, even as that of the wicked husbandman concludes them. From first to last the rejection of the Jews, all except a holy "remnant", is contemplated. Moreover, since the Prophets had constantly taken up this attitude, denouncing the corrupt priesthood and disparaging legalism, why should we dream that language of similar import and contents was not heard from the lips of Jesus? And if anywhere, would it not be found in His parabolic delineations of the New Law? ' There is no solid reason why the double edge of these moralities should be ascribed to a mere "tendency" in the recorders, or to an edifying afterthought of primitive Christians. If the "allegory" i.e., the application to history, be intended by all three evangelists (which we grant), that intention lay at the root of the parable when it was delivered. Christ is "the Sower", and the seed could not escape the divers fortunes which befell it on the soil of Judaism. Even from the modernist point of view our Saviour was the last and greatest of the Prophets. How then could He avoid speaking as they did of a catastrophe which was to bring in the reign of Messias? Or how shall we suppose that He stood alone in this respect, isolated from the seers who went before Him and the disciples who came after Him? It is certain that, for the Evangelists, "He that hath ears to hear let him hear" did not signify merely a "call to attention"; we may compare it to the classic formulae, Eleusinian and other, which it resembles, as carrying with it an intimation of some Divine mystery The more an esoteric meaning is put upon the Gospels as their original scope, so much the more will it be evident that our Lord Himself made use of it.
Dismissing the minute conjectural criticism which would leave us hardly more than a bare outline to go upon, and not regarding verbal differences, we can treat the parables as coming direct from our Lord. They teach a lesson at once ethical and dogmatic, with implications of prophecy reaching to the consummation of all things. Their analogy to the sacraments, of which our Lord's Incarnation is the source and pattern, must never be left out of view. Modern objections proceed from a narrow "enlightened" conception as of the "reasonable man", teaching general truths in the abstract, and attaching no importance to the examples by which he enforces them. But the Evangelists, like the Catholic Church. have considered that the Son of God, instructing His disciples for all time, would commit to them heavenly mysteries "things hidden from the foundation of the world'; (Matt., xiii, 35). So perfectly does this correspondence with history apply to the tares, the good samaritan, the "watching" parables, to Dives and Lazarus (whether a real incident or otherwise), and to the wicked husbandmen, that it cannot be set aside. In consequence, certain critics have denied that Christ spoke some of these "allegories", but the grounds which they allege would entitle them to reject the others, that conclusion they dare not face (cf. Loisy, "Ev. synopt.", II, 318).
All orthodox writers take the sower (Matt., xiii, 3-8; Mark, iv, 3-8; Luke, viii, 5-8) as a model both of narrative and interpretation, warranted by the Divine Master Himself. The general likeness between teaching and sowing is found in Seneca, "Ep. Ixxiii"; and Prudentius, the Christian poet, has thrown the parable into verse, "Contra Symmachum", II, 1022. Salmeron comes near the method suggested above by which we get most profit from these symbols, when he declares that Christ is "the Sower and the Seed". We are immediately reminded of the Greek Fathers who call our Redeemer the seed sown in our hearts, (Λογος σπερματικος), who comes forth from God that He may be the principle of righteousness in man (Justin, "Apol.", II, xiii, Athan., "Orat.," ii, 79, Cyril Alex., "In Joan.", 75; and see Newman, "Tracts", 150177). I Peter 1:1-23, reads like an echo of this parable. Note that our Lord does not use personifications, but refers good and evil alike to persons; it is the "wicked one" who plucks away the seed, not a vague impersonal mischief. The rocky bottom, the burning wind and scorching sun, tell us of Palestinian scenery. We find "thorny cares" in Catullus (lxiv, lxxii) and in Ovid (Metamorp., XIII, 5, 483). Theologians warn us not to imagine that the "good and perfect heart" of the receiver is by nature such; for that would be the heresy of Pelagius; but we may quote the axiom of the Schools, "To him that does what he can God will not deny His grace." St. Cyprian and St. Augustine (Ep. Ixix, Serm. lxxiii) point out that free will acceptance is the teaching of the Gospel; and so Irenaeus against the Gnostic forerunners of Lutheranism (V, xxxix).
The tares or cockle (Matt., xiii, 24-30 alone). Whatever be meant by ξιξανια word, found only here in the Greek Scripture, is originally semite (Arabic zuwan). In the Vulgate it is retained and in popular French Wyclif renders it "darnel or cockle", and curiously enough the name of his followers, the Lollards, has been derived from a Latin equivalent, "lolium." In the Reims New Testament we have "cockle", for which compare Job, xxxi, 40: "Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley." It is pretty well determined that the plant in question is "lolium temulentum," or bearded darnel; and the mischievous practice of "oversowing" has been detected among Easterns, if not elsewhere. The late weeding of the fields is in "substantial agreement with Oriental custom", at a time when good and evil plants can be fully distinguished. Christ calls Himself the "Son of Man"; He is the sower. good men are the seed; the field is indifferently the Church or the world, i.e., the visible Kingdom in which all kinds are mingled, to be sorted out in the day of His coming. He explains and fits in detail the lesson to the incidents (Matt., xiii, 36-43), with an adaptation so clear to the primitive age of Christianity that Loisy, Julicher, and other modern critics, refuse to consider the parable authentic. They suppose it to be drawn out of some brief comparison in the original lost "source" of Mark. These random guessings have no scientific value. Historically, the moral which recommends sufferance of disorders among Christians when a greater evil would follow on trying to put them down, has been enforced by the Church authorities against Novatus, and its theory developed in St. Augustine's long disputes with those hard African Puritans, the Donatists. St. Augustine, recognizing in Our Lord's words as in the spiritual life a principle of growth which demands patience, by means of it reconciles the imperfect militant state of His disciples now with St. Paul's vision of a "glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle" (Eph., v, 27). Such is the large Catholic philosophy, illustrated by the Roman Church from early times, despite men like Tertullian; from the medieval condemnation of the Cathari; and from the later resistance to Calvin, who would have brought in a kind of Stoic republic or "Kingdom of the Saints", with its inevitable consequences, hypocrisy and selfrighteous pharisaism. Yet Calvin, who separated from the Catholic communion on this and the like motives, calls it a dangerous temptation to suppose that "there is no Church wherever perfect purity is not apparent." (Cf. St. Augustine, "In Psalm. 99"; "Contra Crescon.", III, xxxiv; St. Jerome, "Adv. Lucifer" and Tertullian in his orthodox period, "Apol.", xli "God does not hasten that sifting out, which is a condition of judgment, until the world's end.")
If in the tares we perceive a stage of Christ's teaching more advanced than in the sower, we may take the mustard seed as announcing the outward manifest triumph of His Kingdom, while the leaven discloses to us the secret of its inward working (Matt., xiii, 31-2; Mark, iv, 30-32; Luke, xiii, 18-19) for the first; Matt., xiii, 33; Luke, xiii, 20-21 for the second). Strange difficulties have been started by Westerners who had never set eyes on the luxuriant growth of the mustard plant in its native home, and who demur to the letter which calls it "the least of all seeds." But in the Koran (Sura xxxi) this proverbial estimate is implied; and it is an elementary rule of sound Scripture criticism not to look for scientific precision in such popular examples, or in discourses which aim at something more important than mere knowledge. The tree, salvadora persica, is said to be rare. Obviously, the point of comparison is directed to the humble beginnings and extraordinary development of Christ's Kingdom. Wellhausen believes that for the Evangelists the parable was an allegory typifying the Church's rapid growth; Loisy would infer that, if so, it was not delivered by our Lord in its actual form. But here are three distinct yet cognate stories, the mustard seed, the leaven, the seed growing secretly, occurring in the Synoptics, contemplating a lapse of time, and more applicable to after-ages than to the brief period during which Christ was preaching; shall we say that He uttered none of them? And if we allow these prophetic anticipations at all, does not the traditional view explain them best? (Wellh., "Matt.", 70; Loisy, "Ev. syn.", III, 774-3.) It has been questioned whether in the leaven we should recognize a good influence, answering to the texts, "you are the salt of the earth, the light of the world" (Matt., v, 13-14), or the evil to be "purged out" according to St. Paul (I Cor., v, 6-8). Better to take it as the "good seed", with consequent applications, as St. Ignatius does (Ad Magnes., x) and St. Gregory Naz. (Orat., xxxvi, 90). By the "three measures" were understood in the Gnostic system the "earthly" "carnal", and "spiritual" classes among Christians (Iren., I, viii). Trench admirably describes these two parables as setting before us the "mystery of regeneration" in the world and the heart of man. For the "leaven of the Pharisees", consult authors on Matt., xvi, 6.
The hidden treasure (Matt., xiii, 44); The pearl of price (ibid., 45). With Origen we may term these "similitudes"; in one the object is found as if by accident (Is., lxv, 1; Rom., x, 20: "I was found by them that did not seek me"); in the other a man seeks and buys it deliberately. Under such figures would be signified the calling of the Gentiles and the spiritual strivings of those who, with Simeon, waited "for the consolation of Israel." There is surely an allusion to the joy of martyrdom in the first (Matt., x, 37). The concealed treasure is a widespread Eastern idea (Job, iii, 21; Prov., ii, 4); pearls or rubies, which may be represented by the same Hebrew word (Job, xxviii, 18; Prov., iii, 15, etc.) will mean the "jewel" of faith, our Lord Himself, or everlasting life; and Christians must make the great surrender if they would gain it. No keeping back is possible, so far as the Spirit is concerned, a man must give the whole world for his "soul", which is worth more, hence he rejoices. Here as elsewhere, the comparison does not imply any judgment on the morality of the persons taken by way of figures; the casuistry of "treasure trove", the possible overreaching in business, belong to the "rind" not the "marrow" of the story and yield no lesson. St. Jerome understands the Holy Bible to be the treasure; St. Augustine, "the two Testaments of the Law", but Christ never identifies the "Kingdom" with Scripture. A strange interpretation, not warranted by the context, looks on the Saviour as at once seeker and finder.
The draw net (Matt., xiii, 47-50) completes the sevenfold teaching in the first Gospel. The order was chosen by St. Matthew; and if we accept the mystic signification of the number "seven", i.e., "perfection", we shall perceive in this parable not a repetition, as Maldonatus held, of the tares, but its crown. In the tares separation of good and bad is put off here it is accomplished. St. Augustine composed a kind of ballad for the people against the Donatist schismatics which expresses the doctrine clearly, "seculi finis est littus, tunc est tempus separare" (see Enarr. in Ps., lxiv, 6). The net is a sweeping net, Lat. verriculum, or a seine, which of necessity captures all sorts, and requires to be hauled on shore and the division made. For the Jews, in particular, the clean must be taken and the unclean cast away. Since it is distinctly stated that within the net are both good and bad, this implies a visible and a mixed congregation until the Lord comes with His angels to judgment (Matt., xiii, 41; Apoc., xiv, 18). The Evangelist, Loisy observes, has understood this parable, like the others quoted, allegorically, and Christ is the Fisher of men. Clement of Alexandria perhaps wrote the well-known Orphic hymn which contains a similar appellation. The "fiery furnace", the "tears and the gnashing of teeth", going beyond the figures in the story, belong to its meaning and to Christian dogma. In the conclusion "every scribe" (xiii, 52) points to the duty which Our Lord's Apostles will hand on to the Church of bringing forth to believers the hidden spiritual sense of tradition, "the new and the old". Specifically, this does not serve as a distinction of the Testaments; but we may compare, "I came not to destroy but to fulfil", and "not one jot, or one tittle" (Matt., v, 17-18). Modernist critics attribute the whole idea of a Christian "scribe" to St. Matthew and not to our Lord. The expression "instructed" is literally, "having been made a disciple", μαθητευθεις and is of rare occurrence (Matt in loco; xxvii, 57; xxviii, 19; Acts, xiv, 21). It answers to the Hebrew "Sons of the prophets" and is thoroughly Oriental (IV Kings, ii, 3, etc.)
The unmerciful servant, or "serve nequam" (Matt., xviii, 21-35) might be summed up in two words: "Forgiven, forgive". This chapter xviii resumes the parabolic teaching; Christ sets the little child in the midst of His disciples as an example of humility, and tells the story of the Good Shepherd (verses 11-13) which St. John's Gospel repeats in the first person. Undoubtedly, Christ said "I am the Good Shepherd", as He says here, "The Son of man is come to save that which was lost" (11). St. Peter's question, "How oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?" brings out the very spirit of Jewish legalism, in which the Apostle was yet bound while it provokes a statement of the Christian ideal. Contrast, frequently employed to heighten the effect of our Lord's teaching, is here visible in the attitude taken up by Peter and corrected by His Master. "Until seventy times seven times", the perfection of the perfect, signifies of course not a number but a principle, "Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good" (Rom., xii, 21). That is the "secret of Jesus" and constitutes His revelation. St. Jerome read a curious variant, plainly a gloss, in the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" (Loisy, II, 93). The proverbial number is perhaps taken from Lamech's song of revenge (Gen., iv, 24); where however the King James Version reads "seventy and sevenfoid". This parable is the first in which God appears and acts like a king, though of course the title is frequent in the Old Testament. As regards the persons, observe that Our Lord does not give them names, which makes the story-telling more difficult. The "wicked servant" may be a satrap, and his enormous debt would be the tribute of his Government. That he and his were sold into slavery would seem natural to an Eastern, then or later. "Ten thousand talents" may refer to the Ten Commandments. "A hundred pence" owed by his "fellow servant" graphically depicts the situation as between man and man compared with human offences towards God. The "prison" in which torture is to wring from the culprit all he possesses, represents what has ever taken place under the tyrannies of Asia, down to recent times. "Till he paid" might signify "never", according to a possible sense of "donec", and was taken so by St. John Chrysostom. Later theologians construe it more mildly and adapt the words to a prison where spiritual debts may be redeemed, i.e., to purgatory (Matt., v, 25-26, closely corresponds). The moral has been happily termed "Christ's law of retaliation", announced by Him aforetime in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt., v, 38-48), and the Lord's Prayer makes it a condition of our own forgiveness.
The labourers in the vineyard (Matt., xx, 1-16) has become celebrated in modern economical discussions by its pregnant phrase "To this last." Calderon, the Spanish poet, renders its meaning well, "To thy neighbour as to thee". But among parables it is one of the hardest to work out, and is variously expounded. In the main it is an answer to all Pharisees and Pelagians who demand eternal life as a recompense due to their works, and who murmur when "sinners" or the less worthy are accepted, though coming late to the Divine call. It might seasonably introduce the Epistle to the Romans, which proceeds on identical lines and teachers the same lesson. Yet no one has denied its authorship to Christ. (Cf. Romans, iii, 24-27; iv, 1; ix, 20, esp. "O man, who art thou that repliest against God?") The attitude of Christ towards publicans and sinners which gave offence to the Pharisees (Mark, ii, 16; Luke, v, 30), affords the clearest comment on the parable as a whole. Some critics reject the last sentence, "Many are called", as an interpolation from the parable of the marriage feast. Early mystical views understand the labourers to be Israel and the heathen, Irenaeus Origen, Hilary adapt the different hours to stages of the Old Covenant. St. Jerome compares the prodigal son, for which this may be St. Matthew's equivalent lesson. Note the "evil eye" and other references to it (Deut., xv, 9; II Kings, xviii, 9; Prov., xxiii, 6).
The two sons (Matt., xxi, 28-32) begins in this Gospel a series of denunciations addressed to the Pharisees. Its drift is plain. These "hypocrites" profess to keep God's law and break it; hence their scorn of the Baptist's preaching; whereas "publicans and harlots" were converted; therefore they shall go into the Kingdom before the others. But if it be accommodated to Jews and Gentiles, who is the elder son who the younger? From the text no reply can be drawn and commentators are not agreed. In some manuscripts the order is reversed, but without foundation. (See Luke, vii, 29-30, 37-50.)
The wicked husbandmen (Matt., xxi, 33-45; Mark, xii, 1-12; Luke, xx, 9-19). This remarkable challenge to the "chief priests and Pharisees", occurring in all the Synoptics, and foretelling how God's vineyard shall be transferred from its present keepers, reminds us of the good samaritan and the prodigal son, with which it harmonizes, though severe in its tone as they are not. However, its extreme clearness of application in detail has led the modernist critics to deny that Our Lord spoke it. They call it an allegory, not a parable. The "vineyard of the Lord of Hosts" is in Is., v, 1-7, and the prophecy in both cases analogous. That Jesus foresaw His rejection by the "chief priests" cannot be doubtful. That He contemplated the entrance into God's Kingdom of many Gentiles is apparent from Luke, xiii, 29, as from parables already quoted. This, indeed, was boldly pictured in the Old Testament (Is., ii, 1-4, xix, 20-25; Mich., iv, 1-7). In the first Gospel our Lord addresses the Pharisees; in the third He speaks to the "people". The "tower" is Mount Sion with its temple; the "servants" are the Prophets; when the "beloved son" is murdered we may think of Naboth dying for his vineyard and the crucifixion comes into sight. Christ is the "heir of all things" (Heb., i, 2). We must grant to Loisy that the anticipation of vengeance is an apocalypse in brief while upholding the genuineness of the larger view in Matt., xxiv, which his school would attribute to a period after the fall of Jerusalem. For the "stone which the builders rejected" and which "is become the head of the corner;', see Psalm cxvii (Hebrew cxviii), 22, 23, and Acts, iv, 11. The reading is from the Septuagint, not the Hebrew.
The marriage of the king's son, or less accurately, the wedding garment (Matt., xii, 1-14). If, like Maldonatus and Theophylact, we identify this with the great supper in St. Luke (xiv, 16), we must allow that the differences observable are due to the inspired reporters who had in view "not history but doctrine". Or we might hold that the discourse had been varied to meet another occasion. Read St. Augustine, "De consensu evang.", II, lxxii, who is for distinguishing them. The Lucan story would be earlier; the present, spoken in wrath when all hope of Christ's acceptance by clergy or scribes is at an end, reveals the mood of severe sadness which overshadowed our Lord's last days. Naturally the mythical school (Strauss and even Keim, with recent Modernists) discovers in the violence of the invited guests and their punishment an apologetic tendency, due to the editors of the original tale. "These additions", says Loisy, "were made after the taking of Jerusalem by Titus; and the writer had never heard Jesus, but was manipulating a text already settled" (Ev. synopt., II, 326). That the reign of the Messias, following on the rejection of Israel, was always meant in this story, is incontestable. Catholic faith would of course allow that the "servants" maltreated were, in our Lord's mind, such as St. John Baptist, the Apostles, the first martyrs. The feast, in our commentaries, may well be the Incarnation; the wedding garment is sanctifying grace, "put ye on the Lord Jesus" (Rom., xiii, 14). Thus Iren., IV, xxxvi; Tert., "De resurrect. carnis", xxvii, etc.
The ten virgins (Matt., xxv, 1-13) may be considered as first of several parables declaring that the advent of the Kingdom will be unexpected. These are all comments on the text, "of that day and hour no one knoweth, no not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone" (Matt., xxiv,36). It is a "watching" parable, and is not in praise of virginity as such, though applied by the Fathers, as St. Gregory Martyr, to the duties of the virgin-state. St. Augustine writes "souls that have the Catholic faith and appear to have good works" (Serm. xciii, 2); St. Jerome, "they boast the knowledge of God and are untainted with idolatry". There seems to be a reminiscence of this parable in Luke, xii, 36, wrought into the admonition to men "that wait for their Lord". Wellhausen's idea that St. Matthew composed it from St. Luke is untenable. In the East it is usual that the bride should be conveyed with honour to the bridegroom's house; but there might be exceptions, as here. Mystically, Christ is the bridegroom, His parousia the event, and the preparation by faith shining out in Christian deeds is imaged in the burning lamps or torches. For the "closed door" see Luke, xiii, 25. The conclusion, "Vigilate", is a direct lesson and no part of the story. St. Methodius wrote the "Banquet of the Ten Virgins", a rude mystery play in Greek.
The talents (Matt., xxv, 14-30) and the pounds or the minæ (Luke, xix, 11-27). Whether we shall identify or divide these two celebrated apologues can scarcely be determined. St. Mark (xiii, 34-36) blends his brief allusion with a text from the ten virgins. The circumstances in the first and third Gospels differ; but the warning is much the same. Commentators note that here the active life is extolled, as in the virgins a heedful contemplation. No argument for the lawfulness of usury can be drawn from verse 27. The "servant" was a bondslave; all that he had or acquired would be his master's property. "To him that hath shall be given" is one of the "hard sayings" which, while disclosing a law of life, seems not to harmonize with Christian kindness. Yet the analogy of God's dealings — not "mere" benevolence, but "wise and just" recognition of moral effort — is hereby maintained. If our Lord, as tradition tells, said, "Be ye good money changers" (cf. I Thess., v, 21), the same principle is commended. Ethically, all that we have is a trust of which we rnust give account. For the diversity of talents, note St. Paul, I Cor., xii, 4 and the reconciliation of that diversity in "the same spirit". Both parables relate to Christ's second coming. Hence Loisy and others attribute to the Evangelists, and especially to St. Luke, an enlargement, founded on later history, perhaps taken from Josephus, and intended to explain the delay of the Parousia (Ev. synopt., II, 464-80). Not accepting these premises, we put aside the conclusion. Maldonatus (I, 493), who treats the stories as variants, observes, "it is no new thing that our Evangelists should appear to differ in circumstances of time and place, since they consider only the general outline (summam rei gestae), not the order or the time. Where else we find them seeming to disagree, they wish to explain not Christ's words but the drift of the parable as a whole".
Leaving St. Matthew, we note the one short story peculiar to St. Mark, of the seed growing secretly (iv, 26-29). We have already assigned it to the group of the mustard tree and the leaven. Its point is conveyed in the Horatian line, "Crescit occulto velut arbor aevo" (Odes, I, xii, 36). The husbandman who "knows not how" the harvest springs cannot be the Almighty, but is the human sower of the word. For homiletic purposes we may combine this parable with its cognate, "unless the grain of wheat die" (John, xii, 24) which applies it to Christ Himself and His Divine influence.
In St. Luke the two debtors (vii, 41-43) is spoken by our Lord to Simon "the leper" (Mark, xiv, 2-9) on occasion of Mary Magdalene's conversion, with its touching circumstances. At least since St. Gregory the Great, Catholic writers have so understood the history. The double saying "Many sins are forgiven her, for she loved much", and "to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less", has a perfectly clear human sense, in accordance with facts. We cannot deduce from such almost proverbial expressions a theory of justification. The lesson concerns gratitude for mercies received, with a strong emphasis on the hard arrogance of the Pharisee over against the lowly and tender bearing of the "woman who was a sinner". Thus, in effect, St. Augustine (Serm. xcix, 4). The contrast between dead faith and faith animated by love--which Maldonatus would introduce--is not directly meant. And we need not suppose the latter portion of the story artificial or pieced together by St. Luke from other Gospel fragments. With the problem of the four narratives (Matt., xxvi; Mark, xiv; Luke, vii; John, xii) the present article is not concerned.
The good samaritan (Luke, x, 37) is certainly authentic; it can be explained mystically in detail, and is therefore as much an "allegory" as a parable. If it was spoken by our Lord so was the wicked husbandmen. It does not exactly reply to the question "Who is thy neighbour?" but propounds and answers a larger one, "Whom in distress should I like to be neighbour to me?" and gives an everlasting instance of the golden rule. At the same time it breaks down the fences of legalism, triumphs over national hatreds, and lifts the despised Samaritan to a place of honour. In the deeper sense we discern that Christ is the Good Samaritan, human nature the man fallen among robbers, i.e., under Satan's yoke; neither law nor Prophets can help; and the Saviour alone bears the charge of healing our spiritual wounds. The inn is Christ's Church; the oil and wine are His sacraments. He will come again and will make all good. The Fathers, Sts. Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, are agreed in this general interpretation. Mere philanthropy will not satisfy the Gospel idea; we must add, "the charity of Christ presseth us" (II Cor., v, 14).
The friend at midnight (Luke, xi, 5-8) and the unjust judge (Luke, xviii, 1-8) need no explanation. With a certain strength of language both dwell on the power of continued prayer. Importunity wins, "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away" (Matt., xi, 12). Dante has beautifully expressed the Divine law which these parables teach (Paradiso, xx, 94-100).
The rich fool (Luke, xii, 16-21) and Dives and Lazarus (Luke, xvi, 19-31) raise the question whether we should interpret them as true histories or as instructive fictions. Both are directed against the chief enemy of the Gospel, riches loved and sought after. The rich fool ("Nabal", as in I Kings, xxv) was uttered on occasion of a dispute concerning property and Christ answers "Man, who hath appointed me judge, or divider, over you?" Not injustice, but covetousness, "the root of all evil", is here reprehended. Read St. Cyprian, "De opere et eleemosyna", 13.
The story of Lazarus, which completes this lesson by contrast, appears to have no concealed meaning and would therefore not fulfil the definition of a parable. Catholics, with Irenaeus, Ambrose, Augustine, and the church liturgy, regard it as a narrative. The modern school rejects this view, allows that our Lord may have spoken the first half of the recital (Luke, xvi, 19-26) but considers the rest to be an allegory which condemns the Jews for not accepting the witness of Moses and the Prophets to Jesus as the Messias. In any case our Lord's resurrection furnishes an implied reference. "Abraham's bosom" for the middle state after death is adopted by the Fathers generally; it receives illustration from IV Mach., xiii, 17. St. Augustine (De Gen. ad Litt., viii, 7) doubts whether we can take literally the description of the other world. On the relation, supposed by rationalizing critics, of this Lazarus to John, x, see JOHN, GOSPEL OF SAINT; LAZARUS.
Passing over the barren fig tree (Luke, xiii, 6-9) which gave a plain warning to Israel; and just referring to the lost sheep (Matt., xviii, 12-14; Luke, xv, 3-7) and the lost groat or drachma (Luke, xv, 8-10), none of which need detain us, we come to the great supper (Luke, xiv, 15-24). That this parable concerns the calling of the Gentiles is admitted and is important, as bearing on the universal commission, Matt., xxviii, 19. "Compel them to enter", like the strong sayings quoted above (importunate widow etc.), must be taken in the spirit of Christianity, which compels by moral suasion, not by the sword Matt., xxvi, 52).
The prodigal son (Luke, xv, 11-32), so called from verse 13, has a deep ethical meaning, but likewise a dogmatic, in which the two sons are the Israelite, staying at home in his father's house, and the Gentile who has wandered away. As the message of pardon it deserves to be called the very heart of Christ's gospel. We have justified these parallel lines of interpretation, for ethics and revelation, which were both visible to the Evangelist. Tertullian's narrow use of the story is uncritical. St. John Chrysostom and the Church always have applied it to Christian, i.e., baptized penitents. The "first [or best] robe" is naturally assumed by theologians to be "original justice", and the feast of reconciliation is our Lord's atoning sacrifice. Those who grant a strong Pauline influence in St. Luke's Gospel ought not to deny it here. The "jealousy of good men" towards returned prodigals, which has exercised commentators, is true to life; and it counted for much in the dissensions that finally clove asunder the Church of Israel from the Church of Christ (I Thess., ii, 14-16). The joy over a sinner's conversion unites this parable with those of the lost sheep and the lost drachma.
The unjust steward (Luke, xvi, 1-9) is, beyond question, the hardest of all our Lord's parables, if we may argue from the number and variety of meanings set upon it. Verses 10-13 are no part of the narration but a discourse to which it gives rise. The connecting link between them is the difficult expression "mammon [more correctly 'Mamon'] of iniquity "and we may suppose with Bengel that Christ was speaking to those of His followers, like Levi, who had been farmers of the taxes, i.e., "publicans". In the contrast between the "children of this world" and the "children of light" we find a clue to the general lesson. Mark the resemblance to St. John's Gospel in the opposition thus brought out. There are two generations or kinds of men-the worldling and the Christian; but of these one behaves with a perfect understanding of the order to which he belongs; the other often acts foolishly, does not put his talent to interest. How shall he proceed in the least Christian of all occupations, which is the handling of money? He must get good out of its evil, turn it to account for everlasting life, and this by almsgiving, "yet that which remaineth, give alms; and behold, all things are clean unto you" (Luke, xi, 41). The strong conclusion follows, which lies implicit in all this, "You cannot serve God and mammon" (Luke, xvi, 13).
Much unwisdom has been shown by commentators who were perplexed that our Lord should derive a moral from conduct, evidently supposed unjust, on the steward's part; we answer, a just man's dealings would not have afforded the contrast which points the lesson, viz., that Christians should make use of opportunities, but innocently, as well as the man of business who lets slip no chance. Some critics have gone farther and connect the hidden meaning with Shakespeare's "soul of good in things evil", but we may leave that aside. Catholic preachers dwell on the special duty of helping the poor, considered as in some sense keepers of the gates of Heaven, "everlasting tents". St. Paul's "faithful dispenser" (I Cor., iv, 2) may be quoted here. The "measures" written down are enormous, beyond a private estate, which favours the notion of "publicani". The Revised Version transforms "bill" happily into "bond". It may be doubted which is "the lord" that commended the unjust steward. Whether we apply it to Christ or the rich man we shall obtain a satisfactory sense. "In their generation" should be "for their generation", as the Greek text proves. St. Ambrose, with an eye to the dreadful scandals of history, sees in the steward a wicked ruler in the Church. Tertullian (De Fuga) and, long afterwards, Salmeron apply all to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles, who were indeed debtors to the law, but who should have been treated indulgently and not repelled. Lastly, there seems no ground for the widespread belief that "mammon" was the Phoenician Plutus, or god of riches; the word signifies "money."
St. Luke (xvii, 7-10) gives a short apologue of the unprofitable servents, which may be reckoned as a parable, but which needs no explanation beyond St. Paul's phrase "not of works, but of Him that calleth" (Rom., ix, 11). This will be true equally as regards Jews and Christians, in whose merits God crowns His own gifts.
The lesson is driven home by contrast, once more, between the pharisee and the publican (Luke, xviii, 9-14), disclosing the true economy of grace. On the one hand it is permissible to understand this with Hugo of St. Victor and others as typifying the rejection of legal and carnal Judaism; on the other, we may expand its teaching to the universal principle in St. John (iv, 23-24) when our Lord transcends the distinction of Jew and heathen, Israelite and Samaritan, in favour of a spiritual Church or kingdom, open to all. St. Augustine says (Enarr. in Ps. lxxiv), "The Jewish people boasted of their merits, the Gentiles confessed their sins". It is asked whether those "who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others" were in fact the pharisees or some of the disciples. From the context we cannot decide. But it would not be impossible if, at this period, our Saviour spoke directly to the pharisees, whom He condemned (at no time for their good works, but) for their boasting and their disdain of the multitude who knew not the law (cf. Matt., xxiii, 12, 23; John, vii, 49). The pharisee's attitude, "standing", was not peculiar to him; it has ever been the customary mode of prayer among Easterns. He says "I fast twice in a week", not "twice on the Sabbath". "Tithes of all that I possess" means "all that comes to me" as revenue. This man's confession acknowledged no sin, but abounds in praise of himself-a form not yet extinct where Christians approach the sacred tribunal. One might say, "He does penance; he does not repent". The publican is of course a Jew, Zacchaeus or any other; he cannot plead merit; but he has a "broken heart" which God will accept. "Be merciful to me" is well rendered from the Greek by the Vulgate, "Be propitious", a sacrificial and significant word. "Went down to his house justified rather than the other" is a Hebrew way of saying that one was and the other was not justified, as St. Augustine teaches. The expression is St. Paul's, δικαιουσθαι; but we are not required to examine here the idea of justification under the Old Law. Mystically, the exaltation and abasement indicated would refer to the coming of the Kingdom and the Last Judgment.
It remains to observe, generally, that a "double sense" has always been attached by the Fathers to our Lord's miracles, and to the Gospel history as a whole. They looked upon the facts as reported much in the light of sacraments, or Divine events, which could not but have a perpetual significance for the Church and on that account were recorded. This was the method of mystical interpretation, according to which every incident becomes a parable. But the most famous school of German critics in the nineteenth century turned that method round, seeing in the parabolic intention of the Evangelists a force which converted sayings into incidents, which made of doctrines allegories, and of illustrations miracles, so that little or nothing authentic would have been handed down to us from the life of Christ. Such is the secret of the mythical procedure, as exemplified in modern dealing with the multiplication of the loaves, our Lord's walking on the sea, the resurrection of the widow's son at Naim, and many other Gospel episodes (Loisy, "Ev. synopt.", passim).
Parable, in this view, has created seeming history; and not only the Johannine document but the synoptic narratives must be construed as made up from supposed prophetic references, by adaptation and quotation of Old-Testament passages. It is for the Catholic apologist to prove in detail that, however deep and far-reaching the significance attributed by the Evangelists to the facts which they relate, those facts cannot simply be resolved into myth and legend. Nature also is a parable; but it is real. "The blue zenith", says Emerson admirably, "is the point in which romance and reality meet" . And again, "Nature is the vehicle of thought", the "symbol of spirit"; words and things are "emblematic". If this be so, there is a justification for the Hebrew and Christian philosophy, which sees in the world below us analogies of the highest truths, and in the Word made flesh at once the surest of facts and the most profound of symbols.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI, pp. 460-467
Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
The Eight Beatitudes
The solemn blessings (beatitudines, benedictiones) which mark the opening of the Sermon on the Mount, the very first of Our Lord's sermons in the Gospel of St. Matthew (v, 3-10). Four of them occur again in a slightly different form in the Gospel of St. Luke (vi, 22), likewise at the beginning of a sermon, and running parallel to Matthew, 5-7, if not another version of the same. And here they are illustrated by the opposition of the four curses (24-26). The fuller account and the more prominent place given the Beatitudes in St. Matthew are quite in accordance with the scope and the tendency of the First Gospel, in which the spiritual character of the Messianic kingdom — the paramount idea of the Beatitudes — is consistently put forward, in sharp contrast with Jewish prejudices. The very peculiar form in which Our Lord proposed His blessings make them, perhaps, the only example of His sayings that may be styled poetical — the parallelism of thought and expression, which is the most striking feature of Biblical poetry, being unmistakably clear.
The text of St. Matthew runs as follows:

  Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Verse 3)
  Blessed are the meek: for they shall posses the land. (Verse 4)
  Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted. (Verse 5)
  Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill. (Verse 6)
  Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. (Verse 7)
  Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God. (Verse 8)
  Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. (Verse 9)
  Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Verse 10)
TEXTUAL CRITICISM
As regards textual criticism, the passage offers no serious difficulty. Only in verse 9, the Vulgate and many other ancient authorities omit the pronoun autoi, ipsi; probably a merely accidental ommission. There is room, too, for serious critical doubt, whether verse 5 should not be placed before verse 4. Only the etymological connection, which in the original is supposed to have existed between the "poor" and the "meek", makes us prefer the order of the Vulgate.
First Beatitude
The word poor seems to represent an Aramaic `ányâ (Hebr. `anî), bent down, afflicted, miserable, poor; while meek is rather a synonym from the same root, `ánwan (Hebr. `ánaw), bending oneself down, humble, meek, gentle. Some scholars would attach to the former word also the sense of humility; others think of "beggars before God" humbly acknowledging their need of Divine help. But the opposition of "rich" (Luke, vi, 24) points especially to the common and obvious meaning, which, however, ought not to be confined to economical need and distress, but may comprehend the whole of the painful condition of the poor: their low estate, their social dependence, their defenceless exposure to injustice from the rich and the mighty. Besides the Lord's blessing, the promise of the heavenly kingdom is not bestowed on the actual external condition of such poverty. The blessed ones are the poor "in spirit", who by their free will are ready to bear for God's sake this painful and humble condition, even though at present they be actually rich and happy; while on the other hand, the really poor man may fall short of this poverty "in spirit".
Second Beatitude
Inasmuch as poverty is a state of humble subjection, the "poor in spirit", come near to the "meek", the subject of the second blessing. The anawim, they who humbly and meekly bend themselves down before God and man, shall "inherit the land" and posses their inheritance in peace. This is a phrase taken from Ps. xxxvi (Hebr., xxxvii), 11, where it refers to the Promised Land of Israel, but here in the words of Christ, it is of course but a symbol of the Kingdom of Heaven, the spiritual realm of the Messiah. Not a few interpreters, however, understand "the earth". But they overlook the original meaning of Ps. xxxvi, 11, and unless, by a far-fetched expedient, they take the earth also to be a symbol of the Messianic kingdom, it will be hard to explain the possession of the earth in a satisfactory way.
Third Beatitude
The "mourning" in the Third Beatitude is in Luke (vi, 25) opposed to laughter and similar frivolous worldly joy. Motives of mourning are not to be drawn from the miseries of a life of poverty, abjection, and subjection, which are the very blessings of verse 3, but rather from those miseries from which the pious man is suffering in himself and in others, and most of all the tremendous might of evil throughout the world. To such mourners the Lord Jesus carries the comfort of the heavenly kindgom, "the consolation of Israel" (Luke, ii, 25) foretold by the prophets, and especially by the Book of Consolation of Isaias (xi-lxvi). Even the later Jews knew the Messiah by the name of Menahhem, Consoler. These three blessings, poverty, abjection, and subjection are a commendation of what nowadays are called the passive virtues: abstinence and endurace, and the Eighth Beatitude (verse 10) leads us back again to the teaching.
Fourth Beatitude
The others, however, demand a more active behaviour. First of all, "hunger and thirst" after justice: a strong and continuous desire of progress in religious and moral perfection, the reward of which will be the very fulfilment of the desire, the continuous growth in holiness.
Fifth Beatitude
From this interior desire a further step should be taken to acting to the works of "mercy", corporal and spiritual. Through these the merciful will obtain the Divine mercy of the Messianic kingdom, in this life and in the final judgment. The wonderful fertility of the Church in works and institutions of corporal and spiritual mercy of every kind shows the prophetical sense, not to say the creative poer, of this simple word of the Divine Teacher.
Sixth Beatitude
According to biblical terminology, "cleanness of heart" (verse 8) cannot exclusively be found in interior chastity, nor even, as many scholars propose, in a genral purity of conscience, as opposed to the Levitical, or legal, purity required by the Scribes and Pharisees. At least the proper place of such a blessing does not seem to be between mercy (verse 7) and peacemaking (verse 9), nor after the apparently more far-reaching virtue of hunger and thirst after justice. But frequently in the Old and New Testaments (Gen., xx, 5; Job, xxxiii, 3; Pss., xxiii (Hebr., xxiv), 4; lxxii (Hebr., lxxiii), 1; I Tim,i.5; II Tim, ii, 22) the "pure heart" is the simple and sincere good intention, the "single eye" of Matt., vi, 22, and thus opposed to the unavowed by-ends of the Pharisees (Matt., vi, 1-6, 16-18; vii, 15; xxiii, 5-7, 14) This "single eye" or "pure heart" is most of all required in the works of mercy (verse 7) and zeal (verse 9) in behalf of one's neighbor. And it stands to reason that the blessing, promised to this continuous looking for God's glory, should consist of the supernatural "seeing" of God Himself, the last aim and end of the heavely kingdom in its completion.
Seventh Beatitude
The "peacemakers" (verse 9) are those who not only live in peace with others but moreover do their best to preserve peace and friendship among mankind and between God and man, and to restore it when it has been disturbed. It is on account of this godly work, "an imitating of God's love of man" as St. Gregory of Nyssa styles it, that they shall be called the sons of god, "children of your Father who is in heaven" (Matt., v, 45).
Eighth Beatitude
When after all this the pious disciples of Christ are repaid with ingratitude and even "persecution" (verse 10) it will be but a new blessing, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
So, by an inclusion, not uncommon in biblical poetry, the last blessing goes back to the first and the second. The pious, whose sentiments and desires whose works and sufferings are held up before us, shall be blessed and happy by their share in the Messianic kingdom, here and hereafter. And viewed in the intermediate verses seem to express, in partial images of the one endless beatitude, the same possession of the Messianic salvation. The eight conditions required constitute the fundamental law of the kingdom, the very pith and marrow of Christian perfection. For its depth and breadth of thought, and its practical bearing on Christian life, the passage may be put on a level with the Decalogue in the Old, and the Lord's Prayer in the New Testament, and it surpassed both in its poetical beauty of structure.
Besides the commentaries on St. Matthew and St. Luke, and the monographs on the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes are treated in eight homilies of ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA, P.G., XLIV, 1193-1302, and in one other of ST. CHROMATIUS, P.L., XX, 323-328. Different partristical sermons on single beatitudes are noticed in P.L.., CXXI (Index IV) 23 sqq.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II
Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Transfiguration
The Transfiguration of Christ is the culminating point of His public life, as His Baptism is its starting point, and His Ascension its end. Moreover, this glorious event has been related in detail by St. Matthew (17:1-6), St. Mark (9:1-8), and St. Luke (9:28-36), while St. Peter (II Peter 1:16-18) and St. John (1:14), two of the privileged witnesses, make allusion to it.
About a week after His sojourn in Cæsarea Philippi, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them to a high mountain apart, where He was transfigured before their ravished eyes. St. Matthew and St. Mark express this phenomenon by the word metemorphothe, which the Vulgate renders transfiguratus est. The Synoptics explain the true meaning of the word by adding "his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow,"according to the Vulgate, or "as light," according to the Greek text.
This dazzling brightness which emanated from His whole Body was produced by an interior shining of His Divinity. False Judaism had rejected the Messias, and now true Judaism, represented by Moses and Elias, the Law and the Prophets, recognized and adored Him, while for the second time God the Father proclaimed Him His only-begotten and well-loved Son. By this glorious manifestation the Divine Master, who had just foretold His Passion to the Apostles (Matthew 16:21), and who spoke with Moses and Elias of the trials which awaited Him at Jerusalem, strengthened the faith of his three friends and prepared them for the terrible struggle of which they were to be witnesses in Gethsemani, by giving them a foretaste of the glory and heavenly delights to which we attain by suffering.
LOCATION OF THE TRANSFIGURATION
Already in Apostolic times the mount of the Transfiguration had become the "holy mount" (II Peter 1:18). It seems to have been known by the faithful of the country, and tradition identified it with Mount Thabor. Origen said (A.D. 231-54) "Thabor is the mountain of Galilee on which Christ was transfigured" (Comm. in Ps. lxxxviii, 13). In the next century St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech., II, 16) and St. Jerome (Ep. xlvi, ad Marcel.; Ep. viii, ad Paulin.; Ep. cviii, ad Eust.) likewise declare it categorically. Later St. Proculus, Patriarch of Constantinople (d. 447; Orat. viii, in Transfig.), Agathangelus (Hist. of Armenia, II, xvii), and Arnobius the Younger (d. 460; Comm. in Ps. lxxxviii, 13) say the same thing. The testimonies increase from century to century without a single dissentient note, and in 553 the Fifth Council of Constantinople erected a see at Mount Thabor (Notitif. Antioch. . . . patriarch.).
Some modern writers claim that the Transfiguration could not have taken place on Mount Thabor, which, according to Josephus, was then surmounted by a city. This is incorrect; the Jewish historian speaks neither of a city nor a village; he simply fortified, as he repeats three times, "the mount called Itabyrion" ("Bell. Jud.", II, xx, 6; IV, i, 8; Vita , 37). The town of Atabyrion of Polybius, the Thabor or Celeseth Thabor, the "flank of Thabor" of the Bible, is situated at the foot of Mount Thabor. In any case the presence of houses on a wooded height would not have made it impossible to find a place apart.
It is again objected that Our Lord was transfigured on Mount Hermon, since He was at that time in its vicinity. But the Synoptics are all explicit concerning the lapse of time, six days, or about eight days including those of departure and arrival, between the discourse in Cæsarea and the Transfiguration, which would infer a somewhat lengthy journey. Moreover the summits of Hermon are covered with snow as late as June, and even the lesser peaks of 4000 or 5000 feet are likewise snow-covered in February and March, the period of the Transfiguration. Finally, the ancients judged of the height of mountains by their appearance, and Thabor especially was considered a "high mountain", if not by David and Jeremias, at least by Origen and St. Jerome and the pilgrims who made the ascent.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Agrapha
A name first used, in 1776, by J. G. Körner, for the Sayings of Jesus that have come down to us outside the canonical Gospels. After Alfred Resch had chosen the expression, as the title for his learned work on these Sayings (1889), its technical meaning was generally accepted. We shall consider, first, the limits of the Agrapha; secondly, the criteria of their genuineness; thirdly, the list of those that are probably authentic.
LIMITS
The Agrapha must satisfy three conditions:

  they must be Sayings, not discourses;
  they must be Sayings of Jesus;
  they must not be contained in the canonical Gospels.
(a) Being mere Sayings, and not discourses, the Agrapha do not embrace the lengthy sections ascribed to Jesus in the "Didascalia" and the "Pistis Sophia." These works contain also some brief quotations of alleged words of Jesus, though they may have to be excluded from the Sayings for other reasons. Such seems to be the Saying in "Didasc. Syr." II, 8 (ed. Lagarde, p. 14); "A man is unapproved, if he be untempted."
(b) Being Sayings of Jesus, the Agrapha do not embrace: (1) The Sayings contained in religious romances, such as we find in the apocryphal Gospels, the apocryphal Acts, or the Letter of Christ to Abgar (Eus. Hist. Eccl., I, 13). (2) Scripture passages ascribed to Jesus by a mere oversight. Thus "Didasc. Apost. Syr." (ed. Lagarde, p. 11, line 12) assigns to the Lord the words of Prov., xv, 1 (Sept.), "Wrath destroyeth even wise men". (3) The expressions attributed to Jesus by the mistake of transcribers. The Epistle of Barnabas, iv, 9, reads: "As the son of God says, Let us resist all iniquity, and hold it in hatred." But this is merely a rendering of a mistake of the Latin scribe who wrote "sicut dicit filius Dei", instead of "sicut decet filios Dei", the true rendering of the Greek òs prépei uìoîs Theoû. (4) The Sayings attributed to Jesus by mere conjecture. Resch has put forth the conjecture that the words of Clem. Alex. Strom. I, 8, 41, "These are they who ply their looms and weave nothing, saith the Scripture", refer to a Saying of Jesus, though there is no solid foundation for this belief.
(c) Coming down to us through channels outside the canonical Gospels, the Agrapha do not comprise: (1) Mere parallel forms, or amplifications, or, again, combinations of Sayings contained in the canonical Gospels. Thus we find a combination of Matt., vi, 19; x, 9; Luke, xii, 33, in Ephr. Syr. Test. (opp. Græce, ed. Assemani, II, 232): "For I heard the Good Teacher in the divine gospels saying to his disciples, Get you nothing on earth." (2) Homiletical paragraphs of Jesus, thoughts given by ancient writers. Thus Hippolytus (Demonstr. adv. Judæos, VII) paraphrases Ps. lxviii (lxix), 26: "Whence he saith, Let their temple, Father, be desolate."
CRITERIA OF GENUINENESS
The genuineness of the Agrapha may be inferred partly from external and partly from internal evidence.
(a) External Evidence. - First determine the independent source or sources by which any Saying in question has been preserved, and then see whether the earliest authority for the Saying is of such date and character than it might reasonably have had access to extra-canonical tradition. For Papias and Justin Martyr such access may be admitted, but hardly for a writer of the fourth century. These are extreme cases; the main difficulty is concerned with the intermediate writers.
(b) Internal Evidence. - The next question is, whether the Saying under consideration is consistent with the thought and spirit of Jesus as manifested in the canonical gospels. If a negative conclusion be reached in this investigation, the proof must be completed by finding a fair explanation of the rise of the Saying.
LIST OF AUTHENTIC AGRAPHA
The sources from which the authentic Agrapha may be gathered are: (a) the New Testament and the New Testament manuscripts; (b) the Apocryphal tradition; (c) the patristic citations; and (d) the socalled "Oxyrhynchus Logia" of Jesus. Agrapha contained in Jewish or Mohammedan sources may be curious, but they are hardly authentic. Since the criticism of the Agrapha is in most cases difficult, and often unsatisfactory, frequent disagreement in the critical results must be expected as a matter of course. The following Agrapha are probably genuine sayings of Jesus.
(a) In the New Testament and the New Testament manuscripts: In Codices D and Phi , and in some versions of Matt., xx, 28, "But ye seek from the small to increase, and from the greater to be less." In Codex D of Luke, vi, 4: "On the same day, seeing one working on the Sabbath, he said to him: Man, if thou knowest what thou doest, blessed art thou; but if thou knowest not, thou art accursed and a transgressor of the Law." In Acts, xx, 35, "Remember the word of the Lord Jesus, how he said: It is a more blessed thing to give, rather than to receive."
(b) In apocryphal tradition: In the Gospel according to the Hebrews (Jerome, Ezech., xviii, 7): "In the Gospel which the Nazarenes are accustomed to read, that according to the Hebrews, there is put among the greatest crimes he who shall have grieved the spirit of his brother." In the same Gospel (Jerome, Eph., v, 3 sq.): "In the Hebrew Gospel too we read of the Lord saying to the disciples: And never, said he, rejoice, except when you have looked upon your brother in love." In Apostolic Church Order, 26: "For he said to us before, when he was teaching: That which is weak shall be saved through that which is strong." In "Acta Philippi", 34: "For the Lord said to me: Except ye make the lower into the upper and the left into the right, ye shall not enter into my kingdom."
(c) In patristic citations: Justin Martyr, Dial. 47: "Wherefore also our Lord Jesus Christ said, In whatsoever things I apprehend you, in those I shall judge you." Clement of Alexandria, Strom. I, 24, 158: "For ask, he says for the great things, and the small shall be added to you." Clement of Alexandria, Strom. I, 28, 177: "Rightly therefore the Scripture also in its desire to make us such dialecticians, exhorts us: Be approved moneychangers, disapproving some things, but holding fast that which is good." Clement of Alexandria, Strom. V, 10, 64: "For not grudgingly, he saith, did the Lord declare in a certain gospel: My mystery is for me and for the sons of my house." Origen, Homil. in Jer., XX, 3: "But the Saviour himself saith: He who is near me is near the fire; he who is far from me, is far from the kingdom."
(d) In the Oxyrhynchus Logia: The first Logion is part of Luke, vi, 42; of the fourth, only the word "poverty" is left; the eighth, too, is badly mutilated. The text of the other Logia is in a more satisfactory condition. Second Logion: "Jesus saith, Except you fast to the world, you shall in no wise find the kingdom of God." Third Logion: "Jesus saith, I stood in the midst of the world, and in the flesh was I seen of them, and I found all men drunken, and none found I athirst among them, and my soul grieved over the sons of men, because they are blind in their heart, and see not." Fifth Logion: "Jesus saith, Wherever there are two, they are not without God; and wherever there is one alone, I say I am with him. Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me; cleave the wood, and there am I." Sixth Logion: "Jesus saith, A prophet is not acceptable in his own country, neither doth a physician work cures upon them that know him." Seventh Logion: "Jesus saith, A city built upon the top of a hill and stablished can neither fall nor be hid." Eighth Logion: "Jesus saith, Thou hearest with one ear . . ." Resch's contention that seventy-five Agrapha are probably genuine Sayings of Jesus harmonizes with the assumption that all spring from the same source, but does not commend itself to the judgment of other scholars.
ROPES in HAST., Dict. of the Bible (New York, 1905); Sprüche Jesu, Texte und Untersuch., XIV, 2 (Leipzig, 1896); RESCH, Agrapha, Texte und Untersuch., VI (Leipzig, 1889); GRENFELL and HUNT, LOGIA IESOU, (Egypt Expl. Fund, London, 1897); LOCK AND SANDAY, Sayings of Jesus (Oxford, 1897); NESTLER, N. T. supplementum (Leipzig, 1896). Complete bibliographies will be found in most of the foregoing works.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I
Nihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Knowledge of Jesus Christ
"Knowledge of Jesus Christ," as used in this article, does not mean a summary of what we know about Jesus Christ, but a survey of the intellectual endowment of Christ.
Jesus Christ possessing two natures, and therefore two intellects, the human and the Divine, the question as to the knowledge found in His Divine intellect is identical with the question concerning God's knowledge. The Arians, it is true, held that the Word Himself was ignorant of many things, for instance, of the day of judgment; in this they were consistent with their denial that the Word was consubstantial with the Omniscient God. The Agnoetae, too, attributed ignorance not merely to Christ's human soul, but to the Eternal Word. Suicer, s.v. Agnoetai, I, p. 65, says: "Hi docebant divinam Christi naturam . . .quaedam ignorasse, ut horam extremi judicii". But then, the Agnoetae were a sect of the Monophysites, and imagined a confusion of natures in Christ, after the Eutychian pattern, so as to attribute ignorance to that Divine nature into which His human nature (as they held) was absorbed. An honest profession of the Divinity of Christ necessitates the admission of omniscience in His Divine intellect.
I. KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE IN CHRIST'S HUMAN INTELLECT
The Man-God possessed, not merely a Divine, but also a human nature, and therefore a human intellect, and with the knowledge possessed by this intellect we are here mainly concerned. The integrity of His human nature implies intellectual cognition by acts of its human intellect. Jesus Christ might be wise by the wisdom of God; yet the humanity of Christ knows by its own mental act. If we except Hugh of St. Victor, all theologians teach that the soul of Christ is elevated to participation in the Divine wisdom by an infusion of Divine light. For the soul of Christ enjoyed from the very beginning the beatific vision; it was endowed with infused knowledge; and it acquired in the course of time experimental knowledge.
