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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 October 2008
In the thirteenth century Dominican theologians studying and teaching at the University of Paris began to debate how Christ experienced physical pain during his crucifixion. Drawing upon patristic arguments these considerations culminated in the conclusions of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas that Christ's physical pain was the most severe that had ever been experienced in the history of humanity. The reasons for Dominican concern to emphasise the unique severity of Christ's pain are complex and not always complimentary. The debate can be understood as part of the high medieval revival of interest in humanity and human achievement, but it can also be read as a challenge to Cathar beliefs and as a form of resistance to increasingly popular modes of affective piety.
1 This idea is found throughout Bynum's work, but see, in particular, ‘The female body and religious practice in the later Middle Ages’, and ‘“And woman his humanity”: female imagery in the religious writing of the later Middle Ages’, in her Fragmentation and redemption: essays on gender and the human body in medieval religion, New York 1992, 81–238 at p. 185, and 151–79 at p. 158.
2 Giles Constable, Three studies in medieval religious and social thought, Cambridge 1995, 145–248.
3 David Nirenberg, ‘The historical body of Christ’, in James Clifton (ed.), The body of Christ in the art of Europe and New Spain: 1150–1800, Munich 1997, 17–26.
4 Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: the eucharist in late medieval culture, Cambridge 1991, 302–10.
5 Nicholas Watson has questioned this traditional argument, asserting that it is ‘suspiciously straightforward’. However, as Watson himself says, critical editions of many mystical texts have not yet been produced, and much work needs to be done on their likely sources before an alternative argument can be made: ‘The Middle English mystics’, in The Cambridge history of medieval English literature, New York 1999, 539–65 at pp. 545–7.
6 Ibid. 317.
7 Both argue that the movement was popularised by beguines and mystics, many of whom followed the advice of Bernard of Clairvaux and other Cistercians who advised approaching God first through a contemplation of his physical form and suffering body: Amy Hollywood, The soul as virgin wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete and Meister Eckhart, Notre Dame 1995; Carolyn Walker Bynum, Holy feast and holy fast: the religious significance of food to medieval women, Berkeley 1987.
8 Matt iv.2; Luke iv.1.
9 Mark i.13.
10 John i.1. Much work has been done on John's Christology as it is presented in the prologue to his Gospel. Late antique and medieval homilies on John include those by Augustine, John Chrysostom and Bede and commentaries were written by Origen, Rupert of Deutz, Albert the Great and Bonaventure. In recent years new attempts have been made to unpack the Christology found in the Gospel of John. See, for instance, Masanobo Endo, Creation and Christology: a study on the Johannine prologue in light of early Jewish creation accounts, Tübingen 2001, 206–12, 230–1; Andreas Obermann, Die christologische Erfüllung der Schrift im Johannesevangelium: ein Untersuchung zur johanneischen Hermeneutik anhand der Schriftzitate, Tübingen 1996; Margaret Davies, Rhetoric and reference in the fourth Gospel, Sheffield 1992, 119–28; and Adele Reinhartz, The Word in the world: the cosmological tale in the fourth Gospel, Atlanta 1992, esp. pp. 30–4.
11 John i.14.
12 John xi.35.
13 John xix.28.
14 John i.10.
15 John x.30 ff.
16 Colossians i.15.
17 Acts ii.36.
18 Revelation i.8.
19 There are many works dedicated to explaining the various Christologies inspired by Gospel accounts of Jesus' life. See, for example, E. Richard, Jesus: one and many: the Christological concept of New Testament authors, Wilmington 1988; Ben Witherington, The many faces of the Christ: the Christologies of the New Testament and beyond, New York 1998; R. E. Brown, An introduction to New Testament Christology, New York 1994; and C. F. D. Moule, The origin of Christology, Cambridge 1977.
20 Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian tradition: from the apostolic age to Chalcedon, trans. J. S. Bowden, New York 1965, 90–2.
21 Ibid. 92.
22 There is much debate about how docetism was defined in late antiquity and how it should be defined today. For different definitions see Peter Weigandt, ‘Der Doketismus im Urchristenum und in der theologischen Entwicklung des zweiten Jahrhunderts’, unpubl. PhD diss. Heidelberg 1961, 22, who defines docetism as a belief that Jesus Christ was not ever material, and Yamauchi, Edwin, ‘The crucifixion and docetic Christology’, Concordia Theological Quarterly xlvi (Jan. 1982), 1–20Google Scholar at p. 5, who defines docetism as a belief in an apparent rather than real incarnation of Christ. Slusser, Michael, ‘Docetism: a historical definition’, The Second Century: A Journal of Early Christian Studies i (Fall 1981), 163–72Google Scholar, agrees (p. 172) with F. C. Baur's definition found in his monograph Die christliche Gnosis oder die christliche Religions-Philosophie in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, Tübingen 1835, in defining docetism as any ‘contention that the appearance of Christ is mere illusion and has no objective reality’. Finally, Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities: the battles for Scripture and the faiths we never knew, Oxford 2003, 15, suggests that there were two main streams of docetic belief in the second century: the first held that Christ only appeared to have a flesh and blood body and so only appeared to suffer, the second argued that while Jesus was human, Christ was a separate divine being who descended from heaven and entered Jesus at his baptism, leaving him only at the crucifixion. Ehrman's conception coincides with two definitions of docetism given by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon and Father of the Church, in his Adversus haereses, ed. and trans. F. Sagnard, Paris 1952, iii.16.1.
