26 June 2025

The Weaknesses of Christ: Their Theological and Pastoral Significance

This article is adapted from Jesus and the God of Classical Theism by Steven J. Duby. Used with permission of Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group (http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com).

Abstract

In studying God’s providence and difficult questions about God’s permission of evil and the Christian’s experience of trial and suffering, many things are worth considering. These include the wisdom and will of God, the goodness and justice of God, the nature of evil as privation (not some substance created by God), and our blessed hope – the face-to-face sight of God that will secure our everlasting joy. Yet at the centre of our life with God is the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose own suffering indicates, among other things, that God did not choose simply to stay above the fray. Accordingly, this paper will focus on the faith and the human weaknesses and sufferings of Christ, with a view to how his way of navigating these things can be an example for us. For it seems to me that study of Christ’s faith, weaknesses, and sufferings provides us with a model that can help us both to clarify certain aspects of suffering and emotion and to move forward through suffering in a humane and spiritually healthy manner.

Introduction

The next three sections of the paper will flesh out some of the factors involved in Christ’s faith, weaknesses, and sufferings. The first section deals with the sense in which Christ had to exercise faith on earth prior to his glorification; for, while Christ never lacked knowledge of himself or his divine mission, his exemplary trust in the Father’s promises in the face of suffering can be a comfort and strength to us in our discipleship. The second section deals more directly with the weaknesses of Christ and the suffering he underwent in his human soul. The manner in which Christ suffered can help us see how one may truly experience human emotion without sugarcoating the difficulties and yet live in holiness and obedience to God. The third section deals with the sense in which Christ, our high priest, has grown and been perfected in his mercy toward sinners, which, as any reader of Hebrews can attest, ought to be an encouragement to us in our weakness and our battles against indwelling sin. These three sections deal mostly with the theological underpinnings requisite to pastoral application, and I leave a more detailed discussion of pastoral application to the questions appended and to the group discussion time.

The Faith of Christ

The sense in which Christ exercised faith (or whether he did in fact exercise faith) while also possessing a unique human knowledge of God is a matter of debate in the Christian tradition. One of the key questions here is whether Christ, in his human soul, had the beatific vision on earth prior to his glorification. If so, then, since his human soul directly beheld the very essence of God at all times, he did not have to exercise faith (for one walks either by sight or by faith). However, if Christ in his human soul did not have the beatific vision until his glorification, there is an opportunity to consider him exercising faith on earth and to consider how that might be helpful to us today. This section will consider some historical sources and then take the approach according to which Christ did exercise faith on earth in vicarious and exemplary fashion.

Historical perspectives on Christ’s faith and knowledge

Discussion among medieval and early Reformed figures often ramifies the knowledge of Christ’s human soul under a threefold consideration: beatific knowledge (i.e., direct vision of God’s essence), infused knowledge (i.e., knowledge implanted in the mind of Christ by the Holy Spirit), and acquired knowledge (i.e., knowledge by sense perception or experience). In the Summa theologicae, Aquinas introduces Christ’s human knowledge in IIIa.9.1, where one of the driving principles of Aquinas’s reasoning is that Christ assumed a complete human nature and that the powers or faculties of the human nature have attained to their ends and are perfect.^[1] Aquinas then treats Christ’s beatific, infused, and acquired or “experiential” knowledge in successive questions. According to Aquinas, since Christ even in his humanity knows God fully (see John 8:55) and since Christ even in his humanity is the one leading many sons and daughters to glory (see Hebrews 2:10), he must preeminently have the vision of God that God’s people have in glory, for “it is proper for the cause to be greater than the thing caused.”^[2] Aquinas still clarifies that this beatific knowledge is not a strict “comprehension” of the divine essence, for though Christ’s human knowledge surpasses that of any other creature, it remains finite.^[3]

In Aquinas’s exposition, Christ also knows all things by the infused knowledge that he has from the Spirit (see the various cognitive terms used for the Spirit’s work in Isaiah 11:2).^[4] Moreover, because of Aquinas’s commitment to the perfection of Christ’s intellect, he reasons that Christ possesses acquired or experiential knowledge too. For, Aquinas says, it pertains to the perfection of the “active intellect” of the human person to access or act upon images acquired by sense perception and render them intelligible to the intellect.^[5] It was this acquired knowledge in which Christ grew in Luke 2:52. Aquinas then clarifies that growth in knowledge is twofold. The growth may take place either with respect to the essence of the knowledge itself, “insofar as the habit of knowledge itself is increased,” or with respect to the effect of the knowledge as when someone by the same knowledge shows “lesser things” to some and afterward “greater and more subtle things” to others. In his infused knowledge, which was complete in itself from its inception, Christ advanced in “knowledge and grace” in only the second way, for, “according to the increase of age, he did greater works, which showed greater wisdom and grace.” In his acquired knowledge, however, Christ advanced in gaining new mental habits. Consciously abandoning his previous view of the matter in his Sentences commentary, Aquinas writes that Christ’s knowledge did not merely increase “by experience” (by connecting previously infused knowledge of universals to newly acquired sense perception) but even by gaining new habits from the intellect’s engagement of the objects of sense perception.^[6]

In light of the simultaneity of Christ’s beatific knowledge, on the one hand, and his corporeal and mental suffering, on the other, Aquinas concludes that Christ was at the same time a “comprehender” (comprehensor) who has obtained beatitude and a “pilgrim” (viator) who is en route to beatitude. On the one hand, Christ directly saw and enjoyed God’s (his own) very deity even before his exaltation. On the other hand, both his body and soul were passible and underwent suffering. Thus, Christ already possessed a beatitude proper to the soul in the vision and enjoyment of God, but he also was still tending toward beatitude with regard to the passibility of body and soul.^[7] Though Christ’s beatific knowledge and passibility cohere during his earthly sojourn, his beatific knowledge, in Aquinas’s judgment, does not fit with the notion of Christ having faith. For the object of faith is a “divine thing not seen.” But, since Christ from the time of his conception fully sees God by the divine essence, there can be no faith in Christ. Though Aquinas affirms that true faith has a “certainty or firmness” with which one clings to God, he holds that there is a certain “defect” in it since it is not yet sight.^[8] Likewise, the essence of hope is the expectation of the good that one does not yet see (cf. Rom 8:24). But Christ had the full enjoyment of God from conception, so he did not have hope in that respect. Yet one can say that Christ did have hope at least with respect to anticipating the resurrection and glorification of his body.^[9]

In early Reformed theology, the human knowledge of Christ often appears in discussions of the various kinds of “ectypal” theological knowledge that God communicates to human beings.^[10] When the Reformed treat Christ’s own human knowledge, they often take up the threefold division of beatific, infused, and acquired knowledge, but there is some diversity in their accounts, with frequent appeals to patristic figures like Athanasius and Ambrose. Within this Reformed diversity, there are some authors who maintain the doctrine of Christ’s beatific knowledge on earth, while others reject that doctrine and explore the implications of Christ exercising faith on earth.