(1) The Beatific Vision
Petavius (De Incarnatione, I, xii, c. 4) maintains that there is no controversy among theologians, or even among Christians, as to the fact that the soul of Jesus Christ was endowed with the beatific vision (see HEAVEN) from the beginning of its existence. He knew God immediately in His essence, or, in other words, beheld Him face to face as the blessed in heaven. The great theologians freely grant that this doctrine is not stated in so many words in the books of Sacred Scripture, nor even in the writing of the early Fathers; but recent masters in theology do not hesitate to consider the contrary opinion as rash, though it was upheld by the pretended Catholic school of Günther. The basis for the privilege of the beatific vision enjoyed by the human soul of Christ is its Hypostatic Union with the Word. This union implies a plenitude of grace and of gifts in both intellect and will. Such a fullness does not exist without the beatific vision. Again, by virtue of the Hypostatic Union the human nature of Christ is assumed into a unity of Divine person; it does not appear how such a soul could at the same time remain, like ordinary human beings, destitute of the vision of God to which they hope to attain only after their stay on earth is over. Once more, by virtue of the Hypostatic Union, Jesus, even as man, was the natural son of God, not a merely adoptive child; now, it would not be right to debar a deserving son from seeing the face of his father, an incongruity that would have taken place in the case of Christ, if His soul had been bereft of the beatific vision. And all these reasons show that the human soul of Christ must have seen God face to face from the very first moment of its creation.
Though Scripture does not state in explicit terms that Jesus was favoured with the beatific vision, still it contains passages that imply this privilege: Jesus speaks as an eyewitness of things Divine (John, iii, 11, sqq.; I, 18; I, 31 sq.); any knowledge of God inferior to immediate vision is imperfect and unworthy of Christ (I Cor., xiii, 9-12); Jesus repeatedly asserts that He knows the Father and is known by Him, that He knows what the Father knows. There is a difficulty in reconciling Christ's sufferings and surpassing great sorrow with the beatitude implied in His beatific vision. But if the Word could be united with the human nature of Christ without allowing Its glory to overflow into His sacred body, the happiness of the beatific vision too might be in the human soul of our Lord without overflowing into and absorbing His lower faculties, so that He might feel the pangs of sorrow and suffering. The same faculty may be simultaneously affected by sorrow and joy, resulting from the perception of different objects (cf. St. Thom., III, Q. xiii, a. 5, ad 3; St. Bonav., in III, dist. xvi, a. 2, q. 2); the martyrs have often testified to the ecstatic happiness with which God filled their souls, at the very time that their bodies were suffering the extremity of torment.
(2) Christ's Infused Knowledge
The existence of an infused science in the human soul of Jesus Christ may perhaps be less certain, from a theological point of view, than His continual and original fruition of the vision of God; still, it is almost universally admitted that God infused into Christ's human intellect a knowledge similar in kind to that of the angels. This is knowledge which is not acquired gradually by experience, but is poured into the soul in one flood. This doctrine rests on theological grounds: the Man-God must have possessed all perfections except such as would be incompatible with His beatific vision, as faith or hope; or with His sinlessness, as penance; or again, with His office of Redeemer, which would be incompatible with the consummation of His glory. Now, infused knowledge is not incompatible with Christ's beatific vision, not with His sinlessness, not again with His office of Redeemer. Besides, the soul of Christ is the first and most perfect of all created spirits, and cannot be deprived of a privilege granted to the angels. Moreover, a created intellect is simply perfect only when, besides the vision of things in God, it has a vision of things in themselves; God only sees all things comprehensively in Himself. The God-Man, besides seeing them in God, would also perceive and know them by His human intellect. Finally, Sacred Scripture favours the existence of such infused knowledge in the human intellect of Christ: St. Paul speaks of all the treasures of God's wisdom and science hidden in Christ (Col., ii, 3); Isaias speaks of the spirit of wisdom and counsel, of science and understanding, resting on Jesus (Is., xi, 2); St. John intimates that God has not given His Spirit by measure to His Divine envoy (John, iii, 34); St. Matthew represents Christ as our sovereign teacher (Matt., xxiii, 10). Beside the Divine and the angelic knowledge, most theologians admit in the human intellect of Jesus Christ a science infused per accidens, i.e., an extraordinary comprehension of things which might be learned in the ordinary way, similar to that granted to Adam and Eve (cf. St. Thom., III., Q. i, a. 2; QQ. viii-xii; Q. xv, a. 2).
(3) Christ's Acquired Knowedge
Jesus Christ had, no doubt, also an experimental knowledge acquired by the natural use of His faculties, through His senses and imagination, just as happens in the case of common human knowledge. To say that his human faculties were wholly inactive would resemble a profession of either Monothelitism or of Docetism. This knowledge naturally grew in Jesus in the process of time, according to the words of Luke, ii, 52: "And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men". Understood in this way, the Evangelist speaks not merely of a successively greater manifestation of Christ's Divine and infused knowledge, nor merely of an increase in His knowledge as far as outward effects were concerned, but of a real advance in His acquired knowledge. Not that this kind of knowledge implies an enlarged object of His science; but it signified that He gradually came to know, after a merely human way, some of the things which he had known from the beginning by His Divine and infused knowledge.
II. EXTENT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST
It has already been stated that the knowledge in Christ's Divine nature is co-extensive with God's Omniscience. As to the experimental knowledge acquired by Christ, it must have been at least equal to the knowledge of the most gifted of men; it appears to us wholly unworthy of the dignity of Christ that His powers of observation and natural insight should have been less than those of other naturally perfect men. But the main difficulty arises from the question as to the extent of Christ's knowledge flowing from His beatific vision, and of His infused amount of knowledge.
(1) The Council of Basle (Sess. XXII) condemned the proposition of a certain Augustinus de Roma: "Anima Christi videt Deum tam clare. Et intense quam clare et intense Deus videt seipsum" (The soul of Christ sees God as clearly and intimately as God perceives Himself). It is quite clear that, however perfect the human soul of Christ is, it always remains finite and limited; hence its knowledge cannot be unlimited and infinite.
(2) Though the knowledge in the human soul of Christ was not infinite, it was most perfect and embraced the widest range, extending to the Divine ideas already realized, or still to be realized. Nescience of any of these matters would amount to positive ignorance in Christ, as the ignorance of law in a judge. For Christ is not merely our infallible teacher, but also the universal mediator, the supreme judge, the sovereign king of all creation.
(3) Two important texts are urged against this perfection of Christ's knowledge: Luke, ii, 52 demands an advancement in knowledge in the case of Christ; this text has already been considered in the last paragraph. The other text is Mark, xiii, 32: "Of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father." After all that has been written on this question in recent years, we see no need to add anything to the traditional explanations: the Son has no knowledge of the judgment day which He may communicate; or, the Son has no knowledge of this event, which spring from His human nature as such, or again, the Son has no knowledge of the day and the hour, that has not been communicated to Him by the Father. (See Mangenot in Vigouroux, "Dict. de la Bible", II, Paris, 1899, 2268 sqq.)
Since the time of the Nestorian controversies, Catholic tradition has been practically unanimous as to the doctrine concerning the knowledge of Christ (cf. Leporius, "Libellus Emendationis", n. 40; Eulogius Alex., "in Phot.", cod. 230, n. 10; S. Gregorius Magnus, lib. X, ep. xxxv, xxxix; Sophron., "Ep. Syn. ad Sergium"; Damascenus, "De Haer.," n. 85; Nat. Alex., "Hist. Eccl. in saec. sext.", n. 85). As to the Fathers preceding the Nestorian controversy, Leontius Byzantinus simply surrenders their authority to the opponents of our doctrine concerning the knowledge of Christ; Petavius represents it as partly undecided; but the early Fathers may be excused from error, because they wrote mostly against the Arian heresy, so that they endeavoured to establish Christ's Divinity by removing all ignorance from His Divine nature, while they did not care to enter upon an ex professo investigation of the knowledge possessed by His human nature. At that time there was no call for any such study. After the patristic period, Fulgentius (Resp. ad quaest. tert. Ferrandi) and Hugh of St. Victor exaggerated the human knowledge of Christ, so that the early Scholastics asked the question, why God's Omniscience was incommunicable (Lomb., "Liber Sent.", III, d. 14). But even at this period, at least a modal difference was admitted to exist between the Omniscience of God and the human knowledge of Christ (cf. Bonav. in III., dist. 13, a. 2). Soon, however, theologians began to limit the human knowledge of Christ to the range of the scientia visionis or of all that actually has been, is, or will be, while God's Omniscience embraces also the range of the possibilities.
PETER LOMBARD, Liber Sent., III, dist. 13-14, and ST. THOMAS, ST. BONAVENTURE, SCOTUS, DIONYSIUS THE CARTHUSIAN on this passage; Summa, III, QQ. viii-xii, and sv, a. 2, and VALENT., SUAREZ, SALMERON, on these chapters; MELCHIOR CANUS, De Locis, XII, xiii; PETAVIUS, I, i sqq.; THOMASSIN, VII; LEGRAND, De Incarn., dissert. ix, c. ii; MALDONATUS, A LAPIDE, KNABENBAUER, etc., on Luke, ii, 52, and Mark, xiii, 32; FRANZELIN, De Verb. Incarn., p. 426. A number of works have been quoted during the course of the article.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
The Passion of Christ in the Four Gospels
We have in the Gospels four separate accounts of the Passion of Our Lord, each of which supplements the others, so that only from a careful examination and comparison of all can we arrive at a full and clear knowledge of the whole story. The first three Gospels resemble each other very closely in their general plan, so closely indeed that some sort of literary connection among them may be assumed; but the fourth Gospel, although the writer was evidently familiar at least with the general tenor of the story told by the other three, gives us an independent narrative.
If we begin by marking in any one of the Synoptic Gospels those verses which occur in substance in both of the other two, and then read these verses continuously, we shall find that we have in them a brief but a complete narrative of the whole passion story. There are of course very few details, but all the essentials of the story are there. In St. Mark's Gospel the marked verses will be as follows: xiv, 1, 10-14, 16-18, 21-23, 26, 30, 32, 35-6, 41, 43, 45, 47-9, 53-4, 65 to xv, 2, 9, 11-15, 21-2, 26-7, 31-33, 37-9, 41, 43, 46-7. Verbal alterations would be required to make the verses run consecutively. Sometimes the division will not quite coincide with the verse. It is possible that this nucleus, out of which our present accounts seem to have grown, represents more or less exactly some original and more ancient narrative, whether written or merely oral matters little, compiled in the earliest days at Jerusalem. This original narrative, so far as we can judge from what is common to all the three Synoptics, included the betrayal, the preparation of the Paschal Supper, the Last Supper with a brief account of the institution of the Eucharist, the Agony in the Garden, the arrest and taking of Our Lord before Caiphas, with His examination there and condemnation for blasphemy. Then follow Peter's denials, and the taking of Our Lord before Pilate. Next comes Pilate's question: "Art thou the king of the Jews?" and Our Lord's answer, "Thou sayest it", with Pilate's endeavour to set Him free on account of the feast, frustrated by the demand of the people for Barabbas. After this Pilate weakly yields to their insistence and, having scourged Jesus, hands Him over to be crucified. The story of the Crucifixion itself is a short one. It is confined to the casting of lots for the garments, the accusation over the head, the mocking of the chief priests, the supernatural darkness, and the rending of the Temple veil. After the death we have the confession of the centurion, the begging of the body of Jesus from Pilate, and the burial of it, wrapped in a clean linen cloth, in Joseph's new tomb hewn out in the rock close by.
In order to distinguish what is peculiar to each Evangelist we must notice a remarkable series of additional passages which are found both in St. Matthew and St. Mark. There are no similar coincidences between St. Matthew and St. Luke, or between St. Mark and St. Luke. These passages taken as they occur in St. Mark, are as follows: Mark, xiv, 15, 19-20, 24-28, 31, 33-4, 37-40, 42, 44, 46, 50-2, 55-8, 60-4, xv, 3-8, 10, 16-20, 23-4, 29-30, 34-6, 40, 42. They have the character rather of expansions than of additions. Still some of them are of considerable importance, for instance, the mocking of Our Lord by the soldiers in the Prætorium, and the cry from the Cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Possibly this series also formed part of an original narrative omitted by St. Luke, who had a wealth of special information on the Passion. Another explanation would be that St. Mark expanded the original narrative, and that his work was then used by St. Matthew. The passages found in St. Mark alone are quite unimportant. The story of the young man who fled naked has very generally been felt to be a personal reminiscence. Mark alone speaks of the Temple as "made with hands", and he is also the only one to note that the false witnesses were not in agreement one with another. He mentions also that Simon the Cyrenian was "father of Alexander and of Rufus", no doubt because these names were well known to those for whom he was writing. Lastly, he is the only one who records the fact that Pilate asked for proof of the death of Christ. In St. Matthew's Gospel the peculiarities are more numerous and of a more distinctive character. Naturally in his Gospel, written for a Jewish circle of readers, there is insistence on the position of Jesus as the Christ. There are several fresh episodes possessing distinctive and marked characteristics. They include the washing of Pilate's hands, the dream of Pilate's wife, and the resurrection of the saints after the death of Christ, with the earthquake and the rending of the tombs. The special features by which St. Luke's passion narrative is distinguished are very numerous and important. Just as St. Matthew emphasizes the Messianic character, so St. Luke lays stress on the universal love manifested by our Lord, and sets forth the Passion as the great act by which the redemption of mankind was accomplished. He is the only one who records the statement of Pilate that he found no cause in Jesus; and also the examination before Herod. He alone tells us of the angel who came to strengthen Jesus in his agony in the garden, and, if the reading is right, of the drops of blood which mingled with the sweat which trickled down upon the ground. To St. Luke again we owe our knowledge of no less than three of the seven words from the Cross: the prayer for His murderers; the episode of the penitent thief; and the last utterance of all, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit". Finally it is St. Luke alone who tells us of the effect produced upon the spectators, who so short a time before had been so full of hatred, and how they returned home "striking their breasts".
The traditional character of the Fourth Gospel as having been written at a later date than the other three, and after they had become part of the religious possession of Christians generally, is entirely borne out by a study of the passion. Although almost all the details of the story are new, and the whole is drawn up on a plan owing nothing to the common basis of the Synoptists, yet a knowledge of what they had written is presupposed throughout, and is almost necessary before this later presentment of the Gospel can be fully understood. Most important events, fully related in the earlier Gospels, are altogether omitted in the Fourth, in a way which would be very perplexing had we not thus the key. For instance, there is no mention of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, the agony in the garden, or the trial and condemnation before Caiphas. On the other hand, we have a great number of facts not contained in the Synoptists. For instance, the eagerness of Pilate to release our Lord and his final yielding only to a definite threat from the Jewish leaders; the presence of our Lady at the foot of the Cross, and Jesus' last charge to her and to St. John. Most important of all perhaps, is the piercing of the side by the soldier's spear and the flowing forth of blood and water. It is St. John alone, again, who tells us of the order to break the legs of all, and that Jesus Christ's legs were not broken, because he was already dead.
There seems at first sight a discrepancy between the narrative of the Fourth Gospel and that of the Synoptists, namely, as to the exact day of the crucifixion, which involves the question whether the Last Supper was or was not, in the strict sense, the Paschal meal. If we had the Synoptists only we should almost certainly decide that it was, for they speak of preparing the Pasch, and give no hint that the meal which they describe was anything else. But St. John seems to labour to show that the Paschal meal itself was not to be eaten till the next day. He points out that the Jews would not enter the court of Pilate, because they feared pollution which might prevent them from eating the Pasch. He is so clear that we can hardly mistake his meaning, and certain passages in the Synoptists seem really to point in the same direction. Joseph, for instance, was able to buy the linen and the spices for the burial, which would not have been possible on the actual feast-day. Moreover, one passage, which at first sight seems strongest in the other direction, has quite another meaning when the reading is corrected. "With desire I have desired", said Jesus to His Apostles, "to eat this pasch with you, before I suffer. For I say to you, that from this time, I will not eat it, till it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God" (Luke, xxii, 15). When the hour for it had fully come He would have been already dead, the type would have passed away, and the Kingdom of God would have already come.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI
Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Devotion to the Passion of Christ
The sufferings of Our Lord, which culminated in His death upon the cross, seem to have been conceived of as one inseparable whole from a very early period. Even in the Acts of the Apostles (i, 3) St. Luke speaks of those to whom Christ "shewed himself alive after his passion" (meta to mathein autou). In the Vulgate this has been rendered post passionem suam, and not only the Reims Testament but the Anglican Authorized and Revised Versions, as well as the medieval English translation attributed to Wyclif, have retained the word "passion" in English. Passio also meets us in the same sense in other early writings (e.g. Tertullian, "Adv. Marcion.", IV, 40) and the word was clearly in common use in the middle of the third century, as in Cyprian, Novatian, and Commodian. The last named writes:
"Hoc Deus hortatur, hoc lex, hoc passio Christi
Ut resurrecturos nos credamus in novo sæclo."
St. Paul declared, and we require no further evidence to convince us that he spoke truly, that Christ crucified was "unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness" (I Cor., i, 23). The shock to Pagan feeling, caused by the ignominy of Christ's Passion and the seeming incompatibility of the Divine nature with a felon's death, seems not to have been without its effect upon the thought of Christians themselves. Hence, no doubt, arose that prolific growth of heretical Gnostic or Docetic sects, which denied the reality of the man Jesus Christ or of His sufferings. Hence also came the tendency in the early Christian centuries to depict the countenance of the Saviour as youthful, fair, and radiant, the very antithesis of the vir dolorum familiar to a later age (cf. Weis Libersdorf, "Christus-und Apostel-bilder", 31 sq.) and to dwell by preference not upon His sufferings but upon His works of mercifulness, as in the Good Shepherd motive, or upon His works of power, as in the raising of Lazarus or in the resurrection figured by the history of Jonas.
But while the existence of such a tendency to draw a veil over the physical side of the Passion may readily be admitted, it would be easy to exaggerate the effect produced upon Christian feeling in the early centuries by Pagan ways of thought. Harnack goes too far when he declares that the Death and Passion of Christ were regarded by the majority of the Greeks as too sacred a mystery to be made the subject of contemplation or speculation, and when he declares that the feeling of the early Greek Church is accurately represented in the following passage of Goethe: "We draw a veil over the sufferings of Christ, simply because we revere them so deeply. We hold if to be reprehensible presumption to play, and trifle with, and embellish those profound mysteries in which the Divine depths of suffering lie hidden, never to rest until even the noblest seems mean and tasteless" (Harnack, "History Of Dogma", tr., III, 306; cf. J. Reil, "Die frühchristlichen Darstellungen der Kreuzigung Christi", 5). On the other hand, while Harnack speaks with caution and restraint, other more popular writers give themselves to reckless generalizations such as may be illustrated by the following passage from Archdeacon Farrar: "The aspect", he says, "in which the early Christians viewed the cross was that of triumph and exultation, never that of moaning and misery. It was the emblem of victory and of rapture, not of blood or of anguish." (See "The Month", May, 1895, 89.) Of course it is true that down to the fifth century the specimens of Christian art that have been preserved to us in the catacombs and elsewhere, exhibit no traces of any sort of representation of the crucifixion. Even the simple cross is rarely found before the time of Constantine (see CROSS), and when the figure of the Divine Victim comes to be indicated, it at first appears most commonly under some symbolical form, e.g. that of a lamb, and there is no attempt as a rule to represent the crucifixion realistically. Again, the Christian literature which has survived, whether Greek or Latin, does not dwell upon the details of the Passion or very frequently fall back upon the motive of our Saviour's sufferings. The tragedy known as "Christus Patiens", which is printed with the works of St. Gregory Nazianzus and was formerly attributed to him, is almost certainly a work of much later date, probably not earlier than the eleventh century (see Krumbacher, "Byz. Lit.", 746).
In spite of all this it would be rash to infer that the Passion was not a favourite subject of contemplation for Christian ascetics. To begin with, the Apostolical writings preserved in the New Testament are far from leaving the sufferings of Christ in the background as a motive of Christian endeavour; take, for instance, the words of St. Peter (I Pet., ii, 19, 21, 23): "For this is thankworthy, if for conscience towards God, a man endure sorrows, suffering wrongfully"; "For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps"; "Who, when he was reviled, did not revile", etc.; or again: "Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought" (ibid., iv, 1). So St. Paul (Gal., ii, 19): "with Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me"; and (ibid., v, 24): "they that are Christ's, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences" (cf. Col., i, 24); and perhaps most strikingly of all (Gal., vi, 14): "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world." Seeing the great influence that the New Testament exercised from a very early period upon the leaders of Christian thought, it is impossible to believe that such passages did not leave their mark upon the devotional practice of the West, though it is easy to discover plausible reasons why this spirit should not have displayed itself more conspicuously in literature. It certainly manifested itself in the devotion of the martyrs who died in imitation of their Master, and in the spirit of martyrdom that characterized the early Church.
Further, we do actually find in such an Apostolic Father as St. Ignatius of Antioch, who, though a Syrian by birth, wrote in Greek and was in touch with Greek culture, a very continuous and practical remembrance of the Passion. After expressing in his letter to the Romans (cc. iv, ix) his desire to be martyred, and by enduring many forms of suffering to prove himself the true disciple of Jesus Christ, the saint continues: "Him I seek who dies on our behalf; Him I desire who rose again for our sake. The pangs of a new birth are upon me. Suffer me to receive the pure light. When I am come thither then shall I be a man. Permit me to be an imitator of the Passion of my God. If any man hath Him within himself, let him understand what I desire, and let him have fellow-feeling with me, for he knoweth the things which straiten me." And again he says in his letter to the Smyrnæans (c. iv): "near to the sword, near to God (i.e. Jesus Christ), in company with wild beasts, in company with God. Only let it be in the name of Jesus Christ. So that we may suffer together with Him" (eis to sympathein auto).
Moreover, taking the Syrian Church in general -- and rich as it was in the traditions of Jerusalem it was far from being an uninfluential part of Christendom -- we do find a pronounced and even emotional form of devotion to the Passion established at an early period. Already in the second century a fragment preserved to us of St. Melito of Sardis speaks as Father Faber might have spoken in modern times. Apostrophising the people of Israel, he says: "Thou slewest thy Lord and He was lifted up upon a tree and a tablet was fixed up to denote who He was that was put to death -- And who was this? -- Listen while ye tremble: -- He on whose account the earth quaked; He that suspended the earth was hanged up; He that fixed the heavens was fixed with nails; He that supported the earth was supported upon a tree; the Lord was exposed to ignominy with a naked body; God put to death; the King of Israel slain by an Israelitish right hand. Ah! the fresh wickedness of the fresh murder! The Lord was exposed with a naked body, He was not deemed worthy even of covering, but in order that He might not be seen, the lights were turned away, and the day became dark because they were slaying God, who was naked upon the tree" (Cureton, "Spicilegium Syriacum", 55).
No doubt the Syrian and Jewish temperament was an emotional temperament, and the tone of their literature may often remind us of the Celtic. But in any case it is certain that a most realistic presentation of Our Lord's sufferings found favour with the Fathers of the Syrian Church apparently from the beginning. It would be easy to make long quotations of this kind from the works of St. Ephraem, St. Isaac of Antioch, and St. James of Sarugh. Zingerle in the "Theologische Quartalschrift" (1870 and 1871) has collected many of the most striking passages from the last two writers. In all this literature we find a rather turgid Oriental imagination embroidering almost every detail of the history of the Passion. Christ's elevation upon the cross is likened by Isaac of Antioch to the action of the stork, which builds its nest upon the treetops to be safe from the insidious approach of the snake; while the crown of thorns suggests to him a wall with which the safe asylum of that nest is surrounded, protecting all the children of God who are gathered in the nest from the talons of the hawk or other winged foes (Zingerle, ibid., 1870, 108). Moreover St. Ephraem who wrote in the last quarter of the fourth century, is earlier in date and even more copious and realistic in his minute study of the physical details of the Passion. It is difficult to convey in a short quotation any true impression of the effect produced by the long-sustained note of lamentation, in which the orator and poet follows up his theme. In the Hymns on the Passion (Ephraem, "Syri, Hymni et Sermones," ed. Lamy, I) the writer moves like a devout pilgrim from scene to scene, and from object to object, finding everywhere new motives for tenderness and compassion, while the seven "Sermons for Holy Week" might both for their spirit and treatment have been penned by any medieval mystic. "Glory be to Him, how much he suffered!" is an exclamation which bursts from the preacher's lips from time to time. To illustrate the general tone, the following passage from a description of the scourging must suffice:
"After many vehement outcries against Pilate, the all-mighty One was scourged like the meanest criminal. Surely there must have been commotion and horror at the sight. Let the heavens and earth stand awestruck to behold Him who swayeth the rod of fire, Himself smitten with scourges, to behold Him who spread over the earth the veil of the skies and who set fast the foundations of the mountains, who poised the earth over the waters and sent down the blazing lightning-flash, now beaten by infamous wretches over a stone pillar that His own word had created. They, indeed, stretched out His limbs and outraged Him with mockeries. A man whom He had formed wielded the scourge. He who sustains all creatures with His might submitted His back to their stripes; He who is the Father's right arm yielded His own arms to be extended. The pillar of ignominy was embraced by Him who bears up and sustains the heaven and the earth in all their splendour" (Lamy, I, 511 sq.). The same strain is continued over several pages, and amongst other quaint fancies St. Ephraem remarks: "The very column must have quivered as if it were alive, the cold stone must have felt that the Master was bound to it who had given it its being. The column shuddered knowing that the Lord of all creatures was being scourged". And he adds, as a marvel, witnessed even in his own day, that the "column had contracted with fear beneath the Body of Christ".
In the devotional atmosphere represented by such contemplations as these, it is easy to comprehend the scenes of touching emotion depicted by the pilgrim lady of Galicia who visited Jerusalem (if Dr. Meester's protest may be safely neglected) towards the end of the fourth century. At Gethsemane she describes how "that passage of the Gospel is read where the Lord was apprehended, and when this passage has been read there is such a moaning and groaning of all the people, with weeping that the groans can be hear almost at the city. While during the three hours' ceremony on Good Friday from midday onwards we are told: "At the several lections and prayers there is such emotion displayed and lamentation of all the people as is wonderful to hear. For there is no one, great or small, who does not weep on that day during those three hours, in a way that cannot be imagined, that the Lord should have suffered such things for us" (Peregrinatio Sylviæ in "Itinera Hierosolymitana", ed. Geyer, 87, 89). It is difficult not to suppose that this example of the manner of honouring Our Saviour's Passion, which was traditional in the very scenes of those sufferings, did not produce a notable impression upon Western Europe. The lady from Galicia, whether we call her Sylvia, Ætheria, or Egeria, was but one of the vast crowd of pilgrims who streamed to Jerusalem from all parts of the world. The tone of St. Jerome (see for instance the letters of Paula and Eustochium to Marcella in A.D. 386; P.L., XXII, 491) is similar, and St. Jerome's words penetrated wherever the Latin language was spoken. An early Christian prayer, reproduced by Wessely (Les plus anciens mon. de Chris., 206), shows the same spirit.
We can hardly doubt that soon after the relics of the True Cross had been carried by devout worshippers into all Christian lands (we know the fact not only from the statement of St. Cyril of Jerusalem himself but also from inscriptions found in North Africa only a little later in date) that some ceremonial analogous to our modern "adoration" of the Cross upon Good Friday was introduced, in imitation of the similar veneration paid to the relic of the True Cross at Jerusalem. It was at this time too that the figure of the Crucified began to be depicted in Christian art, though for many centuries any attempt at a realistic presentment of the sufferings of Christ was almost unknown. Even in Gregory of Tours (De Gloria Mart.) a picture of Christ upon the cross seems to be treated as something of a novelty. Still such hymns as the "Pange lingua gloriosi prælium certaminis", and the "Vexilla regis", both by Venantius Fortunatus (c. 570), clearly mark a growing tendency to dwell upon the Passion as a separate object of contemplation. The more or less dramatic recital of the Passion by three deacons representing the "Chronista", "Christus", and "Synagoga", in the Office of Holy Week probably originated at the same period, and not many centuries later we begin to find the narratives of the Passion in the Four Evangelists copied separately into books of devotion. This, for example, is the case in the ninth-century English collection known as "the Book of Cerne". An eighth century collection of devotions (MS. Harley 2965) contains pages connected with the incidents of the Passion. In the tenth century the Cursus of the Holy Cross was added to the monastic Office (see Bishop, "Origin of the Prymer", p. xxvii, n.).
Still more striking in its revelation of the developments of devotional imagination is the existence of such a vernacular poem as Cynewulf's "Dream of the Rood", in which the tree of the cross is conceived of as telling its own story. A portion of this Anglo-Saxon poem still stands engraved in runic letters upon the celebrated Ruthwell Cross in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. The italicized lines in the following represent portions of the poem which can still be read upon the stone:
I had power all
his foes to fell,
but yet I stood fast.
Then the young hero prepared himself,
That was Almighty God,
Strong and firm of mood,
he mounted the lofty cross
courageously in the sight of many,
when he willed to redeem mankind.
I trembled when the hero embraced me,
yet dared I not bow down to earth,
fall to the bosom of the ground,
but I was compelled to stand fast,
a cross was I reared,
I raised the powerful King
The lord of the heavens,
I dared not fall down.
They pierced me with dark nails,
on me are the wounds visible.
Still it was not until the time of St. Bernard and St. Francis of Assisi that the full developments of Christian devotion to the Passion were reached. It seems highly probable that this was an indirect result of the preaching of the Crusades, and the consequent awakening of the minds of the faithful to a deeper realization of all the sacred memories represented by Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre. When Jerusalem was recaptured by the Saracens in 1187, worthy Abbot Samson of Bury St. Edmunds was so deeply moved that he put on haircloth and renounced flesh meat from that day forth -- and this was not a solitary case, as the enthusiasm evoked by the Crusades conclusively shows.
Under any circumstances it is noteworthy that the first recorded instance of stigmata (if we leave out of account the doubtful case of St. Paul) was that of St. Francis of Assisi. Since his time there have been over 320 similar manifestations which have reasonable claims to be considered genuine (Poulain, "Graces of Interior Prayer", tr., 175). Whether we regard these as being wholly supernatural or partly natural in their origin, the comparative frequency of the phenomenon seems to point to a new attitude of Catholic mysticism in regard to the Passion of Christ, which has only established itself since the beginning of the thirteenth century. The testimony of art points to a similar conclusion. It was only at about this same period that realistic and sometimes extravagantly contorted crucifixes met with any general favour. The people, of course, lagged far behind the mystics and the religious orders, but they followed in their wake; and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we have innumerable illustrations of the adoption by the laity of new practices of piety to honour Our Lord's Passion. One of the most fruitful and practical was that type of spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Places of Jerusalem, which eventually crystalized into what is now known to us as the "Way of the Cross". The "Seven Falls" and the "Seven Bloodsheddings" of Christ may be regarded as variants of this form of devotion. How truly genuine was the piety evoked in an actual pilgrimage to the Holy Land is made very clear, among other documents, by the narrative of the journeys of the Dominican Felix Fabri at the close of the fifteenth century, and the immense labour taken to obtain exact measurements shows how deeply men's hearts were stirred by even a counterfeit pilgrimage. Equally to this period belong both the popularity of the Little Offices of the Cross and "De Passione", which are found in so many of the Horæ, manuscript and printed, and also the introduction of new Masses in honour of the Passion, such for example as those which are now almost universally celebrated upon the Fridays of Lent. Lastly, an inspection of the prayer-books compiled towards the close of the Middle Ages for the use of the laity, such as the "Horæ Beatæ Mariæ Virginis", the "Hortulus Animæ", the "Paradisus Animæ" etc., shows the existence of an immense number of prayers either connected with incidents in the Passion or addressed to Jesus Christ upon the Cross. The best known of these perhaps were the fifteen prayers attributed to St. Bridget, and described most commonly in English as "the Fifteen O's", from the exclamation with which each began.
In modern times a vast literature, and also a hymnology, has grown up relating directly to the Passion of Christ. Many of the innumerable works produced in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries have now been completely forgotten, though some books like the medieval "Life of Christ" by the Carthusian Ludolphus of Saxony, the "Sufferings of Christ" by Father Thomas of Jesus, the Carmelite Guevara's "Mount of Calvary", or "The Passion of Our Lord" by Father de La Palma, S.J., are still read. Though such writers as Justus Lipsius and Father Gretser, S.J., at the end of the sixteenth century, and Dom Calmet, O.S.B., in the eighteenth, did much to illustrate the history of the Passion from historical sources, the general tendency of all devotional literature was to ignore such means of information as were provided by archæology and science, and to turn rather to the revelations of the mystics to supplement the Gospel records.
Amongst these, the Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden, of Maria Agreda, of Marina de Escobar and, in comparatively recent times, of Anne Catherine Emmerich are the most famous. Within the last fifty years, however, there has been a reaction against this procedure, a reaction due probably to the fact that so many of these revelations plainly contradict each other, for example on the question whether the right or left shoulder of Our Lord was wounded by the weight of the cross, or whether Our Saviour was nailed to the cross standing or lying. In the best modern lives of Our Saviour, such as those of Didon, Fouard, and Le Camus, every use is made of subsidiary sources of information, not neglecting even the Talmud. The work of Père Ollivier, "The Passion" (tr., 1905), follows the same course, but in many widely-read devotional works upon this subject, for example: Faber, "The Foot of the Cross"; Gallwey, "The Watches of the Passion"; Coleridge, "Passiontide" etc.; Groenings, "Hist. of the Passion" (Eng. tr); Belser, D'Gesch. d. Leidens d. Hernn; Grimm, "Leidengeschichte Christi", the writers seem to have judged that historical or critical research was inconsistent with the ascetical purpose of their works.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI
Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Genealogy of Christ
It is granted on all sides that the Biblical genealogy of Christ implies a number of exegetical difficulties; but rationalists have no solid reason for refusing to admit any of the attempted solutions, nor can we agree with those recent writers who have given up all hope of harmonizing the genealogies of Christ found in the First and Third Gospels. The true state of the question will become plain by studying the Biblical genealogies of Christ first separately, then in juxtaposition, and finally in their relation to certain exceptions to their harmony.
ST. MATTHEW'S GENEALOGY OF CHRIST
The genealogy of Christ according to the First Evangelist descends from Abraham through three series of fourteen members each; the first fourteen belong to the patriarchal order, the second to the royal and the third to that of private citizens. Matthew 1:17, shows that this arrangement was intended; for the writer expressly states: "So all the generations, from Abraham to David, are fourteen generations. And from David to the transmigration of Babylon, are fourteen generations: and from the transmigration of Babylon to Christ are fourteen generations."

First Series
1. Abraham
2. Isaac
3. Jacob
4. Judas
5. Phares
6. Esron
7. Aram
8. Aminadab
9. Naasson
10. Salmon
11. Booz
12. Obed
13. Jesse
14. David Second Series
1. Solomon
2. Roboam
3. Abia
4. Asa
5. Josaphat
6. Joram
7. Ozias
8. Joatham
9. Achaz
10. Ezechias
11. Manasses
12. Amon
13. Josias
14. Jechonias Third Series
1. Jechonias
2. Salathiel
3. Zorobabel
4. Abiud
5. Eliacim
6. Azor
7. Sadoe
8. Achim
9. Eliud
10. Eleazar
11. Mathan
12. Jacob
13. Joseph
14. Jesus
The list of the First Evangelist omits certain members in Christ's genealogy:

  The writer gives only three names for the time of the Egyptian exile (Esron, Aram, and Aminadab), though the period lasted 215 or 430 years; this agrees with Genesis 15:16, where God promises to lead Israel back in the fourth generation. But according to Genesis 15:13, the stranger shall afflict Israel for four hundred years.
  The three names Booz, Obed, and Jesse cover a period of 366 years. Omitting a number of other less probable explanations, the difficulty is solved most easily by the admission of a lacuna between Obed and Jesse.
  According to I Paralipomenon 3:11-12, Ochozias, Joas, and Amasias intervene between Joram and Azarias (the Ozias of St. Matthew); these three names cannot have been unknown to the Evangelist, nor can it be supposed that they were omitted by transcribers, for this conjecture would destroy the Evangelist's computation of fourteen kings.
  According to I Paralipomenon 3:15, Joakim intervenes between Josias and Jechonias. We may waive the question whether St. Matthew speaks of only one Jechonias or of two persons bearing that name; nor need we state here all the doubts and difficulties connected with either answer.
  St. Matthew places only nine links between Zorobabel and St. Joseph for a period covering some 530 years, so that each generation must have lasted more than 50 years. The genealogy as given in St. Luke enumerates eighteen generations for the same period, a number which harmonizes better with the ordinary course of events.
As to the omission of members in genealogical lists see GENEALOGY.
ST. LUKE'S GENEALOGY OF CHRIST
The genealogy in Luke 3:23-28 ascends from Joseph to Adam or rather to God; this is the first striking difference between the genealogies as presented in the First and Third Gospel. Another difference is found in their collocation: St. Matthew places his list at the beginning of his Gospel; St. Luke, at the beginning of the public life of Christ. The artificial character of St. Luke's genealogy may be seen in the following table:

First Series
1. Jesus
2. Joseph
3. Heli
4. Mathat
5. Levi
6. Melchi
7. Janne
8. Joseph
9. Mathathias
10. Amos
11. Nahum
12. Hesli
13. Nagge
14. Mahath
15. Mathathias
16. Semei
17. Joseph
18. Juda
19. Joanna
20. Reza
21. Zorobabel Second Series
22. Salathiel
23. Neri
24. Melchi
25. Addi
26. Cosan
27. Helmadan
28. Her
29. Jesus
30. Eliezer
31. Jorim
32. Mathat
33. Levi
34. Simeon
35. Judas
36. Joseph
37. Jona
38. Eliakim
39. Melea
40. Menna
41. Mathatha
42. Nathan Third Series
43. David
44. Jesse
45. Obed
46. Booz
47. Salmon
48. Naasson
49. Aminadab
50. Aram
51. Esron
52. Phares
53. Judas
54. Jacob
55. Isaac
56. Abraham Fourth Series
57. Thare
58. Nachor
59. Sarug
60. Ragau
61. Phaleg
62. Heber
63. Sale
64. Cainan
65. Arphaxad
66. Sem
67. Noe
68. Lamech
69. Mathusale
70. Henoch
71. Jared
72. Malaleel
73. Cainan
74. Henos
75. Seth
76. Adam
77. God
The artificial structure of this list may be inferred from the following peculiarities: it contains eleven septenaries of names; three septenaries bring us from Jesus to the Captivity; three, from the captivity to the time of David; two, from David to Abraham; three again from the time of Abraham to the creation of man. St. Luke does not explicitly draw attention to the artificial construction of his list, but this silence does not prove that its recurring number of names was not intended, at least in the Evangelist's source. In St. Luke's genealogy, too, the names Jesse, Obed, Booz, cover a period of 366 years; Aminadab, Aram, Esron fill a gap of 430 (or 215) years, so that here several names must have been omitted. In the fourth series, which gives the names of the antediluvian and postdiluvian patriarchs, Cainan has been inserted according to the Septuagint reading; the Hebrew text does not contain this name.
HARMONY BETWEEN ST. MATTHEW'S AND ST. LUKE'S GENEALOGY OF CHRIST
The fourth series of St. Luke's list covers the period between Abraham and the creation of man; St. Matthew does not touch upon this time, so that there can be no question of any harmony. The third series of St. Luke agrees name for name with the first of St. Matthew; only the order of names is inverted. In this section the genealogies are rather identical than merely harmonious. In the first and second series, St. Luke gives David's descendants through his son Nathan, while St. Matthew enumerates in his second and third series David's descendants through Solomon. It is true that the First Gospel gives only twenty-eight names for this period, against the forty-two names of the Third Gospel; but it cannot be expected that two different lines of descendants should exhibit the same number of links for the period of a thousand years. Abstracting from the inspired character of the sources, one is disposed to regard the number given by the Third Evangelist as more in harmony with the length of time than the number of the First Gospel; but we have pointed out that St. Matthew consciously omitted a number of names in his genealogical list, in order to reduce them to the required multiple of seven.
EXCEPTIONS TO THE PRECEDING EXPLANATION
Three main difficulties are advanced against the foregoing harmony of the genealogies: First, how can they converge in St. Joseph, if they give different lineages from David downward? Secondly, how can we account for their convergence in Salathiel and Zorobabel? Thirdly, what do we know about the genealogy of the Blessed Virgin?
First Difficulty
The convergence of the two distinct genealogical lines in the person of St. Joseph, has been explained in two ways:
(a) St. Matthew's genealogy is that of St. Joseph; St. Luke's, that of the Blessed Virgin. This contention implies that St. Luke's genealogy only seemingly includes the name of Joseph. It is based on the received Greek text, on (os enomizeto ouios Ioseph) tou Heli, "being the son (as it was supposed, of Joseph, but really) of Heli". This parenthesis really eliminates the name of Joseph from St. Luke's genealogy, and makes Christ, by means of the Blessed Virgin, directly a son of Heli. This view is supported by a tradition which names the father of the Blessed Virgin "Joachim", a variant form of Eliacim or its abbreviation Eli, a variant of Heli, which latter is the form found in the Third Evangelist's genealogy. But these two consideration, viz. the received text and the traditional name of the father of Mary, which favour the view that St. Luke gives the genealogy of the Blessed Virgin, are offset by two similar considerations, which make St. Luke's list terminate with the name of Joseph. First, the Greek text preferred by the textual critics reads, on ouios, hos enomizeto, Ioseph tou Heli, "being the son, as it was supposed, of Joseph, son of Heli", so that the above parenthesis is rendered less probable. Secondly, according to Patrizi, the view that St. Luke gives the genealogy of Mary began to be advocated only towards the end of the fifteenth century by Annius of Viterbo, and acquired adherents in the sixteenth. St. Hilary mentions the opinion as adopted by many, but he himself rejects it (Mai, "Nov. Bibl, Patr.", t. I, 477). It may be safely said that patristic tradition does not regard St. Luke's list as representing the genealogy of the Blessed Virgin.
(b) Both St. Matthew and St. Luke give the genealogy of St. Joseph, the one through the lineage of Solomon, the other through that of Nathan. But how can the lines converge in St. Joseph? St. Augustine suggested that Joseph, the son of Jacob and the descendant of David through Solomon, might have been adopted by Heli, thus becoming the adoptive descendant of David through Nathan. But Augustine was the first to abandon this theory after learning the explanation offered by Julius Africanus. According to the latter, Estha married Mathan, a descendant of David through Solomon, and became the mother of Jacob; after Mathan's death she took for her second husband Mathat, a descendent of David through Nathan, and by him became the mother of Heli. Jacob and Heli were, therefore, uterine brothers. Heli married, but died without offspring; his widow, therefore, became the levirate wife of Jacob, and gave birth to Joseph, who was the carnal son of Jacob, but the legal son of Heli, thus combining in his person two lineages of David's descendants.
Second Difficulty
The second difficulty urged against the harmony between the two genealogies is based on the occurrence of the two names Zorobabel and Salathiel in both lists; here again the two distinct lineages of David's descendants appear to converge. And again, two answers are possible:
(a) It is more commonly admitted that the two names in St. Matthew's list are identical with the two in St. Luke's series; for they must have lived about the same time, and the names are so rare, that it would be strange to find them occurring at the same time, in the same order, in two different genealogical series. But two levirate marriages will explain the difficulty. Melchi, David's descendant through Nathan, may have begotten Neri by a widow of the father of Jechonias; this made Neri and Jechonias uterine brothers. Jechonias may then have contracted a levirate marriage with the widow of the childless Neri, and begotten Salathiel, who was therefore the leviratical son of Neri. Salathiel's son Zorobabel begat Abiud; but he also may have been obliged to contract a levirate marriage with the widow of a childless legal relative belonging to David's descendants through Nathan, thus begetting Reza, who legally continued Nathan's lineage.
(b) A more simple solution of the difficulty is obtained, if we do not admit that the Salathiel and Zorobabel occurring in St. Matthew's genealogy are identical with those in St. Luke's. The above proofs for their identity are not cogent. If Salathiel and Zorobabel distinguished themselves at all among the descendants of Solomon, it is not astonishing that about the same time two members of Nathan's descendants should be called after them. The reader will observe that we suggest only possible answers to the difficulty; as long as such possibilities can be pointed out, our opponents have no right to deny that the genealogies which are found in the First and Third Gospel can be harmonized.
Third Difficulty
How can Jesus Christ be called "son of David", if the Blessed Virgin is not a daughter of David?
(a) If by virtue of Joseph's marriage with Mary, Jesus could be called the son of Joseph, he can for the same reason be called "son of David" (St. Augustine, On the Harmony of the Gospels, II, i, 2).
(b) Tradition tells us that Mary too was a descendant of David. According to Numbers 36:6-12, an only daughter had to marry within her own family so as to secure the right of inheritance. After St. Justin (Adv. Tryph. 100) and St. Ignatius (Letter to the Ephesians 18), the Fathers generally agree in maintaining Mary's Davidic descent, whether they knew this from an oral tradition or inferred it from Scripture, e.g. Romans 1:3; II Timothy 2:8. St. John Damascene (De fid. Orth., IV, 14) states that Mary's great-grandfather, Panther, was a brother of Mathat; her grandfather, Barpanther, was Heli's cousin; and her father, Joachim, was a cousin of Joseph, Heli's levirate son. Here Mathat has been substituted for Melchi, since the text used by St. John Damascene, Julius Africanus, St. Irenaeus, St. Ambrose, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus omitted the two generations separating Heli from Melchi. At any rate, tradition presents the Blessed Virgin as descending from David through Nathan.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VI
Nihil Obstat, September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor
Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

Jesus Christ our Savior
God the Son

Ascension of our Lord

  Prayers to Our Lord, Jesus Christ
  The Sacred Name
  The Mystery of the Incarnation
  The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
  Christology – The Theology of Christ
  Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
  Parables
  The Eight Beatitudes
  The Transfiguration of Christ
  Agrapha
  Knowledge of Jesus
  Passion of Christ
  Devotion to the Passion
  Genealogy of Christ

Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh, Who redeemed man by His Death on the Cross, and Whose Divine mission is continued by the ministry of the Church. Without considering the numberless theological questions connected with Jesus Christ, we shall in the present article merely furnish a brief sketch of His life as it appears in the light of historical documents, premising, however, an explanation of the two words which compose the Sacred Name.
THE SACRED NAME. — The word Jesus is the Latin form of the Greek 'Ιησους, which in turn is the transliteration of the Hebrew Jeshua, or Joshua, or again Jehoshua, meaning "Jehovah is salvation". Though the name in one form or another occurs frequently in the Old Testament, it was not borne by a person of prominence between the time of Josue, the son of Nun and Josue, the high priest in the days of Zorobabel. It was also the name of the author of Ecclesiaticus of one of Christ's ancestors mentioned in the genealogy, found in the Third Gospel (Luke, iii, 29), and one of the St. Paul's companions (Col., iv, 11). During the Hellenizing period, Jason, a purely Greek analogon of Jesus, appears to have been adopted by many ( I Mach., viii, 17; xii, 16; xiv, 22; II Mach., i, 7; ii, 24; iv, 7 26; v, 5 10; Acts, xvii, 5 9; Rom., xvi, 21). The Greek name is connected with verb ιασθαι, to heal; it is therefore, not surprising that some of the Greek Fathers allied the word Jesus with same root (Euseb., "Dem. Ev." IV; cf. Acts, ix, 34; x., 38). Though about the time of Christ the name Jesus appears to have been fairly common (Jos., "Ant." XV, ix, 2; XVII, xiii, 1; XX, ix, 1; "Bel. Jud." III, ix, 7; IV, iii, 9; VI, v, 5; "Vit." 22) it was imposed on our Lord by God's express order (Luke, i, 31; Matt., i, 21), to foreshow that the Child was destined to "save his people from their sins." Philo ("De Mutt. Nom." 21) is therefore, right when he explains 'Ιησους as meaning σωτηρια κυριου; Eusebius (Dem., Ev., IV, ad fin.; P. G., XXII, 333) gives the meaning θεου σωτηριον; while St. Cyril of Jerusalem interprets the word as equivalent to σωτηρ (Cat., x, 13; P.G., XXXIII, 677). This last writer, however, appears to agree with Clement of Alexandria in considering the word 'Ιησους as of Greek origin (Paedag., III, xii; P. G., VIII, 677); St. Chrysostom emphasizes again the Hebrew derivation of the word and its meaning σωτηρ (Hom., ii, 2), thus agreeing with the exegesis of the angel speaking to St. Joseph (Matt., i, 21).
The word Christ, Χριστος, the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah, means "anointed" According to the Old Law, priests (Ex., xxix, 29; Lev., iv, 3), kings (I Kings, x, 1; xxiv, 7), and prophets (Is., lxi, l) were supposed to be anointed for their respective offices; now, the Christ, or the Messias, combined this threefold dignity in His Person. It is not surprising, therefore, that for centuries the Jews had referred to their expected Deliverer as "the Anointed" perhaps this designation alludes to Is., lxi, 1, and Dan., ix, 24-26, or even to Ps., ii, 2; xix, 7; xliv, 8. Thus the term Christ or Messias was a title rather than a proper name: "Non proprium nomen est, sed nuncupatio potestatis et regni" says Lactantius (Inst. Div., IV, vii). The Evangelists recognize the same truth; excepting Matt., i, 1, 18; Mark, i, 1; John, i, 17; xvii, 3; ix, 22; mark, ix, 40; Luke, ii, 11; xxii, 2, the word Christ is always preceded by the article. Only after the Resurrection did the title gradually pass into a proper name, and the expression Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus became only one designation. But at this stage the Greeks and Romans understood little or nothing about the import of the word anointed; to them it did not convey any sacred conception. Hence they substituted Chrestus, or "excellent" for Christus, or "anointed", and Chrestians instead of "Christians". There may be an allusion to this practice in I Pet., ii, 3; οτι χρηστος ο κυριος, which is rendered "that the Lord is sweet". Justin Martyr (Apol., I, 4), Clement of Alexandria (Strom., II, iv, 18), Tertullian (Adv. Gentes, II), and Lactantius (Int. Div., IV, vii, 5), as well as St. Jerome (In Gal., V, 22), are acquainted with the pagan substitution of Chrestes for Christus, and are careful to explain the new term in a favourable sense. The pagans made little or no effort to learn anything accurate about Christ and the Christians; Suetonius, for instance, ascribes the expulsion of the Jews from Rome under Claudius to the constant instigation of sedition by Chrestus, whom he conceives as acting in Rome the part of a leader of insurgents.
The use of the definite article before the word Christ and its gradual development into a proper name show the Christians identified the bearer with the promised Messias of the Jews. He combined in His person the offices of prophet (John, vi, 14; Matt., xiii, 57; Luke, xiii, 33; xxiv, 19) of king (Luke, xxiii. 2; Acts, xvii, 7; I Cor., xv, 24; Apoc., xv, 3),and of priest (Heb., ii, 17; etc.); he fulfilled all the Messianic predictions in a fuller and a higher sense than had been given them by the teachers of the Synagogue.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII, pp. 374-375
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
II. SOURCES. – The historical documents referring to Christ's life and work may be divided into three classes: pagan sources, Jewish sources, and Christian sources. In this article, we shall study the three in succession.
A. Pagan Sources. — The non-Christian sources for the historical truth of the Gospels are both few and polluted by hatred and prejudice. A number of reasons have been advanced for this condition of the pagan sources:The field of the Gospel history was remote Galilee; the Jews were noted as a superstitious race, if we believe Horace (Credat Judoeus Apella, I, Sat., v, 100); the God of the Jews was unknown and unintelligible to most pagans of that period; the Jews in whose midst Christianity had taken its origin were dispersed among, and hated by, all the pagan nations; the Christian religion itself was often confounded with one of the many sects that had sprung up in Judaism, and which could not excite the interest of the pagan spectator. It is at least certain that neither Jews nor Gentiles suspected in the least the paramount importance of the religion, the rise of which they witnessed among them. These considerations will account for the rarity and the asperity with which Christian events are mentioned by pagan authors. But though Gentile writers do not give us any information about Christ and the early stages of Christianity which we do not possess in the Gospels, and though their statements are made with unconcealed hatred and contempt, still they unwittingly prove the historical value of the facts related by the Evangelists.
We need not delay over a writing entitled the "Acts of Pilate", which must have existed in the second century (Justin, "Apol"., I, 35), and must have been used in the pagan schools to warn boys against the belief of Christians (Euseb., "Hist. Eccl.", I, ix; IX, v); nor need we inquire into the question whether there existed any authentic census tables of Quirinius. We possess at least the testimony of Tacitus (A.D. 54-119) for the statements that the Founder of the Christian religion, a deadly superstition in the eyes of the Romans, had been put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate under the reign of Tiberius; that His religion, though suppressed for a time, broke forth again not only throughout Judea where it had originated, but even in Rome, the conflux of all the streams of wickness and shamelessness; furthermore, that Nero had diverted from himself the suspicion of the burning of Rome by charging the Christians with the crime; that these latter were not guilty of arson, though they deserved their fate on account of their universal misanthropy. Tacitus, moreover, describes some of the horrible torments to which Nero subjected the Christians (Ann., XV, xliv). The Roman writer confounds the Christians with the Jews, considering them as a especially abject Jewish sect; how little he investigated the historical truth of even the Jewish records may be inferred from the credulity with which he accepted the absurd legends and calumnies about the origin of he Hebrew people (Hist., V, iii, iv).