23 That Christ did not suffer at the crucifixion is the logical outcome (and the most problematic for orthodox Christianity) of a belief that he was completely divine and did not share human characteristics: Ehrman, Lost Christianities, 15; Paul Gavrilyuk, The suffering of the impassible God, Oxford 2004, 78–85; Hoffman, Daniel L., ‘Ignatius and early anti-docetic realism in the eucharist’, Fides et Historica xxx (Winter/Spring 1998), 74–88 at pp. 78–9Google Scholar.
24 Other non-canonical accounts such as the Acts of John, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Apocalypse of James and the Letter of Peter to Phillip also supported docetic beliefs by suggesting that Christ did not suffer during his incarnation and crucifixion: Yamauchi, ‘The crucifixion’, 8–10.
25 Gospel of Peter iv.1, in Das Petrusevangelium und die Petrusapokalypse: die griechischen Fragmente mit deutscher und englischer Übersetzung, ed. and trans. Thomas J. Kraus und Tobias Nicklas, Berlin–New York 2004, 50. There is some debate now as to whether Peter's text was actually docetist at all. The main evidence for it being regarded as unorthodox is Eusebius' Ecclesiastical history, trans. G. A. Williamson, Hammondsworth 1965, vi.12.3, which reports that Bishop Serapion found that the Gospel of Peter used by the church at Rhossus supported the idea that Christ was not fully human. Yet Jerry McCant has suggested that Serapion found that the Gospel of Peter supported docetic beliefs because he read the Gospel looking for such phrases and that the text itself, evaluated on its own merits, cannot be regarded as supporting docetic beliefs: ‘The Gospel of Peter: docetism reconsidered’, New Testament Studies xxx (Apr. 1984), 258–73.
26 2 Timothy i.10. See Gerald O'Collins, Christology: a biblical, historical and systematic study of Jesus, Oxford 1995, 164.
27 Ehrman, Lost Christianities, 22–4.
28 J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian doctrines. 5th rev. edn, London 1977, 138.
29 Margaret Miles, The Word made flesh: a history of Christian thought, Oxford 2005, 28; Gavrilyuk, Suffering, 88–90; Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian tradition: a history of the development of doctrine: the emergence of the Catholic tradition, Chicago 1971, i.121.
30 Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Trallians, in The apostolic Fathers, ed. and trans. B. D. Ehrman, Cambridge, Ma 2003, 257–65. See also the detailed commentary on the letter in W. R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch: a commentary on the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, Philadelphia 1985, 137–61.
31 Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Apostolic fathers, 297–309. See also Shoedel's commentary in Ignatius of Antioch, 219–53.
32 Ignatius of Antioch, Trallians, 10.
33 Ibid. 9.
34 Idem, Smyrnaeans, 4.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid. 7. See also Hoffman, ‘Ignatius and early anti-docetic realism’, 87–8.
37 See Irenaeus, Adversus haereses iii.16, especially iii.16.6; iii.18.6–7. For summaries of Irenaeus' contributions to orthodoxy see Miles, The Word made flesh, 31–4; O'Collins, Christology, 171–2; Basil Studer, Trinity and incarnation: the faith of the early Church, trans. M. Weseterhoff, Collegeville, Mn 1993, 55–60; and Roger Berthouzoz, Liberté et grâce suivant la théologie d' Irénée de Lyon: le débat avec la gnose aux origins des la théologie chrétienne, Paris 1980, 84.
38 The clearest statement of Tertullian's anti-docetic views are in De carne Christi, v.7–10, in which he argues that Christ experienced passions through his flesh: ‘Maluit, crede, nasci quam ex aliqua parte mentiri – et quidem in semetipsum – ut carnem gestaret sine sanguine curentem, sine tunica uestitam, sine fame esurientem, sine dentibus edentem, sine lingua loquentem, ut phantasma auribus fuerit sermo eius per imaginem uocis’: De carne Christi, ed. and trans. Jean-Pierre Mahé, Paris 1975, 230–3. For a discussion of Tertullian's Christology see Rankin, David, ‘Tertullian and the crucified God’, Pacifica x (Oct. 1997), 298–309CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39 Miles argues that Leo's letter to the patriarch of Constantinople on the subject of Christ's nature in 449 was merely a reiteration of the Christology of his predecessors: The Word made flesh, 110. This may be true, but Leo's clarification of western orthodox Christology helped to crystallise Christological doctrine at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. For the purposes of combatting docetic beliefs, Leo's most important statements are that ‘the impassible lord did not disdain to become passible, and the immortal one did not disdain to subject himself to the laws of death’ (‘impassibilis Deus non dedignatus est homo esse passibilis, et immortalis mortis legibus subiacere’), and ‘In order to resolve the debt of our condition, the inviolable nature of [Christ's] nature was united to passibility, one and the same mediator of God and man, the incarnate Christ is able to die from the one nature and not able to die from the other’ (‘et ad resoluendum conditionis nostrae debitum, natura inuiolabilis naturae est unita passibili: ut, quod nostris remediis congruebat, unus atque idem mediator Dei et hominum, homo Jesus Christus, et mori posset ex uno, et mori non posset ex altero’): Leo the Great, ep. xxviii, PL liv.767A, 763B.
40 On proto-orthodox theology and Christology see O'Collins, Christology, 169–83, and Ehrman, Lost Christianities, 151–7.
41 For a recent summary of the doctrines which emerged from early Christian councils and their meaning for modern Christians see Durand, G.-M., ‘Réflexions sur les quatre premiers conciles œcuméniques; Nicée (325), Constantinople (381), Éphèse (431), Chlacédoine (451)’, Revue des sciences philosophiques et theologiques lxxxvi (2002), 3–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
42 Henry Chadwick, The early Church, New York 1967, 203–4; Pelikan, Christian tradition, 263–6; Studer, Trinity and incarnation, 214–19; Miles, The Word made flesh, 110–11.