Girolamo Zanchi, for example, affirms that Christ always has beatific knowledge, for Christ’s human intellect always immediately sees the Word and, in the Word as in a mirror, all other things. Christ’s direct vision of God is ingredient in his salvific efficacy. For it is from his own fullness that he communicates the beatific vision to the elect. Like his medieval predecessors, Zanchi also affirms the presence of a habitual knowledge infused by the Spirit, which Christ could consider actively when he willed, and a knowledge acquired by sense experience (in which Jesus grows according to Luke 2:52).^[11] With regard to the infused knowledge, Zanchi comments that as Christ advanced in age, he also advanced in this knowledge in a certain way: not with respect to the habits themselves (which are “replete from the beginning”) but with respect to the acts of knowing or the exercise of the Spirit’s gifts. For just as Christ grew bodily and in sense experience, so he also grew in the powers of his soul for discerning and reasoning.^[12] Still, in accordance with his affirmation of Christ’s beatific vision on earth, Zanchi holds that Christ does not have faith “properly speaking,” for faith’s object is something unseen (so Heb 11:1). But insofar as faith is a gift of the Spirit, Christ must be said to have it in some sense. Zanchi thus reasons that Christ has faith “improperly” insofar as faith denotes a human knowledge of God.^[13]

In a number of cases, the Reformed theologians address the Jesuit theologian Robert Bellarmine (1524-1621), who, more like Lombard and less like Bonaventure and Aquinas, was resistant to the affirmation of any growth in the knowledge of Christ.^[14] In his treatment of Christ taking up human infirmities and being like us in everything (but without sin), Polanus engages Bellarmine, but Polanus states that there is no controversy over Christ’s beatific or infused knowledge. By virtue of the hypostatic union and the Spirit’s endowment, Christ has the fullness of beatific and infused knowledge “from the beginning of his own conception.” For Polanus, there is no incremental growth in the infused or “donative” knowledge, except, as the “orthodox fathers” put it, according to the revelation of it to others. Yet, for Polanus, there is still a “negative” ignorance (though not a “privative” and culpable ignorance) in Christ. Indeed, when Christ says that he does not know the day or hour of his return, the interpretation that Christ simply wishes not to reveal the day and hour is false. Citing Cyril of Alexandria, Polanus judges that Christ himself in his human intellect did not know the day or the hour. Polanus also underscores that while Christ did not grow in the infused graces of the Spirit, he did grow in natural things, including his acquired knowledge.^[15] In accordance with his affirmation of Christ’s beatific knowledge on earth, Polanus denies that Christ has faith in the sense of a “gift by which these things are believed which are not seen.”^[16]

William Ames also addresses Bellarmine’s position, appealing to Aquinas to make the point that Christ did grow in the habits of acquired knowledge. Like Zanchi, Ames also suggests that Christ’s exercise of the habits of infused knowledge, rather than being immediately perfect, grew over time in accordance with the growth of his human stature and “faculty of perceiving.” For Ames, the wisdom of Christ can be regarded as perfect from the beginning “intensively and in the first act” but still increased “in the second act” and “by extension to new objects.” In fact, Ames goes on to utilise a distinction between the “right” and the “possession” of the Spirit’s gifts. As Son of God and heir of all things, Christ has the right to all the Spirit’s gifts, but under a “voluntary dispensation”, Christ lives in a humble state and will come into full possession of certain gifts (or “degrees” of gifts) of both the soul and body only when he is raised and exalted. Within this framework, Ames then suggests that Christ, in his human intellect, truly did not know the hour of his return to judge the world. In fact, Ames reasons it does not make sense to interpret ignorance as only a denial of revelation. For if it were only a denial of revelation, and if, like Jesus, the Father too chose not to reveal the hour, then Jesus could not have said that the Father does know the hour of his return. But Jesus does say that the Father knows the hour in Mark 13:32, which entails that the ignorance cannot be just a matter of choosing not to reveal.^[17]

Several Reformed theologians of the seventeenth century, like Gisbertus Voetius and Francis Turretin, affirm Christ’s reception of infused knowledge from the Spirit but also argue that Christ exercised faith during his earthly life. Voetius^[18] distances himself from those who attribute the beatific vision to Christ on earth and provides a number of reasons for attributing faith to Christ, several of which are included here.^[19] First, the Scriptures expressly attribute faith or an “essential adjunct” of faith to Christ in various places (Ps 22:9-11; Heb 2:13). Second, the “formal object” of faith is proposed to Christ, namely, divine promises revealed by God, some of which concern blessings proposed to Christ himself as a man under the law of God and some of which concern the benefits that Christ will procure for others (see, e.g., Isa 53:10-12; John 17:2, 20-21). Third, Christ’s life exhibits the effects or consequents of faith, not least prayer, consolation, and hope (see Ps 22:9-11; Matt 26:39, 42, 44; John 17; Heb 5:7).^[20]

Fourth, the “proper external causes of faith” (at least those “conserving” faith) are offered to Christ, and Christ himself “uses these as appointed means and supports of faith.” Some of the means that Voetius has in view are “ordinary,” namely, the word of God, prayer, and sacraments like circumcision, Passover, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. Voetius recognises that many commentators (Postillistae) and scholastic theologians have argued that Christ uses these sacraments only for the sake of others. Voetius maintains, though, that while Christ did not have to use the sacraments in the manner of sinners, that does not mean that he could not use them for himself at all. He used them both “legally” to fulfil the requirements of true religion and “evangelically” as signs sealing the divine promises and confirming and sustaining faith in the promises, including the promise of salvation from death (Heb 5:7). Other means that Voetius has in view are “extraordinary,” like the Father’s speech at Christ’s baptism and transfiguration (Matt 3:17; 17:5), the ministry of angels after Christ’s temptation (Matt 4:11), and the Father’s speech after the triumphal entry in response to Jesus’ prayer that the Father glorify his name (John 12:27-29).^[21] Fifth, as a man subject to God’s law, Christ ought to have faith as a “part” of divine worship and a “necessary act of religion.” Sixth, Christ faces things that oppose (and therefore presuppose) faith, particularly external temptations in the wilderness and “spiritual desertions” in Gethsemane.^[22] Voetius is aware of potential objections. He clarifies, for example, that Christ did not have faith in the way that sinful pilgrims needing reconciliation have faith. Christ exercised faith in a mode that did not require the presence of sin, the work of regeneration, or the hearing of the word of God for the beginning of faith. Christ was not weakened by doubt, but for the conservation of faith and for eliciting acts of faith, he did use ordinary and extraordinary means and supports.^[23]