Another Roman writer who shows his acquaintance with Christ and the Christians is Suetonius (A.D. 75-160). It has been noted that Suetonius considered Christ (Chrestus) as a Roman insurgent who stirred up seditions under the reign of Claudius (A.D. 41-54): "Judaeos, impulsore Chresto, assidue tumultuantes (Claudius) Roma expulit" (Clau., xxv). In his life of Nero he regards that emperor as a public benefactor on account of his severe treatment of the Christians: "Multa sub eo et animadversa severe, et coercita, nec minus instituta . . . afflicti Christiani, genus hominum superstitious novae et maleficae" (Nero, xvi). The Roman writer does not understand that the Jewish troubles arose from the Jewish antagonism to the Messianic character of Jesus Christ and to the rights of the Christian Church.
Of greater importance is the letter of Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan (about A.D. 61-115), in which the Governor of Bithynia consults his imperial majesty as to how to deal with the Christians living within his jurisdiction. On the one hand, their lives were confessedly innocent; no crime could be proved against them excepting their Christian belief, which appeared to the Roman as an extravagant and perverse superstition. On the other hand, the Christians could not be shaken in their allegiance to Christ, Whom they celebrated as their God in their early morning meetings (Ep., X, 97, 98). Christianity here appears no longer as a religion of criminals, as it does in the texts of Tacitus and Suetonius; Pliny acknowledges the high moral principles of the Christians, admires their constancy in the Faith (pervicacia et inflexibilis obstinatio), which he appears to trace back to their worship of Christ (carmenque Christo, quasi Deo, dicere).
The remaining pagan witnesses are of less importance: In the second century Lucian sneered at Christ and the Christians, as he scoffed at the pagan gods. He alludes to Christ's death on the Cross, to His miracles, to the mutual love prevailing among the Christians ("Philopseudes", nn. 13, 16; "De Morte Pereg"). There are also alleged allusions to Christ in Numenius (Origen, "Contra Cels", IV, 51), to His parables in Galerius, to the earthquake at the Crucifixion in Phlegon ( Origen, "Contra Cels.", II, 14). Before the end of the second century, the Λογος αληθης of Celsus, as quoted by Origen (Contra Cels., passim), testifies that at that time the facts related in the Gospels were generally accepted as historically true. However scanty the pagan sources of the life of Christ may be, they bear at least testimony to His existence, to His miracles, His parables, His claim to Divine worship, His death on the Cross, and to the more striking characteristics of His religion.
The reader may find it instructive to consult the following works on the views of pagan writers concerning Jewish and early Christian conditions: Meier, "Judaica, seu veterum scriptorum profanorum de rebus Judaicis fragmenta", Jena, 1832; Scmitthenner, "De rebus Judaicis quæcunque quæ prodiderunt ethnici scriptores Græcr et Latini", 1844; Goldschmidt, "De Judæorum apud Romanos conditione", 1866; Scheuffgen, "Unde Romanorum opiniones de Judæis comflatæ sint", Bedburg Programme, 1870; Gill, "Notices of the Jews and their Country by the Classic Writers of Antiquity", 1872; Geiger, "Quid de Judæorum moribus atque institutis scriptoribus Romanis persuasum fuerit", 1872; de Colonia, "La religion Chrétienne autorisée par les témoignages des anciens auteurs païens", 1750; Addison, "Essay on the Truth of the Christian Religion".
B. Jewish Sources. — Philo, who dies after A.D. 40, is mainly important for the light he throws on certain modes of thought and phraseology found again in some of the Apostles. Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, iv) indeed preserves a legend that Philo had met St. Peter in Rome during his mission to the Emperor Caius; moreover, that in his work on the contemplative life he describes the life of the Christian Church in Alexandria founded by St. Mark, rather than that of the Essenes and Therapeutae. But it is hardly probable that Philo had heard enough of Christ and His followers to give an historical foundation to the foregoing legends.
The earlist non-Christian writer who refers Christ is the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus; born A.D. 37, he was a contemporary of the Apostles, and died in Rome A.D. 94. Two passages in his "Antiquities" which confirm two facts of the inspired Christian records are not disputed. In the one he reports the murder of "John called Baptist" by Herod (Ant., XVIII, v, 2), describing also John's character and work; in the other (Ant., XX, ix, 1) he disappoves of the sentence pronounced by the high priest Ananus against "James, brother of Jesus Who was called Christ". It is antecedently probable that a writer so well informed as Josephus, must have been well acquainted too with the doctrine and the history of Jesus Christ. Seeing, also, that he records events of minor importance in the history of the Jews, it would be surprising if he were to keep silence about Jesus Christ. Consideration for the priests and Pharisees did not prevent him from mentioning the judicial murders of John the Baptist and the Apostle James; his endeavour to find the fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies in Vespasian did not induce him to pass in silence over several Jewish sects, though their tenets appear to be inconsistent with the Vespasian claims. One naturally expects, therefore, a notice about Jesus Christ in Josephus.
Ant. XVIII, iii, 3, seems to satisfy this expectation: — "About this time", it reads, "appeared Jesus, a wise man (if indeed it is right to call Him man; for He was a worker of astonishing deeds, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with joy), and He drew to Himself many Jews (and many also of the Greeks. This was the Christ). And when Pilate, at the denunciation of those that are foremost among us, had condemned Him to the cross, those who had first loved Him did not abandon Him. (For He appeared to them alive again on the third day, the holy prophets having foretold this and countless other marvels about Him.) The tribe of Christians named after Him did not cease to this day."
A testimony so important as the foregoing could not escape the work of the critics. Their conclusions may be reduced to three headings: First, there are those who consider the whole passage as spurious. To this class belong: Eichstädt, "Flaviani de Jesu Christo testimonii αυθεντια, quo jure nuper defensa sit quæst. I-VI", 1813-41; "Quæstionibus sex super Flaviano de Jesu Christo testimonio auctarium I-IV", 1841-45; Lewitz, "Quæstionum Flavianarum specimen", 1835; Reuss in "Nouvelle Revue de Théologie", 1859, 312 sqq.; Gerlach, "Das angebliche Zeugniss von Christo in den Schriften des Fl. Josephus", 1863; Höhne, "Ueber das angebliche Zeugniss des Josephus", 1871; Schürer, "Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes", I, Leipzig, 1901, 544-49; Farrar, art. "Jesus Christ" in "Encyclopædia Britannica", 9th ed. The principal reasons for this view appear to be the following; Josephus could not represent Jesus Christ as a simple moralist, and on the other hand he could not emphasize the Messianic prophecies and expectations without offending the Roman susceptibilities; again, the above cited passage from Josephus is said to be unknown to Origen and the earlier patristic writers; its very place in the Josephan text is uncertain, since Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, vi) must have found it before the notices concerning Pilate, while it now stands after them. But the spuriousness of the disputed Josephan passage does not imply the historian's ignorance of the facts connected with Jesus Christ. Josephus's report of his own juvenile precocity before the Jewish teachers (Vit., 2) reminds one of the story of Christ's stay in the Temple at the age of twelve; the description of his shipwreck on his journey to Rome (Vit., 3) recalls St. Paul's shipwreck as told in the Acts; finally his arbitrary introduction of a deceit practised by the priests of Isis on a Roman lady, after the chapter containing his supposed allusion to Jesus, shows a disposition to explain away the virgin birth of Jesus and to prepare the falsehoods embodied in the later Jewish writings.
A second class of critics do not regard the whole of Josephus's testimony concerning Christ as spurious but they maintain the interpolation of parts included above in parenthesis. To this class belong such scholars as Gieseler, "Kirchengeschichte", I, I, 81 sqq.; Hase, "Leben Jesu", n. 9; Ewald, "Geschichte des Volkes Israel", V, 181-86; Paret in Herzog, "Realencyk.", VII, 27-29; Heinichen, "Eusebii scripta historica", III, 2nd ed., 623 sqq.; Müller, "Christus bei Josephus Fl.", Innsbruck, 1895; Reinach, "Josèphe sur Jésus" in "Revue des Etudes juives", 1897, 1-18; "Revue biblique", 1898, 150-52. The reasons assigned for this opinion may be reduced to the following two: Josephus must have mentioned Jesus, but he cannot have recognized Him as the Christ; hence part of our present Josephan text must be genuine, part must be interpolated. Again, the same conclusion follows from the fact that Origen knew a Josephan text about Jesus, but was not acquainted with our present reading; for, according to the great Alexandrian doctor, Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Messias ("In Matth.", xiii, 55; "Contra Cels.", I, 47). Whatever force these two arguments have is lost by the fact that Josephus did not write for the Jews but for the Romans; consequently, when he says, "This was the Christ", he does not necessarily imply that Jesus was the Christ considered by the Romans as the founder of the Christian religion.
The third class of scholars believe that the whole passage concerning Jesus, as it is found today in Josephus, is genuine. Among the authors belonging to this class we may mention: Bretschneider, "Capita theologiæ Judæorum dogmaticæ e Flavii Josephi scriptis collecta", 1812, 59-66; Böhmert, "Ueber des Flavius Josephus Zeugniss von Christo", 1823; Schödel, "Flavius Josephus de Jesu Christo testatus" 1840; Mayaud, "Le témoignage de Josèphe", Strasburg, 1858; Langen in "Tübinger theol. Quartalschrift", 1865, i; Danko, "Historia revelationis divinæ N. T.", I, 1867, 308-14; Daubuz, "Pro testimonio Fl. Josephi de Jesu Christo", London, 1706; "Studien und Kritiken", 1856, 840; Kneller, "Fl. Josephus über Jesus Christus" in "Stimmen aus Maria-Laach", 1897, 1-19, 161-74. The main arguments for the genuineness of the Josephan passage are the following: First, all codices or manuscripts of Josephus's work contain the text in question; to maintain the spuriousness of the text, we must suppose that all the copies of Josephus were in the hands of Christians, and were changed in the same way. Second, it is true that neither Tertullian nor St. Justin makes use of Josephus's passage concerning Jesus; but this silence is probably due to the contempt with which the contemporary Jews regarded Josephus, and to the relatively little authority he had among the Roman readers. Writers of the age of Tertullian and Justin could appeal to living witnesses of the Apostolic tradition. Third, Eusebius ("Hist. Eccl"., I, xi; cf. "Dem. Ev.", III, v) Sozomen (Hist. Eccl., I, i), Niceph. (Hist. Eccl., I, 39), Isidore of Pelusium (Ep. IV, 225), St. Jerome (catal.script. eccles. xiii), Ambrose, Cassiodorus, etc., appeal to the testimony of Josephus; there must have been no doubt as to its authenticity at the time of these illustrious writers. Fourth, the complete silence of Josephus as to Jesus would have been a more eloquent testimony than we possess in his present text; this latter contains no statement incompatible with its Josephan authorship: the Roman reader needed the information that Jesus was the Christ, or the founder of the Christian religion; the wonderful works of Jesus and His Resurrection from the dead were so incessantly urged by the Christians that without these attributes the Josephan Jesus would hardly have been acknowledged as the founder of Christianity. All this does not necessarily imply that Josephus regarded Jesus as the Jewish Messias; but, even if he had been convinced of His Messiahship, it does not follow that he would have become a Christian. A number of posssible subterfuges might have supplied the Jewish historian with apparently sufficient reasons for not embracing Christianity.
The historical character of Jesus Christ is also attested by the hostile Jewish literature of the subsequent centuries. His birth is ascribed to an illicit ("Acta Pilati" in Thilo, "Codex apocryph. N.T., I, 526; cf. Justin, "Apol.", I, 35), or even an adulterous, union of His parents (Origen, "Contra Cels.," I, 28, 32). The father's name is Panthera, a common soldier (Gemara "Sanhedrin", viii; "Schabbath", xii, cf. Eisenmenger, "Entdecktes Judenthum", I, 109; Schottgen, "Horae Hebraicae", II, 696; Buxtorf, "Lex. Chald.", Basle, 1639, 1459, Huldreich, "Sepher toledhoth yeshua hannaceri", Leyden, 1705). The last work in its final edition did not appear before the thirteenth century, so that it could give the Panthera myth in its most advanced form. Rosch is of opinion ( (missing reference) )that the myth did not begin before the end of the first century. The later Jewish writings show traces of acquaintance with the murder of the Holy Innocents (Wagenseil, "Confut. Libr.Toldoth", 15; Eisenmenger op. cit., I, 116; Schottgen, op. cit., II, 667), with the flight into Egypt (cf. Josephus, "Ant." XIII, xiii), with the stay of Jesus in the Temple at the age of twelve (Schottgen, op. cit., II, 696), with the call of the disciples ("Sanhedrin", 43a; Wagenseil, op. cit., 17; Schottgen, loc. cit., 713), with His miracles (Origen, "Contra Cels", II, 48; Wagenseil, op. cit., 150; Gemara "Sanhedrin" fol. 17); "Schabbath", fol. 104b; Wagenseil, op.cit., 6, 7, 17), with His claim to be God (Origen, "Contra Cels.", I, 28; cf. Eisenmenger, op. cit., I, 152; Schottgen, loc. cit., 699) with His betrayal by Judas and His death (Origen, "Contra cels.", II, 9, 45, 68, 70; Buxtorf, op. cit., 1458; Lightfoot, "Hor. Heb.", 458, 490, 498; Eisenmenger, loc. cit., 185; Schottgen, loc. cit.,699 700; cf."Sanhedrin", vi, vii). Celsus (Origen, "Contra Cels.", II, 55) tries to throw doubt on the Resurrection, while Toldoth (cf. Wagenseil, 19) repeats the Jewish fiction that the body of Jesus had been stolen from the sepulchre.
C. Christian Sources. — Among the Christian sources of the life of Jesus we need hardly mention the so called Agrapha and Apocrypha (See AGRAPHA and APOCRYPHA). For whether the Agrapha contain Logia of Jesus, or refer to incidents in His life, they are either highly uncertain or present only variations of the Gospel story. The chief value of the Apocrypha consists in their showing the infinite superiority of the Inspired Writings by contrasting the coarse and erroneous productions of the human mind with the simple and sublime truths written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.
Among the Sacred Books of the New Testament, it is especially the four Gospels and the four great Epistles of St. Paul that are of the highest importance for the construction of the life of Jesus. The four great Pauline Epistles (Rom., Gal., I and II Cor.) can hardly be overestimated by the student of Christ's life; they have at times been called the "fifth gospel"; their authenticity has never been assailed by serious critics; their testimony is also earlier than that of the Gospels, at least most of the Gospels; it is the more valuable because it is incidental and undesigned; it is the testimony of a highly intellectual and cultured writer, who had been the greatest enemy of Jesus, who writes within twenty-five years of the events which he relates. At the same time, these four great Epistles bear witness to all the most important facts in the life of Christ: His Davidic dscent, His poverty, His Messiahship, His moral teaching, His preaching of the kingdom of God, His calling of the apostles, His miraculous power, His claims to be God, His betrayal, His institution of the Holy Eucharist, His passion, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, His repeated appearances (Rom., i, 3, 4; v, 11; vii, 2, 3, 32; ix, 5; xv, 8; Gal., ii, 17; iii, 13; iv, 4; v, 21; I Cor., vi, 9; vii, 10, xxi, xi, 25; xv, passim; II Cor., iii, 17; iv, 4; xii, 12; xiii, 4; etc.).
However important the four great Epistles may be, the gospels are still more so. Not that any one of them offers a complete biography of Jesus, but they account for the origin of Christianity by the life of its Founder. Questions like the authenticity of the Gospels, the relation between the Synoptic Gospels, and the Fourth, the Synoptic problem, must be studied in the articles referring to these respective subjects.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII, pp. 375-377
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
III. CHRONOLOGY. — What has been said proves not merely the existence of Jesus Christ, but also the historicity of the main incidents of His life. In the following paragraphs we shall endeavour to establish the absolute and relative chronology, i.e. we shall show first how certain facts connected with the history of Jesus Christ fit in with the course of universal history, and secondly how the rest of the life of Jesus must be arranged according to the inter-relation of its single elements.
A. Absolute Chronology. — The incidents whose absolute chronology may be determined with more or less probability are the year of Christ's nativity, of the beginning of His public life, and of His death. As we cannot fully examine the data entering into these several problems, the reader ought to compare what has been said on these points in the article CHRONOLOGY, BIBLICAL.
(1) The Nativity. — St. Matthew (2:1) tells us that Jesus was born "in the days of King Herod". Josephus (Ant., XVII, viii, 1) informs us that Herod died after ruling thirty four years de facto, thirty seven years de jure. Now Herod was made rightful king of Judea A.U.C. 714, while he began his actual rule after taking Jerusalem A.U.C. 717. As the Jews reckoned their years from Nisan to Nisan, and counted fractional parts as an entire year, the above data will place the death of Herod in A.U.C. 749, 750, 751. Again, Josephus tells us from that an eclipse of the moon occurred not long before Herod's death; such an eclipse occurred from 12 to 13 March, A.U.C. 750, so that Herod must have died before the Passover of that year which fell on 12 April (Josephus, "Ant." XVII, vi, 4; viii, 4). As Herod killed the children up to two years old, in order to destroy the new born King of the Jews, we are led to believe that Jesus may have been born A.U.C. 747, 748, 749. The enrollment under Cyrinus mentioned by St. Luke in connection with the nativity of Jesus Christ, and the remarkable astronomical conjunction of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in Pisces, in the spring of A.U.C. 748, will not lead us to any more definite result.
(2) Beginning of the Public Ministry. — The date of the beginning of Christ's ministry may be calculated from three different data found respectively in Luke iii, 23; Josephus, "Bel. Jud.", I, xxi, 1; or "Ant." XV, ii, 1; and Luke, iii, 1. The first of these passages reads: "And Jesus himself was beginning about the age of thirty years." The phrase "was beginning" does not qualify the following expression "about the age of thirty years," but rather indicates the commencement of the public life. As we have found that the birth of Jesus falls within the period 747-749 A.U.C., His public life must begin about 777-779 A.U.C. Second, when, shortly before the first Pasch of His public life, Jesus had cast the buyers and sellers out of the Temple, the Jews said: "Six and forty years was this temple in building" (John 2:20). Now, according to the testimony of Josephus (loc. cit.), the building of the Temple began in the fifteenth year of Herod's actual reign or in the eighteenth of his reign de jure, i.e. 732 A.U.C.; hence, adding the forty six years of actual building, the Pasch of Christ's first year of public life must have fallen in 778 A.U.C. Third, the Gospel of St. Luke (3:1) assigns the beginning of St. John the Baptist's mission to the "fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar". Augustus, the predecessor of Tiberius, died 19 August, 767 A.U.C., so that the fifteenth year of Tiberius's independent reign is 782 A.U.C.; but then Tiberius began to be associate of Augustus in A.U.C. 764, so that the fifteenth year reckoned from this date falls in A.U.C. 778. Jesus Christ's public life began a few months later, i.e. about A.U.C. 779.
(3) The Year of the Death of Christ. — According to the Evangelists, Jesus suffered under the high priest Caiphas (A.U.C. 772-90, or A.D. 18-36), during the governorship of Pontius Pilate A.U.C. 780-90). But this leaves the time rather indefinite. Tradition, the patristic testimonies for which have been collected by Patrizi (De Evangeliis), places the death of Jesus in the fifteenth (or sixteenth) year of Tiberius, in the consulship of the Gemini, forty-two years before the destruction of Jerusalem, and twelve years before the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles. We have already seen that the fifteenth year of Tiberius is either 778 or 782, according to its computation from the beginning of Tiberius's associate or sole reign; the consulship of the Gemini (Fufius and Rubellius) fell in A.U.C. 782; the forty second year before the destruction of Jerusalem is A.D. 29, or A.U.C. 782, twelve years before the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles brings us to the same year, A.D. 29 or A.U.C. 782, since the conversion of Cornelius, which marks the opening of the Gentile missions, fell probably in A.D. 40 or 41.
(4) Jesus died on Friday, the fifteenth day of Nisan. That Jesus died on Friday is clearly stated by Mark (xv, 42), Luke (xxiii, 54), and John (xix, 31). The few writers who assign another day for Christ's death are practically lost in the multitude of authorities who place it on Friday. What is more, they do not even agree among themselves: Epiphanius, e.g., places the Crucifixion on Tuesday; Lactantius, on Saturday; Westcott, on Thursday; Cassiodorus and Gregory of Tours, not on Friday. The first three Evangelists are equally clear about the date of the Crucifixion. They place the Last Supper on the fourteenth day of Nisan, as may be seen from Matt., xxvi, 17-20; Mark, xiv, 12-17; Luke, xxii, 7-14. Nor can there be any doubt about St. John's agreement with the Synoptic Evangelists on the question of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. The supper was held "before the festival day of the Pasch" (John, xiii, 1), i. e. on 14 Nisan, since the sacrificial day was computed according to the Roman method (Jovino, 123 sqq., 139 sqq.). Again, some disciples thought that Judas left the supper table because Jesus had said to him: "Buy those things which we have need of for the festival day: or that he should give something to the poor" (John, xiii, 29). If the Supper had been held on 13 Nisan this belief of the disciples can hardly be understood, since Judas might have made his purchases and distributed his alms on 14 Nisan; there would have been no need for his rushing into the city in the middle of the night. On the day of Christ's Crucifixion the Jews "went not into the hall, that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the pasch" (John, xviii, 28). The pasch which the Jews wished to eat could not have been the paschal lamb, which was eaten on 14 Nisan, for the pollution contracted by entering the hall would have ceased at sundown, so that it would not have prevented them from sharing in the paschal supper. The pasch which the Jews had in view must have been the sacrificial offerings (Chagighah), which were called also pasch and were eaten on 15 Nisan. Hence this passage places the death of Jesus Christ on the fifteenth day of Nisan. Again, Jesus is said to have suffered and died on the "parasceve of the pasch", or simply on the "parasceve" (John, xix, 14, 31); as "parasceve" meant Friday, the expression "parasceve of the pasch" denotes Friday on which the pasch happened to fall, not the before the pasch. Finally, the day following the parasceve on which Jesus died is called "a great sabbath day" (John, xix, 31), either to denote its occurrence in the paschal week or to distinguish it from the preceding pasch, or day of minor rest.
B. Relative Chronology. — No student of the life of Jesus will question the chronological order of its principal divisions: infancy, hidden life, public life, passion, glory. But the order of events in the single divisions is not always clear beyond dispute.
(1) The Infancy of Jesus. — The history of the infancy, for instance, is recorded only in the First Gospel and in the Third. Each Evangelist contents himself with five pictures: St. Matthew describes the birth of Jesus, the adoration of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, and the return to Nazareth. St. Luke gives a sketch of the birth, of the adoration of the shepherds, of the circumcision, of the purification of the Virgin, and of the return to Nazareth. The two Evangelists agree in the first and the last of these two series of incidents (moreover, all scholars place the birth, adoration of the shepherds, and the circumcision before the Magi), but how are we to arrange the intervening three events related by St. Matthew with the order of St. Luke? We indicate a few of the many ways in which the chronogical sequence of these facts has been arranged.
(a) The birth, the adoration of the shepherds, the circumcision, the adoration of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, the slaughter of the Innocents, the purification, the return to Nazareth. This order implies that either the purification was delayed beyond the fortieth day, which seems to contradict Luke, ii, 22 sqq., or that Jesus was born shortly before Herod's death. so that the Holy Family could return from Egypt within forty days after the birth of Jesus. Tradition does not seem to favour this speedy return.
(b) The birth, the adoration of the shepherds, the circumcision, the adoration of the Magi, the purification, the flight into Egypt, the slaughter of the Innocents, the return to Nazareth. According to this order the Magi either arrived a few days before the purification or they came on 6 Jan.; but in neither case can we understand why the Holy Family should have offered the sacrifice of the poor, after receiving the offeings of the Magi. Moreover, the firsr Evangelist intimates that the angel appeared to St. Joseph soon after the departure of the Magi, and it is not at all probable that Herod should have waited long before inquiring concerning the whereabouts of the new born king. The difficulties are not overcome by placing the adoration of the Magi on the day before the purification; it would be more unlikely in that case that the Holy Family should offer the sacrifice of the poor.
(c) As Luke ii, 39 appears to exclude the possibility of placing the adoration of the Magi between the presentation and return to Nazareth, there are interpreters who have located the advent of the wise men, the flight to Egypt, the slaughter of the Innocents, and the return from Egypt after the events as told in St. Luke. They agree in the opinion that the Holy Family returned to Nazareth after the purification, and then left Nazareth in order to make their home in Bethlehem. Eusebius, Epiphanius, and some other ancient writers are willing to place the adoration of the Magi about two years after Christ's birth; Paperbroch and his followers allow about a year and thirteen days between the birth and the advent of the Magi; while Patrizi agrees with those who fix the advent of the Magi at about two weeks after the purification . The text of Matt., ii, 1, 2, hardly permits an interval of more than a year between the purification and the coming of the wise men; Patrizi's opinion appears to satisfy all the data furnished by the gospels, while it does not contradict the particulars added by tradition.
(2) The Hidden Life of Jesus. — It was in the seclusion of Nazareth that Jesus spent the greatest part of His earthly life. The inspired records are very reticent about this period: Luke, ii, 40-52; Mark, vi, 3; John, vi, 42; vii, 15, are about the only passages which refer to the hidden life. Some of them give us a general view of Christ's life: "The child grew, and waxed strong, full of wisdom; and the grace of God was in him" is the brief summary of the years following the return of the Holy Family after the ceremonial purification in the Temple. "Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men", and He "was subject to them" form the inspired outline of Christ's life in Nazareth after He had attained the age of twelve. "When he was twelve years old" Jesus accompanied His parents to Jerusalem, "according to the custom of the feast"; "When they returned, the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem; and his parents knew it not." "After three days, they found him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them, and asking them questions." It was on this occasion that Jesus spoke the only words that have come down from the period of His hidden life: "How is it that you sought me? Did you not know, that I must be about my Father's business [or, "in my father's house"]?" The Jews tell us that Jesus had not passed through the training of he Rabbinic schools: "How doth this man know letters, having never learned?" The same question is asked by the people of Nazareth, who add, "Is not this the carpenter?" St. Justin is authority for the statement that Jesus specially made "ploughs and yokes" (Contra Tryph., 88). Though it is not certain that at the time of Jesus elementary schools existed in the Jewish villages, it may be inferred from the Gospels that Jesus knew how to read (Luke, iv, 16) and write (John, viii, 6). At an early age He must have learned the so-called Shema (Deut., vi, 4), and the Hallel, or Pss. cxiii-cxviii (Hebr.); He must have been familiar with the other parts of the Scriptures too, especially the Psalms and the Prophetic Books, as He constantly refers to them in His public life. It is also asserted that Palestine at the time of Jesus Christ was practically bilingual, so that Christ must have spoken Aramaic and Greek; the indications that He was acquainted with Hebrew and Latin are rather slight. The public teaching of Jesus shows that He was a close observer of the sights and sounds of nature, and of the habits of all classes of men. For these are the usual sources of His illustrations. To conclude the hidden life of Jesus extending through thirty years is far different from what one should have expected in the case of a Person Who is adored by His followers as their God and revered as their Saviour; this is an indirect proof for the credibility of the Gospel story.
(3) The Public Life of Jesus. — The chronology of the public life offers a number of problems to the interpreter; we shall touch upon only two, the duration of the public life, and the successive journeys it contains.
(a) Duration of the Public Life. — There are two extreme views as to the length of the ministry of Jesus: St. Irenaeus (Contra Haer., II, xxii, 3-6) appears to suggest a period of fifteen years; the prophetic phrases, "the year of recompenses", "the year of my redemption" (Is., xxxiv, 8; lxiii, 4), appear to have induced Clement of Alexandria, Julius Africanus, Philastrius, Hilarion, and two or three other patristic writers to allow only one year for the public life. This latter opinion has found advocates among certain recent students: von Soden, for instance, defends it in Cheyne's "Encyclopædia Biblica". But the text of the Gospels demands a more extensive duration. St. John's Gospel distinctly mentions three distinct paschs in the history of Christ's ministry (ii, 13; vi, 4; xi, 55). The first of the three occurs shortly after the baptism of Jesus, the last coincides with His Passion, so that at least two years must have intervened between the two events to give us the necessary room for the passover mentioned in vi, 4. Westcott and Hort omit the expression "the pasch" in vi, 4 to compress the ministry of Jesus within the space of one year; but all the manuscripts, the versions, and nearly all the Fathers testify for the reading Ην δε εγγυςτο πασχα ηεορτητων Ιουδαιων: "Now the pasch, the festival day of the Jews, was near at hand." Thus far then everything tends to favour the view of those writers and more recent commentators who extend the period of Christ's ministry a little over two years.
But a comparison of St. John's Gospel with the Synoptic Evangelists seems to introduce another pasch, indicated in the Fourth Gospel, into Christ's public life. John, iv, 45, relates the return of Jesus into Galilee after the first pasch of His public life in Jerusalem, and the same event is told by Mark, i, 14, and Luke iv, 14. Again the pasch mentioned in John, vi, 4 has its parallel in the "green grass" of Mark, vi, 39, and in the multiplication of loaves as told in Luke, ix, 12 sqq. But the plucking of ears mentioned in Mark, ii, 23, and Luke, vi, 1, implies another paschal season intervening between those expressly mentioned in John, ii, 13, and vi, 4. This shows that the public life of Jesus must have extended over four paschs, so that it must have lasted three years and a few months. Though the Fourth Gospel does not indicate this fourth pasch as clearly as the other three, it is not wholly silent on the question. The "festival day of the Jews" mentioned in John, v, 1, has been identified with the Feast of Pentecost, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Expiation, the Feast of the New Moon, the Feast of Purim, the Feast of Dedication, by various commentators; others openly confess that they cannot determine to which of the Jewish feasts this festival day refers. Nearly all difficulties will disappear if the festival day be regarded as the pasch, as both the text (εορτη) and John, iv, 35 seem to demand (cf. Dublin Review, XXIII, 351 sqq.).
(b) Journeys of Jesus during His Public Life. — The journeys Jesus made during His public life may be grouped under nine heads: the first six were mainly performed in Galilee and had Capharnaum for their central point; the last three bring Jesus into Judea without any pronounced central point. We cannot enter into the disputed questions connected with the single incidents of the various groups.
(i) First Journey. — December, A.U.C. 778 - Spring, 779. (Cf. John, i, ii; Matthew, iii, iv; Mark, i; Luke, iii, iv.) Jesus abandons His hidden life in Nazareth, and goes to Bethania across the Jordan, where He is baptized by John and receives the Baptist's first testimony to His Divine mission. He then withdraws into the desert of Judea, where He fasts for forty days and is tempted by the devil. After this He dwells in the neighbourhood of the Baptist's ministry, and receives the latter's second and third testimony; here too He wins His first disciples, with whom He journeys to the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee, where He performs His first miracle. Finally He transfers His residence, so far as there can be question of a residence in His public life, to Capharnaum, one of the principal thoroughfares of commerce and travel in Galilee.
(ii) Second Journey. — Passover, A.U.C. 779 - about Pentecost, 780. (Cf. John, ii-v; Mark, i-iii; Luke, iv-vii; Matt., iv-ix.) Jesus goes from Capharnaum to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover; here he expels the buyers and sellers from the Temple, and is questioned by the Jewish authorities. Many believed in Jesus, and Nicodemus came to converse with Him during the night. After the festival days He remained in Judea till about the following December, during which period He received the fourth testimony from John who was baptizing at Ennon (A.V. Aenon). When the Baptist had been imprisoned in Machaerus, Jesus returned to Galilee by way of Samaria where He met the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well near Sichar; He delayed two days in this place, and many believed in Him. Soon after His return into Galilee we find Jesus again in Cana, where He heard the prayer who pleaded for the recovery of his dying son in Capharnaum. The rejection of Jesus by the people of Nazareth, whether at this time as, St. Luke intimates, or at a later period, as St. Mark seems to demand, or again both now and about eight months later, is an exegetical problem we cannot solve here. At any rate, shortly afterwards Jesus is mostly actively engaged in Capharnaum in teaching and healing the sick, restoring among others Peter's mother-in-law and a demoniac. On this occasion He called Peter and Andrew, James and John. Then followed a missionary tour through Galilee during which Jesus cured a leper; soon he again taught in Capharnaum, and was surrounded by such a multitude that a man sick of the palsy had to be let down through the roof in order to reach the Sacred Presence. After calling Matthew to the Apostleship, He went to Jerusalem for the second pasch occurring during His public life, it was on this occasion that He healed the man who been sick for thirty-eight years near the pool at Jerusalem. The charge of violating the Sabbath and Christ's answer were the natural effects of the miracle. The same charge is repeated shortly after the pasch; Jesus had returned to Galilee, and the disciples plucked some ripe ears in the corn fields. The question became more acute in the immediate future; Jesus had returned to Capharnaum, and there healed on the Sabbath day a man who had a withered hand. The Pharisees now make common cause with the Herodians in order to "destroy him". Jesus withdraws first to the Sea of Galilee, where He teaches and performs numerous miracles; then retires to the Mountain of Beatitudes, where He prays during the night, chooses His Twelve Apostles in the morning, and preaches the Sermon on the Mount. He is brought back to Capharnaum by the prayers of the centurion who asks and obtains the of his servant.
(iii) Third Journey. — About Pentecost, A.U.C. 780- Autumn, 780. (Cf. Luke, vii, viii; Mark, iii, iv; Matt., iv, viii, ix, xii, xiii.) Jesus makes another missionary tour through Galilee; He resuscitates the son of the widow at Naim, and shortly afterwards receives the messengers sent by John from his prison in Machaerus. Then follows the scene of the merciful reception of the sinful woman who anoints the feet of the Lord while He rests at table in Magdala or perhaps in Capharnaum; for the rest of His missionary tour Jesus is followed by a band of pious women who minister to the wants of the Apostles. After returning to Capharnaum, Jesus expels the mute devil, is charged by the Pharisees with casting out devils by the prince of devils, and encounters the remonstrances of His kinsmen. Withdrawing to the sea, He preaches what may be called the "Lake Sermon", consisting of seven parables.
(iv) Fourth Journey. — Autumn, A.U.C. 780- about Passover, 781. (Cf. Luke, viii, ix; Mark, iv-vi; Matt., viii, ix, x, xiii, xiv.) After a laborious day of ministry in the city of Capharnaum and on the lake, Jesus with His Apostles crosses the waters. As a great storm overtakes them, the frightened Apostles awaken their sleeping Master, Who commands the winds and the waves. Towards morning they meet in the country of the Gerasens, on the east of the lake, two demoniacs. Jesus expels the evil spirits, but allows them to enter into a herd of swine. The beasts destroy themselves in the waters of the lake, and frightened inhabitants beg Jesus not to remain among them. After returning to Capharnaum he heals the woman who had touched the hem of His garment, resuscitates the daughter of Jairus, and gives sight to two blind men. The second Gospel places here Christ's last visit to and rejection by the people of Nazareth. Then follows the ministry of the Apostles who are sent two by two, while Jesus Himself makes another missionary tour through Galilee. It seems to have been the martyrdom of John the Baptist that occasioned the return of the Apostles and their gathering around the Master in Capharnaum. But, however depressing this event may have been, it did not damp the enthusiasm of the Apostles over their success.
(v) Fifth Journey. — Spring, A.U.C. 781. (Cf. John, vi; Luke, ix; Mark, vi; and Matt., xiv.) Jesus invites the Apostles, tired out from their missionary labours, to rest awhile. They cross the northern part of the Sea of Galilee, but, instead of finding the desired solitude, they are met by multitudes of people who had preceded them by land or by boat, and who were eager for instruction. Jesus taught them throughout the day, and towards evening did not wish to dismiss them hungry. On the other hand, there were only five loaves and two fishes at the disposal of Jesus; after His blessing, these scanty supplies satisfied the hunger of five thousand men, besides women and children, and remnants filled twelve baskets of fragments. Jesus sent the Apostles back to their boats, and escaped from the enthusiastic multitudes, who wished to make Him king, into the mountain where He prayed till far into the night. Meanwhile the Apostles were facing a contrary wind till the fourth watch in the morning, when they saw Jesus walking upon the waters. The Apostles first fear, and then recognize Jesus; Peter walks upon the water as long as his confidence lasts; the storm ceases when Jesus has entered the boat. The next day brings Jesus and His Apostles to Capharnaum, where He speaks to the assembly about the Bread of Life and promises the Holy Eucharist, with the result that some of His followers leave Him, while the faith of His true disciples is strenghened.
(vi) Sixth Journey. — About May, A.U.C. 781- Sept., 781. (Cf. Lk., ix; Mk., vii-ix; Matt., xiv- xviii; John, vii.) It may be owing to the enmity stirred up against Jesus by His Eucharistic discourse in Capharnaum that He began now a more extensive missionary tour than He had made in the preceding years of His life. Passing through the country of Genesar, He expressed His disapproval of the Pharisaic practices of legal purity. Within the boarders of Tyre and Sidon He exorcized the daughter of the Syrophenician woman. From here Jesus travelled first towards the north, then towards the east, then south-eastward through the northern part of Decapolis, probably along the foot of the Labanon, till He came to the eastern part of Galilee. While in Decapolis Jesus healed a deaf-mute, employing a ceremonial more elaborate than He had used at any of His previous miracles; in the eastern part of Galilee, probably not far from Dalmanutha and Magedan, He fed four thousand men, besides children and women, with seven loaves and a few little fishes, the remaining fragments filling seven baskets. The multitudes had listened for three days to the teaching of Jesus, previously to the miracle. In spite of the many cures performed by Jesus, during this journey, on the blind, the dumb, the lame, the maimed, and on many others, the Pharisees and Sadduces asked Him for a sign from heaven, tempting Him. He promised them the sign of Jonas the Prophet. After Jesus and the Apostles had crossed the lake, He warned them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees; then they passed through Bethsaida Julias where Jesus gave sight to a blind man. Next we find Jesus in the confines of Cæsarea Philippi, where Peter professes his faith in Christ, the Son of the living God, and in his turn receives from Jesus the promise of the power of the keys. Jesus here predicts His passion, and about a week later is transfigured before Peter, James, and John, probably on the top of Mt. Thabor. On descending from the mountain, Jesus exorcizes the mute devil whom His disciples had not been able to expel. Bending his way towards Capharnaum, Jesus predicts His Passion for the second time, and in the city pays the tribute-money for Himself and Peter. This occasions the discussion as to the greater in the kingdom of heaven, and the allied discourses. Finally, Jesus refuses His brethren's invitation to go publicly to the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.
(vii) Seventh Journey. — Sept., A.U.C. 781- December, 781. (Cf. Luke, ix-xiii; Mark, x; Matt., vi, vii, viii, x, xi, xii, xxiv; John, vii-x.) Jesus now "steadfastly set His face to go Jerusalem", and as the Samaritans refused Him hospitality, He had to take the east of the Jordan. While still in Galilee, He refused the discipleship of several half-hearted candidates, and about the same time He sent other seventy-two, two by two, before His face into every city and place whither He Himself was to come. Probably in the lower part of Peraea, the seventy-two returned with joy, rejoicing in the miraculous power that had been exercised by them. It must have been in the vicinity of Jericho that Jesus answered the lawer's question, "Who is my neighbour?" by the parable of the Good Samaritan. Next Jesus was received in the hospitable home of Mary and Martha, where He declares Mary to have chosen the better part. From Bethania went to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles, where he became involved in discussions with the Jews. The Scribes and Pharisees endeavoured to catch Him in the sentence which they asked Him to pronounce in the case of the woman taken in adultary. When Jesus had avoided this snare, He continued His discussions with the hostile Jews. Their enmity was intensified because Jesus restored sight to a blind man on the Sabbath day. Jesus appears to have His stay in Jerusalem with the beautiful discourse on the Good Shepherd. A little later He teaches His Apostles the Our Father, probably somewhere on Mt. Olivet. On a subsequent missionary tour through Judea and Peraea He defends Himself against the charges of Pharisees, and reproves their hypocrisy. On the same journey Jesus warned against hypocrisy, covetousness, worldly care; He exhorted to watchfulness, patience under contradictions, and to penance. About this time, too, He healed the woman who had the spirit of infirmity.
(viii) Eighth Journey. — December, A.U.C. 781-February, 782. (Cf. Luke, xiii-xvii; John, x, xi.) The Feast of Dedication brought Jesus again to Jerusalem, and occasioned another discussion with the Jews. This is followed by another missionary tour through Peraea, during which Jesus explained a number of important points of doctrine: the number of the elect, the choice of one's place at table, the guests to be invited, the parable of the great supper, resoluteness in the service of God, the parables of the hundred sheep, the lost groat, and the prodigal son, of the unjust steward, of Dives and Lazarus, of the unmerciful servant, besides the duty of fraternal correction, and the efficacy of faith. During this period, too, the Pharisees attempted to frighten Jesus with the menance of Herod's persecution; on his part, Jesus healed a man who had drospy, on a Sabbath day, while at table in the house of a certain prince of the Pharisees. Finally Mary and Martha send messengers to Jesus, asking Him to come and cure their brother Lazarus; Jesus went after two days, and resuscitated His friend who had been several days in the grave. The Jews are exasperated over this miracle, and they decree Jesus must die for the people. Hence He withdrew "into a country near the desert, unto a city that is called Ephrem".
(ix) Ninth Journey. — February, A.U.C. 782- Passover, 782. (Cf. Luke, xvii-xxii; Mark., x, xiv; Matt., xix-xxvi; John, xi, xii.) This last journey took Jesus from Ephrem northward through Samaria, then eastward along the border of Galilee into Peraea, then southward through Peraea, westward across the Jordan, through Jericho, Bethania on Mt. Olivet, Bethphage, and finally to Jerusalem. While in the most northern part of the journey, He cured ten lepers; a little later, He answered the questions raised by the Pharisees concerning the kingdom of God. Then He urged the need of incessant prayer by proposing the parable of the unjust judge; here too belong the parable of the Pharisee and Publican, the discourse on marriage, on the attitude of the Church towards the children, on the right use of riches as illustrated by the story of the rich young ruler, and the parable of the labourers in the vineyard. After beginning His route towards Jerusalem, He predicted His Passion for the third time; James and John betray their ambition, but they are taught the true standard of greatness in the Church. At Jericho Jesus heals two blind men, and receives the repentance of Zacheus the publican; here He proposed also the parable of the pounds entrusted to the servants by the master. Six days before the pasch we find Jesus at Bethania on Mt. Olivet, as the guest of Simon the leper; Mary anoints His feet, and the disciples at the instigation of Judas are indignant at this seeming waste of ointment. A great multitude assembles at Bethania, not to see Jesus only but also Lazarus; hence the chief priests think of killing Lazarus too. On the following day Jesus solemnly entered Jerusalem and was received by the Hosanna cries of all classes of people. In the afternoon He met a delegation of Gentiles in the court of the Temple. On Monday Jesus curses the barren fig tree, and during the morning He drives the buyers and sellers from the Temple. On Tuesday the wonder of the disciples at the sudden withering of the fig tree provokes their Master's instruction on the efficacy of faith. Jesus answers the enemies' questions as to His authority; then He proposes the parable of the two sons, of the wicked husbandmen, and of the marriage feast. Next follows a triple snare: the politicians ask whether it is lawful to pay tribute to Caesar; the scoffers inquire whose wife a woman, who has had several husbands, will be after ressurection; the Jewish theologians propose the question: Which is the first commandment, the great commandment of the law? Then Jesus proposes His last question to the Jews: "What think you of Christ? whose son is he?" This is followed by the eightfold woe against the Scribes and Pharisees, and by the denunciation of Jerusalem. The last words of Christ in the Temple were expressions of praise for the poor widow who had made an offering of two mites in spite of her poverty. Jesus ended this day by uttering the prophecies concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, His second coming, and the future judgement; these predictions are interrupted by the parable of the ten virgins and the talents. On Wednesday Jesus again predicted His Passion; probably it was on the same day that Judas made his agreement with the Jews to betray Jesus.
(4) The Passion of Jesus. — The history of Christ's Passion comprises three parts: the preparation for the Passion, the trial of Jesus, and His death.
(a) Preparation for the Passion. — Jesus prepares His disciples for the Passion, He prepares Himself for the ordeal and His enemies prepare themselves for the destruction of Jesus.
(i) Preparation of the Apostles. — Jesus prepares His Apostles for the Passion by the eating of the paschal lamb, the institution of the Holy Eucharist, the concomitant ceremonies, and His lengthy discourses held during and after the Last Supper. Special mention should be made of the prediction of the Passion, and of the betrayal one of the Apostles and the denial by another. Peter, james, and John are prepared in a more particular manner by witnessing the sorrow of Jesus on Mt. Olivet.
(ii) Preparation of Jesus. — Jesus must have found an indirect preparation in all He did and said to strengthen His Apostles. But the preparation that was pecularly His own consisted in His prayer in the grotto of His Agony where the angel came to strengthen Him. The sleep of His favoured Apostles during the hours of His bitter struggle must have prepared Him too for the complete abandonment He was soon to experience.
(iii) Preparation of the Enemies. — Judas leaves the Master during the Last Supper. The chief priests and Pharisees hastily collect a detachment of the Roman cohort stationed in the castle of Antonia, of the Jewish temple-watch, and of the officials of the Temple. To these are added a number of the servants and dependents of the high-priest, and a miscellaneous multitude of fanatics with lanterns and torches, with swords and clubs, who were to follow the leadership of Judas. They took Christ, bound Him, and led Him to the high-priest's house.
(b) Trial of Jesus, — Jesus was tried first before an ecclesiastical and then before a civil tribunal.
(i) Before Ecclesiastical Court. — The ecclesiastical trial includes Christ's appearance before Annas, before Caiphas, and again before Caiphas, who appears to have acted in each case as head of the Sanhedrin. The Jewish court found Jesus guilty of blasphemy, and condemned Him to death, though its proceedings were illegal from more than one point of view. During the trial took place Peter's triple denial of Jesus; Jesus is insulted and mocked, especially between the second and third session; and after His final condemnation Judas despaired and met his tragic death.
(ii) Before the Civil Court. — The civil trial, too, comprised three sessions, the first before Pilate, the second before Herod, the third again before Pilate. Jesus is not charged with blasphemy before the court of Pilate, but with stirring up the people, forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and claiming to be Christ the king. Pilate ignores the first two charges; the third he finds harmless when he sees that Jesus does not claim royalty in the Roman sense of the word. But in order not to incur the odium of the Jewish leaders, the Roman governor sends his prisoner to Herod. As Jesus did not humour the curiosity of Herod, He was mocked and set at naught by the Tetrarch of Galilee and his court, and sent back to Pilate. The Roman procurator declares the prisoner innocent for the second time, but, instead of setting Him free, gives the people the alternative to choose either Jesus or Barabbas for their paschal freedman. Pilate pronounced Jesus innocent for the third time with the more solemn ceremony of washing his hands; he had recourse to a third scheme of ridding himself of the burden of pronouncing an unjust sentence against his prisoner. He had the prisoner scourged, thus annihilating, as far as human means could do so, any hope that Jesus could ever attain to the royal dignity. But even this device miscarried, and Pilate allowed his political ambition to prevail over his sense of evident justice; he condemned Jesus to be crucified.
(c) Death of Jesus. — Jesus carried His Cross to the place of execution. Simon of Cyrene is forced to assist Him in bearing the heavy burden. On the way Jesus addresses his last words to the weeping women who sympathized with His suffering. He is nailed to the Cross, his garments are divided, and an inscription is placed over His head. While His enemies mock Him, He pronounces the well-known "Seven Words". Of the two robbers crucified with Jesus, one was converted, and the other died impenitent. The sun was darkened, and Jesus surrendered His soul into the hands of His Father. The veil of the Temple was rent into two, the earth quaked, the rocks were riven, and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose and appeared to many. The Roman centurion testified that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. The Heart of Jesus was pierced so as to make sure of His death. The Sacred Body was taken from the Cross by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, and was buried in the new sepulchre of Joseph, and the Sabbath drew near.
(5) The Glory of Jesus. — After the burial of Jesus, the Holy women returned and prepared spices and ointments. The next day, the chief priests and Pharisees made the sepulchre secure with guards, sealing the stone. When the Sabbath was passed, the Holy women brought sweet spices that they might anoint Jesus. But Jesus rose early the first day of the week, and there was a great earthquake, and an angel descended from heaven, and rolled back the stone. The guards were struck with terror, and became as dead men. On arriving at the sepulchre the holy women found the grave empty; Mary Magdalen ran to tell the Apostles Peter and John, while the other women were told by an angel that the Lord had arisen from the dead. Peter and John hasten to the sepulchre, and find everything as Magdalen has reported. Magdalen too returns, and, while weeping at the sepulchre, is approached by the arisen Saviour Who appears to her and speaks with her. On the same day Jesus appeared to the other Holy Women, to Peter, to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, and to all the Apostles excepting Thomas. A week later He appeared to all the Apostles, Thomas included; later still He appeared in Galilee near the Lake of Genesareth to seven disciples, on a mountain in Galilee to a multitude of disciples, to James, and finally to His disciples on the Mount Olivet whence He ascended into heaven. But these apparitions do not exhaust the record of the Gospels, according to which Jesus showed Himself alive after His Passion by many proofs, for forty days appearing to the disciples and speaking of the kingdom of God.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII, pp. 377-382
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
IV. THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. — The surpassing eminence of the character of Jesus has been acknowledged by men of the most varied type: Kant testifies to His ideal perfection; Hegel sees in Him the union of the human and the Divine; the most advanced sceptics do Him homage; Spinoza speaks of Him as the truest symbol of heavenly wisdom; the beauty and grandeur of His life overawe Voltaire; Napoleon I, at St. Helena, felt convinced that "Between him [Jesus] and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison" (Montholon, "Récit de la Captivité de l'Empereur Napoléon"). Rousseau testifies: "If the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a god." Strauss acknowledges: "He is the highest object we can possibly imagine with respect to religion, the being without whose presence in the mind perfect piety is impossible". To Renan "The Christ of the Gospels is the most beautiful incarnation of God in the most beautiful of forms. His beauty is eternal; his reign will never end." John Stuart Mill spoke of Jesus as "a man charged with a special, express, and unique commission from God to lead mankind to truth and virtue". Not that the views of the foregoing witnesses are of any great importance for the theological student of the life of Jesus; but they show at least the impression made on the most different classes of men by the history of Christ. In the following paragraphs we shall consider the character of Jesus as manifested first in His relation to men, then in His relation to God.
A. Jesus in His Relation to Men. — In His relation to men Jesus manifested certain qualities which were perceived by all, being subject to the light of reason; but other qualities were reserved for those who viewed Him in the light of faith. Both deserve a brief study.
(1) In the Light of Reason. — There is no trustworthy tradition concerning the bodily appearance of Jesus, but this is not needed in order to obtain a picture of His character. It is true that at first sight the conduct of Jesus is so many-sided that His character seems to elude all description. Command and sympathy, power and charm, authority and affection, cheerfulness and gravity, are the some of the qualities that make the analysis impossible. The make-up of the Gospels does not facilitate the work. At first they appear to us a bewildering forest of dogmatic statements and moral principles; there is no system, no method, everything is occassional , everything fragmentary. The Gospels are neither a manual of dogma nor a treatise on casuistry, though they are the fountain of both. No wonder then the various investgators have arrived at entirely different conclusion at the study of Jesus. Some call Him a fanatic, others make Him a socialist, others again an anarchist, while many call Him a dreamer, a mystic, an Essene. But in this variety of views there are two main concepts under which the others may be summarized: Some consider Jesus an ascetic, others an aesthete; some emphasize His suffering, others His joyfulness; some identify Him with ecclesiasticism, others with humanism; some recognize in Him the prophetic picture of the Old Testament and the monastic of the New, others see in Him only gladness and poetry. There may be solid ground for both views; but they do not exhaust the character of Jesus. Both are only by-products which really existed in Jesus, but were not primarily intended; they are only enjoyed and suffered in passing, while Jesus strove to attain an end wholly different from either joy or sorrow.
(a) Strength. — Considering the life of Jesus in the light of reason, His strength, His poise, and His grace are His most characteristic qualities. His strength shows itself in His manner of life, His decision, His authority. In His rugged, nomadic, homeless life there is no room for weakness or sentimentality. Indecision is rejected by Jesus on several occasions: "No man can serve two masters"; "He that is not with me, is against me"; Seek first the kingdom of God", these are some of the statements expressing Christ's attitude to indecision of will. Of Himself He said: "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me"; "I seek not my own will, but the will of him that sent me." The authority of the Master does not allow its power to be questioned; He calls to men in their boats, in their tax-booths, on their homes, "Follow me", and they look up into His face and obey. St. Mathew testifies, "The multitude...glorified God that gave such power to men"; St. Mark adds, "the kingdom of God comes to power"; St. Luke says, "Thou hast given him power over all flesh"; the Book of the Acts reads, "God anointed him...with power"; St. Paul too is impressed with "the power of our Lord Jesus". In His teaching Jesus does not argue, or prove, or threaten, like the Phrarisees, but He speaks like one having authority. Nowhere is Jesus merely a long-faced ascetic or a joyous comrade, we find Him everywhere to be leader of men, whose principles are built on a rock.