43 Pelikan, Christian tradition, 265.
44 Williams, D. H., ‘A reassessment of the early career and exile of Hilary of Poitiers’, this Journal lii (1991), 202–17Google Scholar at pp. 211ff.
45 Hilary of Poitiers, De trinitate, ed. P. Smulders, CCSL lxii, lxiiA, Turnholt 1979. See the emendations to the text made by J. Doignon in Hilary of Poitiers, La Trinité, ed. M. Gigura and J. Doignon, trans. G. M. de Durand, C. Morel and G. Pelland, Paris 1999, 170–86. On Hilary's Christology see Luis F. Ladaria, La cristología de Hilario de Poitiers, Rome 1989, 164–5, and Madigan, Kevin, ‘On the high medieval reception of Hilary of Poitiers’ anti-‘Arian’ opinion: a case study of discontinuity in Christian thought', Journal of Religion lxxviii (1998), 218–19Google Scholar.
46 Ladaria, La cristologia, 168.
47 ‘In quo, quamuis aut ictus incederet, aut uulnus descenderet, aut nodi concurrerent, aut supensio eleuaret, adferrent quidam haec inpetum passionis, non tamen dolorem passionis inferrent: ut telum aliquod aut aquam perforans aut ignem compungens aut aera uulnerans, omnes quidem has passiones naturae suae infert, ut foret, ut compungat, ut uulneret, sed naturam suam in haec passio inlata non retinet, dum in natura non est, uel aquam forari uel pungi ignem, uel aerem uulnerari, quamuis naturae teli sit et uulnerare et compungere et forare. Passus quidem Dominus Iesus Christus, dum caeditur, dum suspenditur, dum crucifigitur, dum moritur; sed in corpus inruens passio nec non fuit passio, nec tamen naturam passionis exseruit: dum et poenali ministerio desaeuit, et uirtus corporis sine sensu poenae uim poenae in se desaeuientis excepit’: Hilary of Poitiers, De trinitate x.23.
48 ‘Uel cum potum et ciuum accipit, non se necessitati corporis, sed consuetudini tribuit’: Ibid. x.24.
49 ‘Genuit etenim ex se corpus, sed quod conceptum esset ex Spiritu, habens quidem in se sui corporis ueritatem, sed non habens naturae infirmitatem: dum et corpus illud corporis ueritas est, quod generatur ex uirgine, et extra corporis nostri infirmitatem est, quod spiritualis conceptionis sumpsit exordium’: Ibid. x.35 at pp. 488–9.
50 Augustine began his De trinitate, c. 399, though it was not completed until around 420: Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, Berkeley 1967, 184–5; Rowan Williams, ‘De trinitate’, in A. D. Fitzgerald (ed.), Augustine through the ages, Grand Rapids, Mi 1999, 845–51 at p. 846.
51 ‘Non mediocris auctoritatis in tractatione scriptuarum et assertione fidei uir exstitit’: Augustine, De trinitate vi.1.11. For more on this subject see Madigan, ‘Reception’, 213–17.
52 Augustine describes how a man named Mark founded a heresy that denied the resurrection of the flesh and further stated that Christ did not suffer, but only appeared to suffer: ‘Marcus etiam nescio quis haeresim condidit, negans resurrectionem carnis, et Christum non uere, sed putatiue passum asseruerans’: Augustine, De haeresibus, ed. and trans. L. G. Müller, Washington, DC 1956, ch. xiv.
53 Augustine was a proponent of the habitus theory of Christ's incarnation. That is, he believed that Christ's humanity was worn like a garment to which Christ's divinity conformed. See his explanation of this theory in his De diuersis quaestionibus octoginta tribus, ed. A. Mutzenbecher, CCSL 44A, Turnhout 1975, 209–12. For a discussion of Augustine's theory see also Tarsicius J. Van Bavel, Recherches sur la christologie de saint Augustine: l'humain et le divin dans le Christ d'après saint Augustin, Fribourg 1954, 34–7,and Marcia Colish, Peter Lombard, Leiden–New York–Cologne 1994, 401–2.
54 ‘Dolore ergo anima, etiam non dolente corpore, potest; dolore autem corpus sine anima non potest’: Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos lxxxvii.1.3, PL xxxvii.1110.
55 ‘Quantacumque patiaris, non peruenies ad illas insultationes, ad illa flagella, ad illam ignominiosam uestem, ad illam spineam coronam, ad illam postremo crucem non peruenies, quia jam et de poena generis humani sublata est’: Ibid. xxxvi.2.17, PL xxxvi. 366.
56 In the east, however, Monophysite traditions that argued for a single, rather than dual nature for Christ continued. This tradition posits that Christ suffered only because his divine will consented to suffer: Alan Torrance, ‘Jesus in Christian doctrine’, in M. Bockmuehl (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Jesus, Cambridge 2002, 200–19; Roger E. Olson, The story of Christian theology: twenty centuries of tradition and reform, Downers Grove 1999, 237–9; I. A. Dorner, History of the development of the doctrine of the person of Christ, Edinburgh 1861, 120–76.
57 Anselm's text Cur deus homo discusses why it was fitting for Christ to die to save humanity, but he does not debate the experience of Christ's pain during his passion: Cur deus homo, ed. René Roques, Paris 1963, ii.11. See also Marilyn McCord Adams, What sort of human nature: medieval philosophy and the systematics of Christology, Marquette 1999, 15, where she suggests that Anselm believed that Christ should be able to feel pain, but would not be able to experience any unhappiness that would be associated with it. While it is clear in Cur deus homo that Anselm believes that Christ inherited all the infirmities of man but ignorance, he does not, as Adams suggests, specify the precise infirmities inherited.