Turretin adamantly contends that Christ receives the beatific vision only when he is glorified. Like Ames, Turretin employs a distinction between “right” and “possession” to make his case. There is, Turretin maintains, a distinction between the “right to all paternal goods” that Christ as Son of God had from the very beginning of the incarnation and the “possession” of these, some of which Christ could “lack for a time by a voluntary dispensation.” The anointing of the Spirit abides from the conception of Christ and supplies all that Christ needs for his mediatorial office, but the “acts of anointing” progress through “their own order and degree according to the economy of the divine will.” The “Spirit of wisdom…holds back his own acts and does not immediately pour out his own rays most fully into the intellect of Christ.” The union of the human soul with the person of the Logos “implies indeed possession of beatitude, but not immediately approaching or constantly being enjoyed, because, from the dispensation of God, passion ought to precede glory and felicity.”^[24] Indeed, for Turretin, the state of glory and beatitude and the suffering Christ experienced on earth are incompatible, so Christ is not simultaneously a “comprehender” and a “pilgrim” but rather first a “pilgrim” and then a “comprehender” from his exaltation onward.^[25] Thus, Christ could truly grow in human knowledge, and, in his human intellect, he did not know the exact time of his return. This follows from his being like us in everything except sin. And it does not create a logical problem, for contradictory propositions (i.e., that Christ knows something and Christ does not know something) can both be true in different respects where the different respects in which they are affirmed have ontological bases (i.e., a divine and human nature) that are really distinct (not just formally distinct, like genus and species).^[26]

Like Voetius, Turretin argues that several scriptural texts explicitly ascribe faith (or faithfulness) and hope to Christ (Acts 2:26; Heb 2:17; 3:2) and imply faith in Christ where Christ calls the Father his God (e.g., Matt 27:46). Yet faith is not applied to Christ as though he were a sinner in need of mercy. Nor is faith predicated of Christ “by reason of the mode of knowledge,” as though there were an obscurity in Christ’s human knowledge of God. For there is no imperfection in Christ’s faith. Instead, a perfect faith with certitude is predicated of Christ “with respect to the substance of knowledge and with respect to assent to the thing known, that is, doctrine revealed by God, and with respect to the trust which rests in the goodness of God providing all things necessary for us.” With this faith, Christ trusts and anticipates from the Father the full beatitude that awaits him after his resurrection (so Heb 12:2).^[27]

The theological implications of Christ’s human faith

With these historical considerations in view, what should be said about Christ’s knowledge and faith during his earthly obedience? Given that some of the early Reformed affirm a beatific vision of Christ on earth while some recent Roman Catholics have questioned it (e.g., Gerald O’Collins and Thomas Weinandy), this is not an issue that can be settled simply by a vague appeal to distinctive principles of Protestantism or Roman Catholicism. One must ultimately ask which view best expresses the concrete teaching of Holy Scripture. It seems to me that there are good reasons to affirm that Christ exercised faith before his exaltation and that the book of Hebrews in particular impresses upon us that this faith is ingredient in the Son’s association with us human beings. However, the contrary statements and the cautions of eminent patristic, mediaeval, and early Reformed authors must be taken seriously, especially in a contemporary context where theologians are often tempted to emphasise Jesus’ solidarity with fallen human beings at the expense of his distinction from us – a distinction by virtue of which he can save us from our sin and misery.

On the one hand, then, before explicating the claim that Christ exercised faith on earth, it will be wise to take into account the importance of his unique human knowledge of God. In particular, the gifts of the Spirit attested in a text like Isaiah 11:1-5 should occupy a significant place in our Christology. Though the New Testament gives little information about Jesus’ childhood, Luke’s Gospel does bear witness to Jesus’ wisdom from an early age. The boy miraculously conceived by the Spirit of God “grew and became strong, being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him” (Luke 2:40). At the age of twelve Jesus stayed in Jerusalem after his parents had left the Passover feast. He amazed the teachers there with his understanding (2:47). When asked why he remained behind, Jesus simply responded, “Why were you seeking me? Did you not know that it is necessary for me to be in the things of my Father [or “in my Father’s house”]?” (2:49). Evidently, Jesus was aware of his filial identity and his divine appointment to a particular task (“it is necessary…”) even prior to his baptism in the Jordan. Jesus’ “sense of mission expresses itself early on.”^[28] From a negative angle, the Gospels do not present us with a Jesus who is unsure about his identity and mission or merely conjecturing about what he must do. Considering what Scripture teaches about the intellectual gifts of the Spirit and about Jesus’ wisdom at an early age, I take it that the infused knowledge of Christ secures his understanding of his filial identity and mission. Communicated immediately by the Spirit, this infused knowledge equips Christ with a certitude required to fulfil his office and reveal the Father, even if Christ in his human intellect does not directly see the divine essence throughout his earthly life.

Of course, Luke adds that Jesus still “advanced” in wisdom (2:52). It is true, as Aquinas and Polanus all point out, that Jesus advanced in the outward display of his gifts. As he progressed in age, he manifested his divine identity and spiritual gifts more fully. Yet it also seems, in accordance with Ambrose, that Christ’s advancement in wisdom in Luke 2:52 corresponds to his own subjective advancement in age. In light of this, Aquinas, for example, rightly affirms that Christ advanced in “acquired” or “experiential” knowledge, not least with respect to human suffering. Yet authors like Zanchi, Ames, and Turretin gesture toward some ways in which one might say that Christ advanced with regard to the infused knowledge as well: not with respect to its habits but with respect to its acts (Zanchi); not “intensively” or with respect to the “first act” (habit) but “extensively” and with respect to the “second act” (exercise) and “degree” (Ames); not with respect to the anointing of the Spirit per se but with respect to the subsequent outworking of the anointing and added degrees of knowledge (Turretin). I take these distinctions to be potentially fruitful, though it has to be admitted at some point that there are serious limits to our reasoning about the human intellect of the incarnate Son. Perhaps it is sufficient to say that the Son received at conception the intellectual habits from the Spirit and then, under the Spirit’s constant presence and movement in his soul, exercised the habits over time in a greater degree or depth in correspondence with the growth of his human faculties and ratiocination.