(b) Poise. — It may be said that the strength of Christ's character gives rise to another quality which we may call poise. Reason is like the sails of the boat, the will is its rudder, and the feelings are the waves thrown upon either side of the ship as it passes through the waters. The will-power of Jesus is strong enough to keep a perfect equilibrium between His feelings and His reason; His body is the perfect instrument in the performance of His duty; His emotions are wholly subservient to the Will of His Father; it is the call of complying with His higher duties that prevents His austerity from becoming excessive. There is therefore a perfect balance or equilibrium in Jesus between the life of His body, of His mind, and of His emotions. His character is so rounded off that, at first sight, there remains nothing which could make it characteristic. This poise in the character of Jesus produces a simplicity which pervades every one of His actions. As the old Roman roads led stright ahead in spite of mountains and valleys, ascents and declivities, so does the life of Jesus flow quietly onward in accordance with the call of duty, in spite of pleasure or pain, honour or ignominy. Another trait in Jesus which may be considered as flowing from the poise of His character is His unalterable peace, a peace which may be ruffled but cannot be destroyed either by His inward feelings or outward encounters. And these personal qualities in Jesus are reflected in his teaching. He establishes an equilibrium between the rightousness of the Old Testament and the justice of the New, between the love and life of the former and those of the latter. He lops off indeed the Pharisaic conventionalism and externalism, but they were merely degenerated outgrowths; He urges the law of love, but shows that it embraces the whole Law and the Prophets; He promises life, but it consists not so much in our possession as in our capacity to use our possession. Nor can it be urged that the poise of Christ's teachhing is destroyed by His three paradoxes of self-reliance, of service, and of idealism. The law of self-sacrifice inculcates that we shall find life by losing it; but the law of biological organisms, of physiological tissues, of intellectual achivements, and of economic processes shows that self-sacrifice is self-realization in the end. The second paradox is that of service: "Whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister: and he that will be first among you, shall be your servant." But in the industrial and artistic world, too, the greatest men are those who have done most service. Thirdly, the idealism of Jesus is expressed in such words as "The life is more than the meat", and "Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." But even our realistic age must grant that the reality of the law is its ideals, and again, that the world of the idealist is impossible only for the weak, while the strong character creates the world after which he strives. The character of Jesus therefore is the embodiment of both strength and poise. It thus verifies the definition given by such an involved writer as Emerson: "Character is centrality, the impossibility of being displaced or overset...The natural measure of this power is the resistence of circumstances."
(c) Grace. — But if there were not a third essential element entering into the character of Jesus, it might not be attractive after all. Even saints are at times bad neighbours; we may like them, but sometimes we like them only at a distance. The character of Christ carries with it the trait of grace, doing away with all harshness and want of amiability. Grace is the unconstrained expression of the self-forgetting and kindly mind. It is a beautiful way of doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, therefore opens all hearts to its possessor. Sympathy is the widst channel through which grace flows, and the abundance of the stream testifies to the reserve of grace. Now Jesus sympathizes with all classes, with the rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, the happy and the sad; He moves with the same sense of familiarity among all classes of society. For the self-righteous Pharisees He has only the words, "Woe to you, hypocrites"; he disciples, "Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Plato and Aristotle are utterly unlike Jesus; they may speak of natural virtue, but we never find children in their arms. Jesus treats the publicans as His friends; He encourages the most tentative beginnings of moral growth. He chooses common fishermen for the corner-stones of His kingdom, and by His kindliness trains them to become the light of the world and the salt of the earth; He bends down to St. Peter whose character was a heap of sand rather than a solid foundation, but He graciously forms Peter into the rock upon which to build his Church. After two of the Apostles had fallen, Jesus was gracious to both, though He saved only one, while the other destroyed himself. Women in need are not excluded from the general graciousness of Jesus; He receives the homage of the sinful woman, He consolves the sorrowing sisters Martha and Mary, He cures the mother-in-law of St. Peter and restores the health of numerous other women of Galilee, He has words of sympathy for the women of Jerusalem who bewailed His sufferings, He was subject to His mother till He reached man's estate, and when dying on the Cross commanded her to the care of His beloved disciple. The grace of the Master is also evident in the form of His teaching: He lays under contribution the simple phases of nature, the hen with her chickens, the gnat in the cup, the camel in the narrow street, the fig tree and its fruit, the fishermen sorting the catch. He meets with the lightest touch, approaching sometimes the play of humour and sometimes the thrust of irony, the simple doubts of His disciples, the selfish questions of His hearers, and the subtlest snares of his enemies. He feels no need of thrift in His benefits on the few as abundantly as the vastest multitudes. He flings out His parables into the world that those who have ears may hear. There is a prodigality in this manifestation of Christ's grace that can only be symbolized, but not equalled, by the waste of seed in the realm of nature.
(2) In the Light of Faith. — In the light of faith the life of Jesus is an uninterrupted series of acts of love for man. It was love that impelled the Son of God to take on human nature, though He did so with the full consent of His Father: "For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son" (John, iii, 16). For thirty years Jesus shows His love by a life of poverty, labour, and hardship in the fulfillment of the duties of a common trademan. When His public ministry began, He simply spent Himself for the good of His neighbour, "doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil" (Acts, x, 38). He shows a boundless compassion for all the infirmities of the body; He uses His miraculous power to heal the sick, to free the possessed, to resuscitate the dead. The moral weaknesses of man move His heart still more effectively; the woman at Jacob's well, Mathew the publican, Mary Magdalen the public sinner, Zacheus the unjust administrator, are only a few instances of sinners who received encouragement from the lips of Jesus. He is ready with forgiveness for all; the parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates His love for the sinner. In His work of teaching He is at the service of the poorest outcast of Galilee as well as of the theological celebrities of Jerusalem. His bitterest enemies are not excluded from the manifestations of His love; even while He is being crucified He prays for their pardon. The Scribes and Pharisees are treated severely, only because they stand in the way of His love. "Come to me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you" (Matt., xi, 28) is the message of His heart to poor suffering humanity. After laying down the rule, "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John, xv, 13), He surpasses as it were His own standard by dying for His enemies. Fulfilling the unconscious prophecy of the godless high-priest, "It is expedient for you that one man should die for the people" (John, xi, 50), He freely meets His sufferings which He could have easily avoided (Matt., xxvi, 53), undergoes the greatest insults and ignominies, passes through the most severe bodily pains, and sheds His blood for men "unto remission of sins" (Matt., xxvi, 28). But the love of Jesus embraced not only the spiritual welfare of men, it extended also to their temporal happiness: "Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt., vi, 33).
B. Jesus in His Relation to God. — Prescinding from the theological discussions which are usually treated in the theses "De Verbo Incarnato", we may consider the relations of Jesus to God under the headings of His sanctity and His Divinity.
(1) Sanctity of Jesus. — From a nagative point of view, the sanctity of Jesus consists in His unspotted sinlessness. He can defy His enemies by asking, "Which of you shall convince me of sin?" (John, viii, 46). Even the evil spirits are forced to acknowledge Him as the Holy One of God (Mark, i, 24; Luke, iv, 34). His enemies charge Him with being a Samaritan, and having a devil (John, viii, 48), with being a sinner (John, ix, 24), a blasphemer (Matt., xxvi, 65), a violator of the Sabbath (John, ix, 16), a malefactor (John, xviii, 30), a disturber of the peace (Luke, xxiii, 5), a seducer (Matt., xxvii, 63). But pilate finds and declares Jesus innocent, and, when pressed by the enemies of Jesus to condemn Him, he washes his hands and exclaims before the assembled people, "I am innocent of the blood of this just man" (Matt., xxvii, 24). The Jewish authorities practically admit that they cannot prove any wrong against Jesus; they only insist, "We have a law; and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God" (John, xix, 7). The final charge urged against Christ by His bitterest enemies was His claim to be the Son of God.
The positive side of the sanctity of Jesus is well attested by His constant zeal in the service of God. At the age of twelve He asks His mother, "Did you not know, that I must be about my father's business?". He urges on His hearers the true adoration in spirit and in truth (John, iv, 23) required by His Father. Repeatedly He declares His entire dependence on His Father (John, v, 20, 30; etc.); He is faithful to the Will of His Father (John, viii, 29); He tells His disciples, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me" (John, iv, 34). Even the hardest sacrifices do not prevent Jesus from complying with His Father's Will: "My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, thy will be done" (Matt., xxvi, 42). Jesus honours His Father (John, ii, 17), and proclaims at the end of His life, "I have glorified thee on the earth" (John, xvii, 4). He prays almost incessantly to His Father (Mark, i, 35; vi, 46; etc.), and teaches His Apostles the Our Father (Matt., vi, 9). He always thanks His Father for His bounties (Matt., xi, 25; etc.), and in brief behaves throughout as only a most loving son can behave towards his beloved father. During His Passion one of His most intense sorrows is His feeling of abandonment by His Father (Mark, xv, 34), and at the point of death He joyfully surrenders His Soul into the hands of His Father (Luke, xxiii, 46).
(2) Divinity of Jesus. — The Divinity of Jesus is proved by some writers by an appeal to prophecy and miracle. But, though Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament to the letter, He Himself appears to appeal to them mainly in proof of His Divine mission; He shows the Jews that He fulfills in His Person and His work all that had been foretold of the Messias. The prophecies uttered by Jesus Himself differ from the predictions of the Old Testament in that Jesus does not speak in the name of the Lord, like the seers of old, but in His own name. If it could be strictly proved that they were made in virtue of His own knowledge of the future, and of His own power to dispose of the current of events, the prophecies would prove His Divinity; as it is they prove at least that Jesus is a messenger of God, a friend of God, inspired by God. This is not the place to discuss the historical and philosophical truth of the miracles of Jesus, but we know that Jesus appeals to His works as bearing witness to the general truth of His mission (John, x, 25, 33, 38), and also for the verity of some particulr claims (Matt., ix, 6; Mark, ii, 10, 11; etc.) They show, therefore, at least that Jesus is a Divine legate and that His teaching is infallibly true.
Did Jesus teach that He is God? He certainly claimed to be the Messias (John, iv, 26), to fulfill the Messianic descriptions of the Old Testament (Matt., xi, 3-5; Luke, vii, 22-23; iv, 18-21), to be denoted by the current Messianic names, "king of Israel" (Luke, xix, 38; etc), "Son of David" (Matt., ix, 27; etc), "Son of man" (passim), "he that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Matt., xxi, 9.etc). Moreover, Jesus claims to be greater than Abraham (John, viii, 53, 56), than Moses (Matt., xix, 8-9), than Solomon and Jonas (Matt., xii, 41-42); He habitually claims to be sent by God (John, v, 36, 37, 43; etc), calls God His Father (Luke, ii, 49; etc), and He willingly accepts the titles "Master" and "Lord" (John, xiii, 13, 14). He forgives sin in answer to the observation that God alone can forgive sin (Mark, ii, 7, 10; Luke, v, 21, 24; etc). He acts as the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt., xii, 8; etc), and tells St. Peter that as "Son" He is free from the duty of paying temple-tribute (Matt., xvii, 24, 25). From the beginning of His ministry he allows Nathanael to call Him "Son of God" (John, i, 49); the Apostles (Matt., xiv, 33) and Martha (John, xi, 27) give Him the same title. Twice He approves of Peter who calls Him "the Christ, the Son of God" (John, vi, 70), "Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt., xvi, 16). Four distinct times does He proclaim Himself the Son of God; to the man born blind (John, x, 30, 36); before the two assemblies of the Jewish Sanhedrin on the night before His death (Matt., xxvi, 63-64; Mark, xiv, 61-62; Luke, xxii, 70). He does not manifest His Divine Sonship before Satan (Matt., iv, 3, 6) or before the Jews who are deriding Him (Matt., xxvii, 40). Jesus does not wish to teach the evil spirit the mystery of His Divinity; to the Jews He gives a greater sign than they are asking for. Jesus, therefore, applies to Himself, and allows others to apply to Him, the title "Son of God" in its full meaning. If there had been a misunderstanding He would have corrected it, even as Paul and Barnabas corrected those who took them for gods (Acts, xiv, 12-14).
Nor can it be said that the title "Son of God" denotes a merely adoptive sonship. The foregoing texts do not admit of such an interpretation. St. Peter, for instance, places his master above John the Baptist, Elias, and the Prophets (Matt., xvi, 13-17). Again, the Angel Gabriel declares that the Child to be born will be "the Son of the most High" and "Son of God" (Luke, i, 32, 35), in such a way that He will be without an earthly father. Mere adoption presupposes the existence of the child to be adopted; but St. Joseph is warned that "That which is conceived in her [Mary], is of the Holy Ghost" (Matt., i, 20); now one's being conceived by the operation of another implies one's natural relation of sonship to him. Moreover, the Divine Sonship claimed by Jesus is such that he and the Father are one (John, x, 30, 36); a merely adopted sonship does not constitute a physical unity between the son and his adoptive father. Finally if Jesus had claimed only an adoptive sonship, He would have deceived His judges; they could not have condemned Him for claiming a prerogative common to all pious Israelites. Harnack (Wesen des Christentums, 81) contends that the Divine Sonship claimed by Jesus is an intellectual relation to the Father, springing from special knowledge of God. This knowledge constitutes "the sphere of the Divine Sonship", and is implied in the words of Matt., xi, 27: "No one knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him". But if the Divine Sonship of Christ is a mere intellectual relation, and if Christ is God in a most figurative sense, the Paternity of the Father and the Divinity of the Son will be reduced to a figure of speech. (See THEOLOGY, sub-title Christology.)
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII, pp. 382-385
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Holy Name of Jesus. — We give honour to the Name of Jesus, not because we believe that there is any intrinsic power hidden in the letters composing it, but because the Name of Jesus reminds us of all the blessings we receive through our Holy Redeemer. To give thanks for these blessings we revere the Holy Name, as we honour the Passion of of Christ by honouring His Cross (Colvenerius, "De festo SS. Nominis", ix). At the Holy Name of Jesus we uncover our heads, and we bend our knees; it is at the head of all our undertakings, as the Emperor Justinian says in his law-book: "In the Name of Our Lord Jesus we begin all our consultations". The Name of Jesus invoked with confidence (1) brings help in bodily needs, according to the promise of Christ: "In my name They shall take up serpents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover". (Mark, xvi, 17,18.) In the Name of Jesus the Apostles gave strength to the lame (Acts, iii, 6; ix, 34) and life to the dead (Acts, ix. 40). (2) It gives consolation in spiritual trials. The Name of Jesus reminds the sinner of the prodigal son's father and of the Good Samaritan; it recalls to the just the suffering and death of the innocent Lamb of God. (3) It protects us against Satan and his wiles, for the Devil fears the Name of Jesus, who has conquered him on the Cross. (4) In the Name of Jesus we obtain every blessing and grace for time and eternity, for Christ has said: "If you ask the Father anything in my name he will give it you." (John, xvi, 23) Therefore the Church concludes all her prayers by the words: "Through Our Lord Jesus Christ", etc. So the word of St. Paul is fulfilled: "That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth" (Phil., ii, 10).
A special lover of the Holy Name was St. Bernard, who speaks of it in most glowing terms in many of his sermons. But the greatest promoters of this devotion were St. Bernardine of Siena and St. John Capistran. They carried with them on their missions in the turbulent cities of Italy a copy of the monogram of the Holy Name, surrounded by rays, painted on a wooden tablet, wherewith they blessed the sick and wrought great miracles. At the close of their sermons they exhibited this emblem to the faithful and asked them to prostrate themselves, to adore the Redeemer of mankind. They recommended their hearers to have the monogram of Jesus placed over the gates of their cities and above the doors of their dwelling (cf. Seeberger, "Key to the Spiritual Treasures", 1897, 102). Because the manner in which St. Bernardine preached this devotion was new, he was accused by his enemies, and brought before the tribunal of Pope Martin V. But St. John Capistran defended his master so successfully that the pope not only permitted the worship of the Holy Name, but also assisted at a procession in which the holy monogram was carried. The tablet used by St. Bernardine is venerated at Santa Maria in Ara Coeli at Rome.
The emblem or monogram representing the Holy Name of Jesus consists of the three letters: IHS. In the Middle Ages the Name of Jesus was written: IHESUS; the monogram contains the first and last letter of the Holy Name. It is first found on a gold coin of the eight century: DN IHS CHS REX REGNANTIUM (The Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings). Some erroneously say that the three letters are the initials of: "Jesus Hominum Salvator" (Jesus Saviour of Men). The Jesuits made this monogram the emblem of their Society, adding a cross over the H and three nails under it. Consequently a new explanation of the emblem was invented, pretending that the nails originally were a "V", and that the monogram stands for "In Hoc Signo Vinces" (In This Sign you shall Conquer), the words which, according to a legendary account, Constantine saw in the heavens under the Sign of the Cross before the battle at the Milvian bridge (312).
Urban IV and John XXII are said to have granted an indulgence of thirty days to those who would add the name of Jesus to the Hail Mary or would bend their knees, or at least bow their heads when hearing the Name of Jesus (Alanus, "Psal. Christi et Mariae", i, 13, and iv, 25, 33; Michael ab Insulis, "Quodlibet", v; Colvenerius, "De festo SS. Nominis", x). This statement may be true; yet it was only by the efforts of St. Bernardine that the custom of adding the Name of Jesus to the Ave Maria was spread in Italy, and from there to the Universal Church. But up to the sixteenth century it was still unknown in Belgium (Colven., op. Cit., x), whilst in Bavaria and Austria the faithful still affix to the Ave Maria the words: "Jesus Christus" (ventris tui, Jesus Christus). Sixtus V (2 July, 1587) granted an indulgence of fifty days to the ejaculation: "Praise be to Jesus Christ!" with the answer: "For evermore", or "Amen". In the South of Germany the peasants salute each other with this pious formula. Sixtus V and Benedict XIII granted an indulgence of fifty days to all as often as they pronounce the Name of Jesus reverently, and a plenary indulgence in the hour of death. These two indulgences were confirmed by Clement XIII, 5 Sept., 1759. As often as we invoke the Name of Jesus and Mary ("Jesu!", "Maria!") we may gain an indulgence of 300 days, by decree of Pius X, 10 Oct., 1904. It is also necessary, to gain the papal indulgence in the hour of death, to pronounce at least in mind the Name of Jesus.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII, p. 421
Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Incarnation, the mystery and the dogma of the Word made Flesh. In this technical sense the word incarnation was adopted, during the twelfth century, from the Norman-French, which in turn had taken the word over from the Latin incarnatio (see Oxford Dictionary, s. v.). The Latin Fathers, from the fourth century, make common use of the word; so Saints Jerome, Ambrose, Hilary, etc. The Latin incarnatio (in: caro, flesh) corresponds to the Greek σαρκωσις, or ενσαρκωσις, which words depend on John (i, 14) και Λογος σαρξ εγενετο, "And the Word was made flesh". These two terms were in use by the Greek Fathers from the time of St. Irenaeus – i.e. according to Harnack, A. D. 181-189 (cf. lren., "Adv. Hær." III, l9, n. i.; Migne, VII, 939). The verb σαρκουσθαι, to be made flesh, occurs in the creed of the Council of Nicæa (cf. Denzinger, "Enchiridion", n. 86). In the language of Holy Writ, flesh means, by synecdoche, human nature or man (cf. Luke, iii, 6; Rom., iii, 20). Suarez deems the choice of the word incarnation to have been very apt. Man is called flesh to emphasize the weaker part of his nature. When the Word is said to have been incarnate, to have been made Flesh, the Divine goodness is better expressed whereby God "emptied Himself . . . and was found in outward bearing (σχηματι) like a man" (Phil. ii, 7); He took upon Himself not only the nature of man, a nature capable of suffering and sickness and death, He became like a man in all save only sin (cf. Suarez, "De Incarnatione", Præf. n. 5). The Fathers now and then use the word ενανθρωπησις, the act of becoming man, to which correspond the terms inhumanatio, used by some Latin Fathers, and "Menschwerdung", current in German. The mystery of the Incarnation is expressed in Scripture by other terms: επιληψις, the act of taking on a nature (Heb., ii. 16): επιφανεια, appearance (II Tim., i, 10); φανερωσις εν σαρκι, manifestation in the flesh (I Tim., iii, 16); σωματος καταρτισμος, the fitting of a body, what some Latin Fathers call incorporatio (Heb., x. 5); κενωσις, the act of emptying one's self (Phil., ii, 7). In this article, we shall treat of the fact, nature and effects of the Incarnation.
I. THE FACT OF THE INCARNATION implies three facts: (1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ; (2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ; (3) The Hypostatic Union of the Human with the Divine Nature in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ.
(1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ. — We presuppose the historicity, of Jesus Christ — i.e. that He was a real person of history (cf. JESUS CHRIST); the Messiahship of Jesus; the historical worth and authenticity of the Gospels and Acts; the Divine ambassadorship of Jesus Christ established thereby; the establishment of an infallible and never failing teaching body to have and to keep the deposit of revealed truth entrusted to it by the Divine ambassador, Jesus Christ; the handing down of all this deposit by tradition and of part thereof by Holy Writ; the canon and inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures — all these questions will be found treated in their proper places. Moreover, we assume that the Divine nature and Divine personality are one and inseparable (see TRINITY). The aim of this article is to prove that the historical person, Jesus Christ, is really and truly God, — i. e. has the nature of God, and is a Divine person. The Divinity of Jesus Christ is established by the Old Testament, by the New Testament and by tradition.
A. Old Testament Proofs of the Divinity of Jesus presuppose its testimony to Him as the Christ, the Messias (see MESSIAS). Assuming then, that Jesus is the Christ, the Messias promised in the Old Testament, from the terms of the promise it is certain that the One promised is God, is a Divine Person in the strictest sense of the word, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of the Father, One in nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Our argument is cumulative. The texts from the Old Testament have weight by themselves; taken together with their fulfilment in the New Testament, and with the testimony of Jesus and His apostles and His Church, they make up a cumulative argument in favour of the Divinity of Jesus Christ that is overwhelming in its force. The Old Testament proofs we draw from the Psalms, the Sapiential Books and the Prophets.
(a) Testimony of the Psalms. — Ps. ii, 7. "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee." Here Jahweh, i. e., God of Israel, speaks to the promised Messias. So St. Paul interprets the text (Heb., i, 5) while proving the Divinity of Jesus from the Psalms. The objection is raised that St. Paul is here not interpreting but only accommodating Scripture. He applies the very same words of Ps. ii, 7 to the priesthood (Heb., v, 5) and to the resurrection (Acts, xiii, 33) of Jesus; but only in a figurative sense did the Father beget the Messias in the priesthood and resurrection of Jesus; hence only in a figurative sense did He beget Jesus as His Son. We answer that St. Paul speaks figuratively and accommodates Scripture in the matter of the priesthood and resurrection but not in the matter of the eternal generation of Jesus. The entire context of this chapter shows there is a question of real sonship and real Divinity of Jesus. In the same verse, St. Paul applies to Christ the words of Jahweh to David, the type of Christ: "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son". (II Kings, vii, 14.) In the following verse, Christ is spoken of as the first-born of the Father, and as the object of the adoration of the angels; but only God is adored: "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. . . Thy God, O God, hath anointed thee " (Ps. xliv, 7, 8). St. Paul refers these words to Christ as to the Son of God (Heb., i, 9). We follow the Massoretic reading, "Thy God, O God". The Septuagint and New Testament reading, ο θεος, ο θεος σου, "O God, Thy God", is capable of the same interpretation. Hence, the Christ is here called God twice; and his throne, or reign, is said to have been from eternity. Ps. cix, 1: "The Lord said to my Lord (Heb., Jahweh said to my Adonai): Sit thou at my right hand". Christ cites this text to prove that He is Adonai (a Hebrew term used only for Deity), seated at the right hand of Jahweh, who is invariably the great God of Israel (Matt., xxii, 44). In the same psalm, Jahweh says to Christ: "Before the day-star, I begat thee". Hence Christ is the begotten of God; was begotten before the world was, and sits at the right hand of the heavenly Father. Other Messianic psalms might be cited to show the clear testimony of these inspired poems to the Divinity of the promised Messias.
(b) Testimony of the Sapiential Books. — So clearly do these Sapiential Books describe uncreated Wisdom as a Divine Person distinct from the First Person, that rationalists have resort to a subterfuge and claim that the doctrine of uncreated Wisdom was taken over by the authors of these books from the Neo-Platonic philosophy of the Alexandrian school. It is to be noted that in the pre-sapiential books of the Old Testament, the uncreated Logos, or ρημα, is the active and creative principle of Jahweh (see Ps. xxxii, 4; xxxii, 6; cxviii, 89; cii, 20; Is., xl, 8; lv, 11). Later the λογος became σοφια, the uncreated Word became uncreated Wisdom. To Wisdom were attributed all the works of creation and Divine Providence (see Job, xxviii, 12: Prov., viii and ix; Ecclus., i,1; xxiv, 5 to 12; Wis., vi, 21; ix, 9). In Wis., ix, 1, 2, we have a remarkable instance of the attribution of God's activity to both the Logos and Wisdom. This identification of the pre-Mosaic Logos with the Sapiential Wisdom and the Johannine Logos (see LOGOS) is proof that the rationalistic subterfuge is not effective. The Sapiential Wisdom and the Johannine Logos are not an Alexandrian development of the PIatonic idea, but are a Hebraistic development of the pre-Mosaic uncreated and creating Logos or Word.
Now for the Sapiential proofs: In Ecclus., xxiv, 7, Wisdom is described as uncreated, the "first born of the Most High before all creatures", "from the beginning and before the World was I made" (ibid., 14). So universal was the identification of Wisdom with the Christ, that even the Arians concurred with the Fathers therein; and strove to prove by the word εκτισε, made or created, of verse 14, that incarnate Wisdom was created. The Fathers did not make answer that the word Wisdom was not to be understood of the Christ, but explained that the word εκτισε had here to be interpreted in keeping with other passages of Holy Writ and not according to its usual meaning, — that of the Septuagint version of Gen., i, 1. We do not know the original Hebrew or Aramaic word; it may have been the same word that occurs in Prov. viii, 22: "The Lord possessed me (Heb., gat me by generation; see Gen., iv, 1) in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning, I was set up from eternity." Wisdom speaking of itself in the Book of Ecclesiasticus cannot contradict what Wisdom says of itself in Proverbs and elsewhere. Hence the Fathers were quite right in explaining εκτισε not to mean made or created in any strict sense of the terms (see St. Athanasius, "Sermo ii contra Arianos", n. 44; Migne, P. G., XXVI, 239). The Book of Wisdom, also, speaks clearly of Wisdom as "the worker of all things . . . a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God . . . the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness." (Wis., vii, 21-26.) St. Paul paraphrases this beautiful passage and refers it to Jesus Christ (Heb., i, 3). It is clear, then, from the text-study of the books themselves, from the interpretation of these books by St. Paul, and especially, from the admitted interpretation of the Fathers and the liturgical uses of the Church, that the personified wisdom of the Sapiential Books is the uncreated Wisdom, the incarnate Logos of St. John, the Word hypostatically united with human nature, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father. The Sapiential Books prove that Jesus was really and truly God.
(c) Testimony of the Prophetic Books. — The prophets clearly state that the Messias is God. Isaias says: "God Himself will come and will save you" (xxxv, 4); "Make ready the way of Jahweh" (xl, 3); "Lo Adonai Jahweh will come with strength" (xl, 10). That Jahweh here is Jesus Christ is clear from the use of the passage by St. Mark (i 3). The great prophet of Israel gives the Christ a special and a new Divine name "His name will be called Emmanuel" (Is., vii, 14). This new Divine name St. Matthew refers to as fulfilled in Jesus, and interprets to mean the Divinity of Jesus. "They shall call his name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us." (Matt., i, 23.) Also in ix, 6, Isaias calls the Messias God: "A child is born to us . . . his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Strong One, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace." Catholics explain that the very same child is called God the Strong One (ix, 6) and Emmanuel (vii, 14); the conception of the child is prophesied in the latter verse, the birth of the very same child is prophesied in the former verse. The name Emmanuel (God with us) explains the name that we translate "God the Strong One." It is uncritical and prejudiced on the part of the rationalists to go outside of lsaias and to seek in Ezechiel (xxxii, 21) the meaning "mightiest among heroes" for a word that everywhere else in Isaias is the name of "God the Strong One" (see Is., x, 21). Theodotion translates literally θεος ισχυρος; the Septuagint has "messenger". Our interpretation is that commonly received by Catholics and by Protestants of the stamp of Delitzsch ("Messianic Prophecies", p. 145). Isaias also calls the Messias the "sprout of Jahweh" (iv, 2), i. e. that which has sprung from Jahweh as the same in nature with Him. The Messias is "God our King" (Is., 1ii, 7), "the Saviour sent by our God" (Is., 1ii, 10, where the word for Saviour is the abstract form of the word for Jesus); "Jahweh the God of Israel" (Is., lii, 12): "He that hath made thee, Jahweh of the hosts His name" (Is., liv, 5)".
The other prophets are as clear as Isaias, though not so detailed, in their foretelling of the Godship of the Messias. To Jeremias, He is "Jahweh our Just One" (xxiii, 6; also xxxiii, 16). Micheas speaks of the twofold coming of the Child, His birth in time at Bethlehem and His procession in eternity from the Father (v, 2). The Messianic value of this text is proved by its interpretation in Matthew (ii, 6). Zacharias makes Jahweh to speak of the Messias as "my Companion"; but a companion is on an equal footing with Jahweh (xiii, 7). Malachias says: "Behold I send my angel, and he shall prepare the way before my face, and presently the Lord, whom you seek, and the angel of the testament, whom you desire, shall come to his temple" (iii, 1). The messenger spoken of here is certainly St. John the Baptist. The words of Malachias are interpreted of the Precursor by Our Lord Himself (Matt., xi, 10). But the Baptist prepared the way before the face of Jesus Christ. Hence the Christ was the spokesman of the words of Malachias. But the words of Malachias are uttered by Jahweh the great God of Israel. Hence the Christ or Messias and Jahweh are one and the same Divine Person. The argument is rendered even more forcible by the fact that not only is the speaker, Jahweh the God of hosts, here one and the same with the Messias before Whose face the Baptist went: but the prophecy of the Lord's coming to the Temple applies to the Messias a name that is ever reserved for Jahweh alone. This name occurs seven times (Ex., xxiii, 17; xxxiv, 23; Is., i, 24; iii, 1; x, 16 and 33; xix, 4) outside of Malachias, and is clear in its reference to the God of Israel. The last of the prophets of Israel gives clear testimony that the Messias is the very God of Israel Himself. This argument from the prophets in favour of the Divinity of the Messias is most convincing if received in the light of Christian revelation, in which light we present it. The cumulative force of the argument is well worked out in "Christ in Type and Prophecy", by Maas.
B. New Testament Proofs. — We shall give the witness of the Four Evangelists and of St. Paul. The argument from the New Testament has a cumulative weight that is overwhelming in its effectiveness, once the inspiration of the New Testament and the Divine ambassadorship of Jesus are proved (see INSPIRATION; CHRISTIANITY). The process of the Catholic apologetic and dogmatic upbuilding is logical and never-failing. The Catholic theologian first establishes the teaching body to which Christ gave His deposit of revealed truth, to have and to keep and to hand down that deposit without error or failure. This teaching body gives us the Bible; and gives us the dogma of the Divinity of Christ in the unwritten and the written Word of God, i. e. in tradition and Scripture. When contrasted with the Protestant position upon "the Bible, the whole Bible and nothing but the Bible" — no, not even anything to tell us what is the Bible and what is not the Bible — the Catholic position upon the Christ-established, never-failing, never-erring teaching body is impregnable. The weakness of the Protestant position is evidenced in the matter of this very question of the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The Bible is the one and only rule of faith of Unitarians, who deny the Divinity of Jesus; of Modernistic Protestants, who make out His Divinity to be an evolution of His inner consciousness; of all other Protestants, be their thoughts of Christ whatsoever they may. The strength of the Catholic position will be clear to any one who has followed the trend of Modernism outside the Church and the suppression thereof within the pale.
(a) Witness of the Evangelists. — We here assume the Gospels to be authentic, historical documents given to us by the Church as the inspired Word of God. We waive the question of the dependence of Matthew upon the Logia, the origin of Mark from "Q", the literary or other dependence of Luke upon Mark; all these questions are treated in their proper places and do not belong here in the process of Catholic apologetic and dogmatic theology. We here argue from the Four Gospels as from the inspired Word of God. The witness of the Gospels to the Divinity of Christ is varied in kind.
(α) Jesus is the Divine Messias. — The Evangelists, as we have seen, refer to the prophecies of the Divinity of the Messias as fulfilled in Jesus (see Matt., i, 23; ii, 6: Mark, i, 2: Luke, vii, 27).
(β) Jesus is the Son of God. — According to the testimony of the Evangelists, Jesus Himself bore witness to His Divine Sonship. As Divine Ambassador He can not have borne false witness.
Firstly, He asked the disciples, at Caesarea Philippi, "Whom do men say that the Son of man is?" (Matt., xvi, 13). This name Son of man was commonly used by the Saviour in regard to Himself; it bore testimony to His human nature and oneness with us. The disciples made answer that others said He was one of the prophets. Christ pressed them. "But whom do you say that I am? "(ibid., 15). Peter, as spokesman, replied: "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God" (ibid., 16). Jesus was satisfied with this answer; it set Him above all the prophets who were the adopted sons of God; it made Him the natural Son of God. The adopted Divine sonship of all the prophets Peter had no need of special revelation to know. This natural Divine Sonship was made known to the leader of the Apostles only by a special revelation. "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven" (ibid., 17). Jesus clearly assumes this important title in the specially revealed and altogether new sense. He admits that He is the Son of God in the real sense of the word.
Secondly, we find that He allowed others to give Him this title and to show by the act of real adoration that they meant real Sonship. The possessed fell down and adored Him, and the unclean spirits cried out: "Thou art the Son of God" (Mark, iii, 12). After the stilling of the storm at sea, His disciples adored Him and said: "Indeed thou art the Son of God "(Matt., xiv, 33). Nor did He suggest that they erred in that they gave Him the homage due to God alone. The centurion on Calvary (Matt., xxvii, 54; Mark, xv, 39), the Evangelist St. Mark (i, 1), the hypothetical testimony of Satan (Matt., iv, 3) and of the enemies of Christ (Matt., xxvii, 40) all go to show that Jesus was called and esteemed the Son of God. Jesus Himself clearly assumed the title. He constantly spoke of God as "My Father" (Matt., vii, 21; x, 32; xi, 27; xv, 13; xvi, 17, etc.).
Thirdly, the witness of Jesus to His Divine Sonship is clear enough in the Synoptics, as we see from the foregoing argument and shall see by the exegesis of other texts; but is perhaps even more evident in John. Jesus indirectly but clearly assumes the title when He says: "Do you say of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? . . . the Father is in me and I in the Father." (John, x, 36, 38.) An even clearer witness is given in the narrative of the cure of the blind man in Jerusalem. Jesus said: "Dost thou believe in the Son of God?" He answered, and said: "Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said to him: Thou hast both seen him; and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said: I believe, Lord. And falling down, he adored him." (John, ix, 35-38.) Here as elsewhere, the act of adoration is allowed, and the implicit assent is in this wise given to the assertion of the Divine Sonship of Jesus.
Fourthly, likewise to His enemies, Jesus made undoubted profession of His Divine Sonship in the real and not the figurative sense of the word; and the Jews understood Him to say that He was really God. His way of speaking had been somewhat esoteric. He spoke often in parables. He willed then, as He wills now, that faith be "the evidence of things that appear not" (Heb., xi, 1). The Jews tried to catch Him, to make Him speak openly. They met Him in the portico of Solomon and said: "How long dost thou hold our souls in suspense? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly" (John, x, 24). The answer of Jesus is typical. He puts them off for a while; and in the end tells them the tremendous truth: "I and the Father are one" (John, x, 30). They take up stones to kill Him. He asks why. He makes them admit that they have understood Him aright. They answer: "For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man makest thyself God" (ibid., 33). These same enemies had clear statement of the claim of Jesus on the last night that He spent on earth. Twice He appeared before the Sanhedrim, the highest authority of the enslaved Jewish nation. The first times the high priest, Caiphas, stood up and demanded: "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us if thou be the Christ the Son of God " (Matt., xxvi, 63). Jesus had before held His peace. Now His mission calls for a reply. "Thou hast said it" (ibid., 64). The answer was likely — in Semitic fashion — a repetition of the question with a tone of affirmation rather than of interrogation. St. Matthew reports that answer in a way that might leave some doubt in our minds, had we not St. Mark's report of the very same answer. According to St. Mark, Jesus replies simply and clearly: "I am" (Mark, xiv, 62). The context of St. Matthew clears up the difficulty as to the meaning of the reply of Jesus. The Jews understood Him to make Himself the equal of God. They probably laughed and jeered at His claim. He went on: 'Nevertheless I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven" (Matt., xxvi, 64). Caiphas rent his garments and accused Jesus of blasphemy. All joined in condemning Him to death for the blasphemy whereof they accused Him. They clearly understood Him to make claim to be the real Son of God; and He allowed them so to understand Him, and to put Him to death for this understanding and rejection of His claim. It were to blind one's self to evident truth to deny the force of this testimony in favour of the thesis that Jesus made claim to be the real Son of God. The second appearance of Jesus before the Sanhedrim was like to the first; a second time He was asked to say clearly: " Art thou then the Son of God? " He made reply: "You say that I am." They understood Him to lay claim to Divinity. " What need we any further testimony? for we ourselves have heard it from his own mouth" (Luke, xxii, 70, 71). This twofold witness is especially important, in that it is made before the great Sanhedrim, and in that it is the cause of the sentence of death. Before Pilate, the Jews put forward a mere pretext at first. "We have found this man perverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cwsar, and saying that he is Christ the king" (Luke, xxiii, 2). What was the result? Pilate found no cause of death in Him! The Jews seek another pretext. "He stirreth up the people . . . from Galilee to this place" (ibid., 5). This pretext fails. Pilate refers the case of sedition to Herod. Herod finds the charge of sedition not worth his serious consideration. Over and again the Jews come to the front with a new subterfuge. Over and again Pilate finds no cause in Him. At last the Jews give their real cause against Jesus. In that they said He made Himself a king and stirred up sedition and refused tribute to Caesar, they strove to make it out that he violated Roman law. Their real cause of complaint was not that Jesus violated Roman law; but that they branded Him as a violator of the Jewish law. How? "We have a law; and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God (John, xix, 7). The charge was most serious; it caused even the Roman governor "to fear the more." What law is here referred to? There can be no doubt. It is the dread law of Leviticus: "He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, dying let him die: all the multitude shall stone him, whether he be a native or a stranger. He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord dying let him die " (Lev., xxiv, 17). By virtue of this law, the Jews were often on the very point of stoning Jesus; by virtue of this law, they often took Him to task for blasphemy whensoever He made Himself the Son of God; by virtue of this same law, they now call for His death. It is simply out of the question that these Jews had any intention of accusing Jesus of the assumption of that adopted sonship of God which every Jew had by blood and every prophet had had by special free gift of God's grace.
Fifthly, we may only give a summary of the other uses of thee title Son of God in regard to Jesus. The angel Gabriel proclaims to Mary that her son will "be called the Son of the most High" (Luke, i, 32); "the Son of God" (Luke, i, 35); St. John speaks of Him as "the only begotten of the Father" (John, i, 14); at the Baptism of Jesus and at His Transfiguration, a voice from heaven cries: "This is my beloved son" (Matt., iii, 17; Mark, i, 11; Luke, iii, 22; Matt., xvii., 3); St. John gives it as his very set purpose, in his Gospel, "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (John, xx, 31).
Sixthly, in the testimony of John, Jesus identifies Himself absolutely with the Divine Father. According to John, Jesus says: "he that seeth me seeth the Father" (ibid., xiv, 9). St. Athanasius links this clear testimony to the other witness of John "I and the Father are one" (ibid., x, 30); and thereby establishes the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. St. John Chrysostom interprets the text in the same sense. A last proof from John is in the words that bring his first Epistle to a close: "We know that the Son of God is come: and He hath given us understanding that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son. This is the true God and life eternal" (I John, v, 20). No one denies that "the Son of God" who is come is Jesus Christ. This Son of God is the "true Son" of "the true God"; in fact, this true son of the True God, i. e. Jesus, is the true God and is life eternal. Such is the exegesis of this text given by all the Fathers that have interpreted it (see Corluy, "Spicilegium Dogmatico-Biblicum", ed. Gandavi, 1884, II, 48). All the Fathers that have either interpreted or cited this text, refer ουτος to Jesus, and interpret "Jesus is the true God and life eternal." The objection is raised that the phrase "true God" (ο αληθινος θεος) always refers, in John, to the Father. Yes, the phrase is consecrated to the Father, and is here used precisely on that account, to show that the Father who is, in this very verse, first called "the true God", is one with the Son Who is second called "the true God" in the very same verse. This interpretation is carried out by the grammatical analysis of the phrase; the pronoun this (ουτος) refers of necessity to the noun near by, i. e. His true Son Jesus Christ. Moreover, the Father is never called "life eternal" by John; whereas the term is often given by him to the Son (John, xi, 25; xiv, 6: I John, i, 2; v, 11-12). These citations prove beyond a doubt that the Evangelists bear witness to the real and natural Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ.
Outside the Catholic Church, it is today the mode to try to explain away all these uses of the phrase Son of God, as if, forsooth, they meant not the Divine Sonship of Jesus, but presumably His sonship by adoption — a sonship due either to His belonging to the Jewish race or derived from His Messiahship. Against both explanations stand our arguments; against the latter explanation stands the fact that nowhere in the Old Testament is the term Son of God given as a name peculiar to the Messias. The advanced Protestants of this twentieth century are not satisfied with this latter and wornout attempt to explain away the assumed title Son of God. To them it means only that Jesus was a Jew (a fact that is now denied by Paul Haupt). We now have to face the strange anomaly of ministers of Christianity who deny that Jesus was Christ. Formerly it was considered bold in the Unitarian to call himself a Christian and to deny the Divinity of Jesus; now "ministers of the Gospel" are found to deny that Jesus is the Christ, the Messias (see articles in the Hibbert Journal for 1909, by Reverend Mr. Roberts, also the articles collected under the title "Jesus or Christ?" Boston, 19m). Within the pale of the Church, too, there were not wanting some who followed the trend of Modernism to such an extent as to admit that in certain passages, the term "Son of God" in its application to Jesus, presumably meant only adopted sonship of God. Against these writers was issued the condemnation of the proposition: "In all the texts of the Gospels, the name Son of God is merely the equivalent of the name Messias, and does not in any wise mean that Christ is the true and natural Son of God" (see decree "Lamentabili", S. Off., 3-4 July, 1907, proposition xxxii). This decree does not affirm even implicitly that every use of the name "Son of God" in the Gospels means true and natural Sonship of God. Catholic theologians generally defend the proposition whenever, in the Gospels, the name "Son of God" is used in the singular number, absolutely and without any additional explanation, as a proper name of Jesus, it invariably means true and natural Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ (see Billot, "De Verbo Incarnato," 1904, p. 529). Corluy, a very careful student of the original texts and of the versions of the Bible, declared that, whenever the title Son of God is given to Jesus in the New Testament, this title has the inspired meaning of natural Divine Sonship; Jesus is by this title said to have the same nature and substance as the Heavenly Father (see "Spicilegium", II, p. 42).
(γ) Jesus is God. — St. John affirms in plain words that Jesus is God. The set purpose of the aged disciple was to teach the Divinity of Jesus in the Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse that he has left us; he was aroused to action against the first heretics that bruised the Church. "They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us" (I John, ii, 19). They did not confess Jesus Christ with that confession which they had obligation to make (I John, iv, 3). John's Gospel gives us the clearest confession of the Divinity of Jesus. We may translate from the original text: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was in relation to God and the Word was God" (John i, 1). The words ο θεος (with the article) mean, in Johannine Greek, the Father. The expression προς τον θεον reminds one forcibly of Aristotle's το προς τι ειναι. This Aristotelian way of expressing relation found its like in the Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and Alexandrian philosophy; and it was the influence of this Alexandrian philosophy in Ephesus and elsewhere that John set himself to combat. It was, then, quite natural that John adopted some of the phraseology of his enemies, and by the expression ο λογος ην προς τον θεον gave forth the mystery of the relation of Father with Son: "the Word stood in relation to the Father", i. e., even in the beginning. At any rate the clause θεος ην ο λογος means "the Word was God". This meaning is driven home, in the irresistibIe logic of St. John, by the following verse: "All things were made by him." The Word, then, is the Creator of all things and is true God. Who is the Word! It was made flesh and dwelt with us in the flesh (verse 14); and of this Word John the Baptist bore witness (verse 15). But certainly it was Jesus, according to John the Evangelist, Who dwelt with us in the flesh and to Whom the Baptist bore witness. Of Jesus the Baptist says: "This is he, of whom I said: After me there cometh a man, who is preferred before me: because he was before me" (verse 30). This testimony and other passages of St. John's Gospel are so clear that the modern rationalist takes refuge from their forcefulness in the assertion that the entire Gospel is a mystic contemplation and no fact-narrative at all (see JOHN, GOSPEL OF SAINT). Catholics may not hold this opinion denying the historicity of John. The Holy Office, in the Decree "Lamentabili", condemned the following proposition: "The narrations of John are not properly speaking history but a mystic contemplation of the Gospel: the discourses contained in his Gospel are theological meditations on the mystery of salvation and are destitute of historical truth." (See prop. xvi.)
(b) Witness of St. Paul. — It is not the set purpose of St. Paul, outside of the Epistle to the Hebrews, to prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The great Apostle takes this fundamental principle of Christianity for granted. Yet so clear is the witness of Paul to this fact of Christ's Divinity, that the Rationalists and rationalistic Lutherans of Germany have strived to get away from the forcefulness of the witness of the Apostle by rejecting his form of Christianity as not conformable to the Christianity of Jesus. Hence they cry: "Los von Paulus, zurück zu Christus"; that is, "Away from Paul, back to Christ" (see J¨licher, Paulus und Christus", ed. Mohr, 1909). We assume the historicity of the Epistles of Paul; to a Catholic, the Christianity of St. Paul is one and the same with the Christianity of Christ. (See PAUL, SAINT). To the Romans, Paul writes: "God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin" (viii, 3). His Own Son (τον εαυτου υιον) the Father sends, not a Son by adoption. The angels are by adoption the children of God; they participate in the Father's nature by the free gifts He has bestowed upon them. Not so the Own Son of the Father. As we have seen, He is more the offspring of the Father than are the angels. How more? In this that He is adored as the Father is adored; the angels are not adored. Such is Paul's argument in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Therefore, in St. Paul's theology, the Father's Own Son, Whom the angels adore, Who was begotten in the today of eternity, Who was sent by the Father, clearly existed before His appearance in the Flesh, and is, in point of fact, the great "I am who am", — the Jahweh Who spoke to Moses on Horeb. This identification of the Christ with Jahweh would seem to be indicated, when St. Paul speaks of Christ as ο ων επι παντων θεος, "who is over all things, God blessed for ever" (Rom., ix, 5). This interpretation and punctuation are sanctioned by all the Fathers that have used the text; all refer to Christ the words "He who is God over all". Petavius (De Trin., 11, 9, n. 2) cites fifteen, among whom are Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Augustine, and Hilary. The Peshitta has the same translation as we have given. Alford, Trench, Westcott and Hort, and most Protestants are at one with us in this interpretation.
This identification of the Christ with Jahweh is clearer in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Christ is said to have been Jahweh of the Exodus. "And all drank the same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ)" (x, 4). It was Christ Whom some of the Israelites "tempted, and (they) perished by the serpents" (x, 10); it was Christ against Whom "some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer" (x, 11). St. Paul takes over the Septuagint translation of Jahweh ο κυριος, and makes this title distinctive of Jesus. The Colossians are threatened with the deception of philosophy (ii, 8). St. Paul reminds them that they should think according to Christ; "for in him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead (πληρωμα της θεοτητος) corporeally" (ii, 9); nor should they go so low as give to angels, that they see not, the adoration that is due only to Christ (ii, 18, 19). "For in Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations or principalities or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him" (εις αυτον). He is the cause and the end of all things, even of the angels whom the Colossians are so misguided as to prefer to Him (i, 16). The cultured Macedonians of Philippi are taught that in "the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father" (ii, 10, 11). This is the very same genuflexion and confession that the Romans are bidden to make to the Lord and the Jews to Jahweh (see Rom., xiv, 6; Is., xiv, 24). The testimony of St. Paul could be given at much greater length. These texts are only the chief among many others that bear Paul's witness to the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
C. Witness of Tradition. — The two main sources wherefrom we draw our information as to tradition, or the unwritten Word of God, are the Fathers of the Church and the general councils.
(a) The Fathers are practically unanimous in explicitly teaching the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The testimony of many has been given in our exegesis of the dogmatic texts that prove the Christ to be God. It would take over-much space to cite the Fathers adequately. We shall confine ourselves to those of the Apostolic and apologetic ages. By joining these testimonies to those of the Evangelists and St. Paul, we can see clearly that the Holy Office was right in condemning these propositions of Modernism: "The Divinity of Christ is not proven by the Gospels but is a dogma that the Christian conscience has evolved from the notion of a Messiah. It may be taken for granted that the Christ Whom history shows us is much inferior to the Christ Who is the object of Faith" (see prop. xxvii and xxix of Decree "Lamentabili"). (α) St. Clement of Rome (A. D. 93-95, according to Harnack), in his first epistle to the Corinthians, xvi, 2, speaks of "The Lord Jesus Christ, the Sceptre of the Might of God" (Funk, " Patres Apostolici", T¨bingen ed., 1901, p. 118), and describes, by quoting Is., iii, 1-12, the humiliation that was foretold and came to pass in the self-immolation of Jesus. As the writings of the Apostolic Fathers are very scant, and not at all apologetic but rather devotional and exhortive, we should not look in them for that clear and plain defence of the Divinity of Christ which is evidenced in the writings of the apologists and later Fathers. (β) The witness of St. Ignatius of Antioch (A. D. 110-117, according to Harnack) is almost that of the apologetic age, in whose spirit he seems to have written to the Ephesians. It may well be that at Ephesus the very same heresies were now doing havoc which about ten years before or, according to Harnack's chronology, at the very same time, St. John had written his Gospel to undo. If this be so, we understand the bold confession of the Divinity of Jesus Christ which this grand confessor of the Faith brings into his greetings, at the beginning of his letter to the Ephesians. "Ignatius . . . . to the Church . . . which is at Ephesus . . . . in the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ Our God (του θεου ημων)." He says: "The Physician in One, of the Flesh and of the Spirit, begotten and not begotten, who was God in Flesh (εν σαρκι γενομενος θεος) . . . Jesus Christ Our Lord" (c. vii; Funk, I, 218). "For Our God Jesus Christ was borne in the womb by Mary" (c. xviii, 2; Funk, I, 226). To the Romans he writes: "For Our God Jesus Christ, abiding in the Father, is manifest even the more" (c. iii, 3; Funk, 1, 256). The witness of the Letter of Barnabas: "Lo, again, Jesus is not the Son of man but the Son of God, made manifest in form in the Flesh. And since men were going to say that the Christ was the Son of David, David himself, fearing and understanding the malice of the wicked, made prophecy: The Lord said to my Lord . . . . . Lo, how David calls Him the Lord and not son" (c. xiii; Funk, I, 77). In the apologetic age, Saint Justin Martyr (Harnack. A. D. 150) wrote: "Since the Word is the first-born of God, He is also God" (Apol. I, n. 63; P. G., VI, 423). It is evident from the context that Justin means Jesus Christ by the Word; he had just said that Jesus was the Word before He became Man, and used to appear in the form of fire or of some other incorporeal image. St. Irenaeus proves that Jesus Christ is rightly called the one and only God and Lord, in that all things are said to have been made by Him (see "Adv. Haer.", III, viii, n. 3; P. G., VII, 868; bk. IV, 10, 14, 36). Deutero-Clement (Harnack, A. D. 166; Sanday, A. D. 150) insists: "Brethren, we should think of Jesus Christ as of God Himself, as of the Judge of the living and the dead" (see Funk, I, 184). St. Clement of Alexandria (Sanday, A. D. 190) speaks of Christ as "true God without any controversy, the equal of the Lord of the whole universe, since He is the Son and the Word is in God" (Cohortatio ad Gentes, c. x; P. G., VIII, 227).
To the witness of these Fathers of the Apostolic and apologetic age, we add a few witnesses from the contemporary pagan writers. Pliny (A. D. 107) wrote to Trajan that the Christians were wont before the light of day to meet and to sing praises "to Christ as to God" (Epist., x, 97). The Emperor Hadrian (A. D. 117) wrote to Servianus that many Egyptians had become Christians, and that converts to Christianity were "forced to adore Christ", since He was their God (see Saturninus, c. vii). Lucian scoffs at the Christians because they had been persuaded by Christ "to throw over the gods of the Greeks and to adore Him fastened to a cross" (De Morte Peregrini, 13). Here also may be mentioned the well-known graffito that caricatures the worship of the Crucified as God. This important contribution to archaeology was found, in 1857, on a wall of the Paedagogium, an inner part of the Domus Gelotiana of the Palatine, and is now in the Kircher Museum, Rome. After the murder of Caligula (A. D. 41) this inner part of the Domus Gelotiana became a training-school for court pages, called the Paedagogium (see Lanciani, "Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome", ed. Boston, 1897, p. 186). This fact and the language of the graffito lead one to surmise that the page who mocked at the religion of one of his fellows has so become an important witness to the Christian adoration of Jesus as God in the first or, at the very latest, the second century. The graffito represents the Christ on a cross and mockingly gives Him an ass's head; a page is rudely scratched kneeling and with hands outstretched in the attitude of prayer; the inscription is "Alexamenos worships his God" (Αλεξαμενος σεβεται τον θεον). In the second century, too, Celsus arraigns the Christians precisely on this account that they think God was made man (see Origen, "Contra Celsum", IV, 14; P. G., XI, 1043). Aristides wrote to the Emperor Antonius Pius (A.D. 138-161) what seems to have been an apology for the Faith of Christ: "He Himself is called the Son of God; and they teach of Him that He as God came down from heaven and took and put on Flesh of a Hebrew virgin" (see "Theol. Quartalschrift", Tübingen, 1892, p. 535).