58 Peter Abelard's theology of the cross argued that Christ's physical suffering demonstrated his extreme love for mankind. Thus, ‘Every man is made more just, that is he delights more in God, after the passion of Christ than he had been before, since he is incited to a more complete good than he had hoped for. Thus, our redemption is that great love in us, delighted through the Passion of Christ, which not only freed us from the servitude of sin, but acquired for us the true liberty of the sons of God.’ (‘Justior quoque, id est amplius Dominum diligens, quisque fit post passionem Christi quam ante, quia amplius in amorem accendit completum beneficium quam speratum. Redemptio itaque nostra est illa summa in nobis per passionem Christi delicto quae nos non solum a seruitute peccati liberat, sed ueram nobis filiorum Dei libertatem acquirit’): Commentaria in epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, ed. E. M. Buytaert, CCCM, Turnholt 1969, ii.3.26. For recent commentary on Abelard's theory of atonement see Thomas Williams, ‘Sin, grace and redemption’, in J. G. Brower and K. Guilfoy (eds), The Cambridge companion to Abelard, Cambridge 2004, 258–76, and P. L. Quinn, ‘Nothing unintelligible, arbitrary, illogical or immoral about it’, in E. Stump (ed.), Reasoned faith, Ithaca 1993, 281–300.
59 Colish, Peter Lombard, 25.
60 Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, ed. Collegi Sancti Bonaventurae, Rome 1981, iii.5.1.1–12. See also Colish, Peter Lombard, 403, and Walter Principe, William of Auxerre's theology of the hypostatic union, Toronto 1963, 9–10.
61 Peter Lombard, Sententiae iii.6.1–3; Colish, Peter Lombard, 403.
62 Peter Lombard, Sententiae iii.6.1–3. For a detailed discussion of Peter's position on various theories of incarnation see Colish, Peter Lombard, 399–404.
63 Walter Principe argues that between Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, there was universal agreement about the acceptance of the second opinion, the subsistence theory of Christ's incarnation: William of Auxerre's theology of the hypostatic union, 9.
64 Peter Lombard, Sententiae iii.15.1.7.
65 ‘Omnes igitur defectus nostros suscepit Christus praeter peccatum, quos ei conueniebat suscipere et nobis expediebat.… Quos enim defectus habuit, uel ad ostensionem uerae humanitatis: ut timorem et tristitiam, uel ad impletionem operas ad quod uenerat: ut passibilitatem et mortalitatem, uel ab immortalitatis desperatione spem nostram erigendam: ut mortem, suscepit’: Ibid. iii.15.1.1–4.
66 ‘De quibusdam Hilarii capitulis ualde obscuris quae uidentur communi sententiae obuiare’: Ibid. iii.15.3.1.
67 Ibid. iii.15.3.2–4.
68 ‘Itaque necessitas timendi non fuit in eo, sicut est in nobis; nec natura doloris fuit in eo sicut in nobis’: Ibid. iii.15.3.5.
69 ‘Habuit sane illud Domini corpus doloris nostri naturam, si corpus nostrum id naturae habuit ut calcet undas et fluctus desuper eat’: Ibid. iii.15.3.2.
70 As Erich Auerbach has demonstrated, the Stoic term pathos or passio has taken on different, often overlapping, semantic fields throughout its history: ‘Passio as passion’, trans. M. Elsky, Criticism xl/3 (2001), 288–308. The medieval meaning of passio is somewhat difficult to determine, as the word was particularly fluid in this period. It was used to denote illness, suffering, a movement of the soul or simply emotion. Unlike passio, propassio retained a thoroughly technical meaning throughout the Middle Ages. It was used in theological texts to refer to the kindling that ignites an intense emotion, the flash before the fire. Drawing from Lombard's Sentences, the late thirteenth-century Dominican John Balbus defined the meanings of propassio in his dictionary of terms, the Catholicon. He, like the Lombard, noted that a propassio could not draw an individual or Christ from righteousness nor from the contemplation of God. In humanity, a propassio was the beginnings of a passio, or an imperfect passio or a passio that is not fulfilled by the consent of the mind. In Christ, however, a propassio could not be fulfilled, nor could it be imperfect. Rather, propassiones were experienced perfectly, but they could not lead to passiones as they did in humanity. It is for this reason that some authorities argued that Christ did not have true sadness and some argued that he did. Christ experienced sadness (and pain) perfectly, but not as humans did: John Balbus, Catholicon, facsimile of the Mainz 1460 edn, Westmead 1971, 573–4.
71 ‘Christus uero non fuit ita turbatus in anima timore uel tristitia, ut a rectitudine uel Dei contemplatione aliquatenus declinaret’: Peter Lombard, Sententiae iii.15.2.3.
72 Colish, Peter Lombard, 444.
73 A critical edition of the first two books of Peter of Poitiers's Sententiarum libri V exists, but the project of completing an edition of all five books is still unfinished. For the critical edition of the first two books see Peter of Poitiers, Sententiae Petri Pictaviensis, ed. P. S. Moore and M. Dulonge, Notre Dame 1943–50. For the other books see Peter of Poitiers, Sententiarum libri V, PL ccxi.783–1280.
74 ‘Habet igitur anima Christi rationem et sensualitatem. Rationem secundum utramque sui partem et superiorem et inferiorem’: Peter of Poitiers, Sentientiarium, PL ccxi.1196D. In this conception of humanity, a person has an inferior and superior sense of reason in both his mind and his body. Both mind and senses in humanity can be directed by superior reason (our understandings concerning eternal matters) and by inferior reason (our understandings of temporal matters): Anthony Kenny, Medieval philosophy, Oxford 2005, 219.