On the other hand, it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that Jesus, in his human intellect, truly did not know the hour of his return. In particular, given that the Father knows but does not reveal the hour, it is difficult to take Jesus not knowing in Mark 13:32 to be a matter of not revealing. Furthermore, if the infused knowledge of Christ secures his fitness for his mediatorial work, it seems unnecessary to posit a beatific vision during his earthly life.

With Aquinas and many others, it is important to affirm that human nature’s union with the person of the Word does lead to human nature receiving the gifts of the Spirit, including intellectual gifts. But Ames and Turretin, in my judgment, helpfully make the point that the “right” to the gifts does not mean there can be no development with regard to the “possession” of the gifts. To be sure, as authors like Aquinas and Zanchi observe, Christ can give only what he has, and he is appointed to give us the glory of the beatific vision. But that does not require that Christ have the beatific vision from conception onwards. It requires only that he obtain the beatific vision, along with knowledge of the time of his return, when he is raised and exalted. After all, he is appointed to procure the resurrection of the body too (e.g., 1 Cor 15:20; Phil 3:20-21; Col 1:19), but he himself obtains the resurrection body only after his passion.

Furthermore, as Voetius noted, Christ’s vicarious obedience includes his exercise of faith. After Adam and Eve failed to trust in the goodness and provision of God (Gen 3:1-7), and after Israel failed to trust the promises of God in the wilderness (Num 14:11; Deut 1:32; 9:23; Ps 78:22, 32; 106:24), the second Adam and true Israel came to deliver us by fulfilling all righteousness, passing through the testing of the wilderness (so Matt 3:13-4:11) and living by faith until he was vindicated and exalted to the Father’s right hand. In addition to this broader biblical theme, there are a few texts that apply the language of faith to Christ more directly. For example, the Evangelists apply Psalm 22:8 to Christ on the cross. In the Psalm, those who despise David mock him: “He trusts [LXX 21:8 “hopes”] in YHWH. Let him deliver him.” Matthew then records the Jewish leaders mocking Jesus: “He trusts in God. Let him save him now, if he wills” (27:43). Jesus himself and the Evangelists confirm the applicability of Psalm 22, particularly where he utters the cry of dereliction and his clothes are divided by the soldiers (Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34; John 19:24). The same verb is applied to Jesus in Hebrews 2:13. Jesus’ speech in Hebrews 2:13 echoes Isaiah 8:17-18, where the prophet awaits YHWH while YHWH hides his face from Jacob: “I will trust in him.”

To be fair, it is not as though a text like Hebrews 2:13 is overlooked by advocates of Christ’s beatific vision on earth. As a prolific biblical commentator, Aquinas treats this passage in connection with the beatific vision. In his rendering of the text (“I will be trusting in him”), Aquinas exegetes the text by discussing Christ’s “hope” (spes). Christ does not have just any “hope” but a “firm” hope that is “without fear,” which is called fiducia. Christ has this fiducia in the help of the Father for “the glory of the body which he will raise again, both the members and the soul.” However, Aquinas notes, some will question the applicability of spes and fiducia in the case of Christ. In response, Aquinas remarks that spes and fiducia must be distinguished. The former is “the expectation of future beatitude,” which was not in Christ because he has been “blessed from the instant of his own conception.” The latter is “the expectation of some help,” which was in Christ since he “expected from the Father help in the passion.” Hence, when the text says that Christ has hope, “it is not to be understood by reason of the principal object, which is beatitude, but by reason of the glory of the resurrection, and the glories collated to the body.”^[29]

Aquinas is certainly right to emphasise the firmness of Christ’s confidence in the Father. However, if the infused knowledge of Christ sufficiently equipped him with a certitude about his identity and office, and if Christ’s reception of the beatific vision upon his exaltation has enabled him to give the beatific vision to us, then there is no need to bring a prior commitment to a beatific vision of Christ in via to our exegesis of a text like Hebrews 2:13. In that case, it will be more fitting to take Christ’s faith to be a confidence and rest in the Father’s provision of future gifts that only anticipates the forthcoming sight of glory. For this aligns with the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 and with the fact that Jesus is the “pioneer” of this faith in Hebrews 12:2.^[30]

To be clear, the presence of this faith does not entail that Christ merely held an opinion about his divine identity and mission or that he merely hoped someday to be sure about those matters. The infused knowledge communicated by the Spirit provided Christ with a sure grasp of his identity and mission, even if it did involve some ordinary impressions and concepts in the human soul and not yet a direct vision of God’s (indeed, his own) deity itself. Thus, the affirmation that Christ exercised faith need not jeopardise his certainty about his identity, mission, and teaching. Yet, after stressing that Christ’s faith does not have to mean that he was uncertain of things, it is important to recall that he did have fear and anxiety in the face of trials and suffering. Perhaps this is a point where Voetius’s discussion of Christ’s use of signs and means of divine grace might play some role in our Christology. For example, when Christ completes his time of temptation in the wilderness and angels come and minister to him (Matt 4:11), there are no crowds around him to benefit from this confirmation of Christ’s identity. Presumably, he is the one who is helped and encouraged by the angels’ ministry. Likewise, Christ is strengthened through prayer in Gethsemane. Though Christ is undeterred in his faith in the Father’s promises, his soul is in some sense strengthened by such divinely ordained means. Considering the sense in which Christ might be both unshaken in his determination to do the Father’s will and also subject to real mental infirmity leads us to the next point.