(b) Witness of the Councils. — The first general council of the Church was called to define the Divinity of Jesus Christ and to condemn Arius and his error (see ARIUS). Previous to this time, heretics had denied this great and fundamental dogma of the Faith; but the Fathers had been equal to the task of refuting the error and of stemming the tide of heresy. Now the tide of heresy was so strong as to have need of the authority of the universal Church to withstand it. In his "Thalia", Arius taught that the Word was not eternal (ην ποτε οτε ουκ ην) nor generated of the Father, but made out of nothing (εξ ουκ οντων γεγονεν ο λογος); and though it was before the world was, yet it was a thing made, a created thing (ποιημα or κτισις). Against this bold heresy, the Council of Nicaea (325) defined the dogma of the Divinity: of Christ in the clearest terms: "We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, generated of the Father (γεννηθεντα εκ του πατρος μονογενη), that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, True God of True God, begotten not made, the same in nature with the Father (ομοουσιον τω πατρι) by Whom all things were made" (see Denzinger, 54).
(2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ. — The Gnostics taught that matter was of its very nature evil, somewhat as the present-day Christian scientists teach that it is an "error of mortal mind"; hence Christ as God could not have had a material body, and His body was only apparent. These heretics, called doketæ included Basilides, Marcion, the Manichaeans, and others. Valentinus and others admitted that Jesus had a body, but a something heavenly and ethereal; hence Jesus was not born of Mary, but His airy body passed through her virgin body. The Apollinarists admitted that Jesus had an ordinary body, but denied Him a human soul; the Divine nature took the place of the rational mind. Against all these various forms of the heresy that denies Christ is true Man stand countless and clearest testimonies of the written and unwritten Word of God. The title that is characteristic of Jesus in the New Testament is Son of Man; it occurs some eighty times in the Gospels; it was His Own accustomed title for Himself. The phrase is Aramaic, and would seem to be an idiomatic way of saying "man". The life and death and resurrection of Christ would all be a lie were He not a man, and our Faith would be vain. (I Cor., xv, 14). "For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Tim., ii, 5). Why, Christ even enumerates the parts of His Body. "See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have" (Luke, xxiv, 39). St. Augustine says, in this matter: "If the Body of Christ was a fancy, then Christ erred; and if Christ erred, then He is not the Truth. But Christ is the Truth; hence His Body was not a fancy' (QQ. lxxxiii, q. 14; P. L., XL, 14). In regard to the human soul of Christ, the Scripture is equally clear. Only a human soul could have been sad and troubled. Christ says: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Matt., xxvi, 38). "Now is my soul troubled" (John, xii, 27). His obedience to the heavenly Father and to Mary and Joseph supposes a human soul (John, iv, 34; v, 30; vi, 38; Luke, xxii, 42). Finally Jesus was really born of Mary (Matt., i, 16), made of a woman (Gal., iv, 4), after the angel had promised that He should be conceived of Mary (Luke, i, 31); this woman is called the mother of Jesus (Matt., i, 18; ii, 11; Luke, i, 43; John, ii, 3); Christ is said to be really the seed of Abraham (Gal., iii, 16), the son of David (Matt., i, 1), made of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom., i, 3), and the fruit of the loins of David (Acts, ii, 30). So clear is the testimony of Scripture to the perfect human nature of Jesus Christ, that the Fathers held it as a general principle that whatsoever the Word had not assumed was not healed, i. e., did not receive the effects of the Incarnation.
(3) The Hypostatic Union of the Divine Nature and the Human Nature of Jesus in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ. — Here we consider this union as a fact; the nature of the union will be later taken up. Now it is our purpose to prove that the Divine nature was really and truly united with the human nature of Jesus, i. e., that one and the same Person, Jesus Christ, was God and man. We speak here of no moral union, no union in a figurative sense of the word; but a union that is physical, a union of two substances or natures so as to make One Person, a union which means that God is Man and Man is God in the Person of Jesus Christ.
A. The Witness of Holy Writ. — St. John says: "The Word was made flesh" (i, 14), that is, He Who was God in the Beginning (i, 2), and by Whom all things were created (i. 3), became Man. According to the testimony of St. Paul, the very same Person, Jesus Christ, "being in the form of God [εν μορφη Θεου υπαρχων] . . . emptied himself, taking the form of a servant [μορφην δουλου λαβων]" (Phil., ii, 6, 7). It is always one and the same Person, Jesus Christ, Who is said to be God and Man, or is given predicates that denote Divine and human nature. The author of life (God) is said to have been killed by the Jews (Acts, iii, 15); but He could not have been killed were He not Man.
B. Witness of Tradition. — The early forms of the creed all make profession of faith, not in one Jesus Who is the Son of God and in another Jesus Who is Man and was crucified, but "in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, Who became Man for us and was crucified". The forms vary, but the substance of each creed invariably attributes to one and the same Jesus Christ the predicates of the Godhead and of man (see Denzinger, "Enchiridion"). Franzelin (thesis xvii) calls special attention to the fact that, long before the heresy of Nestorius, according to Epiphanius (Ancorat., II, 123, in P. G., XLII, 234), it was the custom of the Oriental Church to propose to catechumens a creed that was very much more detailed than that proposed to the faithful; and in this creed the catechumens said: "We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of God the Father . . . that is, of the substance of the Father . . . in Him Who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made Flesh, that is, was perfectly begotten of Mary ever Virgin by the Holy Spirit; Who became Man, that is, took perfect human nature, soul and body and mind and all whatsoever is human save only sin, without the seed of man; not in another man, but unto himself did He form Flesh into one holy unity [εις μιαν αγιαν ενοτητα]; not as He breathed and spoke and wrought in the prophets, but He became Man perfectly; for the Word was made Flesh, not in that It underwent a change nor in that It exchanged Its Divinity for humanity, but in that It united Its Flesh unto Its one holy totality and Divinity [εις μιαν . . . εαυτου αγιαν τελειοτητα τε και θεοτητα].' "The one holy totality", Franzelin considers, means personality, a person being an individual and complete subject of rational acts. This creed of the catechumens gives even the Divinity of the totality, i. e. the fact that the individual Person of Jesus is a Divine and not a human Person. Of this intricate question we shall speak later on.
The witness of tradition to the fact of the union of the two natures in the one Person of Jesus is clear not only from the symbols or creeds in use before the condemnation of Nestorius, but also from the words of the ante-Nicaean Fathers. We have already given the classic quotations from St. Ignatius the Martyr, St. Clement of Rome, St. Justin the Martyr, in all of which are attributed to the one Person, Jesus Christ, the actions or attributes of God and of Man. Melito, Bishop of Sardis (about 176), says: "Since the same (Christ) was at the same time God and perfect Man, He made His two natures evident to us; His Divine nature by the miracles which He wrought during the three years after His baptism; His human nature by those thirtv years that He first lived, during which the lowliness of the Flesh covered over and hid away all signs of the Divinity, though He was at one and the same time true and everlasting God" (Frag. vii in P. G., V, 1221). St. Irenaeus, toward the close of the second century, argues: "If one person suffered and another Person remained incapable of suffering; if one person was born and another Person came down upon him that was born and thereafter left him, not one person but two are proven . . . whereas the Apostle knew one only Who was born and Who suffered" ("Adv. Hær.", III, xvi, n, 9, in P. G., VII, 928). Tertullian bears firm witness: "Was not God really crucified? Did He not realiy die as He really was crucified?" ("De Carne Christi", c. v, in P. L., II, 760).
II. THE NATURE OF THE INCARNATION. — We have treated the fact of the Incarnation, that is, the fact of the Divine nature of Jesus, the fact of the human nature of Jesus, the fact of the union of these two natures in Jesus. We now take up the crucial question of the nature of this fact, the manner of this tremendous miracle, the way of uniting the Divine with the human nature in one and the same Person. Arius had denied the fact of this union. No other heresy rent and tore the body of the Church to any very great extent in the matter of this fact after the condemnation of Arius in the Council of Nicaea (325). Soon a new heresy arose in the explanation of the fact of the union of the two natures in Christ. Nicaea had, indeed, defined the fact of the union; it had not explicitly defined the nature of that fact; it had not said whether that union was moral or physical. The council had implicitly defined the union of the two natures in one hypostasis, a union called physical in opposition to the mere juxtaposition or joining of the two natures called a moral union. Nicaea had professed a belief in "One Lord Jesus Christ . . . true God of true God . . . Who took Flesh, became Man and suffered". This belief was in one Person Who was at the same time God and Man, that is, had at the same time Divine and human nature. Such teaching was an implicit definition of all that was later on denied by Nestorius. We shall find the great Athanasius, for fifty years the determined foe of the heresiarch, interpreting Nicaea's decree in just this sense; and Athanasius must have known the sense meant by Nicaea, in which he was the antagonist of the heretic Arius.
In spite of the efforts of Athanasius, Nestorius, who had been elected Patriarch of Constantinople (428), found a loophole to avoid the definition of Nicaea. Nestorius called the union of the two natures a mysterious and an inseparable joining (συμαφειαν), but would admit no unity (ενωσιν) in the strict sense of the word to be the result of this joining (see "Serm.", ii, n. 4; xii, n. 2, in P. L., XLVIII). The union of the two natures is not physical (φυσικη) but moral, a mere juxtaposition in state of being (σχετικη); the Word indwells in Jesus like as God indwells in the just (loc. cit.); the indwelling of the Word in Jesus is, however, more excellent than the indwelling of God in the just man by grace, for that the indwelling of the Word purposes the Redemption of all mankind and the most perfect manifestation of the Divine activity (Serm. vii, n. 24); as a consequence, Mary is the Mother of Christ (Χριστοτοκος), not the Mother of God (Θεοτοκος). As is usual in these Oriental heresies, the metaphysical refinement of Nestorius was faulty, and led him into a practical denial of the mystery that he had set himself to explain. During the discussion that Nestorius aroused, he strove to explain that his indwelling (ενοικησις) theory was quite enough to keep him within the demands of Nicaea; he insisted that "the Man Jesus should be co-adored with the Divine union and almighty God [τον τη θεια συναφεια τω παντοκρατορι θεω συμπροσκυνουμενον ανθρωπον] "(Serm., vii, n. 35); he forcibly denied that Christ was two persons, but proclaimed Him as one person (προσωπον) made up of two substances. The oneness of the Person was however only moral, and not at all physical. Despite whatsoever Nestorius said as a pretext to save himself from the brand of heresy, he continually and explicitly denied the hypostatic union (ενωσιν καθ υποστασιν, κατα φυσιν, κατ ουσιαν), that union of physical entities and of substances which the Church defends in Jesus; he affirmed a juxtaposition in authority, dignity, energy, relation, and state of being (συναφεια κατ αυθεντιαν, αξιαν, ενεργειαν, αναφοραν, σχεσιν); and he maintained that the Fathers of Nicæa had nowhere said that God was born of the Virgin Mary (Sermo, v, nn. 5 and 6).
A. Nestorius in this distortion of the sense of Nicæa clearly went against the tradition of the Church. Before he had denied the hypostatic union of the two natures in Jesus, that union had been taught by the greatest Fathers of their time. St. Hippolytus (about 230) taught: "the Flesh [σαρξ] apart from the Logos had no hypostasis [ουδε . . . υποσταναι εδυνατο, was unable to act as principle of rational activity], for that its hypostasis was in the Word" ("Contra Noet.", n. 15, in P. G., X, 823). St. Epiphanius (about 365): "The Logos united body, mind, and soul into one totality and spiritual hypostasis" ("Hær.", xx, n. 4, in P. G., XLI, 277). "The Logos made the Flesh to subsist in the hypostasis of the Logos [εις εαυτον υποστησαντα την σαρκα]" ("Hær.", cxxvii, n. 29, in P. G., XLII, 684). St. Athanasius (about 350): "They err who say that it is one person who is the Son that suffered, and another person who did not suffer ... ; the Flesh became God's own by nature [κατα φυσιν], not that it became consubstantial with the Divinity of the Logos as if coeternal therewith, but that it became God's own Flesh by its very nature [κατα φυσιν]." In this entire discourse ("Contra Apollinarium", I, 12, in P. G., XXVI, 1113), St. Athanasius directly attacks the specious pretexts of the Arians and the arguments that Nestorius later took up,and defends the union of two physical natures in Christ [κατα φυσιν], as apposed to the mere juxtaposition or joining of the same natures [κατα σχεσιν]. St. Cyril of Alexandria (about 415) makes use of this formula oftener even than the other Fathers; he calls Christ "the Word of the Father united in nature with the Flesh [τον εκ θεου πατρος Λογον κατα φυσιν ενωθεντα σαρκι] ("De Recta Fide", n. 8, in P. G., LXXVI, 1210). For other and very numerous citations, see Petavius (111, 4). The Fathers always explain that this physical union of the two natures does not mean the intermingling of the natures, nor any such union as would imply a change in God, but only such union as was necessary to explain the fact that one Divine Person had human nature as His own true nature together with His Divine nature.
B. The Council of Ephesus (431) condemned the heresy of Nestorius, and defined that Mary was mother in the flesh of God's Word made Flesh (can. i). It anathematized all who deny that the Word of God the Father was united with the Flesh in one hypostasis (καθ υποστασιν); all who deny that there is only one Christ with Flesh that is His own; all who deny that the same Christ is God at the same time and man (can. ii). In the remaining ten canons drawn up by St. Cyril of Alexandria, the anathema is aimed directly at Nestorius. "If in the one Christ anyone divides the substances, after they have been once united, and joins them together merely by a juxtaposition [μονη συναπτων αυτας συναφεια] of honour or of authority or of power and not rather by a union into a physical unity [συνοδω τη καθ ενωσιν φυσικην], let him be accursed" (can. iii). These twelve canons condemn plecemeal the various subterfuges of Nestorius. St. Cyril saw heresy lurking in phrases that seemed innocent enough to the unsuspecting. Even the co-adoration theory is condemned as an attempt to separate the Divine from the human nature in Jesus by giving to each a separate hypostasis (see Denzinger, "Enchiridion", ed. 1908, nn. 113-26).
(2) The condemnation of the heresy of Nestorius saved for the Church the dogma of the Incarnation, "the great mystery of godliness" (I Tim., iii, 16), but lost to her a portion of her children, who, though dwindled down to insignificant numbers, still remain apart from her care. The union of the two natures in one Person was saved. The battle for the dogma was not yet won. Nestorius had postulated two persons in Jesus Christ. A new heresy soon began. It postulated only one Person in Jesus, and that the Divine Person. It went farther. It went too far. The new heresy defended only one nature, as well as one Person in Jesus. The leader of this heresy was Eutyches. His followers were called Monophysites. They varied in their ways of explanation. Some thought the two natures were intermingled into one. Others are said to have worked out some sort of a conversion of the human into the Divine. All were condemned by the Council of Chalcedon (451). This Fourth General Council of the Church defined that Jesus Christ remained, after the Incarnation, "perfect in Divinity and perfect in humanity . . . consubstantial with the Father according to His Divinity, consubstantial with us according to His humanity . . . one and the same Christ, the Son, the Lord, the Only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures not intermingled, not changed, not divisible, not separable" (see Denzinger, n. 148). By this condemnation of error and definition of truth, the dogma of the Incarnation was once again saved to the Church. Once again a large portion of the faithful of the Oriental Church were lost to their mother. Monophysitism resulted in the national Churches of Syria, Egypt, and Armenia. These national Churches are still heretic, although there have in later times been formed Catholic rites called the Catholic Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian rites. The Catholic rites, as the Catholic Chaldaic rite, are less numerous than the heretic rites.
(3) One would suppose that there was no more room for heresy in the explanation of the mystery of the nature of the Incarnation. There is always room for heresy in the matter of explanation of a mystery, if one does not hear the infallible teaching body to whom and to whom alone Christ entrusted His mysteries to have and to keep and to teach them till ihe end of time. Three patriarchs of the Oriental Church gave rise, so far as we know, to the new heresy. These three heresiarchs were Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Cyrus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, and Athanasius, the Patriarch of Antioch. St. Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, remained true and delated his fellow patriarchs to Pope Honorius. His successor in the see of Peter, St. Martin, bravely condemned the error of the three Oriental patriarchs, who admitted the decrees of Nicaea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon; defended the union of two natures in one Divine Person; but denied that this Divine Person had two wills. Their principle was expressed by the words, εν θελημα και μια ενεργεια, by which they would seem to have meant one will and one activity, i. e. only one principle of action and of suffering in Jesus Christ and that one principle Divine. These heretics were called Monothelites. Their error was condemned by the Sixth General Council (the Third Council of Constantinople, 680). It defined that in Christ there were two natural wills and two natural activities, the Divine and the human, and that the human will was not at all contrary to the Divine, but rather perfectly subject thereto (Denzinger, n. 291). The Emperor Constans sent St. Martin into exile in Chersonesus. We have trace of only one body of Monothelites. The Maronites, about the monastery of John Maron, were converted from Monothelism in the time of the Crusades and have been true to the faith ever since. The other Monothelites seem to have been absorbed in Monophysitism, or in the schism of the Byzantine Church later on.
The error of Monothelism is clear from the Scripture as well as from tradition. Christ did acts of adoration (John, iv, 22), humility (Matt., xi, 29), reverence (Heb., v, 7). These acts are those of a human will. The Monothelites denied that there was a human will in Christ. Jesus prayed: "Father, if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from me: but yet not my will, but thine be done," (Luke, xxii, 42). Here there is question of two wills, the Father's and Christ's. The will of Christ was subject to the will of the Father. "As the Father hath given me commandment, so do I" (John, xiv, 31). He became obedient even unto death (Phil., ii, 8). The Divine will in Jesus could not have been subject to the will of the Father, with which will it was really identified.
(4) Thus far we have that which is of Faith in this matter of the nature of the Incarnation. The human and Divine natures are united in one Divine Person so as to remain that exactly which they are, namely, Divine and human natures with distinct and perfect activities of their own. Theologians go farther in their attempts to give some account of the mystery of the Incarnation, so as, at least, to show that there is therein no contradiction, nothing that right reason may not safely adhere to. This union of the two natures in one Person has been for centuries called a hypostatic union, that is, a union in the Divine Hypostasis. What is an hypostasis? The definition of Boethius is classic: rationalis naturæ individua substantia (P. L., LXIV, 1343), a complete whole whose nature is rational. This book is a complete whole; its nature is not rational; it is not an hypostasis. An hypostasis is a complete rational individual. St. Thomas defines hypostasis as substantia cum ultimo complemento (III:2:3, ad 2um), a substance in its entirety. Hypostasis superadds to the notion of rational substance this idea of entirety; nor does the idea of rational nature include this notion of entirety. Human nature is the principle of human activities; but only an hypostasis, a person, can exercise these activities. The Schoolmen discuss the question whether the hypostasis has anything more of reality than human nature. To understand the discussion, one must needs be versed in scholastic Philosophy. Be the case as it may in the matter of human nature that is not united with the Divine, the human nature that is hypostatically united with the Divine, that is, the human nature that the Divine Hypostasis or Person assumes to Itself, has certainly more of reality united to it than the human nature of Christ would have were it not hypostatically united in the Word. The Divine Logos identified with Divine nature (Hypostatic Union) means then that the Divine Hypostasis (or Person, or Word, or Logos) appropriates to Itself human nature, and takes in every respect the place of the human person. In this way, the human nature of Christ, though not a human person, loses nothing of the perfection of the perfect man; for the Divine Person supplies the place of the human.
It is to be remembered that, when the Word took Flesh, there was no change in the Word; all the change was in the Flesh. At the moment of conception, in the womb of the Blessed Mother, through the forcefulness of God's activity, not only was the human soul of Christ created but the Word assumed the man that was conceived. When God created the world, the world was changed, that is. it passed from the state of nonentity to the state of existence; and there was no change in the Logos or Creative Word of God the Father. Nor was there change in that Logos when it began to terminate the human nature. A new relation ensued, to be sure; but this new relation implied in the Logos no new reality, no real change; all new reality, all real change, was in the human nature. Anyone who wishes to go into this very intricate question of the manner of the Hypostatic Union of the two natures in the one Divine Personality, may with great profit read St. Thomas (III:4:2); Scotus (in III, Dist. i); (De Incarnatione, Disp. II, sec. 3); Gregory, of Valentia (in III, D. i, q. 4). Any modern text book on theology will give various opinions in regard to the way of the union of the Person assuming with the nature assumed.
III. EFFECTS OF THE INCARNATION. — (1) On Christ Himself. — A. On the Body of Christ. — Did union with the Divine nature do away, with all bodily inperfections? The Monophysites were split up into two parties by this question. Catholics hold that, before the Resurrection, the Body of Christ was subject to all the bodily weaknesses to which human nature unassumed is universally subject; such are hunger, thirst, pain, death. Christ hungered (Matt., iv, 2), thirsted (John, xix, 28), was fatigued (John, iv, 6), suffered pain and death. "We have not a high priest, who cannot have compassion on our infirmities: but one tempted in all things like as we are, without sin" (Heb., iv, 15). "For in that, wherein he himself hath suffered and been tempted, he is able to succour them also that are tempted" (Heb., ii, 18). All these bodily weaknesses were not miraculously brought about by Jesus; they were the natural results of the human nature He assumed. To be sure, they might have been impeded and were freely willed by Christ. They were part of the free oblation that began with the moment of the Incarnation. "Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith: Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest not; but a body thou hast fitted to me" (Heb., x, 5). The Fathers deny that Christ assumed sickness. There is no mention in Scripture of any sickness of Jesus. Sickness is not a weakness that is a necessary belonging of human nature. It is true that pretty much all mankind suffers sickness. It is not true that any specific sickness is suffered by all mankind. Not all men must needs have measles. No one definite sickness universally belongs to human nature; hence no one definite sickness was assumed by Christ. St. Athanasius gives the reason that it were unbecoming that He should heal others who was Himself not healed (P. G., XX, 133). Weaknesses due to old age are common to mankind. Had Christ lived to an old age, He would have suffered such weaknesses just as He suffered the weaknesses that are common to infancy. Death from old age would have come to Jesus, had He not been violently put to death (see St. Augustine, "De Peccat.", II, 29; P. L., XLIV, 180). The reasonableness of these bodily imperfections in Christ is clear from the fact that He assumed human nature so as to satisfy for that nature's sin. Now,to satisfy forthe sin of another is to accept the penalty of that sin. Hence it was fitting that Christ should take upon himself all those penalties of the sin of Adam that are common to man and becoming. or at least not unbecoming to the Hypostatic Union. (See Summa Theologica III:14 for other reasons.) As Christ did not take sickness upon Himself, so other imperfections, such as deformities, which are not common to mankind, were not His. St. Clement of Alexandria (III Paedagogus, c. 1), Tertullian (De Carne Christi, c. ix), and a few others taught that Christ was deformed. They misinterpreted the words of Isaias: "There is no beauty in him, nor comeliness; and we have seen him, and there was no sightlinesss" etc. (liii, 2). The words refer only to the suffering Christ. Theologians now are unanimous in the view that Christ was noble in bearing and beautiful in form, such as a perfect man should be; for Christ was, by virtue of His incarnation, a perfect man (see Stentrup, "Christologia", theses lx, lxi).
B. On the Human Soul of Christ. (a) In the Will. — (α) Sinlessness. — The effect of the Incarnation on the human will of Christ was to leave it free in all things save only sin. It was absolutely impossible that any stain of sin should soil the soul of Christ. Neither sinful act of the will nor sinful habit of the soul were in keeping with the Hypostatic Union. The fact that Christ never sinned is an article of faith (see Council, Ephes., can. x, in Denzinger, 122, wherein the sinlessness of Christ is implicit in the definition that he did not offer Himself for Himself, but for us). This fact of Christ's sinlessness is evident from the Scripture. "There is no sin in Him" (I John, iii, 5). Him, who knew no sin, he hath made sin for us" i. e. a victim for sin (II Cor., v, 21). The impossibility of a sinful act by Christ is taught by all theologians, but variously explained. G¨nther defended an impossibility consequent solely upon the Divine provision that He would not sin (Vorschule, II, 441). This is no impossibility at all. Christ is God. It is absolutely impossible, antecedent to the Divine prevision, that God should allow His flesh to sin. If God allowed His flesh to sin, He might sin, that is, He might turn away from Himself; and it is absolutely impossible that God should turn from Himself, be untrue to His Divine attributes. The Scotists teach that this impossibility to sin, antecedent to God's revision, is not due to the Hypostatic Union, but is like to the impossibility of the beatified to sin, and is due to a special Divine Providence (see Scotus, in III, d. xiii, Q. i). St. Thomas (III:15:1) and all Thomists, Suarez (d. xxxiii, 2), Vasquez (d. xi, c. iii), de Lugo (d. xxvi, 1, n. 4), and all theologians of the Society of Jesus teach the now almost universally admitted explanation that the absolute impossibility of a sinful act on the part of Christ was due to the hypostatic union of His human nature with the Divine. (β) Liberty. — The will of Christ remained free after the Incarnation. This is an article of faith. The Scripture is most clear on this point. "When he had tasted, he would not drink" (Matt., xxvii, 34). "I will; be thou made clean" (Matt., viii, 3). The liberty of Christ was such that He merited. "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him" (Phil., ii, 8). "Who having joy set before him, endured the cross" (Heb., xii, 2). That Christ was free in the matter of death, is the teaching of all Catholics; else He did not merit nor satisfy for us by His death. Just how to reconcile this liberty of Christ with the impossibility of His committing sin has ever been a crux for theologians. Some seventeen explanations are given (see St. Thomas, III, Q. xlvii, a. 3, ad 3um; Molina, "Concordia", d. liii, membr. 4).
(b) IN THE INTELLECT. — The effects of the Hypostatic Union upon the knowledge of Christ will be treated in a special article (see KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST).
(c) SANCTITY OF CHRIST. — The Humanity of Christ was holy by a twofold sanctity: the grace of union and sanctifying grace. The grace of union, i. e. the Substantial and Hypostatic Union of the two natures in the Divine Word, is called the substantial sanctity of Christ. St. Augustine says: "Tunc ergo sanctificavit se in se, hoc est hominem se in Verbo se, quia unus est Christus, Verbum et homo, sanctificans hominem in Verbo" (When the Word was made Flesh then, indeed, He sanctified Himself in Himself, that is, Himself as Man in Himself as Word; for that Christ is One Person, both Word and Man, and renders His human nature holy in the holiness of the Divine nature) (In Johan. tract. 108, n. 5, in P. L., XXXV, l916). Besides this substantial sanctity of the grace of Hypostatic Union, there was in the soul of Christ, the accidental sanctity called sanctifying grace. This is the teaching of St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and of the Fathers generally. The Word was "full of grace" (John, i, 14), and "of his fullness we all have received, and grace for grace" (John, i, 16). The Word were not full of grace, if any grace were wanting in Him which would be a perfection fitting to His human nature. All theologians teach that sanctifying grace is a perfection fitting the humanity of Christ. The mystical body of Christ is the Church, whereof Christ is the Head (Rom., xii, 4; I Cor., xii, 11; Eph., i, 20; iv, 4; Col. i, 18: ii, 10). It is especially in this sense that we say the grace of the Head flows through the channels of the sacraments of the Church — through the veins of the body of Christ. Theologians commonly teach that from the very beginning of His existence, He received the fullness of sanctifying grace and other supernatural gifts (except faith, hope, and the moral virtue of penance); nor did He ever increase in these gifts or this sanctifying grace. For so to increase would be to become more pleasing to the Divine Majesty; and this were impossible in Christ. Hence St. Luke meant (ii, 52) that Christ showed more and more day after day the effects of grace in His outward bearing.
(d) Likes and Dislikes. — The Hypostatic Union did not deprive the Human Soul of Christ of its human likes and dislikes. The affections of a man, the emotions of a man were His in so far as they were becoming to the grace of union, in so far as they were not out of order. St. Augustine well argues: "Human affections were not out of place in Him in Whom there was really and truly a human body and a human soul" (De Civ. Dei, XIV, ix, 3). We find that he was subject to anger against the blindness of heart of sinners (Mark, iii, 5); to fear (Mark, xiv, 33); to sadness (Matt., xxvi, 37): to the sensible affections of hope, of desire, and of joy. These likes and dislikes were under the complete will-control of Christ. The fomes peccati, the kindling-wood of sin — that is, those likes and dislikes that are not under full and absolute control of right reason and strong will-power — could not, as a matter of course, have been in Christ. He could not have been tempted by such likes and dislikes to sin. To have taken upon Himself this penalty of sin would not have been in keeping with the absolute and substantial holiness which is implied by the grace of union in the Logos.
C. On the God-Man (Deus-Homo, θεανθρωπος). — One of the most important effects of the union of the Divine nature and human nature in One Person is a mutual interchange of attributes, Divine and human, between God and man, the Communicatio Idiomatum. The God-Man is one Person, and to Him in the concrete may be applied the predicates that refer to the Divinity as well as those that refer to the Humanity of Christ. We may say God is man, was born, died, was buried. These predicates refer to the Person Whose nature is human, as well as Divine; to the Person Who is man, as well as God. We do not mean to say that God, as God, was born; but God, Who is man, was born. We may not predicate the abstract Divinity of the abstract humanity, nor the abstract Divinity of the concrete man, nor vice versa; nor the concrete God of the abstract humanity, nor vice versa. We predicate the concrete of the concrete: Jesus is God; Jesus is man; the God-Man was sad; the Man-God was killed. Some ways of speaking should not be used, not that they may not be rightly explained, but that they may easily be misunderstood in an heretical sense (see COMMUNICATIO IDIOMATUM).
(2) The Adoration of the Humanity of Christ. — The human nature of Christ, united hypostatically with the Divine nature, is adored with the same worship as the Divine nature (see ADORATION). We adore the Word when we adore Christ the Man; but the Word is God. The human nature of Christ is not at all the reason of our adoration of Him; that reason is only the Divine nature. The entire term of our adoration is the Incarnate Word; the motive of the adoration is the Divinity of the Incarnate Word. The partial term of our adoration may be the human nature of Christ: the motive of the adoration is the same as the motive of the adoration that reaches the entire term. Hence, the act of adoration of the Word Incarnate is the same absolute act of adoration that reaches the human nature. The Person of Christ is adored with the cult called latria. But the cult that is due to a person is due in like manner to the whole nature of that Person and to all its parts. Hence, since the human nature is the real and true nature of Christ, that human nature and all its parts are the object of the cult called latria, i. e., adoration. We shall not here enter into the question of the adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (see HEART OF JESUS, DEVORION TO THE). (For the Adoration of the Cross, CROSS AND CRUCIFIX, THE, subtitle II.)
(3) Other Effects of the Incarnation, such as affected the Blessed Mother and us, will be found treated under the respective special subjects. (See GRACE; JUSTIFICATION; IMMACULATE CONCEPTION; MARY, THE BLESSED VIRGIN.)
Fathers of the Church: ST. IRENAEUS, Adversus Haer.; ST. ATHANASIUS, De Incarnatione Verbi; IDEM, Contra Arianos; ST. AMBROSE, De Incarnatione; ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA, Antirrheticus adversus Apollinarium; IDEM, Tractatus ad Theophilum contra Apollinarium; the writings of ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN, ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, and others who attacked the Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites, and Monothelites.
Scholastics: ST. THOMAS, Summa Theologica, III, QQ. 1-59; ST. BONAVENTURE, Brevil., IV; IDEM, in III Sent.; BELLARMINE, De Christo Capite Tolius Ecclesia, Controversiae., 1619; SUAREZ, De Incarnatione, DE LUGO, De Incarnatione, III; PETAVIUS, De incarn. Verbi: Theologia Dogmatica, IV.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII, pp. 706-716
Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Resurrection is the rising again from the dead, the resumption of life.
I. RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. — The fact of Christ's Resurrection, the theories opposed to this fact, its characteristics, and the reasons for its importance must be considered in distinct paragraphs.
A. The Fact of Christ's Resurrection. — The main sources which directly attest the fact of Christ's Resurrection are the Four Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul. Easter morning is so rich in incident, and so crowded with interested persons, that its complete history presents a rather complicated tableau. It is not surprising, therefore, that the partial accounts contained in each of the Four Gospels appear at first sight hard to harmonize. But whatever exegetic view as to the visit to the sepulchre by the pious women and the appearance of the angels we may defend, we cannot deny the Evangelists' agreement as to the fact that the risen Christ appeared to one or more persons. According to St. Matthew, He appeared to the holy women, and again on a mountain in Galilee; according to St. Mark, He was seen by Mary Magdalen, by the two disciples at Emmaus, and the Eleven before his Ascension into heaven; according to St. Luke, He walked with the disciples to Emmaus, appeared to Peter and to the assembled disciples in Jerusalem; according to St. John, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalen, to the ten Apostles on Easter Sunday, to the Eleven a week later, and to the seven disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. St. Paul (I Cor., xv, 3-8) enumerates another series of apparitions of Jesus after His Resurrection; he was seen by Cephas, by the Eleven, by more than 500 brethren, many of whom were still alive at the time of the Apostle's writing, by James, by all the Apostles, and lastly by Paul himself.
Here is an outline of a possible harmony of the Evangelists' account concerning the principal events of Easter Sunday: (1) The holy women carrying the spices previously prepared start out for the sepulchre before dawn, and reach it after sunrise; they are anxious about the heavy stone, but know nothing of the official guard of the sepulchre (Matt., xxviii, 1-3; Mark, xvi, 1-3; Luke, xxiv, 1; John, xx, 1). (2) The angel frightened the guards by his brightness, put them to flight, rolled away the stone, and seated himself (not upon, επ αυτου, but) above (επανω αυτου) the stone (Matt. xxviii, 2-4). (3) Mary Magdalen, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome approach the sepulchre, and see the stone rolled back, whereupon Mary Magdalen immediately returns to inform the Apostles (Mark, xvi, 4; Luke, xxiv, 2; John xx, 1-2). (4) The other two holy women enter the sepulchre, find an angel seated in the vestibule, who shows them the empty sepulchre, announces the Resurrection, and commissions them to tell the disciples and Peter that they shall see Jesus in Galilee (Matt., xxviii, 5-7; Mark, xvi, 5-7). (5) A second group of holy women, consisting of Joanna and her companions, arrive at the sepulchre, where they have probably agreed to meet the first group, enter the empty interior, and are admonished by two angels that Jesus has risen according to His prediction (Luke, xxiv, 10). (6) Not long after, Peter and John, who were notified by Mary Magdalen, arrive at the sepulchre and find the linen cloth in such a position as to exclude the supposition that the body was stolen; for they lay simply flat on the ground, showing that the sacred body had vanished out of them without touching them. When John notices this he believes (John, xx, 3-10). (7) Mary Magdalen returns to the sepulchre, sees first two angels within, and then Jesus Himself (John, xx, 11-l6; Mark, xvi, 9). (8) The two groups of pious women, who probably met on their return to the city, are favored with the sight of Christ arisen, who commissions them to tell His brethren that they will see him in Galilee (Matt., xxviii, 8-10; Mark, xvi, 8). (9) The holy women relate their experiences to the Apostles, but find no belief (Mark, xvi, 10-11; Luke, xxiv, 9-11). (10) Jesus appears to the disciples, at Emmaus, and they return to Jerusalem; the Apostles appear to waver between doubt and belief (Mark, xvi, 12-13; Luke, xxiv, 13-35). (11) Christ appears to Peter, and therefore Peter and John firmly believe in the Resurrection (Luke, xxiv, 34; John, xx, 8). (12) After the return of the disciples from Emmaus, Jesus appears to all the Apostles excepting Thomas (Mark, xvi, 14; Luke, xxiv, 36-43; John, xx, 19-25). The harmony of the other apparitions of Christ after His Resurrection presents no special difficulties.
Briefly, therefore, the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by more than 500 eyewitnesses, whose experience, simplicity, and uprightness of life rendered them incapable of inventing such a fable, who lived at a time when any attempt to deceive could have been easily discovered, who had nothing in this life to gain, but everything to lose by their testimony, whose moral courage exhibited in their apostolic life can be explained only by their intimate conviction of the objective truth of their message. Again the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by the eloquent silence of the Synagogue which had done everything to prevent deception, which could have easily discovered deception, if there had been any, which opposed only sleeping witnesses to the testimony of the Apostles, which did not punish the alleged carelessness of the official guard, and which could not answer the testimony of the Apostles except by threatening them "that they speak no more in this name to any man" (Acts, iv, 17). Finally the thousands and millions, both Jews and Gentiles, who believed the testimony of the Apostles in spite of all the disadvantages following from such a belief, in short the origin of the Church, requires for its explanation the reality of Christ's Resurrection, fot the rise of the Church without the Resurrection would have been a greater miracle than the Resurrection itself.
II. Opposing Theories. — By what means can the evidence for Christ's Resurrection by overthrown? Three theories of explanation have been advanced, though the first two have hardly any adherents in our day. (1) There is the theory of those who assert that Christ did not really die upon the cross, that His supposed death was only a temporary swoon, and that His Resurrection was simply a return to consciousness. This was advocated by Paulus ("Exegetisches Handbuch", 1842, II, p. 929) and in a modified form by Hase ("Gesch. Jesu", §112), but it does not agree with the data furnished by the Gospels. The scourging and the crown of thorns, the carrying of the cross and the crucifixion, the three hours on the cross and the piercing of the Sufferer's side cannot have brought on a mere swoon. His real death is attested by the centurion and the soldiers, by the friends of Jesus and by his most bitter enemies. His stay in a sealed sepulchre for thirty-six hours, in an atmosphere poisoned by the exhalations of a hundred pounds of spices, which would have of itself sufficed to cause death. Moreover, if Jesus had merely returned from a swoon, the feelings of Easter morning would have been those of sympathy rather than those of joy and triumph, the Apostles would have been roused to the duties of a sick chamber rather than to apostolic work, the life of the powerful wonderworker would have ended in ignoble solitude and inglorious obscurity, and His vaunted sinlessness would have changed into His silent approval of a lie as the foundation stone of His Church. No wonder that later critics of the Resurrection, like Strauss, have heaped contempt on the old theory of a swoon.
(2) The Imposition Theory. — The disciples, it is said, stole the body of Jesus from the grave, and then proclaimed to men that their Lord had risen. This theory was anticipated by the Jews who "gave a great sum of money to the soldiers, saying: Say you, His disciples came by night, and stole him away when we were asleep" (Matt., xxviii, 12 sq.). The same was urged by Celsus (Orig., "Contra Cels.", II, 56) with some difference of detail. But to assume that the Apostles with a burden of this kind upon their consciences could have preached a kingdom of truth and righteousness as the one great effort of their lives, and that for the sake of that kingdom they could have suffered even unto death, is to assume one of those moral impossibilities which may pass for a moment in the heat of controversy, but must be dismissed without delay in the hour of good reflection.
(3) The Vision Theory. — This theory as generally understood by its advocates does not allow visions caused by a Divine intervention, but only such as are the product of human agencies. For if a Divine intervention be admitted, we may as well believe, as far as principles are concerned, that God raised Jesus from the dead. But where in the present instance are the human agencies which might cause these visions? The idea of a resurrection from the grave was familiar to the disciples from their Jewish faith; they had also vague intimations in the prophecies of the Old Testament; finally, Jesus Himself had always associated His Resurrection with the predictions of his death. On the other hand, the disciples' state of mind was one of great excitement; they treasured the memory of Christ with a fondness which made it almost impossible for them to believe that He was gone. In short, their whole mental condition was such as needed only the application of a spark to kindle the flame. The spark was applied by Mary Magdalen, and the flame at once spread with the rapidity and force of a conflagration. What she believed that she had seen, others immediately believed that they must see. Their expectations were fulfilled, and the conviction seized the members of the early Church that the Lord had really risen from the dead.
Such is the vision theory commonly defended by recent critics of the Resurrection. But however ingeniously it may be devised, it is quite impossible from an historical point of view. (a) It is incompatible with the state of mind of the Apostles; the theory presupposes faith and expectancy on the part of the Apostles, while in point of fact the disciples' faith and expectancy followed their vision of the risen Christ. (b) It is inconsistent with the nature of Christ's manifestations; they ought to have been connected with heavenly glory, or they should have continued the former intimate relations of Jesus with His disciples, while actually and consistently they presented quite a new phase that could not have been expected. (c) It does not agree with the conditions of the early Christian community; after the first excitement of Easter Sunday, the disciples as a body are noted for their cool deliberation rather than the exalted enthusiasm of a community of visionaries. (d) It is incompatible with the length of time during which the apparitions lasted; visions such as the critics suppose have never been known to last long, while some of Christ's manifestations lasted a considerable period. (e) It is not consistent with the fact that the manifestations were made to numbers at the same instant. (f) It does not agree with the place where most of the manifestations were made: visionary appearances would have been expected in Galilee, while most apparitions of Jesus occurred in Judea. (g) It is inconsistent with the fact that the visions came to a sudden end on the day of Ascension.
Keim admits that enthusiasm, nervousness, and mental excitement on the part of the disciples do not supply a rational explanation of the facts as related in the Gospels. According to him, the visions were directly granted by God and the glorified Christ; they may even include a "corporeal appearance" for those who fear that without this they would lose all. But Keim's theory satisfies neither the Church, since it abandons all the proofs of a bodily Resurrection of Jesus, nor the enemies of the Church, since it admits many of the Church's dogmas; nor again is it consistent with itself, since it grants God's special intervention in proof of the Church's faith, though it starts with the denial of the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, which is one of the principal objects of that faith.
(4) Modernist View. — The Holy Office describes and condemns in the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh propositions of the Decree "Lamentabili", the views advocated by a fourth class of opponents of the Resurrection. The former of these propositions reads: "The Resurrection of our Saviour is not properly a fact of the historical order, but a fact of the purely supernatural order neither proved nor provable, which Christian consciousness has little by little inferred from other facts." This statement agrees with, and is further explained by the words of Loisy ("Autour d'un petit livre", p. viii, 120-121, 169; "L'Evangile et l'Eglise", pp. 74-78; 120-121; 171). According to Loisy, firstly, the entrance into life immortal of one risen from the dead is not subject to observation; it is a supernatural, hyper-historical fact, not capable of historical proof. The proofs alleged for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are inadequate; the empty sepulchre is only an indirect argument, while the apparitions of the risen Christ are open to suspicion on a priori grounds, being sensible impressions of a supernatural reality; and they are doubtful evidence from a critical point of view, on account of the discrepancies in the various Scriptural narratives and the mixed character of the detail connected with the apparitions. Secondly, if one prescinds from the faith of the Apostles, the testimony of the New Testament does not furnish a certain argument for the fact of the Resurrection. This faith of the Apostles is concerned not so much with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as with His immortal life; being based on the apparitions, which are unsatisfactory evidence from an historical point of view, its force is appreciated only by faith itself; being a development of the idea of an immortal Messias, it is an evolution of Christian consciousness, though it is at the same time a corrective of the scandal of the Cross. The Holy Office rejects this view of the Resurrection when it condemns the thirty-seventh proposition in the Decree "Lamentabili": "The faith in the Resurrection of Christ pointed at the beginning no so much to the fact of the Resurrection, as to the immortal life of Christ with God."
Besides the authoritative rejection of the foregoing view, we may submit the following three considerations which render it untenable: First, the contention that the Resurrection of Christ cannot be proved historically is not in accord with science. Science does not know enough about the limitations and the properties of a body raised from the dead to immortal life to warrant the assertion that such a body cannot be perceived by the senses; again in the case of Christ, the empty sepulchre with all its concrete circumstances cannot be explained except by a miraculous Divine intervention as supernatural in its character as the Resurrection of Jesus. Secondly, history does not allow us to regard the belief in the Resurrection as the result of a gradual evolution in Christian consciousness. The apparitions were not a mere projection of the disciples' Messianic hope and expectation; their Messianic hope and expectations had to be revived by the apparitions. Again, the Apostles did not begin with preaching the immortal life of Christ with God, but they preached Christ's Resurrection from the very beginning, they insisted on it as a fundamental fact and they described even some of the details connected with this fact: Acts, ii, 24, 31; iii, 15,26; iv, 10; v, 30; x, 39-40; xiii, 30, 37; xvii, 31-2; Rom., i,4; iv, 25; vi, 4,9; viii, 11, 34; x, 7; xiv, 9; I Cor., xv, 4, 13 sqq.; etc. Thirdly, the denial of the historical certainty of Christ's Resurrection involves several historical blunders: it questions the objective reality of the apparitions without any historical grounds for such a doubt; it denies the fact of the empty sepulchre in spite of solid historical evidence to the contrary; it questions even the fact of Christ's burial in Joseph's sepulchre, though this fact is based on the clear and simply unimpeachable testimony of history (cf. Lepin, "Christologie. Commentaire des Propositions XXVII-XXXVIII du Décret du Saint Office 'Lamentabili'", Paris, 1908).
D. Character of Christ;s Resurrection. — The Resurrection of Christ has much in common with the general resurrection; even the transformation of His body and of His bodily life is of the same kind as that which awaits the blessed in their resurrection. But the following peculiarities must be noted: (1) Christ's Resurrection is necessarily a glorious one; it implies not merely the reunion of body and soul, but also the glorification of the body. (2) Christ's body was to know no corruption, but rose again soon after death, when sufficient time had elapsed to leave no doubt as to the reality of His death. (3) Christ was the first to rise unto life immortal; those raised before Him died again (Col., i, I8; I Cor., xv, 20). (4) As the Divine power which raised Christ from the grave was His own power, He rose from the dead by His own power (John, ii, 19; x, l7-18). (5) Since the Resurrection had been promised as the main proof of Christ's Divine mission, it has a greater dogmatic importance than any other fact. "If Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain" (I Cor., xv, 14).
E. Importance of the Resurrection. — Besides being the fundamental argument for our Christian belief, the Resurrection is important for the following reasons: (1) It shows the justice of God who exalted Christ to a life of glory, as Christ had humbled Himself unto death (Phil., ii, 8-9). (2) The Resurrection completed the mystery of our salvation and redemption; by His death Christ freed us from sin, and by His Resurrection He restored to us the most important privileges lost by sin (Rom., iv, 25). (3) By His Resurrection we acknowledge Christ as the immortal God, the efficient and exemplary cause of our own resurrection (I Cor., xv, 21; Phil., iii, 20-21), and as the model and the support of our new life of grace (Rom., vi, 4-6; 9-11).
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XII, pp. 789-792
Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
CHRISTOLOGY. — Christology is that part of theology which deals with Our Lord Jesus Christ. In its full extent it comprises the doctrines concerning both the person of Christ and His works; but in the present article we shall limit ourselves to a consideration of the person of Christ. Here again we shall not infringe on the domain of the historian and Old-Testament theologian, who present their respective contributions under the headings JESUS CHRIST, and MESSIAS; hence the theology of the Person of Jesus Christ, considered in the light of the New Testament or from the Christian point of view, is the proper subject of the present article.
The person of Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Son or the Word of the Father, Who "was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man." These mysteries, though foretold in the Old Testament, were fully revealed in the New, and clearly developed in Christian Tradition and theology. Hence we shall have to study our subject under the triple aspect of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Christian Tradition.
(A) Old Testament. — From what has been said we understand that the Old Testament is not considered here from the viewpoint of the Jewish scribe, but of the Christian theologian. Jesus Christ Himself was the first to use it in this way by His repeated appeal to the Messianic passages of the prophetic writings. The Apostles saw in these prophecies many arguments in favour of the claims and the teachings of Jesus Christ; the Evangelists, too, are familiar with them, though they appeal less frequently to them than the patristic writers do. Even the Fathers either state the prophetic argument only in general terms or they quote single prophecies; but they thus prepare the way for the deeper insight into the historical perspective of the Messianic predictions which began to prevail in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Leaving the statement of the historical development of the Messianic prophecies to the writer of the article MESSIAS, we shall briefly call attention to the prophetic predictions of the genealogy of Christ, of His birth, His infancy, His names, His offices, His public life, His sufferings, and His glory.
(1) References to the human genealogy of the Messias are quite numerous in the Old Testament: He is represented as the seed of the woman, the son of Sem, the son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the son of David, the prince of pastors, the offspring of the marrow of the high cedar (Gen., iii, 1-19; ix, 18-27; xii, 1-9; xvii, 1-9; xviii, 17-19; xxii, 16-18; xxvi, 1-5; xxvii, 1-15; Num., xxiv, 15-19; II Kings, vii, 1-16; 1 Par., xvii, 1-17; Jer., xxiii, 1-8; xxxiii, 14-26; Ezech., xvii). The Royal Psalmist extols the Divine genealogy of the future Messias in the words: "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee" (Ps. ii, 7).
(2) The Prophets frequently speak of the birth of the expected Christ. They locate its place in Bethlehem of Juda (Mich., V, 2-14), they determine its time by the passing of the sceptre from Juda (Gen., xlix, 8-12), by the seventy weeks of Daniel (ix, 22-27), and by the "little while" mentioned in the Book of Aggeus (ii, 1-10). The Old-Testament seers know also that the Messias will be born of a Virgin Mother (Is., vii, 1-17), and that His appearance, at least His public appearance, will be preceded by a precursor (Is., xl, 1-11; Mal., iv, 5-6).
(3) Certain events connected with the infancy of the Messias have been deemed important enough to be the subject of prophetic prediction. Among these are the adoration of the Magi (Ps. lxxxi, 1-17), the slaughter of the innocents (Jer., xxxi, 15-26), and the flight into Egypt (Osee, xi, 1-7). It is true that in the case of these prophecies, as it happens in the case of many others, their fulfilment is their clearest commentary; but this does not undo the fact that the events were really predicted.
(4) Perhaps there is less need of insisting on the predictions of the better known Messianic names and titles, seeing that they involve less obscurity. Thus in the prophecies of Zacharias the Messias is called the Orient, or, according to the Hebrew text, the "bud" (iii; vi, 9-15), in the Book of Daniel He is the Son of Man (vii), in the Prophecy of Malachias He is the Angel of the Testament (ii, 17; iii, 6), in the writings of Isaias He is the Saviour (li, 1; lii, 12; lxii), the Servant of the Lord (xlix, 1), the Emmanuel (viii, 1-10), the Prince of peace (ix, 1-7).
(5) The Messianic offices are considered in a general way in the latter part of Isaias (lxi); in particular, the Messias is considered as prophet in the Book of Deuteronomy (xviii, 9-22); as king in the Canticle of Anna (I Kings, ii, 1-10) and in the royal song of the Psalmist (xliv); as priest in the sacerdotal type Melchisedech (Gen., xiv, 14-20) and in the Psalmist's words " a priest forever" (cix); as Goel, or Avenger, in the second part of Isaias (lxiii, 1-6); as mediator of the New Testament, under the form of a covenant of the people (Is., xlii, 1; xliii, 13), and of the light of the Gentiles (Is., xlix).
(6) As to the public life of the Messias, Isaias gives us a general idea of the fulness of the Spirit investing the Anointed (xi, 1-16), and of the Messianic work (Iv). The Psalmist presents a picture of the Good Shepherd (xxii); Isaias summarizes the Messianic miracles (xxxv); Zacharias exclaims, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion", thus predicting Christ's solemn entrance into Jerusalem; the Psalmist refers to this same event when he mentions the praise out of the mouth of infants (viii). To return once more to the Book of Isaias, the prophet foretells the rejection of the Messias through a league with death (xxvii); the Psalmist alludes to the same mystery where he speaks of the stone which the builders rejected (cxvii).
(7) Need we say that the sufferings of the Messias were fully predicted by the prophets of the Old Testament? The general idea of the Messianic victim is presented in the context of the words "sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not" (Ps. xxxix); in the passage beginning with the resolve "Let us put wood on his bread" (Jer., xi), and in the sacrifice described by the prophet Malachias (i). Besides, the series of the particular events which constitute the history of Christ's Passion has been described by the prophets with a remarkable minuteness: the Psalmist refers to His betrayal in the words "the man of my peace . . . supplanted me" (xl), and Zacharias knows of the "thirty pieces of silver" (xi); the Psalmist praying in the anguish of his soul, is a type of Christ in His agony (Ps. liv); His capture is foretold in the words "pursue and take him" and "they will hunt after the soul of the just" (Ps. lxx; xciii); His trial with its false witnesses may be found represented in the words "unjust witnesses have risen up against me, and iniquity hath lied to itself" (Ps. xxvi); His flagellation is portrayed in the description of the man of sorrows (Is., lii, 13; liii, 12) and the words "scourges were gathered together upon me" (Ps. xxxiv); the betrayer's evil lot is pictured in the imprecations of Psalm cviii; the crucifixion is referred to in the passages "What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands?" (Zach., xiii), "Let us condemn him to a most shameful death" (Wisd., ii), and "They have dug my hands and my feet" (Ps. xxi); the miraculous darkness occurs. in Amos, viii; the gall and vinegar are spoken of in Ps. lxviii; the pierced heart of Christ is foreshadowed in Zach., xii. The sacrifice of Isaac (Gen., xxi, 1-14), the scapegoat (Lev., xvi, 1-28), the ashes of purification (Num., xix, 1-10), and the brazen serpent (Num., xxi, 4-9) hold a prominent place among the types prefiguring the suffering Messias. The third chapter of Lamentations is justly considered as the dirge of our buried Redeemer.