75 ‘sensualitatem etiam habuit Christus juxta superiorem partem ex qua procedunt motus defectuum ut fames, sitis et huiusmodi; sed non habuit eam secundum inferiorem partem, ex qua procedunt motus illicitorum, id est superbiae, libidinis, iracundiae, quorum omnium expers fuit diuina essentia’: Peter of Poitiers, Sententiarum, PL ccxi.1196D–1197A.
76 ‘eos autem opportuit et decuit suscipere quos uel ad ostensionem humanae naturae suscepit ut famem, sitim; uel ad complendum officium propter quod missus fuerat, ut mortalitatem, passibilitatem, quae duo nisi in se haberet, nec passus, nec mortuus esset propter quod uenerat’: Ibid. ccxi.1204B.
77 Ibid. ccxi.1205D–1206A.
78 Alexander of Hales, Glossa in quatuor libros sententiarum Petri Lombardi, ed. Collegii Sancti Bonaventurae, Quaracchi 1951. The exact date of composition for Alexander's gloss is uncertain, but most specialists date it sometime before 1229. For biographical information concerning Alexander of Hales see Kenan Osborne, ‘Alexander of Hales’, in Kenan Osborne (ed.), The history of Franciscan theology, St Bonaventure, NY 1994, 9–53; Collegii Sancti Bonaventurae, ‘Prolegomena’, to Alexander of Hales, Glossa, 7*–75*, and Walter Principe, Alexander of Hales' theology of the hypostatic union, Toronto 1967, 11–15.
79 As no critical edition of Hugh of St Cher's commentary on the Lombard's Sentences yet exists, I have relied upon one of the nine manuscripts which Walter Principe used in his study of early thirteenth-century intellectual Christology. Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, ms 434 (11422–3) is the most complete of the manuscripts Principe used for his study of St Cher and is one of the earliest, dating as it does from the mid thirteenth century: Walter Principe, Hugh of St Cher's theology of the hypostatic union, Toronto 1970, 158–61. The date of composition for Hugh of St Cher's commentary is generally accepted as between 1230 and 1232, when he was lecturing on the Sentences at the University of Paris.
80 Indeed, Hugh of St. Cher and Alexander of Hales both suggest that the accepted theory is the subsistence opinion and that the habitus-theory had become heretical. Hugh writes, ‘Prima opinio non sustinetur in scholis nisi per petitionem: secunda modo ab omnibus conceditur: tertia reprobatur ab omnibus tamquam haeretica’: Commentarium de sententiis, in Principe, Hugh of Saint-Cher, 163–243, iii.2.4. Alexander of Hales also tells us that the habitus-theory has been deemed heretical, this time citing a letter from Pope Alexander iii written to the archbishop of Rheims in 1177, which anathematises those who espouse the theory: ‘Cum Christus sit perfectus Deus, perfectus homo, qua temeritate quis audet dicere quod Christus secundum quod homo non est aliquid? Ne autem tanta in Ecclesia Dei posit suboriri abusio, conuocatis magistris sub anathemate interdicatur’: Glossa, iii.6.14; iii.6.36. The original letter of Pope Alexander can be found in the Corpus iuris canonici, ed. A. Friedberg, Leipzig 1881, 779. See also Principe, Alexander of Hales, 97.
81 ‘Sed uidetur quod passiones non fuerunt in Christo. Ut dicit Philosophus, “passiones inuoluntariae sunt”; sed in Christo nullum inuoluntarium erat; ergo nec passiones. Quod uerum est’: Alexander of Hales, Glossa, 161.
82 ‘ita corpus christi non habuit naturem ut dolorem talem sentiret’: Hugh of St Cher, Commentarium de sententiis, Bibl. Royale ms 1434 (11422–3), fo. 56r.
83 ‘si passio Christi sit sufficiens satisfactio pro peccato et poena peccati, non magis satisfaciunt martyres quam alii’: Alexander of Hales, Glossa, 197.
84 ‘Dicendum quod quantum ex sua parte est, sufficit sua passio; sed [nostra passio] non [sufficit] quantum ex nostra parte est’: Ibid. 197–8.
85 Ibid. 198.
86 Initially, the commentary in ms Vat lat. 691 was attributed to the Dominican Master of Theology Guéric of St Quentin, who taught at Paris during the 1230s: Fries, Albert, ‘De commentario Guerrici de S. Quintino in Libros setentiarum’, Arvchivum fratrum praedicatorum v (1935), 326–40Google Scholar; Frederick Stegmüller, Repertorium commentariorium in Sententias Petri Lombardi, Würzburg 1947, 121–2. Yet, almost immediately, scholars questioned this conclusion. See, in particular, Henquinet, F. M., ‘Notes additionelles sur les écrits de Guerric de Saint-Quentin’, Recherches théologiques anciennes et médiévales viii (1936), 369–38Google Scholar, and Doucet, Victorin, ‘Commentaire sur les Sentences: supplément au répertoire de M. Frédéric Stegmüller’, Archivum franciscanum historicum xlvii (1954), 88–190Google Scholar at p. 121. In 1980 Jacques Bougerol identified the French Franciscan Master of Theology at Paris, Jean de la Rochelle, as the author of ms Vat. lat. 691: ‘La Glose sur les Sentences du manuscrit Vat. lat. 691’, Antonianum lv (1980), 108–73 at p. 171. Yet, reflecting on the question fifteen years later, Bougerol stepped back from his original hypothesis, and admitted that the authorship of the manuscript remains an open question: ‘Jean de la Rochelle: les oeuvres et les manuscrits’, Archivum franciscanum historicum lxxxvii (1994), 205–15.
87 ‘quidem beatus impetum passionis [supra: contingit ad propassionem] nec tam dolore passionis [supra: propassionis] inferrent [sic]’: msVat. lat. 691, fo. 100v.