Christ’s Human Weaknesses and Suffering

In what way did Christ stand firm in faith while also experiencing sorrow and dread and even asking the Father to remove the cup of suffering? Several insights in catholic Christology can help us to understand the Bible’s portrayal of Christ’s steadfastness and his genuine experience of the sorrow and dread on account of which he needed the comfort of the Father and Spirit. Various authors call attention to the fact that in the incarnation the Son of God assumed the defects or infirmities of our human nature (cf. Ps 88:3; Isa 53:4, 11; Matt 26:37-38; John 12:27). Ambrose writes, “[Christ] assumes my will, he assumes my sadness. Confidently I call it ‘sadness,’ for I preach the cross….For me he suffers, for me he is sad, for me he is grieved. Therefore, for me and in me he has grieved, who for himself has had nothing that he should grieve.”^[31] As the sovereign God, the Son did not have to take up a human nature, much less these defects, so his bearing our infirmities was emphatically free.^[32] But, under the decision to take up a human nature in which he would suffer for our sin and lead us to glory, the Son had to take up a nature with these defects. While the Son did not have in himself any cause of incurring such defects, since he came “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom 8:3) he still took up weaknesses consequent to the human race’s fall into sin. In short, while he did not assume defectus culpae (defects rooted in one’s own guilt), he still assumed defectus poenae (defects resulting from punishment common to the human race).^[33] Thus, the Son did not assume a mere image or likeness of human passion and grief. He bore these infirmities in order to prove the truth of his humanity, to satisfy the justice of God by suffering in our place, and to set an example of patient endurance for us.^[34]

Christ’s assumption of human infirmities

These were defects or infirmities of both body and soul. Christ experienced not only bodily fatigue, hunger, and cold, for example, but also sorrow, fear, anxiety, anguish, and grief.^[35] He sensed and was affected in his soul by the pains of the body.^[36] He also was affected in his soul by pains or griefs proper to the soul itself. He apprehended by his rational judgment the evils and afflictions set before him (and before others too) and abhorred those evils and afflictions by his human will so that he was affected by sorrow, fear, and anxiety over present and future things that he had to face, including bodily harm and the eventual separation of the soul from the body at death.^[37] He apprehended and abhorred things that were harmful or detestable not just concerning the body but also with respect to the soul itself, like the sin and spiritual misery of the human race, the abandonment of his friends, or the loss of a good reputation through slander and mockery.^[38] There is some debate in the Christian tradition about whether Christ’s mental and spiritual affliction affected not only the “lower reason” (ratio inferior) of his soul but also the “higher reason” (ratio superior) of his soul.^[39] Did Christ endure things repugnant or disruptive not only to the well-being or fulfilment of the ratio inferior but also to the well-being or fulfilment of the ratio superior? If one is convinced that Christ possessed the beatific vision during his earthly sojourn, then one would logically deny that this was the case.^[40] If, however, one holds that Christ did not have the beatific vision until his exaltation, then one may affirm that he did endure things repugnant to the fulfilment of the ratio superior.

Some of the early Reformed authors (rightly, I think) affirm that when Christ endured the wrath of God on the cross it did affect the higher operation of his soul.^[41] He bore our sin and guilt as our covenant sponsor, becoming a curse for us and facing the just judgment of God (Isa 53:5-6; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24). In order to atone fully for our sin, Christ was affected in his “higher” mental and spiritual operation by “hellish punishments” (poenae infernales or poenae gehennales): a “penalty of loss” and a positive “penalty of sense” (actively sensing painful things). With respect to the penalty of loss, Christ emphatically did not endure a deprivation of the Father’s love or favour itself (an amissio or privatio realis) (see John 10:17), but he did endure at least at certain moments a deprivation of his active sense of the Father’s love and favour and of the joy and consolation following on that sense. With respect to the penalty of sense, Christ apprehended the wrath of God directed toward him in his representation of sinners whose guilt was imputed to him. That apprehension of God in his severe wrath disturbed or suspended the joy of Christ’s soul and induced in him the sort of grief to which we ourselves had become liable.^[42]

Nevertheless, Christ remained steadfast in his faith and hope in the Father’s provision while being affected by such sorrow and distress.^[43] He knew in his human intellect that he remained the beloved Son of the Father. He knew that he was making satisfaction for our sin and not being eternally damned (Ps 16:10-11), but he did lack at certain points the active sense and enjoyment of the Father’s delight in him as the obedient Son. According to Voetius’s disputation on the “agony and desertion of Christ,” the Saviour always had a habitual apprehension of the Father as his deliverer, which sustained his trust in the Father, but by another mental act he also apprehended the Father as the judge of the sin and guilt he bore for us, which yielded sorrow and anguish.^[44] Thus, the cry of dereliction occurs “according to the flesh” and expresses Christ bearing the sins of others. Ambrose paraphrases Christ’s words: “Because I have taken up alien sins, I have also taken up the words of alien sins.”^[45] As Christ himself faces the hellish punishments and endures a suspension of his active enjoyment of the Father’s delight and an apprehension of God’s heavy wrath, he speaks “in his own person and about himself as our sponsor.”^[46]

The interplay of Christ’s natural and rational wills

Now, to grasp the sense in which Christ stood firm in his determination to do the Father’s will while also having mental infirmities like sorrow, fear, and anxiety, it is important to consider the different ways in which he willed (or did not will) various things. Human volition includes at least (a) willing certain things as ends in themselves, (b) choosing certain things relative to certain ends under the deliberation and judgment of reason, and (c) having desires for things that concern the well-being of the body. The human will with respect to its act of desiring certain things as ends in themselves is sometimes called “natural will,” “will as nature,” or “simple will.” The human will with respect to its act of choosing certain things relative to certain ends under rational deliberation and judgment is sometimes called “rational will,” “will as reason,” “conciliative will,” or “deliberate will.”^[47] In addition, the will as the power of choosing or rational will is called the liberum arbitrium in Latin. It is a power or faculty involving both the rational intellect and the will since it involves both the judgment of reason about what is good and the will’s consequent rational desire and determination to seek union with what is deemed good. The act of rational desire and determination about the way to obtain an end is called “choice” (electio).^[48] Finally, the power of desiring things that concern the well-being of the body is sometimes called the “sensual” or “sensitive appetite” (sensualitas). It is, strictly speaking, located in the “sensitive power” of the soul and called “will” in only a participatory or extended sense, insofar as it is governed by the rational will’s determination about seeking things that fulfil the desires of the body.

As to the Christological issues, Christ never faltered in his rational will (his rational judgment and determination) about either the end of his task (i.e., human salvation) or the means by which it would be accomplished (i.e., suffering and crucifixion). He did exercise “free choice” (liberum arbitrium) insofar as he desired and determined to do what his rational judgment had always deemed good, but his choosing was distinct from other human choosing insofar as he had no prior ignorance, uncertainty, or doubt about the good of his redemptive task and thus did not require counsel or deliberation. Accordingly, Christ’s rational will with respect to the end of his incarnation and even with respect to the painful means of suffering and crucifixion was always conformed to the divine will. At the same time, Christ did not will pain and death in his natural will (his will with respect to the power of desiring certain things as ends or goods in themselves) or in his sensitive appetite (his power of desiring things that concern the well-being of the body). Indeed, he naturally opposed and repudiated pain and death in his natural will and sensitive appetite.^[49] While the end of his redemptive task (i.e., human salvation and the glory of God) was not at all repugnant to Christ’s natural will or sensitive appetite, suffering and death were indeed repugnant to his natural will and sensitive appetite. Thus, Christ as man in his natural will and sensitive appetite willed something other than the passion and death decreed by God.^[50]