(8) Finally, the glory of the Messias has been foretold by the Prophets of the Old Testament. The context of such phrases as "I have risen because the Lord hath protected me" (Ps. iii), "My flesh shall rest in hope (Ps. xv), "On the third day he will raise us up" (Osee, v, 15, vi, 3), "O death, I will be thy death" (Osee, xiii, 6-15a), and "I know that my Redeemer liveth" (Job, xix, 23-27) referred the devout Jewish worshipper to something more than a merely earthly restoration, the fulfilment of which began to be realized in the Resurrection of Christ. This mystery is also implied, at least typically, in the first fruits of the harvest (Lev., xxiii, 9-14) and the delivery of Jonas from the belly of the fish (Jon., ii). Nor is the Resurrection of the Messias the only element of Christ's glory predicted by the Prophets. Ps. lxvii refers to the Ascension; Joel, ii, 28-32, to the coming of the Paraclete; Is., Ix, to the call of the Gentiles; Mich., iv, 1-7, to the conversion of the Synagogue; Dan., ii, 27-47, to the kingdom of the Messias as compared with the kingdom of the world. Other characteristics of the Messianic kingdom are typified by the tabernacle (Ex., xxv, 8-9; xxix, 43; xl, 33-36; Num., ix, 15-23), the mercy-seat (Ex., xxv, 17-22; Ps. lxxix, 1), Aaron the high priest (Ex., xxviii, 1; xxx, 1; 10; Num., xvi, 39-40), the manna (Ex., xvi, 1-15; Ps. lxxvii, 24-25), and the rock of Horeb (Ex., xvii, 5-7; Num., xx, 10-11; Ps. civ, 41). A Canticle of thanksgiving for the Messianic benefits is found in Is., xii.
The Books of the Old Testament are not the only source from which the Christian theologian may learn the Messianic ideas of pre-Christian Jewry. The Sibylline oracles, the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Psalms of Solomon, the Ascensio Moysis, the Revelation of Baruch, the Fourth Book of Esdras, and several Talmudic and Rabbinic writings are rich depositories of pre-Christian views concerning the expected Messias. Not that all of these works were written before the coming of Christ; but, though partially post-Christian in their authorship, they preserve a picture of the Jewish world of thought, dating back, at least in its outline, centuries before the coming of Christ.
(B) New Testament. — Some modern writers tell us that there are two Christs, as it were, the Messias of faith and the Jesus of history. They regard the Lord and Christ, Whom God exalted by raising Him from the dead, as the subject of Christian faith; and Jesus of Nazareth, the preacher and worker of miracles, as the theme of the historian. They assure us that it is quite impossible to persuade even the least experienced critic that Jesus taught, in formal terms and at one and the same time, the Christology of Paul, that of John, and the doctrines of Nicæa, of Ephesus, and of Chalcedon. Otherwise the history of the first Christian centuries appears to these writers to be quite inconceivable. The Fourth Gospel is said to lack the data which underlie the definitions of the first oecumenical councils and to supply testimony that is not a supplement, but a corrective, of the portrait of Jesus drawn by the Synoptics. These two accounts of the Christ are represented as mutually exclusive: if Jesus spoke and acted as He speaks and acts in the Synoptic Gospels, then He cannot have spoken and acted as He is reported by St. John. We shall here briefly review the Christology of St. Paul, of the Catholic Epistles, of the Fourth Gospel, and the Synoptics. Thus we shall give the reader a complete Christology of the New Testament and at the same time the data necessary to control the contentions of the Modernists. The Christology will not, however, be complete in the sense that it extends to all the details concerning Jesus Christ taught in the New Testament, but in the sense that it gives His essential characteristics taught in the whole of the New Testament.
(1) Pauline Christology. — St. Paul insists on the truth of Christ's real humanity and Divinity, in spite of the fact that at first sight the reader is confronted with three objects in the Apostle's writings: God, the human world, and the Mediator. But then the latter is both Divine and human, both God and man.
(a) Christ's Humanity in the Pauline Epistles. — The expressions "form of a servant", "in habit found as a man", "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Phil., ii, 7; Rom., viii, 3) may seem to impair the real humanity of Christ in the Pauline teaching. But in reality they only describe a mode of being or hint at the presence of a higher nature in Christ not seen by the senses, or they contrast Christ's human nature with the nature of that sinful race to which it belongs. On the other hand the Apostle plainly speaks of Our Lord manifested in the flesh (I Tim., iii, 16), as possessing a body of flesh (Col., i, 22), as being "made of a woman" (Gal., iv, 4), as being born of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom., i, 3), as belonging according to the flesh to the race of Israel (Rom., ix, 5). As a Jew, Jesus Christ was born under the Law (Gal., iv, 4). The Apostle dwells with emphasis on Our Lord's real share in our physical human weakness (II Cor., xiii, 4), on His life of suffering (Heb., v, 8) reaching its climax in the Passion (ibid., i, 5; Phil., iii, 10; Col., i, 24). Only in two respects did Our Lord's humanity differ from the rest of men: first in its entire sinlessness (II Cor., v, 21; Gal., ii, 17; Rom., vii, 3); secondly, in the fact that Our Lord was the second Adam, representing the whole human race (Rom., v, 12-21; I Cor., xv, 45-49).
(b) Christ's Divinity in the Pauline Epistles. — According to St. Paul, the superiority of the Christian revelation over all other Divine manifestations, and the perfection of the New Covenant with its sacrifice and priesthood, are derived from the fact that Christ is the Son of God (Heb., i, 1 sq.; v, 5 sq.; ii, 5 sq.; Rom., i, 3; Gal., iv, 4; Eph., iv, 13; Col., i, 12 sq.; ii, 9 sq.; etc.). The Apostle understands by the expression "Son of God" not a merely moral dignity, or a merely external relation to God which began in time, but an eternal and immanent relation of Christ to the Father. He contrasts Christ with, and finds Him superior to, Aaron and his successors, Moses and the Prophets (Heb., v, 4; x, 11; vii, 1-22; iii, 1-6; i, 1). He raises Christ above the choirs of angels, and makes Him their Lord and Master (Heb., i, 3; 14; ii, 2-3), and seats Him as heir of all things at the right hand of the Father (Heb., i, 2-3; Gal., iv, 14; Eph., i, 20-21). If St. Paul is obliged to use the terms "form of God", "image of God", when he speaks of Christ's Divinity, in order to show the personal distinction between the Eternal Father and the Divine Son (Phil., ii, 6; Col., i, 15), Christ is not merely the image and glory of God (I Cor., xi, 7), but also the first-born before any created beings (Col., i, 15), in Whom, and by Whom, and for Whom all things were made (Col., i, 16), in Whom the fulness of the Godhead resides with that actual reality which we attach to the presence of the material bodies perceptible and measurable through the organs of our senses (Col., ii, 9), in a word, "who is over all things, God blessed for ever" (Rom., ix, 5).
(2) Christology of the Catholic Epistles. — The Epistles of St. John will be considered together with the other writings of the same Apostle in the next paragraph. Under the present heading we shall briefly indicate the views concerning Christ held by the Apostles St. James, St. Peter, and St. Jude.
(a) The Epistle of St. James. — The mainly practical scope of the Epistle of St. James does not lead us to expect that Our Lord's Divinity would be formally expressed in it as a doctrine of faith. This doctrine is, however, implied in the language of the inspired writer. He professes to stand in the same relation to Jesus Christ as to God, being the servant of both (i, 1): he applies the same term to the God of the Old Testament as to Jesus Christ (passim). Jesus Christ is both the sovereign judge and independent lawgiver, who can save and can destroy (iv, 12); the faith in Jesus Christ is faith in the lord of Glory (ii, 1). The language of St. James would be exaggerated and overstrained on any other supposition than the writer's firm belief in the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
(b) Belief of St. Peter. — St. Peter presents himself as the servant and the apostle of Jesus Christ (I Pet., i, 1; II Pet., i, 1), who was predicted by the Prophets of the Old Testament in such a way that the Prophets themselves were Christ's own servants, heralds, and organs (I Pet., i, 10-11). It is the pre-existent Christ who moulds the utterances of Israel's Prophets to proclaim their anticipations of His advent. St. Peter had witnessed the glory of Jesus in the Transfiguration (II Pet., i, 16); he appears to take pleasure in multiplying His titles: Jesus Our Lord (II Pet., i, 2), our Lord Jesus Christ (ibid., i, 14, 16), the Lord and Saviour (ibid., iii, 2), our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (ibid., i, 1), Whose power is Divine (ibid., i, 3), through whose promises Christians are made partakers of the nature of God (ibid., i, 4). Throughout his Epistle, therefore, St. Peter feels, as it were, and implies the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
(c) Epistle of St. Jude. — St. Jude, too, introduces himself as the servant of Jesus Christ, through union with whom Christians are kept in a life of faith and holiness (1); Christ is our only Lord and Saviour (4), Who punished Israel in the wilderness and the rebel angels (5), Who will come to judgment surrounded by myriads of saints (14), and to Whom Christians look for the mercy which He will show them at His coming (21), the issue of which will be life everlasting. Can a merely human Christ be the subject of this language?
(3) Johannean Christology. — If there were nothing else in the New Testament to prove the Divinity of Christ, the first fourteen verses in the Fourth Gospel would suffice to convince a believer in the Bible of that dogma. Now the doctrine of this prologue is the fundamental idea of the whole Johannean theology. The Word made flesh is the same with the Word Who was in the beginning, on the one hand, and with the man Jesus Christ, the subject of the Fourth Gospel on the other. The whole Gospel is a history of the Eternal Word dwelling in human nature among men.
The teaching of the Fourth Gospel is also found in the Johannean Epistles. In his very opening words the writer tells his readers that the Word of life has become manifest and that the Apostles had seen and heard and handled the Word incarnate. The denial of the Son implies the loss of the Father (I John, ii, 23), and "whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him and he in God" (ibid., iv, 15). Towards the end of the Epistle the writer is still more emphatic: "And we know that the Son of God is come: and he hath given us understanding that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son. This is the true God and life eternal" (ibid., v, 20).
According to the Apocalypse, Christ is the first and the last, the alpha and the omega, the eternal and the almighty (i, 8; xxi, 6; xxii, 13). He is the king of kings and lord of lords (xix, 16), the lord of the unseen world (xii, 10; xiii, 8), the centre of the court of heaven (v, 6); He receives the adoration of the highest angels (v, 8), and as the object of that uninterrupted worship (v, 12), )He is associated with the Father (v, 13; xvii, 14).
(4) Christology of the Synoptists. — There is a real difference between the first three Evangelists and St. John in their respective representations of our Lord. The truth presented by these writers may be the same, but they view it from different standpoints. The three Synoptists set forth the humanity of Christ in its obedience to the law, in its power over nature, and in its tenderness for the weak and afflicted; the fourth Gospel sets forth the life of Christ not in any of the aspects which belong to it as human, but as being the adequate expression of the glory of the Divine Person, manifested to men under a visible form. But in spite of this difference, the Synoptists by their suggestive implication practically anticipate the teaching of the Fourth Gospel. This suggestion is implied, first, in the Synoptic use of the title Son of God as applied to Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Son of God, not merely in an ethical or theocratic sense, not merely as one among many sons, but He is the only, the well-beloved Son of the Father, so that His son-ship is unshared by any other, and is absolutely unique (Matt., iii, 17, xvii, 5; xxii, 41; cf. iv, 3, 6; Luke, iv, 3, 9); it is derived from the fact that the Holy Ghost was to come upon Mary, and the power of the Most High was to overshadow her (Luke, i, 35). Again, the Synoptists imply Christ's Divinity in their history of His nativity and its accompanying circumstances; He is conceived of the Holy Ghost (Luke, 1, 35), and His mother knows that all generations shall call her blessed, because the mighty one had done great things unto her (Luke, i, 48). Elisabeth calls Mary blessed among women, blesses the fruit of her womb, and marvels that she herself should be visited by the mother of her Lord (Luke, i, 42-43). Gabriel greets Our Lady as full of grace, and blessed among women; her Son will be great, He will be called the Son of the Most High, and of His kingdom there will be no end (Luke, i, 28, 32). As new-born infant, Christ is adored by the shepherds and the Magi, representatives of the Jewish and the Gentile world. Simeon sees in the child his Lord's salvation, the light of the Gentiles, and the pride and glory of his people Israel (Luke, ii, 30-32). These accounts hardly fit in with the limits of a merely human child, but they become intelligible in the light of the Fourth Gospel.
The Synoptists agree with the teaching of the Fourth Gospel concerning the person of Jesus Christ not merely in their use of the term Son of God and in their accounts of Christ's birth with its surrounding details, but also in their narratives of Our Lord's doctrine, life, and work. The very term Son of Man, which they often apply to Christ, is used in such a way that it shows in Jesus Christ a self-consciousness for which the human element is not something primary, but something secondary and superinduced. Often Christ is simply called Son (Matt., xi, 27; xxviii, 20), and correspondingly He never calls the Father "our" Father, but "my" Father (Matt., xviii, 10, 19, 35; xx, 23; xxvi, 53). At His baptism and transfiguration He receives witness from heaven to His Divine Son-ship; the Prophets of the Old Testament are not rivals, but servants in comparison with Him (Matt., xxi, 34); hence the title Son of Man implies a nature to which Christ's humanity was an accessory. Again, Christ claims the power to forgive sins and supports His claim by miracles (Matt., ix, 2-6; Luke, v, 20, 24); He insists on faith in Himself (Matt., xvi, 16, 17), He inserts His name in the baptismal formula between that of the Father and the Holy Ghost (Matt., xxviii, 19), He alone knows the Father and is known by the Father alone (Matt., xi, 27), He institutes the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist (Matt., xxvi, 26; Mark, xiv, 22; Luke, xxii 19), He suffers and dies only to rise again the third day (Matt., xx, 19; Mark x, 34; Luke, xviii, 33) He ascends into Heaven, but declares that He will be among us till the end of the world (Matt., xxviii, 20).
Need we add that Christ's claims to the most exalted dignity of His person are unmistakably clear in the eschatological discourses of the Synoptists? He is the Lord of the material and moral universe; as supreme lawgiver He revises all other legislation; as final judge He determines the fate of all. Blot the Fourth Gospel out of the Canon of the New Testament, and you still have in the Synoptic Gospels the identical doctrine concerning the person of Jesus Christ which we now draw out of the Four Gospels; some points of the doctrine might be less clearly stated than they are now, but they would remain substantially the same.
(C) Christian Tradition. — Biblical Christology shows that one and the same Jesus Christ is both God and man. While Christian tradition has always maintained this triple thesis that Jesus Christ is truly man, that He is truly God, and that the Godman, Jesus Christ, is one and the same person the heretical or erroneous tenets of various religious leaders have forced the Church to insist more expressly now on the one, now on another element of her Christology. A classified list of the principal errors and of the subsequent ecclesiastical utterances will show the historical development of the Church's doctrine with sufficient clearness. The reader will find a more lengthy account of the principal heresies and councils under their respective headings.
(1) Humanity of Christ. — The true humanity of Jesus Christ was denied even in the earliest ages of the Church. The Docetist Marcion and the Priscillianists grant to Jesus only an apparent body; the Valentinians, a body brought down from Heaven. The followers of Apollinaris deny either that Jesus had any human soul at all, or that He possessed the higher part of the human soul, they maintain that the Word supplies either the whole soul in Christ, or at least its higher faculties. In more recent times it is not so much Christ's true humanity as His real manhood that is denied. According to Kant the Christian creed deals with the ideal, not with the historical Jesus; according to Jacobi, it worships Jesus not as an historical person, but as a religious ideal; according to Fichte there exists an absolute unity between God and man, and Jesus was the first to see and teach it; according to Schelling, the incarnation is an eternal fact, which happened to reach in Jesus its highest point, according to Hegel, Christ is not the actual incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth but the symbol of God's incarnation in humanity at large. Finally, certain recent Catholic writers distinguish between the Christ of history and the Christ of faith, thus destroying in the Christ of faith His historical reality. The New Syllabus (Proposit, 29 sq.) and the Encyclical "Pascendi dominici gregis" may be consulted on these errors.
(2) The Divinity of Christ. — Even in Apostolic times the Church regarded a denial of Christ's Divinity as eminently anti-Christian (I John, ii, 22-23; iv, 3; II John, 7). The early martyrs, the most ancient Fathers, and the first ecclesiastical liturgies agree in their profession of Christ's Divinity. Still, the Ebionites, the Theodotians, the Artemonites, and the Photinians looked upon Christ either as a mere man, though singularly enlightened by Divine wisdom, or as the appearance of an æon emanating from the Divine Being according to the Gnostic theory; or again as a manifestation of the Divine Being such as the Theistic and Pantheistic Sabellians and Patripassians admitted; or, finally, as the incarnate Word indeed, but the Word conceived after the Arian manner as a creature mediating between God and the world, at least not essentially identical with the Father and the Holy Ghost. Though the definitions of Nice and of the subsequent councils, especially of the Fourth Lateran, deal directly with the doctrine concerning the Most Holy Trinity, still they also teach that the Word is consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and thus establish the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate. In more recent times, our earliest Rationalists endeavoured to avoid the problem of Jesus Christ; they had little to say of him, while they made St. Paul the founder of the Church. But the historical Christ was too impressive a figure to be long neglected. It is all the more to be regretted that in recent times a practical denial of Christ's Divinity is not confined to the Socinians and such writers as Ewald and Schleiermacher. Others who profess to be believing Christians see in Christ the perfect revelation of God, the true head and lord of the human race, but, after all, they end with Pilate's words, "Behold, the man".
(3) Hypostatic Union. — His human nature and His Divine nature are in Jesus Christ united hypostatically, i.e. united in the hypostasis or the person of the Word. This dogma too has found bitter opponents from the earliest times of the Church. Nestorius and his followers admitted in Christ one moral person, as a human society forms one moral person; but this moral person results from the union of two physical persons, just as there are two natures in Christ. These two persons are united, not physically, but morally, by means of grace. The heresy of Nestorius was condemned by Celestine I in the Roman Synod of A. D. 430 and by the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, the Catholic doctrine was again insisted on in the Council of Chalcedon and the second Council of Constantinople. It follows that the Divine and the human nature are physically united in Christ. The Monophysites, therefore, believed that in this physical union either the human nature was absorbed by the Divine, according to the views of Eutyches; or that the Divine nature was absorbed by the human; or, again, that out of the physical union of the two resulted a third nature by a kind of physical mixture, as it were, or at least by means of their physical composition. The true Catholic doctrine was upheld by Pope Leo the Great, the Council of Chalcedon, and the Fifth Ecumenical Council, A.D. 553. The twelfth canon of the last-named council excludes also the view that Christ's moral life developed gradually, attaining its completion only after the Resurrection. The Adoptionists renewed Nestorianism in part because they considered the Word as the natural Son of God, and the man Christ as a servant or an adopted son of God, thus granting its own personality to Christ's human nature. This opinion was rejected by Pope Adrian I, the Synod of Ratisbon, A.D. 782, the Council of Frankfort (794), and by Leo III in the Roman Synod (799). There is no need to point out that the human nature of Christ is not united with the Word, according to the Socinian and rationalistic views. Dorner shows how widespread among Protestants these views are, since there is hardly a Protestant theologian of note who refuses its own personality to the human nature of Christ. Among Catholics, Berruyer and Günther reintroduced a modified Nestorianism; but they were censured by the Congregation of the Index (17 April, 1755) and by Pope Pius IX (15 Jan., 1857). The Monophysite heresy was renewed by the Monothelites, admitting only one will in Christ and thus contradicting the teaching of Popes Martin I and Agatho and of the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Both the schismatic Greeks and the Reformers of the sixteenth century wished to retain the traditional doctrine concerning the Word Incarnate; but even the earliest followers of the Reformers fell into errors involving both the Nestorian and the Monophysite heresies. The Ubiquitarians, for example, find the essence of the Incarnation not in the assumption of human nature by the Word, but in the divinization of human nature by sharing the properties of the Divine nature. The subsequent Protestant theologians drifted away farther still from the views of Christian tradition; Christ for them was the sage of Nazareth, perhaps even the greatest of the Prophets, whose Biblical record, half myth and half history, is nothing but the expression of a popular idea of human perfection. The Catholic writers whose views were derogatory either to the historical character of the Biblical account of the life of Christ or to his prerogatives as the God-man have been censured in the new Syllabus and the Encyclical "Pascendi dorninici gregis".
For Christology consult the following:
Patristic Works: ATHANASIUS, GREGORY NAZIANZUS, GREGORY OF NYSSA, BASIL, EPIPHANIUS wrote especially against the followers of Arius and Apollinaris; CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, PROCLUS, LEONTIUS BYZANTINUS, ANASTASIUS SINAITA, EULOGIUS OF ALEXANDRIA, PETER CHRYSOLOGUS, FULGENTIUS, opposing the Nestorians and Monophysites; SOPHRONIUS, MAXIMUS, JOHN DAMASCENE, the Monothelites; PAULINUS OF AQUILEIA, ETHERIUS, ALCUIN, AGOBARDUS, the Adoptionists. See P. G. and P. L.
Scholastic writers: ST. THOMAS, Summa theol., III, QQ. I-lix; IDEM, Summa contra gentes, IV, xxvii-lv; In III Sentent.; De veritate, QQ. xx, xxix; Compend, theol., QQ. cxcix-ccxlii; Opusc., 2; etc.; BONAVENTURE, Breviloquium, 1, 4; In III Sentent.; BELLARMINE, De Christo capite totius ecclesioe controvers., I, col. 1619; SUAREZ, De Incarn., opp. XIV, XV; LUGO, De lncarn., op. III.
Positive Theologians: PETAVIUS, Theol. dogmat., IV, 1-2; THOMASSIN, De Incarn., dogm. theol., III, IV.
Recent Writers: FRANZELIN, De Verbo Incarn. (Rome, 1874); KLEUTGEN, Theologie der Vorzeit, III (Münster, 1873); JUNGMANN, De Verbo incarnato (Ratisbon, 1872); HURTER, Theologia dogmatica, II, tract. vii (Innsbruck, 1882); STENTRUP, Proelectiones dogmaticoe de Verbo incarnato (2 vols., Innsbruck, 1882); LIDDON, The Divinity of Our Lord (London, 1885); MAAS, Christ in Type and Prophecy (2 vols., New York, 1893-96); LEPIN, Jésus Messie et Fils de Dieu (Paris, 1904). See also recent works on the life of Christ, and the principal commentaries on the Biblical passages cited in this article.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIV, pp. 597-601
Nihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
DEVOTION TO THE HEART OF JESUS. — The treatment of this subject is divided into two parts: (I) Doctrinal Explanations; (II) Historical Ideas.
I. DOCTRINAL EXPLANATIONS. — Devotion to the Sacred Heart is but a special form of devotion to Jesus. We shall know just what it is and what distinguishes it when we ascertain its object, its foundations, and its proper act.
(1) Special object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. — The nature of this question is complex and frequently becomes more complicated because of the difficulties arising from terminology. Omitting terms that are over-technical, we shall study the ideas in themselves, and, that we may the sooner find our bearings, it will be well to remember the meaning and use of the word heart in current language.
(i) The word heart awakens, first of all, the idea of a material heart, of the vital organ that throbs within our bosom, and which we vaguely realize as intimately connected not only with our own physical, but with our emotional and moral, life. Now this heart of flesh is currently accepted as the emblem of the emotion and moral life with which we associate it, and hence the place assigned to the word heart in symbolic language, as also the use of the same word to designate those things symbolized by the heart. Note, for instance, the expressions "to open one's heart", "to give one's heart", etc. It may happen that the symbol becomes divested of its material meaning that the sign is overlooked in beholding only the thing signified. Thus, in current language, the word soul no longer suggests the thought of breath, and the word heart brings to mind only the idea of courage and love. But this is perhaps a figure of speech or a metaphor, rather than a symbol. A symbol is a real sign, whereas a metaphor is only a verbal sign; a symbol is a thing that signifies another thing, but a metaphor is a word used to indicate something different from its proper meaning. Finally, in current language, we are constantly passing from the part to the whole, and, by a perfectly natural figure of speech, we use the word heart to designate a person. These ideas will aid us in determining the object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart.
(ii) The question lies between the material, the metaphorical, and the symbolic sense of the word heart; whether the object of the devotion is the Heart of flesh, as such, or the love of Jesus Christ metaphorically signified by the word heart; or the Heart of flesh, but as symbol of the emotional and moral life of Jesus, and especially His love for us. We reply that worship is rightly paid to the Heart of flesh, inasmuch as the latter symbolizes and recalls the love of Jesus, and His emotional and moral life. Thus, although directed to the material Heart, it does not stop there: it also includes love, that love which is its principal object, but which it reaches only in and through the Heart of flesh, the sign and symbol of this love. Devotion to the Heart of Jesus alone, as to a noble part of His Divine Body, would not be devotion to the Sacred Heart as understood and approved by the Church, and the same must also be said of devotion to the love of Jesus as detached from His Heart of flesh, or else connected therewith by no other tie than that of a word taken in the metaphorical sense. Hence, in the devotion, there are two elements: a sensible element, the Heart of flesh, and a spiritual element, that which this Heart of flesh recalls spiritual element, that which this Heart of flesh recalls and represents. But these two elements do not form two distinct objects, merely co-ordinated they constitute but one, just as do the body and soul, and the sign and the thing signified. Hence it is also understood that these two elements are as essential to the devotion as body and soul are essential to man. Of the two elements constituting the whole, the principal one is love, which is as much the cause of the devotion and its reason for existence as the soul is the principal element in man. Consequently, devotion to the Sacred Heart may be defined as devotion to the adorable Heart of Jesus Christ in so far as this Heart represents and recalls His love; or, what amounts to the same thing, devotion to the love of Jesus Christ in so far as this love is recalled and symbolically represented to us by His Heart of flesh.
(iii) Hence the devotion is based entirely upon the symbolism of the heart. It is this symbolism that imparts to its meaning and its unity, and this symbolism is admirably completed by the representation of the Heart as wounded. Since the Heart of Jesus appears to us as the sensible sign of His love, the visible wound in the Heart will naturally recall the invisible wound of this love. This symbolism also explains that the devotion, although giving the Heart an essential place, is but little concerned with the anatomy of the heart or with physiology. Since, in images of the Sacred Heart, the symbolic expression must dominate all else, anatomical accuracy is not looked for; it would injure the devotion by rendering the symbolism less evident. It is eminently proper that the heart as an emblem be distinguished from the anatomical heart: the suitableness of the image is favourable to the expression of the idea. A visible heart is necessary for an image of the Sacred Heart, but this visible heart must be a symbolic heart. Similar observations are in order for physiology, in which the devotion cannot be totally disinterested, because the Heart of Flesh toward which the worship is directed in order to read therein the love of Jesus, is the Heart of Jesus, the real, living Heart that, in all truth, may be said to have loved and suffered; the Heart that, as we feel ourselves, had such a share in His emotional and moral life; the Heart that, as we know from a knowledge, however rudimentary, of the operations of our human life, had such a part in the operations of the Master's life. But the relation of the Heart to the love of Christ is not that of a purely conventional sign, as in the relation of the word to the thing, or of the flag to the idea of one's country; this Heart has been and is still inseparably connected with that life of benefactions and love. However, it is sufficient for our devotion that we know and feel this intimate connection. We have nothing to do with the physiology of the Sacred Heart nor with determining the exact functions of the heart in daily life. We know that the symbolism of the heart is a symbolism founded upon reality and that it constitutes the special object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, which devotion is in no danger of falling into error.
(iv) The heart is, above all, the emblem of love, and by this characteristic, the devotion to the Sacred Heart is naturally defined. However, being directed to the loving Heart of Jesus, it naturally encounters whatever in Jesus is connected with this love. Now, was not this love the motive of all that Christ did and suffered? Was not all His inner, even more than His outward, life dominated by this love? On the other hand, the devotion to the Sacred Heart, being directed to the living Heart of Jesus, thus becomes familiar with the whole inner life of the Master, with all His virtues and sentiments, finally, with Jesus infinitely loving and lovable. Hence, a first extension of the devotion is from the loving Heart to the intimate knowledge of Jesus, to His sentiments and virtues, to His whole emotional and moral life; from the loving Heart to all the manifestations of Its love. There is still another extension which, although having the same meaning, is made in another way, that is by passing from the Heart to the Person, a transition which, as we have seen, is very naturally made. When speaking of a large heart our allusion is to the person, just as when we mention the Sacred Heart we mean Jesus. This is not, however, because the two are synonymous but when the word heart is used to designate the person, it is because such a person is considered in whatsoever related to his emotional and moral life. Thus, when we designate Jesus as the Sacred Heart, we mean Jesus manifesting His Heart, we mean Jesus manifesting His Heart, Jesus all loving and amiable. Jesus entire is thus recapitulated in the Sacred Heart as all is recapitulated in Jesus.
(v) In thus devoting oneself to Jesus all loving and lovable, one cannot fail to observe that His love is rejected. God is constantly lamenting that in Holy Writ, and the saints have always heard within their hearts the plaint of unrequited love. Indeed one of the essential phases of the devotion is that it considers the love of Jesus for us as a despised, ignored love. He Himself revealed this when He complained so bitterly to St. Margaret Mary.
(vi) This love is everywhere manifest in Jesus and in His life, and it alone can explain Him together with His words and His acts. Nevertheless, it shines forth more resplendently in certain mysteries from which great good accrues to us, and in which Jesus is more lavish of His loving benefactions and more complete in His gift of self, namely, in the Incarnation, in the Passion, and in the Eucharist. Moreover, these mysteries have a place apart in the devotion which, everywhere seeking Jesus and the signs of His love and favours, finds them here to an even greater extent than in particular acts.
(vii) We have already seen that devotion to the Sacred Heart, being directed to the Heart of Jesus as the emblem of love, has mainly in view His love for men. This is obviously not that it excludes His love for God, for this included in His love for men, but it is above all the devotion to "the Heart that has so loved men", according to the words quoted by St. Margaret Mary.
(viii) Finally, the question arises as to whether the love which we honour in this devotion is that with which Jesus loves us as Man or that with which He loves us as God; whether it is created or uncreated, His human or His Divine Love. Undoubtedly it is the love of God made Man, the love of the Incarnate Word. However, it does not seem that devout persons think of separating these two loves any more than they separate the two natures in Jesus. Besides, even though we might wish to settle this part of the question at any cost, we would find that the opinions of authors are at variance. Some, considering that the Heart of Flesh is connected with human love only, conclude that it does not symbolize Divine love which, moreover, is not proper to the Person of Jesus, and that, therefore, Divine love is not the direct object of the devotion. Others, while admitting that Divine love apart from the Incarnate Word is not the object of the devotion, believe it to be such when considered as the love of the Incarnate Word, and they do not see why this love also could not be symbolized by the Heart of flesh nor why, in this event, the devotion should be limited to created love only.
(2) Foundations of the devotion. — The question may be considered under three aspects: the historical, the theological, and the scientific.
(i) Historical foundations. — In approving the devotion to the Sacred Heart, the Church did not trust to the visions of St. Margaret Mary; she made abstraction of these and examined the worship in itself. Margaret Mary's visions could be false, but the devotion would not, on that account, be any less worthy or solid. However, the fact is that the devotion was propagated chiefly under the influence of the movement started at Paray-le-Monial; and prior to her beatification, Margaret Mary's visions were most critically examined by the Church, whose judgment in such cases does not involve her infallibility but implies only a human certainty sufficient to warrant consequent speech and action.
(ii) Theological foundations. — The Heart of Jesus, like all else that belongs to His Person, is worthy of adoration, but this would not be so if It were considered as isolated from this Person and as having no connection with It. But it not thus that the Heart is considered, and, in his Bull "Auctorem fidei", 1794, Pius VI authoritatively vindicated the devotion in this respect against the calumnies of the Jansenists. The worship, although paid to the Heart of Jesus, extends further than the Heart of flesh, being directed to the love of which this Heart is the living and expressive symbol. On this point the devotion requires no justification, as it is to the Person of Jesus that it is directed; but to the Person as inseparable from His Divinity. Jesus, the living apparition of the goodness of God and of His paternal love, Jesus infinitely loving and amiable, studied in the principal manifestations of His love, is the object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, as indeed He is the object of the Christian religion. The difficulty lies in the union of the heart and love, in the relation which the devotion supposes between the one and the other. Is not this an error long since discarded? If so, it remains to examine whether the devotion, considered in this respect, is well founded.
(iii) Philosophical and scientific foundations. — In this respect there has been some uncertainty amongst theologians, not as regards the basis of things, but in the matter of explanations. Sometimes they have spoken as if the heart were the organ of love, but this point has no bearing on the devotion, for which it suffices that the heart be the symbol of love, and that, for the basis of the symbolism, a real connection exist between the heart and the emotions. Now, the symbolism of the heart is a fact and every one feels that in the heart there is a sort of an echo of our sentiments. The physiological study of this resonance may be very interesting, but it is in no wise necessary to the devotion, as its foundation is a fact attested by daily experience, a fact which physiological study confirms and of which it determines the conditions, but which neither supposes this study nor any special acquaintance with its subject.
(3) The proper act of the devotion. — This act is required by the very object of the devotion, since devotion to the love of Jesus for us should be pre-eminently a devotion of love for Jesus. It is characterized by a reciprocation of love; its aim is to love Jesus who has so loved us, to return love for love. Since, moreover, the love of Jesus manifests itself to the devout soul as a love despised and outraged, especially in the Eucharist, the love expressed in the devotion naturally assumes a character of reparation, and hence the importance of acts of atonement, the Communion of reparation, and compassion for Jesus suffering. But no special act, no practice whatever, can exhaust the riches of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. The love which is its soul embraces all and, the better one understands it, the more firmly is he convinced that nothing can vie with it for making Jesus live in us and for bringing him who lives by it to love God, in union with Jesus, with all his heart, all his soul, all his strength.
II. HISTORICAL IDEAS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DEVOTION. — (1) From the time of St. John and St. Paul there has always been in the Church something like devotion to the love of God, Who so loved the world as to give it His only-begotten Son, and to the love of Jesus, Who has so loved us as to deliver Himself up for us. But, accurately speaking, this is not the devotion to the Sacred Heart, as it pays no homage to the Heart of Jesus as the symbol of His love for us. From the earliest centuries, in accordance with the example of the Evangelist, Christ's open side and the mystery of blood and water were meditated upon, and the Church was beheld issuing from the side of Jesus, as Eve came forth from the side of Adam. But there is nothing to indicate that, during the first ten centuries, any worship was rendered the wounded Heart.
(2) It is in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that we find the first unmistakable indications of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Through the wound in the side of the wound Heart was gradually reached, and the wound in the Heart symbolized the wound of love. It was in the fervent atmosphere of the Benedictine or Cistercian monasteries, in the world of Anselmian or Bernardine thought, that the devotion arose, although it is impossible to say positively what were its first texts or were its first votaries. To St. Gertrude, St. Mechtilde, and the author of the "Vitis mystica" it was already well known. We cannot state with certainty to whom we are indebted for the "Vitis mystica". Until recent times its authorship had generally been ascribed to St. Bernard and yet, by the late publishers of the beautiful and scholarly Quaracchi edition, it has been attributed, and not without plausible reasons, to St. Bonaventure ("S. Bonaventurx opera omnia", 1898, VIII, LIII sq.). But, be this as it may, it contains one of the most beautiful passages that ever inspired the devotion to the Sacred Heart, one appropriated by the Church for the lessons of the second nocturn of the feast. To St. Mechtilde (d. 1298) and St. Gertrude (d. 1302) it was a familiar devotion which was translated into many beautiful prayers and exercises. What deserves special mention is the vision of St. Gertrude on the feast of St. John the Evangelist, as it forms an epoch in the history of the devotion. Allowed to rest her head near the wound in the Saviour's she heard the beating of the Divine Heart and asked John if, on the night of the Last Supper, he too had felt these delightful pulsations, why he had never spoken of the fact. John replied that this revelation had been reserved for subsequent ages when the world, having grown cold, would have need of it to rekindle its love ("Legatus divinae pietatis", IV, 305; "Revelationes Gertrudianae", ed. Poitiers and Paris, 1877).
(3) From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, the devotion was propagated but it did not seem to have developed in itself. It was everywhere practised by privileged souls, and the lives of the saints and annals of different religious congregations, of the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carthusians, etc., furnish many examples of it. It was nevertheless a private, individual devotion of the mystical order. Nothing of a general movement had been inaugurated, unless one would so regard the propagation of the devotion to the Five Wounds, in which the Wound in the Heart figured most prominently, and for the furtherance of which the Franciscans seem to have laboured.
(4) It appears that in the sixteenth century, the devotion took an onward step and passed from the domain of mysticism into that of Christian asceticism. It was constituted an objective devotion with prayers already formulated and special exercises of which the value was extolled and the practice commended. This we learn from the writings of those two masters of the spiritual life, the pious Lanspergius (d. 1539) of the Carthusians of Cologne, and the devout Louis of Blois (Blosius; 1566), a Benedictine and Abbot of Liessies in Hainaut. To these may be added Blessed John of Avila (d. 1569) and St. Francis de Sales, the latter belonging to the seventeenth century.
(5) From that time everything betokened an early bringing to light of the devotion. Ascetic writers spoke of it, especially those of the Society of Jesus, Alvarez de Paz, Luis de la Puente, Saint-Jure, and Nouet, and there still exist special treatises upon it such as Father Druzbicki's (d. 1662) small work, "Meta Cordium, Cor Jesu". Amongst the mystics and pious souls who practised the devotion were St. Francis Borgia, Blessed Peter Canisius, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, and St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, of the Society of Jesus; also Venerable Marina de Escobar (d. 1633), in Spain; the Venerable Madeleine St. Joseph and the Venerable Marguerite of the Blessed Sacrament, Carmelites, in France; Jeanne de S. Mathieu Deleloe (d. 1660), a Benedictine, in Belgium; the worthy Armelle of Vannes (d. 1671); and even in Jansenistic or worldly centres, Marie de Valernod (d. 1654) and Angélique Arnauld; M. Boudon, the great archdeacon of Evreux, Father Huby, the apostle of retreats in Brittany, and, above all, the Venerable Marie de l'Incarnation who died at Quebec in 1672. The Visitation seemed to be awaiting St. Margaret Mary; its spirituality, certain intuitions of St. Francis de Sales, the meditations of Mère l'Huillier (d. 1655), the visions of Mother Anne-Marguerite Clément (d. 1661), and of Sister Jeanne-Bénigne Gojos (d. 1692), all paved the way. The image of the Heart of Jesus was everywhere in evidence, which fact was largely due to the Franciscan devotion to the Five Wounds and to the habit formed by the Jesuits of placing the image on their title-page of their books and the walls of their churches.
(6) Nevertheless, the devotion remained an individual or at least a private devotion. It was reserved to Blessed Jean Eudes (1602-1680) to make it public, to honour it with an Office, and to establish a feast for it. Père Eudes was above all the apostle of the Heart of Mary; but in his devotion to the Immaculate Heart there was a share for the Heart of Jesus. Little by little the devotion to the Sacred Heart became a separate one, and on 31 August, 1670, the first feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated with great solemnity in the Grand Seminary of Rennes. Coutances followed suit on 20 October, a day with which the Eudist feast was thenceforth to be connected. The feast soon spread to other dioceses, and the devotion was likewise adopted in various religious communities. Here and there it came into contact with the devotion begun at Paray, and a fusion of the two naturally resulted.
(7) It was to Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), a humble Visitandine of the monastery at Paray-le Monial, that Christ chose to reveal the desires of His Heart and to confide the task of imparting new life to the devotion. There is nothing to indicated that this pious religious had known the devotion prior to the revelations, or at least that she had paid any attention to it. These revelations were numerous, and the following apparitions are especially remarkable: that which occurred on the feast of St. John, when Jesus permitted Margaret Mary, as He had formerly allowed St. Gertrude, to rest her head upon His Heart, and then disclosed to her the wonders of His love, telling her that He desired to make them known to all mankind and to diffuse the treasures of His goodness, and that He had chosen her for this work (27 Dec., probably 1673); that, probably distinct from the preceding, in which He requested to be honoured under the figure of His Heart of flesh; that, when He appeared radiant with love and asked for a devotion of expiatory love -- frequent Communion, Communion on the First Friday of the month, and the observance of the Holy Hour (probably June or July, 1674); that known as the "great apparition" which took place during the octave of Corpus Christi, 1675, probably on 16 June, when He said, "Behold the Heart that has so loved men . . . instead of gratitude I receive from the greater part (of mankind) only ingratitude . . .", and asked her for a feast of reparation of the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, bidding her consult Father de la Colombière, then superior of the small Jesuit house at Paray; and finally, those in which solemn homage was asked on the part of the king, and the mission of propagating the new devotion was especially confided to the religious of the Visitation and the priests of the Society of Jesus. A few days after the "great apparition", of June, 1675, Margaret Mary made all known to Father de la Colombière, and the latter, recognizing the action of the spirit of God, consecrated himself to the Sacred Heart, directed the holy Visitandine to write an account of the apparition, and made use of every available opportunity discreetly to circulate this account through France and England. At his death, 15 February 1682, there was found in his journal of spiritual retreats a copy in his own handwriting of the account that he had requested of Margaret Mary, together with a few reflections on the usefulness of the devotion. This journal, including the account and a beautiful "offering" to the Sacred Heart, in which the devotion was well explained, was published at Lyons in 1684. The little book was widely read, even at Paray, although not without being the cause of "dreadful confusion" to Margaret Mary, who, nevertheless, resolved to make the best of it and profited by the book for the spreading of her cherished devotion. Moulins, with Mother de Soudeilles, Dijon, with Mother de Saumaise and Sister Joly, Semur, with Mother Greyfié, and even Paray, which had at first resisted, joined the movement. Outside of the Visitandines, priests, religious, and laymen espoused the cause, particularly a Capuchin, Margaret Mary's two brothers, and some Jesuits, among the latter being Fathers Croiset and Gallifet, who were destined to do so much for the devotion.
(8) The death of Margaret Mary, 17 October 1690, did not dampen the ardour of those interested; on the contrary, a short account of her life published by Father Croiset in 1691, as an appendix to his book "De la Dévotion au Sacré Cœur", served only to increase it. In spite of all sorts of obstacles, and of the slowness of the Holy See, which in 1693 imparted indulgences to the Confraternities of the Sacred Heart and, in 1697, granted the feast to the Visitandines with the Mass of the Five Wounds, but refused a feast common to all, with special Mass and Office, the devotion spread, particularly in religious communities. The Marseilles plague, 1720, furnished perhaps the first occasion for a solemn consecration and public worship outside of religious communities. Other cities of the South followed the example of Marseilles, and thus the devotion became a popular one. In 1726 it was deemed advisable once more to importune Rome for a feast with a Mass and Office of its own, but, in 1729, Rome again refused. However, in 1765, it finally yielded and that same year, at the request of the queen, the feast was received quasi officially by the episcopate of France. On all sides it was asked for and obtained, and finally, in 1856, at the urgent entreaties of the French bishops, Pope Pius IX extended the feast to the universal Church under the rite of double major. In 1889 it was raised by the Church to the double rite of first class. The acts of consecration and of reparation were everywhere introduced together with the devotion. Oftentimes, especially since about 1850, groups, congregations, and States have consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart, and, in 1875, this consecration was made throughout the Catholic world. Still the pope did not wish to take the initiative or to intervene. Finally, on 11 June, 1899, by order of Leo XIII, and with the formula prescribed by him, all mankind was solemnly consecrated to the Sacred Heart. The idea of this act, which Leo XIII called "the great act" of his pontificate, had been proposed to him by a religious of the Good Shepherd from Oporto (Portugal) who said that she had received it from Christ Himself. She was a member of the Drost-zu-Vischering family, and known in religion as Sister Mary of the Divine Heart. She died on the feast of the Sacred Heart, two days before the consecration, which had been deferred to the following Sunday. Whilst alluding to these great public manifestations we must not omit referring to the intimate life of the devotion in souls, to the practices connected with it, and to the works and associations of which it was the very life. Moreover, we must not overlook the social character which it has assumed particularly of late years. The Catholics of France, especially, cling firmly to it as one of their strongest hopes of ennoblement and salvation.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII, pp. 163-167
Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Parables. — The word parable (Hebrew mashal; Syrian mathla, Greek παραβολη) signifies in general a comparison, or a parallel, by which one thing is used to illustrate another. It is a likeness taken from the sphere of real, or sensible, or earthly incidents, in order to convey an ideal, or spiritual, or heavenly meaning. As uttering one thing and signifying something else, it is in the nature of a riddle (Heb. khidah, Gr. αινιγμα or προβλημα) and has therefore a light and a dark side ("dark sayings", Wis., viii, 8; Ecclus., xxxix, 3); — it is intended to stir curiosity and calls for intelligence in the listener, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" Matt., xiii, 9. Its Greek designation (from παραβαλλειν to throw beside or against) indicates a deliberate "making up" of a story in which some lesson is at once given and concealed. As taking simple or common objects to cast light on ethics and religion, it has been well said of the parable that "truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors." It abounds in lively speaking figures, and stands midway between the literalism of mere prose and the abstractions of philosophy. The derivation of the Hebrew word is unknown. If connected with Assyrian mashalu, Arabic matala, etc., the root meaning is "likeness". But it will be a likeness which contains a judgment, and so includes the "maxim" or general proposition bearing on conduct (Greek "gnomic wisdom"), of which the Book of Proverbs (Meshalim) is the chief inspired example. In classic Latin, the Greek word is translated collatio (Cicero, "De invent.", i-xxx), imago (Seneca, "Ep. lix."), similitudo (Quintil., "Inst.", v, 7-8). Observe that παραβολη does not occur in St. John's Gospel nor παροιμια (proverb) in the Synoptics.
Likeness and abstraction enter into the idea of language, but may be contrasted as body and spirit, standing as they do in a relation at once of help and opposition. Wisdom for the practice of life has among all nations taken a figurative shape, passing from myth or fable into the contracted sayings we term proverbs and arriving in the Greek schools of philosophy at ethical systems. But system, or technical metaphysics, does not appeal to the Semite; and our Sacred Books were never written with a view to it. If, however, system be not made the vehicle of teaching, what shall a prophet employ as its equivalent? The image or comparison remains. It is primitive, interesting, and easily remembered; and its various applications give it a continual freshness. The story came into use long before the system, and will survive when systems are forgotten. Its affinity, as a form of Divine speech with the "Sacrament" (μυστηριον) as a form of Divine action, may profitably be kept in mind. Neither can we overlook the points of resemblance which exist between parables and miracles, both exhibiting through outward shows the presence of a supernatural doctrine and agency.
Hence we may speak of the irony which must always be possible in devices adapted to human weakness of understanding, where heavenly secrets are concerned. Bacon has said excellently well, "parables are serviceable as a mask and veil, and also for elucidation and illustration" (De sap. vet.). Of Scripture parables we conclude that they illustrate and edify by revealing some Divine principle, with immediate reference to the hearers addressed, but with more remote and recondite applications in the whole Christian economy to which they belong. Thus we find two lines of interpretation, the first dealing with Our Lord's parables as and when they were spoken-let this be termed critical exegesis; and the second bringing out their significance in the history of the Church, or ecclesiastical exegesis. Both are connected and may be traced to the same root in Revelation: yet they are distinct, somewhat after the fashion of the literal and mystical sense in Scripture generally. We cannot lose either out of sight. The parables of the New Testament refuse to be handled like Æsop's fables; they were intended from the first to shadow forth the "mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven", and their double purpose may be read in Matt., xiii, 10-18, where it is attributed to Christ Himself.
Modern critics (Jülicher and Loisy) who deny this, affirm that the Evangelists have deflected the parables from their original meaning in the interest of edification, suiting them to the circumstances of the primitive Church. In making such accusations these critics, following the example of Strauss, not only reject the witness of the Gospel writers, but do violence to its text. They overlook the profoundly supernatural and prophetic idea on which all Scripture moves as its vital form--an idea certified to us by the usage of our Lord when quoting the Old Testament, and admitted equally by the Evangelists and St. Paul. That they run counter to Catholic tradition is manifest. Moreover parables thus detached from a Christological significance would hang in the air and could claim no place in the teaching of the Son of God. A valid exegesis will therefore be prepared to discover in them all not only the relevance which they had for the multitude or the Pharisees but their truth, sub specie sacramenti, for "the Kingdom", i.e., for Christ's Church. And on this method the Fathers have expounded them without distinction of school, but especially among Westerns, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory the Great, as their commentaries prove.
Of the proverb not an ill definition might be that it is a closed or contracted parable: and of the parable, that it is an expanded proverb. An instance, hovering on the verge of both, occurs Matt., xi, 17: "We have piped to you, and you have not danced; we have lamented, and you have not mourned." The words were taken from some child's game, but they are applied to St. John the Baptist and to Our Lord, with a gnomic moral, "Wisdom is justified by her children." In a myth or allegory, fictitious persons, gods and men, are introduced; and the significance lies within the story, as in Apuleius, "Eros and Psyche". But a parable looks at life as it is lived, deals in no personifications, and requires to be interpreted from without. Fable is marked by giving speech and thought to irrational or inanimate objects; parable as our Lord employs it never does so. Examples or "histories with a moral" have at least a core of reality-the instances occurring in Scripture and allowed by critics are such as Esther, Susanna, Tobias; but a parable need not quote individual persons, and except in the doubtful case of Lazarus, we shall not light upon instances of this kind among the stories told in the Gospels. A type consists in the significance given by prophecy to a person or his acts, e.g., to Isaac as the lamb of sacrifice, and the symbolical deeds of Ezechiel or Jeremias. But the parable brings in no types directly or in its immediate sense, and no determined persons. Metaphor (Lat. translatio) is a vague term, which might be applied to any short parabolic saying but does not fit the narrative of an action, such as we mean by a parable in the New Testament. The Socratic myth which adorns the "Gorgias", "Phaedo", and "Republic", is confessedly a fable, whereas in our synoptic Gospels whatever illustrations we meet are chosen from daily occurrences.
The Hebrew genius, unlike that of the Hellenes, was not given to myth-making; it abhorred the personifications of nature to which we are indebted for gods of the elements, for Nereids and Hamadryads; it seldom pursued an allegory to any length; and its "realism" in treating of landscape and visible phenomena strikes most forcibly on the modern imagination. Theism was the breath of its nostrils; and where for a moment it indulges a turn for ancient folklore (as in Is., xiii, 21) it is far removed from the wild Pantheon of Greek nature worship. In the parables we never come across enchanted stones or talking beasts or trees with magical virtues; the world which they describe is the world of every day; not even miracles break in upon its established order. When we consider what Oriental fancy has made of the universe, and how it is depicted in cosmogonies like that of Hesiod, the contrast becomes indescribably great. It is in the world which all men know that Christ finds exemplified the laws of human ethics, and the correspondences on which His kingdom shall be carried to its Divine consummation. Seen with purged eyes nature is already the kingdom of God.
No language is more concrete in its presentation of laws and principles, or more vividly figured, than that which the Old Testament affords. But of parables strictly taken it has only a few. Jotham's apologue of the trees choosing a king (Judges, ix, 8-15) is more properly a fable; so is the scornful tale of the thistle and the cedar in Lebanon which Joas of Israel sent by messengers to Amasias, King of Juda (IV Kings, xiv, 8-10). Nathan's rebuke to David is couched in the form of a parable (II Kings, xii, 1-4) so the wise woman of Thecua (II Kings, xiv, 4); so the Prophet to Achab (III Kings, xx, 39); and the song of the vineyard (Is., v, 1-8). It has been suggested that chapters 1-3 of Osee must be construed as a parable, and do not contain a real history. The denunciation of woe on Jerusalem in Ezech., xxiv, 3-5, is expressly named a mashal, and may be compared with the Gospel similitude of the leaven. But our Lord, unlike the Prophets, does not act, or describe Himself as acting, any of the stories which He narrates. Hence we need not take into account the Old Testament passages, Is., xx, 2-4;2 Jer., xxv, 15; Ezech., iii, 24-26, etc.
That the character of Christ's teaching to the multitude was mainly parabolic is clear from Matt., xiii, 34, and Mark, iv, 33. Perhaps we should ascribe to the same cause an element of the startling and paradoxical, e.g., in His Sermon on the Mount, which, taken literally, has been misunderstood by simple or again by fanatical minds. Moreover, that such a form of instruction was familiar to the Jews of this period cannot be doubted. The sayings of Hillel and Shammai still extant, the visions of the Book of Enoch, the typical values which we observe as attaching to the stories of Judith and Tobias, the Apocalypse and the extensive literature of which it is the flower — all betoken a demand for something esoteric in the popular religious preaching, and show how abundantly it was satisfied. But if, as mystical writers hold, the highest degree of heavenly knowledge is a clear intuition, without veils or symbols dimming its light, we see in our Lord exactly this pure comprehension. He is never Himself drawn as a visionary. The parables are not for Him but for the crowd. When He speaks of His relation to the Father it is in direct terms, without metaphor. It follows that the scope of these exquisite little moralities ought to be measured by the audience whom they were designed to benefit. In other words they form part of the "Economy" whereby truth is dispensed to men as they are able to bear it (Mark, iv, 33; John, xvi, 12). Since, however, it is the Lord that speaks, we must reverently construe His sayings in the light of the whole Revelation which furnishes their ground and context. The "real sense of Scripture", as Newman points out in accord with all the Catholic Fathers, is "the scope of the Divine intelligence", or the scheme of Incarnation and Redemption.