88 ‘Scilicet quanta ad elementum doloris uel non ad dolorem passionis quaeturbat rationem’: Ibid.
89 ‘Dubitur hic utrum poena christi fuerit maxima, et utrum fuerit maior quam quaelibet aliae poenae puri hominis’: Ibid.
90 ‘Item corpus Christi maxime unitum sine rebellione quam alia corpus cum anima sua quare maior dolor uel poena in diuisione quam in aliis’: Ibid.
91 ‘Duplex est uita: uita naturae et [uita] gratiae’: Ibid.
92 ‘Cum igitur uita gratiae sit maius bonum quam uita naturae, cum anima moritur per peccatum ab ipsa maius bonum adimur quam adimatur cum recedit anima a corpore. Et ita, cum maior dolor sequatur ademptionem maioris boni, uidetur quod mors Christi non fuit tanta quanta est mors respectu uita gratiae in hominibus’: Ibid.
93 ‘Item [contra], quod inuoluntarium est maius penale est. Sed poena Christi fuit uoluntaria quoniam in eo ratio, ut ratio, gaudebat’: Ibid.
94 ‘Solutio: Poena siue dolor potest dici maior pluribus, scilicet (1) quia magis nocet naturae et est contra appetitum naturae magis siue sensualitatis, (2) uel quia magis est satisfactoria, (3) uel quia magis sit contra uoluntatem, (4) uel quia plus habet de causa poenae. Dicimus ergo quod secundum primum modum sed et tercium, poena Christi dicitur maior. Secundum alios duos modos non’: Ibid.
95 ‘Multi sancti et diutius, et plura multa tormentorum genera et acerbiora quantum est de genera poenae sustinuerunt: sicut Laurentius, Uincentius, qui tribus diebus et noctibus uersabantur in poenis: ergo uidetur, quod sua poena non omnes poenas excesserit’: Albert the Great, Commentarii in sententias, ed. Stephan C. A. Borgnet, Paris 1890–9, iii.16.2.
96 ‘Item, uidetur quod sua poena minima fuit inter omnes qui mortem senserunt. Charitas enim cupit dissolui et esse cum Christo. Cum igitur ipse maximae hoc concupiuit. In adeptione autem concupiti non est poena: ergo ipse minime est punitus in sensu doloris’: Ibid.
97 ‘Item, recompensatio magis dilecti minuit dolorem in amissione eius quod diligitur minus: in morte autem Christi recompensabatur sibi uita per magis dilectum, quod fuit humani generis redemptio: ergo dolor minuebatur in amissione minoris, scilicet uitae, ergo minimus fuit dolore eius’: Ibid.
98 ‘Item, Spes ressurectionis dolorem minuit mortis in Sanctis: ergo multo magis in eo qui sciuit se resurrecturum: sed Christus sciuit hoc de se, sicut dicit Psalmus XV, 10 et 11: ‘Non dabis sanctum tuum uidere corruptionem. Notas mihi fecisti uias uitae, adimplebis me. etc.: ergo minime doluit. Hoc etiam uidetur senisse Augustinus super Psalmum CI, 2 “Domine, exaudi,” sic dicens “Non uere timebat Dominus, tertia die resurrecturus”': Ibid.
99 ‘Ulterius uidetur, quod etiam in quolibet peccatore dum peccat, maior debet esse dolor, quam in ipso: quia maior dolor est in separatione a meliori: sed Deus melior est quam uita naturalis Christi: igitur magis dolet anima in separatione a Deo, quam Christus doluerit in morte ut uidetur’: Ibid.
100 ‘Concedo de plano, quod Christus magis et acerbius quidem passus est, quam aliquis hominum umquam pati potuerit uel passus est’: Ibid. iii.16.3.
101 ‘Prima [causa] est, ut eo magis ad gratias sibi teneamur. Unde Bernardus: “Multum difficultatis assumpsit debitorem quo te multae dilectionis debitorem constitueret, admoneretque ad gratiarum actiones difficultas redemptionis, quem minus deuotum effecerat conditionis facilitas”: Ibid.
102 ‘Secunda causa est bonitas et innocentia uitae: non enim uerum est quod dicunt quidam, quod patiens pro suis peccatis magis affligitur: quia ille ex conscientia peccatorum indignatur, et magis spernit uitam: innocens autem nihil inuenit in uita quare debeat eam spernere. Et si obiicis, quod moriens pro delictis aeternam timet mortem, et ideo dupliciter torquetur: hoc nihil est: quia nos non loquimur de eo quod est per accidens, sed de eo quod est per se: tortura autem illa per accidens est, scilicet in quantam per uitam istam liberatur a morte animae. Unde patet, quod illi falsum dicunt tam ab auctoritate Aristotelis et Augustini, quam etiam per rationem superius inductam. Hoc etiam ex uerbis latronis accipitur cum latro ad latronem dixit, “Et nos quidem digne, nam digna factis recipimus: hic uero nihil mali gessit.”’: Ibid.
103 ‘Tertia causa fuit ex corporis nobilissima complexione, tam in toto, quam etiam in membris in quibus patiebatur, ut probant obiectiones’: Ibid.
104 ‘Ad primam ergo quod obiicitur de martyribus, dicendum quod non idem est plura et diutius pati, et acerbius sentire dolorem: et Sancti quidem plura et diutius pati potuerunt, nullis tamen eorum ita acerbe ut ipse sensit dolorem’: Ibid.