On the one hand, the desires of Christ’s natural will and sensitive appetite did not, strictly speaking, contradict the divine will or his own human rational will. For Christ opposed and chose his passion and death for different reasons and in different capacities. Christ’s natural and sensitive volition opposed pain and death as ends in themselves, and Christ’s divine and human rational volition chose the pain and death not as ends in themselves but as means to a greater end. Likewise, since Christ was infallibly disposed to the fear of YHWH and to faithfulness by the grace of the Holy Spirit (Isa 11:2, 5), his natural and sensitive repudiation of pain and death did not overwhelm or impede the determination of his divine and rational will. Moreover, the divine will and Christ’s human rational will, while always governing the natural and sensitive will, permitted Christ’s natural and sensitive displeasure in pain and death in accordance with the authenticity of his human nature.^[51] On the other hand, then, it was granted to Christ as man genuinely to despise the suffering that had been decreed by God. The reality of the spiritual anguish of Christ discussed above is explained and corroborated by this natural and sensitive despising. For Christ was troubled that he had to face things that he naturally regarded as evil and despicable in themselves and that he naturally abhorred.^[52]

How Christ’s suffering informs our understanding of obedience

The fact that Christ was troubled and yet persevered in obedience to the Father is aptly set forth by employing a distinction between “passion” (passio) and “pre-passion” (propassio). The language appears in Jerome’s commentary on Matthew, for example, where Jesus “began to be sorrowful and distressed” (Matt 26:37). Jerome observes that the Lord proves the truth of the humanity that he assumed by beginning to be sorrowful (coepit contristari). However, lest it be suggested that “passio should rule in his soul,” the Lord only “begins” to be sorrowful by propassio.^[53] Jerome may overread the significance of Matthew including the verb “began,” but the distinction between passio and propassio is a valuable one that is explained further by later writers.^[54] In his commentary on Matthew’s description of the scene in Gethsemane, Aquinas remarks that:

Sadness sometimes occurs according to passion, sometimes according to propassion. According to passion, when something suffers and is changed; but when it suffers and is not changed, then it has propassion. But when things of this sort are in us, so that reason is changed, then there are complete passions. But in Christ reason has never been changed. Then there has been propassion, and not passion.^[55]

While we often talk broadly about “passion” as a matter of one thing being affected by another and undergoing some sort of change, this passio/propassio distinction helps us to express that “passion” in the strictest and complete sense occurs when pain, grief, or anxiety deflects or hinders the will from following the sound judgment of reason about the best course of action. By contrast, “propassion” occurs when pain, grief, or anxiety are very much present in the soul and yet still subjected to sound rational judgment about the best course of action, which was true in Christ’s life.^[56] For, as Christ says, his soul was troubled, and yet he knew that he had come precisely for the hour of suffering that lay before him (John 12:27-28).

Significantly, the fact that Christ’s sorrow, fear, and anxiety remained subject to his rational determination to do the Father’s will takes nothing away from the genuineness of these mental infirmities. Indeed, one might say that he tasted them in an unmitigated form since he never attempted to insulate himself from them by taking the easier path of selfishness. What he did do to address these infirmities was to pray. Some authors in the Christian tradition assert that Christ did not have to pray for himself,^[57] but even if a number of qualifications need to be made and even as he prayed to set an example for us, there is an important sense in which Christ truly prayed for himself. Just as the Son as God did not have to take up our infirmities, so he did not have to take up a posture of prayer. Nor did he have to pray as though he was unsure about the outcome of his passion. Nevertheless, having freely assumed a human nature with its infirmities, Christ genuinely expresses his natural and sensitive will to the Father when he asks that the cup should pass from him. He also expresses his rational determination when he adds, “Nevertheless, not as I will but as you will” (Matt 26:39).^[58] For the fulfilment of that rational determination Christ as man continually depends upon the empowerment of the Spirit. He therefore applies himself to the divinely appointed means of receiving help.^[59] In this way, Christ follows in the tradition of the psalmists and provides both an example of unfolding our natural will and griefs before God and also an example of submitting our wills to the will of God.

Growth in Mercy toward Sinners

Finally, though this paper has already touched on Christ’s growth with respect to his knowledge, one should also comment on whether he grew with respect to his mercy and sympathy as high priest. Of course, the divine Son had previously understood the nature of human infirmity and emotion and operated with the Father and Spirit in God’s work of comforting his people. In addition, the Son, according to his humanity, received wisdom and understanding from the Spirit by which he always knew what sort of help sinners need. Yet the author of Hebrews anchors Jesus’ ability to sympathise in his having been tempted like us: “For we do not have a high priest unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one having been tempted according to all things like us, without sin” (4:15). Is it fitting, then, to say that the Son in some sense grew in mercy?

Christ’s suffering and his sympathy

In his commentary on Hebrews 4:15, Calvin denies that Christ grew in mercy. He says that “the Son of God will not have had necessarily to be formed by experience toward the affection of mercy.” Yet the Son had to be “exercised in our miseries” in order to persuade us that he is merciful and inclined to help us. That Jesus experienced our misery is a gift to us.^[60] For Calvin, the Son has clothed himself with our flesh and its affections and thereby proved himself to be true man and ready to help us, but the Son himself did not need such “lessons”. His experience of our condition is for our benefit so that we can see how much he cares about our salvation. Whether the Son is still liable at present to experiencing our miseries is a “frivolous” question. The point is that, in view of the Son’s human affections, we know not to be frightened by the majesty of Christ, because he is our brother.^[61] When Christ is said to “learn” obedience in Hebrews 5:8, Calvin comments that the “proximate end” of Christ’s suffering is to make him “accustomed” or “habituated” to obedience. But Christ did not need such habituation, for he was already willing to obey the Father from the beginning of his incarnate life. Christ does this for us, to give us a model of obedience. Calvin does acknowledge that Christ “by his own death has learned fully what it is to obey God,” particularly since he is “led to the denial of himself.” Yet, in Calvin’s exegesis, the emphasis still falls not on Christ being equipped for his high priesthood but on the pedagogical aspect of Christ’s experience of suffering. His suffering teaches us the extent to which we must obey God.^[62]