Subject to this Law, the New Testament parables have each a definite meaning, to be ascertained from the explanation, where Christ deigns to give one, as in the sower; and when none such is forthcoming, from the occasion, introduction, and appended moral. Interpreters have differed importantly on the question whether everything in the parable is of its essence (the "kernel") or anything is mere machinery and accident (the "husk"). There is an obvious negative rule. We must not pass over as unmeaning any detail without which the lesson would cease to be enforced. But shall we insist on a correspondence at all points so that we may translate the whole into spiritual values, or may we neglect whatever does not seem to compose a feature of the moral to be drawn? St. John Chrysostom (In Matt., lxiv) and the School of Antioch, who were literalists, prefer the latter method; they are sober in exposition, not imaginative or mystic; and Tertullian has expressions to the like purpose (De Pudic., ix), St. Augustine, who holds of Origen and the Alexandrians, abounds in the larger sense; yet he allows that "in prophetic narrations details are told us which have no significance "(De Civ. Dei, XVI, ii) . St. Jerome in his earlier writings follows Origen; but his temper was not that of a mystic and with age he becomes increasingly literal. Among modern commentators the same difference of handling appears.
In a problem which is literary as well as exegetical, we must guard against applying a hard and fast rule where taste and insight are required. Each of the parables will need to be dealt with as if it were a poem; and fulness of meaning, refinement of thought, slight but suggestive hints and touches, characteristic of human genius, will not be wanting to the method of the Divine Teacher. In the highest criticism, as Goethe warns us, we cannot divide as with an axe the inward from the outward. Where all is living, the metaphor of kernel and husk may be often misapplied. The meaning lies implicit in the whole and its parts; here as in every vital product the ruling spirit is one, the elements take their virtue from it and separately are of no account. As we move away from the central idea we lose the assurance that we are not pursuing our own fancies; and the substitution of a mechanical yet extravagant dogmatism for the Gospel truth has led Gnostics and Manichaeans, or latter-day visionaries like Swedenborg, into a wilderness of delusions where the severe and tender beauty of the parables can no longer be discerned. They are literary creations, not merely hieratic devices; and as awakening the mind to spiritual principles their intent is fulfilled when it muses on the deep things of God, the laws of life, the mission of Christ, of which it is thus made intimately aware.
St. Thomas and all Catholic doctors maintain that articles of faith ought to be deduced only from the literal sense of Scripture whenever it is quoted in proof of them but the literal sense is often the prophetic, which itself as a Divine truth may well be applicable to an entire series of events or line of typical characters. The Angel of the Schools declares after St. Jerome that "spiritual interpretation should follow the order of history". St. Jerome himself exclaims, "never can a parable and the dubious interpretations of riddles avail for the establishment of dogmas" (Summa I-II:10; St. Jerome, In Matt., xiii, 33). From a parable alone, therefore, we do not argue categorically; we take it in illustration of Christian verities proved elsewhere. It was this canon of good sense which the Gnostics, especially Valentinus, disregarded to their own hurt, and so fell into the confusion of ideas miscalled by them revelation. Irenaeus constantly opposes church tradition or the rule of faith, to these dreamers (II, xvi, against the Marcosians; II, xxvii, xxviii, against Valentinus). In like manner, Tertullian says, "Heretics draw the parables whither they will, not whither they ought", and "Valentinus did not make up Scriptures to suit his teaching, but forced his teaching on the Scriptures." (See De Pudic., viii, ix; De Praescript., viii; and compare St. Anselm, "Cur Deus homo", I, iv. )
We learn what the parables signify, on this showing, from "the school of Christ"; we interpret them on the lines of "apostolic and ecclesiastical tradition" (Tert., "Scorp.", xii; Vinc. Lerin., xxvii, Conc. Trid., Sess. IV). The "analogy of faith" determines how far we may go in applying them to life and history. With Salmeron it is allowed to distinguish in them a "root", the occasion and immediate purpose, a "rind ", the sensible imagery or incidents, and a "marrow", the Christian truth, thus conveyed. Another way would be to consider each parable as it relates to Christ himself, to the Church as His spiritual body, to the individual as putting on Christ. These are not different, still less contrary elucidations; they flow out of that great central dogma, "The Word was made flesh". In dealing on such a system with any part of Holy Writ we keep within Catholic bounds; we explain the "Verbum scriptum" by the "Verbum incarnatum". To the same principle we can reduce the "four senses", often reckoned as derivable from the sacred text. These medieval refinements are but an effort to establish on the letter, faithfully understood, implications which in all the works of genius other than scientific, are more or less contained. The governing sense remains, and is always the standard of reference.
There are no parables in St. John's Gospel. In the Synoptics Mark has only one peculiar to himself, the seed growing secretly (iv, 26); he has three which are common to Matthew and Luke: the sower, mustard seed, and wicked husbandman. Two more are found in the same Gospels, the leaven and the lost sheep. Of the rest, eighteen belong to the third and ten to the first Evangelist. Thus we reckon thirty-three in all; but some have raised the number even to sixty, by including proverbial expressions. An external but instructive division parts them into three groups: those delivered about the Sea of Galilee (Matt., xiii); those on the way up to Jerusalem (Luke, x-xviii); those uttered during the final stage of Our Lord's life, given in either Gospel; or parables of the kingdom, the Christian's rule; the judgment on Israel and mankind. In various ways commentators follow this arrangement, while indicating more elaborate distinctions. Westcott refers us to parables drawn from the material world, as the sower; from the relations of men to that world, as the fig tree and lost sheep: from the dealings of men with one another, as the prodigal son; and with God, as the hidden treasure. It is clear that we might assign examples from one of these classes to a different heading without violence. A further suggestion, not unreal, brings out the Messianic aspect of the parables in St. Matthew, and the more individual or ethical of those in St. Luke. Again the later chapters of St. Matthew and the third Gospel tend to enlarge and give more in detail; perhaps at the beginning of our Lord's ministry these illustrations were briefer than they afterwards became. We can surely not imagine that Christ never repeated or varied His parables, as any human teacher would under various circumstances. The same story may well be recorded in different shapes and with a moral adapted to the situation, as, e.g., the talents and the pounds, or the king's son's marriage and the unworthy wedding guest. Nor ought we to expect in the reporters a stereotyped accuracy, of which the New Testament nowhere shows itself to be solicitious. Though we have received the parables only in the form of literature, they were in fact spoken, not written — and spoken in Aramaic, while handed down to us in Hellenistic Greek.
Although, according to most non-Catholic writers, Sts. Matthew and Luke are founded upon St. Mark, it is natural to begin our exposition of the parables in the first Gospel, which has a group of seven consecutively (xiii, 3-57). The sower with its explanation, introduces them; the draw net completes their teaching; and we cannot refuse to see in the number seven (cf. St. John's Gospel) an idea of selected fitness which invites us to search out the principle involved. Men favourable to what is known as an "historic and prophetic" system of exegesis, have applied the seven parables to seven ages of the Church. This conception is not foreign to Scripture, nor unfamiliar in patristic writings, but it can scarcely be pressed in detail. We are not qualified to say how the facts of church history correspond, except in their general features, with anything in these parables; neither have we the means of guessing at what stage of the Divine Economy we stand. It may be enough to remark that the sower denotes the preaching of the Gospel; the tares or cockle, how it meets with hindrances; the mustard seed and the leaven its noiseless yet victorious growth. From the hidden treasure and the pearl of price we learn that those who are called must give up all to possess the kingdom. Finally, the draw net pictures God's judgment on His Church, and the everlasting separation of good and bad.
From all this it appears that St. Matthew has brought the parables together for a purpose and he distinguishes between the "multitude", to whom the first four were chiefly addressed, and the "disciples", who were privileged to know their prophetic significance. They illustrate the Sermon on the Mount, which ends with a twofold comparison, the house on the rock typifying Christ's Church, and the house on the sand opposed to it. Nothing can be clearer, if we believe the Synoptics than that our Lord so taught as to enlighten the elect and to leave obstinate sinners (above all, the Pharisees) in their darkness (Matt., xiii, 11-15; Mark, iv, 11-12; Luke, xiii, 10). Observe the quotation from Isaiah (Matt., xiii, 14; Is., vi, 9, according to the Septuagint) intimating a judicial blindness, due to Israel's backslidings and manifest in the public troubles of the nation while the evangelists were writing. Unbelievers or Modernists, reluctant to perceive in the man Christ Jesus any supernatural powers, look upon such sayings as prophecies after the event. But the parable of the sower contains in itself a warning like that of Isaias, and was certainly spoken by Christ. It opens the series of His Messianic teachings, even as that of the wicked husbandman concludes them. From first to last the rejection of the Jews, all except a holy "remnant", is contemplated. Moreover, since the Prophets had constantly taken up this attitude, denouncing the corrupt priesthood and disparaging legalism, why should we dream that language of similar import and contents was not heard from the lips of Jesus? And if anywhere, would it not be found in His parabolic delineations of the New Law? ' There is no solid reason why the double edge of these moralities should be ascribed to a mere "tendency" in the recorders, or to an edifying afterthought of primitive Christians. If the "allegory" i.e., the application to history, be intended by all three evangelists (which we grant), that intention lay at the root of the parable when it was delivered. Christ is "the Sower", and the seed could not escape the divers fortunes which befell it on the soil of Judaism. Even from the modernist point of view our Saviour was the last and greatest of the Prophets. How then could He avoid speaking as they did of a catastrophe which was to bring in the reign of Messias? Or how shall we suppose that He stood alone in this respect, isolated from the seers who went before Him and the disciples who came after Him? It is certain that, for the Evangelists, "He that hath ears to hear let him hear" did not signify merely a "call to attention"; we may compare it to the classic formulae, Eleusinian and other, which it resembles, as carrying with it an intimation of some Divine mystery The more an esoteric meaning is put upon the Gospels as their original scope, so much the more will it be evident that our Lord Himself made use of it.
Dismissing the minute conjectural criticism which would leave us hardly more than a bare outline to go upon, and not regarding verbal differences, we can treat the parables as coming direct from our Lord. They teach a lesson at once ethical and dogmatic, with implications of prophecy reaching to the consummation of all things. Their analogy to the sacraments, of which our Lord's Incarnation is the source and pattern, must never be left out of view. Modern objections proceed from a narrow "enlightened" conception as of the "reasonable man", teaching general truths in the abstract, and attaching no importance to the examples by which he enforces them. But the Evangelists, like the Catholic Church. have considered that the Son of God, instructing His disciples for all time, would commit to them heavenly mysteries "things hidden from the foundation of the world'; (Matt., xiii, 35). So perfectly does this correspondence with history apply to the tares, the good samaritan, the "watching" parables, to Dives and Lazarus (whether a real incident or otherwise), and to the wicked husbandmen, that it cannot be set aside. In consequence, certain critics have denied that Christ spoke some of these "allegories", but the grounds which they allege would entitle them to reject the others, that conclusion they dare not face (cf. Loisy, "Ev. synopt.", II, 318).
All orthodox writers take the sower (Matt., xiii, 3-8; Mark, iv, 3-8; Luke, viii, 5-8) as a model both of narrative and interpretation, warranted by the Divine Master Himself. The general likeness between teaching and sowing is found in Seneca, "Ep. Ixxiii"; and Prudentius, the Christian poet, has thrown the parable into verse, "Contra Symmachum", II, 1022. Salmeron comes near the method suggested above by which we get most profit from these symbols, when he declares that Christ is "the Sower and the Seed". We are immediately reminded of the Greek Fathers who call our Redeemer the seed sown in our hearts, (Λογος σπερματικος), who comes forth from God that He may be the principle of righteousness in man (Justin, "Apol.", II, xiii, Athan., "Orat.," ii, 79, Cyril Alex., "In Joan.", 75; and see Newman, "Tracts", 150177). I Peter 1:1-23, reads like an echo of this parable. Note that our Lord does not use personifications, but refers good and evil alike to persons; it is the "wicked one" who plucks away the seed, not a vague impersonal mischief. The rocky bottom, the burning wind and scorching sun, tell us of Palestinian scenery. We find "thorny cares" in Catullus (lxiv, lxxii) and in Ovid (Metamorp., XIII, 5, 483). Theologians warn us not to imagine that the "good and perfect heart" of the receiver is by nature such; for that would be the heresy of Pelagius; but we may quote the axiom of the Schools, "To him that does what he can God will not deny His grace." St. Cyprian and St. Augustine (Ep. Ixix, Serm. lxxiii) point out that free will acceptance is the teaching of the Gospel; and so Irenaeus against the Gnostic forerunners of Lutheranism (V, xxxix).
The tares or cockle (Matt., xiii, 24-30 alone). Whatever be meant by ξιξανια word, found only here in the Greek Scripture, is originally semite (Arabic zuwan). In the Vulgate it is retained and in popular French Wyclif renders it "darnel or cockle", and curiously enough the name of his followers, the Lollards, has been derived from a Latin equivalent, "lolium." In the Reims New Testament we have "cockle", for which compare Job, xxxi, 40: "Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley." It is pretty well determined that the plant in question is "lolium temulentum," or bearded darnel; and the mischievous practice of "oversowing" has been detected among Easterns, if not elsewhere. The late weeding of the fields is in "substantial agreement with Oriental custom", at a time when good and evil plants can be fully distinguished. Christ calls Himself the "Son of Man"; He is the sower. good men are the seed; the field is indifferently the Church or the world, i.e., the visible Kingdom in which all kinds are mingled, to be sorted out in the day of His coming. He explains and fits in detail the lesson to the incidents (Matt., xiii, 36-43), with an adaptation so clear to the primitive age of Christianity that Loisy, Julicher, and other modern critics, refuse to consider the parable authentic. They suppose it to be drawn out of some brief comparison in the original lost "source" of Mark. These random guessings have no scientific value. Historically, the moral which recommends sufferance of disorders among Christians when a greater evil would follow on trying to put them down, has been enforced by the Church authorities against Novatus, and its theory developed in St. Augustine's long disputes with those hard African Puritans, the Donatists. St. Augustine, recognizing in Our Lord's words as in the spiritual life a principle of growth which demands patience, by means of it reconciles the imperfect militant state of His disciples now with St. Paul's vision of a "glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle" (Eph., v, 27). Such is the large Catholic philosophy, illustrated by the Roman Church from early times, despite men like Tertullian; from the medieval condemnation of the Cathari; and from the later resistance to Calvin, who would have brought in a kind of Stoic republic or "Kingdom of the Saints", with its inevitable consequences, hypocrisy and selfrighteous pharisaism. Yet Calvin, who separated from the Catholic communion on this and the like motives, calls it a dangerous temptation to suppose that "there is no Church wherever perfect purity is not apparent." (Cf. St. Augustine, "In Psalm. 99"; "Contra Crescon.", III, xxxiv; St. Jerome, "Adv. Lucifer" and Tertullian in his orthodox period, "Apol.", xli "God does not hasten that sifting out, which is a condition of judgment, until the world's end.")
If in the tares we perceive a stage of Christ's teaching more advanced than in the sower, we may take the mustard seed as announcing the outward manifest triumph of His Kingdom, while the leaven discloses to us the secret of its inward working (Matt., xiii, 31-2; Mark, iv, 30-32; Luke, xiii, 18-19) for the first; Matt., xiii, 33; Luke, xiii, 20-21 for the second). Strange difficulties have been started by Westerners who had never set eyes on the luxuriant growth of the mustard plant in its native home, and who demur to the letter which calls it "the least of all seeds." But in the Koran (Sura xxxi) this proverbial estimate is implied; and it is an elementary rule of sound Scripture criticism not to look for scientific precision in such popular examples, or in discourses which aim at something more important than mere knowledge. The tree, salvadora persica, is said to be rare. Obviously, the point of comparison is directed to the humble beginnings and extraordinary development of Christ's Kingdom. Wellhausen believes that for the Evangelists the parable was an allegory typifying the Church's rapid growth; Loisy would infer that, if so, it was not delivered by our Lord in its actual form. But here are three distinct yet cognate stories, the mustard seed, the leaven, the seed growing secretly, occurring in the Synoptics, contemplating a lapse of time, and more applicable to after-ages than to the brief period during which Christ was preaching; shall we say that He uttered none of them? And if we allow these prophetic anticipations at all, does not the traditional view explain them best? (Wellh., "Matt.", 70; Loisy, "Ev. syn.", III, 774-3.) It has been questioned whether in the leaven we should recognize a good influence, answering to the texts, "you are the salt of the earth, the light of the world" (Matt., v, 13-14), or the evil to be "purged out" according to St. Paul (I Cor., v, 6-8). Better to take it as the "good seed", with consequent applications, as St. Ignatius does (Ad Magnes., x) and St. Gregory Naz. (Orat., xxxvi, 90). By the "three measures" were understood in the Gnostic system the "earthly" "carnal", and "spiritual" classes among Christians (Iren., I, viii). Trench admirably describes these two parables as setting before us the "mystery of regeneration" in the world and the heart of man. For the "leaven of the Pharisees", consult authors on Matt., xvi, 6.
The hidden treasure (Matt., xiii, 44); The pearl of price (ibid., 45). With Origen we may term these "similitudes"; in one the object is found as if by accident (Is., lxv, 1; Rom., x, 20: "I was found by them that did not seek me"); in the other a man seeks and buys it deliberately. Under such figures would be signified the calling of the Gentiles and the spiritual strivings of those who, with Simeon, waited "for the consolation of Israel." There is surely an allusion to the joy of martyrdom in the first (Matt., x, 37). The concealed treasure is a widespread Eastern idea (Job, iii, 21; Prov., ii, 4); pearls or rubies, which may be represented by the same Hebrew word (Job, xxviii, 18; Prov., iii, 15, etc.) will mean the "jewel" of faith, our Lord Himself, or everlasting life; and Christians must make the great surrender if they would gain it. No keeping back is possible, so far as the Spirit is concerned, a man must give the whole world for his "soul", which is worth more, hence he rejoices. Here as elsewhere, the comparison does not imply any judgment on the morality of the persons taken by way of figures; the casuistry of "treasure trove", the possible overreaching in business, belong to the "rind" not the "marrow" of the story and yield no lesson. St. Jerome understands the Holy Bible to be the treasure; St. Augustine, "the two Testaments of the Law", but Christ never identifies the "Kingdom" with Scripture. A strange interpretation, not warranted by the context, looks on the Saviour as at once seeker and finder.
The draw net (Matt., xiii, 47-50) completes the sevenfold teaching in the first Gospel. The order was chosen by St. Matthew; and if we accept the mystic signification of the number "seven", i.e., "perfection", we shall perceive in this parable not a repetition, as Maldonatus held, of the tares, but its crown. In the tares separation of good and bad is put off here it is accomplished. St. Augustine composed a kind of ballad for the people against the Donatist schismatics which expresses the doctrine clearly, "seculi finis est littus, tunc est tempus separare" (see Enarr. in Ps., lxiv, 6). The net is a sweeping net, Lat. verriculum, or a seine, which of necessity captures all sorts, and requires to be hauled on shore and the division made. For the Jews, in particular, the clean must be taken and the unclean cast away. Since it is distinctly stated that within the net are both good and bad, this implies a visible and a mixed congregation until the Lord comes with His angels to judgment (Matt., xiii, 41; Apoc., xiv, 18). The Evangelist, Loisy observes, has understood this parable, like the others quoted, allegorically, and Christ is the Fisher of men. Clement of Alexandria perhaps wrote the well-known Orphic hymn which contains a similar appellation. The "fiery furnace", the "tears and the gnashing of teeth", going beyond the figures in the story, belong to its meaning and to Christian dogma. In the conclusion "every scribe" (xiii, 52) points to the duty which Our Lord's Apostles will hand on to the Church of bringing forth to believers the hidden spiritual sense of tradition, "the new and the old". Specifically, this does not serve as a distinction of the Testaments; but we may compare, "I came not to destroy but to fulfil", and "not one jot, or one tittle" (Matt., v, 17-18). Modernist critics attribute the whole idea of a Christian "scribe" to St. Matthew and not to our Lord. The expression "instructed" is literally, "having been made a disciple", μαθητευθεις and is of rare occurrence (Matt in loco; xxvii, 57; xxviii, 19; Acts, xiv, 21). It answers to the Hebrew "Sons of the prophets" and is thoroughly Oriental (IV Kings, ii, 3, etc.)
The unmerciful servant, or "serve nequam" (Matt., xviii, 21-35) might be summed up in two words: "Forgiven, forgive". This chapter xviii resumes the parabolic teaching; Christ sets the little child in the midst of His disciples as an example of humility, and tells the story of the Good Shepherd (verses 11-13) which St. John's Gospel repeats in the first person. Undoubtedly, Christ said "I am the Good Shepherd", as He says here, "The Son of man is come to save that which was lost" (11). St. Peter's question, "How oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?" brings out the very spirit of Jewish legalism, in which the Apostle was yet bound while it provokes a statement of the Christian ideal. Contrast, frequently employed to heighten the effect of our Lord's teaching, is here visible in the attitude taken up by Peter and corrected by His Master. "Until seventy times seven times", the perfection of the perfect, signifies of course not a number but a principle, "Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good" (Rom., xii, 21). That is the "secret of Jesus" and constitutes His revelation. St. Jerome read a curious variant, plainly a gloss, in the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" (Loisy, II, 93). The proverbial number is perhaps taken from Lamech's song of revenge (Gen., iv, 24); where however the King James Version reads "seventy and sevenfoid". This parable is the first in which God appears and acts like a king, though of course the title is frequent in the Old Testament. As regards the persons, observe that Our Lord does not give them names, which makes the story-telling more difficult. The "wicked servant" may be a satrap, and his enormous debt would be the tribute of his Government. That he and his were sold into slavery would seem natural to an Eastern, then or later. "Ten thousand talents" may refer to the Ten Commandments. "A hundred pence" owed by his "fellow servant" graphically depicts the situation as between man and man compared with human offences towards God. The "prison" in which torture is to wring from the culprit all he possesses, represents what has ever taken place under the tyrannies of Asia, down to recent times. "Till he paid" might signify "never", according to a possible sense of "donec", and was taken so by St. John Chrysostom. Later theologians construe it more mildly and adapt the words to a prison where spiritual debts may be redeemed, i.e., to purgatory (Matt., v, 25-26, closely corresponds). The moral has been happily termed "Christ's law of retaliation", announced by Him aforetime in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt., v, 38-48), and the Lord's Prayer makes it a condition of our own forgiveness.
The labourers in the vineyard (Matt., xx, 1-16) has become celebrated in modern economical discussions by its pregnant phrase "To this last." Calderon, the Spanish poet, renders its meaning well, "To thy neighbour as to thee". But among parables it is one of the hardest to work out, and is variously expounded. In the main it is an answer to all Pharisees and Pelagians who demand eternal life as a recompense due to their works, and who murmur when "sinners" or the less worthy are accepted, though coming late to the Divine call. It might seasonably introduce the Epistle to the Romans, which proceeds on identical lines and teachers the same lesson. Yet no one has denied its authorship to Christ. (Cf. Romans, iii, 24-27; iv, 1; ix, 20, esp. "O man, who art thou that repliest against God?") The attitude of Christ towards publicans and sinners which gave offence to the Pharisees (Mark, ii, 16; Luke, v, 30), affords the clearest comment on the parable as a whole. Some critics reject the last sentence, "Many are called", as an interpolation from the parable of the marriage feast. Early mystical views understand the labourers to be Israel and the heathen, Irenaeus Origen, Hilary adapt the different hours to stages of the Old Covenant. St. Jerome compares the prodigal son, for which this may be St. Matthew's equivalent lesson. Note the "evil eye" and other references to it (Deut., xv, 9; II Kings, xviii, 9; Prov., xxiii, 6).
The two sons (Matt., xxi, 28-32) begins in this Gospel a series of denunciations addressed to the Pharisees. Its drift is plain. These "hypocrites" profess to keep God's law and break it; hence their scorn of the Baptist's preaching; whereas "publicans and harlots" were converted; therefore they shall go into the Kingdom before the others. But if it be accommodated to Jews and Gentiles, who is the elder son who the younger? From the text no reply can be drawn and commentators are not agreed. In some manuscripts the order is reversed, but without foundation. (See Luke, vii, 29-30, 37-50.)
The wicked husbandmen (Matt., xxi, 33-45; Mark, xii, 1-12; Luke, xx, 9-19). This remarkable challenge to the "chief priests and Pharisees", occurring in all the Synoptics, and foretelling how God's vineyard shall be transferred from its present keepers, reminds us of the good samaritan and the prodigal son, with which it harmonizes, though severe in its tone as they are not. However, its extreme clearness of application in detail has led the modernist critics to deny that Our Lord spoke it. They call it an allegory, not a parable. The "vineyard of the Lord of Hosts" is in Is., v, 1-7, and the prophecy in both cases analogous. That Jesus foresaw His rejection by the "chief priests" cannot be doubtful. That He contemplated the entrance into God's Kingdom of many Gentiles is apparent from Luke, xiii, 29, as from parables already quoted. This, indeed, was boldly pictured in the Old Testament (Is., ii, 1-4, xix, 20-25; Mich., iv, 1-7). In the first Gospel our Lord addresses the Pharisees; in the third He speaks to the "people". The "tower" is Mount Sion with its temple; the "servants" are the Prophets; when the "beloved son" is murdered we may think of Naboth dying for his vineyard and the crucifixion comes into sight. Christ is the "heir of all things" (Heb., i, 2). We must grant to Loisy that the anticipation of vengeance is an apocalypse in brief while upholding the genuineness of the larger view in Matt., xxiv, which his school would attribute to a period after the fall of Jerusalem. For the "stone which the builders rejected" and which "is become the head of the corner;', see Psalm cxvii (Hebrew cxviii), 22, 23, and Acts, iv, 11. The reading is from the Septuagint, not the Hebrew.
The marriage of the king's son, or less accurately, the wedding garment (Matt., xii, 1-14). If, like Maldonatus and Theophylact, we identify this with the great supper in St. Luke (xiv, 16), we must allow that the differences observable are due to the inspired reporters who had in view "not history but doctrine". Or we might hold that the discourse had been varied to meet another occasion. Read St. Augustine, "De consensu evang.", II, lxxii, who is for distinguishing them. The Lucan story would be earlier; the present, spoken in wrath when all hope of Christ's acceptance by clergy or scribes is at an end, reveals the mood of severe sadness which overshadowed our Lord's last days. Naturally the mythical school (Strauss and even Keim, with recent Modernists) discovers in the violence of the invited guests and their punishment an apologetic tendency, due to the editors of the original tale. "These additions", says Loisy, "were made after the taking of Jerusalem by Titus; and the writer had never heard Jesus, but was manipulating a text already settled" (Ev. synopt., II, 326). That the reign of the Messias, following on the rejection of Israel, was always meant in this story, is incontestable. Catholic faith would of course allow that the "servants" maltreated were, in our Lord's mind, such as St. John Baptist, the Apostles, the first martyrs. The feast, in our commentaries, may well be the Incarnation; the wedding garment is sanctifying grace, "put ye on the Lord Jesus" (Rom., xiii, 14). Thus Iren., IV, xxxvi; Tert., "De resurrect. carnis", xxvii, etc.
The ten virgins (Matt., xxv, 1-13) may be considered as first of several parables declaring that the advent of the Kingdom will be unexpected. These are all comments on the text, "of that day and hour no one knoweth, no not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone" (Matt., xxiv,36). It is a "watching" parable, and is not in praise of virginity as such, though applied by the Fathers, as St. Gregory Martyr, to the duties of the virgin-state. St. Augustine writes "souls that have the Catholic faith and appear to have good works" (Serm. xciii, 2); St. Jerome, "they boast the knowledge of God and are untainted with idolatry". There seems to be a reminiscence of this parable in Luke, xii, 36, wrought into the admonition to men "that wait for their Lord". Wellhausen's idea that St. Matthew composed it from St. Luke is untenable. In the East it is usual that the bride should be conveyed with honour to the bridegroom's house; but there might be exceptions, as here. Mystically, Christ is the bridegroom, His parousia the event, and the preparation by faith shining out in Christian deeds is imaged in the burning lamps or torches. For the "closed door" see Luke, xiii, 25. The conclusion, "Vigilate", is a direct lesson and no part of the story. St. Methodius wrote the "Banquet of the Ten Virgins", a rude mystery play in Greek.
The talents (Matt., xxv, 14-30) and the pounds or the minæ (Luke, xix, 11-27). Whether we shall identify or divide these two celebrated apologues can scarcely be determined. St. Mark (xiii, 34-36) blends his brief allusion with a text from the ten virgins. The circumstances in the first and third Gospels differ; but the warning is much the same. Commentators note that here the active life is extolled, as in the virgins a heedful contemplation. No argument for the lawfulness of usury can be drawn from verse 27. The "servant" was a bondslave; all that he had or acquired would be his master's property. "To him that hath shall be given" is one of the "hard sayings" which, while disclosing a law of life, seems not to harmonize with Christian kindness. Yet the analogy of God's dealings — not "mere" benevolence, but "wise and just" recognition of moral effort — is hereby maintained. If our Lord, as tradition tells, said, "Be ye good money changers" (cf. I Thess., v, 21), the same principle is commended. Ethically, all that we have is a trust of which we rnust give account. For the diversity of talents, note St. Paul, I Cor., xii, 4 and the reconciliation of that diversity in "the same spirit". Both parables relate to Christ's second coming. Hence Loisy and others attribute to the Evangelists, and especially to St. Luke, an enlargement, founded on later history, perhaps taken from Josephus, and intended to explain the delay of the Parousia (Ev. synopt., II, 464-80). Not accepting these premises, we put aside the conclusion. Maldonatus (I, 493), who treats the stories as variants, observes, "it is no new thing that our Evangelists should appear to differ in circumstances of time and place, since they consider only the general outline (summam rei gestae), not the order or the time. Where else we find them seeming to disagree, they wish to explain not Christ's words but the drift of the parable as a whole".
Leaving St. Matthew, we note the one short story peculiar to St. Mark, of the seed growing secretly (iv, 26-29). We have already assigned it to the group of the mustard tree and the leaven. Its point is conveyed in the Horatian line, "Crescit occulto velut arbor aevo" (Odes, I, xii, 36). The husbandman who "knows not how" the harvest springs cannot be the Almighty, but is the human sower of the word. For homiletic purposes we may combine this parable with its cognate, "unless the grain of wheat die" (John, xii, 24) which applies it to Christ Himself and His Divine influence.
In St. Luke the two debtors (vii, 41-43) is spoken by our Lord to Simon "the leper" (Mark, xiv, 2-9) on occasion of Mary Magdalene's conversion, with its touching circumstances. At least since St. Gregory the Great, Catholic writers have so understood the history. The double saying "Many sins are forgiven her, for she loved much", and "to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less", has a perfectly clear human sense, in accordance with facts. We cannot deduce from such almost proverbial expressions a theory of justification. The lesson concerns gratitude for mercies received, with a strong emphasis on the hard arrogance of the Pharisee over against the lowly and tender bearing of the "woman who was a sinner". Thus, in effect, St. Augustine (Serm. xcix, 4). The contrast between dead faith and faith animated by love--which Maldonatus would introduce--is not directly meant. And we need not suppose the latter portion of the story artificial or pieced together by St. Luke from other Gospel fragments. With the problem of the four narratives (Matt., xxvi; Mark, xiv; Luke, vii; John, xii) the present article is not concerned.
The good samaritan (Luke, x, 37) is certainly authentic; it can be explained mystically in detail, and is therefore as much an "allegory" as a parable. If it was spoken by our Lord so was the wicked husbandmen. It does not exactly reply to the question "Who is thy neighbour?" but propounds and answers a larger one, "Whom in distress should I like to be neighbour to me?" and gives an everlasting instance of the golden rule. At the same time it breaks down the fences of legalism, triumphs over national hatreds, and lifts the despised Samaritan to a place of honour. In the deeper sense we discern that Christ is the Good Samaritan, human nature the man fallen among robbers, i.e., under Satan's yoke; neither law nor Prophets can help; and the Saviour alone bears the charge of healing our spiritual wounds. The inn is Christ's Church; the oil and wine are His sacraments. He will come again and will make all good. The Fathers, Sts. Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, are agreed in this general interpretation. Mere philanthropy will not satisfy the Gospel idea; we must add, "the charity of Christ presseth us" (II Cor., v, 14).
The friend at midnight (Luke, xi, 5-8) and the unjust judge (Luke, xviii, 1-8) need no explanation. With a certain strength of language both dwell on the power of continued prayer. Importunity wins, "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away" (Matt., xi, 12). Dante has beautifully expressed the Divine law which these parables teach (Paradiso, xx, 94-100).
The rich fool (Luke, xii, 16-21) and Dives and Lazarus (Luke, xvi, 19-31) raise the question whether we should interpret them as true histories or as instructive fictions. Both are directed against the chief enemy of the Gospel, riches loved and sought after. The rich fool ("Nabal", as in I Kings, xxv) was uttered on occasion of a dispute concerning property and Christ answers "Man, who hath appointed me judge, or divider, over you?" Not injustice, but covetousness, "the root of all evil", is here reprehended. Read St. Cyprian, "De opere et eleemosyna", 13.
The story of Lazarus, which completes this lesson by contrast, appears to have no concealed meaning and would therefore not fulfil the definition of a parable. Catholics, with Irenaeus, Ambrose, Augustine, and the church liturgy, regard it as a narrative. The modern school rejects this view, allows that our Lord may have spoken the first half of the recital (Luke, xvi, 19-26) but considers the rest to be an allegory which condemns the Jews for not accepting the witness of Moses and the Prophets to Jesus as the Messias. In any case our Lord's resurrection furnishes an implied reference. "Abraham's bosom" for the middle state after death is adopted by the Fathers generally; it receives illustration from IV Mach., xiii, 17. St. Augustine (De Gen. ad Litt., viii, 7) doubts whether we can take literally the description of the other world. On the relation, supposed by rationalizing critics, of this Lazarus to John, x, see JOHN, GOSPEL OF SAINT; LAZARUS.
Passing over the barren fig tree (Luke, xiii, 6-9) which gave a plain warning to Israel; and just referring to the lost sheep (Matt., xviii, 12-14; Luke, xv, 3-7) and the lost groat or drachma (Luke, xv, 8-10), none of which need detain us, we come to the great supper (Luke, xiv, 15-24). That this parable concerns the calling of the Gentiles is admitted and is important, as bearing on the universal commission, Matt., xxviii, 19. "Compel them to enter", like the strong sayings quoted above (importunate widow etc.), must be taken in the spirit of Christianity, which compels by moral suasion, not by the sword Matt., xxvi, 52).
The prodigal son (Luke, xv, 11-32), so called from verse 13, has a deep ethical meaning, but likewise a dogmatic, in which the two sons are the Israelite, staying at home in his father's house, and the Gentile who has wandered away. As the message of pardon it deserves to be called the very heart of Christ's gospel. We have justified these parallel lines of interpretation, for ethics and revelation, which were both visible to the Evangelist. Tertullian's narrow use of the story is uncritical. St. John Chrysostom and the Church always have applied it to Christian, i.e., baptized penitents. The "first [or best] robe" is naturally assumed by theologians to be "original justice", and the feast of reconciliation is our Lord's atoning sacrifice. Those who grant a strong Pauline influence in St. Luke's Gospel ought not to deny it here. The "jealousy of good men" towards returned prodigals, which has exercised commentators, is true to life; and it counted for much in the dissensions that finally clove asunder the Church of Israel from the Church of Christ (I Thess., ii, 14-16). The joy over a sinner's conversion unites this parable with those of the lost sheep and the lost drachma.
The unjust steward (Luke, xvi, 1-9) is, beyond question, the hardest of all our Lord's parables, if we may argue from the number and variety of meanings set upon it. Verses 10-13 are no part of the narration but a discourse to which it gives rise. The connecting link between them is the difficult expression "mammon [more correctly 'Mamon'] of iniquity "and we may suppose with Bengel that Christ was speaking to those of His followers, like Levi, who had been farmers of the taxes, i.e., "publicans". In the contrast between the "children of this world" and the "children of light" we find a clue to the general lesson. Mark the resemblance to St. John's Gospel in the opposition thus brought out. There are two generations or kinds of men-the worldling and the Christian; but of these one behaves with a perfect understanding of the order to which he belongs; the other often acts foolishly, does not put his talent to interest. How shall he proceed in the least Christian of all occupations, which is the handling of money? He must get good out of its evil, turn it to account for everlasting life, and this by almsgiving, "yet that which remaineth, give alms; and behold, all things are clean unto you" (Luke, xi, 41). The strong conclusion follows, which lies implicit in all this, "You cannot serve God and mammon" (Luke, xvi, 13).
Much unwisdom has been shown by commentators who were perplexed that our Lord should derive a moral from conduct, evidently supposed unjust, on the steward's part; we answer, a just man's dealings would not have afforded the contrast which points the lesson, viz., that Christians should make use of opportunities, but innocently, as well as the man of business who lets slip no chance. Some critics have gone farther and connect the hidden meaning with Shakespeare's "soul of good in things evil", but we may leave that aside. Catholic preachers dwell on the special duty of helping the poor, considered as in some sense keepers of the gates of Heaven, "everlasting tents". St. Paul's "faithful dispenser" (I Cor., iv, 2) may be quoted here. The "measures" written down are enormous, beyond a private estate, which favours the notion of "publicani". The Revised Version transforms "bill" happily into "bond". It may be doubted which is "the lord" that commended the unjust steward. Whether we apply it to Christ or the rich man we shall obtain a satisfactory sense. "In their generation" should be "for their generation", as the Greek text proves. St. Ambrose, with an eye to the dreadful scandals of history, sees in the steward a wicked ruler in the Church. Tertullian (De Fuga) and, long afterwards, Salmeron apply all to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles, who were indeed debtors to the law, but who should have been treated indulgently and not repelled. Lastly, there seems no ground for the widespread belief that "mammon" was the Phoenician Plutus, or god of riches; the word signifies "money."
St. Luke (xvii, 7-10) gives a short apologue of the unprofitable servents, which may be reckoned as a parable, but which needs no explanation beyond St. Paul's phrase "not of works, but of Him that calleth" (Rom., ix, 11). This will be true equally as regards Jews and Christians, in whose merits God crowns His own gifts.
The lesson is driven home by contrast, once more, between the pharisee and the publican (Luke, xviii, 9-14), disclosing the true economy of grace. On the one hand it is permissible to understand this with Hugo of St. Victor and others as typifying the rejection of legal and carnal Judaism; on the other, we may expand its teaching to the universal principle in St. John (iv, 23-24) when our Lord transcends the distinction of Jew and heathen, Israelite and Samaritan, in favour of a spiritual Church or kingdom, open to all. St. Augustine says (Enarr. in Ps. lxxiv), "The Jewish people boasted of their merits, the Gentiles confessed their sins". It is asked whether those "who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others" were in fact the pharisees or some of the disciples. From the context we cannot decide. But it would not be impossible if, at this period, our Saviour spoke directly to the pharisees, whom He condemned (at no time for their good works, but) for their boasting and their disdain of the multitude who knew not the law (cf. Matt., xxiii, 12, 23; John, vii, 49). The pharisee's attitude, "standing", was not peculiar to him; it has ever been the customary mode of prayer among Easterns. He says "I fast twice in a week", not "twice on the Sabbath". "Tithes of all that I possess" means "all that comes to me" as revenue. This man's confession acknowledged no sin, but abounds in praise of himself-a form not yet extinct where Christians approach the sacred tribunal. One might say, "He does penance; he does not repent". The publican is of course a Jew, Zacchaeus or any other; he cannot plead merit; but he has a "broken heart" which God will accept. "Be merciful to me" is well rendered from the Greek by the Vulgate, "Be propitious", a sacrificial and significant word. "Went down to his house justified rather than the other" is a Hebrew way of saying that one was and the other was not justified, as St. Augustine teaches. The expression is St. Paul's, δικαιουσθαι; but we are not required to examine here the idea of justification under the Old Law. Mystically, the exaltation and abasement indicated would refer to the coming of the Kingdom and the Last Judgment.
It remains to observe, generally, that a "double sense" has always been attached by the Fathers to our Lord's miracles, and to the Gospel history as a whole. They looked upon the facts as reported much in the light of sacraments, or Divine events, which could not but have a perpetual significance for the Church and on that account were recorded. This was the method of mystical interpretation, according to which every incident becomes a parable. But the most famous school of German critics in the nineteenth century turned that method round, seeing in the parabolic intention of the Evangelists a force which converted sayings into incidents, which made of doctrines allegories, and of illustrations miracles, so that little or nothing authentic would have been handed down to us from the life of Christ. Such is the secret of the mythical procedure, as exemplified in modern dealing with the multiplication of the loaves, our Lord's walking on the sea, the resurrection of the widow's son at Naim, and many other Gospel episodes (Loisy, "Ev. synopt.", passim).
Parable, in this view, has created seeming history; and not only the Johannine document but the synoptic narratives must be construed as made up from supposed prophetic references, by adaptation and quotation of Old-Testament passages. It is for the Catholic apologist to prove in detail that, however deep and far-reaching the significance attributed by the Evangelists to the facts which they relate, those facts cannot simply be resolved into myth and legend. Nature also is a parable; but it is real. "The blue zenith", says Emerson admirably, "is the point in which romance and reality meet" . And again, "Nature is the vehicle of thought", the "symbol of spirit"; words and things are "emblematic". If this be so, there is a justification for the Hebrew and Christian philosophy, which sees in the world below us analogies of the highest truths, and in the Word made flesh at once the surest of facts and the most profound of symbols.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI, pp. 460-467
Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
The Eight Beatitudes
The solemn blessings (beatitudines, benedictiones) which mark the opening of the Sermon on the Mount, the very first of Our Lord's sermons in the Gospel of St. Matthew (v, 3-10). Four of them occur again in a slightly different form in the Gospel of St. Luke (vi, 22), likewise at the beginning of a sermon, and running parallel to Matthew, 5-7, if not another version of the same. And here they are illustrated by the opposition of the four curses (24-26). The fuller account and the more prominent place given the Beatitudes in St. Matthew are quite in accordance with the scope and the tendency of the First Gospel, in which the spiritual character of the Messianic kingdom — the paramount idea of the Beatitudes — is consistently put forward, in sharp contrast with Jewish prejudices. The very peculiar form in which Our Lord proposed His blessings make them, perhaps, the only example of His sayings that may be styled poetical — the parallelism of thought and expression, which is the most striking feature of Biblical poetry, being unmistakably clear.
The text of St. Matthew runs as follows:

  Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Verse 3)
  Blessed are the meek: for they shall posses the land. (Verse 4)
  Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted. (Verse 5)
  Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill. (Verse 6)
  Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. (Verse 7)
  Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God. (Verse 8)
  Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. (Verse 9)
  Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Verse 10)
TEXTUAL CRITICISM
As regards textual criticism, the passage offers no serious difficulty. Only in verse 9, the Vulgate and many other ancient authorities omit the pronoun autoi, ipsi; probably a merely accidental ommission. There is room, too, for serious critical doubt, whether verse 5 should not be placed before verse 4. Only the etymological connection, which in the original is supposed to have existed between the "poor" and the "meek", makes us prefer the order of the Vulgate.
First Beatitude
The word poor seems to represent an Aramaic `ányâ (Hebr. `anî), bent down, afflicted, miserable, poor; while meek is rather a synonym from the same root, `ánwan (Hebr. `ánaw), bending oneself down, humble, meek, gentle. Some scholars would attach to the former word also the sense of humility; others think of "beggars before God" humbly acknowledging their need of Divine help. But the opposition of "rich" (Luke, vi, 24) points especially to the common and obvious meaning, which, however, ought not to be confined to economical need and distress, but may comprehend the whole of the painful condition of the poor: their low estate, their social dependence, their defenceless exposure to injustice from the rich and the mighty. Besides the Lord's blessing, the promise of the heavenly kingdom is not bestowed on the actual external condition of such poverty. The blessed ones are the poor "in spirit", who by their free will are ready to bear for God's sake this painful and humble condition, even though at present they be actually rich and happy; while on the other hand, the really poor man may fall short of this poverty "in spirit".
Second Beatitude
Inasmuch as poverty is a state of humble subjection, the "poor in spirit", come near to the "meek", the subject of the second blessing. The anawim, they who humbly and meekly bend themselves down before God and man, shall "inherit the land" and posses their inheritance in peace. This is a phrase taken from Ps. xxxvi (Hebr., xxxvii), 11, where it refers to the Promised Land of Israel, but here in the words of Christ, it is of course but a symbol of the Kingdom of Heaven, the spiritual realm of the Messiah. Not a few interpreters, however, understand "the earth". But they overlook the original meaning of Ps. xxxvi, 11, and unless, by a far-fetched expedient, they take the earth also to be a symbol of the Messianic kingdom, it will be hard to explain the possession of the earth in a satisfactory way.
Third Beatitude
The "mourning" in the Third Beatitude is in Luke (vi, 25) opposed to laughter and similar frivolous worldly joy. Motives of mourning are not to be drawn from the miseries of a life of poverty, abjection, and subjection, which are the very blessings of verse 3, but rather from those miseries from which the pious man is suffering in himself and in others, and most of all the tremendous might of evil throughout the world. To such mourners the Lord Jesus carries the comfort of the heavenly kindgom, "the consolation of Israel" (Luke, ii, 25) foretold by the prophets, and especially by the Book of Consolation of Isaias (xi-lxvi). Even the later Jews knew the Messiah by the name of Menahhem, Consoler. These three blessings, poverty, abjection, and subjection are a commendation of what nowadays are called the passive virtues: abstinence and endurace, and the Eighth Beatitude (verse 10) leads us back again to the teaching.
Fourth Beatitude
The others, however, demand a more active behaviour. First of all, "hunger and thirst" after justice: a strong and continuous desire of progress in religious and moral perfection, the reward of which will be the very fulfilment of the desire, the continuous growth in holiness.
Fifth Beatitude
From this interior desire a further step should be taken to acting to the works of "mercy", corporal and spiritual. Through these the merciful will obtain the Divine mercy of the Messianic kingdom, in this life and in the final judgment. The wonderful fertility of the Church in works and institutions of corporal and spiritual mercy of every kind shows the prophetical sense, not to say the creative poer, of this simple word of the Divine Teacher.
Sixth Beatitude
According to biblical terminology, "cleanness of heart" (verse 8) cannot exclusively be found in interior chastity, nor even, as many scholars propose, in a genral purity of conscience, as opposed to the Levitical, or legal, purity required by the Scribes and Pharisees. At least the proper place of such a blessing does not seem to be between mercy (verse 7) and peacemaking (verse 9), nor after the apparently more far-reaching virtue of hunger and thirst after justice. But frequently in the Old and New Testaments (Gen., xx, 5; Job, xxxiii, 3; Pss., xxiii (Hebr., xxiv), 4; lxxii (Hebr., lxxiii), 1; I Tim,i.5; II Tim, ii, 22) the "pure heart" is the simple and sincere good intention, the "single eye" of Matt., vi, 22, and thus opposed to the unavowed by-ends of the Pharisees (Matt., vi, 1-6, 16-18; vii, 15; xxiii, 5-7, 14) This "single eye" or "pure heart" is most of all required in the works of mercy (verse 7) and zeal (verse 9) in behalf of one's neighbor. And it stands to reason that the blessing, promised to this continuous looking for God's glory, should consist of the supernatural "seeing" of God Himself, the last aim and end of the heavely kingdom in its completion.
Seventh Beatitude
The "peacemakers" (verse 9) are those who not only live in peace with others but moreover do their best to preserve peace and friendship among mankind and between God and man, and to restore it when it has been disturbed. It is on account of this godly work, "an imitating of God's love of man" as St. Gregory of Nyssa styles it, that they shall be called the sons of god, "children of your Father who is in heaven" (Matt., v, 45).
Eighth Beatitude
When after all this the pious disciples of Christ are repaid with ingratitude and even "persecution" (verse 10) it will be but a new blessing, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
So, by an inclusion, not uncommon in biblical poetry, the last blessing goes back to the first and the second. The pious, whose sentiments and desires whose works and sufferings are held up before us, shall be blessed and happy by their share in the Messianic kingdom, here and hereafter. And viewed in the intermediate verses seem to express, in partial images of the one endless beatitude, the same possession of the Messianic salvation. The eight conditions required constitute the fundamental law of the kingdom, the very pith and marrow of Christian perfection. For its depth and breadth of thought, and its practical bearing on Christian life, the passage may be put on a level with the Decalogue in the Old, and the Lord's Prayer in the New Testament, and it surpassed both in its poetical beauty of structure.
Besides the commentaries on St. Matthew and St. Luke, and the monographs on the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes are treated in eight homilies of ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA, P.G., XLIV, 1193-1302, and in one other of ST. CHROMATIUS, P.L., XX, 323-328. Different partristical sermons on single beatitudes are noticed in P.L.., CXXI (Index IV) 23 sqq.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II
Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Transfiguration
The Transfiguration of Christ is the culminating point of His public life, as His Baptism is its starting point, and His Ascension its end. Moreover, this glorious event has been related in detail by St. Matthew (17:1-6), St. Mark (9:1-8), and St. Luke (9:28-36), while St. Peter (II Peter 1:16-18) and St. John (1:14), two of the privileged witnesses, make allusion to it.
About a week after His sojourn in Cæsarea Philippi, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them to a high mountain apart, where He was transfigured before their ravished eyes. St. Matthew and St. Mark express this phenomenon by the word metemorphothe, which the Vulgate renders transfiguratus est. The Synoptics explain the true meaning of the word by adding "his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow,"according to the Vulgate, or "as light," according to the Greek text.
This dazzling brightness which emanated from His whole Body was produced by an interior shining of His Divinity. False Judaism had rejected the Messias, and now true Judaism, represented by Moses and Elias, the Law and the Prophets, recognized and adored Him, while for the second time God the Father proclaimed Him His only-begotten and well-loved Son. By this glorious manifestation the Divine Master, who had just foretold His Passion to the Apostles (Matthew 16:21), and who spoke with Moses and Elias of the trials which awaited Him at Jerusalem, strengthened the faith of his three friends and prepared them for the terrible struggle of which they were to be witnesses in Gethsemani, by giving them a foretaste of the glory and heavenly delights to which we attain by suffering.
LOCATION OF THE TRANSFIGURATION
Already in Apostolic times the mount of the Transfiguration had become the "holy mount" (II Peter 1:18). It seems to have been known by the faithful of the country, and tradition identified it with Mount Thabor. Origen said (A.D. 231-54) "Thabor is the mountain of Galilee on which Christ was transfigured" (Comm. in Ps. lxxxviii, 13). In the next century St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech., II, 16) and St. Jerome (Ep. xlvi, ad Marcel.; Ep. viii, ad Paulin.; Ep. cviii, ad Eust.) likewise declare it categorically. Later St. Proculus, Patriarch of Constantinople (d. 447; Orat. viii, in Transfig.), Agathangelus (Hist. of Armenia, II, xvii), and Arnobius the Younger (d. 460; Comm. in Ps. lxxxviii, 13) say the same thing. The testimonies increase from century to century without a single dissentient note, and in 553 the Fifth Council of Constantinople erected a see at Mount Thabor (Notitif. Antioch. . . . patriarch.).
Some modern writers claim that the Transfiguration could not have taken place on Mount Thabor, which, according to Josephus, was then surmounted by a city. This is incorrect; the Jewish historian speaks neither of a city nor a village; he simply fortified, as he repeats three times, "the mount called Itabyrion" ("Bell. Jud.", II, xx, 6; IV, i, 8; Vita , 37). The town of Atabyrion of Polybius, the Thabor or Celeseth Thabor, the "flank of Thabor" of the Bible, is situated at the foot of Mount Thabor. In any case the presence of houses on a wooded height would not have made it impossible to find a place apart.
It is again objected that Our Lord was transfigured on Mount Hermon, since He was at that time in its vicinity. But the Synoptics are all explicit concerning the lapse of time, six days, or about eight days including those of departure and arrival, between the discourse in Cæsarea and the Transfiguration, which would infer a somewhat lengthy journey. Moreover the summits of Hermon are covered with snow as late as June, and even the lesser peaks of 4000 or 5000 feet are likewise snow-covered in February and March, the period of the Transfiguration. Finally, the ancients judged of the height of mountains by their appearance, and Thabor especially was considered a "high mountain", if not by David and Jeremias, at least by Origen and St. Jerome and the pilgrims who made the ascent.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Agrapha
A name first used, in 1776, by J. G. Körner, for the Sayings of Jesus that have come down to us outside the canonical Gospels. After Alfred Resch had chosen the expression, as the title for his learned work on these Sayings (1889), its technical meaning was generally accepted. We shall consider, first, the limits of the Agrapha; secondly, the criteria of their genuineness; thirdly, the list of those that are probably authentic.
LIMITS
The Agrapha must satisfy three conditions:

  they must be Sayings, not discourses;
  they must be Sayings of Jesus;
  they must not be contained in the canonical Gospels.
(a) Being mere Sayings, and not discourses, the Agrapha do not embrace the lengthy sections ascribed to Jesus in the "Didascalia" and the "Pistis Sophia." These works contain also some brief quotations of alleged words of Jesus, though they may have to be excluded from the Sayings for other reasons. Such seems to be the Saying in "Didasc. Syr." II, 8 (ed. Lagarde, p. 14); "A man is unapproved, if he be untempted."
