365. Scholium 4. An
explanation of Christ’s sadness. There is a big difficulty from
the beatific vision of the soul of Christ . . . Since it seems that joy
necessarily follows from this vision, but it is not apparent how such joy can
be together with sadness, there have not been lacking theologians who,
because of Christ’s sadness, denied is blessed joy during the time of the
passion. But if you make an exception for these few authors, the common opinion
of theologians refuses to admit such a limitation of joy in Christ.
From the treatise on the last
things it is certain that the impassibility of a glorified body is derived from
the blessed soul, and in such a way that it is something intrinsic to
the body, as the almost common opinion holds against Scotus and some others. Likewise,
most theologians holds that the impassibility overflows into the body not physically
and effectively from the beatific vision, but only morally or by a
certain fitting ordination of God that in its own way is connatural to
the beatific state.
366.
The sensible sadness of Christ is explained more easily. For on the
part of the object, the beatifying joy of the soul and the sensible sadness
do not exclude each other, because they are not related to the same object;
for the object of joy is the possession of the divine goodness, while the
object of sadness is some injury, both one’s own and that of someone else. And
there is no repugnance on the part of the overflowing: “That the glory
of His soul did not overflow into His body from the first moment of Christ’s conception
was due to a certain Divine dispensation, that He might fulfill the
mysteries of our redemption in a passible body.”
367. Spiritual
sadness or sadness in the will itself is more difficult to
understand, if indeed it is the will itself that is affected by
beatifying joy. But it is possible to understand it from the difference of
the formal object. For the same material object, v.gr., the partial
frustration of his passion and death with the consequent damnation of many men,
which Christ saw in God by his knowledge of vision, as permitted by God
and therefore lovable, by his infused and acquired knowledge he could
apprehend the same thing as something evil in itself.
368.
The possibility of spiritual sadness is not excluded on the part of the
subject or from the opposite way in which joy and sadness affect the
subject, especially when the greatest joy affects some subject. Namely,
it would seem that there is no place in a soul that is already totally beatified
for a contrary affection, that is, sadness. A solution may be found in the fact
that joy and sadness do not have their own contrariness, unless in a particular
cause they are concerned with absolutely the same thing both materially
and formally. However although they do not have a strict contrariety, still
there is great diversity between them and a certain repugnance,
so that without a miracle they could not coexist in the same subject. (Iesu
Solano and J. A. de Aldama, Sacrae Theologiae Summa, 4 vols. [trans.
Kenneth Baker; Keep the Faith, Inc., 2014], 3-A: 166-68)
Further Reading:
"Jesus Wept": Obvious and Needs no Interpretation to Understand?