Perhaps a charitable interpretation of Calvin’s comments would suggest that he aims only (and rightly) to deny that Christ had to grow in mercy with respect to his divine love and with respect to his infused habits, while still leaving room for some genuine subjective growth on Christ’s part. More than Calvin, exegetes like Aquinas and Owen allow such acquisition of knowledge by experience to influence their exposition of texts like Hebrews 4:15 and 5:8. Aquinas recognises that God has eternally known our misery by a “simple knowledge.” Yet, according to Aquinas, the author of Hebrews intends to communicate that mercy and pity “agree” or “fit” with our high priest in a special way. The special ability to sympathize that is rooted in Christ’s temptation does not concern a bare potential for showing pity (nuda potentia) but rather a certain “readiness” or “eagerness” (promptitudo) and “aptitude” (aptitudo) for coming to the aid of others – “and this because he knows, by experience, our misery.”^[63]

Owen also recognises that the divine Son, even prior to the assumption of a human nature, was merciful. But mercy in that case was a “naked simple apprehension of misery, made effective by an act of his holy will to relieve.” The human mercy of Christ, however, includes more:

Mercy in Christ is a compassion, a condolency, and hath a moving of pity and sorrow joined with it. And this was in the human nature of Christ a grace of the Spirit in all perfection. Now, it being such a virtue as in the operation of it deeply affects the whole soul and body also, and being incomparably more excellent in Christ than in all the sons of men, it must needs produce the same effects in him wherewith in others in lesser degrees it is attended.^[64]

For Owen, a text like Hebrews 2:17 is not describing mercy “in general” but “as excited, provoked, and drawn forth by [Christ’s] own temptations and sufferings. He suffered and was tempted, that he might be merciful, not absolutely, but a merciful high priest.” This particular mercy is:

…the gracious condolency and compassion of his whole soul with his people, in all their temptations, sufferings, dangers, fears, and sorrows, with a continual propensity of will and affection unto their relief, implanted in him by the Holy Ghost, as one of those graces which were to dwell in his nature in all fullness, excited and provoked, as to the continual exercise in his office of high priest, by the sense and experience which he himself had of those miseries which they undergo.^[65]

Along with the habit of mercy originally implanted by the Spirit, Christ had a:

…ready enlargedness of heart…[through]…particular experience…of the weakness, sorrows, and miseries of human nature under the assaults of temptation; he tried it, felt it, and will never forget it… In his throne of eternal peace and glory, he sees poor brethren labouring in that storm which with so much travail of soul himself passed through, and is intimately affected with their condition.^[66]

Aquinas and Owen duly bring out the fact that while Christ, as God, already understood human misery and was merciful, his experiential knowledge of temptation uniquely equipped him to care for sinners. Christ’s divine omniscience and habitual graces from the Spirit were in no way defective, and yet the experience of suffering and acquired knowledge of human misery established in him a peculiar readiness and eagerness to help us in our weakness. What is new here is not the knowledge of misery in itself or the virtue of mercy in itself but the fact that Christ’s human virtue of mercy is now informed by his own direct experience of suffering and incited to act in part by that experience.

That is, upon seeing the saints’ misery, Christ as man is moved to relieve us not just by what he sees outwardly but by his own inward experience and memory of what he himself went through on earth. In this respect, then, Christ did grow in mercy and had to “become” a merciful and faithful high priest (Heb 2:17).

Conclusion

Having reached the word limit for these conference papers, I must now provide a brief conclusion. It seems to me that Holy Scripture, read with the help of insightful authors throughout church history, presents us with a vision of a Saviour who exercised faith on earth prior to his glorification, experienced real human weaknesses, sufferings, and emotions, and grew in mercy toward sinners as our high priest. May the Lord guide us further in discerning the most fitting pastoral applications of this Christological balm in the life of the church today.

Footnotes

^[1]  Aquinas, ST, IIIa.9.1 (138-9). Cf. also IIIa.15.3 corp. (188).

^[2]  Aquinas, ST, IIIa.9.2 corp. (141); cf. Compendium theologicae, in vol. 42 of Opera omnia, Leonine ed. (Rome: Editori di San Tommaso, 1979), I.213 [166]; 216 (170).

^[3]  Aquinas, ST, IIIa.10.1 (148-9); cf. Compendium, I.216 (170).

^[4]  Aquinas, ST, IIIa.11.1 (157-8).

^[5]  Aquinas, ST, IIIa.12.1 (166).

^[6]  Aquinas, ST, IIIa.12.2 (167-8).

^[7]  Aquinas, ST, IIIa.15.10 (196).

^[8]  Aquinas, ST, IIIa.7.3 (109).

^[9]  Aquinas, ST, IIIa.7.4 (110). 

^[10]  See, e.g., Franciscus Junius, De vera theologica (Leiden, 1594), VI (45-52); Polanus, Syntagma, I.7 (11); Turretin, Inst., I.2.6 (1:5).

^[11]  Zanchi, De incarn., II.3 (362-4, 366-7, 369-71, 377-8).

^[12]  Zanchi, De incarn., II.3 (357-8, 373-7).

^[13]  Zanchi, De incarn., II.3 (360-1).

^[14]  See Robert Bellarmine, Disputationum Roberti Bellarmini de controversiis Christianae fidei, adversus huius temporis haereticos, vol. 1 (Ingolstadt: Sartorii, 1601), I.2.4.1-5 (513-24).

^[15]  Polanus, Syntagma, VI.15 (370-2).

^[16]  Polanus, Syntagma, IX.6 (587).

^[17]  William Ames, Bellarminus enervatus, vol. 1 (Amsterdam: Iohannes Ianssonius, 1628), II.1 (82-6).

^[18]  Or those who were authorized to give an account of the relevant disputations that occurred under Voetius’s guidance at Utrecht.

^[19]  For the comments on the beatific vision, see Gisbertus Voetius, Selectarum disputationum theologicarum, pars secunda (Utrecht, 1655), II.8 (156); 9 (186); 73 (1216).

^[20]  Voetius, Select. disp., II.8 (156, 159).

^[21]  Voetius, Select. disp., II.8 (157-62, 164).

^[22]  Voetius, Select. disp., II.8 (157).

^[23]  Voetius, Select. disp., II.8 (156-8).

^[24]  Turretin, Inst., XIII.13.2, 9, 14-16 (2:379, 381-3).

^[25]  Turretin, Inst., XIII.13.12-13 (2:382).

^[26]  Turretin, Inst., XIII.4-8 (2:380-1). Turretin’s account also supplies interpretations of texts like Matthew 11:27, John 21:17, and Colossians 2:3.

^[27]  Turretin, Inst., XIII.12.5-8 (2:378).

^[28]  Darrell L. Bock, Jesus according to Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 75.