105 ‘Ad aliud dicendum, quod charitas Christi non diminuit sensum doloris, sed doloris reputationem. In Sanctis autem aliis diminuit utrumque, et sensum, et reputationem: quia ipsi uiatores fuerunt: et cum afficiebantur circa superiora, trahebatur anima a corpore, et minus sensit: sed Christus utrumque fuit simul et uiator et comprehensor, et unius actus non retraxit ab actu alterius’: Ibid.
106 ‘Ad aliud dicendum eodem modo, quod praemium fecit non reputari uitam, id est, minus reputari: non quod minus ualeret, ut dicit Anselmus, quia in infinitum plus ualuit qua totum genus humanum: aliter enim non fuisset sufficienter recompensatio facta per mortem Christi: sed quia amore hominum mortem elegit, non simpliciter abiiciendo uitam meliorem, quam omnes homines essent: sed postponendo ad tempus ut omnibus recuperaret: et haec reputatio fuit charitatis, et non secundum ualorem’: Ibid.
107 ‘Ad aliud dicendum, quod Dominus sciuit se tertia die resurrecturum: si enim Dominus in morte simpliciter remansisset, tunc nec nobis ualuisset: et ipse etiam insipienter fecisset, meliorem uitam suam pro nobis in aeternum amittendo: sed ista praescientia resurrectionis in Christo non abstulit passionis sensum: et ideo illa obiectio non probat nisi de reputatione minori, et non de sensu uel experientia acerbitatis’: Ibid.
108 ‘Ad hoc quod obiicitur de separatione a Deo per peccatum, uel etiam per condemnationem aeternam in die iudicii, dico quod nulla est obiectio illa: quia poena aequiuoce sumitur. Separatio enim a Deo non est inferens sensum sed damnum. Si dicas, quod sentit anima damnum suum: hoc nihil est: quia sentire damnum est sentire priuationem: sicut uidere tenebras, et audire silentium: et ideo magis in infinitum damnum est in perditione Dei, quam uitae, si damnum priuatum attendas, id est, damnificationem tuam uel illius, sed non est maior sensus’: Ibid. iii.16.3.
109 Ibid.
110 ‘Primo ex ipsa natura passionis; et sic habuit magnam acerbitatem: tum ex complexione patientis quae erat temperatissima; unde habebat optimum tactum et per consequens erat in eo uehemens sensus laesionis – bonitas enim tactus attestatur etiam bonitati complexionis et bonitati mentis, ut dicitur in II De anima – tum etiam ex genere poenae, quia in locis maxime sensibilis fuit laesus, scilicet in manibus et pedibus; tum etiam ex multitudine passionum, quia per totum corpus laesionem sustinuit’: Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi episcopi parisiensis, ed. P. Mandonnet and M. F. Moos, Paris 1929–47, iii.15.2.3.3. (original emphasis)
111 ‘Secundo ex puritate doloris; quia in aliis patientibus mitigitur dolor sensibilis ex influxu superiorum uirium in inferiores, uel propter contemplationem quae abstrahit inferiores uires aliqualiter a suis actibus, uel etiam propter complacentiam uoluntatis ex amore eius propter quod patitur’: Ibid.
112 ‘Tertio ex uoluntate patientis; quia enim uoluntarie patiebatur ut satisfaceret pro peccato totius humani generis, ideo dolorem excedentem omnes alios dolores assumpsit’: Ibid.
113 ‘Uidetur quod dolor usque ad superiorem rationem non peruenerit’: Ibid. iii.15.2.3.2.
114 See Ibid. iii.15.2.2.2.
115 See idem, Summa theologiae, Leonine edn, Rome 1882– , iii.46.6.
116 ‘Passus est enim Christus in suis amicis eam deserentibus’: Ibid. iii.46.5.
117 ‘[Passio est enim Christus] in fama per blasphemias contra eum prolatas; in honore et gloria per irrisiones et contumelias ei illatas’: Ibid.
118 ‘Passus est enim Christus in capite pungentium spinarum coronam; in manibus et pedibus fixionem clauorum; in facie alapas et sputa, et in toto corpore flagella’: Ibid.
119 ‘Fuit etiam passus secundum omnem sensum corporeum: secundum tactum quidem, flagellatus et clauis confixus; secundum gustum, felle et aceto potatus; secundum olfactum, in loco foetido cadauerum mortuorum, qui dicitur caluarie, appensus patibulo; secundum auditum, lacessitus uocibus blasphematium et irridentium; secundum uisum, uidens matrem et discipulum quem diligebat, flentes’: Ibid.
120 Bonaventure, Commentaria in quatuor libros sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi, ed. Collegii Sancti Bonaventurae, Quaracchi 1882–9, iii.16.1–2. Caroline Walker Bynum has noted that Bonaventure believed that Christ's anguish in both his body and soul were ‘immeasurable’. She also suggests that this idea did not originate with Bonaventure, citing the probably Dominican-authored Ancrene Wisse as a possible source: The resurrection of the body in western Christianity, 200–1336, New York 1995, 251. On the Ancrene Wisse as a Dominican-authored text see Millet, Bella, ‘The origins of Ancrene Wisse: new answers, new questions’, Medium Aevum lxi (1992), 206–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Ancrene Wisse and the life of perfection’, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. xxxiii (2002), 53–76.
121 Compare Albert Magnus, iii.16.2 and Thomas Aquinas, iii.15.2.3.3 to Bonaventure, iii.16.1.1–3.
122 In fact, Bonaventure devotes an entire article and three questions to it: Commentaria iii.16.2.1–3.
123 ‘Si quis autem ulterius quaerat, cum ratio et sensualitas secundum duo genera doloris mutuo se excedant, quis eorum fuerit intensior in Christo, utrum uidelicet dolor passionis, uel compassionis, resonderi potest, quod dolor compassionis fuit intensior’: Ibid.
