In her
Aquinas Lecture from 1999, delivered at Marquette University, Marilyn McCord
Adams wrote the following about Aquinas’ attempt to defend the impeccability of
Jesus’ humanity:
Immunity
from Sin
Like Bonaventure, Aquinas is emphatic that
sin in Christ’s human soul would disqualify Him for His saving work. Sin is an
obstacle to making satisfaction and a counter-example to virtue. As a defect in
human nature it is not even an apt way to demonstrate the reality of the
Incarnation.
Nevertheless, because Scripture could seem to
weigh in on the other side, he pauses to domesticate proof-texts that pull the
other way. [i] Does not Christ’s own quotation (Mt 27:46) of Psalm 22:1—“My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—evidence distress and a sense of
abandonment, which would qualify as sin? Aquinas’ answer repeats Damascene’s
strategy: Christ made the remark not about Himself as Head, but about His Body,
the Church. [ii] Does not Hebrews 2:18—“because Christ suffered and was tempted,
He was able to help us who are tempted”—imply that Christ’s power to help us
depends on His identification with our condition? Maximal aid against sin would
require Him to identify with us in sin. Aquinas replies that Christ helps our
sinful condition through His passion and trials by which He makes satisfaction
for us. Personal sin on His part would nullify their effectiveness. [iii] What
about II Corinthians 5:21—“God made Him to be sin Who knew no sin,” or Isaiah
53:6—“The Lord put on Him the iniquities of us all”? Aquinas defends his
reading—that God handed Christ over to be the sacrifice for sin. In his Galatians-Commentary, Aquinas takes a
similar approach with Galatians 3:13—“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the
law, having become curse for us—for it is written, ‘cursed be every one who
hangs on a tree’ [Dt 21:23].” Distinguishing between the curse of guilt and the
curse of punishment, Aquinas explains that Christ redeemed us from the evil of
guilt by becoming the curse of guilt simply in the sense that the Jews regarded Him as the worst type of
criminal. On the other hand, Christ is said to have become the curse of
punishment in the sense that He endured the curse of punishment in the sense
that He endured the curse of punishment and death that came upon us through
sin, and thereby freed us from it. Expounding Paul’s own proof-text (Dt 21:23),
Aquinas first raises a philological consideration:
according to a Gloss, that in Deuteronomy,
from which this passage is taken, our version as well as the Hebrew version
has: “Cursed by God is everyone that hangs on a tree.” However, the phrase “by God” is not found in the ancient Hebrew
volumes. Hence it is believed to have been added by the Jews after the passion of
Christ in order to defame Him.
Alternatively, one could construe the passage
in terms of the curse of guilt attributed to Him by those who hung Him there
and the curse of punishment which He suffered. Confronting the passage in Summa theologia III, he simply declares
that sin and death are cursed on the cross, not Christ! (Marilyn McCord Adams, What Sort of Human Nature? Medieval Philosophy
and the Systematics of Christology [Milwaukee: Marquette University Press,
1999], 62-63)