^[29]  Thomas Aquinas, Super epistolam ad Hebraeos lectura, in vol. 2 of Super epistolas S. Pauli lectura, 8^th ed., ed. P. Raphaelis Cai (Turin-Rome: Mariett, 1953), II.3.133-5 (366).

^[30]  For further discussion on the meaning of ἀρχηγός (“founder” or “pioneer”) see: Steven J. Duby, Jesus and the God of Classical Theism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2022).

^[31]  Ambrose, De fide, II.7.53 (2:284).

^[32]  Lombard writes that Christ has “assumed these defects not by necessity of his own condition, but by a will of pity” (Sent., III.15.1 [95]).

^[33]  Lombard, Sent., III.15.1 (93, 95). Compare Aquinas, Compendium, I.226 (176-8); ST, IIIa.15.6 ad 3 (192).

^[34]  See, e.g., John of Damascus, Expos. fidei, III.20 (162-3); Lombard, Sent., III.15.1 (95-6); Aquinas, ST, IIIa.14.1 (179-80); 15.1 (185-6); Polanus, Syntagma, VI.15 (370, 372); Voetius, Select. disp. II.9 (165-6, 187).

^[35]  For different delineations of the mental, spiritual infirmities, see, e.g., John of Damascus, Expos. fidei, III.20, 23 (162, 165-6); Lombard, Sent., III.15.1 (93); Aquinas, ST, IIIa.15.5-7, 9 (190-3, 195); Turretin, Inst., XIII.14.4 (384).

^[36]  On the soul (not merely the body) performing the act of sensing by means of the organs of the body, see, e.g., Aquinas, ST, Ia.78.3-4 (253-7); IIIa.15.4 corp. (189); 15.5 corp. (190).

^[37]  Cf. Aquinas, Super Matt., XXVI.5.2225 (343); ST, IIIa.15.4, 6-7 (189, 191-3).

^[38]  See Aquinas, ST, IIIa.46.5 corp. (441); 46.6 corp. and ad 4 (443-4).

^[39]  The distinction between ratio inferior and ratio superior is not a distinction between two intellects or two sets of faculties but rather a distinction between two “offices” of human reason. Ratio inferior signifies human reason in its consideration of temporal, lower matters, and ratio superior signifies human reason in its contemplation of eternal, higher things (see Augustine, De trin., XII.4.4 [1:358]; Aquinas, ST, Ia.79.9 [275-6]).

^[40]  See Aquinas, ST, IIIa.46.7-8 (444-7).

^[41]  See, e.g., Voetius, Select. disp., II.9 (166-7); Turretin, Inst., XIII.14.3-4 (2:384), where both authors take issue with the views of certain Pontificii who restrict the suffering of Christ to his body or to the sensitive part of his soul.

^[42]  Ames, Bellarminus enervatus, II.2 (87-8, 91); Voetius, Select. disp., II.9 (166-7); Turretin, Inst., XIII.14.5-7, 12, 14-15 (2:384-7); 16.9-10 (396); Owen, Hebrews, 4:504, 506-8, 510-11, 518, 528-9.

^[43]  On Christ never despairing, see Ames, Bellarminus enervatus, II.2 (89-90), where he argues that “despair is not of the essence of infernal punishment. The author of the punishment is God; the devil and the sinner is the author of despair.” Again, “despair does not properly respect the punishment itself, but the continuation of it to eternity.”

^[44]  Voetius, Select. disp., II.9 (168-70, 185-6); cf. Turretin, Inst., XIII.14.14 (2:386-7).

^[45]  Ambrose, De incarnationis dominicae sacramento, 5, 38 (242).

^[46]  Voetius, Select. disp., II.9 (185-6); cf. Ames, Bellarminus enervatus, II.2 (93); Turretin, Inst., XIII.14.6, 14 (2:385-7). Voetius’s joining of “in himself” and “as our sponsor” is helpful here. It expresses that Christ himself was affected by the poenae infernales and yet not as though he himself were guilty of sin but only as the innocent covenant head voluntarily bearing our guilt.

^[47]  Aquinas, ST, IIIa.18.3 (233).

^[48]  See Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri Ethicorum in vol. 47 of Opera omnia, Leonine ed. (Rome: ad Sanctae Sabinae, 1969), III.5 (133-4); ST, Ia.83.3-4 (310-12); IaIIae 13.1, 3 (98-101); IIIa.18.4 (234); cf. Mastricht, TPT, II.15.5 (158).

^[49]  Lombard, Sent., III.17.2 (106-7); Aquinas, ST, IIIa.14.2 (180-1); Ames, Bellarminus enervatus, II.2 (92); Owen, Hebrews, 4:509.

^[50]  So Aquinas, ST, IIIa.18.5 (235-6).

^[51]  So Athanasius, Oratio III, 55,10-16 (366-7); John of Damascus, Expos. fidei, III.18 (157-60); Aquinas, ST, IIIa.18.6 (236-7).

^[52]  So John of Damascus, Expos. fidei, III.18, 23 (157-60, 165-6).

^[53]  Jerome, Sur Matt. II, IV.26, 37 (252).

^[54]  It is picked up in Lombard’s Sentences in III.15.2 (98-9).

^[55]  Aquinas, Super Matt., XXVI.5.2226 (343).

^[56]  Cf. Aquinas, ST, IIIa.15.4 corp. (189) on propassio being “inchoate” and not extending itself beyond sensitive desire.

^[57]  E.g., Hilary of Poitiers, La Trinité, X.37-8 (228, 230, 232); Ambrose, Traité sur l’Evangile de S. Luc, vol. 1, trans. Gabriel Tissot, SC 45 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1956), V, 41-2 (198-9); John of Damascus, Expos. fidei, III.24 (167-8); IV.18 (215). praying for himself, see further Owen, Hebrews, 4:501-2.

^[58]  Compare Athanasius, Oratio III, 57 (368-70); Aquinas, Super Matt., XXVI.5.2231-2 (343-4).

^[59]  Aquinas, ST, IIIa.21.1 corp. (251); cf. Owen, Hebrews, 4:509.

^[60]  John Calvin, Commentarius in epistolam ad Hebraeos, in vol. 55 of CO, 34.

^[61]  Calvin, In Heb., 54.

^[62]  Calvin, In Heb., 63.

^[63]  Aquinas, Super Heb., IV.3.

^[64]  Owen, Hebrews, 3:469-70.

^[65]  Owen, Hebrews, 3:470.

^[66]  Owen, Hebrews, 3:480.