124 ‘Et ideo hoc eleganter exprimat cancellarius Philippus in quadam prosula ualde notabili et deuota’: Ibid. iii.16.2.3.
125 ‘Homo uide, quod pro te patior!/ Ad te clamo, qui pro te morior./ Uide poenas, quibus afficior,/ Uide clauos, quibus confodior!/ Cum sit tantus dolor exterior,/ Interior tamen pactus est grauior,/ Tam ingratum dum te experior’: Ibid.
126 Heinrich Fichtenau, Heretics and scholars in the Middle Ages, 1000–1200, trans. D. A. Kaiser. University Park, Pa 1998, 102–3; Malcolm Lambert, Medieval heresy: popular movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, Oxford 2002, 65. Both authors are careful to note that a fully docetic Christology was held only by the Cathar perfecti. See also Malcolm Barber, The Cathars: dualist heretics in Languedoc in the high Middle Ages, Harlow 2000, 6–10.
127 See Berlioz, Jacques, ‘“Les Erreurs de cette doctrine pervertie”: les croyances des Cathares selon le Dominicain et Inquisiteur Étienne de Bourbon (mort v. 1261)’, Heresis xxxii (2000), 53–67Google Scholar at p. 54, and J. Berlioz, ‘La Predication des cathares selon l'inquisiteur Étienne de Bourbon (mort vers 1261)’, Ibid. xxxi (1999), 9–35.
128 Berlioz, ‘Erreurs’, 55–6.
129 ‘Dixerunt enim Manichaei Dei filium non uerum corpus, sed phantasticum assumpsisse. Unde nec uerus homo esse potuit, sed apparens: neque ea quae secundum hominem gessit, sicut quod natus est, quod comedit, bibit, ambulauit, passus est et sepultus, in ueritate fuisse, sed in quadam simulatione, consequitur’: Thomas Aquinas, Contra gentiles, Leonine edn, Rome 1882– , iv.29.1.
130 Inglis, John, ‘A rationale for material elements of Christ's human cognition: reading Aquinas within his Dominican theological and political context’, Traditio lviii (2003), 257–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p. 262.
131 Ibid. 269.
132 Inglis's articles are largely concerned with Aquinas's discussion of how Christ attained knowledge through the body, thus proving that he had a true human body and not simply the image of a body as the Cathars suggested.
133 Walter Principe, ‘St Thomas on the habitus-theory of the incarnation’, in St Thomas Aquinas, 1274–1974: commemorative studies, Toronto 1974, 381–418 at pp. 405–6.
134 See Bernard of Clairvaux, De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae in Sancti Bernardi opera, Rome 1957–77, iii. 6–7. On this subject see also Marsha L. Dutton, ‘The face and the feet of God’, in J. R. Sommerfeldt (ed.), Bernardus magister, Spenser, Ma 1992, 203–22, esp. pp 205–6.
135 Caroline Bynum, Richard Kieckheffer, Sarah McNamer and others have long suggested that bodily suffering was a predominantly feminine way of approaching God, an outlet for those who could not be priests and who had little official voice in the Catholic Church. Recent research by Alison More, however, suggests that imitatio Christi may have been less gender specific than previously thought: ‘Milites Christi in hortis liliorum domini? Hagiographic constructions of masculinity and holiness in thirteenth-century Lieège’, unpubl. PhD diss. Bristol 2004, 215–18.
136 Colin Morris, The discovery of the individual, 1050–1200, London 1972, 139–44.
137 Rubin, Corpus Christi, 302.
138 Nirenberg, ‘The historical body of Christ’, 17, 20; Anne Derbes, Picturing the passion in late medieval Italy: narrative painting, Franciscan ideologies and the Levant, Cambridge 1996, 5–11, 17–18; Sarah Beckwith, Christ's body: identity, culture and society in late medieval writings, London 1993, 52–3; Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus through the centuries: his place in the history of culture, New York 1985, 139–40; Paul Hinz, Deus homo, Berlin 1981, ii. 77–80.
139 For arguments about the tensions between the divine God and the suffering humanity of God in representations of Christ's passion from the Carolingian period see Celia Chazelle, The crucified God in the Carolingian era: theology and the art of Christ's passion, Cambridge 2001, 300–4, and Marie-Christine Sepière, L'Image d'un dieu souffrant (IXe–Xe siècle): aux origins du crucifix, Paris 1994, 169–71, 209–23, 226–33.
140 The number of undergraduate textbooks that treat Dominicans and Franciscans together under the rubric of ‘mendicant’ are legion. Such a collapse of differences is also apparent in scholarly writing. Amongst the most well known are Christoph Maier, Preaching the crusades: mendicant friars and the cross in the thirteenth century, Cambridge 1994; David D'Avray, The preaching of the friars: sermons diffused from Paris before 1300, Oxford 1985; and Lester K. Little, Religious poverty and the profit economy in medieval Europe, Ithaca 1978.
141 On this subject see Trembinski, Donna, ‘Non-alter Christus: early Dominican lives of Saint Francis’, Franciscan Studies lxiii (2005), 69–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
142 Joanna Cannon, ‘Dominican patronage of the arts in central Italy: the provincia Roma, c. 1220–c. 1320’, unpubl. PhD diss. Courtauld Institute of Art 1980, 192–3.
143 Ibid. 202.
144 Certainly, by the fourteenth century, Dominicans as much as Franciscans, were promoting the practice of imitatio Christi as a mode of expressing devotion to God. For but one example of the trend see, for instance, Raymond of Capua's Life of Catherine of Siena, in which Catherine, who bore the stigmata, explicitly suffers as Christ: Acta sanctorum, Palmé edn, April iii, 861–967.
