Now to the question, why it does not say “for all,” some
respond that the blood of Christ is truly sufficient for all, but since it does
not effectively save all but many, “for many” is said rather than “for all.”
And this is a good and Catholic reason. If anyone more carefully examines the
word of the Lord, then more is meant by “for many” than if he had said “for
all,” since “many” indicates a multitude that increases incrementally to
infinity, and so it is better that “for many” is said, since, although it is a
multitude of men, the potency of the matter, as the Philosopher says, reaches
to infinity, and the infinite multitude is redeemed by the power of the blood.
But if “for all” were said, the highest would be mentioned as understood under
one common [notion] and the power of the blood would not be signified to extend
itself beyond it. To the saying [1 Jn 2.2] that he shed his blood “for” the
sins of “the whole world,” it must be said that in “world” there is expressed a
certain infinity according to the potency of the matter, since the world is the
same, past, present, and future, and so again it refers to a multitude infinite
in potency.
Now through this, the answer is clear to the next
[objection] about the words of John the Baptist, who said, “Who takes away the
sin of the world.”
To the final question, about the addition “for the
remission of sins,” it must be said that, in this [phrase], nothing is added
but what befits the form of the blood, since the remission of sins is signified
and caused in the blood alone according to the name and effect of blood.
Indeed, it is caused in other things but not per se signified through them. For
the body in itself does not bespeak the work of redemption, since the truth of
the body could have been received even if there had not been redemption through
the passion, provided that Christ had instituted the sacrament of his body. But
the blood directly bespeaks the flow of blood in the work of redemption,
through which the remission of sins and forgiveness of the debt were
accomplished. (Albert the Great, On the Body of the Lord Distinction 6,
Chapter 3 [trans. Albert Marie Surmanski; The Fathers of the Church Medieval
Continuation 17; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
2017], 387-88)
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