(b) Being Sayings of Jesus, the Agrapha do not embrace: (1) The Sayings contained in religious romances, such as we find in the apocryphal Gospels, the apocryphal Acts, or the Letter of Christ to Abgar (Eus. Hist. Eccl., I, 13). (2) Scripture passages ascribed to Jesus by a mere oversight. Thus "Didasc. Apost. Syr." (ed. Lagarde, p. 11, line 12) assigns to the Lord the words of Prov., xv, 1 (Sept.), "Wrath destroyeth even wise men". (3) The expressions attributed to Jesus by the mistake of transcribers. The Epistle of Barnabas, iv, 9, reads: "As the son of God says, Let us resist all iniquity, and hold it in hatred." But this is merely a rendering of a mistake of the Latin scribe who wrote "sicut dicit filius Dei", instead of "sicut decet filios Dei", the true rendering of the Greek òs prépei uìoîs Theoû. (4) The Sayings attributed to Jesus by mere conjecture. Resch has put forth the conjecture that the words of Clem. Alex. Strom. I, 8, 41, "These are they who ply their looms and weave nothing, saith the Scripture", refer to a Saying of Jesus, though there is no solid foundation for this belief.
(c) Coming down to us through channels outside the canonical Gospels, the Agrapha do not comprise: (1) Mere parallel forms, or amplifications, or, again, combinations of Sayings contained in the canonical Gospels. Thus we find a combination of Matt., vi, 19; x, 9; Luke, xii, 33, in Ephr. Syr. Test. (opp. Græce, ed. Assemani, II, 232): "For I heard the Good Teacher in the divine gospels saying to his disciples, Get you nothing on earth." (2) Homiletical paragraphs of Jesus, thoughts given by ancient writers. Thus Hippolytus (Demonstr. adv. Judæos, VII) paraphrases Ps. lxviii (lxix), 26: "Whence he saith, Let their temple, Father, be desolate."
CRITERIA OF GENUINENESS
The genuineness of the Agrapha may be inferred partly from external and partly from internal evidence.
(a) External Evidence. - First determine the independent source or sources by which any Saying in question has been preserved, and then see whether the earliest authority for the Saying is of such date and character than it might reasonably have had access to extra-canonical tradition. For Papias and Justin Martyr such access may be admitted, but hardly for a writer of the fourth century. These are extreme cases; the main difficulty is concerned with the intermediate writers.
(b) Internal Evidence. - The next question is, whether the Saying under consideration is consistent with the thought and spirit of Jesus as manifested in the canonical gospels. If a negative conclusion be reached in this investigation, the proof must be completed by finding a fair explanation of the rise of the Saying.
LIST OF AUTHENTIC AGRAPHA
The sources from which the authentic Agrapha may be gathered are: (a) the New Testament and the New Testament manuscripts; (b) the Apocryphal tradition; (c) the patristic citations; and (d) the socalled "Oxyrhynchus Logia" of Jesus. Agrapha contained in Jewish or Mohammedan sources may be curious, but they are hardly authentic. Since the criticism of the Agrapha is in most cases difficult, and often unsatisfactory, frequent disagreement in the critical results must be expected as a matter of course. The following Agrapha are probably genuine sayings of Jesus.
(a) In the New Testament and the New Testament manuscripts: In Codices D and Phi , and in some versions of Matt., xx, 28, "But ye seek from the small to increase, and from the greater to be less." In Codex D of Luke, vi, 4: "On the same day, seeing one working on the Sabbath, he said to him: Man, if thou knowest what thou doest, blessed art thou; but if thou knowest not, thou art accursed and a transgressor of the Law." In Acts, xx, 35, "Remember the word of the Lord Jesus, how he said: It is a more blessed thing to give, rather than to receive."
(b) In apocryphal tradition: In the Gospel according to the Hebrews (Jerome, Ezech., xviii, 7): "In the Gospel which the Nazarenes are accustomed to read, that according to the Hebrews, there is put among the greatest crimes he who shall have grieved the spirit of his brother." In the same Gospel (Jerome, Eph., v, 3 sq.): "In the Hebrew Gospel too we read of the Lord saying to the disciples: And never, said he, rejoice, except when you have looked upon your brother in love." In Apostolic Church Order, 26: "For he said to us before, when he was teaching: That which is weak shall be saved through that which is strong." In "Acta Philippi", 34: "For the Lord said to me: Except ye make the lower into the upper and the left into the right, ye shall not enter into my kingdom."
(c) In patristic citations: Justin Martyr, Dial. 47: "Wherefore also our Lord Jesus Christ said, In whatsoever things I apprehend you, in those I shall judge you." Clement of Alexandria, Strom. I, 24, 158: "For ask, he says for the great things, and the small shall be added to you." Clement of Alexandria, Strom. I, 28, 177: "Rightly therefore the Scripture also in its desire to make us such dialecticians, exhorts us: Be approved moneychangers, disapproving some things, but holding fast that which is good." Clement of Alexandria, Strom. V, 10, 64: "For not grudgingly, he saith, did the Lord declare in a certain gospel: My mystery is for me and for the sons of my house." Origen, Homil. in Jer., XX, 3: "But the Saviour himself saith: He who is near me is near the fire; he who is far from me, is far from the kingdom."
(d) In the Oxyrhynchus Logia: The first Logion is part of Luke, vi, 42; of the fourth, only the word "poverty" is left; the eighth, too, is badly mutilated. The text of the other Logia is in a more satisfactory condition. Second Logion: "Jesus saith, Except you fast to the world, you shall in no wise find the kingdom of God." Third Logion: "Jesus saith, I stood in the midst of the world, and in the flesh was I seen of them, and I found all men drunken, and none found I athirst among them, and my soul grieved over the sons of men, because they are blind in their heart, and see not." Fifth Logion: "Jesus saith, Wherever there are two, they are not without God; and wherever there is one alone, I say I am with him. Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me; cleave the wood, and there am I." Sixth Logion: "Jesus saith, A prophet is not acceptable in his own country, neither doth a physician work cures upon them that know him." Seventh Logion: "Jesus saith, A city built upon the top of a hill and stablished can neither fall nor be hid." Eighth Logion: "Jesus saith, Thou hearest with one ear . . ." Resch's contention that seventy-five Agrapha are probably genuine Sayings of Jesus harmonizes with the assumption that all spring from the same source, but does not commend itself to the judgment of other scholars.
ROPES in HAST., Dict. of the Bible (New York, 1905); Sprüche Jesu, Texte und Untersuch., XIV, 2 (Leipzig, 1896); RESCH, Agrapha, Texte und Untersuch., VI (Leipzig, 1889); GRENFELL and HUNT, LOGIA IESOU, (Egypt Expl. Fund, London, 1897); LOCK AND SANDAY, Sayings of Jesus (Oxford, 1897); NESTLER, N. T. supplementum (Leipzig, 1896). Complete bibliographies will be found in most of the foregoing works.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I
Nihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Knowledge of Jesus Christ
"Knowledge of Jesus Christ," as used in this article, does not mean a summary of what we know about Jesus Christ, but a survey of the intellectual endowment of Christ.
Jesus Christ possessing two natures, and therefore two intellects, the human and the Divine, the question as to the knowledge found in His Divine intellect is identical with the question concerning God's knowledge. The Arians, it is true, held that the Word Himself was ignorant of many things, for instance, of the day of judgment; in this they were consistent with their denial that the Word was consubstantial with the Omniscient God. The Agnoetae, too, attributed ignorance not merely to Christ's human soul, but to the Eternal Word. Suicer, s.v. Agnoetai, I, p. 65, says: "Hi docebant divinam Christi naturam . . .quaedam ignorasse, ut horam extremi judicii". But then, the Agnoetae were a sect of the Monophysites, and imagined a confusion of natures in Christ, after the Eutychian pattern, so as to attribute ignorance to that Divine nature into which His human nature (as they held) was absorbed. An honest profession of the Divinity of Christ necessitates the admission of omniscience in His Divine intellect.
I. KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE IN CHRIST'S HUMAN INTELLECT
The Man-God possessed, not merely a Divine, but also a human nature, and therefore a human intellect, and with the knowledge possessed by this intellect we are here mainly concerned. The integrity of His human nature implies intellectual cognition by acts of its human intellect. Jesus Christ might be wise by the wisdom of God; yet the humanity of Christ knows by its own mental act. If we except Hugh of St. Victor, all theologians teach that the soul of Christ is elevated to participation in the Divine wisdom by an infusion of Divine light. For the soul of Christ enjoyed from the very beginning the beatific vision; it was endowed with infused knowledge; and it acquired in the course of time experimental knowledge.
(1) The Beatific Vision
Petavius (De Incarnatione, I, xii, c. 4) maintains that there is no controversy among theologians, or even among Christians, as to the fact that the soul of Jesus Christ was endowed with the beatific vision (see HEAVEN) from the beginning of its existence. He knew God immediately in His essence, or, in other words, beheld Him face to face as the blessed in heaven. The great theologians freely grant that this doctrine is not stated in so many words in the books of Sacred Scripture, nor even in the writing of the early Fathers; but recent masters in theology do not hesitate to consider the contrary opinion as rash, though it was upheld by the pretended Catholic school of Günther. The basis for the privilege of the beatific vision enjoyed by the human soul of Christ is its Hypostatic Union with the Word. This union implies a plenitude of grace and of gifts in both intellect and will. Such a fullness does not exist without the beatific vision. Again, by virtue of the Hypostatic Union the human nature of Christ is assumed into a unity of Divine person; it does not appear how such a soul could at the same time remain, like ordinary human beings, destitute of the vision of God to which they hope to attain only after their stay on earth is over. Once more, by virtue of the Hypostatic Union, Jesus, even as man, was the natural son of God, not a merely adoptive child; now, it would not be right to debar a deserving son from seeing the face of his father, an incongruity that would have taken place in the case of Christ, if His soul had been bereft of the beatific vision. And all these reasons show that the human soul of Christ must have seen God face to face from the very first moment of its creation.
Though Scripture does not state in explicit terms that Jesus was favoured with the beatific vision, still it contains passages that imply this privilege: Jesus speaks as an eyewitness of things Divine (John, iii, 11, sqq.; I, 18; I, 31 sq.); any knowledge of God inferior to immediate vision is imperfect and unworthy of Christ (I Cor., xiii, 9-12); Jesus repeatedly asserts that He knows the Father and is known by Him, that He knows what the Father knows. There is a difficulty in reconciling Christ's sufferings and surpassing great sorrow with the beatitude implied in His beatific vision. But if the Word could be united with the human nature of Christ without allowing Its glory to overflow into His sacred body, the happiness of the beatific vision too might be in the human soul of our Lord without overflowing into and absorbing His lower faculties, so that He might feel the pangs of sorrow and suffering. The same faculty may be simultaneously affected by sorrow and joy, resulting from the perception of different objects (cf. St. Thom., III, Q. xiii, a. 5, ad 3; St. Bonav., in III, dist. xvi, a. 2, q. 2); the martyrs have often testified to the ecstatic happiness with which God filled their souls, at the very time that their bodies were suffering the extremity of torment.
(2) Christ's Infused Knowledge
The existence of an infused science in the human soul of Jesus Christ may perhaps be less certain, from a theological point of view, than His continual and original fruition of the vision of God; still, it is almost universally admitted that God infused into Christ's human intellect a knowledge similar in kind to that of the angels. This is knowledge which is not acquired gradually by experience, but is poured into the soul in one flood. This doctrine rests on theological grounds: the Man-God must have possessed all perfections except such as would be incompatible with His beatific vision, as faith or hope; or with His sinlessness, as penance; or again, with His office of Redeemer, which would be incompatible with the consummation of His glory. Now, infused knowledge is not incompatible with Christ's beatific vision, not with His sinlessness, not again with His office of Redeemer. Besides, the soul of Christ is the first and most perfect of all created spirits, and cannot be deprived of a privilege granted to the angels. Moreover, a created intellect is simply perfect only when, besides the vision of things in God, it has a vision of things in themselves; God only sees all things comprehensively in Himself. The God-Man, besides seeing them in God, would also perceive and know them by His human intellect. Finally, Sacred Scripture favours the existence of such infused knowledge in the human intellect of Christ: St. Paul speaks of all the treasures of God's wisdom and science hidden in Christ (Col., ii, 3); Isaias speaks of the spirit of wisdom and counsel, of science and understanding, resting on Jesus (Is., xi, 2); St. John intimates that God has not given His Spirit by measure to His Divine envoy (John, iii, 34); St. Matthew represents Christ as our sovereign teacher (Matt., xxiii, 10). Beside the Divine and the angelic knowledge, most theologians admit in the human intellect of Jesus Christ a science infused per accidens, i.e., an extraordinary comprehension of things which might be learned in the ordinary way, similar to that granted to Adam and Eve (cf. St. Thom., III., Q. i, a. 2; QQ. viii-xii; Q. xv, a. 2).
(3) Christ's Acquired Knowedge
Jesus Christ had, no doubt, also an experimental knowledge acquired by the natural use of His faculties, through His senses and imagination, just as happens in the case of common human knowledge. To say that his human faculties were wholly inactive would resemble a profession of either Monothelitism or of Docetism. This knowledge naturally grew in Jesus in the process of time, according to the words of Luke, ii, 52: "And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men". Understood in this way, the Evangelist speaks not merely of a successively greater manifestation of Christ's Divine and infused knowledge, nor merely of an increase in His knowledge as far as outward effects were concerned, but of a real advance in His acquired knowledge. Not that this kind of knowledge implies an enlarged object of His science; but it signified that He gradually came to know, after a merely human way, some of the things which he had known from the beginning by His Divine and infused knowledge.
II. EXTENT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST
It has already been stated that the knowledge in Christ's Divine nature is co-extensive with God's Omniscience. As to the experimental knowledge acquired by Christ, it must have been at least equal to the knowledge of the most gifted of men; it appears to us wholly unworthy of the dignity of Christ that His powers of observation and natural insight should have been less than those of other naturally perfect men. But the main difficulty arises from the question as to the extent of Christ's knowledge flowing from His beatific vision, and of His infused amount of knowledge.
(1) The Council of Basle (Sess. XXII) condemned the proposition of a certain Augustinus de Roma: "Anima Christi videt Deum tam clare. Et intense quam clare et intense Deus videt seipsum" (The soul of Christ sees God as clearly and intimately as God perceives Himself). It is quite clear that, however perfect the human soul of Christ is, it always remains finite and limited; hence its knowledge cannot be unlimited and infinite.
(2) Though the knowledge in the human soul of Christ was not infinite, it was most perfect and embraced the widest range, extending to the Divine ideas already realized, or still to be realized. Nescience of any of these matters would amount to positive ignorance in Christ, as the ignorance of law in a judge. For Christ is not merely our infallible teacher, but also the universal mediator, the supreme judge, the sovereign king of all creation.
(3) Two important texts are urged against this perfection of Christ's knowledge: Luke, ii, 52 demands an advancement in knowledge in the case of Christ; this text has already been considered in the last paragraph. The other text is Mark, xiii, 32: "Of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father." After all that has been written on this question in recent years, we see no need to add anything to the traditional explanations: the Son has no knowledge of the judgment day which He may communicate; or, the Son has no knowledge of this event, which spring from His human nature as such, or again, the Son has no knowledge of the day and the hour, that has not been communicated to Him by the Father. (See Mangenot in Vigouroux, "Dict. de la Bible", II, Paris, 1899, 2268 sqq.)
Since the time of the Nestorian controversies, Catholic tradition has been practically unanimous as to the doctrine concerning the knowledge of Christ (cf. Leporius, "Libellus Emendationis", n. 40; Eulogius Alex., "in Phot.", cod. 230, n. 10; S. Gregorius Magnus, lib. X, ep. xxxv, xxxix; Sophron., "Ep. Syn. ad Sergium"; Damascenus, "De Haer.," n. 85; Nat. Alex., "Hist. Eccl. in saec. sext.", n. 85). As to the Fathers preceding the Nestorian controversy, Leontius Byzantinus simply surrenders their authority to the opponents of our doctrine concerning the knowledge of Christ; Petavius represents it as partly undecided; but the early Fathers may be excused from error, because they wrote mostly against the Arian heresy, so that they endeavoured to establish Christ's Divinity by removing all ignorance from His Divine nature, while they did not care to enter upon an ex professo investigation of the knowledge possessed by His human nature. At that time there was no call for any such study. After the patristic period, Fulgentius (Resp. ad quaest. tert. Ferrandi) and Hugh of St. Victor exaggerated the human knowledge of Christ, so that the early Scholastics asked the question, why God's Omniscience was incommunicable (Lomb., "Liber Sent.", III, d. 14). But even at this period, at least a modal difference was admitted to exist between the Omniscience of God and the human knowledge of Christ (cf. Bonav. in III., dist. 13, a. 2). Soon, however, theologians began to limit the human knowledge of Christ to the range of the scientia visionis or of all that actually has been, is, or will be, while God's Omniscience embraces also the range of the possibilities.
PETER LOMBARD, Liber Sent., III, dist. 13-14, and ST. THOMAS, ST. BONAVENTURE, SCOTUS, DIONYSIUS THE CARTHUSIAN on this passage; Summa, III, QQ. viii-xii, and sv, a. 2, and VALENT., SUAREZ, SALMERON, on these chapters; MELCHIOR CANUS, De Locis, XII, xiii; PETAVIUS, I, i sqq.; THOMASSIN, VII; LEGRAND, De Incarn., dissert. ix, c. ii; MALDONATUS, A LAPIDE, KNABENBAUER, etc., on Luke, ii, 52, and Mark, xiii, 32; FRANZELIN, De Verb. Incarn., p. 426. A number of works have been quoted during the course of the article.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
The Passion of Christ in the Four Gospels
We have in the Gospels four separate accounts of the Passion of Our Lord, each of which supplements the others, so that only from a careful examination and comparison of all can we arrive at a full and clear knowledge of the whole story. The first three Gospels resemble each other very closely in their general plan, so closely indeed that some sort of literary connection among them may be assumed; but the fourth Gospel, although the writer was evidently familiar at least with the general tenor of the story told by the other three, gives us an independent narrative.
If we begin by marking in any one of the Synoptic Gospels those verses which occur in substance in both of the other two, and then read these verses continuously, we shall find that we have in them a brief but a complete narrative of the whole passion story. There are of course very few details, but all the essentials of the story are there. In St. Mark's Gospel the marked verses will be as follows: xiv, 1, 10-14, 16-18, 21-23, 26, 30, 32, 35-6, 41, 43, 45, 47-9, 53-4, 65 to xv, 2, 9, 11-15, 21-2, 26-7, 31-33, 37-9, 41, 43, 46-7. Verbal alterations would be required to make the verses run consecutively. Sometimes the division will not quite coincide with the verse. It is possible that this nucleus, out of which our present accounts seem to have grown, represents more or less exactly some original and more ancient narrative, whether written or merely oral matters little, compiled in the earliest days at Jerusalem. This original narrative, so far as we can judge from what is common to all the three Synoptics, included the betrayal, the preparation of the Paschal Supper, the Last Supper with a brief account of the institution of the Eucharist, the Agony in the Garden, the arrest and taking of Our Lord before Caiphas, with His examination there and condemnation for blasphemy. Then follow Peter's denials, and the taking of Our Lord before Pilate. Next comes Pilate's question: "Art thou the king of the Jews?" and Our Lord's answer, "Thou sayest it", with Pilate's endeavour to set Him free on account of the feast, frustrated by the demand of the people for Barabbas. After this Pilate weakly yields to their insistence and, having scourged Jesus, hands Him over to be crucified. The story of the Crucifixion itself is a short one. It is confined to the casting of lots for the garments, the accusation over the head, the mocking of the chief priests, the supernatural darkness, and the rending of the Temple veil. After the death we have the confession of the centurion, the begging of the body of Jesus from Pilate, and the burial of it, wrapped in a clean linen cloth, in Joseph's new tomb hewn out in the rock close by.
In order to distinguish what is peculiar to each Evangelist we must notice a remarkable series of additional passages which are found both in St. Matthew and St. Mark. There are no similar coincidences between St. Matthew and St. Luke, or between St. Mark and St. Luke. These passages taken as they occur in St. Mark, are as follows: Mark, xiv, 15, 19-20, 24-28, 31, 33-4, 37-40, 42, 44, 46, 50-2, 55-8, 60-4, xv, 3-8, 10, 16-20, 23-4, 29-30, 34-6, 40, 42. They have the character rather of expansions than of additions. Still some of them are of considerable importance, for instance, the mocking of Our Lord by the soldiers in the Prætorium, and the cry from the Cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Possibly this series also formed part of an original narrative omitted by St. Luke, who had a wealth of special information on the Passion. Another explanation would be that St. Mark expanded the original narrative, and that his work was then used by St. Matthew. The passages found in St. Mark alone are quite unimportant. The story of the young man who fled naked has very generally been felt to be a personal reminiscence. Mark alone speaks of the Temple as "made with hands", and he is also the only one to note that the false witnesses were not in agreement one with another. He mentions also that Simon the Cyrenian was "father of Alexander and of Rufus", no doubt because these names were well known to those for whom he was writing. Lastly, he is the only one who records the fact that Pilate asked for proof of the death of Christ. In St. Matthew's Gospel the peculiarities are more numerous and of a more distinctive character. Naturally in his Gospel, written for a Jewish circle of readers, there is insistence on the position of Jesus as the Christ. There are several fresh episodes possessing distinctive and marked characteristics. They include the washing of Pilate's hands, the dream of Pilate's wife, and the resurrection of the saints after the death of Christ, with the earthquake and the rending of the tombs. The special features by which St. Luke's passion narrative is distinguished are very numerous and important. Just as St. Matthew emphasizes the Messianic character, so St. Luke lays stress on the universal love manifested by our Lord, and sets forth the Passion as the great act by which the redemption of mankind was accomplished. He is the only one who records the statement of Pilate that he found no cause in Jesus; and also the examination before Herod. He alone tells us of the angel who came to strengthen Jesus in his agony in the garden, and, if the reading is right, of the drops of blood which mingled with the sweat which trickled down upon the ground. To St. Luke again we owe our knowledge of no less than three of the seven words from the Cross: the prayer for His murderers; the episode of the penitent thief; and the last utterance of all, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit". Finally it is St. Luke alone who tells us of the effect produced upon the spectators, who so short a time before had been so full of hatred, and how they returned home "striking their breasts".
The traditional character of the Fourth Gospel as having been written at a later date than the other three, and after they had become part of the religious possession of Christians generally, is entirely borne out by a study of the passion. Although almost all the details of the story are new, and the whole is drawn up on a plan owing nothing to the common basis of the Synoptists, yet a knowledge of what they had written is presupposed throughout, and is almost necessary before this later presentment of the Gospel can be fully understood. Most important events, fully related in the earlier Gospels, are altogether omitted in the Fourth, in a way which would be very perplexing had we not thus the key. For instance, there is no mention of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, the agony in the garden, or the trial and condemnation before Caiphas. On the other hand, we have a great number of facts not contained in the Synoptists. For instance, the eagerness of Pilate to release our Lord and his final yielding only to a definite threat from the Jewish leaders; the presence of our Lady at the foot of the Cross, and Jesus' last charge to her and to St. John. Most important of all perhaps, is the piercing of the side by the soldier's spear and the flowing forth of blood and water. It is St. John alone, again, who tells us of the order to break the legs of all, and that Jesus Christ's legs were not broken, because he was already dead.
There seems at first sight a discrepancy between the narrative of the Fourth Gospel and that of the Synoptists, namely, as to the exact day of the crucifixion, which involves the question whether the Last Supper was or was not, in the strict sense, the Paschal meal. If we had the Synoptists only we should almost certainly decide that it was, for they speak of preparing the Pasch, and give no hint that the meal which they describe was anything else. But St. John seems to labour to show that the Paschal meal itself was not to be eaten till the next day. He points out that the Jews would not enter the court of Pilate, because they feared pollution which might prevent them from eating the Pasch. He is so clear that we can hardly mistake his meaning, and certain passages in the Synoptists seem really to point in the same direction. Joseph, for instance, was able to buy the linen and the spices for the burial, which would not have been possible on the actual feast-day. Moreover, one passage, which at first sight seems strongest in the other direction, has quite another meaning when the reading is corrected. "With desire I have desired", said Jesus to His Apostles, "to eat this pasch with you, before I suffer. For I say to you, that from this time, I will not eat it, till it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God" (Luke, xxii, 15). When the hour for it had fully come He would have been already dead, the type would have passed away, and the Kingdom of God would have already come.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI
Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Devotion to the Passion of Christ
The sufferings of Our Lord, which culminated in His death upon the cross, seem to have been conceived of as one inseparable whole from a very early period. Even in the Acts of the Apostles (i, 3) St. Luke speaks of those to whom Christ "shewed himself alive after his passion" (meta to mathein autou). In the Vulgate this has been rendered post passionem suam, and not only the Reims Testament but the Anglican Authorized and Revised Versions, as well as the medieval English translation attributed to Wyclif, have retained the word "passion" in English. Passio also meets us in the same sense in other early writings (e.g. Tertullian, "Adv. Marcion.", IV, 40) and the word was clearly in common use in the middle of the third century, as in Cyprian, Novatian, and Commodian. The last named writes:
"Hoc Deus hortatur, hoc lex, hoc passio Christi
Ut resurrecturos nos credamus in novo sæclo."
St. Paul declared, and we require no further evidence to convince us that he spoke truly, that Christ crucified was "unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness" (I Cor., i, 23). The shock to Pagan feeling, caused by the ignominy of Christ's Passion and the seeming incompatibility of the Divine nature with a felon's death, seems not to have been without its effect upon the thought of Christians themselves. Hence, no doubt, arose that prolific growth of heretical Gnostic or Docetic sects, which denied the reality of the man Jesus Christ or of His sufferings. Hence also came the tendency in the early Christian centuries to depict the countenance of the Saviour as youthful, fair, and radiant, the very antithesis of the vir dolorum familiar to a later age (cf. Weis Libersdorf, "Christus-und Apostel-bilder", 31 sq.) and to dwell by preference not upon His sufferings but upon His works of mercifulness, as in the Good Shepherd motive, or upon His works of power, as in the raising of Lazarus or in the resurrection figured by the history of Jonas.
But while the existence of such a tendency to draw a veil over the physical side of the Passion may readily be admitted, it would be easy to exaggerate the effect produced upon Christian feeling in the early centuries by Pagan ways of thought. Harnack goes too far when he declares that the Death and Passion of Christ were regarded by the majority of the Greeks as too sacred a mystery to be made the subject of contemplation or speculation, and when he declares that the feeling of the early Greek Church is accurately represented in the following passage of Goethe: "We draw a veil over the sufferings of Christ, simply because we revere them so deeply. We hold if to be reprehensible presumption to play, and trifle with, and embellish those profound mysteries in which the Divine depths of suffering lie hidden, never to rest until even the noblest seems mean and tasteless" (Harnack, "History Of Dogma", tr., III, 306; cf. J. Reil, "Die frühchristlichen Darstellungen der Kreuzigung Christi", 5). On the other hand, while Harnack speaks with caution and restraint, other more popular writers give themselves to reckless generalizations such as may be illustrated by the following passage from Archdeacon Farrar: "The aspect", he says, "in which the early Christians viewed the cross was that of triumph and exultation, never that of moaning and misery. It was the emblem of victory and of rapture, not of blood or of anguish." (See "The Month", May, 1895, 89.) Of course it is true that down to the fifth century the specimens of Christian art that have been preserved to us in the catacombs and elsewhere, exhibit no traces of any sort of representation of the crucifixion. Even the simple cross is rarely found before the time of Constantine (see CROSS), and when the figure of the Divine Victim comes to be indicated, it at first appears most commonly under some symbolical form, e.g. that of a lamb, and there is no attempt as a rule to represent the crucifixion realistically. Again, the Christian literature which has survived, whether Greek or Latin, does not dwell upon the details of the Passion or very frequently fall back upon the motive of our Saviour's sufferings. The tragedy known as "Christus Patiens", which is printed with the works of St. Gregory Nazianzus and was formerly attributed to him, is almost certainly a work of much later date, probably not earlier than the eleventh century (see Krumbacher, "Byz. Lit.", 746).
In spite of all this it would be rash to infer that the Passion was not a favourite subject of contemplation for Christian ascetics. To begin with, the Apostolical writings preserved in the New Testament are far from leaving the sufferings of Christ in the background as a motive of Christian endeavour; take, for instance, the words of St. Peter (I Pet., ii, 19, 21, 23): "For this is thankworthy, if for conscience towards God, a man endure sorrows, suffering wrongfully"; "For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps"; "Who, when he was reviled, did not revile", etc.; or again: "Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought" (ibid., iv, 1). So St. Paul (Gal., ii, 19): "with Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me"; and (ibid., v, 24): "they that are Christ's, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences" (cf. Col., i, 24); and perhaps most strikingly of all (Gal., vi, 14): "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world." Seeing the great influence that the New Testament exercised from a very early period upon the leaders of Christian thought, it is impossible to believe that such passages did not leave their mark upon the devotional practice of the West, though it is easy to discover plausible reasons why this spirit should not have displayed itself more conspicuously in literature. It certainly manifested itself in the devotion of the martyrs who died in imitation of their Master, and in the spirit of martyrdom that characterized the early Church.
Further, we do actually find in such an Apostolic Father as St. Ignatius of Antioch, who, though a Syrian by birth, wrote in Greek and was in touch with Greek culture, a very continuous and practical remembrance of the Passion. After expressing in his letter to the Romans (cc. iv, ix) his desire to be martyred, and by enduring many forms of suffering to prove himself the true disciple of Jesus Christ, the saint continues: "Him I seek who dies on our behalf; Him I desire who rose again for our sake. The pangs of a new birth are upon me. Suffer me to receive the pure light. When I am come thither then shall I be a man. Permit me to be an imitator of the Passion of my God. If any man hath Him within himself, let him understand what I desire, and let him have fellow-feeling with me, for he knoweth the things which straiten me." And again he says in his letter to the Smyrnæans (c. iv): "near to the sword, near to God (i.e. Jesus Christ), in company with wild beasts, in company with God. Only let it be in the name of Jesus Christ. So that we may suffer together with Him" (eis to sympathein auto).
Moreover, taking the Syrian Church in general -- and rich as it was in the traditions of Jerusalem it was far from being an uninfluential part of Christendom -- we do find a pronounced and even emotional form of devotion to the Passion established at an early period. Already in the second century a fragment preserved to us of St. Melito of Sardis speaks as Father Faber might have spoken in modern times. Apostrophising the people of Israel, he says: "Thou slewest thy Lord and He was lifted up upon a tree and a tablet was fixed up to denote who He was that was put to death -- And who was this? -- Listen while ye tremble: -- He on whose account the earth quaked; He that suspended the earth was hanged up; He that fixed the heavens was fixed with nails; He that supported the earth was supported upon a tree; the Lord was exposed to ignominy with a naked body; God put to death; the King of Israel slain by an Israelitish right hand. Ah! the fresh wickedness of the fresh murder! The Lord was exposed with a naked body, He was not deemed worthy even of covering, but in order that He might not be seen, the lights were turned away, and the day became dark because they were slaying God, who was naked upon the tree" (Cureton, "Spicilegium Syriacum", 55).
No doubt the Syrian and Jewish temperament was an emotional temperament, and the tone of their literature may often remind us of the Celtic. But in any case it is certain that a most realistic presentation of Our Lord's sufferings found favour with the Fathers of the Syrian Church apparently from the beginning. It would be easy to make long quotations of this kind from the works of St. Ephraem, St. Isaac of Antioch, and St. James of Sarugh. Zingerle in the "Theologische Quartalschrift" (1870 and 1871) has collected many of the most striking passages from the last two writers. In all this literature we find a rather turgid Oriental imagination embroidering almost every detail of the history of the Passion. Christ's elevation upon the cross is likened by Isaac of Antioch to the action of the stork, which builds its nest upon the treetops to be safe from the insidious approach of the snake; while the crown of thorns suggests to him a wall with which the safe asylum of that nest is surrounded, protecting all the children of God who are gathered in the nest from the talons of the hawk or other winged foes (Zingerle, ibid., 1870, 108). Moreover St. Ephraem who wrote in the last quarter of the fourth century, is earlier in date and even more copious and realistic in his minute study of the physical details of the Passion. It is difficult to convey in a short quotation any true impression of the effect produced by the long-sustained note of lamentation, in which the orator and poet follows up his theme. In the Hymns on the Passion (Ephraem, "Syri, Hymni et Sermones," ed. Lamy, I) the writer moves like a devout pilgrim from scene to scene, and from object to object, finding everywhere new motives for tenderness and compassion, while the seven "Sermons for Holy Week" might both for their spirit and treatment have been penned by any medieval mystic. "Glory be to Him, how much he suffered!" is an exclamation which bursts from the preacher's lips from time to time. To illustrate the general tone, the following passage from a description of the scourging must suffice:
"After many vehement outcries against Pilate, the all-mighty One was scourged like the meanest criminal. Surely there must have been commotion and horror at the sight. Let the heavens and earth stand awestruck to behold Him who swayeth the rod of fire, Himself smitten with scourges, to behold Him who spread over the earth the veil of the skies and who set fast the foundations of the mountains, who poised the earth over the waters and sent down the blazing lightning-flash, now beaten by infamous wretches over a stone pillar that His own word had created. They, indeed, stretched out His limbs and outraged Him with mockeries. A man whom He had formed wielded the scourge. He who sustains all creatures with His might submitted His back to their stripes; He who is the Father's right arm yielded His own arms to be extended. The pillar of ignominy was embraced by Him who bears up and sustains the heaven and the earth in all their splendour" (Lamy, I, 511 sq.). The same strain is continued over several pages, and amongst other quaint fancies St. Ephraem remarks: "The very column must have quivered as if it were alive, the cold stone must have felt that the Master was bound to it who had given it its being. The column shuddered knowing that the Lord of all creatures was being scourged". And he adds, as a marvel, witnessed even in his own day, that the "column had contracted with fear beneath the Body of Christ".
In the devotional atmosphere represented by such contemplations as these, it is easy to comprehend the scenes of touching emotion depicted by the pilgrim lady of Galicia who visited Jerusalem (if Dr. Meester's protest may be safely neglected) towards the end of the fourth century. At Gethsemane she describes how "that passage of the Gospel is read where the Lord was apprehended, and when this passage has been read there is such a moaning and groaning of all the people, with weeping that the groans can be hear almost at the city. While during the three hours' ceremony on Good Friday from midday onwards we are told: "At the several lections and prayers there is such emotion displayed and lamentation of all the people as is wonderful to hear. For there is no one, great or small, who does not weep on that day during those three hours, in a way that cannot be imagined, that the Lord should have suffered such things for us" (Peregrinatio Sylviæ in "Itinera Hierosolymitana", ed. Geyer, 87, 89). It is difficult not to suppose that this example of the manner of honouring Our Saviour's Passion, which was traditional in the very scenes of those sufferings, did not produce a notable impression upon Western Europe. The lady from Galicia, whether we call her Sylvia, Ætheria, or Egeria, was but one of the vast crowd of pilgrims who streamed to Jerusalem from all parts of the world. The tone of St. Jerome (see for instance the letters of Paula and Eustochium to Marcella in A.D. 386; P.L., XXII, 491) is similar, and St. Jerome's words penetrated wherever the Latin language was spoken. An early Christian prayer, reproduced by Wessely (Les plus anciens mon. de Chris., 206), shows the same spirit.
We can hardly doubt that soon after the relics of the True Cross had been carried by devout worshippers into all Christian lands (we know the fact not only from the statement of St. Cyril of Jerusalem himself but also from inscriptions found in North Africa only a little later in date) that some ceremonial analogous to our modern "adoration" of the Cross upon Good Friday was introduced, in imitation of the similar veneration paid to the relic of the True Cross at Jerusalem. It was at this time too that the figure of the Crucified began to be depicted in Christian art, though for many centuries any attempt at a realistic presentment of the sufferings of Christ was almost unknown. Even in Gregory of Tours (De Gloria Mart.) a picture of Christ upon the cross seems to be treated as something of a novelty. Still such hymns as the "Pange lingua gloriosi prælium certaminis", and the "Vexilla regis", both by Venantius Fortunatus (c. 570), clearly mark a growing tendency to dwell upon the Passion as a separate object of contemplation. The more or less dramatic recital of the Passion by three deacons representing the "Chronista", "Christus", and "Synagoga", in the Office of Holy Week probably originated at the same period, and not many centuries later we begin to find the narratives of the Passion in the Four Evangelists copied separately into books of devotion. This, for example, is the case in the ninth-century English collection known as "the Book of Cerne". An eighth century collection of devotions (MS. Harley 2965) contains pages connected with the incidents of the Passion. In the tenth century the Cursus of the Holy Cross was added to the monastic Office (see Bishop, "Origin of the Prymer", p. xxvii, n.).
Still more striking in its revelation of the developments of devotional imagination is the existence of such a vernacular poem as Cynewulf's "Dream of the Rood", in which the tree of the cross is conceived of as telling its own story. A portion of this Anglo-Saxon poem still stands engraved in runic letters upon the celebrated Ruthwell Cross in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. The italicized lines in the following represent portions of the poem which can still be read upon the stone:
I had power all
his foes to fell,
but yet I stood fast.
Then the young hero prepared himself,
That was Almighty God,
Strong and firm of mood,
he mounted the lofty cross
courageously in the sight of many,
when he willed to redeem mankind.
I trembled when the hero embraced me,
yet dared I not bow down to earth,
fall to the bosom of the ground,
but I was compelled to stand fast,
a cross was I reared,
I raised the powerful King
The lord of the heavens,
I dared not fall down.
They pierced me with dark nails,
on me are the wounds visible.
Still it was not until the time of St. Bernard and St. Francis of Assisi that the full developments of Christian devotion to the Passion were reached. It seems highly probable that this was an indirect result of the preaching of the Crusades, and the consequent awakening of the minds of the faithful to a deeper realization of all the sacred memories represented by Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre. When Jerusalem was recaptured by the Saracens in 1187, worthy Abbot Samson of Bury St. Edmunds was so deeply moved that he put on haircloth and renounced flesh meat from that day forth -- and this was not a solitary case, as the enthusiasm evoked by the Crusades conclusively shows.
Under any circumstances it is noteworthy that the first recorded instance of stigmata (if we leave out of account the doubtful case of St. Paul) was that of St. Francis of Assisi. Since his time there have been over 320 similar manifestations which have reasonable claims to be considered genuine (Poulain, "Graces of Interior Prayer", tr., 175). Whether we regard these as being wholly supernatural or partly natural in their origin, the comparative frequency of the phenomenon seems to point to a new attitude of Catholic mysticism in regard to the Passion of Christ, which has only established itself since the beginning of the thirteenth century. The testimony of art points to a similar conclusion. It was only at about this same period that realistic and sometimes extravagantly contorted crucifixes met with any general favour. The people, of course, lagged far behind the mystics and the religious orders, but they followed in their wake; and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we have innumerable illustrations of the adoption by the laity of new practices of piety to honour Our Lord's Passion. One of the most fruitful and practical was that type of spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Places of Jerusalem, which eventually crystalized into what is now known to us as the "Way of the Cross". The "Seven Falls" and the "Seven Bloodsheddings" of Christ may be regarded as variants of this form of devotion. How truly genuine was the piety evoked in an actual pilgrimage to the Holy Land is made very clear, among other documents, by the narrative of the journeys of the Dominican Felix Fabri at the close of the fifteenth century, and the immense labour taken to obtain exact measurements shows how deeply men's hearts were stirred by even a counterfeit pilgrimage. Equally to this period belong both the popularity of the Little Offices of the Cross and "De Passione", which are found in so many of the Horæ, manuscript and printed, and also the introduction of new Masses in honour of the Passion, such for example as those which are now almost universally celebrated upon the Fridays of Lent. Lastly, an inspection of the prayer-books compiled towards the close of the Middle Ages for the use of the laity, such as the "Horæ Beatæ Mariæ Virginis", the "Hortulus Animæ", the "Paradisus Animæ" etc., shows the existence of an immense number of prayers either connected with incidents in the Passion or addressed to Jesus Christ upon the Cross. The best known of these perhaps were the fifteen prayers attributed to St. Bridget, and described most commonly in English as "the Fifteen O's", from the exclamation with which each began.
In modern times a vast literature, and also a hymnology, has grown up relating directly to the Passion of Christ. Many of the innumerable works produced in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries have now been completely forgotten, though some books like the medieval "Life of Christ" by the Carthusian Ludolphus of Saxony, the "Sufferings of Christ" by Father Thomas of Jesus, the Carmelite Guevara's "Mount of Calvary", or "The Passion of Our Lord" by Father de La Palma, S.J., are still read. Though such writers as Justus Lipsius and Father Gretser, S.J., at the end of the sixteenth century, and Dom Calmet, O.S.B., in the eighteenth, did much to illustrate the history of the Passion from historical sources, the general tendency of all devotional literature was to ignore such means of information as were provided by archæology and science, and to turn rather to the revelations of the mystics to supplement the Gospel records.
Amongst these, the Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden, of Maria Agreda, of Marina de Escobar and, in comparatively recent times, of Anne Catherine Emmerich are the most famous. Within the last fifty years, however, there has been a reaction against this procedure, a reaction due probably to the fact that so many of these revelations plainly contradict each other, for example on the question whether the right or left shoulder of Our Lord was wounded by the weight of the cross, or whether Our Saviour was nailed to the cross standing or lying. In the best modern lives of Our Saviour, such as those of Didon, Fouard, and Le Camus, every use is made of subsidiary sources of information, not neglecting even the Talmud. The work of Père Ollivier, "The Passion" (tr., 1905), follows the same course, but in many widely-read devotional works upon this subject, for example: Faber, "The Foot of the Cross"; Gallwey, "The Watches of the Passion"; Coleridge, "Passiontide" etc.; Groenings, "Hist. of the Passion" (Eng. tr); Belser, D'Gesch. d. Leidens d. Hernn; Grimm, "Leidengeschichte Christi", the writers seem to have judged that historical or critical research was inconsistent with the ascetical purpose of their works.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI
Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Genealogy of Christ
It is granted on all sides that the Biblical genealogy of Christ implies a number of exegetical difficulties; but rationalists have no solid reason for refusing to admit any of the attempted solutions, nor can we agree with those recent writers who have given up all hope of harmonizing the genealogies of Christ found in the First and Third Gospels. The true state of the question will become plain by studying the Biblical genealogies of Christ first separately, then in juxtaposition, and finally in their relation to certain exceptions to their harmony.
ST. MATTHEW'S GENEALOGY OF CHRIST
The genealogy of Christ according to the First Evangelist descends from Abraham through three series of fourteen members each; the first fourteen belong to the patriarchal order, the second to the royal and the third to that of private citizens. Matthew 1:17, shows that this arrangement was intended; for the writer expressly states: "So all the generations, from Abraham to David, are fourteen generations. And from David to the transmigration of Babylon, are fourteen generations: and from the transmigration of Babylon to Christ are fourteen generations."

First Series
1. Abraham
2. Isaac
3. Jacob
4. Judas
5. Phares
6. Esron
7. Aram
8. Aminadab
9. Naasson
10. Salmon
11. Booz
12. Obed
13. Jesse
14. David Second Series
1. Solomon
2. Roboam
3. Abia
4. Asa
5. Josaphat
6. Joram
7. Ozias
8. Joatham
9. Achaz
10. Ezechias
11. Manasses
12. Amon
13. Josias
14. Jechonias Third Series
1. Jechonias
2. Salathiel
3. Zorobabel
4. Abiud
5. Eliacim
6. Azor
7. Sadoe
8. Achim
9. Eliud
10. Eleazar
11. Mathan
12. Jacob
13. Joseph
14. Jesus
The list of the First Evangelist omits certain members in Christ's genealogy:

  The writer gives only three names for the time of the Egyptian exile (Esron, Aram, and Aminadab), though the period lasted 215 or 430 years; this agrees with Genesis 15:16, where God promises to lead Israel back in the fourth generation. But according to Genesis 15:13, the stranger shall afflict Israel for four hundred years.
  The three names Booz, Obed, and Jesse cover a period of 366 years. Omitting a number of other less probable explanations, the difficulty is solved most easily by the admission of a lacuna between Obed and Jesse.
  According to I Paralipomenon 3:11-12, Ochozias, Joas, and Amasias intervene between Joram and Azarias (the Ozias of St. Matthew); these three names cannot have been unknown to the Evangelist, nor can it be supposed that they were omitted by transcribers, for this conjecture would destroy the Evangelist's computation of fourteen kings.
  According to I Paralipomenon 3:15, Joakim intervenes between Josias and Jechonias. We may waive the question whether St. Matthew speaks of only one Jechonias or of two persons bearing that name; nor need we state here all the doubts and difficulties connected with either answer.
  St. Matthew places only nine links between Zorobabel and St. Joseph for a period covering some 530 years, so that each generation must have lasted more than 50 years. The genealogy as given in St. Luke enumerates eighteen generations for the same period, a number which harmonizes better with the ordinary course of events.
As to the omission of members in genealogical lists see GENEALOGY.
ST. LUKE'S GENEALOGY OF CHRIST
The genealogy in Luke 3:23-28 ascends from Joseph to Adam or rather to God; this is the first striking difference between the genealogies as presented in the First and Third Gospel. Another difference is found in their collocation: St. Matthew places his list at the beginning of his Gospel; St. Luke, at the beginning of the public life of Christ. The artificial character of St. Luke's genealogy may be seen in the following table:

First Series
1. Jesus
2. Joseph
3. Heli
4. Mathat
5. Levi
6. Melchi
7. Janne
8. Joseph
9. Mathathias
10. Amos
11. Nahum
12. Hesli
13. Nagge
14. Mahath
15. Mathathias
16. Semei
17. Joseph
18. Juda
19. Joanna
20. Reza
21. Zorobabel Second Series
22. Salathiel
23. Neri
24. Melchi
25. Addi
26. Cosan
27. Helmadan
28. Her
29. Jesus
30. Eliezer
31. Jorim
32. Mathat
33. Levi
34. Simeon
35. Judas
36. Joseph
37. Jona
38. Eliakim
39. Melea
40. Menna
41. Mathatha
42. Nathan Third Series
43. David
44. Jesse
45. Obed
46. Booz
47. Salmon
48. Naasson
49. Aminadab
50. Aram
51. Esron
52. Phares
53. Judas
54. Jacob
55. Isaac
56. Abraham Fourth Series
57. Thare
58. Nachor
59. Sarug
60. Ragau
61. Phaleg
62. Heber
63. Sale
64. Cainan
65. Arphaxad
66. Sem
67. Noe
68. Lamech
69. Mathusale
70. Henoch
71. Jared
72. Malaleel
73. Cainan
74. Henos
75. Seth
76. Adam
77. God
The artificial structure of this list may be inferred from the following peculiarities: it contains eleven septenaries of names; three septenaries bring us from Jesus to the Captivity; three, from the captivity to the time of David; two, from David to Abraham; three again from the time of Abraham to the creation of man. St. Luke does not explicitly draw attention to the artificial construction of his list, but this silence does not prove that its recurring number of names was not intended, at least in the Evangelist's source. In St. Luke's genealogy, too, the names Jesse, Obed, Booz, cover a period of 366 years; Aminadab, Aram, Esron fill a gap of 430 (or 215) years, so that here several names must have been omitted. In the fourth series, which gives the names of the antediluvian and postdiluvian patriarchs, Cainan has been inserted according to the Septuagint reading; the Hebrew text does not contain this name.
HARMONY BETWEEN ST. MATTHEW'S AND ST. LUKE'S GENEALOGY OF CHRIST
The fourth series of St. Luke's list covers the period between Abraham and the creation of man; St. Matthew does not touch upon this time, so that there can be no question of any harmony. The third series of St. Luke agrees name for name with the first of St. Matthew; only the order of names is inverted. In this section the genealogies are rather identical than merely harmonious. In the first and second series, St. Luke gives David's descendants through his son Nathan, while St. Matthew enumerates in his second and third series David's descendants through Solomon. It is true that the First Gospel gives only twenty-eight names for this period, against the forty-two names of the Third Gospel; but it cannot be expected that two different lines of descendants should exhibit the same number of links for the period of a thousand years. Abstracting from the inspired character of the sources, one is disposed to regard the number given by the Third Evangelist as more in harmony with the length of time than the number of the First Gospel; but we have pointed out that St. Matthew consciously omitted a number of names in his genealogical list, in order to reduce them to the required multiple of seven.
EXCEPTIONS TO THE PRECEDING EXPLANATION
Three main difficulties are advanced against the foregoing harmony of the genealogies: First, how can they converge in St. Joseph, if they give different lineages from David downward? Secondly, how can we account for their convergence in Salathiel and Zorobabel? Thirdly, what do we know about the genealogy of the Blessed Virgin?
First Difficulty
The convergence of the two distinct genealogical lines in the person of St. Joseph, has been explained in two ways:
(a) St. Matthew's genealogy is that of St. Joseph; St. Luke's, that of the Blessed Virgin. This contention implies that St. Luke's genealogy only seemingly includes the name of Joseph. It is based on the received Greek text, on (os enomizeto ouios Ioseph) tou Heli, "being the son (as it was supposed, of Joseph, but really) of Heli". This parenthesis really eliminates the name of Joseph from St. Luke's genealogy, and makes Christ, by means of the Blessed Virgin, directly a son of Heli. This view is supported by a tradition which names the father of the Blessed Virgin "Joachim", a variant form of Eliacim or its abbreviation Eli, a variant of Heli, which latter is the form found in the Third Evangelist's genealogy. But these two consideration, viz. the received text and the traditional name of the father of Mary, which favour the view that St. Luke gives the genealogy of the Blessed Virgin, are offset by two similar considerations, which make St. Luke's list terminate with the name of Joseph. First, the Greek text preferred by the textual critics reads, on ouios, hos enomizeto, Ioseph tou Heli, "being the son, as it was supposed, of Joseph, son of Heli", so that the above parenthesis is rendered less probable. Secondly, according to Patrizi, the view that St. Luke gives the genealogy of Mary began to be advocated only towards the end of the fifteenth century by Annius of Viterbo, and acquired adherents in the sixteenth. St. Hilary mentions the opinion as adopted by many, but he himself rejects it (Mai, "Nov. Bibl, Patr.", t. I, 477). It may be safely said that patristic tradition does not regard St. Luke's list as representing the genealogy of the Blessed Virgin.
(b) Both St. Matthew and St. Luke give the genealogy of St. Joseph, the one through the lineage of Solomon, the other through that of Nathan. But how can the lines converge in St. Joseph? St. Augustine suggested that Joseph, the son of Jacob and the descendant of David through Solomon, might have been adopted by Heli, thus becoming the adoptive descendant of David through Nathan. But Augustine was the first to abandon this theory after learning the explanation offered by Julius Africanus. According to the latter, Estha married Mathan, a descendant of David through Solomon, and became the mother of Jacob; after Mathan's death she took for her second husband Mathat, a descendent of David through Nathan, and by him became the mother of Heli. Jacob and Heli were, therefore, uterine brothers. Heli married, but died without offspring; his widow, therefore, became the levirate wife of Jacob, and gave birth to Joseph, who was the carnal son of Jacob, but the legal son of Heli, thus combining in his person two lineages of David's descendants.
Second Difficulty
The second difficulty urged against the harmony between the two genealogies is based on the occurrence of the two names Zorobabel and Salathiel in both lists; here again the two distinct lineages of David's descendants appear to converge. And again, two answers are possible:
(a) It is more commonly admitted that the two names in St. Matthew's list are identical with the two in St. Luke's series; for they must have lived about the same time, and the names are so rare, that it would be strange to find them occurring at the same time, in the same order, in two different genealogical series. But two levirate marriages will explain the difficulty. Melchi, David's descendant through Nathan, may have begotten Neri by a widow of the father of Jechonias; this made Neri and Jechonias uterine brothers. Jechonias may then have contracted a levirate marriage with the widow of the childless Neri, and begotten Salathiel, who was therefore the leviratical son of Neri. Salathiel's son Zorobabel begat Abiud; but he also may have been obliged to contract a levirate marriage with the widow of a childless legal relative belonging to David's descendants through Nathan, thus begetting Reza, who legally continued Nathan's lineage.
(b) A more simple solution of the difficulty is obtained, if we do not admit that the Salathiel and Zorobabel occurring in St. Matthew's genealogy are identical with those in St. Luke's. The above proofs for their identity are not cogent. If Salathiel and Zorobabel distinguished themselves at all among the descendants of Solomon, it is not astonishing that about the same time two members of Nathan's descendants should be called after them. The reader will observe that we suggest only possible answers to the difficulty; as long as such possibilities can be pointed out, our opponents have no right to deny that the genealogies which are found in the First and Third Gospel can be harmonized.
Third Difficulty
How can Jesus Christ be called "son of David", if the Blessed Virgin is not a daughter of David?
(a) If by virtue of Joseph's marriage with Mary, Jesus could be called the son of Joseph, he can for the same reason be called "son of David" (St. Augustine, On the Harmony of the Gospels, II, i, 2).
(b) Tradition tells us that Mary too was a descendant of David. According to Numbers 36:6-12, an only daughter had to marry within her own family so as to secure the right of inheritance. After St. Justin (Adv. Tryph. 100) and St. Ignatius (Letter to the Ephesians 18), the Fathers generally agree in maintaining Mary's Davidic descent, whether they knew this from an oral tradition or inferred it from Scripture, e.g. Romans 1:3; II Timothy 2:8. St. John Damascene (De fid. Orth., IV, 14) states that Mary's great-grandfather, Panther, was a brother of Mathat; her grandfather, Barpanther, was Heli's cousin; and her father, Joachim, was a cousin of Joseph, Heli's levirate son. Here Mathat has been substituted for Melchi, since the text used by St. John Damascene, Julius Africanus, St. Irenaeus, St. Ambrose, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus omitted the two generations separating Heli from Melchi. At any rate, tradition presents the Blessed Virgin as descending from David through Nathan.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VI
Nihil Obstat, September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor
Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York